Bobby woke up to the sounds of the Rose Parade early on New Year's Day. He sighed and looked over at the empty bed next to him. It occurred to him that he should probably wake up, no one wanted the Mansion to be filled with overly zealous high school marching bands roaring through the stereo system at, he check his watch, 8:30 am. He walked down the stairs and into the common room, on the cold morning. "You have to watch this," he muttered as he saw the little brown haired kid with the giant glasses watching the television. "It's the one show I watch all the way through," the little boy said. "Why aren't you sleeping?" "Because you woke me up," Bobby grunted. "You better be careful you don't wake up Piotr one of these days. You heard what he said." "He's grumpy in the morning," the boy said in a dull annoyed tone. "Not grumpier than Mr. Logan or Mr. Summers." Bobby looked around. "You didn't get the papers?" "You're the Iceman. It's cold outside." This is why he hated being roommates with a 10-year-old boy. He walked to the entryway and opened the door. Fresh snow had just fallen. He took a deep breath and then let his feet ice over. He walked barefoot over the long and exaggerated driveway and courtyard to the fence at street level. He saw something go into the bushes at the fence. "Not another anti-mutant prank," he muttered under his breath. He went to newspaper box, filled with eight newspapers. Professor X got a different one for each of his 'beloved' X-Men, except Professor X and Cyclops usually shared and Kurt and himself usually fought for the comic strips, after Kurt read the Munich Daily in perfect German. This was his routine. Bobby didn't mind the fact that his family disowned him, he found a new family in the Mansion, and even after the nine months plus that Doctor Jean Gray has been gone the family feels like a real family has had a loss and grieved but still a family. He held the newspapers tightly and walked to the package that was right on the gate opening. A basket sat on the ice and a blanket wrapped around the contents. It let out a scream. It shocked Bobby. Bobby looked closer and saw a baby wrapped in the red blanket with a note in elegant female cursive, "Logan" was just written on it. That was it. Bobby picked up the basket and juggled it with the newspapers. He looked around, in the bushes for whatever ran into them a few moments ago. He just saw a black cat with amber eyes. The cat looked at him, then the basket, and ran off. This didn't faze him. He walked back into the Mansion. He set down the newspapers and looked around, walked into the common area where some of the kids, even Kurt sat around the television watching the parade. "Mr. Wagner, who else is up?" Kurt looked up at Bobby and then at the basket. "I do not know. Why?" Bobby gestured to the basket. He walked into the kitchen and saw Logan making coffee. "Logan, I found this at the gate for you," Bobby said as Kurt walked into the kitchen. He put the basket on the island as Ororo and Scott walked down. "Did you like the weather this morning?" Ororo asked as she looked at Bobby. Logan looked at the basket and saw a baby, then read the note. "The weather was nice," Bobby smiled. "Thanks." "Where'd you find this?" "Outside, I was getting the papers." Scott looked at the basket. "Is it yours?" "I don't know." "How can't you know?" Scott asked. "I don't know my last name," Logan started. "I don't know a lot." "You two," Ororo said sternly. She gave both of them the look and then looked at the child. "I think we should get to the lab with the Professor. We can sort this out there, rather than in front of the children. They do not need to be alarmed with this, especially on New Year's Day." She picked up the basket and walked through the school, with the rest of the X-Men following her. Professor X met them in the lab and looked over the basket as Rogue walked in. She yawned and them smiled. "Another world saving mission?" "Rogue, this maybe too dangerous for you," Logan said. Professor X went to a cabinet and pulled out a syringe. He took a vial of blood as the baby screamed.
"A baby's too dangerous?"
The Professor put it in a machine and looked at the group.
"I will know everything we need to know in a few seconds. It may not even be Logan's."
"It's your baby?" Rogue asked loudly.
Scott looked at Rogue. "He was the one that said you should leave, obviously he was afraid of what you'd do or you'd be hurt."
"I don't understand. When did you have time to do this?" Kurt asked.
"I don't remember doing anything that would produce this," Logan said.
Professor X lifted the baby up and undid its cloth diaper.
"Produce her," the Professor said gently. "It's a girl."
A buzzer went off and the large monitor overhead showed a DNA strand. On the side of the strand listed numbers.
"She shares the same DNA as you, Logan. Half of it to be precise," the Professor said. His eyebrow raised and he turned to Kurt. "You share part of the DNA too. That's odd."
"It's not possible," Logan said.
"How large of part?" Scott asked.
The baby cried for a second. Her hair came out from under the blanket she was wrapped in. Short midnight blue, almost black hair surrounded her head with a little red streak topped the head of a pale white head. She squealed and her amber eyes caught the light.
"Red and blue?" Bobby asked.
"Mystique has that coloring," Scott said. "When were you with her?"
"I haven't been with anyone, especially a mutant like Mystique."
"You were in the confessional that day at church, right after Jean died. I saw you."
"I was with Kurt," his eye shifted to the ground.
"You haven't confessed anything to me," Kurt said.
"Yes, yeah we did. Remember the whole mutants at the last supper thing? You said the priest allowed you to hold confessionals if you stayed hidden?"
"I didn't have an image inducer when Jean died. I have never even seen you at church. I wasn't allowed to do confessions until I had the inducer."
There was a pause.
"Don't you remember that woman that walked out?" Scott asked.
"Woman?" Logan squeaked.
The baby copied the high-pitched squeak.
"Short dress, not dressed for church at all?"
Logan groaned. "That manipulating two faced tramp."
Everyone looked at Logan, then the baby. The room was tense.
"Well Mystique left her here for you," Rogue said. "I think you should at least give her a name."
"She---"
"Logan a baby without a name is like a mutant without a past," Rogue said.
Logan looked at Rogue squarely. He looked at a name in the paper.
"Liar, after her mother."
"Logan, that's enough," Ororo said. "You cannot blame the child for deceit the mother may have done."
"It's not a may have thing. Mystique is a lying, manipulating---"
"If we were going to name ourselves based on actions that were first seen by other X-Men we could call you Useless," Scott said.
"Why not Tru? If her and Kurt are indeed related, she has blue in her. She's Tru Blue." Rogue smiled at the baby.
"Trudy is cute," Bobby said. "She could have her own X-Man name."
Logan raised his eyebrow. "She's not going to be a X-Woman. If she's mine then," he took her from the Professor. She reached up and squeezed his nose with her hand that had blue fingernails. She giggled then gave a growl. "She's Gertrude." He shook his head. Then closed his eyes and saw an older woman in a formal antiqued dress. He saw her mouth move heard a weird buzz and then a beep.
"---Howlett you will not embarrass Gertrude Howlett, your own flesh and mother---" the buzzing started again. He shook his head.
"Gertrude Howlett," Logan said.
"Gertrude Howlett? How in the world did you get that name?" Scott asked.
The Professor smiled.
"Tru Howler?" Rogue smiled.
The Professor looked at the group.
"We should get Gertrude set up. Logan we'll move you and her into a double, there is one next to Scott's. Bobby and Piotr can do that. Ororo, Scott, Gertrude, and I will stay here and make sure she's not set up. The rest of you can take the school's credit card and pick up the bedding and such for Gertie."
"I want to stay with the baby," Rogue said. "She's Logan's and I think of Logan as my big brother."
"And I don't trust Mystique as far as I can throw her. I'd rather have you helping me do the girl thing."
"I---"
"Rogue, play a good example."
Kurt put up his image inducer as a priest. "Let's go."

Logan looked around the giant warehouse of baby cribs, strollers, diapers, changing tables, anything one can think of. He was shocked at the room.
"That one," Logan pointed to a basic cheap wood crib.
"No," Rogue said. "I'm refusing my little sister---"
"She's my little sister if anyone's," Kurt said. He looked around.
"Okay fine, but Trudy will not get an ugly crib," her Southern accent was as soothing as it was poignant. She looked around and found a nice cherry wood crib. "This is a nice crib."
"Fine," Logan gruffed. He sniffed the air. "There is something foul in the air. Keep your guard."
A clerk walked up to the priest, the white haired teenager, and the rugged hermit looking man.
"Hello, can I help you with anything?"
"This crib," Logan said. He tried to look at the woman with a straight face.
"Would you like the matching set?"
"Yes," Rogue said.
"So you're the---"
John and a Cajun in a trench coat walked up and smiled at the group.
"Magento thought you'd be here," John said as he flipped his lighter.
"John leave."
"It's Pyro, Rogue," he smirked. "We want the kid."
"The kid? Mystique had her, Mystique's a bad guy," Rogue said.
"And Mystique isn't known for keeping her kids," Pyro said. "First there was the one she dumped in Austria, then the one she had with Sabertooth, then in order to have a girl she adopted one with that psychic girl and let her be raised in the deep south with herself as a man, and now look at the one she dumped at the geek squad."
The group looked around.
"You cannot touch Gertrude," Kurt said.
"You named Mystique's daughter, her only real daughter, Gertrude?" the Cajun laughed.
"Yeah, after my mother, 'bub. Have a problem with that?"
Pyro flipped his lighter open and then shot a flame ball. Rogue grabbed a blanket from the crib display and threw it on the flame.
"Um." the clerk said. She looked at the group. "Need anything else?"
"My daughter---"
"She's Magneto's," the Cajun said.
"No, DNA test proves she's mine," Logan gave Rogue a look. Rogue smiled and waited. "Gertrude is a tomboy. She'll require a bed and stuff. Can you find it? Obviously I have to explain art to these two some more."
"S-Sure," the clerk stuttered. She walked away.
"Magneto wants her and we're not leaving til we get her," the Cajun said.
Rogue jumped a little and started to hover, she started moving to the door.
"When did that happen?" Pyro asked.
"You've been away from the good guys too long," Rogue said. She made her way to the door and then launched herself into the air, flying 10 feet above the street.
"Whoa, you didn't tell me she did that." The Cajun threw something at her. She caught it with her hands and then threw the flaming card back to the ground.
"I didn't know she could or do that."
"Play nicely guys," Rogue muttered as Wolverine ran out with Nightcrawler.
Pyro lit a firebird that started to attack a teleporting Nightcrawler. Wolverine took out his claws and slash opened a fire hydrant that soaked the Zippo lighter Pyro was using. The bird soon disappeared. The Cajun threw a card at Wolverine. It hit him in hand. Wolverine smirked as he saw the burn mark. The wound healed in a second.
"I think you two should tell your boss, you don't want Gertrude," Wolverine smirked.
Pyro shook his head and shook the lighter a second later. "Magneto wants her. You're in for a fight."
"Then we'll be ready," Kurt said. "Tell Magneto that he won't touch my sister."
Pyro and the Cajun laughed for a second then left.
The group sighed. Wolverine pulled back his claws and walked inside the store. He walked up to the counter of the store. The clerk gave a scared smile and walked up to a bag.
"Um, all right, I've made the selection for the baby." She tried not to stutter or be afraid of the fight that the whole store had just witnessed.
Rogue walked in and looked at Logan. She was sweating and sighed.
"They're gone. I went two miles and so did Kurt." She looked in the bag. "I like this quilt. My mom made me one when I was a baby."
She held up the red, blue, and yellow checkered quilt. She dug through the bag.
"We're calling her Tru because she has such blue---"
"Eyes, yep. Gertrude's eyes are so blue," Kurt caught her. "Yep, her blue eyes look like mine actually. Right, Logan?"
"Uh-yeah."
"Well, um I'm sure that you three will be a great alternative family," the clerk said.
"Alternative family?" Logan asked.
Rogue laughed. "Actually they aren't gay. No, um. Logan is my uncle. And he and Kurt's mom had Tru together, but Kurt---"
"Marie, cut while you're ahead," Logan said. "How much is it?"
"What about clothes?"
"Forgot about that," Logan said.
"Okay, I'll be back." Rogue sighed and shook her head. "Logan, you get diapers and the diaper genie thing. Kurt, you pick out toys and books."
"Why does he get to pick up the toys? She's mine."
"Because Logan, I don't want to see her with How Daddy Gives the Finger or 100 and One Ways to Tell if You Were Brainwashed, on her bookcase. You've saved me from danger too many times to count. I'm makin' sure you don't screw up Tru," Rogue said with a responsible tone. "She's yours, but I'm your kid too." She shrugged and went to the clothing area.
"So now I'm responsible for her and her," Logan groaned.
"With Jean out of the picture, you need a woman in your life."
Logan shook his head. He walked to the diapers area. He looked confused by it all.

"I don't know how Mystique did it, but Logan and her had relations," Bobby said to Piotr as he packed the last pieces of clothing Logan had stock piled.
"As Jean?"
"I don't think so, I think he'd know the difference between dead woman and morpher."
"You said Scott said he saw a woman leave the confessional after Logan."
"But Logan swore he was having a confession with Kurt, which Kurt said he didn't have the inducer at the time and wouldn't be allowed to hold confessions til he did."
"What if Mystique looked like Kurt? She could have still gotten pregnant."
"That would mean Logan thought he was having sex with Kurt." A strange look came over Bobby's face. "No, that wouldn't be possible. From Jean to Kurt?"
Piotr shrugged. "Said the Iceman to the Man of Steel."
"Logan's a role model," Bobby said.
Piotr picked up a giant box and walked out the door, down the corridor, and to another door.
"And what are we supposed to tell them? I found her. Siryn and Jubes will ask me. I know it."
"Artie will force the answers out."
"Exactly and Jones will take it out of me. The way he blinks his eyes and refuses to let me watch the Xtreme Games, it's torture."
"Whatever," Piotr said. "The kid---"
"Trudy," Bobby said.
"Isn't your problem. The X-people stay together, but don't come up for explanations on how their kids were conceived."
A blue cloud of smoke came out of nowhere and Kurt stood in the room with almost 50 bags from the store.
"Never again do we take Rogue to go shopping for Gertrude."
"Why not? Isn't---"
"Bobby, she tried to explain that Logan and I aren't gay lovers," Kurt paused.
Piotr laughed.
"That actually my mother is his daughter's mother and how Rogue is actually Logan's niece. Oh and that my mother died," Kurt's accent was deep. He pressed a button and his image inducer turned off. "All this while I was dressed as a priest."
"Who is your mother?"
"Mystique, Mr. Steel-Man."
Piotr laughed hard, so much so his armor came over his arm. "Sorry. Mystique is your mom? How'd you find that out?"
"John slipped it and Gertrude and I share traces of the same genetics. We're siblings. Also the Professor mentioned that besides Logan and Gertrude sharing the genetics, I'm the other student or teacher that does."
Piotr tried to remain calm, as he wanted to laugh hard.
"Now come on Big Man, help me out. Take some of these." Kurt's arms were almost limp with the weight of the bags. He threw them onto the bed when he realized that the big tall man-boy wasn't going to help. "I want to get this all set up for my little sister before Logan comes back. He has enough to deal with."
"Like he was with a ---"
"Piotr, want to get Jones in here?"
Piotr instead dug through the bags.
"I am going to pick up the rest of the stuff. Can you please organize the baby stuff?"
"Yeah, fine," Bobby said.
"Thank you." He puff of blue-black smoke signaled that he was gone. A minute later he was back with a giant box. He put it down and more blue smoke.
Piotr opened the box. "Fun, crib." He picked out the instructions and then started to put the crib together as Bobby went through the bags of baby clothes and toys. He looked at one blue teddy bear.
"I think she'll hate blue before she's three years old," Bobby deadpanned. He put the teddy bear on Logan's bed as Piotr had the skeleton of the crib set up on the other side of the room.
"I think she'll be shocked to find out who her daddy thought he was sleeping with to get her."
"I don't think we should mention it. Revealing family secrets is always a bad thing."
"You're only saying that because your girlfriend is the sorta' family member of the weirdness. If this Tru Blue was actually another mutant here you'd be down to tell her who her daddy thought he was in the confessional with."
Bobby unpacked the rest of the bags.
"I'm right," Piotr said. "It's way to confusing for you and even funny."
Bobby threw a red washcloth at Piotr. Piotr refused even to look up. He had finished the crib and moved it to the corner of the room.
"Throw me something useful."
"Like what?"
"The bedding."
Bobby handed the large bag to him. "There."
Piotr started to set the bedding up. Kurt came back with more boxes of furniture.
"The bed!" his accent was thick. He dumped the boxes down. He looked around. "Put the baby's clothes in Logan's dresser. Hide the diapers in the changing table."
Bobby looked at Piotr and laughed.
"We got it Kurt. We've saved the world close to three times. I think we could be movers," Bobby smirked.
"Well since Gertrude's arrival we have to be extra careful." Kurt walked out after that.

Logan laid in bed. The nightmares started again. Typical of his nightmares first the skeleton stuff, then him running, huffing and puffing through the bunkers, and then it ended with a twist. He ran for the door and there stood a full-grown Gertrude. She looked like Mystique, body shape and size except she had Logan's nose and brow bones. She gave a devilish grin and the sun revealed a boy the same age as Gertrude. The boy looked at Logan, almost like looking in the mirror except he had deep red hair with blue tipped spikes and slenderness to him. They both gave a grin. Then a primal scream ripped the Mansion. Someone went through the door and Logan's claws jetted out without thinking. He let out a cry. He opened his eyes to see Scott running in with his eyes covered.
"It's called responsible parenting."
Gertrude let out another cry and suddenly Logan's claws were pulled in.
"Going to get her." He picked up Gertrude and instantly knew what needed to be done. "Three days into this parenting thing and I am getting it."
"And what about month nine?"
Logan took off Gertrude's diaper. "Heat up a bottle. It's the bottle warmer."
Scott looked around the room and found something that could resemble a bottle warmer. He pressed a button.
"How will she know how she got her name? How will she know who she is?"
"She has a brother here too," Logan said. "And stay out of this."
"Logan, you're notorious for this! Not thinking of the consequences to your actions. Like having unprotected sex with Mystique or whatever woman you thought she was."
Logan looked up and nearly growled. Gertrude copied that growl then giggled.
"Sh." he said to her. "Stop talking and go back to sleep."
"No one else brought this up. You're a wild cannon. You raising a child? That's a laugh. Only Mystique would think you'd be a good father."
"Well it wasn't Mystique who I was with," he growled. "I didn't think I'd have to worry about getting someone pregnant. Unlike you who was with Jean for how long and never able to make her a mother?"
Scott's cheeks grew red. "We were engaged. We were planning."
"Planning? So carefully planning that you two never wondered about--- "
"Who were you with that you didn't think you'd need protection, Wolverine? I mean a random girl tells you to have sex in a confessional. Doesn't that seem odd?"
"I think you need to leave."
"Unless those rumors that are going around are true," Scott said.
"Want to know what happened?" Logan asked. "I went into church completely lost. The one person I cared about, really cared about, died. I looked for faith. Mystique preyed on this fact."
"And who'd she turn into? You can tell her better than any of us."
"I was given this blueberry schnapps, it clouded my senses. Said it was some circus drink."
"Circus?" Scott laughed. "No. You are---"
"The product of a shapeshifter's deceit, yeah I know." He finished changing her diaper, grabbed the bottle from the warmer, and walked out.

"Can't sleep?" Jones, the boy with the glasses, asked as he changed the channel with his mind.
"She's a howler cub." He sat down on the couch next to Jones. "It doesn't help that Scott comes in every time he has a chance to, to tell me what an awful father I am."
"It could be worse, she could marry Scott's son. That way you'd be related."
"Scott doesn't have a son."
"He could in another alternate reality."
"I think you watch too much television or maybe talk to too many viewers."
"It's my only solace."
Logan nodded and then went to the kitchen.
"So I need to ask you about sex," Bobby said.
"Don't have it with Rogue for one thing."
"No you had it with Mystique. We all know that she tricked you, but I want to know is it the way everyone is saying---"
He was cut off by the sounds of breaking glass and wood. Suddenly the bay window that made the kitchen feel like a real home, was now shattered glass and broken wood. Magneto came in, floating on a piece of round shiny steel- hovering over the ground maybe three feet. He was holding a bundle close to his body wrapped in blue fabric. Magneto lifted his hand and suddenly Logan shot up, dropping Gertrude. Bobby caught her barely. Pyro came in a few seconds later, with a huge bird of flames coming from behind him. Scott and Kurt ran down at furious speeds.
"So you have the girl?" Magneto asked.
"Leave her alone!" Logan yelled. He was in pain; he could feel the metal lifting off his bones.
"And not let her brother meet her?" He asked. He pulled Bobby closer. Jones walked in.
"Logan? Can you make me something to," he stopped and looked around. "Nevermind."
Scott pressed his visor and a red beam of light came streaming out of his visor and towards Magneto. Magneto dropped the bundle, but pulled Gertrude out of Bobby's arms. Kurt teleported to behind Magneto. In the middle of this mess of magnetic fields, red beams of overly powerful light, and the entrails of a teleportation, Jones ran to where the two babies were, catching them then vanishing.
"Nikolas!" Pyro and Magneto yelled.
"Gertrude!" Logan, Kurt, Bobby, and Scott yelled.
"Jones!" Bobby yelled right after.
The group looked in awe.
"Where is my son you good for nothing---"
"Your son?" Logan yelled. "They're both mine! You son of a---"
"Where did that stupid teleporter go?" Magneto asked.
"If he were a teleporter then we'd find out, but Jones is a kid! He can turn on household appliances when he wants to," Kurt's accent was thick with frustration. He said some curse words, or maybe prayers in German. No one could understand him because he was pacing and frantic and his voice was so low it was a better idea not to understand him. Who'd want to know what a pissed of German mutant priest had to say about losing his half sister and possibly brother to the man his evil witch of a mother was in cahoots with, and possibly more than in cahoots?
"So they're gone?"
"Like you should be," Scott said.
Magneto and Pyro quickly ran off.
Logan fell to the floor defeated.
"Logan, I'm---"
"You're not allowed to be sorry Scott. You're not allowed to say that." Logan solemnly walked to the Professor's room.
"I was expecting you."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know, Logan. I'm sorry."
"That doesn't put my daughter and my son in my arms," he said. He looked down. "You're supposed to help us." He left the room and looked around the halls of the school. He was defeated.

Logan walked into the church and looked at the crucifix. He sat down in a pew.
"I don't know anymore. I feel like Job. You have taken my family, my memory, and my life, and yet I am here. Asking for a sign, to make me feel better about this."
A woman wearing a hooded sweatshirt covering her face and a long skirt walked from the other side of the pews and sat next to Logan.
"I heard you lost the twins," she muttered.
"What?"
"Eric came in and they are somewhere. I brought the girl to you because," the woman paused. "I knew you'd take care of her."
"Mysti---"
"Raven. Call me by that, we were intimate."
"You lying sack of---"
"He's watching you."
"What do you want?"
"To justify myself maybe."
"Try." Logan growled. He was not in the mood for her.
"I needed to get close to you. I happened to get knocked up. I could hide one kid, go on the lamb. But two? Eric got to Nikolas and completely dismissed that I was giving birth to another one. So after she was born I gave her to you. They aren't evil. They aren't like Eric. They're like you. Nikolas looks like you."
"Gertrude looks like you."
Raven smiled. "You named her Gertrude?"
"Gertrude Gray Howlett."
"With blue hair."
"Trudy Blue? That's cute. I thought you'd be a better dad, than I'd be a mom. Look at the way I screwed up Kurt and Rogue."
"Rogue?"
"My girlfriend and I adopted her when she was two years old. I was her dad, male body and all. Then she left and I couldn't change it," Raven paused. "I've done mistakes, I know I have. But if there is one thing I can say to you today it's that if you think your God took them away from you in spite for being a mutant, you've got it wrong. He took them away because they were too good. He wanted them closer to him."
Mystique walked away.
Logan looked at the stained glass window with the last supper. He got up and sighed.
"Maybe one of them was a mutant. But I want mine back." He walked out of the church.