The Blackbird streaked through the sky toward Westchester. Kitty watched the clouds part in front of the supersonic stealth machine. It was almost hypnotic. It was several moments before she realized that in addition to flying the plane, Storm was also looking at her.

"You're glowing Kitty." She said at last.

Kitty went two shades of deep red, one right after the other. Somehow she felt like a schoolgirl again.

"I had a date." She smiled "Earlier."

Storm seemed to consider this for a moment.

"What?" Kitty finally prodded, after seeing that Storm was obviously not about to volunteer anything.

"What did Scot tell you?" Storm spoke quietly, in a voice most often reserved for intimacy or conspiracy.

"His usual." Kitty found herself speaking in a similar tone "Nothing extraordinary over visual lines. . ." Kitty let her voice trail off.

"Without pressing circumstance." Storm finished for her. It was one of Scott's ten rules of communications, which he treated like his own personal Ten Commandments. "Shit."

Kitty's eyes opened wide in disbelief. Did she just hear that right?

Storm saw her expression and laughed. "I'm not a full time Goddess any more." She explained.

"What is going on then?" Kitty fell back against the chair absently rubbing the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed.

"Yesterday," Storm began "Two people showed up at the mansion. They were in need of medical attention and we aided them. They are still there, one still recovering, and the other at his side."

Kitty listened intently. Storm was not speaking as the Goddess now, rather as a leader. This was a debriefing.

"They claim to be time travelers. A claim many at the mansion find to be suspect. Above and beyond that they also claim to be X-Men, albeit from the same suspect future. They claim to have come to the past with two other members of their X-Men, at least one of whom then betrayed their mission and attacked them."

Kitty licked her lips nervously. She didn't like the direction this was going.

"More over, they claim that the X-Men of the future are nothing more than mercenaries for hire with minimal information about their objectives."

Kitty interrupted "What does Jean say? Has she peeked in yet?"

"She can't. The girl goes by the name Blockage. She's a telepathic proximity 'jammer'. The Professor can't even detect her mentally." Storm let that sink in for a moment. "The other one's been in and out of consciousness enough to avoid psi-scan's when his friend isn't around."

Storm drew back on the controls and the Blackbird began climbing through the clouds until they emerged above them. After a moment they began to level out.

"So why does anyone think that Kurt or I could help?" Kitty wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer. Bishop once told her the story of how he traveled back in time to prevent his future and ended up living through twenty years of horrific alternate history he called the Age of Apocalypse before being once again shunted back to the here and now.

It gave her the worst headache she had ever had.

"Blockage claims that you and Kurt are future acquaintances of her wounded friend."

"So how am I supposed to help?" Much to her delight she had no headache at all.

"We're not sure you can. When I originally set out tonight the boy was in critical condition. Kent, the boy, had been very viciously attacked by someone who obviously did not care if he lived or not. We thought that any chance we had to clear this up would come too late to matter."

Kitty could see for the first time how tired Storm really was.

Storm continued "Of course there are things Hank can do to confirm or discredit their story. Temporal residue scans, radioactive half-life comparisons, DNA comparisons." Storm yawned big and pulled one hand up to cover her mouth. "Excuse me." She blinked several times to clear her vision.

"But Hank's been taking care of the wounded boy, hasn't he?" Kitty asked.

Storm nodded twice and yawned again. "Sorry." She said.

"No problem." Kitty turned to face front again. In the distance she saw the faint, familiar twinkle of Westchester County.

The Blackbird descended gracefully and masterfully down over the coastline. And rocketed past the cliff face to touch down on the runway covertly hidden beneath the mansion.

Scott was waiting to greet them.

"I can't believe Jean's not here to do this!" Storm let her emotions slip ever so slightly. She looked to Kitty apologetically. "Better you hear it from me than from Scott." She hesitated just a moment as she searched for a place to begin. "The boy, Kent. He looks like Kurt. A lot like Kurt. They claim that he's Kurt's son Kitty. From the future, Kurt and your son!"

Kitty felt an emotional jolt run through her. It felt like an ice-water shower on a hot day. She became aware that Storm had taken her hands to steady her and had continued speaking although the words were lost now in an overpowering high pitched whine that seemed to drown out the world.

Kitty tried to focus on Storm. Her lips were moving. So Kitty fought to hear her, straining to get a grip on her own senses. But it was no use. Her mind and body were reacting to Storm as the source of this unprecedented trauma.

It was Scott's hand falling upon her shoulder and turning Kitty to face him that finally caused her senses to 'snap' back in to a functioning mode.

"Kitty." He was saying it again. "Are you?"

But she stopped him. "Fine. Now. Just." But she wasn't quite fine just yet. She looked around for a chair and not finding one she settled for a toolbox.

"Just for a minute." Kitty took a few slow, deep breaths. This story was, after all, suspect. There was no reason to just go about believing any old possibility to be fact.

"Hank's finished his DNA profiling. It's a perfect match." Scott extended the folder he had been holding and after seeing that Kitty wasn't about to take it from him, he retracted his arm awkwardly and smiled at her.

"Of course, my time-traveling children come from farther in the future." Scott let the absurdity of the statement sink in. "And most of them are older than me." Scott saw her respond to the humor and the comfort of a reliable friend with first hand experience. "The trick is to try to deal with them in a very linear fashion, just one moment after the next."

Kitty was listening intently.

"Because if you screw that up the only other choice is more time travel." Scott let the words roll out quickly and added an element of distrust to the words 'time travel'.

Kitty smiled in appreciation. She had never known Scott to be this insightful.

"Thank you Scott. I'll go see the Professor now. Is he?" But she couldn't bring herself to ask.

"In the infirmary." Scott nodded "With your son."

And Kitty turned nervously, timidly, but quite deliberately toward her son and walked away.

"Scott." Storm shook her head. "That was amazing."

Scott looked distractedly after Kitty. "Hmm? Oh, right. That was Jean." He tapped his temple "Psychic link and all."

"Where is she then? Why didn't she come and meet us herself?" Storm was certain that Jean would not have missed this.

"Ah, she's not, ah, feeling. . ." Scott shrugged "We ordered in Mexican." He shook his head dismissively and walked away.