End 3

The flight was long and uneventful. The view, though they knew it would be breathtaking, was mostly hidden by the clouds that hung just below the level of the plane. Sandra buried herself in a book, David in his gameboy and Sarah showed Liz a new photo editing package she had bought for her computer.

"So you see if I have two photos - like these two of you and me that I scanned - and I highlight all the major points on our faces, I can make a completely different person." Sarah looked up from the screen of the laptop where she was conducting her demonstration, meeting Liz's eyes. "You're not listening to a word of this, are you?" She asked laughingly.

"No, but I enjoyed hearing it." Sarah laughed outright at this, turning the screen so that it faced Liz.

"This is what our seventeen-year-old daughter would look like." She teased. Liz spent a minute taking in the dark brown hair, straggly where the two hair-styles met; soft hazel eyes; cheerful grin and structured cheekbones. A perfect midpoint between her face and Sarah's. She laughed after a moment.

"Good god, don't say things like that. Mum's already pining after another grandchild."

They stepped off the plane and were herded into a crowded terminal, P.A.s announcing every few seconds which flights were delayed and cancelled. They grabbed their bags as they appeared, weaving their way to them on slow conveyor belts and headed for the lounge where Kelly would be waiting for them. Sandra spotted her 26 year old daughter as soon as she stepped into the huge space. She was tall, like her father, and her strawberry blond hair - again, just like her father's - was very visible over the crowds. As she came into view Sandra thought, not for the first time, how very much like her father she looked. She might have questioned her own motherhood of the girl - woman, she reminded herself - if she hadn't carried her. Kelly's young daughter on the other hand, Shazné, looked very much like her grandmother had at that age, having only just turned three. Her white blond hair, which would darken as she got older as Liz's had and David's would, her pixi-blue eyes - the only feature that Kelly and her mother shared - and her hyperactivity which Sandra could remember used to be frowned upon in herself (and as a result intended to pander to at every possible opportunity).

She pulled her daughter and granddaughter into her arms.

"Hey." Kelly greeted when she was finally released.

"Nanna!" Shazné giggled, reaching out to Sandra, risking tipping herself out of her mother's arms.

"Nanna will carry you later Shaz." Her mother consoled, shifting her into a safer position and doling out hugs to the others. "Right now we have to get back to the hotel."

"Daniel's coming home." Kelly told Sandra gleefully as they drove the short distance to the hotel that Adrian owned and ran. "He was saving up some leave from before we were married for a holiday or something. It was going to be a surprise but he said this was more important. He'll fly in tomorrow morning and we'll have at least two weeks together."

"Is he OK to do that? I thought it was getting a bit tense out there." Sandra asked.

"It was all a big mistake. They thought they had found a huge group of mutants in this city. They were getting ready for a big strike on them. Turns out these people were just all taking some drug, strange after effects but nothing genetically freaky."

"What does Daniel think of all this?"

"He's glad. He hates going in and just wiping out a population where some of the people might just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He doesn't particularly like killing the mutants, but at least he knows that's the right thing to do." Sandra shuddered internally, consoling herself with the thought that, try as she might, she was never going to be able to protect her children from the outside influences that told them all mutants were bad. They'd been brought up in a world where just about anything strange could be shot on sight. It was a different world to the one she used to know.

"Did you know that Ade and Tammy's Dad was coming down?" Kelly asked.

"Yes, Ade said on the phone." She wondered when Kelly had started dropping the 'Uncle' and 'Aunt'.

"I don't think I ever met him."

"You did, but I'm not sure you would remember. We saw him a lot when you were very little, but his wife died before you were born and he did lots of travelling with Ade and Tammy as a way to get away from it so he wasn't in one place for very long. He came to Liz's first birthday party, you would only have been eleven. That was about the time he started to settle down again. We saw him a couple of times after that, but I think you were at College or away with Daniel. We never see enough of him. He and Mum are were" She sighed biting her lip. "It's going to take some getting used to, not having her around."

"He's not well either." Kelly said.

"Hmm?" Sandra asked absently.

"Their Dad, he's not very well either. It sounds like he's got the same thing Gramma had."

"Oh no." Sandra whispered.

"I thought you should know, to prepare your self. They don't come down until tomorrow either, Tammy's driving them." Sandra nodded.

"Thank you. Well, I guess it's going to be an interesting reunion." She fought out a smile, looking back at the others. "You ready for this?"