"Shh, Mystique. It is all right. You are safe." My son bent over me and I laid back down.

"Why are you here?" I asked, fidgeting a little with the covers.

"I had to take your temperature again and check how you were tolerating that strange mess Hank made for you." He touched my forehead. He was warm. "I also wanted to talk…you said some strange things in your fever."

"What did I say?" I remembered almost nothing, other than the cold and being chased, running, running away from…what was I running from?

He perched on the side of my bed and swung his tail over the side. "At first, you pleaded with me to stay with you. Everyone else had gone, you said, and you needed me here with you. You told me not to cry, to help you with our baby."

Oh, no. I did not want to have to deal with this. Maybe Destiny was wrong.

Not about this, I'm not, and you know it, whispered slyly in my ear.

"You begged me to stay. Though I was there and did not leave, you sobbed and said I was leaving."

I nodded. "Willi, right?"

"You called me that," he admitted. His tail twitched.

I patted the bed next to me. "Come here and sit." I could only move over a little, and he squashed next to me. I began with the good times. "Your father, Wilhelm, was a good man, and I cared for him. I did not entirely trust him or the village where he lived, either, though, so I did not show him my true form. When I returned to my usual form during the birth, he stayed, unlike the midwife and the other useless clods. But he could not understand…he did not accept you. He almost threw you to me and then told me he was going to go. I asked him to stay, but he broke away and hid up in his study." Tears came with the pain again. "If he had stayed, he might have kept them from us. But he did nothing, nothing as the mob came in and swept us away…useless tears."

He curled up beside me and put an arm around me. "There is more."

I steeled myself and nodded.

"You called me Margali, and begged me to let you see your son."

Oh God…how long ago had that been? Far, far too long. I closed my eyes and began. "Your foster mother must have many good qualities, Kurt, but she has one great flaw. She makes up her mind and she refuses to change it." I held up a hand. "I know. Pot calling kettle, but I believe she is worse than I have ever been. I heard rumors, when you must have been only ten or so, that someone looking like my child might be with a circus. She stopped me before I could get there, and told me to leave you alone, that anyone who tries to murder her child does not deserve to see him." I squeezed my eyes tight. His arms enfolded me, and I had to hold to all my rage to keep from doing nothing but sob. "I…I never begged her to see you. I have…I have seen people like her before…it would have done no good…"

He held me tight and whispered, "I believe you…mother…and I know what you mean about Margali. She decided I had done something awful once and created a Hell for me because of it, rather than trying to discern the truth."

I turned and took the opportunity to hold him, look at him, and kiss his furry cheek. It was harder, now, than when he was first born. But he was still my boy. His fur was still soft, and he was still warm against my body. He gently returned my kiss, and we held each other until the darkness came again.