AN: Sorry I haven't posted sooner. I was out of town visiting family. Thanks for all the reviews!

The footsteps continued as Kitty grabbed Jean's arm, prepared to phase them through the floor if it came to that. However, the individual merely walked past the door and on down the hall. Kitty let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as she listened to the footsteps fade as it appeared that this person was making their way downstairs.

Kitty turned her attention back to Kurt who was still hanging within the jumbles of wires. Reaching up, she touched the area just below where the tube was inserted into his neck. Someone had shaved a small bit of his fur away there and she was not really surprised to find that his skin was also blue and soft to the touch. It angered her that someone could have done such a thing to Kurt.

Again, she began to remove Kurt from the contraption, but Jean stopped her with a gentle hand upon her arm. "It might be dangerous," Jean whispered

"What do you mean?"

Jean pointed to the wires and tubes. "We don't know exactly these things are connected to inside of him. It might not be safe to just pull him down."

Kitty understood what Jean meant. Depending on what the wires and such were attached to, removing Kurt suddenly could actually kill him. "I guess you're right," Kitty said, "It just hurts to see him like this."

"I know what you mean," Jean responded.

Downstairs, someone began to shout but it was impossible to understand what was being said. Jean started towards the door and Kitty knew that they should find out what was going on downstairs, but still she was reluctant to leave Kurt. Silently promising him that she'd be back, she followed Jean as they slipped out of the room.

The two found themselves in an open hallway overlooking the main room of the house. They stepped backed into the shadows, so that they were not be easily seen by the occupants of the brightly lit room below. To Kitty's surprise, it was Mystique who was yelling. Kitty would have expected her to still be at the Brotherhood house where they had previously seen her only a little while ago. Still, the décor of this house seem to also bear Mystique's unique interior design style, which meant that she spent a good deal of time in both places.

Mystique was pacing angrily across the plush, beige carpet while Scott, the apparent object of her verbal tirade, stood there quietly. Rogue was sitting in a nearby chair, silently watching the entire scenario. Unlike Scott, Rogue's appearance hadn't really changed.

"You let them get away," Mystique growled, "I send you to do a simple job and you fail."

"I did hit them with a blast," Scott said, "and then I couldn't find them. I looked but-"

"SILENCE!" Mystique roared, slapping Scott across the face with her open hand. The sound of the slap echoed through the house like a gun shot. Even from a distance, Kitty could see the Scott's cheek grow red, but he didn't nothing to defend himself or to retaliate.

Mystique was now shaking with anger. "Because you failed," she began, "everything I've worked so hard for is in jeopardy. Do you understand? After all I've done for you, you repay me by endangering everything. Get out of my sight!" She pointed for him to leave the room.

Kitty expected Scott to do or say something to Mystique, but he did not. His head bowed slightly as if defeated, he walked out of the room and towards the stairs. Before he could spot them, Kitty and Jean slipped back into the room were Kurt was located. A few minutes later, they heard a door to a room down the hall shut.

"I know we came here for answers," Kitty whispered, "but right now I'm more confused than ever. I mean, Scott and Rogue are probably two of the last people I would have imagined working with Mystique."

"Yeah," Jean agreed, sadly, "I can't figure anything of this out." Her mind was obviously more focused on Scott than Rogue, but Kitty didn't say anything about it.

Sighing, Kitty walked over to one of the larger machines and started looking around at the buttons and controls. Her hope was that they would find some button that would safely release Kurt, but instead she found a pile of blueprints and papers. As she looked at the documents, she realized that she had found the original blueprints of the machine itself as well as a few of Mystique's records. "Look at this," she said, "It's the original design of the machine and some other papers."

"You think you can figure out how this thing works then?"

"I should," Kitty said, "I just need to study these for a bit."

"Great," Jean remarked, "but we can't do that here. Let's go back to our room and look at this stuff there."

Kitty didn't really want to leave. The same reluctance she had felt before about leaving Kurt in this situation resurfaced, but she knew that Jean was right. Her best bet for helping Kurt was studying these papers and learning about the machine, and it would be best to do that back at the hotel. "Okay," she agreed, "let's go."

***********************

"Oh my goodness!" Kitty exclaimed.

"What is it?" Jean asked, looking over at her.

Kitty pointed to the blueprints. "I finally figured out what that machine was and why everything's been so weird lately. That device - it's some sort of time machine!"

"A time machine?" Jean repeated.

"Well," Kitty clarified, "that might be simplifying it a bit, but it's the only way I can think to describe it. From what I can tell, the machine uses Kurt's ability to teleport to allow people to travel backwards or forwards in time. There some notes here and it seems that Mystique found some of the research data from Forge's experiments. Remember how he discovered that Kurt was actually traveling through another dimension when he teleports? Well, his data described it as not only being a manipulation of space, but of time as well."

"So Mystique went back in time and changed things?" Jean inquired

"That's what it looks like," responded Kitty, "which explains how she made it to the Brotherhood house to other house without us seeing her. There are two Mystiques; the one who was already here in this timeline and the one who traveled back in time." Kitty shook her head slightly as she spoke. Things had been bad enough with one Mystique to worry about. "There are probably two Kurts as well," she added.

"So exactly what did Mystique change?" Jean asked.

"I don't know," Kitty said, a little sharper than she intended, "there are just a few random notes here. It's not as if Mystique left an essay lying around; "My Entire Plan and all the Details," by Mystique."

Jean giggled slightly and Kitty couldn't help but join in. It wasn't that it was actually all that funny, although the idea of Mystique writing an essay explaining everything was amusing in a way. However, as their giggles turned into laughter, Kitty realized that the stress of the situation had been getting to both of them and, despite the inappropriateness, it felt good to laugh.

"I'm not sure what she did," Kitty finally continued, as their laughter tapered off, "I mean, she's obviously did something with the Professor or it seems like he would be here. Also, I'm not positive but, from what I can tell by these notes, I think she actually adopted Scott. I have no idea how she got Rogue out of Mississippi. There is something here about being afraid of meeting her past self - like obtaining the sudden memory of meeting herself might drive her crazy or something, but I'm not sure how she got around it."

Jean stood up and walked over to the window, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. "So," she said, "Mystique did this. She did all of this." She turned back towards Kitty. "Do you know how to change things back?"

Kitty brightened slightly. "That's one of the few things I do know," she answered, pulling out one of the blueprints of the machine, "Even with the machine, Kurt actually has to do the teleporting, so he has to remain unconscious because if he woke up he would no doubt get out of that contraption. You were right when you said that it was dangerous to just remove him, but not just because it might endanger Kurt. The entire timeline could have collapsed! Anyway, for the machine to work Kurt has to be brought to a level of semi-conscious and then told the location and time to teleport to. Semi-conscious, he wouldn't be able to argue or reason, he would just go. You remember that IV we saw in his arm? There's a small valve on the tube. If we shut off that valve, Kurt should regain partial consciousness within a few minutes."

"And then all we would have to do is tell him to return back to the time before all this happened," Jean concluded.

Kitty nodded. "At least, we hope that will correct everything," she added.

Jean took a deep breath. "You remember when I told you that was something about that night that was important but I had forgotten what it was?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I remember was it was now," Jean said, "Kurt had been downstairs with the rest of us, but then he went up to his room to get something. He said he would be right back, but he was gone for awhile, so I went to check on him." She paused momentarily as she relived the memory. "His room was empty," she continued, "and his window was standing open. I was just running downstairs to tell everyone, when the shaking began and the lights went out."

"That must have been when Mystique had kidnapped Kurt," Kitty said.

"Must have been," Jean agreed, "Come on. Let's go and get things back to the way they are supposed to be. You ready?"

"Ready," Kitty responded, but it was a lie.

She had never felt so unready in her life.

***********************

When they returned to the home, it was eerily dark and silent. Kitty could feel beads of sweat gathering along her forehead as they made their way across the lawn. She was scared, but the thought of Kurt wrapped in a cocooning prison of wires and tubes gave her more than enough reason to go forward.

Again, Jean floated them up to the second floor and Kitty phased them inside of the room. "We've come to save you, Kurt," Kitty whispered.

"How can you save anyone when you can't even save yourselves?" Mystique demanded as she stepped from the shadows. She crossed her arms loosely and the smile that adorned her face was pure venom.

"I've been expecting you," she announced.

And so ends chapter 7. Chapter 8 will be here soon plus I have an idea for another story that I want to write, but I want to get this one finished first. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I tried to drop a subtle hint that there were two Mystique's in chapter 5. Remember, she was reading Stephen King's "The Dark Half?" I hope you liked this chapter!