Chapter Six

"Come along, into the jet everyone," Alice Wagner called, taking a head count as the children filed up the ramp and into the cabin. "Suzie, that had better be a maths book. We'll be back by Monday, and that means you still have to study for that test."

The twelve year old groaned loudly, tossing her long, blue hair. Suzie was the only one of the three Wagner children without a tail. Her skin was pale and clear, her hair a bright, azure blue, and her ears came to delicate, elfin points.

"The maths book is in my bag, Mum," she said with a golden-eyed scowl. "This one's just to read on the jet." She held up a spy novel with a bloody knife on the cover.

Alice shot her a 'you better be telling me the truth, young lady' look, then turned to Marta, who was flipping through a worn Horatio Hornblower novel.

"Marti, make sure Edmund's strapped in good and tight."

"I know how to do it myself, Mum," Edmund protested, his long, sky-blue tail lashing in agitation. "I've only flown in the jet a thousand times!"

"Even so, love, this will be a three hour trip over nothing but freezing water, and I just want to make sure you're strapped in properly."

"I can do it properly!" the eight year old argued, stamping his sneakered foot. "I'm not a baby! I don't need Marta to do it for me!"

"Oh, just let him do it, Mum," Suzie sighed, taking her own seat and strapping herself in with practiced ease. "When he messes it up, then he can ask for help."

Edmund stuck his pink tongue out at his older sister, who shot him a superior, golden-eyed glare in return.

"Everyone arguing?" Kurt asked cheerfully as he breezed through the cabin, pausing for a moment to give his wife a brief peck on the cheek before taking his seat at the controls. "Your mother getting good and exasperated?"

Alice shot him a look as she took her own seat just behind the cockpit.

Kurt grinned at her.

"Wunderbar. Nice to know everything's back to normal."

His expression sobered for a moment as he recalled the tears that had so closely followed the news that Grandpa Charles had died. He had allowed the children to miss school that day in a fit of compassion that Brian had not entirely approved of. But, then, he hadn't known Professor Xavier as Kurt did. Brian saw only a rather intimidating, brilliant, highly-influential old man. Kurt saw a kind, altruistic humanitarian who had always been more like a father to him than a leader or a mentor. Xavier had always loved the children of his first students as his own grandchildren, and they had loved the old man dearly in return. A day off in his honor was the least Kurt could give them after suffering such a painful loss.

Kurt's throat tightened and his golden eyes began to sting. Blinking hard and taking in a sharp breath through his nose, he quickly replaced his pained look with a smile, trying hard to keep his voice light.

"Now, we just have to wait for Logan, the Stuarts, and the Braddocks and we'll be off to Scotland."

"But, I thought we were going to New York," Edmund piped up from where he was struggling with his straps. Marta was hovering over him, just waiting for an opportunity to dart in and do it right. Suzie snickered, her pale face turned towards the window.

"We are," Kurt explained, his attentive expression mirroring Marta's as he watched his son's struggle. "But we have to pick up your Auntie Rahne first." His eyes narrowed at the tangled mess his youngest had made of his safety straps. "Are you sure you don't want any help with that, Liebling?" he asked.

Edmund glared.

"I can do it!" he insisted fiercely.

Kurt held up his hands.

"OK. That's fine with me. But, consider this, mein Junge. The weaker man is always the one who refuses to acknowledge his weaknesses. Can you tell me why?"

Edmund stopped his struggling for a moment as he considered his father's question. Marta surreptitiously untangled the straps, but made no move to fasten them.

"Erm," Edmund said, "um...because if you know what your weaknesses are, you can work harder at what you're good at?"

Kurt raised an eyebrow.

"And how would that help you?" he asked.

"Because then you wouldn't have to worry about doing what you're bad at?" Edmund tried.

"Hmm," Kurt said. "An interesting idea."

Edmund smiled, but his face fell again at his father's next question.

"But, if you ignore your weaknesses and never ask for help, doesn't that mean that you'll always be just as weak as you were before, no matter how hard you work at what you're good at?"

Edmund looked slightly blank, then he sighed, plucking at the straps with a five-fingered hand, his hazel eyes lowered.

"Are you trying to tell me to ask for help with these stupid straps?"

Kurt smiled.

"I'm suggesting you should ask to be shown how to fasten your straps properly. That way, you can learn to do it for yourself. You will be turning a weakness into a strength."

He turned to his eldest daughter.

"Marta, sit down next to your brother and teach him how to strap himself in. We're not lifting off until Edmund can do it right."

"OK, Dad," Marta said, taking her seat and using her own straps to demonstrate the procedure.

"I see I'm just in time for the daily lecture," Logan's voice rumbled from the back of the plane.

"Uncle Logan!" the children chorused from their seats, bright grins splitting their small faces.

"Hey, kids," the burly Canadian smiled, striding up the aisle and leaning against the back of the empty co-pilot's chair. "Hey, Alice," he nodded.

Mrs. Wagner smiled.

"Good evening, Logan," she nodded in return.

Logan turned to face the pilot.

"Hey, Elf," he greeted Kurt, keeping his voice soft so the kids couldn't overhear. "How you holdin' up?"

Kurt fixed his golden gaze straight ahead, taking in a slightly shaky breath.

"It's going to be very hard, mein Freund," he said, keeping his voice just as soft. "To come face to face with the reality of it all. Right now, I can still hardly believe it's not all just a bad dream, you know?"

Logan nodded.

"Yeah, I know, kid. I can hardly believe it myself." An inscrutable expression settled over his rugged features as he ran a thick hand over his own ageless face. "Charlie's gone."

"The earth will shake." Kurt finally looked at his friend. "Have you heard? The PM's going, and President Davidson as well," he said. "Think she'll give a speech?"

"After all the ones Charlie gave her, it'll only be fair," Logan said with a smirk.

"There'll be world-wide press coverage too," Kurt said. "And a great deal of political posturing, that you can bet." He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "The ambitious will flock in and fight for the chance to link their name with that of 'the visionary who ushered in a new age of peace and understanding for all humanity to share,' to quote the newspapers." He sighed. "I suppose it's impossible to insist this ceremony be closed to all but family and close friends?"

"Yep," Logan said. "Charlie's made too much of a name for himself. This will be headline news for days. You got your patter down for when the vultures attack?"

Kurt smirked.

"Nee. I'll just improvise, like always. It's fun to annoy reporters."

Checking the time, Excalibur's leader glanced back towards the ramp.

"Logan," he asked, "did the others say just when they'd be turning up? It shouldn't be taking them this long to get ready. We're only going to be there for two days."

"We're here!" Kitty's voice called from the back of the plane where she was walking up the ramp. "Alistaire's still stowing the luggage. Oh, and Meggan told me to tell you they shouldn't be much longer. Eliza's been giving her some grief about the packing and Samuel's helping Brian with his suits."

"Will Uncle Brian be OK if he leaves England?" Marti asked. "Doesn't he draw his powers from here or something?"

"He should be fine as long as he keeps his suit intact," Kitty assured her. "Hopefully we won't be called on to do much fighting during the ceremony."

The kids laughed, but the adults knew Kitty was only half joking. It always seemed that whenever the X-Men gathered together, trouble soon joined them. Kurt shared a look with Logan and Alice, then turned his gaze to the front window. His expression instantly brightened. Meggan and Brian Braddock were just entering the hangar, their teenaged twins in toe.

"Ach, there they are at last," Kurt announced, turning just in time to see a look of delight cross Marta's dark face the instant before she teleported out of the jet.

Edmund scrunched up his nose, and it wasn't in response to the residual teleport stink.

"This is getting ridiculous," he sighed, repeating what his mother had said on numerous occasions.

Alice snorted with uncontainable laughter, and Kurt cracked a smile. Marta's obvious crush on the older Samuel Braddock was something of a running joke at the manor.

"They do make a cute couple," Kitty observed, leaning over the back of Kurt's chair. "Primary colors; red, blue, and yellow." All four Braddocks sported hair the color of butter.

Kurt shook his head, his lips pursed with fatherly protectiveness.

"I still say she's too young for this kind of thing," he protested. "She is only fourteen years old."

"Sounds just right, if you ask me," Alice commented from the back.

Kurt shot her a look.

"I would have hoped for your support in this, meine Frau," he said.

"Not this time, love," she smiled. "Marti's just being a normal, healthy teenaged girl."

Kurt stiffened, his golden eyes widening as her words sparked a sudden, horrible thought.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

Alice rolled her eyes.

"Calm down, Kurt," she shook her head. "It's just some innocent hand holding. I don't think they've even kissed yet."

"You don't think?! And what do you mean 'yet'?"

Logan shook his head in bemusement.

"I can't believe I'm hearin' this from the teenaged Casanova himself."

Kurt glared.

"Not at fourteen, I wasn't," he pointed out. "At fourteen I was still with the circus. We worked very hard and had no time to waste on that kind of thing."

Alice raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah? Then what's all this I've heard from your foster mother about you and a certain girl? Jimaine, I think her name was..."

Kurt blinked, then scowled, caught in a trap of his own making and unable to think of a way out without lodging his foot deeper into his mouth. Logan let out a loud guffaw, thumping the back of the chair with his fist.

Suzie sat up in her chair, her amber eyes wickedly curious.

"Tell us about what Dad was like when he was a kid, Uncle Logan," she shouted out from the back.

Kurt flushed under his fur and turned to face the front, praying the others would finish up with their luggage soon so he could take off and, hopefully, bring this embarrassing line of conversation to an end.

"Oh, let me!" Kitty begged. "I've got a good one."

Logan nodded, willingly handing the stage over to her. Kitty grinned broadly.

"OK," she said, "Whenever a girl walked by-any girl-Kurt would always puff out his chest like a peacock and run his hand through his hair. Like this-watch!"

Kitty struck a pose and ran a hand through her short, brown hair, doing a very bad impression of Kurt's accent as she said, "Cheecks deeg the fahzzy doode, ja?"

The small cabin exploded with laughter. Kurt tried to scowl, but his lips kept twitching upwards against his will.

"All right," he said. "I'll admit to the hair. But, I know I never said anything so hokey."

"Come on, Kurt!" Kitty grinned. "You can't tell me you don't remember that." She winked at Suzie. "He would try it on me all the time before your mother came to the Institute. He never got anywhere, though."

Suzie and Alice snickered.

Kurt snorted.

"This from the girl who used 'like' after every other word and thought for certain that she'd found true love with that villain, Lance Alvers?"

"That is like, so totally not true," Kitty protested, unable to keep a straight face as she burst once again into a fit of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Professor Alistaire Stuart asked curiously as he stepped into the cabin. The slight, slender scientist was closely followed by Captain Britain himself; Brian Braddock, whose muscular bulk suddenly made the small space seem ten times more cramped.

"We were just teasing Kurt," Kitty explained, still gasping with giggles.

"Oh," Brian said, taking his seat. "Sorry I missed that."

Meggan's large eyes melted with sympathy as she stepped lightly towards the cockpit to rest a comforting hand on Kurt's shoulder.

"Don't take it too hard, duckie" the empathic metamorph said. "They only do it because they care for you so much."

Kurt struggled not to roll his eyes.

"I know, Meggan," he assured her, patting her hand kindly. He worked to hide his embarrassed annoyance from her by attempting to project genuine gratitude. "And thank you very much for your concern."

The empath smiled brightly, then skipped away to sit between her husband and her children.

"Is everyone aboard?" Kurt called.

The usual rousing chorus of "Yes, oh great and fearless leader!" rang out in response.

Logan took up his position as co-pilot as Kurt pushed the button to raise the ramp, turning to watch it rise. As he did, his eyes caught sight of Marta crouching on the back of her chair, her tail lashing as she engaged in a giggly conversation with Samuel, who was seated in the chair just behind hers.

"Marta, come on," he said sternly, startling her so she nearly fell into her chair.

"Sorry, Dad," she gasped, hurriedly strapping herself in.

"Edmund, you all set?" he asked, his sharp eyes doing a quick examination of his son's safety straps. They seemed to be secure.

"Yep," Edmund grinned. "And I did it myself, too. Mum said I did it perfectly."

"True story," Alice verified, crossing her fingers over her heart.

"Well, then, that's good enough for me," Kurt smiled. Turning back to the controls, he slipped his sleek, sliver headphones over his wavy hair and set about getting the plane ready for take-off.

"The skies are clear, and-surprisingly enough-we're exactly on schedule," Kurt announced as he taxied out of the hangar. "To pick up Rahne should be the work of just a few minutes. We should arrive in Bayville just in time for dinner. Remember, there's a five hour time difference between here and New York."

"But, we already ate," Edmund said, confused.

"Trust the bottomless pit to tell time with his stomach," Kitty grinned, turning to the kids. "Did I ever tell you about the time your father ate fifteen super-sized Gut Bomb burgers in one sitting? No? Well, then, to truly appreciate this story, you must first understand that the local Gut Bomb was like a second home to Kurt..."

Kurt couldn't suppress a warm smile as he listened to Kitty's story. Even when the jokes and laughter were at his expense, it was times like these that he truly appreciated being a part of such a large and loving family. Projecting a wave of deep gratitude to the spirit of Professor Xavier, wherever he may be, Kurt skillfully eased the jet into a vertical take-off and sped away into the darkening sky.

To Be Continued...