I sat up and held my head.

My head felt real.

Could this all be a dream?

Were my dreams being sent to torture me?

Was it all a plot by some enemy out to destroy us, again?

I hesitated. I could do what "Kurt" asked me to. I knew what he meant. But what if something went wrong? What if that was what they wanted me to do?

There was a hard knock at my door, and Logan walked in. "Ten-thirty already, 'Ro. Time to get up."

"Logan!" I did not care that I was naked. I did care that he had invaded my privacy.

"What?" He stopped and looked at me, puzzled. "We gotta talk, and it's gotta be now. Something's wrong."

"What do you mean?" I found my slippers and put my feet into them.

"Everything. I don't know. This ain't right, though. Everything feels wrong, smells wrong. Every instinct I have tells me that things aren't right." He was pacing, his hands gesturing violently. "Yesterday, I just … well, I did something I wasn't proud of, but I'm not sorry for it. I should be, though. But I shouldn't, either."

"You and Jean?" I ventured.

He stopped, frowning. "How'd you know?"

"Laundry."

"Damn it." He half-extended his claws. "I don't do things like that, 'Ro. I don't. So why did I? Hell, why did she?"

Suspicion grew in my mind. "Logan, do you remember when the Brood had infected us?"

He stared at me. "Yeah. Think they got our number again?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." I extended my senses, using my empathy with nature to search Logan out. He was as he always was. Then I scanned my own body, and found a new life within.

But it was not what I expected.

"Oh, Gods…" The dreams did point to truth. I had to be certain, though, before I took action.

"Logan, get the team together in the briefing room. Now."

He looked at me with concern. "Why? Are ya infected again?"

I frowned. "No. But I think we all need to have a talk. Especially Kurt."

"Kurt?" Logan scratched his head. "How'd you find out about him?"

"What?" Find out what?

"Ya know, his little punishment of himself so he could forget you and stay with Amanda."

Logan kept talking, but I took another turn of the kaleidoscope. Oh, my. This made things clearer.

I broke into Logan's speech. "Just get them all there. Now."

I hurried into my clothes and held a hand over my stomach. We will figure things out, little one. And then, we will have some serious fighting to do.

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

The team sat sullenly in the briefing room. Jean was sitting next to Remy. Rogue sat next to Kurt. Scott stood over by the wall. Logan sat next to Remy.

I breathed in and out, slowly. "I have been having some disturbing dreams lately. They seem very real. And they are all about you."

A sharp intake of breath to my left. "I seem to operate within a different framework when I am in that dream world. In that place, I know that Rogue did not leave Remy in Antarctica. Scott did not leave Madelyne, and he and she are living at the mansion with their children. Jean and Logan were getting married. And Kurt and I are engaged."

"So you're having some pretty dreams, sugar. So what?" Rogue stared at me hard. "It doesn't mean anything."

"I would have agreed with you, Rogue, were it not for two things. Logan, too, finds the current situation unbearably wrong." I nodded to him, and he gave me a brief salute. "And I have discovered something that, to my knowledge, could not have happened if everything we believed was real."

I turned my gaze to Kurt. He squirmed a little. "Kurt. Have you ever been intimate with me?"

He looked at me, distrustful, then thoughtful. "No. Of course not! I love Amanda."

"You love Amanda." I stood and paced a little. "You're engaged, too. Right?"

"Ja. Are you all right, Ororo?" His thoughtful gaze became one of concern.

I nodded. "In my dream last night, you told me that, once I came back to this reality, I would find something that would help me figure out what was real and what was not. You told me to what I did before, when I discovered the Brood infection within my body." I paused. This was not going to be easy, and I did not relish talking about it in this way, at this time.

Jean leaned toward me. "So? Are you infected? Are we being invaded again?"

"No. I'm pregnant." The X-men all looked at each other, confused. "Now, I know there is no way for me to have become pregnant. I have not been involved with anyone for the past three months. Or, at least, I remember no one. Unless he took advantage of me in my sleep - and you would not do that, would you, Kurt?"

Everyone stared at my love, and he looked stricken. "I did not - I would not - I - you must be mistaken!"

"Exactly." I thought for a brief moment, then continued. "So someone else must have altered our reality, enough so that when we became lovers, I did not remember it, and neither did you. Someone else like, perhaps, Mastermind?"

I spoke coldly. "Come out now. Coward."

A deep voice spoke behind me. "Very clever, Wind Rider." The form of Charles Xavier wheeled toward me. "We did a divide and conquer strategy on you. And it was all so easy!"

We all fell into our typical defensive stances as he spoke.

"Scott was the easiest to dupe, of course. He still loved Jean, and a part of him will always wish he had wed her. And Jean felt some guilt deep down about finally choosing Logan. We all know Remy has issues. It was easy to implant the idea that Rogue had abandoned him. After all, he isn't good enough for her anyway. Right, cher?"

Remy breathed a little faster, but he never took his eyes from the master illusionist.

"Rogue? Well. She was a little harder to convince, but implanting the idea that she had absorbed his self-hate excused her own guilt for abandoning her lover. Kurt was harder still, but I switched his memories of you, Storm, with the image of Amanda Sefton. And you, of course, found it hard to believe anyone really loved you after all this time alone. The animal had his instincts, but we thought that controlling his mind would be enough." He looked at Logan with hatred. "Apparently, it wasn't."

"All right." Logan had enough. "Now, you die."

"Ah-ah. Careful, careful. This body now is mine. I said we had a divide and conquer strategy." Jean was holding Logan back. "We gave Charles' mind to an old friend of his so I could have his body to live in. I didn't like my old one. And we could have the rest of it … the mansion and all, once you all broke up or killed each other."

"What old friend?" Scott forced out, sounding nearly as passionate as Logan.

"Why, the Shadow King. Charles is lost in the astral plane. And it will take much effort on your parts to get him back. If you can at all."