Scott stepped in to the room and closed the door behind him.

"Wow." Forge looked at Rachael. "He doesn't look well."

"He isn't." Rachael said in reply. "He takes pills to stay up all night. They make him paranoid." She hesitated. "Are you sure he can't see us?"

"Yes." Forge told her, trying to sound comforting as she obviously felt uneasy just seeing him again.

"Hello Jean." Scott said softly. "I trust you're impressed with our new mutagenic inhibitor. Just on injection lasts almost all month. Miraculous, isn't it?"

"I suppose when you've got your own Evil clone of Beast to do your dirty work you probably end up with a lot of wonderfully destructive little toys." She shivered at the idea that anything that 'other' Hank made was coursing through her body working it's biological voo-doo.

"He's not a clone. He's from another dimension. One where I never took control of Excalibur and Apocalypse was allowed to rise to power." Scott corrected.

"And I'm sure he does this out of the goodness of his heart?"

"No." Scott replied, caught off guard. "He's afraid of me. So he does as he's told."

"When you're watching him he does." She spit the words. "But there are rumors about him – his personal experiments – just to satisfy his curiosity."

Scott smirked. "I don't really care what he does with the guilty ones." He waved absently. "If they further science instead of dying in prison then so be it."

"That's cold." Forge commented.

"You don't know the half of it." Rachael told him.

"You have changed…" Jean said from under the hood.

"Of course I changed. YOU LEFT ME!" He roared. "WHY?"

"Because you'd already changed! I stayed longer than I should have Scott! For you! For Rachael!"

He jumped towards her and struck her across the face with his open palm. With the hood on she never saw it coming.

Forge jumped to interfere and Rachael smiled at him for the effort, even as he sheepishly remembered that he couldn't interfere and instead just stood reluctantly nearby.

"Don't you dare speak her name in my presence again. You tried to steal her away as well. What would you have done then? Tried to pass her off as Logan's daughter? Maybe convince her to call him 'Daddy'?"

"Is that what this is about? Your wounded pride? Yes! I'm with Logan now! Deal with it."

He glowered at her. "You're still my wife." He told her. "You haven't done anything to change that except disgrace the name I gave you."

"Scott! For the love of God! What happened to you? You used to be a good man! Why…"

Scott lowered himself on to his heels and looked at her. He snatched the bag off her head and she saw his face. He was harried and gaunt. His face was thin and he wore a scraggly beard that sufficed only to fill out his cheeks a bit."

"You've… been sick." She said.

He shook his head 'no'. "I've been saving the world from slipping off in to chaos. Just today, Emma brought me…"

"Emma? EMMA? EMMA?" She screamed. "Scott! Can't you see that she started all this? She sold out her friends for a chance to benefit and she did. Her position here as financial and enforcement provider have let her run amok with your power."

"It doesn't matter." He told her. "None of that matters any more. What's done is done."

"There but for the grace of God…," Forge whispered. "I mean… Kurt's so much…"

Rachael caught is eye. " Yeah. I know. I actually lived it. I'm silently crying in the vent. By the time this is over I'll be laying in a puddle of quiet tears."

Jean shook her head. "I can't talk to you anymore. You've grown cold."

"Maybe." Scott said softly. "Maybe I have."

He stood up and crossed the room to his desk and drew out a needle with a cover. He pulled off the cover and approached her.

"It's truth syrum." He told her. "Nothing more."

She turned away in disgust and he thrust the needle in to the side of her neck and pressed the plunger.

"Ahh, damn! Scott!" She shook it off when he pulled the needle back out.

"So tell me… All about your glorious life with him." Scott began.

She shook her head. "Scott… don't."

"No, really. I want to know… Do you two share the same psychic link you and I used to share?"

They shared a psychic link? Forge thought. I wonder why Rachael left that out…

"You lost your right to know that sort of thing about me a long time ago." She told him.

He smiled. "You'll talk soon enough, and tell me everything I want to know. Why don't we talk about the small range fighter craft you two stole last month from Germany. Where could I find that today?"

"I don't know." She replied. "I don't know anything about it."

He smiled again. "We'll see if that's what you say in an hour." He scribbled a note to ask again and proceeded. "How about Xavier? Is his health still declining?"

Jean cast her angry eyes on him. "How dare you. You must know…"

He smiled again. "Of course I know. But I want to hear you say it."

"Professor Xavier died last week of a psychic attack." She spit the words. "Happy now?"

Happier than when I ordered Emma to do it. The old man never should have crossed me. Mutants would still be hiding themselves from everyone if he had his way. And we're not about to go back to that, no matter how many bedtime stories about living in peace he told us over the years.

"You are happy, aren't you?" She asked, appalled.

He smiled warmly and wide. "Outliving ones enemies is a rare treat." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Now... Tell me… Did you and Logan share the same psychic bond that we did?"

"No." She told him. "My bond with Logan was different. It was worth having. And saving."

He whipped on her. "And is it true? Did you have his child?"

She smiled enticingly. "No. I had our child. His and mine. And we named him Charles!"

"No!" Rachael called out to her father but to no avail.

Scott leapt up and slapped Jean again, this time backhanded across the face.

"I have to say… I barely felt that. Your truth syrum must be a painkiller too… Either that or you hit like a girl." Jean smiled.

He slapped her again and drew blood from her cheek.

She cast her eyes up at him tauntingly. "Do you feel like a man now?" She asked. "Does this make you feel strong?"

"We don't need to see anymore." Forge told her. "I want you to move now, either forward or backward in time, to the first point when you heard about The Order of The Voice."

Back in the hotel room Kitty stuck her head in to the room. Rachael lay on the bed, her eyes closed and her hands folded on her chest. Forge sat hunched in the chair in the corner.

"Good. Good." Forge said out loud and seemingly to no one in particular. "Now… go back just a bit further to what started this conversation.

"Here." Rachael said back from the bed.

"Yes. Yes, this is good. Who is that man?" Forge asked.

"That's Alex, Scott's brother. They call him Havoc."

"And… what did he do for Scott?"

"He was an enforcer. He used other mutants as 'hounds' to track renegade mutants. He specialized in bringing in the hard to find people. In killing them really and bringing back what's left."

Kitty wrinkled her nose and backed up from to door.

"Vhat's going on in there?" Kurt asked.

"Telepathic memory sharing I think." She said softly. "He's in her memories looking for clues."

Kurt looked past her in to the room. I can't let this happen. My people are too good. I need to fix this!

Kitty laid a hand on his shoulder. "We can only do so much in one day." She told him.

"Vhere have I heard that before?" he asked in mock embarrassment.

"Kurt Wagner you know full well that you said that to me just this week." She said with a hand on each hip and an attitude that just wouldn't quit.

"Ach!" he complained. "That seems like a lifetime ago. Not…" He looked at his watch. "Three days."

He shook his head sadly. Vhat in the world am I going to do?