Rehearsal wrapped up, Kassandra finished the piece she'd selected for the postlude, and then she pattered down the stairs from the choir loft. She paused at the holy water font to bless herself. Strange. She knew Kurt would be here, but she couldn't see him. And she was vaguely aware of some strange man approaching from a side chapel.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. Kassandra immediately let loose an ear-splitting shriek and swung her fist. Only this man's carefully honed reflexes kept her from breaking his nose.

"Kassi?"

Oh, mei! Kassandra took a ragged breath. That voice, that Bavarian accent, and the fact that the stranger, up close, looked a bit like a young Errol Flynn could only mean one thing. "Kurt?"

"Es tut mir leid, Kassandra. I usually never affect people this way with the image inducer."

"I didn't know it was you!" Kassandra gasped.

Kurt smiled. The irony of having to ask this question was not completely lost on him. In fact, it was delightful. "So would you be more comfortable if I kept the image inducer off?"

"Ja! Meaning no disrespect to the image of Herr Flynn, but this is a church. It's never supposed to be a masquerade. And you do remember what the Pope said about mutants in the Church, nicht wahr?"

"Very well." The image flickered out, and there stood Nightcrawler, perfectly pointy-eared, pointy-tailed and yellow eyed. And nobody screamed about a devil in God's house, but…

"Kassandra, are you all right?" Nearly the entire soprano section, which had been chatting in front of the church, clattered through the vestibule and burst through the doors.

"I'm fine. My friend here just made the mistake of startling me." Kassandra then whispered to Kurt, "Sei unbesorgt. For one, they already know I'm a mutant."

"Es tut mir leid, ladies." Kurt dipped a finger in the holy water and made the Sign of the Cross. "And I promise to be more careful from now on. I wouldn't want to risk any of you losing your fine voices on my account."

And so, amid good-hearted laughter, Kurt and Kassandra strolled from St. Anne's to what Kurt promised was the area's best place for a couple of mutants to share food, wine, and conversation, keeping mostly to the shadows, as they knew all too well that not everyone shared the same kindly attitude toward people who look different.

"Lucky you," said the pale, purple-eyed hostess, "A table in the mutant section just opened up."

"Mutant section? Was ist das?" Kassandra looked over at Kurt, appalled.

"Sorry, Miss," said the hostess. "Most of our low-gene customers are uncomfortable eating around people like your friend."

Low-genes. Oh, this kept getting better. "I'd think your non-mutant customers would be more uncomfortable if they heard you calling them that," Kassandra hissed, recalling the names she'd been called, even when people thought she was just a biracial, German-speaking, Catholic immigrant. She spun on her heel and started for the door in a huff. "Kurt, ich kann hier nicht essen."

"Kassi," whispered Kurt, putting a gentle hand on her elbow. "This is the only place around here besides the dives that will serve me without requiring my image inducer. And most of those are segregated, too."

Kassandra stopped, sighed, then resigned herself to being seated. And she nursed the idea of writing a letter to the management about the stupidity of separating mutant and non-mutant customers.A very strongly worded letter. "Ich verstehe. But I'll never be comfortable with any kind of genetic apartheid. And our hostess' attitude just proves once again that 'evolved' doesn't necessarily mean 'improved.'"

"Well," said Kurt, "It certainly sounded like the latest evolution over at St. Anne's was an improvement."

They talked for a while longer about music. Kurt confessed that he was almost amused at the athletic way he saw Kassandra stretch her petite frame to reach the pedals and the top manuals simultaneously. Especially for a piece as demanding as that Widor toccata she played after the choir had finished. Almost. For some reason, he was not surprised that she pulled it off.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kurt knew that Kassandra's small, slight appearance was just that, and it completely belied her ability to do big things. Like physically throwing her body and outstretched hands against a keyboard, and, almost as if by some miracle, eliciting the most beautiful sounds possible out of that instrument. This was also a girl who, before she began working with the government, normally regarded fencing whites as formal wear, and whose typical idea of Sunday best was a clean track suit and running shoes, ostensibly because she liked to jog after Mass. For a more formal occasion, she could be persuaded to wear a skirt and blouse. And even after she took her jobs with the government, she tended to dress rather, as she put it, practically. She always looked cute to him, regardless. But tonight she was radiant, taking the stage for her recital with a shy bow- in a perfectly fitting off-the-shoulder dress of palest coral, the lacy hem of which swirled around her well-defined calves as she turned and sat at the keyboard. She had evidently succumbed to Kätchen's insistence upon shopping for something other than track or business suits.

And the inferiority complex watching her play nearly gave him, well, he was glad she addressed that earlier as he watched her warm up.

"Nicht alle können Klavier spielen, Kurt. Und das ist gut so. So you don't have as many fingers as I do. You're still a better gymnast, you're better at literally hanging out, and I've just accepted that I'll never look as good in blue as you do. Now relax and enjoy the show."

And the program was amazing from start to finish, including a particularly inspiring rendition of Chopin's sixth polonaise. But at the end, which seemed to come too soon, after a flushed and beaming Kassandra bowed to shouts of "Encore!" she returned to the stage. Taking another bow, she winked mischievously and obviously in Kurt's direction, and sat back down at the piano. There would be an encore. Of course no note of it was made on the program. But this time, after all the years Kassandra endured Kurt's flirting and teasing, she finally had a chance for revenge. A purple tinge crept up Kurt's face. That first low trill ascending into a slinky scale could only be Gershwin. "Rhapsody in Blue."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kassandra interrupted his thoughts. "Kurt, was ist los?"

"Just another one of these moments I've been having since I first got back from Montana. Nightmares, flashbacks, and the like. And I've heard that you can tell people things about their pasts that even they don't know."

"Anything in particular, Kurt?" Kassandra asked.

"Try everything that's been erased."

"Let Kurt ask the questions," Jean said, before Kassandra had left that afternoon. "Answer only the most specific ones. Don't accept carte blanche to read his entire timeline back to him."

"Kurt, are you sure you want to know all of that, right now? A lot of it is pretty traumatic stuff."

Kurt frowned, then shook his head. "Since Father Whitney confessed how I was being used in their plot, I thought just knowing that would make everything better right away, and it hasn't."

"I'm not surprised. But actually, Kurt, I am amazed that you're recovering this quickly."

"Quickly?"

"I've been having nightmares about this, too, and they couldn't even touch my mind. I've seen the sort of things most people try to block from their memories. Honestly, Kurt, at this point, there are some things you are better off not remembering."

"Well it isn't just the nightmares. And I didn't bring you here to talk about that, anyway. It's thoughts and images, some of them actually quite pleasant, that seem to come from nowhere, and I don't know if they're real memories or planted like my whole time in the priesthood was."

"You're right to wonder. You'd been given what has to be one of the worst case of selective amnesia and false memory syndrome I've ever seen."

"Was? Don't tell me you're a psychologist too!"

"Eigentlich, ja. But I tend to accept dinner invitations from friends rather than patients."

"And that's what I wanted to talk about."

4