The Professor, as Scott had predicted, wasn't upset at being woken at a quarter to midnight to deal with an X-man who'd been stupid enough to go out on his own, telling no one where he was going, and get himself drugged and kidnapped, and also his former kidnapper. He'd declined Scott's offer to help him dress – "well if I can't be about in my pajamas at midnight in my own school, where can I be about in my pajamas at midnight?" – and asked for a dressing gown and slippers. Scott smiled to himself as he wheeled The Professor down to the infirmary. They must have looked a right pair. Him in his field gear: visor and light armor, The Professor in buttoned pajamas and a flannel dressing gown.

"And you think that this woman is not a mutant?"

"I don't think she's Mystique, I don't know if she's a mutant." Scott stopped and opened the infirmary door ahead of them. "Kurt's keeping an eye on her."

"Good." The Professor said. Jean and Storm both looked up as they came in.

"Any change?" Scott asked.

"We know what the drug was." Jean said. "Benzos. My guess is rohypnol. There is an antidote, but I hate using it."

"So the abiding question," The Professor said. "is why?" Nobody offered an answer. "What did this woman want with Logan, and was it Logan specifically or any mutant?"

"Does she even need to have been after mutants?" Storm asked. "I'm guessing Logan wasn't flashing his claws around."

"Just… drugging random men?" Scott asked.

Storm shrugged. "Men do it to women." Scott saw Jean blink hard. Given what she'd told him a couple of days ago, he wasn't surprised talking about that sort of thing troubled her at the moment. "Maybe it goes the other way sometimes."

"Possible, I grant you." The Professor said.

"The way we find this out is by asking the woman." Scott said.

"I agree." The Professor said.

"Ideally with a telepath to check she's telling the truth."

The Professor looked at Jean, who shook her head.

"I don't want to leave him." She looked down at Logan. "He's not breathing well at all and his pressures aren't good."

"I'll go, then. Scott?"

"Yeah?" What did he mean by the question?

"Will you come with me?"

Why? "If you want me to, but…"

"A man who can stand and walk is a good deal more imposing than a man who can't."

"If we-"

"If we leave the blindfold on her, she will still be able to hear you moving, and the resonance of the voice is different in a standing man."

Scott hesitated again. "Okay."

"And, Scott, there is a way we can work more synergistically in this." Scott waited. "Jean took to calling it Tail-riding. It stuck. If you'll permit me to, I'll establish a contact with you that we can use to communicate directly and instantly, without anyone else knowing we're doing it. Some raw sensory data might be shared, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum." The hair on the back of Scott's neck stood up. He remembered the stinging, burning pain there, the inability to stop himself from doing anything, to stop himself from trying to kill Jean. "Scott," He looked back at The Professor "if you struggle, I will let you go. You have my word. If you want me to stop, I will stop."

This was The Professor, he was almost a father to him, he trusted him with his life, of course he did. What he felt at the prospect of having a telepath influencing him again wasn't rational. What The Professor was asking for was nothing like Stryker's control, and of course he was right, they'd get more from the woman faster, and be more sure if it was true, if they worked as a team. He had to get over himself, for the sake of the X-men. Jean was trying to catch his eye. He looked at her. She knew. She knew what he was afraid of. She also knew just as well as he did that The Professor would never do that.

"It's okay." Jean mouthed. Probably nobody else had seen.

Scott nodded. "Okay."

He knelt down in front of The Professor's chair, so their heads were nearly level, hands set on the arm rests like he'd seen Jean do.

"Are you ready?" The Professor asked. Scott nodded once. He was not going to enjoy this, but it had to be done. The Professor laid his hands gently on the sides of Scott's head. "Relax, Scott." Scott tried, he'd been read telepathically before and that was okay, but this was different. The Professor closed his eyes and breathed out. Maybe he should shut his eyes too. "Alright, imagine yourself in the atrium." Scott did. In as much detail as he could remember right now, the scuffed corner by the door from a hyperkinetic student nearly hitting a wall years ago, the sound of the wind in the trees outside. Someone was there. He looked round. The Professor was standing – standing – to his left.

"It always surprises people." He said. "Many people correct their bodies in this state. Scars disappear, limbs regrow, paralyzed men stand." Scott just looked at him, waiting to be told what to do next. "Now contact's established, we're going to go back to the infirmary and see if we can share information in real space."

And he was back in the infirmary, kneeling on the floor.

"Stand up."

Kneeling on another floor, hands tied behind his back, blindfolded, a voice told him to stand up. He obeyed, without even considering why.

Scott gasped. The Professor was gone from his mind. He was in the infirmary.

"What?"

"I said I would let you go if you struggled."

"I didn't mean to."

"Never the less, you did. Shall we try again?" Scott nodded once. "Back to the atrium, then."

And he was back there, in exactly the same place, The Professor standing beside him.

"And back to the infirmary. I advise you to disobey me this time, don't worry about it, just don't do as I say."

Scott was expecting it this time. The Professor let go of his head as he came back to himself.

"Sit down." Scott heard the Professor's voice as though he'd spoken. He got to his feet. "I said sit down."

"No. I don't want to."

"You see? You can resist the impulses I give you quite as easily as you can resist your own. I am advising you, not forcing you."

"Right. What do we do now?"

"I'm inclined to wait a minute, to let the connection settle."

"Okay."

Scott shifted his weight and looked around. It really didn't feel that different, it was almost like just being in a room with someone and being able to hear them breathing. Jean and Storm had both busied themselves doing something Scott was pretty sure they didn't need to be doing, probably to stop themselves staring. Jean had said before that attempting to read someone's mind was much harder when someone was watching you, for some reason.

Suddenly, Scott felt a sort of… it wasn't quite happiness, nearer to nostalgia, a sort of nostalgic satisfaction. It wasn't… it wasn't from him, so it was The Professor's? He looked back at him.

"Forgive me. Sheer self-indulgence."

"What?" And for a moment, Scott was too aware of his body, his weight settling through his hips, down his legs, in to his feet, knowing that every fiber of his body was exactly where he'd put it, knowing the temperature of and what was touching every inch of skin.

"Just to stand." The Professor said – thought, he hadn't said a word aloud. "To stand and feel as one should: perfect control, no pain, no weakness, appropriate sensation..."

That made sense. The Professor hadn't been born paralyzed. He missed it, he missed being able to stand. "It's okay."

"Jean." Scott heard nothing more. The Professor and Jean were looking at each other, the tone Scott had heard, or felt… it sounded like he'd been telling her off. What had she done? He couldn't hear… presumably they were talking to each other by telepathy, he could still feel The Professor, but he couldn't hear Jean. Storm was looking between the three of them. Scott shrugged at her. The Professor felt… he certainly wasn't happy. He felt worried.

"Don't let it trouble you, Scott. The escalation in her powers in recent weeks is such that it would be remarkable if she didn't occasionally eavesdrop or move things without meaning to. But it is still bad manners."

"Right." The Professor said, aloud. "Other than the obvious, what would you like us to ask the prisoner?"

"Dose." Jean said at once. "Exactly what, how much, when and how. And if she attempted any procedures on him."

"Does who she is and why she did it count as obvious?" Storm asked.
,

"How's she been?" Scott asked Kurt as he and the Professor approached the Danger Room.

"She is very scared." Kurt said. "I have not spoken to her, you asked me not to, but she has called out a few times to ask if anyone is there."

"Thanks. You can go back to bed if you like."

"Thank you, but I will see this out."

"Scott, I'm not going to say a word. I'd rather she had as little to identify us by as possible."

"Of course, if Magneto set this up, he knows Logan's running with us, so it's not a big jump to figure out that the people who came to get him at half eleven at night were X-men, even without the uniforms."

"True, but she might not be Erik's pawn."
,

Scott opened the door and wheeled The Professor in ahead of himself.

"Who's there?" The woman called at once. Scott closed the door again.

"I'm the one asking the questions." He said calmly. He stepped away from the door, towards the woman. If she was going to display powers, she'd probably do it very soon. He raised his right hand. "You're the one answering them, starting with your name."

"Carol." She said. She was almost panting with fear. Good. Let her be scared. If she was scared enough, she'd give him everything. "Carol Wilson."

"Lying." Scott heard The Professor think. "And relax, Scott, I don't think she's a mutant."

"How sure are you?"

"Not absolutely sure, but I'll be able to warn you if she's about to do anything outrageous."

"Don't lie to me." Scott said aloud.

"I didn't."

"I said don't lie to me." He stepped closer to her.

"You reading my thoughts?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Scott said. "And tell me the truth."

She sat panting for a second. "Tanya Michaels. Don't hurt me. I swear I've never done anything like this before, just don't hurt me."

"That is her name, at least."

"Do we know her?"

"I don't think so."

Scott crouched down six feet in front of her. "If you're sensible, there's no reason I should hurt you."

"You kidnapped me."

"You kidnapped… who was he? The man you were kidnapping."

"He – He said his name was Thomas."

Scott looked round at the Professor.

"She's telling the truth, I imagine Logan gave her a false name."

"Thomas then. You kidnapped him first. Just we're better at this than you are, Tanya. From the beginning, what did you do to Thomas tonight?"

"They told me he wouldn't be hurt. They said… they said they just needed to borrow a bit of him. I… My husband just ran off with another woman. I really, really need money right now. They offered me a lot."

"Not what I asked." Scott said, starting to circle her, slowly. She kept on trying to look at the sound of his footsteps.

"No, you don't understand. It was thousands."

"Still not what I asked. What did you do to Thomas?"

"That's not even his name is it?"

"No. What did you do to him?"

She took a great heave of breath. "I put something in his drink."

"What?"

"I don't know. Two little white pills. They told me they'd knock him out so he was safe, he's a mutant, he's dangerous." Scott felt his hackles stand up.

"She doesn't know." Scott caught The Professor's exasperation. "She has no idea what she was using, or what the dose was."

"They said they'd dissolve in his drink, he wouldn't notice, then he'd just fall asleep, I'd get him home and call them for what to do next. They swore I wouldn't hurt him, I just had to make him safe."

"Safe?" Scott said. "He's with a doctor now. And the doctor doesn't dare leave him because she thinks he's going to stop breathing."

Tanya sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, they said he'd be okay."

"So you drugged him, you got him in to your car, you took him to that house, then what? What was your plan?"

"Call the number, they'd tell me what to do next."

"She knows absolutely nothing." The Professor thought. "She's an ignorant foot soldier, and possibly kept so in case she fell in to the hands of a telepath."

"Damn."

"My sentiment exactly."

"Who is this 'they'?" Scott asked.

"What?"

"The 'they' who told you to drug a stranger in a bar and offered you money to do it. Who are they?"

"I don't know."

"Don't give me that."

"I swear I don't know. I got a letter saying I could earn nine thousand dollars in a night, and my husband left me high and dry. I wrote back, asking for more information, they gave me photos of half a dozen mutants, said they'd all been seen in the area, gave me the pills so they wouldn't hurt me. They said… They said the one I was with, Thomas, might have the secret to eternal youth." Scott raised his eyebrows at her, not that he could see her. "And that if he did, they'd give some to me."

"Right." Scott said.

"I didn't really believe them."

"But you believed they'd give you nine grand for drugging him." She didn't reply. "The other photos, who were they?"

"I don't know, I didn't even have Thomas's name."

"This is futile." The Professor thought. "But if she can recall the images, I might be able to identify mutants from them."

"How do I..?"

"Ask her to describe them."

"Tell me what they looked like then."

"They weren't good photos."

"Try your best."

"There was… there was a bald man, white, maybe sixty? Sixty-five?"

"Oh, he looks familiar." Scott looked round at The Professor. "He's me. Next?"

"Go on."

"Three young guys with blond hair, two of them had short hair, but one's hair was straight, the other's was trying to curl, the third one had longer hair, don't think they were old enough to drink, any of them, so I don't know how I was supposed to…"

"Drug them." Scott finished.

"Bad photographs, very bad photographs, but two of them look like Bobby and John."

"John who defected?"

"Yes."

"Who else?" Scott continued.

"An adult, a proper adult, but a really bad photo. He had sunglasses on."

"I think I know who this is." Scott thought, hoping The Professor would pick it up. Tanya was still talking.

"White guy, maybe thirty? Bit under? Dark brown hair."

"Quite right, that's you." The Professor said. "That's every man in the school, or who was in the school a month ago, who might be able to get in to a bar if the doorman was feeling kind. So who was she supposed to call?"

"So having got Thomas home, what were you going to do next?"

"I don't know. They said to call them."

"On what number."

"I don't know."

"Don't give me that."

"It's written in the box the pills came in."

"Where's the box?"

"On my kitchen table."

"What sort of box?"

"Just… just cardboard. Six inches by four."

"Right." Scott said, walking back towards The Professor, and the door.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"None of your business."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Haven't decided yet."