I'm sorry for the long delay between chapters. Unfortunately, real life is a thing that exists. In the future, I'll be aiming for about 1 chapter / week.

"Do you have any siblings, Scott? Cousins, perhaps?" Charles added a spoonful of brown sugar to his oatmeal. They were sharing breakfast with a certain degree of privacy, as Bobby Drake apparently liked to sleep in. That would have to be addressed eventually, but for now… Charles asked his question casually, as if there were no reason at all for his curiosity.

Scott shifted into full toe-walker mode immediately. He shrank back in his chair and his left hand crept around his cereal bowl protectively. "You have my file," he whispered.

"I do. It's markedly incomplete."

"It's embarrassing," mumbled Scott, through a mouthful of Raisin Bran.

Charles just waited and continued to eat his breakfast, confident that Scott would realize how silly it was to feel embarrassed in front of a telepath who had already heard humanity's worst secrets.

Finally, Scott said, in a voice almost too quiet to be heard, "He's imaginary. My brother. It was one of those survivor psychology things. I never really had a brother, but my mind made one up to…I don't know, it was one of those things people do to deal with bad things happening to them. Coping stuff. That's what the counselor at the hospital said. I know he's not real, but I remember him anyway."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of, Scott. That was your mind, determined to survive in the face of every child's worst nightmare."

"I lived at an orphanage," said Scott. "Lots of kids there lost their parents. They didn't all make up an entire kid."

"They're not you. A comparison can't be made." Charles took another bite of his oatmeal. "This imaginary brother…did he have a name?"

"Alex," muttered Scott, sounding thoroughly miserable.

Charles didn't react to the name. He said nothing at all for several minutes, continuing to slowly eat his breakfast.

Scott did the same.

Charles put down his spoon and said, "I wish you and I had gotten more time to get to know one another, before bringing others into the mix. Mr. Drake's situation forced my hand." Scott didn't have the confidence to be part of a team and he certainly wasn't going to gain it if his development as a mutant was continually sidetracked by other concerns. "Nothing seems to be going according to plan."

"Respectfully sir, that means you need a better plan."

"Maybe so." Charles laughed. Of course, the one time that Scott did seem confident was when he was doing something, accomplishing something. When he was clearing the garden or learning to drive, he held his head straighter, his shoulders relaxed. He didn't look so young or so small. "Scott," said Charles, "I'd like you to be responsible for introducing Bobby to the mansion."

The professor was gone for the day, visiting "clients" (whatever that meant).

"How's he even a professor?" asked Bobby. "Doesn't that mean he teaches college?"

"He's some kind of part-time professor at Columbia University. He said it means he gets the privileges, but no pay and no responsibility. There's a word for it."

Bobby had perked up considerably after his first night of panic. He was presently collecting the frost from his hands and arms into an ad hoc snowball, which he proceeded to throw at a gardener, who for her part looked more perplexed than annoyed. "So that's what he's doing? Going to Columbia for college stuff?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask." Scott stopped to indicate a side door that was always locked. "I guess it can open, but it never does."

"Got it," said Bobby, now trying unsuccessfully to juggle pine cones while they walked. "So how long are you in for?"

"Huh?"

"I know, I know, this place is a lot nicer than juvie. But we are kind of stuck here, right? My mom says I can come home once it's safe. My dad says I can come home once I can turn my powers off." Bobby sounded a little sad when he said the latter sentence, an emotional beat that was somewhat softened by his continued failed juggling efforts.

Scott considered this for a moment. "I don't think…it seems like everybody here has different plans. I don't think the professor brought you here just to leave in a few months, but I don't know."

"It's kind of cheating for him to have secrets," mused Bobby, "because no one can have secrets from him. It would be like if I entered an ice sculpture contest."

"He's been having me read some history and philosophy books about conflicts. He talks about how it's not good to conquer your enemies, because then you still have enemies. Better to make peace with them."

Bobby looked profoundly skeptical. "You shoot laser beams out of your face." He made explosive hand gestures to emphasize this. "I don't know what he plans on doing with his life, but you don't really seem built for hugging and singing We Shall Overcome."

Scott tipped his head in slight agreement. At the very least, he would concede that he was certainly not built for hugging. "Maybe it's not really about us. I think he's friends with other mutants. I hear him talking to them on the phone."

"Other mutants?" A hungry look crossed Bobby's face. "Like who? Where?"

"One of them is some guy named Erik. I don't know the rest. I don't really make a point to eavesdrop."

"Erik, huh? C'mon!" Bobby took off running toward the house, Scott following in an awkward jog – Scott couldn't run full speed, because Bobby left irregular patches of ice on the ground behind him.

The professor's study was unlocked. Bobby immediately started rifling through the papers on the desk.

"Hey, you can't do that!" hissed Scott, though he wasn't entirely sure why he was being quiet.

"If he can read our minds, I think we can skim his mail," argued Bobby. He shook his head. "There's nothing in here from an Erik." He turned to the phone and lifted the receiver. Crossing his fingers, he hit redial.

Scott was not comfortable with this plan, he was not comfortable with this plan at all and he was going to tell Bobby to stop right away or he would hang up the phone himself and-

"Hello?" The voice on the phone was deep and steady, almost regal.

Bobby did his best impression of Charles Xavier, which was – truth be told – a 6 out of 10 at best. "Erik?"

"Who is this?"

"Are you Erik?" Bobby tried again.

"If this is Charles's ward," said the man, "I have agreed not to interfere with you and he has extended me the same courtesy. I am a man of my word, so I must bid you good day."

The line clicked.

Scott raced forward and he hit redial again, this time hanging up before the phone could ring even once. He then began tapping different sequences of numbers until he had a sound that matched the redial sequence. He wrote his findings on a piece of scrap from the trash.

"What's a ward?" asked Bobby.

"It means an adopted child," said Scott absently. He was clearly still focused on what he man had said, silently mouthing, he has extended me the same courtesy. "Bobby," he said, "were you ever approached by anyone else about your powers or your mutation?"

"No," Bobby shook his head. "I only found out myself yesterday."

"So how does he find them?" muttered Scott, mostly to himself, without clarifying which 'he' was being referenced.

Bobby considered this while rubbing his hands together, trying to warm them enough that he could put the professor's letter opener back down.

Scott sat on the corner of the bench in the bank lobby. He was here, according to the professor, to "sign some documents." He didn't know which documents and he didn't ask. The bench was dark cherry and free of scratches or scuffs. Xavier sat next to him, wheelchair neatly aligned with the heavy bench, waiting patiently for the clerk to finish with the brown-haired woman seated at the desk. The woman's son, on the other hand, had clearly run out of patience. He was alternately trying to hang upside down from the other bench and clambering underneath it.

Xavier pointed to the child. "Imagine, Scott, if that little boy were to come over here, for no reason at all, and began to hit and kick you. What would you do?"

Little wrinkles appeared on Scott's forehead. It was a strange question – kind of stupid, really – but he took it seriously. "I would call for his mother and then just ignore him."

"Why? You're much bigger than he is. Surely you could best him in a fight."

"He looks to be about four years old."

"Preschoolers hit each other all the time," argued Xavier. "That's to be corrected, of course, but it's hardly a major moral transgression."

"I'm not a preschooler," said Scott. "I'm bigger than him. It wouldn't be a fair fight."

"No, it wouldn't. Of course, it wasn't very fair of him to start hitting you for no reason."

"He's a little kid. He doesn't know any better."

"So he's saved by his youth and ignorance?"

Scott just shrugged.

Xavier nodded as though something profound had just been said. He tented his hands pensively. "Now, look at the security guard." He pointed to a powerfully built man standing watch in the corner of the room. "He's bigger than Jack Winters, yes?"

"Um…yeah?" Scott's toe-walking personality was reasserting itself.

"What if that guard were to strike you?"

"I'd blast him."

"He might die. Does he deserve to die for hitting you?"

Scott thought about that and said nothing.

"Youth and ignorance surely don't apply in this case, Scott."

This was obviously a puzzle. There was a right answer, Scott knew, and he was trying to see it. How did the little boy relate to the guard to Jack Winters to- "It wouldn't be a fair fight," said Scott. "He doesn't know it, but I'm bigger than him."

"Oh my god," whined Bobby, "this is even more boring than regular school."

Xavier had decided to start educating the boys, following what he called a 'classical curriculum'. Scott had assumed that meant Mozart and Beethoven, but instead it was a lot of translating Greek and Latin.

Scott glanced at Bobby's page. "The thing that looks like a bent capital E is a sigma. It makes an ess sound."

"Seriously?" Bobby groaned. "Then I've been doing this all wrong." He turned his pencil around and started erasing. The eraser, already largely frozen, promptly broke off. He threw the pencil down on the table. "This sucks!"

"It's not supposed to be fun," said Scott. He was looking up Ἔλεος up in the dictionary. "The professor says control is like a muscle. Practicing controlling your attention strengthens your ability to control your powers."

"That sounds suspiciously like bullshit."

Scott shrugged indifferently. If the magical rich man who let him drive cars and bought him new clothes wanted him to translate Greek, he'd do it. There didn't have to be a point.

Bobby sighed dramatically and rubbed his hands together to warm them up before picking up a new eraser. (He kept accidentally chilling things around him – they'd tried playing basketball earlier, but the ball had frozen and shattered following a truly excellent three-point shot.)

Scott withheld a sigh. Bobby was annoying, but he was ultimately a nice kid. And it was good – sometimes, at least – to have someone else around the mansion. Scott had spent most of his life trying to avoid other people. This was partially because he was an introvert, and partially because most of the other people in his life had meant him harm. Bobby didn't mean Scott harm. Bobby didn't mean anyone harm, as far as Scott could tell. He was scared and angry about the mob that had come after him, but if he still cried at night about it, he did so silently. "Here," said Scott, shoving his first page across the table, "you can copy mine for the first couple of lines, but you have to do the rest yourself."

Bobby smiled, a lopsided, friendly grin. "Thanks, man. You're the best part of this place."

Scott blushed and was glad that no one could see his eyes through his glasses.

Again, Charles Xavier was Scott, in the dream. Scott still claimed he never remembered his dreams, even though he woke trembling and sweating, sometimes with a yelp or a whimper. He often lingered between sleep and wakefulness, trying to claw his way out of a dream that he couldn't identify, but dreaded resuming nonetheless. Charles' curiosity had led him to rationalize a second small intrusion, to convince himself that it was for Scott's own good.

There was something very unusual about the landscape of Scott's mind. The rooms were more like theater sets than real, tangible places. Ideas were unlinked to one another, so stimuli rarely evoked any consistent recollection. There was a lack of texture, as if walls had been colored by a perfect printer instead of the sort of improperly mixed paint that inevitably adorned a cheap children's home.

Scott-in-the-dream was lying in bed, awake and sweating terribly. There was another boy in the room, staring at him with a strange, unpleasant gaze. Something hurt unbearably, a pounding in his head matched by cold metal on his eyelid and a needle approaching his eye.

Scott-in-the-dream was running through a cornfield. He was barefoot and he was blind, but the corn was high enough to hide him.

Scott-in-the-dream was running his fingers over the wooden walls in a small, featureless room. He knocked every few moments, testing for weak points. The walls were paper and they burned to nothing.

Delicately, Charles retreated from Scott's mind. This wasn't medical trauma, not entirely. It didn't seem precisely real. It was…well, it wasn't good. Charles was sure of that.

The study was always musty and dimly lit.

"Scott," said Charles, "I thought about what you said several days ago, that I should reconsider my plans. I think you're right. There was a time when I had hoped to gather adult mutants, already mature in their abilities, but now I believe that goal is unrealistic. Mutants can't wait that long, suffering in isolation."

Scott wondered if this had anything to do with Erik, and if Charles was now planning to break his non-interference pledge.

"I've contacted three mutants with whom I have corresponded. Two responded favorably. The third, I believe we will have to convince in person." Charles leaned forward in a concerned sort of way. "Are you afraid of flying, Scott? Because I'm afraid it's an awfully long drive to Dunfee, Illinois."