Erik…is Magneto. I know I should be upset about that, but somehow I can't quite manage it. At least not right now. Maybe later, Grace thought. The medical file was under her purse, on the kitchen counter, and the lamb toy sat atop the two items. "He's got the wrong idea." the lamb said, cocking its head to one side.

"Which 'he' do you mean?" she asked it. I could care less what the police officer outside thinks, if he can hear me. Soon I'll be out of here.

The lamb, not surprisingly, didn't answer. She brought it and the file back to the dining room. "This is the one who told me to take the flashlight with me last night, and to give you my file once I got it." She handed the file to Xavier and added the lamb to the line-up on the table.

"Ms. Engstrom, I believe your power may be a form of precognition—you are recalling future events before they happen, but your brain is interpreting those events eccentrically." stated the professor.

"Uh-uh." The lion shook its mane no.

"That is not how it works." The monkey licked his finger and turned the page of his book, not even bothering to look up.

"He's got the wrong idea." repeated the lamb.

"I'm sorry, Professor, but all three of them disagree with you." Grace told him.

"They do?" Xavier asked.

"They spoke to you just now?" said Erik at the same time.

"Yes to both questions. Look," she addressed the animals, "Why don't you speak to them, just once? It would make me feel so much better. Please?"

The monkey, lamb and lion looked up at her, then at each other, and back up at her, shaking their heads in unison. Why did I even ask?

"They refuse to speak to you. I've asked them who or what they are, and they won't tell me that either."

"Interesting." The professor reached out and picked up the lamb, turning it over in his hands. "This is nothing more or less than it appears to be. I caught no whisper of thought from it. Once we reach the school, Ms. Engstrom, there are some tests we can perform which may shed some light on the matter."

"Before anyone goes anywhere, I would still appreciate those few words in private. Charles, do you mind?" Erik looked pointedly at his friend.

Grace looked at Erik. "If you go down that way, there's a patio outside the kitchen door that should be accessible." she suggested to the professor. She watched as Xavier disappeared out the door, and then turned to meet Erik's eyes. Why? Why him? There's no point in wondering if I'm going to have a relationship with him. I already do. We made a child together. That's an unbreakable bond. No matter what else comes of it, he is and will always be the father. Any thing more—I don't know.

Magneto was nothing to me—a stern voice coming from an odd helmet on the evening news. "Erik—." She began.

"Grace, as sorry as I am that all this should have happened, I'm glad of this—it has brought us together again. Almost from the moment the door closed behind you, I have regretted it."

He took a step forward, and it was too much for her. She shut her eyes and started to cry. Why him? He's at least twenty years older than I am, and I'm not sure he could have been called handsome even when he was young. And everything he's done—that business at the Statue of Liberty, the prison break and the people he killed there—why him? But his arms were around her, and her face nestled into his neck, his shaved skin slightly rough against her forehead. Why do I feel more for him than I ever have for anyone else in my life?

"There, my dear." He held her, stroked her shoulder, kissed her temple as chastely as a father might. "While I live they will not touch you." He lifted her chin and kissed her on the mouth.

That kiss was not chaste. Although it was wet and salty with her tears, all the heat which had surfaced as they danced together in the Australian night was there between them still.

And I had thought the waltz was stuffy and dignified. It always was before, but his hand was there on my back and mine was on his shoulder and I couldn't think about anything else.

He broke their contact after a long moment, and breathed the word, "Yes," in a husky whisper. His eyes were as blue-grey as a winter sky. This feels like home—here, with him. Home isn't only a place. It's a person. Or people…

As if he, too, could read minds, he reached out and touched the delicate curve of her belly, just below the waist. "Is it mine?" he asked, his voice full of such gladness and hope that she nearly broke into tears again.

She was about to answer him when the lion's voice cut through the rosy haze. "A word of advice: Look out the window."

She did, and what she saw affected her like a handful of loose snow down the back of her neck.

Outside her dining room window, in the woods where she sometimes saw deer grazing or chickadees hopping around, was a woman with skin like rough lapis lazuli, yellow owl's eyes, and in those eyes was a look Grace knew too well.

I looked at Stephanie like that. Pretty, silly, fluffy Stephanie, pregnant with my husband's child, the child that should have been mine.

She stepped back, out of Erik's embrace. He looked almost comically bewildered, until she said, with almost clinical detachment. "I thought you might be married, but I never imagined she would look like that."

His head snapped around to look where she was looking, and his face contorted into barely restrained fury. He made a sweeping, dismissive gesture at the woman, who flipped him the finger in return and stalked off like an offended cat.

"She is not my wife. I have been a widower for many years. Her name is Mystique, and the tie that bound us—was only a slipknot, made to come apart easily. Believe me when I tell you she slipped far more often than I."

He stepped forward again, trying to recapture the moment, but it was too late. Grace moved closer to the window, looking for Mystique. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone stranger-looking—or more beautiful." And she looked as though she'd gladly rip my baby out, placenta and all, with her bare hands.

"I am sorry to interrupt." Charles Xavier's voice floated in from the direction of the kitchen. "but in our absence, the truce outside seems to have dissolved." A great thump shook the house, rattling the windows."

"Damnation!" swore Erik, who gestured, and the front door flew open. "Can I not take my eyes off you for five minutes?" he shouted out at the combatants.