Erik may have bitten off more than he can chew with this one, thought Charles Xavier with amusement. He might be able to persuade impressionable teenagers and estranged, hurting outcasts with phrases like 'You are a god among insects', but Grace Engstrom will know better.
She had spent the entire flight thus far talking, not to her inner voices, but to everyone on her speed-dial. Beginning with her brothers—she apparently had three, all of them older—and going on to friends, she was now calling business associates such as her publisher and her agent. Most of the conversations began with a statement such as 'For heaven's sake, it's not as though I sprouted another head! I'm exactly the same person I was two days ago, before I found out I was a mutant.'
Of those conversations, about one in every four was very short, ending with 'I'm sorry you feel that way. I wish you well.'—where it was clear the person on the other could not accept the change in Grace's status, from human to mutant. Grace Engstrom was doing well above the usual as far as relationships went, if three-quarters of the people she knew well did not automatically reject her.
It comes of learning this in adulthood—she has had thirty more years to build a network of people in her life. Most mutants learn what they are at a time when they have outgrown the protection of childhood, such as it is, when they feel most alone and alienated from their family and society, and before they have had a chance to build stable connections as adults. They are at their most vulnerable, when they do not know themselves, let alone others.
Right now she was speaking to her agent. "Patty, if I don't get paid, you don't get paid. There was no clause in that contract that said 'the publisher agrees to pay one thousand dollars for each original pattern used, unless the designer turns out to be a mutant'! You're a lawyer. Take them to court… Yes, I know. If they refuse to print what they contracted for, they owe me a kill fee. Point out that all four of my books just jumped to the top 100 best sellers on Amazon's list. Even if they're buying them just to burn them, they're still buying them. All right. You take care. I'll call you."
She was also knitting the whole time she was on the phone. Feeling his eyes upon her, Grace smiled at him, and explained, "I'm not giving up without a fight. If I never get another contract, I'll need the money more than ever from these now."
"I understand. I admire your spirit."
Her smile was wry. "Thank you. It's much easier to deal with people than it is to deal with my voices. Excuse me; I've got a few more calls to make."
"Of course."
She pressed a few more buttons on her phone. "Jess—it's me. Aunt Grace. What? Look, Jess—I'm still your aunt. I bought you your first bra when your mother said you were still too young, we make Rice Krispy treats every time you come over, and nothing's going to change that… I'm going to be your aunt whether—. All right, it doesn't matter if you call me a freak, I still love you. I don't need your permission to love you, that's the advantage of being an aunt. Why don't you call your dad and talk—." Grace Engstrom looked at the phone with dismay. "She hung up."
"I think you're handling matters very well." Xavier told her. "While you might regret trying to keep a relationship—you will always regret not trying."
"Thank you." This smile was more genuine. She went back to her phone calls.
'Professor?' came Jean's mental voice in his mind. 'I've been thinking. If she and Magneto have a relationship, why are we still involved here? Especially if it's as intimate as Mystique implied.'
'You think that if Ms. Engstrom is going to be the mother of his child, she should be his responsibility?'
'Something like that, yes.'
'Whatever relationship they have, he hasn't been honest with her, Jean. She was genuinely shocked to discover the man she was involved with was Magneto. She knew only a man named Erik. What sort of relationship does that imply? Can she trust in it? Whether he is the father of her child or not doesn't matter.'
'Still—.' Jean began.
'Jean, had you never met Scott, might you have acted on your attraction to Logan?'
'Maybe.'
'Even though you believe he would prove unreliable, or that your relationship would lead you places you did not want to go? Be honest with yourself, Jean. If you found yourself in her predicament, would you not hope to find friends among strangers, that your child might have a more stable, more reliable home than that which he could provide?'
'…yes.'
'Try to befriend her, Jean. Do your best. Her powers are developing, and they are such that until and unless she can get control of them, she is liable to alienate even other mutants, let alone humans.'
'Why? What are they?'
'I'm not sure. She is seeing and hearing very strange things. I think she is perceiving the future in an unusual way. She—or rather, her voices—disagree. If it is a form of precognition, that is one thing. But if she is correct—if she is receiving messages from some outside source—that is a matter for great concern. In that case, she is being manipulated. In the meantime, when she interacts with her visions, she will appear to the casual observer to be mentally ill. Even when one knows what is going on, it is…disconcerting. I fear our people will shun her.'
'I won't. For your sake, and because of what you said.'
'Thank you, Jean.'
'You're welcome, Professor.'
