A/N: Hey, how about some reviews? (Thanks to those who do so regularly.) How am I doing?


"Dr. Grey? Dr. Grey! Artie's got a nosebleed and it's dripping everywhere!" Grace and Dr. Grey were theoretically on their way to the infirmary when the doctor was hijacked by a cluster of students, centered on a boy whose hands were clamped to his nose.

"Oops! I'll just be a moment." apologized the doctor, who said to the boy. "The first best thing to try for a nosebleed is to hold a big spoon against the side that's bleeding. Come on; let's go to the kitchen."

Grace was left alone, or nearly alone, in a large parlor. The mansion was elegant without being stuffy—wood paneling on the walls inside, natural stone outside. However, what concerned her most at the moment had nothing to do with the building and everything to do with the people in it. Hunched over on the hearth of the massive stone was the young man who had come with Erik, and she was having to keep herself from staring at him.

It wasn't his body language, which was Young Johnny Rotten-Punkboy, although it didn't help—a mix of misery, alienation, and sullen anger. His skin was as yellow as someone in the last stages of hepatitis, and his hair was the color of cooked spinach. His eyes were dull, and—worst of all—he had a runny nose, which he wiped periodically on his sleeve.

I don't remember ever seeing anyone more repulsive, Grace thought. The other girl with Erik's—Magneto's group, the one with more normal coloring, she looked like she was ready to rip the face off of anyone who looked at her funny. When I look at the kids here, and compare them with Erik's people—I know which group I'd rather belong to.

Xavier's.

But then there's the fact of who the father of my child is, and how I feel about him.

I don't even know what issues are at stake here. I wish I'd paid better attention to the news.

I didn't realize what a complacent, uninvolved, safe, cocooned little life I've been leading, up until now. Oh, that's disgusting. He just licked his face with his tongue—eeuch!

The Toad had indeed stuck out about eight inches of tongue, and swiped his own face with it.

"He needs a Kleenex." Above the mantelpiece of the fireplace was a portrait of someone who had to be the Professor's father or grandfather. By his feet there was a golden retriever, and it was the dog who had spoken.

"Yes, I can see that." Grace hissed. "So what?"

"So give him one. Ruff!" It had a motherly, older-woman voice. "You have some in your purse."

"I don't want to go anywhere near him. He turns my stomach!"

"Give him a Kleenex!" the dog insisted.

"I'll throw up."

"No, you won't."

At least he's the only other person in the room, and he looks completely uninterested in what I'm seemingly saying to myself.

"No!" She had resolved to pay more attention to what the voices said, but this was something else entirely.

"What if your own child turned out even stranger-looking than he did?" the dog asked.

She glared. They know all my buttons. "All right. But if I throw up, I'll blame you."

"You look like you could use some of these." she said, going over to where the young man lurked. She fished around in her handbag and dug out a purse-pack of tissues.

He looked up at her, surprised. "S'okay. I'm all right." He had a heavy, lower-class British accent. His eyes were dull with illness, she realized, looking at him close up. They looked sore and swollen.

"No, I think you have a cold. Please. Take them." She reached down and pressed them into his hand. Instead of being cold and clammy, as she feared, it was hot and dry.

"He has a fever." confirmed the dog. "You've got a dose of cold medicine in a blister pack in the bottom of your purse, left over from February. Give it to him."

She glared at the painting, but she found it. "You really ought to take something for it. Here."

"Thank you." he said, shyly.

"He has to wash them down with something." prompted the dog. It wagged its tail, then scratched behind its left ear with a hind foot.

All right, all right. Why am I having to mother this disgusting lump? "Hey—." She flagged down a passing student, a snub-nosed boy with brown hair. "Is there a drinking fountain or a bathroom nearby?"

"Sure—the bathroom's right down the hall, second on the left." He pointed.

"If there aren't any cups, you can at least drink from your hand," she told her patient.

"All right." He looked at the foil-backed square of medicine package in his hand, and went to find the bathroom.

"Now tell me what that's all about? Are you trying to tell me Erik does a lousy job of looking after his people?" she hissed at the golden retriever.

"His mother used to put cigarettes out on him." The dog told her, and put her head down on her paws, looking soulfully at Grace in the way that only dogs could. "He learned to be afraid to ask for what he wants and needs. The ones who find their way here led almost normal lives. The other one takes the truly damaged ones."

By 'the other one', it must mean Erik. His mother put cigarettes out on him? The knowledge took a moment to sink in. That poor kid… She sank down in a chair by the hearth.

The yellow-skinned mutant returned. His face and some of his hair were wet—it looked as if he had made an effort to wash up. His mouth twitched in an effort at a smile. "Found it. Thanks." He returned to his seat on the hearth.

"You're welcome. It might make you drowsy. I should have told you that before."

"S'all right." He said.

"What's your name?" she asked him. Once I look past the green and yellow, he looks to be about twenty-five or so. He never learned how to be a person, did he? Not from his family, anyway.

"I'm the Toad." he said, proudly.

"Well, I'm Grace. Tell me—you see, I only found out yesterday that I'm a mutant, so I know you must know a lot more than I do. Tell me, what do you see as the biggest difference between Magneto and Professor Xavier? They seem like old friends, but you—the people who follow them—don't get along at all, do you?"

He straightened up, flattered at being asked his opinion. "That's easy, see? Xavier, he's soft. He gets people killed, you know that? He'll get us all killed, wanting us to bend over for the flatlines. A flatline is anybody that isn't a mutant. Magneto, now, he's the man to stick by. You do that, and you'll come through alive." He blinked owlishly.

Amazing. As Grace watched, the cold medicine kicked in, and within three minutes, he went from awake to nodding to sound asleep. Wonder why he reacted so quickly to it. Because of his mutation? I can't leave him there like that, she thought. Looking around the room, she took a cushion and a throw off the furniture, and made him as comfortable as she could.

All right—that was his opinion. I should ask somebody from Xavier's side their take on the matter.

I used to think I was a pretty good person, as people go. Better than average, anyway. I wrote out checks to charities, made and donated items to fundraisers, and thought it was enough. I didn't vote and I didn't pay attention to the news. All the while, deadly serious things were going on around me, large and small. People were being legally harassed because of their genetic structure, and mothers were stubbing their cigarettes out on their mutant children. What was I doing about it?

Nothing. That was the problem.

"About time you realized that." commented the lion.