This is ridiculous, Grace thought. How on earth can I be thinking about living with a man I barely know, despite how I feel about him, pregnant or not. Under any other circumstances, I'd laugh—but after the last twenty-four hours, I haven't the assurance anymore. I'm vulnerable, I know it. I don't want to make any decisions at all, I only want to feel safe.

To stall for time, she said, "Kiss me."—as if that could clarify things.

He smiled at her with that twinkle of confidence, humor and charm he had shown that night in Australia, which had told her, and quite accurately, he would be a lot of fun in bed. Then he leaned over.

He smells good, she thought, before his lips met hers.

This was a kiss like the miraculous warm day in February when one could shed winter's heavy coat and feel sunlight and air on one's skin. When he leaned back again, his smile had that same gladness and hope as when he had asked her, in her ruined dining room, 'Is it mine?'

Now he asked her, "Is that the answer, then?"

"I—."

As she was trying to sort out her thoughts, the lion spoke up. "Mend what is broken."

"Get it together!" added the lamb.

"All for one and one for all!" That was the monkey.

A stuffed owl on a side table flapped its wings to get her attention, and said "If you do not all hang together, you will most assuredly all hang separately."

"Unify!" That was the title bird in a framed illustration from Poe's poem, 'The Raven'.

They were ganging up on her:

"Refuse to choose!"

"The clock is ticking!"

"You're all in this together!"

"Make them compromise!"

"You're running out of time!"

"Reconcile the seemingly disparate!"

"You're all in this together!"

"No mutant left behind!"

"Can't you all just get along?"

"You're all in this together!"

"Stop the fighting!"

"You're all in this together!"

"Increase the peace!"

They joined in on a single phrase, repeated over and over—:

"You're all in this together!"

"You're all in this together!"

"You're all in this together!"

She had sprung to her feet without realizing it. Clapping her hands to her ears, she cried out, "Enough, enough, enough!"

Erik was looking up at her with surprise and concern. "It's quite clear they're distressing you." he observed. "What do they want?"

"If I'm right, something you're not going to like." she said. Raising her voice, she spoke over the chorus of slogans. "You want me to get the mutant community to unite and both sides to compromise for the sake of the greater good. Is that it?"

"Yes!" they shouted in unison.

"You don't have to shout!" She told Erik, "That's it."

She could see his thoughts chase each other across his face—he weighed and considered the statement, and then his face turned stubborn, harder.

"Ms. Engstrom?" the Professor turned his chair around to face them.

"He's found it." the monkey said, with satisfaction, and went back to his book.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Were you ever told why you were screened for the mutant gene? Were you informed beforehand that such screening was included when you permitted them to take a DNA sample for testing? Think carefully. Recall it as perfectly as you can."

"No. I wasn't."

Xavier's eyes were burning with an odd light. "Tell me everything you can recall about it. How did you learn about the screening? Who suggested it? What made you decide to have it done?"

"All right…" Grace sat down again, and began.

"Four months ago, I went in for my annual pelvic exam and mammogram. As you are men, and therefore have never had a mammogram, let me describe for you what it's like.

"Imagine if someone took your tongue, pulled it out of your mouth just to the point before it became unbearably painful, and then squeezed it between two cold metal plates. In several different directions. And expected you to hold perfectly still while they took X-rays of it. Then imagine that they moved on and did your scrotum next."

That one got them where they lived—both men shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"Once you turn thirty-five, this torture begins—every other year at first, then annually after you turn forty. If they see something—something which might be only a dot, or a shadow—you have to go in and have it done again a few weeks later. Usually it turns out to be nothing.

"But the current statistic is that one out of every seven women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives. Fifteen years ago, it was one in nine. I didn't like those odds, so I never skipped an appointment.

"As I was wincing my way through the last mammogram, the technician said, 'You know, we offer genetic screening now for the breast cancer genes. If you had it done, you would know your degree of risk. There is a fee involved, but it would never have to be performed again.'

"I asked, 'How much does it cost, and how much does it hurt?'

"She replied, 'It costs two hundred dollars, and it doesn't hurt at all. All you have to do is take a scraping from cells inside your mouth, from the inside of your cheek. You do it yourself, and you don't even have to draw blood.'

"'I'll do it'. I told her.

"She brought me a pamphlet about how it worked, and a consent form. I remember the form was printed on a stiff card, and it had a little plastic envelope sealed onto it—to keep the form and the DNA sample together, she said. I signed the form, took a scraping with a little plastic stick that came in a sterile wrapper, put it in the envelope, and gave it back to her. Yesterday, I got the result."

"Did she at any time mention the mutant gene?" asked the professor.

"No—Yes. She said the same screening was available for the prostate cancer gene in men, and that their technicians were fully qualified and licensed to perform mutant gene screening in compliance with the Mutant Registration Act."

"But she did not mention you would be screened for the mutant gene?" Xavier leaned forward.

"No. I would have remembered that." Grace replied, with certainty.

"Did the pamphlet you received mention either the mutant gene, or that if you submitted a sample, you would be screened for anything other than the breast cancer gene?"

"I don't think it did—but I have it here in my knitting tote. I wrote some design measurements on the back of it, because it was blank." After some rummaging, she pulled out a creased but intact booklet, and scanned the pages before she handed it to him. "Nothing in it about the mutant gene at all."

"No." he confirmed. "Nothing at all…Yesterday, before they drew blood, were you told why they were taking a sample? Were you shown the results of the first test?"

"No. I assumed the sample was taken in connection to the condition I thought I had—early menopause."

"Early menopause?" Erik's lips quirked with amusement.

"I didn't know I was pregnant, and with my history, early menopause was a much more likely scenario."

"Nor were you informed first of the results of the first screening, or told you had the right to have the second test performed at the facility of your choice." Charles Xavier stated.

"No. Did I have that right?"

"You had more than that. Ms. Engstrom, eleven years ago, every state was required to pass a set of Genetic Privacy Laws, to ensure that information from genetic screenings would not be misused, and that individuals had certain rights over their genetic property—their DNA, to prevent the misuse of their genes. As you might expect, I was quite involved with it—I tried—."

"And failed," Erik commented.

"—to get a clause incorporated into the laws which declared any discrimination against an individual based on his or her genetic code to be unconstitutional and illegal. As Erik said, I did not succeed in that—but the laws that were passed are not rendered null and void simply because you are a mutant."

Xavier leaned forward over his desk, holding out Grace's consent form. "By law, you have the right to determine what your genes may be screened for—and what they may not. The screening body—in this case, your health care provider's laboratory—has the legal responsibility to inform you of that, and of what information can reasonably be expected to be learned from your screening.

"You have the right to refuse the use of your sample for research or commercial purposes, and the right to inspect and have explained to you the records and results of any screening.

"Your health care provider was required by law to inform you in writing of your rights, of what they were screening you for, and to obtain your written acknowledgement of those rights, and your consent, on a form which reiterates the purpose of the genetic analysis—and limits it.

"The pamphlet omits any mention of your rights. It's essentially advertising. And this consent form—."

"This consent form which you signed says that you consent to have your DNA screened for the genes which cause breast cancer. And nothing else."


A/N: There is a Genetic Privacy Act out there, but it hasn't been passed into law (that I know of) as yet. It outlines the rights I have mentioned here, although I added all the parts having to do with mutants. It made sense that in this universe, it would have been passed into law.