A/N: Reviews?
"We have them." Xavier finished. "We have them dead to rights."

"You disappoint me, Charles. So the rights of one mutant were violated. What makes you think the courts are going to care?" Magneto's voice was cynical and world-weary.

"They will care because she is not the only victim. This print-out makes it clear that every woman tested by this health-care provider, Marine StarCare, on that day was screened not only for breast cancer genes, but for everything from the mutant gene to the genes for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, conditions such as early-onset Alzheimer's disease—everything that can be learned from a genetic profile. What did they intend to do with that information? For what purpose were they assembling such an illegal genetic database about a section of the American population?

"For that matter—I doubt that day was an exception. I suspect that Marine StarCare has been collecting this information on everyone they screened from the start. When this goes into court, every woman and every man who trustingly handed over a DNA sample will think to themselves: 'It could have been me.' " Xavier reached for the phone. "I need Hank. I need him here as soon as possible."

As Xavier dialed the first of his former student's numbers, Erik reached for Grace's medical file. Ah. As I expected—they have a digital chromatograph of her genetic profile.

"Something's making you smile," she observed.

"Your portrait, rendered in chromosomes. Not the usual likeness of one's beloved, I admit, but it is not without its beauties. Here—." He leaned closer to her, so that she might see the images. Their cheeks almost brushed together, and her breath glanced off his chin, sending a signal straight down his spinal column. "That bright red dot, at the center of the X-chromosome. That's the mutant gene. They've circled it."

"I see—For something so significant, it's so small."

"Keys are small, yet they can unlock great mansions as well as tiny boxes. This gene can unlock a universe of possibilities. With that in place, these genes—otherwise just so much filler among the rest, without function or purpose—become so much more. On the twelfth chromosome pair, that's the complex for a healing factor."

"You can read chromosomes so easily?" She looked at him with open admiration in her eyes.

"It's nice to be properly appreciated." He smiled at her. "Long years of study and practice, my dear. For another, that banding on the first chromosome pair, when complemented by this on the third, that's the factor for a strong, if in your case baffling, psychic ability."

His eyes kept traveling back to the twenty-third chromosome pair, her X-chromosome, which made her both a mutant and a woman, where the mutant gene rested in what was, what had to be the 'Maeve' gene complex—. It speaks to me as clearly as Grace's voices speak to her. Her centrosomes specifically form a setting for the mutant gene. Only the mutant gene will fit. The gene of a Sapient will not.

Yet I must wait. Until I have proof in the form of a healthy mutant baby, with Grace herself alive and well after a safe delivery, too much can go wrong. Such as this mad notion of Charles'.

"But at the moment, my concern is more for your voices. Did they give you any specifics concerning why mutantkind must reconcile their differences and unite?" I can't very well believe them when it suits my purposes and ignore them when I don't, more's the pity.

"I'm assuming it has to do with what the Professor found in my file, since the monkey said he'd found what he was supposed to find. I can tell you they were very insistent over the need for mutantkind to stop fighting each other and start working together. Apparently there's a deadline.

"Look," she addressed the animals on the desk. "if I'm going to convince everybody, I need a little more information. What exactly is it mutantkind has to accomplish? I don't know exactly how long everybody can realistically be kept together on one page. However, if I can tell them what the goal is, and when the deadline comes, then I think we've got a fighting chance."

She paused. "We have to get the Mutant Registration Act rescinded. And anti-discrimination laws passed. We have until the baby's due date to get it done, or it'll be too late. What happens if we can't accomplish that? Oh."

Grace turned curious eyes on him. "The lion said 'Ask him to show you his arm.' He definitely meant you. He nodded toward you."

I always knew it would come to that—the concentration camps, a policy of extermination, and the deaths, dear God, the deaths. He looked into Grace's questioning eyes. I took some pains to make sure she would not see it, that night or the next morning, but given that we are now apparently entering into a 'long-term relationship', she will have to learn my history some time or another. He raised the arm which bore the tattooed number, the one which they inked into his skin at Auschwitz. "I know what they mean," he said, as he slid his sleeve up. "They mean the camps will come back."

She looked, and her face twisted with sympathetic anguish. "You're a Holocaust survivor. That—that explains a lot about you."

"I suppose it does." he said, neutrally. "However, if I and my followers are going to get behind this effort, there will have to be a definite plan, and I am certainly not going to be the only one to make compromises. I am tentatively willing to enter into this, but I have conditions that must be met."

"What's going on?" Xavier asked. "Henry—Dr. McCoy, the secretary for Mutant Affairs, Ms. Engstrom, who asked us to bring you here—is on his way. He must be fully informed of what is going on."

"So must you." Erik replied. "Grace, perhaps you had better be the one to explain."

She did. The vertical grooves between Xavier's eyes deepened and multiplied as she did.

"How do they know?" he asked, when she was done.

"How did they know your mother's ring was under the floor in that spot? How did they know I was going to the doctor? They know. I don't think you're going to get any more concrete proofs than that. So—what needs to happen now?" she asked.

"Henry needs to be here—we cannot proceed without his assistance and support."

"What is it you intend to do?" Magneto asked.

"That depends upon Ms. Engstrom. If she is willing to proceed with her civil rights case against Marine StarCare, we will assist and support her to the fullest extent of our abilities. Ms. Engstrom, I hope you understand you are going to have to make a formal complaint to the authorities. Yours are the rights which have been violated. You have ample grounds for a case against them. You will have to go to court. There will be a trial, and it will be a lengthy one. You will have all the help we can give you, but you are going to be on the front lines."

"That puts a different face upon the matter." Erik frowned in thought. "Is this what you want, Grace? I can think of a great many dangers involved—dangers to you and to our child."

"Erik—I don't think I have a choice in the matter. Events—and my voices—are moving me toward this like—like a train on its rails. Think of all the things that had to happen for this to come about."

"Ms. Engstrom is correct." Xavier's voice was strong and sure. "I am absolutely certain no one was ever supposed to reveal the existence of Marine StarCare's secret screening program—not even when it revealed the subjects were mutants. The sequence of events which led to Dr. Bertram announcing to her that she was a mutant—including the documents in her file, the list of women who were screened—is so improbable I am staggered by it. So many fantastic coincidences—cannot be mere coincidences."

"I'm glad you're coming around to my point of view." remarked Erik dryly. "What will be required of me and mine?"

"Protection. Not merely of Ms. Engstrom, but of Dr. Bertram, his family, the laboratory technicians, their supervisor, the mammography technician, and all of their families—because I am willing to wager that once Marine StarCare—or whoever is behind them—discovers what has happened, they will be willing to kill to prevent them from testifying in this matter."

Xavier rubbed his forehead. "The data in their computers must be prevented from being erased, their headquarters and the doctor's office and laboratory watched so they aren't burned or bombed, and as the case comes to trial, the jurors and their families as well. Ms. Engstrom will need a lawyer, probably more than one, and they must be shielded as well, for this case will shake the world. And now when we know exactly what is at stake…"

"Very well. I will assist, but it must be with my conditions met.

"First of all, Grace's safety is paramount. Whenever she must leave either this estate or my compound, it must be with several mutants around her, people whose powers and skills are suited to defend and protect her. You will have to go to court, Grace, but other than that, it would be for the best that you stayed close to home. The AGP will be after you, and other such groups; Marine StarCare, and whoever they may hire, and then there is the media. They will pursue you without mercy. Let your lawyers, your friends and family come to you. Do your shopping on-line, or let someone else go for you. When it is possible, have Dr. Grey on hand at all times, just in case." That will solve one problem—of where and how I am to find another doctor who is both a mutant and a woman.

"The monkey's telling me to listen." She sounded dejected. "It will be hard, not getting to go places—but better than the alternative."

"Very good. Second, I must be of equal status to you, Charles, and my people of equal status to yours. If I give an order to Cyclops or Wolverine, they must obey me as they would you. In turn, I will see to it my people understand the same will be expected of them. We shall have to mix the groups up, or we will always have two groups."

"Done. What else?"

"There must be no hiding. If we are to be free and legally equal, then we should not have to hide what we are and what we can do. When the anti-discriminatory laws are drawn up, the right to use one's powers must be considered an aspect of freedom as much as speech is."

"Erik, I appreciate all that you're proposing to do here, but—" began Xavier.

"No. I don't think you do. Whose way is this, fighting with lawsuits and court actions? Not mine. Yet in the face of the information that if I go my way and you go yours, we will all of us end in the same place, and that place is the same as where I began, I am willing to make changes. I am willing to do anything rather than see a second Holocaust. What are you willing to do?"

"Mutants cannot use their powers any way they please. They must abide by the law as surely as any Sapient." Xavier shook his head.

"That is understood. Deadly force may be necessary, and before you object, may I remind you that you keep Wolverine around? The pot has no right to call the kettle black."

The Professor sighed. "All right."

"I'm sure this won't be the end of the conditions, but if, as it may be, " Erik turned to Grace, "the child you're carrying is the first mutant child of two mutant parents, I would like your permission to study your DNA with an eye to learning what, if anything, in your genetic code has contributed to that advance. It may be that your genes will ensure the future of mutantkind." There; I have laid the groundwork for the future.

"Wait a minute. You mean that for all the mutants in the world, none of them come from two mutant parents?" Grace asked.

"None. All of them have at least one Sapient parent." Erik told her.

"How hard are mutants trying?"

"Not very hard." Xavier put in. "The uncertainty of the future, combined with access to birth control, has reduced the birth rate to almost nil. If we succeed in what we are trying to do, I hope that will change. Now, as for what I will require of you, Erik.

"First, we must present a united front. We cannot fight it out in front of others—all disagreement and negotiation must be carried out in private, as it has today. Ms. Engstrom can be on hand to referee, but to all others, we must seem as though we have never had a divided opinion."

"Agreed. It would only further the divide. More?"

"You cannot order your people or mine to kill. You may authorize the use of deadly force, but not command it. They must be left to decide that for themselves."

"If it must be so, then it shall be."

"You must also explain to your people that they must not only obey direct orders, but the house rules. If they are of an age to attend classes, they must attend, and they must behave toward each other with courtesy and respect."

"You will not find them lacking. Do you imagine I let them run riot at home?"

"No, I suppose not." Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ms. Engstrom, do you have any needs or conditions to add?"

"Yes, I do. I'm going to need space. I mean I'm going to need enough room for my work, in an area where I can shut the door and be private. I love people, and I love socializing, but there are so many of them here, and I'm used to having a house to myself. If I can't get away off-campus, I'm going to have to be able to get away on campus."

"At my residence, that is easily arranged." Erik declared.

"We can work something out here as well." Xavier said. "Anything else?"

"I'm going to need some understanding." She looked at Erik apologetically. "While Jean and I were discussing my pregnancy, the lion told me not to tell anyone—anyone at all, even you—the identity of this baby's father, even if he's a mutant or not. I don't know why. It isn't that I don't want to tell. Or that I can't tell, or that I have anything to hide. For some reason, I'm not supposed to tell."

So what is going on now? "That is rather difficult to understand."

"I know, and in six and a half months or less, everything will be clear and you can demand whatever paternity tests you want, but until they say otherwise, I have to keep silent."

"That isn't such a bad idea." The Professor was serious. "The media will have quite enough to feed on as it is. Is that all?"

"I would be most grateful for a sandwich." Grace smiled ruefully. "I didn't have much breakfast, and it's well past lunch."

"On that note, perhaps it would be best to take a break until Henry can join us." concluded Xavier.