Someone passing Grace's guestroom during dinner would have heard her say this:

"Stop it. Please. Stop it. Shut up!"

"This is what cults do, you know. Deprive their converts of sleep so their judgment is skewed and they'll be ready to do whatever they're told. Like drink the cyanide-flavored Kool-aid. Is that what you're working up to? No, because then I wouldn't be around to do your bidding."

"Is there a leader I can speak to? Is one of you in charge of the others?"

"I can and will throw all of you out the window. I mean it."

"Just tell me what the plan is. I'm assuming there is one. I'll do anything. Anything! Just tell me, get it over with, and stop singing."

"What were those lyrics? What did you just sing about Erik? And why do you sound like Paul McCartney all of a sudden?"

"All right. Fine. I'm going to go sleep somewhere else. Sing to each other all night long if you want to. See if I care."


Some time later:

If she doesn't want to relive Australia tonight, that would be all right. It's not as if I'm a priapic seventeen-year-old. I can share a bed with her just for the pleasure of companionship, do no more than sleep, and not feel slighted. She might not want company of any kind, however, and if that is the case, I'll bid her good night cheerfully, and go to my own room, none the worse for it.

The bed in there will seem vast and glacial if she sends me off to it, however.

Erik paused before Grace's door, torn between knocking and not knocking. If I don't disturb her, I can claim it was out of courtesy…but Jean Grey did give me these crackers for her.

He knocked. There was no answer. He waited a moment, knocked again, and asked softly, "Grace…?"

Nothing.

If she's sleeping that deeply, I don't want to disturb her rest. If she's not asleep, if she's lying there listening, but she doesn't want to acknowledge she's awake—I don't want to know that. He turned around and entered his room, a faint gloom settling on his spirit like a fine layer of ash.

Flicking on the light switch, he saw—Grace curled up in his bed. She rolled over, blinking at the light, shielding her eyes with a hand. "I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all. In fact, I was just knocking on your door. But why are you here?"

"As soon as I lay down, they started singing. This time, it was…camp songs, at least to start. The one about 'Big Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts.' I nearly threw up. Then the one about being chased by a bear and jumping into a tree to escape. 'I've got a Baby Bumblebee' was after that. 'On top of Spaghetti'. 'Kum By Yah.' Dozens of them."

She sat up, the bedclothes falling to her waist, revealing a thin pink nightgown which had all the qualities of frosted glass—it obscured details, but revealed shapes and colors.

"I tried exiling them to the bathroom. I piled towels on top of them. It didn't help. They sounded muffled, but they sang louder. I threatened to throw them out the window. I pleaded, I tried to bargain, I surrendered and offered to do anything, anything at all, if they would only tell me. It was when they began this song---Did you ever rob a bank with Titanium Man on Main Street at a quarter to three in some town somewhere, possibly with the Crimson Dynamo tagging along?"

"Good God, no."

"Then I have no idea what they were getting at, or where they got the song from. Half an hour ago, I said, 'Fine, if you won't shut up, I'll go sleep somewhere else and leave you here to sing to yourselves.' They wouldn't shut up even then, so I looked in here, and saw your helmet on the dresser. Please don't insist I go back there."

"I would never be so churlish. However, I can't say my gallantry extends to taking your room instead. I prefer this one. You are welcome to stay, however.", he said, straight-faced but for a corner of his mouth which insisted on curving upward in pure happiness.

The smile she gave him was the same one she gave him when he suggested drinking the champagne upstairs in the hotel. "I don't know how I can thank you."

"Now that is a lie if I ever heard one," he mock-chided her, taking off his jacket and hanging it up. "Oh—Jean asked me to give you these."

He took the baggie of crackers from his jacket pocket and went over to hand them to her across the bed. "She says that if you eat them before you get out of bed, they should help with the nausea."

"That was very thoughtful of her." Grace took them, placing the bag on the night table next to her, and watched as he took his cufflinks out and placed them on the dresser. "And thank you, too, of course."

"Oh, it was a terrible imposition, carrying four ounces of crackers all the way up here." He unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off, aware that she was watching him. Watching and smiling. This is more intimate than any embrace, however fevered and lustful, he realized. This is the intimacy of marriage. Something painful turned over in his chest.

This is only the second time I've ever met her, yet this feels natural, like water flowing into water. I don't know her, I don't know if the child she's carrying is mine, yet I stand here, with my back to her, exposed and vulnerable. This is sheer folly!

He had almost missed what she just said, "Did I miss anything?"

"Charles called a school assembly, where he broke the news of your impending lawsuit and how we shall be working together to support it. My part was to assure them of my sincerity and of how serious we are. I think you would have been proud of me. I only made one death threat."

He glanced at her reflection in the mirror to see how she took it: her jaw dropped slightly, but the corners of her mouth turned up, and she laughed. His shoes went over by the bathroom, and he started to empty his pockets on to the dresser top. He removed his wallet, and paused. Might as well do this now.

He opened it and selected a credit card. "It occurred to me," he told her, turning to face her. "that you should not use your own cards when you shop, or have packages delivered here in your own name. It compromises your safety and privacy. I have a solution. You'll find that no card reader will get so much as a beep from it—for some unaccountable reason, the magnetic stripes on all my cards go blank within days after I receive them. However, for on-line shopping, happily that is not an issue."

"That must be inconvenient. No money cards, huh?" She took the card and read the name on it. "Michael Xavier?"

"A legal identity Charles set up for me. Erik Magnus Lensherr may be a notorious character, but 'Michael Xavier's' name is as pure as the driven snow."

"That saying puzzled me throughout my childhood and into high school, because driven snow—snow that had been driven through by cars and snow plows—was quite clearly dirtier than untouched snow. Finally I found out that it meant 'driven by the wind'—newly fallen, in other words. I don't have my purse with me, but tomorrow I'm going to write you out a check for five thousand. Keep track of what I spend and tell me when I need to top up, all right?"

"That isn't necessary, Grace. To put it frankly, I am rather better off than you are, and I want to do this for you."

"I—You're a proud man, I know that, but if there was anything I hated about my marriage, it was questions like, 'What did you buy at Luxury Linens that cost six hundred dollars?' Between what I have to replace and baby-related expenses to come, I'm going to be spending an appalling amount of money. This way will be less messy all around. You won't feel as though I'm taking advantage of you, and I won't be jumpy and defensive."

There is nothing that says I have to cash her check. "All right."

"Thank you." The smile she gave him was relieved.

He finished undressing and slipped into bed next to her. Her arms went around him, and she kissed him as if she thought it was a very good idea.

All right, I might not be a priapic seventeen-year-old any longer, but there are compensations…

"Perhaps", he murmured before talking became a terrible distraction, "this was why they kept on singing."

"Wha—What?"

"They were intentionally driving you over here…"