Hank's nose twitched. "Do you smell what I smell?"

"I'm afraid my nose isn't as sensitive as yours," replied Charles Xavier. "What do you smell?"

"Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies." The Beast pushed back his chair and stood. "Forgive me, Professor, but the lure of a batch of Toll House cookies is irresistible."

"I wonder who is doing the baking," said the professor, "for as far as I know, everyone but Logan is helping with Ms. Engstrom's attic."

"Care to accompany me?" McCoy invited.

"I'm no more immune to a cookie than the next man," demurred Xavier, and they went down the hall toward the mansion's kitchen.

The smell of chocolate chip cookies soon became detectable to the professor's nose, and another scent blended with it—something tomato-y and rich.

Grace Engstrom's voice floated through the closed door down the hall toward them. "No, and I can prove it, too. I have a book from that exhibition on Chanel the Metropolitan Museum of Art did last year—or was it the year before? Lagerfeld just didn't get it. That's the difference between fashion design and clothing design. Fashion is something for runways and magazines.

"Clothing is what people actually wear to keep from being naked and cold or sunburnt. That isn't to say it can't be fashionable as well, but the philosophy is different. You're better than talented, Callie. You're skilled, which only comes from actual practice and work. Don't waste it on fashion." She said it as if it were a dirty word.

Who is Callie? Xavier wondered as Hank opened the door.

'Callie' turned out to be Callisto, the sullen, angry girl Erik had brought with him and apparently left behind. She was quite different now, sitting up straight on a kitchen stool, her expression open, and her eyes bright. Ms. Engstrom was examining the seams of a leather and rubber jacket from the inside out, critically but approvingly.

The moment the girl saw them, the sullen face slammed back over the lively one like the portcullis of a castle. "Hello," the knitwear designer waved a sleeve at them in greeting, "Would you gentlemen care for a cookie? Your students and staff seem to think I'm made of spun glass, so I decided to get my revenge by getting a start on dinner."

"Thank you, yes." Hank said, eagerly, peering at the racks of cookies cooling on the countertop.

"And Callisto has been helping?" asked the Professor.

"I don't know if you could call it helping," said Erik's inamorata. "She's been a complete bitch the whole time, and it was her idea to not only make cornbread but to put cheddar cheese and green chilies in the batter, so if it isn't fit to eat, don't blame me." She winked at them.

The girl made a face and stuck her tongue out at Ms Engstrom, who mock-snarled back. "Garlic bread and chili just don't go together." The girl complained. "Everybody knows that."

"Yeah, well, I can make garlic bread without a mix or a recipe."

"The cornbread was a mix!"

"Yes, but you started getting creative with it!" It was quite clear the two had been having a good time.

"Gwud cwkwys," said Hank through a mouthful, spraying crumbs as he spoke. He swallowed and repeated, more clearly, "Good cookies, Ms. Engstrom, Callisto. Thanks."

"I think your boyfriend's back," grumbled Logan, who sidled in the backdoor. Xavier noticed that he surreptitiously snuck two cookies. A very shrewd idea of Ms. Engstrom's, making cookies.

"Boyfriend?" Ms. Engstrom raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem to fit, exactly, but thank you." The sound of the Brotherhood's craft could be heard by those without Logan's hyper-sensitive ears.

I wonder if I misread what is going on between them, yesterday. For all that it seemed to me that they barely knew one another then, they don't act like near strangers. They act…married. Still honeymooning, but married.

The glow coming off the two of them that morning had been unmistakable, which was not to say they had been mauling one another. They had been acting like adults—no inappropriate touching, no giggling, nothing which would embarrass or offend. They were too mature for that. Erik had touched her arm to guide her and when they parted, she had kissed him on the cheek—no one could have been more discreet. They were simply…together.

I wonder if it will last.

Now Grace Engstrom was moving about the kitchen casually but alertly, checking on the cornbread in the oven and directing Callisto to stir the chili, putting cookies on plates—yet it was clear all of that was mere busy work. She was waiting for a tall, silver haired man to walk in the door, and when he did, she lit up as though she had swallowed a lighted candle.

So did Erik.

Pietro, his son, who followed closely on his father's heels, did not.


The dynamics on the flight back to Xavier's had been interesting, to say the least. Pietro kept shooting him funny looks, as if his father were about to sprout another head or begin speaking only in haiku, while Pyro, who was no fool, was going out of his way to demonstrate that he was intelligent, loyal, and respectful—in short, that he would make a better son than Pietro. He wasn't even sulking about having to return to Xavier's, which was a minor miracle.

Now, as they followed the voices to the kitchen, he was helpfully pointing out, with all the assurance of a old pro, where the various features of the mansion were—the girls' dormitory wing, the boys', the dining hall, and so on, to the rest of the Brotherhood.

Pyro wishes he were my son. Erik was genuinely touched. I must find some way of showing my appreciation—some additional responsibility perhaps, something which shows the trust I have in him? It will mean even more if I do so when Pietro isn't around—to show I'm not simply scoring off against him by favoring Pyro.

In the meantime, he asked, "How's your novel coming along, Pyro? Heard back from any agents lately?" Pyro had a distinct talent for gothic fiction, and was trying to launch his first novel, a romance with a werewolf secret agent as the hero, and a heroine in a coma who was haunting the hero psychically. Erik had read it, and was surprised at how literate it was. He also believed it had little chance of being published, as the leads were mutants, even if it was never specifically stated. Mutants were the kiss of death in publishing.

The young man grinned. "I got a request for a full manuscript this morning! Sent it right off by e-mail attachment."

"That's wonderful. I wish you the best." They had reached the kitchen, and he could hear Grace's voice. "Thanks, Cally. If you'll take one plate, I'll take the other, and we'll go up then, and see how far they've gotten."

"Hello, my dear." He stepped inside the kitchen door, and smiled at her. "Back again the same day, as predicted."

She had a smudge of flour on her cheek, and her dimples were in full view and she was lovely, heartbreakingly lovely. "Hello yourself. They have an exaggerated idea of how delicate my condition is, so I've been working down here."

"And used your time productively, I can smell." He took out his handkerchief, and stepping closer to her, wiped the flour from her face. "Hello, Charles, Henry, Logan—Callisto. Pyro and Toad you already know, of course. These young people are Quill and Arclight. The young man standing directly behind me, however, is here for a different reason. Grace, my son Pietro Maximoff—the Maximoffs were his and his sister's foster parents.

"If he's unforgivably offensive to you, don't take it personally. He's like that with everyone—even his sister, at times, but especially with me and people connected to me. It comes of speaking before he thinks about what's coming out of his mouth." Apparently whatever devilry seized my tongue earlier hasn't departed yet.

"I wasn't going to say anything offensive!" Pietro glared at him.

"No? That's good. Uncharacteristic, but good. Charles, why are your eyebrows trying to climb your forehead?" He looks quite astonished.

"No reason." Xavier said, startled.

"Thank you for the warning." Grace said to him, and winked at him, then turned to his son. "I'm glad to meet everyone. Hello, Pietro. I'm glad you came along, I was hoping I would get to meet you soon."

"Ms. Engstrom. I don't know what impression my father has been giving you about me, but I hope you won't take it to heart." Pietro spoke very carefully. Very good. Very good indeed. He's going to do his best to prove me wrong about him.

"He hasn't told me enough about you for me to form any impression of you yet. Callisto and I were just about to go up and see what they've done to my attic—want to come along?" Her glance included both him and his son.

"By all means." Erik replied.

"Help yourselves to the cookies," she said, and the four of them left the kitchen.

"Ms. Engstrom—I have to say that my sister and I were quite surprised to hear that our father was thinking of marrying again—."

Grace half-turned while walking, so she could look at the two of them. "I'm somewhat surprised to hear it myself, as this is the first time the word 'marriage' has entered the equation. I was just getting used to the idea of living together." Her voice had a definite edge to it.

Damnation. "I said 'thinking' of marrying again. Actually marrying again is entirely a different matter. That would be contingent upon whether this works out, and on whether you agree."

"Well, I'm delighted to hear that," she retorted. "I think you'd have some trouble managing it if I didn't. Pietro, you sound dubious about the idea. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I—that is, my sister and I—were wondering why you were with him to begin with. I hope I'm not being offensive," Pietro added, hastily, as they entered the elevator.

"Not unforgivably so." She hit his son with a smile like a cut from a razor. "I'll be equally frank with you. Partly it's for reasons you really don't want to know, because you'd be embarrassed and revolted to hear me talk like that about your father…"

Callisto snorted.

"…and I have to admit the voices in my head are telling me to stay with him despite my misgivings. I'm not kidding about that, either."

"Voices in your head?" he asked, sounding uncertain.

"Uh-huh. He didn't explain about my little friends, did he?" Upon Pietro's head-shake, she went on. "I have a menagerie that give me messages about what I ought to do. They want to prevent mutantkind from being exterminated, and they're telling me how to accomplish that. For some reason, that involves…being involved with your father. If that confuses you, you're not alone. It confuses me, and everyone else."

"I'm not confused," Erik defended himself.

"I'm concerned." Pietro said, sounding worried. "I thought—Father, didn't you say she was a visionary?"

"I said a visionary of sorts. I never entered into the nature of her visions. She's not imagining things, and she's perfectly sane. Charles Xavier will vouch for that."

They exited the elevator on the floor just below the attics. Callisto was following the entire conversation with great interest.

"Okay…." Pietro said. "But there is the question of the age difference between you—and the baby. While I don't mean to imply anything, I know you're a handknitter, and that you can't be very well-off, and while—."

She stopped dead in her tracks and gave him a piercing look. "And you were doing so well and tactfully, too!" she said, amusedly. "You have the wrong impression—about the knitting, among other things. The age difference I can do nothing about, and the baby is none of your business unless I decide to pin it on you. I'm not telling anyone who the father is—no-one at all. Not even your father.

"The implication that I'm a gold-digger does offend me. I don't eke out a living doing mall craft fairs. I bought a house on the proceeds of my work. I've written four books, and the most expensive single commission I've ever done was a hand-crocheted wedding gown in kid mohair and silk for Vera Wang, for which I received twelve thousand dollars. It appeared in Modern Bride magazine two years ago. Anthropologie buys my designs and has them mass-produced for their catalog and their chain of stores. I made almost three hundred thousand last year after taxes.

"However, to put your mind at ease, I'll do this for you. I give you my solemn word that I will not marry your father until you and your sister come to me and ask me to be his wife." She gave Pietro that razor-cut smile again. "Until then—we'll just shack up."