Grace could tell she had scored a good one by the expressions of the faces of both father and son. Pietro's jaw had dropped, and he looked just plain dumbfounded. Erik was torn between annoyance and amusement.

Fortunately, the amusement won. He chuckled, while Pietro asked "What?" in a disbelieving voice. "I thought people who were older cared more about things like that."

"Older? I'm forty-seven, which makes me twelve years older than you are. We're the same generation."

Erik said, appreciatively, "At least she is older than you are. I disagree with your assessment that she's too young for me, by the way. Seventeen would be horrifying, twenty-seven outrageous, thirty-seven embarrassing, but forty-seven is within the boundaries of what is reasonable. Not that I care about that sort of thing, but you seem to. By the way, has it escaped your notice that she is, in fact, five years older than Mystique?"

"I'm impressed." Grace looked at him with new eyes. "You left a younger woman for an older one. That has to mean something. Five years isn't much older, but still…"

"My head is starting to hurt." Pietro complained, "Can somebody give me some real answers?"

"Try asking some real questions first. This is the door to the stairs. Watch yourselves—the light bulb needs replacing." Poor boy. Clearly he isn't as intelligent as Erik.

"Careful!" Ororo called down to them. "There are some bags of trash on the stairs and brooms in the stairwell!"

"Thank you!" The four of them picked their way up carefully. I should move those brooms, at least, before someone gets hurt.

"Uh-uh. Leave them where they are." said the lion.

"What are you up to now?" she whispered to it.

"Did you say something?" Erik called from further down the stairs.

"Just responding to the peanut gallery." She reached the top, shoving the brooms back and out of the way.

The junk-crammed space was now open and obstruction-free. Air and light circulated freely, and the dozen or so people up there looked sweaty, dirty, and happy.

"Well—what do you think?" Jean swept her arm to take in the whole attic.

"It looks great!" The walls were freshly repainted in a warm creamy white, and the formerly dust-veiled windows sparkled with transparent cleanliness. She stepped out of the stairwell into the attic.

"I'm really impressed. Thank you all so much," she said, turning around. "This may not be the size of a house, but it comes close. You could fit three of my first apartment in here, and still have room for more. Well, I haven't been wasting my time while you have been working—Callie?" The girl stepped forward with her plate, and together they whisked off the napkins covering the cookies.

"Hey!" The students rushed them in their mad dash for the cookies. "There's more down in the kitchen where these came from, but save some room for dinner, because there are two pots of chili and a lot of cornbread waiting for you."

"Careful on the stairs!" Jean called, as they rushed toward the promise of more cookies. "You took care of dinner? You didn't have to do that. Thanks."

"You might want to wait to thank me until after you've tried it." Grace warned her. "I used to cook every day, but when you live alone, it's too much trouble."

"However it turned out, it can't be worse than some of the dishes that have come out of that kitchen. We have a rotating schedule for kitchen duties. We better get down there to make sure we get some cookies ourselves—I mean, to make sure the kids don't ruin their appetites." Scott Summers coughed.

"See—he may seem stiff, but he's a sleeper." Jean followed her boyfriend down the stairs.

"Oh—could you take the cornbread out, if it looks done?" Grace called after her.

"Sure!"

That left Grace alone with her lover, his son, and Callisto. Their footsteps echoed around the bare rooms.

"This is a nice-sized space," commented Erik. "It will seem smaller with furniture, but all the same, it would seem to be sufficient."

"I've lived worse places." Callisto said, walking to the far end of the attic. "Look, you even have a balcony. See?"

Erik made a motion, and the French doors opened by themselves. "Given my powers, this amounts to a private entrance. Yes, it's very nice."

"Bigger than my apartment in the city." Pietro admitted.

"It's going to be hard to baby-proof." Grace said, looking around. "Once he can crawl, he'll be able to get places I can't follow. All these corners!"

"With luck," Erik walked over to her and slid an arm around her waist. "by that time, we will be able to live anywhere we choose." She closed her eyes and swayed against him. I am utterly shameless, I know it.

"Feh!" Pietro made a sound of disgust. "This is just sickening. At your ages! I can't hang around here and watch this any more!" He turned and ran for the stairs, blurring out just as Callisto did.

"Careful!" It was too late. The brooms tripped him up, and with a lot of cursing and thumping, Pietro Maximoff fell down the stairs, at superhuman speed.


"Ow! Ow ow ow!" Pietro complained. He was in the infirmary, and Ororo, Grace, Callisto, Erik and Scott were watching the doctor work on him.

"Just be grateful it's only sprained," Jean scolded him as she wrapped his ankle with an elastic bandage. "I'm going to strap a boot-shaped brace on you, and you're to wear it day and night for the next week, sleeping and waking. No running. You can swim all you like, though. And—if you hadn't already guessed—you're not going anywhere for four days at the very least. Now—here's some codeine pills."

Pietro took them with a swallow of water. "Why on earth did someone leave brooms on the stairs? The unlit stairs?"

"Excuse me? Did we not say 'Be careful on the stairs?'" Ororo asked. "You knew they were there. You went past them on the way up."

"Are you saying this is my own fault?" he glared at her.

"If the shoe fits…" his father said.

"Right now, the shoe won't fit." Jean picked up the piece of footgear in question. "and it won't for a week or more. Lie back, Pietro. That codeine is going to hit you hard and fast."

"He's gonna go bugnuts." predicted Callisto. "I do when I can't move. You know, he bounced at least twice on the way down. I heard it. And felt it. He's lucky to be alive."

Luck, good or bad, had nothing to do with it, Grace thought. "I just need a second to freshen up." she said, weakly.

The moment she was alone, she pulled the lion out of her pocket and hissed at it. "You wanted him to fall down the stairs! You made me tell them not to put a new light bulb in, and you told me not to move those brooms. Is this it? Is this where you start revealing your true colors? Are you really evil after all? He could have been killed! Why did you do it?"

The lion shook his head at her. "Mend what is broken."

"He didn't break anything. It was only a sprain."

"It's not his ankle that needs mending."

"Well then, what do you mean?"

It refused to say another word.