Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed.

Almost done here…I'm not going quite all the way to the beach divorce since I'm still getting headaches with some of these characters having been forced together without throwing in Shaw's side of the equation. (I mean, Riptide? Seriously, Riptide? Did they just roll the dice and pick mutant names/powers that they liked?) I will get close to that, though, since I like the Blackbird Model 1.

Alex grinned and bounced to his feet. "I win!"

Erik snorted, rolling to his feet as well. "And while you gloat, your opponent will be quite happy to take the opportunity to stab you in the back."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Can I please just have my victory?" It wasn't like he'd do it in a real fight, but it was rare that he beat Erik at anything, and he'd certainly never pinned him in a grappling match before. "Just this once?"

Another snort, and then Erik glanced up at the sky before waving an arm and making his knife jump back into his hand. "We'd best get back or we won't have time to get cleaned up before dinner."

Alex couldn't quite banish his grin as he began to lope back to the mansion alongside Erik. Erik didn't usually let him end a day on a win, either. Of course, it was getting late, but….

Things had gotten pretty much back to normal between them, and Alex was more glad about that than he ever planned on admitting. Erik hadn't said anything since that day in the weight room about dogs or the Nazi camps or anything even vaguely fear-related, and Alex wasn't about to bring it up, but they were back to sparring most days. And, even better, Alex wasn't furniture.

Erik paused at the top of a ridge, and Alex stopped beside him. "What is it?"

"Which way now?"

"What?"

"Which way back to the mansion?"

"I don't know. I was just following you."

That got a decidedly superior look, and Alex scowled. He should have seen this coming. It wasn't that Erik didn't usually let him end the day on a win, Erik never let him end the day on a win.

"That way," he said, throwing his arm out in the general direction that they'd been going. He had no idea if he was right, but Erik he had no doubt whatsoever that Erik would keep staring at him until he said something, so….

Erik's superior look didn't fade. "If you want to go by way of China, I suppose."

Alex glared at him, put what little knowledge he had of world geography to use, and turned in the general direction of the mansion. "Okay, fine. That way."

"More likely to bypass it and end up in Canada."

For a moment Alex debated pointing out how annoying Erik could be, but it was bad enough that Erik had decided to rub his nose in the fact that he couldn't navigate his way out of a paper bag without irritating him into dumping Alex on his head too. "Well, that's better, at least. Will you at least tell me when I bypass the mansion?"

"Eventually." One shoulder twitched. "I told you, you should be running another few miles every day anyway." He gestured forward. "Well? Unless you want to miss dinner."

Oh, screw getting dumped on his head. "You know, you're kind of evil."

Alex couldn't hide his grin at Hank's pat on the back as they exited the bunker, even if he wasn't about to admit out loud that the geek's approval actually meant anything. Especially since half of his approval—more than half, most likely—was probably because he was still in once piece and hadn't been blown apart by a misaimed plasma blast.

Alex still couldn't quite believe that Hank and Charles had willing stood there when he'd opened fire. Hell, he was still in shock that he'd let them. He might have been picking off the center mannequin reliably enough in the last few trials, but there had been some collateral damage in every single one of them as well, and it had been a crazy thing to risk. It had worked, sure, but…. He shook his head slightly and then shook it again in dismissal when Hank looked at him questioningly. Whatever they'd all been thinking, it had worked, so no point in going into it now.

Charles had been far more vocal with his praise for Alex's performance than Hank, but that was the professor. It had been nice to hear too, though, although his own excitement had been high enough that Alex had missed most of the actual words. Oh, he still wanted another couple trials before he'd be willing to call himself solid on it since this could have just been his adrenaline working for him for once, preferably trials where his friends weren't involved, but suddenly whole plasma blast thing was seeming a little more handle-able.

Charles had left the bunker while they were still cleaning up mannequin remains—Charles' supply had to be running low at this point although he had yet to say anything about it—but Alex didn't think twice about following Hank to the lab after the ash was swept away. He'd spent enough time there to feel reasonably comfortable, and it only took a minute to hook the plate up to the machine that downloaded the sensor's readings since he'd helped with that before. He was opening his mouth to ask about what was coming out when Raven stuck her head into the room.

"Hey, Alex, Erik's looking for you," she said.

"What?" They'd lifted together this morning, but Erik had known he'd be working with Hank and the professor this afternoon. Even if, for some bizarre reason, he didn't remember Alex mentioning it, Hank had been talking about his new modifications all through lunch.

She shrugged. "I don't know, but he's out on the terrace. Hey, uh, Hank, I could use a hand with this thing. Do you think maybe…?"

The geek tripped over his words agreeing, flushed to the tips of his ears trying to correct himself, and then hurried out of the room after her, and Alex snorted and followed. Some things would never change.

The terrace was something that Alex could actually identify, and it didn't take him long to reach it. "Hey," he called as he approached. Not that he thought that Erik hadn't noticed him coming already, but it didn't hurt to be sure.

Erik turned back towards him and away from whatever he'd been studying on the skyline. "So how did your test go?"

Some of Alex's excitement returned at the question, and he felt a smile tugging at his lips as he hurried over to Erik. "I did it. I hit the mannequin, and I didn't kill Hank and the professor."

"A great feat of willpower. Although I wasn't aware that killing Charles and Hank was an option."

Alex shook his head quickly. "No, I was working with the latest version of Hank's targeting system, and I finally killed the mannequin in the middle and didn't fry chunks of the ones on either side of it at the same time. Except in this case there were no mannequins on either side, it was Hank and the professor."

"Hm." Erik's forehead creased, but he turned to stare out over the grass before Alex could figure out what his expression meant. "Well, that's good."

Alex scowled. "You know, you could at least look at little happy for me."

Erik glanced back at him again, now with far too many teeth in evidence. "Better?"

"No, now it looks like you want to eat me." Erik's expression faded into vague amusement, and after a minute, Alex shrugged. "So I didn't know we were going to be sparring this afternoon. Thought we were going to hold off until tomorrow."

Erik shook his head. "I don't think we have enough time for a lesson before dinner, but I thought we'd go for a run."

Alex groaned. "You're going to get me lost and tell me to find my way home again, aren't you?" Not that he really needed to ask, Erik had been doing that for the last week after all of their sparring matches, but…. "Come on, you know I'm never going to get it. Can't I keep my good mood a little longer?"

Erik shook his head and reached for his knife sheath, and Alex tensed. Erik had never cut him—had never even shown any indication that he might cut him, despite some of Alex's earlier fears—but there was no good reason for him to be pulling his knife now when they were safe at the mansion.

It wasn't a knife that Erik tossed him, though, it was something that had been attached to his knife sheath, and Alex frowned as he caught a watch.

"I thought we'd try something else today," Erik said.

"Making me see how late I'm going to be getting back for dinner?"

"Look at the face."

Alex frowned down at it for a moment, trying to figure out what Erik meant, before he realized that while there were three hands on the watch, they weren't quite the normal three hands . The hour and minute hands were obvious enough, but the third…. His frown deepened. The third hand wasn't ticking off seconds like he'd expected. In fact, it wasn't moving much at all. He looked back up at Erik. "Is this a compass too?"

Erik's head dipped in agreement. "I'd hoped your sense of direction would develop, but—"

Alex snorted, not even waiting for him to finish. "That'll be the day." He could have told Erik that that was a hopeless plan a week ago and saved them both a lot of headache. And a lot of running.

"My thoughts as well," Erik admitted. One shoulder twitched slightly. "I saw Charles in passing when he was looking for Sean, and he mentioned that you had a good day today—although he didn't mention that his getting incinerated would have been the result if you had not—so it seemed appropriate."

"It's for me to keep?"

"Well, it's of no use to me. You know how to use it?"

"Yeah, sure." Dad had taught him how to read a compass a long time ago. Alex ran a thumb over the face and grinned slightly, fastening it on his wrist before glancing up again. "Thanks."

Erik nodded to the lawn. "We'll start out going north."