Chapter 33

"Logan has informed me that you are a telepath," said Mariko, setting down a bowl of clementines on the side table next to Jean's chair. They were in her beautiful and enormous suite, near the top of the tower. Mariko seated herself in the chair opposite and sat very upright, looking, for the first time, a little bit uncomfortable.

Jean nodded. She picked up a clementine, so as not to appear ungrateful, but turned it over in her hands rather than peel it. "That's right."

"Are you able to . . . see . . . memories?"

Jean nodded again. "If you choose to show them to me, yes, I can."

"Would it be more comfortable for you, or would you prefer speech? I don't wish to tax your abilities."

"Oh, don't worry. This would be easy for me. If you'd rather just show me, that's not a problem at all."

Mariko bowed her head and looked at the carpet, seeming almost embarrassed. "All this happened a very long time ago, and I have never discussed it. To explain in words . . . I'm not sure where I would begin."

Jean decided to bypass further polite negotiation. She took a deep breath and delved into her mind. Her openness to Laura was still there, but faint, weakened by distance and inattention. She reached out towards Mariko and opened the older woman's mind with her own. You can just show me. Just remember, and I'll see it.

The images started at once. She saw a city scattered with broken buildings. Many of them were surrounded by construction scaffolding. The streets were uncrowded, but here and there hand-pulled carts, people on bicycles or on foot, or the occasional vehicle wound through the city. The colors seemed to jar against the cars and bicycles . . . they were old, and her mind insisted that they should all be black-and-white, or sepia-toned. But this wasn't a photograph. Memories came in full color.

1946, Mariko's voice informed her. It was a difficult and dangerous time in Japan. Our government was destroyed, our industry and military crippled, so many hundreds of thousands of people dead . . . everything was uncertain.

Jean looked around the memory. Mariko was standing at a window of an office, looking down onto the re-emerging city.

The Yashidas are a crime family. With the power of the empire reduced to almost nothing, the crime syndicates were frantic to grab territory. It was a second war, in the back streets of Tokyo. My father sent me away to our home in the country, to keep me safe. I met Logan there.

The memory jumped backwards again, and Jean could see him. He looked younger . . . not much, but enough. It was the smile that made the difference. He was wearing military fatigues showing the insignia of at least three different countries, probably foraged or traded for. He was watching Mariko (a petite, upright Japanese girl with demure mannerisms but fierce dark eyes) as she stepped down from a train onto the platform of the station.

Then they were walking together along the edge of an unplanted rice field. Then they were sitting on the porch of a low, single-story house, each holding a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other, watching the sun set over an overgrown garden. Then they were in the garden, under blazing sunshine, ripping out weeds by the handful and laughing at the mud on their faces and clothes and hands. With every image, Mariko's hard gaze grew softer, and Logan's expression of world-wise cynicism mellowed into contentment and pride.

Jean's own memories fought to surface, competing with Mariko's disjointed narrative. Logan used to look at her that way.

The images jumped back to the city. There were nights in dark alleys and shadowed doorways, the firecracker flash of handgun fire and that salty, sour gunpowder smell. The war became more complicated, Mariko told her. Logan got involved.

She saw Logan emerge from a shadow, breathing hard, wiping blood from the blade of a well-worn folding knife. Mariko was in his arms the next second, her whole body shaking. Logan brushed a strand of hair off of her face and left a smudge of red across her brow.

My father and both my brothers were killed.

Jean saw an enormous display of flowers arranged around three black-and-white photograph portraits, the elder in in the middle and the younger ones to either side. Mariko wore a black silk kimono, her face hard, her eyes dry, her cheeks almost bloodless. Logan hovered outside the room, excluded from the family mourning, but never out of Mariko's sight.

I was the heir . . . the only one left to unite and lead the Yashida family. Logan promised to help me. For a little while, I had so much hope.

The memory returned to where it had started: the office overlooking Tokyo. Mariko stood at the window, wearing a neat black business suit with a carefully tailored knee-length pencil skirt. She was hugging herself, though it was summer outside. Another business-suited Japanese man was in the office with her, but she was steadfastly refusing to look at him.

"You cannot do this," he told her.

"I can," she contradicted flatly, watching bicycles pass in the street below, "and I am."

"The family will not stand for it."

"I am head of the family now. I will decide what is best to be done. You know that we cannot continue to do business as we always have."

"Yes," the man admitted. "I do know that."

"We will have to look to the Americans for money and influence for the foreseeable future. To establish a relationship with the hierarchy at Dai Ichi now could keep us strong and well-positioned for years. We'll get this contract, no matter what it takes."

Her companion hesitated. "Is that why? You think that it will strengthen our chances to establish contracts with American firms if you sell yourself to a foreigner like all those thousands of women are already doing all over the streets of Tokyo?"

Mariko finally turned to look at him, her dark eyes blazing. "I am the daughter of Shingen Yashida and you will never speak to me that way again."

The other man bowed apologetically. "I ask your forgiveness."

Mariko's answering bow was no more than a quick downward jerk of the head, acknowledging the apology without implying that he was off the hook.

"When my father was alive, I understood and accepted that I would marry where I was required to for the sake of the family, and after that I would be left in peace. Things are different now. My life I dedicate to the service of our house, and in exchange I claim this one thing for myself. I will marry Logan. You have no power to stop me."

"No," he agreed. "I don't. But I can tell you what will happen. Tagamura and Hiriuki and all the others will be hesitant to follow you, young and female as you are, but they will do it because of your parentage. They will balk at abandoning all their old trades for above-board dealings with the Americans, but they will do it, and in time will come to see that it is the only thing we could have done. But if you ask them to do all that on the order of a woman who is sharing her bed with a nameless, shiftless foreigner, they'll break. Despite what you may think, you are not the only person who could lead the clan. There are others. Too many others, in fact. They will rip us apart with conspiracy and infighting, and before they are through, both you and your foreign lover will be dead."

"Logan is very difficult to kill," Mariko snapped. "He will protect me."

"I pray it may be so. But how many others will die? Your cousins. Their wives and their children. No one will be safe . . . not unless you can hang onto the control you've gained. And I tell you that you cannot do it with a foreigner at your side."

Mariko stood very still, her spine perfectly straight, her face impassive. Finally, in a voice that was flat and cold, she ordered, "Get out."

He bowed again. "I know you would not be so angry if you did not know that what I've said is true. And though it may be of little comfort, I want you to know that I am truly sorry. He seems to love you. If matters were different . . . but they are not."

Mariko looked away, back out the window, and her arms wrapped around her abdomen again as though to ward off the cold. "No," she agreed. "They are not."

The other man withdrew. Mariko remained alone in the office that had been her father's. She paced and circled across the room, sometimes sitting, sometimes holding her head between her hands, one time even letting out a choked scream of frustration and anger. Outside, the sun sank over the city, until the gleaming wood floor was tiger-striped with orange light and black shadows.

Mariko was standing at the window again, her forehead leaning against the glass, when the door opened several hours later. She didn't move.

Logan shut the door softly and approached her from behind, resting his hands on her shoulders and his cheek on her hair. "Hey."

Mariko watched as her reflection in the class closed its eyes, breathing deep as though preparing to dive into freezing water.

"Masashi said you'd been up here all afternoon," He murmured. "Everything okay?"

"I've been thinking," she whispered.

"What about?"

"About what to do."

He pressed a kiss into her hair. "We'll figure it out."

"I think I've figured it out."

"Yeah?"

Mariko turned away from him, slipping out of his reach. Jean could see her lips pressing together as she steeled herself. "You need to go, Logan."

"Go? To the house?"

"No. I want you to be out of Tokyo in the morning."

Logan's posture stiffened; he'd figured out that something was seriously wrong. "Mariko, what's goin' on?"

"I've told you. I've been thinking." Mariko turned around to look at him, and her face was serene as soon as he could see it. Her hands were folded in front of her, the posture polite, docile, but the set of her shoulders and lift in her chin betrayed just how serious she was. "I can see no way to hold my family together if I marry you. So you need to leave. Tonight. Now."

Logan stood silent, looking at her.

"Didn't you hear me?" Mariko demanded.

Logan nodded. "I heard ya. I just didn't believe ya."

"In that case, I will call the staff and have you thrown out."

"No, you won't. I know you. Masashi probably tried to get under your skin, and he freaked you out a little bit. But in a minute you're gonna calm down."

"Logan, I assure you that I am as calm and as lucid as I have ever been in my life. I have been wrestling with facts and inevitabilities. I have inevitably concluded that I cannot be the leader that clan Yashida needs if I am shackled to a foreigner. So you have to go."

"Shackled to a foreigner," Logan echoed. "That's them talking. That's not you. I know you, Mariko. You love me, and don't pretend you don't."

"I pretend nothing," Mariko told him. The steadiness of her own voice seemed to be giving her strength. "But you cannot stay. My family will kill you, or make you wish they had. You must leave."

"If I'm leavin', then you're comin' with me." Logan reached to grab her arm, but she jerked away, and he let her go rather than try to hold her close by force.

"No. I stay. I'm needed here."

"The hell you'll stay. I need you!"

"Then I am very sorry for you. Don't," she snapped, when he made a move toward her. The command stopped him where he stood. "Perhaps you do need me. But you are special. You will heal. My family will not. Perhaps I love you . . . it doesn't matter. This is more important to me than you can ever hope to be. There is nothing for you to stay for."

For a long moment, they stared at one another, Logan almost quivering with the tension of restraining himself, Mariko as implacable as a stone statue.

"You're makin' a mistake," Logan breathed at last.

Mariko's lips pressed together . . . the first betrayal of emotion she'd allowed herself. "Turn around," she instructed gently, "and walk. If you go quickly, it will not hurt so much."

"I love you," Logan told her, the words accusatory and fierce.

Mariko nodded her acknowledgment without giving anything in return.

Logan stared at her for one more long second, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Even before the door had slammed into its frame, Mariko's knees buckled under her. She crumpled to the floor, her face crumpling into the twisted ugliness of unbearable pain. She hid behind her hands, rocking herself back and forth, forcing herself not to sob lest he hear her.

If he'd turned around . . . if he had even hesitated . . . I would have broken. He could have asked me to go with him to the ends of the earth, and I would have gone. I would have thrown away everything.

Jean had forgotten, for a moment, that the present-day Mariko was watching all this with her. She forced herself to breathe, returning to awareness of her physical body. The darkened office faded away, and she opened her eyes to see the sunlit hotel suite. Sitting across from her was a little old Japanese lady with one silver tear slipping out of each eye, as though she'd broken her own heart only yesterday.

Mariko produced a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed the tears away, smiling awkwardly to hide her embarrassment. "That was very interesting," she observed. "Your gift makes the memory more clear than it has been for many years."

"I'm sorry," Jean apologized, cringing.

"By no means. I had almost forgotten I was ever that young. It was . . . instructive . . . to be reminded." Face composed, she put the handkerchief away. "So now you know my story. You can do with it what you will."

"Do with it?" Jean echoed. "What would I possibly do with it? Sell the movie rights?"

Mariko smiled.

Jean did, too, but she set aside her flippancy. "Can I ask you something?"

"You may ask, though I don't promise to answer."

"Do you think you made the right choice?"

Mariko allowed herself a sigh. "What is right? Every choice has consequences, both good and bad. We choose a course and see it through. There have been many good consequences of that choice. But even knowing all of those . . . I am glad it was a choice I only had to make once."

"Salut, Minou. You doin' somethin'?"

Kitty set her dinner dish in one of the bus tubs and turned to look at Gambit. He was in full 'kitchen' mode, with his uniform sleeves rolled up and a plain white apron tied around his waist. He was in the middle of reducing a huge pile of carrots into neat coins. It was a comforting sight, familiar and homey and reminiscent of all those afternoons they'd spent together on shared kitchen duty.

"Not much," she admitted.

"Scrub up. Could use a hand here."

Kitty went to the handwashing sink and soaped up the nail brush sitting next to the taps.

The wall above the sink was still covered with patterns of dancing blue light. As she scrubbed her hands clean, the light changed to red again. Involuntarily, Kitty winced.

Gambit heard her hiss of indrawn breath. "Yeah. Been freakin' me out too."

"How long are things like this supposed to go on?" Kitty asked, watching the red lines squirm and writhe up the wall.

"Y'askin' me? I'm de youngest in my family. I got no idea." He pulled another gleaming chef's knife off of the magnetic strip on the wall and a second cutting board from the stack under the countertop. "Come chop carrots. Take y'mind off it a while."

Kitty rinsed and dried her hands and applied herself to the carrots.

"It's been almost two days," she murmured. "Karen's got to be exhausted."

"Gettin' faster all the time. Cain't be too much longer, I guess."

The light subsided into blue again. Kitty felt her own body relax in response. She set the blade of her knife into the carrot she was working on and pressed down, then set the heel of her hand on the knife's back and pushed down from her shoulder. "This knife's dull," she complained.

Gambit chuckled. "Where's Magneto when y'need him?"

Kitty rearranged the knife so she was using the sharper section closer to the point.

The door behind her, the one leading out into the corridor, swung open. She ignored it until a soft, deep, rolling voice announced, "Tovarich, this is the last box of them. Either we will need Jamie to make some copies of it or we need a supply run soon."

Piotr. She froze, and felt the tiny shaved hairs at the back of her neck stand up under her makeshift hijab.

"Ah bon," Gambit observed. "Next best t'ing. Drop dat on de counter by de sink an' come sharpen la petite's knife for her." He put his own knife aside and went to take care of the box of carrots that Peter had brought up from dry storage.

She didn't look, but she felt him come up behind her, large and warm. "Your knife is dull?" he asked. His voice was astonishingly gentle. Kitty felt herself blushing, and ducked her head a little to hide behind the drape of her veil.

"Let me see."

She handed over the knife. Piotr tested the edge against his thumb. "Very dull," he agreed. "You could have hurt yourself." He flexed his right hand, and armored plates sprang into existence around his fingers. He pinched his thumb and index finger together and slid the blade between them. Schwing. Schwing.

The lights went red again. Kitty felt the muscles at the back of her neck tense up a little in response.

Piotr reverted his hand back to flesh and tested the edge again. "A little better, at least. Please be careful, though."

"Yeah, that would be just what we need, huh? Me cutting off my finger while Karen's in labor. We can all just have one big sick bay party."

Piotr smiled. "They've been talking of you down there, you know."

"About me?"

"You might be needed to get the baby out if this goes on much longer. I've been talking to Betsy . . . she and the other more skilled telepaths have been taking turns listening to the child."

"Is it okay?"

"So far, yes. But it is tired, and so is Karen."

Kitty felt tired, too. Not physically . . . her energy levels were almost back up to normal by now . . . but emotionally. "I don't know if I could stand it if anything went wrong. I don't even really know Karen, but it's like her baby is our baby, you know?" When Peter's face registered the beginnings of shocked confusion, she hastened to clarify, "Not like ours, that's not what I meant . . . everybody's. All us mutants."

Gambit, scrubbing carrots in the three-compartment sink, turned off the water so he could join the conversation. "It's a bad start t'anybody's dream, Magneto's or de Professor's, havin' a lil' baby die here. Bad omen."

"It would be a bad thing, omen or no," Piotr told him.

Kitty bit her lip, wondering if she should say what she was thinking, then let it come spilling out all at once. "If the baby dies . . . is it gonna be our fault? We started this—"

"Creed started it," Gambit told her. "If anyt'in' happens, I'll be takin' it outta his hide."

"Nothing will happen," Piotr insisted. "Karen is a mutant. She is strong. And when her strength gives out, we have ours to give."

The light shifted back to blue.

Piotr put a hand on Kitty's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Stay calm. Chop some carrots. If you are needed, you will need to be focused."

"Needed . . . to, like, reach inside her and take out the baby? I don't know if I could do that."

"You can."

He removed his hand and went across the room to the dish sink. There weren't too many pans there, but he picked up the sprayer and started working on one anyway.

Kitty went back to chopping carrots.

All three X-Men worked in silence, their backs to one another, as the light danced around the walls. Blue, blue, blue, then long stretches of blazing red that made Kitty's whole back ache. Then blue again. Then red.

Then, so suddenly that Kitty dropped her knife, the light fractured. Rainbows shivered and sparkled on every wall. The steel reflected them back, bathing the whole kitchen in a wild storm of colors.

Kitty laughed aloud. "It's okay!"

Gambit gave a great whoop of laughter, picked Kitty up from behind, and swung her around. As soon as her feet were back on the floor, Kitty jumped fearlessly at Piotr and hugged him. She could feel him laughing; it rumbled in his chest. From the dining hall and outside in the corridor, there were more whoops, more shouts, more laughter, a smattering of applause. Everyone on the station knew what the rainbows meant.

"Residents of Avalon," said Professor Xavier's voice in everyone's head, "I have the great pleasure to introduce Karen's son Michael." An image flashed into Kitty's mind of a wrinkled, red, slime-covered creature, umbilical cord still attached to its belly, squirming in its mother's arms and squalling with fine, healthy lungs.

The first mutant born on Avalon . . . born into a safe, isolated community of his own kind. It was kind of amazing. Kind of wonderful.

Wouldn't it be great if it were always like this? If it could just be us? No humans, no fighting . . . just us by ourselves, living and growing and being safe and happy. Isn't there an island someplace where we could just be our own little country and let America be as mutant-free as it wants?

She saw it in a flash of imagination. A whole little country of just them . . . where mutants of all shapes and colors walked openly on the streets, and art and music and dance all showed off people's amazing powers, and things were built with telekenesis and powered by energy manipulation, and mutantball was a national pastime. It was full of everything that made the Institute wonderful, but big enough for all the mutants in the whole world. How awesome would it be to be little Michael, and grow up in a place like that?

No wonder Magneto fought so hard. That was a dream worth fighting for.

Kurt woke up, tangled in yet another set of hotel bed sheets. He was getting a little bit sick of hotels.

Before he even opened his eyes, he heard Professor Xavier's voice in his head. Good morning, Kurt.

Kurt grinned. Good morning, Professor. How's life in space?

As pleasant as can be expected. There was a birth here yesterday, and that brightened the mood considerably. How are you and Rogue holding up?

Kurt sat up and looked over at the other bed. Rogue sat in the middle of it, cross-legged, spine perfectly straight, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Meditating again.

He took a deep breath and lied. Ve're fine, Professor.

I'd like you two to come back up to Avalon at the pickup tonight.

Sure. Is somesing wrong?

Nothing in particular. But with the trial starting so soon, I'd like the team together as much as we can manage. I'd feel safer.

Kurt hesitated, looking over Rogue again. Have you still not heard from Jean and Logan?

I haven't. Scott says he's been speaking to Jean regularly, but it worries me that I can't contact them. Will you come up? We won't be able to organize another mass pickup for a few days, in any case.

Ve'll try, Professor.

As soon as he felt that he was alone in his own head, he asked aloud, "Rogue?"

No response. She was really in her own little world.

Kurt picked up the remote from the side table and turned on the television. The morning news had just started, and after a couple of minutes of local stories ('local' being 'Dallas,' though it was getting hard to keep track), the anchors turned to Scott.

"Tensions are rising as New York braces for the landmark trial of Scott Summers, leader of the unregistered mutant group 'The X-Men.' Both pro- and anti-Summers protests have increased in size and intensity all over the country, and at least six people have been arrested. New York Governor Louisa Montenegro has promised to deploy the National Guard, if necessary, to ensure that the trial proceeds peacefully."

"Rogue, are you hearing all zis?"

Rogue finally opened her eyes. Her whole body gave a little shudder as she 'woke up,' or 'snapped out of it,' or whatever she did when she stopped meditating. "Hear what?"

"Zey're calling out ze National Guard in New York."

Rogue scowled.

"And ze professor just called. He vants us to come home tonight."

"Home?"

"I mean to Avalon."

Rogue turned away from him, ostensibly to grab her gloves from the floor beside her bed, but Kurt knew it was so that he couldn't see her expression. "Gambit still up there?"

"I guess so. I didn't ask."

"Ah ain't goin', then."

"Vhy not?"

She focused more than necessary on pulling her glove on and snugging each finger into place. "Because Ah ain't ready tuh tackle him yet. Ah need a lot more practice."

"You don't have to tackle him! You could just talk to him!"

"Nuh-uh. He knows when Ah'm lyin'. And if he figures out what Ah'm plannin' tuh do, he'll never let me get close enough." She glanced up at him. "Don't you gimme that look."

"But Rogue—"

"No!"

"He's your boyfriend!"

"And Risty was mah best friend, and Magneto was the Professor's best friend, and Graydon Creed is your freakin' half-brother! It ain't gonna matter. All that's gonna matter is who can take who down, and Ah ain't ready tuh take him down yet. Ain't go the control tuh do it without hurtin' him."

She lifted herself off the bed and drifted her feet into her shoes. "Y'all go on. Ah'll stay down here. Head for New York, so Ah kin be ready for whatever happens."

"But . . ."

"One more word outta you, Kurt Wagner, and ah swear tuh high heaven Ah will zap you, too."

Kurt let his mouth fall closed.

Salut, Minou: Hello, Kitten.

Dai Ichi: Eisenhower's military headquarters in Tokyo; effectively the center of governance in Japan after World War II.