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Chris Summers was an early riser. Years in the military would do that to a person. No matter what world he was on, he was up with the sun—which could get confusing for his internal clock, since not all worlds had only one sun.

Earth did, however. Of course.

Even after the previous night, Chris was up early. He would have loved to say he was up late catching up with his son, because mercy knew he had missed enough, but besides explaining his prison time, Alex had been sparse with his words.

Not that Chris blamed him. He was a stranger now. Alex had only been three years old. When Chris came home from the war, Alex introduced himself. They had met before, but Alex was only a baby and didn't remember.

He had not been up late talking with Alex—that relationship needed repair and Chris meant to do all he could. No, he was up late because of Matthew.

He was surprised that the boy was apparently the only other person awake when Chris made his way to the kitchen. ('Help yourself' had been made very clear. He got the feeling Ruth did not go halfway on clarity. Ever.)

"Good morning, Mr. Summers."

"Good morning."

Did he always wear red sunglasses? Was that a fashion today?

The toaster dinged and Matthew grabbed his toast a little too enthusiastically. Chris couldn't blame him. Sometime last night, or early that morning, Matthew had woken up from a nightmare—and quiet as the boy was, he could be loud when he needed to. He woke everyone else up, too.

"Alex and I will be working on my ship today. I don't think he'll mind if you join us."

Chris had seen the way Alex and Matthew interacted, the way Alex teased him. It was familiar—there was a good deal of trust between them. So he truly doubted Alex would mind the invitation.

"Thank you, but I have to be at the library."

Chris nodded. He preferred that. Matthew seemed like a nice kid, but Chris would rather work with his son.

When he started for the door, Chris found himself asking, "Do your parents know where you're going?"

Something too quick to read flashed across the boy's face, but he scrawled a note in something vaguely akin to English letters.

Chris began surveying the damage to his craft. With the commotion of his arrival and learning that his son was here, it hadn't taken precedence last night. Now he needed to determine the extent of the damage and how… if… he could fix it.

This world had no space travel technology yet, which meant that if Chris was getting off the planet, he needed to do so with his own tech.

Alex was not the first to join him.

The first was Hank.

"May I join you?"

"By all means."

Chris had the ship's access panel slid open. He understood engines here on Earth: cars, planes, he would even be useful at fixing a washing machine. The engines on space ships were different and he was struggling to wrap his mind around much of it.

Hank stuck his furry blue head in, adjusted his glasses, and observed for a moment. Then he touched some of the seared ends of what looked like tubing.

"What are these made of? They appear organic."

"Good eye," Chris remarked. "They are. It's a technology we've seen more and more lately."

"These ships are grown?"

"No one knows. The tech shows up, but without answers nor even anyone to ask questions of. Kinda thing gets under my skin."

"I know the feeling!" Hank remarked.

"So I stole one."

From the look on his face, Hank knew that feeling less well.

After a moment, he sputtered, "F-from who?"

Chris shrugged. "I didn't know him well. A few rounds of Laser Burst—that's a card game."

"And that's long enough to know you'd steal from someone?"

Chris paused, and turned to Hank. After a moment, Hank met his eyes. "How many men are smarter than you?"

"In this house?"

"On this planet."

"Well, I don't know about men," Hank admitted. "Ororo's going to give me a run for my money."

"I don't understand the organics. Now, my scanners found the nearest technology on this planet to mine, and that's the most advanced. That was yours, wasn't it? What I found?"

"I expect it was Cerebro. It's Spanish for brain—that's Cerebro, a big brain. I built a machine to amplify brain waves. It was supposed to be my own brain waves and that didn't work—it was nothing but an expensive art installation until Charles came along. Between my machine and his telepathy—his ability to read people's thoughts… I don't usually talk this long," Hank realized. "Usually I'm interrupted before now."

"Seems a shame," Chris replied, "you're interesting. What planet did you say you were from?"

Immediately he knew he had said the wrong thing. Hank looked a touch hurt, but not very surprised.

"Earth," Chris concluded.

Hank nodded. "Everyone thinks…" then he shrugged. "To you someone like me makes sense."

"I'm sorry."

Hank shrugged again.

"And not only because I need your help. I can't understand how this ship works, but you just might be able to. Now, the steering and the basic functions I can fix. The engine…"

Hank nodded. "I'll take a look. I don't blame you for thinking I'm an alien. I know what I look like."

"Fair enough," Chris allowed, "but there's nothing wrong with aliens. There are many galaxies that support life and I have friends from planets beyond this one."

They worked together amicably after that.

Just about everyone worked amicably with Chris and he found himself quickly coming to like them.

Hank loved the technology and Ororo loved what could only be described as a climbing structure—not that she wouldn't help with repair tasks when requested, but she seemed to have more interest in climbing the ship and then leaping to the ground.

Even Charles, although his ability to interact with the ship was somewhat limited, showed an interest. They addressed his questions about it one afternoon when Chris was in the mansion.

A mansion. Now that took as much adjusting to for Chris as a spaceship did for Charles!

"…and there is life on most planets?" Charles asked.

"Maybe not most, but many," Chris replied. "There are uninhabited planets in any solar systems, as in ours—as far as I know!"

They both chuckled at an albeit weak joke.

"I've stayed away from Earth," Chris said. "Many aliens do. While their technology is in some ways simpler, their goals are different. Most solar systems have two or more inhabited planets, making space travel more necessary and logical."

"Fascinating. Yet you say their technology is simpler?"

"Or perhaps their way of life. Not everyone worships war and conquest. I'm sorry, that was rude."

"Not at all. I—" Charles paused abruptly. After a moment, Chris understood why.

What they heard from the next room required a bit of attention: "…come a little closer and I'll put my hand here…"

"Aah, your fingers are icy!"

"Oh, sorry. Is that better?"

"Yeah. That's—ooh. Comfy."

"What are you two up to?" Charles called.

There were murmurs and scraping sounds. When he opened the door, they saw Ororo and Matthew standing pointedly apart from one another.

"We weren't doing anything," Matthew blurted.

Ororo gave him the look older siblings give younger siblings who think they can lie well, but can't. She was younger but certainly the better liar.

"Right…" Charles murmured.

"We were just, um, playing," he tried.

"Playing."

"We were playing cards."

Ororo nudged Matthew, who finally looked up from his feet, regarded Charles and then flinched back to his feet when he noticed Chris.

"We'll talk about this later," Charles decided. He started to leave.

"Wait!" Ororo hurried after him, bruising her knee against the door jamb in the process. "Can we talk about my reading assignment? I know you think it's not a lot, but to me it is. And to me it's hard."

"You will have to read this summer. Hm. What do you think, Chris?"

He thought he was suddenly in the middle of a situation that did not involve him. This was between Charles and his foster-daughter. Was this meant as a test?

Suspecting it might be, Chris asked, "What's the assignment?"

"I have to read three books off a list," Ororo replied.

"Do you both have the same assignment?"

"Matthew has his own summer coursework," Charles said.

"Matthew's doing math this summer," Ororo said. "He failed algebra—twice, Professor? He only has to try. I have to succeed."

Chris tried not to react to that. He supposed siblings did talk that way about one another. As he recalled, his boys never minded telling tales on one another. Well, Alex didn't, Scott was more about telling tales from what he learned at school or heard on the radio.

Instead, he suggested, "Then why not make the assignments equivalent? Not reading a set amount, but spending a set amount of time on reading."

"Like five minutes a day!" Ororo suggested.

"Yes, I like that," Charles agreed. "Thirty minutes."

"Aaw!" Ororo objected.

"You can read in my ship," Chris offered.

She tried not to show how much she liked the idea.

Most everyone liked Chris's ship. Only Matthew seemed fully disinterested. Chris saw that Matthew mattered to Alex and persisted with the boy, who always seemed terribly busy—"Thanks, Mr. Summers, but I have homework/chores/math lessons/groceries to put away."

One afternoon Ororo, perched atop a wing with Dracula open against her knees, called, "Don't be such a kitten!"

Scott turned to look at her for a moment. "Pussy," he corrected. Then he went inside.

Chris did not even try to hide that the exchange made him laugh. Ororo had her moments, but she was about impossible not to love.

The best, however, was time spent with Alex.

It always would be.

Friday afternoon, as the sun sank, Chris found himself asking a question that had been on his mind since he met his adult son: "The people who raised you, what were they like?"

Alex considered that for a moment. "Good people," he said.

Chris paused. He stepped away from his work to take a good look at Alex. "You mean that?"

"Well, yeah," Alex said. "Sure. They were—they lost their son and they adopted me hoping for a replacement. I wasn't, but, well, whatever."

"But things were okay?" Chris asked, looking concerned. Already he was seeing that the 1960s were far more permissive than the 1940s and far more concerned with the individual. In the 1940s, being oneself was not encouraged. Chris found it to be different on other planets. He liked being there, among different cultures. He was, after a long time, happier than he had been on Earth.

Seeing that the United States' culture had shifted was reassuring, but Chris was worried that there had been one more repressive force acting against his son.

"My… the woman who adopted me… she was sad," Alex explained.

Chris nodded. He knew that sorrow well.

"They weren't bad people."

"I understand. Losing your children…"

"Yeah. When this started happening, my mutation, I didn't know how to explain so I took off. It wasn't until I met Charles that I started to understand. I still talk to my foster family, I just prefer being here."

Chris nodded again. He had asked, but didn't know what to say now that Alex was answering.

"Look, it's not like I was—you know, no one was hurting me or anything. It could've been a lot worse."

"Were you alone? When you were adopted?"

"I had a foster brother and a foster sister. It's mostly my sister I keep in touch with."

"That's good, you were able to be close with someone." Chris wondered how to say what he wanted to say. When Alex asked about his mother, it had been the most natural thing in the world. Of course he would ask about someone not present, someone who belonged.

Chris wasn't a child. His first responsibility should have been—was—to Alex.

That responsibility was shared.

"You were so young you might not remember this, but you had a br—"

The words came in a blurring rush: "I don't know what happened to Scott." Alex looked at his father for a moment with an expression Chris couldn't read, then he turned away.

"Alex."

Chris reached for him but before he could do more than reach, they were interrupted:

"Alex? Mr. Summers? Mom says to come in for dinner."

As he passed Matthew, Alex growled, "You mean Ruth says."