Thanks to hippiechick2112, ellie, and Feathered moon wings for reviewing! I take it as a compliment that you have that strong a reaction to Scott being a pigheaded goose-brain... I mean, being so emotional and foolish! As to why Charles and Alex don't just tell Chris about Scott, they both have their reasons.

Scott raised his hand to knock at the door, then stepped back. He bit his lip, took two steps away, then turned and went back again. Hesitated. He needed to, couldn't, had to…

He knocked. Lightly. Just a tap that maybe hadn't happened at all.

Ruth opened the door a few seconds later. "Come in." She had her hair down and covered with a scarf.

He had not been in Ruth's bedroom before. It was tidier than he would have expected with only a few personal touches. There was a braided rug, which seemed like it was probably brightly colored. On the dresser was a lacy cloth; a couple of candlesticks, both candles lit; a cup of dark liquid; and a weird-looking muffin. The bed was made more than neatly and there wasn't so much as a stray sock.

That was the biggest surprise. Scott looked around, peered into the corners.

"What are you looking for?"

"Did you grow up in an orphanage?"

"On a kibbutz with both of my parents. Why?"

Scott twisted to peer behind the bed without going further than he ought to. He took a step back toward the door.

"Scott?"

Alone in her bedroom, his real name seemed okay. Safe. Something about the room made his skin itch, though.

"What are you looking for?"

"Laundry."

Ruth smiled. "In the closet. Why an orphanage?"

Scott looked around again and did something he wished he had not done: he flinched. He remembered looking around a much smaller room, one with missing tiles in the ceiling, a room he cleaned with a too-small pair of socks. He remembered looking around that room and feeling a rush of panic because Mr. Milbury would find fault, because Mr. Milbury always did, because he needed to fix it and couldn't see what he should fix…

"Army. Come sit down." She motioned to the bed.

Scott perched on the edge of the bed.

Ruth sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

"Mom…"

"Oh! Can you smell that?"

There it was, the reason for his discomfort, and she had figured it out first.

He nodded. The cup on the dresser smelled of wine.

Ruth took it into the bathroom, then came back to sit next to Scott. "Better?"

"I, um… yes. Thanks."

"Why does it upset you?" she asked.

Scott didn't know. Sometimes he thought alcohol smelled a little like the cleaning supplies in the lab, but that wasn't true. They were both bad smells, but different. Especially wine.

"I need something that's—I need—do you trust me?" Scott asked.

Ruth nodded. "Yes, with many things. You have earned this."

"I have something to do tomorrow. I was just gonna, um, sneak out, sort of? But after what happened with Ororo today and with what I said, I shouldn't, and I can't, um, don't know how to explain."

For a moment, she considered this. It wasn't a real explanation and Scott knew that. He looked to the candles flickering on the dresser.

"What are they?"

"For Shabbat. Jewish holy day, you know that."

He knew when Shabbat was and had always known that Ruth did something, but Scott tended to keep a healthy distance between himself and religion. He had not asked for details.

"Here."

She retrieved the muffin thing from the dresser, tore off a piece, and bit into it. She offered the rest to Scott.

He hesitated. He knew Ruth was Jewish, but he didn't overall care for religion. More than that, a rumor came to mind—something he had heard at school and never put stock into. He never needed to wonder about it, before.

"What is it?"

"Bread."

"But what's in it?"

She shrugged. "Milk, eggs, flour, chocolate."

"But not…"

"Ah."

He grabbed a piece of the bread, embarrassed. "Hey, that's good."

"Of course it is good, it is chocolate. And the blood of Christian babies."

He choked for a moment before realizing it had been a joke. Ruth began to laugh, Scott a few seconds behind.

"So, you are going out tomorrow and we are not talking about where," she summarized.

"Yes. Please."

She nodded. "Does anyone know where you will be? Your brother, or…?"

"Hank knows."

"Hank. Okay, Hank I trust. When will you be home?"

"By two. Probably by one, but definitely by two."

"And you understand that if you are not home by two, Hank will tell me where you are, I will come retrieve you, and you will be grounded until Ororo forgets that she was ever grounded."

Scott had to chuckle at that. He had yet to see Ororo forget anything.

"Exactly," Ruth agreed. She pulled him close and kissed his forehead. "So do not scare me."

"Yes, Mom."

"And remember, tomorrow is important to Alex."

He nodded. That would have been difficult for anyone to forget!

Alex wanted to bash his brother for what he'd done. Why couldn't Scott ever let something go? Their dad was here now, trying to be a good father. He was a good father. Anyway no one was forcing Scott to spend time with him, so why was he being such a bitch?

Scott deserved a kick up the backside at least, but Alex left him alone. Instead, he grabbed a couple of beers and headed outside.

It was night now. Chris's ship glowed from the partially open door. Between the light from the ship and the light from the mansion, Alex had only a brief patch of darkness in which to stumble. (He managed to, anyway.)

"Dad?"

Chris was lying on his back, his head under what looked like the controls, bits of white wire hanging down. He took a moment to wriggle out, then sat up. He nodded a greeting. "Alex."

"I, uh… you want a beer?"

"Wouldn't say no."

Alex passed a bottle to Chris. The ship wasn't spacious, but it did have what Alex considered a pilot and copilot's chair. He wasn't sure which was which, just took a seat.

"So how do you see out of this thing?" Alex asked. In front of him was a piece of metal the same milky-copper as the rest of the ship's exterior.

"Basically through the windscreen, protector comes up when the power's down," Chris explained. "Maybe I could take you for a ride in her when she's fixed."

"Yeah."

Alex didn't want to talk about that. When the ship was fixed, Chris would leave.

There was something else bothering him, too. It was an idea, a question that had been put into his head and one he needed to ask, but was nervous to even mention.

"What was it like when Mom died?"

"Oh… well… your mother and I were transported off our plane seconds before it crashed. The Shi'ar, the aliens who had taken us, they didn't—they just looked and, uh, they decided I'd be useful for labor. Decided she wouldn't. It was quick."

Alex nodded. He supposed that was a mercy, at least. Even if it meant she was gone.

He took a long drag off his beer and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It wasn't strong enough to qualify as Dutch courage. "Dad, about what happened at dinner—"

"We don't need to talk about it."

"No, listen, I need to explain. It's not just tonight, it's since you've arrived—"

"Alex. You don't have to."

"Yes, I do."

"I already know."

"Would you please just listen to me!"

It was an exasperation, not a request.

Chris sighed. He sipped his beer. "This is something I didn't think I would have. I never thought I would get to have a conversation with you, see you grow up—you spend so long wishing you had just said goodbye. I kept thinking over and over about that day. I don't know what the last thing I said to you was. Know what I said to your brother. You listen to your mother. Take care of Alex. You're a man now. There's no perfect goodbye, but that wasn't even—wasn't even one, let alone a good one. So the fact that I'm sitting here with my son, having a drink, this is impossible. I'm not complaining, Alex. We don't need to complicate things."

And not talking about this would be so much easier, but Alex had Scott's stupid lie forced on him. He never liked it. Hearing Chris talk about Scott cut him right to the bone because Alex heard the love in his voice.

"It's about Matthew."

"I know about Matthew."

Of course, Ruth and Charles would have spun a careful story of mostly-truths. "No," Alex insisted, "he's—"

"Alex. I know about Matthew."

"You know?"

Chris nodded.

"You mean… how long?"

"A while."

"Chrissakes, Dad!" Alex yelped. "And you didn't think to tell me?"

He was, briefly, furious.

Then he laughed. "Twerp always makes things harder on himself. I wanted to tell you for a while now, but Scott's always taken care of me. I thought I was, I don't know, I thought I was being a good brother."

Chris nodded. "You were. He calls himself Scott?"

"Yeah. The Matthew stuff was for you."

Again he nodded, accepting it. "Can you tell me what happened to him?"

"Oh—you'd have to ask Charles. I think he was in an orphanage for a while." Alex knew something bad had happened in Scott's past. That much was obvious. He didn't ask for details and none had been offered. The kid screamed the whole house awake. That was the sort of pain you just respected.

"I meant his age. Scott was your big brother. He taught you so much. Looked after you. And now, he's still so young."

"You'd have to ask Hank," Alex said. "Scott doesn't age right, part of his mutation, I think." He hated lying to his father, but even Alex was unclear on that so he quickly went on: "Charles really loves him."

It hadn't been the right thing to say. In fact, Chris looked upset and Alex didn't know why. Hadn't he said he wanted Alex to be in a loving home? Wasn't that true with Scott, too? Or maybe it was because Alex had not explained about Scott's age, although he truly did not understand that one.

Alex cleared his throat and found himself nervously babbling about Charles.

"He's done a lot for both of us. He's the reason I can control my powers now, why I'm in college instead of sitting in an isolation cell."

"Yeah. I see that, Alex."

He realized what Chris must have heard, because it was exactly what Scott would have said: Charles had been a better father to both of them.

Sundown came so late in summer, Ruth used shorter candles. She let them burn down before going to Charles's bedroom. Her pajamas were there, anyway! (Not that they got much use.)

He was already there, reading something that looked terribly scientific.

"How is the reading?" Ruth asked. She did not mean the book in his lap.

Charles understood.

"Good, good. I think Ororo's really enjoying the Oz books."

"A book she likes! A miracle."

"Ah, I never said she liked them. She thinks they're very silly and enjoys telling me why, in detail."

Ruth laughed. "That is Ororo."

"What I don't understand is why she asked me if she was grounded—you already told her she was grounded."

"You do not understand this?"

"No, but now I think I should…"

"It is normal. I did this when I was young, if my father said no first, I asked my mother."

"And if your mother said no first?"

"Then the answer was no!"

"I can see why."

Charles hesitated. He sighed at the same moment Ruth heard the shriek. She looked into his eyes—he wanted her to stay. She couldn't fault him. She wanted to stay, too.

Instead she gave him a conciliatory kiss, realizing as she did that it was worse than no kiss at all. She lingered for a shared look, then slipped out of bed and pulled on a nightgown.

Scott was so quiet when he was awake, Ruth had begun to think that some deep-down part of him had lost patience. His nightmares would have woken neighbors down the block, were it not for the fact that the mansion was the entire block. She hated it. How else could she feel? He was her son in every way that mattered and some deep-down part of him was in so much pain it waited until his conscious mind fled, then broke free and screamed.

"Scott."

She didn't knock.

It hadn't been long since Alex took the lock off Scott's bedroom door, but already Ruth was used to this. She turned on the light and let it flood the room. And, as was already usual, Scott was curled on the bed, covers kicked off.

"Shh, sweetheart."

The mattress shifted as Ruth settled on the side of the bed. Murmuring a lullaby, she stroked his arm. He knotted up when he had these dreams. Ruth sang to him and rubbed his back until he stopped shaking.

"Scott?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, baby…"

No one else called him that, and Ruth never said it in front of anyone else.

Scott picked himself up. His glasses had been knocked off so he squeezed his eyes shut and sat, hugging his knees.

"I don't like who I am anymore, Mom, I don't like what I do to the people around me. I need to go away for a while."

Ruth froze. She was not a woman undone by much, but everyone had a limit. Everyone had weaknesses.

"What did you say?"

"I need to get away from here. You and the Professor, I know that this is, that I… I talked to Doug about staying there for a while. The distance will help. I won't be like this."

"Scott, you are my son and I will love you forever, but you put your glasses on and look me in the eye when you say these things."

He shook his head: she didn't understand. "I gotta go. I know what I'm doing to you."

"And this is your solution? To run away? I will be so much happier to know that my son is struggling without me to help him. Yes, it will help, I think, that I must hope he is safe instead of knowing. How can you think this? This is where you were going tomorrow, to see Doug?"

"No—"

"You lied to me—"

"No, I swear! That's… that's something different, but… it would be better for everyone if I left."

"No, it would be better if Chris had never come. You are an important part of this family; he is a stranger with a bad past. Listen to me. This is not better. And if you run away…" Ruth shook her head. The look on her face was severe, but undercut by the sniffle that followed.

"I'm—"

Her expression warned him not to continue. He had damned well better not apologize.

What he said next came between mumbles and shrugs. Scott had never been very good at expressing his emotions. "I love you too."

She kissed his forehead. "You must stop saying things like this. And tell Doug to come visit us instead, he will always be welcome here."