Thanks to ellie, cyclopsisright, and hippiechick2112 for reviewing! You'll find out where Scott went eventually. Regarding Mr. Sinister, they didn't try to find him because Charles was quite low at the time. As he recovered, Sinister was a part of Scott's past he wasn't willing to revisit. He didn't try to find Scott because Charles erased some of his memories.

What have you done to Scott?

The question hung in the air between Charles and Chris, an admission and an accusation at once. Charles said nothing further, waiting for Chris's move. Chris, for his part, seemed at a loss for words.

Charles could not honestly say he was sorry.

When Ruth returned, she needed only a moment to read the two men. She cleared her throat and indicated the bedroom door only a few feet away. She did not object to the conversation, but she was right: they needed to go somewhere private. It was ajar. In the quiet, they heard steady breathing.

A conversation needed to be had, but this was not the place. Scott couldn't overhear.

The three of them made their way to Charles's study. He had been mocked before for having a drinks cabinet (it was terribly posh of him, according to Sean and Alex), but at the moment, he needed a drink more than anything. He offered the same to Chris and Ruth. Chris accepted it.

"So you know," Chris said. He had settled in what passed for an armchair, too ornate to be exactly comfortable but up to the task of supporting a very tired body.

Charles nodded. "We know."

"And you know that I know."

Charles chuckled without humor. "Well, I am psychic."

"How long?"

"How long have you known about Scott?" Charles retorted.

"I suspected for a while," Chris said. "He looked just like… he couldn't be, but…"

None of them looked ready for a serious conversation. They were tired and tousled. Ruth and Chris were barefoot, Charles in socks. For the first time, Charles could not ignore how ragged Chris's voice sounded. This was happening because of Chris, of that he was certain, but the fact remained that Chris was a decent man. Or at least, behaved as such. Attacking him was easy but it wasn't right.

"This… behavior," Charles began. "The nightmares. He's always been prone to it, but it became so much worse when you arrived. You know what he's remembering, don't you?"

Chris hesitated. "I have an idea," he admitted, "but—"

"I've seen pieces of it," Charles interrupted. "Glimpses of memory. A crying child, blocks, something spilled… not enough."

Chris sighed. He buried his head in his hands for a moment. Whatever had happened, he was remembering now, trying to put it into words. Then he raised his head.

"You have to understand," Chris began, "this happened after the war. I was in the Pacific, I… in Burma… and they… there were horrible things. Worse than you can imagine. After I came home, I thought I would leave the war behind me but I was wrong. I had two sons I didn't know how to raise. Usually their mother was there, but if she wasn't, Scott, he, he pretty much took care of Alex. Kept him fed and entertained, out of the way, until Katherine came home."

Alex, two years old, with his building blocks. He was stacking them higher and higher. He wasn't fully potty-trained yet and Katherine had just finished changing him when Chris came home. She had to go—wouldn't be long. So Alex sat on the floor with his blocks, wearing a shirt and a diaper. Getting that kid's pants on was a nightmare.

Scott was old enough to be in school. He wasn't happy about it, but he was a good student anyway, working out of a primer. Forming his letters. (Badly.)

Alex shoved his blocks over. The tower toppled noisily, which seemed to give him no end of delight. He clapped his chubby hands, then started building all over again. The tower was only a few blocks high when he knocked it over, by accident this time, but that didn't stop him giggling and clapping.

"Keep it down, goddammit!"

Alex's lip quivered.

Scott set down his pencil. "Le's 'splore."

"Scott couldn't speak clearly then," Chris explained at this point in the story. "There were certain letters that tripped him up… he was so young."

Charles nodded. "I understand. Go on."

"Couldn't even say 'Alex'." " Chris breathed a little easier as he recalled, "It was Alice for years…"

"This is rather off-topic." Charles knew he was being cold. Under other circumstances, he would listen to a man who needed to speak about his lost children—but Charles knew too well how that story ended. He knew where those children stood today.

They had more pressing matters to address.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry."

Scott coaxed Alex into the kitchen. Chris listened to them laughing. In their youth and innocence they seemed to think he would not, out of sight out of mind. Mostly he didn't react. Alex must have fallen—Chris heard a thud, and crying, but Scott comforted him. Before you knew it, they were playing again.

They had so much energy, those boys.

Katherine said to watch them, but Scott seemed to know what he was doing. Hell, he knew better than Chris did. And Chris… he was so settled in his armchair as he took a sip of bourbon.

"You were drunk," Charles realized. "You were meant to be watching the children, your children, and you were drunk!"

It was, actually, something he could understand. Charles drank too much after Raven left, after Erik… after losing his legs. Life was a whirl of alcohol and hangovers and alcohol to fix his hangovers, until Scott. Even then, there had been a day after bringing Scott home that he overindulged.

He was ashamed of it, but at least that had been a 15-year-old. A broken one, yes. With only slightly less terrible penmanship. But not a kindergartener learning to write his name.

Chris nodded. He was pale and the look on his face bespoke the difficulty he had recounting the story.

"And tonight you and Alex were drinking."

"I wasn't drunk," Chris insisted.

"No, I know that," Charles said, "but Alex was a little unsteady. Alex has a history of... trouble with alcohol. And you were drunk that day.'

"Things were bad after the war."

"I'm gathering. Continue."

So much energy, and Alex was just a little boy. He didn't have the self-control he needed. Was it any surprise when he came barreling into the room like a bat out of hell?

It was an accident, of course. He bumped the table running past, didn't mean to knock over the bottle. Probably wouldn't have known what he had done, but for Chris leaping to his feet.

"Can't you stay out of the way, you little—"

He was drunk. He didn't know what he was doing, then he was on his feet with the belt in his hands and—

"You beat a two-year-old child?" Charles interrupted. As difficult a story as this was for Chris to tell, it was worse for Charles to hear. He was shaking.

"You're not making this easier," Chris informed him.

It was a memory that haunted him as much as the day his wife died and recounting it was like nails in his soul. The constant interruptions were not helping.

"You'll have to forgive my lack of empathy in this particular situation, he was two years old—"

"No! Not Alex. I never touched Alex."

"I hate you!"

This was 1943. Children did not say those words to their parents, especially little ones.

Chris looked to Scott in disbelief. Then to Alex.

"I hate you! I wish you never came home from the war!"

And it hurt. It really did.

"Scotty."

"I wish you died there!"

"I didn't know what I was doing. I was drunk." It was a bad excuse and Chris knew it, but he was approaching the end of his tether. His voice was strained and his eyes filling with tears. "The next thing I remember, Alex was playing with his blocks again. Scott was sitting by his schoolbooks. He was holding himself and he was crying—trying to be quiet, but he wasn't…"

Chris looked over at him long enough to shout, "Shut up! Stop crying."

He couldn't. He was just a little boy…

"You want me to get rid of you?"

Scott flinched back. He sniffled and wiped his eyes on his wrist. "N-no…"

"Shut up or I'll sell you to the orphanage."

He looked away again. Looked at nothing. Went back to his drink.

When Katherine returned, she was smiling. He remembered that—she was smiling, then she walked in and saw… "Oh, God. Scott."

"Mommy…"

She picked him up, looking panicked, looking around the room for another explanation. She looked at Chris, begging him to say there was another meaning to this. He sipped his drink and looked away.

"Katherine took the kids into the bathroom. It was the only room in the house with a lock on the door. She… they spent the night in there. And the next day, Katherine—the way she looked at me, I knew it could never happen again. It didn't."

The look on Charles's face was utterly unforgiving, though a part of him, deep down, gave Chris credit for looking him in the eye. At least he could acknowledge that he had done something terrible—been, in that moment, a terrible person.

"It's one of the worst things I've done."

"One of?" Charles asked.

"I've been—"

"I should hope that beating a five-year-old child is the lowest point of your life! What are you, Chris? A rapist? A murderer?"

"That's not—"

"You're a guest in this house, you matter to the people here, the people I love. I've let that happen. And you destroyed my son."

"He's my—"

"He is not!"

Charles didn't often raise his voice. He did not need to shout, usually. In that moment, even he was surprised because he hadn't shouted. He had roared.

"Enough." Ruth had been quiet until now, observing. She stepped forward and rested a hand on Charles's shoulder for a moment, caressed his cheek. "Enough, my love." To Chris, she said, "What you have done is unforgivable."

He nodded.

To his meager credit, Chris seemed to understand that. He looked deeply ashamed of himself. As he should.

"But your sons—you believed they died, yes? Lived for years with it. You do not survive this. You cannot do that and be the same person. There is so much…" her voice cracked and suddenly Charles realized she was not talking about Chris anymore, "…so much emptiness. You die with your children. So I do not forgive you, but I think perhaps I can trust you—or begin to. With children who will tell me if you do anything like this again."

Charles thought this over. Ruth could be a very powerful speaker when she chose to. She was a leader—unnervingly similar to Erik sometimes. But as much as Charles wanted for this to be over and to go back to bed, he needed more.

"I'm going to read your mind," he told Chris. "Scott can see through you, but Alex and Ororo look up to you. This is the only way I can trust you with them."

Chris nodded, accepting—resigned.

Charles brought his fingertips to his forehead and focused on the man in front of him. There were amazing things to see in Chris's mind: an entire universe of stars; dozens of species of aliens; the mountains of Alaska and the jungles of Burma. Beneath his memories was his personality. To Charles, it as a collection of feelings, a ball of instinct.

He rifled through it respectfully but mercilessly, through this thing others might call a soul.

After he had lowered his fingers, he regarded Chris for a moment. "I can't forgive you for what you did to Scott," he said, "but you do try to be a good person. And I have no right to keep Alex from you." He had gone too far with that decision. Alex was an adult… more or less. He could make his own choices.

Chris nodded. "Thank you."

"But Scott is not yours."

"I understand."

No, Charles thought, you do not.

But he wasn't going to tell Chris about the mess Scott had been, about the nightmares and the panic and the trembling child who asked permission to eat. Scott was so much better now, but a part of Charles still felt the need to protect that child. A part knew it was not his story to tell, especially not to make a point.

"Will you tell me what he's like?" Chris asked. His voice was wrung and raw. "When he's not afraid—when there's not someone staying in his home, someone who… I'll give you—and him—all the space you want, but he's still… who has my son become? Will you tell me that?"

Charles wanted to. He heard the pain, felt that pain, and wanted to respond to it. He understood that Chris was a man who had lived with the pain of his wrongdoings and struggled to find redemption for them.

And he remembered the boy who struggled even now to believe that anyone would ever love him.

"No."