Thanks to hippiechick2112, Melissa hearts fiction, ellie, bugs74, cyclopsisright, and feathered moon wings for reviewing! There were a lot of questions, so: Ororo's motivations should be explained by this chapter. The distance between her and Charles is actually part of a building storyline, so I can only say please be patient on that front! And when Scott said he wished Chris stayed dead, he was referring to the fact that before Chris came back, Scott and Alex thought he was dead-so he meant stayed gone.

A good day for Charles ended with Ruth in his bed. She was an invaluable companion—physically, yes, too, but emotionally. They would talk about the day's major events, discuss courses of action, talk about the school and the kids… he supposed that was what parents were supposed to do.

It was only evening, but the day felt wrapped up. It was already too full of big events.

Charles sat in his study, Ruth on the opposite side of the desk. Neither of them, he thought, had any idea what to do about this.

"Is Ororo all right?"

"She is upset about something, mostly angry."

Charles nodded. He didn't worry as much about Ororo as he did about Scott and that was precisely the reason. Ororo got angry with the world around her. Scott always found a reason to be angry with himself. She kept herself safe and he kept himself in control.

"I'm trying to be open-minded now but I'm blaming her. I shouldn't, but I am," he said.

For Charles, believing that Scott could have deserved that was difficult. He loved Ororo like a sister, but he could make some boneheaded moves sometimes. He might have earned a punch or two, something Ruth insisted was a natural way for young people to address disputes—Charles was starting to come around to her way of thinking—but revealing his identity to Chris was another matter entirely.

"At least you know," Ruth reasoned. "And what are we going to do? Ororo will not tell us what happened, she only says that Scott said 'dumb stuff'. This is not what we must discuss."

"It isn't?"

"No, this does not matter, Ororo is grounded for a while and this is an end of it."

"Well, that's a very… concise interpretation," Charles said. He supposed he was rather inclined to agree. While generally he preferred to at least try to listen to the children's explanations, this time there needed to be consequences.

"How well do you trust Chris?" Ruth asked.

Charles sighed. That was more challenging. Chris had once more joined them for dinner the previous evening and Alex's always ever so delightful sense of humor aside, it had gone well. Forgiving him for what happened all those years ago was hard, but Charles saw that Chris was a different person… and that was nothing compared to what Milbury did. There was a difference between a man who made a criminally horrible mistake and a man who simply didn't care.

"I supposed," Charles reasoned, "I trust him as long as I am nearby to supervise. Or you, or Hank."

"Or Alex."

"Alex is too conflicted."

"I think he is not."

"Ruth."

"Charles," she mimicked.

He responded with a look: not funny.

"I think, even though we will both hate it, that we must let Chris and Scott work this our for themselves."

Charles shook his head. "I should be there for Scott. I promised, I said I wouldn't leave him."

"This is not about leaving," Ruth replied, surprised. "This is about two people who are not you."

"Is it really so easy for you?"

"Easy?" she gasped, and followed with a string of what he believed was every Hebrew obscenity and a few new ones she had made up. "Of course it is not easy, but that does not mean we do not do it! And if—"

A knock at the door interrupted her. Ruth glanced at Charles.

He didn't know who it was and really this was a poor time. Nonetheless, Charles called, "Come in."

He left his telepathy quiet but guessed Hank. Who else but Hank, with his gloriously awful timing, would come to Charles's study at a time like this?

"Scott!"

The bruise under his left eye made Charles wince. And that was only the portion showing around his glasses! Still, he had to admit, for such a little girl Ororo had quite a powerful punch.

Not so little anymore, either.

"What can I do for you?"

"If I, um, were to ask for something," Scott began hesitantly. His voice was rough and soft, throat sore from crying. "I mean, considering," and he indicated the bruise, "I'd probably get what I asked for, right?"

Charles glanced at Ruth, who looked equally baffled. What did Scott want?

"Depending on what you asked," Charles acknowledged. He remembered Hank pointing out that he never refused Scott anything, that the last time he tried was with Artie and look how that turned out—first she was only to stay temporarily, and then just in the garage, until she spent a year sleeping at the foot of Scott's bed!

Only able to guess what Scott would want, Charles assumed the answer was yes. It was difficult to say no to him. Charles had finally decided to just give him pocket money and let him decide for himself, and every so often Scott would spend a week carrying a new book everywhere like a toddler with a blanket. Sensible things—like decent clothes—had to be forced.

Scott took a deep breath. "Ororo doesn't get grounded for this."

Well, that was a surprise.

"Right. I'm afraid that's—no, Scott."

"I am hurt," he pointed out, a pathetic attempt to play for sympathy—both because Scott was no good at it, and because that was the point. He took a breath and tried to explain, "I'm the one who got hurt in all this and Ororo… I can talk to her and make it right. That'll be hard to do if you punish her, even if she does sort of deserve it. You told me once that I could be a leader. Let me lead. Please, I know I can handle this one."

Charles would dispute the 'sort of' in that statement. Punching someone repeatedly and shouting out their admittedly ill-kept secrets rather justified loss of privileges. But then, he had also told Scott more than once that he had the potential to lead. That was coming back to bite him.

He sighed. "All right," he ceded, "we'll split the difference."

Some thoughts were simply too loud to ignore. Scott's conclusion was one such thought: that he had just gotten himself grounded instead.

"Ororo isn't grounded or otherwise in trouble so long as she stays on her best behavior for the next week. Including reading."

Scott smiled. "Thank you."

"She is to agree to this!"

"Of course."

When he had gone, Charles turned to Ruth. "Right or wrong?"

She smiled. "Yes."

Still, it was a little disorienting. The first time Charles grounded Scott, he hadn't been sure Scott would obey. Scott at that time had been utterly submissive—he was eager to please now, he had been desperate to please then. Surely, Charles had thought, even Scott would see through this feeble attempt at authority.

He hadn't, though. And somehow they all accepted that Charles had the authority to ground someone, and that was simply accepted.

And he thought being called 'Professor' made him feel old!

Ororo sat on the stairs, watching the world turn dusky and scowling like a prisoner awaiting execution. Her fingers played on the cast—it was starting to feel unnecessary now. There hadn't been any pain earlier while she was beating up Scott.

She was a mix of pleased with herself and ashamed for that. She didn't want to hurt him. Okay, so sometimes he could be a stupid, insensitive jerk-brat who couldn't see past his own stupid sulking, but he was still basically her friend except maybe not just now.

But she didn't want to hurt him.

She was just so mad!

She sighed like she could exhale hard enough and blow away the whole stupid world. (The non-stupid world could stay.) Unfortunately even though her arm felt better, the cast remained annoying itchy. She heard footsteps approaching, but she kept scowling at the lawn, trying to scratch under the cast.

"So," Scott said.

"So," Ororo mimicked.

"Okay."

"Okay."

"How long are you planning to keep this up?"

"How long are you planning to keep this up?"

"I'm a big stupid butthead."

Ororo considered a moment, then decided she wasn't going to repeat that.

"Nice try, but I've been a big brother a lot longer than you've been a little sister."

She huffed. He was still a jerk. "They sent you to yell at me?"

"I'm not going to yell. Hey—do I yell?" Scott asked.

Ororo thought that he did, sometimes, but mostly at Alex, who mostly had it coming. He had never yelled at her. All the same, she knew what she said earlier crossed a line.

"Someone's going to yell," she pointed out. She was in trouble. Accepted.

"We're going to talk."

"Yell."

"Tal—we're not doing this. Okay… about what happened earlier," Scott began, "apologies are in order and—"

"I'm not sorry," Ororo snapped, even though she was a little bit. She was angry, but she was sorry for punching him and sorrier for what she had said. Then, for emphasis: "You big stupid butthead!"

"No," he said, "I'm sorry. I was selfish and I didn't think about what this must be like for you. For the past month, I haven't, and… and that's not okay. Not everyone gets to have what I have. Not everyone's dad comes back."

Ororo shrugged. He was right, but she didn't know what to say about it. Yes, her dad would never come back. He died, and her mom died, and she knew it was true. Scott had watched an airplane fly away. Ororo…

She hugged her knees.

Scott wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Have you talked to him yet?" she asked.

"Not—not really."

"You know when you were doing your big apology speech, you were trying to sound like Charles."

"Did it work?"

Ororo shrugged, but she had known what he was trying to do. "So you're not mad at me?" she asked.

Scott thought about it—not a good sign. "That was a really mean thing to do. Maybe you wanted me to realize how insensitive my behavior was, but it was still mean. But… you're important to me."

"I think you only apologized to me 'cause you're stuck with me. You don't have a back-up sister."

"Whereas I do have a back-up dad?"

"Exactly. So you can be a kitten about this—"

"Pussy," Scott corrected.

"—and try to mimic back-up Dad—"

"Whoa, whoa," he cut in, "Chris is back-up dad. If he's on the dad scale, he's back-up dad."

Ororo scowled at him. When Scott didn't back down, Ororo turned away. "Fine," she grumbled, "Chris can be your back-up dad."

Scott grinned. "Thank you for your permission. Are we okay?"

"No, stupid, I'm fantastic and you're a loser."

He laughed. "You sound exactly like Alex sometimes."

"Well you sound exactly like Professor Xavier."

"Thank you."

"That was supposed to be an insult!" she objected, her voice rising to a shriek, but she was laughing, too. Grudgingly, she was laughing. "You're old!"

"He's not old."

"He is so. He's thirty or something. Thirty's old. Thirty's ancient. And speaking of old, are you ever going to pick a birthday?"

For a while, Ororo had bugged Scott about deciding on a birthday for himself. Then Ruth realized she was doing it for the cake and told her she needed to stop. Apparently she had decided now was a good time to start up again.

"Fantastic and stupid average to okay," he said.

"Words can't average."

"Can't they?"

"No."

"Because I thought I was the one who understood how words work and you understood math."

"Average is math, that's a math word."

"A math word…"

Unable to think of a retort, Ororo decided she'd had enough of words and hit him with her cast and her mostly-healed arm.

Scott shoved her.

She hit him again.

He pinned her down and tickled her until her face went red.

"Beg for mercy."

"No!"

"Beg for mercy!"

"Never! Never never nev—aah—hehehe—mer—ahaha—mercy! Mercy!"

Scott sat back, letting Ororo up. For a few seconds she stayed on the ground, giggling progressively less, then catching her breath.

"Jerk," she gasped. "Bully."

Being quite a good sport about this, Scott did not show the growing bruise on his belly or point to the one on his face. He just reminded her, "I told you I was a good big brother."

Ororo sat up. She ran a hand over her head, though her hair was a lost cause and she knew it.

"We're okay?" he asked, offering his hand.

"We're okay." She had not actually apologized and felt a growing sorry bubbling inside her. For now, Ororo and Scott were close enough to okay.

They shook on it.

"But, speaking as someone who's never going to have this chance, you need to talk to your back-up dad."

Scott sighed, his head dipping down in acknowledgment. "You're right," he said. "I don't know what to say to him, but you're right."