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Everything stands ready: the now-empty crib, the stacks of startlingly white diapers, the blankets and baby clothes. Scott has been upgraded to a big-kid bed and potty training. He asks about the baby, the same questions on Chris and Katherine's mind: when will it be here? What will it look like? How big will it be? Is it a girl or boy? What's its name?

That one they know: Alexander for a boy, Alexandra for a girl.

The last weeks of the pregnancy find Katherine on bed rest, the little demon inside her wearing her down. She sleeps, rests, and tries to assuage Chris's fears.

One day he finds Katherine napping—not unusual at all—and retrieves Scott from the neighbors.

"Home the'e, Daddy."

"We're not going home right now. Mommy needs her rest and you need to have fun."

Scott is a deeply unnerving child, solemn more often than most adults. Chris doesn't know where he picked that up, but it's about time someone did something!

"Where?" he asks, wriggling in his father's arms.

"The beach."

It's no surprise Scott hasn't been in the ocean. The complications in the pregnancy arose shortly after they reached Hawaii; Katherine simply hasn't been able to take him and Chris works too much.

Not today.

Today they leave their clothes on the black sand—because if undershorts aren't fit for swimming in, Chris doesn't know what is—and wade into the ocean. Chris holds his son above the water, his hands wrapped nearly completely around that tiny chest.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Weddy!"

He lowers Scott until the waves swallow his feet, until peals of pure toddler joy fill the beach. Only when Scott's feet disappear up to the knees does he begin to wriggle, trying to get out.

Chris hauls him up.

"Again again!"

And again his feet are swallowed by the water.

After the third dip, Chris asks, "Are you ready to go all the way under?" with the kind of enthusiasm few people can resist. Of course his two-year-old son is not immune.

Scott nods.

"Hold your breath," Chris reminds him, and Scott puffs his cheeks out with the hugest breath a toddler can manage.

This shallow to the beach, the Pacific water is only cool against the blistering June day. Scott is only underwater a few seconds before Chris lifts him out again. He comes up dripping and gasping and laughing, spitting salt water while he squeals, "Again!"

Chris sits on the wet sand and shows Scott how to float on his back, pulls him through the water, watches him practice kicking. Holds him on his lap and points out the turtles he's wanted to share with someone since the very day Scott was born.

Only when the sun begins to sink to the horizon do the Summers boys emerge from the ocean, dripping and wrinkled. Chris pulls on his pants. The heavy shirt is torture in this weather, but with evening coming on, he wraps it around Scott.

Scott wrinkles his nose. "Itchy."

"Tell me about it, buddy," Chris retorts. "Come on. Let's go home and see Mommy."

"An' Alice?"

He laughs. "And maybe Alex, too."

"Tubble," Scott says, pointing. "Daddy, tubble!"

Trouble?

Chris has to look around to figure out what tubble is. "Turtle," he corrects. He shifts the toddler in his arms, letting Scott watch the 'tubble' until they are out of eyeshot.

It isn't a long walk back home, but long enough for the end of a long day. Scott's grip slowly loosens as he falls asleep, breathing soft, steady breaths against Chris's neck. Of course he'll hear it from Katherine for bringing the boy home such a mess, all sea-salt and sand.

Just as he approaches the front door, Scott stirs and mutters something about tubbles again, then promptly falls back to sleep.

Alex was no stranger to making mistakes. He knew every possible euphemism for the string of broken pieces left perpetually in his wake. At some point, the flotsam had begun to take with it pieces of his caring.

When he was eight, he found the adoption papers and insisted on being called Alex—and there was his "mother"'s broken heart.

Ten and bringing home the kind of report card that didn't go on the fridge.

When he was thirteen, awkward and gangly, the dishes just jumped out of his hand, the vase into his path.

At fifteen, the shards of glass from his "parents"' liquor cabinet.

Sixteen, his "dad"'s crashed car…

Right up to twenty-three and the last big one. His brother's ribs.

The truth about being a consistent screw-up is it makes you not care. It sure made Alex not care, because he had been there, done that about trying to do well and make things right. No matter what he tried, he was still Alex Summers: wrecking ball.

Still, as he sat in his father's spaceship, he reflected that it was rare a mistake looked quite like this. Mistakes looked shattered. They had jagged edges and hidden shards. They didn't look like this.

Like lights.

And the sound of humming.

Alex quickly powered down the ship, but he knew it was pointless. His dad would know.

He thumped down in the pilot's chair—in Chris's chair—and buried his face in his hands. The world was tilting around him.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there until he heard footsteps approach.

"Alex?" Chris asked. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Alex rubbed a hand over his face and looked up. His voice sounded ragged. "Yeah, everything's good, Dad."

"Okay."

Alex nodded. "Yeah."

"Let's see if we can get the dash finished today," Chris said, settling on the floor to have a look. "Huh. That's some good work."

"Yeah."

"Well, what do we have left to do?"

"Nothing," Alex said. "We don't have anything left."

And there was the trouble.

Two months ago, his dad's spaceship crashlanded on the front lawn. Now it was ready to go and that left Alex with a choice to make. He knew he was welcome with his father. He had heard stories of Chris's exploits, of his crew.

But.

He could go, but Scott would never abandon Charles. If Alex went with his father, he left his brother behind. If he stayed, he might never see his dad again.

"Alex…" Chris began. He took a seat in the copilot's chair. "I know you probably've been thinking about coming with me."

Alex nodded.

Chris, after a moment's thought, could only say, "Yeah."

When they gathered for house meetings, they did so in the sitting room. After missions, at the end of the semester, when someone's dad returned from the dead… and so everyone looked a mix of solemn and nervous when they gathered that morning in August.

Well, solemn, nervous, and sweaty. August in New York was defined by the swelter.

"What's going on, Dad?" Scott asked.

Charles indicated Chris.

"I'm, ah—I appreciate you all being here. I wanted to thank you for everything over the past few months. Alex and I have finished fixing the ship, and now that she's sky-worthy, I can get out of your hair."

It hit everyone differently. For all the stress Chris's presence had caused, most of them had come to care about him. And, yes, his leaving was always inevitable, but that did not make it welcome.

Scott looked to Alex, realizing first what this meant for him. This might be the day Alex decided to leave. Might be… it.

Alex shook his head—he wasn't sure.

Scott managed an incredulous look, which wasn't easy in sunglasses.

Alex looked away.

"If it's all right with you," Chris said, speaking to everyone and only to Charles at once, "I can stay a while. To—say goodbye."

"I suppose…" Charles began. "Well—Ruth?"

She shook her head. "No. You cannot do this, this is not fair. Chris, I know. You want more time with your sons. Now you cannot have that time—not with what you have said. Because now it is in the shadow. Perhaps a few days, for Alex to decide, but there must be a deadline."

Her reasoning was harsh and cold, but it was also fair. A long, drawn-out goodbye would only become increasingly painful.

Chris nodded. "Yes, you're right."

"Three days."

Too soon.

He nodded again.

"Three days."

That afternoon, Scott sat on the stairs, ostensibly reading. He wasn't actually, though, and he had no one fooled.

Chris was working on the ship.

Alex was around the side of the house, tinkering with something in the garage.

It seemed to be the Summers way. They knew there were conversations due to one another, but not how to initiate such conversations. So Chris and Alex were alone and while Ororo hovered closed by, she didn't interfere.

No, she left that to Charles. When he approached Scott, there was no question what this was about.

"I know," Scott said. "I'm going to talk to him. I'm—I'm gonna miss Alex."

"He might not leave."

"He will," Scott replied, and it was audibly breaking his heart. "We both know he isn't happy here. Things have been getting better, but… I can't expect him to stay here for no reason. Or just for me. I want what's best for Alex and that means being with his dad."

While it was true, and Scott meant it, anyone could hear that he was struggling. He lost his brother for twenty years and only just found him again.

"Chris will take care of him."

Charles nodded. "And what's best for you, Scott?"

Scott shook his head.

"It's something you've often postponed thinking about, but you have a limited amount of time in which to speak to your father."

"He'll come back," Scott said.

"You're sure?"

Scott nodded. "He has to. Alex is with him."

Charles rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Dad…"

"I don't worry about you and Alex," Charles said. "You fight sometimes, but you're not—well, it's not big issues, is it? It's you and Chris who need to make your peace. Scott, anything you don't say now, you may never have another chance."

"I want to say it right," Scott admitted. "I'm still… I know it's… he thought we were dead, I know, but all those nights in the orphanage, in some way, I was still waiting for someone to save me. And you did," he added, much more certain. "You saved me, but I was—but why didn't he? I hate him for that."

Charles considered that for a moment. It was true that Scott had languished in that orphanage; it was true that Charles left him behind. Charles didn't blame Chris, but he understood that Scott did.

"Do you remember when you were reading Of Mice and Men? You told me you absolutely had to go to the library."

"Yeah, after I'd gone," Scott admitted, chagrined. "I was a kid."

Not even two years ago, but they had been important years.

"And the talk we had that day…"

Scott nodded. "You had been worried."

"Yes, I had! It was important to me that you understood why I was upset with you. And Chris doesn't know about the orphanage. You don't need to tell him, but it's not fair to punish him when he doesn't know why."

Scott couldn't argue with that.

"Right now?" he asked.

"When you're ready. You certainly have the opportunity now."

And he wouldn't later.

Scott nodded.

He didn't, not at first. It took a few false starts and deep breaths for Scott to stand up and walk down the lawn.

With each step, he went through ideas of what he might say. Sometimes the most difficult thing was to start a conversation… but Scott was fairly certain he could start with 'hey Chris'. What did he want his father to know?

Chris heard Scott coming and nodded at him. "'Morning."

Scott nodded back. "Hey."

They stood for a moment, neither sure what to say to the other.

"I'm taking the ship for a test run," Chris said, "if you want to come."

A part of Scott still wanted to say no—the part of him that was angry with Chris, that blamed him for all the pain in the years Chris spent away. But a bigger part of him really wanted something to distract from this conversation.

Not to mention that he was a teenage boy being offered a ride in a spaceship.

His only hesitated was to ask, "Ororo too?"

Chris nodded. "Of course."

"We should tell Hank if you're going to start the ship."

"Good idea."

"I'll go and ask."

Of course Ororo agreed, and of course Charles agreed. He telepathically reached out to Hank. Scott had been right: Hank did want to watch the ship take off.

For his part, Charles… well, he wouldn't have minded a chance to ride in a spaceship, but he understood that this was more significant for the kids.

He watched, more than a little concerned, as the kids stepped into the ship and the door closed. Charles wasn't certain what he hoped for. If the ship didn't work as hoped, it might give Scott more time with Chris, more time to make his peace. Charles had no doubt that Scott and Alex would have a good talk before Alex left, but Scott and Chris had so much ground to cover.

But Ruth was right. The belief that the ship was fixed, founded or not, made what time remained a long-lasting goodbye.

The relief as the ship rose was bittersweet.

Hank's response was more one of fascination.

"What the—!"

As Chris's ship began to rise, with a blur and a pop something appeared in the sky. It started small, a dark dot, and swiftly grew.

Hank and Charles could only stare.

Well, that was new.

There were two spaceships over the Xavier mansion.

The newcomer zoomed in on the first ship, which jerked away—these two were not friendly. How could this be? Charles wondered, had Chris known someone might have pursued him here? Was it whoever damaged the ship to begin with?

It fired on Chris's ship.

Charles felt that shot like it had hit him. He wasn't concerned for his own safety, but Ororo and Scott were in that ship—being shot at—by aliens.

There was a glow at the back of Chris's ship, something like a taillight.

As the second spaceship zoomed toward Chris's, that not-taillight grew brighter until it swept around the ship. Charles wasn't taking his eyes off that ship.

So he saw, quite clearly, when Chris's ship dashed forward and quickly faded.

And was gone from the sky.