All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes - Thanks for the reviews everybody! Time has crawled forward just a little bit in this chapter, and we catch a glimpse of our favorite Southerners. Enjoy!

Remy

"We not supposed to be down here!"

The boy's high pitched squeak sliced through the dark, and his companion froze on the steps below. "If they catch us-!"

Eyes ahead on the distant glow the pair had been following, Remy LeBeau swallowed hard and waited, expecting the glow to move back their direction. When it didn't, he spun and slapped a hand against his cousin's mouth.

"They not gonna catch us if you shut up!" he hissed.

Sharp teeth clamped down on the meat of Remy's hand, and he barely swallowed his own surprised yelp.

"Just cause you older," his cousin Etienne spat, "don' mean ya know everythin'! You can't be down here unless you one of de Guild – and you ain't ! You ain't even a real LeBeau!"

Remy wanted to sock him in the mouth and point out that Etienne wasn't a real LeBeau either - his last name was Marceaux - but instead let the younger boy go and watched the outline of his shadow scramble down the stone passage back the way they came. Remy sighed and inspected his palm in the dim light. It had hurt, but Etienne's bite hadn't managed to break the skin, probably because the boy was still missing his two front teeth. Etienne had gotten five whole dollars for those teeth – apiece - where Remy only got a quarter when he lost his. Tante Mattie said it was because the Tooth Fairy didn't reward rascals, but Remy knew it was because Jean-Luc was cheap.

Punching Etienne would have felt good, the big crybaby, but Remy knew it wouldn't stop what his cousin said from being true - Remy wasn't a real LeBeau. He may be older, eight to Etienne's six, but he had only been with the LeBeaus for a short time.

A year ago, was that all it had been? Things had changed so fast it was hard to believe, and sometimes it felt like a dream. Some nights he still woke up in a sweat, expecting to feel the cobblestones beneath his head instead of his feather pillow. Ever since he could remember, Remy had lived on the streets - filthy, starving, stealing tourist's blind just to survive – until the day he had picked the wrong pocket and his world had changed forever.

Jean-Luc LeBeau, head of the Thieves' Guild of New Orleans. Remy still couldn't believe his luck. When Jean-Luc caught him in the act, Remy had expected to be hauled to juvie or to get a whuppin' at the least, but the master thief had just laughed and taken him home to meet the family.

Family. It was still so strange to Remy. A life on the streets was all he had ever known, no mom or dad or last name, he had lived fast and rough in the alleys of the Quarter, nobody caring whether he lived or died. No warm bed with clean sheets, no one fussing over whether his hair was combed or his shirt was ironed. Remy never even had a birthday to call his own. But, he did now, thanks to Jean-Luc. His adopted father had let Remy pick, and Remy had chosen the day the two had met, the best day of his young life. They had to guess at how old Remy was, there was no records they could find of his birth, but the family had thrown him a big party with balloons and cake and ice cream.

Remy's stomach did a little summersault. Jean-Luc had done nothing but treat him right, and here he was, spying on him. He knew he should keep his nose out of his adopted father's business, but Remy was nervous. The family had been staying not in the plantation mansion where they normally escaped the heat of the New Orleans' summer, but in a brick Greek revival off Chartres St. Something was brewing, there had been Guild members in and out of their courtyard for weeks, whispers in the halls, closed door meetings. Jean-Luc had been absent for days, disappearing before dawn, coming home way after midnight. Nobody would give Remy a straight answer about what was going on, after all, he was just a kid, but if Jean-Luc was in trouble ... He couldn't let something happen to his father, not when he just found him. Etienne was just too little to understand.

But, what if Jean-Luc wasn't the one in trouble? What if they were going to send Remy away? A sick feeling slid over him at the possibility. He tried to behave, really he did – the last thing he wanted to feel was Tante Mattie's wooden spoon against his behind – but he didn't know sometimes what he was supposed to do. He never had a bedroom to keep picked up before or school lessons to learn, never spent so much time indoors or telling people what he was doing or where he was going.

If Jean-Luc was sending him away, Remy wanted to know so he could save his adopted father the trouble. Fagin would take him back in a heartbeat, along with a dozen other gangs in the Quarter.

He had snitched a big mug of Tante Mattie's chicory coffee so he could stay up all night, the plan to sneak out of his room and follow Jean-Luc's pre-dawn exit, but Etienne Marceaux had messed it all up. Staying in a room down the hall, Etienne had threatened to tattle if Remy didn't let him tag along.

Etienne was such a chicken. Remy should have ditched him when he realized where Jean-Luc was headed, but he hadn't wanted to risk losing sight of Jean-Luc. At first, Remy assumed he was going to have to pick the lock on the trunk of his father's fancy towne car in order to follow the head thief to wherever he was going in the city, but Jean-Luc hadn't even left the home they were staying in, heading instead to the basement and beyond, to a set of winding stone stairs that plunged into the murky black beneath the city. The only lights were lanterns attached to the damp cellar walls, and a flashlight Jean-Luc carried ahead. They had stayed at a safe distance, stalking Jean-Luc like a mark, barely keeping his glow in sight. The slippery stairs had finally emptied out into a set of stone tunnels, old and slimy and smelling like Bourbon Street.

Remy hoped Etienne wouldn't get lost on the way back, and almost turned around himself to make sure his cousin was all right, when he heard his father's voice echoing off the walls ahead.

"Surely, the translation is open to some interpretation."

Remy edged closer, but stopped at the sound of a woman's laugh.

"It has been debated for centuries, by scholars much more learned than you! We believe the boy to be the unifying force the old texts speak of – the one who will bring it all together. Are you expecting me to turn a blind eye?"

Creeping forward again, he reached the edge of an adjacent doorway and the soft light of hundreds of candles spilling into the tunnel. Inside, he spotted Jean-Luc in what looked to Remy like a throne room, complete with a platform and giant gilded chair with red velvet cushions. Remy's breath caught in his throat. On the throne sat the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. An angel, with wavy blond hair that reached to her waist and eyes so blue he could see them from the shadows. He sucked in his stomach and leaned against the stones lining the tunnel walls.

Jean-Luc spoke again. "I appreciate your concern for the boy, Candra. I merely think it is in his best interest to remain…"

Her laugh again, turning an angel's face into the bride of Satan. "His best interest, or yours, Jean-Luc? The boy is clearly a mutant. No matter his powers, he would be an asset to you and your clan."

Mutant. Remy had heard the word on the news programs Tante watched while she cooked supper, but wasn't sure what it meant. Was he a mutant? Was that why his eyes, red irises on black, were so strange and different than everybody else's? There was no way Remy was going with this woman, no matter how pretty she was, and he scooted backwards, ready to make a break for it, but paused to listen when Jean-Luc spoke up again.

"Remy is my son. No matter what your prophecies say, you will not take him away from his family!"

The summersaulting stomach warmed into Remy's chest. Nobody had ever stuck up for him before. He wanted to rush into the room and jump into his father's arms.

The woman smirked and crossed one long, leather clad leg over the other. "You're boring me, Jean-Luc. You know if I want him, I will take him and there will be nothing you can do to stop me." She sighed and tapped long fingernails against the glittering arm of her chair. "However, you and your family have been some of my most faithful servants, and I do despise children…" The tapping stopped and she trained those blue eyes on Jean-Luc. "Very well. For now, you can keep your whelp, but the time will come when he will not escape his fate."

Magnus

It was early morning as he prepared to leave his New York City hotel room, the time just after lunch in Scotland. Even so, the exhaustion in Moira's voice reached through the telephone all the way across the Atlantic.

"How is everyone settling in?" Magnus asked carefully.

"Wonderful." The accompanying snort said it was anything but.

He ran his hand through his silver hair, still damp from the shower, and sighed. As newlyweds, he and Moira should still be in the honeymoon phase as they said, blissful and enjoying each other's company, but their bliss had been permanently disrupted by the sudden appearance of twins.

Wanda and Pietro, young children Magnus never knew existed, had literally been dropped on their doorstep.

His first wife, Magda, had left him shortly after the war and after the death of their first child. Magnus had been unable to save their daughter – Anya - from a fire, and had used his mutant power for the first time against those who had stopped him from rescuing her. Magda, her beautiful, fearful face seared forever into his memory, had called him a monster. She ran away and he never saw her again, but unbeknownst to Magnus, she had been pregnant with twins at the time.

He and Moira had recently learned of Magda's death, and of the existence of his pre-pubescent children. They had an instant, if unstable, family on their hands, mere weeks into their marriage.

Before the arrival of the twins, plans had already been in motion to carry on the work of Charles Xavier following their nuptials. Moira had acquired her former fiancee's research, and had taken control of her family's ancestral lands - the remote and desolate Muir Island off the coast of Scotland. Their intention was to open a school, a place for mutants to learn to use their gifts, and to offer their young charges sanctuary on the island, somewhere free from the scorn of ordinary humans. It seemed Magnus had inadvertently given the school its first students as the twins exhibited early signs of genetic mutation.

A father again after so many years, he could scarcely believe it. A second chance. Though he had missed so much of Wanda and Pietro's lives already, he swore he would do all that he could to make it up to them, if they would let him.

Magda's defection put them at about twelve. Adolescence was a difficult time for most teenagers, add to that a long lost father and his new bride, a new country, a new language, the possible eruption of unknown powers…things had not been going well.

Wanda seemed an agreeable enough girl, shy but very sweet, eager for her father's approval, but Pietro was another story. Insolent, withdrawn, he seemed to delight in provoking Magnus with his quick tongue. Suffice it to say, their transition so far had not been an easy one, nor had it been easy on Moira. Magnus knew she had dreams of children of their own, but that seemed impossible at the moment.

He hadn't wanted to leave his makeshift family so soon, but a matter of some urgency had arisen. After their wedding, continuing the work of Charles Xavier had become their number one priority. There was validity to the man's research, and Magnus felt they could make a true contribution to the world. Xavier had compiled a list of suspected young mutants he had hoped to train in the use of their abilities. It was a short list, and Magnus and Moira had started the work of contacting the families of these mutants before the abrupt appearance of the twins.

To their horror, several of the children on Xavier's list had disappeared. From different parts of America and of the world no human police force would have made any connection between them, but the series of tragedies that had befallen the young mutants Charles Xavier had hoped to contact could hardly be a coincidence. It seemed they were in a race against time and whomever was targeting the mutants, most barely into their teens.

He sighed tenderly into the receiver. "If there had been any other way…"

Her voice thawed. "I know. You and me, we're between a rock and a hard place on this one. I cannae leave Scotland, not with all the work goin' on here, and you could hardly take the twins to America with you. We barely have papers for them to travel Europe, let alone the states. Besides, we need to get to that lassie, as quickly and quietly as possible, not storming in like a bleedin' marching band."

There was a moment of silence, and he knew Moira well enough to read between the lines. If someone were deliberately attacking young mutants, Magnus was best equipped to deal with the situation, and she would just be a liability.

Moira cleared her throat. "Do you know where ye're goin' today?"

"It is my first trip to America, but I am sure I can manage."

"Oh, aye, I'm sure," she chuckled. "Just remember to stay on the right side of the road and you should do fine."

He laughed along with her, his heart lightened by their banter. If Moira was teasing, things were still good between the two of them. In the short time they had been together, he had learned that it was when the teasing stopped that he needed to worry. He had never met a woman with such a temper, such fire for life. She was passionate about a great many things, and his life had brightened considerably with her in it.

"Is there anything else I should know from the girl's file?" he asked, and sat on the edge of the bed, cradling the phone while he unrolled a pair of dark dress socks.

"Charles had been in touch with her family, a Professor John Grey and his wife Elaine, before his time at Edinburgh. The girl had some sort of breakdown, but her doctors were clueless. The parents were at their wit's end. In his notes, Charles had his suspicions about the reasons for the girl's withdrawal, thought maybe she had or would exhibit powers similar to his own, telepathy or something empathic in nature. The file says he planned to contact the family again when he returned to the states, but…" She stopped abruptly and he heard the sharp intake of breath, dreading the familiar path the conversation would veer down.

"Moira…"

"Nae, it's all right. Just one more, right? Between the car accident that killed the Worthington boy's parents, and the orphanage fire in Nebraska, this girl's just one more that he was supposed to save, isn't she?"

"Moira, you can't…"

There was a loud crash on the Scotland end of the line, and Magnus jumped to his feet. "Moira!"

"Oh, bloody hell," his bride muttered. "Pietro! It's that son of yours, running through the halls again. He better hope I don't catch him, cause if I do, there'll be hell to pay!"

They said their goodbyes, and he found his thoughts drifting overseas to his mismatched family and their seemingly impossible task on his drive through the city.

He wished, not for the first time, that he had gotten a chance to meet this Charles Xavier. From the research, and from Moira's stories, Xavier seemed an intelligent and gracious man. They could have perhaps been great colleagues, even friends. The things they could have accomplished together seemed endless.

Instead, Xavier's body, still devoid of any brain activity, had been moved from Israel to Muir Island along with Moira and the children. For the time being, Magnus had given up arguing. If there were any hope of someday reviving the man, it lay with Moira, though Magnus wished she didn't have the daily reminder, the guilt that she punished herself with. They would make it right, if that was what she required. In his name, they would continue the work of Charles Xavier and help mutant kind take their first steps into a brave new world.

The house he pulled up to was in a quiet neighborhood not far from the highway, Annandale-on-Hudson, a bedroom town for commuters. Unfolding his long legs from the driver's seat, Magnus straightened his tie and retrieved his blazer from the passenger's before walking up the sidewalk to the front door. It opened before he rang the bell, and a petite blonde woman wearing bejeweled cat-eye glasses gave him a pinched smile through the screen door.

"Good afternoon. Mrs. Grey, I presume?" He knew his smile was hardly warm, but he hoped it was at least reassuring. "I spoke with your husband on the phone. My name is Mr. Magnus, I'm here from the Muir Island Institute?"

She stared at him blankly, but a man came up behind her, not quite as tall as Magnus but with a thick moustache and head full of slightly greying hair. "Mr. Magnus?"

The screen door swung open and John Grey gestured for him to come inside. The house was spotless in an unlived in sort of way. From the files, the Grey's had two preteen daughters, but there seemed to be no evidence of their existence behind the heavy oak door. His own children had come with a whirlwind of litter that followed them everywhere they went, but the Grey girls' stamp on the house was invisible. Everything seemed to be perfectly in place, no dust, home decorating magazines fanned out on the coffee table.

Mrs. Grey disappeared into the kitchen, and he could hear the clink of spoons against china as he and Professor Grey moved into the parlor and took seats facing one another. No soot in the fireplace, no television, books on the shelves arranged by color and size. Professor Grey certainly ran a tidy ship, Magnus mused. How had the good Professor treated a daughter that had become less than perfect?

"I wondered what had happened to that Xavier fellow," Professor Grey began. "He seemed very eager to help with Jean's…condition…and then we never heard from him again." The man's words were polite enough, but there was acid in the tone. "Left us in a bit of a bind."

"Yes," Magnus nodded solemnly, "Charles Xavier's accident was unfortunate, but we at the Muir Island Institute are committed to continuing his groundbreaking work. I would like to offer our assistance to you and your family."

John Grey grunted and sat back in his chair, his eyes leaving Magnus and straying to the neatly folded newspaper perched on the side table next to him. His fingers trailed slowly over the day's headline. "I don't know what you think you'll be able to do. The best therapists and doctors at the world's best hospitals haven't been able to do a damned thing for her. I don't see how you'll be any different."

His hand shifted, and Magnus was able to read the bolded type running across the paper, the conflict in the Middle East front and center as it had been for months. The region had always been a powder keg, but this time it was Amahl Farouk, the newly anointed Shadow King, ruler of Egypt, who was holding the match. Nation after nation had fallen to insurgents who pledged their loyalty to Farouk, their leaders assassinated, their cities laid to waste, and the United States and their allies seemed unwilling or unable to do anything to stop the upheaval. It was easy to turn a blind eye when the devastation was happening to someone else, something Magnus himself had witnessed in action.

"Ridiculous," Grey muttered, his attitude that of many of his fellow Americans. "Isn't there anything else going on in the world? If I have to see one more story on this Farrowck…"

"Farouk."

"Yes," John Grey snapped. "Of course. Fah-rook. My mistake." He shook his head in disgust. "With all the problems going on in this country, I hardly find the rise off some two-bit criminal half a world away newsworthy."

"At the time, people said the same of Adolf Hitler," Magnus countered.

Complacence. Denial. It was how people lived with themselves as their neighbors were taken away in the dead of night. If it was within his power, Magnus would never allow it to happen to his people again.

Dark eyes turned back to his. "I'm not saying he isn't scum. I simply find it hard to believe the man is responsible for everything the press blames him for. It's just fake news, drum-beating nonsense and drama cooked up to sell more papers."

Magnus dug his fingers into the arms of the chair, the tattoo emblazoned on his forearm itching beneath his jacket. "And I, Professor Grey, find it hard to believe someone with such nearsighted views is allowed to teach."

It was a foolish argument. John Grey and those like him would never understand until the cancer of hate and destruction spreading across the globe came to their very doorstep, and by then it would be too late. There was still time to save the girl, but if Magnus couldn't control his temper, the child's parents would never allow her to attend their school.

Magnus did not believe in coincidences. The children in Charles Xavier's files suffering a series of unfortunate accidents disturbed him. The Grey's daughter needed protection. Someone was hunting mutants, and he had a very short list of suspects. The reach of Amahl Farouk was extending further every day.

John Grey swiped the newspaper from the table, his cheeks flaring red. "You arrogant son of a bitch! Do you really think you know what's best for my daughter? You're just like the rest, and none of you have a goddamned clue! First this Xavier and his empty promises! No word for years while Jean suffered through therapist after therapist that could do absolutely nothing for her…Then you and this Dr. Essex show up on my doorstep, both of you acting so high and mighty…so sure you know what she needs…!" Grey stood and balled the paper at his side, and Magnus rose to face him.

He and Moira had researched every specialist in the New York City area, and Magnus had never heard of a Dr. Essex, nor had the Greys made any mention of another physician consulting on their daughter's case. Something about the name was familiar enough that it raised the hackles on the back of his neck.

"What I am offering," Magnus said slowly, "is the chance for your daughter to learn to control her gifts."

"Gifts?" John Grey spat the word. "Is that what you call what's happened to my little girl? A gift? Is it a gift that she can't go to school or go out in public? Or that Jean screams herself to sleep every night? My wife and I share her nightmares, watching that Richardson girl dead on the highway over and over, seeing Jean burned to ashes by a giant bird of fire! For god's sake, we had to send our daughter Sara to live with family to protect her!" He ran a shaking hand through his prematurely greying hair. "Tell me, Mr. Magnus, is it a gift to be scared of your own child?"

His throat suddenly dry, Magnus found he had no answers for John Grey. After all, the man was only human, how was he to comprehend powers that set those like Magnus and Jean Grey as far above him on the evolutionary scale as humans were above the primates?

Grey was trembling and turned his face away. "We're done here. You need to leave."

The visit was not going as planned, and Magnus cursed himself for losing control of his temper. Moira would never let him hear the end of it, but that was the least of his worries. He knew Jean Grey desperately needed their help. Her parents were clearly not equipped to handle her. If left unchecked, the girl would be a danger to herself and others. Perhaps, if Magnus apologized, all would not be lost.

"Professor Grey, surely we can…"

"GET OUT!" John Grey screamed, and whirled towards Magnus, fists raised. "Get out before I…" John Grey jerked mid swing as if seized by a fit. Magnus lunged forward and grabbed his shoulders, the man's head lolling to the side.

"Professor!" Magnus shook him roughly. "Professor Grey!"

Grey's eyes, oddly unfocused, found his, and the Professor's vacant smile sent shivers up Magnus's spine.

'That's better.'

The voice, a young girl's, didn't come from John Grey's mouth. Rather than out loud, Magnus heard it ring in the depths of his own mind.

'Daddy gets a little out of hand sometimes. It's really not healthy.'

Professor Grey continued to smile, and when Magnus released his hold on the man's shoulders, John bent to retrieve the fallen newspaper and sat back down in his recliner, snapping the paper open to the sports page. Magnus watched in speechless disbelief as Elaine Grey emerged from the kitchen with a serving tray, her eyes just as vacant, and the couple went about their domestic business as if he were not standing open mouthed in the middle of their living room.

'Won't you join me in the backyard?' the singsong voice echoed again. 'They're much happier by themselves.'

The shivers continued, every hair on his body standing on end as he made his way through the Grey's home, pristine enough to have been the subject of one of the magazines displayed on their coffee table. He slid open the glass door to step onto the patio, but his eyes widened at what lay beyond. The well-manicured lawn was any suburban child's dream, complete with a swingset and sandbox beneath a shady oak tree, but what greeted Magnus seemed more likely pulled from a surrealist nightmare. Every object not nailed to the ground – lawn chairs, a hose, flower pots and gardening utensils, toys and balls and roller skates – all floated freely through the air and swirled in a great cloud, circling the swingset where a pretty young girl with flaming red hair swung slowly back and forth.

The girl, it could only be Jean Grey, lifted her head and smiled brightly.

'Hello,' she said in his mind again, her lips unmoving.

Charles Xavier had been right, Magnus thought, the girl was a telepath and much more. That would certainly explain her withdrawal after the accident that had taken her friend's life. The strain must have been too much for her neophyte powers to process.

Jean drew her eyebrows together and finally spoke aloud. "You could just ask me about what happened to Annie instead of only thinking about it. It isn't polite to think behind someone's back."

He stepped forward, but for some reason did not raise his magnetic shield as he normally would. No one would nominate him for father of the year, but Magnus knew he was probably one of the only mutants Jean Grey had ever met. He needed her to trust him.

"Trust you?" her words halted his steps again, and she continued to frown at him. "Maybe. You certainly seem nicer than that Dr. Essex." Her eyes drifted away and the floating objects danced around her and over his head. "I tried to see inside him, but it was so dark. I made him go away, but thinking at him gave me a headache. Not like you, though..."

She blinked, and all the objects overhead crashed to the ground in a heap. Magnus jumped back, narrowly avoiding a clay pot full of marigolds that shattered against the patio stones. Jean skipped her way through the maze of broken lawn ornaments to stand in front of him, her eager green eyes wide.

"I've never been to Scotland before," she smiled wide. "Is it cold?"

Magnus started in surprise, but took a deep breath. The girl had obviously gotten what she wanted from his mind. He had never met a telepath before, but for some reason had always thought himself strong-willed enough that he would feel if someone were reading his thoughts, or that he would somehow be able to keep them at bay. Obviously that had not been the case. He hadn't felt a thing, and it was very unsettling. How could they ever protect themselves from someone as powerful as Amahl Farouk if the rumors concerning Farouk's mental powers were true? The Shadow King was a criminal despot, not a teenaged girl. Would the other students be comfortable around someone who couldn't or wouldn't keep their thoughts to themselves? Magnus would have to find some way to insure his mind and the minds of his students remained their own until they could teach Jean some level of control. He had no real reason to fear the girl or what she could do, and he wanted to keep it that way.

When he spoke, he kept the tone of his voice even, but stern. "If it is not polite to think behind someone's back, Jean, it is certainly bad form to read someone's mind without their permission."

Her face fell, but he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Come. There is much to discuss with your parents. Hopefully, your father will give me an opportunity to apologize, and we can tell them all about Scotland."

Raven

"How tall are they? Can we really climb all the way to the top? Is there even air up there?"

Raven wondered if there would be any air left in their vehicle before their trip was done, but pointed to the front steps of the house.

"Go inside, sweetheart, and make sure you didn't forget anything!"

The little girl pouted, but grudgingly mounted the stairs in the pre-dawn light, dragging her feet as she climbed.

"Raven will have plenty of time to answer all of your questions, Rogue," Irene smiled, "it's a long drive!"

The girl's face brightened, and Rogue raced the rest of the way into the house, slamming the door behind her.

"A really long drive," Raven muttered under her breath, but Irene still heard her and chuckled softly.

"The child is excited," Irene chided, but the two women cringed at the sounds coming from the home's open window. Their lives had been recently upended by their fostering of Anna Marie, little Rogue, a terribly precocious six year old with a stubborn streak a mile wide, and one of the names on Irene's list. There had been others they had tried to find, but the timelines still shifted in and out of focus. For now, they had their hands full with Rogue, and Raven found she was actually happy.

"I blame you for this," Raven teased and leaned over to drop a kiss onto Irene's soft, wrinkled cheek. To their Mississippi neighborhood, she and Irene were a single mom and her elderly auntie raising a child together, Raven adopting the guise of a pale woman with long, dark hair and glasses.

"It will be good for you," Irene countered. "Both of you. For heaven's sake, the child has never seen the snow before!"

"I wish you were coming with," Raven confessed. "That's all." Her fingers twined around Irene's frail and bent digits.

"Yes." If Irene's eyes were visible behind her dark glasses, Raven knew she would have been rolling them. "A blind woman on a ski trip. Thank you, but no. Besides, you two can use the time to get to know each other a little better." She squeezed Raven's hand. "The girl needs a mother."

Raven rested her forehead against Irene's. "Well, lucky for her, she has two."

Encyclopedia Raven wasn't sure how she survived the long drive with her sanity intact, but thirteen hours later, Rogue was finally quiet, asleep in a pile of blankets at their stop for the night.

Raven stepped from the motel's bathroom dressed in her pajamas, and wound her damp hair – back to its normal red, her skin its regular blue – up into a towel.

She smiled at the little body sprawled across the middle of the bed. Rogue had stated, loudly and repeatedly, that she was way too excited to sleep. But, after a bath and a room service meal of French fries and chicken fingers, the little girl had dropped like someone flicked her off-switch.

It would be late in Mississippi, but Raven didn't want to go to sleep without hearing Irene's voice. She sat on the edge of the bed and cradled the receiver between her chin and shoulder while she dug through her purse for a calling card. The television was on cartoons, and Raven scowled and flipped it to a news channel before she started dialing. The call didn't connect. She tried again to make sure she hadn't dialed the wrong number, getting nothing but a recorded voice telling her the call couldn't be completed.

"This is ridiculous," Raven muttered. Maybe the calling card was out of minutes. There was another in her purse somewhere, she was sure of it. In her search, her fingers brushed up against a folded sheet of paper.

"What the hell?" Raven hung up the phone and withdrew the sheet, unfolding it in her lap. She recognized the worn sheet as the list of names Irene had written that fateful night time had unraveled. As her eyes trailed over the names, some familiar, some not, Raven found a new note Irene had added to the bottom.

'My darling Raven' – it began:

'By the time you read this, Farouk will have come for us. If all has gone as planned, his people will find only me, as you and Rogue will be far, far away.'

Raven's heart froze in her chest, but she forced herself to keep reading Irene's hurried scrawl.

'Do not come for me. Together, love will find a way, but until then, keep the girl safe. Farouk cannot get his hands on her. If he does, all will be lost.

My love, always,

Irene'

Raven's horrified eyes drifted from the letter to the harsh glare of the television. Onscreen a reporter was at the scene of a massive fire, and as Raven watched, the neighborhood engulfed in flames began to take on a familiar shape.

"Oh, no…" she moaned and turned up the volume.

"…witnesses say, the mutant insurgents were chanting the name of Amahl Farouk, the self-proclaimed ruler of Egypt. To recap, a series of terrorist attacks have rocked a tiny Mississippi town tonight, leaving an entire neighborhood engulfed in flames. First responders have been unable to get the fires under control at this late hour, but we do know that a dozen people have been confirmed dead, with many more unaccounted for. We will keep you up to date with any new developments. This is Manoli Wetherell for Channel Two news…"

Her gaze fell back to the note and list of names. Irene had circled Anna Marie's name and another, Charles Xavier. The two names were connected with a line, next to which Irene had scrawled 'Do not lose hope. Time will find a way'.

"Hope?" Raven choked back a sob. "Is that all you've got?"

The names smudged beneath tears she didn't realize she was shedding.