Warning:  Contains spoilers for X2.

"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Xavier asked.  "The hospitals have not been flooded."  The unspoken corollary to this being that once the towers had gone down, there hadn't been enough survivors to flood them.

But Hank shook his head.  "Doctors who've been working since the beginning should be relieved, Charles.  Any pair of trained hands is needed, even blue ones."

"Where are you planning to go?"

"To Columbia.  I'll send Jean back; she's been on call since yesterday morning.  By this point, she's so exhausted she's more of a liability than a help."  

Xavier steepled his fingers.  "I'm not sure Columbia Presbyterian would be the best choice."

Startled, Hank glanced up.  "Why?  It was where I did my residency; I know the place."

"Yes, and it is the same emergency room to which a certain 'big blue furry man' was taken after the accident in the Hammer Building.  I made no attempt to wipe memories completely, Henry.  For one, it wouldn't have been very effective -- too many people saw.  For another, I question the ethics of such an act.  I only modified as necessary, and while I'm sure there has been some turnover in the past year, I'm also sure some would remember."

Hank stared down at the cooler of blood.  "So you don't think I should go out of the house?"  It was both bitter and angry.

"If I'd thought that, would I have supported your decision to attend the conference in Atlanta?"

"People asked questions, even there."

"Of course they did.  Not only did the accident make the general news, the mystery of it persisted in the medical community for months."

"People still think Bruce is to blame."  Henry looked up.  "What really happened?  You've never said."

"I've never said because I have no idea.  From what little I do know, I think it was an accident."  One eyebrow went up.  "They do occur, you know, and if I understood the machine specifications correctly, even something as simple as failing to fasten the containment cylinder firmly could have had catastrophic results.  The longer something dangerous is used -- and used without mishap -- the more lax people grow."

Charles kept to himself what Francesco Placido had foreseen.  Henry, usually so quick with a deduction, was also fundamentally straightforward and it had never occurred to him that Frank might have known but chosen not to speak.  The 'greater good' was difficult to accept when faced with the dramatic results of it in a mirror.  A part of Frank would never forgive himself for his choice, and Xavier thought that punishment enough.

Charles also kept to himself the contents of a certain letter that he'd received three months ago from an old friend.  It had included a clipping taken from an English-language newspaper in the little Cree village of Chisasabi, Quebec on the eastern shore of James Bay off the Hudson.  The town supported a thriving summer tourism industry, and the paper spoke of a 'great green wendigo' whom locals claimed was at least seven feet tall.  The creature reputedly ran from groups, but if cornered, had a habit of pulling up small pines and flinging them.  At least one family of overly curious campers had been forced to abandon their crushed tents.  The reporter, a tribal member disinclined to join the hysteria, had concluded his column with the tongue in cheek remark:  "If he is a wendigo, he hasn't actually eaten anyone yet.  Maybe our white urban tourists just can't recognize a grizzly when they see it?"

Along the edge of the clipping, Erik Lehnsherr had written, "Weisst du zufällig irgend etwas über grosse grüne Monster, Charles?  Oder über grosse blaue?"   I don't suppose you would know anything about big green monsters, would you, Charles?   Or big blue ones, either?  Then, in English, he'd added, "Fascinating machine that Dr. Banner built.  I'd love to see the schematics."

Henry was saying, "I need to do something, professor.  I can't just sit here twiddling my thumbs."

"I know," Xavier said, quietly.  "I'm not objecting to your decision to go into the city.  I simply think it wiser if you offer your assistance at a different hospital.  Perhaps St. Vincent or Beth Israel?"

Hank sighed.  "That's assuming either lets me in the door.  They don't know me."

"Under the circumstances, I think your initial comment quite likely correct.  Any trained pair of hands, whatever their color, will be welcome -- particularly a trained pair that is bringing blood supplies."

"Jean still needs to come home."

"I'll send Scott after her."
 
 

Emergencies, Scott Summers could handle, but the controlled blood letting of formal medicine turned his stomach.  Thus, when he entered the ER of Columbia Presbyterian, he wasn't sure what he'd face and steeled himself to witness triage in the hallways.  In fact, he faced very little.  The hallway wasn't crowded with survivors, and the triage nurse was currently tending a young Hispanic boy for what looked like a bad knife gash on his arm; Scott doubted that had anything to do with the disaster in Battery Park.

He was barely inside the main waiting area when Jean burst through the big, swinging doors that closed off the treatment rooms from the waiting area.  She'd felt him arrive.  "Scott!"  He caught her as she ran forward to launch herself at him.  "Oh, thank God!"  Even though she'd known he hadn't been in danger, and she hadn't been in danger, on this day, there was relief enough in simply holding each other.  Mortality had been brought home to everyone.

"I came to get you," he said now.  "You've been here long enough."

"I can't leave -- "

"Yes, you can."  He pushed her away to meet her eyes.  She was exhausted.  And that, he thought, was when her age showed the most; twenty-two handled sleeplessness more easily than thirty-one.  There were visible bags under her dark eyes and creases around her mouth that, in ten years, would be full-fledged lines.  Yet he found them dear.  Kissing the bridge of her nose, he said, sotto voce, "They're not coming, Jean.  Everyone's out who's going to make it."  That was hard and brutal, but she needed to take a break.  

She acknowledged it with a sideways tilt of her head and a pursing of lips.  "You never know -- "

"Hon, enough -- come home."  They looked at one another for a moment, then she gave a little sigh.  He changed the subject.  "Have you heard from Warren?  The professor said -- "

"He's here."

"Warren?"

"Yes.  Wait a sec."

She disappeared back behind the doors, emerging a minute later with Warren in tow.  A bad cut on his right cheek (now stitched) might well scar, there were smaller cuts and abrasions all over his exposed skin, and his Armani suit was beyond help, but he seemed unconcerned about all of that.  His expression was haunted, and Scott could only imagine what he'd seen.  Scott didn't embrace him; the chasm between them had been wedged too far apart by Warren's pride and Scott's indignant guilt, yet they'd been close once and it relieved Scott to see him alive.  Scott offered him a hand instead.  He took it.  "Can we drive you home?" Scott asked.  

"I . . .  Yeah.  Thanks."

Scott glanced at Jean.  "Go get your overnight bag, hon."

The casual endearment made Warren's lips thin, but Scott hadn't meant to rub salt in the wound and realized what he'd done only after he'd spoken.  Frowning, he dropped his eyes to the tiled hallway floor as Jean glanced between the two.  "It'll just take me a minute," she said, "but Scott, they're taking blood -- "

"Where?"

"Harkness Pavilion, Fourth floor.  Follow the signs.  I'll meet you there."

Nodding, he headed off with Warren in tow.  Being O-negative made Scott much sought after by both the Red Cross and their own mansion med lab, and several pints of the blood Hank had packed earlier had been Scott's.  Now, neither he nor Warren said much as they wound through the maze of the medical center.  TVs blared in antiseptic waiting rooms, and people were gathered around them, watching, faces blank or stunned or angry.  Finding where to donate was easier than Scott had expected.  There were, indeed, signs, and a long line snaked down the hall.  They got into it, and Scott thrust hands in his pockets, staring at the floor, while Warren pretended interest in the indecipherable abstract art on the walls.  They listened to people chatter.  There was some speculation on who had engineered the attacks, but even more about others' welfare.  "Did you know anyone . . . ?"  "Well, my secretary's daughter's husband . . ."  "My neighbor is a policeman . . ."  "I haven't been home since it happened . . ."  "My daughter's best friend was . . ."  Adversity unified, even if only in the horror of uncertainty.  

After a few minutes, Warren turned back towards Scott.  "I saw a woman jump," he said softly.  "I could've caught her."

Scott raised his eyes to Warren's specially tailored suit jacket.  "Not wearing that," he said.  

"Brilliant observation!"

Scott winced.  "I just meant you couldn't have gotten free fast enough."

It was the kind of straightforward observation that Warren had always appreciated in Scott, and he didn't immediately reply.  In the shadow of tragedy -- and out of the shadow of Jean -- their usual animosity had been shunted aside, at least for the moment.  "I should have thought to get free," Warren said.  "You would have."

"Maybe.  Maybe not."

"I should have gotten free after, at least."

"Why didn't you?"

Warren glanced over sharply but the question had been level, not accusatory like the ones in his head.  "I don't know.  It sounds stupid, but I was just . . . too shocked, I guess."

Scott studied Warren's face, part of him unable to imagine why Warren wouldn't have thought to fly, and he wondered if Warren had simply been afraid to reveal himself.  Perhaps, but Scott also knew that Warren didn't think clearly in a crisis.  He didn't freeze up or panic, and he could follow orders, but his thinking tunneled -- like most people's, really.  Scott had never understood how he kept his own head under pressure.  He just did.  If he could act, he could think.  What drove him insane was to wait -- yet Warren could bide his time and watch for an opportunity.  

Like he did with Jean, Scott thought to himself -- unkindly.  Then logic interceded.  Warren may have bid his time, but he hadn't gone behind Scott's back.  It was Scott who'd been dishonest, and whether or not he'd meant it, Warren had been a victim of Scott's own attempt at self-deception.  So now, he tried to make up for it a bit.  "All I could think, when I saw that second plane hit, was that if I'd been there, if I'd gone to get you instead of just calling . . ."  He stopped.  People around them could hear, and he looked right at Warren, mouthing, I could have stopped it.  "But I wasn't there," Scott finished.  

Warren seemed to understand Scott's gesture.  "If you'd gone running down there, Jean would've been worried sick.  And there's no guarantee you'd have been in the right place at the right time.  If wishes were horses, we'd all ride."

"Same back atcha."

"That makes me feel so much better."  The words were sarcastic, but the faint smile was genuine.  A nurse was moving methodically down the line, asking blood types.  

Scott raised his hand -- "I'm O-negative" -- and that was enough to get him ushered right to the front.  Warren said he'd wait in the lobby, where there was a TV.  Tables had been set up outside the donor center for volunteers to take names and information.  Scott lied about the length of time since he'd last given, said two months when it had been only six weeks, but he was young and healthy, and this was something he could do.  He had to do something.  

It was nearing seven o'clock in the evening before the three of them walked from the hospital out to the Mercedes that Scott had commandeered.  He told Jean to leave her car; she was too tired to drive, even in the ghost traffic that remained in the city since the disaster, and she'd have to be right back at the hospital in the morning.  At least the chief resident had given her until ten, instead of expecting her back at seven.  

They headed southwest from Columbia's Medical Center, towards Warren's apartment off Central Park.  In the light traffic, it took less than half an hour to reach 72^nd Street on the east side, and over the radio, they caught reports that more than two-hundred fire-fighters and seventy-eight police officers remained missing.  Warren thought about the men he'd seen rushing up the stairs inside Tower One, and wondered how many wouldn't be going home that night.  "Stay for a while," he said impulsively when Scott had reached his building.  "Jean's exhausted and if she goes back to the mansion, she won't get any real rest.  There's the president's speech at eight-thirty, too.  You won't make it back in time to hear it.  We'll get some dinner and listen."

Scott decided that Warren had to be desperate for company if he was inviting them to keep it, but said, "All right," and let off Jean and Warren at the curb in front of an elegant, 1890's art nouveau entrance, then went to park and walked back to the building.  Warren was alone, speaking with the doorman.  Seeing Scott, he said, "I sent Jean on up."  The two of them followed.  The building was silent and Scott wondered if that were typical of the place, or part of the day's general mood.  The city that never slept had been frozen mute with shock, muffled beneath a cloud of ash.  

Scott had never seen Warren's new apartment, and was both amused and unsurprised to find that he had the penthouse with windows all around, giving a panorama of the city.  These matched the building's early 1900's style and were framed by marble casings carved in sweeping motifs of sensual elegance, and Warren had decorated accordingly -- art deco furnishings, Robiesque Tiffany lamps, and École des Arts ornamentation.  Scott traced a stained glass oak-and-acorn light switch, then wandered over to one of the draped windows.  Normally, the view would have been impressive as the sun went down and the city's lights came on, but today, Scott's eyes were drawn to the black mar on the southern horizon.  Jean stood at the window just to his right, and Warren beyond her.  They all stared at the same thing.  

After a while, Jean asked, "Do you ever wonder what use our powers really are?  I mean, when you think about something like today . . . "

She trailed off, and remembering what Xavier had said to him earlier, Warren spoke.  "We need to do what we can do as ourselves.  Scott gave blood, you patched people up."  He stopped.  He still wasn't sure what he'd done.  "Is what we can do as human beings less important than what we can do as mutants?"

Scott and Jean both turned to look at him, and embarrassed suddenly, Warren headed off for the kitchen to see if there were anything to eat.  As it turned out, the housekeeper had gone home early and while Warren couldn't blame her, with most of the city shut down, it left them at a loss for dinner until Jean drew on borrowed memories and the larder to produce a pasta in cream sauce while Warren changed and Scott drifted about the big flat like an unanchored skiff.  The pasta was not only edible but excellent, and they ate like college students, sitting on the floor around Warren's beveled coffee table while they watched Bush's speech on the wide-screen TV.  Afterwards, Warren broke out some good sherry and they got drunk.  If the gulf between them would return when morning dawned, for that night at least, they remembered how to be friends, and Warren put them in the guestroom together, even loaning Scott clothes for the next day.  Jean had washed hers.  She fell asleep by ten, and Warren went to bed by eleven, but Scott couldn't sleep.  He sat up watching the news and talking to EJ on his cell phone while the effects of the sherry wore off.  

By the time he hung up, it was almost midnight and the room was lit only by the blue glow from the television.  Scott paced over to the windows.  Beyond the glass, the city stretched, etched in neon and electric yellow; Central Park made a dark slash off to the west, pockmarked by street lamps like fireflies.  Feeling frustrated and penned in, Scott took Warren's key and went out.  The doorman nodded to him as he exited onto the sidewalk beyond.  He wasn't sure where he was going; he just needed to be in motion.  

He'd assumed the area around Warren's building would be safe, but on a night of such upheaval, nothing was certain and there were always human dregs who'd take advantage of any calamity.  So when one shadowed figure appeared out of an alleyway right in front of him and another came up behind, two thoughts struck him in quick succession.  First, that he'd lived off-and-on in New York for five years without the baptism of a casual mugging.  And second, this was the wrong night.  

He didn't have his visor, but he did have years of sparring with EJ, and more recent workouts in Reed Richard's Danger Room, plus the stonewalled rage of the whole day just seeking a target.  One mugger pulled a knife.  Scott reacted with a block, a punch, a block, a hammer-fist strike, and a throw.  It cleared him enough space to safely reach for his glasses.  Then both his attackers were knocked into unconsciousness by barely moderated force-blasts.  

It had all taken less than a minute, and when he was done, he was breathing hard, heart pumping, adrenaline making him high.  Only then did he notice that he'd been sliced on the lower arm and was bleeding onto the sidewalk.  He pressed the artery inside his elbow, trying to stop it, and thought it might need stitches, but wasn't too serious.  Yet after giving blood earlier, he knew the additional blood loss could make him light-headed.  

"I don't know who needs saving more here -- you or them."

Scott spun around, but no one was there.  

"Look up."

He did as told, finding a shadowed figure attached precariously to a white stone balustrade on the brick building above.  The figure jumped down where Scott could see him better.  He wore a costume that Scott recognized from newspaper articles.  "My friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man?" Scott asked.  

"Got it in one, Mr. I-Wear-My-Sunglasses-at-Night."

"I don't think a guy in red-and-blue spandex has any room to talk."

"Hey, at least it's not banana yellow."

Scott had to laugh at that, half in amusement, half in sheer relief that he was still standing, and the muggers weren't.  Spider-Man had turned to wrap them up in webs.  "That was an interesting finish," he said, almost off-hand, "with the eye-lasers."  But Scott hadn't missed the fact that he was moving so as to keep Scott in his line of vision.  

"They're not lasers -- no heat.  And I'm a mutant," Scott replied bluntly.  Not much point in denying it.  "You can call me Cyclops."  So Frank had dubbed him, half in jest, but vocalized to a stranger, it sounded as ridiculous as the red-and-blue spandex looked.  

Finished with the riff raff, Spider-Man walked back over and Scott was surprised to discover that he was both taller and wider across the shoulders than the other man.  With EJ as a roommate, and now surrounded by Jean, Warren and Hank, he'd developed a bit of a height complex.  "Cyclops, eh?" Spider-Man asked.  "Did you lose Odysseus?"

"Very funny."

"I've heard of mutants.  There was an article in Popular Science just a couple months back.  You have an X-gene that causes physiological modification at adolescence -- gives you superhuman abilities."

"I thought you were a crime-fighter, not a science geek?"

From the twitch of red fabric across the man's lower face, Scott thought he might have smiled.  "Science geek by day, superhero by night," he quipped.  

"Just your friendly --

"-- neighborhood Spider-Man, yes."  But there was something bitter, not amused, in the spider-man's words this time.  "All I'm good for -- mugger patrol."

"That's something."

"Tell it to the people in the Towers.  If I'd been there --"

"-- you could have climbed the walls to rescue them.  And a friend of mine could have flown.  And I could have shot the second plane out of the sky before it even hit.  What if, what if."

Those words were bitter, too, and the spider-man's head jerked sharply.  "A lot of people will be saying that tonight, I guess," he said.  

Scott didn't reply, and neither spoke for a minute, nor even looked at the other.  Scott was staring at the trussed-up and unconscious lumps of his attackers.  "What do you think makes a hero?"

"You're asking me?"

"Yeah, I'm asking you, Spider-Man."  

"Doing something to help because you can."

Scott nodded, mostly to himself.  "That doesn't require special powers.  The most useful thing I did today was give blood."

Abruptly, Spider-Man leapt sideways and attached himself to a wall, watching Scott from that peculiar angle.  "I have a question for you."

"Yeah?"

"What's the difference between a hero and a superhero?"

"Dunno.  Superhuman abilities?"

"Absolutely nothing."

That reply caught Scott by surprise, but before he could reply, Spider-Man pointed to his wounded arm.  "I think you're giving more blood than you intended today.  You'd better go get that looked at.  See you around.  Cyclops."  And he scampered up the building wall into shadow.  

"My name's Scott," Scott called after him, impulsively.  

For a moment, there was just silence and Scott figured him long gone, then a voice drifted back, "Mine's Peter."

In the wake of the attacks, the city of New York first banded together in a solidarity of distress that thumbed its nose at her callous reputation, then entered a shocked hibernation of several days the likes of which Jean had never seen.  Streets in lower Manhattan were vacant, and even the boroughs were quieter than usual while the news flashed pictures of flowers stacked in Union Square and drawings of children in Central Park.  Rescue workers wore stunned expressions, family members tacked up images of the missing on walls and telephone poles, and the death toll changed from estimated to actual, acquiring names.  A pink-ash cloud continued to drift over lower Manhattan, making the sunset red behind a wounded skyline.  

When the city woke at last, she woke like an angry bear, grief-mad and grateful for, but also mildly resentful of, the solidarity offered by the rest of the nation (Washington excepted).  It hadn't been their cities hit, and like anyone in mourning, New York didn't want to be told 'We know how it feels.'  Grief, Jean had learned during her residency, was an individual thing.  In this case, an individual thing nine-million strong including the outer boroughs, and what people wanted depended on who was asked, but the desire to strike back topped the list of many.  One of the ER nurses who Jean worked with put it succinctly, albeit with resort to cliché:  "You don't mess with New Yorkers."  She was wearing a big pin with an American flag on the collar of her scrubs, and an expression of defiance on her round face, and Jean had felt an empathic pride that lasted until she heard over the radio on her drive home about a Muslim mother and daughter who'd been hounded out of a grocery store.  Then she was ashamed.  Hurting innocent people wasn't what she wanted.  She wasn't in favor of hurting anyone, in fact -- she was a doctor -- yet another part of her wouldn't have minded seeing an eye for an eye, and her own mixed feelings confused her.  

Scott's anger took a different direction.  A New Yorker only by transplant, his rage was less personal, and overlaid by cynicism.  He found the sudden explosion of patriotism mildly nauseating, but didn't share this with Jean, Warren, or even the professor.  Their pain was too raw, yet he told EJ over the phone, "If I see one more idiot waving an American flag like that'll bring back the dead, I think I'll puke.  They won't be the ones sent overseas to Afghanistan, or waiting at home."

"Take it easy, man.  It's an angry city out there.  It's an angry country all over," EJ replied.  "And scared.  People are scared.  Dad said Sunday attendance is way up."

"I bet.  And I know people are scared."  He stopped, remembering what Frank had told him back in March:  This country is like an open camp now, at ease, confident -- but in five years, it will not be.  Threats real and imagined will create paranoia.  "We're in for a rough ride."  And by 'we' he wasn't sure if he meant Americans generally, or mutants in particular.  

"Boxing shadows," EJ said.  "It makes people mad.  Pretty soon they start hitting whatever looks solid, even if it's not casting a shadow, y'know?"

Just a few days later, Bush announced the creation of his Office of Homeland Security and Scott listened to the speech along with the rest of the mansion.  One part caught his ear:  "Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes.  Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen.  It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success."  

It was the mentality of a foxhole, just as Frank had predicted, and against a faceless enemy that, being faceless, could shift at need.  Amorphous wars mutated too easily into witch hunts, and that was the genius of guerrillas and terrorists, to create fear of the suspected rather than the seen -- not an environment conducive to rationality, and Scott disliked the open-ended nature of what he heard.  Anything deemed dangerous could become a target, and how long until the noose was tightening around their own necks?  Threats real and imagined will create paranoia.  And Scott understood something at last that had been teasing the back of his mind for days.  A man couldn't see where he was going if he was always busy looking over his shoulder.  

Despite these private worries and angers, another result of the September attacks was to make Scott and Jean more acutely appreciative of each other -- not because they'd been in danger that Tuesday, but because they hadn't, yet understood now that time was mortal, always dying.  Each day, each breath spun out behind them into gossamer impermanence, and the future took on the aspect of shattered steel and concrete.  They had the now, and that was all.  Scott touched Jean at night with gentle fingers, and her kisses had grown thoughtful, as if memorizing what he tasted like.  Once, he woke to find her sitting up in their bed in the dark, cross-legged and facing him while he slept.  When he asked her what she was doing, she replied, "Watching you breathe."  He'd done that with her, too, but thought she meant something rather different.  

Life at the mansion stuttered through the rest of September and then fell into October.  Leaves changed and students plotted costumes for Halloween.  A strange fervency had overtaken them, as if they would force enjoyment from the holiday if it couldn't be coaxed.  Halloween was also Scott's birthday, and he turned twenty-three.  If he'd gradually stopped worrying over the age gap between himself and Jean, he'd remained subconsciously aware of it and was glad he could once again claim to be 'only' eight years younger.  Yet it was at his suggestion that they dressed up as Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, on the theory that one's demons were best controlled by waving to them.  

Uncharacteristically, Ororo kept to her bedroom that night.  She was missing Frank, Jean said, and the two of them debated whether they should pry her out or leave her in peace.  They'd nearly settled on leaving her in peace when an even more uncharacteristic development sent them both rushing up the stairs (Jean almost tripping in her skirts) to bang on Ororo's door and insist she answer.  Throwing the door open, Ro glanced from one to the other.  "What?"

But Scott and Jean were laughing too hard to speak, so they just grabbed her by the hands (one each) and hauled her after them, back downstairs.  

There in the foyer sat Charles Xavier, in costume -- improbably -- as a gorilla, a rather displeased gorilla, in fact, given the mirth his choice seemed to have generated among the mansion denizens.  "You all assume I have no sense of humor."

"Whether or not he's got a sense of humor," Scott hissed under his breath to Ro, "at least he's got hair!" And she was forced to bite a lock of her own to keep from dissolving into giggles.  

It wasn't until much later, as Scott and Jean were readying for bed, doing their usual dance around each other in the bathroom, that Jean said, "He did that on purpose, you know."

"Wha-?"  Scott's mouth was full of white toothpaste foam.  

"The costume.  He did it to make us laugh."

Scott spat out the toothpaste and reflected that sometimes being leader meant surrendering one's dignity on purpose. 
 
 
 

Snow geese had moved south, caribou had shed their antler velvet, and Arctic char had migrated upriver.  The beluga whales and seals were leaving for warmer water, the whitefish and lake trout had spawned and the caribou were mating.  The crash of males at battle echoed through pine and spruce and cedar.  Tourists went home and the snows came.  Late fall had howled into Chisasibi off the eastern shore of James Bay, and the green man whom locals called a wendigo was seen less and less.  Charles Xavier thought it was time.  He called his elder students together and gave them marching orders.  "North," he told them, and handed over the clipping that Erik Lehnsherr had sent to him.  He didn't tell them how long he'd had it.  

So an astonished Scott, Ororo, Jean and Hank put on black leather, climbed into the Blackbird, and off they went.  "It might take more than a few hours," Xavier had warned them, so they'd packed street clothing, too, and jackets.  

Chisasibi was a small town of only three-and-a-half thousand.  In summer, it was busy with tourists and residents came and went, by car or on foot, while children played in the streets.  In winter, though, everyone fled indoors, making it less likely that the Blackbird would be stumbled over by accident, but they hid it anyway under a white tarp, then wandered around through the snow on the northeast side of town beyond the river that gave the town its name.  Farmland in summer, this area made a white plain in winter, but their random searching brought them no closer to finding anything big and green besides the few clumps of trees, and the cold paralyzed even the limited skin their uniforms exposed.  Scott quickly gave it up as pointless.  Calling his team back to the plane, he had them change into civilian clothes and head into town.  Henry stayed behind; if the locals thought Bruce was a wendigo, there was no telling what they would make of a big, furry blue man.  Even so, the other three stood out like sore thumbs.  Tourists were mostly gone and the brown Cree locals stared at them.  Scott led them into a diner called GooGoom's Kitchen.  It was late afternoon, but a little early for dinner.  The waitress/counter help grinned and popped her gum.  "Wat chia.  You guys lost?"

"Just passing through," Scott said.  

Her eyebrows went up at that.  In winter, the James Bay Highway saw virtually no traffic, so Jean hastened to add, "We came up to photograph the Northern Lights.  For a calendar company."

The woman's mood altered instantly and she called out to a pair of old men sitting in a corner booth.  "Rodney, Joe!  These guys are photographers!  They come to get pictures of the Lights.  Think your son could show 'em around Joe?"

Great, Jean, Scott sent.  We don't even have an automatic camera in the plane, never mind a real one.  Usually, the less said, the better.  

Jean pursed her lips, irritated.  Well she didn't look ready to buy your story, Austin Powers.  

He ignored her to tell the woman, "Ah -- actually, we're headed further north.  We just stopped in for the night."

So they ordered an early dinner and the woman -- who turned out to be the owner -- seemed happy to sit and chat, in part so she could push her town as a summer vacation resort.  She sounded like an infomercial, and as a result, whenever any of them tried to steer her obliquely towards 'local gossip' (and big green men), she remained stubbornly obtuse.  

"Well, that was utterly useless," Scott said when they finally got away.  He thought they all needed a crash course in detective work beyond reruns of Homicide: Life on the Street.  It was already dark, and they pulled up their heavy jackets against the cold.  "Let's see if we can find a grocery and get something for Hank.  We'll sleep on the plane and try again tomorrow."

As it turned out, the grocery was fifteen minutes from closing (nothing stayed open very long after dark in winter) and they collected deli sandwiches.  Scott fished out his Canadian money as they approached the cashier, who was chatting with another employee.  The language was neither English nor French.  As she rang up their purchases -- barcode scanners having reached even here, he noted -- another shopper approached to check out as well, and Scott was relieved they weren't the only ones holding up evening cleaning.  Then he heard Jean's little gasp of, "Bruce!"

The man jerked his head up, mouth open in surprise, and for just an instant, Scott wasn't sure if Banner would stay put or make a break for it.  And it was, indeed, Bruce Banner, recognizable even with different glasses and half buried inside a khaki-colored parka with wool lining.  Scott tensed to give chase if he ran, but he just sighed and -- conscious of the watchful eye of the counter help -- said, "Let's check out, okay?"  Jean had thrown her arms around his neck and was hugging him, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet in her excitement, as if she were eleven, not thirty-one.  Scott finished paying, then waited for Bruce to do the same.  

Outside finally, the wind snatched their breath and the night had grown even darker.  "What are you doing up here, Jean?" Bruce asked, two bags of groceries in hand.  

"Looking for you," she half-shouted back.  

His lips thinned.  "That's what I was afraid of."  And he turned his back on them, shuffling down the sidewalk through snow tossed up by plows.  Scott, Jean and Ororo traded glances, then hurried to follow, hoping that's what he'd intended.  They reached his car, a small, run-down Dodge Neon that barely fit all four of them inside with their heavy coats.  Jean sat in front with Bruce and he used his rearview mirror to study the two wedged in his backseat.  "Scott, I recognize from pictures, and Aurora, I think we've met at least once?"

"Yes, sir," she replied.  "At Jean's defense party.  And it's Ororo."

"Ah.  Ororo.  My apologies."  He started his car and headed out of town.  The night was clear and away from the town's lights, they could see the brilliant, eerie, oscillating display across the black of heaven, like a billowing sheet.  Jean, Ro and Scott all sucked in breath.  "The Aurora Borealis," Bruce said, sounding strangely dull, as if bored by the sight.  The Lights cast the landscape in a spectral glow that Scott found appropriate, as they were traveling down the road, speaking with a dead man.  

"How did you escape?" he asked into the silence.  

The shadow that was Bruce's head lifted and Scott could feel more than see him looking in the rearview mirror again.  "How about if you hold your questions till we get back to my place?"

"Hank's along," Jean said.  "That's why we were buying food.  Can we swing by where we landed and pick him up?"

"Where you landed?" Bruce asked, but then shook his head.  "I would, but he won't fit in the car with the rest of you.  He'd take up the whole backseat -- and yes, I know what happened to him.  I'll take your friends to my place, then we'll go get him."

So Bruce dropped off Scott and Ororo, then headed off with Jean.  Scott hoped they could find the plane.  Jean and directions were shaky at best, but she'd seemed reluctant to let Bruce out of her sight, now that she'd found him.  (And Scott was more than a bit jealous of that.)  "Come," Ro said, her hand on his arm.  They entered the small cabin set off among the pines.  It was barely more than a single room with a main floor and a loft area above, furnished sparsely, though Bruce had his share of electronic toys -- a microwave, a computer, a fax machine, a printer, and what looked to be cheap lab equipment, but not, Scott was amused to note, a television or radio.  

The two of them put away Bruce's food as best they could (the kitchen was so small, it wasn't hard to guess where things went), then sat down on the couch to wait.  The cabin itself was chilly, and though they doffed their heavy jackets, they left on their mittens and mufflers.  Neither said much, though once she asked, "Did you expect to find him?"

"Not like this," Scott admitted.  

Finally, they heard the car coming back, and when Banner entered, he pointed to the fireplace.  "Why didn't you start a fire?"

"Uh -- I wasn't sure if I should?" Scott answered.  

Rolling his eyes, Bruce peeled off his own jacket and bent to do so as Hank and Jean came in behind him.  Ro had stood to fetch Hank's dinner, and he sat down on the rug near the fire to eat, avoiding the flimsy, cheap, two-chair dinette set.  Jean stood yet by the door, hands clasped, her coat still on.  She watched Bruce like the proverbial hawk and Scott rose to pull her jacket off.  It was cramped in the cabin with the four of them plus Bruce.  "Are you going to tell us now?" Jean asked finally when Scott had seated her on the couch.  

"Yes, yes, wait a minute.  I haven't eaten dinner myself."  And he rose from stirring the fire to go fix something in the small kitchen, returning with a bowl of soup, some bread, and a glass of golden fluid that Scott suspected was whiskey.  Plopping down in a wing chair, he pulled around a TV table and ate half the soup before looking up at them again.  The cabin had gone very quiet.  

"What are you four doing here?" he asked again.  "Yeah, yeah, looking for me.  Why?"

"Charles Xavier received a . . . hint . . . that you might still be alive," Hank told him.  He was already done with the first deli sandwich and well into the second.  "He sent us to investigate."

Banner shook his head.  "Good God.  I don't guess it occurred to him -- or you -- that I didn't want to be found?"

"Bruce, we thought you were dead!" Jean exclaimed.  "Betty and Brian -- "

"-- know where I am, thank you."

"How long -- ?"

"As soon as I trusted myself enough to contact them.  They're in Cincinnati, with Betty's family."

"Have you been to see them --?"

"No.  And I won't go until I conquer this."  He softened a little.  "I talk to them on the phone and by email.  It's almost like the time Betty and I were working at two different schools.  They understand."  And he nodded, as if that settled it, but Scott could feel the twist of hurt in Jean, that Bruce hadn't seen fit to contact her.  He patted her knee, and realized that his mittens were still on.  Removing them, he took her hand and squeezed.  

"So if you don't mind, professor -- what happened?" he asked.  "We saw you in the park the night after the explosion at the Hammer Building.  And we saw you jump off that cliff and get shot."

"I'm not a professor anymore, Scott.  Call me Bruce."  Then he sighed and pushed away the mostly empty bowl of soup.  "Unfortunately, I can't answer most of your questions because I don't remember myself.  When I'm . . . in my other form . . . I have the mental comprehension of a dim four-year-old, and about the same memory capacity.  The one advantage of that form is that it appears to be remarkably difficult to kill."

And from the tone in which he'd said that, Scott suspected that Banner had tried.  

"In any case, the story's fairly simple, or what I know of it.  I fell in the river and was carried out to sea, then flung back on the rocks by the tide.  When I woke, I ran from people.  I don't know how the wounds healed, but the creature's skin is very thick so I doubt the bullets did much damage."  Banner continued to speak of his mutated form in the third person.  "It took several weeks before I reemerged, even for brief periods.  The creature is triggered by any strong feeling, especially negative ones -- anger, fear, sorrow.  It wasn't until I was well away from people and safe for several days in a row that I returned to myself.  Even then, I couldn't seem to hold it for more than a few hours.  

"It took some time before I figured out what was going on, because I couldn't remember much.  I didn't know where I was, or what really happened when the creature took over, or even what date or month it was."  And he reduced what must have been quite a tale to, "I kept heading north and this is where I ended up."

"Why didn't you contact us?" Jean asked, her shock and hurt finally transforming into anger.  "Didn't you think we'd help?"

"I'm damn dangerous, Jean!" Banner all but shouted, then shook his head and shivered hard all over.  He pushed the little table away and got up, walking around as if to calm himself.  "You shouldn't even be in here with me.  I still don't have that thing under control.  I'm not sure I ever will."

"Perhaps we could help?" Henry offered.  

"Absolutely not!  I'm won't risk either of you again!  Didn't I hurt you enough?"  Banner was shaking worse, and abruptly, he raced for the door, tearing his shirt off as he went.  "Don't follow me!" And he pelted away through the snow.  

The four of them stared after him and Jean tried to rise, but Scott held her back.  "Do what he says."

"I concur," Hank said softly.  Jean glared at them both, but complied.  

Though it wasn't terribly late, with nothing to do in the cabin, and no sign of Bruce, the four of them talked a little before bed, then fell asleep wherever they could find a comfortable spot.  By morning, the fire was out, the cabin freezing, and despite his exhaustion, Scott rose before the sun to lay fresh logs in the hearth and start it again.  Hank hadn't stirred, but Jean and Ro were both curled in tight balls despite the throws that covered them, and Scott's hands were so stiff, he had to try four times to light a match.  For once, he found himself regretting that his optic blasts didn't ignite things on contact.  Finally, with the fire going, he thawed out a bit and went back to his piece of the rug.  

The next time he woke, it was because the front door had opened, letting in a draft.  They all sat up and stared as Bruce came back in; he was wearing nothing but the equivalent of a Speedo and the women turned away in embarrassment.  "Bruce?" Hank asked.  

"Let me put on some clothes," he said and disappeared up the ladder to the small loft overhead.  They could hear him rummaging around.  The rest of them roused slowly and took turns in the bathroom.  By the time Bruce returned, dressed, they were all rumpled but awake.  

"That's why I can't dare to be around anyone," he told them.  "When I . . . change . . . I get violent easily.  Out here, I can get away and no one's endangered, but anywhere near a city, I don't have the space to do that."

"You would at the mansion . . ."  Jean started.  

"No, no, and for a third time, no.  I realize you mean well, but the answer is no.  I'm staying out here until I can find some way either to reverse this, or contain it.  I built that damn machine; I'll find a way to . . . undo it."  

"At the mansion, you'd have our lab -- "

"Jean!" Hank and Bruce said at the same time, then Hank turned to Bruce.  "But she does have a point, you know.  We could work on this, too.  Three heads are better than one."

Bruce glared a moment, then sighed.  And thus it was decided.  He, Hank and Jean spent the rest of the morning assembling the data that he'd acquired since he'd been able to think clearly enough, then he sent them on their way after lunch with printouts and several DNA swabs.  

Back on the plane, they redonned their uniforms and prepared to leave.  None of them spoke much.  Despite the outcome, Jean and Hank remained troubled, unsure if Bruce had ever intended to contact them.  He wasn't the Bruce they remembered -- whether due to depression, or from a need to maintain emotional equilibrium in order to hold his human form, it didn't change the fact.  Jean's shoulders sagged and her mouth was pinched.  "He blames himself," she said to Scott.  "He was always such a careful man and to have this happen . . . I wish he'd let us help him more."

Scott hesitated before replying.  In all honesty, he didn't want Banner in a mansion full of kids.  The man clearly believed in his own menace, and Scott was inclined to take him at his word.  "He's trying to protect you."

She gave a sad smile.  "I guess."
 
 
 

They'd left on a Saturday to avoid interfering with school, and returned late on Sunday, not bothering to remove their uniforms as they trudged upstairs to report to the professor what they'd discovered.  He was waiting for them in the game room, where several of the students were entertaining themselves watching television.  Bobby glanced around as they trooped in and then nudged St. John, whom he'd taken under his wing since the other boy's arrival.  "Hey," he said.  "The X-Men are back."

Scott, Ro, Jean and Hank all stopped dead in their tracks to stare, and both Xavier's eyebrows went up.  "The what-men?" Scott asked.  

Bobby flushed beet ripe.  "Um, the X-Men?  Professor X's men?  I mean, what are we supposed to call you?"

"Your teachers," Hank replied.  

"And I am a woman, in case you did not notice," Ororo added.  

Someone muttered, sotto voce, "We kinda noticed."  Scott thought it might have been Julio Rictor, but otherwise, no one came to Bobby's rescue and he was forced to fumble on alone.  

"Well, I mean, yeah, I know you're our teachers, but like, when you, um, go off and do the mission stuff.  Like getting Johnny.  Or me.  That stuff.  You sorta need a name, don't you?  I mean, you can't be 'Those guys in black leather from the Xavier Institute.'"

"We can't?" Ororo asked as Jean muttered, "'X-Men' sounds like a comic-book."

Hank's voice was wistful.  "I always wanted to be a superhero."

Scott glanced at him, then at the professor who, he thought, appeared to be struggling very hard not to smile.  "X-Men," Scott said, as if trying on the name for size.  "Oh, hell, why not?"  Then he straightened his shoulders and pulled in his chin, aiming for hauteur but winding up with mere pomposity.  "To me, my X-Men!"

The whole den burst out laughing.  

"Then again," Scott said, though his voice could barely be heard above the noise, "maybe not."
 
 
 

"Scott, we're going to miss the ball dropping."  They'd fled the noisy mansion den and Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve, and now Scott led Jean down a meandering path and through an iron gate outside the mansion walls.  

"How many times have you seen that?  You can miss one year."

"But it's a tradition.  I won't feel like it's 2002 if I don't see the ball come down."

Scott paused to stare at her, as if he found that assertion quite astonishing, and she shrugged.  "It's not that I mind a walk with you" -- she squeezed his hand where it gripped hers -- "it's just that it's cold out, and it's almost midnight and . . . well, if you wanted to be alone, we could've gone to our room."

"You're just looking for an excuse to get my clothes off."

Her cheeks went hot, but she forced herself to quip, "Fringe benefits."  Why she still blushed when he said such things more than six months after she'd begun sleeping with him, she wasn't sure.  Conditioning, perhaps.  She didn't want him to think her a slut, though she suspected he was vain enough to be more flattered.  Nonetheless, innuendo was as far as they typically went, and their few forays into something more candid had been spurred by exigency.  

They didn't say much as they headed towards the lake, and she could sense a tension in him, though he did his best to hide it.  She wondered what he couldn't say in the mansion that he had to drag her out into the cold night?  It had snowed the week before, but only crusts remained on the edges of rocks and tree roots and the bank above the lakeshore.  He held her hand tightly, to keep her from slipping as she skittered down after him in a shower of pebbles and dirt.  He caught her at the bottom and they stared at one another a moment.  "What is it?" she asked him.  

A flash of alarm crossed his face; he clearly hadn't intended her to read his anxiety.  "Nothing," he lied.  

And now she was as anxious as he was.  It lodged in her throat as her mind flashed over the past two months.  She hadn't thought anything was wrong, but now realized he'd been a bit distant of late.  Her second year residency in internal medicine had kept her so busy, she hadn't noticed, and perhaps therein lay the problem.  She wondered if he were feeling neglected?  Yet she couldn't imagine Scott being so cruel as to stage a breakup on New Year's Eve.  

Numb now with more than the cold, she followed him along the shore of Breakstone Lake to the boat dock pier, then out to the T at the end where there were built-in wooden benches.  She could hear little waves lapping at the support struts and somewhere out in the lake, a fish jumped.  With the black shadow of pines encircling the water, the star-speckled sky seemed to be caught at the bottom of a wide bowl.  She could see the patterns of Taurus and Orion overhead.  He hadn't let go of her hand since they'd left the mansion and now sat her down, though he remained standing, his fingers still twined in hers.  He didn't say anything at first, just kept staring at her, his eyes glowing red behind the glasses.  Scott's eyes did mirror his feelings, just not in the way of most.  The more strongly he felt, the brighter they grew.  "Scott, what is it?"

He moved finally, but not to sit beside her.  Instead, he knelt at her feet, his grip almost painful.  

"Marry me."

It took her a good ten seconds to process what he'd just said.  Then, stupidly, she asked, "What?"

She watched him swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing above the collar of his jacket as his thumb brushed the back of her hand compulsively.  In a voice that cracked, he said, "Jean Grey, will you marry me?"

She threw herself off the bench at him, knocking him over on his ass, her arms wrapped about his shoulders.  Her joy (and relief) bubbled out of her in laughter.  "Yes, yes, yes, yes . . . !"  Then he was laughing, too, and dropped back against the cold wooden dock, bringing her after him, half propped on his chest so he could kiss her.  Her hair fell around both their faces.  

After a minute, they got to their feet.  It was just too cold outside to be lying on anything for any length of time.  He fished in the pocket of his slacks.  "Don't laugh at this," he warned, taking her left hand and pushing a ring onto it.  

It wasn't a diamond.  It wasn't even a real ring, unless one were five years old and playing dress up -- all gold-painted aluminum with a big white plastic gemstone.  He must have bought it at a party shop or toy store, and she was too astonished to be offended.  "What on earth?"

"Well, I wanted to have something, but I figured you'd better come with me to pick out the real thing or I'll walk out with a ruby and think I had a diamond."  He grinned a little, then confessed, "Actually, I've been to every jeweler in Westchester County, and a few in Manhattan, but all I could decide was that I wanted your opinion."

She held up the silly plastic thing as if admiring it and said with a straight face, "Well, I like this one."  And for just an instant, she had him.  His mouth dropped open as if he thought she were serious -- then he made a hissing noise and leapt to tickle her till she was screaming with laughter and slapping at him.  "Stop!  Stop!"  He relented, and she collapsed on the seat again, breathing heavily.  "Thanks," she said.  

"For stopping?"

She smiled at him.  "No.  Thanks for wanting my opinion."

Leaning in, hands resting on her shoulders, he kissed her brow.  "Always."

And that, Jean thought, was why she was marrying Scott Summers. 

But only two years later, fate would intervene yet again.  Styling himself now as Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr redesigned Bruce Banner's machine not just to trigger latent X-genes, but to create them in normal humans.  It didn't work as it should have and the artificial mutations proved unstable.  And fatal.  Fortunately, thanks to the X-Men, there was only one death instead of hundreds, or even millions.  Yet the machine would, in fact, claim two lives -- one indirectly.  

The first time, Jean Grey had escaped the full force of the transforming wave because Henry McCoy had knocked her out of the way and taken the brunt of it.  The residue that had washed over her had been only enough to reopen her suppressed telepathy, not to trigger a full transformation.  But the second time, she wasn't so lucky, and her mutation leapt forward in a way that nature had never quite intended.  

It didn't kill her, but it did cause a power spiral that terrified her because, this time, the effect was much more profound.  She'd barely survived the first evolution sane, and was afraid of what the second would do.  Enough of her life had been thrown into turmoil that she didn't need her powers to rebel as well.  So she hid it, or tried.  

Naturally, it was what she'd feared most that, in the end, proved salvatory.  Fate had a way of upending expectations.  

When the dam of Alkali Lake had crumbled and the torrent had borne down on the trapped X-Men, snapping pines and sweeping away everything in its path, it was Jean's augmented power that had saved the lives of her friends and students -- and of the man who'd preserved her sanity, the man who'd taught her to love, and a third who'd challenged her equilibrium, but would end up cementing her resolve.  

She'd made herself a hero at last because she'd been both able to help, and no longer afraid to do so.  

Unfortunately, the cost was her life.  Or so everyone thought. 

Go on to the Epilogue: The Boathouse
The epilogue contains a certain, probable spoiler for X3/X4