An Accidental Interception
of Fate:  Fire and Ice
Minisinoo

It was early in September when Ororo found Dr. Reed Richards in her arboretum, circling the floor like a beagle on the scent, pausing occasionally to bang with his foot on dirt or concrete flooring.  She chalked it up to the random weirdness that Xavier's students had come to expect from the man.  He also chased pigeons and wrote on walls because, he said, there were no chalkboards big enough for his equations.  He inhabited an intellectual sphere so far beyond the rest of them that he lived in a different dimension.  

"And I had thought that Hank was odd, hanging from the ceiling to read his medical journals," Ororo had told Frank and Warren.  "At least he is able to conduct a normal human conversation."

"Hank says there are two kinds of researchers," Warren had explained.  "Pragmatists and theorists.  He's the former but this Richards guy is the latter."

"And Dr. Richards is not a mutant?"

"Just 'of the normal variety,' as the professor put it.  He's some kind of Einstein -- started college at fourteen and had two different Ph.Ds by twenty-two . . . from Harvard, no less . . . and about twenty-five patents already.  But his ideas are so weird, most of the people he works with think he's a kook."

"What does he do, in any case?" Ororo had asked.  "He is in and out of here without much rhyme or reason.  And how does he know the professor?"

"Research for NASA, down in Huntsville.  And I don't know how he knows the professor.  Xavier just seems to know people.  I think it's his hidden mutant ability."  Warren had grinned.  "There are corporate presidents and prime ministers of small countries with fewer contacts than Professor Xavier."  

They'd laughed, because it was true.  And Reed Richards continued to appear and disappear at the mansion at odd times that fall, doing inexplicable things.  They became accustomed to him, like the family pet who occupies a sofa but flees the room when the noisy children arrive.  Ororo could count on one hand the number of times that he'd spoken to her.  
 
 
 

The California sun at midday pinned down shadows sharp at the edges and compressed them squat like a checkerboard of people on a summer-brown lawn.  Music drifted from a CD player, Robert Johnson's rough vocals on stripped-down delta blues, turned low to avoid drawing the neighbors' ire until the sound was just swallowed in the open air.  Voices pierced louder, the white noise of twelve people at conversation, or twelve now that EJ had returned from the apartment above.  "PAR-TY!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs as he gallumped down the side steps carrying a red and white plastic cooler stocked with Coke and beer, the latter contributed by their guitar-player Rick Chabon (along with the Robert Johnson) and by Warren, who had flown in from New York with Frank and Ororo.  There was homemade mead as well, from Lee, of all the unlikely suspects.  Following EJ was Clarice and her friend Diane, bearing bags of chips, buns, condiments, and the hamburger meat to grill.  Scott had been assigned grill duty, with Warren to keep him company.  

"Where is this landlady?" Warren asked as Scott took the meat from Diane and laid down the first set of burgers on the small grid; only six fit at once.  "And wouldn't she have conniptions if she knew you guys were doing this?"

"Maybe.  But she's off to visit her daughter in San Jose, so this was the ideal weekend.  We're hardly going to trash the place, but she doesn't know that, and we didn't feel like having her peer out a window every fifteen minutes to check up on us.  She's nice but . . . a little nosey."  And he wrinkled his own nose at that.  "There's also the obvious advantage . . . " By way of conclusion, he gestured with the spatula to Warren's great white wings, unveiled in full view.  Mrs. Gale's small backyard ran lengthwise from the rear of her house alongside the garage, tree-shaded and set with flower beds, bright now with fall aster, and the whole of it was screened from neighbors by high hedges and tropical trees with wide leaves.  Thus, the first thing that Warren had done upon arriving was shuck his jacket and the wing rack beneath it, stretching out all sixteen feet to the delight of the other guests.  They'd surrounded him with oohs and awws and requests to pet him.  He'd been happy to oblige, making Scott, Frank and Ororo exchange a glance and break up laughing.  "He is a whore," Frank had said, which had only made Scott and Ororo laugh harder.  

Yet this, Scott thought now to himself, was how the world ought to be:  black and brown and white, mutant and non-mutant, and no one gave a damn, or not in a negative way.  Six months ago, he'd still been hiding his gift.  Today, he had on his visor and was demonstrating his beam control by popping the caps off beer bottles as a party trick, the same as others might tie cherry stems with their tongues.  (He'd only broken one bottle.)

Warren gestured towards someone behind Scott's back.  "Who's the Asian chick who keeps eyeing you?"

"That's Phoebe," he said.  

"She got a crush?"

"Not exactly, not anymore.  It's . . . complicated."  

"In other words, none of my damn business."  

Frowning, Scott turned over the burgers and added cheese to half of them.  Dripping fat hissed on the charcoal.  "Something like that."  If his guilt had faded soft like old calico in the past month, he still couldn't quite look Phoebe in the eye.  At least she was speaking to him again, but when circumstances threw them together in a group, they usually maintained a wary distance.  EJ knew something had happened, but for once, had been circumspect in his inquiries, accepting Scott's quiet, "There was a little blow up at the end of the summer," without pushing further.  If he'd spoken to Phoebe about it, Scott didn't know.  Now, EJ was off playing host, chatting up both Phoebe and Elizabeth and introducing them to Frank and Ororo, but that meant he couldn't keep an eye on who was sitting alone in a corner.  That was Warren's peculiar gift.  

"Speaking of chicks watching -- who's the one sitting it out on the steps?"

Scott glanced up to check, then said, "That's Diane, EJ's sister's roommate."  And he looked around for Clarice, but didn't spot her.  Normally, Diane was Clarice's taller, darker shadow.  "I don't know where Clarie went."  

"Back upstairs, I think.  Can you handle the grill alone without burning anything?  I'll go talk to her friend."  

Scott snorted.  "If I remember right, the last and only time you ever tried grilling anything, you couldn't even get the goddamn charcoal lit.  It's too plebian for you, Blue Blood."  But he kicked in friendly fashion at Warren's foot, to take out the sting, then added, more softly, "Listen, before you go -- Deedee can't walk too well.  That's why she spends most of her time sitting down.  She was in a bad fire as a kid, and has braces on her legs.  She's a little shy."  

Blond brows lowered, Warren said only, "Ah.  Maybe we could compare living with hidden metal racks."  Scott didn't answer and Warren ambled off, taking a circuitous route so she wouldn't think he'd come to babysit, then turned on the Worthington Charm, but at low wattage, his intent being to warm, not dazzle; she responded like a morning glory, opening slowly to brilliance.  Scott smiled and, the first set of burgers done, loaded them onto a paper plate, calling out the news as people left off chatting, drawn by the lure of food.  

Clarice had returned as well, and seeing Diane suitably occupied, took the opportunity to join Scott.  He'd wondered how long until she'd show up to orbit him.  That had been the pattern of things between them since the semester had begun.  Each might go off on their own for a while, but soon enough, gravity pulled one or the other back like a comet to a sun -- and it wasn't always Clarice to him.  Now, she said without preamble, "You're looking out for Diane."  

He grinned.  "Not me, actually.  Warren noticed all by himself.  He sees more than people give him credit for -- sees more than most people period."  

She studied Warren thoughtfully for a moment, then asked -- or mused, really -- "Do you think he'd take me flying?"

Her words stirred a complicated jealousy in Scott's gut, and he jerked up his head, jaw clenching until the muscles jumped slightly.  "I guess he's got the more romantic mutation."  

She glanced back at him in surprise.  "What bit your ass?"

Embarrassed, he gave a little shrug -- "Nothing" -- and damned a complexion that flushed beet red at the least provocation.  He kept his eyes on the grill, so when she moved a bit closer to slip a hand up his back, rubbing his muscles, he started.  But he liked it.  At least until he noticed Phoebe watching them.  

"Hey," he said softly, and shifted away from her hand.  "These are done; move back.  I don't want to accidentally burn you."  

And so it went throughout lunch.  With Phoebe around, he restrained his interaction with Clarice, yet even so, they sat together to eat, and she stole potato chips off his plate while his leg brushed hers.  Around mid-afternoon, Phoebe and Elizabeth took their leave of the party -- to Scott's ashamed relief -- but it let him relax as they cleaned up debris.  At one point, he followed Clarice upstairs, bearing unused plates and napkins.  The place was empty, no one even in the bathroom; a few shouts of laughter drifted up from below, and traffic buzzed past on the main road, but here it was quiet, the afternoon sunlight streaming in wide windows and glowing a bit on blond-wood floors.  They moved around each other in the kitchen, bodies sometimes brushing, and she began to chatter nervously while he stayed silent, a growing agitation pinching his throat closed.  He watched her mouth, wondering what she tasted like.  It seemed to him as if everything in the past few weeks had been hurtling downhill towards this moment alone together, and finally, frustrated, he made her put away the Tupperware of cooked hamburger meat, then steered her out of the kitchen, backing her up against the sofa near one window.  She stared at him.  He stared back.  Then bending, he kissed her silly as yellow light spilled over them both.  She ran her tongue along his and sucked at his lips until the tension broke and they laughed in each other's mouths.  Then they went back downstairs again, holding hands.  The fall afternoon light glittered, he thought.  
 
 
 

"How was the party?" Jean asked Ororo on Sunday evening after the younger three students had returned from California.  Neither she nor Hank had been invited.  They hadn't been told not to come, but they hadn't been invited, and Hank's exclusion had been largely a cover for excluding her.  Scott's wording to Warren on the phone had been, 'I'm sure Hank and Jean are too busy in the lab . . .'

She was hurt by that, and a bit jealous, but mostly, she'd come to realize that she missed him, and beyond hurt or jealousy, she wanted to know how he was.  But he wasn't telling her, so she sought out Ororo instead.  She might have turned to Frank, or Warren, but she suspected that Ororo noticed more.  "Is his new apartment nice?"

Ororo had been making tea for herself in the kitchen, and now paused to consider how she ought to reply.  After a year at the mansion, she'd come to appreciate better the deep conflict in Jean between scientific curiosity and a refined, society upbringing, between instinctive compassion and an ingrained, polite diffidence.  Jean was trying to be nosey without being nosey, and doing it badly.  Licking honey off her spoon, Ororo turned back to her tea mug.  "The apartment is old but adequate for two men, and cleaner than I had expected.  Not, apparently, thanks to Scott."  

Jean grinned at that, remembering that the boy might have kept his shirts tucked in, but his dirty clothes had always remained wherever they landed, until laundry day.  

"The party," Ororo went on, "was nice, and quiet -- until the band decided to play.  He sings very well."  

Jean was smiling.  "Did they get in trouble with their neighbors for the music?"

"No.  At least, not that I am aware."  

Jean reached for the sponge sitting behind the faucet and began to wipe up the counter.  Nervous energy.  "Did he seem . . . okay?  Happy?"

Sipping tea and wandering over to the rear kitchen door overlooking the herb garden, Ororo stared out the screen into the dusk, unsure what Jean was driving towards.  She was well aware that Scott and Jean weren't talking as much as they had -- if not aware that they weren't talking at all -- but Scott hadn't shared the details even with Frank, who was perhaps his closest confidant at the mansion.  Well, his closest male confidant.  Finally, she turned back to where Jean was still cleaning up the kitchen counter.  Taking a wild shot in the dark and hoping that intuition would find the bull's-eye, she said, "You did know that he has a girlfriend?   Her name is Clarice."  

Jean's hand paused, only momentarily, then she continued cleaning.  "No.  I didn't know."  

Ah, Ororo thought, and decided not to explain that the relationship had apparently bloomed in full only that very weekend.  "She is his roommate's sister."  

And Jean started to laugh.  Dropping the sponge in the sink, she leaned back against the counter and giggled.  "Oh, Scott!  First, he gets a crush on me.  Now, he's dating his roommate's sister?  The boy doesn't have a sensible bone in his body!"

"Actually," Ororo said, "They appeared quite comfortable with one another."  

"And what does EJ think about it?" Jean asked.  

"I did not inquire, but he did not seem put out."  

Jean sighed.  "Well, that's good.  I mean, I'm glad that it doesn't seem to be causing a problem with EJ."  

"And you do not mind that he is seeing her?"

Jean's expression told the story:  simple surprise.  "No, of course not."  She wasn't an actress, not when caught off-guard, and Ororo was inclined to believe her.  "He needs this, Ro -- a girl his own age.  I might've hoped that he'd pick one who's less likely to cause tension, but I'm very glad that he has one.  From everything I've heard about EJ, I like him.  And if his sister is half as nice, she'll suit Scott."  

Pushing away from the counter, Jean walked to the table near the back door and slid into a seat, then put her face in her hands.  Quite suddenly, she felt like crying, and she heard the chair beside hers scrape out, then a squeak as Ororo seated herself.  "What is wrong?" Ororo asked, moved by the open sorrow of this woman who so rarely seemed to lose control.  

"I miss him," Jean whispered.  "I didn't realize, until he stopped writing to me, how much I talked to him."  Then she raised her face and wiped away smeared mascara.  Automatic attention to the social mask.  "Isn't that funny?  He's not a med student, or a geneticist -- didn't even understand half of what I do.  But he listened to me.  He really listened to me.  I'd thought that whatever else he felt, a part of him could like plain Jean Grey.  But it was just a crush after all, wasn't it?  And now he's gotten past it.  He has a new girl, and all his friends are out there.  I'm glad but, God, I'm jealous.  Can you believe it?  I'm jealous."  

Reaching over, Ororo gripped Jean's forearm.  "I think that you do underestimate him."  She genuinely hadn't realized how attached Jean was to Scott.  "He has friends there, it is true.  But he has friends here, as well, and he has not forgotten us.  He did ask about you."  

"He did?"

"Yes, he did."  

Ororo was lying through her teeth, but she would see to it that Scott Summers resumed some kind of contact with Jean Grey.  
 

 
 

Rain arrived with the fall in Berkeley, and riding to and from school, Scott discovered the drawbacks of a distant apartment.  But rain numbered among his worst problems, and for that, he was grateful.  He knew his way around the school, his class load was manageable, he had friends who were aware of what he could do with his eyes -- and liked him anyway -- and he had a girl.  For a few months, he enjoyed an Indian summer of youthful freedom.  His great discovery, thanks to Clarice, was Redwood National Park.  It became their retreat.  Other couples had songs or restaurants.  He and Clarie had a park.  Even much later, after they broke up, Scott never lost his fondness for the place, and that fall, they frequently borrowed EJ's car to drive up for a day to wander among trees a thousand years old and higher than either could see.  Once, they rented a tent to spend a weekend at Nickle Creek grounds.  Clarice lost her virginity and Scott, amazingly, got within spitting distance of a black bear and her two cubs.  They never forgot that weekend.  And Scott decided that he just might be in love -- real, true love -- for the first time in his life.  

Previously, love, lust and infatuation had all run together in his experience until he hadn't believed there was any difference, yet now, it seemed clear to him.  That he was obsessed with Clarice was certainly true; the picture of Jean that had sat on his desk for a year had been replaced by one of Clarie -- replaced by several, in fact, tacked up here and there about his bedroom -- and sometimes he would lean on his desk, chin resting on the backs of his hands, and stare at the photo until twenty minutes were lost, or half an hour.  Fixated, obsessed, lovesick.  In class, he eyed his watch, marking time until they'd be done for the day so he could see her again.  Holding hands, they would talk for hours until they ran out of things to say, then found privacy for more physical pursuits.  Yet even with the blood singing in his ears and lower body, mesmerized by the scent of her, what he most wanted was to make her happy.  And that, he thought, was the difference.  It wasn't about him.  On the night when they passed that final boundary and he came inside her body for the first time, instead of in her hand or between her thighs, on that night, he understood what it meant to be vulnerable.  Incapacitated by nerves and worried that he'd hurt her more than was inevitable, or that it wouldn't be perfect, he'd been unable to stay hard.  True to his nature, he'd taken on more responsibility than was his share, but his performance anxiety had stemmed from awe (and terror) at the privilege of being first.  So she'd kissed and rubbed him until he'd relaxed enough.  And she hadn't laughed.  After, they'd tucked their bodies together like spoons in a drawer, and he'd kissed her shoulder and the back of her neck.  "I love you," he'd said into her ear, as soft as the wind in the sequoias above.  

"Why?" she'd replied.  

"Because I do.  Because there's no one else like you.  Because I can talk to you, and you listen.  Because you're not scared of me."  Because you didn't laugh at me -- but he didn't say that.  

She hadn't replied, just wiggled back closer against him and pulled his hand around to lace her fingers through his, making a patch-skin quilt.  Finally, she said, "Do you care that I'm black and you're white?"  They'd never talked about it before.  It hadn't seemed important.  There had been second glances at them, even at Berkeley, but she thought it had more to do with interest in the uncommon than any degree of disapproval.  Even Mrs. Gale had come to accept her 'colored' renter as none too different from her white one.  But here, now, Clarice had needed to ask the question and hear -- just once -- the answer she already knew.  

"I like it," he'd said.  And that, she hadn't expected.  She'd expected him to say it didn't matter, so she'd twisted a bit until she could see his face.  

"What do you mean?"

"I like dark skin.  I always have."  

Pushing herself up on an elbow, she'd looked down at him in the close dark of the tent, though she could barely see.  The air had smelled heavy, still full of sex musk and sweat, and he'd been wearing his visor, as he often did when they lay together.  "Really?" she'd asked.  

"Really."  

"You're not lying?"

"No -- really.  My first girlfriend was Mexican, then I dated an Indian-American named Anula Shah, another Mexican, and my last prom date was Chinese."  He didn't mention Phoebe.  "I've dated other people, of course, but if we're talking just plain looks, I kinda go for darker skin."  

"What about red hair?"  Clarice knew about Jean.  Scott had told her.  The telling had been part of his exorcism before moving on.  "I thought you liked red hair."  

He'd grinned; she could sense it more than see it.  "I do.  And I like dark skin.  I didn't say it had to make sense."  

And she'd relaxed back against him.  "Think I should dye mine?"

"Christ, no!  That would look just . . . weird."  And he ran one of her braids through his fingers.  "You don't care that I'm white?  Or a mutant?"

She'd smiled and kissed him.  "No.  Not at all.  I don't mind a little white bread."  

And that was all they'd said about it, or had needed to say.  There was, however, further discussion of the matter between Clarice and her brother.  Scott remained blissfully unaware of some conversations that occurred when he was absent, including a tremendous row when Clarie had announced that she planned to spend the night with Scott in a tent among the redwoods.  EJ and Scott themselves had never discussed that excursion, or discussed Scott's affair with her at all beyond one awkward exchange.  Approximately one week after the cookout that had begun their formal liaison, while Scott was still feeling broadsided by the intensity of his emotions and also feeling the remnants of guilt over Phoebe, he'd walked into EJ's small room, standing just inside the doorway until EJ had looked up.  Then staring fixedly at a point over EJ's shoulder (though with the glasses, the direction of his gaze was difficult to assess), he'd announced.  "I'd rather die than hurt her, Eeej.  I'd rather die.  I just thought you should know."  And he'd walked out again.  

Whatever Scott had said -- and EJ didn't doubt his sincerity -- EJ still retained his concerns, and had brought them up to Clarice on more than one occasion.  First, he thought Clarice (and Scott) too cavalier in their dismissal of the potential racial conflict.  "He doesn't care if I'm black, and I don't care if he's white!" Clarice had yelled when he'd come to see her in her dorm room.  Diane had been out, so it had been just to two of them.  "I'd never have expected you to doubt him!"

"I don't doubt him.  The man is colorblind -- figuratively, not just literally.  But that don't mean it won't matter."  In fact, EJ worried a great deal about his sister's attraction to Scott.  The matter was more complex than mere pigmentation, and however biologically bogus race might be, it still existed at the cultural level, and the historical, and he thought a part of Clarice was ashamed at the darkness of her skin.  From the time they'd been children, she'd held herself apart, refusing to adopt either the ebonics of her school-mates, or their epistemologies.  By nature a serious girl, and introverted, her interest in hard science hadn't been acknowledged kindly in Black Town, where girls didn't save pennies for telescopes to seek the stars.  That was a 'white' occupation, and EJ had heard kids at school sneer the word "oreo" in her hearing.  Yet rather than fight against it, show them that interests weren't genetic, she'd embraced her rejection.  Scott was, as EJ had said, colorblind.  But he wasn't culturally blind, and EJ thought he'd fallen so hard for Clarie because she was a black white girl.  And her attraction to him?  EJ feared that, deep down, she was trying to shed her skin.  

"We think alike," she said now.  "We have the same values.  The church issue is going to be a bigger deal, Elijah."  

"I know."  He seated himself on her bed.  "But out in the real world . . . you saw he was a little stiff sometimes, on our visit home last break.  Not with us, but outside the house.  I'm not saying it won't work.  I'm just saying it worries me to see you two dismiss it like it don't matter none."  

"Well, you two live together!"

"Yeah, but we ain't marrying each other.  And we talk about the differences.  It's not a taboo subject."  He eyed his sister.  "You two are getting serious, and getting serious fast."  

Her chin went up.  "Yes, we are."  

"He ain't said the m-word, has he?"

"Quit being so cryptic.  If you mean marriage, no, he hasn't.  It's a little early for that."  

He stood again.  "There are still places in this country that wouldn't serve you two in a restaurant without you making a scene first -- and not all of 'em are white-owned restaurants.  He might be my brother but he's not a brother, y'know?  You shouldn't go into this with rose-colored glasses.  People'll stare -- "

"They stare now.  But there's a difference between just looking and glaring."  

EJ ignored her.  "It'll be harder for you to find a place to live, and anytime you take him to an all-black function, he won't be completely comfortable.  He might not even be welcome, like I said.  It'll always be easier for you to adapt to his world than for him to adapt to yours."  

"I know," she replied, frowning out a window.  "Don't think I don't know."  

But he still wondered, in a corner of his mind, if adapting to Scott's world wasn't the point?  In truth, though, the racial issue had been the easiest for him to broach because it was the least significant.  Scott and Clarice had more in common than different, just as was true for Scott and EJ.  EJ's primary concerns remained the same ones he'd raised the previous spring:  Scott's greater romantic experience, and his fascination with Jean Grey.  EJ could now add concern over what had transpired between Scott and Phoebe that summer.  Neither had been forthcoming, and as Scott had previously related almost everything to EJ, his sudden recalcitrance was troubling, especially when combined with Phoebe's equal reluctance to discuss it when he'd invited her to the cookout.  "Something went sour between you two?" he'd asked, fishing.  She'd replied, "You might say that.  I'm coming to this for your sake, Eeej.  Not for his."  

Even now and despite the glasses, Summers was too adept with women; and because EJ knew how easily he could fall into the same slightly narcissistic trap himself, he fretted no end.  Clarice adored Scott, and EJ feared what she might do to keep him.  It wasn't just the near-certainty of sex, though his antiquated resistance to that idea surprised him.  Yet were EJ honest with himself, he had to admit that if he could have picked a man to be his sister's first, Summers would've been his choice -- Scott respected her -- and he dismissed any intellectual dissonance this caused by the simple expedience of refusing to think about it.  His real dread ran in a different direction.  

EJ remembered too well Scott's devotion, all that previous year, to Jean Grey, yet now it was stone cold.  All pictures of Jean had disappeared and the two never talked on the phone.  Scott studiously avoided her name in conversation.  Instead, he'd thrown himself into this affair with Clarice, and EJ was far from convinced that Scott was over Jean, feared that he was using Clarie to soothe his head-on collision with reality, even while Clarice was using him to escape her race.  The fact that EJ kept his mouth shut owed to the fact that Scott and Clarice were -- differences aside -- a good match.  What had started as one thing might transform into another.  More, EJ loved Scott as much as his sister did, and had no wish to endanger that friendship -- though if Scott did hurt Clarice, EJ would grant him no quarter.  So he kept his doubts to himself, and if Scott sometimes suspected that his friend was less sanguine than he appeared, he bought into the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy.  

It was early November when, prompted by Ororo, Scott finally resumed limited email contact with Jean, and they obliquely renegotiated the boundaries of what would and wouldn't be discussed.  She talked about med school and her research; he complained about his classes.  She didn't say much about Ted Roberts.  He said almost nothing about Clarice Haight.  Their notes became easier after the first few, but he no longer checked his email six times a day.  

In mid-November, the weekend before Thanksgiving, Soapbox was hired to play yet another frat party.  They performed at least every other weekend now, and their reputation was growing, having scored a few shows at prestigious bars and clubs, and a few more at mediocre ones, as well as these ubiquitous frat parties.  This particular gig had begun like any other.  They set up on the house's back deck under tiki torches and leftover orange Halloween pumpkin lights.  It wasn't cold enough at night yet to prevent an outdoor party, and it wasn't raining.  The house itself was old and large, white clapboard in need of fresh paint and slightly messy from a combination of party debris and the ill attention of its occupants.  By eleven o'clock, as Soapbox closed their second set, most of the guests had arrived and had consumed enough beer to be rowdy, but not enough to descend into an alcoholic stupor.  

When the band took a break, Lee ducked inside to find a restroom.  As always, the guys kidded her that her bladder was the size of a pea, and accustomed to ignoring them, she entered through a rear door near the kitchen, found the trash bin overflowing and margarita mix spilled on a kitchen counter, now overrun by black ants.  The first floor bathroom was occupied already, and there was a line -- three girls waiting and smoking outside -- so she headed upstairs, disinclined to exchange meaningless banter with drunk Barbie look-alikes.  At the foot of the stairs, a boy and girl were hanging all over each other, and annoyed, she pushed past them.  Two stairs squeaked, and one was cracked.  Upstairs, there was giggling behind closed doors and the distinct, sweet odor of marijuana.  The bathroom was occupied here, too, but there wasn't a line, so she folded her arms over her chest, leaned into a wall, and studied generic seaside prints while she waited, trying not to listen in on the sexual tryst in the bedroom behind her.  It sounded as if there were at least three people in there, which amused her in a condescending way.  Lee had always prided herself on her detachment from such things.  If she harbored no objection to sex, she wanted it on her terms, and could usually take it or leave it, subconsciously resenting the loss of control required to enjoy it.  She was slightly prudish in her sexual emancipation.  

What followed next occurred in cinematic slow motion for Lee, even if later, she had difficulty sorting it out.  The door to the restroom opened at the same time as the door to the bedroom with the (at least) three-person orgy.  One boy stepped out of the bathroom, and another boy from the bedroom, his pants still unzipped and halfway down.  Lee moved for the bathroom, but the second boy pushed past as if he hadn't seen her.  "Hey," she snarled, "I was waiting, you jerk."

He was too drunk, or too high, or both, to think of consequences, and grabbed her by the hair, shoving her up against the doorframe to snarl back, "Shut up, bitch."

Spittle flew and she flinched.  "God!  Get out of my face!  You're disgusting."

"Fuck you!"  And then his mouth was on hers and he'd yanked her inside the doorway, one hand squeezing her breast right through her shirt.  Her first reaction was mental shock, followed by violent loathing, and she shoved him backwards.  Off balance, and with his pants half-down and tangling his legs, he tripped over the toilet and fell into the tub.  He looked ridiculous, with legs sticking straight up in the air and his butt bared.  She laughed.  It wasn't wise.

Scrambling up, he got hold of her arm and yanked her sideways into a bathroom wall so that her head connected with a towel rack, almost knocking her out.  Gasping, she dropped to her knees, pain white behind her eyelids.  She'd bitten her tongue as well, and tasted blood, salty-sharp.  Still furious, her assailant slugged her in the jaw, calling her every nasty name that crossed his besotted mind.  Despite her pain, or because of it, she reacted with all the anger against the male of the species that she usually kept bottled.  Grabbing the plunger, she laid about with it like an armed Valkyrie and screamed in rage.  The ruckus brought more frat brothers and their dates out of bedrooms to witness the spectacle, and also brought her bandmates up from the yard below.

EJ heard her yelling first -- Scott was off with Rick, getting extra duct tape out of Lee's van to replace what had torn off cables -- and her howled obscenities sent EJ crashing through the back door, into the house, and up the stairs.  He found her fighting with all her might against five boys.  There was blood on her face and her top was torn, bearing half her beige bra.  Unsure what had happened but fearing the worst, EJ leapt into the fray with nine years of training in Isshin-Ryu karate.  He became a whirling mass of hands and feet in the close hall space as he tried to avoid friendly fire from a furious Lee with her plunger.  But he hadn't counted on facing a frat brother far above his own fighting skill.  If Asian ancestry didn't automatically grant expertise in martial arts, this time it did, and though EJ had been training since ten, this boy was the son of a temple master in San Francisco and had begun Shaolin Kung-Fu at his father's knee as soon as he could toddle.  He may have drunk too much, but almost before EJ could register it, the boy had flung EJ into a wall, cracking the plaster.  "Don't mess with us, nigger boy!" the other howled.  "Don't mess with us or I'll kick that ugly black ass back into the shit hole it crawled out of." 

At that moment, Rick tore up the steps with Scott behind, and Clarice behind Scott, despite being told to stay outside.  Seeing her brother sent flying, she tried to push past, but Scott hauled her back, almost knocking her down the stairs in the process.  "Stay out of this!"  Meanwhile Rick, infuriated by the racial slurs, had unwisely jumped on the kung-fu expert's back.  The other boy just slammed himself into a wall, crushing Rick in the process and dropping him to the floor with a pained grunt.  Immediately, one of the watching girls kicked him in the ribs.  "Ugly nigger!" she hissed.  "Ugly, fat-lipped nigger!"  Rolling and grabbing her foot, Rick yanked her off balance but that only brought down the wrath of her friends.  There were too many of them, Scott noted with cool detachment -- thirteen to four, not counting Clarice.  An astonished EJ had climbed to his feet again, but was ringed about and cautious in his re-engagement.  Lee had been pinned by the boy with his pants down and one other, her plunger taken away, and the slightly built Rick was simply overwhelmed.

Scott's options clicked through his mind as if it were a math problem to be solved, and the world fractured into a mosaic of individual movements, like so many stones building a picture.  Blood beat in his temples, and his vision ran until it coagulated into eagle clarity.  The touch of Mars, or maybe Minerva.  One arm still holding back Clarice, he calculated distances and triggered his visor.  He'd grabbed it from the van when he and Rick had run for the house, and now, narrowing his eyes, he opened the lens and blinked rapidly, shooting bolts rather than a single beam.  They knocked chunks from the wooden floor between EJ and his nemesis, then did the same alongside the boys holding Lee, and finally, near the small huddle kicking Rick.

It had taken six seconds from analysis to action.  

Screaming, people leapt out of the away or fled into rooms and slammed doors shut.  Even his friends were startled, though they'd seen him use the beams before.

But not like this.  Never offensively.  

"Get back," he said in a voice just slightly above normal, flat with casual authority.  Except for a little sobbing, the entire upstairs had gone dead quiet.  Outside, the radio could be heard, and the voices of others, asking what was going on.  "Back away from my friends."  He felt no fear.  He felt nothing at all, in fact, as if the emotional side of his nature had been shut tight behind the door of necessity.

EJ recovered the quickest and moved to assist Lee, where she'd been dropped to the floor by the boys who'd been holding her, when they'd fled.  Rick pulled himself up the wall, one arm gripping his ribcage, his dark skin gray from pain.  Four boys remained facing them, among them EJ's nemesis.  "What in hell was that?" he demanded, though the other three kept their distance.  Competence in self-defense made him cocky, and he stepped forward -- an open challenge.  Scott triggered his visor once more, the beam blade-thin and set at low impact.  It still cut a line in the floor at the other boy's feet.  "Shit!" the boy screamed, blundering backwards and knocking over a telephone table that had heretofore miraculously escaped destruction.  It went over with a crash, the phone ringer clanging as it fell and the receiver bouncing free so that the dial tone hummed loudly.  "What are you, you nigger-loving motherfucker?" he asked.

"Kill the n-word," Scott snapped, "or I'll drive a beam right through your bigoted balls."

"Try it," the boy retorted, but he didn't come any closer.

Jaw tensing, all the emotions he'd smothered came flooding back and Scott might have made good on his threat, but in the instant before he could fire, Clarice's hand clamped down on his wrist.  "He's not worth it," she whispered in his ear, speaking fast, terrified of what he might do.  "Please, Scott.  Please don't, please don't.  He's not worth it." 

She was right.  "Guys," he said, "go pack up.  We're done here."

"The hell you're done!  You're not going to just walk away from this!" the aggressive one yelled, but he came no closer as EJ assisted Lee and Rick to the stairs, moving past Scott.  "Look what you did to our house!"

"Look what you did to my friends," Scott replied, voice still deadly even.  "If we press this, you could get your charter revoked.  I remember reading in the Daily Cal last year accusations of date rape made against this same frat.  I think you're already walking a thin line, aren't you?"  And Scott began to back down the stairs.  He could feel Clarice's hand at his elbow, guiding him.  He didn't turn his back on the boys and didn't remove his hand from his visor.  Downstairs, people gave the five of them a wide berth.  If they hadn't witnessed Scott's display, they'd certainly heard the shouting and could see the blood on Lee, and EJ.  Some disappeared out the front door, beating a retreat before cops could arrive.  That suited Scott just fine.

They made it out the back door, and he stood guard while EJ and Clarice packed equipment.  Lee leaned against the deck rail, arms wrapped around herself, cursing under her breath.  Despite the blood on her face and her torn shirt, Scott didn't think her badly injured.  Rick, however, breathed heavily through his mouth and was growing more pallid as time passed.  "Broken ribs?" Scott asked him softly, and he nodded.

"I think so.  God, it hurts." 

"We need to get you to a hospital." 

Rick just nodded in agreement, and Scott returned his attention to watching.  The uncanny cool had descended on him again and he felt nothing -- not fear, not rage, not anxiety, nothing.  The lawn was now empty, a few tiki torches burned out and fallen onto the grass, plastic cups dropped haphazardly as guests had fled.  Apparently, curiosity had warred with discretion and discretion had won.  Only the frat brothers and a few girlfriends remained on the premises, but they were staying in the house, observing from windows and calling out insults.

Experience made their set breakdown fast, although 'fast' was relative -- it still took them twenty minutes -- nonetheless, they were nearly done before the frat house president emerged from a rear door, backed up by the martial arts expert.  The president's expression was belligerent and haughty, not conciliatory, and Scott placed himself between the two of them and his friends.  "What do you want?"

"You don't press charges and we won't," the president said without preamble.

"I think we have a pretty clear case of self-defense," Scott replied, unwilling simply to back down.

But the president's eyes had gone sly, and he tilted his head.  "Yeah, maybe.  But do you want to explain to the cops how you cut holes in our hallway floor?"

Coming up behind Scott, EJ set a hand on his shoulder.  "We're done, man.  Let's get the fuck out of here." 

"They owe us, EJ -- "

"Drop it.  Come on."  And he got a fistful of Scott's sweater, tugging.  Perforce, Scott had to follow, but refused to turn his back until they'd reached the van.  Clarice already had the engine running, and EJ pulled Scott inside, sliding the big door shut.  The van lurched away. 

It all hit him in a delayed reaction then, and he began to shake, dropping down in the van's rear to lean against Lee's big bass drum case.  "Shit, shit, shit," he muttered.  Rick was lying across the van's one remaining rear seat with Lee in the front, beside Clarice.  EJ had crashed next to Scott.  

No one spoke for several blocks, then EJ said, "Rick needs a hospital,"

"I'm already headed there," Clarice replied.  

When they reached the emergency room parking lot, EJ helped Rick out of the van without too much jostling.  Glasses back on, Scott assisted, feeling guilty the whole time.  If he hadn't used the beams, they could've called in the cops and forced the fraternity to pay Rick's medical bill.  As things stood, it had to go on Rick's insurance.  "I'll pay for this," Scott blurted as they reached the red-striped doors that whooshed open for them.  

EJ and Rick both gave him a baffled look.  "Why, man?" Rick asked.  "I got insurance!"

"I know.  But it's my fault.  The frat should've paid, and it's my fault we can't make them."  Scott touched his damning glasses.  

Inside the doors, Rick halted to lean up against a wall.  His own glasses had somehow escaped damage, and now he peered at Scott from behind them.  "This ain't your fault, man.  I jumped a guy I shouldn't have."  

"But if not for me, we could've called the cops -- "

"Yo, right!" EJ and Rick both said together.  

"They attacked Lee!" Scott protested.  "And they already have a reputation!"

"Yeah, they do.  But you gotta remember the score here," EJ pointed out.  "They're the clean-cut sons of CPAs, CEOs, and VPs.  We're a freakin' band with two brothers, a chick for a drummer, and you.  The cops'd make certain assumptions."  

Scott blinked.  "But Rick's dad manages a bank!  And you're a PK!"

"So?  We're black."  

"What the fuck does that matter?" Scott shouted, drawing attention from others in ER.  

"Don't be dense," Rick said, voice tight and low.  "If you hadn't had the beams, they'd have handed us our asses even with EJ on our side, then dumped us in the van with threats to do it again if we squealed.  Now, they're not sure what to make of you, and they've calmed down enough to remember that I'm a Nupe.  They touch me again, and I got brothers who'll kick their straight white teeth down their prissy white throats.  We were damn lucky.  Now shut up and get me into ER.  It's thanks to you that I wasn't brought in by ambulance."  

So Scott and EJ obliged, and if Scott doubted that the police would've been as automatically biased as EJ claimed, he nonetheless had to acknowledge the basic logic behind what Rick had said.  If not for him, things could have gone much worse, and they wouldn't have been in any shape to call the police or lodge charges.  

It struck him finally that he'd saved them all tonight, saved even EJ, whom he usually considered better able to protect himself than Scott was.  He, Scott Summers, mutant, had saved his friends by the power of his own mutancy.  

Christ, what a gas.  

A triage nurse deemed Rick's injury non-life-threatening, and he was consigned to a waiting room until he could be seen by one of the residents.  Waiting with him, it dawned on Scott that neither Clarice nor Lee had come inside yet.  "I'll go check on the girls," he told the other two, and slipped out, making his way back down the hall and escaping into the dark of the parking lot.  It was now after midnight and clouds had boiled in from the west, obscuring the moon.  Lee's van was still there, so they hadn't gone anywhere else.  Hands shoved into his pockets against the cold, he jogged across asphalt to peer in the front window.  No one was there and the door was locked when he tried it.  Deciding that they must have gone into the hospital after all, he'd turned back towards the ER when the side door slid open and Clarice's head popped out.  "I thought it was you," she said.  Her face appeared both strained and vaguely eerie in the yellow light of a street lamp.  

Turning back, he kissed her quickly.  "You okay?  They decided Rick isn't likely to die on them, so they're making him wait.  It could be a while.  You may as well come in."  

Clarice glanced back into the dark of the van and Scott could hear faint sniffles now.  Worried, he tried to see past her, but she blocked his view until Lee's voice -- very rough -- said, "It's okay.  Let him in."  So Clarie moved aside and he climbed into the van, made his way over to sit down beside Lee, whose face was puffy from heavy crying.  Her fair skin glowed ghostlike in the dark, but there was still blood on it, and dark bruises now.  He put an arm around her, hugged her to him just because he didn't know what else to do.  She accepted it, hugging him back.  She was shaking, and it alarmed him to find self-sufficient Lee Forrester near breakdown.  He could hear Clarice's breath behind them, and the grating sound of the door slamming shut again.  

"What'd they do to you, Lee-Lee?" he asked finally, almost afraid to hear the answer.  

Pulling back, she wiped her running nose.  "Not what you think, so quit fretting."  

"Well, his pants were down -- "

She burst into almost hysteric giggles, as did Clarice behind her.  "That wasn't because of me."  

"Lee said he came out of a room where there were at least three of them in there, going at it.  He just hadn't buttoned up his fly yet."  

In other circumstances, he might have laughed, too.  But not here.  "Lee -- "

"Really, Scott.  I just got in his way.  He did try to kiss me, but just to piss me off.  I made him mad and he hit me and that's how it started -- and all it was.  He was drunk; I was furious.  I'm just . . . a little freaked out, is all.  It brought back some bad memories.  I'll be okay."  

Scott considered that, and sat down cross-legged on the van floor in front of her, gripping her hands in his.  He was aware of Clarice at his back, like a bulwark.  "You want to talk?" he asked.  

"Not really.  Did that already."  

Should he press, he wondered?  But for what purpose?  Just to satisfy his own prurient interest?  He was no counselor, and Clarice had been here for Lee.  Like her brother, Clarie had a quietude of soul that acted as a balm, and Lee had no close girlfriends.  Perhaps she needed one.  But what she needed most from him was simple acceptance without fanfare.  So he asked, "You want some coffee?  They have it in the ER.  We should probably get your face cleaned up, too.  You're going to have one helluva shiner by tomorrow, y'know?"

"More like two of them," Clarice said from behind him.  "A matched set."  

Smiling at that, Lee let them raise her to her feet, one on either side, and lead her into the ER.  
 
 
 

As Scott and Clarice hadn't spent more than a weekend apart since they'd begun dating -- he'd even gone home with her for Thanksgiving -- the looming separation at Christmas haunted them both.  Finals demanded their attention, but they otherwise breathed one another like swimmers gulping oxygen before a deep dive.  Seven days before Christmas, Warren flew out with Frank to pick up Scott, and Scott then flew them all back, Warren watching with approval from the co-pilot seat.  "You've picked this up fast, Gamma Gaze," he said.  

"Runs in the family, I guess," Scott replied, making light of it, but he and Warren both shared a love of the clouds, so he felt no need to explain further.  "So how are things at the mansion?"  Deliberately general, the question could be answered in whatever way the other two took it.  

"I am graduated!" Frank crowed, and twisting, Scott offered a hand over his shoulder to shake.  

"Hank's newest experiment, whatever it is, smells foul," Warren added, "and Ro's learned to manipulate air currents so she can float."  

"Really?"

"Yeah.  She can't go fast, or move anybody else -- she dumped Frank on the lawn -- "

"That hurt!"

" -- but she can raise herself."  

"Cool.  I never even considered that she could use her powers to fly."  

"None of us did.  She figured it out by accident, I think.  But you know Ro, she won't show off anything until she has it down."  Scott grunted in agreement, though he understood the sentiment.  "Frank here has been working at using Cerebro, but it still makes him sicker than a dog."  

"I do not think this will change.  It is the nature of having the power accelerated so far."  

"Maybe you should stick to running the obstacle course Hank laid out."  

"Ugh."  Frank's expression, seen faintly reflected in the cockpit window, made Scott grin.  "Tell him about the new construction," Frank prompted, to change the subject.  

"Oh, yeah.  Well, the big news is that Reed Richards has been up at the mansion every weekend since November.  He and the professor are building something in the sub-basement, but they won't tell us what.  They sealed off a whole corridor, and Xavier brought in contractors.  Ro asked the guys some questions, and they think they're building a gym."  

"But you don't."  

"He's mucking around in minds again.  I know that's how he got the whole sub-basement built in the first place, but still . . ."  Warren trailed off, frowning, then asked, "Do you two ever worry that, y'know, you may not be thinking your own thoughts?"

Scott pondered this while eyeing instrument readings.  Everything was running on level.  "No," he said.  "I mean, I did at first -- when I first got to the mansion.  Now?  No, never.  I trust him."  

"Si," Frank agreed.  "I think I would know otherwise."  And he smiled.  

"So when will we find out what they're up to?" Scott asked.  

"Christmas Day," Frank and Warren replied in unison.  

They fell silent, and Scott finally decided that he'd have to go fishing.  "How's Jean?"

Warren glanced over.  "I thought you had a girl?"

Annoyed, Scott breathed out heavily.  "That doesn't mean I don't want to know if Jean's okay."  He paused, added, "I'd like to be friends again but . . . I don't know.  I'm afraid we've lost that."  

"You hurt her feelings, Scott," Frank said quietly from the seat behind, "not to invite her to your party.  Henry did take it better than Jean did."  

"Ro already chewed me out, thank you very much.  And I wasn't ready to see her, then."  

"And now?"

Scott shrugged.  "It's different.  I've got Clarice."  A pause.  "I think I'm in love with her."  

Both Warren and Frank sat straight up, Warren's wings fanning out in astonishment.  "Whoa -- say what?"

Scott grinned.  "I think I'm in love with her."  

"For real?"

"Yeah, for real."  

"You thought you were in love with Jean."  

"No, I had a crush on Jean.  This is different."  A hesitation.  "But is she happy?  Jean, I mean.  Her last letter seemed kind of flat.  It worried me, but there are things we just don't talk about anymore."  

"Ted Roberts is one of them," Frank said.  It wasn't a question.  

Warren raised a hand to show thumb and forefinger an inch apart.  "They're this close to splitting.  She makes us answer the phone, in case it's him, and sometimes pretends she's not there."  

Scott didn't know how he felt about that.  Honesty demanded that he admit to a small, gleeful vindication, but it saddened him more.  "He's not being good to her?"

"I don't think it's that.  I don't know what it is.  She's not talking to us."  Warren glanced sideways.  "She might talk to you, though.  If you asked."  

"And she might not."  

"She will," Frank said with a finality of which only he was capable.  

But Scott had no chance to talk with Jean, and there were no white-lit Christmas deer on the lawn waiting to greet him.  Jean was off visiting her sister, and was to head directly home after that so she could return on Christmas for the professor's surprise.  Hank was gone as well, and the four younger students spent their time playing poker, working out in the gym, building snow creatures on the lawn, or simply gossiping.  Each time he returned to Westchester, Scott grew more conflicted, uncertain as to where he belonged.  Here, with others born like him?  Or back in Berkeley, with others who thought like him?  California was home; he'd lived there since starting high school, and to a military brat, that constituted a long time.  Moreover, he had friends there again, and it felt increasingly like a different existence, one integrated, instead of isolated.  Yet the people here were his chosen family, and he owed the professor so much.  There was also the matter of Frank's visions, whatever they might mean.  If he believed in Frank's gift with the closest thing he had to faith, that faith wasn't hard reality, and the notion that his optic blasts could be anything other than a dangerous nuisance hadn't really penetrated until he'd saved his friends a month ago.  Now, he reveled in the new recognition that his power could be used to protect, not to harm, and maybe there was something to Frank's prophecy after all.  

On Christmas Eve, Frank was visited around mid-afternoon by a powerful premonition.  He and Scott were wrapping last minute presents on the floor of Frank's room, while Scott chatted with Clarice by phone.  Frank suddenly grabbed his head and fell forward like a stunned bull.  Mostly his visions struck in his sleep, but the very strong, or the very imminent, might hit him while he was awake.  Hanging up on Clarice with a stuttered explanation, Scott knelt beside him, waiting for the vision to pass.  For long moments, there was only Frank's harsh breathing, then he stirred and raised his head from his hands, looked at Scott.  "Fire and ice," he said.  "I see fire and ice, and a mutant boy in danger at a church.  And steel mills."  

But whatever was to come, it hadn't happened yet.  The professor descended to the sub-basement to scan periodically using Cerebro.  Just around dusk, he finally located a mutant's distinctive mental spike in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  It was a drive of several hours, or a flight of less than one, so they headed for Warren's jet and landed at the local Allentown airport in twenty-five minutes; renting a car took another fifteen.  

The closer they drew to the mutant's signature, the more obvious it was that a local disturbance was underway.  In the end, they couldn't get within more than a few blocks.  The police had the area cordoned off, and they could hear sirens in the distance, see the glow of a fire against the night sky.  Parking the rental haphazardly on a curb, they stopped to confer.  "Warren, Scott, I want you to move in rapidly," the professor instructed.  "Ororo can wheel me closer but it will take more time.  Frank, stay with the car."  

It was, Scott thought, a handy way of keeping their weakest link out of trouble, and now that they were here, they needed his powers the least.  A pragmatist, Frank made no protest.  

Grabbing his visor and tossing the keys to Frank, Scott, with Warren in tow, raced off in the direction of the racket.  Although traffic had been stopped, there were simply too many people about and in the dark, it was easy to slip past the blockade by the simple expedient of ducking through backyards and over fences.  The houses here had been built in the post-war boom of the late forties and early fifties, all northeastern clapboard square frames with yards the size of postage stamps and constructed closely enough together that a tall man could stand with arms extended and touch the house to either side of him.  A few had back porch lights switched on, and once, the two boys were chased by a yapping cocker spaniel.  

The heart of the disturbance appeared to be a local church lawn -- as Frank had foreseen.  "Trinity Presbyterian" read the brick marquis.  Vaulting over a final chain-link fence, Scott and Warren stumbled to an awed halt.  

The entire lawn had been transformed into a frozen confection like a life-sized ice sculpture, and at the center rose a great, decorated cedar, lighted still from within its glittering shell.  Behind roared hell.  If the lawn was frozen, the church itself was on fire, flames licking up into black night and sparking gold and red off the glassy-ice.  

Against this backdrop, firemen sprayed water from hoses and people ran shouting to and fro.  Some flung rocks or trash or whatever came to hand, but not at the firemen.  The center of the maelstrom was a boy and a girl.  He'd pushed her to the ground and now attempted to cover her with his own body.  They might have been screaming, but with the general uproar, no one could tell, and even as Scott and Warren watched, the girl clawed her way out from under her protector to race away into the crowd.  

No one flung things at her.  But the missile flotsam continued assaulting the boy, who had his arms wrapped protectively over his head.  "Monster!" people were yelling.  "Freak!"  "Devil!"

Scott was reminded of the frat house, but he felt no anger.  As before, he felt nothing at all, his mind having slammed itself into that same strange state of which in all his life, he would never learn to make an adequate description.  It was the difference between a muggy day and the clarity after rain.  Time dragged, he could count his own breaths, and his body tingled with blood rush.  Freed of mortal restraints, he doubted nothing in himself.  Instead, he catalogued everything around him:  the angry mob bent on a modern stoning in this season of redemption, the police trying vainly to restrain them, the firefighters attempting to subdue the blaze . . . and the boy huddled all alone like an infant in an icy creche.  

"Warren, get your jacket and shirt off.  It's time to stage our own little Annunciation."  

To his credit, Warren offered no protest, just doffed his clothing as Scott had instructed.  "What?  You want me to fly down and pick him up?"

"Exactly."  

"Jesus Christ!  All I need's a flaming sword!  Where should I take him?"

"Back to the plane, if you can get that far.  If not, land somewhere.  The professor can find you."  

"What if the police decide to shoot at me?  Real archangels don't bleed.  I do."  

"I've got your back.  You concentrate on getting that kid out of there; let me handle the police, if it's necessary."  

"God, I hope it's not."  And Warren handed over jacket, shirt and wing rack, then stretched out white feathers in the shadow of a backyard shed and launched himself into the air, spiraling fast -- too fast, Scott hoped, for anyone to see him go up.  

Gripping Warren's discarded apparel, Scott edged his way closer to the crowd, one hand hovering halfway to his visor.  He was watching the police, but busy with the mob, they weren't watching the sky.  

Warren came down, wings beating in slow strokes, gilded by the fire's light.  The crowd noise died away and people stood with mouths agape.  Scott's own gaze flicked from Warren to the mob, to the police, who'd turned now, to see what had stunned the many-headed beast into complacency.  

Except for the sirens, the crack of the fire, and the hiss of rushing water, it was eerily silent.  

Touching down beside the frightened boy, wings still extended protectively, Warren got hands under the boy's armpits and hauled him up.  If they said anything, Scott couldn't tell.  People were still frozen as stiff as the icy lawn, and none of the police drew a firearm.  

Lifting the boy with easy mutant strength, wings beating hard, Warren rose up into the night, high as a star, and then disappeared.  

For a long moment, no one moved.  Finally, the flood of astonishment broke free and people babbled like geese.  Turning, Scott looked about for the professor, spotting him with Ororo at a distance, even as he heard a woman beside him cry out, "God save us, it was an angel!  An angel rescued that boy!"

Go on to Chapter 9, "Little Earthquakes"