Scott leaned back in his chair, a manouver which allowed him to look out his office door and across the hall to the foyer. "Annie, what time is it?"

"It's eight o'clock. Right when you told me to be here."

Scott sighed. "I MEANT in the morning, Annie."

She giggled, bouncing into his field of view. "But you didn't SAY in the morning."

"I said in the morning LAST time. And the time before. And the time before that." Scott couldn't help grinning at her. "You know I MEANT it this time."

"Yeah, but you didn't SAY it," she pointed out, grinning back. "Anyway, we were going to come back in the morning, but we found something really interesting yesterday."

"Another car that almost goes?" Scott asked resignedly.

"No, much better." She pointed out of his field of vision. "Come and see!"

Resigned to his fate...and fairly sure that whatever she'd brought back this time had to be at least as interesting as the Cadillac that was very nearly fixed now...Scott pushed back his chair and strolled out into the foyer. "What did...you..."

A tiny, scrawny child was clinging to Creed's hand, wearing what Scott was fairly sure was a pair of Annie's overalls (much too big) and her least-favourite pink t-shirt. She was very obviously a mutant, and even allowing for malnutrition and poor growth, she couldn't be more than eleven. "We found a kid," Annie said proudly.

"I can see that." Scott hunkered down slowly, gazing at the little girl. "Hi. I'm Scott Summers."

She sidled a little closer, still holding tightly to Creed's hand. "Hi," she whispered.

"I told her about you," Annie said helpfully. "He's the nice one, Clarice."

Scott smiled his friendliest smile. "Clarice, huh? That's a pretty name."

She smiled shyly. "Thank you," she said in that same tiny voice.

Annie tugged on Scott's sleeve. "Mr. Summers? Can she stay?"

Scott looked at the tiny, helpless-looking child, and let sentimentality cloud his judgement. "Of course she can," he said firmly. "We wouldn't dream of sending her away."

Clarice's face lit up like a small, pale candle, and Scott smiled again. "Annie, would you mind if Clarice shared your room?" he asked, squinching around to look at her.

"I was gonna ask if she could." Annie gave him one of her comically serious looks that always put him in mind of a baby monkey. "I think it's fostering bad feeling that I have a room to myself."

Scott nodded, equally seriously. It was absolutely imperative that you not laugh at her when she was like this. "That's true. And I can trust you to look after Clarice and make sure she knows her way around and such, right?"

Annie nodded, smiling proudly. "I can do that."

"Good." Scott finally had to turn his attention to Creed. "Uh...thanks for bringing Clarice in," he said stiffly.

Creed grunted, scowling a bit. "Was Annie's idea," he said gruffly.

Well, he'd guessed THAT much... "Thanks anyway," he said as politely as he could, and turned back to Clarice. "Clarice, do you have any family you need to contact?"

She shook her head violently, and Annie put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "It's okay," she said comfortingly. "Mr. Summers doesn't have any family, either, so he understands these things."

Scott nodded, touching the thin shoulder gently as he stood up. "Okay. Have you eaten?"

"Dad bought us some chicken," Annie said happily, gazing adoringly up at her father. Scott firmly squashed a tiny twinge of jealousy. Just because he felt like he had a special bond with Annie didn't mean he got to be jealous of her own father. "Hey, Mr. Summers, did you know that you can get it in all different size buckets? We got a really BIG one."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Annie, do you remember ANY of what Doctor Grey taught you about nutrition?"

"Uh-huh. We had apples, too." Annie beamed. "Great big green ones that got juice all over the inside of the Jeep. You gotta be careful with those things. And--"

"Good." Scott interceded before she could go into full spate. "Why don't you take Clarice up to your room, then? She looks like she could use an early night, and you have studying to do before you go to bed."

Annie nodded and sighed. "Okay, okay..." She stood on tiptoes and hugged her father around the ribs. "Friday, right?"

He wrapped big arms around her for a brief, awkward moment. "I'll be here."

She smiled dazzlingly at him, then pried Clarice's hand from his and gently coaxed her up the stairs, taking the small thin hand in her square, long-fingered one. "C'mon, I'll show you our room."

"Is it nice?" Clarice whispered.

"Sure it is. Kinda small, but that's okay if it's just us. Only don't wake me up if I'm sleeping, because I might whap you in my sleep." Annie's chattering -- softer than usual -- faded away up the stairs.

Sabretooth and Cyclops stared at each other.

There didn't seem to be a lot to say.

With a soft grunt, Sabretooth turned and stalked away.

Clarice inched a little closer to Annie. The brash, charming girl made her feel much safer. She might be a little loud, and a little overconfident, but she'd made it clear that anybody who messed with Clarice messed with her...and the other students had made it clear that anybody who messed with Annie was a crazy person.

They all seemed to like her, though...there was something about her unquenchable cheerfulness that made up for the loudness and impatience and total lack of anything resembling tact. She was annoying, but liked her anyway. Clarice had always been quiet, and friendly, and well behaved...and she hadn't had a tenth of the friends that Annie seemed to.

She kept waiting for the older girl -- by just over two years, they'd figured -- to leave, and go off with her own friends. But she hadn't...she'd just towed Clarice around with her, telling everyone who she was, and that she was shy, so they had to be nice. And they were...even the boys. Two called John and Bobby especially, who had smiled at her and shared a bag of candy at lunchtime. Rogue was nice, too, but much too old to really be a friend...seventeen, at least. Jubilee -- who'd once shared a room with Annie -- was nice, but spent most of her time with her own best friend, Kitty. Yana was the only one close to Clarice's age, but she didn't speak much English.

"You want a Gummi Snake?" Annie held out a small package. "They kind of get stuck in my teeth, but I like them."

Clarice took one, smiling a little. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Annie kicked at the grass, legs swinging from the bench. "Do you like it here?"

"It's nice." Clarice knew she looked anxious, but she couldn't help it. "How...how long can we stay?"

"I don't know," Annie said thoughtfully. "Until we're at least as old as Rogue and John."

Well, that was a long time... Clarice sucked contemplatively on her Gummi, feeling rather less worried.

Annie patted her knee. "Don't worry about it," she said comfortingly. "People like you here."

Clarice brightened. "They do?"

"Sure." Annie grinned. "You're quiet, and nice to people, and you keep me busy. I haven't climbed the side of the building once since you got here."

"Oh." Clarice giggled a little. "Is that good?"

"Well, if I'm not climbing the building, I can't jump off it screaming like a maniac just to watch everyone panic," Annie said reasonably. "Which, incidentally, never stops being funny. At least I don't think it does."

Clarice blinked, taking another gummi-snake. "...Oh."

"I'm not supposed to do it anymore." Annie sighed. "And I'm not allowed to run on the roof, and I'm not allowed to dig tunnels under the house, and I'm not allowed to swing on the power-lines, and I'm not allowed to drive the minibus, and I'm not allowed to sit on the ceiling during class." She pouted. "I'm not allowed do ANYTHING fun."

Clarice spluttered quietly. If she hadn't seen Annie standing up on the back of the motorbike, she'd never have believed it. "Well...there are other things that're fun..." she said weakly.

"Like what?" Annie asked curiously. "And don't suggest swimming across the lake, 'cause that makes people jumpy."

Clarice gulped. "Uh...board games?"

Annie sighed. "I'm not allowed to play Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit anymore. I'm too good at it. Perfect memory and all."

"Oh. Well. Uh... Playstation?"

"John gets upset when I win. I think it threatens his masculinity." Annie grinned. "Rogue's fun to play against, though."

Clarice giggled softly. "Oh, I see."

Annie grinned at her. "There's only one thing I won't play. 'Cause it's demeaning."

"What's that?" Clarice asked.

"Fetch. Anyway, Bobby gets the bark stuck in his teeth."

"Not really." He looked up from a stack of papers, smiling at her. "What is it?"

Annie perched in the 'student' chair. "It's Friday," she explained.

"And...?" he prompted.

"And I'm worried about Clarice." Annie gave him her serious-baby-monkey look. "She hasn't really acclimated yet, and she's upset about me going away."

"Oh. And you want to cancel this weekend's going-away?"

Annie gave him a stern look. "No, silly. I want her to go too. Dad misses me when I'm not there."

Scott blinked. "I...you don't think he'd...well...mind?"

Annie shook her head. "You said I couldn't have a puppy. I need something to play with."

Scott blinked again. "It's not quite the same," he said weakly.

"Well, no. I don't have to paper-train Clarice." Annie grinned. "Really, I'm sure he won't mind. He likes anything that keeps me busy."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "He's supposed to be spending time with you," he said sternly. "As in, he's supposed to keep you busy."

Annie grinned. "He tries," she said demurely. "But he's not really experienced with kids. And he gets tired, 'cause he's not as young as he used to be."

Scott spluttered quietly. "What did you do to him!?"

Annie widened her eyes innocently. "We ran a race."

"And how long was this race?" Scott asked suspiciously.

Annie sniffed disapprovingly. "He flagged after forty blocks."

Scott grinned. "Dreadful," he said, shaking his head.

"Mind you, he didn't actually STOP until fifty-three and a half blocks."

Scott chuckled. "And when did you stop?"

Annie grinned, swinging her feet. "Fifty-seven. I had to go back to get him."

Scott chuckled. "Ahh. Well, it's good that you went back." He fished around in his desk drawer, and offered her a bag of confiscated liquorice. "I don't know, Annie... Clarice really needs to acclimate to the school."
Annie pouted. "I can't take her with me?"

"Not this time," Scott said firmly. "We don't want to foster emotional dependency, do you?"

Annie sighed and shook her head. "No. 'Cause that's destructive to her emotional stability and personal wellness."

"That's right." Scott patted her hand. "We want Clarice to be a whole and self-reliant person, who doesn't need an emotional crutch."

Annie nodded. "But I'll call her tomorrow, to make sure she's all right."

"If you like." Scott smiled. She was so adorable, sometimes...when she wasn't being a nightmarishly energetic little hellion.

"I will." Annie pouted a little. "I still wish she could come with me."

"Maybe another time," Scott said kindly, not meaning a word. "And Annie...when you see your father, I think you need to have another one of those little talks with him."

Annie blinked. "Again? What'd he do this time?"

"There are five bikers in intensive care, and I understand that he wrapped one of them up in his bike so comprehensively that he had to be cut out with a welding torch."

"Oh dear." Annie sighed heavily. "I'll talk to him."

"You might mention the taxi he pushed into the river. Right off the side of the bridge." Scott removed his glasses for a moment to rub his closed eyelids, then slid them carefully back into place. "He is getting better, though. He did pull the driver out through the window before giving the taxi its bath."

"I'll talk to him," Annie said resignedly. "He won't do it again."

"Well, yes, but he's going to do something else just as bad, isn't he?" Scott leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I know it's not easy for you, Annie, trying to modify his behaviour, and I know you're too young for this kind of thing, but he won't listen to anyone else."

"I know." Annie rested her chin on her hand. "He's a big responsibility."

"And if you don't feel ready for that responsibility, Annie, you don't have to--"

"Yes I do." Annie shrugged. "Nobody else can."

Scott paused. Then he smiled at her, reaching out to pat her shoulder gently. "That's a very mature attitude," he said softly. "And I'm proud of you."

She beamed, and nearly knocked him over with an enthusiastic hug. "Thanks, Mr. Summers!"

"You're welcome." Scott returned the hug, a little awkwardly. "And no."

Annie pouted. "I didn't even ask yet!"

"Clarice still needs to be independent. And you need to have that little talk with your dad."

Annie sighed. "Oh, okay. But you gotta look after her while I'm gone."

Clarice shook her head, hugging a cushion to her chest. "Don't want to," she whispered stubbornly.

"You sure?" he asked kindly. "We'd like you to come along."

"Don't want to," she insisted.

"Okay. We'll bring you back something." He smiled at her again, and left.

Clarice sniffled a tiny sniffle. She missed Annie. It had been a whole day and a half, and she wouldn't be back until tomorrow morning. The school seemed a lot bigger and scarier without her, and Clarice felt very much smaller.

Everyone was being nice to her...Jubilee and Kitty had taken her to a movie yesterday, along with Illyana, and even bought her popcorn. And Bobby had just offered to let her go with him, Marie, and John to the mall, and Mr. Summers had even let her have an extra helping of dessert last night. But it wasn't the same.

"Clarice?" a gentle voice murmured.

Clarice looked up to see the smooth white hair and dignified smile that were the first things anyone noticed about Ms. Monroe. "Hi," she whispered.

"Hello," Ms. Monroe said softly, sitting down on the couch beside her, right where Bobby had been a few minutes before. "You didn't want to go to the mall, then?"

Clarice shook her head. She hadn't wanted to go. She hated the mall, which was too big and too loud and too bright and too crowded. Even with Annie, it was scary.

Ms. Monroe nodded understandingly. "It is a little overwhelming sometimes, isn't it?" she said kindly. "So very loud, and so many people."

Clarice nodded, giving her a shy little smile. Ms. Monroe was nice. She didn't act like you were weird if you didn't talk much, and got nervous in crowds. She didn't talk much, either.

"Well, since you don't want to go to the mall, how about we go down to the kitchen?" She smiled that nice smile again, holding out her hand. "I have a tub of ice cream hidden in the freezer that we could share, if you like."

Clarice smiled again, a bit wider this time. "Okay," she whispered, tucking her small thin hand into Ms. Monroe's long, slender one.

They slipped down to the kitchen, where the cook was muttering good-temperedly about picky teenagers who didn't appreciate fine food. Ms. Monroe smiled at him, and they took the ice cream and two spoons out onto the little patio. "I hope you like fudge-mint," Ms. Monroe said seriously. "It's my favourite kind."

"I've never tried it," Clarice murmured shyly.

"Here." Ms. Monroe loaded up a spoon and held it out. Clarice tasted it tentatively, and couldn't help the big smile that spread over her face. The older woman smiled too, and pushed the tub a little closer. "You like it, hm?"

Clarice nodded, beaming. "It's nice."

Ms. Monroe took a spoonful of her own, and nibbled it delicately. "You miss Annie, don't you?" she said gently. Clarice nodded silently, taking another spoonful of ice cream. Ms. Monroe nodded, giving her another kindly smile. "It must be very dull, not having anyone to play with," she ventured.

Clarice nodded again, smiling a little bit. "We play lots of things," she said shyly. "Like hide-and-seek, and Finding Things That Got Lost, and Climbing High Things and Making John Nuts."

Ms. Monroe actually giggled at that. "As a teacher, I should discourage that game, but I rather believe that it's good for his ego," she said, almost impishly. "It makes it a lot smaller."

Clarice giggled too. "He swears a lot," she said shyly. "But he knows it's in fun."

Ms. Monroe nodded. "You and Annie seem to have a lot of fun together," she said softly. "You know, she wanted to take you with her this weekend."

Clarice nodded and sighed. "But Mr. Summers said no. 'Cause he doesn't want me to be dependant." Annie had explained that Mr. Summers only had their best interests at heart, but Clarice hadn't been entirely convinced.

Ms. Monroe looked grave. "I think Mr. Summers was right, Clarice," she said softly. "Annie's visiting her father right now, and...well...he can be a little scary sometimes."

Clarice gave her a blank look. "He can?"

Ms. Monroe blinked back. "You hadn't noticed?"

Clarice shook her head, and smiled another shy little smile. "He let me ride on the motor-bike," she said happily. "And I got a whole pizza all for me."

Ms. Monroe blinked at her, looking baffled and a little alarmed. "You did?"

Clarice nodded. "He doesn't talk much, 'cept to Annie, but he didn't yell at me or anything. And he gave me and Annie a box of cookies each." Food figured largely in Clarice's world, and had since she'd found herself homeless and alone. Anyone who gave her as much as she wanted to eat, and didn't yell at her, was fine with her.

Ms. Monroe took another bite of ice cream, gazing out at the grounds for a long moment. "He didn't...scare you, then?" she asked carefully.

Clarice pondered the question. "A little, I guess. Right at first. But not after I saw him and Annie together for a while." She sighed, licking her spoonful of ice cream reflectively. "It must be nice to have someone like that. Who loves you even if you are a rotten kid a lot of the time."

Ms. Monroe nodded slowly. "They seem truly fond of each other, then?"

Clarice nodded. "In a guy way. Shoulder-punching and stuff."

Ms. Monroe nodded again. "Would you have liked to go with Annie?" she asked very quietly.

Clarice savoured her ice cream. "Yes," she said just as quietly. "I wanted to go."

"Then I will arrange it with Mr. Summers for next week," Ms. Monroe said, standing up. "You may finish what's left of the ice cream, if you wish. I...have work that needs doing."

Clarice nodded, digging into the ice cream happily. She would go next weekend. It would all be arranged.

Annie bounced off the back of her father's bike, tugging her helmet off. He always insisted that she wear it, mostly because he'd get arrested if she didn't and that'd be awkward. "Dad, come in and say hi to Clarice," she demanded. "She likes you."

"Yeah, but nobody else in there does," he grunted. "'specially not yer pal Summers....."

"Well, no, but you can hardly blame them," Annie pointed out reasonably. "Just because you never tried to throw ME off the Statue of Liberty doesn't mean it doesn't still bother THEM."

"Yeah, well... I did say I wouldn't do it again," he said a bit defensively.

"I don't think Mr Logan believes you." Annie sighed, giving him an adorably serious look. "Not everybody knows you like I do, you know."

"Yeah." Creed smiled, reaching out to ruffle her soft blonde curls. "You KNOW not to believe me."

"Yup." She grinned at him. "Except you wouldn't toss me. 'cause if you try it with me I'll rip your damn arm off, y'know that."

"That's my girl," he said fondly.

"Hi!" A little streak of purple hair and blue overall zipped down the steps and latched onto Annie like a limpet. "I missed you."

Annie smiled, patting the younger girl's head as if she was a friendly puppy. "Everyone misses me when I'm not there," she said cheerfully. "Only some people LIKE to miss me. It means I'm not there."

Creed and Clarice both snickered at that. She had a point. Annie was as powerfully *present* as anyone either of them had ever met, and it could be something of a relief to get out of the way of all that forcefulness. "I didn't like missing you, though," Clarice confided. "I like it when you're here."

"Well, good." Annie gave her father a hopeful look. "Can I keep her? Lookit, she's so cute....."

Creed looked dubious. "I dunno...."

Annie pouted. "Please? If I can't have a kitten or an anaconda, can't I keep a Clarice?"

"Well, I guess the school can't say no to this one..." Scott Summers had forcefully vetoed the anaconda. Not even a python, he'd insisted. Not even a grass snake. Annie had sulked for nearly twenty minutes, an all-time record.

Clarice looked hopeful. "I'm housebroken," she offered.

Annie giggled. "See? And she won't try to chew your fingers off, either."

Creed smiled reluctantly. Annie really seemed to like the little monkey..... and he'd heard that every child needed a pet. "Oh, okay. You can keep her." He scowled a little. "But only as long as both of ya behave real good."

Annie nodded. "Of course!" She hugged him quickly, kissing his cheek. "I'll look after her, I promise. She won't be any bother."

Creed swallowed, trying not to melt into a putty-willed wussy-man at the slightly damp, childish kiss. "She better not," he said weakly.

"I'll be really good." And Clarice hugged him too, rather shyly.

Startled, he hugged back, more or less automatically. It wasn't anything like hugging Annie, who was all sleek muscle and feline scent. Clarice was small and a bit bony, smelling of girl-child and the candy she loved so much. He was surprised to discover that it was quite nice. "You'd better," he said a bit gruffly, fending her off gently. "Now you two scoot. You both got classes this morning."

Annie nodded, grabbing her backpack, and the two girls scampered off. He looked after them for a moment, smiling a tiny bit. They were so cute and trusting.... it was almost a shame that they wouldn't stay that way.

There was a rustle behind him. Creed didn't bother to turn around. "Sneakin' around in the bushes?"

Logan grunted, slipping out of cover with what would have seemed to a normal person to be preternatural silence. "Was out having a smoke when I heard the bike."

"Ah." Creed was finding himself in a state he never remembered feeling before..... acute embarrassment. He'd just been caught hugging not only his own child, which might be explained away, but another one that he hardly even knew. "Got you house-trained, have they? No smokin' yer nasty cigars in the nice house?" He said it as nastily as he could, but his heart wasn't in it.

Logan shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. "Just wanted some peace and quiet, without all them damn kids around," he explained.

Creed nodded.

They gazed at each other for a long, embarrassed moment. Their tough, manliness had been irreparably damaged. Creed had been caught hugging a child not his own and..... far worse.... Logan had been caught having to go outside to smoke. Testosterone dribbled humiliatingly away, and they found themselves coughing and staring at random trees.

Carefully, they inched off in opposite directions, until Creed could gun the bike and Logan could wander back into the woods without either of them having to admit to noticing that the other had gone.

Marie looked up, and squeaked in surprise. "Logan, what on earth happened to you?!" She jumped to her feet, reaching out to him.

He was standing in her bedroom doorway, swaying slightly on his feet. His clothes were shredded, he was covered in mud and blood and what smelled like whiskey, and there were fading cuts and bruises covering every inch of skin that she could see. He was grinning weakly. "Hi, kid. Got in a bit of a scrap."

"With who!? An entire hockey team?!" she demanded, checking automatically that her gloves were on and her sleeves rolled down, then tugging his arm over her shoulder.

He leaned gratefully against her. "Nah. One overgrown kittycat." He chuckled a bit dopily. "Was kinda fun."

Marie rolled her eyes. Men. "So why come here?"

"Do' wan' Jean and Scottertron finding out. They'll get all snotty about it." He swayed a bit more. "Got a bandaid?"

Rogue giggled helplessly, towing him over to the spacious ensuite that was one of the few benefits of her mutant powers. "Scottertron?"

"Long, long story." Actually, he didn't remember where that'd come from... he'd been a little drunk at the time, and in the middle of pounding Creed's head into the bar.

"Ah. Of course." She pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bath, and opened up the tiny cabinet over the sink. "Is any of the bar still standing?"

Logan managed to look a little ashamed of himself. "Most of it," he said evasively. "All the really important walls..."

"LO-gan!" Marie gave him an adorably reproachful look, pulling out a roll of bandage. "I thought you said you weren't going to fight anymore!"

"F'r money. Said I wouldn't fight f'r money." Logan waved an unsteady finger. He'd drunk a lot, then gotten into a rather demanding fight, then drunk some more. He didn't remember the last time he'd been this schickered. "This was just for fun."

"Oh, and that's supposed to make it better?" She sighed, wrapping a deep cut on his arm. The wounds did heal better if they were held closed by something. "I take it that by 'overgrown kittycat' you mean Sabretooth?"

He nodded. "It wasn't a serious fight," he said reassuringly. "Just..... I dunno... seein' who'd win."

She gave him a look of feminine disgust. "Who won?"

"Dunno. We both got too drunk to keep fightin', so we postponed it." Logan burped happily.

"Oh, that reeks...." Marie said, making a face and fanning a hand pointedly. "You're just disgusting...."

"Yeah? So?" Logan sighed, leaning back against the tile. "He ain't quite as bad as I thought."

Marie nodded, using bandaids to tape the deeper cuts closed. "Annie sure seems to think so."

He looked at her, with that brooding look that still made her heart pound a bit. "You.... got them in yer head too?" he said tentatively. They'd never talked about it before - her powers, or their effects.

Marie shook her head, leaning back on her heels and nibbling thoughtfully on her lip. "Annie.... I dunno how.... she fixed it so I only absorbed power from him. I got all the memories and stuff from her." Her lips quirked softly. "It faded real fast..."

His shaggy eyebrows raised. "Thought they... I dunno.... stuck around for a while."

Marie nodded. "You did. So did Magneto. Even David. But... it depends on the personality. You and Magneto are really intense, focused kindsa people, you know?" She shook her head, fingering the white lock absently. "Annie.... she's sorta vague. There's a whole lotta stuff going on in her head, but really fast. After a couple hours, all there was left in *my* head was a sorta bouncy, cheery feeling and an urge to go 'ooh, shiny'."

Logan nodded, seeming to relax a bit. "No nightmares or nothin'?"

Marie shook her head. "Nope. Worst thing that happened was when I was wondering how a caterpillar tasted...."

Logan choked quietly. "No kiddin'?"

Marie giggled. "Annie caught me looking and told me that the stripy kind aren't any good to eat."

Logan chuckled softly. "She's a nice kid," he said, smiling a little.

Marie nodded, and wrinkled her nose. "And when SHE wanders into my room late at night, at least she's clean."

Annie lay on her stomach, inspecting a small dandelion. "I like yellow," she said thoughtfully.

Clarice looked at the flower. "I like pink," she said, resting her chin on her small fist. "It's pretty."

"Yellow is brighter," Annie objected, pointing to the flower as if to submit it for evidence.

"Pink is softer," Clarice pointed out, holding out a fold of her t-shirt. It had a little round pink animal on it that Marie said was a Pokemon. Annie thought it looked like a marshmallow with eyes. Clarice thought it was cute.

"I like green best," Marie said, without bothering to open her eyes. She was lying on her back on the grass, enjoying the spring sunshine.

"Green's nice too," Annie conceded. "But I like yellow best."

"That's okay," Marie said patiently. "Everyone has different favourite colours."

"They do?" Annie digested this for a long moment. "What are they?"

"You'll have to ask yourself. I'm enjoying the sunshine," Marie said firmly.

"Okay!" Annie jumped to her feet and scampered off. "Hey, John! Bobby! Do you have favourite colours?"

Marie chuckled softly. "That'll keep her busy for a while."

Clarice giggled too. She was more at ease now with Marie, who treated both younger girls like sometimes pesky little sisters. "She's easy to distract, isn't she?"

"Thank god for that. The only thing keeping the world safe from her is the thirty-second attention span." Marie stretched her arms above her head, soaking up the warm sun. She was wearing short sleeves and short gloves today... Annie and Clarice could be trusted to be careful, and she did love the feel of spring sunshine.

"Well, hello there."

Marie opened her eyes in surprise. The new kid, Roberto something or other, was gazing down at her with a speculative smile. She groaned inwardly. "Hi," she said, as neutrally as she could.

"I'm Roberto," he said smoothly. "Don't think I've had the pleasure." He smiled, and she muffled a whimper. He was devastatingly cute, charming as all get out, and obviously looking for the status of having a girlfriend a little older than he was. Yuck.

"Rogue," she said coolly. Clarice was looking intimidated, and she patted the small shoulder. "Nice to meet you."

"I hope so." He smiled again. Rogue was torn between an urge to run like hell (that was the trauma talking) and an urge to kick him somewhere painful (that, she suspected, was the remains of Logan's persona).

"Yeah, well..... it was nice, but I gotta go," she said, scrambling to her feet. "C'mon, Clarrie. Let's go see if Logan's figured out your training schedule." She hustled the younger girl off to sit with Logan. For some reason, guys never came over when a girl was sitting with Logan.

Behind her, he scowled, sulking back to one of the groups of boys. Behind him, Annie looked around sharply at him, pointed ears twitching.

Scott blinked. He'd just been down the road to the store, picking up odds and ends that for one reason or another hadn't been included in the weekly shopping. Some toothpaste for sensitive gums, a few cans of tuna, a jar of dried rosemary... stuff like that. It was a trip he made nearly every week.

Jean didn't usually wait on the steps for him to return.

"Is something wrong?" He slid out of the car, giving her a concerned look behind the glasses as he noted her clasped hands and furrowed brow.

She nodded, reaching out to rest a hand on his arm. "I'm glad you're back," she said quietly. "There's been a fight."

Scott raised an eyebrow quizzically. "There are fights all the time. Why.... oh." He frowned. "Annie?"

Jean nodded. "Annie, pitted against Piotr, Fred, and that new student, Roberto. I haven't been able to get any details out of them as to how it started, but Piotr is badly concussed, Fred has a broken leg, and I'm worried that Roberto might lose a couple of fingers. They're all badly bruised and scratched, too, and Roberto's lost quite a bit of blood."

Scott abandoned the shopping, taking Jean's arm and hustling towards the infirmary. "Nothing potentially fatal?"

"No. And Logan's pretty insistent that she *could* have killed all three of them if that was what she'd been trying to do. Scott, the whole fight lasted less than a minute and a half. She did all that damage in seventy-eight seconds."

Scott made a soft, unhappy sound, walking a little faster. "How did the fight get broken up?"

Jean bit her lip. "It happened very fast, but from what I could see, Logan grabbed her and threw her into a wall, then Rogue jumped on her before she could go for him. She stopped fighting then, so as not to hurt Rogue."

"When you say threw-"

"The wall was twenty yards away. Annie hit it hard enough to scar the paintwork." Jean sighed. "It DID stop her, though, and he seemed to think it was necessary..."

Scott growled quietly. HE could have stopped the fight without throwing little girls around. "Where is she?"

Jean stopped in the middle of the hall, pulling him to a halt as well. "You're not going to like it, but-"

He read the proffered thought and scowled. "You put her in the *cells*?!"

"Just until we figure out what happened!" she said defensively. "I thought you could talk to her-"

Scott stalked away, not trusting himself to speak. God, he loved her, loved her with all his heart, but sometimes....

Annie was sitting on the floor in the middle of one of the cells, knees tucked up under her chin and a furious scowl on her small face. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and her face seemed to soften a little as she saw him. "I was in a fight," she told him unhappily. "And I got pushed in here. I don't like being locked up."

"I know." Scott punched in the code to disable the energy-screen that served as a door to the cell, and sat down beside her, reaching out to take one small hand in his. There was blood caked over her knuckles and under her claws. "What happened?"

She looked at the open door and relaxed slightly, letting her fingers curl around his. "We were all outside," she explained. "And that new guy was trying to flirt with Rogue. And Rogue didn't like it, so she went away and sat with Mr Logan. So then Roberto started saying nasty things about Rogue." She paused, looking thoughtful. "I think they were nasty, anyway. I didn't know all of them."

Scott nodded as calmly as he could. "What exactly did he say?"

Annie's sweet, slightly husky voice deepened and smoothed to exactly mimic Roberto's. "What's wrong with her? I was just trying to be friendly." Then the voice shifted again to mimic Piotr's slightly stilted English. "There is nothing wrong with Rogue, Roberto. She simply does not wish to flirt." And back to Roberto's voice, sneering a little. "I noticed. Damn ice-queen... a guy'd probably get frostbite, anyway."

Scott nodded, jaw hardening grimly. "I see."

Annie nodded. "There was more. He didn't think I could hear, but I could, so I went over there and told him to stop it. He gave me that funny look..." she imitated Roberto's lord-of-the-manor-condescending-to-the-lowly-peon expression perfectly. It was one he used a lot with the younger students. "And he asked me why. I told him 'cause it wasn't nice."

"That sounds very reasonable of you," Scott said cautiously.

Annie nodded. "I *was* being reasonable. I didn't growl or nothin'."

"Anything," he corrected automatically.

"I didn't growl or *anything*," Annie repeated obediently. "And then he asked me who was going to make him, and I said me, and he laughed, and I kicked him in the stomach. And he punched me, an' he was using his powers so it hit really hard." She scowled. "I got mad."

"And that was when the fight started?" he asked gently.

Annie nodded and sighed. "I didn't mean to smack Piotr's head into the concrete like that," she said regretfully. "But he grabbed my arms, and I shoved him off before I knew who it was."

"What about Fred?" Scott asked, rubbing the small, cold hand gently between both of his.

"I didn't kick him on purpose. He got too close."

Scott nodded and sighed. "Annie, I know you didn't hurt anyone on purpose.... except for Roberto... but you know fighting isn't allowed. Especially not for you."

Annie grumbled quietly. "He deserved it."

"Maybe. But you shouldn't have tried to deal with it yourself." A deep and personal dislike of snobbery prompted him to add "You should have told Mr Logan, and let him handle it."

"I guess." Annie sighed, giving him a mournful look. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

Scott nodded. "Yes, Annie, you are," he said seriously. "I know you were angry, and Roberto shouldn't have hit you, but you know you're not supposed to hurt the other students."

She hung her head. "I din't kill anyone," she mumbled. "Or even hurt 'em bad."

"I know." He rubbed the small back gently, feeling solid muscle under his hand. Somehow, it felt as if he was talking to a much younger child, trying to explain to her why she shouldn't hit the other kids in the sandbox. "But you're very highly trained, and that means you have to be extra careful."

She nodded penitently. "I'll try not to get mad at people," she promised.

"I know you will." He hugged her gently, the gesture coming oddly naturally. "And you're going to apologize to the boys, aren't you?"

She pouted, snuggling against his shoulder. "Even Roberto?"

"Especially Roberto," he said firmly.

"Oh, okay." She heaved a long sigh. "An' I'm gonna be punished, too, aren't I?"

"You're lucky you're not going to be expelled," Scott said a little reprovingly. Which she wouldn't.... she couldn't help the way she was, and if Xavier didn't see that then Scott would explain it to him, over and over again if necessary, until his resistance broke. "You may consider yourself grounded until furthur notice. No tv, no games, no dessert, and no weekend trips."

"But-" She saw his expression and sighed again. "Oh, all right..."

"Good. Now I want you to go to your room and think about what you did, and why it was wrong. And I don't want any references to chaos theory. I'd suggest referring to the Tao." He patted her arm. "You can tell me what you came up with tomorrow."

Annie nodded, brightening at the thought of the proffered intellectual exercise. "Okay!"

Scott nodded. He really didn't know why some people had trouble keeping her busy. "Someone will bring your dinner up to you."

Annie nodded. "Okay." She headed off to her room, a bit less scamper in her step than there usually was.

Scott sighed. There was going to be trouble over this.

"Did you talk to her?"

Scott nodded, slipping around their bedroom door and giving Jean a half-hearted smile. He was still a little mad at her for putting Annie in the cells, but he supposed he could see her point. "We talked, and she's in her room."

Jean frowned a little. "Are you sure that's wise?" The sheer, frenzied violence of Annie's attack on her classmate had shaken her badly. Just what kind of child were they harbouring?

"She knows that restriction to her room includes the treebranch outside." Scott sat down on the bed to unlace his shoes. "It makes her a lot less nervous than being locked in, and I don't think either of us wants her any jumpier."

His fiance nodded reluctantly. "That's true." She looked down at the scatter of papers on her desk. "Roberto still might lose his little finger on the left hand, but the others seem to be all right. It's just a matter of time."

"Good." Scott pulled off his shoes and socks and sprawled back on the bed, wriggling his toes in the cool air. Going shoeless was a secret, passionate vice for Scott Summers; in the orphanage, children had always worn shoes except to sleep, and neither an X-Man or a teacher could wander around shoeless. So he did it sometimes to relax, and Jean had learned that if she could see the bent nail on his pinky toe, he was tense.

"What are we going to do with her?" she asked, sitting down on the bed beside him and twining her fingers with his. "Annie, I mean."

"It's pretty much dealt with," he said tiredly, lifting his glasses for one careful moment to rub his closed eyes. "She promised not to do it again, and she'll apologize."

Jean blinked at him. "And that's *it*?"

Scott nodded. "She won't be doing it again."

"But.... Scott, I know it sounds harsh, but we can't just let her get away with this. The other students need to understand that we won't permit fighting-"

Scott waved his free hand. "Oh, I grounded her too. No tv, no games, no dessert, and no weekend visits with Sabretooth."

Jean blinked again. She took a deep, calming breath. "Scott, that... that little menace nearly chewed three of Roberto's fingers off. He's covered in scratches, many of them deep enough to leave scars, he's traumatized and in shock..... and Annie is *grounded*?!"

Scott nodded, sitting up and squeezing her hand gently. "Jean... We have to make allowances. She doesn't know that what she did was wrong, any more than a toddler would. I've explained it to her that it was, and she's thinking about it, but... she's very young."

"She's not that young! Scott, she has to learn to take responsibility for her actions." Jean bit her lip. "I tried to reach into her mind when she first attacked.... all I could sense was a furious, all-consuming rage, a desire to lash out.... she wanted to hurt him, Scott. Badly."

Scott nodded, making his rueful face. "I pretty much suspected as much. But... do you remember when you were very, very young? When nobody understood you when you tried to talk, and nobody listened to you, and they talked as if you weren't there?"

Jean nodded, brow furrowing a little.

Scott played with her fingers gently, frowning a little himself as he tried to explain. "I remember one incident, when I was very, very young... Alex was only a baby... I can't remember what happened exactly, just that my father was too busy taking care of Alex to do something that he'd promised to do with me. I was so angry that I honestly would have tried to chew his hand off, if I could have reached it." He smiled a little. "As I recall it, I kicked him in the ankle and hid under the stairs."

Jean smiled, squeezing his hand. "I'm not sure of the relevance, Scott...."

"The point is that little kids can sometimes get very, very angry. They have little or no self-control, so they don't try to control it or contain it the way someone older would - they just lash out. Annie's been treated as a mental defective for most of her life, held to the social and emotional level of a child of about three years old."

Jean blinked slowly. "You think that's why she behaves the way she does?" she said slowly. "Because she's still a child?"

Scott nodded. "In some ways, she's breathtakingly intelligent, and that makes it harder to see," he explained quietly. "But she's never, until now, been required to act her age, and it's hard for her. She's very literal-minded, and very simplistic, and complex moral issues are entirely beyond her. In a lot of ways, she's a very small child, and getting angry at her for it won't help that."

"But she has to know that what she did was wrong," Jean said firmly.

"She does. I told her so." Scott shrugged. "We'll have to watch her closely, of course, but other than that..." he smiled ruefully. "There's never yet been a way to hurry a child's developement safely. She just has to mature at her own speed."

His fiancee nodded, conceding the point with a soft kiss. "She just makes me nervous, that's all. Did you know that even the professor can't read her properly?"

Scott blinked, lips quirking a little. "I can read her."

Jean poked him in the stomach. "You're a telepath, now?" she asked, grinning.

"No..." He chucked, capturing her hand and kissing the fingers. "But when it comes to body-language, Annie's a walking, talking megaphone. Don't let this-" he kissed her temple, "-make you forget how these work." He kissed her eyelids softly.

"I stand corrected." Jean smiled, snuggling into his arms. "Wait, what was that you just said? I've had a momentary flash of amnesia." She lifted her face to his, smiling. "You'll have to demonstrate again."

When Creed pulled up, Annie wasn't waiting on the steps like she usually was. Instead, the prim, straight-backed Cyclops was standing there, arms folded and what he probably thought was a scowl on his face. "We need to talk," he said calmly.

Creed frowned. "Why?"

"Annie's been grounded," the boy said in his prissy little voice. "Welcome to your first parent/teacher conference."

Creed blinked. There was no way *this* was a good thing.

Ten minutes later, he was experiencing the stomach-churning nervousness of sitting on the wrong side of a teacher's desk. "So what'd she do? Set fire t' somethin'?"

Scott shook his head. "Fighting."

"Oh." Creed thought about it. "Did she win?"

The boy actually grinned wryly. "Oh, she won all right. Not only did she get the guy she was fighting, she took down one kid who was trying to stop the fight and another one who was standing too close."

Creed beamed. "That's my girl."

"The boy who started the fight may lose a finger."

Creed frowned. "Just a finger?"

Scott smiled ruefully. "Well, Logan grabbed her by the head and tossed her into a wall before she could really get going."

"It *did* work, mind you," Scott felt impelled to point out.

"Yeah, well, it *does* work... but I'm still gonna beat his head in with a Chrysler," Creed said. From him, it was positively forgiving.

"Want me to find you one? I think there's one in the garage."

The blonde man snorted, grinning a feral grin. "Not bad, kid."

"I don't like him any more than you do." The boy grinned lopsidedly. "Anyway... Annie's not going to be expelled, but she *is* grounded... which means no weekend visit."

Creed scowled. "We got an agreement. I don't burn the place to the ground, kill everyone, and take her with me, and you let me see her every weekend."

"Well, yes..." Scott was in a small room with an increasingly angry Sabretooth. He prayed for inspiration. "But for the sake of the other students, a strong authoritative front must be maintained..." Some benificent god answered his prayers, and he smiled weakly. "Which isn't to say that you can't see HER. You may, of course, visit her here. You just can't take her away."

Creed blinked. Scott waited patiently for him to change mental gears.

"What would we do HERE?" Creed asked, a bit uncertainly. Given that the weekend's agenda had included some impromptu training, a demonstration of bar-fighting with special focus on broken-bottle technique, and a lot of pizza, he considered this a valid question.

"Uhm." Scott looked blank for a long moment. "Uh..." He had never considered himself to be a favourite of the gods, given the events of his life up until now, but if inspiration kept raining down on him like this.... "Why don't you get her to give you the tour? You know.... show you her room and stuff."

Creed blinked, and had to shift mental gears again. "Oh." That was... well, he supposed it was a normal thing to do. Seeing where his little girl went to school.

Scott nodded, scrabbling gratefully onto firmer ground. "I'm sure she'd enjoy showing you the... the labs and so forth. She's putting together quite a science project."

The bushy eyebrows quirked together in a puzzled expression. "She is?"

He nodded, feeling a little hard done by. "I'm still not entirely certain that a functional robot is a good idea, but she says she wants to figure out how bug legs *really* work."

"She's building a *robot*?" Creed blinked helplessly. He couldn't even build a beer-can pyramid more than five cans tall without it falling down.

"Yes, she is." Scott sighed, rubbing his temple. "Mr Creed... Annie is, to put it bluntly, a genius. She could probably build a functional spaceship, if someone gave her a lot of raw materials and a how-to manual."

"No she couldn't," Creed objected uneasily. "She'd see a butterfly go past and she'd drop everything to try and figure out how its wings are attached."

"Well.... yes, there is that..." Scott privately thanked whatever benevolent gods there were that this was so. The havoc Annie could wreak if she aimed her ferocious intellect at anything for more than a few minutes...

"She is smart, though," Creed said, with a sort of forlorn pride. He knew he wasn't smart, and he'd probably never understand above half of what Annie talked about... but she was smart.

"She is." Scott nodded, shuffling the papers on his desk. "Anyway..... if you'd like to go out in the lobby and wait quietly, I'll get her to come down." He smiled ruefully, holding out a piece of paper. "Here's the list of things she's not allowed to do."

Creed frowned. "Whaddya mean...." He trailed off, looking at the list.

1. No jumping off the roof.
2. No swinging from the upstairs balcony.
3. No spontaneous yodelling in the middle of the night.
4. The ornamental carp are not for eating.
5. No picking other students up and swinging them around by their ankles.

He blinked.

6. The plane is not a toy.
7. No climbing inside the enclosures at the zoo.
8. Religion is not an appropriate topic for spontaneous debate.

"The list. Right."

Scott nodded. "There's room at the bottom of the third page, if you'd like to put some things in," he suggested helpfully. "Do you have a pen?"

"-and this is where Rogue and Clarice study." Annie pointed out the patch of grass conscientiously. "And that branch up there is where I study."

Creed looked up. The branch was just above eye level on him. "Kinda low, ain't it?"

"If I go any higher, it's too far to climb down when I want more candy," Annie explained.

"Oh." He'd already shown the main classroom (which was full of plants and windows, and had seemed rather nice), the science lab, (which had made him twitchy and nervous) and a scrupulously tidy room full of stuffed toys where she and Clarice slept.

Clarice was hopping along beside him, having to skip to keep up with his long strides. She had little pigtails, just like Annies.

Creed was vaguely, uncomfortably aware that she was very cute. Annie was pointing to a wrought-iron bench, painted dark green. "And that's the bench I lift up sometimes," she said proudly. "It's really heavy, but I can do it, wanna see?"

"Okay," Creed said uncertainly.

Annie scampered over and hoisted the massive bench... which probably weighed about as much as an average human male... above her head. "See? See?" She said proudly. "I can lift it with Clarice sitting on it, too, only it makes her seasick."

Clarice nodded shamefacedly. "I threw up on Doctor Grey," she said meekly.

Creed snickered, and patted Clarice's head with one massive hand. "Good girl."

Annie giggled, putting the bench down. Clarice blushed. "I got some on Mr Logan, too," she said hopefully.

Creed grinned, ruffling her hair. "I could get ta like her," he told Annie.

Annie grinned back at him. "I thought you might."

Clarice looked pleased, rubbing up against his hand like a kitten. Annie did the same thing, and Creed found himself scritching the hollow at the base of her skull, very gently, before he'd really thought about it. "Anything else I should see?"

Annie nodded. "I have a garden," she said proudly. "A little bitty one. But there's some stuff coming up now, wanna see?'

Creed nodded, and followed her over to the tiny plot, with its carefully tended little green shoots.

"That's fennel," Annie said, pointing to a tiny, feathery plant. "And that's dill, and that's marjoram, and that's rosemary, and that's oregano, and that little one there is mint." She grinned. "I wanted to plant catnip, but Mr Summers said that if Pete's not allowed grow pot, I'm not allowed have drugs in my garden either."

Creed just barely turned a giggle into a manly chuckle. He could just see the poker-spined kid explaining to Annie why she couldn't have mind-altering substances in the school herb-garden. "I see...."

"But they smell nice." Annie leaned over and sniffed. "Try it."

Creed and Clarice both sniffed obediently. The herbs were pleasantly aromatic, and Creed sniffed again, enjoying the scent. "Not bad."

Anne nodded. "I like it here," she said softly. "They're nice. But I like being your cub, too."

Creed nodded, letting his lips curve in a tiny, genuine smile. "It's not bad," he said noncommitally.

Annie nodded. "Clarice'll be good at it," she promised, golden eyes going slit-pupiled the way they often did when she was thoughtful. "You'll see."

Creed nodded. "We'll see."

Bobby poked John in the back. "What's up?" he asked irritably. "Move already. I can't reach the jello until you move, and I like jello, so just pick up your foot, movie it forward, and-"

John pointed.

Bobby looked, and nearly dropped his tray.

A huge, lionlike man was standing in the doorway, looking around. He stood the way Mr Logan stood, tense, braced, ready for action, as if expecting an attack at any moment. His eyes were the same, too, though much darker... roving around the room, checking for exits, checking for potential danger.

Bobby thought, a little dazedly, that no cloaked figure wielding a scythe and breathing the cold of the grave could look more like Death than this man did, just standing there.

Then he moved, looking down beside him, and Bobby saw Annie standing beside the man, looking up at him with her innocent, affectionate smile. Bobby blinked. This was Sabretooth? The rabid supervillain who'd supposedly been 'tamed' by his daughter's soft, clawed little touch? Tamed his ass, Bobby thought, rolling his eyes just a little. That..... being.... wasn't tamed, he'd just stopped to think about it for a moment.

John reached back to nudge him gently. "That's not a man," he breathed, so softly that not even Xavier, let alone Creed or Logan, could have heard it over the chatter. "That's testosterone with feet."

Bobby nodded. "You realize that both of us together, in our whole lives, are never gonna make as much macho as that guy does in one week," he breathed back. "I feel inadequate just looking."

"Me too." John grinned. "Go on, make ice in his underpants."

Bobby wavered, tempted for one long moment. Then the dark eyes met his for a brief moment, and he shuddered. "No thanks. I'm too young to die," he said softly.

Creed released the boy's wide, half-intimidated, half-fascinated blue gaze and looked down at Annie again. "You eat here every night?" he rumbled.

She nodded, tapping her ear with one clawed finger. "I shift a little tiny bit," she explained. "Bring my hearing down a few notches, so it's not so loud."

Creed frowned, shaking his head. "Shouldn't do that," he said firmly. "Gotta get so you can handle loud noises."

Annie wrinkled her nose as she tugged him over to a half-empty table. "But it hurts my ears," she complained.

"You just gotta get used to it," he said, tapping the top of her head gently. Well, gently by his standards, although a less sturdy child than Annie might well have wobbled a bit on her feet.

Annie sighed. "Oh, okay....." she said resignedly. "You sit here. Me and Clarice will get you a tray."

Creed nodded reluctantly, sitting down in the slightly too-small chair. He didn't really like the crowd, but he'd be damned if he'd let any of them know about it.

"Hi."

He grunted, unsure of what to say. Obviously he shouldn't start a fight here, but he didn't think the kid'd respond well to 'hi, how are you, how about those Mets'. Or whatever. Creed only liked hockey.

"I just wanted to let you know that we're even. Kinda. I guess." She looked down at her tray. "I mean, you did put me in that machine thing..."

Creed shifted a little awkwardly. He did sort of feel a little bad about that.

"But you did let me take your powers so I wouldn't die when I got shot. So. Even, I think." She looked at him from under the white lock Annie said the machine had given her. "Annie says you promised not to do it again."

He lifted one shoulder in a brief shrug. "Ain't workin' for Mags no more," he said briefly.

"Good." She applied herself to her food, apparently satisfied.

Creed blinked. She wasn't gonna guilt trip him? No tearful accusations of doing nasty things to her innocent little self?

She didn't want to *talk* about it?

He liked that.

Then she looked up, giving him a pained look. "One thing, though...." she said, with the air of someone making a point. He tried not to roll his eyes. Here it came.

"If you ever, EVER again give Annie coffee and doughnuts for breakfast and then drop her off here, I'm going to tie your nuts in a bow behind your head," she said calmly. "And then Scott's going to dry-roast them. We clear?"

Creed blinked. He grinned. "Bad?"

"Did you see page three of her list?"

"Not yet...." He pulled out the list and flipped to page three.

167. No racing airplanes in the Blackbird.
168. No racing airplanes WITHOUT the Blackbird.
169. No borrowing Pietro's powers ever again.
170. Don't bite the postman.
171. Don't play 'Ferocious Ninja Death Warrior in the Land of the Infidel' ever again.

172. Ms Monroe is not an infidel.
173. No running around the house screaming incoherently at any time between ten at night and seven in the morning.
174. No calling the prison to taunt Magneto.
175. No making pointed comments about the presumed nature of the relationship between Magneto and the Professor.

Creed shuddered at 175 and stopped reading. He didn't read all that fast, so Annie and Clarice were already on their way back, Clarice holding one tray, Annie balancing one in each hand. "Hi!" she chirped at Marie. "Are you still mad?"

Marie smiled and shook her head. "As long as he promises never to feed you coffee and iced doughnuts again..."

Creed nodded. "No coffee and iced doughnuts," he said firmly. "And when did you bite the postman?"

Annie looked sheepish, which is a neat trick for a feline. "I was trying out Rahne's powers," she explained, pushing a massively overladen tray in front of him, and sitting down behind another one. "She's a werewolf, and I was running, and sniffing, and suddenly there was this guy in a blue uniform and it was sort of instinctive."

"Ah." Creed smiled reminiscently. It was a sight to make strong men tremble, and superheroes reach for their spandex. "I 'member the first time I saw a blue uniform after I lost my memory...."

Annie looked interested. "Did anyone ever find the bits?"

Creed shook his head. "Nah, didn't kill 'im. Still too groggy," he explained. "He tried to grab, I bit him, and then he ran away while I was trying to get the bits of arm and uniform out of my teeth."

"Ah." Annie nodded. "Polyester can be tricky."

Marie was watching them both with a sort of horrified fascination. Clarice was eating her peas. Creed had to give her that, she was a well-behaved little kid. Maybe she'd teach Annie something. "Leather's best, fer preference," he agreed absently. "Or velvet. Never bite someone wearin' silk, though."

"Why not?" Annie asked curiously.

"Because it's...." Creed found himself on the recieving end of a cold, red glare. "Nothin' I should be tellin' you here."

"Aww...." Annie sighed and stuffed half a potato into her mouth. "Wiwoo 'ell 'e aher?"

"Sure." He poked around in his tray, and decided to start with the steak.

Clarice looked up at him. "Mr Creed?"

"M?" he said, mouth full.

"Can I come and visit next weekend?" she asked shyly. "With Annie?"

"Annie's grounded," he pointed out.

"I won't be by next weekend," Annie said confidently. "By then they'll be dying to get rid of me."

Marie nodded, looking like she was trying not to laugh. "Especially if you do that thing again."

Annie rolled her eyes. "I promised, didn't I?"

Creed looked up. "What thing?"

"We can't tell you," Marie said, before Annie could do more than open her mouth. "Classified X-Men stuff."

Creed raised an eyebrow. "Annie, you doin' classified X-Men stuff?" he rumbled, sounding more than a little annoyed.

Annie looked up at the ceiling. "In a broad, wandering-where-I-shouldn't-be-wandering-and-cutting-bits-out-of-uniforms-I'm-not-supposed-to-touch sort of way...."

"Oh." He chuckled. "Sure, Clarice. You can come too."

"I don't mind," Creed said brightly. It wasn't in his nature to speak brightly, or even cheerfully, but it was flustering Cyclops so badly that he felt it was worth the effort.

"Yes... well... I appreciate that, but.... well..." Scott desperately tried to think of a diplomatic way of saying 'It's one thing with Annie, who I know can defend herself against things much worse than you, but Clarice is just a cute, clingy, nervous little girl and I really don't feel comfortable letting her go off with you. Um. Because you're evil, and so forth.'. He couldn't.

"I won't lead 'em into evil ways," Creed promised seriously. He hadn't had this much fun in years.

Scott ran out of words entirely, and had to sit down rather suddenly. He hoped it looked like he was just sitting down at his desk to be businesslike, but it probably didn't.

Creed examined the desk. It was kind of messy, covered in papers and books and pens and useful odds and ends, like bits of string and leftover eraser ends. One of the books looked familiar, and he picked it up.

'Managing Your Active Child', the title read, in big, encouraging blue letters. There was a little cartoon of a small blonde child smashing a potplant with one hand and hanging from the chandelier with the other. 'A helpful and encouraging guide to dealing with the problems of having a hyperactive child' said smaller letters at the bottom. Creed opened it. Several sections had been painstakingly underlined.

He noticed, with some amusement, that most of them were the same ones *he'd* underlined in his own copy.

Creed was not one of nature's scholars... it took him a long time to read anything more complicated than the sports page, and he had to sound out a lot of the words and use his finger to trace along the line... but after two weekends with Annie, he'd gone out to buy a selection of books on parenting, because anyone who spent any time at all with Annie tended to develop a deep and urgent desire for some sort of operating manual. Preferably one that told you where the 'off' switch was.

The books hadn't been a lot of help, although he *had* learned a few things about 'normal' American parents. They all said, and the media said, and the film industry said, and everybody KNEW, that what a parent wanted was a plucky, scrappy, intelligent, sporty kid with boundless energy and roguish charm. Creed, being lucky enough to actually have one, had only taken a few weeks to decide that what everybody *really* wanted was a quiet, well behaved, rather stupid child that did what it was told and didn't make trouble.

Since Annie had been grounded, he'd spent a bit of time with both of them - mostly because it ticked the X-Geeks off - and he'd gotten to know Clarice a bit better. Clarice was a very quite, very well behaved child, who did what she was told and didn't make any trouble, and while she wasn't precisely stupid, she certainly didn't have Annie's ferocious intellectual curiosity about everything in the entire universe. She was, in fact, rather shy and nervous, which weren't traits Creed usually approved of; but after a few months with Annie, he was seeing their good points.

Besides, Annie might have all the patience of an injured weasel and the tact of a red leather miniskirt, but she WAS a considerate child, insofar as this was possible for someone as sensitive as a brick. If something upset Clarice, then Annie didn't do it anymore.

He grinned, dropping the book back on the boy's desk and giving him an almost sympathetic look. "This one's no good," he said ruefully. "I already tried all of chapters three through seven."

Scott blinked, invisibly, and opened his mouth. He closed it again. He suddenly looked rather wistful. "Really? You're sure?"

Creed nodded, absently shoving his hair out of his eyes. He'd taken to bathing and wearing less conspicuous clothes lately, on the reasoning that if he went around in bare feet and wolf furs while he had Annie with him, he'd have the Child Welfare on his back in seconds. His hair was still long and shaggy, though. "There's this other book.... uh... 'How Not To Let Your Child Make You Crazy'. That one's better."

"Does it have anything that works on Annie?" Scott asked hopefully, abandoning what remained of his dignity. He loved Annie, he truly did, she was a very... special child. Exhaustingly so, sometimes.

"No, but it'll make ya feel better about failing." Creed sighed. He was obviously going to have to be reasonable in order to get what he wanted. He hoped he remembered how. "Look... I've always brought Annie back safe an' sound on Monday, ain't I? Why can't I take Clarrie too?"

"Because... Annie can look normal, and so can you, mostly, if you're careful, but Clarice is... well.... unmistakeably a mutant." Scott sighed. "It's just too dangerous for-"

Creed snorted. "Dangerous? You implyin' that I can't protect one bitty little kid?"

"Well..."

"Look, Summers..." Creed gritted his teeth and struggled to be polite. "Clarrie keeps Annie calmed down, okay? If I have her along, Annie don't go.... well....climbing the outsides o' buildings and such."

"Oh." Scott blinked. He thought about it for a moment. "Get them both back in time for class on Monday, then."

Creed blinked. "Just like that?"

Scott, even with his opaque glasses on, managed to convey an eyeroll. "It give ME heart-palpitations when she does those things. If there's a way to keep her from doing them, then I'm in favour of it on principle."

"Oh." Creed would admit, very quietly, to himself, that seeing Annie swinging by one hand from the top of a telephone pole had given *him* something of a start, too.

"But don't fill them up with junk, and don't buy them any dangerous toys, and don't forget that Clarice has to have a nightlight." Scott said hastily, in an attempt to reassert his authority. "And please try to convince Annie not to pierce her nose."

Creed blinked. "Pierce her nose?"

"She thinks it looks cool," Scott explained resignedly.

"Yeah, well, she can think again." Creed growled quietly. When you had a healing factor, piercings never healed right, and the constant low-level pain could play havoc with the reflexes after a while. "Definitely no piercings."

The boy smiled. "Good. We're in agreement, then."

There was a long pause.

They exchanged a rather horrified look "I won't tell anyone if you won't."

"Deal."

He was cold.

That wasn't unusual. He curled up tighter, spine curving easily into a posture impossible for a normal human, tucking himself into a tight ball. Cold or not, this wasn't such a bad time. He was still tired and sore from the last round of tests, which meant that it would be a while before they started another series. They didn't start starving him until right before the new testing series, so they'd feed him soon. No testing, food to eat.... he'd learned to look forward to times like this.

He was just dozing off when he heard a scuffle and a pathetic whimpering noise, followed by a sharp clang. Puzzled, he lifted his head. A grille of bars had appeared in the middle of his cell, halving the already small space. What the....

A scrawny bundle of grey cloth and wild dark hair was shoved into the other half of the cell. Ah. So this was why there was more than one door. He had wondered.

The bundle whimpered, curling up in a corner as if it was trying to hide. The cell's original occupant sniffed and scowled, growling a little. Not only was the bundle fresh from a series of tests... he could smell the chemicals... by the scent of him, he'd also been on the receiving end of what some of the guards called 'fun'.

There were two guards in the newly opened doorway, and another one... one of the scientists? Not one he knew. This one was short, with grey hair and a frustrated expression.

"You!" he snapped, pointing at the original occupant of the cell. "You see him?" The finger snapped round to point at the whimpering bundle.

The cell's owner nodded, uncurling himself and creeping over to the bars for a closer look. Pale skin on the thin hands, nothing showing of the face but brown eyes so reddened that they looked bloody, thick dark hair with a few bald patches shaved into it. For the electrodes - the cell's occupant had similar bald patches in his own lank blonde hair.

"You're to keep an eye on him," the scientist instructed.

"Don't let him do himself an injury and..." he gave the guards a malevolent look. "Don't let anyone else try anything either. I've already had one round of tests ruined, I won't stand for it again. Just... do what you always do."

The cell's occupant nodded. He'd neutered two guards and killed a third before they'd gotten the idea that it wasn't a good idea to try 'fun' with him. The scientists had approved, since the 'fun' messed up some of their tests. He supposed the bundle couldn't take care of itself the way he could, so he was supposed to guard it. That was fine by him.

Guarding was a nice easy job. "Guard?" he inquired, voice rusty with disuse.

"Guard, yes. Guard that." The scientist nodded approvingly. "Good boy." They left, closing the door, and after a moment the grille slid back up into the ceiling.

~rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr~

There was a rumbling noise coming from the den.

~rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr~

Logan frowned, ambling into the den, looking around for the noise. It sounded like a very quiet motor, or a baby thunderstorm, or....

Annie was sprawled on the couch, having her luxuriant blonde curls fussed with by Marie and Kitty. Clarice was draped over her legs, filing a ripped claw on one of Annie's sturdy little hands.

Annie, eyes closed, was purring blissfully at all the attention. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........"

Logan smiled ruefully. The blonde girl looked utterly absurd, sprawled out like a dozy lion and purring like a kitten, but he was quite sure she didn't care at all. She was being groomed, and enjoying it. He couldn't blame her... there was nothing like having your hair brushed to foster the sort of drowsy contentment that he was much too macho to admit to liking.

Hmp.

"Having fun?"

"Yup," Annie said sleepily, leaving off purring for a moment. "'s nice, having your hair brushed."

"And you've got gorgeous hair," Kitty sighed enviously. "I wish I was blonde...."

"It'd look fake on you," Marie said, shaking her head. "Trust me, you'd go completely sallow with blonde hair. Stick with the dark brown and the peaches and cream complexion."

Kitty made a pleased noise, and Clarice looked up. "Brown looks good on you," she said seriously. "Like me and purple. I'd look silly if my hair was yellow or brown."

Annie made an agreeable little purr. "Right. I'm th' only one fair enough to pull off the cute blonde curls." She opened one eye thoughtfully. "I wish I had brown eyes like Kitty's, though. The yellow just looks snakey."

Logan made tracks immediately. Once teenage girls got into the hair-and-eyes-gosh-I-wish-I-had talk, there was no reasoning with them.

He slipped through the kitchens onto the tiny corner of porch that led off them, and caught Scott in mid-illicit beer. Logan's beer, as it happened "Drinkin', one eye? Jeannie forget t' starch yer tighty-whities this morning?"

"Not now, Logan," Scott said crankily. "I just spent three hours trying to explain the concept of slavery as practiced in early America to Annie, and if I hadn't bribed Marie and Kitty to make her go play hairdresser I'd still be sitting there."

"Oh." Logan forgave the stolen beer immediately. "Sounds like load's o' fun."

"It was the racial predjudice that stumped me," Scott said mournfully. "You know you have to be careful to tell her that it's not a good idea before you go into details.... and I was trying to explain the reasoning behind the belief that white people were better than black people, and of course there WASN'T any reasoning, just blindness and prejudice, and Annie kept trying to tell me how stupid it was and I was trying to tell her that *I* didn't think all this, and then she asked me if it was all in the past now, and...." Scott sighed. "I know it sounds silly, but I hate telling her that there are things like that still in the world. She's so.... innocent, in some ways."

Logan nodded. "And in other ways, she's a psyochotic little shit," he said philosophically. Scott choked on his purloined beer. Logan grinned. "Most kids are."

"Logan, they're not-"

"Wasn't it you who got jello dumped down his pants by an unknown perpetrator yesterday while the entire student body did a distraction?"

Scott paused. Scott nodded. "Good point."

The cell's original occupant crept cautiously towards the bundle, sniffing at the air. Male, yes, and young... many tests, recently, he could smell the pain and blood and chemicals... and still very frightened. Of him?

"Go away!" the bundle whimpered, scrabbling away into another corner. The cell's occupant sat back on his heels and gazed at it... him... thoughtfully. Yes, afraid of him. It had been a long time since something that wasn't a guard had been afraid of him. Back when he hadn't been in the Facility, when there had been Sky and Trees and People who weren't Guards or Scientists or Subjects.

A very long time ago indeed.

He crept forward, staying low to the ground in what part of him knew was a non-threatening posture. Paws kept under him, didn't want the bundle to think he was going to grab it. He extended his head a little, sniffing a little, and whined softly. Go on, don't be afraid... I won't bite you...

The bundle sobbed, pulling its knees up against itself. It was so small and helpless, so frightened... the cell's occupant felt an unaccustomed urge to look after this little helpless thing, to take care of it. He whined agan, sniffing at the thin hand. "Won't bite," he promised, the words coming hard. He wasn't used to talking any more. "On guard."

The bundle lifted its head, giving him a pathetic look. "What're you?" it sniffled, eyes still leaking tears.

"Subject 11-329476/B," he said proudly. He rememebered his number. Sometimes he forgot it, after the tests, but it always came back to him again.

"I....they s-said I'm 23-234285/K," the bundle gulped. "But 'm bloody not.... 'm a person, not a number..."

11-329476/B cocked his head, looking puzzled. That reminded him of something... before the Facility, he'd been called something else..... something shorter....

"Kyle," he said, after a long pause. "Name's Kyle. Think so." The words were coming easier now.... it was like riding a.... a..... a thing you didn't forget how to ride.

The bundle made a little gulping noise. "Is it?" It sat up, revealing an unexpectedly beautiful face, even all bruised and messy with tears... and an odd metallic contraption clamped to its chest. "I... I'm Jonny Starsmore." He gave Kyle a pitiful look. "How.... how long will we be here?"

Kyle shrugged, shifting a bit closer and... still sleepy... resting his chin on his forepaws. "Been here a long, long time. Don't know."

Jonny started to cry again, thin, hopeless sounds, and Kyle yawned, wriggling around to rest his head on the thin, bare foot. "Food soon," he said hopefully.

Jonny tensed, but didn't pull away from the weight on his feet. Guards didn't go much for feet, Kyle supposed. "Then what?" he said hopelessly.

Kyle shrugged and yawned. "Sleep. Then more food. Time after the tests is the best."

"The guards-"

"Won't come here. Scared of me." Kyle poked the other boy's arm, a little crossly. "Shush. Sleeping." And he curled up again, head pillowed on warm feet, and fell fast asleep.

Jonny started awake with a whimper. Something was *touching* him something was *on* him get it off get it *off*...

He hit out, and a pained yelp pulled him the rest of the way out of sleep. Oh, bugger. He'd kicked Kyle again. "Sorry," he murmured. His voice sounded funny in his own ears. Sort of... hollow. Still. A lot of things felt and sounded strange here.

"Ow!" Kyle sat up, rubbing his elbow and giving Jonny a wounded look. Someone less familiar with the odd, bony face and slit-pupiled yellow eyes might have classified the look as 'sharp as a teaspoon', but Jonny was getting the hang of his cellmate's visual cues, and this one was the what-did-you-do-that-for-you-crazy-Brit look.

"Sorry," he said again, sitting up too and reaching over to give Kyle's bony shoulder a little pat. "Dream." He didn't have to specify that it had been a *bad* dream. There wasn't any other kind here.

Kyle nodded, making a little barking noise that usually meant 'that's okay' or 'you didn't mean it'. Jonny smiled wearily. "Thanks. Wanna sleep some more?"

Kyle shook his head, dirty blond hair flopping into his eyes, and settled into an odd sitting position that balanced most of his weight on his tailbone. "Wasn't sleeping. Was thinking."

Jonny blinked. Kyle spent a lot of time gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance, but he rarely talked about it. "Thinking 'bout anythin' special?"

"This place," Kyle said thoughtfully. "It's in America. I figured that out." He gave Jonny a considering look. "I'm Canadian. But that's still pretty close. You're from England. That's a lot further away."

This was a staggeringly long speech, from Kyle. Jonny followed it through, filling in the skipped bits in his head. "Yer worried," he said slowly. "'Cause bringing a Canadian into the US, that's not a big leap, but bringin' in a Brit... this isn't just a local organization. This is something big."

Kyle nodded. "Bad sign," he said thoughtfully, curling up on the floor and resting his chin on his toes.

Jonny nodded, reaching out to scritch behind Kyle's ear. His friend made a happy noise. "Very bad." He bit his lip. "You think... they'll kill us?"

Kyle tilted his head a little, so the scratch found an itchy spot. Jonny liked the cute-puppy act, so Kyle played it up for him. Look at me, I'm just a big ol' friendly doggy, not anything scary or dangerous, just a big blond Rover. Woof. "Dunno." He gave his friend a long look. Tall he might be, but if Jonny was more than thirteen or fourteen he'd eat his toe claws. Kyle didn't know how old he was, anymore... he didn't remember much of anything anymore that didn't have to do with the Facility... but he was pretty sure he was older than that. So, older than Jonny, and not nearly as beautiful, even with the funny thing strapped to his chest. Guess who *wasn't* the vulnerable one in the pairing. "I'll fight 'em if they try," he said comfortingly, giving Jono's knee a pat.

Jonny nodded. He still got jumpy if anyone else touched him, or if something touched him while he was asleep, but Kyle was in many ways so profoundly nonhuman that it just didn't matter. He fell into the same catagory as something furry jumping into your lap, not.... anything else. Besides, it was hard to be intimidated by someone who flopped on his back and made happy growly noises if you scratched his head. "Good."

Kyle nodded, and rested his chin on his feet again. He blew air out through his nose thoughtfully. He hadn't wanted to worry Jonny, but he'd been smelling far fewer scents in the air lately. Almost all the Subjects were gone, the Scientists were fewer, and so were the guards...

That was different. That was new. And anything new, in a place like this, was almost certain to be bad, sooner or later.

Especially the part where they were getting rid of Subjects. That really wasn't good, if you were one of the few... or two... Subjects left.

"COOL!!"

Scott winced a little at the loud shriek that issued from an upstairs window, and peeked a bit nervously through the front door. Anything that got Annie that excited would have to be...

... a sleek, shining black convertible, glistening venomously in the drive. Scott tried not to salivate. It was beautiful, it was perfect, it gave the impression of speed even while standing still, it was a glittering, wicked beauty of a car-

~Scott? You're panting, love....~ Jean giggled, coming up behind him and resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Uh-huh..." Scott said weakly, from the depths of the wildest mechanical lust he'd experienced since he'd first seen his beloved bike. The car was just *sitting* there, in the drive, begging to be taken out on the road.... ooohhhhhh...... the temptation......

There was a smug chuckle from an inconsequential humanoid blur somewhere to his left. "Like th' car, huh, one-eye?"

"Guh...." Scott said dazedly, some strange force dragging him bodily down the steps towards the car. He didn't fight it. Hello, beautiful.... don't mind me, I'm just drooling over that perfect body... itching to caress that beautiful steering wheel...

Jean chuckled ruefully, watching her fiance circle the car with an adoring look on his face. "You know, I honestly think that if Logan had given Scott a choice before he took off the first time, Scott would really have been torn between letting him take the bike, or just steal me."

Creed gave her a long, considering look. "'s a nice bike," he said thoughtfully, clearly understanding Scott's potential dilemma.

"He might take a leaf out of Logan's book, you know," Jean grinned. Scott was leaning over to look inside the car, making little happy noises.

"And get his blood all over the all-leather interior?" Creed said brightly. "Nah. HEY, GIRLS! GET IN THE DAMN CAR ALREADY!!"

Annie and Clarice zipped through the front door, flinging their dufflebags into the back of the car with an abandon that made Scott cry out an anguished warning to be CAREFUL of the leather! "We're ready, Dad!" Annie crowed, vaulting into the front passenger seat. "Where'd you get the car?"

"Outta storage." Creed ambled down the steps, giving the car a fond little pat. "Haven't driven her in a while."

"It's pretty," Clarice said admiringly. Behind his glasses, Scott gave her a horrified look. Pretty? PRETTY? Was she BLIND? This car wasn't *pretty*, it was lust on wheels!

Annie patted the side of the car, getting sticky fingerprints on the perfect gleam of the paintwork. Scott whimpered under his breath. "'s cool. And shiny."

Creed nodded, sliding into the car and curling his fingers lovingly around the wheel. "Well, I can't take both o' you on the bike," he shrugged. He glared at Scott until he moved a few more inches away from the car, then peeled out of the drive, barely giving Annie time to wave before they were gone in a flurry of gravel.

"I want a car like that one," Scott said forlornly, watching it go.

"Maybe the Professor will buy you one for your birthday," Jean said comfortingly, struggling not to collapse in hysterical laughter right there in the drive.

Scott brightened a bit. "You think so?" he said hopefully.

Jean collapsed into hysterical laughter right there in the drive.

Kyle had paced the length of the cell more times than he could count, tried to sleep, failed, and paced again until his paws hurt before Jonny was brought back.

He was pushed into the cell, too groggy to walk alone, and he crumpled on the floor, curling up into a tight little ball. The guard snickered. "Tired out, huh? Too b-" The smirk dropped off his face as Kyle lunged at him, snarling. "Shit!" The cell door slammed shut.

Kyle growled again, keeping it up until the footsteps were well down the hall. Then the growl softened to a gentle grumble of concern, and he nudged gently at his friend. "Jonny?"

Jonny whimpered, curling up tighter. Kyle reached out, smoothing his hair gently. "Is okay," he said softly. "Is just me. Dog boy. On guard."

Jonny lifted his head, biting his lip hard enough to draw a drop of blood, tears still trickling down his cheeks. "K-K-Kyle?"

Kyle nodded, judging that the time was right to hug his friend gently. "You okay?"

Jonny didn't hug back, but he didn't pull away, either. "There was... more tests," he said slowly, unhappily. "I don't know what they want... I'd tell them what they wanted to know, 'f I just knew what it is...."

Kyle shrugged, automatically rocking a little. "Tests," he said, a wealth of disdain in the word. "Who knows what they want? 's all just tests." He smoothed the matted hair gently. "Guard try anything?"

Jonny shuddered convulsively, but shook his head. "Just.... said some stuff..." he whispered.

"Ehn." Kyle shrugged, giving his friend one last hug then letting go, curling up beside him in his best Faithful Hound impression. "Too scared to do more'n say. I'd get 'em, elsewise."

Jonny nodded, resting an absent hand on Kyle's curved back. It was funny... before he'd come here, he hadn't been much of a touchy person, especially not with other guys. His parents hadn't been huggy types, especially not his father, and it just didn't feel quite right. And after... what had happened... he'd been firmly convinced that he never wanted to come into physical contact with another human being ever again. For some reason, though, Kyle's combination of amiable acquaintance and golden retriever had Jonny scritching behind his ears, ruffling his hair and, on several occasions, using him as a foot rest. There'd been a hug or two, and that had made him a bit nervous, but.. well... to put it mildly, Kyle smelled pretty damn doggy, and there was nothing like a lungful of unwashed pooch to take your mind off certain things.

Kyle snuffled softly, and Jonny smiled. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes, and for once he didn't stir even when Kyle apparently got sick of his own feet, and rested his chin on Jonny's knee.

Clarice kicked thoughtfully at the back of Annie's seat. "Where are we going?" she ventured. She'd wondered about that, but hadn't quite dared to ask, in case someone decided she couldn't go after all.

"I dunno. Dad, where are we going?" Annie asked, poking her father gently with one clawed finger. "We're going the wrong way for th' city."

"I rented a cabin," he grunted, batting at her hand in a pleased sort of way. "Lotsa.... trees to climb, and stuff."

"Ooh. Yay!" Annie bounced. "And bunnies?"

Creed nodded. "You can catch yer own breakfast, lunch, 'n dinner if you want," he said, reaching over to ruffle her curly hair. Clarice went a bit pale, and he tossed a glance at her over his shoulder. "Don't worry, kid. Got some ordinary stuff fer you."

"Oh. Thank you," Clarice said politely.

Creed shrugged. Obviously he had to feed the kid. He'd..... well.... in a vague sort of way, taken responsibility for her. Just for the weekend. So, obviously, food had to be provided. "Hope ya like stuff in cans."

Clarice nodded. She'd lived on the streets long enough not to be a picky eater. "Is there any canned spaghetti?" she asked hopefully.

"I think so." Creed shrugged again, wondering if he'd gotten enough stuff. He'd gotten what would be about enough for Annie, and Annie ate more than most human adults. Fast metabolism, or something.

"If there is, I want some too." Annie leaned over her door, so the wind riffled through her hair. "Go fast!"

Without any conscious thought, Creed's hand flashed out and jerked Annie back down into her seat. "Don't do that!" he growled. "And put on yer seatbelt!"

"But-"

"You wanna get pulled up?" he demanded. "'Cause if a cop sees you hangin' out of the car like that-"

"Oh, okay." Annie pouted, but buckled her seatbelt. Clarice had already buckled herself in, Creed noted gratefully, and hadn't pushed the sash part of the belt down around her waist, the way Annie immediately did.

HE wasn't buckled in, of course, but that was neither here nor there.

"I'm bored," Annie said, after a minute. "Are we gonna do anything interesting?"

Creed rolled his eyes. "Put on the radio if yer bored," he said, before he thought. "Aw, no....."

It was over an hour before he and Annie managed to agree on a station... classic rock, something they could sing along to, loudly and out of tune. Clarice just sat in the back, being nice and quiet like a good girl.

After a while, it occured to him that Clarice might also be bored. Fortunately, there'd been an officiously helpful shop assistant in the store where he'd stocked up on supplies, and she'd inadvertently saved herself from an early grave by making a couple of suggestions about little girls and long car trips. "Hey, Clarice. Bored?"

She nodded. She really was a surprisingly cute kid.... she had this serious, wise little look which he, for one, considered a lot more appealing than the empty-headed expression you got on most kids. "A little. But I don't mind."

Creed smiled, a rather fearsome expression. "There's a bag on the seat beside you," he directed. "Got some stuff for you to keep busy with."

Clarice blinked, but obediently dug around in the bag. Paperback books, some legos, some felt-tip pens, some crayons and..... ooh. Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh! She grabbed the colouring book and dug through the crayons to find the pink. That was the reliable thing about Barbie colouring books. You definitely needed the pink.

Much later, after they'd had dinner (stew) and gotten ready for bed (washed off any obvious sticky bits) Creed leaned back in his armchair and silently congratulated himself on the marshmallows. Oh, sure, they'd hit Annie like a ton of bricks at around two am tomorrow morning, but as long as she didn't wake him or Clarice up - and she'd promised she wouldn't - he didn't really care. Annie was perfectly capable of amusing herself for a few hours, and she might even bring him back a rabbit.

The girls were both sitting crosslegged on the worn rug in front of the fireplace, toasting their marshmallows with the assiduous care that seemed to come naturally to both of them. Clarice was eating only pink marshmallows, Annie only white. Good thing he'd gotten a mixed bag. Also a good thing that he loathed the things himself, or there might have been a brawl over them.

"It'll catch fire if you do that," Annie said warningly, as Clarice's marshmallow got too close to the flames.

"Oh. Okay." Clarice pulled it back a centimetre or two. "This is fun."

"And tasty." Annie already had a sticky ring around her mouth. She was as messy an eater as he was, her father thought rather proudly. "But yeah, definitely fun. Are you having fun, Dad?"

Creed shrugged, and sipped his beer. "I ain't hatin' it," he conceded. He watched the girls pick at the sticky, melty things with apparent contentment, kept perfectly happy for the whole evening by a dollar-fifty worth of candy. Hah. This kid thing wasn't so hard.

The next morning, he decided that he was sticking by his assessment. Kids were easier to handle than pretty much anything else he'd tried to cope with, up to and including household pets. They didn't pee in the corners, they could feed themselves if he left food where they could reach it, and if he was cranky he could tell them to piss off until lunchtime... and they *did*. He could definitely get used to this.

"AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHH!!"

He looked up.

"IT'S OKAY, DAD! IT WAS ONLY A SNAKE, AND I MUSHED IT!!"

He smiled contentedly and went back to drinking his beer and watching a squirrel try to decide if it was worth getting close enough to him to steal some of the nuts the girls had left at the other end of the porch. Yep, this parenting thing was a cinch.

Some time later, the girls pelted around the corner of the cabin and jumped on him. "Dad, Dad, guess what we did!?" Annie yelled happily, bouncing around on him as if he was a springboard.

Creed took in the water all over them, the muddy feet, and the fish hanging from Annie's hand. "Tapdanced?"

"Only if what Clarice did when she saw the snake counts," Annie said, grinning. "We caught a fish! Well, we caught two, but one was really little so I just et it right away. I got a bone stuck in my teeth, but Clarice pulled it out for me."

"Annie caught them, really," Clarice said honestly, hanging off his arm and getting his sleeve damp and muddy. "But I helped."

"She laid on a rock and dibbled a stick in the water so they'd come up to the top," Annie agreed. "Can we have our fish for lunch?"

"Sure," Creed said agreeably. Fresh fish was pretty good, and they could always cook some of it for Clarice. "What else?"

"Lucky Charms!"

"Carrots!"

"Okay," he agreed, since that sounded pretty well balanced to him. "But I'm havin' steak."

Scott was waiting on the steps when they got back, ostensibly because he wanted to make sure everything was all right before he let the girls go to class. And, he admitted privately, because he wanted to see the car again.

He nearly screamed when it pulled up, dusty, dirty, with a chip in the paintwork and two grubby kids climbing all over the seats. But he wasn't called 'fearless leader' for nothing, and none of his wounded horror showed in his voice. "Annie? Clarice? Did you have fun?"

"Yeah!" Annie rocketed out of the car without bothering to open a door, and hugged him happily. She smelled of pine needles and mud and what Scott suspected was three days of only washing the obviously sticky bits. "We climbed trees and chased stuff and I caught fish and Clarice nearly caught a bunny and Dad let us eat anything we wanted to and we had at least one vegetable every day like you said and can I be a little bit late for English class 'cause I REALLY need a shower and I know the play anyway?"

Scott chuckled. "I think you'd better," he said mildly. "Clarice?"

"I had one this morning," Clarice said in an unusually cheerful voice, being hoisted out of the car like a sack of potatoes by an amused-looking Creed. "There was only enough hot for one person."

"Oh." Scott decided not to inquire further. "Did you have fun too?"

Clarice nodded, her pale little face more animated than he'd ever seen it. "It was great! There were hundreds and thousands of trees, and we could make as much noise as we wanted to!"

"Spent one whole mornin' racing around in th' woods shrieking like banshees," Creed noted, tossing the dufflebags out of the car. He, too, looked happier than Scott had ever seen him, most of the tense suspicion gone from his body-language. On second thought, though, that was perfectly reasonable... after a weekend with Annie, especially if she'd been allowed to eat whatever she wanted, 'tense' was a far less likely option than, say 'limp as a cooked noodle'.

Annie nodded. "We were being wolves," she explained. "Only howling's a lot harder than it sounds."

"I'm sure it is." Scott smiled and shooed the girls gently. "Go upstairs and get cleaned up," he said firmly. "I'll get your bags."

"Okay!" They scampered off, and he gave the car a yearning look. He wanted to take it into the garage and wash it off and polish it carefully and sponge all the dust and dirt off the leather and buff each and every bit of chrome until it was perfect again.

Creed grinned at him. "Nice, huh?" he said proudly.

"Yeah..." Scott said wistfully. The professor had been firm. He couldn't have a car like that one. The students would swipe it and kill themselves.

Creed grinned. "'F I was you," he said conversationally, "I'd be lockin' the door on Annie and Clarice 'til I handed over the car as ransom for lettin' me have 'em."

"I won't say the idea didn't occur to me," Scott said honestly. Then he shrugged. "Lucky for you I'm not you."

Creed nodded, and swung into the car and away without saying another word. But he'd grinned, and it had been a bit more friendly and a bit less menacing than usual.

Kyle wobbled into the cell, and fell over.

Jonny waited tensely for the guards to close the door, and the moment they did, he dropped to his knees beside his friend, turning him over gently so he was on his back. "You orright, mate?" Kyle was as limp as a wet tissue, eyes glazed and fingers twitching a bit. "Kyle? You okay?"

Kyle gave him a dazed little smile. "Fiiiiiiine....." he managed, giving Jonny a limp little wave that was probably meant to be reassuring. Then, for no apparent reason, he folded up like a swiss army knife. "Ooooo...."

Jonny rolled his eyes, and uncreased Kyle into a more comfortable-looking position. "What'd they GIVE you this time?" He grabbed a determinedly flailing leg and held it down on the floor until it gave in.

"D'no...." Kyle said blearily, snuffling at Jonny's arm. "M' woooooozyyyy..."

Jonny couldn't help laughing a bit as he wiped a bit of drool off Kyle's chin. "Yer high as a kite, mate," he said, grinning as the tip of Kyle's tongue flopped out of the corner of his mouth, giving him an idiotic expression. "Nice, is it?"

"Had be'er..." Kyle decided, after thinking about it for a while. "Th' give me a nee'le..." He folded up again, and made a whuffling noise.

Jonny sighed, and untangled him again. "You get all the fun jobs," he said, without rancour. "Sleepy?"

Kyle's eyes crossed. "No..." he mumbled drowsily. "Th' floor's col'..."

Jonny chuckled softly, and tugged Kyle around a bit until he was stretched out reasonably flat, and parallel to the wall. Then he sat down, leaning comfortably against the wall, and rested Kyle's head on his lap. "Better?"

"Yeh, mush..." Kyle mumbled, curling up in a ball and snuggling his ear against Jono's leg. He fell asleep immediately, leaving a rather bemused Jonny patting the matted hair awkwardly and wondering when, exactly, he'd turned into someone's mum.

"The subject responded precisely as we hoped," Doctor Allejandro said cheerfully. She was a small, chubby, friendly looking woman, the very last person you'd ever suspect of performing illegal experiments on mutants in a secret laboratory. Which, of course, was one of the reasons she was allowed to keep doing it, even now, when funding from the Atticus Tremane Foundation had dried up, and staff cut to a minimum. Besides, she was an excellent biochemist. "Of course, we'll have to do more testing, with higher and lower dosages and so forth, but so far there have been no unacceptable side-effects."

By rights, the man she was talking to, the head of what was left of their department, should have rubbed his hands together, laughing in a sinister fashion as he purred an 'Exxxxcelent' or possible a 'Precisely as I expected'. But he just nodded, pushing his glasses absently up onto the top of his head, and chewed on the end of his pen. "Oh, good. How long before it can be used in the field?"

"Oh, another week, maximum." Doctor Allejandro gently pulled the pen out of his mouth. "NOT in the lab, Professor," she reminded him gently, for at least the five hundredth time. "Don't put anything from the lab in your mouth, remember?"

He looked abashed, and nodded meekly. "It's working these late nights," he said sheepishly, putting his hands behind his back. "I get tired, and distracted, and there goes the old oral fixation, hm?"

Nina Allejandro nodded, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. "I know," she said soothingly. "You should get more sleep."

"But we're so CLOSE..." Professor Epstein said fretfully. "We've cut our subjects down to a minimum, freed up the holding areas... did we cut too many subjects, do you think?"

"Oh, no. If anything, we were conservative." Nina looked up at the list thumbtacked to her cork-board. "Let's see... look, two still here, and six in the holding facility in Canada. That'll be more than enough, and we only really need the feral one and the psi right now."

Epstein nodded, brightening. "And once we've figured the right dosage to counteract a healing factor, we can pick up more," he said happily. "My information places three of them in one area... let me see... Oh, I don't remember. That school place, with all the mutants. You know the one."

Nina nodded. "Somewhere near New York, right?"

"That's it." Epstein nodded happily. "And the one in Vancouver's going to get picked up any day now." Now he did rub his hands together, like a child anticipating a treat. "Subjects with healing factors, can you imagine? Such possibilities!"

Nina could, indeed, imagine, and her fingers were twitching at the thought. "Oh, yes, Professor," she said happily. "And I hear one of them has a metal-bonded skeleton, too! Fancy that!"

"Oh, you tease me, Doctor Allejandro," Epstein said, wagging a finger at her with a roguish smile. "That can't possibly be true."

Nina chuckled. "Oh, but it is! One of those early Canadian outposts, you know... the one we got the information on healing factors from."

Epstein looked as if all his Christmases had come at once. "A whole week?" he said mournfully.

"If we use the psi as well, I can have the final testing finished in five days." Nina chuckled. "I'll pencil him in, shall I?"

"Oh, DO, Doctor Allejandro, dear, do..."

"I want a model rocket," Annie demanded, leaning forward so far that she'd have fallen over if Creed hadn't been holding onto her overall-straps.

Creed tightened his grip on that convenient handle, and thought harsh thoughts at Cyclops. Why couldn't he have interested her in something easy that didn't need assembly, like toy guns? "Well...."

Annie pushed forward, physically dragging him a few inches closer to the toyshop. "Pleeeeaaase?"

Creed wavered. "I dunno..." He looked down. Clarice was standing beside him, being a good girl and not running off anywhere.... and giving him the cutest, widest eyed, most hopeful look he'd ever seen. "Wanna go look at the toys?" he said resignedly. Clarice nodded, and he let go of Annie's overalls. She fell over, and glared at him. "Oh, okay. But don't break nothin'!"

He followed them into the toyshop gloomily, wishing they were old enough to have a nice, easy-to-deal-with interest in drugs and wild dancing.

"Oooh! Ooh!" Annie raced up and down the aisles, grabbing toy after fascinating toy, only to abandon it the minute the next one caught her eye. "Daddy, I want a racing car! And oooh! Can I have one of those singing fish things? And-"

Creed refused to be won over by the cuteness of being called 'Daddy'. She'd only picked it up from TV. "You can have ONE toy," he said firmly. He'd learned this from TV too. You couldn't buy them as many toys as they wanted. They could have one. Yes. One. That was how you did it.

"But..." Annie looked around at the cornucopia of potential purchases and gave him a pathetic look. "But there's so MANY!"

"One," he said firmly. "I mean it."

Annie did another circuit of the toystore, slower this time, obviously struggling to decide on just one toy. That'd hold her for a while. Belatedly, he remembered that he'd brought another kid in with him, and looked around for her.

Clarice was in the soft toy section, systematically picking up and hugging every teddy-bear they had, one at a time, then putting them back. Creed cracked a small smile. She was such a good kid. Quiet as a mouse and always doing just what she was told. "Like the bears, huh?"

She nodded, looking around and giving him a little smile. Her hand lingered on one particularly sickening fuzzy creation, with pink fur, blue eyes, and a little pink and white dress. Creed tried not to make a revolted face. Ur, yuck.... "Ya like that one?" he asked, a bit forlornly.

Clarice nodded. She had an unhealthy fascination with the colour pink, Creed had realized, despite all Annie's efforts to convince her of the virtues of yellow or green. "It's pretty," she whispered shyly.

Creed wavered. It wasn't like she was actually HIS kid. She was technically a ward of the school. And presumably one of the simpering women they had hanging around bought toys for the kids. Probably dozens of them. Then he took another look at the quiet, too-old little girl, and sighed. Oh, what the hell. "You can have it if you want it," he said, with what was, for him, noble self-sacrifice.

Clarice did her thing where she lit up like a little pink bit of neon. "I can?"

"If that's the one ya want." He thought wistfully of the Good Old Days, when he'd still run with Magneto and there'd been plenty of booze and violence and cheap women. He'd been... well, not happy, he wasn't sure if he'd know happy if it bit him... but he'd enjoyed himself. Now suddenly there was a whole new set of instincts kicking in.

He was pretty sure he'd never wanted to be a father. Anything longer ago than twenty or thirty years faded into a haze that he was pretty sure was a period he'd spent eating raw pigeon and yowling at the moon, but parenthood was something that, even then, couldn't have held much appeal. Now here he was, buying toys and promising to let Clarice go see some sickening Disney movie about dalmations while he and Annie went to something with plenty of healthy violence in it. And he kept feeding them. And he'd even, to his eternal shame, gotten up once to see if the noise he'd heard was one of them wandering around in the middle of the night. He didn't *want* to discover he had a soft, vulnerable underbelly, or whatever it was you called the parenting stuff. It just seemed to be automatic, like ripping the testicles off any guy stupid enough to hit on a broad that Creed was hitting on first. You had kids, or cubs, or whatever his instincts thought they were, and suddenly you got tangled up in all this caring shit.

And he was trying as hard as he could to hate it, and he couldn't do that, either, because in some fundamental way he was doing what his subconscious knew was the right thing for him to be doing.

In fact, he had a horrible suspicion that it was making him happy.

And on *top* of all that, Clarice was hugging him!

"Yeah, yeah..." he patted her shoulders awkwardly, then pried her off. She didn't seem to mind, just gave him a big smile, still clutching the bear. "Go tell Annie to hurry the hell up, or I'm leaving her behind."

"You need to puke again?"

"Mmm."

"Orright, come here..." Jonny gave his friend a sympathetic look, and held the lank blonde hair back as Kyle lost another meal down the hole in the floor that served them as a loo. They'd gone back at least a week's worth of meals, so far. "That bad?"

Kyle curled up on the floor, making a weak gurgling noise. "Ever had... a t'kila hangover?"

Jonny nodded, making a face.

"Good. Ever had... oh, god... a god-what-the-hell-did-I-drink hangover? Bottles wi' worms an' stuff?"

"Oh, god. Only once."

"Combine 'em. And throw in ge'ing your head bashed onna bar a few times." Kyle whimpered pathetically. "That stuff's bloody awfu'..."

"I know." Jonny's reactions to the new 'stuff' that was being tested on them, oddly, hadn't been nearly as severe as Kyle's. Mostly he just had a splitting headache, and an odd tingly feeling in his stomach. Kyle seemed about ready to retch up the claws on his toes. "Want some water?"

"Yeh..."

"Got a theory," Jonny offered tentatively, going to get the water. There was a little plastic spout thing that came out of the wall. If you pressed the button, water came out. If you broke it, it didn't get fixed for days, so you were careful with it or you went thirsty. He managed to get a bit of the water into the small plastic cup Kyle'd nicked from the last round of tests but one - they'd known, presumably, but a cup was hardly a deadly weapon, so they'd let them keep it - and he brought it to his friend. "Fairy sips, mate, or you'll puke again."

"Know that." Kyle sucked up a miniscule amount of water, and gave the younger boy a vaguely interested look. "Wha' theory?"

"This stuff... I reckon it does something to mutants. That's why they're testing it on us." Jonny squatted next to him, touching his chest where, until this last series of tests, an odd contraption had been fastened.  "I can sort of tell what people are thinking, a bit. That's why they put that thing on me, so I couldn't do it to them. Now, though... they took it off, and I can't hear a bloody thing. Even less than I could b'fore me powers kicked in, 'cause I always had a touch of it. Now... nothing."

"M'kes sense." Kyle took another slow sip of water. "S' why'm I puking so much?"

"I dunno." Jonny eyed Kyle doubtfully. "Unless yer mutant power's Super Efficient Digestion, I can't see why it'd bother you so much."

"M' neither." Kyle sighed, and rested his hot cheek on the nice cool floor. "Feel sorry f'r the poor bugger they're pla'ing to use 't on, though.."

Logan gritted his teeth, and told himself to relax. Yes. Relax. You remember relaxing. It's what happens after that fifteenth beer. The part right before some shithead says something you gotta pound him for. Remember that part?

His body thought about that for a minute, and came back with the assertion that there had been no beer, so he obviously couldn't mean it.

I do too bloody mean it. Don't make me do something nasty to you. It's a nice day, and look, there's Marie, all cute and big eyed, like one of those revolting toddlers on a cheesy calender, and we're teaching her to play poker. This is a Relaxing Thing.  So relax.

Fuck you, his body told him, his instincts making affirmative noises in the background. There's something wrong. You know it and we know it. Get off your fat ass and go search the perimeter.

I already did that. Four times. And I've turned on all the security doohickies, and told the Professor that I think something might possibly be going to happen. I'm not getting up again. This is the weekend. It's me-and-Marie time, without Creed's brats hanging around.

Fine. Be like that. Don't say we didn't warn you.

"Logan?" Marie gave him a puzzled little look. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine." He gave up on the argument with himself, and focused on the cards again. "Okay, now remember, never palm the face cards or the aces. People remember playin' those. Go for the high half o' the number cards, out of the cards that get discarded, and try for pairs and flushes. Most folks don't pay much attention to the eights and nines, unless they got a pair or something."

"Right." Marie nodded. She'd lost so much of her pocket-money to Bobby, John, and the new kid, Remy, in illicit late-night poker games that all the other teachers either didn't know about, or pretended that they didn't, that Logan was insisting that she had to learn how to cheat properly. "And *I* pay attention to every card that's in my hand, right?"

"Right. And don't be afraid to sing out if a card you know was in your hand a minute ago shows up in someone else's. Especially that Cajun kid's." Logan shook his head. "He cheats like there's no damn tomorrow, I've watched him at it."

Marie nodded, although she couldn't help a teeny little sigh. He was no Logan... although she was reluctantly consigning her interest in the older man to the 'lost causes' sub-basement of her brain... but he was very cute, and very charming, and she had a feeling he'd be a bit less charming if she stopped losing so much. Oh, well. The charm was nice, but a little too expensive. "I know. I've just never been able to catch him."

"Well, keep practicing and you will." Logan patted her gloved hand in a decidedly paternal manner. "Otherwise yer gonna keep losing money, and I ain't gonna keep giving you more." Which was a flat-out lie, he'd been subsidising her pocket-money for months now, but he had to motivate the girl. Otherwise she'd just keep sitting there and letting the cajun charm the eyebrows off her.

It better not be anything ELSE the cajun was trying to charm off, or Logan was going to... well, if he was in a good mood, he'd beat the kid up. If he was feeling nasty, he'd make sure it got back to Summers, who'd make the whole school sit through yet another sex-ed lecture, then take Remy aside for a 'little talk'. Logan had listened in on one of those little talks, and after laughing hysterically for nearly an hour, had decided that Summers had a much nastier sense of humour than anyone was giving him credit for.

"We've got a backup plan," Marie said, practicing her card-palming skills. They needed a lot of work. "If he keeps fleecing us the way he is, we're going to have Annie sit behind him and yell every time she sees him cheating."

"That'd work too," Logan agreed. Annie wasn't allowed to play, since it was too easy for her to tell what the other players were thinking, but she did like to watch, and if she was told to sing out when someone cheated... well, the whole state would probably know about it. "Unless th' Cajun charms her too."

Marie gave him a shocked look. "Logan, she's just a baby!" she asserted, from the mature authority of a whole four years older. "I don't think she's even noticed the difference between boys and girls yet!"

She did seem a bit backward about that, now that Logan gave it thought. "Thought she would have, by now. She's what... twelve?"

"Thirteen." Marie shook her head wisely. "Late bloomer, I guess. It happens sometimes."

"I guess." Logan shrugged, and dismissed the girl entirely from his mind. "Okay, now, you need t' work on your bluff..."

Creed growled softly, but the pimple-faced kid at the checkout didn't flinch. Nobody flinched anymore. There was something about carting around a scrawny little girl with pink hair and a pink teddy, and a slightly bigger one with bouncy blonde curls, that made him non-scary. He hated that. He'd always enjoyed frightening the living daylights out of people.

He sighed, paid for the beer, soda, and candy - there was still nothing like marshmallows for keeping the kids quiet - and hauled them outside. "All right, all right... back to the motel, and yer going straight to bed. I've had enough of you both for today."

The girls both nodded, neither one of them making a peep. Good. They knew that when he sounded that crabby, it was best to just go to sleep and let him have time to get over it. He shooed them both towards the car. He'd put them to bed, then he'd go out. Yup. Some beer, a bar-fight somewhere... that'd help.

Annie slowed down almost imperceptibly, sniffing the air, and her head tilted slightly towards the alley coming up ahead of them, between them and the car. "Dad," she murmured.

"I smell 'em," he agreed, almost soundlessly. Careful to make it look casual, he took Clarice's hand, tugging her around to the side away from the alley. Annie could take care of herself, but he really needed to start training Clarice up some. Get her a knife, maybe.

They drew even with the alley, and one of the men they'd scented stepped out, holding a small gun. "Hey, pops," he grinned, showing broken and discoloured teeth. Annie leaned out of the way of his breath, and Creed almost grinned. The guy smelled pretty rank. "Nice car you got back there. Tell you what - gimme your wallet, and I'll let you keep the keys, if you're polite about it." The gun tracked over to point at Annie's head. "If not..."

Creed kept his poker-face, but inside, he'd brightened up considerably. Finally, something interesting to do. "Okay," he said, trying to sound harmless. "There's no need for that, look, I'm getting my wallet out..." He passed the bag to Clarice... a plastic bag full of cans made an okay club, in a pinch... and slid her behind him. "Annie, Clarice, I want you to head for the car... Just gonna sort out my business with the nice man..."

Annie made a disappointed little whining sound, but she obediently grabbed Clarice and they both headed for the car as fast as their little legs could carry them. Creed let himself smile as the mugger's eyes automatically tracked to follow them, and before he looked back, a huge hand had closed around the hand holding the gun and crushed it to pulp and bits of shattered bone, and the other hand had covered his mouth to muffle the scream. His neck broke easily, and Creed tossed the body far back into the alley with one hand, sliding in after him and reaching for his accomplice...

He took more time with that one, but not too long, and he wiped the blood off his hands before heading for the car and the waiting girls. There hadn't really been any challenge to it, no danger, and although it had been fun, it was all a bit disappointing, really. Even bloody, messy murder didn't have quite the same thrill anymore.

He smelled something else, something familiar, and he sped up, but he was still a block away when someone or something, hard to tell in the shadows, melted up behind Annie and Clarice and started letting fly with some sort of dart gun.

Creed wasn't too worried, though, because he knew Annie was resistant to most sedatives, and she was more than capable of handling a couple of whatever-they-weres, so he still wasn't running flat out when Annie made an odd noise and crumpled to the ground. Clarice actually stayed on her feet longer, clawing at the face of the one who'd bent to pick Annie up, and one of the others grabbed her too. They looked at him, shot at him and missed, and obviously decided not to risk it, turning away to run.

He roared, and lunged, but the ones carrying the girls had already melted back into the shadows and disappeared... teleported?... and he only just managed to grab the last one as it tried to slip away.

It was a man, wearing some kind of weird black suit. It took a while, but eventually he told Creed where the girls had been taken. A while after that, he'd told Creed how to get in, all the security codes he knew, the goals of the organization, who the other teams were being sent out to pick up, and a lot about what was going to happen to the girls. Once he had that information, Creed discarded what was left of the man... he'd bleed out soon enough... and headed for Westchester.

As much as he hated to admit it, he might need a teeny tiny bit of backup on this one.

He found the place in a shambles, something he'd more or less expected, since two of the other targets the man had babbled about had been the sucker-skinned kid and Wolverine. He'd also pretty much expected that Wolverine wouldn't have been taken, since the teams had been sent out under the impression that all they had to do was walk up, stick a couple of darts into him and he'd fold up like a wet tissue. He hadn't. There were several detached limbs lying around the lawn... from at least two people, since there were two right arms there... and everyone was yelling fit to raise the dead.

The brainsucker, of course, was gone. Kid didn't have the sense of a bird, or enough training to take down a determined mosquito.

He found Logan, though, who'd been booted off into a back room to 'calm down, for god's sake' while the scout troop calmed down the other kids, and patched up the leaking attackers. Creed snorted. Either they planned to get what they needed from the men's minds... not likely, since this team HAD been prepped to face telepaths, and pain made a pretty good shield anyway... or they were going to woo it out of them with kindness. Yeah, well, it'd keep them busy.

He tapped on the window. "Wolverine," he growled.

The man's head snapped around and his claws popped out, but he relaxed a bit when he saw who it was. He looked down, didn't see any little heads popping up around Creed's elbows, and obviously made a reasonable assumption. "Both of 'em?" he asked, jerking the window open and sliding out of it.

Creed nodded. "They weren't plannin' on taking Clarice, but she put up a fight, so they took her too." He growled unhappily. "I was too far away to get at 'em in time. Only got one." He could see Logan looking at the bloodstains on shirt and jeans, and grinned nastily. "A chatty one, though."

Logan nodded. "Tell you where they are?"

"Where, when, what for, and who else they want." Creed grunted. "Which is us. They get you with any of them darts?"

"One." Logan shrugged. "Didn't go in, though. Just skimmed my arm. Jeannie's analyzing it now, to find out what it was." His eyes were dark. "They got Marie, though."

"Figured. Whatever it is in those darts, it dropped Annie like a punch drops a drunk." Creed growled and grumbled a bit more, and he heard an answering rumble from Logan. Neither of them were happy, and when men like them got unhappy, other people got unhappy too. "They expected it to take us too. Would have, if their guys weren't such lousy shots when it comes to a fast-movin' target."

Logan nodded again. "Too bad for them," he gritted out. Then he gave Creed a long look. "Why're you tellin' me all this?"

Creed blinked at him. "Y' want the brainsucker back, don't you?" he asked, a bit surprised. "I want mine, too. 'cause they're mine, and nobody takes what's mine. So way I figure it, we go in, we kill everyone, we get the kids back, the scout troop never gotta know how we did it."

The shorter man looked a little dubious. "What're they gonna do with the kids, anyway?"

Creed told him.

Logan agreed that yes, killing everyone did sound like a good idea, and he'd just go and grab some maps and stuff, right, then he'd steal Storm's Jeep, since it would be better in the mountains than Creed's Corvette, even if it wasn't quite as fast.

Creed nodded, and before they went, he parked the Corvette out the front, left the keys in, and wrote 'clean it and you can drive it, one-eye' on the hood with some handy mud.

* * *

"Jonny. Jonny, wake up." Kyle's voice was a hoarse whisper, accompanied by a rather hot, rank puff of breath against Jonny's ear.

"Why?" Jonny mumbled, wrapping one arm around his head. "Tired."

"New Subjects," Kyle hissed, still crouching protectively over his friend. "'cross the hall."

Jonny blinked, and lifted his head, turning onto his stomach so he could rest his chin on his arms. All he could see was a bunch of guards moving around in the cell. "That's new. How many?"

"Three." And then Kyle made a growling, grunting noise that was pure disgust. "All girls."

That got Jonny to sit up, frowning. That was *bad*. The guards weren't allowed near him or Kyle because... not to put too fine a point on it... one of the things the scientests liked to test were what they politely called 'stool samples', and they got pissy if those were 'compromised'. He had a nasty suspicion that they wouldn't object at all except for that, which was why it was very bad for there to be girls here. Especially if they were young ones, like him and Kyle. "I can't see."

Kyle nodded, and moved over to the bars, growling and baring his teeth at the guards, who were standing around and muttering to themselves. One of them turned around, and brandished his night-stick threateningly. "Shut up, dummy!" he snarled. Kyle rumbled a bit more. They all thought he was a halfwit, and Jonny knew he didn't like that.

"Come on," one of the other guards said, over the growl, and he gave whatever was on the other side of them a nervous look. "We don't wanna be in here when that one wakes up."

"Yeah." The third nodded grimly. He gave Kyle a hateful look. "She's probably just like the other one. All claws and no brains."

Kyle snarled again, a bit louder, and kept it up until the guards vanished down the corridor. Then he made a satisfied noise. "Fuckwits," he muttered happily, and he and Jonny both leaned up to the bars and peered into the other cell.

They couldn't see many details, but they could see enough to set *both* of them growling with helpless fury. The one closest to the bars was, very clearly, only a child, even if there were magenta markings on her grimy, baby-round face and strands of magenta hair spreading over the small body and tiny hands. There was another girl, next to her, but she was facing away from the bars, and all they could see was a mess of blond curls and a pale, slightly pointed ear. A third, older than either of them, was propped against one of the walls, brown hair streaked with white half-hiding her face, and her coverall - grey, like all the others - undone halfway to her waist. The guards had obviously sneaked a quick grope, if not worse.

The only thing to say about THAT was at least they hadn't tried it with the youngest girl.

Kyle, whose throat was obviously adapted for it, kept up a quiet, steady growling noise as they settled down next to the bars and waited for their fellow prisoners to wake up. Jonny's was a bit raw from the initial snarl, so he contented himself with muttering quiet curses on the guards, the scientists, their parents, and their progeny unto the tenth generation. He thought about including pets, but decided not to. Just in case THEY were the pets.

"Logan's definitely gone." Scott reported. "He's obviously been through the maps in my filing cabinet, and taken some."

Xavier rubbed his eyes wearily and sighed. "I suspected as much." They'd spent most of the night calming hysterical students - most of them had been sure that the human hordes were coming to take them all away to be experimented on, and since they weren't sure that that was not, in some part, the case, the teachers had had trouble being suitably comforting. By the time they'd noticed the Corvette out the front, Logan (and presumably Creed with him) had been long gone. In Storm's Jeep, apparently.

"Can you find them with Cerebro?" Jean asked hopefully.

Xavier shook his head. "I've already tried that, I'm afraid," he said reluctantly. "I did find him, but I could not tell where he was. He is so consumed by fury at whoever did this that I could sense nothing but rage and bloodlust, and I was forced to retreat quickly lest I was drawn in myself."

"Better safe than sorry, Professor," Jean said, touching the back of his hand gently. "Even if we have no idea where they are."

For some reason, Ororo and Scott looked at each other and shook their heads. Jean bristled a bit. "He can't take that kind of risk!" she snapped. "Neither could I, even if I had enough training. He could end up in a fury identical to Wolverine's... and without his focus." She didn't need to say that there would be a risk not only to the teachers, but to the students as well, if Xavier lost that much of his control.

"That isn't what we meant," Ororo said, lips quirking a little. "Am I the only one who heard Scott say that Logan stole some of his maps?"

"Yes, but..." Xavier trailed off, and smiled ruefully. "Of course," he said wryly, looking at Scott, who, even at five in the morning after a sleepless night, was uncreased, unslumped, and had his hair under perfect control. "You file your maps, don't you? You know which ones are missing."

Scott nodded, looking a tiny bit smug. Xavier couldn't blame him for that... Logan had probably headed for Scott's office knowing that he'd be able to find the right maps in moments, because they were all perfectly filed as well as up to date and in perfect condition. He would also have known that Scott would know, after one look, which file had been burglarized. A clue as to where they'd gone, obviously, since if Logan *hadn't* wanted them to know where he was going, he'd have simply gone and bought the maps he wanted on the way to wherever he was going. "Which maps did he take, Scott?" he asked hopefully.

Scott shrugged, face falling a little. "Oregon. All of the maps I had."

Xavier squashed an urge to roll his eyes and sigh theatrically. A clue, yes, but not a clear set of directions. "At least it's a place to start, I suppose."

"What're you stopping for?" Logan growled, lifting his head and looking around. He'd finally given up the wheel around seven that morning, and he'd been dozing in the passenger seat for... he checked the clock... about three hours. Not sleeping, really - not with Marie missing, and Creed close enough to pop his head off like the top of a beer bottle without even getting up - but dozing. Resting his body, if not his mind.

"Get some petrol, get some food, and take a leak," Creed responded shortly, pulling into the small service-station. It was a shabby little place, out in the middle of nowhere, and that was good. Nobody to notice them, or remember. "You need to?"

Logan nodded. He could hold it a long time if he had to, but the faded 'Gents' sign was pretty welcome. "Won't say no."

It was strange how easily they were falling into the pattern of travelling together... they'd switched seats easily that morning, without more than a word or two, and now they didn't speak at all - they both made use of the men's room, then Creed went to fill up the tank while Logan picked out what food he could that didn't stink of chemicals or smell half-rotten. Without really thinking about it, he picked up a big six-litre container of spring water, and added it to the pile. Creed came in, grunted the price for the petrol, and went looking for something up the back of the store. Logan shrugged, watched the nervous kid behind the counter add the petrol to the price of the food and water, and tossed in a couple of packets of beef jerky before he paid for it all.

He pocketed his wallet and looked around just in time to spot Creed, holding another container of spring water, reaching for the jerky. Logan looked at the stuff on the counter. Creed looked at the stuff on the counter. Giving Logan a very strange look, Creed dumped the water he'd been carrying, and picked up his share of the food to take it out to the car. Blinking a bit, Logan followed him.

Neither of them commented - it's hard to find a macho way of saying 'hey, you like the stuff *I* like'. But they watched each other covertly for a while, and Logan started noticing stuff. They were both right-handed, but tended to eat and drink with the left hand to keep the right one free, just in case. They both kicked off their boots in the car to flex their feet. They both liked to have food where they could reach it, but rarely bothered about the water unless they were thirsty. They both, if Creed's frowns and shifts were anything to go by, tended to get a stiff neck and a sore tailbone if they spent too long sitting upright - one of the reasons Logan liked motorbikes so much. He could hunch forward and let his head drop a bit, which felt a lot better.

He was driving when he noticed that, and he jerked his head towards the back seat. "You should sleep for a couple hours," he suggested, in an unusually mild tone. "Your turn again around midnight. Might as well get some shuteye first."

Creed frowned, as if to protest, but then he nodded. "Might as well," he agreed. He was too big and bulky to just slide over the seat, but he moved fast enough that Logan had hardly pulled over when the back door slammed shut, and he could get back out on the road. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and caught a relieved expression on Creed's face as he sat sideways on the seat, hiking his knees up a bit and resting arms on knees, head on arms. His breathing smoothed out almost immediately, and Logan's lips twitched into a tiny smile as he put his eyes back in the road. He'd had worse travelling companions, he conceded privately. Better ones, too, but definitely some worse ones.

That put him in mind of Marie, though... that nervous, stubborn little look she'd had sitting beside him when he'd first picked her up. It had been... what... eight, nine months ago? Tail end of winter in the mountains, spring everywhere else. Now winter was coming again, and he couldn't shake off the image of her standing alone in the snow, without him to stop the trailer and beckon her over...

Creed listened to the soft growl and the shift in the engine noise as the car sped up a bit, and grinned into his folded arms.

It was a long time after they'd been dragged in that the girls started to wake up, and it was the youngest one who woke up first. She whimpered, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes with small lavender fists, and then she looked around. She saw the cell, and the other girls still sprawled where they'd been dropped, the prison-grey coveralls and the bars.

Before she could do more than crumple up her face and open her mouth to start crying, Jonny waved a hand to get her attention. "Hello," he said softly.

The little girl sniffed, pushing tangled hair out of her eyes. "Hi," she whispered.

Jonny smiled as reassuringly as he could. "I'm Jonny," he said, and poked the sleeping grey-and-blonde lump beside him. "And this is Kyle, when he's awake. Don't be scared of him, even if 'e does look a bit creepy."

Kyle grunted and sat up, looking like a caveman with his long, lank hair and the beginnings of a beard. "Hi," he said, sniffing at her scent.

For some bizarre reason, the little girl brightened considerably when she got a look at Kyle. "I'm Clarice," she said shyly. "And that's Annie..." she pointed to the blonde girl, "and that's Marie over there."

Annie, having been poked a bit, seemed to wake up, and made a heart-rendingly pitiful noise. "Oogh..."

Jonny shook his head, having heard that particular noise before, and gestured at Clarice. "There's a hole over there in the corner," he said urgently. "Get her over to it before she pukes."

Clarice nodded, and moved surprisingly fast, grabbing the shoulders of her friend's coverall and throwing her small weight against the bigger girl's inertia. They made it over to the hole just in time and - since it was quite close to the third girl - the resulting disgusting noises at least managed to get her to wake up. "Wha... hey!" She slid pale hands up to yank the front of her coverall shut, looking around with startled suspicion. "What the... Clarice?" She looked surprised to see the younger girl. "I thought you and Annie were with Annie's dad."

"We were. Then someone shot some darts into us, and then we were here." Clarice shrugged, and pointed across the hallway at Kyle and Jonny. "Maybe they know where here is."

"Not a clue, luv, sorry." Jonny shook his head. "I've been here for... dunno. A while now. Kyle's been here longer."

Kyle nodded, and gave Clarice and... what was the other one's name? Mary? Marie?... a thoughtful look. "Don't you feel sick?"
  

Marie shook her head. "Nope. I've got a little headache, and I'm thirsty, but that's it." She was pretty, Jonny noticed a bit wistfully, and had traces of a soft Southern accent. Looked like she'd have a nice smile, too.

Clarice patted Annie's back, and nodded. "I got a headache, too, and I'm a bit dizzy, but I don't wanna throw up," she agreed.

"If this is what a hangover's like, I hope I never have one," the blonde girl moaned, still hanging over the hole. "I never felt this sick before."

"Hit me the same way," Kyle volunteered. He shuffled a bit closer to the bars.

Marie looked at him, and did a small doubletake. "I can see why," she murmured.

Kyle frowned. "You can?"

Annie gurgled a bit and sat up. "You can?" She turned around and looked at Kyle.

Yellow eyes met yellow eyes, and they both blinked a bit. "Wow," Annie said mildly. "We look alike. Only your face is bonier than mine."

From the tops of their blonde heads to the tips of their clawed toes, there WAS certainly a startling resemblance. Kyle was a bit bigger and bonier than Annie, and Annie still had baby-round cheeks and the disproportionately long limbs of a kid in the middle of a growth spurt, but... yes. Definitely a likeness. Jonny looked at them both for a while, then shrugged. "Interesting. Not much help, but interesting."

Kyle and Annie both grinned fangy grins. "I dunno," Annie said modestly, inspecting her heavily clawed fingers. "I figure the two of us could... AIGH! I've been clipped!"

Kyle looked mournfully at his own truncated claws. "They do that."

Marie and Jonny's eyes met, and they both chuckled a little. "They ARE a lot alike," the older girl said ruefully, watching Annie shuffle off into a corner to mourn over her abused fingers. "Do you... have you guys thought up any way of getting outta here?" Please, please don't say it's impossible, her eyes begged. Because it's just starting to sink in that we're prisoners here and I really don't want to stay a prisoner.

Jonny blinked. "We... no, not really. I mean, the plots you see on TV aren't likely t' work here, and neither of us are secret agents or nothin'..."

Marie brightened a little. "Ah. Well, we have a bit of an advantage there."

Creed grunted, squinting a bit as he traced the line of the road with the very tip of one claw. "Y'think this is the best one?" he asked dubiously. "Me, I'da gone this way." He traced another route, more direct, but also more obvious. He didn't say that one reason he'd have taken the more obvious route was because it was easier to see, with eyes better adapted to a far off, moving target than a slip of printed paper right up close, but he suspected that Logan guessed.

Logan wasn't getting all that close, either, and he was squinting a tiny bit at the map as they held it spread out on the hood of the Jeep.

"That way's faster, yeah... but they'd be more likely to see us comin'." He shook his head. "And we don't wanna be spotted. Not that I mind a good scrap," he added hastily, as Creed's shaggy eyebrows went up a bit, "but they might hurt the girls if they think we're going to get to them."

Creed thought about that, and nodded. "Might just cut their throats and be rid of all of us," he agreed. Logan twitched in a way that wasn't quite a flinch. Creed wasn't too happy with the idea, either. Annie and - increasingly - Clarice, belonged to *him*. They might get annoying sometimes, but they were *his*, and anybody who messed with his stuff got their entrails wrapped around their necks and lit on fire. Besides, they were about the only two people in the world who actually liked him, and that was sorta nice. "Back way it is."

The runt gave him another one of his odd looks as they folded up the map and slid back into the car. Creed rolled his eyes a bit. He might be a psychopath, as humans reckoned it - he hadn't thought of himself as human in a long time, although he wasn't sure he bought Magneto's Homo Superior crap, either - but this was pretty much a job, a contract, and he knew how to be professional when it was necessary. He might get a bloodthirsty kick out of gutting and maiming, but he didn't do it twenty-four-seven. And picking fights with Logan... he was starting to think of the man by name, now... wasn't going to get anyone anywhere.

He looked sideways, evaluating weary brown eyes, a deeply lined face, and hair that was going oddly tufty now that he wasn't bothering to comb it. He looked tired. "You should sleep," Creed grunted. "Yer no good to anyone if yer wiped out."

"In a bit."

Creed shrugged and nodded. He wasn't the man's keeper. Even if they *were* getting along better than he'd ever expected. It wasn't the chatty, cutesy, let's-all-be-friends shit the X-Men seemed to expect, mind you. Not Magneto's we-are-brothers-and-sisters-in-adversity schtick, either. More like... he searched his memory. More like the few times he'd taken contracts that meant he had to work with someone else, and the someone else was a pro. He'd kind of liked those times - working with someone else, yes, but someone who'd be where they were supposed to be and knew how to fit the way they worked around someone else's way, so everything was smooth and easy. Logan was like that; he knew what he was doing, and he knew that Creed knew what he was doing, and even if they didn't have much to say to each other, they'd get the job done all smooth and nice.

There was a sort of satisfaction in that, Creed mused. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Unless the runt choked when it came to the killing. Then he'd probably have to waste him too, otherwise he'd spook back to the X-Men and they'd make trouble.

It'd be a shame to have to kill Logan, though. They were getting along so well.

"I'm very disappointed, Professor Epstein," Nina Allejandro said unhappily. "Not only did we not get the two adults, we lost three of our operatives. And the others are all refusing to go out again."

"Yes, well... I don't know why they're so upset." Epstein scowled. "Just because they have never suffered casualties until now is no reason to get all pouty. What do they think I'm paying them so much for? Snatching little girls out of parking lots?"

"No stomach," Nina said firmly. "You'll have to be firm with them, Professor. Tell them that they can either go out after the adults, or they can fill in for them in our experiments." She smiled a bit nastily. "Of course, the reason we needed the adults with the healing factors is because they wouldn't otherwise survive, but..."

Epstein brightened. "That's very good, Doctor Allejandro," he said admiringly. "Incentive!"

"It's the key to enthusiasm in the workplace," Nina agreed.

Epstein looked at the chart. "At least they picked up the power-duplicator and a spare one," he observed. "And the one from Vancouver is being brought in today, isn't he?"

"This afternoon." Nina nodded. "He's older than the others, which is good. We can use him for those experiments which require specially designed equipment." She made a little pouty face. "The ones we have keep outgrowing it."

"The penalty of working with the young and resilient." Professor Epstein smiled encouragingly, and took the liberty of giving her a little pat on the shoulder. "Never mind. Soon you'll have all the variety you want in our little subjects."

Nina nodded, and returned the smile. "And there's so much to study," she said happily. "We'll be so far beyond the cutting edge we'll make the cutting edge look like a butter knife." That was what she loved about this job... she could study things nobody else could, go places that nobody else dared go, all because they were too chickenlivered realize that scientific advancement counted for much more than petty moral restrictions, and experiment on humans.

Well, mutants, technically, but it was the same thing, really.

"Hey, look... another one." Annie whispered, out of consideration for Marie and Clarice, who were sleeping.

Kyle nodded. He was leaned up against the bars, same as she was, and they'd been playing scissers-stones-paper to keep themselves amused. "Can you see anything?" he asked, also in a whisper. Jonny was asleep too, with his head on Kyle's leg.

Annie pushed her face up against the bars, and craned to see. The newcomer was in a cell next to Jonny and Kyle's... by himself, too. That was interesting. "Not much," she whispered back. "He's definitely a guy, though. Older than us, too, but not too much. Marie's age, maybe. And puking even harder than I did."

Kyle brightened a bit. "I guess this is good," he said hopefully. "I mean, they wouldn't bring in a whole new batch of subjects if they were just going to kill us all."

"True," Annie whispered back. "The question is, are we going to wish they had?"

Neither of them said any more after that.

"Ugh." Marie opened her eyes and sat up, making a face. God, she'd give almost anything for a pillow and a toothbrush right about now. Her head ached, her mouth felt like something had crawled into it and died, and she was incredibly thirsty. And Annie was talking.

"-Nope, no idea where we are. Really. I promise, if I knew where this place is, I'd tell you," she was saying, with the exaggeratedly patient tone she used on people she thought were very stupid. "And Kyle doesn't know where we are either, do you, Kyle?"

"No," Kyle said. Kyle did not sound patient. Kyle sounded pissed.

"But... why are we here?" It was a male voice, a deep baritone, but still young-sounding. And panicked-sounding, too. New one, obviously.

"Well, if you mean, why are WE here, instead of someone else... no idea.  Because we're mutants, probably." Marie looked over in time to see Annie shrug. Clarice, by the look of it, was still asleep... she never woke up when Annie talked. Marie figured she was so used to it that it didn't even register anymore.

"And if you mean 'what for'... testing. Scientific tests. Like on monkeys and rabbits and stuff." That was Kyle's rather raspy voice.

There was a rather pitiful noise from the unidentified newcomer, and Annie turned her head to look at Kyle. "You couldn't have broken it to him gently?" she asked mildly.

"You think I shoulda waited until they came and dragged him away?" Kyle said over the panicked hyperventilating noises from the next cell.

"Well, no... Hey, Marie, you're awake?" She looked around and smiled brightly. "Hi!"

"Hi," Marie said a bit gluggily. Her throat was sticky and in desperate need of water.

Annie pointed to the wall of their cell, where a little spout was sticking out. "Push the button underneath and water comes out." She held out a small, battered looking plastic cup. "Kyle loaned us their cup."

"Thanks." Marie gave Kyle a grateful look... he really did look a lot like a younger, skinnier version of Sabretooth. His hands had that same shape, too... long in the palm, with blunt fingers that folded tightly together to look almost pawlike.

He grinned toothily at her, and she noticed Jonny's head resting on his lap. They seemed to be friends... how long had they been here, to get so close? And testing? He'd said something about it the night before, but she'd been so tired... "'s not so bad," he said reassuringly, accurately reading the look on her face. "You get used to it."

Scientific testing.

She'd get used to it.

The faint remnants of Magneto's personality, in the back of her mind, were having violent hysterics. So were the much stronger remainders of Logan's personality. And there was a faint, angry buzz right at the very back that was probably all that remained of Annie. The Magneto-voice wanted to escape, and then kill everybody. The Logan-voice wanted to kill everybody, and then escape. The Annie-buzz, from what she could tell, just wanted to hit all the things and all the people in the entire complex (except fellow prisoners) until they stopped moving and making interesting sounds.

Marie went to get a drink of water.

When she'd drowned the babbling voices - along with her tonsils - she shuffled over to the bars and sat beside Annie. "Where's the new guy?"

Annie pointed. "You can see if you squash up to the bars a bit."

Marie squashed. Marie looked. An area at the back of her brain that had nothing to do with other people's memories, worry about their extremely dubious future, or anything else remotely connected with reality, went 'ooh!'.

The guy in the next cell was absolutely *gorgeous*. Wavy black hair, even features, muscles everywhere... yes, okay, he was currently panicking, and that doesn't look good on anyone, but *still*... She sighed a little. "Hi."

He looked up, blinking, and Marie was momentarily distracted by thick eyelashes and big, expressive brown eyes. "Hi," he said in a rather small voice. She felt a pang of sympathy. Oh, sure, he was at least her own age... much older than any of the others, except maybe Kyle... but he obviously had never, ever had anything even slightly weird happen to him. The poor guy was clearly scared witless.

"Where are you from?" she asked softly.

"Vancouver," he said, looking down at his hands. "Most recently, I mean. I was born in Denver."

She nodded sympathetically. "Annie and Clarice and I got nabbed from 'round Westchester. We go to a kind of boarding school there," she said. "I don't know about Jonny and Kyle..."

"I'm Canadian too," Kyle contributed. "Jonny's English."

"Really?" Annie brighted. "My Dad's from Canada too. Maybe we're related, and that's why we look alike." She tucked her knees up under her chin. "I'll ask him when he comes and gets us."

Everyone looked at her.

She blinked. "What? He's going to come and get us. He gets really pissed off when people pinch his stuff. And Clarice and me are his stuff. So he's gonna come and get us and... you know... kill everybody.  Like he does."

Marie brightened a little. Creed probably WOULD come after 'his stuff'.  And Logan would come and get her. Of course he would. He'd promised to take care of her and, by and large, was doing a pretty good job. After all, if he wouldn't let her get cheated at cards, he definitely wouldn't let her get experimented on. "That's true."

Annie nodded. "And Mr Logan will come and get Marie, too. And we'll get them to take you guys back with us. So there we are." She settled on her tailbone and wrapped her hands around her feet. "We'll just wait until they get here."

Nobody noticed the way the new prisoner's head popped up at the name 'Logan'.

They'd left the Jeep behind long ago... well hidden, of course... and were slipping through the forest so silently that even the birds hardly noticed them.

The unplanned, automatic partnership they'd fallen into during the trip was even more in evidence now, almost uncanny... and yet, also oddly familiar. There was no need to plan, or discuss, they simply were, and what they were worked perfectly. It was comforting, that feeling of knowing without thinking where the other was, what he was doing, and letting your actions and his flow together.

Within hours, they'd stopped talking. By the next day, they barely even needed to think. Some wellspring of instinct was doing its work, and while the men might never really get along, the two predators joined seamlessly in the pattern of the hunt.

They followed the scent of hot metal for over a day before they found the hidden road... just a tiny dirt track, barely wide enough for one vehicle. And the way things were, to their eyes, the road was merely a trail, a trail to be followed, and they followed it. Sometimes one to each side, sometimes on the same side, slipping through the trees soundlessly as they pursued their quarry. At infrequent intervals, when some unwary creature crossed their paths, they would leave the great hunt for a smaller one, then they would feed, and rest a little, until the impetus picked them up again and drove them on. They were hunting. They would not stop until they had found their quarry.

Once or twice a thought would surface. For a moment, the strangeness of their deep, if temporary, rapport would come into their minds for a moment... and then it departed, unheeded and unremembered. There was only the hunt, and the other who also hunted, and the quarry at the end of the hunt. That was All There Was, all that had ever been, and in that period of eternal now there was a kind of peace.

Neither of them felt, or even looked particularly human anymore. The beast within had become the beast without, and there was a tiny edge of surprise, at first, that instead of the ravening, bloodthirsty thing they'd both expected, the Beast Within was simply a predator, which hunted and tracked efficiently, but with no malice. They would find the quarry, because the quarry had taken their cubs. They would kill it, in case it took the cubs again. But they didn't hate it, or want to hurt it before it died. It was just something that had to be gotten rid of.

They would find the cubs, and take them back to... no, not back. That den was no longer safe. They would need a new den to hide the cubs in. But that could be decided after the cubs had been found.

When, on the third day, they found the complex, they sat for twenty minutes staring at the wall before enough of their humanity resurfaced to remember how doors worked.

Days had passed.

It wasn't possible to tell how many, since the lights were constant and none of them had particularly good time-senses. Annie guessed two. Marie had guessed four or five. A thin, stooped old man in a janitor's uniform had come to clean up the vomit from Geordi's cell, and at irregular intervals had brought them food.

That was to say, a dish of tasteless mush and a couple of flat, waferlike things had been provided to each of them. Clarice was beginning to understand why Jonny and Kyle were both so skinny. She'd actually felt reasonably full afterwards, because she was very small and never ate much anyway, but Annie and Kyle had both inhaled theirs in about two seconds flat. Apparently their nausea had faded.

Annie's stomach rumbled, and she sighed pitifully, poking at the latest tray - which, to be fair, HAD been significantly more meager than usual.  "I'm starving," she moaned. "That was hardly even a SNACK."

"I keep telling you that you eat too much," Marie said a bit grumpily.

"I do not. I need fuel for the machine." She patted her stomach, and Clarice giggled. Tone, phrase, and tummy-pat were all copied exactly from Jubilee.

"Hey..." That was Jonny. He had a nice smile, the couple of times she'd seen it, but mostly he looked sad and a little afraid. Clarice guessed that more than a few bad things had happened to him lately. "Ladies? Uhm... if it's not rude... what mutant powers've you got?"

"I've got a healing factor," Annie said absently, as she hunted for stray crumbs on her tray. "And I can shapeshift, too."

"I..." Marie looked down at her bare hands, and stuffed them into her pockets. "When I touch someone skin-to-skin, I... kinda suck out their energy. And their powers. And their memories, too."

The new prisoner... he said his name was Geordi, something that had inexplicably made Marie and Jonny snicker for over an hour... flinched visibly, and Marie looked unhappier than ever. Kyle and Jonny, though, looked kind of interested. "Really?" Jonny asked thoughtfully. "That could be pretty handy sometimes."

"It's not," Marie said briefly, and she looked so sad that Clarice crawled over to her to give her a hug. Marie smiled a bit, and hugged back carefully.

"Wot about you, Clarice?" Jonny looked at her. "What can you do?"

Everyone looked at her.

Clarice flinched a little, and slid around behind Marie a little. "I'm not sure," she whispered. "I only ever did it once, and I was really scared, so I don't remember much. There was just a big light."

Kyle looked a bit sceptical, but Annie nodded. "That happens," she agreed. "Mr Summers says that unless something really bad happens, that kinda shocks your powers open, most mutants don't get any real powers until they're about me and Jonny's age. And if you're malnourished or something, it can take much longer."

"Really?" Geordi shuffled closer to the bars, looking interested for the first time. "I was... twelve, I think, the first time something big happened. Is a healing factor when everything just sort of... heals right away?"

"Uh-huh." Annie nodded. "You too?"

"Uh-huh." He scowled, kicking at the bars. "And some weird stuff with my bones and stuff."

Annie leaned up against the bars and squinted at him. "Hey, open your mouth for a second..." He obliged, and all three of the girls could see the same pronounced canines that Annie, Sabretooth, and Wolverine all had in common. Kyle presumably did too, but since nearly every tooth in his mouth appeared to be canines, it was hard to tell. Annie nodded, and showed him her own teeth. "Feral-type mutation," she explained knowlegably. "Like me and my Dad and Kyle and Mr Logan and Rahne at school. There's more around, too." This time she did spot the frown at the name 'Logan', and blinked. "Do you know any?" she asked cautiously.  Better not to let him know she'd seen.

"One," he said shortly. "We met a while back."

Ah. Mr Logan had probably been horribly rude to him or something. Possibly hit on his mother. Annie nodded, dismissing it from her mind. "Well, I'm getting bored," she said cheerfully. "Let's bust out."

"I thought we were going to wait for your dad to come and get us," Jonny said, blinking a bit.

"We are. Just not in here. 'Cause I'm hungry and I wanna go get some food." Annie pointed one clawed hand at the bars.

Absolutely nothing happened.

She sighed mournfully. "That stuff they shot us with... it deadens mutant powers, right?"

"Yup." Kyle nodded.

"Drat." Annie sighed. "Now we're going to have to wait for a guard to come, so we can overpower him."

Kyle shook his head. "They always come in threes or fours," he said resignedly.

Annie brighted. "Oh, good." She smiled a fanged smile. "A challenge."

"'s small," Logan whispered almost soundlessly as they crouched in the brush not five metres away from the wall of the compound.

Creed nodded, still getting the hang of talking again. He'd never been much of a one for it. "Most underground," he whispered back. Annie had talked a lot about the two 'Facilities' she'd been in before she'd escaped, and apparently they were usually mostly underground. And any dangerous prisoners were kept on the bottom levels, so that if worst came to worst and they escaped, the whole level could simply be flooded first with gas, then with water, and sealed off permanently.

Logan nodded, obviously understanding that. "Perimeter alarms?" he suggested.

Creed nodded. "Lotsa alarms," he agreed. "Sneak or bull?" Sneaking in took a lot longer, and it was boring, but it lowered the chances of getting the cubs' throats slit. Just bulling their way through, though, was not only faster, it was a lot more destructive, and Creed was in the mood for some serious destruction.

Logan thought about it for a minute. "Try sneaking first," he suggested. "When we set off an alarm, we can start breaking stuff."

Wow. That was a great plan. Hardly any of the guys he'd worked up with before had come up with fun, easy plans like that. Creed nodded enthusiastically. "That works," he agreed.

"Right."

They both stared at the solitary guard for a long moment.

"I'll charge him from in front. You run behind him and rip out his hamstring."

"Right."

The Beast Within wasn't giving up control as fast as perhaps it could.

The other boy... Geordi, Kyle remembered, although it was hard to fit a name to someone he couldn't see... made a soft noise of nervousness. "I can hear someone coming."

Kyle tipped his head a bit, turning it from side to side to find the sound and get a direction. Across from him, he could see the kid Annie doing the same thing. "Guards," he said briefly. He knew that tramp-tramp of heavy boots very well, and he was less worried - he was almost used to them - than interested by the fact that Geordi had heard them even before Kyle himself. Sharp teeth, good ears, an oddness of bone and muscle... obviously a mutation whose time had come.

Annie cracked her knuckles, a startlingly unpleasant smile on her cherubic face. "Oh, good. I'm getting really bored in here."

The other girls gave her an alarmed look, and both retreated to the far corner of the cell.

Kyle blinked. She could hardly be all THAT dangerous, could she? She was only, what, twelve? "Three," he said, sticking with the solid information his ears were giving him. "Big."

Annie's nasty smile widened. Marie and Clarice huddled further into their corner. "Yay."

Kyle sat back on his tailbone, and watched the guards as they came around the corner and tramped down the narrow hall to the cells. Jonny whimpered, shifting a little closer, and Kyle rested a reassuring hand on his knee. "They won't try anything," he promised in a whisper.

Annie seemed to hear him, giving him and Jonny a sharp look that shifted quickly into grim understanding. He saw her fists bunch. "Hey! You!" she snapped, marching up the bars. "Who the hell are you, and what are we doing here?"

"We're the guys who put you in there," said the biggest one, leering at her. Kyle felt Jonny tense beside him. Shit. This had to be the trio that had... shit. "And you're doing whatever the hell we tell you to do, girl."

"Oh. Well, that explains it, then." The sarcasm could have cut glass. "And what exactly were you planning to tell us to do? No, wait, I think I can guess."

"Good." The man grinned, unlocking the door. "Now, you just get back there in the corner with your friends." Kyle could see what he suspected Annie couldn't - that the two behind the front-man had guns in their hands, and cuffs hanging from their belts. Damn, damn, damn.... Annie might intend to put up a fight, but if the other two were threatened...

Annie backed up obediently, and all three of them slid into the cell, raising their guns. "All right, now hold out your-"

Annie looked between the bulky bodies, and let a trace of fear show in her eyes. "Jeez, how many of you guys ARE there?"

Kyle blinked. How she'd known this was an unofficial 'visit', he didn't know. Maybe that was standard in these places. But it worked as nothing else would have, all three of the men slewing around to see who was coming to spoil... or steal... their fun time. They weren't expecting any trouble - these three were NOT among those who'd had run-ins with Kyle, or they'd have known better.

They did, to their credit, only look away for a split second.

Before they could look back, a wet snapping sound echoed a bit in the small cell as the spokesman for the small group found his chin grabbed and jerked impossibly around by small, calloused hands. Before he'd finished flopping limply to the ground, one of those hands had fisted up and smashed with lethal force into the second man's throat. It made a dull, meaty sound as it connected.

If Annie's arms had been longer, the third man would have gone down without more than a surprised squeak, but they weren't, and he was far enough away that he managed one wild shot before she slammed into him with enough force to smash the back of his skull against the cell wall.

Marie, huddled protectively over Clarice, screamed.

So did Jonny, a little, and Kyle was pretty sure Geordi had too, but Marie's was definitely less of a 'loud noise, eee!' scream and more of the 'I'm hit!' variety.

Annie caught it too, and dropped the third man's body, moving blurringly fast to Marie's side. She took the girl's arm, and then relaxed a bit. "It's just a graze," she said soothingly. "I know it hurts like hell, but it's not bad."

"Ow... uh..." Marie sniffled. "Really hurts..."

Kyle could smell the blood. No matter what Annie said, that was more than just a graze - but if she didn't want Clarice and the weak-stomached Geordi to know about it, he could see the sense in that. He could hear Geordi vomiting again as it was. "The guards are wearing t-shirts under the jumpsuits," he reported from memory. "Bandages."

"Good idea." Claws were handy for ripping cloth into neat strips, and she peeled off the fabric from the nearest body with calm indifference. Jonny was looking nervous about that. Geordi was still retching helplessly. Kyle was of a mind to think Annie had been entirely too nice, and killed them much too fast. "Marie? You're going to have to... how can I put this... push the coverall down so I can get at your arm. I don't want to rip the sleeve off if I can help it."

"Ok-kay," Marie snuffled, obviously trying hard not to cry. "But don't none of you guys peek!"

"We won't," Kyle agreed, smiling a bit. He looked down at Jonny instead. The younger boy was squashing himself so tightly against Kyle's side that he was practically sticking his head into Kyle's armpit - which smelled bad enough that he had to be seriously upset. "You okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. I was... scared," Jonny whispered, knowing that Kyle would hear no matter how softly he spoke. "And I'm *glad* they're dead! I *wanted* them to be dead! But..."

"But Annie's pretty lethal," Kyle agreed in a soft murmur. "So'm I, you know."

"Yeah. Never seen you do it, though." Jonny shook his head, straightening up a bit. "I'm fine. Really. Just... surprised me."

Kyle nodded, risking a quick peek. Annie was zipping up Marie's coverall, one of the sleeves stained with blood and with a bit of white t-shirt peeping out through a hole in the grey fabric. "Done?"

"Yup. Let's get outta here." Annie looked off to his left, and grimaced. "Whenever you're done puking, Geordi..."

"You... you *killed* them!" the disembodied voice choked weakly.

Annie looked down at the bodies around her feet, and blinked. "Yeah? So?"

"SO?! You KILLED them!!!"

Annie looked surprised. "Of course I killed them. Do you WANT to stay here and be experimented on? I don't, but if you do, I don't HAVE to unlock that door."

Kyle grinned at the startled noise that followed THAT little statement. "WE want out," he said mildly, pointing at the door. Annie nodded, and went to dig out the keys from under that first body. It would be a very good idea if they were all somewhere else when someone came looking for the trio... or looking to see where the gunshot had come from.

As it happened, nobody had heard the gunshot, because on the first level, a guard with his own rifle's barrel embedded in his shoulder had managed to hit an alarm before he bled out. Where the intruders were, nobody knew, but the focus was on the upper levels. Level seventeen, with only a few cells and a couple of drugged teenagers, wasn't going to attract anyone's attention for a good long while.

"What do we do now?" Jonny whispered nervously.  They'd gotten to the nearer end of the hall outside their cells, and were about to step off into the unknown territory of the Facility.  He and Kyle had always been blindfolded or hooded when they were moved, presumably so that if they escaped, they wouldn't know where to go.  He sidled closer to Kyle.

Kyle patted his shoulder comfortingly.  "We go up," he said calmly, sniffing the air.

Annie nodded.  "We're underground," she explained.  "Containment cells in places like this are always right at the bottom."  She looked left, then right.  Both options offered featureless beige corridors, one much longer than the other, that seemed to have regular openings going off them before they terminated in blank walls.  Behind them, the corridor they were in did the same thing.  "Uhm ... I think we go that way."  She pointed down the shorter one.

"Why?" Kyle asked curiously.

"Because the shortest way is probably the way out.  They're not going to walk all the way from there," she pointed down the longer way, "just to get to us.  We're probably pretty close to one of the exits, assuming we're the only prisoners here."

"We are," Kyle said firmly.  "All the others disappeared about a month ago."

"Right.  So that's probably the way out," Annie said patiently.  "Anyone need me to remind them how walking goes?"

Thus prompted, they shuffled slowly and warily down the hall.  It felt strange to be walking, and Jonny realized with some surprise that however long he HAD been there, it had been long enough for him to lose a lot of muscle tone.  Kyle was shuffling a little too.
 

"Hey--" Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he only just didn't scream, nearly knocking Kyle over in his frantic scuttle away from that hand.

Everyone stopped and looked around, and Jonny's face burned.  Geordi, especially, was looking baffled.  "What?" he said uncertainly.

"I ... you surprised me," Jonny muttered.  "We're escaping here, you don't just come up behind someone like that!"  He'd known Geordi was there, of course.  Intellectually.  But that didn't mean he could handle being suddenly touched, especially by a strange guy, especially a strange guy who was taller and much more muscular than he was, who he wouldn't be able to fight if he ....

"It's okay," Kyle murmured, obviously knowing exactly what Jonny was thinking. He laid a pawlike hand comfortingly on Jonny's shoulder. "Nothing's going to happen.  We're going to get out, and we're going to be fine."

"S'right," Annie said softly, almost as if she guessed too.  "I've busted out of two places just like this before.  Piece o' cake."

"I've gotten shot every time so far," Marie pointed out, a bit sulkily.  "I don't call that a piece 'f cake."

Annie sighed, giving her a Very Patient Look.  "But this time you got LESS shot," she pointed out.  "So see?  Improvement."

"I'd prefer not getting shot at all,"  Marie said firmly, as they reached what was probably the exit.  It was a large, very sturdy looking metal door.  Without handles or keypads, just a palm-lock.  "Any ideas how we get out?"

"Sloppy," Annie sniffed disdainfully.  "If they wanted it to STAY shut, they'd have put in a retinal scan and a thermal imager as well.  This is nothing."

"Really," Geordi said sceptically.  "And how're you going to get past the palm-lock?"

Annie smiled a bright, nasty smile.  "One of the guards at least has to be keyed to the door," she said sweetly.  "We'll use their palms."

"You want us to drag three bodies all the way..."  Marie closed her eyes and gulped. "No.  You don't.  You're just going to go back and get the hands, aren't you?"

"Can you think of a better plan?"  Annie asked reasonably.  "If anyone can think of a better plan, I'm all ears.  I don't WANT to go around pulling the hands off'f dead bodies if I don't HAVE to."

There was a short, unhappy silence.

"All right, then just stay here.  I'll be right back."  Annie headed back down the corridor.  "You don't have to look, if you're squeamish."

"There has to be a way down," Logan growled, kicking the wall.  "Nobody builds an underground complex this big that's only three levels deep."

Creed nodded, growling unhappily.  Neither of them liked being in places like this to begin with.  And now that they were actually thinking, instead of just reacting instinctively, they'd remembered that they didn't actually like each other all that much.  And on top of all that, someone had tried to be clever, and had hidden the way down to the lower levels.

If he found out who it was, he was going to find that person's spleen and make them eat it.  Logan looked around, frowning. "We shoulda left a couple of them conscious," he said regretfully, of the six attack teams and other assorted Employees of Evil that were currently lying around in various stages of stunned-or-dead.  His personal dislike of killing people stopped right at the door with these places. Anyone who voluntarily worked in a place like this deserved to die.

Creed nodded reluctantly.  "One, anyway," he agreed.  "Should look around again.  Maybe we missed one."

They'd missed three, all minor grunts.  Two were hiding in a closet, the third had managed to scrunch herself into the small space under a coffee-room sink.
 

That one seemed the most terrified, and Creed picked her up by the neck, snarling.  "Tell me what I wanna know, and you live," he growled.  "How do we get down to the lower levels?"

"No ... lower levels ...." she choked, clawing uselessly at his hand.

He shook her, with almost clinical precision, until exactly two seconds before she passed out, then loosened his grip just enough to let her get a gulp of air.  "I'm gonna ask one more time, frail.  How. Do.  We. Get. Down. To. The. Lower. Levels."  He bared his teeth at her.  "If ya lie, yer dead."

She squealed softly in terror, pointing down the hallway.  "The broom closet ... the back pushes open, it's a door ...."

Creed shrugged, shook her one more time, and dropped her.  "We'll be back if it ain't there," he growled, stepping over her as she trembled and snivelled on the floor.

Logan followed.  That wasn't quite how he'd have done it ... but the girl was still alive, so best not to quibble.  The secret door was right where she'd said it would be, letting out onto a narrow hallway with several more doors letting onto it -- probably concealed  on the other side, like the closet-one -- and one small elevator.  It had a palm lock.  Shit.  "How the hell are we gonna get that open?"

Creed eyed it critically, then grinned nastily.  "This here's a low-budget op," he noted, casually ripping the front panel off the lock to expose its innards.  "Equipment ain't exactly top-o-the-line.  I've seen this model before, an' it's easy to fool.  Just find ... these ..."  He reached in, and pinched two wires together. There was a snap and a hiss and a fat blue spark, then the elevator opened.  Creed grinned again, ignoring the faint scorched smell coming from his fingers.  "Piece o' cake."

Logan raised an impressed eyebrow.  "I'll remember that," he noted, padding into the elevator.  He looked around.  No cameras, no nozzles to spray gas or bullets, no visible panels behind which those might be hidden.  "Very low budget.  Guess they can't all be super-rich private powerbases."

Creed nodded, joining him in the elevator.  There were ... according to the buttons ... fifteen levels to choose from, starting where they were, at three.  He shrugged, and pressed the button for level seventeen.  Odds were that that was where the kids were, in the containment levels right at the bottom.

The kids, as it happened, had made it up to fifteen, only getting shot at once.  Annie had handled it again, although out of consideration for the others she hadn't killed anyone this time.  Just beaten them up, broken a couple of limbs, then tied them up with their own clothes.

And stolen the guns, of course.

She'd offered to let Kyle have one, but he'd politely refused.  Eyes that were designed to chase down a fleeing deer didn't do well at aiming a projectile.  Especially at something that wasn't moving.

He was worried about Jonny.  What would happen to him if they escaped?  Did he have a home to go to?  Would he, Kyle, be allowed to go?  He vaguely remembered having parents, a home, but it was all so distant, and he didn't remember any details.  Anyway, he wanted to go where Jonny went.  Who would take care of Jonny if he didn't?

And he wished Annie hadn't tucked the severed hand into the back of a stolen belt.  It kept giving him macabre little waves when she walked.

"It should be around here somewhere," she was musing quietly, opening doors and peeking inside.  "I hope. Most of these rooms have been sorta put in mothballs ...."

Kyle nodded.  "Operation got way smaller a while back," he agreed.  "Dunno why.  Lots of people left."  They both lifted their noses and sniffed.  They'd decided ... well, he and Annie had, nobody else was much good for decision-making at this point ... to backtrack the trail of the three guards Annie had killed.  They, presumably, had known the way out, and since even an injected power-inhibitor couldn't do anything to change a purely physical mutation like a sensitive nose, he and Annie could follow the trail easily.  So could Geordi, he suspected, but Geordi was too busy trembling and complaining to be useful.

Marie ouched thoughtfully as her arm was jostled.  "About.... six months ago?" she asked tentatively.

Kyle shrugged.  "Maybe."

"Annie shut down the AT Corporation six months ago," Marie said thoughtfully.  "This might be a ... what's it called?  Thing that doesn't actually properly belong to a company, but sort of gets funded by it?"

"Subsidiary,"  Annie said absently, opening another door. She shut it again quickly.  "Eyuch.  Don't look in there, guys."

"It just says 'Storage' on the door,"  Geordi said in a rather argumentative voice.  Geordi was, as far as Kyle could figure it, about seventeen or so.  Like most seventeen-year-old guys, he didn't take orders from thirteen-year-old girls with much grace.

"Yeah."  Annie gave him a rather cold look.  "Of people. BITS of people."

Nobody looked.

"They were here," Creed observed, a bit superfluously. "An' Annie was okay, at least."

Logan looked at the three bodies.  Since there was only two reasons for three guards to be in the girl's cell, and both of them were, in Logan's book, entirely worthy of the death-penalty, they didn't bother him too much.  Besides, it wasn't as if Marie or Clarice had done it.  Annie was already a killer, and probably wouldn't even notice the addition of three more to her body-count.  "Marie got shot," he growled softly, looking at the small smear of blood on the back wall of the cell.

"Not bad, though."  Creed eyed the smear critically.  "And she walked outta here.  Graze to the arm or leg, I'd say.  Scalp woulda bled more."

Logan nodded.  He still didn't like Marie getting shot, even if it WAS only a graze.  "Least they escaped on their own," he said, a bit happier about that part.  "With... three others.  All guys."

Creed nodded, already sniffing his way back up the corridor.  "Scent goes this way," he tossed over his shoulder.

Logan nodded, and followed.  So he didn't like Creed much.  That wasn't important. What was important was finding Marie ... and Clarice and Annie, although Annie would probably be fine on her own ... and whatever other poor kids had been trapped down here.

They'd taken the stairs.  Good.  A nice clear scent-trail, and not quite as easily ambushed as an elevator.

"Just out of curiosity," Geordi said, trying not to sound nasty.  "We've been looking for a tea-room?"

"Yup," the annoying little blonde girl said, around a mouthful of rather stale muffin.  "Get some food into us.  Get our strength up."

The guy who looked like her ... who was about Geordi's own age, he'd figured ... nodded, still wolfing down any food that came within reach.  So were all three girls.  Only the scrawny kid with the thick brown curls was eating slowly, and sticking mostly to the rather soggy cookies.

Geordi sipped his hot, sweet coffee.  All right, he'll admit that this was welcome.  Coffee good.  Hot good.  Sugar rush, VERY good.  But this was NOT, he knew from a vast collection of sci-fi novels, how a proper escape-from-the-labs-of-evil was supposed to go.

Besides, they were HIS friends.

"Shouldn't we keep moving?" he asked after a few more minutes.  "I mean, they must have noticed that we were missing by now."

"Probably."  The little blonde girl shoved one more cookie into her mouth and stood up.  "Okay, guys," she said, in a small shower of damp crumbs.  "Load up andmove out."

Geordi halfheartedly picked up a muffin, wishing for pockets.  The grey prisoner's coveralls had none, nor even a belt.  Just a zipper up the front and an elasticized waist.

No underwear, either.

"Follow me," the increasingly irritating little blonde chirped, and padded back out into the corridor.  Geordi followed, scowling.  In his imagination, when he'd imagined adventures like this, HE'd always been the one to lead daring escapes and so on.  Instead he'd thrown up a lot, gotten almost hysterical when she'd ... when she'd ... taken care of those guards ... and now he was following a little kid around like a big stupid sheep.  And he was absolutely terrified, while SHE seemed to think this was all some big new game.

He shuffled along at the end of the line, seething with quiet resentment.

Logan and Creed found the storage room, too.

Unlike the kids, they went inside.

"These," Logan said with quiet conviction, "are some very, very sick puppies.  Much worse'n you."

Creed nodded.  "I might cut someone up 'casionally, just f'r fun, but... I wouldn't do this," he agreed.  They both spoke quietly, almost in whispers.  It would have seemed ... wrong ... to speak loudly in a room so full of death.

The whole room stank of formaldehyde, burning their throats and bringing tears to their eyes, a cold, sour smell that rolled off the walls in almost visible waves, deadening their sensitive noses.  Coming from the walls.

Every wall was full of shelves.

Every shelf was full of jars.

Every jar was full of ... bits.

Some of them had entire, tiny bodies inside, still curled like ammonites into themselves, eyes closed.  Others contained pieces, kidneys and heads and other pieces not immediately identifiable.  Some floated in solitary state, others were crammed in like pickles.

Logan looked away from a jar full of tiny starfish hands, nightmarishly clear through the clean, smooth glass.  The whole room was so ... clean.  Pristine white, clear lights, and ... jars.  "Didn't think there was anything worse in the world than my nightmares," he whispered, mostly to himself.  "But this is even colder."

Creed didn't know what Logan dreamed about, but he could make an informed guess.  And the runt was right. This ... this was cold.  He'd always taken pleasure in violence, in the kill, but it had been personal.  Intimate.  This not-caring, this casual dealing of death without being interested in it, without being involved in it ... this was worse than anything he'd ever done.  "Yeah," he grunted, turning away. Coming in here had been a mistake, with the strong stench of formaldehyde.  They'd either have to wait until their noses started working again and they could sniff out the trail again, or guess where it had been going and gamble that they'd be right. Still, the kids couldn't be far ahead.

Nobody was putting his girls in no damn jar.

He'd kill them all first.

Yeah, kill 'em all ....

No.  Can't think about that now.  Gotta focus.  Gotta find the cubs, get them clear.  Then he could come back and make sure of this place.  He'd bring some supplies, too.  Gelignite, maybe.  He had a soft spot in his heart for the old ways, gelignite and dynamite and good, old-fashioned fire.  They'd do nicely.

He padded down the bland, beige hallway, promising himself control today, but blood tomorrow ....

The scent trail had led them into a largish round area that was obviously frequently used.  At least a dozen corridors led into it, and there was a bank of three elevators on one side.  There were also a couple of forlorn potted plants, a soda machine, and a 'Please Do Not Smoke' sign.

"Wow," Marie said, with a sort of horrified interest.  "Even whacked out secret evil gene labs have these?"

"A coke machine," Geordi agreed weakly.  "They have a COKE MACHINE.  Don't you have to lease those things from some company or something?"  He shook his head.  "Does someone drive out here with a truck full of sodas to restock it once a month?"

"I don't know," Annie said, eyeing the machine thoughtfully.  "It could be a secret door or something.  A hidden secret door.  Into their most secret labs."

Everyone shuffled nervously away from the coke machine.  Annie ambled over to it.  "Only one way to find out!" she said cheerfully, and did some sort of matial arts kick thing that hit the machine so hard that the front part broke nearly in half.  Annielooked inside. "Soda.  Still cold. Anyone want one?"

"YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY!" Marie and Clarice yelled in unison.

 nnie gave them a hurt look.  "Why not?"

"Because when you drink caffienated soda you go completely mental and start moving really really fast and try to fight everyone and . . . ." Marie trailed off.  "On second thoughts, knock yourself out.  And give me one."

Soda was handed around . . . . although Kyle started sneezing a bit from the bubbles . . . and they began a close inspection of the elevators.  According to the sign on the wall, this was level four.

"I didn't see any more stairs," Annie observed, sipping her coke.  "I don't think there are any.  All the scent-trails come here, to the elevators."

"What if there was a fire or something? Or if we cut the power down here?"  Geordi objected.  "They need stairs, don't they?"

Annie gave him a long look.  "Geordi, if we cut the power, WE'D be stuck down here too. And there are no fire stairs.  This is a secret evil gene lab.  They don't have to pass a building inspection."

He subsided, scowling, as Annie moved close to the elevators and patted the wall authoritatively.  "This'll be the cutoff point," she explained.  "Only one of these'll go up to the surface.  There's probably only one or two elevator shafts in the whole complex between this level and the next one.  So they can seal the lower levels off, see?  This is where all the labs and prisoners and incriminating stuff is, where it can be sealed off and hidden easily."

"How do you know?" Geordi demanded.

Annie shrugged.  "That's how I'd do it.  And I grew up in a place like this, I know how they think."

"Oh."

Marie gave the elevators a nervous look.  Clarice hadn't said a word since they left the prison level, and was clutching Marie's hand as if it was a life preserver.  Jonny was doing almost the same thing with Kyle, hunching over and standing so close that he was practically stuffing his head into the older boy's armpit. Annie was coping, but Annie would cope on a raft in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and no water left.  Annie was not, Marie thought uncharitably, bright enough to panic.  Geordi, on the other hand, wasn't bright enough NOT to panic and it wasn't helpful, even if he was as exotically beautiful as one of those statues of ancient Nubian princes.  Melting brown eyes and sculptured jaws were not what they needed right now.  "Which one is it that goes up?" she asked worriedly.  "And won't they know by now that we broke out? What if they're waiting at the top?"

"They probably will be." Annie hefted her stolen rifle with another bright, nasty smile.  "Let's see how prepared they think they are." And, since there was no way of knowing which elevator was the one they wanted, she pressed all three buttons and calmly stepped back to wait. Creed bit absently into a muffin.  Baked goods weren't his preference, but food was food, and he hadn't been eating regularly the last few days.  "She's good," he said approvingly.  "Heads right for the nearest food-source every time."

Logan snorted, obviously unimpressed by Annie's incredible cunning and amazing grasp of practicalities like finding food.  "They stopped here for a while," he said, looking around the small, untidy room with its coffeemaker and small fridge and basket of stale muffins.  "We move fast, we can still catch them."

Creed nodded, and they slipped back out of the room.  They'd had to pause for a while before they could pick up the trail again, but Annie was taking the others pretty much straight upwards.  They weren't going the right way to get to the elevator Creed and Logan had used, but there could be another.  They were moving straight, without backtracking, and he was picking up traces of other scents that presumably Annie was following. It was a good plan - basic, but presumably anyone who'd gotten down here would know how to get back up to the surface.  He let out a pleased grunt.  She was ... impressive. A cub that a man could take a certain pride in.

Logan gave him an irritated look from down around elbow height.  "You having fun?" he demanded acidly.  "This yer idea of a good time?"

"Don't be stupid," Creed growled. "But they're doin' good.  They're out of the cells, and they might even make the surface without help.  They might have their powers, they might not, but they ain't helpless."

The runt nodded, looking a little less irritated.  Presumably he was at least man enough to appreciate that his own adopted cub was making a break for freedom instead of sobbing and whining in her cage like a weakling.  Creed sniffed.  Annie smelled fine.  The others smelled scared, but Marie, Clarice, and at least one of the boys had a determined edge to the fear. They were coping.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

Annie blinked big yellow eyes innocently. "What?"

"Now they're going to know where we are!"  Geordi yelled.  He was panicking, and he hated it.  This wasn't like in the books.  He didn't like it, and he wanted to go home.

"They already knew where we were," Annie pointed out.  "Down here.  They don't know who it is pushed the buttons, it could have been one of theirs."

Geordi was in no mood for annoying little girls who used stupid logic.  Girl or not, kid or not, he'd have taken a swing at the little monster if he hadn't seen what she did to those guards.  "They're going to send more guards down!"

"So?"  She blinked again and did that nasty, chilling, fangy smile.  "They're not very good guards. They don't even have tasers or tranq guns or razornets or anything."

"Annie, if you kill any more guards, I'm telling Mr. Summers," Marie said with firm uncertainty.  "I mean it."

Annie pouted, sticking her lip out mutinously.  "They're trying to kill US," she said defensively.

"No they're not, they're trying to recapture us.  You can ... tie them up or something."  Marie relieved Annie of the gun she was swinging negligently from one small hand.  "Annie, listen, you promised Mr. Summers you'd do your best to use non-lethal methods while you're at the school."

"We're not AT the school," Annie pointed out.

"You know what I mean!"  Marie's hands were shaking a little.  She was pretty, Geordi realized with some surprise.  She had nice eyes.  "No more killing! You behave, you hear me?"

"Yes," Annie said with suspicious meekness. "No lethal force unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Right ... no!  No lethal force ever!"  Brown eyes and yellow locked for a long moment, then Marie sighed.  "Just ... do your best, okay?"

Annie held the look for a moment more, and then she sighed.  "Okay.  Broken limbs and concussions."

"Important limbs?" Jonny suggested, looking up with a grim expression.  "Compound fractures?"

"If there's any of them you know personally, point them out," Annie offered.  "Mr Summers never said I wasn't allowed to kneecap people."

There was a ding, and she looked up.  "Okay.  Elevator about to arrive. Yay."

Marie gulped a little.  "Not that I'm at all scared or anything but ... maybe we should stand just around the corner instead of right in the firing line?"

Annie blinked at her.  "Well, if you want to, but I don't see why --"

Marie kept her grip on Clarice's hand and risked life and limb just a little, grabbing Annie by one small, pointed ear and dragging her bodily around the corner just as the doors started to open.  Kyle was right behind her, pushing Geordi along and towing Jonny.  "Now shush!" she hissed as quietly as she could.

There were guards in the elevator.  Soldiers, rather -- she heard boots and the distinctive little sounds of weapons clutched in nervous hands.  Great.  There were soldiers, and they were armed, and they were prepared now.  Maybe if the escapees just stayed really really quiet and--

Annie pulled out of Marie's grip and bounded around the corner with a high-pitched growl.  "Death ... I mean, kneecapping to the oppressors!" she yelled, and Marie heard the complex noises involved in one person charging many armed people.  There were the gasps, the nervous clicking of safeties coming off, the sudden crunch of bone (probably a knee or elbow), the tiny moment of silence when several heavily armed men realize that the small, fast-moving target is in between them now and can't be shot at ....

Marie sighed and pushed Clarice at Jonny.  They both stared at her with big, scared little-kid eyes, and she waved a finger sternly at them.  "You two STAY HERE," she whispered sternly.  "And be quiet."  She didn't even have to look at Kyle to know that he nodded, and followed her as she slid around the corner. They had to help out, if they could, and at least distract one or two of the guards from Annie.

She didn't bother looking at Geordi, either.  If he wanted to help, fine.  If he was still busy panicking ... well, he was a wimp.  No great loss.

She took a deep breath, tried to remember the training Mr Summers had patiently drummed into her, and picked her target.  He was taller than most of the others, but not very muscular, by the look of him.  Marie was used to opponents who were bigger than she was, and this one didn't look too tough.  Kick him in the kidneys to get his attention, right, kick him in the knee while he's turning around, duck the punch, swing at him, get arm grabbed, apply knee A to groin B ....

Off to her left, Kyle was doing his level best to maul a short, mean-eyed man still clutching his gun lovingly.  And using it as a club.  Kyle was pretty well armed by nature, but he was weak and slow from extensive confinement. She'd have to go help him as soon as her guy went down.

Which only left Annie with about twelve or fifteen guys to handle ....

"We're getting close," Logan murmured quietly.  They'd fallen instinctively into stealth mode, padding silently through the halls, peeking around corners and listening constantly for any sounds of life.

This was freaky, there was just no other word for it.  He hated Sabretooth.  It was a nice, solid sort of feeling.  He hated Sabretooth. He knew he did, it was right up there in the front of his mind in big shiny writing saying WE HATE SABRETOOTH HE'S A BAD BAD MAN ....

He just didn't, when he got as far as actually thinking about it, know why.  As far as he knew, he'd first met the man after being hurled headfirst out of his camper. Which had then exploded, taking all his belongings with it.  And then the next time they'd met it had been on the Statue of Liberty with the fighting and the ... yes, well, all right, he did have a perfectly rational basis for hating the man.  But he'd hated him before that, when all he had on his mind was a moderately broken camper.  He'd seen the enormous blond figure, heard the growl, and the little 'I HATE HIM!' flag had popped up, just like that.

Well, yes, that happened a lot TOO, but that wasn't the POINT.

The point was that they worked well together.  They worked together like they'd done it before.  They knew each other's patterns, could interpret each other's silent hand-signals, found themselves falling into a back-to-back position when they thought they heard someone coming.  It was weird. And freaky.  And it implied that the hackle-raising hatred and resentment came from a time before his memory-loss, that the two of them had a History.  Probably a bad one.

And just to make everything just that bit more confusing, they were getting along kind of well.

He shook his head, feeling a headache starting.  He just wasn't put together right for extensive introspection.  Meditation wasn't the same thing.
Dropping all the thoughts out of his head and just being was like rolling off a log for Logan.  Extensive thinking about STUFF made his head hurt.

"You hear that?" Creed murmured, easy for Logan, standing close to him, to hear but in the soft, relaxed monotone that didn't carry two feet.

Logan cocked his head and listened.  He'd heard something, like a little 'ding!' that might be nothing more than a lonesome computer working away by itself, or some sort of timer of some kind, or a --

"Death ... I mean, kneecapping to the oppressors!" came a faint shout.  A familiar shout.  A shout that demanded attention under any and all circumstances.

The two men didn't even have to look at each other before they took off running.  Creed was just ahead, but even though he was a much faster runner than Logan -- the adamantium weighed him down, making him work harder for every stride -- but Creed didn't outdistance him.  Getting split up at this point would be a Bad Idea, and they both knew it, so Creed loped along, making Logan work to keep up but not leaving him in the metaphorical dust.

After minutes that seemed like hours, they reached the scene of the battle, and Logan sucked in a harsh breath.  The fight was messy and unbalanced, a confusion of shouted orders and shrill cries of defiance.  Marie was handling herself okay, he noticed with relief.  She'd picked a target out and was methodically pounding on him, staying out of reach, acting cagy, then when she got a chance hitting as hard as she was physically able.  If the guy was lucky, he'd wind up with a lot of broken bones.  If he wasn't, he'd have internal injuries as well.  Most people held back a little on their punches and kicks, fearful of hurting themselves or of hitting 'too' hard.  Marie had spent enough time training with him to know better than that.  But she wasn't fighting very fast, favouring an injured arm, and if their opponents had been organized they could have taken her down.

Fortunately, they weren't organized.  They were confused and afraid, flailing around in an effort to beat their attackers without actually getting close.  Annie was in the thick of the fight, of course, flailing around with all the considerable strength that ultra-dense bone and muscle provided.  She was doing okay, too, but she was too inexperienced.  As soon as four or five of them attacked her at once, she'd go down and go down hard.

And then Creed let out a sharp hissing noise, and Logan followed his eyes to a skinny blond kid who had the greyish pallor of long confinement away from the sun and was moving with the awkwardness that came from the same source.  A skinny blond kid who looked like something out of a cheap werewolf movie, with heavy eyebrow-ridges, claws, and dental equipment that'd shame a small bear.  Oh, hell, ANOTHER one?

The elevator behind them opened, spilling out more men, more serious-looking this time, armed with the high-tech cattle-prods so beloved by these assholes.  That broke the moment of assessment, and Logan heard a feral growl in eerie stereo as he and Creed bounded into the fight.

The fight was like any fight -- way too fast and sporadically painful and winding up in his memory as a series of almost random images. A yelling face coming up to meet his fist in a spray of blood; Marie screaming as one of Them hit her in the injured arm, then kicking him in the groin so hard that something made a horrible squashing noise; the scrawny blond kid, pulling up his feet and kicking the way a cat does, gouging at someone's stomach with clawed toes; Annie yowling as someone stamped on her hand with an  udible crunch, more in outrage than in pain; Creed hurling someone at the wall so hard that the body left a blood-trail as it slid down to the floor; the butt of a gun coming at his face so fast he almost didn't dodge it in time.

And then it was over.  They were the only ones still standing.  Well, Annie and Marie were both kneeling on the floor -- Marie digging through the apparent commander's pockets, Annie whimpering and clutching her purpling hand.  Probably broken.  He spared a moment of sympathy for the kid -- her powers obviously hadn't kicked in again yet, and she was clearly experiencing her first not-instantly-healing injury.  But Creed was looking at it, so he went and squatted beside Marie.  "Got anything?"

"Card."  Marie held it up.  "Looks like it's a key.  Should get us through at least a few doors."

He smiled a little. "Good girl," he said approvingly.  She'd remembered what he'd taught her, gone through the pockets without flinching to find anything that might be of use to them.  There was a knife, too, which she pocketed, and he approved of that too.  He didn't like to think of her being taken unarmed again.

He heard something and turned.  "Wha--"  He trailed off.  He stared.

Annie had said something about 'just knowing' when she'd first seen her father at the train-station.  Jean had made interested noises about Primal Instincts and Racial Memory.  Logan hadn't really believed it, since Annie looked enough like Sabretooth and knew enough about him that straight recognition was perfectly feasible.

He hadn't known about this.  Hadn't even suspected.  But he knew, as sure as he knew the sun rose in the east and plants grew with their roots down, that the tall, surly looking boy who'd stepped out of a corridor was his blood, his kin, flesh of his flesh.  There could be no doubt of it at all.  His very bones ached with certainty.

The boy scowled, his handsome face creasing and his teeth showing in a sneer.  "Hi, Dad," he said in a harsh, contemptuous tone.  "Miss me?"

Annie couldn't help whimpering a little as she straightened out her squashed hand, using the other to pull the fingers back into alignment.  It hurt a LOT, and it wasn't getting better.  Pain didn't bother her so much when she could feel the broken parts knitting back together and the warm tingle of infection being defeated before it could even set in, but this just sat there broken and it HURT.  She held it up to her father, sniffling a little.  "It's staying broken!"

"I know," he said, in the soft, grumbly voice that was the gentlest he ever sounded.  "Yer healing factor ain't working yet, and it hurts more'n yer used to."  He rubbed her back awkwardly.  "I'll wrap it up for ya. It'll stop hurting sooner or later."

"'kay," Annie agreed, sniffling again.  It had been nearly three whole minutes already and it didn't feel like the hurt would EVER go away.  Nothing had ever hurt so much for so long, not even back at the Facility during the Testing.

She struggled to keep from whimpering for the next thirty seconds or so, trying desperately to think of something, anything, besides her hand ... then Geordi spoke and she forgot the pain completely, staring with wide open eyes and mouth.  "You're his KID?" she squeaked.

"Yeah," Geordi agreed, lip curling unpleasantly.  "Unfortunately."

There was a long moment of silence. Logan looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach.  Marie was staring.  Daddy was positively gaping.  So was Clarice.  Kyle and Jonny were looking puzzled, but they weren't really up to speed on everything.  After she got her jaw back under control, Annie posed the most pressing question.  "How can you be WOLVERINE'S kid?  You're a WUSS!"  The silence turned icy, and suddenly everyone was glaring at her.  "What?"

"Annie, if you can't be tactful, shut up," Marie said flatly.

"If I did that I'd never say anything at all ever," Annie said defensively.  She looked at her dad for support.  "Even YOU don't think Wolverine's a wuss.  Just, you know, short and stupid."

He made a small, explosive noise between a growl and a laugh.  "Yeah.  Pretty much.  Now shut up and keep yer nose out of it."

Annie subsided, grumbling a little as he started to bandage her hand, and watched Geordi and Logan sizing each other up.  They didn't look happy.  Annie could not, offhand, recall seeing anyone as not-happy looking as those two, except possibly Roberto after she'd nearly chewed his finger off -- his fault, of course, if he hadn't wanted her to bite him he shouldn't have tried to hit her in the mouth while said mouth was open -- and she wished she knew why.  She'd been happy to see HER dad.  Wary, of course, because he was a brain-washed testosterone-crazed attention-seeking serial killer, but she'd still been happy.  He was family, after all.

After a long couple of minutes of glaring, Geordi ostentatiously turned his back and headed over to the elevator.  "Shouldn't we get going?" he said irritably.  "Before they send down another batch?"

"Yeah," Logan agreed slowly, still looking stunned.  "Yeah, we should keep moving."

Sabretooth nodded, tying off the strip of cannibalized t-shirt he was using to wrap Annie's hand.  "The faster the better," he agreed. He stood up, and headed over to Clarice, who was still hanging onto Jonny's hand.  "C'mon, squirt," he said in his mock-irritated voice, hoisting her up and sitting her on his hip as if she was a toddler.  He grabbed Annie's uninjured hand with his spare one and herded them all towards the metal doors.  "Okay, all o' ya, into the elevator, move it ...."

Annie saw Logan boggling a little at her dad, and grinned.  That'd take his mind off his ungrateful offspring.

There was an ambush, of course, but Marie had filched a gas grenade from the guy she'd been searching, along with his knife, his key-card, and his wallet.  She handled it as if she were a pro, letting Annie listen to how fast they were moving and hit the emergency stop before more than a foot or so of the elevator had topped the floor.  Creed and Logan popped both sets of doors, Marie heaved the grenade through the small opening where they overlapped, they let the doors close again for a few minutes, then movement of the elevator resumed, they were out and stepping over fallen bodies, badda bing badda boom ambush averted.  Logan was extremely impressed, and so paternally proud that he felt like he might pop.  So was everyone else except Geordi, whose attitude had gotten even worse.

But they were still stuck with three more people than they'd expected, and with no real plan as to what came next.  "Steal a ride?"  Creed grunted, jerking his head in the vague direction of the small garage they'd found early on.

"Nuh.  Gotta be bugged," Logan said, shaking his head, his eyes constantly on the move as they pounded up the stairs to the next level.  "Back to the jeep?"

"It was three days run even f'r us," Creed pointed out.  He had Clarice back on his hip, her arms tight around his neck and her face hidden in his shoulder. That just looked so damn weird that Logan tried not to look at all, in case his brain exploded.

"Got a better plan?" he asked, absently poking the tip of one claw through a door.  There was a frightened squeak from inside and he grinned humourlessly.

"I still say we steal a ride." Creed muttered.  "So they track us.  Big deal."

They were up at ground level, about to go through the front door, marching out into what was probably another ambush ... but Logan wasn't too worried.  He was pretty sure he could handle anything these guys could throw at him.  He stepped through the door, cautiously keeping Marie behind him.  "I guess so.  But we gotta ... we gotta ...."  He trailed off, gaping worse than he had when the asshole brat had made his pronouncement.  Beside him, Creed was doing the same thing. Annie was giggling.

The clearing was full of rubble.  Trussed-up guards had been neatly stacked off to one side.  In the middle was the X-Men's fancy-ass plane, and standing in front of it, his arms folded, his chin out, his uniform shiny and perfect ... was Cyclops.  Clean and fresh and looking like a cartoon hero, smiling that incredibly smug, self-satisfied grin.  "Hi, folks," he said in that obscenely friendly, trustworthy voice.

Logan gaped.  He twitched.  He seethed with uncontrollable, unventable rage.  That ... that ... that ASSHOLE!  How had he found them?  When had he found them?  What was he doing there, bunging up Logan's rescue?  That JERK!  Goddamnit he was too mad to even SWEAR properly he was going to KILL the little creep he was gonna ....

Scott's smile widened a carefully calculated fraction of an inch.  "Need a ride?" he asked sweetly, piling perfectly timed insult on top of blatantly deliberate injury.

Logan just stared at him helplessly.  That ... that ... augh!

Nina Allejandro picked herself cautiously up off the floor, rubbing her neck gingerly.  That had been Sabretooth.  He looked a lot bigger in person.

Well, so much for the current projects. The subjects were gone, a lot of important pieces of lab were broken, and if they had a single guard left she'd be very much surprised. She wasn't even sure if any of the techs had made it, let alone the real scientists.

Oh, well.  She had the credentials to find other work. She shuddered, standing up slowly.  She definitely would not ... despite comic-book propaganda ... attempt to Get Her Revenge.  God, no. She never wanted to see either of those smelly, terrifying men ever again.  She was a scientist, after all.  Manual labour like washing test tubes and getting a hideous revenge was for lesser beings.

Besides.  She'd heard the government was getting into some juicy research on mutants.  It'd be nice to be official for a change.
 
 

Creed shifted slightly, leaning back in his seat.  The one here at the back of the plane was wide enough even for him, if a bit short.  Annie was beside him, her head resting against his shoulder.  The pain in her hand was upsetting her, and he was surprised at how much it bothered him too.  Pain should be quick, soon over, not lingering like this -- at least, not for her. He was used to it, but Annie had never felt anythinglike it before.

For such a tiny kid, Clarice was heavy. He wasn't sure how she'd ended up on his lap, but he didn't entirely object.  She wasn't really all that heavy, and something about having a little warm thing curled up against his stomach was ... nice.  She'd actually gone to sleep, little fingers fisted in his furs.

He cautiously savoured the feeling of it, one leaning on his chest, the other against his side.  They were warm and soft, both much too young to trigger any sort of physical interest, but ... nice.  He wasn't used to nice, wasn't entirely comfortable with it, but he didn't really want it to stop, either.

To distract himself from the warm fuzzy feelings, he looked around the rest of the plane.  Across from him, Logan was sitting with his arm around Marie, wearing the same startled, soppy expression that kept trying to molest Creed's face.  Two rows in front of him, behind One-eye and ostentatiously far away from everyone else, was the little snot who claimed to be Logan's kid.  Creed believed it.  The big, lanky kid was the only person who'd ever annoyed him as much and as fast as the runt.  On the other side, the two boys were huddled together.

That was ... odd. He hadn't felt any sort of connection with the blonde boy the way he had with Annie.  Maybe the physical resemblance was just a coincidence.  Or maybe the kid was too old.  Annie was still a little girl, but this one had to be at least seventeen, a bit on the short side still, but with the long, stringy look of someone just coming out of the last big growth spurt.  The other one, the scrawny pretty-boy, was still shorter, but if Creed was any judge he'd wind up somewhere above six foot.

He stuck like a burr to the other one, and Creed was glad he had Xavier to palm them both off on.  He'd seen trauma like this before, and as far as he was concerned, Xavier could have them both as a gift.

Clarice's breath was ruffling the fur under his chin.  His mind wandered fairly comprehensively at that point.

Scott brought the plane down in one of his personal best landings.

This, he thought, was his day.  It was perfect.  Everything had gone so right it was scary.  He'd not only scooped the little lost smelly animals and the kids up without a hitch, he'd also -- oh, such bliss! -- completely, utterly, and totally emasculated Logan.

That thought was going to keep him warm and happy for many days to come.  He coasted through the landing, the lowering of the plane into the underground hangar, and letting people know they were home in a fuzzy glow of satisfaction.  He'd unmanned the hairball.  Stolen his thunder, rained on his parade, completely ruined his rescue.  Mmm.  Happy.

Scott, that's not nice, Jean's voice said reprovingly in his mind.

Scott grinned.  Oh, like you didn't feel the exact same way that time when your shoes matched your purse perfectly and you ran into that blonde from your old school who was wearing --

Yes, well, she sent hastily.  Get all the kids over to the Medlab.  And stop irritating Logan.

Spoil my fun, Scott returned good-humouredly.  The whole exchange had taken place in the moment or two it had taken for the plane to settle.  "Okay, everyone out."

They shuffled down the gangway, the boys looking around them curiously.  Marie and Annie both stuck like glue to their protectors, and Clarice was still dozing, snuggled into one of Creed's big arm.

Scott smiled at Ororo as she came to meet them.  "Hey. For those of you who don't know her, this is Ororo. She's a teacher here." He tried for a reassuring smile at the boys.  "We're going to take you up to the Medlab now, and --"

"No!"  The youngest boy ... about fourteen, by the lookof him ... shook his head frantically.  "No labs!"

Scott frowned, opening his mouth ... and then he closed it again.  "Okay," he said gently.  "Listen ... Jonny, right?  If it'll make you more comfortable, Ororo will take you and your friend up to one of the spare rooms. You can rest there, and one of the doctors will come to you."

Jonny kept a careful distance, but the other one ... Kyle? ... gave Scott what was either a grateful smile or a death threat. With those teeth it was hard to tell.  "We'll be there," he agreed, and the two of them headed off, like pale, skinny ducklings trailing after Ororo.  They'd be fine.  Ororo knew how to handle the more sensitive or traumatized kids -- she'd had rough patches in her own life, and empathy sometimes worked better than sympathy.

Logan led the way to the Medlab, and Scott let him have it.  He was trying to reassert his dominance, yes, but he was also genuinely concerned about Marie.  Even Creed looked a little worried, presumably about Annie.

The third boy, Geordi, trailed along behind them, still maintaining a careful distance.  Interestingly, Scott was getting the feeling that his aversion to the others wasn't a rejection of them as mutants.  Judging by his body language, the boy was frightened and intimidated ... and angry about something.  The way some people, especially teenaged boys, coped with feeling that way was acting like obnoxious little monsters, and that tied with how the boy was behaving. Scott found himself empathising a little.  Ororo knew what it was like to be frightened and traumatized -- Scott Summers knew what it was like to cover fear with an attitude the size of a small moon.  He'd been seventeen not all THAT long ago.

"Scott."  They'd reached the Medlab, and Jean smiled at him as he followed Geordi inside.  Her forehead furrowed a little, and she looked past him.  "I thought you said there were three new students."

"There are.  The other two will have to be treated in their room."  He held up a hand before she could protest.  "I know it's not standard procedure, but I think bringing them here would do more harm than good."  He tilted his head ever so slightly towards Logan.

Jean understood, as he'd known she would.  She'd picked up the edges of Logan's dreams often enough to know why the Medlab could be intimidating.  "Of course," she agreed.  "We'll check on Marie and Annie first, then I'll go up and -- "

"Hank should go," Annie piped up.  It was only then that Scott realized how quiet she'd been while Hank sat her on an examination bed and began unwrapping her hand.

Then he realized what she'd said, and he frowned.  "Hank?  Under the circumstances, I assumed that ... a female doctor would be better," he finished lamely.  Jean and Hank's eyes widened a little.  Geordi blinked.  None of the others seemed to be surprised.

Annie shook her head. "She looks too normal," she explained. "Jonny twitches away from Logan and Marie and Geordi, but not me or Clarice or Dad or Kyle."  She looked a little sad.  "The scientists woulda been human.  He's less likely to be scared by a big fuzzy teddybear than someone who looks normal."

It made a nasty kind of sense, and Hank nodded.  "I will do my humble best not to cause either of them any further alarm," he rumbled, putting aside the makeshift bandage.  He examined Annie's hand gently.  "I suspect several of the bones are broken," he continued.  "This will take some time."  He gave Scott a meaningful look.

Scott took the hint.  "Creed, Logan," he said firmly.  "We're in the way.  Professor Xavier is waiting for a report, and you look to be in better shape than any of the kids."  He took the time while Creed was putting Clarice down on another of the beds and gently disentangling her fingers from his wolf-furs to look over at Jean. Is it all right to leave the boy here?  He doesn't look hurt, but he's got an attitude worse than mine was when I got here ... probably for the same reasons.

Poor kid, Jean thought back with a sympathetic taste to her mental voice.  He's not showing it, but he's about one more scare from having hysterics right here. Hank and I'll keep an eye on him.

Scott nodded, and firmly herded the other two men out of the room. It was a mark of how stressful the last few days had been that they let him do it.