Scott Summers stood in the viewing bay outside the surgical arena, arms folded over his chest, watching as Professor Xavier lifted the glittering helmet off his head, signaling the critical portions of the surgery were complete. Outside expertise was no longer necessary. The Professor turned to leave the room, leaving Jean to finish up and bring the patient out of his telepathically induced stupor; a safer, easier kind of anesthesia.

Scott met the Professor at the door, his expression carefully controlled, his mental shields as tight as he could make them. But this was the man who had taught him those shields.

"Was this your plan all along?" he demanded jerking his head toward the surgery.

"Well, I hardly anticipated you would break his finger, Scott," the Professor said mildly as he allowed his cat to climb back onto the arm of his chair now that he was out of the sterile area.

Scott held silent. He was learning not to be drawn by Xavier's droll comments. It left him open to suggestion. Xavier lifted a brow, his expression showing a trace of pleased admiration.

"If you are asking if I sent Warren to find you last night, then the answer is no," the Professor said. Apparently demonstrating that he wasn't scanning his mind.

"No, I meant the whole thing. Pairing us up this way."

"We need all the resources we can gather for the long work ahead of us, Scott," Xavier said, guiding his chair toward the upper reaches of the mansion. Scott was torn between following and checking on Warren's condition. It would be a few minutes longer before Warren was awake and he knew Jean would alert him if anything happened that he needed to know. He trailed Xavier to the elevator.

"Most people have difficulty attaching themselves and their resources to an abstract ideal. As is ably demonstrated by a great majority of the country, people accept what they are told, or shown and seldom look beyond their trivial daily concerns. They lack the vision, the drive, the need to act beyond their own narrow lives - privileged or impoverished," he said, his calm words sending a chill down Scott's spine. "But loyalty to people, to individuals, however can be another matter entirely. There you can stir true passion, true dedication."

"You need his money, his father's corporation," he breathed in sudden realization, stunned, as the elevator door slid open before them, letting them out onto the main floor.

"My fortune is vast, as you well know, but not limitless," Xavier said, leading him to the library. He followed reluctantly, his heart beating faster as the ramifications spilled through his mind. "And the resources in play against us are vaster still."

"So I'm still a whore," he said bitterly. Feeling sickness well up inside him. Had all the pain and anguish been part of an elaborate ploy? Was the peace and understanding he'd finally reached with Warren just a lie? Xavier looked at him over his shoulder as he guided his chair to its usual place before the fireplace, the gleaming helmet dangling behind him, and frowning slightly as he picked up on Scott's growing disquiet.

"I forced nothing between you, Scott. The choices always were and remain yours," he said, expression remote and faintly contemptuous. "I simply place individuals in proximity that I believe had great potential for positive synergy. The rest is up to them. The type of ongoing mental manipulation you so obviously fear takes a great deal out of me, and requires constant supervision, as you so recently saw over the incident with Miss Braddock. Life is far easier for me if people reach their own accord with my goals."

"So my - our happiness is incidental?" he snapped. Feeling desperate. Feeling trapped.

"Is it?"

"Don't twist it, Professor," he said, standing frozen before him, fists clenched. "You used me to make Warren join. Just as you'll use his loyalty, his feelings for me to access his 'resources' as you so delicately put it."

"I do what needs to be done to preserve mutantkind, Scott. The road ahead is long and difficult. If mutants are to survive, to gain recognition and rights just like all men, and to not end up wantonly slaughtered at the hands of the likes of the Weapon X supporters, then we must do whatever we can to persevere. But behind the scenes as well as publicly. The war is fought on many levels, not just in the X-Men uniform."

The Professor's cat climbed down into his lap, purring happily as Xavier stroked it. Scott stared at him in growing horror, feeling everything he thought he had known, all he understood crash down around him. And he knew, he knew that going to the Savage Land had not been his own idea. That Xavier had used him to draw Magneto out, to make him act recklessly so that he could remove him as a threat once and for all. And the Braddocks. Brian Braddock was wealthy. He trembled.

"Did you actually make a mistake in reading Betsy? Or was that all part of the plan too?"

"Really, Scott." Xavier looked mildly disappointed again, shaking his head slightly. "That was simply a miscalculation. You and Warren were progressing quite well on your own. There was no need for excessive melodrama."

He turned and stalked for the door, beyond caution, anger and outrage and fear radiating off of him. He was going to tell them all, round them up and get them out of here. There were still places they could go, places to hide.

"Scott!" Xavier called, his tone sharp and commanding. And he felt himself stop, and turn. Screaming, raging inside against the force controlling him. He walked slowly back to the Professor's chair. Then knelt beside it. He felt the Professor's hands on his head. The cat sat on the arm of the chair beside him blinking calmly at him.

"Relax, my boy. Take deep, slow breaths."

Scott Summers stood in the viewing bay outside the surgical arena, arms folded over his chest, watching as Professor Xavier lifted the glittering helmet off his head, signaling the critical portions of the surgery were complete. Outside expertise was no longer necessary. The Professor turned to leave the room, leaving Jean to finish up and bring the patient out of his telepathically induced stupor; a safer, easier kind of anesthesia.

Scott waited for several minutes as Jean finished the closing work on Warren's hand. It had been a relatively simple, if painstakingly detailed, procedure to set his finger once they'd been able to link to the one surgeon who'd worked on Warren's unique bones before. Warren was awake now, and due to Jean's telepathic suppression of the pain centers leading to his arm, in no pain as he watched Scott steadily from the table.

He could see the heat, the promise in Warren's gaze from here and he smiled in anticipation. Then Scott felt something brush against his leg, making him look down. The Professor's cat stared up at him, green gaze steady.

He felt a brief chill go up his spine, but shook it off, looking up instead into Warren's blue, blue eyes.