Life Among The Ruins

By Dannell Lites

SPIFFY DISCLAIMER THINGIE!: Ah don't own the X-Folks, Marvel does! Nor do Ah own the idea of Alternate Universes or Elseworlds! Ah make NO such claim. Not a red cent is changing hands heah, money-wise! This is a work of moi's twisted imagination done for moi's own and, hopefully, ya'll's edification! Any resemblance to *anything*, *anywhere*, *anytime* is purely coincidental!

Rated PG-17 for some adult concepts and situations depicted herein. But anybody looking for anything graphic is SOL, Ah fear:):) Some *nice* mental images, though Ah've been told:):)

This story is a response to Ryan's "After The Bomb" Challenge on CFAN, so Ah guess Ah would have to call it an AU or an Elseworlds! Speaking of AU's ... Ah *know* that Ah have mixed up the ages of various characters heah! In any case, this is NOT ya'll's mama's X-Verse! Hee! Any and all discrepancies should be attributed to this fact:):) Lord knows, Ah never make mistakes! *snarf*

Many thanks to all moi's wonderful, talented beta's, Natalie D, Mary Trauten, Junkie, Michele Craighead, Y. B. Chong, Em_Spyder, Mickey and anyone Ah may have forgotten! Bless ya'll!

Special thanks to Father of Lies for many grand ideas and even a possible sequel from his pen! And also to 'rith for the idea of Stormy and Mags and the Dread Pirate Lee!

Jean Logan-Summers shaded her eyes from the light of the harsh setting sun and straightened from her garden work, peering into the distance. The corn and potatoes would still be there after she allowed herself a small break. More's the pity, she thought with a small grimace. Still, much as she hated the work, she was assigned to the garden today and if they all planned to continue eating ...

From the corner of her eye she caught sight of one of her husbands. The small, compact man left off sharpening the blade of an ax and began watching the horizon, searching for its hidden secrets with narrowed eyes. A sharp brown gaze cut through the approaching twilight gloom much like the blade of one of his ever present knives. She smiled at the irony. Trust Logan to see them before she or anyone else.

"Riders comin' in, Jeannie darlin'," he said and she nodded.

"I see them, John," the tall redhead answered.

Setting aside her garden hoe, Jean watched the heavy muscles of Logan's shoulders and forearms ripple as he reached for the shotgun that was never far from his reach these days.

"Rachel," he called quietly, "take Nate and go on into the house, honey."

The skinny eleven year old girl, looked up in stubborn surprise with her mother's bright, emerald green eyes. Tossing one of her thick red braids aside she protested, "But Papa Logan! I want to see --"

"Me, too!" piped up the five year old boy at her side. Already almost as tall as his older sister, he, like his father, seemed destined to be a tall man indeed, with the same unruly ginger brown hair.

"Mind your Papa Logan," Jean prompted. "Go on, you two. Into the house."

"But Pappa Scott says --" began the small boy who disliked his given name of Nathan.

"*Now*," growled Logan firmly, "Git!" and the two scampered for the safety of the large house, all the while grumbling quietly to themselves in the way of children.

"Ma'am?"

Jean turned to face Sam Guthrie. Blushing furiously at her welcoming smile, the gangly young man ran a hand through his mop of disheveled blond hair. "Ah saw the riders there and Ah thought Ah might ought to come see what's happenin'," he explained. "Should Ah fetch a gun, do ya'll think?"

Sam was a newcomer to the Xavier Compound and not quite sure just yet how such a situation as this was generally handled here. Silent Tuesday had seen the destruction of most of Sam's large family in the hills of Kentucky. Jean often wondered how he had gotten all the way here to upstate New York on foot, but he never spoke of it, and she had never asked. There were many things like that in the small community of the Xavier Compound, many stories like Sam's; horrors left in the wake of all the destruction of May 7, the year of Our Lord 2000 that were best left unsaid.

"Ma'am?" Sam asked again. "Ah can fetch a gun if'n ya'll think Ah should." The young southerner waited patiently for an answer. Like the land he understood so well, people like Sam were eternal, Jean reflected. They lived and carried on in any age, through any madness brought about by man.

Jean shook her fiery head in answer.

"Not just yet, Sam," she cautioned. "They might be friendly and we don't want to scare them off completely."

"Yes, ma'am," drawled Sam.

Wordless, Logan nodded to the approaching James Proudstar and gestured imperceptibly towards the nearby woods. With a small nod in affirmation, the big Apache horse wrangeler disappeared, melting into the landscape like a ghost. Jean shook her head ruefully.

How does he *do* that, she wondered, not for the first time. How can someone so large just ... vanish like that? But James Proudstar was out there somewhere, she knew, unseen, watching, waiting ... he and the deadly bow slung over his back. Like his mentor, Logan, no one would see Jimmy until he wanted them to. Until it was too late.

Like a well oiled, well trained machine, the members of the Xavier Compound prepared to receive visitors. Jean watched with approval as Warren Worthington and Charlotte Jones climb up onto the roof and secreted themselves there.

Count on Warren to seek the high ground, she chuckled to herself. Damn, I hope that ultra light glider he and Hank are trying to build works. Warren misses being a pilot and we desperately need contact with others. We've got to know what's going on out there beyond upstate New York here. Or what's *left* of upstate New York. Their careful excursions out into the unknown in search of supplies and survivors were becoming more and more dangerous all the time. Thoughts of the young girl who'd called herself Jublilee with such merry abandon, lost just the previous week, were still painful. Recon by air would be a blessing. But that was a worry for another day. Now there were the incoming riders.

When Hank McCoy trotted on his stocky legs out of his lab, housed in what was left of the West Wing of the reconstructed Xavier Mansion, his wife Moira and co-husband Bobby Drake followed swiftly on his heels. Moira was armed, of course. She was deadly with that magnum she carried, the Co-Leader of the Xavier Compound knew. She swung a mean claymore, too. Bobby Drake clutched his converted SuperSoaker 2000 under his arm and, as usual, it made the tall woman smile. Thanks to Hank's special "modifications" it wasn't a toy, even if it did still look like one. It was no child's game being hit with upwards of 500 pounds of water pressure all at once. Several former bandit-raiders could testify to that, to their eternal sorrow.

Hank McCoy wouldn't carry a weapon. He refused and that worried Jean quite a bit. But all their pleas, even Bobby's, had fallen on deaf ears. When confronted, Hank had merely adjusted his round, professorial glasses with the now cracked left lens and dug in his philosophical heels.

"The world may have slipped the bonds of civilization, my friends," he said in his deep, quiet voice, "but I fear that I cannot say the same for myself. No."

"Let him be," Scott Summers had advised. "Hank has a right to his beliefs, the same as the rest of us. It's all some of us have left."

"He's gonna get himself killed, Scotty," had been Logan's grim prophecy. His co-husband hadn't missed the sharp look of pain that passed briefly through Scott Summers blinded eyes at the thought.

"Then that's Hank's choice, isn't it?" He'd gusted a heavy sigh. "It just means we'll have to make sure we take special care to protect him."

With a tiny, crooked smile of rueful defeat, Logan had simply nodded after a moment and that was an end to the matter.

Scott hadn't seen Logan's smile, of course. But it was there nonetheless and Jean had treasured it.

Ready to face their approaching guests, the people of the Xavier compound waited and watched. In the distance, the riders slowed their advance, reigning in their tired horses to a cautious walking pace. Jean forced herself to relax, but when she spied Logan's sudden frown, saw the muscles of his shoulders tense rock-hard, she lost her battle with hope. Nothing pleasant was coming, that much was sure.

"Damn," spat Logan, his fierce eyes squinting for better sight. "Damn, damn, damn!" he cursed.

"Raiders, John?" Jean demanded. Logan denied it with a vigorous shake of his head.

"Ain't that simple darlin'," he assured her with an expressive curl of his thinned lips. "Wish it was. Be a hellava lot better. What the crap does *he* want here, anyway?" At his wife's mystified look of incomprehension Logan lowered his shotgun and spoke tersely.

"Magnus," was all he said.

It was more than enough. Jean's curses joined her husband's.

"Oh Christ ... " she breathed.

May 7, 2000. Silent Tuesday. More than fifteen years ago, now, but Jean Logan-Summes could remember it with such clarity it might well have been yesterday. She remembered clutching the still, cold body of Charles Xavier and weeping until there were no more tears to cry.

May 7, 2000. Dubbed Silent Tuesday because that was the day the world fell quiet in the wake of an array of devastating EMP pulses and atomic fire. The day the world ground to a halt with the eventual death of more than three quarters of her population if Hank McCoy's estimates were anywhere near as accurate as she suspected. No one ever knew how it started, of course, and in the end what did it matter? The bombs fell and, gear by gear, the machinery of civilization coughed, faltered and then failed utterly.

And, riding toward her at a steady, inexorable pace was one of the men who *might* be responsible.

Don't think like that Jean, she castigated herself. If Magnus had anything to do with the insanity of Silent Tuesday it was only at second hand. He just provided the gun, if that. Someone else pulled the trigger.

And besides, a smaller, less pleasant voice whispered in her mind, mocking her grief and fear, if he's guilty ... then so was Charles. And you don't want to think about that, do you? No, you don't. Just keep telling yourself that Charles' death was an accident. You don't know what the note he left behind said. You burned it, unread, remember? Before anyone else could see it. Not even Scott knows about that. Thank God. The truth might have destroyed him ... might have destroyed all of us. John understood though, didn't he? When you told him he only held you tightly until the demons of doubt fled. You did the right thing. Didn't you? We needed to be strong to survive. And *that* we have done, haven't we? It's a little late to count the price, I think.

And ... Charles loved Magnus, she reminded herself harshly. We owe it to his memory to at least give the man an audience. She found herself smiling in anticipation, to her great surprise.

And that's what it will be, you know, she chuckled. An 'audience'... as if he were royalty or a head of state. Who knows? These days he might be. She sighed. What is about that man, she wondered. What is it about him that let's him do that? That let's him take almost instant command and have others follow him?

Whatever it was, she'd rarely seen it fail.

"Jean?"

The tall redhead warmed at the sound of that familiar baritone voice and turned to face her husband and co-Leader of the Xavier Compound, Scott Summers. Taking his arm from Betsy Braddock's guiding hand, she led him forward, watching the silent British woman take up a position on the Mansion's broad portico, deadly sword at the ready. How a woman with such an obvious Asian heritage had acquired so British a name and accent was still somewhat of a mystery for Jean. The truth, she suspected, lay lost in the labyrinthine twists and turns of a prominent English family's globe trotting machinations. Not that it mattered. Betsy's skill with the razor sharp katana cradled loosely in her hands was all that really mattered.

The soft spring wind ruffled Scott's unruly hair and Jean kissed him on the cheek in greeting. She heard him gently inhale the scent of her hair with pleasure before he braced himself to deal with harsh reality.

"It's Magnus, isn't it?" It wasn't really a question so Jean didn't bother to answer. She merely smiled, squeezing his elbow in affirmation. Jean shook her head. It never ceased to amaze her how intuitive her husband and co-Leader could be. Scott Summers might be blind but he was far from helpless. In the beginning it was his quiet strength that had knitted them all together and set them on the road to survival and then relative prosperity. He was the heart of the Xavier Compound.

"And you're *my* heart," he'd once told her, warming her in places she'd almost forgotten existed since Silent Tuesday.

"And John is our strong right arm," she'd laughed, playful in his arms.

"Very strong," he'd chuckled in return. "Thank God. Without him we'd probably all be dead. And you wouldn't be whole."

"Neither would you," she'd reminded him, head on his broad chest, listening to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.

"No, I wouldn't," had come his happy admission.

"I've been expecting Magus," Scott's voice summoned her back to the present. Puzzled, his wife watched as the riders drew closer. She could make out six of them, now, leading two pack horses. Even in the twilight gloom she caught the flash of the dying sunlight glinting off the silver head of the lead rider. Damn.

There was absolutely no doubt now, was there? Magnus all right. Like a bird seeking the freedom of the sky, she released the forlorn hope that Logan had been wrong and watched it fade into the distance. Shading her eyes again, Jean frowned as Magnus drew away from the others, pursuing a slightly different course.

Sensing her unease, Scott asked, "What's happening?" in a curt voice. He was worried, she could tell, but doing his best to conceal it. Silent Tuesday hadn't changed *everything* ... Some thing's remainded, comfortingly almost, the same. With a pang of deep regret she wished that her husband could see the smile that played about her full lips. But she and John must be his eyes, now.

"Magnus is pulling away from the others," she supplied, quick to answer for his sake. When he felt her hold on his elbow loosen as she prepared to move off and investigate, he held her arm in tight denial.

"No," he told her, "let him be. It's all right. I know where's he's going."

One of these days, came Jean's unbidden, sardonic thought, I *will* figure out how he does that. It's almost as if he can read my mind at times.

It was comforting, somehow, to know that someone understood her that well. She smiled. Two someone's, in fact. Her eyes fell on the beloved figure of John Logan, still scanning the distance carefully as the riders drew nearer. His casual embrace of his shotgun didn't fool his wife, not for an instant. When Logan moved, he *moved*. He was by far the quickest man she had ever seen. And one of the deadliest. Logan's jaw set as he stepped swiftly to the side of his wife and his co-husband.

"The graveyard. He's headin' fer the graveyard."

Scott nodded in wordless affirmation.

"Give him a minute alone," he said. "He'll come to us when he's ready."

As the group came close enough for her to see them clearly, Jean wasn't sure whether to be relieved or even more uneasy. At once she recognized the slender figure of Pietro Lehnsherr, sitting tall in his saddle. That's a good sign, she tried to convince herself. Pietro may be devoted to his father, Jean thought, but he's fair. And he's young, rash ... Magnus wouldn't have brought him along if he were planning anything dangerous. He's not a fool. Surely he wouldn't risk the life of his son. Her frown deepened against her will.

Would he?

Jean had no real answer to that question, she realized at once. Magnus was ... Magnus ... seldom predictable. Charles trusted him, she told herself again and again, watching the slow advance of the riders. They fought, they argued; the hurt they dealt one another was sharp and fierce. But for all the pain they never turned their backs on each other. Charles always trusted him and Magnus never broke that faith. Not once. When Charles died part of Magnus died, as well. Charles took small pieces of many hearts with him into his grave, Jean admitted, and some of us still haven't forgiven him for dying and abandoning us.

Silent, she watched the silver haired man dismount from the great black horse he rode. When he passed through the gates of the small cemetery attached to the Xavier Compound, he didn't pause. His destination was never in question. Jean sighed and looked away, allowing him the privacy he had always demanded.

It was only when Jean caught her first plain sight of the rider covering the small groups backtrail that she began to lose her hope; that she began to be afraid in spite of herself.

There was no possible mistake, not even at this distance. None. By Jean's experienced estimate the huge Palomino horse carrying the man must have stood eighteen hands or more at the shoulder. And still the great animal was almost too small for the massive man who bestrode it. And there was no mistaking that mane of golden blond hair. Tossed by the wind, it blew behind him like a banner, reaching halfway down his back.

Victor Creed had let his hair grow quite a bit since she'd last seen him.

Jean cast an unbidden sidelong glance at Logan, chewing the inside of her lip in worry.

She watched Logan's lips move as he murmured the name on the heels of a quick breath. His hooded eyes darkened; seemed lost somewhere in that vast wasteland between loathing and brotherhood. Jean had no idea where Logan had first met Victor Creed or what lay so violently between them. Not even to her had he told that story. But it was deep and punishing, like a freshly bleeding wound, she knew that. It had long ceased to bother her, though, that John was so secretive about his past. He must have his reasons, she suspected.

And she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know them.

She longed to reach out to her husband, to offer him comfort. But that would have to wait.

Jean wasn't surprised that she recognized none of the other young riders who soon stood before her on nervous, plunging horses. The dark woman with skin the color of milk chocolate, the shockingly white hair and the wide crystal blue eyes was startlingly beautiful, and somehow familiar. But from where? The silver haired child who clung to the saddle in front of her could only belong to one father, though, that was clear. But what was the boy doing here? It was unlike Magnus, so fiercely protective of his family, to risk the child with such a journey as this. With a frown, Jean realized that all the five people before her were young.

With the exception of Creed, of course. Like most things about the massive mercenary killer, his true age was anyone's guess. The only thing certain about Victor Creed was the deadliness of the polished, bladed cestus hanging from his wide belt.

The girl with the prematurely white stripe in her nut brown hair was surely still in her teens, though. Hovering protectively at her side, the boy whose nimble fingers played agilely with a thin (there were surely some cards missing there), much worn deck of playing cards couldn't be much older in Jean's estimation. She doubted very much if he'd seen his twentieth birthday yet. Who were they and what were they doing with Magnus, she wondered?

The graceful African American woman in the lead alighted from her saddle, lithe as a gazelle, and the earth seemed to welcome her caress as she stood upon it. It was only when she reached for the child that Jean finally recognized her. She was almost ashamed of herself. She'd only seen and admired that face from the pages of countless fashion magazines; half a hundred commercials of all kinds. Ororo Munroe. "Princess Ororo" to the masses.

Whether or not her mother had been a real African Princess was a matter for debate. Certainly, the supermodel had never made such a claim herself. But there was no doubt of her right to a royal title. Her marriage to Prince T'Challa of Wakanda came to an end with the advent of Silent Tuesday, and the destruction of the technological paradise of Wakanda, but there was little doubt of her right to the unofficial title of "Queen" of the fashion demense. She'd been one of the most beautiful, most photographed women in the world.

Unconsciously, Jean smoothed her rough cotton blouse and tucked an errant strand of scarlet hair behind her ear. Suddenly, such things as clothing magazines seemed impossibly remote to her, as if they belonged to another world.

And so they did.

I haven't seen a glamour magazine in more than twelve years, the beautiful woman mourned. No one could have been more surprised than she when her eyes began to sting with the memory of the tattered, faded issue of Paris Vogue that was her last glimpse of the world she had known before it came tumbling down like a house of cards. She'd wanted to be a model like Ororo Munroe, once upon a time, she recalled. She had even found an agency to represent her. So long ago ... it was all so long ago.

What a thing to get misty eyed over, she admonished herself with a stern inner voice. Damn. Pull yourself together, woman!

Logan stepped casually closer to Jean, grinding out his cigarette beneath his booted foot. Jean wrinkled her nose. Lord only knew where he was getting tobacco these days. What little they grew in this unfavorable climate was harsh and used mostly for trade with the nearby Salem Center townspeople.

With that slight movement tension seemed to creep like a miasma into the air. With a start the young girl at Ororo Munroe's side cringed away from Logan, her eyes gone wide with fear. The youth with the playing cards swiftly interposed his horse between the small man and the girl.

"Dat be close enough, homme!" he hissed. "Rogue, she don't like men to get too near, n'est pas?" Logan's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

"Mind your manners, LeBeau!" snapped the softly accented voice of Pietro Lehnsherr. "Remember what my father told you. No one here will hurt Rogue."

"No," said Scott Summers, "she's safe here, I promise you."

If the young man named LeBeau found reassurance in those calm words he gave no sign of it, but he did maintain his silence for the moment. Ignoring Scott's reassurance, he turned his attention instead to Pietro, scowling at the others abrasive remark. Trouble lay between these two; that much was plain. Glancing at the girl named Rogue, the Compound co-Leader thought she might know the reason for it.

Jean took the opportunity to study the young woman called Rogue. The long scar on her cheek spoke eloquently of past travail, but it was the fear in her darting brown eyes as they flickered tensely between Logan and Scott that captured her attention. With a sinking heart and roiling stomach, she recalled where she'd seen eyes like that before.

They stared back at her from the cracked bathroom mirror. With no effort at all she could recall the feel of brutal hands on her naked body. She'd been a fool to wander away from Logan on that scouting trip and he hadn't been shy about telling her so.

"You damn fool, Jeannie!" he'd shouted in her face, shaking her as if his fear for her could communicate itself through that violent act. Then he'd cradled her in the shelter of strong arms. "Don't ever do that again, ya hear me?! Not ever!" Even covered with blood as he'd been, she'd clutched at him, nodding, ignoring the bodies of the slaughtered marauders lying about them like broken toys.

If it hadn't been for Logan she might very well be dead at the hands of that marauding rape gang. It was weeks before she got the smell of the one they'd called "Harpoon" off her skin, no matter how often she rubbed herself raw with harsh lye soap from Hank's lab. She shivered at the memory. For days afterward she'd lain between the comfort of Scott's and Logan's bodies, unspeaking, basking in the safety of their presence. All that pain ... and she'd escaped the gang vitually unharmed, all things told.

The sickening feeling washed over her that this girl, Rogue, hadn't been so lucky.

The LeBeau boy glared at Pietro, a dark scowl twisting his stubbled cheeks. "T'inking you ought to be keeping your distance, too, Lehnsherr! Cher Rogue don' be liking *you* overmuch, either, non?" Pietro flushed, his pale features burning with shame, and began to dismount.

"Enough!" commanded a strong, melodic voice that they all recognized on the instant.

Pietro froze, momentarily torn between anger and filial piety, then obediently remounted his fretting horse. Into the tense circle of uneasy allies stepped the tall figure of Erik Magnus Lehnsherr. Jean drew a sharp breath.

In idle moments, long ago when such things were common, the young Jean Grey had sometimes amused herself with trying to place Magnus' accent. If it was German it was the softest, least guttural German accent she had ever heard. Finally, defeated, she had surrendered, admitting to herself that, despite her finely tuned ear, she couldn't define it. In the end, she had to be content with merely noting that Magnus' voice carried the stamp of many places, many times. Like the man himself, it was ageless.

Jean had no idea how old Magnus was. She suspected that no one left alive could answer that particular question. There were the beginnings of tiny frown lines about his mouth these days, and almost imperceptible lines at the corners of his bright blue gray eyes. But other than those small flaws his face might have belonged to a man in his thirties or thereabouts. She knew him to be much older than that, of course. But not even the neatly trimmed silver beard could age him. It merely made him look distinguished. The long, shining silver hair, held in place with a sculptured red quartz hair tie cast in the shape of a large letter M, had always been his most arresting feature. Dressed in supple, crimson dyed leather he was a striking vision, impossible to overlook.

But, then, he always had been, hadn't he?

Jean watched as, like electrons darting about, orbiting an atomic nucleus, his followers drew subtly closer around the tall, vital figure of their leader.

It's amazing, Jean thought, awed at the steadfast loyalty, almost worship, she glimpsed reflected in those youthful eyes. Look at them. They'd die for him if he asked it. Without question. They trust him that much.

But can we, she worried, can *we* trust him?

So many memories ...

To her certain knowledge, the very last person on earth Charles Francis Xavier had ever spoken to was Magnus. She hadn't meant to ease drop, of course, but ... worry for Charles had gotten the best of her. Or so she told herself. Across the gulf of years and pain she could yet recall the horror in his voice.

<"My God, Erik! My God! What have we *done*?">

And the pain in Magnus' simple reply.

<"*God* had nothing to do with it, my old friend. Nothing at all.">

There were other memories, of course; even harsher ones.

She went cold, as though in the teeth of a strong north wind, at the recollection of finding Scott Summers in the devastated ruins of their cozy boathouse home. There hadn't been much of it left by the blast wave from the NY bomb. Despite Hank's help and her own frantic efforts, it had taken more than three hours to dig him out. And when she'd seen the burns around his eyes ... those horrid burns ... she'd screamed herself hoarse. He must have been gazing into the peaceful blue sky at just the wrong time, she'd realized later. Scott had always enjoyed cloud watching. Not any longer, of course ... But they still spent the odd, lazy afternoon enjoying the sun. She smiled to remember some of those days. "Now that cloud," she remembered saying, once, "looks *exactly like Cain's nose!" Charles' step-brother Cain Marko was dead now, of course. Along with Charles. But Scott always knew just what she meant. He didn't need his eyes to see the beauty she'd described for him so lovingly. The sound of it in her voice was enough.

Her husband was still shy about the scars left in the wake of his fearsome injuries. In public, he still wore those battered, old sunglasses with the rose tinted lenses she'd found for him, somehow still intact among the rubble. God only knew to whom they had once belonged. To the casual eye, they covered all his scars. The ones that showed, at least. The ones on the outside. But they were all hiding scars in one fashion or another, Jean decided. Herself not least of all.

Just how Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters had evolved into the Xavier Compound after the events of Silent Tuesday, she wasn't certain. She and Scott had both enjoyed teaching at their former alma mater. Along with their fellow teachers the small, quiet, private academy had suited them well. Hank McCoy might have been a Nobel laureate but he still enjoyed simple teaching. Along with his wife Moira, he had also managed to find ample time for his research in the well equipped lab that Charles Xavier provided for his most honored student. Nor could it be denied that Warren Worthington had been an excellent teacher of mathematics and the intricacies of aerodynamics. It wasn't the money that kept the independently wealthy playboy at Xavier's side. Bobby Drake had simply not known what to do with his life. So he had taught physical education at his old alma mater, pleasantly surrounded by his friends. Comfortable and familiar, Jean and Scott had gone joyously, almost directly from being graduate students to being teachers at Xavier's School. Her heart still ached at the toll Silent Tuesday had taken among their students.

Beautiful Xian Coy Mahn and her playful younger siblings Leong and Nga.

Shy little Rahne Sinclair, Moira's beloved goddaughter ...

Danielle Moonstar who loved the horses and the Proudstar brothers...

Moira's small son Kevin ...

The Madrox quintuplets ... all five of them, dead within scant minutes of one another; as if they were a single person ...

Jono Starsmore ...

Kitty Pryde and Doug Ramsey, the young computer geniuses sent to them by S.H.I.E.L.D for training ...

Argumentative Alex Summers ... Scott's younger brother ...

The list was virtually endless, it sometimes seemed.

In the end they had all lost someone. Some small part of themselves gone into the earth. and fading memory.

The painful lingering death of radiation poisoning ...

Sharp quick death at the hands of terrified mobs or wandering raiders ...

So much *death* ...

They might all be dead, she knew, if it hadn't been for John Logan. Wandering down from Canada admidst the chaos of the days and weeks ensuing from Silent Tuesday, the solid, capable man had taken on the job of protecting the people of the Xavier Compound with dogged fierceness.

"You jaspers don't know the first thing 'bout fightin', do ya?" he'd said, after a few days of close, unobtrusive observation. "Well, yer in luck. Ya found yerselves an expert."

And so they had.

And a woman named Jean Grey-Summers found a missing part of herself. It frightened her to think that were it not for Silent Tuesday she might never have meet John.

Magnus, on the other hand, she had known from the beginning.

She never knew just what it was that had driven Magnus and Charles Xavier apart. When she had first come to Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters as a teen aged girl, Charles and Magnus had already dissolved their partnership in their "Institute For Theoretical Studies" and gone their separate ways; Charles to found his school, while Magnus remained head of the government backed Institute. Charles and Moira had quarreled when Moira invited Magnus to the School as a guest lecturer in physics, she remembered that vividly. Charles had been furious. Over the years she had eventually come to understand the philosophical differences that drove the two men to snipe and tear at one another so in public. But not the personal ones that lead them to keep reconciling and reaching out to one another. Of those, they never spoke.

But when Charles Xavier had politely declined the International Committee's award of the Nobel Prize for Medicine ... so had Magnus, his co-winner.

"It's not as if either of us needs the money," Xavier had remarked, dryly.

When Magnus returned to his government funded research, Xavier had said nothing. But the sadness in his eyes had haunted Jean's dreams for quite some time afterwards.

Enough reminiscing, woman! she told herself. Pay attention to what's happening *now*, if you please. Scott's depending on you. Beside her, she felt Scott Summers stir.

"I've been expecting you, Magnus," he said to the man making his way slowly to the forefront of the other group with quick strides of his long legs.

Perhaps because she was intimate with such things, Jean noticed Magnus' small half smile when he passed briefly by Ororo Munroe's side. Like John, Magnus was not a demonstrative man, although his feelings ran deep, if she were any judge. Neither, she suspected, was Ororo Munroe. The camera had always captured a certain icy reserve in her manner. But the quick brown hand that reached out and took the hand of the young boy Magnus led in his wake lingered a bit longer, perhaps, than it might have.

"Have you indeed?" Magnus said, watching Scott Summers. There was little mirth in his grim chuckle. "What made you think I was even still alive, Summers?"

"I knew you were still alive, Magnus," was the other man's quick answer. "Not even Silent Tuesday could kill *you*."

Jean watched as Magnus' fingers, the long elegant fingers of a musician or fine craftsman curled themselves into fists at Scott's biting, acerbic words. Unless she was mistaken, she was the only one in a position to see Ororo Munroe clearly when the exotically lovely woman reached out and gently but firmly uncurled them.

"No," Magnus finally replied, his face expressionless, with the shadows of remembered pain dancing in his pale eyes, "I'm not easy to kill. I have a talent for survival, just as you say. Call it a talent, if you like ... Or a curse. But surely there was more to your belief than that."

"Oh," said Scott, a certain dryness invading his voice, "when I started hearing stories about 'The Engineer', the man who lit the halls of Washington DC once more, who brought fresh water from Lake Superior to what's left of Chicago, I suspected it was you. Fighting off Lee Forester's pirate fleet to get to the Lake must have been difficult. But you always were a determined tinkerer, Magnus. Did you know that some people are beginning to call you 'The Creator'?" Magnus had the good grace not to blush or pretend modesty.

"Nor have I come to *you* empty handed," he informed Jean's husband. He snapped his fingers, held out his hand in expectation. Swiftly, Pietro handed him a full saddle bag, then led the two pack horses forward and pushed one of several heavy looking chests off the first animal's broad back, to spill it's contents on the ground.

"Ammo!" whispered Logan in his co-husbands ear. "Hot damn, Scotty!" He eyed the other chests greedily. "Lot's of it! That's gonna come in damned handy." He looked at Magnus with grudging respect and gratitude.

Hoisting the saddle bags in his hands, Magnus smiled at Hank McCoy and proffered them to his fellow scientist.

"I thought you might find these useful, Dr. McCoy," he said.

Moira watched with deep suspicion as her husband opened the saddles bags and perused their contents eagerly. Her distrust of Magnus was evident, but the tall man ignored her scathing looks.

"Oh my stars and garters!" the bespectacled physician breathed, reverently holding up several crudely stoppered vials of thick, bright blue liquid. "Penicillin! How did you make --?" This time Magnus' tight smile was quite genuine.

"It's only a derivative of ordinary blue-green bread mold, after all," he said mildly.

"Damn ye, mon!" cried Moira, her fierce Scots heart aroused. "Where were ye last month with yair treasures? When influenza killed so many?" She shook a fist at Magnus, clutching one of the precious vials. "Ken ye not how many *this* could have saved?" Before Jean rose the specter of Moira's children; her son Kevin and her adopted daughter Rahne, burning with fever until they were both consumed by it. Henry McCoy took his wife's shaking hand tenderly in his much larger one. He looked into Magnus' eyes, dark now with some hidden passion, then looked swiftly away.

"He knows, dearest," Hank said. "He knows ... "

"And there's more!" Jean watched Hank's broad face light with joy.

The large vacuum tube that Hank held in his hand, examining it carefully, was crude by the standards that might once have prevailed for such things. But, today, in this time and place, it's existence was little short of a miracle. Blinking, Hank realized that he was looking at the solution to the problem surrounding the makeshift glider he and Warren Worthington labored so hard to construct.

"I can't imagine how you did this! Without the proper resources ... !" he exclaimed, cradling the fragile tube in his hand. Magnus seemed pleased with the implied praise.

"It helps if you have access to a good source of tungsten filament," he supplied.

Running agilely for his lab with his wife Moira and co-husband Bobby Drake in hot pursuit, his prize clutched closely to his deep chest, Henry P. McCoy was a happy man. Through the hand she held lightly Jean could feel Scott's mistrust, his fear of these gifts, so freely given.

Perhaps not free, at all, Jean's reminder to herself was harsh. Everything had a price. She wondered what Magnus' could be. And it was as if, once more, Scott read her thoughts.

"And what do you want in exchange for these riches, Magnus?" he wondered. Magnus' grim smile flashed forth like the blade of a scythe, keen and cutting.

"Why, I want to introduce you to someone," he replied. Holding out his hand, he gestured two boys forward. The younger one, about five Jean guessed, ran into his arms and demanded to be held.

"Pappa, Pappa!" the little boy with the silver hair cried. Magnus reached to pick him up and the child laughed with delight. The hard lines of Magnus' aristocratic face softened for an instant as he brushed the boy's hair from his wide blue gray eyes.

"This is my son Charles," Magnus said with pride. "And he's a very special little boy, aren't you, young man?"

"Special!" chimed Charles, nodding his head in vigorous agreement. "I'm special! Me and David!"

The older boy, who must have been around fifteen, stepped forward with a toss of his long black hair, regarding the others before him with alert, mismatched eyes.

"And this is David Haller," Magnus introduced the quiet youth, " ... Charles Xavier's son."

Jean's eyes went wide with shock and she felt Scott's hand tighten in hers in astonishment. Good Lord, she thought, we thought he must be dead. How in the name of all that's holy did he get here? He was in Israel! And Gabby! What's happened to Gabby? Is she - ?

With great care Magnus sat the little boy down. Handing him the contents of a small leather pouch hanging at his side, the tall man smiled at the child. In the twilight, the rays of the dying sun sparkled off the painted surface of several pieces of oddly shaped metal lying on the ground. Delighted, the five year old reached for his toys. Gently, Magnus spoke to the child.

"No, Charles," he instructed, "not with your *hands*."

Uncertain, the little boy peered up at his father from out of trusting but confused eyes. He frowned and bit at his lip in anxiety.

"But Papa," he confided, "it's supposed to be a big secret! You tol' me not to -" All at once nervous, he glanced at the strangers of the Xavier Compound.

"It's all right, Charles," Magnus caressed the little boy's silver hair in brief affection. Looking to the others waiting in silence, he regarded then carefully, then came to a decision.

"These are our friends," he told his small son. He knelt and smiled at the child. "You may play with your toys without touching them. No one will harm you."

Almost at once the bright pieces of metal flew into the air and began to dance about, whirling in a kaleidoscope of motion and color. At her side, John wrinkled his nose and Jean's own senses brought the brief tang of sharp ozone to invade her nostrils. After a few moments the small toys fell gently to earth and the boy made a face.

"I'm sorry, Pappa!" he lamented. "I did better this time! Longer."

Jean could her John's harsh whisper as he described for his co-husband, Scott, what had happened. Beneath the heavy glasses he wore, Jean could sense her husband's astonishment. Very much like her own she suspected. Good God! It must be a trick of the light ... or a trick of some sort ...

Mustn't it?

"Nor is Charles alone in his ... uniqueness," Magnus pressed his advantage with ruthless skill. He turned to the older boy, who was calmly watching the younger child, busy now arranging the metal bits into complex patterns known only to him. Firmly, Magnus handed the youth a small piece of wood.

"David, it's a rather chill evening, don't you agree? Perhaps a nice fire to warm us might be in order ... "

Nodding, David accepted the bit of wood and cradled it in his palm. The teenager's face furrowed in concentration, his eyes narrowing with strenuous effort. Several moments passed before he was rewarded and the wood fragment burst into flame.

"Lord God, Almighty!" gasped Sam Guthrie.

David Haller dropped the still burning ember and Magnus extinguished it beneath the toe of his boot. Politely he waited until John Logan once again described the events just passed to Scott Summers. Grim faced, the man known as 'The Engineer' watched startled wonder blossom on the haggard face of the Xavier Compound's co-Leader. Anxious now, Magnus' face grew tight with concern. Jean's green eyes widened and she was certain she shook her head to clear it. How was all this possible ... how ... ?

"I'm afraid that Charles Xavier and I had much more to do with this than any God, young man," Magnus addressed himself to the young ex-Kentuckian. He closed his eyes, awash with guilt and unexpressed pain. When he opened them again her turned them on Jean and her co-Leader. Although she was greatly tempted, the fiery red head forced herself not to look away. She meet that gaze with steady calm and was quite proud of herself for that.

"They're mutants," Magnus explained softly. "All that radiation ... Humanity is growing ... changing ... *evolving* ..." His blue gray eyes swept over the two boys, protectively. "There will be others like them. Many others. They are the future." In her bones, Jean could fell the truth of that. "But what will become of them?" Magnus' voice rang out strongly. "What will become of these 'Children of the Atom'?" he demanded. "Humanity will not be kind to them I think!"

"No," Scott Summers agreed, slowly. "You're probably right about that. What do you suggest?"

"We can seek them out," cried Magnus. "We can find them and gather as many of them as we may together. We can offer them sanctuary, a place to live and grow. And we can teach them! Charles made a school here. Then let us teach, my friends, let us teach!" He pointed at the two boys. "We have our start right there. If we join forces, work together, there is much that we may accomplish." A moment passed and Magnus slowly held out his hand to Scott Summers. Around her Jean Logan-Summers saw many faint nods of agreement.

But there were looks of reservation, too.

She watched as Warren and Charlotte climbed down off the roof. James Proudstar rose seemingly from the earth at the rear of Magnus' small group, startling Victor Creed, who growled menacingly. Jean looked at the small boy playing so innocently at Magnus' feet and thought of her own children again. But, in the end, it was the sense of purpose beyond mere survival she glimpsed in Erik Lensherr's eyes that made her decision for her. She felt Scott Summers' fingers tighten questioningly around hers. His own path was clear, she felt sure, but he waited for her to reach her own decision. Slowly, but with resolution, she guided Scott's hand until it encountered Magnus'. The many callouses that come with hard labor and grievous toil were plain to his touch as he shook the older man's hand.

"You'd better come inside," he said. "We've got a lot to talk about."

~~*~~

Jean stepped out into the coolness of the deepening night, inhaling a sharp breath, pulling her jacket closer around her shoulders against the Fall chill. The negotiations were going well, she thought. Soon, there might be new people, new skills and strengths added to the Xavier Compound. That was good. There was always strength in numbers, if nothing else. She smiled at the thought of new people, new friends. Sometimes it chafed her, the smallness to which her world had shrunk.

It wouldn't be easy, of course. Too much shared pain and animosity lay between Magnus and the rest of them for that. But Magnus was right. Wasn't he always? Their futures lay together. Theirs and the future of children like Charles and David. Uneasily, Jean thought of her own children, Rachel and Nathan and the one growing slowly in her womb. What if ... ?

Jean forced herself to abandon that train of thought. There was hope, she told herself. It was possible to put aside the past for the sake of the future. Her smile broadened at the thought of the proof of that she'd witnessed. Logan and Creed had begun the evening tucked casually into opposite corners of the large room that once served as a Teachers Lounge for the Xavier School, in almost identical postures of watchful alertness. Surprisingly, it has been Creed who made the first overtures.

"How ya been, runt?" he'd grunted at Logan. "Figured you fer dead. Shoulda known better."

"Yeah," Logan had growled, "ya shoulda. But ya never were much on thinkin', Vic."

Creed's lips had moved in soundless mirth. And when Logan offered the huge man a thick hand rolled cigarette from his precious supply, Creed accepted. Hunkering down before the fire blazing in the room's great stone fireplace, the two enemies had begun to talk, cautiously, feeling one another out like the hunters they were. After a while, smiles and subdued laughter had begun to waft from their small corner.

And if those two could come to terms with one another, then Jean's faith began to grow that they all might find the strength to do that. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Jean Logan-Summers offered up a tiny prayer for success.

And then she offered up another, even more fervent one, that they weren't all making a terrible mistake.

Magnus ...

My God, allying themselves with Magnus ... were they mad?

Perhaps ...

But was there really a choice?

<"There are always choices, Jean, my dear."> the memory of Charles Xavier whispered in his strong, clear voice.

Perhaps she should go and talk to Charles. Yes, she decided, talking to Charles might clear her head and focus her thoughts. In the beginning she'd spoken with Charles quite frequently, tending his grave with fresh flowers every day and news of the goings on of the Compound. Shocked, she was shamefaced to realize that she hadn't spoken to Charles in a very long time. Yes, it was past time that she did. With quick steps she began her somber trek to his side.

The large spreading oak tree by the small lake was giving shelter to two young lovers, she saw. The Compound co-Leader had lost count ot the times she and Scott or she and John had sought refuge in it's cool shade. And how many times had she found Hank or Bobby with Moira or Warren and Charlotte seeking comfort there? Too many to count. It's majestic shadow was one of the most popular places within the Compound. It was nice to think that the venerable old landmark would have new lovers to watch over.

Smiling, she watched the young man named Remy draw a coin from behind the ear of the girl they called Rogue with a flourish, as if by magic. When Rogue laughed and reached for the coin it disappeared again in Remy's clever hands. Her grin, when she hugged the young man tightly, was broad and full. Apparently she would allow no other man to touch her ... to even come near her.

Jean shut the gate leading into the cemetery and latched it carefully. Approaching the grave, she sighed. What were they to do? Could they trust Magnus? Who were these strangers he'd brought with him? What was it that would draw them all together, make them put aside their differences as they must if they were to succeed?

"Charles, it's Jean," she began softly. "I need to talk - " But she got no further.

For there, laying on the simple, rough hewn tombstone marked, "Charles Francis Xavier" was the answer to all her questions. Her eyes glistening tears, she wondered where he could possibly have gotten such a thing. Somewhere, they must be growing wild.

It was dark, but still her eyes clearly brought her the sight of the single red rose Magnus had left laying on the grave. The freshening wind hadn't yet blown it away.

The End