Unexpected Occurrences

Winds of Change (Unexpected Occurrences 1/10)

"This is war." Professor Charles Xavier said it calmly, but in a tone of great sorrow. He had joined the meeting last, wheeling in to take his place at the head of the conference table in the large living room at the Saskatchewan Outpost. The class had assembled there, looking subdued and a little bit wary, ushered in by Scott Summers and followed by Logan.

Arthur had been on the other side of the room, seated on a couch by the fireplace with April, his four-year-old daughter. He continued to read to her as the class filed in. When the Professor arrived, Arthur turned April over to Adam Greenfield’s care and joined the group around the table. Adam, baby Ezra in the sling, had walked off with April, chatting about an excursion to the playroom as they left. Their cheery talk had contrasted sharply with the evident anxiety exhibited by the students remaining in the room. The Professor had begun by congratulating them on their success in the wilderness, but had quickly gotten to the point. Now Arthur and his wife Wendy were sitting on either side of the Professor, looking around the room at the students, clearly trying to assess how they were taking the bad news.

It wasn’t going well. Several of the students around the table gasped at the Professor’s pronouncement. Jamie’s wide-eyed expression, Joe’s open mouth, Ruby’s soft sobs made clear that the news was coming as a shock. Some were talking among themselves, some looking to their teachers. The professor cleared his throat and there was instant silence. All eyes turned to him, except for Logan's and Scott's. Logan was frowning at Scott and Scott was trying to pretend he didn't notice, glad for once that he couldn't make eye contact.

Professor Xavier continued in a calm tone, not minimizing the bad news, but offering reassurance where he could. "Canada is a safe haven for mutants, at least so far," he was saying. "The Martin government has categorically refused to join the United States in detaining known mutants, but we don't know how long they will keep to that stance. Canada is highly economically dependent on its southern neighbor, and under a great deal of pressure from the United States government to comply. Throughout the U.S., mutants are being imprisoned without trial and without charges, being treated as prisoners of war. We believe it is essential that the Outpost location remain secret, since we don't know what's going to happen in Canada. Right now it's safe to live openly as mutants in this country. Alpha Flight is still in operation, still an active department of the Canadian federal government. It’s comforting to see a visible and official mutant presence in Canada. But that’s only one part of the picture. There's strong anti-mutant feeling here as well, and polls indicate popular support among Canadians for joining the War on Mutants. Putting those facts together with the economic pressure the United States is bringing to bear, we can't know that Canada will continue to hold fast.

"I'm sure you all have family and friends you want to contact back in the States. We do have methods for getting messages to them, saying that you are safe, but I'm afraid you can't contact them directly or let them know where you are. I hope those precautions won't be necessary for too long, but for now these measures must be enforced."

"What happened? Things were bad but...war?" Kitty's plaintive question spoke for them all.

The Professor turned to his Field Leader, who answered. "We aren't sure exactly what happened," Cyclops began. "We'll get to the bottom of it, eventually. We know what the U.S. government is saying caused them to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, but we also know that what they are saying isn't true.

"What is being alleged is that a mutant plot to take over the U.S. government was launched. It’s evidence of how strong and deep anti-mutant feeling is in America - and particularly within a group in Congress, led by Senator Marley - that the story has been accepted: by the president, by the press, by much of the public. The anti-mutant measures being taken by the federal government are being presented as defensive. We know what the government is claiming didn’t really happen, but we don't know what the real story is.”

“How do we know it isn’t true?” Oliver asked. “What about Magneto’s Brotherhood? Could they have been behind a coup attempt? Just because he’s in prison doesn’t mean they aren’t still active.”

“We considered that possibility, Oliver,” the Professor replied. “But it doesn’t fit the facts. Magneto’s gang is fragmented. There are few of his henchmen left and he hasn’t been in a position to recruit more. And what we’ve learned of the federal government’s allegations suggests that the mutants they are seeing as ringleaders are not associated with Erik Lehnsher. In fact,” he added solemnly, “some of them are associated with our school and with the X-Men. Among the mutants currently being detained as ‘enemy combatants’ without trial or charges are two of our graduates: Marie Charbonneau and Tabitha Stanley.” A couple of students gasped. Logan’s angry glare intensified, mixed with alarm.

The Professor continued. “Marie – many of you know her as Rogue – graduated from Xavier’s a couple of years ago, and often goes on X-Men missions with us. She’s a student at George Washington University, or was until recently. Tabitha is, of course, our best known graduate and a world-renowned scientist. Both Rogue and Tabitha have been active in the founding of the Mutant Rights League and both have been very public about their mutant status. We know that neither of them had any intentions of disrupting the government and that the League is committed to working within the system to improve the lot of our people. We don’t know what evidence was used to deem Tabitha and Rogue enemy combatants, and the government isn’t presenting any.

“What we do know is that a number of Senators and their staffers became suddenly and seriously ill, shortly after Senate hearings that were attended by several members of the Mutant Rights League, including Rogue and Tabitha. The first casualties were among those senators and staff who had been meeting privately with league members at the Mutant Rights League office just before the MRL members were questioned at the hearings. News reports said none of the MRL members themselves had gotten sick. By the time the first of the deaths occurred, the media were saying that the Senators and their staff had been poisoned by the MRL. The illness - whatever it is - has been spreading rapidly since then. It’s often fatal. Fifteen thousand dead in Washington, twice that in Baltimore, new cases as far south as Tallahassee, as far north as Boston. And not one confirmed mutant casualty. It seems that not only are none of our people dying, they aren’t even getting sick.

“Within days, the hysteria was out of control. The rumors went from poison to an infectious agent, one planted by mutants and to which mutants are immune. It was said that the Senators were purposely infected first, with the plan that they would spread it to other government officials. The Senators who met with the MRL were scheduled to attend a state dinner two days after the meeting. It was alleged that the MRL had planned to infect the President and Vice President through those Senators. A law was quickly passed allowing the detention of all mutant citizens without trial and seizure of all mutant property. The Mutant Detention Act suspends normal arrest and judicial procedures, making it nearly impossible to get accurate and complete information. We don’t even know how many mutants are in detention.”

"The school?" Oliver asked, turning to Scott. "What happened? Who got out?"

The Professor smiled reassuringly and answered the question. "We were able to evacuate the entire school, I'm glad to say. The Mutant Detention Act was rushed through Congress in a closed session, but we were alerted just in time. We did have to split up into a number of groups, though, since we would not have been able to get over the border - or even out of Westchester - en masse, without attracting attention. Some of your classmates and teachers are on their way here, some are with Alpha Flight members and in other safe places in Canada, and some are still trying to get out of the States." His smile vanished and he continued. "We haven't yet heard from all of our students and faculty, and don't yet know for sure that they are all safe. We are also trying to contact former students and staff. Names of detainees are not being released, so we can't know for sure that some of our people – beyond the two we know of - aren't in custody."

"In custody? Detained?" Joe sounded outraged. "What’s going on? Are they just going quietly? What kind of mutants are they? I wouldn't let them take me like that. Why aren’t they fighting back? Why aren’t *we* fighting this?"

Wendy jumped in. "We are fighting it, in every way we can, Joe. But it's not that simple. We're a small population and fragmented. Not organized. And they have the force of the government and the law behind them."

"Law? What kind of law? One that locks our people up? That blames us for some sickness we had nothing to do with?" Joe was practically yelling now.

Wendy answered him calmly. "Nobody's arguing with you, Joe. It's unconscionable what's happening. I'm just saying I can understand why some didn't fight back. We're not just mutants, you know. We're regular people; we're citizens. We're accustomed to thinking that the law is there to protect us, not to persecute us. And it's true that was changing for some time in the States, well before this crisis. The Mutant Registration Act, laws limiting mutant immigration and travel to the U.S., restrictions on mutant participation in the professions and commerce - the signs were all there. We know that. It’s certainly clear in retrospect that this is the culmination of a pattern of increased and increasingly institutionalized antimutantism that has been going on for years. But it's not always clear what to do, how to resist. A lot of us thought that if we just kept on with our lives, cooler heads would prevail eventually and things would get better."

"And we had plans for if things didn't happen that way, which is why you're here now," Arthur added. He paused and then said, "And it's not true that everyone went quietly. There were mutants who fought back. Some were killed resisting arrest. We have powers that normal humans don't - that's true. I hear yours are the same as mine," he said to Joe, directly. "Super strength, right? And sure, you and I could take on a whole lot of normal humans coming after us. If it comes to that, we’ll fight as long as we have breath. I want you there with me, fighting on my side. But I don’t want it coming to that, because we can't take on a whole army, no matter what our powers. If we're going to save our people, that's not going to be how we'll do it."

Joe didn't reply. None of the other kids said anything. Charles Xavier took the silence as an opportunity to bring the meeting back under control. "Wendy and Arthur will show you to your rooms now," he said to the assembled members of the wilderness survival class. "We're in pretty tight quarters and it will likely get somewhat more crowded. At least we hope so. We'll do what we can to give you chances for solitude, but there are a lot of us in a pretty small place. There isn’t going to be a lot of privacy. So, let's work on getting along together. Any problems are to be reported to the floor supervisor.

“I want you all to compile lists of people you want contacted - names, phone numbers, email addresses, whatever information you have. We will have to get word to them circuitously but we will tell your family and friends that you are safe and well." He smiled reassuringly. "Dinner is at 6:30. Oliver, please show everyone where the dining hall is." The students got up to leave, following Wendy and Arthur out. Logan started to stand up, too. "Just a minute," Charles said. "Cabinet meeting before dinner. 5:00 in the Command Center. Scott can show you where it is, Logan." He wheeled out the door, leaving Logan and Scott alone in the living room.

"So I'm in the cabinet?"

"Of course you are," Scott answered. "You've always been a key member of the team."

Logan changed the subject. "Where's Rogue? Where are they holding her?"

Scott sighed deeply. "We don't know yet. We hope she's okay but we don’t know anything. We’re going to find out. We’ll get her out of there. Tabitha, too."

"So why am I hearing this for the first time with the kids? I'm in the fucking cabinet and I don't even know there's a war going on until now?"

"I'm sorry, Logan. I should have told you earlier."

"I don't want to hear you're sorry. I want to know why you didn't tell me. What, did you think I'd tell the kids before we got here? I know how to keep my fucking mouth shut."

"I know that. I don't doubt your discretion. Ever."

"So why?"

"There wasn't time. The kids were there - I didn't have a chance to talk to you privately."

"Don’t give me that shit, Cyclops. We had time to ourselves. You spent it sucking my dick, not telling me what the hell's going on."

"It's hard to talk with your mouth full." Logan's angry countenance made it clear the joke had fallen flat. "I'm sorry. I thought we had enough to deal with out there." He paused, wondering whether to say more. "And I didn't want to think about it, okay? I didn’t want to believe it’s come to this. It felt like as long as you didn't know, it wasn't really happening. I wanted that for one more day. I was wrong. You deserved to know. I was being selfish."

Scott turned to walk away, but Logan pulled him back, wrapped his arms around him. "I'm sorry," Scott said again, right in Logan's ear this time.

"It's okay." He disengaged and stepped back, arm's length from Scott. "Don't fucking do it again," he added.

Shifting Sands (Unexpected Occurrences 2/12)

Charles had made an effort to sound reassuring in the meeting with the students, but in truth he was very worried. More worried than he had been in many years. The secrecy of the outpost, which they all agreed was paramount, was feeling rather precarious right now. He wished, not for the first time, that they had all been more careful about who knew of the Outpost's existence and - even more importantly - its location. The most worrisome part was that he didn't even know who knew what. Although the X-Men and Alpha Flight had been scrupulously careful not to talk about the Outpost outside of their respective headquarters, visits back and forth between Saskatchewan and Westchester meant that most of the students at Xavier's Academy were aware of the existence of a secret mutant community in rural Saskatchewan, although few knew more about its location than that.

Professor Xavier was concerned about all the detainees, and particularly worried about the two he knew best, his former students. Tabitha had had the presence of mind to call her former headmaster as soon as she realized they were being arrested. She had managed only three words – “Talk to me!” – before the phone was taken from her and the call ended. He’d immediately made telepathic contact by focusing his mind on Tabitha while her voice was still loud in his brain. His brain had continued to speak to hers long enough to find out that she and Rogue were being arrested at the Mutant Rights League office. The arrest coming under the Mutant Detection Act, neither of his former students was given a chance to call anyone or to be represented by an attorney. Plain clothes policemen had shown up, handcuffed them, and taken them away. There was no pause to read them their rights, since they didn’t have any. No mutant did.

Xavier had tried to maintain the telepathic connection longer, to find out where they were taken, but he’d lost Tabitha on the way. Telepathy at a distance was difficult at the best of times. It was harder when only one of the people communicating had the telepathic gift and harder still when strong emotions were interfering with the concentration he needed from her to keep their connection going. He could feel Tabitha’s fear a few minutes longer than he could hear her thoughts, her rapid breathing loud in his ears, his own pulse racing with hers. And then there was no connection at all.

Charles was worried about Tabitha, her fear bordering on panic the last mental impression he’d had of her. He was even more concerned about Rogue. Concerned about her personally, worried about mistreatment of “enemy” detainees by a perhaps unrestrained military. The secrecy associated with the detention of mutants meant there was no independent oversight – either by the press or by humanitarian and human rights groups - to prevent abuse. Military of all countries were at risk for engaging in abuses, even torture, under conditions such as obtained in the U.S. now. The United States Army had shown previously it was not immune to a tendency to abuse. Rogue was young and vulnerable, and more than a little rebellious. She didn’t have the self-possession or self-restraint that the situation called for, he feared. Xavier worried that she was the type of prisoner guards would gladly victimize.

Beyond the personal worries for Tabitha’s and Rogue’s safety, Charles was very concerned about the possibility that his two former students could provide information to their captors that would endanger them all. Their high profile in the Mutant Rights League made them likely candidates for interrogation. Both Rogue and Tabitha knew all about the Saskatchewan Outpost. Rogue had even spent a summer there, while Logan was still running the Outpost. Charles knew that she was well acquainted with the location and the surrounding area. He was certain neither Tabitha nor Rogue would voluntarily provide information that would compromise the Outpost’s secrecy, but who knew what tactics the interrogators would use? With torture, with drugs, it was more than possible that they could both be broken. He knew that it was essential that Tabitha and Rogue be found and freed quickly, before their captors had a chance to find out what they knew.

To free them, though, they’d first have to be located, and this was not a trivial task. A joint Alpha Flight/X-Men mission currently under way was the first step in doing so, he hoped. Jean-Paul “Northstar” Beaubier had been brought out of his brief retirement and together with Jean Grey was even now in Washington, DC, trying to find out where enemy combatant mutants were being held. The news reports were full of the government’s statements about a new mutant prison, designed to be escape-proof even when holding mutants with varied and powerful gifts. Its exact location, though, was a closely held secret. Mac Hudson had attempted to find it out through intergovernmental contacts, but the U.S. was not sharing such information with Canada, not as long as the latter country was still reluctant to join the War on Mutants.

Jean, however, had found out – through telepathic means – that two mutants had been badly injured in an escape attempt at the secret prison and had been transported to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital for treatment. She and Jean-Paul were attempting to infiltrate the hospital and speak to the mutants held there, even to remove them if they could.

Scott didn’t speak to Logan again until later in the evening. They had both been at the cabinet meeting, but it wasn’t a forum for private discussion. Before and after the meeting, their individual assignments had kept them busy and separate. Still, Scott was glad they’d had a brief chance to speak, and gladder still that Logan had confronted him about what was bothering him. Scott’s own impulse had been to say nothing about his reluctance to talk to Logan about the war while they’d been out in the wilderness. He realized now that that was a course of action that would have only fueled Logan’s resentment. Scott reflected that Logan was sometimes the one of the two of them with better instincts about what he insisted on calling “interpersonal shit.”

The cabinet meeting had been informative, particularly so for Scott, who had been away for a couple of days, and Logan, who knew little of recent events. Charles had updated them on the latest, rather grim developments in the War on Mutants. Several of the cabinet members had begun to speculate on the origins of the mysterious illness that had been the precipitating factor of the war, but Charles had cut them short. “There’s no point in guessing with the little information we have now,” he’d said. “The most important thing we can do to find out what really happened is to get Tabitha and Rogue out of there. They were on site at the initial meeting and they were observers of the first outbreak in Washington, right up until their arrests. I’m sure they know more than we can glean from afar.”

“Is it possible to get them out? Do we even know where they’re being held?” Wendy asked.

“No, we don’t, yet. We’re working on finding out, through a few methods, including judicious and careful use of telepathy. Jean is in Washington right now, under an assumed name. Guardian has sent Northstar to join her. The first stage of this mission will be to try to find out where Tabitha and Rogue are being held.” He explained the opportunity presented by the detainees being treated at Walter Reed. “We don’t know how badly hurt the mutants in hospital are, which is one of the reasons we sent Jean as our representative. As a telepath and a doctor, she is uniquely qualified for this mission. She and Jean-Paul will attempt to remove the injured mutants if their health permits doing so. Alpha Flight and I are preparing for a follow-up joint mission to rescue Tabitha and Rogue as soon as we can.”

“That sounds promising,” Scott weighed in, “but I don’t think we can count on getting info about their whereabouts this way. We’re going to need to locate mutants – now and throughout this war. We need Cerebro.”

“There is no Cerebro,” Professor Xavier responded, in a tone of finality.

Arthur gave the personnel and housing report. “We’re up to 112 now, including the Wilderness Survival Class. We’ve planned for 150, but I think we’ll have to be ready to go higher. We still haven’t heard from everyone who was at Xavier’s and we’re getting a steady stream of mutant refugees who’ve been referred here from other routes – Alpha Flight, Wendy’s Mawrter connections, some of the MRL people who got away. I can see housing close to 180, if it comes to that. The dorm rooms that have four in them now can go to six, if need be. We’ll put in another set of bunks. It will be tight, but manageable. And starting now, no private rooms at all.” Charles cleared his throat. “Excuse me, one private room. Everyone else shares. If anyone complains about that, refer them to me.”

“Can we keep that many secret?” Scott asked. “Feeding, clothing that many people. Won’t word get out?”

“We’re getting food supplies from a few places,” Wendy answered. “And we’ve been growing much of our own for some time now. We have a lot of food in store as well as lots of clothing appropriate for the weather here, in many sizes. You’re right, Scott, that it’s a risk. The more people there are here and the longer it goes on, the more the risk. But I think we’re okay for now.”

Assignments were given out to the cabinet members at the end of the meeting, and they dispersed. It was a long evening for Scott. He and Adam spent most of it reviewing the day’s news reports both from inside the U.S. and foreign sources, trying to separate fact from government propaganda. They worked together well. Adam’s years of journalistic work and Scott’s first-hand knowledge from recent field experience made them a good team for decoding the press releases and figuring out a best guess of what was really going on. Space being at a premium, they worked in Adam’s bedroom.

“Does he sleep through everything?” Scott asked with a glance towards Ezra’s crib next to the bed, as they replayed one particularly loud sequence of news footage for the third time.

“Pretty much. When he’s asleep, he’s asleep.” Adam shook his head and smiled wearily. “But he’ll be up later tonight, believe me. He never sleeps through. And with Jean-Paul gone,” he added with a yawn, “I’ve got no one to take turns with, getting up.”

“Sorry I’m keeping you up now, then.”

“Oh, it’s not you,” Adam said with a smile. “It’s Simon Legree Xavier. Is he always like that?”

“Well, it is an emergency situation. There’s a lot to do.” Scott paused, and added, “But yes, now that you mention it, he is always like that,” eliciting a laugh from Adam. “I’ve worked for Charles in one capacity or another – usually more than one – since I was sixteen. It’s usually interesting, often dangerous, almost always exciting. But it’s always a lot of work.” He smiled. “Working for Charles suits me. I like work.”

“Me, too,” Adam replied, returning Scott’s smile. Then his smile faded and he added, “Particularly when Jean-Paul is off on a dangerous mission. It distracts me from worrying about him.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I felt really relieved when it looked like Jean-Paul was retiring.”

“I bet you did.”

“I felt guilty for that, though. Jean-Paul’s so much a part of Alpha Flight and it’s such important work. I didn’t really want him to give it up. Still, it was so nice not to worry about him off on a mission, and I’m missing that worry-free time now. It’s been almost three years we’ve been together, and I’m still not really comfortable with the whole mutant superhero thing. I’m scared all the time for him.”

“I’ve been doing the ‘mutant superhero thing’ for getting close to 20 years, Adam, and I’ll tell you – you never get totally comfortable. You just learn to live with fear.” He added, in a more reassuring tone, “He’ll be okay. They know how to take care of themselves, Jean and Jean-Paul. And how to watch out for each other. I’d trust either of them with my life. I have, both of them, on numerous occasions. He’ll be home in a few days,” Scott predicted. “And complaining when you tell him it’s his turn to get up with the baby,” he added, garnering a smile from Adam.

After they’d made their report to Charles, Scott checked with Wendy that the new residents had settled in. He looked over the list of relatives and friends the Wilderness Survival class had asked to contact. He noticed with dismay that Oliver had not submitted any names. Scott had hoped that Oliver would ask to notify his mother that he had found a safe harbor. Oliver’s father’s death and his mother’s attempts to reach him had only happened a couple of weeks ago and Scott knew Oliver hadn’t had the time he’d need to figure out how he felt about responding to her. Still, with the war starting in that time, so much had occurred that everything felt changed. Scott had hoped Oliver’s instincts would lead him to reach out to his family of origin in this difficult time. He wondered whether to say anything to Oliver about that.

Scott’s usual bedroom at the Outpost was the one he still thought of as “Oliver’s Room” since Oliver had stayed there the first time they’d both come to Saskatchewan. It was a large room on the third floor, one wall a built-in bookcase overflowing with books of all kinds, making it Scott’s favorite room in the house. By the time Scott managed to get back there it was well past midnight and he was too tired to think about reading. He turned on the desk lamp, glancing to see that Logan was sprawled across the bed, fully dressed. Logan sat up, yawning.

“Did I wake you? Sorry.”

“No problem. I learned a long time ago to sleep when there’s nothing else I need to do – you never know when you’ll have to do without. I finished my assignment a couple of hours ago. Had a nap.” He patted the bed and Scott sat down next to him. “So we’re sharing a room?” Logan asked.

“You heard Arthur. Nobody but Charles gets his own room.”

“And nobody but you is willing to chance sharing with me?” Logan grinned.

“Probably not. Sometimes I like to live dangerously.” Scott paused. “You okay with being roommates for a while?”

“Sure. I’ll flip you for the bed.”

“Or flip me on the bed or something.” Logan laughed. Scott continued, “Hey, we can sleep together, can’t we? I’ll wake up if you’re having a nightmare. You thrash around enough.”

“You’ll wake up dead if I thrash around with my claws out.”

“I really don’t think that would happen. They don’t extend until you’re well into the dream. I’ll wake up before that point, and then I’ll wake you up. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah, well I’m not. Killing a lover is something I’d rather leave as a once-in-a-lifetime thing, eh? Even with a life as long as mine.” He looked carefully at Scott, reaching out and holding him by the chin. “Hey, take off your glasses.”

Scott closed his eyes and pulled them off. “Why?” he asked.

“What’s that from?” Logan asked, gently touching the purple and green raised area over Scott’s right eye.

Scott shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something during that fight by the lake. I don’t have your powers – it takes me time to heal... It’s just a bruise. Don’t worry - it won’t leave a scar,” he said. “I don’t need another one,” he added with an ironic smile.

“I like your scars,” Logan said, fingering an old one on Scott’s bicep. “Reminds me you’re a fighter.” He bent over and kissed Scott on the side of the neck, stroking another scar with his tongue. “I like fucking a fighter,” he added, right in Scott’s ear. “Well, as long as you’re not fighting me, bub.”

Scott didn’t look like someone itching for a fight. He pulled off his t-shirt and stretched out prone across the bed. Logan got on top of him, straddling Scott’s back, kneading his shoulders and upper back. He touched the scar on Scott’s arm again. “I remember when you got this one,” he said. “I was there.”

“It would have been a lot more than a mark on my arm if you hadn’t been there. You saved us all that time.”

Logan shrugged, still rubbing Scott’s shoulders. “You saved my ass by the lake. It all evens out.” Scott sighed happily, then moaned a bit as Logan leaned down and licked the scar on his neck again. “What’s this one from?” he asked, fingering it now.

“Magneto. First time we fought him. I’ve got a few from that time. Jean got all the shrapnel out of me, but she wasn’t able to do it without leaving scars. She was in med school at the time. Missions were practice for her. She got a lot of practice patching me up. And Warren and Hank.”

Logan sat up again. Running his fingers through Scott’s hair, he found another scar, right at the base of the skull. A spot where no hair grew. “What about this one?” he asked.

“A really mundane story. Should I say it’s from a battle? Does that turn you on?”

“Yeah, it does a little. But tell me the real deal. I’m turned on, anyway.” Leaning down again now, lying on top of Scott, the erection pressed against Scott’s back illustrating his point.

“It was an accident. An emerging telekinetic, an advisement session in my office, me not remembering to lock up sharp objects first. Well, I think it was an accident. I had just told him he’d have to rewrite the whole paper.” Logan chuckled at that, sitting up again, continuing to move his fingers lazily and sort of randomly over Scott’s head, arms, and back.

And then the movements were less ambling, more purposive, Logan’s hands stroking with strong motions up and down Scott’s back. Logan raised himself off of Scott, up on his knees. Scott heard the SNIKT of a claw extending. He started to object, saying he didn’t have many clothes with him at the Outpost. “Shut up,” Logan said and Scott felt the familiar sensation of clothing being sliced off of him. Logan bent down again, kissing, licking and sucking Scott on the shoulder. Scott shut up.

Logan’s mouth, hot and wet, was working its way down Scott’s back now, and his hands were cupping Scott’s ass, squeezing the cheeks. He could hardly manage to stay still as Logan’s tongue teased him right at the beginning of the crack and his fingers slid nearer the opening. He could feel those fingers, slick with lube he hadn’t even noticed Logan putting on, opening him up.

And then Logan’s mouth was there, too, his tongue licking up and down the crack as his fingers moved inside. Scott couldn’t stay still at all, pushing his ass up towards Logan. Reaching under himself, he rubbed his cock with his hand, ass moving in the air. “You look good like that,” Logan said, raising his head up but still working Scott with his hand. “Giving your ass to me to fuck, aren’t you?”

Scott nodded, saying “yes” breathlessly.

“You want a big cock in there?” Logan asked, unzipping himself and then lying on top of his lover now, his hard dick between the offered cheeks.

“Yes, yes,” Scott said again.

“Whose?” he asked, positioning his cock at Scott’s opening but not pushing in, even as the man under him tried to move closer.

“Yours, Logan, yours.” Logan pushed in and started moving slowly in and out as Scott kept saying it. And then there was no more talking and Logan was fucking Scott in earnest now. His hips were moving and he had one hand resting at the root of Scott’s hard cock, sliding up and down with every stroke inside. The other hand was on the scar on Scott’s neck, fingering it as he pumped into him.

Scott was losing control now, losing awareness of his surroundings. The part of his brain that was still working was reminding him to keep his eyes closed, but he could feel them rolling back into his head. He thought he said something when he was coming, but he didn’t know what.

He lay there afterwards, catching his breath and feeling almost like he’d passed out and was slowly returning to consciousness. Logan was still on top of him, still lying on Scott’s back, but not moving now. The man on top of him felt loose-limbed and sweaty, the tension Scott had felt in Logan’s body no longer there. Scott realized Logan must have come already, while he’d been too into his own orgasm to even notice.

“You’re a good ride, Cyclops,” Logan sighed happily. And then he rolled off of Scott.

Scott put his glasses back on and looked at his lover, who was asleep already. “I guess we share a bed after all,” he thought, contentedly. He took off his glasses and went to sleep.

An Ever-Fixed Mark (Unexpected Occurrences 3/12)

Watching Jake amble from our booth to the bar, I felt some sort of brief sense of foreboding, a slight worry that I really shouldn’t be here. It passed quickly, or maybe I suppressed it. Mostly I was having a fine time. Sitting in a bar in the Castro was giving me a profound feeling of being back among my own people, a welcome one after months of isolation. City life made a nice contrast to being hidden away in rural Saskatchewan, occupied with Ezra and Jean-Paul and domestic chores and with helping Arthur and Wendy run the Outpost. Getting nowhere on the novel I had supposedly moved there to write. And then lately I’d been much too occupied with the tragic side effects of the War on Mutants, working to integrate the refugees that were still streaming into the secret community. I needed a break from all that, I thought to myself.

Now the crowded bar, the pleasant buzz of conversation and loud music, the sexual energy I could feel all around me in a room full of gay men – these were sights and sounds I’d missed more than I’d realized. The decidedly delectable Jake - heading back now with our drinks - made a most welcome sight, both rear and frontal view. Jake’s got the attractively scruffy look of a raffish and charming journalist and the long body and lithe grace of a long distance runner. Not surprising, since he’s both of those things. I had heard over dinner that Jake had covered the last Olympics for the Chronicle, but he’d competed in the previous ones, in Athens. For some unknown reason, the fact that athletes in the ancient Olympics had competed naked jumped into my head. “A nice custom that,” I thought to myself, eyes on Jake.

I was glad to see Jake quickly and decisively brushing off the extremely good-looking body-builder type who’d accosted him en route. I’d worried that I might be abandoned for the possibility of sex, but Jake seemed eager to return to the conversation we’d been engaged in. I was, too. I was certainly enjoying Jake’s company, and not only – or even primarily - as eye candy. It was so refreshing to talk to another gay man, another reporter, someone with stories to tell that I wanted to hear and with a willing ear for my journalistic and sexual reminiscences, as well. I was feeling the excitement of getting to know an intriguing new acquaintance along with the relaxing familiarity of conversing with someone who understood a journalist’s lifestyle. All of that felt wonderful.

In fact, I’d been really enjoying myself since the moment I’d arrived in San Francisco. The enjoyment had come as a bit of a surprise, and a welcome one. I had been so angry at Jean-Paul for backing out of the trip at the last minute that I hadn’t left the Outpost in a very positive frame of mind. I’d been worried that my bad mood would spoil the whole conference for me. I’d even considered canceling altogether and staying home, too. I went ahead with it partly because I felt I *should* go, since I knew it was important for the upcoming assignments – both the overt one and the clandestine one from Charles Xavier. Mostly I went because I just couldn’t face spending the next few days in Jean-Paul’s company, as angry as we were with each other.

I’d left the Outpost last night with a cold nod to Jean-Paul and a warm goodbye to our baby in his arms. I couldn’t help venting to Wendy as she drove me to the airport, even though I know I was putting her in an awkward position. She’s at least as much Jean-Paul’s friend as mine and it’s not fair to stick her in the middle of our spat. But who else was I to talk to? Perhaps ranting at Wendy had helped to purge the bad feelings.

“I don’t get why he wouldn’t come,” I’d said for at least the fifteenth time, as we drove along Highway 11, heading towards Regina. “It’s perfectly safe – no way they’d know at U.S. customs that he’s a mutant. Martin just refused, again today, to accede to the American demands to put mutant status on Canadian passports. And even if the P.M. gives in, you know Alpha Flight will get around that. There’s nothing in any of his papers to identify him as a mutant, and he’s the classic case of one whose powers don’t show. Jean-Paul’s passed as normal before and he can do it again. He doesn’t have to be scared.”

“You know he wasn’t scared to come with you to the States,” Wendy had patiently replied. “Come on, Adam. Who are we talking about here? Jean-Paul’s not exactly risk averse. When did he ever not do something because it was dangerous?”

“Yeah, he’ll put himself in danger any time Mac or Heather asks him to. He’s been in the States how many times since the war started? He just got back from that mission in DC. Washington, DC for God’s sake - Ground Zero. I was terrified until he got back, but he acts like there’s no danger.”

“No he doesn’t. He’s always sensible of the danger – you know that. That’s what’s kept him alive this long. He doesn’t avoid danger, but he knows it’s there.”

“Yeah, I guess. He sure acts like the danger doesn’t matter, anyway. Like he doesn’t give a shit if he gets killed and leaves Ezra and me behind. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Alpha Flight. But he won’t come with me to this conference, no matter how important it is to me. No matter that you guys – with all that’s going on at the Outpost – offered to take care of Ezra for us, letting us have this trip to ourselves. What does Jean-Paul care? He isn’t willing to even cross the damn border for my sake.”

“Try to see it from his perspective, Adam. The U.S. has declared war on our people. Jean-Paul doesn’t want to be there – none of us do. It’s my country and I don’t even want to cross that border until this war is over. It makes me sick to even think of going home, going to a country where our people are labeled ‘enemy combatants’ just because of who we are.

“And Jean-Paul doesn’t have the ties to the U.S. that we do. He doesn’t feel the pull you and I do because it’s not home to him, and he still feels the same revulsion as us at the thought of being there. But he’s still willing to go when he needs to. He goes wherever he’s sent. He’s willing to risk being arrested as an enemy combatant when he really is one – working as an Alpha Flight operative, trying to rescue detained mutants or improve our intelligence. It’s a ‘whole nother thing’ – as April would say - to go there for fun. I don’t blame him for not having the stomach for that. He can’t just go off for a week of vacation in a country that’s imprisoning and killing our people. I know he wants to be with you. There’s nothing he’d like better than to have a few days alone with you, but he’s too serious a person to do this.”

“So, what does that make me? Not a serious person? Frivolous?” I could feel that I was displacing my anger at Jean-Paul on her, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“No, Adam,” she replied, ever patient, ever kind. “It’s different for you – it’s work. Now that you’re freelancing, you need all the contacts you can get. Jean-Paul understands that. We all do. And we’re all hoping you’ll pick up information this week that we can use. We’ve got to find out what’s really going on. It’s the only way we’ve got a chance of getting Tabitha and Rogue out of that prison. The government is certainly trying to keep a tight rein on what gets to the media, but the press has a way of finding things out. I’m glad you’re going to the conference, and glad you’ll be in Washington next week.”

I tried to take Wendy’s words to heart, tried to remind myself that I was at the conference for work. I tried to quell the nagging feeling that this trip was a self-indulgence Jean-Paul had rightly refused and that I would have, too, if I’d been more principled. Yet what Wendy said was right. The conference could be a big help, both to my career and to the underground war resistance effort.

The career and my participation in the resistance were intertwined. I had only recently begun freelancing, and was doing so mostly for the opportunity to help the resistance. Charles Xavier had called me to his room for a private meeting and told me he felt I was underutilized at the Outpost. He had asked me to use my skills and my profession to do undercover work for the X-Men. “I’m sorry to interrupt your fiction writing, Adam,” the Professor had said. “But right now the mutant community needs an investigative reporter on our side a lot more than we need a novelist. I’m sure the book will be wonderful, but I’d appreciate it if you put it off for a little while.”

I had agreed, of course, but I wasn’t sure how much I could help, how effective I could be. Truth be told, I was having trouble even thinking of myself as an investigative reporter these days. Well, if Charles read my mind and knew how doubtful I was, he didn’t say. Maybe this conference, and next week’s assignment in DC would help give me the contacts I needed to fulfill Charles’s clandestine mission. Even more so, I was hoping it would do something for my sagging professional ego. Work is the one area where I’ve always felt confident, and it has been so hard to lose that.

So, Jake’s enthusiasm when we met had been very welcome. As soon as I introduced myself he started telling me how much he admired my work, how he’d followed my stories since he was in journalism school. It was flattering to get that kind of response, take on the role of a wiser senior colleague.

Meeting Jake had been just one of many pleasant encounters in a lovely day. I had had a wonderful time the entire first day at the conference, and even more so when I joined a few of the other reporters – Jake included –for dinner. Months of living in rural Saskatchewan had left me wondering if anyone back in the States remembered Adam Greenfield, journalist. Try as I might, I wondered sometimes if I remembered him, myself.

We all have our own pet theories. One of mine is that everyone has a “real resume” that’s nothing like the formal one. My formal resume lists my work experience and educational credentials, major articles I’ve written, awards I’ve won. It goes on for a couple of pages. It’s the paper I send to prospective employers, but it doesn’t represent the real Adam Greenfield. It may have determined whether I got an interview for this job or that, but what’s written there has nothing to do with whether I could do the job. What decides that for everyone, I’m convinced, is your “real resume.” Your real resume is a short phrase or two that truly sums up your abilities as a worker, the description you never share with your employer directly but try to convey in the interview your formal resume got you.

I remember sharing my theory with Jean-Paul early on in our relationship. He’d confessed his insecurity about his lack of formal credentials, whispering into my ear in bed that he’d wished he hadn’t dropped out of school. “It doesn’t matter,” I’d told him, running my hand along one of his strong thighs, and getting a little distracted as I did. “Mac doesn’t care that you never went to university. He knows what’s on your real resume.” I explained the dual resume concept, my hand sliding up his thigh and then cupping his cheek as I spoke.

“So, tell me, mon ami: what does it say on my real resume?” Jean-Paul had asked, throwing one leg over mine, nuzzling my neck.

“Fearless, ferocious, and extremely loyal,” I’d answered without hesitation. Then, hand wandering to Jean-Paul’s half-erect penis, stroking him hard again, I’d added, “And always ready for action.” To my delight, he’d chosen to prove the last point and the discussion of resumes – real and formal - had ended.

My own real resume had always said “Gets the story, whatever it takes.” That dogged persistence has served me well for years. It has always been even more important to my success than my ability to write quickly under pressure, although it was that ability to write under deadline that was more noticeable to my employers and colleagues. I had been so sure that both the persistence and the quick writing (which my friends jokingly refer to as my mutant power) would serve me well when I quit the Herald and moved to Saskatchewan. My plans were all set, and they included a solid domestic life for the first time since I’d grown up and left Brooklyn, as well as finally having the time to write the novel that had been growing in the back of my mind for years.

The domestic life had flourished but the novel was getting nowhere. Days went by when I wrote nothing at all, busy with Ezra, Jean-Paul, and the running of the Outpost. Worse still, when I did manage to spend a few hours working, I more often than not threw out what I’d written.

What did it say on my real resume now? The face in the mirror each morning seemed on good days to be “Adam Greenfield, father of Ezra and partner of Jean-Paul.” Was that enough? I’d ask my reflection. Where had my ambition gone? What had happened to my skill? On bad days, staring at the empty pages – or, worse yet, at pages filled with a story that didn’t seem worth reading, even to me - I felt like “Adam Greenfield, failed novelist” was all it said on my real resume.

So, this conference had been a welcome distraction and I had been looking forward to attending it with Jean-Paul. I wanted to feel back in my element during the day, and I was anticipating hot sex every night, uninterrupted by our adorable but often wakeful baby. I knew it was just the thing for me, and for our relationship, too. We needed a reminder that we aren’t just parents and partners, but lovers, too. Some private, unencumbered, uninhibited fucking would have done a world of good for us both.

The first day over, I was glad I came, even without Jean-Paul. I was really enjoying myself. Well, I was when I was managing not to think about him. I was still too angry at his refusal to come along to do what I usually do in the evenings when we’re separated – head back to my hotel room to spend hours on the phone with Jean-Paul. Half the fun of a good day was usually talking to Jean-Paul, reviewing everything that had happened, talking about life and love and our growing son, attending to our relationship and our erotic needs through phone sex. He knows just what to say and how to say it to really turn me on, to make me feel like we’re together. Still, I didn’t want any of that tonight. I thought I might not even call Jean-Paul at all. “Fuck you, Jean-Paul,” I muttered under my breath. Let him think a day or two about how much he’d hurt and disappointed me by staying home. I went out with the guys I’d met instead of calling him.

I turned my thoughts away from my lover back in Saskatchewan and towards the here and now. A day and an evening in the company of people in my field, people who were interested in what I had to say, who clearly looked up to me, had been great for my bruised ego. The ease and genial banter of reporters swapping stories was something I hadn’t realized I’d missed until I had it back again. The epidemic that had been the excuse to start the war had peaked and waned, and was on the other side of the country anyway. No one here seemed reluctant to go out to dinner for fear of infection. No one in the restaurant seemed to be looking around for secret mutants. The world could almost seem normal again.

Much laughter and wine later, I had headed off to the nearest gay bar with Jake. As the only other gay man in the group at dinner, and a local, he’d pulled me aside as everyone was dispersing. Jake had offered to take me to a place he knew while the others headed back to the conference hotel. I had almost said “no” – I’d had more to drink at dinner than in the past month put together – but he convinced me to go for just one drink. I was happy to let myself be persuaded by young, rakish, funny, insightful Jake. Talking to Jake felt so relaxed and easy.

He was awfully pleasant to look at, too, I thought watching him saunter back from the bar, flashing that engaging smile as he sat down, his hand brushing against mine accidentally as he handed over my beer. Jake took a sip of his beer, his tongue sliding out of his mouth to catch a stray drop. Lovely tongue, that. If only I were single.

Hmmm, does he even know I’m not? I hadn’t mentioned my family to him, I realized. I figured I’d better do that right now. I was enjoying looking at Jake, enjoying the attention, maybe indulging myself a little bit in imagining how that tongue might feel, various places on my body. But it was crystal clear to me that I was just looking. Even if Jake were interested in me sexually – and he probably wasn’t – I would never do anything with him.

Jean-Paul and I are committed to each other, committed to monogamy. Okay, so I’m pissed off at Jean-Paul right now, but that doesn’t mean I’d break my promises to him. I’m disappointed in him, wishing he hadn’t backed out like that, but I’m still in love with him. Love is not love if it alters when it alteration finds. We’ve been through other problems and we’ll get through this one, too. I wouldn’t jeopardize our relationship, our family, potentially our health for a one-night stand with Jake. I haven’t had sex with anyone but Jean-Paul for years now. And that’s the way it’s going to stay, I reminded myself forcefully. I’d better make that clear to Jake in an understated way, by talking to him about my lover and son. Just in case Jake was interested in me – which he probably wasn’t – and thinking I was available.

Yet somehow I couldn’t find a way to inject Jean-Paul and baby Ezra into the conversation. The secret location of the Outpost had dictated caution in my descriptions of my current life, both at the formal conference and during the evening of convivial and more personal conversation. I’d listed my residence as still in DC when I’d registered, using Anjuli’s home address as mine. I’d talked to Jake and the other reporters at dinner about the novel I was writing (although I hadn’t disclosed how little progress I’ve made on it) and presented that as the reason I had quit the Herald. I had mentioned freelancing on the side. I’d expounded at length on how frightened and how outraged I am about the War on Mutants, tying what I’d seen in Belarus to what was happening in the U.S. I spoke passionately about the effects on mutant friends of mine. Yet I had never mentioned to any of the other reporters that I have a mutant lover and a child who might well grow up to be a mutant. I just couldn’t figure out how to broach the subject without letting on that a great deal of what I’d told them hadn’t been strictly true.

“So, you gave up your apartment when you left the Herald?” Jake had asked, responding to one part of my recent life story I had disclosed. “Where are you living now?”

“With a friend in Georgetown - Anjuli Radavan - and her son Hank. She’s a single mother with close ties to the mutant community and she’s been going through hell this past year.”

“I can imagine!” Jake responded, sympathetically, leaning in close to hear me in the loud bar. My pants started feeling a little tighter as he did.

“Hank – not the baby, his father – was a good friend of mine, a mutant. He was killed in the 4/16 attacks. I’m not there enough to need a place of my own, and Anjuli’s glad to have company when I’m not off on assignment.”

So, I went on to talk about Hank and Anjuli, about other mutants I knew and worried about, but never mentioned the one I’m closest to. I was feeling more comfortable, trusting Jake better. I felt like I could tell him I have a mutant lover without worrying about shock or revulsion. And I know I could do so without revealing where Jean-Paul and I are really living. So, I wasn’t quite sure why Jean-Paul’s name, and Ezra’s, just weren’t coming up. Maybe it just felt too crowded and impersonal in the bar to discuss such a personal issue. Maybe all the male flesh on display made talking about family sort of incongruous. I did want to tell Jake about them, though.

“Hey, you getting tired of the crowd and the noise?” Jake was asking, as if he’d read my mind. “I am. Why don’t we go back to the hotel? It will be quieter there and we can talk in private.” He leaned in close, hand on my arm.

I agreed right away. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Tell Me the Answer (Unexpected Occurrences 4/12)

“Put your hands right here. Firm grip. Yeah, that’s right – just like that. Now don’t move until I tell you to.” Logan’s instructions to Oliver were loud and clear, but followed by a muttered “Fucking water heater” under his breath.

“I know the drill,” Oliver replied, pushing against the cylinder as Logan tightened nuts. “I’m not a water heater repair virgin, after all.”

“Yeah, how many times have I fixed the goddamn thing?”

“I don’t know. But I do know this is my fourth time helping you with it.”

“Well, at least a couple more times with Scott. Once with Jean-Paul. Why does the fucking thing break down every time I’m here?”

“Maybe they break it on purpose so you can feel useful,” Oliver answered with a smile.

Logan attempted to scowl, but then laughed in spite of himself. He finished what he was doing, then stood back. “Okay, you can let go now. I think it’s working... Yeah. Alright, fixed. For another week, at least. I wish they’d just replace the fucker once and for all.”

“That might be a little hard to do right now, with 100 mutant refugees hiding out here. I don’t think Arthur and Wendy really want to find a new hiding place for them all to hang out in while someone comes to install the new water heater.” Logan nodded in assent. “I guess we should go tell them we’re done and get some more work,” Oliver added with a sigh.

“Nah, not yet.” Logan sat down on the floor, back to the wall. “Let’s take a break.”

“You’re the boss.” Oliver sat down next to him. They said nothing for a couple of minutes, enjoying the quiet and the relative solitude, far from the crowded dorms, dining hall, and other communal areas of the Outpost. After a while Oliver said, tentatively, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask. If I think it’s too personal I might not answer, but I’m not gonna get mad at you for asking.”

“Do you remember your family? Parents? Brothers or sisters?”

“Nope. None of them. I’ve really tried, too. Both on my own and with the Professor helping me, diving into my brain and seeing what he could come up with. That helped with a bunch of things I couldn’t remember. I got a lot of years back I thought were gone forever, but I never got anything from when I was a kid. I never remembered anything about my family. I can go back to teen years – after I left home. But I don’t know anything about before that. Don’t know where ‘home’ was, even.”

“How old were you when you left home? Do you know that?”

“Fourteen.” Looking at Oliver’s expression, he added, “Yeah, same as you. Only I had more choice in the matter.” Logan cocked his head to one side and thought about what he’d just said. “Least ways I think I did. I don’t really know. I always just assumed I ran away. Maybe they kicked me out, just like you.”

“Did you leave when you came into your powers? Could they have kicked you out for that?”

“Nah, that much I know. I can remember when I came into my powers and it was a couple of years after I left. So, if I got kicked out it had to have been for some other reason.” He turned to look at Oliver. “Why do you want to know? Are you thinking about your family?”

“Yeah, I guess. I hadn’t been until recently. I don’t think about them much at all anymore, really. I haven’t for years. Well, maybe a little bit when the other kids at school got letters from home, or talked about going home for Christmas or something like that. But mostly it was just like they were all dead to me.” He exhaled loudly. “And then I find out my father *is* dead and it’s like I’ve got to think about them again. If he had to up and kill himself, I wish he’d done it without anyone letting me know. I don’t want to think about them. I didn’t want to before; I sure don’t with this war going on. Maybe if he’d known he’d get his way – get rid of all the mutants – he would have decided to live.” He looked Logan straight in the eyes. “I hate him, you know. I’m glad he’s dead.” It came out in a defiant tone, as if he were challenging Logan to argue with him.

It wasn’t a statement Logan wanted to argue with. “Course you do,” he said. “I hate him, too. I hate them both for what they did to you.”

“I think it might have been more him than her. Don’t you think it’s possible? He was always the boss in that house. Maybe she just did what he said to.”

“Maybe, but that’s no better. She should’ve shown some spine, not just gone along with throwing away her own kid. I wouldn’t forgive her.”

“So you don’t think I should contact her?”

“I didn’t say that. Hey, it’s your business, but if it was me, I’d talk to her. See her, too, as soon as I could. As soon as this war’s over and you can travel again.”

“Why? To tell her off?”

“Maybe. She ought to hear what you think of her. But no, that’s not all. I figure there’s things you could find out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what was going on with him, why he killed himself. What’s been happening with them all this time. It’s five years. It’s a big chunk of your life – of what should’ve been your life. You ought to know what was going on.”

“I don’t care. Maybe it should have been my life, but it wasn’t. They did throw me away. I was fourteen years old and on my own. High school, track team, taking care of my little brothers and sisters – that stopped being my life. Being blind was my life. Sucking dick for a meal or a few bucks was my life. Trying to find somewhere warm to spend the night was my life. And then – by some miracle – Xavier’s and the X-Men and then college were my life. My parents haven’t been anything to me for five years. I don’t want to know anything about them.”

“Maybe you’ll want to know later, though. And maybe when you do it’ll be too late. I don’t know, Oliver. I’ve found out some really bad shit about my past, and I’m still glad I know it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: knowing’s better than not knowing. If I could know about my parents – no matter how fucked whatever I found out was – I’d find out.”

“I’m not like you. I don’t have years missing from my life.”

“Lucky you. I still think you might want to know this stuff some time. Find out what you can when you can, that’s what I say.” Neither of them said anything for a couple of minutes. Then Logan added, “Besides, there’s your brothers and sisters. None of this is their fault.”

Oliver sighed. “No, you’re right, it’s not.”

“What did they do when you got kicked out?”

“I don’t know. I never heard from any of them. Well, Jessie’s the oldest and she was only 12. So, she’s 17 now. Probably still at home. Carl was almost three – he couldn’t have understood what happened. I don’t think any of them could, really. I don’t understand it myself.”

“Me, neither. If I had my way, people like that wouldn’t be allowed to have kids.”

“I don’t even know if Jessie and them know what happened to me, if they know I’m a mutant. I bet my parents never told the other kids the truth. They didn’t want anyone to know about me; they’re not going to trust to the discretion of a bunch of kids. I bet they didn’t tell them anything. One day I was there and the next I’m gone and nothing said.”

“A hell of a way to grow up, no matter what they said or didn’t say.”

“I know. I mean, I think I had it rough, being on my own at fourteen. But not as rough as them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t grow up knowing that if you step out of line you could be made to disappear.”

“Scott? We’ve got it. We know what happened now.”

“What do you mean?”

“We know what made all those people sick, what caused the deaths they’re blaming on us.” Jean’s voice on the telephone sounded somehow both grim and triumphant at the same time. Scott reflected that solving this puzzle must feel like a major accomplishment, but that the solution couldn’t be a positive one for the mutant community. Any answer was coming too late, after too many deaths.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Yersinia pestis.”

“Bubonic plague?” he replied, incredulously.

“Very good, Scott. I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“Hey, we lived together a long time. I always paid attention when you talked medicine.”

“Yeah, just not when I talked laundry or bed making or cleaning the bathroom.” He laughed at that, but stopped when she resumed, turning serious now. “Actually, it’s not bubonic plague. It’s pneumonic.”

“What’s the difference? It’s the Black Death right? What wiped out a third of Europe in the Middle Ages.”

“Not exactly. Same bacterium, but the pneumonic form affects the lungs. So, you don’t see the buboes, the lesions that are characteristic of bubonic plague. It’s bubonic plague that was the Black Death. That’s why it was called that – the buboes all over the victim’s body turned black. Pneumonic is harder to diagnose because it has no characteristic lesions. It just seems like any other respiratory infection at first. And then people start dying.”

“How did all those people get it? Isn’t it from fleas or rats or something?”

“You’re thinking bubonic plague again. The really dangerous thing about pneumonic plague is it’s passed person to person, which bubonic is not. It gets into the lungs, gets into the air... The original outbreak was in Washington.”

“I remember.”

“So how did it start there? And start so rapidly, so many people getting sick at once? I think someone got hold of Yersinia pestis and aerosolized it.”

“Aerosolized it? So you think the initial outbreak was intentional, was an act of bioterrorism?

“It sure looks like it. It’s easy to see how it spread from that first outbreak. I’ve gotten data from the CDC.”

“How did you do that?”

“It was easy. There are epidemiologists there who want to help, who are as outraged by the War on Mutants as we are. They’re willing to violate the Secrecy Rules. I found out telepathically who was likely to help us, so I didn’t ask the wrong person.

“We’ve looked at the pattern of the outbreaks. The first outbreak was shortly after the meeting Rogue and Tabitha were at, as you know. Two days after the meeting someone on Senator Mullin’s staff – one of the staffers who was at that meeting - went to Atlanta. His wife said he wasn’t feeling well that day, that he didn’t want to fly with a cold, but he had a meeting he couldn’t miss. Two days later – it’s spreading there. I think the guy from the senator’s office was prodromal when he went to Atlanta. Similarly for the other cities with outbreaks. They all stem from that original outbreak. Fifteen people were all infected at once. Every one of them had been at the same meeting at the Mutant Rights League office. Every non-mutant there got sick. Many of them spread the disease before they knew they were sick. This can’t be an accident. It would be a different pattern if it were. You called it, Scott. We’re talking bioterrorism.”

“Why aren’t mutants getting it?” Scott asked.

“We keep asking ourselves that. Nobody knows. Not my furtive friends at the CDC, not me. I can’t say how or why, but it looks like we’re immune. It’s not just that Tabitha and Rogue and the other MRL members there didn’t get sick. There were mutants around in several of the sites of the later outbreaks and they didn’t get sick. And with all the cases we’ve had since then, not one mutant has gotten it. I even heard that they have tried unsuccessfully to infect mutants in the secret government prison.”

“The bastards!”

“Yeah, our lives obviously aren’t worth anything to them.”

“Like flies to wanton boys.”

“Right. They sure think they’re gods… Anyway they couldn’t successfully infect a mutant, not even with injecting blood from an infected individual. We have no idea why our people don’t get it, but it seems they just don’t.”

“Do you have any guesses?’

“I’ve always got guesses, hon. You know me. I wish to God Hank were here to bounce my ideas off of.”

“Hey, try me. I know I’m not a scientist...”

“Well, I think there must be something on the X gene that prevents us from getting sick with plague. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know if we’re truly immune or if we’re carriers. If we ever have time and facilities to do real research on this, maybe we’ll find out. But it’s not going to happen while this trumped up war is stopping us from doing real work.”

“Jean, is it possible that a mutant *did* start this? We’ve been saying it couldn’t be and I’ve believed it, but here it looks like it’s a disease mutants are immune to and someone intentionally started it. And started it in a setting where there were mutants. Why not a follower of Magneto? Someone who knew that it would only affect the homo sapiens in the room.”

“Two reasons. One, we’ve kept pretty good tabs on Magneto’s followers, haven’t we? We know who’s left of his gang and where they are. None of the gang members who remain at large were in Washington at the right time, I’m pretty sure of it. But more to the point – if it were a mutant plot, wouldn’t the plotters be careful not to call attention to mutants? Why start with senators and staff who visited the MRL offices? Why have them get sick right after that meeting? If some mutants were trying to start an epidemic among the rest of humanity, they’d do it as far away from our kind as possible. Point suspicion elsewhere.”

“Okay, that makes sense. But then who could it be? Someone who wasn’t trying to draw attention away from mutants, but that covers a lot of ground.”

“No, Scott, I think we can narrow it down more than that. It’s not someone who didn’t care if mutants get implicated. It’s someone who *wants* mutants implicated.”

“What do you mean, Jean?”

“Look, we’ll know better when we get Tabitha and Rogue out. We’ll find out more about who was around that day, what happened that could have been the release of the agent. We’ve got to get to them as soon as possible and solve this mystery. But I think I know, in general, what the solution is. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first outbreak happened right after the MRL meeting with the Senators and their staff. I think the person – or people – behind this did that on purpose. Just to start this war.”

Scott didn’t say anything while that sank in. When he finally spoke all he said was “Helter Skelter.”

“Exactly,” she replied.

“You remember about that?”

“Sure. I taught you about medicine. You taught me literature and True Crime. A weird hobby, you know. My mother warned me about boys like you.”

“Hey, it helped knowing that stuff with all the wacko criminals we’ve had to deal with, for all these years.”

“And it’s helping again now, to know about Charlie Manson’s murder spree and what he was trying to do. Because yeah, it looks like history is repeating itself. I don’t know who’s doing this, but it’s someone just as crazy, and just as hateful. Some twenty-first century Charlie Manson. Killing a few people and pinning the murder on someone else, in an attempt to start a race war. Only this time the races he’s trying to pit against each other are mutants and non-mutants.” She sighed deeply.

“There’s another big difference this time, Jean.”

“What’s that?”

“This time it worked.”

Change Begets Change (Unexpected Occurrences 5/12)

I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. Not a good sign, that. I opened my eyes and looked around. A bad move. The room was spinning. I closed my eyes again to make it stop and just lay there, trying to figure out my whereabouts. This wasn’t home, that much I was sure of.

Of course, home is a fuzzy concept when you’ve moved around as much as I have. I’ve lived in five countries in the past ten years, and never spent that much time in whatever was the current home, anyway. Not until I left journalism for the mutant equivalent of living in a Green Acres rerun, that is. There were years where I was traveling upwards of 100 nights a year, and that takes its toll.

I haven’t lived like that for a while, but still I often wake up a little bit disoriented, taking a few seconds to remember where I live now and if I’m not wherever that might be, what city I’m in this time. This morning it was taking too long, though. Something was wrong; I’m never this confused. The bedroom at the Outpost that I share with Jean-Paul and Ezra was coming back to me as the current referent for “home,” but the room I woke in sure wasn’t it. No crib, no bookshelves, no movie posters on the wall.

So, where was I, I wondered, and why did I hurt so much? Headache, muscle aches, assorted other pains that weren’t so easy to identify. I tried to focus my mind but it remained a blur. The dizziness was getting in the way. I couldn’t see clearly, either. Well, that at least was easy to fix. Put on your glasses, Adam. Only where were they? I felt around. There was a nightstand within reach of the bed, and I found my glasses there and put them on. Vision clearing even if my brain was still full of cotton, the room began to look familiar. Hotel room. San Francisco. The conference. It was coming back now.

I sat up, and immediately regretted it. My head felt like some guy with a hammer was inside there, trying to knock a hole in my skull so he could get out. Leaning back against the headboard, I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to will the headache away. The clock by the bed said 9:30. I realized I was missing the first conference session of the day. I tried and failed to care about that; there was no way I could pull myself together enough to get dressed and head down to the conference level. I couldn’t pull myself together enough to even remember what the session was about.

Okay, I’ve got to do something about this, I told myself. Get back on my feet, take something for the pain, figure out what happened to me. Gingerly, I swung my feet to the floor. I stood up ever so slowly, taking a couple of steps towards the bathroom. The dizziness and headache got worse, and I leaned against the hotel room wall to steady myself, but didn’t go back to bed. Slowly and carefully, feeling like some octogenarian who’d misplaced his walker, I inched along, one hand on the wall the whole time. I had to stop to lean against it a few times just to go the few yards to the bathroom door. After emptying my bladder, I managed to splash water on my face and to swallow a couple of pills. “You look like shit, Greenfield,” I said aloud to the face in the mirror. “What were you up to last night?”

Drinking. That much I knew, although for the life of me I couldn’t remember a thing. I’ve been playing novelist and Mr. Mom in Saskatchewan and it’s a long time since I’ve gotten drunk, but you can’t be a reporter without knowing what a hangover feels like. And this one was the mother of all hangovers. The throbbing in my head and the memory lapse were evidence that I had been drinking a whole hell of a lot last night. I hadn’t had a blackout like this for years.

A lot of years. This was feeling uncomfortably reminiscent of times when I was young and dumb and in the throes of coming out. Times I drank too much to build up the courage to suck some guy’s cock and then drank more to forget that I’d done it, to forget how much I liked that. How much I needed it.

Okay, forget that. This is no time to relive my confused adolescence, I admonished myself. Get with the program. I concentrated, trying to remember what had happened the day before. Start at the beginning, Adam. What happened yesterday morning? I can do that. I woke up here, in the same exact bed, yesterday, having arrived the night before. I could remember that part. Then what? The conference, yes. And after? Dinner with a bunch of guys I’d met at the panel discussion I’d been on, the one on ethics of undercover journalism. Okay, I remember that, too. The panel felt good – people wanted to hear what I had to say. It felt good to have something to say, too, something that wasn’t about diapers or bottles or Jolly Jumpers.

Dinner had been fun, as well. Good food, lots of wine, good conversation. Very California. The restaurant was crowded; lots of places around here were crowded, I’d been happy to see. The unknown illness that precipitated the war had stayed on the East Coast. People here weren’t afraid to go out in public, weren’t afraid they’d succumb to some mysterious mutant-borne malady.

I’d been feeling great, glad to be there, enjoying the pleasant buzz of reporters swapping stories. I was in a country at war, but I could almost forget that for a while. Well, not forget it – it was the subject of much of the discussion. But I was sitting among people against the war, against the government secrecy associated with it, and against discrimination against mutants. The conversation was stimulating and relaxing at the same time. And reassuring – making me feel like the whole country hadn’t gone mad, like some people could still tell that it’s the government that had, that this War on Mutants was madness. Some of the people I met seemed like good contacts for the resistance. All were interesting and fun to hang out with.

We sat there a long time, drinking wine and comparing notes. That much I remembered. And then – nothing. My head hurt when I even tried to recall what happened after dinner. And it wasn’t just my head. There were a lot of other kinds of pain that told me I hadn’t just been drinking. The kind of pain that made me not so sure I *wanted* to remember the rest.

Carefully heading back for the bed, I pulled the covers back and sat down. I looked at the sheets for the first time, now that my vision was clear. Dark spots on the sheet. Blood stains? Yeah, definitely blood. I looked at my hands. Could I have cut myself? Maybe broken a glass or something? In the restaurant or back at the hotel? I couldn’t remember. There weren’t any cuts that I could see, but there were weird marks on my wrists. Red lines. Ligature? No, couldn’t be.

I looked at the bed sheets again. Not just blood stains, but marks elsewhere on the sheet. Streaks of something else. Something kind of greasy. Lube? Yeah, lube – open tube on the floor next to the bed. Okay, big night. Just my luck. First big night in a long time and I can’t even remember it. Oh, well.

All is clear, at least. The non-headache soreness explained, now. Yeah, that familiar ache after a particular kind of really good time. And okay, so maybe they are ligature marks on my wrists. What the hell, life’s different with a baby. No crime if we go a bit wild the first night away from Ezra. I hope I had fun, I thought, now wishing even more that I could remember. I found myself wondering where we went after dinner, whether I said or did anything stupid in front of my new acquaintances. Oh, well. No point worrying about it; I’ll know soon enough. Jean-Paul never gets drunk. He’ll tell me what we did, how much of a fool I made of myself. Maybe he’ll tell me how good a time I had when we got back here, too.

Only where was Jean-Paul? I looked around stupidly, as if I’d somehow missed seeing him in the bed or in the bathroom. Oh no. He didn’t come with me, I remembered suddenly. He’d changed his mind at the last minute. We’d had that fight. Jean-Paul had stayed at the Outpost. Oh, this was not looking good.

The phone rang. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but my head couldn’t take hearing that ringing sound again, so I answered.

No greeting. “Are you okay?” the voice said.

“Who is this?” I answered. “And don’t talk so loud, whoever you are.”

“It’s Jake. I just called to say that I’m sorry things got kind of out of hand last night. I’m not usually so... insistent. I think I’d better lay off that stuff.”

“Okay, you do that,” I said, without a clue as to who he was or what he was talking about. I hung up.

A few minutes later I wished I hadn’t cut him off so abruptly. I wasn’t getting any further with remembering. Maybe that voice on the phone could help me figure out what happened last night. He seemed to know something. Why had I hung up on him? That had been incredibly stupid of me. I had been feeling like I couldn’t stand to hear anyone talking, not before these pills kicked in, anyway. But now I thought I should have just held on until *something* made sense. Jake, he’d said. Jake. Jake who? And then I remembered – Jake from the conference. Jake at dinner. Jake in the bar...

Jake in my hotel room? Oh shit. No. I didn’t. I looked again at the stained sheets, the marks on my wrists, the open tube of lube on the floor. Yes, I did.

And now that I knew what must have happened, some of it was starting to come back. Not all of it, not in order, but yes I’d had sex with that man. No point denying it to myself any more. Remembrance of things past was rushing in without being summoned. Jake had been the admiring junior colleague through the evening, but something else entirely when we got into the hotel room. I’d been all set to tell him about Jean-Paul and Ezra, ready to have a nice congenial chat, far away from the hubbub of the bar. Jake had had other ideas. Pushing me to my knees as soon as he closed the door, telling me to suck him.

I closed my eyes and I found I not only remembered – I could feel it all over again. The novel feeling of having a cock in my mouth that wasn’t Jean-Paul’s. Longer, not as thick. Cut. That hard shaft moving in my mouth as I sucked, Jake’s hands on the back of my head, his hips pushing rhythmically, fucking my face. I’d felt guilty, but excited, too. And somehow glad Jake was taking control, making this sort of not my fault, not my doing. Just something that was done to me.

And oh what he’d done to me. I lay face down, put my hands over my head, trying to remember. It helped focus my physical memory, brought a moment back from last night – feelings, sights and sounds. My wrists bound together, over my head like this. Jake’s body on top of mine, Jake’s hand on my head, pulling my hair. Jake’s voice. “You need a good fuck, Greenfield. I could tell the first time I saw you. And I figured I’d be the guy to give it to you. I wanted you just like this, right from the start.” I remembered Jake behind me, on top of me, pushing his cock in hard. Fast and rough. Part of my brain thinking “too rough, this isn’t good for me, I shouldn’t be doing this” but it sure felt good. No pain.

How come? I could remember it well now, feel him pounding into me all over again. Biting me on the shoulder and back. Oh, and slapping my ass on the out strokes, too. Yet none of it hurting. Why?

What had he said on the phone? “I think I’d better lay off that stuff.” What stuff? Oh God. Jake’s hand in my mouth, feeding me something before he fucked me. His body on top of me, my hands bound, and me just doing what he said, swallowing what he gave me. “You have some, too,” he was saying. “It’ll make it feel better. I can fuck you harder. It’s good. Trust me.”

Shit. Crystal.

I’m no virgin. I’ve been out for more than ten years. I know all about drugs and sex. But I've always made sure the knowledge was purely theoretical.

I’m not a guy who likes to take risks. I know what people do when they take that stuff. Nothing hurts and you want it all. You don’t worry about what you’re up to. Safer sex requires a good healthy dose of inhibition. I’ve always had plenty of inhibition, and I’ve always avoided mixing drugs and sex for just that reason.

Fucking crystal. The blood on the bed was scaring me something awful now. Did he use a condom? Oh let me remember we used condoms! At least when he was fucking me so hard. Not bareback. Don’t let him have done it to me bareback, please God.

I didn’t know, couldn’t remember. If I’d put one on him, I thought I’d remember that. But maybe he’d taken care of it himself. I looked around for a discarded one, or even the wrapper – in the bed, in the garbage, on the floor.

As I cast around in vain for evidence that we’d at least played safe, I noticed for the first time that the voicemail light on the phone was blinking. Two messages. The first was Jean-Paul, his voice full of love, filling me with guilt and remorse.

“Not there, mon amour? I hope the first day was good and that you’re out somewhere having fun. It’s a great city, San Francisco, n’est-ce pas? I’m sorry I’m not with you, Adam, and sorrier we parted badly. Maybe I made a mistake. I don’t know. I do know I’d rather be with you than anywhere. It’s been like that for me from the start. And I also know I hate being on bad terms with you, mon coeur. Call me later tonight. I’ll tell you what I’d be doing with you if I were there, hein?”

I wanted to call him back right away, tell him I’m sorry we fought, tell him I love him more than life. Only I didn’t know what to say about last night. While trying to figure that one out, I listened to the second message. It made the what-to-say part irrelevant. Jean-Paul again. “Adam? I have to leave. Mac called. I can’t give details here, of course, but it’s important I go. I might not be able to call for a few days. Wendy and Arthur will take care of Ezra until you get home. I’ll be back with you as soon as I can. Je t’aime.”

A Moving Target (Unexpected Occurrences 6/12)

“Heather? It’s Wendy.”

“Hi. Have you heard anything?”

“No, I was hoping you had.”

“I’d call you if we got any news.”

“I know. I know. We’re just going a little crazy here.”

“I understand. We’re very worried, too. They may be fine, but it scares me that they haven’t checked in.”

“And nothing on the news either, right?”

“No, but I tend to think that’s a good thing. If there had been an escape from their ‘impenetrable’ mutant prison, I don’t think the U.S. government would be advertising that fact. They’ve been assuring the American public that they can contain mutants, regardless of their powers. And this administration has no compunctions about withholding information, or even outright lying. We’ve seen that a lot lately.

“So, I think it’s not a bad sign – and maybe a good one – that there’s nothing on the news. If the mission were a failure – if they were captured – we’d be seeing that on all the front pages, I bet. I’m hoping that no news means at the very least that they’re still out there, trying to get to Tabitha and Rogue.”

“Or at best, that they’ve got them. But either way, why aren’t they checking in?”

“Our secure transmissions were breached; that much we know. That’s why we can’t contact them. Jean-Paul and Walter would have gotten the same warning signal we did, so they knew not to contact us that way. We had lots of alternate communications methods lined up, though, in case this happened. We’ve checked all the channels, looked for messages in all of our backup methods and nothing. But I don’t know. They may feel it’s not worth the risk, once we know the secure channel isn’t secure anymore. They may have decided it’s better to just contact us when it’s over.”

“If Jean-Paul gets out of this alive, I swear I’ll kill him. Not worth the risk? I’m crazed with worry. Plus I have to act like I’m not, so Adam doesn’t spiral out of control.”

“He’s back from San Francisco?”

“Yeah, he got back day before yesterday. I’m glad he’s here, so we can at least talk face-to-face. He’d been calling here all the time for updates, and I didn’t have any. I assured him we’d hear soon, but then a day went by. And another. And another.”

“He must be climbing the walls.”

“Oh he is. And he wasn’t starting off in a good frame of mind, even before he got the news.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, exactly – I’ve tried to get him to talk, but he won’t say a thing. It was clear something was bugging him even before he heard we’d lost contact with Jean-Paul, but I don’t know what. Something must have happened at the conference. When he called here right after Jean-Paul left he wouldn’t tell me anything about the conference or his trip. And he seemed barely to listen to what I said. Even when I talked about Ezra, and you know how he is about the baby.”

“Wow! Well, maybe he was too worried because we hadn’t heard from Jean-Paul to think about anything else, even Ezra.”

“No, this was before we thought anything was wrong, right after Jean-Paul and Walter left for DC. I told Adam they’d be calling in soon. Well, I thought they would! I said I’d have Jean-Paul call him at the hotel as soon as he checked in. At that point we didn’t think there was anything to worry about. But Adam was all agitated already. There was something he wanted to tell Jean-Paul. Something he wouldn’t tell me.”

“I wonder if he found something out there, something about the War on Mutants we don’t know.”

“I don’t think so. Adam would tell me if he found anything out like that. And you guys and Charles, too. He knows we’re all in this together. Adam believes in teamwork. No, this has to be something more personal. Something that had him upset, even before he knew about the rescue mission... So Charles hasn’t made any progress on finding them?”

“Not yet. I spoke to Charles a couple of hours ago. It was overambitious to think he could get it working so quickly, I think. He’s still at our cabin. Scott and Logan, too. I think it’s going to be at least a couple more days. Reconstructing Cerebro is a big job. The original was completely destroyed. I sure wish Charles hadn’t blown it up when the school was evacuated.”

“He certainly didn’t want any government types having a mutant tracking device.”

“Still, I don’t think it was necessary to destroy it. It takes a strong telepath to use it.”

“I know, but who says they couldn’t brainwash or threaten someone to do it for them? We have no idea what they’re doing to mutants they capture.”

“Yes, that was Charles’s argument, too. He’s got the original plans. He brought them with him when they evacuated. I wish Walter were here to help – he’s great with electronics. Maybe we should have sent someone else with Jean-Paul and kept him here.”

“Logan must be a big help. He can fix anything, I swear.”

“Yeah, that’s what Charles says, too.”

“But it’s not done.”

“No. They’ve got the basic structure built, but they’re nowhere near finished with it.”

“Too bad Magneto isn’t around to help. He built the first one with Charles.”

“Yeah, well we’ll have to make do with the team we’ve got now. Scott and Logan will suffice. At least neither of them is trying to take over the world.”

“I was as happy as anybody, Heather, when Magneto was captured. Now, I’m not so sure. The world could use some taking over.”

“I know what you mean. I’ll call you if we hear anything, I promise.”

“Okay. Same here.”

“Hello.”

“C’est moi. Don’t say my name, mon amour.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Or anyone else’s. No locations. No identifying details. I don’t know that this line is secure.”

“Where are you?”

“I can’t say plainly. Let me think of a way to explain... Do you know where I went while you were gone?”

“Yes! I’ve been worried sick. I heard about the umm the thing you were doing when I got back. Uh, the people here, they told me about it – where you were and why. We thought you’d be back three days ago. I’ve been crazy with worry.”

“I’m sorry to have worried you. You probably wish I had gone with you on your trip and stayed out of trouble. I wish that a little myself. It was... not completely successful. There were problems. And casualties. On both sides.”

“Are you okay?”

“Oui. One of my team didn’t make it, though. The one who was mon ami.”

“Wal- I’m sorry. Oh, no! I am so sorry, love.”

“Moi aussi. It doesn’t seem real yet. I was right there. I saw it happen; I tried to save him. You have to believe me; I did everything I could. His blood is all over me still. But it doesn’t seem possible. I can’t believe he’s really gone.”

“Oh, love. I know. You’re okay, though? Really? You’re not injured?”

“Not too badly. I’ll survive. I need help, though. Pour moi and for... for the one who is with me.”

“Only one?”

“Yes. We tried, but we couldn’t get them both out. The other one... Mon pauvre ami died trying to save the other one.”

“Where are you? Can you tell me anything? Some way?”

“Yes, let me think. I am chez la bête. Comprends?”

“Yes! How did you get in there?”

“I had the key. My team leader gave it to me before we left for this... job, just in case we needed somewhere to go. I think it’s still secure here, but I can’t be sure. I wanted you to know where I am.”

“Can I come to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not yet. I can’t tell if it’s safe to.”

“I don’t want to compromise you.”

“I know.”

“What can I do? What do you need?”

“Medical assistance. That’s most urgent.”

“Oh! How badly hurt are you?”

“I’m not that bad. It’s the one who’s with me. Lots of blood loss, bad injuries. She’s okay. I’ve got it under control for now, as well as any first responder could. But first aid isn’t the same as real treatment. We need a doctor. Is the Professor there? Can he send someone?”

“He’s not here now, but I know where he is. I can reach him right away. He’ll talk to... the redheaded doctor. She’s in the same city as you, I think. They can speak in that special way they have.”

“Bien. Tell them we need help fast.”

“I will. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Send the doctor. Now. Je t’aime, mon coeur.”

“I love you, too.”

“Charles? Adam Greenfield here.”

“Adam. Is something wrong?”

“Yes. I just heard from Jean-Paul. He needs help, medical assistance. Jean is still in DC?”

“Yes, I’m in telepathic contact with her right now. Tell me where he is and she’ll go there.”

“Hank’s old apartment. Jean-Paul has one of them with him – I don’t know whether Rogue or Tabitha. He was being careful and not using names. He’s unsure the line is secure. Jean should be careful going there, too.”

“I’m letting her hear everything you’re saying. She wants to know – what kind of injuries do they have?”

“I don’t know. I should have asked more. He just said that there was a lot of blood and they’re both injured. Tabitha – or Rogue – is injured worse than he is. He said it’s under control for now but he needs a doctor there.”

“What about Walter?”

“He died! I don’t know what happened, just that he died in the rescue attempt.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. Do they know at Alpha Flight?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask that, either.”

“Adam, Jean is on her way. She wasn’t far from there. She’ll be with Jean-Paul in a few minutes. She’ll let me know as soon as she knows what’s going on and I’ll contact you.”

“Thank you so much! What can I do to help?”

“Inform the others. Tell Wendy and Arthur everything you know, and also call Alpha Flight headquarters. Are you still going to Washington yourself?”

“I want to. More than ever now. Anjuli is expecting me tomorrow. Is there any reason I shouldn’t go?”

“I don’t think so. You have good documentation, don’t you? And you’ve been to the States recently without incident?”

“Yes, I was at a journalism convention last week in San Francisco. I really will be working in DC. I’ve got press credentials, an assignment. I’m not a mutant, so there’s nothing on my passport to alert the border guards. There’s no reason it should be a risk for me to go there.”

“In times like this, most everything is risky. Still, I think you should go. We can use you there. And we’ll arrange for you to see Jean-Paul.”

“Thanks. Okay, I’m going to get off the phone now and compose myself for a minute. I’ve got to pull myself together enough to tell Alpha Flight about Walter... Charles, call me as soon as you know how Jean-Paul is. Okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

“Charles?”

“Hello, Mac. Adam reached you earlier?”

“Yes. Terrible news.”

“I’m very sorry. He was a good man. How is your team taking it?”

“Everyone’s in shock. Me, most of all. Heather’s watching me like she’s afraid I’ll fall apart entirely… I worked with him for years, you know.”

“I know. It’s awful. I remember how I felt when we lost Hank. And at least then there wasn’t a War on Mutants going on and we could mourn properly.”

“Yes. We can’t even retrieve his body. At least I can’t think of a way to. Can you?”

“No. And I think we’d better concentrate on trying to retrieve the living.”

“No word on where they’ve moved Tabitha to?”

“Not yet. Adam is going to do some investigating while he’s down there. And we’re hoping we’ll be able to find out a lot more about the detainees from Rogue, when she’s well enough.”

“How is she?”

“Jean says she’ll be okay. Jean-Paul did a good job. She says she’s going to talk him into medical school when this is all over.”

“She’ll have to talk him into university first… It must be tricky to treat Rogue, since she can’t be touched.”

“Jean’s been her doctor for years now, she knows what to do. Besides, medical providers are accustomed to working with gloves on. It’s more surprising to me that Jean-Paul managed – managed to get her to Hank’s place with her injuries and without being followed and managed to keep her alive until Jean got there. All that without ever being able to touch her. He’s quite something, your Northstar.

“Don’t I know it. No poaching, eh?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Do we know much about how Walter died? My team is asking.”

“I haven’t heard the whole story yet, but I’m sure Jean-Paul will give you all the details when you see him. Jean’s bringing him and Rogue to an out-of-the-way spot we know in Virginia, as soon as they’re well enough to be transported. We’ve used this place before as a makeshift landing field. Scott will meet them there with the Blackbird. We need to airlift them out as soon as possible. I don’t want either of them in that country one minute more than is necessary.”

“That seems wise. How badly was Jean-Paul injured?”

“A bullet wound at least. I’m not sure of everything. I know Rogue was more extensively injured. But Jean says she thinks they can both be transported in another day or two. They’re still in Hank’s old apartment. It seems like it’s still secure. We’ve got a non-mutant tenant as cover. No one in the building seems to have caught on.”

“That’s good. About Walter – Jean-Paul and Rogue were with him when he died?”

“Jean-Paul was. I don’t think Rogue was. They were trying to get Tabitha out when they got attacked. I think Rogue was held elsewhere and Jean-Paul managed to get to her when he escaped after Walter was killed. I know he was with Walter when he died. Adam told me Jean-Paul said he still had Walter’s blood all over him when he called.”

“I was afraid of that. Charles, there’s something about Walter I think you ought to know. Something Jean-Paul doesn’t know.”

Plus Ça Change (Unexpected Occurrences 7/12)

If I didn’t know better, I’d say Adam already knew. He couldn’t, but it appeared that he did. He was acting wary with me, like there was something on his mind but he didn’t know what to say. Might Anjuli have let it slip? She’d promised she wouldn’t tell him, that she’d let me say it in my own time. But the two of them had been all alone here, with the babies, for the last few days. I know they’d talked a lot, spent a lot of time together. I know Adam had told her about what he was finding out on his mission and bounced ideas off of her, trusting her with confidential information he’d uncovered. Maybe Anjuli had found it hard to keep information from Adam, information that she believed he should have.

I knew he had to have that information, too. I wasn’t avoiding telling him, vraiment. It just wasn’t something I felt I could say on the phone. And there was no reason that he needed to know before I got back here. There was nothing he could do to help me, and nothing he needed to do differently while we were separated. Nothing different needed from him until we had sex.

Bien sur, I wasn’t going to spring it on him then. That would be some way to tell him, just take out a condom at a crucial moment and say, “By the way, mon ami, we’re going to be using these again. For a while, at least.” No, I wouldn’t do it like that. I wanted to talk to him, to explain what happened and to pass on the reassurance I’d gotten from everyone I’d spoken to that I’d most likely be fine. It was only one exposure, after all, and I was being treated both conventionally and with Anjuli’s experimental Healing Factor Concentrate. Adam would be worried for me, of course. I’m worried for myself. But I’m not so very worried and I think once I told him why, he’d understand.

In fact, other parts of this are more troublesome to me than concerns about my own health. Why didn’t Walter tell me? I couldn’t get over my puzzlement at that, or my anger. Talking to Mac and Heather at length hadn’t helped reconcile me to his decision. He was my best friend – I would have told him anything. I wanted to scream at him, tell him that I expected better of him, better of our friendship. I wanted to ask Walter if he didn’t trust me enough to tell me this. After all we’d shared, in Alpha Flight and through Joanne’s illness and death. Of course, his having died made yelling at him impossible, and that was adding to my anger and frustration. Tabernac, Walter! Couldn’t you have stayed alive long enough to hear how mad I am at you? To hear how much I’ll miss you, how much I loved you?

It was all a jumble and I couldn’t get my thoughts or my feelings straight. Heather and Mac tried to be supportive, but it’s Adam who knows me best and I know it’s Adam alone who can really comprehend how I feel about all this. I wanted his love and understanding. I knew I had to give him the difficult news to get that.

So, I’d wanted to tell him as soon as I could, but tonight at Anjuli’s was the first chance we’d had to see each other. And much of the evening was spent playing with our son, and exclaiming over the growth and changes in him even in this short time. Now that we were alone in our bedroom, with Ezra finally asleep, this was the first time we could speak freely and privately.

We hadn’t expected to be separated that long, but things hadn’t worked out as planned. C’est la guerre. Adam had been in Saskatchewan while I was in Washington. And then I’d gone back to Huntsville with Rogue before he’d come here. I’d hoped to get back to Washington by the time Adam arrived, but between the PEP and the counseling they insisted I have, not to mention the post-mortem on the mission and working on the plans for how to go back and spring Tabitha... well, it all took longer than I’d wanted or anticipated.

Adam and I had spoken every day. Although the last time we’d actually seen each other we’d been fighting, I didn’t feel like we were in the middle of a fight when I saw him today. That had been over a long time ago. All anger had disappeared – for both of us – with the mission and with Walter’s death. Plus, we had talked through how it had been for both of us when I didn’t go to San Francisco with him. I’d apologized for deciding at the last minute like that and disappointing him. He’d apologized for not being more understanding about why I felt I couldn’t go.

He’d also told me more about how much he’d looked forward to the time alone together in San Francisco, and I realized I hadn’t understood half of what he’d been going through these past few months. I hadn’t appreciated enough how hard he was finding life in Saskatchewan, how difficult it was for him to adjust to giving up his career, to parenthood, even to being surrounded by mutants. “I feel like everyone has gifts but me, like I’m some sort of inferior being,” he’d sobbed on the phone.

I’d had no idea. He’s so brilliant, so talented, that I’d always felt a bit in awe of him when we were first together. “He’s a smart one,” Walter had said the first time they’d met, shaking his head. “You’re going to have a hard time keeping up with him, Jean-Paul.” I’d often felt Walter was right. It wasn’t the education, although I do know I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about my lack of one. It was just the force of his intellect – what he knew, how perceptive and insightful he was, how he could make connections that others didn’t see, the way he could write about just anything and really make the reader understand. He was so truly gifted that it would never occur to me he’d feel inferior to anyone.

Mon dieu! I wished I’d realized at the time. I did know he was having trouble getting very far on his novel, but I thought with everything else he had to do that was to be expected. I hadn’t realized his self-confidence was suffering. Work was the one area where he’d always felt competent and appreciated and he was missing that now. If I had realized how bruised his ego was and how much he was hoping for the San Francisco trip to help with that, I would have gone in spite of my reservations. I had told him so on the phone and he had cried and thanked me and apologized again for pushing me to go.

Adam hadn’t said much about the conference itself. I had tried asking him about it, showing I was interested and didn’t hold it against him that he went, but he kind of glossed over it. I hope our problems didn’t stop him from enjoying his time there. He does seem to be doing much better now, so I think it helped him, in spite of our fight. Things have been much better for him since he left Saskatchewan, I believe. Adam and Ezra had settled in well with Anjuli and little Hank. He sounded excited about his freelance work, and his clandestine assignment from Charles that it was partly a front for.

Adam was working on a story on the initial spread and current containment of the epidemic that had led to the War on Mutants. He had a leg up on other reporters working the same beat. The government wasn’t saying, but Adam knew the nature of the epidemic. When he was told what Jean had found out, he thoroughly researched plague, so he could ask knowledgeable questions about the spread and subsequent containment of the disease. As my Adam always says, it’s easier to get people to tell you the whole truth if you already knew part of it. Hospitals had suddenly been subject to new Secrecy Rules issued by Homeland Security and medical providers had to take loyalty oaths and pledge not to reveal any information without government approval. But most were uncomfortable with keeping vital information to themselves and Adam was able to tap into that discomfort by asking pointed questions, from a position of knowledge. Of course given the Secrecy Rules, there was still a question of whether or not he’d manage to get the story into print. Still, newspapers had violated such government edicts before and survived. He had hopes that his story would be big enough and crucial enough that the news editor at the Herald – his old paper - would be willing to take that chance.

Adam was even more excited about the undercover purpose Charles had told him to put his work to – trying to find out the source of the original aerosolized bacteria. We needed to know who had started this war, who had framed the mutant sub-species. As hopeful as I was that we could free Tabitha from the mutant prison, I knew – we all knew – that there was no way we could free everyone who was locked up there. And no way that mutants could resettle in the United States and live in peace and freedom. Not unless it could be proven that the epidemic wasn’t due to mutant bioterrorism. The only way to prove it was to find out the real culprit. Adam had told me on the phone that he had a good lead, was close to what he hoped would be a breakthrough. If he could find out who was behind the original act of bio-terrorism, and if the news could be publicized, perhaps the United States would end the War on Mutants.

Even then, I had my doubts whether the anti-mutant measures would be completely reversed. And if they were, would any of our kind ever feel safe again in that country? I doubted I would. I couldn’t see ever moving there and hoped Adam wouldn’t want to move back. I want our son to be raised in Canada and I’m glad that we’ve made our home there so far. I hope Adam agrees. I’m certainly willing to move somewhere more cosmopolitan than rural Saskatchewan. Well, we don’t have to consider that right now. But I did need to tell him now that I’d been exposed to HIV, and I was having trouble getting started.

It wasn’t helping that he seemed uncomfortable with me, wary of speaking about anything serious. For a while he just kept talking about mundane things, telling me about minor events that had happened during our separation. And they were almost all things he’d already told me on the phone. That’s very unlike Adam. Plus, he wouldn’t make eye contact, kept looking away from me or even turning his back to me. I had left my suitcase by the bedroom door and he went and picked it up, and started emptying my clothes into dresser drawers, his back to me, as I lay on the bed.

“Don’t do that,” I told him. “I’ll put that stuff away later. Since when do you put my clothes away?”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “I saved these drawers for you – might as well fill them up.”

And then he opened the small zipper pocket of my suitcase just as I remembered what was in there. “Don’t, Adam!” I said, but it was too late. He turned and faced me now. He was holding a bottle of prescription medicine in one hand and a box of condoms in the other, looking at me with an expression that seemed equal parts surprise and dismay.

“Jean-Paul!” he exclaimed, and he sputtered a bit, clearly not knowing what to say. “Are you... Do we need to... Did you...?

“Oh, Adam! Mon amour, don’t think that. I would never betray you. I haven’t touched another man, not since we started. I will not. It is for HIV, that’s true. I’ve wanted to tell you – I was trying to.

“I have been exposed, yes, but not through sex. I think I’ll be okay. The medicine – it will prevent infection, I believe. It was only one exposure. Probably nothing would have happened anyway, but I’m taking it to make sure, hein? And you and I must play safe for a while. I’m sorry.”

And I told him all about Walter. His infection, me not knowing about it and my anger around that. My wounds, his blood getting into them. Missing him, mad at him, confused – all my mixed up feelings. And about the post exposure prophylaxis – PEP. Adam had never heard of it, so I told him about that, too.

“Like a morning after pill for AIDS?” he asked incredulously.

“I suppose so. I never thought of it that way. Well, more than one pill – a course of treatment. But one cannot get a prescription like this for sexual exposures. See, proof that I didn’t cheat on you!” I said the last part jokingly but he winced at it, and I realized right away it was the wrong thing to say. “I’m sorry, Adam. I didn’t mean to suggest you doubted my word, or my faithfulness. Most often the drugs are prescribed for medical personnel who are exposed – needle sticks and so forth. I was eligible because it’s an occupational exposure, too.”

“You should talk to Anjuli,” he said, suddenly sounding excited. “Her Healing Factor Concentrate has passed all the tests so far. Maybe it could be an additional form of PEP?”

I told him that I’d already arranged to have injections of Anjuli’s HFC, that I too thought it would make me even less likely to contract the disease we dreaded.

“Anjuli already knows about this?” he asked, “and I didn’t?”

“Oh Adam,” I said, dismayed at his wounded expression. “Please don’t be angry at me, mon cher. I just felt I needed to wait and tell you face to face. I didn’t want to give you this news on the phone. Believe me, I wasn’t trying to deceive you. You and I don’t keep things from each other. It’s something I’ve always counted on from you – honesty. You can count on that from me, too. Vraiment.”

Changing Times (Unexpected Occurrences 8/12)

“Anjuli? Hi, it’s Wendy Ringsmith. Sorry to be calling so late.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s so busy around here lately. I can’t get around to phone calls until after the last meeting of the day. And of course it’s later there. I didn’t wake you?”

“No, really. It’s fine. I’m a night owl. Always have been.”

“And having a baby didn’t change that? I used to be a late night type, but when April was born I found sleep was truly ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ you know?”

“I guess it’s taken me the opposite way. If anything, I’m more prone to staying up late now. When Hank’s asleep is the only time I really have to myself. To work, to read… Anyway, are you looking for Jean-Paul? Or Adam? I think they might be asleep already. They put Ezra down hours ago, and they haven’t emerged from the bedroom since.”

“Oh, knowing those two I kind of doubt they’re sleeping, particularly after not seeing each other for a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t want you to interrupt their ‘sleep’. And I wasn’t calling them, anyway. I wanted to talk to you.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m thinking of sending you a couple more houseguests. Could you handle that?”

“I suppose. If they can share a room. My third bedroom has twin beds. Is that okay? Who is it?”

“It’s fine. Have you met Oliver Roberts? He’s a Xavier alumnus.”

“Yes, I remember him. X-ray vision, right?”

“Yeah, that’s Oliver.”

“I met him at Hank’s memorial service. I remember talking to him about his name – that people must always think he’s Robert Oliver... Why is he coming to D.C.? And who else is coming?”

“Oliver’s family lives in Chevy Chase. Logan’s planning on coming along with him.”

“I’m always thrilled to see Logan.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“He risked his life to save mine on 4/16. I’ve felt a special bond with him ever since. I’m not sure it’s reciprocated, though... He always seems so standoffish with me.”

“Oh, that’s just Logan. It takes him a long time to warm up to people. And he’s just not expressive, you know? Oh, and if you’ve been thanking him for saving your life, stop that right now. He doesn’t like to hear that kind of thing.”

“Oh, I kind of have been telling him how grateful I am every time I see him.”

“I thought you might have been. It’s a bad idea, Anjuli, really. And not just because it embarrasses him... Look, I don’t know whether it’s a good idea to talk about this, but I think Logan’s always felt like he did something wrong on 4/16.”

“What do you mean?”

“He feels guilty that he didn’t get Hank out of there, too.”

“But that would have been impossible! Hank was right by the door. Right where the bomb went off. I still can’t quite fathom how he got me out alive – there’s no way he could have saved Hank, too.”

“I know, I know. But sometimes he has trouble recognizing he’s got limits, you know? So, it’s sort of a sore spot with him. I say, don’t mention 4/16 and you’ll get along a lot better with Logan... Am I being too much of a busybody?”

“No, I think just the right amount. Particularly if I’m going to be sharing living quarters with him for a while. How long will Logan and Oliver be here, do you think?”

“I’m not sure. Just a few days, I expect. They’ll be showing up Wednesday, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. Are they coming together? Oliver’s with you, right? And Logan’s in Huntsville with Mac, working on Cerebro?”

“No, he’s back here. They got Cerebro working a couple of days ago. Scott stayed there to work with Alpha Flight on the mission to get Tabitha out, but Logan returned to the Outpost. So, he and Oliver will be coming together from here – flying from Regina. I’ll call tomorrow with the flight info – not sure where it is. But you don’t have to pick them up or anything. They’ll just find their way to your place.”

“Okay, just let me know when so I can make sure to be here or leave them a key... But wait a minute – how are they going to get through Immigration?”

“Fake ID. How else?”

“Look, I assume you all know what you’re doing. And you’re welcome to put anyone up here, Wendy. I’ll do anything I can to help you. Still, not to belabor the obvious - there is a war going on. Is this really the time for Oliver to visit the folks at home?”

“Oh well, it’s a kind of a long story. Do you want the capsule version?”

“I’m a night owl, remember? Give me the whole thing.”

“Well, Oliver was a throwaway kid – there are a bunch of them at Xavier’s. He came into his powers at fourteen and his parents kicked him out. He was on his own for a few months before Charles found him and took him in. He hasn’t heard anything from his family in over five years.”

“I find it so hard to even imagine that that happens! How can people do that to their own kids? I don’t think I ever understood it, but since becoming a mother...well, it’s totally beyond my comprehension.”

“I know what you mean. And particularly when the mutation is disabling when it first manifests. Oliver couldn’t see at all when he first came into his powers. So they kicked out their newly blind child and left him to fend for himself. As a parent, I’m flabbergasted by that. But as a mutant...well, it’s a story I’ve heard often enough that I’m just not surprised anymore. Mostly I feel lucky that I had parents who didn’t do it to me. Hell, I bet it’s happening more than ever now that there’s a whole war against our kind going on.”

“Well, that’s a bunch of crazy politicians. It’s not how I think of real people acting, real people with real kids. I’d expect parents to be protecting their mutant kids from detention, not kicking them out when they come into their powers.”

“I think a lot of them are. We’ve got several families with us who left the States to protect a mutant son or daughter. But there are plenty of the other kind, too. And Oliver’s parents were among them.”

“So why would he be coming to see his parents now? And why is Logan coming with him?”

“It’s just his mother, and his brothers and sisters. Oliver’s father died recently, and his mother has been trying to get in touch with him since. She started trying to reach him before the war began and she didn’t let up when it started. She tried to contact Oliver through Charles in a variety of ways – calling the Xavier Foundation as well as the school. She tracked down a few of the Xavier country homes, too. She called various people at Bard College, where Oliver had been going. And then she somehow got wind of the X-Men/Alpha Flight connection, and called Alpha Flight headquarters. Heather Hudson told us. We don’t know why she’s so insistent, but she really wants to see Oliver. He was reluctant at first, but he’s decided he does want to see her. Logan’s going with him as chaperone, sort of.”

“Logan as a chaperone is a little hard to picture.”

“You’d be surprised. He’s really protective of the kids. And Oliver’s been close to him for years. Plus, Logan can help handle any tricky situations they might encounter on the way. And fight their way through if need be.”

“No argument from me, there. I’d rather have Logan with me than just about anyone in a situation like that. But still, it sounds awfully risky.”

“Are you worried about harboring mutants, Anjuli? I realize you’re taking a lot of risks already.”

“I’m not worried about that. It’s the least I can do. I’m just wondering if they should wait a bit.”

“I tried suggesting Oliver wait until it’s safe to travel again, but he doesn’t want to wait for the end of the war. He says he doesn’t know if or when that will happen.”

“I think it could be soon. Jean and Adam have been working together to find out what really caused that illness. I think they’re close to unraveling the whole thing.”

“And that would be wonderful. But we don’t know how long – if ever – after solving that it will be safe for mutants to go back to the States. Oliver’s having a hard time facing the idea of seeing his mother after all these years. I think he doesn’t feel like he can put it off indefinitely. If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly, you know?”

“I wish this war ‘were done quickly,’ Wendy.”

“You and me both.”

“Hi, Charles.”

“Hello Mac. Is Tabitha with you?”

“Yes, she is. I wanted to call you right away to let you know that the mission was a success.”

“I’m so relieved to hear that. Thank you, Mac, for all you did to make this happen.”

“Thank you for lending your X-Men. We couldn’t have done it without Jean and Sasha on the ground. And Scott planning it all.”

“Tabitha is well?”

“As well as can be expected. She’s shaken, frightened, but she was not physically hurt, and she revealed nothing about the Outpost. The interrogators didn’t know enough to ask questions about it.”

“Thank heavens for small favors. Is Tabitha well enough to provide more information about the first outbreaks?”

“Yes, she’s being thoroughly debriefed. I’ll give you a full report when we’re done, but I’ve talked to Jean and Sasha about what they found out from Tabitha on the way here. And what she told them fits in perfectly with Rogue’s story. They were at the initial meeting in the MRL offices together, but had separate experiences with the Senate staffers afterwards, so it’s good that we’re getting Tabitha’s version, too.”

“Rogue’s story and Adam’s investigations were both leading to the same source of the infection. Do you believe he was on the right track, now that Tabitha has weighed in, as well?”

“I’m certain of it. Tabitha noticed things Rogue hadn’t. Well, she’s a biologist; that’s to be expected. Adam nailed this one, Charles. I’m quite sure we know now who the bioterrorists were who started this war. We know what they were trying to accomplish and how successful they’ve been. They didn’t care how many died in the process – they wanted this War on Mutants and they were determined to make it happen. And we’re well on our way to knowing just how they went about doing it.”

“Now we need to consider the big question.”

“What’s that?”

“What are we going to do with that knowledge?”

“That’s my cue to thank you again for lending me your Field Leader. He’s already got a plan for the next step.”

“Ringsmith residence.”

“Hi, Wendy. It’s Scott.”

“Mission accomplished?”

“Yes, and without casualties this time, thank God. Jean and Sasha brought her back today.”

“I’m so glad to hear that.”

“Yeah, it’s a relief. Is Logan around?”

“I’ll get him.”

“Hi, Scott. Just a sec – I’ll take the phone into the bedroom so we can talk.”

“So, you’ve got a bedroom to yourself for a while?”

“Shut up about that – at least if you’re talking to Arthur. I kept telling him you’re coming back any day now so he shouldn’t put someone else in here.”

“I wish I were. Or, at least, I wish you and I could be together. The work’s good here, though. They’re back.”

“And all okay?”

“Fine. No injuries – none of them. Tabitha’s being debriefed right now.”

“Way to go, Field Leader... So, does that mean you’re coming back here now?”

“I’m afraid not. It looks like Adam was right – now we know who was behind the original outbreak. The next step is to get proof, so I’m working on that. It’s exciting – I think we might actually be finding out what we need to end this war.”

“Good luck. I got no trust that proving the truth will change Marley’s opinion, or any of the mutant-haters.”

“I know. As Frost said, ‘Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true?’ Marley doesn’t care what’s true. Still, others might. We do what we can.”

“No arguing with that. Anyway, I think we’re gonna lose this room, since you’re not coming back. It’s getting pretty crowded at the Outpost and now I’m going to Washington for a while with Oliver. He decided to go ahead and see his mother. I doubt they’ll leave a big room like this empty.”

“We’ll manage. They’ll find us somewhere by the time we both get back there. If we have to. If we can’t just go home. I know – I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“You said it.”

“You thought it.”

“Jeannie’s telepathy rubbing off on you?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ve just been hanging out with you long enough to know how you think.”

“So, what do you think about Oliver going back to see his mother?”

“I think it’s a good thing. I tried to convince him he should answer her letters at least, but he wouldn’t listen to me. And I’m glad you’re going with him, Logan. I wish I were, too. It’s been really frustrating having to stay in Canada with all that’s happening. I felt totally useless sending Jean and Sasha.”

“You’re not useless. They wouldn’t have gotten her if you hadn’t planned it.”

“I know that. I guess. It’s just hard to keep it in mind. You know how I’ve always hated not being able to pass, and it’s so much worse now, when I can’t get over that border. I *need* to be out in the field. I don’t want to be stuck here in Canada when everything’s happening in the U.S.”

“Maybe you won’t be stuck for long.”

“I’m hoping I won’t. This new mission – to get the evidence on how that first bio-attack occurred – well, I think I might be part of it. In the field, I mean. We’re not going to be going over the border conventionally. In the mean time, it’s damned frustrating being stuck here.”

“I bet. If you were the behind the scenes type, you would’ve chosen a different line of work... Speaking of frustrating...”

“What?”

“I’m horny as hell. You want to come back here and do something about it? No border to cross.”

“Sure. I’ll just drop everything here, fly for a few hours, suck you off and then come back. How about you explain to Mac why I’ve got to take time off from trying to end the war.”

“Don’t be so touchy. There something wrong with telling you I want you?”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry. Hey, I do wish I could come back there. I’m horny, too. And getting more so talking to you. There’s something about your voice.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah. I’m in my room. On the bed.”

“Me, too. So, we’re in bed together Cyclops?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Are you lying on your back, Logan? I want to lie on top of you.”

“Okay, you’re on me. My dick is standing up, nice and hard. You want to feel that? Hold it in your hand, okay?”

“More than okay. Yes, I’m on you. I can feel your hard cock in my hand. I’m rubbing it against mine. Kissing you on the mouth and rubbing us together.”

“It feels so good, Scott. It feels like nothing else when you do that.”

“I love it when you talk like that... And now, those sounds you’re making. I’ll keep rubbing your dick, Logan, if you keep moaning like that for me. It’s long and hard and twitches against mine. Mmm, you’ve got some pre-cum leaking out. Oh, it’s good, makes you slippery against me. I’m using both hands now, rubbing us together. Yeah, that’s good, put your hands on my ass. Hold my cheeks while I’m jerking you. Spread my cheeks. Put a finger in.”

“I’m doing that. Keep rubbing, Scott. I’ve got a finger deep inside you and my cock is hard against yours. You’ve got those long fingers pulling me, stroking me. More. Give me more.”

“I’ll give you all you need, Logan. I want to feel you coming on me. Come on my cock and my belly. Spray it all over me. Almost there. Oh, me too. Yeah, more. Yes, yes. Oh!”

“Hey, we came at the same time I think.”

“Same time, a couple of thousand miles apart. It’s a strange world.”

“Getting stranger by the minute, unfortunately. So, you gonna be on this mission soon?”

“Yeah, we’ll be leaving in the next day or two.”

“Okay, well thanks for the good time, Cyclops. Go back to saving the strange world. Call me when you can – I’ll be at Anjuli’s.”

“Take care of Oliver. And take care of yourself.”

“I’ll be okay. Hey, Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“Bring ‘em back alive.”

“I will.”

“You too, okay? Back in one piece? I’m kind of used to doing it with you – don’t want to break in someone new.”

“I love you, too, Logan.”

When It Alteration Finds (Unexpected Occurrences 9/12)

I didn’t know what to do. I felt like we had to do something. It was obvious we were both feeling awkward, maybe Adam even more so than me. And it was my fault. Well, not fault, really. But it was because of me that we were in this position, because of what happened to me that we were feeling like this. Not like lovers of longstanding, who knew each other’s bodies and minds. Like strangers. Uncomfortable strangers, at that.

It wasn’t like that at first. It had been fine, as good as it could be. I’d been so scared to tell him, but he made me feel like I needn’t have worried. His reaction was everything I’d want in a lover and a friend. He had sat down on the bed next to me after I told him. He’d held me and kissed me and told me he knew I’d be okay. That all was good. I felt loved, supported, reassured. He’d talked about how unlikely it was that I had been infected with just one exposure, but he also said he’d stand by me whatever happened. He asked about the drugs I was taking – how long, what side effects, was there anything he could do to help. We talked about Walter and he was as perplexed as I that he never told me he was HIV+.

“How do you think he got it?” he’d asked.

“I don’t know!”

“Does Mac know?”

I shook my head “Either he doesn’t know or he isn’t saying.”

“Do you think Walter was a closet case?”

I shook my head. “I may not have the best gaydar, but if my best friend were gay, I think I’d know it. Don’t you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even have a frame of reference for that. My best friend is gay. Both of my best friends,” he added, with a warm and loving smile at me. “Larry and I met after we both came out.” He mused a little. “I was always a little jealous of Walter, you know. I think I accepted that he was straight, sort of. I always felt a little bit like he might have the hots for you. Maybe I was just jealous of how close you were?” He looked at me kind of sidelong. “Is it bad to talk like this? It’s not speaking ill of the dead, really. It’s more about me and my insecurities than it is about Walter.”

“It’s fine, Adam. You know you can say anything to me,” I told him. “Nothing ever happened between us, if that needs to be said.” He assured me it didn’t. “I can understand the jealousy. I feel that a bit with Larry. Maybe more so because I know you two *were* lovers.”

“That was a long time ago. And it never was serious. We weren’t really lovers. Fuck buddies, if anything. And only when neither of us was involved with someone.”

“I know. I’ve never doubted you, mon amour. I know the depth of your commitment. But you have so much history with Larry, and so much in common. Sometimes I feel like I can’t compete. So, I can understand if you felt that a little with Walter.”

“It’s you I want,” he said, in a voice just brimming with emotion: love and longing and something else I couldn’t quite identify. I felt warmed all over.

But then I took off his glasses and pulled him to me, and he tightened up. I kissed him, and his body was stiff and unresponsive. He barely kissed me back and turned away quickly. I felt awkward and uncomfortable, like I didn’t know what to do with him. Like this wasn’t Adam, but some stranger. “What’s wrong?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew. I wished I weren’t putting him in this position, having to worry about infection when we hadn’t needed to for so long.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “We have to talk.”

“Adam, we’ve been talking.” I pushed him back on the bed gently, lying half on top of him, hoping I could help him relax. I stroked his hair, kissed his cheek and his neck. “Enough talk. S’il te plait?”

“No, there’s something I have to say.” He hesitated. “Jean-Paul, I do love you.”

I laughed. “You can say that any time. I love you, too.” I kissed him and this time he responded, kissed me slowly and thoroughly. Maybe the awkwardness was dissipating. “I’ve missed you,” I said, whispering in his ear. “It’s been a long time. We haven’t had sex in weeks. I want you, Adam.”

“But I can’t. Not until...”

“You’ve done it with HIV+ men before, haven’t you?”

“You’re not... you don’t know you are...”

“No, I know that. I don’t think I’m infected. We just need to make sure. I’m just saying we’ve both had lovers who were positive. We know how to play safe. We did it that way ourselves for a year. It’s an inconvenience, Adam, that’s all. It’s just how we have to do it now. It won’t be for that long, I’m certain of it.”

“But I want to talk...”

“No more talking, mon amour.” I unzipped my pants and took his hand, guiding him to my hard cock. “Feel that? I need you.”

He sighed and kissed me then, his tongue stroking mine while his hand pulled my cock out of my pants. He started playing with my foreskin, then stroking up and down the shaft. The kiss ended and he rolled me off of him so I was lying on my back. He sat up, still stroking, lowering his head to my cock. “I think we should use a condom,” I told him, a little reluctantly.

“Not for this,” he replied, then licked all around the head. “We never did before,” he added, raising his head briefly to look at my face, still stroking as he said it.

“I was never exposed before.”

“It’s so low risk. We’ll use them for fucking, but not now. I don’t want to taste latex; I want to taste you. I want your cock in my mouth, Jean-Paul.” He stopped talking to lick all around the head for a moment. “Don’t come inside if you’re so worried,” he added, two hands on me now, fingers sliding over my cock in ways that made me shiver. “Pull out when you feel you’re going to come. Come on my face. That’s hot, too.”

And then he wasn’t talking anymore because he was using his mouth on me as well as his hands. I pulled an extra pillow behind my head so I could watch his mouth taking me in, his hands at the base, fingers and tongue making me feel hot and excited and joyful and loving. He knows just how to do me, what turns me on. Some like the excitement of a new lover, but I’ll take the one who knows me – body and soul – anytime. “Oui, Adam. Comme ca. Je t’aime.” He was sucking hard now, pushing the head of my cock into his cheek and working the shaft with his wet tongue and his lips and with those beautiful hands of his. I was talking to him, not making much sense, I think, words a jumble of French and English.

I pulled out of his mouth just in time, came on his cheek with his hands still stroking the base of my cock. “It is hot like that, isn’t it?” he said. “I like it when you come on me.”

I nodded. “I like to see my cum on your face,” I said, stroking his wet and sticky cheek, then putting my finger to his mouth. He sucked it in eagerly. “I love that I’m the only one who get to see you like that.” I paused, feeling his mouth on my finger, remembering it on my cock. “I’ll do you now,” I said, after a while.

But he pulled my hand away when I tried to unzip him, shaking his head. He was crying, large tears falling down his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Are you frightened? Are you wishing you didn’t do that? It is a very low risk thing to do. I don’t even think I’m infected, and I couldn’t infect you like that, anyway, I’m quite sure. You were right. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry, Adam. I know how careful you’ve always been about HIV. I wish I weren’t putting you in the position of having to be careful again.”

“No, no,” he sobbed, trying to pull himself together enough to speak. “It’s not that.” And then he cried some more. I tried to put my arms around him, but he pulled away, sat sort of hunched up on the end of the bed.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” I was getting alarmed. “Tell me, s’il te plait.”

“I did something awful.”

“What, mon amour?”

“I had sex with someone else, Jean-Paul. When I was in San Francisco. I’m so sorry. I’ve never done it before, not since we met. I never will again. Please forgive me. Please don’t leave me.”

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that. I looked at him, tears in his eyes, eyes that were pleading with me. I put my arms around him. “I won’t leave you.”

“Aren’t you mad?”

“I’m sure I will be, once it sinks in. Right now, I’m worried and sad. And I need to know what happened. Who was he?”

“Just a guy at the conference.”

“Someone you knew from before?”

“No, he just came to my panel, and then introduced himself afterwards. A bunch of us went to dinner. And then he and I went out later, to a bar. And we talked a lot... We wanted to talk some more but it was loud, and late. We went back to my hotel room.

“I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t think I would. I knew I was attracted to him, but I didn’t think he was interested, and I wasn’t going to do anything even if he was. I shouldn’t have gone back to the hotel with him, I know. I shouldn’t have done anything with him. I’ll never do it again, I promise.”

“Have you been in touch with him since?” He shook his head, his body shaking a little from crying. “Tell me you what did with him, Adam.”

“I don’t know!” he answered, crying harder. “Not all of it, anyway. I had too much to drink, Jean-Paul. And, and... there were drugs, too. I didn’t remember anything the next morning. But some of it has come back – not all. Enough to know it’s bad.” He took a deep breath. “I sucked him off and he fucked me. I remember that. I don’t know what else. He fucked me hard, really rough. There was blood on the bed after.” He looked like he was going to apologize again and then thought better of it.

“Did you use a condom?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I can’t remember! I’ve wracked my brain and I just can’t. I looked for a used one or a wrapper or something and didn’t find anything – just lube. So, I think we didn’t.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“I know. Of course it is. I don’t want to put you at risk.”

“Don’t worry. I think we have to be more concerned about your HIV status at this point. Adam, it’s late to start, but I think you should take PEP too. And Anjuli’s injections, as well.”

“I’ll talk to Anjuli, but I can’t get the other. You said so yourself.”

“I think we manage to break a few rules in this case. I’ll talk to Jean. I’ll tell her you need it.” Looking at his crestfallen expression, I added, “I won’t go into details. But we need to give you the best chance you can have, n’est-ce pas? Will you speak to Anjuli?”

He nodded. “What was this man’s name? You do know it?”

He winced, but he answered. “Yes, I know his name. Jake. Jake Patterson. He lives in San Francisco. He works for the Chronicle.”

“Do you know his HIV status?” He shook his head. “Have you seen or spoken to him since?”

“No, and I won’t. Well, he called the next morning but that’s the only time I spoke to him. It didn’t mean anything, Jean-Paul. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but I was mad and lonely and horny and drunk and did something really stupid that I shouldn’t have done. That’s all there was to it.”

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling at least for now like I meant it. “People make mistakes. Even you.”

“Don’t be so nice to me,” he said, crying again. “It’s breaking my heart.” I laughed a little at that, in spite of myself, and he did, too. Then he added, “I feel like shit, Jean-Paul. I feel totally worthless. Here you get exposed doing something noble and I’m exposed letting some guy I just met fuck me.”

“Adam, do you know how I broke up with Kolya?”

He seemed surprised at the non sequitur, surprised enough to stop crying. “He told you he hated mutants, right? And you told him you are one.”

“Right on the first point. But no, I never told him I’m a mutant. I couldn’t face it. I wasn’t always so out and proud about being a mutant,” I added, with a touch of irony.

“So what did you say?”

“Nothing. Sasha was visiting us at the time, and the three of us were supposed to go to a Canadiens game his last night in Montreal. That was the day I found out about Kolya’s prejudice against mutants.” I looked at Adam, saw his questioning expression, wondering where this was going. “I told them I didn’t feel well and they should go without me. I lied. While they were gone I went out to the bars, picked up a man I met there. When Kolya came home, he came home to me fucking a stranger. Sasha was leaving the next day. Kolya left with him.”

“Why are you telling me this now, Jean-Paul?”

“I needed to get out of the relationship. And, for whatever reasons – whatever shortcomings of mine – I couldn’t tell Kolya that. I *made* it happen, with sex.”

“And you think I might be doing the same thing? That I did it with Jake so you’d leave me?”

“Maybe. Maybe you didn’t even think consciously that you were doing that, but it could have been part of it.” I didn’t know how much to say. “A lot has changed in your life, Adam. A lot of it is because of me. You wouldn’t be living in a mutant hiding place if not for me, wouldn’t have given up the career you loved, wouldn’t have a baby who might be a mutant.”

“Those are choices I made – freely, lovingly, willingly. I want to be with you – with you and Ezra, wherever that takes me. This was a terrible mistake, Jean-Paul. I’m sorrier than I can say. If I learned nothing else from this I’ve learned not to drink or spend time alone with a man when I’m mad at you. But I don’t want to leave you. I can’t leave you. You’re my life – you and Ezra.”

“That’s not enough of a life for you and you know it. We made bad choices. You shouldn’t have given up your work. You need that, too.”

“You’re right – I do. I’m glad to be working again. It probably was a mistake to quit the job. But I need you. I need you most of all. It was a shitty thing I did – I know that. I’m sorry for it; I’m paying for it. I hope I won’t pay for it with my health. My life. I’ll never do it again and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself, even if you do forgive me. But I didn’t do it to leave you. I was afraid to tell you for fear you’d leave me. I told you because I can’t stand lying to you. Please believe me – I want to stay with you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Mutatis Mutandis (Unexpected Occurrences 10/12)

Scott Summers knew that Charles had important information to share. Charles had made that clear when he’d called the meeting. Ordinarily, Scott would have used the time before the rest arrived to get advance notice on Charles’s new intelligence, so he could begin figuring out the implications for the mission he’d be leading. Not this time. Right now he was too distracted by his surroundings to even think to ask. Although he’d been living in Mac Hudson’s cabin – dubbed Alpha Flight North by Heather – for a few weeks now, Scott hadn’t been in the cabin proper much. Most of his time had been spent in the hidden underground extension – the meeting rooms, the labs, the dorm room he’d shared with Logan and now slept in alone, the workshop where they’d been reconstructing Cerebro from Charles’s old plans. This was his first time in the cabin’s living room. The first time since he and Logan had been here alone, plotting to kill Victor Creed.

It was a large comfortable room, warmed by a roaring fire in the stone fireplace. Scott walked around the room, stopping to touch one of the flagstones, before sitting down in the big armchair. He stared at the fire, remembering vividly the last time he’d been here. Sitting on the floor with Logan, in front of a fire just like this one, learning how Logan had killed the last man who loved him. He found himself re-experiencing the swirl of emotions he’d felt when he first heard the story of Yukio’s death and Creed’s role in it. He looked away from the fire and saw Charles looking at him intently. “Was I broadcasting?” Scott asked.

Charles nodded. “So, this is where you found out? And when you decided Sabretooth had to die?”

“Oh, I was pretty sure before that. But yes, hearing Yukio’s story sealed it. Or so I thought at the time. I thought I could make Logan’s demons go away if I killed Sabretooth.” Scott shrugged. “I know better now. They’re never going away. He’s learned to live with them. I’m learning, too.”

“Scott, I feel I’ve been remiss in never saying this. I was wrong about – “

But Scott didn’t get to find out what Charles thought he’d been wrong about, as the cabin’s owners walked into the room. “Sorry, we’re late,” Heather said, as she and Mac sat down on the couch, in between Scott’s armchair and Charles’s wheelchair. “What’s up?”

“As you know, I’ve been trying to locate mutants in various places in the United States using Cerebro, now that it’s operational,” Charles began, “Thanks to the hard work of Scott and Logan,” he added with a nod towards Scott. “I’ve found out some information that I believe is relevant to our upcoming mission, and wanted to share it with you and see what alterations, if any, we should make to our plans.” He gestured towards his Field Leader. “I don’t think Mac and Heather are fully cognizant of our plans as they stand, though, so perhaps you should fill them in first.”

“Sure. How much do you know?”

Mac answered. “We know that there is conclusive evidence that the militia group Sacred Honor instigated the War on Mutants by aerosolizing plague germs and starting an outbreak at a time and place that would point to mutant involvement. But what’s conclusive to us won’t necessarily be to the U.S. government or the U.S. people. So we need to get the kind of proof that will make what happened totally clear and end this war.”

“I don’t know that we can count on the war ending, no matter how clear the proof,” Heather interjected.

“That’s true,” Scott conceded. “We can’t be sure. And we’re still trying to figure out what’s our best strategy once we do have proof, what’s most likely to end this. Do we go to the press? Do we bring this to the government? And, if we go with the government, how do we do that? Does Alpha Flight contact Homeland Security? Do we go to the FBI – where we still have some contacts we can use, from Callahan’s capture? Or do we go straight to the president?”

“How would you do that?” Heather asked. “How could you possibly get the President of the United States to listen to a bunch of mutants?”

Scott shrugged and looked at Charles, then back to Heather. “There are ways. Mind control, teleportation. We can get access to the White House if we need to. Will he listen to us if we do? I don’t know. I don’t know what the best course of action is, and I think we have to think that one through very thoroughly. You’re right, Heather – we don’t know that the federal government is going to end this no matter what we show them, and we need to show them in a way that makes ending it most likely. The way most likely to effect our safety and happiness, when we haven’t had either for a long time. That’s going to be a hard decision. But right now what I’m worried about is getting that evidence, and that’s the mission I’m planning. We’re going to Sacred Honor’s compound in Idaho and we’re going to take everything we can that proves what they did.”

“Why do you think there will be any proof there?” Mac asked.

“Adam Greenfield infiltrated them a couple of years ago as an undercover journalist. He tells us they are compulsive about recording and saving everything, that they have documentation of all their activities. They’ve developed a more mainstream presence since then, but he doesn’t think they’ve changed that practice. Adam says it was so ingrained in their subculture that it’s unlikely they’ve stopped. They just couldn’t have changed that much. I’m thinking we’ll find plans, documents, videos. It will show how they managed to commit their acts of bioterrorism and maybe even how they managed to acquire the bacteria, which is something we haven’t a clue about.”

“Okay, so it sounds promising. Who’s going on the mission?”

“Pyotr, Jean, Sasha and me.”

Heather jumped in. “Do you need any of our people to join?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve thought about that, but I’m trying to keep this small – we need to get in and get out quickly. I considered leaving Jean out, in fact, because we’ll have another psionic with us, but I think we do need her. She’s got combat skills and medical skills – both of which may be essential.”

“Who’s the other psionic?” Heather asked.

“Billy Halverson. You don’t know him. He’s not an X-Man, but he’s been sort of connected to Xavier’s for a while. He was living at the school and a student at Columbia when the war started. But he never registered as a mutant and he’s been passing as normal. So he’s been able to go back to what he was doing before he went back to school – working as an independent trucker. He’s our in to the Sacred Honor compound; he’s been delivering supplies there. They have no idea he’s a mutant.”

“And he has psionic powers?” Mac interjected.

“Very profound ones,” Charles said. “Telepathy, telekinesis, empathy - stronger and more varied than anyone I’ve ever met. He came into his powers quite late – or, more accurately, he was so defended against believing he is a mutant that he couldn’t acknowledge or use his powers. But he’s made huge strides in the past 18 months.”

“You’ve been a wonderful teacher to him, Charles,” Scott said, his voice full of frank admiration.

“I think he may well be teaching me soon.” Charles Xavier chuckled. “But Scott’s right,” he added, “Billy’s not combat trained, and he’s not a doctor. He’ll be of great use to the mission, but he’s no substitute for Jean.”

“Billy’s getting us into the compound,” Scott elaborated. “He’ll be delivering electronics equipment they’d ordered. But there will be a few X-Men in the truck, as well.”

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts?” Heather asked.

“Well, in this case Norwegians, but the principle’s the same. So Charles, what did you find out with Cerebro? Is it going to stop us from sending a bunch of Trojan Mutants into the Sacred Honor compound?”

“I certainly think we should go ahead with the mission, but you need to be aware of something. There is already one mutant in that compound, and he’s a most powerful one.”

“I knew it was too good to be true.” Adam could tell he shouldn’t say that, even as it was coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t help himself. Oliver and Logan were gone all day, on their excursion to Oliver’s mother’s house in Chevy Chase. Anjuli had kindly taken both babies out to the playground to give Jean-Paul and Adam some time alone together. Alone in the living room of her Georgetown apartment, they sat far apart on the big couch, glaring at each other.

“What was too good to be true?”

“The kindness, the forgiveness, the understanding. The love. I knew it wouldn’t last.” He realized he was digging himself in deeper, but he didn’t care. Jean-Paul had lashed out without even giving him a chance to explain and Adam was too mad to really think through what he was saying.

“I’m not even allowed to be angry?”

“No, you’re not. And that was your brilliant fucking idea, not mine. Negotiated Safety, right? No recriminations – if either of us does anything unsafe we just disclose and go back to latex. I told you it was really stupid.”

“Merde! Adam, that is completely unfair. That was what? Two years ago? We’ve come a long way since then. Or at least I have. And you said you had, too,” he added. “You’re right. It’s stupid and unrealistic to think that we could just happily accept sex outside the relationship, that we could think only about the health issue. I know I couldn’t. I haven’t done it with anyone else since you and I met, haven’t even wanted to. And we agreed – well before we adopted Ezra – that neither of us would, and you know it. We stopped talking just about HIV and safety a long time ago – we were talking monogamy. You swore you were committed to no sex with anyone else. We made a promise to each other. It wasn’t just Negotiated Safety and - tabernac! - it wasn’t just me.”

Adam sighed. “I know. You’re right, love. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up the Negotiated Safety thing. I wanted the same things you did. I wanted all kinds of safety – safety for our relationship, for Ezra, emotional safety. I promised you I wouldn’t do it with anyone else and I really and truly meant it. And then I fucked up in San Francisco. I’m so sorry. Really I am. I just don’t know how to respond to your anger,” he added, softly.

“Well, maybe you just have to take it, mon ami. Maybe you just have to accept that that’s the way it goes when you do something like that. You cheat on me the first chance you get and you don’t want me to be angry? Even when you tell me you won’t have anything to do with him and then call him up as soon as my back is turned?”

“I’m hardly doing anything behind your back, Jean-Paul. This whole fight started because I told you I called Jake. You wouldn’t know if I hadn’t said anything,” voice rising again. “You wouldn’t have known about any of this if I hadn’t told you. Give me a little credit for being honest about it, if nothing else. And, besides, what do you mean my first chance to cheat on you?” he added, defiantly. “We’ve spent at least half of our time apart, between my assignments and your missions. We’ve only been living together – or even in the same country - for a few months. I’ve spent a lot of evenings and nights without you, Jean-Paul. You think nobody ever came on to me before? I may not look like you, but yes, occasionally a man is attracted to me and lets me know it.”

“And how many of them fucked you? Without condoms, even? Esti!” Jean-Paul was yelling now.

Adam answered him softly, no anger in his response, just love and remorse. “Two, that’s all. Two in my whole life. I’ve never done it bareback except with two men. Jean-Paul Martin Beaubier, the one I love. My lover, my partner, the only man I had sex with for three years. The one I want to be with for the rest of my life,” he said, touching Jean-Paul’s arm lightly. “And Jake Patterson, a guy I don’t know at all, a stranger I met at a conference, a man I’ll never see again. I wish to God I hadn’t done it with him. I’m sorrier than I know how to say. I’ll never do it with him again; I’ll never see him again.”

“Why did you call him?” Belligerence still in his voice, but softer now.

“I wanted to find out what I could. His HIV status, mostly. And yes, I know,” he added, seeing Jean-Paul’s expression, “I can’t be sure he’s telling the truth. But I thought it was worth hearing what he had to say. And I’m pretty good at getting people to tell me things, figuring out what to ask to trip them up if they’re lying, putting together bits of information into patterns. I did that for a living for a lot of years.”

“I know, Adam. You’re excellent at that. What did you find out?”

“He thinks he’s negative. He hasn’t been tested lately but he’d had a negative test a couple of years ago. He says he’s only had unsafe sex twice since then, and both times with partners he knew to also be negative.”

“That’s good. We can’t know for sure that it’s all true. He could be deluding himself; the guys he did it with could have lied about their status, but it’s encouraging.”

“Yes, that part is.” Adam hesitated. “I asked him about what we did. I’ve really been trying, but I can’t remember it all. I thought he might know more clearly.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah. He says he remembered it all. He was surprised that I didn’t.”

“So what was he able to tell you?”

Adam took a deep breath. “He did fuck me bareback. He...he said I didn’t want him to. He said I tried to get him to use a condom. He apologized to me, on the phone. He said he should have listened, but he was high and didn’t care.”

“What was he taking?”

“Crystal, at least. I don’t know what else. I think maybe poppers or V. I don’t remember it all, and I didn’t think to ask him more about drugs.”

“Crystal is what you had, too?” Adam nodded. “It’s bad news, Adam.”

“I know it. It was a stupid fucking thing I did – all of it. Coming back to the hotel room with him, the sex, the drugs. Even just getting drunk like that when I was feeling mad and I should have known I was vulnerable. I really wish I hadn’t done it – any of it. I don’t know what to do to convince you of that.”

“I’m convinced. It doesn’t make it feel okay, hein? I believe you’re sorry. But I’m still mad. And hurt. You betrayed me. You betrayed *us*. I can’t just turn that off because you’re sorry, comprends?”

“Yes, I understand. And you have a right to be angry. I shouldn’t have said otherwise.”

“D’accord.” Neither said anything for a minute. “Adam?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not just angry. I’m scared.”

“Me, too. For both of us.”

“I didn’t think we’d have to deal with this. Emotional safety? You’re right. That’s important. I liked what you said when we talked about making that promise. Do you remember? ‘A shared zone of sexual privacy.’ I liked feeling that there was just the two of us in that zone. There’s something hot about thinking I’m the only one you do it with, hein?” Adam didn’t say anything. “Did you fuck Jake bareback, too?”

Adam shook his head. “No. I didn’t fuck him at all. But if he does have it - and I think he probably doesn’t - him fucking me was the most dangerous anyway. No condom, really rough, lots of blood. I sucked him off, too – not much of a risk there. Me fucking him would have been a little more than that, but not as bad as what we did do.”

“I wasn’t thinking HIV, not right now.” Jean-Paul shrugged. “I was just wondering if there was something left that you’d only done with me.”

“Oh, Jean-Paul!” Adam moved closer, put his arms around his lover. Jean-Paul sat still and unresponsive for just a few seconds, then his arms encircled Adam, too. They kissed briefly.

Jean-Paul lay back onto the couch, pulling his feet up. Adam got on top of him, lying with his head on his lover’s chest. “I am worried about infection, too,” Jean-Paul said, after a while. “For both of us. I’ve had too much heartache from this disease.”

“I know, love. And I’m so sorry to have added to your worries. But I think we’ll be okay – both of us.”

“I do, too. But it’s such a hard thing for me. Adam, when I was first getting to know you, I didn’t know how to ask if you were negative. I knew I was falling in love with you and I didn’t know if I could handle it if you were infected.But I didn’t know what to say or how to find out.”

“You did ask. Before we’d met in person, even. So, you must have figured out how. I didn’t mind telling you.”

“I was so relieved.”

“I was glad you were negative, too.”

“I’m sure, but I think it was different for me, mon cher. It was not so long since Joanne’s death. I thought... I felt... I was so scared. I just could not face losing someone I loved like that again. I remember telling Walter... mon dieu!”

“What, Jean-Paul?”

“Oh Adam! I told Walter that I was so glad you were negative, because I really wanted you and me to be lovers. And... I said to him that I couldn’t have someone in my life with HIV, that I refused to go through that particular hell again.”

A Sea Change (Unexpected 11/12)

Anjuli Radavan stood in her kitchen making dinner. She wondered if anyone would eat it, and whether they’d speak to each other at all at the table, if they did. No one seemed to be in a good mood except for the babies.

It had been clear to Anjuli that something was wrong between Jean-Paul and Adam from the first she’d seen them in the morning. They both looked exhausted, but their tense and angry manner with each other suggested that Wendy’s surmise of how they’d spent their sleepless time was far from accurate. She wondered if Adam had not taken the news of Jean-Paul’s exposure well. Anjuli offered to take Ezra and Hank out together for a while. She wanted to give Ezra’s fathers a chance to talk about whatever was on their minds, without feeling like they were in a goldfish bowl in her currently crowded home.

It was an unseasonably warm day and she managed to keep both babies happy outside for well over two hours. When she got back, she couldn’t really gauge whether things had improved between the couple. Jean-Paul had immediately taken Ezra into their room, saying he was going to put him down for a nap, and then hadn’t emerged for a long time. Adam had followed Anjuli and Hank around the apartment, offering to help with housework and errands, and seeming on the verge of asking or telling her something, but never bringing up what was on his mind. She’d eventually sent him to the corner store, Hank going along in the baby backpack, babbling happily to himself as he pulled Adam’s hair.

Meanwhile, Oliver and Logan had left early in the morning for Chevy Chase, before anyone else in the household had gotten up. They returned mid-afternoon. Anjuli had been about to ask how the visit had gone, but one look at Oliver’s face made clear that such a question would be unwelcome. He had walked off without a word into the room he and Logan were sharing, and hadn’t emerged yet. Logan had gone out without an explanation or specified destination, but was now back and in the living room, on the phone, his voice mostly a low grumble. Every now and then he raised it and Anjuli could hear “What the fuck are you talking about?” and “Don’t give me that Field Leader shit!” and finally “I’m coming whether you like it or not!” followed by the sound of a phone being hung up, hard. More grumbling, although presumably to himself, and then the sound of the door slamming.

So, here she was, stirring the dal makhni, checking on the chicken and the rice, and wondering if anyone would be around to eat it and what the conversation would be like if they did all sit down to dinner. Adam and Hank returned, interrupting her thoughts, and she took charge of her baby while Adam set the table.

Everyone staying at Anjuli’s was at the dinner table a few minutes later, save Logan, who had not yet returned. There was not much food consumed and almost no dinnertime conversation. Oliver had come out of the bedroom looking for Logan while Adam was setting the table. “He went out a little while ago,” Anjuli told him. Seeing his downcast expression, she added, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, I just need to talk to Logan.” The phone rang at that point. “Maybe that’s him,” Oliver said hopefully, but it was Scott, also looking for Logan. Anjuli promised to give him the message.

After dinner, Adam hovered again until finally Anjuli couldn’t take it anymore. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, Adam?” she asked.

“I just wondered if you needed any help with... No, I didn’t. I wanted to ask you about your healing factor concentrate. Jean-Paul told me you’re giving him injections.”

She nodded. “Are you worried? I think it’s perfectly safe,” she said. “I haven’t done the kind of large scale trials that would convince the FDA, of course. And I probably won’t – not for a long time, at least. We’re not looking to market this.”

“Why not?”

“Can you imagine trying to sell a drug made from the blood of mutants in the current political climate?”

“Good point.” He thought about that. “Made from the blood? Literally?”

“Yes, and that’s another reason we can’t market it. No way to do large scale manufacture at this point. How many mutants are there with Alpha Level Healing Factor? Not a whole lot, that’s for sure. Luckily, their mutation is such that they can donate regularly – I think Logan’s pretty sick of me sticking him with needles, but he doesn’t have to worry about blood loss. Still, there’s no way to do this on a large scale until we can synthesize it.”

“But you think it’s safe? Jean-Paul’s okay getting it?”

“I’m quite sure of it. I’ve taken it myself.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a medical researcher tradition – you have to be your own guinea pig for things like this. Hank and I would have been our own first subjects,” she added with a sigh. “So we could try it on one mutant and one non-mutant. As it is, Jean-Paul is the first mutant I’ve given HFC. But I’m monitoring him carefully, and he’s having no adverse side effects. There might even be some positive ones,” she added with a smile, “but I wouldn’t be likely to notice them. You might.”

Adam decided not to ask about that one. “Can I get it?” he said.

“What?” She wasn’t sure she heard him correctly.

“Would you give me the HFC injections, too?” he clarified. “For HIV.”

“Adam, I know it’s a very frightening illness,” Anjuli began, patiently and slowly. “But I really don’t think you’re at risk. Jean-Paul had one exposure and he probably is not infected, but we’re doing what we can to make sure. But you – well, even if he is infected, you can’t get it from casual contact, you know. And I’m assuming you know how to prevent sexual exposure.”

“Come on, Anjuli – I’ve been out for over 10 years. I know a thing or two about HIV. I’m not worried about getting it from Jean-Paul,” he said, voice slightly exasperated. And then added, a little sheepishly, “But I haven’t always put what I know into practice. I had unprotected sex with someone I don’t know.” Seeing her expression, he added, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to embarrass you.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” she replied, cheeks reddening. “Okay, I guess I am embarrassed, but that’s okay. I see why you want the HFC.” She paused. “Umm, does Jean-Paul know you’re considering getting the injections?”

“Yes, he knows all about it. He suggested I ask you. We talked about me getting PEP, too. Yeah, I know, but he thought Jean would bend the rules and give us an extra prescription. Anyway, I don’t think that’s necessary or really advisable, given the circumstances, which I won’t go into unless you want me to.”

“No, no. It’s fine. But you do think you should get HFC?”

“Yes. If you don’t think it’s too risky, I’d like to.”

“It’s still new. There may be risks we don’t know about. But I feel confident of it. I think I understand enough about how it works to know it’s safe. I wouldn’t take it myself if I didn’t feel that way. Jean-Paul’s due for another injection tonight. Just give me a little while to get Hank settled. Then I’ll do you both.” Adam thanked her, relief evident in his voice.

Logan showed up a while after dinner. As soon as he did, Oliver accosted him. After a brief whispered conversation the two of them went out for a long walk. When they got back, Anjuli noticed that Oliver appeared to be considerably calmer. He went off to bed shortly thereafter. When Anjuli retired to her own bedroom, Logan was sitting in the living room, staring at the telephone and scowling.

It was late that night that Scott called again, this time managing to talk to Logan. It didn’t start off well.

“What the fuck do you want, Cyclops?”

“I wanted to talk to you, to explain why I can’t have you along on this mission.”

“I don’t need any explanations. It’s an order, right? ‘You’re not part of this one, Logan.’ So, I’m not part of it. Never mind that I’ve got the skills you need and I’ve covered your back often enough that you know I can.”

“Of course you can, Logan. There’s not a combat mission where I wouldn’t be safer with you on it. That’s a fact. But I can handle this one without you. And I need you where you are now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know what we’re going to find in Idaho, at Sacred Honor’s compound, but there’s a new wrinkle, something we just found out. There’s a mutant there – in the compound. We don’t know him; we don’t know what his powers are. But you know how mutants glow on Cerebro’s screen? That’s how they stand out? Well, this one’s all lit up like a Christmas tree. Very powerful.”

“Who could he be?”

“I don’t know. Charles and Mac have no idea, either. We’ve batted a few possibilities around, each more far-fetched than the last, but we’re getting nowhere. We won’t know anything until we’re actually there. I’m worried. Sacred Honor has gotten more and more mainstream over time, more closely tied to the government. They haven’t changed – it’s people like Marley that have moved things in their direction. What if the government is in communication with them? What if they’ve even given them one of their mutant prisoners, someone with a power they can use? Someone who’s been drugged or brainwashed or tortured enough to do what he’s told.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know, but how else does a mutant get to be there? And if that’s the case –if they’re in with Marley and his cronies in the Senate and the House – well, what happens when we infiltrate? We’re trying to get the evidence about the plague attack without them knowing, but we can’t count on getting in and out without detection. What happens in Washington, particularly, if they do know we got in there, if word gets back? How safe is Anjuli then, or anybody with her? She’s known to have ties to mutants. We thought of offering her a place at the Outpost when the war started. We didn’t because we thought she could be of use to us there, and we figured we could get her out if needed. Well, she’s been living in DC on borrowed time in some sense since this whole thing started. Her time could run out and what I’m doing tomorrow could be what makes it run out. I can’t just leave her – and the rest of the people in that apartment – with nobody. No one to take care of them, to protect them. If you’re not there – if you come with us - who gets those people out?”

“Hey, there’s Jean-Paul.”

“He’s hors de combat. Injuries from the last mission.”

“He looks okay. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Mac says he’s out of commission. I don’t know what the story is. I was surprised – I didn’t think he was hurt that badly. At first Jean said he’d be fine and now she’s not talking, just saying Mac knows best. Look, Jean-Paul can be a help to you if need be, I’m sure. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d worked injured. But, Logan, I need you in charge there in case we have to evacuate them. And it’s not going to be an easy group to move. You’ve got two babies, two people with absolutely no combat training, Oliver who can help a little, and Jean-Paul who’s laid up, at least somewhat. I need strong leadership there if we have to evacuate. I need you. I’m counting on you.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks. If you get a call from me or Charles that it’s gone badly, you’ve got to leave at once – it doesn’t matter where you go as long as you take them all somewhere you can’t be found. And if you don’t hear anything from either of us for 24 hours, then leave. If we can, we’ll be in contact.”

“Okay, you can count on me.”

“I know, Logan. I do. Every mission. Every day... How’d it go with Oliver?”

“He’s a mess.”

“All the more reason you should stay there.”

“Yeah, yeah. You made your point, Cyclops. I’m staying.”

“What happened? Is she trying to reconcile?”

“No fucking way. Not a kind word, not a question about how he’d managed for five years. Stood as far away from him as she could. It was like she was totally repulsed by him.”

“So what did she want?”

“She had something for him. An envelope of papers from his father. Suicide note, among other things.”

“Christ! Why would he do that to Oliver? Just what he needs. It’s not enough that he’s kicked out at fourteen and hears nothing from them for five years and then his father shoots himself. He has to leave the suicide note for Oliver.”

“Yeah, well it gets worse.”

“What?”

“His father was a mutant.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nah. He’d been hiding it – fighting it – all his life. And he felt he couldn’t anymore. So, instead of facing up to it, he blows his brains out. Now there’s something to do to your nineteen-year-old mutant son.”

“I can’t believe it. Oliver must be a wreck.”

“Yeah, he is. He’s read it all – it’s all these journals saying how he was gonna ‘get over’ it, be ‘normal.’ It’s disgusting. And his mother – hard to believe there are people like that. All she was doing was fulfilling her husband’s last wish. Wouldn’t talk to Oliver at all, wouldn’t even own up to having a mutant husband as well as a mutant son.”

“Did he get to see his siblings?”

“Nah. They weren’t there. She wouldn’t say a word about them. Just ‘take this and leave.’ Oliver wants to talk to them, doesn’t know what they were told. He’s worried that some of them are gonna be mutants, too, and what’ll happen to them then. Will she turn them in? Will she try to get them to hide it?”

“Or suppress it like their father did? Jesus, Logan. I really thought she must be sorry, that’s why she wanted to contact him.”

“Well, think again. I swear I wanted to run her through. You know how my hands get itchy sometimes, hard to keep the claws in? It was all I could do to keep them in and not do her then and there. I would have, too, if I didn’t think it would just make things worse for Oliver.”

“What was his father’s gift? Do you know?”

“Yeah, flight. There’s all this stuff in the journals about resisting it, never flying. Can you imagine? Able to do something like that and you don’t even let yourself? And then the last few years, sneaking off and flying...”

“Did he have wings?”

“No, he looked perfectly normal. So he could pass. Nothing to cut off.”

“Except part of his soul.”

Nature’s Changing Course (Unexpected Occurrences 12/12)

Sleeping with the phone right next to him, Logan answered it before the first ring had finished. “Evacuate?” he asked, without preliminaries.

“No, no. It’s okay.” Scott’s voice was reassuring. “For now, anyway.”

“You’re all safe?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure we got in and out without them knowing we were there.”

“Good.” Logan’s tone was flat, but there was the slight indication of a sigh of relief. After a moment he asked, “Did you find what you needed?”

“We found a lot – took a lot. Documentation. Adam was right – there was plenty to take. Plans, meeting minutes. Reports on what they call ‘dry runs’ – they’ve been killing people with aerosolized germs for a while as practice and no one caught on. They kept it small enough and obscure enough that it was just a few unexplained deaths in a variety of out-of-the-way places.”

“Bastards.”

“Well, we knew that. ‘Sacred Honor.’ It’s other people’s lives they’re pledging to their cause, not theirs. Anyway, we’ve got the records, including pictures of the victims. Germ samples, too. The whole set up there was unbelievable – an extensive arsenal of bio-weapons.”

“Plague?”

“Yeah, but that’s not all. Tularemia, anthrax, smallpox – you name it; they had it. We weren’t there long enough to see all of it, but it’s an extensive and sophisticated lab. Jean was really impressed.”

“So were they planning to use the other germs, too? Who were they gonna use them on? Can mutants get those other diseases?”

“I don’t know any of that. We’ll be analyzing the documents we got for a while.”

“Did you find the mutant they have prisoner?”

“He almost found us – and he’s no prisoner. He’s one of them. He’s the guy who’s providing them with all these deadly diseases.”

Logan shook his head in disbelief. “Why’d a mutant do that?”

“Self-hatred? I don’t know. Why did Oliver’s father do what he did? Why does anyone betray his own people? I’m just glad Jean picked up on his thoughts and we got out of there before he knew we were there.” Scott hesitated before continuing. “But Logan? You were right.”

“What about?”

“You should have gone with us. The mutant in the Sacred Honor compound – that’s his gift. Disease.”

“What does that mean?”

“The rest of them think he’s making all those germs in a lab, but he’s not. He creates them out of his own body – just kind of wills them into existence or something.”

“Fuck! Do those nut jobs know he’s a mutant?”

“No, I don’t think so. It seems he was passing. They wouldn’t know about a disease-making gift – we didn’t know. It’s a psionic power we’ve never seen before. We’re lucky Jean heard what he was thinking and caught on to that. She said he’s a Broadcaster – that his thoughts are always ‘audible’ to telepaths. She could hear him as soon as we got near the compound.”

“I never heard of that.”

“Me, neither. Jean said she’s only heard of it in connection with certain mental illnesses – paranoid schizophrenics in particular. She had a colleague at the clinic in Yonkers who was working on that when she was there. He was a psychiatrist working with psychotic mutants. She said she could barely work when some of his patients were around, that it was like hearing loud ranting all around her.”

“Well, him being a psycho fits.”

“It could. We don’t know enough yet. But it’s a good thing she knew where he was and what he was thinking, so we could stay out of his way. If he’d caught us there he would have given us something. And it wouldn't have been a disease mutants are immune to, I’m sure.” Logan didn’t say anything and Scott continued. “You’re the only one who can take him on. We’ve got to capture him. We need to have another mission – going back in there. I need you on it. Nobody else can do it.”

“Hey, I would’ve gone the first time.”

“I know.” Scott hesitated. “Logan – I can’t be sure you’d be immune. I mean, I know you can’t contract disease, so far as we know. But who knows what he can come up with? Maybe there’s one your healing factor can’t handle.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“I know. I just figured I should say it.”

“What’re you planning on doing with him?” Logan asked.

“Long term? I don’t know. But we’ve got somewhere we can hold him at Mac’s place – Alpha Flight North. They’ve got a negative pressure room set up there.”

“Negative pressure?”

“For contagious patients. We can keep whatever he comes up with from spreading. Nobody goes in without protective equipment. It will be a way to contain him and interrogate him and then we figure out where we go from there.”

“Who’s going on this one?”

“Just you and me – and I’m not going in. I’ll fly you in and out.”

“How you gonna stop him from giving you something deadly when we’re flying back to Huntsville?”

“You’re going to knock him out. Jean gave me a hypodermic for you to inject him with. He’ll stay unconscious until he’s in the negative pressure room.”

“How about he stays unconscious permanently?”

“Don’t do it, Logan.”

Logan and Scott had left in the middle of the night, after consulting briefly with Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul had offered to go along on the mission, deliberately ignoring Mac’s orders that he stick to desk duty until it could be determined whether or not he was infected.

Scott hadn’t referred to Jean-Paul’s current reduced responsibilities, either, just saying that they needed him to stay in Washington in case it was necessary to evacuate Anjuli’s home. Jean-Paul sat in the living room for a while, planning escape routes and thinking through the best methods for getting six people – including two babies – away unnoticed. When Jean-Paul went back into the bedroom he was sharing with his partner and son, he found that Adam was awake and waiting for him.

“What’s up?” he asked, sitting up in bed.

Jean-Paul sat down next to him. “Scott was just here. He and Logan left – going back to Idaho. The second stage of the mission is going down right now.” He explained what had been found at the Sacred Honor compound and why they needed Logan to go back in.

“Shit! A mutant who can create diseases? And he’s not on our side... What a scary thought. I hope Logan can capture him.”

“Moi aussi. Although I have my doubts that there will be much left of him if he does.” He added, after a pause, “Adam, let me tell you the plan in case we have to evacuate. I’ll go over it with Anjuli and Oliver if we need to, but I’ll feel better if you already know it and are ready to do your part.”

“Sure. How are we going to do it?”

“You and Anjuli will leave first, with the babies. You’ve been hanging out together enough that people are accustomed to seeing you together. I’m sure many think you are a family. Oliver and I will follow close behind. We’ll all look out for a uniformed presence, but it’s more likely that if they’re after us, it will be undercover cops. I’ll tell Oliver to use his powers to look for concealed weapons – that will be the best way to spot them.” He continued in that vein, detailing plans and possibilities for a while, with Adam offering suggestions as they went. By the time they’d finished talking it through Jean-Paul realized the escape plan they’d come up with together was much better than what he’d thought of on his own.

Adam looked at the clock. “Do you want to go back to sleep? You must be exhausted. I’ll handle Ezra when he wakes up so you can sleep in.”

“I don’t feel like sleeping.”

Adam leaned over to kiss his lover. “Do you feel like fooling around?”

“No.” Jean-Paul turned away.

“Umm, is that going to be how it is from now on?”

“I really don’t know, Adam.” His voice was more weary than angry.

“I’m very sorry. I’ll never do it again. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Why should I believe you’ll never do it again, hein?” The anger was rising now. “You told me you wouldn’t do it in the first place. What’s different now?”

Adam sighed. “That’s a fair question. And it’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot. I think I know now what I did wrong.”

“Oui, I know, too. You got fucked by someone you don’t even know. When it was supposed to be something for just you and me. When you promised it would be just you and me.”

“Jean-Paul, please listen to me. Please believe me. I’m not going to do it again.”

“I believed you wouldn’t do it in the first place, and where did that get me? Esti! I don’t even want to do it with anyone else. I never do when I’m in love. I barely notice other men.”

“I know. So it’s easy for you. Look, Jean-Paul – I do get attracted to other men. It happens to me all the time. But I don’t have sex with them. You mentioned how Larry and I used to do it. Well, we don’t anymore. You know that, don’t you?” Jean-Paul nodded. “There’s a difference between noticing someone, thinking he’s attractive, maybe even flirting a little, and fucking. I’ve always had good boundaries before. I’ve always been able to... oh, I don’t know how to say it, stay in the safe zone, I guess.” Jean-Paul didn’t say anything, so after a minute Adam continued. “Take Scott Summers, for instance.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve been working with him a bit lately. I think he’s hot.” Adam shrugged. “He’s very good looking, but there’s something else about him. That hyper-controlled personality. Makes you wonder what he’s like when he’s not so in control.”

“Makes *you* wonder, maybe.”

“Okay, makes *me* wonder. Occasionally I think about that, what he’d be like in bed. I’m attracted to him. I’m not doing anything about it. It doesn’t mean I can’t work effectively with him; it doesn’t mean I’m going to come on to him when we’re supposed to be reviewing news stories and figuring out what’s true.” Seeing the expression on Jean-Paul’s face, he added, “And no, it’s not just because I know his boyfriend would slice my balls off with those claws of his if I even tried.” That got a chuckle out of his lover. He continued. “It’s because of you - because of us - that I don’t try anything with Scott, that I don’t do anything with anyone else. I haven’t for so long. It means something to me to have that zone of sexual privacy, to have something that’s just between you and me. So, I don’t let things get out of hand when I’m attracted to someone. I’m particularly careful if it’s someone who seems interested in me. I really do know how to keep things at a safe level. But this time it was different.”

“Pourquoi, Adam?” Jean-Paul’s question came out so plaintive that Adam’s heart ached. “What did this man have that made it different? Why him?”

“It wasn’t him. It wasn't anything about him – it was me. And I’m so sorry. I know, I just keep saying that. But it’s hard to know what else to say. I was vulnerable. I was in need of reassurance, professionally, and here was this younger guy who liked my work, looked up to me. I was enjoying the attention.”

“Come on, Adam. I wouldn’t have minded if you spent the night talking journalism with him.”

“I know, I know. I’m just trying to tell you how it happened for me.” Adam took a deep breath. “So, I was feeling... well, flattered, I guess. And I’d been mad at you - and believe me, I’m not saying I had a good reason to be.”

“You did have a good reason to be mad. I handled that very badly. I shouldn’t have backed out last minute like I did. It made things so...unresolved.”

“Unresolved. Yes, that’s sort of how it felt to me – like we hadn’t even finished the fight. So, I was trying not to think about that. And also just kind of determined to have a good time, anyway, not to let being mad at you ruin the trip. Trying not to focus on what I’d wanted from the week – for us – and just looking at it as another time on a trip alone. Well, I’ve had plenty of those. Going out to dinner with a bunch of guys from the conference seemed like a fine thing to do.”

“It was a fine thing to do. I was hoping you were out having fun when I called.”

“I know. Well, you know how it is when journalists get together – lots of drinking. Usually I’m pretty moderate, but I was in a bad mood and drinking was making me feel better. In the moment, anyway. And then it seemed like a good idea to just hang out with Jake after the other guys left. Jean-Paul, I was so sure nothing would happen between us, that I didn’t think about all that – drinking, feeling insecure and how Jake was stroking my ego, being mad at you, even being there under kind of false pretenses, not telling anyone about you and Ezra because I didn’t know what to say that fit in with the cover story. I didn’t think any of it mattered because I was *sure* I’d never cheat on you. Well, now I know I can’t be sure. I wouldn’t let myself get into a situation like that again. I wouldn’t be alone with someone when I’m in a bad place like that.”

Jean-Paul looked at Adam, at Adam’s sorrowful and longing expression. He put his arms around him and they held each other. Then Jean-Paul kissed him deeply, and they lay down on the bed together. “I’m not saying I’m okay with this yet, hein?” he said after a while, in between kisses, hands roaming over Adam’s naked body.

“I’m very encouraged by the ‘yet’,” was Adam’s only reply.

Mac hung up the phone. “No need for the negative pressure room after all?” his wife asked.

“No. I can’t say I’m surprised.” He shrugged. “Cyclops said the mutant accidentally died ‘resisting capture.’ Totally deadpan. I couldn’t get a sense of whether or not he believed it himself.”

“Are they bringing the body back here?”

“No, he said he thought it was too dangerous. Logan told him the people in the compound were dropping already – from the minute he cornered the disease mutant. That guy must have tried to hit Logan with whatever he had before he killed him. Some of it really virulent – people falling ill, maybe even dying immediately.”

“And maybe his body released more disease when he died,” Heather added.

“Could be. Charles says they’ve never encountered a mutation like this, even in Jean’s large scale mutation cataloguing project. So I guess there’s no way to know what would happen when he died... I wonder if anyone will be left alive there by morning.” He added, after a minute, “Not that it’s much of a loss.”

“Oh Mac! Don’t talk like that. There were whole families there – kids, babies.”

“I happen to think they’re better off dead than being raised to hate and kill.”

“Maybe. But it’s still a loss.” Mac didn’t say anything. “What do you think happens now?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have a cabinet meeting when Scott and Logan arrive. Everyone but Arthur and Wendy is here. We can fill them in later.”

“Scott was right - how we handle this is so crucial,” Wendy said. “We need to use the evidence the most effective way we can, try to come up with some way to end this war. I don’t know if that means going to the President, to the press...”

“Or to the FBI. They’re strong at this point and we’ve got the contacts with them.” He paused and thought a moment. “You know, there could be a real coup in the States, and not mutant-led or mutant-inspired. Alan Hoyle could end up taking over. The FBI is almost a competing government or something at this point.”

“What? Suspend the U.S. constitution?”

“It could happen. There’s such a sense of fear and panic, and the current President isn’t exactly calming people. The military is almost in open rebellion. I think a strong leader could make use of this. Hoyle’s nothing if not a strong leader.”

“Yeah, well so is Marley. And if he was in cahoots with Sacred Honor, what happens when their role in starting the war comes out? Marley’s bound to be feeling pretty desperate now. He’s not exactly one for quiet desperation, either.” They both thought about that for a minute. Heather put her arms around her husband and they held each other. “What do you think will happen, Mac?”

“I don’t know. Will the War on Mutants end – or spread? Will it come to Canada? Will we have to flee, too? Things will change – that’s all I can be sure of. Let’s hope that – eventually – they change for the better.”

The End

Additional Information for Unexpected Occurrences

In my stories, as in the X-Men movie, Scott Summers is a mutant superhero who also teaches high school. The movie doesn't specify what he teaches, but I've made him an English teacher. Xavier's Academy is a small school with a large variety of classes to choose from. Consequently each of the teachers takes on several different classes. Scott is seen in my stories teaching courses ranging from Shakespeare to Creative Writing to a poetry survey course, when he's not off on a mission. As Scott tells Logan in Canadian Nights, it's kind of a strange job. "Sometimes I teach English, sometimes I save the human race," he explains.

With Scott a major figure in most of my fiction, the stories tend to contain a lot of literary quotes, most of them guided by Scott's tastes in literature (which, strangely, mirror my own). It has been my practice to publish a literature guide providing references for the quotes in each series, along with URLs, where available, for those wishing to read the works quoted.

This series has at least as much public health content as it does literary content. In addition to the literary references, I’ve provided some additional information and references in this guide for anyone wanting to know more about the public health issues raised in Unexpected Occurrences.

Poems

Robert Frost. “The Black Cottage.”
Scott quotes from this poem when he says to Logan, “Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true?” This narrative poem tells the story of a visit to an empty cottage with a minister, who ponders life and change. Another line fits in well with the themes of this series: “Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.” Read the poem at http://www.bartleby.com/118/7.html.

William Shakespeare. Sonnet 18.
This is one of the best known of the Shakespearean sonnets, the one that begins “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The title for the last story comes from this poem. Read it, along with analysis at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html.

William Shakespeare. Sonnet 30.
This sonnet, about melancholy and a tendency to self-pity, is one with pretty universal appeal. Will tells of how sad memories can kind of overpower someone, resulting in tears and grief. It ends on a much happier note, though, as he thinks of his lover (the "Fair Youth", whose identity is subject of much debate), saying:
"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end."
Adam references the poem when he says that "remembrance of things past" is rushing in without summoning, when he begins to recall his night with Jake. The phrase "remembrance of things past" is also the title of the English translation of Proust's novel, A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which was featured in Safe House. The English title clearly comes from this sonnet, though, since it is not a translation of the original French title.

William Shakespeare. Sonnet 116.
The title of the third story in this series comes from Sonnet 116 as do some of Adam’s thoughts about constancy in relationships. One of the better known of the Shakespearean sonnets, Sonnet 116 talks about love continuing even when circumstances or the lovers themselves alter greatly. Read the poem and commentary at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html.

Plays

William Shakespeare. Julius Caesar.
Cyclops quotes Antony in Julius Caesar when he says the federal government is lying about what let slip the dogs of war. Shakespeare’s play about the assassination of Caesar and its aftermath is available many pleases. I like the Shakespeare Online site for its easy-to-read print and its excellent commentary on the plays and poems. You can find this one at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/juliusscenes.html.

William Shakespeare. Hamlet.
Wendy often quotes Hamlet in my fiction. In the eighth story she humorously quotes from the play’s best known soliloquy saying that for new parents sleep is “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Perhaps Shakespeare's more read and performed play, Hamlet has something for everyone: love, death, intrigue, theatricality, ghosts. Read it at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamletscenes.html.

William Shakespeare. King Lear.
Scott quotes a famous line from Lear in talking about how mutant lives are held cheap: “Like flies to wanton boy are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.” Lear is the story of a king with three daughters, who rejects one of them, Cordelia, because she won’t promise to love him more than her husband. The other two make the promise falsely and cheat and reject him and he ends up mad and friendless. The story of parental rejection of the child who doesn’t live up to expectations fits in with Oliver’s story in this series.

Novels

Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit.
One of Dickens’s lesser known novels, this one has a picaresque plotline and a theme of selfishness vs. kindness. The title of the fifth story, “Change Begets Change” is a quote from this novel. The Project Gutenberg version can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/chuzz10.txt.

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have told Stowe upon meeting, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” The story may be apocryphal, but it accurately reflects how influential this novel of slavery was at the time it was written. It remains a gripping story more than 150 years later. The main villain of the novel is Simon Legree, the cruel overseer. Adam jokingly refers to Charles as Simon Legree Xavier because of his propensity to give out lots of work. The Project Gutenberg edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/utomc11.txt.

Miscellaneous Works

Vincent Bugliosi. Helter-Skelter, the True Story of the Manson Murders.
In the fourth story of this series, Scott and Jean compare the (as yet unknown) people who started the War on Mutants to Charles Manson. Charles Manson and his followers committed the Tate-LaBianca murders that were front page news in the U.S. when they occurred in 1969 and throughout the trial that followed. The Manson murders and the people who committed them are explored in detail in this fascinating book by prosecuting attorney Bugliosi. The title of the book comes from a Beatles song that Manson believed included coded lyrics instructing him to start a race war. The book is not available online, but can be found in most bookstores and libraries. The lyrics to the song (which provide the title for that story: “Tell Me the Answer”) can be found at http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/B/Beatles/Beatles%20-%20Helter%20Skelter%20lyrics.htm. Charles Manson is in prison. His last parole hearing was in 2002 and he was turned down.

Declaration of Independence.
The name of the militia group that turns out to be behind the bioterrorism is “Sacred Honor,” a phrase taken from the Declaration of Independence. Scott is quite enamored of the Declaration as a work of literature and is seen teaching it in his English classes in other series. In this one, he quotes from the Declaration in the planning meeting with Charles and the Hudsons. .A very well-presented and comprehensive treatment of the Declaration can be found at http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/decmain.html. At this site, provided by the National Archives and Records Administration, you will find the text, a photo of the original Declaration, extensive information on its history and comparisons with other major national documents of the U.S. Of particular interest is the essay at this link: http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/decstyle.html which explores the Declaration of Independence as a work of literature.

Iliad
Homer’s epic poem of the Trojan War is referenced when Scott’s plan to invade the Sacred Honor compound includes hiding “Trojan Mutants” in Billy’s truck. The Project Gutenberg edition of the Samuel Butler translation can be found at http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/2199.

More Information on Public Health Issues Discussed in Unexpected Occurrences

A number of issues related to public health are raised in the events depicted in Unexpected Occurrences. For anyone interested in learning more about them, here is some information and some links.

Plague as a Weapon of Bioterrorism – Although we’ve seen anthrax used as a bio-weapon in the U.S. and there has been lots of talk about the possibility of smallpox being used in that way, I personally believe that plague would be a more effective agent for that purpose. If a terrorist organization like Sacred Honor were to get hold of Yersinia pestis and managed to aerosolize it, it could spread very quickly before anyone knew what was going on. The early symptoms are much like flu, and effective treatment requires that antibiotics be administered within 24 hours onset of symptoms. As Jean explains to Scott, the pneumonic form of plague is spread easily person-to-person. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website has a good Fact Sheet on Pneumonic Plague at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.pdf.

Other Bioterrorism Agents – When the X-Men invade the Sacred Honor compound they find a laboratory full of infectious agents – anthrax, tularemia, smallpox. Anthrax was used as a weapon of bio-terrorism in the U.S. in 2001. Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacterium bacillus anthracis. It is not spread from person to person. The anthrax attacks in 2001 consisted of anthrax spores sent through the mail. 22 individuals were infected and there were 5 deaths. More information on anthrax can be found in the CDC FAQ at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/faq/index.asp.

The U.S. federal government attempted a large-scale smallpox vaccination effort for health care workers, in preparation for the possibility of smallpox used as a bio-weapon. Compliance was voluntary and there were very few volunteers. It’s unclear to me why this particular agent was chosen for such attention, other than the fact that there is an effective vaccine. More information on smallpox can be found at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp.

Tularemia is another highly infectious potential bio-weapon. Information on the disease, both naturally occurring and as a bio-weapon, can be found at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/tularemia/index.asp#faq.

In addition to preparing to respond to future bio-terrorism incidents, there is an ongoing effort in the U.S. to detect bio-weapons before an outbreak gets to the point that the one in Unexpected Occurrences does. Part of that effort consists of educating medical providers to be alert for outbreaks of diseases like the ones mentioned above. Part of it consists of Bioterrorism Surveillance Systems. There’s a good description of the latter at http://www.doh.state.fl.us/disease_ctrl/epi/Epi_Updates/Epi_Weekly/09-17-04.htm#3.

HIV and Drug Use - Adam’s sexual encounter with Jake is fictional, but the role of crystal meth in increasing sexual risk among men who have sex with men (MSM) is well documented. As Adam knows, crystal is a drug that provides a high, deadens pain, and lowers inhibitions. It’s an inexpensive drug and one that is spreading among MSM and often used in a sexual context. It is ingested, snorted, injected, or administered anally. http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/pdf/public/dohmhnews3-03.pdf describes HIV risk associated with its use.

HIV – Occupational Risk and PEP – Jean-Paul is prescribed a course of treatment by Jean when it is realized that he has been exposed to HIV. The drugs he is given are collectively known as “Postexposure Prophylaxis” (PEP). Guidelines for PEP for Health Care Workers can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00052722.htm. Presumably similar guidelines apply to occupationally exposed mutant superheroes.

HIV – Negotiated Safety - Earlier in their relationship, Jean-Paul and Adam had agreed to follow a practice called “Negotiated Safety,” as described in my series Safe House. The concept is that a couple, after verifying that they are both HIV-, agrees to have unprotected sex, but only with each other. If either of them incurs any risk in activity with a third party, he immediately discloses that fact and they go back to using condoms until it can be determined that they are still negative. This method is very controversial in the gay community, because it depends on someone who has broken the compact in one respect (having unprotected sex outside the relationship) being resolute enough to keep to the rest of the agreement. When Adam alludes to the pitfalls of Negotiated Safety, Jean-Paul reminds him that that agreement was long in the past, and since then they’ve committed to true monogamy, and not just to a health-based agreement. A website telling how to work out a Negotiated Safety plan can be found at http://www.friendtofriend.org/nocondoms.htm. An article by a therapist on the topic can be found at http://www.gaypsychotherapy.com/condom%20conversation.htm. A study from Australia found that the men studied did keep the Negotiated Safety agreements http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db;=PubMed&list;_uids=11231869&dopt;=Abstract.

HIV – Oral Sex and Prevention – Adam and Jean-Paul discuss whether or not to use condoms for oral sex. Like many MSM they have not used them except for anal sex, but in light of Jean-Paul’s exposure, he suggests they rethink whether or not to have unprotected oral sex. What is the risk of contracting HIV through oral sex? No one knows definitively and a variety of opinions can be found. It’s generally accepted that it is a much less risky activity than anal sex, but how risky is a matter of much discussion. See http://www.skfriends.com/is-oral-sex-safe.htm and http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/oralsexqa.htm for two research-based, yet quite different opinions on the topic.