Vest The Dim Sea

Note from Alicia: This is not X-Project canon, but (the beginnings of) a fanfic adaptation of Nathan's arrival and the Mistra plotline. There are some substantial differences from game canon (hence the inspired by comment in my disclaimers) but a lot that will hopefully give those familiar with the game reason to smile as well.

Thanks to miss_porcupine for whipping the early scenes of this part into shape, and especially for making my favorite spy's internal monologue make sense. Any Extraneous Commas and bizarre phrasing are my own damned fault. As well, thanks to Erik for vetting the Big Action Scene and making some very valuable suggestions.

The prologue and part one can be found here. This story begins nine months after the end of X2.

---

Over the Eastern Alps

Alison Blaire sometimes figured that she had probably spent too much of her time with the X-Men thus far thinking wistfully about the day when all of this would seem like second nature. Dressing up in black leather and body armor and traveling the world to stick your noses into all kinds of wild and wacky crisis situations, sometimes invited, sometimes not - it was galaxies away from the life she'd led before coming to Xavier's. Sometimes when she woke up, the surreality of it just smacked her in the face and she laid in bed staring up at the ceiling and wondering what the hell she was thinking.

But there were some things she hoped never grew stale. If she ever got ho-hum about regular trips in the most purely awe-inspiring aircraft she'd ever seen, Alison would know that she'd turned into one of those awful jaded people she'd always made it a habit to cordially detest. Smiling as she peered out the Blackbird's canopy at the Alps passing beneath them, she wondered just how long it would take her to argue Scott into teaching her how to fly the jet. Probably a while. And definitely not until after a good long stretch of not breaking the Danger Room. She was still waiting for the lecture she was owed for yesterday's little slip.

"I love flying over the mountains," the man in question murmured from the pilot's seat. His posture was utterly relaxed, his hands sure and steady on the controls. Alison looked away from the window and back at him, her smile lingering at the almost peaceful look on Scott's face. It wasn't a customary expression for him. She rather liked it.

"See, when you say things like that," she teased him as she leaned back in the copilot's chair, "I wonder why we're not diving and swooping and making hairpin turns that'd have Hank diving for the barf bag." It was a clear day over most of Europe, nothing in the way of significant turbulence, so the small team Scott had brought with him was free to move around the plane. The Professor had made a few calls and cleared them through the necessary airspace so there wasn't the worry of pursuit. For a medevac, this was a very relaxed sort of flight.

Scott's quick flash of a smile came and went, so quickly that she would have missed it if she hadn't been watching. "'I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,'" he murmured.

"'Where never lark, or even eagle flew'?" Alison ventured. Scott's head turned towards her, just a little, and she gave him an innocent look, secretly delighted at herself for having been able to complete the quotation. She liked surprising him. "I like poetry too, you know," she said brightly. "Tennyson, Frost, Doctor Seuss..."

He gave her the 'you're not fooling me with the bubblehead act' look. "Charles gave me a copy of 'High Flight' four years ago," Scott said after a moment. "The next day, the Blackbird was delivered." He shook his head a little, his smile coming back and lingering, warm and reminiscent. "It comes back to mind on a regular basis."

"You're happy when you fly," Alison ventured after a moment, still smiling, but her blue eyes serious as she watched him. Scott had turned his attention back to his instruments, but after a moment, he nodded. "I always," Alison went on more softly, "thought that singing in front of an audience was like flying."

Bittersweet, to say something like that aloud. She didn't know if she'd ever sing in front of an audience again, after all. Alison's fingers tapped out an idle rhythm on the arm of her seat, her thoughts turning inward. She tried very hard not to think about that most of the time, but occasionally it snuck up on her.

"You still sing like that's how you feel," was Scott's completely unexpected reply. "Even when you're just practicing in the music room before your class." Startled, she looked sideways at him, and he smiled. "Don't you know? I hear and see everything at the school."

"So the kids claim. I always thought that was the school's equivalent of an urban legend," Alison said, blinking a bit rapidly. Whoa, no, she told herself. In the leathers, on a mission, so no weepiness. Even if your captain had just made you want to find a certain British telepath as soon as you got home to tell her what a lucky woman she was.

"Actually, I have spies. Many small and loyal minions. I pay them in candy."

"So next time I find Miles on a sugar high, I know who to blame? That's what you're saying?"

"Your son's a good soldier," Scott said with a perfectly straight face. "My right-hand man, actually. Although he'd deny it to his dying breath." He glanced down at his instruments and when he spoke again, the bantering tone was gone from his voice. "Okay, coming up on Pete's coordinates." He touched the button for the Blackbird's intercom. "Strap in, people, we'll be landing in five."

Roughly twenty minutes later they were back in the air, plus three passengers. Standing just outside the cockpit, Alison watched as Moira and Hank conferred quietly over the man on the gurney. Their patient was well and truly out of it, as far as Alison could tell. Hank seemed bemused, constantly adjusting his glasses in that mannerism he had when faced with something that was perplexing him. And Moira... well, Alison liked to think that she was very good with body language, and Moira's posture said 'worried' and 'fiercely protective' and something else that Alison half-wondered if she was misreading. After all, Moira was very noticeably not touching her patient. Odd. Definitely some mixed signals going on here.

"Think Summers would chuck me out the hatch if I smoked in here?"

Alison snorted softly at the dour question. "Haven't you and he already had that discussion?" she asked, going over to sit down beside Pete on the bench. "Several times? Loudly?"

"Yes, well, I keep hoping that the regular sex from Braddock might do something about the stick up his arse. Just call me the eternal optimist." Pete was playing with a cigarette, but making no move to light it. He looked tired, Alison thought, and it was something more than just his perpetually world-weary air.

"Do you know him?" she asked curiously, keeping her voice low. She knew very little about why Moira had wound up in Liechtenstein with a total stranger whom the Professor wanted in the mansion for medical treatment as soon as possible. She knew even less about why Pete had apparently tagged along. "Tall, dark and unconscious over there, I mean."

"I know who you meant. And I've known Nate for ten years," Pete said, his eyes going to the two doctors talking over their patient. "We met on the job."

"On the job? So, what, he's James Bond too?" Alison asked, almost playfully. It was one of her favorite things to tease Pete with. He always made faces at her for it, too.

This time, he didn't. "No," he said instead, something very serious beneath the dry tone. "Think more along the lines of Logan."

~*~

Srebrenica, Bosnia

Ten Years Ago

His head hurt. Not quite as much as his pride hurt. Something had hit him - what, Pete wasn't sure. Possibly a very large truck. Bloody hell... There had been a few other chancy moments thus far in his career with British Intelligence, but waking up lying on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back was never a pleasant thing. He laid there for a moment as his head cleared, not moving or opening his eyes. Just listening. His first impulse, to cut loose with some hotknives and get himself free, was not the impulse he wanted to be following. Not when he didn't know who else was in the room with him.

"He's awake." It was a female voice, the accent distinctly American. All right, Pete reflected somewhat hazily, that clarified the situation a little. Waking up in this position to an American woman in Srebrenica in the middle of the Serbian siege meant a couple of very specific possibilities.

Pete opened his eyes cautiously, since there was obviously no point in pretending - and how had she known? - but couldn't repress a twitch as the woman crouched down beside him. Black, wearing local Muslim dress as if that would really make her fit in on a Bosnian street. There was a hint of vague dissatisfaction in her expression as she peered at him.

"I'm going to take off the cuffs," she said, and proceeded to do so without waiting for a response. Bloody trusting of her, Pete thought half-wonderingly, half-suspiciously. But her next words answered his unasked question. "We know why you're here, Mr. Wisdom. Didn't know that when you walked into our net, unfortunately."

"Net?" Pete muttered hoarsely as she removed the cuffs and offered him a hand up. All right. If they were willing to play nice he'd do the same. At least until he found out what was going on. "Don't remember any bloody net..." His head spun as she pulled him up to a sitting position, but he focused on sizing up the room. Minimal furniture, plastered-over bullet holes in the wall, cracks in the ceiling. Could be any house or apartment in Srebrenica or hell, anywhere in Bosnia. He certainly hoped he was still in Srebrenica.

There were two other people in the room: both men, both wearing body armor. One was Pete's size, the other a little bigger, and they were very obviously in peak physical condition. Like their female companion, they looked to be in their late twenties or thereabouts.

"Oh," Pete said warily, rubbing at his jaw. "I see. One of those metaphorical nets, then. So what sort of fish was I supposed to be?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"A Muslim fish, as a matter of fact," said one of the men in a distinct Southern drawl. He was sitting at the table, cleaning an MP5. The woman shot him a narrow-eyed look and he shrugged. "Oh, screw it, we're off the wire anyway. If we weren't going to leave him in the alley we ain't going to pussyfoot around the situation."

Pete froze, not having expected an answer. Hell. Whoever they were, they shouldn't be chatty. Chattiness was a bad sign, with worse implications. Suddenly the removal of the cuffs wasn't quite so reassuring. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and rethinking the decision not to spray the room with hotkinves. Maybe not just yet. His hands were after all free, and all he'd need was a moment...

Think. He had to think this through. As he did, his mind went right back to the 'Muslim fish' comment. Americans, possibly special operations of some sort - here in Srebrenica during the siege and trying to catch one of the locals? Given his own mission, did coincidence stretch that far? Time to try and find out.

"You know why I'm here," he said warily, his eyes flickering back to the woman. Even if the worse-case scenario was what he was looking at here, talking bought him more time. Maybe more information. "Why I'm here, who I am. What, did you raid my nonexistent day planner?"

"No," came a voice from the doorway. "I scanned your mind."

The man who walked forward into the room towered over Pete even when he got to his feet and dusted off his clothes. This, Pete thought, meeting the gray eyes that studied him impassively, would be the man in charge - and by his own admisson, a telepath. Pete would have guessed that anyway. He knew the feel of a strong psi when he encountered one. The back of his neck was prickling, and not just because the bastard looked like he could break Pete in half like a dry twig without breaking a sweat.

And this, Pete realized, would be why the others were talking. Because it didn't matter. If this man decided it was the best way to resolve the situation, Pete wouldn't be remembering this conversation.

"And it all becomes clear," Pete said dryly, opting to continue to play it cool. Telepaths. They complicated a situation in all kinds of ways, even if they weren't outright enemies. He needed to step carefully here.

The man raised an eyebrow at him, grunting something, then walked right past him and over to the rudimentary kitchen. "Hope, are we down to instant coffee?"

"Sadly, yes," the woman said with an arched eyebrow. "Are we going to have to be watching you for homicidal tendencies now?"

"Always." He fixed himself a cup of instant coffee, making a face as he sipped at it. "Better than nothing," he muttered. Like the woman - Hope, although Pete doubted that was her real name, given how casually it had been dropped into the conversation - he was wearing civilian clothes. Unlike her, he probably fit in just fine on the streets, if he spoke the language.

"You can't have Melmedelija, Wisdom," the gray-eyed man went on almost conversationally. It should have sounded like a statement or a warning. It didn't sound like either, oddly enough. "We're here to offer him a trip to Washington."

"Popular bloke, our man Juka," Pete said, his eyes narrowing as the conversation took yet another twist. Was there an implicit 'but' there, or was he just imagining things?

Hope and the other two men were watching their boss, and she at least had looked briefly startled at the turn the conversation had taken. Pete moved - slowly, very slowly - across the room to the coffee supplies, well aware of it when their attention went right back to him. No one made a move to stop him, though.

"No chance of arranging a detour through London before you head back across the pond?" he went on casually as he fixed himself a cup.

"Not in our orders," the Southern-accented one said. "Then again, neither were you, fella."

"Lucky for you," the other man, the one who hadn't spoken yet, said grimly. His black eyes were ice-cold beneath nearly white-blond hair. Pete registered the implicit threat, but let it pass, something else occuring to him as he noticed the faint, greenish tinge to the man's skin as he leaned forward in his chair. The lighting was masking it, but it was definitely there.

"Are you all mutants?" Pete asked, coming right out with it.

Silence. "We don't exist," Hope finally said with a thin smile. "Best to look at it that way, I think."

"Funny," Pete murmured, looking from her back to the team's leader, who was sipping at his coffee, a pensive look on his face as he stared at the cracked wall. "You all look real enough to me."

"Appearances can be deceiving," the gray-eyed man said almost sharply and turned his attention back to Pete, focusing on him as if he was coming back from some great distance. "Shall we talk compromise, so we're not tripping over each other? I'd hate to have to leave you dead in a ditch somewhere if it could be avoided." But I will, if it can't, was the unspoken addendum.

It didn't make as much of an impression as it should have. Pete was too busy trying not to betray his amazement at the man's question, or the wary concern that followed hard on its heels. "Can't say as though I'd be in favor of that myself, Mr. No-Name," Pete said, trying for a diffident tone. They were holding all the cards, so why the offer? I need to know what the hell this is all about. Who they are. But he needed to do that without losing the chance to complete his own mission, if the possibility was still there.

The smile that greeted his comment was mirthless. "Faith, Hope, and Charity," the gray-eyed man said, indicating his three teammates. The blond man looked disgusted, while his Southern-accented colleague snorted. Hope just looked amused. "And you can call me Cable."

~*~

Salem Center,

Now

Bobby Drake yelped as he wound up on his ass. Again. "Stop doing that!" he protested with a breathless laugh, wheezing just a little as he rubbed at his chest. "Ow. You're too damned fast."

"Well, I've been learning from the best, sugar. And practicing more than you," Marie said, her eyes sparkling wickedly as she offered him a hand up. Again. She'd worked up a good sweat, but she was barely breathing hard. Not that he was quite panting, or at least he hadn't been before she'd landed that last hit. The physical fitness regimen X-Men trainees were put through was good that way. "You ought to spend more time working with Logan. I'm sure he'd be open to the idea."

This wasn't one of their scheduled hand-to-hand sessions, just an impromptu meeting in the X-Men's gym for some practice. Which he apparently needed more than he'd thought, Bobby reflected ruefully as he took her hand. Too much time in the library, not enough in the gym. The first semester of college had been a killer.

"I'm not sure I'm up for the bruises and not-so-friendly abuse on more than a weekly basis," he quipped. "I only have a tiny little masochistic streak, you know."

"He's not that bad," Marie said immediately, loyal to a fault as always, but Bobby just grinned at her. He'd stopped being bothered by her fondness for Logan months ago. A lot of things had become a lot clearer since the attack on the mansion and what had happened at Alkali Lake. Some of those things Marie herself had very determinedly clarified. Not that Bobby was complaining at all.

"So you keep telling me." Bobby fell back into a defensive position, letting her take the offensive again. She didn't disappoint. You couldn't precisely call Marie aggressive, but she didn't beat around the bush. And she was so fast, Bobby thought again as he barely blocked the combination kick-punch-attempted knee to groin.

What did it say about him that he had a girlfriend who could kick his ass? That I have really good taste, maybe, Bobby told himself as she chased him around the mats, keeping up the pressure. The mansion certainly wasn't short of ferocious women these days. Marie was doing as much work in the gym with Ms. Braddock as with Logan, and he'd caught her and Ms. Maximoff sparring a few times, too. Ms. Maximoff was as scary as Ms. Braddock, if in a very different way, and it wasn't just the whole 'Magneto's daughter' thing.

You're whipped, Drake. He could almost hear John's sardonic voice, mocking him. Bobby shook his head and tried to push the attack a little. He was bigger that she was, after all. Bigger, heavier, with longer reach - he needed to stop letting her take him two falls out of three. But picking up the pace only seemed to encourage her to do the same, and she had an easy grace he wasn't going to be matching anytime soon. She didn't need to block his hits; she just made sure she wasn't there when they landed.

None of the X-Men who taught hand-to-hand taught a distinct 'style'. The goal was to put your opponent down hard and fast if you had to get up close and personal. There weren't any judges to give you points for artistic merit. But there was such a thing as personal style, and Marie's was slowly changing from a mishmash of echoes of the people she trained with to something that was all her own. It was a level he knew he hadn't reached yet.

He really did need to practice more.

As the thought crossed his mind, Marie slipped past his guard with a fist that stopped just short of his solar plexus. "Sloppy, Bobby," she chided him, dancing back out of reach. "Your mind's wandering. I know that look."

"It's your shirt," Bobby said cheerfully, and ducked a quick kick to the head.

"Ass." But she was still smiling. Before they could close with each other again, the lights dimmed briefly. Bobby raised his hands to ask for a pause, and Marie stepped back. "Looks like the Blackbird's back," Bobby said, watching the light panels high on the walls of the gym flicker to green. "Want to go see if we can find out what this medevac was about?"

"I don't want to get in the docs' way," Marie temporized. Still, she was as curious as he was, Bobby could tell. He knew that look.

He shrugged. "We can just be walking past the hangar doors. You know. On our way to, um..." Inspiration abruptly failed him.

"The Situation Room? To do tactical review?" Marie smiled mischievously, tucking a stray lock of hair that had escaped her long braid back behind her ear. "I don't figure Scott would be too torn up over us doing some extra work."

"And this is why you kick my ass in tactical review, too."

"Admit it, Drake. You couldn't make it without me."

~*~

With a sigh, Moira leaned back in her chair, her tired eyes skimming over the numbers on the computer screen once more to reassure herself. "Thank God," she said to Hank, who raised an eyebrow at her from where he was standing in the doorway of her office. "Nathan's blood tests," she explained. "The virus levels are within what classes as normal range for him. Given his other symptoms, I was concerned."

"The symptoms are likely just stress, then. The strain on his system." Hank ran a large hand through his shaggy dark hair, and Moira reminded herself yet again to have a little talk with him about keeping up appearances. Once things settled down, of course. But at thirty-two, he was a little old for the 'scruffy boy genius' look. He could do to be a little more professional-looking, especially given the attention his work was garnering of late. Maybe she ought to set Alison to the task? And I know I'm tired when my mind wanders to my colleague's fashion sense or lack thereof...

"Most likely," she agreed when Hank peered at her concernedly.

"Not that they're any less worrisome, I agree," he went on, although she could hear the unspoken 'Don't you think you ought to get some rest, Moira?' beneath his words. "I've only had time to skim the information you gave me about this virus, but I've read enough to be able to guess that his immune system is not precisely robust."

"He hates flying commercial air," Moira said absently, closing the file and adding a layer of extra security to it. The mansion was indisputably secure, possibly more so than her clinic, but she had always exercised extreme caution with Nathan's information and she wasn't about to change that habit now. "Always walks off the plane with a cold, or so he claims."

"Doesn't surprise me." Hank moved into the room, turning the chair on the other side of her desk around and sitting down. He folded his immensely muscled arms on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them, peering at her thoughtfully through his glasses. Moira returned his regard patiently, and he finally gave her a sheepish smile. "Am I being that obvious?"

"Aye, Henry. But I forgive you," Moira said briefly, reaching out for her coffee cup. "It's not as if any of you thought I had much of a life beyond my lab, I realize-"

"Oh, Moira! That's not what I-"

"-and the curiosity is only natural," she went on patiently. "But I'd ask you not to trouble Nathan with it when he's awake. It's going to be difficult enough for him, being here." She had told him before sedating him again for the flight that they weren't going to Muir. The fact that he had mounted only a token protest was very worrying.

"There's something of a story behind him, isn't there?" Hank asked gently, although his eyes were still keen as his gaze lingered on her. Moira nodded slowly. "I had guessed, when you told Scott that he'd need to talk to Charles for a proper briefing."

"It's a very sad story," Moira said quietly. "Sad and awful. He was my patient years ago. Then he became my friend. I've... helped him from time to time, in more than a medical capacity." She took a deep, slightly unsteady breath. "And he's returned the favor. He's very important to me, Henry. Having him here involves risk, more to him than to us, but he needs help he can only get here, from Charles."

"Moira, you don't need to explain." Hank reached out and covered her hand with one of his, squeezing gently. It was a grip that could have crushed rock, but Hank had thankfully become accustomed to the enhanced physical attributes his mutation gave him. Moira could remember times when having him in her lab had been like inviting a bull into a china shop - if a bull apologized every time he broke something by accident - but that had been years ago. "He's your friend. Heaven knows we've taken in others who've brought their share of danger. How many of us questioned the wisdom of having Wanda and Pietro here? And that's worked out perfectly well."

"Thus far," Moira said a bit wryly, but turned her hand in his grip, squeezing back. Henry was a good friend, not merely a valued colleague. She felt privileged to have been able to help guide his early career. One of the fringe benefits of being here at the mansion was being able to continue their joint projects in a far more personal manner. "I suppose the thing to do," she went on more briskly, drawing her hand back - Hank let go precisely on cue, being a smart man who knew her pride very well, "is to ensure that he rests and continue to monitor him while Charles makes his initial assessment."

"We've dealt with thornier medical problems. Both of us have," Hank said very firmly. "I suspect this will call for a multi-pronged approach, simply because of how many interacting factors we're dealing with here. An approach like that isn't something we can formulate without sufficient sleep, mind you..."

"Why, Henry. You lasted a whole five minutes before you began to nag." Moira gave him her best motherly look. "I'm very proud."

Hank chuckled and started to reply, only to be forestalled by a hesitant knock at the office door. Moira looked over, smiling wearily but brightly at the red-haired girl standing there holding a tray of food.

"Rahne, love, you didn't have to bring us dinner."

Rahne Sinclaire returned the smile somewhat tentatively and then came in, setting the tray down on a clear corner of Moira's desk. "I didn't think you'd have had much time to eat," she said, her Scots accent even thicker than Moira's. "With the flight and all."

"That was very thoughtful, Rahne, thank you," Hank said warmly and then practically leapt upon the food. Moira exchanged an amused glance with her young ward, and Hank looked up, the sheepish grin returning. "High metabolic demands, remember?"

~*~

There were a limited number of places you looked for Scott Summers when you wanted to find him. Unless he was with Braddock, and Scott tended to disappear into her rooms at predictable times of the day, he was usually working somewhere. It was just a question of where. Logan checked Scott's office first, and when that didn't pan out, headed to the Situation Room. He wasn't disappointed.

"Wouldn't kill you to get some sleep," he said gruffly as he walked in just in time to see Scott, sitting at one of the terminals, cover a yawn. "That was what, seven hours of flight time?"

"I had the autopilot on most of the time," Scott said dryly, raising an eyebrow. "Both directions, over the Atlantic. But I'm touched by the concern." He looked back at whatever file he was skimming. "Are you going to sit down, or stand in the doorway?"

Logan shrugged, then came over and took one of the other seats around the central table. "You've got that look, Cyke."

"What look?"

"The 'I've got a dilemma' look," Logan said dryly, and took a stab at what it might be. "Moira's friend going to be that much of a headache?" He shook his head, snorting. "Friend," he scoffed a little. "I saw the way she was hovering when you and Hank were wheeling the gurney off the 'Bird." Body language was easy to read, although more challenging when it was someone like MacTaggart. The woman was usually buttoned up tight in that and every other way.

"That's none of our business," Scott said sharply, and although Logan couldn't see his eyes, he'd learned by now to know just when Summers was glaring at him. It was something about the tone and the line of his jaw. Gave it right away. "He's here for medical treatment. The security issue's the only thing that needs to concern us. Wisdom's going to be briefing Ororo, Betsy, and I in the morning with the rest of the details. I'd like you to be there, too. Nine sharp?"

Logan frowned, raising an eyebrow. "Sure, I guess. Why?" He stayed well out of command decisions. It was one of the reasons that he and Scott got along as well as they did these days, he suspected. Less stepping on toes.

Scott's smile was wintry. "You have a unique perspective on this sort of situation," he said. "And quite a bit in common with our guest."

"Uh-huh." If Scott had meant to get him all intrigued... well, he supposed it had worked. "Care to elaborate?"

Scott raised an eyebrow. "I'd be spoiling the fun of the briefing then, wouldn't I?"

Logan snorted again. "Can't quite figure out if you think you're being funny when you say things like that, or just if you're just trying to be annoying." Bizarrely, though, he'd grown to appreciate the odd banter the two of them sometimes managed. Added a little spice to life, if nothing else.

"You know what they say about a little from column A..."

~*~

San Francisco,

Six years and six months ago

For transactions like this, you always paid in cash.

"Eight thousand," Nathan said wearily as his contact opened the envelope to count the money. The weasely-looking little man had the reputation of being one of the best suppliers of false documents on the west coast. Nathan only hoped he lived up to his billing. "It's all there."

He stared at the briefcase on the hood of the car fixedly, as if he could see through the leather exterior to the documents inside. Three passports. Three plane tickets: one to Moscow, two to Edinburgh. Part of him still didn't quite believe he was doing this. Voluntarily splitting up, after everything that had happened. But it was the safest thing to do, the best chance they had of getting clear.

The supplier nodded, sliding the envelope into his inside jacket pocket and then turning to open the briefcase. "And I have everything you asked for," he said, reaching in. "Sorry for the price, but this was rather short notice."

He handed over the three passports first, and Nathan opened each of them, relieved to see that they did indeed look authentic. Proper security features and all. "The Winters family?" he asked a bit roughly, staring down at the third passport and the little blond boy gazing up at him from the picture. Tyler loved getting his picture taken. He hadn't even asked why. "These will stand up to a typical customs inspection?"

"Typical, yes. Extensive, no. Like I told you when you called, top of the line documents require more time than you say you have." The supplier gave him a chilly smile as he handed over the airline tickets. "Two to Edinburgh for your wife and son. One for yourself to Moscow. A very popular jumping-off point for people who want to disappear, I've noticed."

"Gratuitous observations are generally hazardous in our line of work," Nathan said coldly, checking the airline tickets as well. "Something to keep in mind." He nodded briskly to the man and then turned and walked back to his car, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. Instinct was telling him that he shouldn't be leaving the loose end. Confidentiality promises were all well and good, but there were too many people back at the facility who could crack that man's mind like an egg if they got their hands on him. If that happened, getting clear wouldn't be the end of it.

It won't be the end of it anyway, Nathan. The voice was his own, cool and detached, and Nathan's jaw clenched as he pulled the door shut behind him and started the car. Not that he wasn't used to hearing voices, but he had hoped that maybe... hoped too much, most likely.

Traffic wasn't light in San Francisco even in the middle of the day, but he was still making decent time back to the hotel. Blinking at the brightness of the sun, Nathan slid on his sunglasses. Part of him wanted to step on the gas and get back to the hotel as quickly as possible, but he stayed resolutely under the speed limit. He needed to remember to drive normally, not like someone on the run.

He was very good at appearing calm when he wasn't. He'd had so much practice, after all.

To his right, the Bay glimmered in the sunlight, but Nathan wasn't in the mood to appreciate the view. He took the correct exit onto the old Bayshore highway, slowly beginning to relax a little as he approached the hotel's driveway. It was starting to sink in. He had the documents, and the airport was less than a mile away. One more phone call tonight, and Moira would be waiting for Aliya and Tyler at the airport in Edinburgh.

Once they were in Scotland, they would be safe. And knowing that they would be protected, he would be able to concentrate. Finish things.

He handed the car over to the valet for parking, shaking his head when he was asked if he'd want it again tonight. The plan now was to stay put until they left for the airport in the morning. They'd have to find a movie for Ty, Nathan reflected as he headed inside. He had already been complaining about being cooped up inside when Nathan had been heading out to pick up the documents.

I wonder how he'll like Scotland. Muir was very different from New Mexico, and Tyler had never lived anywhere else. But children were adaptable, or so he'd been told. Ty would adapt, Nathan told himself fiercely. He'd have every opportunity to do just that, and do it in more safety and freedom than he'd ever known here.

He was halfway across the lobby when he heard his wife's voice in his mind. #Nathan?# Aliya sounded uncertain.

~Aliya?~ he sent back, then started towards the elevators again. ~I've got the passports and the tickets. On my way back up.~ He should have stopped for some food on the way back, he thought suddenly. Maybe the restaurant here in the lobby did take-out? ~Everything all right?~

~I don't know. Nathan, there's something...~ A hesitation, then a flood of panic. ~NATHAN!~ A flash of what she was seeing, of the door exploding inwards.

~ALIYA!~ he shouted back and changed course, heading for the stairs instead of the elevator. People scattered out of his way with yelps and indignant looks, but he barely registered them.

This wasn't happening. Couldn't be happening. He'd been so careful. ~Aliya, get out!~ Gunshots. She was hearing gunshots, and he sensed other minds on the eighth floor panicking as they heard them too.

~ALIYA!~

More flashes as he saw through her eyes. Tyler's small body, being flung across the bed and falling to the floor as the bullets ripped into him. Nathan stumbled halfway up a flight of stairs, a cry of denial catching in his throat. Then Aliya was falling, too, trying to breathe, trying to move. Not managing either very well. He could taste the blood at the back of her throat as if he was the one who'd been shot.

~NATHAN! Nat-~

It was a snap. An audible snap, followed by a white-hot explosion of pain behind his eyes. Nathan found himself face-down on the stairs when awareness returned. Dazed, his eyes refusing to focus, he pushed himself up to his hands and knees and tried to call out to Aliya telepathically, to find her familiar presence.

Nothing. She wasn't there.

No. The denial gave him the strength to get to his feet, to keep running up the stairs, taking them two at once. The shock, he told himself wildly, it was just the shock of being in contact with her mind when she was shot.

His telepathy was out.

She was fine.

Tyler was fine.

His telepathy was just out.

Even as he kept running up the stairs repeating that to himself, he knew it for the lie it was. Reaching the eighth floor, Nathan wrenched the door open and nearly died in that instant. Two bullets got through his hastily raised TK shield, catching him in the upper arm and shoulder. Not his gun hand, though, and he was already rolling, drawing his weapon and firing back.

His first shot took David Haydon in the face. His second and third sent Thyra Sawyer - Thyra, who had been such an enthusiastic student - reeling back against the wall at the force of the impact against her vest. But there were more of them in the room, and they were smart enough to fire from cover. More bullets came at him, and bioelectrical blasts - Chepaitis, had to be Chepaitis - and the shield didn't keep those out as well, not without more concentration that he had to give with Celia Roslin hammering at his mind as she fired.

One of the blasts slipped through as he ran at a partly open door, seeking cover. It threw him back against the floor, and the shield shattered as he lost his concentration. As he struggled back to his feet he felt two more impacts - left leg, upper chest, the second blunted by the vest he was wearing beneath his shirt - before he lost it and lashed out with his telekinesis, no more thought for the other people in the hotel.

The air burned gold and the walls of the hallway exploded under the telekinetic shockwave, crumbling into rubble. No more shooting, suddenly, and the shocked silence was broken first of all by the moaning of injured civilians. He didn't let it register. Wouldn't.

He saw movement in the dust, someone - Konda, with his invulnerability, getting back to his feet and firing. Nathan swatted him telekinetically and then shielded again, staggering down the hall towards the room where he'd left Aliya and Tyler.

One look told him what he'd known already. Tyler was lying on the floor by the bed, wide blue eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. Aliya was by the washroom door, her crumpled form unmoving. There was the faintest of echoes in her mind, fading, a flicker of color vanishing into the darkness.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, frozen in place, so stricken that the rest of the reality of the situation somehow receded. There was no firefight, no half-destroyed hotel floor. Just his family, lying on the floor in their own blood. "I'm sorry... so sorry..."

The stillness was shattered all at once. "On the floor, Dayspring - now!" someone shouted hoarsely behind him. Konda.

"No," he murmured, looking back over his shoulder and seeing the guns pointing at him. "I don't think--I'll be doing that." Konda and someone else, one of the new operatives. Name? What did his name matter?

"Get on the floor NOW!"

Nathan shook his head, and ran for the windows. As he did, he felt one last bullet catch him in the lower back, in the vest. But there was no pain, not even when he dove at the windows, crashing through the plate glass with only the flimsiest partial TK shield protecting him.

Five floors below, his momentum barely arrested by his telekinesis, he hit the pool.

The impact knocked him out instantly, even before he hit the bottom of the pool. His telekinesis flared instinctively, blunting the second impact - and most likely saving his life. Blue, was his first coherent thought as he came to. Everything around him was blue, and he took a breath, or tried to, getting a lungful of water instead. Instinct kicked in again, and he started struggling towards the surface. His arm and leg wouldn't work right, and he swallowed more water before he reached the side of the pool and pulled himself out onto solid ground, retching and gasping. Something bit into the concrete beside him, then another, and he realized that someone was still up there shooting. Another rush of adrenalin let him drag himself to his feet, and he ran, not letting the one leg buckle beneath him, no matter how much it wanted to.

Somehow, he had held onto his gun. He half-climbed, half-fell over the fence separating the pool from the parking lot of the neighboring building. There was someone parking their car, right there.

"Get out!" he snarled, leveling the gun at the woman, who screamed, raising her hands off the steering wheel but not moving, not getting out. "Get the fuck out!" he roared at her. "Leave the keys!"

She did, finally. Nathan got in the car, flinching as a bullet shattered the windshield but missed him. He backed the car up, nearly hitting the terrified woman he'd just evicted, and smashed through the barrier separating the parking lot from the road. He was having trouble focusing, but instinct had kicked in and as he drove the part of his mind that was still functioning properly was automatically making plans. The warehouse on the east side, with his cache - gear and medical supplies, and another car. Then south, maybe. If he could patch himself up enough to get across the Mexican border. If...

His hands were slippery. Not the water. Blood, and his left hand wasn't working properly. He couldn't seem to hold onto the steering wheel. The upholstery in the car was white, and there was red spreading across it with alarming speed. From the leg wound, he thought. But his back hurt, too, a fiery throbbing pain that made him think that shot had gone through the vest. Nathan tried to take a deep breath and found himself hunching with pain. Ribs. Too many shots in the vest, or the fall, maybe. The side of his face was numb in a way that suggested pain was coming. Focus, he told himself faintly. He had to focus before he bled to death. If he could control the virus he could control bleeding. Just had to focus.

But everything kept blurring in his vision, and someone was making noise, breaking the silence inside the car with wrenching, anguished sobs. He had to stay alive. Stay alive, so he could kill them. Any of the operatives who were still alive back there in the hotel. Whatever director had ordered this. "All of them," that someone was gasping out now, between sobs. "All of them, I swear... all of them, they're dead..."

No answer in his mind. Nothing.

~*~

Salem Center,

Now

Charles Xavier had been waiting beside the bed quite patiently for the last half-hour. Moira had been very careful about sedating her patient, as was only to be expected when she was taking the other medication in his system into account, and had been able to give a reasonably close estimate as to when Nathan might regain consciousness. Charles had allowed for more of a margin of error on her part than was really necessary, for the simple reason that he had wanted to be sure he was here when Nathan awoke.

It wouldn't be long now. Charles could sense the other telepath's mind emerging slowly from the grip of the drugs and exhaustion. It would have been simplicity itself to hurry things along, but he knew he needed to exercise extreme delicacy here.

Trust needed to be established. If that was even possible. Charles studied the face of the man lying in the bed as Nathan frowned in his sleep, his brow furrowing and an expression of something close to pain crossing his face. He was dreaming; his shields were damaged, weakened by his physical state, and snatches of imagery had been reaching Charles for as long as he had been sitting here. Dark dreams, not unexpectedly. Charles knew a great deal about this man and his history, and would have anticipated nothing less.

It was another ten minutes before Nathan's eyes fluttered open. The dull panic there made Charles wonder if he perhaps should not have sent Moira to get some sleep just yet. He did his best to project calm, reassurance, without forcing it on the man.

"Hello, Nathan," he said quietly as Nathan's head turned on the pillow, reddened gray eyes focusing on him. "We finally meet. I'm Charles Xavier."

"I know who you are." Nathan's voice was a tight, hoarse rasp, and his whole body tensed, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists in the blankets. "Where's Moira?"

"Asleep. She's had a very long forty-eight hours, and she needed the rest." Charles maintained eye contact, but made no move towards the bed, either physically or mentally. "You're at my school, in New York. In our infirmary, as a matter of fact."

Nathan's eyes flickered away from his, scanning the room. The speed of his transition from semi-consciousness to wary alertness was startling. "She told me." His voice was a little stronger. "That we were coming here. It's a bad idea. Very bad idea." His gaze returned to Charles, sharp and cold and overwhelmingly bitter. "I shouldn't be on American soil. I'll bring you nothing but trouble."

"I have more resources than I think you realize," Charles said softly. "The risks can be managed. For your sake, they must be."

"Did you scan me while I was out?" Nathan tried to push himself up on his elbows, but failed, slumping back against the pillows. The waves of exhaustion coming off the man were almost palpable, Charles thought as he strengthened his own shields fractionally.

"I didn't. I wouldn't. Not without your permission." Charles sighed inwardly as Nathan's expression went flat, his eyes hooded. "It will almost certainly be necessary, Nathan. To assess the nature of the problem, if nothing else."

"I don't want you in my head." It was coldly said, but there was an edge of panic beneath the chill. "I don't want anyone in my head."

"Not even if they mean well?"

"It's not safe."

"Nathan." Charles leaned forward, just a little, not allowing himself to react to the way the younger man shrank away, or the sudden heavy feeling in the air, the faint vibration of everything in the room. "Moira is my very dear friend. For her sake alone, I would willingly take the risk. But even if you had never known her, never done what you did for her, I would still offer my help." His voice stayed quiet, soothing but firm. "It is, in the end, what I do."

"Altruism." Nathan was shaking, his hands clenching and unclenching around the blankets. His thoughts were shot through with fear and anger, flickering erratically through the gaps in his shields. "There's no such thing."

Charles raised an eyebrow. "What of Moira, then?"

"She's different. She's-"

"Not a telepath?" Nathan was silent, the muscles along his jaw twitching, and Charles shook his head slowly. "It must be unbearable," he said very softly, "to hate what you are. To distrust yourself. I hope you'll allow me to prove to you that the people who trained you do not represent all of us."

Nathan looked up at the ceiling, taking quick, shallow breaths. "I'm tired. I don't want to be drugged again."

Charles nodded slowly. "Rest, then," he murmured, wheeling himself back from the bed. "I - and Moira - will see you in the morning, to talk about this further."

This was not going to be a rapid or painless process, Charles thought. Fortunately, he was persistent.