X-CLAVE: DISCOVERY
PART THREE
--(c) 1997 M. O'Quinn

Westchester County, New York
Friday, the 12th, 6:37 a.m.

*Bwam*!

A solid strike, followed by the howling of an alarm claxon.  The din
jolted Mirror awake.  It seemed to shake the whole house.  She sat up
in bed and saw that Wolverine was already heading for the window, his
uniform tights and boots already on.  "Logan...?"

He ignored her.  Now she could hear sounds coming from below, the
snarling and growling of a mad, wild animal.  At the window,
Wolverine looked down--and froze.  The hair on his back actually rose
up on end.  At the same instant, Mirror felt a wave of pure red rage
surge up and engulf her lover.  She swayed under the impact, steadied
herself, then struggled off the bed.  "Logan--!"

Wolverine's forearms tensed, fists clenching, and his nine-inch claws
shot out from the backs of his hands.  He made a sound that was half
growl, half roar, and leapt through the window.  The sound of
shattering glass jangled Mirror's nerves.  With the window broken
open the sounds from below grew louder, and a heartbeat later
Wolverine's snarls joined in a counter-rhythm to the bestial chorus.

Mirror all but jumped into her stirrup pants and boots, fastening her
silver tube-top around her as she ran to the window.

The front door of the mansion was warped and battered, its wooden
facing shredded away to reveal the titanium steel reinforcement
underneath.  Wolverine was running hard in that direction, tearing
across the snow, leaving a trail of searing fury and all-consuming
hatred in his wake.  His short stature only served to accent the
nigh-impossible hugeness of the man towards whom he charged so
relentlessly.  The white-blond stranger would have been seven feet
tall, possibly more, if he stood up straight.  At the moment,
however, he was crouching forward, razor-white teeth bared, pale blue
eyes almost white with anger, face contorted into a rictus of pure
hate.  

Wolverine's expression was no less malicious as he stopped and drew
himself up into a tensed crouch.  "You picked one hell of a cold
morning to die, Sabre," he rumbled.

*Sabretooth*!  The man's identity clicked into place in Mirror's
mind.  She'd seen that spite-twisted face in Cerebro's memory scan,
noting him at the time she'd reviewed the file as an enemy of
Wolverine's.  The information she'd found:  the two men had worked
together at one time, had even been friends, but now all they wanted
to do was kill each other.  She hadn't asked, and Wolverine hadn't
volunteered any information.

Nor were the reasons important just now.  All that mattered was that
the man she loved was facing his mortal enemy, a man he wanted to
kill as fervently as Sabretooth wanted to kill him. 

They were going to tear each other apart.

She ran out into the hallway, not even bothering to snag her jacket--
only her katana.  She met Jubilee in the hallway; neither spoke.  The
whiteness of the younger girl's face indiacted that she'd seen what
was going on, sure enough.  At the head of the main stairway they met
Gambit, Bishop and Beast.  The blue-furred scientist bounded far
ahead of the rest in their mad dash down the stairs and out the front
door.

The airborne members of both Blue and Gold teams had already flown
out various windows in response to the widespread alarm; Cyclops had
been flown down by Jean, while Iceman had formed a slide from his
upstairs bedroom.  Most of them were in various stages of dress, but
all the essentials were covered.

Sabretooth lay sprawled on his back in blood-soaked snow, triple
slashes glistening redly down his torso.  

Wolverine stood unscathed over him.  "Get up," he growled.  Mirror
noticed the red lights flickering in the depths of his eyes.  

Sabretooth snarled.  "Kill...you..." His voice was a cracked whisper. 
He seemed to be having trouble breathing.

(He's not healing,) Mirror thought wildly.  (He's supposed to heal
even faster than Logan.  His wounds should be closing up.  They're
not.  Why isn't he healing?!)

"I said *get up*."  Wolverine kicked Sabretooth's ribcage.  The
cracking of bone under the blow from his boot made Jubilee go even
paler.

"My God," breathed Jean.  "He's got the virus.  The mutant virus."

A wide circle formed around the snarling Wolverine and the man lying
on the bloodied snow.  The fever-glaze in the pale eyes, the sheen of
sweat on the flushed skin even in the chill morning air, the dazed
and jerky movements, the disorientation--almost everyone present
recognized the signs of advanced illness.

Xavier hovered in the doorway, Moira MacTaggert standing behind him
with her emergency medikit slung on one shoulder by a long strap. 
Butler stood on the other side in a bathrobe, his blond hair a
tangled mess.  

Mirror's face had drained of color.  "He's sick," she said. 
"He's...*dying*, but I might be able to cure him..."

Wolverine drew back one clawed fist.  "I got the cure right here."

Xavier came to a swift decision.  "No, Wolverine.  Moira, we'll need
ten cc's of hyperthorazine.  As soon as he's under, Simon, we'll need
a stretcher to get him inside."

"I'm on it."  Butler turned away, back inside, while MacTaggert came
forward readying a hypo.  "Jean, I'll need ye t' hold him steady.  I
dinna want to be gutted."

Jean nodded, looked at Sabretooth, and frowned.  The raving man froze
in place, growled, and erupted in a spasm of racking coughs.

Wolverine didn't even react for a moment.  Then he lifted blazing
eyes to glare at Xavier.  "Yer outta yer flamin' mind, Charley.  What
the hell do ya think yer doin'?"

"If we're going to find out whether Mirror actually has the ability
to cure the virus released by Stryfe before it claims any more
victims, we're going to need a control subject."  Xavier pointed at
Sabretooth.  "Well, we've got one.  I understand your objections--"

"You understand *nothin'*."

"--but there's more than just one life at stake here.  It could mean
saving all our lives."

The glacial eyes slitted.

Xavier stared him down.

Moira injected the sedative into the prone Sabretooth, who was too
weak by now from strain and loss of blood to fight effectively
against Jean's telekinetic restraint.  He went limp almost
immediately.

Mirror wanted to reach out to Wolverine--she could feel the searing
anger welling inside him, the feeling of betrayal by those closest to
him--but she could do nothing.

With a snicking sound, he sheathed his claws.  He spoke in a
monotone:  "I'm outta here."

No one called him back as he turned and walked away.  

Xavier didn't respond.  He moved aside as Butler steered a hover-
powered stretcher out through the double doors.  "Let's get him
inside.  Full restraints."

                  *             *             *

(Is everybody here crazier than I am?  Sabretooth's a killer.  A
madjack crazy psycho, worse than I ever was.  The minute they make
him better--if they *can* make him better--he'll thank them by
gutting every last one of them, and he'll smile big while he's doing
it and make casual conversation.)

Wolverine pushed his prized Harley-Davidson down the long, winding
drive.  He was leaving without even the shirt on his back, wearing
only his tights and boots.  All he wanted was to go.  He was tired of
caring about people only to have them ignore him or betray him or
turn on him.  He was a loner, he'd always been a loner, and he was
going to die a loner.  (This is it,) he promised himself.  (This is
the end of it.  I can't count on nobody but me.  I did just fine by
myself long before I ever came to this dump, and I'll do just fine
long after I'm gone.)

He paused at the main gate and mounted his bike.  He was about to
kick-start it when a flash of light caught his eye.  He looked up to
the top of the right-hand wall.

A yellow trenchcoated figure was sitting leaning against one of the
ornamental cornices atop the wall, firing off tiny "paf"s of colored
explosive light against another.  Her flare shields were down.  

Out of the corner of her eyes, she was watching him.

Wolverine growled in the back of his throat.

Jubilee didn't move.

(She's just gonna sit there,) he thought.  (She won't stop me
leaving, she won't try to follow me, but she's just gonna sit there
and watch me go.)

His lips firming into an almost invisible line, he viciously kicked
the starter.

The Harley coughed, sputtered and fell silent.

"Goddammit," he snarled, raising himself up bodily on the handlebars
and coming down hard on the starter again.

Cough.  Sputter.  

Silence.

Wolverine howled with rage, jumped off the cycle, and planted a hard
kick to its side.  It fell over in the gravel and lay still, front
wheel gently spinning.

Jubilee watched him, but said nothing, still sending sparks of color
splashing against the far cornice.

Without a word, Wolverine turned, his heel crunching in the gravel,
and stomped off back towards the mansion.

He didn't look back, and he didn't see the tears rolling out from
under Jubilee's glasses.

                  *             *             *

Sabretooth lay cuffed down tight in the center of the med-lab.  The
shackles which held him had been designed to hold down Colossus in
his armored form.  In Sabretooth's weakened state, a pair of
oversized handcuffs probably would have done just as well.

Most of the X-Men had gathered off into a corner of the main med-lab,
watching tensely, no one speaking, as MacTaggert and Butler monitored
Sabretooth's plummeting vital signs and Xavier kept watch over their
newly-acquired healer, who was working frantically to save the life
of a man who wanted *her* man dead.

The triple wounds across his stomach had been closed, to prevent
further blood loss.  Now Mirror had her hands pressed flat against
his chest, her normally composed features distorted by strain and
anxiety.  Her face was ashen, she was covered with sweat, and every
inch of her was trembling with effort.

The damage was extensive, and rapidly worsening as the virus ate
through his system, tearing him apart from his cells outward.  She
couldn't keep up with the damage fast enough.  "I need...help," she
gasped through clenched teeth.  "Someone who can...lend me strength. 
I don't have...enough myself."  She reached out one pale, shaking
hand.

After her first stint in the Danger Room, it had been determined that
Mirror could absorb fatigue--not life-energy, as Rogue did, but
stamina, from one person and give it to another, or actually use it
herself to relieve any fatigue she herself had suffered.  This was
what she needed now.  Before anyone could move, however, the door to
the med-lab slammed open.  All eyes turned as Wolverine walked across
the floor without comment and grabbed Mirror's outstretched hand.  

"Do it," he hissed, face grimly set.

Mirror didn't question his sudden reappearance.  Bolstered by the
incredible strength of Wolverine's will, she plunged back into a
fight she intended to fight as viciously and ruthlessly as ever her
lover had in his own physical battles.  He had many enemies, she only
one:  needless death.  If it could be prevented, if it was *wrong*,
she couldn't stand by and let anyone simply die, not without at least
trying to save them.  It was part of her basic character, and the
small part of her she could still reserve for private thoughts at
this moment hoped fervently that Logan could come to understand that.

Strength flowed from Wolverine to her, and she mounted a fresh attack
against the foreign virus which invaded every tissue of Sabretooth's
body.  She could sense the damage being done on a molecular level: 
the ripping apart of atomic structures, the invasion of cell walls,
nuclei being torn open, the viral elements shredding DNA into so much
protein confetti.  Alone, she never could have arrested the damage,
never mind repaired it.  With strength greater than her own, she was
able to overtake the virus, disrupt its pattern of feeding on the DNA
structure and reproducing.  Relentlessly she pressed her attack,
destabilizing the internal structure of every synthetic bacterium she
encountered, dissolving it into harmless protoplasm and flushing it
out through the bloodstream into the body's waste disposal system. 
When every trace of the infection Xavier had dubbed the Legacy virus
was gone, she set herself to the more difficult task of knitting the
DNA structures back together.  It wasn't going to be easy.  This was
no simple cut or bruise or broken leg.  This was more like a cancer,
most closely resembling leukemia, which in its latest stages
disrupted the chromosomal harmony of bone marrow cells.

Mirror was, at least, familiar with leukemia.  It was a constant
threat hanging over the heads of anyone who was exposed to high doses
of radiation; it was so prevalent among survivors of the atomic bomb
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that leukemia was commonly known in
Japan as the "A-bomb disease".  

Mirror had contracted leukemia herself when she was twelve.  The
doctors had given her, at most, a year to live.  Her mother had
cried, inconsolable, her father standing by in stony silence.  Six
months later, it was gone.  Not in remission, but *gone*.  The
doctors blamed faulty test results, false positives, while secretly
wondering at the miracle cure.

Only Miryoko had known that she had healed herself--that she could,
in fact, heal virtually any disease or injury--and she was forbidden
to speak of such things.

Using the same determination that had made her make herself well when
she'd seen her mother crying, Mirror pulled the shattered genetic
structures back together, reforming them from the patterns surviving
in the few areas of uninvaded tissues.  Twice she nearly lost control
and faced total system breakdown; twice more, she nearly passed out
from the strain.  

MacTaggert monitored Sabretooth's vital signs at a remote station. 
After nearly half an hour, she spoke.  "Blood pressure's rising," she
said.  "Respiration increased to ten bpm.  Heart rate stabilizing."

Butler looked over her shoulder.  "Damn," he said, "I think the poor
bastard's going to make it."

"Increase the hyperthorazine," Xavier ordered.  The last thing he
wanted was Sabretooth--who was unquestionably as mentally deranged as
he had been the last time the X-Men had encountered him--tearing
himself loose from his restraints and murdering the healer who'd just
saved his life.

"Increasing to twenty cc's," Moira confirmed, turning up the dial on
the auto-feed IV.

The virus was gone; the wounds inflicted by Wolverine were completely
healed.  Sabretooth was no longer in danger of dying while lying flat
on his back.

But he was still sick.

Mirror could feel the black lines of madness interwoven through the
fabric of his personality, stitched so deep no ordinary
psychotherapeutic treatment could touch.  At one point his mind had
been broken and put back together; he had been totally destroyed and
rebuilt.  Simply put, Sabretooth's insanity *was not of his own
doing*.  That meant it was not of his own choice.

*That* meant she was under no obligation to obtain his consent before
attempting to remove it.

(I can do it,) she told herself.  (With Logan's strength to back me
up, and with Sabretooth so unresisting, I can heal his mind the way I
healed his body.  Nothing can be worse than the Legacy virus!)

Confident after her successful healing, almost drunk with the power
borrowed from Wolverine, without a word to anyone Mirror plunged into
the black morass of Sabretooth's tortured mind. 

"What's she doing?" Moira hissed, frowning.

"She's trying to cure Sabretooth of his insanity," Xavier murmured,
moving forward.  "Mirror, don't do it.  He won't let you--"

Three things happened:

Sabretooth roared.

Wolverine shouted:  "*MIRY*!!"

And Mirror screamed as five deep claw-marks simply *appeared* across
her bare upper chest, the highest gash narrowly missing her throat. 
The front of her clothes turned wet scarlet immediately.  She fell
back into Wolverine's arms, gasping for breath and choking on her own
blood.

(Snagged her windpipe,) Wolverine registered as he lowered the
gurgling woman to the ground.  (She'll be dead in less than five
minutes.)  "Heal yourself!"  he barked, command-sharp.

Sabretooth roared again and strained.  There was a metallic *pop* as
one of the cuffs loosened, and with a sharp jerk he tore his right
arm free.

The room erupted into chaos.  

"He's breaking loose!" Butler yelled over the sudden din.

Rogue and Gambit scrambled to either side of Xavier, to protect him,
while Storm and Bishop moved to cover Moira and Butler.  Iceman,
Beast and Archangel formed a protective circle with Pixie and Galatea
on the inside, up against the wall.  Jean and Cyclops took up
positions between Xavier and the writhing form on the medbed.  

*Jean!*  Xavier sent.  *Hold him down!  Moira, boost the thorazine
level!*

"Increasing to fifty cc's," Moira stated with chilling calm, ready to
kill the man she'd just helped save in order to keep him from tearing
his way out of the mansion.

Mirror coughed up blood.  She raised watered eyes to Wolverine's
face, tried to speak, managed one word:  "...failed..."

Desperately, he shook her.  Her head lolled loose on his arm. 
"*Heal* yourself, dammit!" he ordered.  "Do it!"

Mirror spat up more blood, raised a shaking hand.  Wolverine grabbed
hold of it and pressed it over the gaping claw marks on her chest. 
"Do it," he said again, and hissed,  "*Please*."

Her eyes began to glow with a feeble silver light.

Jean thought she had a firm mental hold on Sabretooth, but she wasn't
prepared for the surge of raw strength through his newly-healed body. 
Despite her initial efforts to hold him still, he managed to reach
around and slash through the intravenous feed tube.  He then began to
pull on the restraints holding his left arm.

"Damn!"  Moira hissed.  "He's cut the IV."

Jean scowled.  "Don't worry," she said, pushing her telekinetic power
to its upper limits, hyped by adrenaline and frustration, at the
moment no longer caring if she crushed Sabretooth while trying to
hold him down.  "He's not going anywhere."

Sabretooth froze, howling, held invisibly and irresistibly in place.

*Get that IV line hooked back up!*  Xavier ordered.  *Jean, hold him
steady until he's secured.*

"Steady like a rock, Charles."

Beast moved to obey Xavier's direction concerning the intravenous
feed tube.  Everyone else waited.

Or almost everyone else.

Unable to endure the chaos of noise and fury any longer, Pixie turned
on her five-inch spike heel and pelted out of the room, choking back
violent sobs.  Gambit saw her leave, but could not abandon his place
at Xavier's side.

Mirror's breaths were coming slower now, easier.  The deep gouges in
her chest had receded to deep pink welts, and she was no longer
coughing and spitting her own blood.  Wolverine held her, grimly
silent, until he judged her mended enough to move.  Then, still
wordless, he scooped her up in his arms and simply carried her out.

No one tried to stop him.

                  *             *             *

Pixie slammed the door to her room behind her, barely noticing the
lock as it clicked into place.  She hurled herself headlong
diagonally onto her bed, buried her face in her pillow, and let the
sobs tear their way out of her.  

Several rooms away, she could *feel* Mirror, the empathic healer,
being miserable over her failure.  What did *she* have to feel bad
about?  At least she'd been able to try something.  There was no
shame in failure, only in helplessness.

(I couldn't *do* anything--just stand there and watch--all the
blood--he wanted to kill us all--he doesn't want to not be crazy--I
can't even blame him for it--oh God Almighty I'm so *useless*--)

:o you are not: something--someone--responded.  But no sound reached
her ears.  :quit that foolishness right now:

At the tiny, unfamiliar voice inside her, Pixie reared up and pounded
small fists against the mattress.  "God *damn* you!" she screamed at
the air.  "Get the hell outta my head!"

:i would: the whoever-it-was replied primly, :if i were   but im not
so i wont.:

"Who the hell are you?" Pixie hissed, trying to identify the strange
internal resonance caused by the unheard voice.

:im you:

"That's crazy."

:if you like    the point remains   im you or at least a part of you:

Pixie was so shocked by this revelation that she forgot she was
supposed to be crying her eyes out.  She sat up, assuming a 
cross-legged meditative posture, and closed her eyes.  

(Part of me?)

:now youre getting it:

(If you're part of me, then how come I've never heard from you
before?)

:you have    a month ago    when you almost remembered who and what
you are:

Pixie frowned; then realization dawned and her sky's-heart eyes flew
open wide with surprise.  "Illyana!" she gasped.  "Miry and I were
discussing Illyana, and I..."  She trailed off.

:and you almost remembered    but dont be too hard on yourself    you
just werent ready to listen then    now you are   you need to:

"Listen to what?"

:the truth about yourself    its in your blood:

"What?"

:all you have to do is reach down inside your heart    past the years
you know    back before you were born   thats where the secrets are:

Pixie opened her mouth to speak, realized she'd been talking out loud
to herself for the past couple of minutes, and closed her mouth
resolutely.  (What secrets?  I don't know what you're talking about,)
she thought, as clearly and distinctly as she could.

:theres no need to shout    i can hear you just fine:

(Sorry.)

:nevermind    the secrets are a part of you    a gift from your
mother:

"My mother doesn't want anything to do with...oh."  Again Pixie
clamped her mouth shut.  (You mean my *real* mother?  The woman who
gave birth to me?)

:thats the ticket:

(Who was she?)

:your mother:

(But what was Her *name*?  What happened to her?  Is she--?)

:hold on sweetie    if you dont know the answers to all that you cant
expect me to   i dont know diddly squat about what goes on in the
world you live in    all i know is what goes on in here:

(In where?  I still don't understand.)

:call me a hot line to your subconscious:

(Now wait a minute.  I read a bit of Jung in high school.  The
subconscious doesn't have access to language.  It communicates with
the conscious self only through dreams.)

:youre talking about human subconsciousness:

(I *am* human!...well, mutated human...aren't I?)

:yes and no    it gets sort of complicated but its not really
important right now anyway    right now youve got more important work
to do like that big lug lying crashed out in the med-lab:

(I'm not a healer like Miry.  If she can't fix him, what am I
supposed to be able to do?)

:mirror cant heal sabretooth because he doesnt want to be healed   
being healed would destroy him:

(I don't follow you.)

:you have the gift of oblivion    you can give it to him and the
madness will lose its hold over him:

('Gift of oblivion'?  What's that supposed to mean?)

:youll figure it out    you have to try    we need him to help the
child:

(*Illyana*?  How the hell can somebody like Sabretooth help a dying
little girl if the best doctors in the world can't cure her?  Even if
he wanted to, even if he *cared*--)

:do you want her to die:

"*No*!" Pixie said aloud.  

:then do what you know you have to    ill help you    thats why im
here:

(He...if I get close enough to him, he could kill me.  The way he
almost killed Miry.  And I can't heal myself--)

:that might be a consideration if you really cared whether you lived
or died    but you dont    o honey of all people you cant lie to
yourself    youre willing to take the risk for the little girl and we
both know it:

Slowly Pixie opened her eyes.  Her puckish features were set into
grim planes and lines of determination.  She slid across the bed and
hopped down to the floor.  Taking a deep breath, she headed towards
the door.

                  *             *             *

The sky above the mansion had grown thick with iron grey clouds.  The
sparkle of the sun had been removed from the snowscaped grounds,
turning the trees from glittering crystal to pillars of clouded ice,
casting long shadows over the expanse of featureless white on the
ground.

"You just hadda go for it, didn't'cha."  Wolverine sat and glared out
the window at the cold, impersonal scenery.  "You just had ta try and
cure that son of a witchin' bastard."

"Yes, I *did*."  Mirror lay on her back on her bed, completely healed
and bare-breasted, her blood-spattered tunic discarded.  She stared
at the ceiling.  "I did have to try.  It's part of what I am."

"Is gettin' yer heart ripped out part o' what'cha are?"  He threw
himself off the windowsill and paced across the room, getting nowhere
near the door.  "'Cos that's what he tried ta do ta ya.  He'd try
again if we gave him the chance--which I don't intend ta do.  You
ain't goin' near him again, and that's final."

She sat up and glared at him, cheeks burning.  "Who do you think you
are, to tell me what to do?  If I won't take that from my own father,
I sure as hell won't take it from you."

Wolverine growled, clenching his fists.  Then he grabbed his temper
by the scruff of its furry neck and threw it in the deepest hole he
could picture in his mind.  It would take a while to crawl out of
there, and by then he hoped to have the situation under control. 
"Miry-girl, ya don't understand."

"I understand that you hate him.  I don't understand why, but you'd
kill him right now if you had the chance."

"Hell yes, I would!  I don't deny it."

"But *why*?  What could he have done to--"

"Because he's already killed one woman I loved, that's why!" he
yelled, cutting her off.  "I'll be damned to the ninth circle o' hell
before I let him kill you, too."

Mirror fell silent, mouth still half open, looking at him with wide
eyes.

Taking slow, deep breaths to keep his temper down its hole, Wolverine
moved over to the bed and sat down facing her.  He took her shoulders
in his hands.  "Christ, Miry-girl, don't ya see?  I saw Sabretooth
rip Silver Fox to shreds not once, but twice.  Only the second time
it wasn't no memory implant, it was real.  I hadda stand there and
watch it.  Ferro made me.  I can still see it, hangin' in front o' my
eyes in a continuous loop.  Only now..."  He shut his eyes and bowed
his head, shaking it slowly.  "Only now it ain't Silver Fox I'm
seein'.  It's *you*."

Mirror bit her lip.  "Oh, Logan..."  She reached out and took his
face in her hands.

He raised up to look at her, and she flinched at the naked pain in
his eyes.

"There was a time, a long time ago, when I woulda given my life for
Vic Creed.  He was my partner.  He was...my friend.  The first friend
I ever had, near's I can make out.  But there was always somethin'
dark inside o' him, and one day it just busted loose and took him
over.  Even if there was any hope of savin' him, even if I could give
my life to bring back the man I used ta know, I sure as hell ain't
gonna give yours."  He swallowed hard and lowered his head, looking
at her from underneath his heavy brows.  His hands clamped down on
her shoulders almost hard enough to hurt.  She didn't care.  

"I love you, Miryoko."  His voice shook.  He didn't care.

"Logan--"  She threw herself against him.  "I love you, too.   I'll
do anything you want me to.  Anything."

"Stay away from Sabretooth," he rasped against her hair.  He wrapped
his arms tight around her.  "Ya gotta promise me, darlin'."

"Anything," she whispered, as though promising to sell her soul.  "I
swear it."

                  *             *             *

"Um...hi."

Jubilee paused in her doleful "paf"ing and looked down.

Standing at the outside of the gate was a slender brunette who
Jubilee recognized at once.  "Oh.  Hi, Kit."

"Hi."  Katherine Pryde's huge brown eyes were bloodshot and hooded,
as though she hadn't been sleeping.  "Is the Professor in?"

"Isn't he always?"

Kitty studied her young friend's glum expression for a moment.  "Is
there...something else going on that I should know about?"

"'S nothing.  Did you find Pete?"

Kitty's face fell.  "No.  I spent two days scouring SoHo and the
Village for him.  I even checked out Little Ukraine--he sometimes
went there just to hear people speaking Russian.  Nothing.  Nobody'd
seen him anywhere."

"Just what we need, more bad news."

"I did my best--!"

"Yeah.  I know.  Hey," Jubilee said, pushing herself off the wall and
landing squarely on her feet, "c'mon.  I'll walk you inside and fill
you in on what's been going down."

It was better than being miserable all alone.

                  *             *             *

The med-lab had been cleared out.  Most of the X-Men had gone to the
rec room, or the kitchen, or anywhere in the house above that
resembled neutral ground, in order to ease the imprint made by the
violence of the scene half an hour before.

No one stood guard over the half-sleeping Sabretooth.  He was now
double-secured to the medbed, the IV drip stepped up to levels that
would have killed a normal human almost instantly by stopping his
heart.  

It was barely enough to keep Sabretooth semiconscious.

"The pharmasynthesis units can only manufacture hyperthorazine at an
established rate," Moira told Xavier as both kept an eye on their
unwilling patient from an adjoining room.  A double sheet of
glassteel set in a vanadium-reinforced wall stood between them and
any chance of Sabretooth getting loose again.  "Any faster will
deplete our supply entirely--and God help us then, when the drugs run
out and he regains full consciousness."

"The question remains," said Xavier, "what is to be done with him?  I
have grave reservations about turning Sabretooth over to the
authorities, given the fact that anti-mutant sentiments are running
at an all-time high even in our own government.  However, if we were
to release him he would surely do nothing more or less than turn
around and come back after us--especially Wolverine, whom he hates
with such a fine passion.  We can hardly keep him here under sedation
indefinitely.  Perhaps--"

"Charles!"  Moira cried out, pointing through the glass.  "Look ye
there!"

Xavier turned around in his hoverchair.

A small, blue-clad figure was climbing up onto Sabretooth's chest.

"Pixie!"  Xavier was right behind Moira as she went to the door and
tried to open it.  She slapped her palm several times against the
pad.  "It's nae good," she said.  "The doors are locked frae the
inside."

*Cyclops.  Bishop.  Storm.  Wolverine.  To the med-lab immediately.* 
Then Xavier focused his concentration on the small woman beyond the
glass.  *Pixie, I order you to--*

He stopped.  Stared.  His jaw dropped.

Moira saw and put a hand on his shoulder.  "Charles, what is it?"

"Some kind of--interference."  His voice was hushed with shock. 
"I...can't get through!  But Pixie's not a telepath, and I sense no
influence outside these rooms.  What...?"

Moira had no answers for him.

                  *             *             *

Synthetic insanity.  Manufactured madness.  That was the key.  The
psychosis wasn't real, therefore it couldn't be healed by normal
means.

(Implant,) Pixie thought, wondering at the choice of the word.  It
didn't matter.  That was what Sabretooth was.  He didn't exist, not
as an actual person, not as a separate entity.  The jagged edges that
made him what he was stuck out here and there like shards of filthy
black glass jutting out of a psyche that was battered, but intact,
kept from being whole only by the interference from the implanted
bits that made up Sabretooth.

Made up.  That was all Sabretooth had ever been.

Carefully, deliberately, Pixie picked her way through the alien
landscape of another person's mind.  She couldn't read it, she
couldn't receive any information from it.  She was guided by her
budding instincts.

*Forget*.

A black fragment dissolved into nothingness.  The gap left by its
passing closed of its own accord.

*Forget*.

A field of razor splinters disintegrated, leaving not even a mark
behind.

*Forget*.

She couldn't have mended the breaks in his mind, but she didn't have
to.  With the interference removed, they were closing up all by
themselves.

*Forget*...

                  *             *             *

(We're ready to force the door, Professor.)

*Wait, Scott.  It may not be necessary.  I've been monitoring Pixie's
progress.  Whatever she's doing, it seems to be actually stabilizing
Sabretooth's psyche.*

(She...she's *healing* him?!)

*Not precisely.  Somehow she's eliminating the fragments of madness
scattered through his mind.  I would hazard a guess that his
psychotic behavior is actually a form of memory implant, imposed upon
Sabretooth while he was involved with the Weapon X Project.  There
was no way of knowing before, of course; none of us were ever given
time and leisure to sufficiently probe his mind.*

(So what do you want us to do?)

*Stand ready, but don't act yet.  I don't know what will happen to
Pixie if her concentration is broken at this crucial stage.  I will
continue to monitor her and Sabretooth both, and be ready to
intervene should I deem it necessary.*

(It's your call, sir.)

"What's the word?" Bishop asked as Cyclops turned back around to face
him and Storm.

"The word," Cyclops replied, "is 'wait'.  Therefore...we do so."

"Wait," Storm echoed.  "For what, Cyclops?"

"For something to happen, one would suppose."

                  *             *             *

It was done.

Pixie let her hands fall away from Sabretooth's temples and drop to
her sides.  Her ribs heaved as she sucked in breath.  She was covered
with sweat, and wet ringlets fell over her face and shoulders.

The man beneath her opened his eyes.  She noticed for the first time
how striking they were--the palest blue, shot through with slivers of
white and indigo both.  His face was slack, relaxed, rather than
frozen in a snarling rictus.  His nose was a bit flat and broad, but
he had full lips and high cheekbones and very fine, pale, smooth
skin.  His long white-blond hair spread out over the narrow pillow
underneath his head in soft curling waves.

He was actually quite attractive.

He blinked up at her for a moment; then, slowly, he showed a crooked
smile.

"So, babe," he rumbled deep in his barrel-chest, "how much I owe
you?"

                  *             *             *

The sound of running footsteps came ringing down the hallway.  Bishop
tensed, one hand reaching for his gun.  "I think something's about to
happen," he said.

Wolverine came tearing around the corner, Mirror at his heels. 
"Outta my way, prettyboy!" he snarled, pushing past Cyclops.

"Wolverine, you can't go in there," Cyclops warned.  "The Professor
said--"

"Wolverine!" Storm called, her voice steeling to a command tone.

Wolverine ignored them both.  Snarling at the med-lab door as though
it had attacked him, he popped his claws and ripped it open.

"Damn it!" Bishop reached out, but Wolverine was too quick for him
and charged into the room.  He did manage to snag Mirror by the arm,
holding her back in an iron grip.

The man on the medbed turned his head to look as Wolverine charged
in.  "Hey, runt," he said.

His weary but congenial tone froze Wolverine in his tracks.  The
Canadian stood there staring, breathing hard, claws still out and
ready.

"Who's your friend?" he asked, indicating with a nod of his head. 
Mirror stood in the doorway behind Wolverine, still in Bishop's
grasp, the black leather jacket she'd thrown on open down the front
and only half covering her bare breasts.  "Not too bad; you always
did go for them exotic types."  Without any show of concern, he
looked up at Pixie.  "So, darlin'," he said, "what's my tab?"

She still didn't answer him.

"Quiet one, ain't'cha?  'S okay, you got nice boobs anyhow."  He
frowned as he tugged experimentally at his double-restrained wrists. 
"Funny; I don't remember bein' into bondage.  Oh well, if it don't
cost extra I'll try anything once.  Twice if I like it.  Three times
to make sure."  He looked back at the shredded doorway.  "Hey, dude! 
What'cher rentin' yer prize filly here for?"

All eyes slowly gravitated to Bishop, who stood staring with a total
lack of comprehension evident on his dark features.  "What?"

"Whaddaya mean, 'what'?"  He looked up at the near-exhausted woman
astride his chest.  "I think yer pimp's been doin' too many
recreational pharmaceuticals, sweetness."

"He's...not my...pimp," Pixie gasped.

"Oh.  Then how come he's holdin' onta Logan's good time girl like she
was his property?"

Wolverine didn't glance back.  His eyes were riveted on the man on
the medbed.  Step by step, he crossed the room, his expression
shifting from rage to disbelief to utter confusion.  (It don't smell
like Sabretooth anymore.  Used to be I could smell the crazy coming
off him in waves.  That's gone, like it never was. 
He's...different.)

*No one is to interfere,* Xavier sent to each of his students.  *Not
until I give the word.*

Everyone waited.

Wolverine stopped about eight and a half feet away from the medbed. 
He inhaled again, studying the ice-blue eyes looking back at him,
their depths now clear of the shadows of madness.

He gasped as an unbidden memory washed over him.

     *"Hurry up and take the picture, dammit!"  Creed whipped
     off his pith helmet and swiped a forearm across his
     dripping brow.  "Unless you get off on seein' yer
     teammates meltin' in the Sahara sunshine."

     "I w-will if you-you'll just hold st-still."  Oliphant
     adjusted the focus on the ancient Polaroid, raised it up
     and squinted through the tiny viewfinder.  "Damn.  
     St-still not right."

     "Lemme see it, big guy."  Logan came forward and took the
     camera from Oliphant.  "Hang on...see, ya gotta fiddle
     with this gizmo here--there.  Hold still, Vic.  Smile
     pretty."  He turned and raised the camera to his face.

     "W-watch it, ya little hairy f-fireplug.  I only g-got one
     p-p-picture left."

     "Pipe down, Olly.  I ain't gonna waste a picture on Vic
     all by his lonesome."  Logan adjusted the focus lever
     until the exaggerated grin on his partner's face was
     clearly visible, and the pyramids in the background were
     only slightly blurred.  "There ya go.  Just point it and
     hit the little black button on top."  He walked back to
     Creed's side and turned around to face Oliphant.

     Creed dropped a personable arm around his partner's
     shoulders and made a thumbs-up gesture with his other
     hand.

     "Ok-k-kay," Oliphant said, sighting through the viewfinder
     at them, carefully centering them.  "Everyb-body s-say,
     'Ch-Cheops'!"

     Logan smirked.  Creed grinned big, showing his white
     teeth.

     CLICK.*

Just like that, the memory ended.

(Oliphant.  Elefante?)

The image flashed into his mind again: big, tall man, square-jawed
and broad-shouldered, thick black hair always kept slicked back,
swarthy complexion, handlebar mustache, the stutter that he could
never quite suppress--

(*Mastodon*!  One of the old team.  Him.  Sabretooth.  Silver Fox. 
Maverick.  Wraith-Man.  Me.  The Weapon X program.  His healing
factor backfired on him somehow and he got old and died.  Silver Fox
is dead.  Maverick is God-knows-where.

(Just me and Sabretooth left now.  Only he don't act or sound
or...smell like Sabretooth.

(Jesus Holy Roller Christ.  It's *Creed*.)

"...Vic...?" he intoned, his rough voice setting off metallic echoes
in the reinforced room.  

"That's my name, pard.  What's got your shorts in a wad?"

Wolverine's hands unclenched, his claws snapping back into their
sheaths within his forearms.  He stepped forward, reached up, took
Pixie gently around her waspish waist and lifted her down to the
floor.  She staggered backwards, almost falling; Gambit slipped into
the room before anyone could stop him, caught her up, and carried her
out.

No one else moved.

"It's really...you."  There was no uncertainty in Wolverine's
statement, only a firm decisiveness.

"Well, it sure ain't Mahatma Gandhi, short-stuff."

Wolverine popped one claw.  "Don't--!" Cyclops objected, but
Wolverine didn't cut Creed, only his restraints, chopping through all
the cuffs on the left-hand side in one smooth motion.

"Nice trick."  Admiration was evident in Creed's voice as he lifted
his arm and looked at the severed metal.  "Where'd'ya get the
pigstickers?"

"Long story."  Wolverine accepted the fact that Creed no longer
remembered his claws.  He walked around and cut him loose on the
other side as well.

Creed sat up, shaking his shaggy head.  "Whoa.  Musta been some drunk
I was on.  I can't even remember what day it is.  How long've we been
here?"

"Longer story."

"I just bet."  He looked around, taking in his surroundings fully for
the first time.  "Tell ya what, pard...this's gotta be the most
peculiar whorehouse I ever saw."

"Ain't no whorehouse, Vic."

"Looks more like a hospital."  He grinned and winked at Wolverine. 
"Gotta tell ya, I like the nursin' staff."

Wolverine looked over to the glassed-in room where Xavier and
MacTaggert were watching.  "It's okay.  I dunno how, but...he ain't
crazy no more."

"Crazy?  Whaddaya mean?  I always been crazy."  Creed swung his legs
off the medbed and blinked when they hit the floor.  "Whoa.  They
must make things powerful short around here."  He stood up.

And up.

He stood towering over Wolverine, nearly three heads taller.  "You
been gettin' shorter on me, runt?" he asked, trying to make a joke of
his confusion.  "I don't remember bein' this much bigger'n you."

*Wolverine,* Xavier sent, *if you would kindly open the door for
Moira and myself...?*

Without any sarcastic comments--unusual for him--Wolverine walked
over to that side of the room and keyed open the door.

MacTaggert entered cautiously; Xavier glided past her, reassured by
his perceptions of Creed's surface thoughts, which were wholly free
of the distinctive jangle of psychosis.  At this point, Wolverine was
far closer to the edge of madness than Victor Creed.  

"Please let us through, Bishop," Storm requested in her soft
contralto.  He did so, and Cyclops and Storm entered the med-lab and
took up positions on either side of Xavier.

"Um--excuse me."  Mirror looked up at Bishop, then pointedly glanced
at the arm still held in his firm grasp.  "If you're through with
that arm, could I have it back, please?"

He'd half forgotten he was still holding onto her.  "Sorry," he
rumbled, letting her go.  

"Thanks," she said with surprisingly little sarcasm.  She adjusted
her jacket to cover herself a bit more decently and went into the
med-lab.  She came to a stop a cautious six feet behind Wolverine,
who stood once more facing the dominating figure of Victor Creed.

"Seriously, pard," Creed rumbled without acknowledging the newcomers,
"where the rip-snortin' hell are we?"

"It's the med-lab at Xavier Institute for Higher Learning."

"A college, huh?"  He looked around, his eyes lighting on the eldest
stranger present--the one confined to the strange goldtone space-age
wheelchair that didn't have any wheels.  "You the dean or somethin'?"

"I'm Professor Charles Xavier."

"Whatever.  So, runt," Creed continued, looking back at his erstwhile
partner, "what're we doin' here anyway?  Another covert experimental
program they slipped us the paperwork for when we wasn't lookin', or
what?"

"I'm afraid you've got quite a bit of catching up to do, Mr. Creed,"
Xavier suggested.

Wolverine said nothing.

                  *             *             *

Pixie was drained to the point of collapse.  She barely remembered
being carried up the stairs; she couldn't have hazarded a guess to
who her rescuer had been.

(Why can't I just pass out and have done with it?) she wondered as
she lay on her bed semi-conscious.

:because you arent finished yet:

(You again?!  My chatterbox subconscious?  I'm done past the point of
doing, girl.  Let me sleep.)

:have you forgotten:

(Look, I don't even know what I did to the guy; I just made him
forget a couple things.  He was fine when I left him.  If he's not
fine anymore, knowing Wolverine he's probably dead.  What else can I
do?)

:have you forgotten about the girl:

(*What* girl?  Mirror?  She's got somebody's shoulder to cry on; I'm
the one who's all alone.)

:have you forgotten about illyana:

Pixie's eyes fluttered open.  (...Illyana?  What's she got to do with
Sabretooth?)

:you needed his strength to add to the love from the others    mirror
can gather up their love and give it to you and it will give you the
strength you need to help illyana:

Her eyes tracked over to the window, where she saw a slender man's
silhouette framed against the iron-cold sky.  His face was in
profile, but as he took a drag from his cigarette she caught a flash
of red-on-black eyes:  Gambit.  She froze until he looked away again,
unable to withstand a confrontation of any kind at this point. 
(Look,), she argued with herself,  (Mirror's a healer and she said
the girl's gonna die if they pull her out of that machine.  I
can't--)

:you can    youre a life bringer:

(Wha...?)

:with the love the others have for the child you can restore life to
her after its gone    youll only get one chance    its dangerous but
you have to try    its a chance you have to take for the life of a
child:

(For the life of a child...)

:and those who still love her:

Pixie watched through slitted eyes as Gambit flicked his ashes out a
crack in the window.  He sighed, glanced at her for a moment (during
which she held perfectly still) and then took a long look out the
window.

She slid noiselessly off the bed, padded silently on bare feet over
to the door.  (Bless his heart, he even took off my shoes trying to
make me comfortable.  It's nice to know somebody cares.  Maybe he
oughta try a little harder to show it.)  She carefully eased the door
open.

--cre-e-e-eak--  The sound came just as she was slipping through the
opening.

Gambit's head whipped around.  "*Alor*!" he shouted.  

"Whups--I'm busted!" she said--and jumped into the hallway.

Gambit leapt from the window and over the bed, shouting, 
"*Attendre-vous, petite!  Revenez*!"

But she wasn't about to go back.  She kicked herself up in the air,
spread her gauzy wings, and shot off down the hallway at a speed she
never would have thought possible, the Cajun hot on her heels.

                  *             *             *

Kitty and Jubilee stood on the entry rug in the foyer, brushing off
snow and adjusting to the sudden change in temperature.  There had
been a lot of pauses and hesitations on their way up the walk; they
had missed Gambit's mad dash up the stairs with Pixie by about three
and a half minutes.  

"...And that's why Magneto went bad again, I think," Kitty was
saying.  "It all started about the time Doug Ramsey died.  I think
Magnus blamed himself.  When he was there for Illyana, I hoped things
would get better, but they only got worse."

"I just hope he stays wherever he is," Jubilee grumbled, stamping her
cold feet.  "We've got enough problems as it is."

"*Attention*!"  The hammer of running footsteps made both girls look
up.  A pink-winged blur slipped past them, under the main stairway,
towards the lower levels underneath the house.  Gambit was right
behind her; halfway down the stairs he snapped out his quarterstaff,
leapt over the banister, executed a perfect tuck-and-roll in midair,
and hit the ground running after her.  "*Ou va-t-toi*?"

"Oh my God," Jubilee gasped.  "Sabretooth must've busted loose!"

Kitty gaped at her.  "*Sabretooth*?!  Why didn't you *tell* me?"

"I would've if you hadn't been running your mouth in overdrive all
the way up the walk!  I couldn't get a word in with sledgehammer, a
crowbar and a crate of WD-40!"  Jubilee took off after Gambit.  "Come
on before we miss something!"

"You go your way," Kitty called after her, "and I'll go mine."

And she phased through the floor.

Jubilee paused and looked back in time to see Kitty turn intangible
and sink out of sight.  "God, I wish I could do that.  Instead, I
blow stuff up."  

She shook herself, turned on her heel, and hurried after Gambit and
Pixie.

                  *             *             *

Kitty reached the lower levels first and headed straight for the med-
lab.  Most of the X-Men were standing in the corridor outside by now,
and it would have been next to impossible to push through the crowd. 
Kitty simply phased down into the floor, walked ten paces holding her
breath, and rose back up just inside the med-lab.

"Kitten!" Storm gasped as the young woman she loved as dearly as her
own child appeared in the doorway.  Kitty stopped dead in her tracks. 
She was standing on one side of Xavier, with Cyclops on the other
side; Wolverine and the woman called Mirror were standing at the
opposite end of a recently-vacated medbed.  Between them sat... sure
enough, Sabretooth, looking as confused as he'd once appeared
ferocious.

Bishop, still at his post in the doorway, reached out for Kitty to
pull her back--but his hand passed right through her.  

For a moment, Ororo could have almost believed that Kitty Pryde was
thirteen and a half again; the mingled shock and guilt on the angular
little face was one the child she'd been had worn many times when
she'd gone charging into a situation without thinking.   

"Sorry, Ororo," she mumbled--exactly as the child she'd once been
would have done.

Storm looked at Xavier, who nodded; she walked over to the door and
spoke in low tones.  "You have arrived at a particularly chaotic
time."

"So I noticed," she hissed back.  "What's going on?  What's
Sabretooth doing here, why isn't he drugged out or tied down or both,
and why hasn't Wolverine torn him apart yet?"

"Because," Storm replied, "that is not, strictly speaking,
Sabretooth."

Kitty blinked at her.  "You've lost me."

Before Storm could elaborate, a tiny figure about the size of a
Barbie doll flew over her head.  Pixie grew to full size and lighted
in front of Xavier.  Sabretooth--or, rather, Victor Creed--jumped,
but settled down when he saw who it was.  "Hey, sweet thang," he
rumbled.  

She barely nodded at him.  "Professor," she said, "it's about
Illyana.  I think I can help her, but I need everybody else's help to
do it.  I can't make her well--you'll need Miry for that--but I can
keep her alive...if you-all people love her enough."

Xavier looked steadily at her.

"You don't beleive me, do you?"

"I believe you wish to help, Vanessa.  You unquestionably righted
Sabr--Victor Creed's mind, though I'm still not quite sure how.  But
to actually keep a child from dying--"

"You want convincing?  Okay.  Go ahead," she said, planting her fists
on her hips.  "Take a look in my head if you want.  I'm not crazy!  I
don't know how I know I can do it, but I know I can.  Just like I
helped Sabretooth--or Mr. Creed--or whoever he is."

"You can call me Vic, honey," Creed offered with a puzzled half-grin.

"*Pardon*--*excusez-moi*--*ouste*!--"  Gambit pushed his way through
the crowd and finally squeezed between Bishop and Archangel into the
room.  "Sorry, M'sieur Professor; I turn my back for *un moment* 
and--pouf!  She is gone."

"It's all right, Gambit."  Xavier reached out cautiously with his
mind, skimming the surface of Pixie's thoughts.  Her resolve was
genuine, her faith unshakable, but there was nothing in her conscious
mind to give any grounds for her conviction that she could, indeed,
help Illyana.  It wasn't a delusion, nor was it desperation--there
seemed to be a connection deep in her subconscious, her primal self,
below the veil of self-awareness...

:uh-*uhn*:

Xavier jerked back; his eyes flew open wide.

Cyclops was at his side immediately.  "Charles?  Are you--"

"I'm fine, Scott."  (Just a bit...surprised.  I reached mental
fingers into Pixie's mind, and I got my hand slapped.  I could force
a probe, but to do so would be unethical.  I have been told in no
uncertain terms to back off.  But--Pixie isn't aware of it.  She
looks as surprised as I do.

(It wasn't a mental attack.  It did me no harm whatsoever.  It was as
if a door was politely but firmly shut in my face.

(A door to what, I wonder?

(I'm beginning to think there's more to Ms. Vanessa Covington-Smythe
than we ever imagined.  Much more.

(I'm also beginning to think she's right about what she can do for
Illyana.)

"At this point, I honestly don't see what harm any attempt can do the
child," he said.  "However, there remains one obstacle:  we cannot
remove her from the stasis helmet without her brother's consent, and
since Kitty returned alone, I can only assume she was unsuccessful in
locating Peter."

Sometimes Fate has a peculiar sense of humor.  No sooner had the
Professor spoken, than Storm distinctly heard a deep baritone voice
just beyond the door.  Where Kitty had had to phase around the crowd,
and Gambit had had to bully his way through, the X-Men gathered in
the corridor parted like the Red Sea before Moses as the grim figure
of Piotr Nickolaevich Rasputin entered the med-lab.

"*Peter*!" Kitty shouted, dashing forward, opening her arms for the
man she had loved since childhood.  She stopped barely out of reach
when he didn't acknowledge her with so much as a look, but walked
past her as though she wasn't even there.  Storm came up behind her,
putting hands on her shoulders, and she turned and buried her face
against Ororo's breast and choked back her sobs as her tears fell.

Colossus stopped in front of Xavier's chair.  If he even saw the man
he knew as Sabretooth, he didn't show it.  "If there is truly nothing
you can do for my sister, Professor," he said, his voice dull and
dead, "if you have failed her--failed all of us--that completely,
then perhaps it is time to end her suffering and allow her to find
some measure of peace."

Pixie turned on him.  "You Illyana's brother?"

"I am.  Who are you?"

"They call me Pixie.  And just who the hell are *you* to tell the
Professor that he's failed anybody?  Did he create the mutant virus
that's killing people?  No.  Did he do everything humanly and
mutantly and alienly possible to save your sister's life?  Yes.  Is
he still racking his brain trying to save her and is willing to take
a chance on me, who he barely knows, in order to save her?  Hell yes. 
I think it's wonderful how much you love your sister.  Yoiu're gonna
need every ounce of that love if you expect to help her live.  But if
you poison it with bitterness that's half made up on account of you
blaming yourself for not being able to help her, then you're not
gonna be of any use to anyone including yourself, never mind your
sister.  Now do you want to help her, or not?  'Cause if you can't
set aside your hate for the Professor and concentrate on your love
for Illyana, you might as well turn your nose towards the door and
keep on walking."

The med-lab had gone absolutely silent.  Everyone was watching
Colossus, who stood towering over the four-foot-tall Pixie, an
overshadowing Goliath to her distaff David.

Colossus never took his eyes from Pixie, but he spoke to Xavier. 
"*Gospyodin* Xavier," he intoned, "is this truly my sister's only
hope of survival?"

"It is, Piotr."

A moment of silence.  "Then," Colossus said, "do it."

Xavier nodded.  "Mr. Creed, if you will excuse us for a while..."

"I ain't going nowhere," Creed replied.

Xavier nodded and turned away.  "Cyclops, Storm, assemble your teams
in the isolation ward.  We must give Pixie whatever assistance she
requires."

Soon the med-lab was empty except for two people.  Victor Creed stood
up slowly, testing his legs, wondering at how much taller he had
become, seemingly to him overnight.

He noticed movement near the doorway and looked around.  Jubilee
froze, caught in the act of watching him as she lingered behind the
others.  "Uh...hi," she said, glancing out into the hall at
Wolverine's retreating back.

"Hey there," Creed said, smiling.  "You're one o' the Professor's mu
--uh, students, huh?"

"Yeah.  I'm Jubilee.  And yeah, I'm a mutant."  This last with a
defiant thrust of the chin.

"Ain't no problem, darlin'.  So'm I."  Creed raised his hands and
looked at them.  He was affecting a casual air, but Jubilee was
experienced enough with such cavalier facades to spot the flash of
pain just behind the pale eyes.  "From what little bits I can gather,
I gave Logan a hard time for a while.  Maybe longer'n I really want
to think about just now.  Somethin' tells me you was in on the tail
end o' some o' that grief, and...well, I just hope you won't hold it
against me, is all."

"No, it's okay; head trips I can understand."  (He talks just like
Wolvie,) she thought.  (Jeez, now that he's not trying to rip our
throats out every five seconds, he's not such a bad guy.)

He looked up at her, his eyes clear and unclouded, and suddenly
Jubilee remembered something that had happened a little over a year
before:  she and Wolvie and the Hunter in Darkness on a Manhattan
rooftop, fighting Sabretooth and some crazy witch named--oh, she
couldn't remember, Annie or Sally or somesuch idiocy.  Whoever she
was, she'd been shooting mercury-loaded hollow point rounds, and the
poison had done strange things to Wolvie and Sabretooth both.  It had
made Wolverine act crazy, and it...

...it had made Sabretooth act *sane*.

What was it he had said?  Something about knowing a way out...he'd
called Wolvie "partner" instead of "sonny boy"...and right before
she'd jumped Annie/Sally/whoever, he'd collapsed and told Wolvie to
"go on without him", and Wolvie had said he couldn't leave Sabretooth
because he was his p...

(Not "pa"..."Partner", maybe...?)

"Penny for your thoughts, pretty girl."

"Huh?  Oh."  Jubilee returned Creed's smile, amazed at herself at how
easy it was.  "Nothing.  I was just--"

"Hey, Jubie!"  Wolverine's voice rang down the corridor.  "Get the
lead out."

"Coming!"  She shrugged at Creed.  "I gotta go."

"No problem.  I hope everything works out."

She didn't bother closing what was left of the door after her. 
(Well, after all, if he's gonna go crazy again a sliced up door won't
slow him down much, and anyway...it might make him feel better to
know that *some* people around here are willing to trust him.)

The isolation ward was barely big enough to accommodate the small
crowd of sixteen people who collected around the preservation capsule
and its precious contents.  Pixie stood next to Colossus at Illyana's
side, the harsh words of a few minutes before forgotten.  

(He loves his sister,) she thought.  (She's all that's left of the
life he once knew, the only family he has.  He would rather die than
lose her.  He *will* die, inside, if he loses her.

(I can't let that happen.  I won't!)

:good girl:

Mirror stood directly behind her.  "What..." The half-caste
Oriental's voice caught; she swallowed hard and tried again.  "What
do you want me to do?"  she whispered.

Pixie let her inner voice speak through her.  "Take the love every
person here has for that little girl.  Take it into yourself just the
way you take in energy when you absorb it.  Then give it to me.  When
there's enough, we'll be ready to take her out of there."

Mirror felt a broad, warm hand on her back:  Wolverine.  "May as well
start with me, darlin'," he husked.

She smiled, grateful, and reached for him, for the love he had, not
just for her, but the small, white-faced girl lying at death's door. 
Wolverine felt things more purely and sharply than anyone else she'd
ever known.  It was the difference between listening to music from a
transistor radio and attending a Grateful Dead concert.

Colossus reached back and placed a hand on her arm.  The affection
and need and concern for his dying sister made the tears stream from
Mirror's silver-flickering eyes.  She reached out and took Kitty
Pryde's hand, and she began to sob openly.  

One by one the X-Men gave Mirror their strength of devotion and their
love; several times she thought herself filled to capacity, but she
knew she wasn't nearly done, so she pressed on.  When each of them
had given nearly to the point of collapse, she stepped forward and
pressed her hands to Pixie's shoulders.

Pixie gasped openly as the intense flood of emotion washed over her,
the sum total of all the love the individual X-Men possessed--for
Illyana, for each other, for the dream Xavier promised--mixed in with
all their joys, their hopes, the faith which sustained them through
every sorrow past.  It suffused her total being, seeped deep into the
cracks between the few-numbered years of her life and primed a
wellspring of power she never knew had existed before, years and
years before she was even born.  It was far older than she was,
almost older than the world she knew.  

But...

:not enough: and the small voice inside her fairly rang with
frustration and need.  :almost almost but gods help us not quite
enough:

"It's not *enough*," she sobbed.  "So close, but we need just a
little more..."

In the silence that followed, Jean Grey murmured, "It's all we have. 
All our love, all our support, all our strength.  There's nothing
more we can give."

"Speak for yerself, Red."

Pixie turned around to the open doorway.  Even through eyes blurred
by tears, she recognized who was standing there, and for an instant
she didn't care if it was Sabretooth come to rip them all to shreds. 
She didn't care.  Illyana was lost.  Nothing else mattered.

But it was Victor Creed.  "Ya need strength, little Pixie-girl?  I
got plenty and to spare."

"But you know nothing of Illyana," Xavier objected.  "You're a
stranger to her, and Pixie's power to sustain her through Mirror's
healing must be fueled by love.  At least, that's my understanding of
it."

"It doesn't matter."  Mirror stepped forward, eyes bright with
renewed hope.  "If Sabretooth is willing to give some of his life-
energy, I can transform it into what Pixie needs."

"What brought our *your* noble streak, Creed?" Wolverine asked, eyes
narrowing.

Colossus glared at Wolverine, while several other people shifted
uncomfortably.  But Xavier understood:  it was a test, as much of
Wolverine's own ability to accept Creed as he was now as of Creed's
sincerity.

"It's a kid, ain't it?  She ain't done nothing to nobody.  Anyway,
what's it to ya, runt?  If I wanna help, it's my business.  Got it?"

Wolverine snorted and looked away, in direct counterpoint to the
flood of intense relief Xavier read from him.  (If Creed had
protested that he wanted to "make up" for the bad things he'd done,
or some such, he would have been far more apprehensive.  But the
response was a sincere one...one the man Creed once was and may well
be again would have given.  It will no doubt make Wolverine's
adjustment to the new situation that much easier.)

Mirror looked at Xavier, who nodded once.  Then she looked at
Wolverine.

*Stay away from Sabretooth.  Ya gotta promise me, darlin'*.

And she had.

And now she had to break that promise to help save a little girl's
life.

He scowled and jerked his head towards the door.  "G'wan," he said. 
"We're missin' Oprah."

Mirror walked up to the massive blond man.  He he folded his hand
around hers, and hers disappeared up past the wrist.

Her eyes glowed silver, and she drew in a sharp breath.  So did he.

When she turned away, there was a new look of resolve on her face. 
There were no doubts left in her mind that Victor Creed had been made
whole.

For his part, Creed just sort of slumped against the doorway with a
dazed smirk on his face.  "Whoa," he said, "what a head rush."

No one laughed.

Mirror held out a shining hand to Pixie.  She took it, and the life
energy donated by Sabretooth joined the wellspring of love inside
her--and topped it off.

:YES!:

"Now," Pixie whispered.

Xavier nodded to MacTaggert, who reached forward and broke the seal
on the preservation capsule.  The clear cover rose up.  

Colossus stepped back to let Xavier pass; his jaw firmed, and he
blinked hard.  Kitty put a hand on his forearm, and he put his other
hand over hers.  He never took his eyes off his sister's still form. 
She lay unmoving, her small chest barely moving.  She was still
wearing the white cotton lace nightgown she'd gotten for Christmas,
the one with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons on the shirred yoke.

Xavier reached into the capsule, touched a few glowing studs on the
alien helmet, and gently removed it.

A long, rasping, labored breath filled the room.  Everyone was
absolutely silent.  It hovered for a moment in the silence; then,
slowly, thinly, it escaped her.  Illyana's last breath.

:NOW:

Pixie put a hand on the girl's chest, concentrated, and tapped the
wellspring inside her.  All the love and joy and hope and faith and
strength flowed from her into the small vessel before her, seemingly
more than such a tiny form could hope to hold.  But in the blink of
an eye, it was all gone, dispersed into fibre of the child's very
being, enough to sustain the feeble spark of life still left inside
her and revive it.  Pixie added her own strength to it, her faith,
her hope for a girl she didn't even know but who held the bright
promise any child of her age would.  

A long silence.

"Oh, God..." Kitty whispered.

Then a long, shuddering breath.  Coughing.  Small thick whimpers as
she struggled for the next breath.

"Jesus in a hula hoop," Simon Butler stated, still at the auxiliary
monitor, "it worked!"

"*Mirror*!" Pixie cried.  "She's still--"

"I'm coming!"  Room was hastily made for the healer; she moved
quickly to the side of the capsule and scooped Illyana up into her
arms.  She knelt on the floor with her, crouching over her; her eyes
glowed silver, then her arms, then her whole body, and the silver
light enfolded Illyana.

"Can she do it?"

"She did it before--"

"But Illyana's so *sick*--"

*Quiet!  All of you!* Xavier commanded.  *We mustn't break her
concentration.*

Mirror's smooth, exotic features twisted before their eyes into a
grimace as fierce as a Kabuki mask's.  The shimmers of silver turned
her face white.  Her teeth were bared, her lips drawn back.  "I beat
you once," she hissed.  "If it takes all my strength, I'll do it
again!"

Illyana coughed, hard and wracking, convulsing in Mirror's arms.

Wolverine dropped to his knees behind Mirror and put his arms around
her.  "If ya can get strength from love, darlin'," he murmured
against her long dark hair, "take all ya need."

Mirror intensified her assault on the virus invading Illyana's frail
body, and from the moment that Wolverine joined the fight, the
outcome was never really in doubt.  Almost instantly, Illyana's
coughing ceased; as the minutes passed, her breathing deepened,
became stronger.  She sucked air hard through her parted pink lips
into her small lungs, exhaling with a force she hadn't managed in
days before her final crisis.

Kitty was crying out loud now.  Colossus' arm was around her back,
holding her tight against his side, almost tight enough to hurt.  She
barely even felt it.

Jubilee was biting her lip, and didn't realize how hard until she
tasted blood in her mouth.

Finally the silver light faded.  Mirror and Wolverine were both
covered with sweat.  She leaned back against him, and he barely
caught her.

Illyana opened her eyes.  Clear, cornflower blue, and unglazed by
fever.  Still in her nightgown, she sat up in Mirror's arms,
obviously puzzled.  

"Piotr...?"  Her voice was pure and sweet, with none of the rattle of
congestion.

"Here, little snowflake," he said, stepping forward, still holding on
to Kitty.

Illyana looked at Mirror, then blinked up at her brother with a
puzzled smile.  "<Piotr,>" she said in her native Russian, "<why am I
sitting on the floor?>"

Colossus let Kitty go, fell to his knees on the floor, and gathered
his sister into his arms.  "*Spasyiba*," he sobbed, "thank
you...thank you..."

"Don't...thank me," Mirror gasped, still leaning on Wolverine. 
"Pixie...saved her life when I couldn't."

"I didn't do it alone."  Pixie was almost white; she knew she was
near collapse, but she was too exhausted even to move from her place
by the capsule.  "We all did it.  Every one of us."  She smiled at
the man near the doorway, apart from the rest.  "You too, Mr. Creed."

"<Katya!>" Illyana said, holding out her arms.  Kitty knelt beside
Peter and hugged the little girl.  "<I feel so much better.  I think
I'm not sick anymore.>"

"<That's right, Yanashka,>" and Kitty tried hard to keep her voice
steady and cheerful, "<you're not sick anymore.>"

"<You and Jubilee took such good care of me.  Where is Jubilee?>"

"<She's right here, snowflake.>  Jubilee, Illyana wants to--"  She
looked up, searched the crowd, and frowned.  "Where's Jubilee?"

"She took off outta here right after the kid woke up," Creed said,
jerking his thumb towards the hall.  "Said she'd be right back."

Jean looked at Scott, who nodded, and she exited the isolation ward.  

"I think the rest of us had best clear out of here," Archangel said. 
"We need to let Illyana get settled."

"Yeah."  Wolverine helped Mirror to her feet; he was already nearly
recovered, but she was still a bit shaky.  "I gotta get this girl
into bed before she keels over."

"And *you*, petite," Gambit said, taking Pixie's hand, "'ave a bit of
bed rest to catch up on yourself, *non*?"

She grinned up at him, and with the last of her fading strength,
said, "Is that an invitation, M'sieur Cajun?"

He bent down and picked her up with no discernible effort.  "When
you're sufficiently rested," he murmured against one pointed ear,
"we'll talk, *cherie*."

She shivered deliciously as he carried her out.

"Thank you all," Colossus said, still holding Illyana's tiny hand in
his.  "I realize my behavior has been--"

"If explanations and apologies are necessary, Peter," Xavier said,
"there will be time for them later.  At the moment, you have a sister
to look after."

"Of course, *Gospyodin* Xavier, you are correct."  (Please forgive
me, sir.)

*There is nothing to forgive, Piotr Nickolaevich.  You spoke and
acted out of grief and concern, and I was able to do nothing to allay
your fears.  It is fortunate for us all that I found someone who
could.*

(If it had not been for you, we never would have found those who
could save my sister's life.  I will be forever grateful to you for
that, Professor.)

Jean reappeared with Jubilee, who made her way through the dispersing
crowd with something tucked under her arm.  Only Xavier, MacTaggert,
Kitty, Peter, Jean, Scott remained, gathered around Illyana in a tiny
cluster.  Jubilee squatted down and held something out.  "I thought
you might want this," she said.  "It was just sort of laying around
my room, and, well..."

"Bamf!" Illyana squealed with joy, grabbing the doll from Jubilee's
hand and clutched it to her chest.  "<Jubilee kept Bamf for me,
Kitty!  What did she say?>"

"<Jubilee said, 'I kept this for you until you woke up.  He has
missed you very much.'>"

Illyana hugged Bamf to her and beamed at the Chinese girl. 
"*Spasyiba*, Jubilee."

"She says, 'Thank you.'"

"Yeah, well, whatever.  At least you're not sick anymore."

Kitty smiled at Illyana.  "<She says she's glad you're well, little
snowflake.>"

"<Good!  Now she can teach me to rollerskate.>"

Kitty translated, and Jubilee actually laughed.

                  *             *             *

Westchester County, New York
Friday, the 12th, 11:43 p.m.

     *From the Files of Charles Xavier, Ph.D., Director of the
     Xavier Institute for Higher Learning:

     Illyana's recovery is truly remarkable.  After a thorough
     examination by Dr. MacTaggert, it was revealed that
     Illyana's genetic structure is once more whole and
     undamaged, completely restored.  She is also quite healthy
     and active and by this afternoon was outside building a
     snowman with her brother and Kitty Pryde.

     Using samples of Illyana's and Sabretooth's infected
     blood, Moira, Dr. Butler, and Hank McCoy have set
     themselves the difficult task of finding a vaccine for the
     mutant virus.  While we are fortunate to have Mirror and
     Pixie with us to help any new victims of the virus, Dr.
     Butler has wisely pointed out the need for an effective
     serum before our healer and our life-sustainer contract
     the disease themselves.

     Speaking of Victor Creed, he has elected to stay on at the
     mansion for a while, at least until certain legal
     difficulties are cleared up with the Canadian and American
     governments.  Wolverine has made some noise about calling
     in most if not all of his markers with Nicholas Fury, the
     director of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I am aware of the fact that
     Logan has something of a chequered past himself, and now
     that he has accepted the restoration of Victor Creed's
     original, true personality, he is willing to put his own
     questionable reputation on the line in order to help his
     old friend.  From what I have been able to ascertain, the
     personality of Sabretooth was some sort of highly advanced
     implant.  I don't know all the details, and Pixie has been
     up in her room all day and evening and unavailable for
     comment.  I hope to discuss this matter with her
     tomorrow.*

                  *             *             *

Westchester County, New York
Saturday, the 13th, 1:43 p.m.

"I'm not too definitive on this, guys," Jubilee protested as she
yanked the laces of the scuffed black ice skates tight.  "The closest
I ever got to ice back in Beverly Hills was the Super-Slushy machine
down at the Circle K."

"It's easy once you get the hang of it."  Kitty and Illyana waited
for her at the edge of the ice, wearing identical, brand-new pink
skating outfits and gleaming white skates.  "At least my old pair
fits you."

"Yeah, well, we'll see."  Gingerly Jubilee stood up and hobbled over
the snow-crusted lakeshore.  itty reached out and helped her down
onto the cleared ice.  Jubilee slid her feet back and forth
experimentally, getting the feel of blades over ice.  "It feels a
little weird, but it's not so bad."

Kitty chuckled.  "Careful, or you'll wear grooves in the ice.  Let's
get moving.  <Take my other hand, Yanashka.>"

"*Da, Katya*."  Hand in hand, the trio moved along the edge of the
ice.

It took a bit of doing, and several false stops, before Jubilee
really got the hang of it, but in half an hour's time she was racing
Kitty from one edge of the lakeshore to the other, with Illyana
waiting at the start-finish line and keeping score.

The sound of a well-honed axe biting into fresh wood sounded through
the grove of trees where Bobby and Galatea walked hand in hand. 
"Sounds like Petey's giving that tree trunk what-for," Bobby
remarked.

Galatea giggled.  She thought Bobby was very charming, funny, and
sophisticated.  She was glad he was willing to spend so much time
with her even though she was nearly ten years his junior.  "It's good
that he's so happy.  He must love his sister very much."

"Tell me about it."  Bobby, for his part, had grown very fond of
Galatea Malloy.  "If she'd actually up and died on us, there's no
telling what we would have done.  Of course, I'm glad Illyana's okay
for her own sake," he hastened to add.  "I like the kid, myself."

"She's very sweet.  I always used to wish I had a younger brother or
sister, but I guess I never got the chance."

"I know.  I was an only child, too."  He huffed a cloud of misty
breath.  "You warm enough?"

She laughed.  "You always ask that!  Yes, Bobby, I'm warm enough. 
Cold doesn't bother me any more than heat does."

"Well, I'm not used to a girlfriend who likes the cold as much as I
do.  So sue me."

They entered the clearing where Peter was hard at work and stopped a
moment to watch.  Warren was there, too, busily piling and binding
firewood to take back to the house.  Peter was stripped down to his
bare chest and swung the axe with a will, splitting each cord with a
single stroke of the blade.

"You know," Bobby said aside to Galatea, but loud enough for the
other men to hear, "work is fascinating.  I could watch it for
hours."

"You *could* help, you know," Warren said.

"And spoil your fun, Wings?  That wouldn't be fair."  He glanced
again at Galatea.  "Oh, all right.  If you're that helpless..." 
Seeing a perfect opportunity to show off for his lady, he moved
forward and began stacking wood.

He was too busy to notice the sudden, distant look which came over
Galatea's features.  She *felt* something--a disturbance in the
magnetic potential of the area.  It started as a not unpleasant
tingle in the pores of her silver skin, and gradually ran through her
nerves.  Her hair stirred against the wind, raising up slightly, but
it wasn't an uncomfortable sensation.  

She felt the source of the disturbance somewhere above the mansion,
high up in the air, but gradually getting closer.  It was a feeling
she'd experienced before, she was sure of it, but the memory was a
dim one.

Bobby, Peter, Warren and the firewood forgotten, she began walking
back towards the mansion, retracing her and Bobby's footsteps in the
snow, her cobalt, pupilless eyes turned heavenward, mirroring the
blue of the unclouded sky.

With every step she took, another fragment of recollection surfaced,
and soon they began to string themselves together like beads on a
silver wire to form a complete and unbroken memory.

     *Sixteen and a half months.  Sixteen and a half months
     since the fever.  Sixteen and a half months since she'd
     awakened from a long sleep and seen herself in a mirror.

     Uncle Simon had done all he could, of course.  He'd
     tutored her, taken care of her, provided for her.  But he
     couldn't take her back to school.  He couldn't take her to
     the hospital.  He couldn't make her twelve years old
     again.

     He couldn't make her normal.

     The pills weren't working fast enough.  She'd found them
     in her uncle's stash--oh, she knew he took drugs, most of
     them illegal.  He'd kept her from them, of course, and
     hidden his tracks well, but Galatea was a clever girl. 
     She found the pills and took every one of the little blue
     ones she could find.

     There hadn't been that many of them, though, and they
     weren't putting her to sleep.  They were just making her
     feel worse about herself.  She was a freak, what they
     called a "mutant"; she knew it profoundly, even though
     Uncle Simon had never used the word.  He called her
     "special", and "gifted"--but Gale knew better.  She was a
     mutant.  A freak.  She should never have been born...or at
     least she should have died with her mommy and daddy in
     that car wreck.

     The pills weren't working fast enough.

     So Gale went out of the house for the first time in
     sixteen and a half months.  She would find a high place,
     the highest place she could, and jump off.  It would
     probably hurt, but no pain could be worse than the hurt
     she had inside.

     She climbed up the sloping leeward side of the first mesa
     she found.  She was pretty sure it was the big tall one
     just south of the house.  Back when she could still go out
     in the sunshine, her uncle had warned her against climbing
     up on it alone.  "That drop's high enough to break a
     horse's neck," he'd said.

     A horse's neck...or the neck of a very miserable thirteen
     and a half year old girl.

     She stood right on the edge, wobbling back and forth, and
     looked down.  The ground seemed to be rippling a little,
     and crazily she wondered if it would be too soft to hurt
     her.

     She felt a tingling all over her, but she thought it was
     just a side effect of the drugs.  It was only when she
     caught a bluish-purple glint in the desert sky out of the
     corner of her eye that she jerked her head up.

     The motion made her lose her balance.  She teetered,
     stumbled, toppled, and fell off the edge.

     "CHILD--!" a man's voice, a stranger's, called out as she
     fell.  Gale felt something wrap around her, something like
     an invisible, electric hand.  It slowed her fall, but did
     not stop it.  Her head cracked hard against a rock on the
     desert sand, sparks shot across her vision, and everything
     went black and silent.*

                  *             *             *

"Not bad, slush-for-brains," Warren deadpanned as he picked up a pair
of bundles.  "You actually managed to bind one whole stack all by
your little lonesome."

"Ha ha ha, Blue Boy.  Gale, he's picking on me--Galatea?"  Bobby
looked around, but did not see her.  "Hey, where'd she go?"

Peter stood up straight and pointed.  "Back towards the house, I
think."

"Oh, great.  Hey, Gale--"  Bobby dropped the bundle of wood and
sprinted away.  "Gale, wait up!  What'd I do?  I--"

He skidded to a halt in the clearing.  Galatea was standing on the
lawn halfway between the mansion and the line of trees, looking up
into the bottomless blue sky.  He could see her face in profile.  She
was smiling.

"Gale, what...?"  He followed the line of her eyes up into the sky. 
He saw a globe of purplish-blue crackling light.  Saw the cloaked,
red-clad figure within.  It was too far to make out any details, but
it was a sight he'd seen up close far too often.

"Oh Jesus Holy Mother Christ--Gale, come *on*!"  Sure she would
follow, he concentrated, iced up and set off as fast as a hastily-
cobbled ice slide could carry him for the house.  "Scott!  Jean! 
*Professor*--!"

Galatea didn't move.  She didn't even hear the desperation in Bobby's
voice.  She didn't even look at him.  She had eyes only for the man
in the sky, coming closer every moment.  She recognized him, too. 
She knew who he was, and she wasn't afraid.

He was her angel.

     *Gale didn't expect to wake up, but she did.

     She was lying on the living room rug, staring upwards at
     Uncle Simon's collection of wind chimes and mobiles. 
     Warm, fine-fingered hands were at her temples, soothing
     the terrible ache inside her skull.

     She whimpered a little, and a voice--the stranger's voice--
     said, "Hush, little one.  Be still.  This is delicate
     work you have set for me."

     So gentle, that voice, yet so accustomed to command.  Gale
     lay quiet.  The same strange tingle that had first touched
     her in the desert was still there, intensified now to a
     steady inaudible humming that spread through her whole
     being.  After a time she couldn't measure, it went still,
     and the hands left her face.

     She opened her eyes and saw a face she didn't know looking
     down at her.  Ice-blue eyes, a face both young and
     incomprehensibly old, a thick wave of hair the color of
     moonlight on snow above a furrowed brow.  Strangely, shy
     as she'd always been, Gale wasn't afraid.  Perhaps it was
     the lingering effects of the pills.  Perhaps it was the
     simple fact that she'd gone so long without seeing anyone
     besides her uncle, she was starved for new contact.

     Perhaps it was the gentle strength in the ice-blue eyes.

     "You will recover now," he told her.  One of his fingers
     traced a line through her scalp, underneath her silver-
     white hair:  a scar, newly closed, a mark she would carry
     to the end of her days.  "You sought to end your life, I
     believe."

     Ashamed, Gale nodded.

     "Why?"

     "Because...because I'm not normal.  I'm a mutant.  A
     freak."  There.  The ugly words were said.

     "Is it so terrible to be a mutant?"

     "I don't know.  I don't know anyone else who's a mutant."

     "I am a mutant, dear child."

     Gale gasped.  This confident, commanding person, a freak
     like herself?  It was a new concept.  "You are?"

     He smiled.  He had a wonderful smile.  "Indeed I am.  I
     cannot remain here long; I have urgent business which
     commands my attention."  He looked around.  "I understand
     that you are not alone here."

     "I live with my Uncle Simon.  He takes good care of me."

     "Yet he left you here alone, without comfort or
     supervision."

     She could hear the anger in his voice, and was quick to
     defend her only family.  "He had to get us food and
     supplies.  He couldn't take me with him.  What happened
     wasn't his fault; you mustn't blame him, please."

     "Hush."  He picked her up off the floor, carried her to
     the battered sofa, and gently lay her down.  "I wish that
     I could take you with me, little one, so that I could
     properly care for you; but I fear my life and obligations
     preclude such action.  Perhaps...once I do what must be
     done...I may return and make proper arrangements to look
     after you."

     "My uncle takes care of me."

     "Very well, then; I must reluctantly entrust you to his
     care a while longer."  He stood up to his full height, his
     purple cloak rustling about him.  "You must first promise
     me to do yourself no more harm."

     "I promise."

     "I will trust you, little one--what is your name?"

     "Galatea."

     "I will trust you, Galatea, to keep your word to me."  He
     turned away, paused to pick up a red metal helmet from the
     cable spool Uncle Simon had turned into an end table.  He
     stopped at the doorway and looked back at her.  He stood
     there for what seemed like a long time.

     Gale didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.

     Finally he spoke.  "You are very pretty, Galatea."

     Her chin quivered.  "No, I'm not.  I'm ugly.  I'm all made
     of metal."

     "You are* not *ugly."  His brows lowered over his eyes. 
     "And I will not allow you to say that you are."

     She shrank back.  "No sir."

     "That's better."  He straightened.  "It is my fervent hope
     that I may see you again once you have grown.  You are
     going to be an exquisitely beautiful young woman, and I
     pray I may live to see you thus."

     And he turned and was gone.

     When Uncle Simon returned, Galatea told him what she had
     done.  He was understandably horrified, and forever after
     that kept his recreational pharmaceuticals hidden and
     under lock and key.

     She told him everything--about her depression, about the
     pills, about wandering outside, about jumping off the
     cliff.  He touched the scar under her hair, and he
     believed.  He believed everything.

     Everything except the part about the angel who'd saved
     her.*

Over the last five years, Galatea had begun to believe that her angel
had only been a dream, a hallucination, a figment of her drugged and
desperate imagination.  Her memory of what had happened had grown
hazy, dreamlike; she might have doubted it had ever happened if not
for the thin white scar under her hair which bore silent witness to
the reality of it.

What joy to see with her own eyes that her angel, too, was real!

                  *             *             *

The alarm sounded throughout the mansion.  Even as he headed outside,
Xavier reached out and touched the minds of all his students, old and
new, with one word:

**Magneto*.*

                  *             *             *

Wolverine froze in mid-sentence.  His blue-grey eyes snapped open
wide.

"What's up, runt?" Creed asked, shifting the cigar in his mouth. 
"Can't meet a straight flush?"

Wolverine and Gambit threw their cards down almost at the same time. 
"Flamin' hell," the Canadian grumbled as he jumped over the table and
ran with the Cajun for the door.

"Trouble?"  Creed called after them.

"Hell yes!" came the shout back.

Creed grinned and tossed his winning hand away.  "Deal me in," he
said as he followed the others.

                  *             *             *

Beast bounded up from the lower levels and nearly collided with
Bishop.  "Your pardon, my friend," said the blue-furred physicist,
not missing a jump.

Bishop said nothing.  He just hung on a little tighter to his gun as
he followed Beast out in a more direct and far less agile path.

                  *             *             *

Rogue tried to swallow past the hard knot rising from her stomach
into her throat which she suspected might be her heart.  She followed
Storm out of the African woman's attic window, leaving the warmth of
the indoor greenhouse behind for the cold open air.  She'd been
dreading this confrontation for weeks, months perhaps; ever since
they'd discovered that Magneto might still be alive.

He had said to Xavier, just before Asteroid M exploded, that the next
time he and the X-Men met would have to be the last.  For one side at
least, possibly for both.

They'd thought him dead when the sattelite blew.

And Rogue thought she was going to die too.  She still wasn't sure
quite how she felt about Magneto; she only knew for a fact that she
owed him her sanity, her life.  She had known the man behind the
legend, if only for a brief time, and part of her was sure that if
she could only talk to him, make him listen, he would understand

Another part of her knew it was a foolish hope.

She saw the grim set of Storm's lovely face, and she began to feel a
coldness spreading through her.  Storm didn't like violence--but she
was very good at it.

Magneto had threatened Xavier before his supposed death.

None of the X-Men were going to let him make good on his
threat...except over their dead bodies, anyway.

Which was a distinct possibility.

                  *             *             *

Kitty phased out of her skates, into her snow-boots, and took off. 
"Stay with Illyana!" she called over her shoulder.  "Keep her back
here."

"I can take her to the house," Jubilee protested.

"No time!  He's coming down between the lake and the mansion.  Just
stay there.  Try to keep out of sight!"  She fell into step with
Peter as he and Archangel emerged from the woods; she saw Storm and
Rogue come out over the mansion, and Scott and Jean emerging from an
upper-floor window.  Iceman was heading back for Galatea as Xavier
came out the front door when all hell broke loose.

The bubble of visible magnetic force flared like lightning.

"Greetings, Charles," boomed the imposing figure within the crackling
field.  "You are looking surprisingly well."

Xavier's face was devoid of emotion.  "I knew you weren't dead," he
said, his voice flat and toneless.

"Precious little good that knowledge will do you now, since I have
chosen to reveal myself to you."  

Xavier's face did not change.  *Do not attack him,* he warned. 
**Especially* you, Logan.  No one is to make any hostile action
except on my word.*

Wolverine, Gambit and Sabretooth were gathered just beyond the porch. 
Jean landed with Scott; Bobby was forced to fall back, and Hank and
Warren took up positions on either side of the hoverchair. 
Surrounded by his five original students, Xavier faced down what
could well be his death and the destruction of everything he had
worked for.

"I see that you are surrounded by those you hold most dear," Magneto
said.  "That is well.  I am glad you are all here.  I have a most
generous offer to extend, one it is my fondest hope you will accept."

"How about your head on a plate?" Wolverine growled, popping his
claws and dropping to a preparatory crouch.

"Wolverine!" Scott shouted, but Magneto had already turned in that
direction.  "Poor Logan, foolish Logan," he said.  "The more things
change, it would seem, the more they remain the same.  Your claws are
your greatest weapon, your most deadly defense.  However, you should
know well by now they are useless against me."

He waved his hand, a dismissive gesture.

Wolverine's claws shot back into their sheaths.  He looked down agape
at the backs of his hands.  Try as he might, he could not force the
claws back out again.

"I could just as easily have torn your precious adamantium from your
very bones," Magneto warned.  "Do not try my patience further, little
man."

"Did you come here to threaten, or to talk, Magnus?"  Xavier
demanded, moving forward.

"I came to issue an proposal.  One you would do well to accept." 
Magneto raised his arms skyward.  "I have constructed a safe haven
for all our kind, for all *Homo superior*, where we may dwell in
peace together, away from the turmoils of the human world.  You are
one and all invited to join me and my followers there, where none may
raise a hand against another; where your dream of peace, Charles, may
finally become--"  He looked around.

And stopped.

And froze.

All eyes followed Magneto's gaze, over the snow-covered ground, to
the lone silver figure clad in pale blue who stood watching.  Her
head was cocked to one side, her sterling hair ringing softly in the
gentle breeze.

Magneto slowly turned to face her, hovering in the air.  "Galatea,"
he whispered.

"Yes?" she responded.

Behind the key-shaped opening in his helm, Magneto's face went blank
with wonder.  "After all this time...I meant to return to you, child,
but circumstances always prevented it..."

"I'm not a child any more," Galatea said.

"Be careful, Gale!" Bobby called out in warning.

"No," Magneto said, "you are not."

He held out his hand to her.

"Magneto, leave her alone," Xavier ordered.  "She's here by her own
choice.  You have no right--"

"I have every right."  Galatea rose off the ground--whether by her
own power, or Magneto's, no one could tell, and flew through the air
towards Magneto.

Bobby tried to run forward.  Storm and Rogue tried to take to the
air.  Cyclops and Jean Grey tried to move to stop them.  Everyone
tried, simply, to move.

No one could.

"He's holding us here," Beast announced.  "Holding us by the very
iron in our systems.  Blast!"

"Will the rest of you join me?" Magneto asked, mild, unruffled,
Galatea protectively held in the curve of one arm.

"You know we will not," Xavier answered.  "Yoiu represent everything
we stand against, Magneto, by your own choice.  You have allowed your
hatred of humanity to warp you into the mold of the same butchers who
destroyed your life, your family's lives, all those years ago.  You
talk of peace, and gird for war."

"And so it must be for all our kind who wish to survive, Xavier.  I
will therefore grant you the mercy of a quick death--when next we
meet."

And he rose with Galatea into the sky.

"NO!"  Iceman screamed.  "GALATEA, DON'T LET HIM!  GALATEA!!"

But she was already out of hearing.  They were almost out of sight
when the terrible tension in all their muscles finally let go.  Most
stumbled, but kept their feet.  

Bishop was glowing with residual magnetic energy--he absorbed the
power without conscious thought.  He fired off a bolt at the
retreating sphere, but it fell far short of its mark.

"GALAAAAAAATEAAAAAAA!!!!!" Iceman shot up on a widening spiral of
ice, trying desperately, futilely, to catch up with the
almost-invisible pair.

"Bobby, you crazy jerk--Jean, we've got to stop him!"  Archangel
unfurled his razor-steel wings and took off, Jean Grey right behind
him.  

"Be careful!" Scott called after them.

Pixie and Mirror emerged from the house, looking up into the sky. 
"We saw everything," Pixie gasped.  "From a window.  But we couldn't
move--"

"Magneto has remarkable control over magnetic and gravitic forces,"
Xavier intoned.  "He can hold you by the iron present in your blood. 
There wouldn't have been anything you could have done in any case." 
He bowed his head and put a hand to his face.  "There was nothing
*we* could do."

Several hundred feet in the air, Jean and Archangel had caught up to
Bobby, who was still going even higher in spite of the fact that his
spiral ice-slide was beginning to sway dangerously.  

"Bobby, give it up!"  Archangel said, swooping around him.  "The
bastard's gone.  What are you going to do, ice up into space?"

"Bobby, please," Jean said, more gently, "come back down with us
before you hurt yourself."

"I can't let him take her!"  Bobby's voice was high and thin and
desperate.  "I've got to stop him from--"

>CRACK<

The whole slide shuddered, jerked, and threw off its maker.  Jean
reached out with her mind's power and snagged him neatly in midair.

The same could not be said for the multi-ton slide which toppled
slowly over, disintegrating into chunks ranging from a few pounds to
a ton or more as it fell.

"*Incoming*!!" Bishop yelled, dropping to one knee and readying his
blaster rifle.  

Everyone else reacted just as quickly.  Cyclops blasted a chunk of
ice to powdery chips as it fell towards him and Xavier.  Rogue
pounded on a couple of pieces larger than she was until they fell
apart.  Storm conjured a wind to disperse the smaller but still
dangerous chunks.  Wolverine made a prodigous leap, caught Mirror in
midair, and knocked her aside in time to avoid a mass the size of a
small Volvo.  Bishop blasted the rest in the vicinity to powder, and
Gambit and Beast simply vaulted and/or jumped out of the way.

Jubilee and Illyana had watched from the lakeshore until Magneto had
gone.  They were halfway back to the mansion, carrying their skates,
when the ice-slide collapsed.  Before she knew what was happening, a
lump of ice as big as a truck was hurtling towards them.  Jubilee
dropped her skates, set her feet wide apart, and cut loose with the
biggest "paf" she could manage.

The ice chunk disintegrated.

Jubilee stood gasping, drained but exhiliarated.  "I did it," she
said, half not believing it herself.  "I really aced it."

"<Excellent!>" Illyana cheered.

"You're welcome, kid.  Let's head before--"

A shadow above them blocked out the sun.

Jubilee looked up.

"Oh," she said, "no."

*This* chunk of ice was easily as big as a small trailer.  There was
no time to run, and Jubilee hadn't the energy left to blow it up.

She dove for Illyana and covered the child's body with her own. 
"Don't look!" she shouted, and closed her own eyes.

She did not, therefore, see Creed bounding across the lawn on all
fours towards them.  Nor did she see him take an impossibly long leap
to cover the last few dozen yards' distance.  She heard his knees hit
the ground somewhere around her ankles, and his elbows up above her
shoulders.  She looked up in time to see his craggy, handsome face
inches above hers--

Then everything above them went, first white, then shadowy grey.

Creed grunted, biting back a scream.  Jubilee heard the multiple
cracks his spine and ribcage made as they broke under the strain. 
She cried out, not because she was hurt, but because of the pain she
knew he must feel.  Beneath her, Illyana screamed.  "*PIOTR*!!"

Then everything went quiet.

The only sound beneath the shattered mound of ice was Creed's labored
breathing and Illyana's soft sobs.  Pinned between them, Jubilee
couldn't move.

Then the mound shuddered, and she thought:  (It's going to collapse. 
It's going to crush us.  We're all going to die.)  She was surprised
at how calm she was.

Daylight burst in on them, and metallic hands reached in and pulled
Creed out.  (Galatea?) she thought, but no, these hands were larger,
banded, with a sheen more like steel.  "Be c-careful with him!"
Jubilee called out.  "He's hurt bad."

"Ain't no thing, China Girl," Creed called back through gritted
teeth.  "Nothin's busted I ain't got more'n two of."

Colossus lifted Jubilee out next, into Wolverine's waiting arms. 
Finally he brought his sister into the light.  "<Are you hurt,
snowflake?>" he asked, his voice barely even.

"<No, Piotr.  Jubilee saved me.  And Mr. Creed helped.>"

Shivering, not caring how stupid or childish she looked, Jubilee
burrowed against Wolverine's chest as his arms wrapped around her. 
"You okay, Jubie?" he rumbled.

"Y-yeah.  I'm cool--" She broke off into near-hysterical giggles at
the unintentional pun.  "Oh, God, Wolvie," she wailed.  "I heard his
ribs breaking..."

"Miry!" Wolverine called over his shoulder.  "Vic needs yer help,
darlin'."

"I'm coming."  Mirror dashed up, skidded to a hasty stop, and knelt
beside Creed.  "Let me help you."

"Aw, I'll be okay.  Just--gotta shove m' ribcage back inta place and
get my vertebrae back in line."  He grunted as he pushed at his
sides, coughed up a bubble of blood.

"Oh, *Jesus*," Jubilee moaned, trying not to look and failing.

"There's an easier way if you'll let me," Mirror suggested gently.

Creed looked at Jubilee, who gave him a pleading stare.

"Yeah, well, all right.  Just so's the China Girl don't get too
upset, mind you."

Mirror smiled and put her hands to Creed's back.  He gasped as the
pain simply *vanished*.  He could feel his bones knitting back
together of their own accord, coaxed gently into position by Mirror's
healing power.  "Not bad, sweets."

He didn't see the strain in Mirror's features as she dealt with the
pain she kept him from feeling.  "No...problem," she grunted. 
"That's...why I'm...here."

Peter Rasputin carefully handed his tiny sister over into Kitty's
arms as Jean and Scott walked a near-exhausted Bobby between them. 
Xavier led them, surveying the damage done to the grounds by the ice-
fall.  "Is everyone else all right?" he asked.

Before anyone could reply, a tall form suddenly gone to banded
organic steel stomped past the Professor, tore Iceman from Jean's
arms, and hoisted him up in the air.  Colossus had one hand around
Drake's throat, holding him up off the ground, and his other hand
curled into a fist and drew back.  "You nearly killed my sister,
Drake," Colossus growled, his face a mask of rage cast in solid
steel, "and you will not get another chance!"

"Peter, no!"  Xavier shouted.  He was ignored.

"Peter!"  Jean reached out with her telekinesis and caught the fist
that was about to literally smash Bobby Drake's face in.  She managed
to hold him back, but she could not pull Bobby free of Colossus'
grasp.

Bobby struggled to draw breath, and couldn't.  His hands beat
futilely at Colossus' forearm; the grip around his throat was a
hair's breadth away from crushing his windpipe.  Bobby's lips began
to turn a dusky blue.

**Peter*!* Xavier's mental shout did not affect Colossus, and he
prepared himself to actually wrest control of the young man's mind
away, to *force* him to release Bobby Drake.

Illyana jumped down from Kitty's slackened grasp and ran to her
brother.  "<Piotr, don't!>" she cried, wrapping her tiny arms around
her brother's leg.  "<Don't hurt him.  He didn't mean it, he was only
trying to help Galatea.  Please!>"

The lines of fury eased from Colossus' features.  Blankly, moving
slowly as if in a dream, he looked down at his sister.

"*Pazhalista*, Piotr," she pleaded with him again.

He still looked down at her.  Only his fingers moved, opening to
allow Drake to fall hard to the snow.

Warren moved forward and picked him up.  Bobby's neck was dappled
with angry red and purple marks, and his breathing was ragged and
shallow.

Xavier's brow furrowed.  He looked at Colossus.  "Peter--"

Without a word, Colossus scooped his sister up into his arms, turned,
and walked away from them all, towards the road.

"Peter!" Storm called after him.

"Piotr," Illyana pleaded faintly.  She looked back over Colossus'
shoulder and held out her arms, crying, "Jubilee! *Katya*!"

Jubilee pulled away from Wolverine and saw what was happening.  "Hey,
come back!" she shouted, pelting after them.

"Jubie, wait!" Wolverine called.  She ignored him.

She caught up with Colossus at the gate.  "Where do you think you're
going, you--you overgrown hood ornament?"  She planted herself
between him and the gate.  "You can't just walk out of here--"

Colossus said not a word.  He simply picked Jubilee up by the collar
of her neon-yellow trenchcoat and flung her backwards over his head
without even looking.

"*Nyet*, Piotr!" Illyana protested.  

Jubilee flew through the air like a Frisbee.  "*HEY*!!"

Colossus opened the gate and walked out, never looking back.

Jubilee would have hit so hard she would have bounced if she hadn't
simply stopped about three feet from the ground.  Jean lowered her
gently to the snow, coincidentally about two feet away from Victor,
who was finally healed of his wounds.  "Happy landings, China Girl,"
he said, winking.

Wolverine wasn't so amused.  He popped his claws and started after
Colossus.  "I always wanted to see if I could poke through that steel
hide o' his," he growled, eyes going to red.  "We're about ta find
out."

"Logan, that's not going to help," Jean protested, ready to stop him
with her TK.

Then Mirror screamed.

*That* stopped him.  Wolverine turned around.  "Wha?"

All eyes turned where Mirror was pointing.

Gambit stood grim-faced, silent, his head lowered and his eyes
burning like coals.

Pixie hung limp and battered in his arms and didn't move.

"*C'est mort*," he intoned.  "Vanessa...she is dead."

Mirror was at his side in an instant.  Her long fingers brushed
Pixie's temple, and then the healer looked wryly up at the Cajun. 
"Good thing you're not a doctor," she said.  She took a deep breath,
spread her hands over Pixie's unmoving chest, and began to glow
silver.

"Is anyone else hurt?" Xavier asked.  He took a quick mental "head
count"; everyone was responding.  He silently cursed himself for not
having noticed sooner that Pixie was missing.  Everything had
happened so fast.  

(Damn you, Magneto,) he thought.  (As we may both already be damned.)

His students, his followers, his X-Men, the generation beyond his
which he had come to consider his children, stood around him in
uncomfortable silence.  If anything, the mood was more somber now
than it had been shortly before Illyana's death, before the three
newest pupils had joined them.

A few brief weeks of peace...shattered in an instant by the
reappearance of their oldest enemy.

No doubt Magneto would be pleased.

                  *             *             *