Fear the Rest
Chapter 5: Demonstration
March 16--MIAMI
The Miami city commission continues to debate an ordinance that would make it illegal to knowingly conceal a person's mutant status. The ordinance, proposed by Commissioner Susannah Jenkins, would establish a mutant registry and mandate reporting of known or suspected mutations by affected individuals as well as teachers, doctors, and other professionals.
"It's a matter of public safety," Jenkins said in a city hearing Friday. "We're simply trying to ensure that mutated individuals can be treated appropriately." As an example, Jenkins said that if a mutant were arrested, special measures would need to be taken to protect law enforcement officials or the mutant himself.
Some local groups applauded the measure. "Mutants are a danger to themselves and others without strict medical supervision," said Alan Juarez, director of the non-profit Society for the Prevention of Genetic Abnormalities (SPGA). He cited SPGA studies showing that mutants are six times more likely than genetically normal humans to suffer from untreated mental illness.
Representatives of other organizations also testified in support of the measure, including the parents' rights group Power to the Family. "We believe parents should have the right to protect their children from mutants in the schools," said Peter Bates, the group's founder. The organization has fought in the past to have books they called "objectionable and inappropriate" removed from local school libraries.
A handful of pro-mutant activists spoke out against the measure. "This would make it easy for employers to refuse to hire us, or for apartments to refuse to rent to us," said LaShaun Jacoby, 21, a student at the University of Miami. Julia, 28, who refused to give her last name, went further in an interview after the hearing. "Registration is the first step on the road to criminalizing mutation," she said. "What they want is to put us all away."
* * * * *
"Oh, great," Scott muttered, frowning over the newspaper. "They get doctors and parents to talk about statistics, and we get college students saying we're all going to get thrown into prison camps."
Jean shrugged. "People don't want to come out as mutants to testify." She glanced at Hank for support. He was sitting on his dorm room bed, leaning back against the wall comfortably, while Jean sat on the floor. Scott was pacing.
"Which means not coming out as mutants may well become a crime," Hank said.
"Are we going to the meeting tonight?" Jean asked.
Scott shrugged. "Do you want to go to the meeting? Frankly, I don't see the point. It's always just people bitching about how hard it is to be a mutant."
"Having a mutant student group increases visibility on campus," Hank pointed out. "Even if we do seem to have problems actually taking constructive action."
"A university mutant registry would make mutants visible, too," Scott muttered. "I don't see you pushing for one."
"I'm in favor of being open about our mutations, but I think that should be a choice," Hank said mildly.
"That's great, Hank, because for you it is a choice."
Hank turned over his hands to show the broad palms. "I'm visibly not baseline human, Scott."
"You could be. You don't have wings. You don't have to worry that if you're ever in an accident the paramedics will take your glasses off."
"Guys …" Jean started, and then wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. "Guys, you're making my head hurt."
Scott sighed. "Sorry," he said to Hank. "You invited us up for the weekend and now I'm being a jerk."
"And I should be surprised?" Hank asked, and then had to dodge a pile of laundry that showered down on him telekinetically. "Besides, Jean goes to mutant nights at Avalon," he said once the rain of clothes ended, with all the dignity a man with socks on his shoulders could manage.
"It's a bar, not a mutant rights group," Jean said. "Although sometimes people pass out pamphlets." She rummaged around and pulled one out of her purse, a photocopied flier crumpled around the edges. "Mutants unite! Join together in brotherhood!" She frowned at it. "Someone likes exclamation points."
"I should go to the meeting, at least," Hank said. "Perhaps I can persuade people to write letters to the Miami city commission."
"Maybe," Scott said. "Probably not, though.
"We could go down to the lounge and watch CNN," Jean suggested. "Maybe they've decided something."
"Watch our freedoms go up in smoke on the nightly news?" Scott sighed. "Sure. Why not. We could make popcorn." He shook his head. "Maybe we should call the professor."
"There's nothing he can do to stop this from Westchester," Hank said, looking up at Scott with a frown. "It's bigger than that."
"But he'll be upset," Jean said, although she wasn't really in the mood either to be comforting or to hear Charles's attempts at reassuring her.
"Tell him to write a letter, then," Hank said. "At least we'll have accomplished something."
Scott went back to pacing. "Writing letters isn't going to stop this."
"If not letters, what?" Jean turned over her hands. "If we were there, what would we do?"
"Don't you mean what would you do?" Hank asked. "You're the only telepath here."
Jean tensed for a moment, and then relaxed, shrugging. "I don't have that kind of power." She smiled. "Thankfully."
Scott looked curious despite himself. "And if you did?"
"I don't know," Jean said. "What would you do?"
Scott grinned. "Probably get us all in a lot of trouble. So it's just as well I only blow things up."
"Professor Xavier believes it's unethical to influence others' political opinions using your mutant powers, yes?" Hank asked.
"I can't," Jean said, a little too forcefully. "But if I could, yes, I think it would be unethical."
Hank shrugged. "I'm not sure I agree."
"Yes, but where would it stop?" Scott asked. "Pollution sucks, too, but Jeannie can't just wave her hand and do Jedi mind tricks to get everyone to vote for cleaner air."
Jean rubbed her forehead. "Headache, guys, remember?" She had a feeling it wasn't going to get any better soon.
* * * * *
March 18--MIAMI
The Miami City Commission today passed a landmark mutant registration ordinance, making it illegal to conceal a person's mutant status or to fail to register known mutant abilities.
Registration will begin immediately, according to Commissioner Jenkins. Mutants have thirty days in which to comply, after which any report of suspected mutation will be "pursued aggressively," Jenkins said. "This is a public health issue, and one that the city expects all residents to take seriously."
* * * * *
"A public health issue," Erik said in disgust. He heard the edge of his old accent creeping back into his voice and didn't bother trying to tame it. "Keeping the vermin out of their good clean city."
"They're not talking about pushing mutants out of the city," Olivia said. "Just about registration. It's a hassle, yes, but …"
"They will." Erik threw the paper down on the table. "It will not end with this."
Raven slid down from her perch on the arm of the sofa to sit beside him, slipping an arm around his waist.
Brendan shook his head at Olivia. "It doesn't have to be the city saying 'never darken our doorsteps again,' you know," he said. "If mutants can't rent apartments because their neighbors are afraid of them, it'll be just as bad."
"Not everywhere," Olivia said. "Some neighborhoods won't be like that."
"And we will go quietly to the ghettoes," Erik said. "Yes."
Olivia sighed. "You're right. I know. It's just … it's such a little thing."
"Kids are going to drop out of school," Kevin said. "All those kids who can pass now are going to be getting beat up on the bus in a month."
"And then they'll say there should be special schools," Olivia said. "It'll be for their own good, right?" She looked indignant.
Erik frowned, thrown off his stride for a moment. Brendan looked amused.
"I wouldn't have minded going to a school for mutants," Kevin said. "If I'd known I was a mutant."
"Special schools means warehouses for kids," Olivia said to Kevin. "Or private schools for the rich kids."
Brendan shook his head. "How many mutants do you think there are in Miami?"
"I don't know," Erik said. "Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Most are children."
"Doctors won't treat them," Brendan said. "Day care centers won't accept them. What happens to children raised to be the underclass?"
"Sometimes they grow up to be professors," Olivia said, meeting Erik's eyes across the table. "If they're tough."
"We're exceptional," Raven said, tossing her head proudly. "And not just because of our genes."
"Are you sure it's not because of our genes?" Brendan asked.
"There's no gene for being too stubborn to lie down and die," Olivia said.
"Maybe not," Brendan conceded. "But we're all mutants, and we're all here."
"But if we weren't here, we couldn't--you wouldn't know us to know--it doesn't make sense," Kevin said. "It's a--a logical fallacy."
"A self-selected sample, at least," Raven said. "Like being surprised that everyone you meet in a bar is looking for sex."
"If only everyone I met in bars was looking for sex," Brendan said. "Unfortunately, so many of them just seem to want to get drunk and show off their tans, but when it comes to it--"
"You're trying to change the subject because you know I'm right," Kevin said.
Brendan smiled at him, spreading his hands to acknowledge defeat. "I've never claimed to have a head for science," he said. Kevin smiled back, a rare enough sight to please Erik. Not to mention that it was something of a relief to hear Brendan joking about sex, although Erik suspected the joke would have turned bitter if Brendan had been allowed to go on.
He scrubbed his hair out of his eyes with one hand. Too much to worry about. He could feel the walls of the ghetto closing in, and already wanted to throw open the balcony doors just to prove he could.
"I think we should organize a protest," Olivia said. "There are probably people down there who are trying to. We could get some people together and go." She looked at Erik. "How much do you want to be in class this week?"
"Not particularly," he said, "but I'd need to find someone to take my classes."
"Let your department chair deal with it," Olivia said.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "What about you?"
Olivia smiled. "It's good to be the department chair."
"She's right," Raven added, rather to Erik's surprise. He looked a question at her, and she gave him the elaborate shrug he'd learned meant she felt strongly about something. "Isn't that the point of having freedom of speech? To use it?"
"Well, then," Erik said. "Olivia, if you'll call your list. Kevin, you know which students might be sympathetic."
"I know a couple of people," he said. "I'll--I can ask around."
"What about Avalon?" Raven asked. "Mutant Night is tonight, but I wasn't going--" She stopped as the car keys levitated themselves off the counter and dropped into her hands. "I see that I am."
Erik kissed her on the cheek. "Go on," he said. "Or will it be too late?"
She shook her head. "It's always dead until midnight." She went, slipping into her coat and shifting smoothly to brown hair and soft curves on her way out the door.
"I'll drive myself," Olivia said, "and I can take one or two of you, but not all of you. My car's not that big."
"Take Kevin," Erik said. "And whoever else he can persuade to come."
"It's a little car," Olivia warned Kevin. "Don't bring the football team."
"A road trip, then?" Erik asked, turning to Brendan. "Although I warn you that Raven will play Cyndi Lauper tapes."
Brendan smiled. "A fate worse than death." His smile faded. "Erik, I can't. I have rehearsals."
"This is important," Erik said.
"So are rehearsals," Brendan said. "In fact."
Erik glared at him, to no apparent effect. "Of course," he said tightly, after a brief uncomfortable silence. "I'm sure it's vital that you watch pretty boys dance."
Brendan put his coffee cup down. "I think I should go," he said. "It's an early call tomorrow, and I can't get by on six hours sleep these days."
"Why don't we go put these cups in the kitchen?" Olivia said. "That means you, too, Kevin. I'm not the maid." She caught Kevin's arm and steered him firmly into the kitchen, cups in hand.
Erik caught up with Brendan at the door. He knew he should say he was sorry but kept stumbling over the fact that he wasn't.
"You know, this kind of crap is the reason I'm glad I'm not in love with you," Brendan said.
Erik had no idea what to say to that, either.
Brendan let out a sharp breath of exasperation, and then kissed Erik on the cheek. "Don't get arrested."
"I won't," Erik said, reaching out for the metal in his room with his mind, a dozen innocent things that could be knives if he were in need of one. He kept them still. The coins in his pocket did not rattle. "I will be terribly careful."
"I'm so reassured," Brendan said.
* * * * *
Jean had to admit Warren was gorgeous with his wings spread, flashing white as the strobe lights beat on and off. His fingers skimmed her waist as they danced, not quite touching, as if he were about to tighten his hands and lift her off the ground with one hard beat of his wings. Behind him, the crowd was a blur of flashing color.
Scott had gone to get drinks and hadn't come back for an excessively long time, even given the crowd pressed up to the bar. Scott wasn't very enthusiastic about dancing, and while Jean knew that was insecurity, it was also irritating. Warren was more fun to dance with. He knew just how good he looked.
After a final hammering of drumbeats, the noise from the speakers dropped to a slower pulse and the lights went blue. Warren furled his wings and looked at her ruefully.
"Looking for Scott?"
"Just wondering if he left," Jean said. She hadn't come to Avalon with Scott, exactly; they'd just been hanging out in her room and caught the train uptown together. Jean was sure there was a meaningful distinction there. And she didn't expect him to go across town out of his way to see her home, but she'd thought he'd at least say goodnight.
"Raven's got him cornered," Warren said, nodding toward a blue girl who was holding forth about something at the end of the bar. She was pressing pamphlets into people's hands; they looked like the same ones now underfoot on the dance floor, along with empty cups. "I think she just wants to talk politics, though, so don't worry."
"I wasn't worried," Jean said. She pressed her way through the crowd, a little uncomfortably aware that Warren was following in her wake. The beat was throbbing at the base of her skull. Warren stretched out his wings behind her when they came up to the bar, making it less likely that anyone would bump into her, for which she was grateful. Getting sudden flashes of strangers' thoughts was disorienting.
The girl Warren had called Raven was a deep indigo blue and scaled like a lizard, with shockingly orange hair. She was wearing jeans and a white tank top that did nothing to hide her mutation. She looked tired, and from the way she stood Jean thought her feet hurt.
"We've got to fight for our rights," she was saying to Scott and two college girls. "If we let this happen in Miami, it'll be happening here next."
"I have class tomorrow," one of the girls said.
Scott saw Jean and nodded at Raven. "Some people are getting together to protest in Miami," he said, and then grinned. "Want to go?"
Jean started to say I have classes, too, and then got the distinct impression that Raven was waiting for her to say just that. That stung a little.
"Sure," she said. "We'll go."
"It's really a vital opportunity to--"
"We're going," Scott said, breaking into Raven's speech.
Raven blinked a little. "You know, I really need a drink."
Warren waved at the bartender. "Two beers."
"Make that three," Jean said.
"Four," Scott said.
Warren passed a folded bill to the bartender and waved away Scott's move to pull out his wallet.
"Don't think this means I'm going to kiss you," Scott said.
"In that case, you owe me three dollars," Warren said, handing over one of the glasses.
"I charge interest, too."
"I'd kiss him," Jean said.
I'm sure, Scott was thinking, a hot unpleasant wave of jealousy, quickly buried. He smiled crookedly at Warren. "I'm not cheap, Worthington."
Raven looked at Warren appraisingly, taking her own drink off the bar. "Friends of yours?"
"Warren and I went to high school together," Jean said. "This is--"
"Cyclops," Scott said. Jean had to bite her lip not to point out that there were probably thousands of "Scott"s in the city of New York.
"I'm Jean," she said, extending her hand. Raven looked at her for a long moment. Her eyes flickered to Scott, and then back to Jean. Then she held out her own hand.
"It's good to finally meet you."
Jean looked at Warren, a question. Warren looked like there was something he knew he should have told her.
Warren?
Either he was ignoring her, or he hadn't heard her. She hadn't practiced her telepathy with him as much as she had with Scott.
"Has Warren been telling you all about Jean?" Scott asked with a smile that was sharper than Jean liked. "Girl trouble, Worthington?"
"You can give it a rest now, okay?" Warren said, looking irritated. "Dr. Lehnsherr was the one who introduced me to Raven, one night when he was up here with her. They live together in Boston."
"Erik and I are very good friends," Raven said.
"Oh." Jean stared at her. That shouldn't feel strange. It did. "Well. Hello."
She found herself thinking about the night she'd met Charles coming up from the basement, not long after he'd started using Cerebro again. It had been nearly a year before he'd trusted his body not to rebel at Cerebro's demands; the first time he'd tried, he'd had a headache that lasted so long Jean had started to worry about brain damage.
"With the headset on, my nervous system is effectively part of Cerebro's electrical network," he said. He was making an effort not to rub at his temples, but Jean could still feel his pain, aching through her own forehead all the way to the bone. "But my nervous system happens to be broken."
Jean had brushed his shoulder with her fingertips, opening just enough rapport between them that he could feel her sympathy with his frustration. "You'll make it work."
"Oh, yes," Charles said, his jaw set. "I can't fix me, but I can damn well fix Cerebro."
She'd helped him adjust it to compensate for the changes, tentatively touching chips and wires that he'd never trusted anyone but Erik with before. The night he'd sent her and Scott out to fetch a bruised, angry girl from the doorway where she was sleeping, Jean had felt a weight lifting. She'd stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching the girl eating soup, her furred tail curled tight around the table leg, and motioned Scott to silence when he'd come up behind her.
We did good, she told him silently.
He smiled, wondering why she was so happy.
Because there are still things to be happy about.
But when she'd met Charles coming up from Cerebro a few nights later, she'd seen the set of his shoulders and the hard lines around his eyes and thought, He looks like a man who's read his lover's diary, and wishes he never had . She thought he might tell her, if she asked-- Nothing important, Jean. I knew it would happen eventually --but she knew it would come at a cost to his pride later. Instead she'd said good night, gently, and lain in bed wondering why she hurt.
"You don't seem like his type," Scott said, his skepticism clear. "No offense."
"Don't I?" Raven's eyes flicked to Jean. Still smiling, but defensive behind the smile.
"Well, we thought he was gay," Jean explained.
She shrugged. "He's flexible." Her skin rippled, fading to creamy pale, her muscles shifting. A wiry, angular boy with red hair and freckles gave her the same cat's smile. "So am I." Her voice had deepened to a light tenor.
"Nice trick," Scott said. "But illusions only go so far."
"No illusion," Raven said. Her hair was crisply cut, curling a little in the back. There was a spray of freckles across her shoulders.
"Amazing." Jean reached out, and then stopped herself. "May I--"
Raven shrugged in elaborate nonchalance and let Jean touch her arm, although she looked a little uncomfortable. The hard muscle was solid under Jean's fingers. Jean kept her touch light, clinical.
"I'm sorry," she said after a minute, realizing she was being rude. "I just find unusual mutations fascinating."
"You take after Erik," Raven said.
Jean bit her lip. "He's not my father."
Raven looked at her thoughtfully. "Isn't he?"
"I think he blew that four years ago," Scott said. "You know, maybe this isn't such a good idea."
Warren put a hand on his arm. "Scott."
"I'm just saying--"
"Yes, but that's not more important than our rights," Warren said. "Is it."
Scott frowned. "I'm sorry. I'm just--this is just weird."
"I think we're having stepparent issues here," Jean said. "Don't mind us."
Raven laughed. "I'm twenty-nine. I don't think I can possibly be …"
"He had a midlife crisis?" Warren suggested. "Not so weird, Scott."
"Weird," Scott said. He downed the rest of his drink. "Tell us about Miami."
* * * * *
March 19--MIAMI
Miami police officials plan a heavy presence at scheduled protests Saturday, although activists insist protests will remain peaceful. The passage of Miami's landmark mutant registration ordinance is drawing protesters from as far away as California, and crowds are expected to be heavy for tomorrow's march and planned speeches.
"The problem isn't lawful demonstrations," said Police Chief Steve Delgado. "The problem is radical groups sending people here to disrupt normal activities in the city with no regard for the law." Anti-mutant activists pushed the city commission to deny permits for the protest, but the commissioners agreed after a spirited debate to allow the event to go on as planned.
Speaking earlier today, the bill's original sponsor, Commissioner Susannah Jenkins, said, "We're confident that the police force can handle whatever situations arise."
* * * * *
Erik sat at the wheel of the car and scowled at passing people. He had to admit that Raven had, indeed, found volunteers to go to Miami with them. How that had turned into "we should go on a road trip with Jean Grey and Henry McCoy," he was less clear on. Except that neither of the children apparently owned a car.
He glanced at the doorway to the apartment building as casually as he could. He hoped Jean's telepathic abilities were currently hinting to her that he was double-parked.
He spotted Raven first, apparently chatting with Henry, who was carrying a duffel bag that was probably his and a large red suitcase that probably wasn't. And there was Jean, behind them, turning her keys nervously around in one hand. She looked older. A lovely young woman he would smile at on the street.
"Here we are, Erik," Raven said, leaning in the passenger window. "Just let us get the bags put away." He flicked his fingers at the dashboard and opened the trunk. Raven slid into her seat, and he heard the sound of the back doors opening and Jean and Henry climbing in.
"Hello, Dr. Lehnsherr," Henry said. "I apologize for the delay in leaving. Jean isn't the most efficient of packers."
"You were the one who slept in," Jean muttered.
"Henry. Jean," Erik said with a nod, pulling out into traffic. He kept his eyes on the road. Always a wise idea in Manhattan traffic, he told himself.
"Hank, please," Henry said mildly.
Erik couldn't resist glancing in the rearview mirror. Jean was biting her lip. Henry was looking out the window. He looked at Raven, who made little talking hand-puppet motions out of sight of the children in the back seat.
When he stayed silent, she turned the hand-puppet into an obscene gesture. "So, Jean, what are you studying?" she asked brightly.
That only got them as far as the New Jersey Turnpike, despite Henry's attempts at starting an interesting conversation about microbiology.
"So," Erik said, after the silence had begun to drag out again, "tell me again why I have the two of you and not your erstwhile classmates?" In his teacher's voice, dry and skeptical. Kindly explain what you were trying to do that resulted in the lab table catching fire. Mr. McCoy? Miss Grey? It was familiar territory.
"Warren has a car," Jean said.
"Which only seats two," Henry added.
"He gets to ride with Scott, because--" Jean broke off, looking annoyed. "Because they're irritating boys who can't deal with a little competition, actually."
"I see," Erik murmured.
"That's our exit," Raven pointed out. Erik swerved into the right-hand lane in time to take the exit, although he had to slow the car behind him to prevent it from tapping his bumper. Raven looked so determinedly unruffled he was sure he'd seriously alarmed her.
They stopped at the rest stop they'd agreed to make their first rendezvous point. Scott and Warren were already there, sitting on the hood of Warren's convertible.
"You have to have been speeding," Jean said as they walked up to Warren's car.
"Just because I don't drive like a little old lady?" Warren asked.
"Actually, Dr. Lehnsherr was driving," Jean pointed out, with a faint smile.
"Oh," Warren said. "No offense."
"And a very pleasant afternoon to you too, Warren," Erik said. "Scott."
Scott nodded without smiling. "Excuse me," he said, and headed off toward the vending machines.
Warren glanced after him. "I'll just … go see … one minute, all right?" He headed off after Scott.
Jean turned up her hands in exasperation after they'd gone. "Oh, this is working well."
Raven slipped off after them, hopefully to remind them of the purpose of the trip. Or perhaps she just wanted a cup of very bad coffee.
"I should warn you that you're not Scott's favorite person," Henry said.
"I never would have guessed," Erik said.
Jean put a hand on his arm, tentatively. "It's complicated."
"Complicated," Erik repeated. Like Charles, Jean seemed to have a gift for understatement. "Yes, things have become complicated. But not by my choice."
Jean fought the urge to look away. "That's the real question, isn't it?"
Erik shrugged. "What can I say? I know you have no desire to hear me speak ill of my old friend."
"'Old friend'?" Jean asked, one eyebrow raised.
"So I like to think," Erik said. He smiled painfully. "Kindly allow me to keep my illusions."
"I only meant--" Jean glanced over at the vending machines. "You know, I don't think this is the place to talk about this."
"Don't mind me," Henry said.
Erik followed Jean's gaze. The boys had reappeared, trailed by Raven, who was nursing a steaming cup.
"How many more hours to Miami?" Jean asked.
"Sixteen and a half," Henry said.
Jean sighed.
*****
They stopped for the night in Fayetteville, which would not have been Jean's choice, if anyone had asked her. The highway was filled with cruising cars clustering around convenience stores and bars. But it was late, and there weren't many places south of there to stop.
They got rooms in the cleanest-looking motel Dr. Lehnsherr could find, and had a brief awkward moment until it was established that the boys were sharing a room and Jean was getting her own. Scott looked annoyed. Dr. Lehnsherr looked relieved. Jean was a little touched. He still wanted to look after her.
She'd missed that, even if it had irritated her sometimes. He ordered the boys about, taking charge of getting into their rooms as if it were a military maneuver, and then stood for a moment outside the door of his own room, looking down the street at the sharp neon lights and the headlights crawling up and down the strip. Jean came over to him and leaned against the wall herself. The chipped stucco was still warm from the heat of the day.
"I understand why you left," she said, which wasn't what she'd meant to say at all.
"Understanding is not the same thing as forgiveness," he said, still looking out at the traffic.
She took a breath, then let it out. "You don't want me to forgive you."
"No," he said. "Not for that." He smiled, still looking out at the traffic. "Medical school. Very impressive."
"I want to help people," Jean said. "I guess that sounds awfully lame."
"Hardly." He gave her the sideways conspiratorial look that had usually been an invitation to share in some small act of rebellion against his own rules. "I'm something of an idealist myself."
Jean laughed and then pulled one of the flyers from the club out of her pocket on impulse. "Did you actually write this?"
"More or less," he said. "Olivia made me take out all the big words."
"I hate feeling helpless," Jean said.
He turned to her, finally, and lifted her chin with one finger. "You're not."
She pulled away. "I--maybe I should go to bed."
"Without any dinner?"
Jean looked at her watch. "It's awfully late." But she had to admit she was hungry.
"Besides, you'd disappoint all those young men."
"Not all of them," Jean said.
Dr. Lehnsherr shook his head, still smiling faintly. "While I'm hardly in a position to preach about monogamy, don't you think you're being a little ambitious?"
Jean told herself she was twenty-one and not, not, not going to blush. "I, um," she said.
He looked surprised. "I thought you knew that Raven and I had been ..."
Jean frowned. "Were you cheating on her with Charles?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "I wouldn't have expected that to be what troubled you."
"I like her," Jean said. "And I know you still--"
"I still do," he said, his eyes jerking away from hers. He looked out at the traffic again. "Come, we should eat. Raven!" he said, raising his voice enough to carry into the motel room. A moment later, Raven appeared, running a hand through her brown hair.
"You don't have to shout, Erik," she said.
They ended up in what you could charitably call a restaurant on the grounds that it did serve food at tables. Hardly any was evident at the tables around them, most of which were piled with empty beer glasses instead. The music had a deafening backbeat, but apparently being young and in the army meant you were good at shouting. The noise was awful.
Jean wavered between her desire for food and her premonition that being here was going to mean a return of her headache. Food won, and she had to admit it was amusing watching Warren, who was looking at the menu while clearly trying not to touch it more than necessary.
"It's not that bad," she said, leaning over so he could hear her.
"That's easy for you to say," Warren murmured, without turning his head. "You don't have to try not to look at the waitresses' breasts."
Jean shrugged. "Why try?"
"Two words: chivalry and taste."
Scott had pointedly sat at the opposite end of the table from Dr. Lehnsherr, where Jean couldn't very well talk to him without shouting. Hank had a stack of photocopied articles and was reading contentedly, apparently oblivious to either the noise or Scott's occasional attempts to make conversation.
Jean ordered buffalo wings and a beer. She patted Warren on the arm.
You're not the only one who'd rather be somewhere else. She jerked her chin toward Dr. Lehnsherr, who had his arm around Raven's waist, and was absorbed in telling her something that made them both smile unpleasantly sharply.
"They look cheerful enough to me," Warren murmured, as Raven laughed and tossed back her hair.
Jean shook her head a little. No. It's nerves. She gave them both an appraising look over the rim of her glass when it arrived. Dr. Lehnsherr looked up at once. Jean returned her attention to her drink.
Three drinks and a plate of chicken wings later, the headache had materialized. Scott had wandered off to the bar, and Warren had followed with a distinct lack of enthusiasm but an apparent sense of responsibility. He was watching Scott talk to a knot of guys in Air Force uniforms, looking uncomfortable.
"... to make it clear that we're not defenseless," Dr. Lehnsherr said from the far end of the table, his voice rising too loudly above the noise, the only sign she could see that he'd been drinking.
Raven played with her fork as if it were a much more lethal weapon. "We'll make it clear enough."
"This is supposed to be a peaceful protest," Jean said. "Right?"
"Of course it is," Dr. Lehnsherr said.
Raven only smiled, her eyes hard. Jean turned her empty glass around in her hands. "You know, I think I'll go get another beer."
She steered through the crowd toward Warren, who was talking to a man in a polo shirt and tight jeans. The man had his hand on Warren's arm. Warren leaned in close to listen, and then scowled, looking cranky and exasperated and like he was about to say something that would get them into a bar fight.
She put a hand to her temple and concentrated enough to 'hear.'
" Actually, no, I don't want to go out in the alley with you. I'm not gay, actually, " Warren was saying, and making an effort not to follow it with besides, I don't know where you've been.
The man he was talking to felt ... wrong, though. Not drunk, desperate, and embarrassed, which is what she'd expected. He turned away with a shrug and drifted back into the crowd. All in a night's work.
Jean glanced away, embarrassed now herself. Her head was throbbing. She sidled up to Warren at the bar and gave him a weak smile.
"Do I look gay?" Warren complained.
Jean put her fingers to her mouth to hide a smile. "You have a manicurist."
"So? My father has a manicurist."
"I'm just saying," Jean said. She turned to glance at the man, who was talking to a freckled guy in fatigues. Looking for someone else who was willing to pay for it, she guessed, only ... where the hell are all the fags tonight? There's not going to be any pizza left back at the station at this rate ...
Jean closed her eyes. "Wow, you sure know how to pick them."
"What?" Warren looked over her shoulder.
"He's a cop," Jean said. "They're running a sting." She looked at the freckled soldier, wishing she had Charles's ability to warn him. She tried anyway, although she wasn't sure it was working. Whether she had anything to do with it or not, after a minute he shook his head at the cop and headed for the bar.
"Fantastic," Warren said, and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "I thought we'd wait to get arrested until we actually got to Miami."
"We're not going to get arrested," Jean said.
"It hardly matters," Warren said. "My dad's already going to have apoplexy over me renting a cheap motel room in Fayetteville on his credit card."
"Tell him you had a flat tire," Jean said.
"He's not stupid."
"Tell him you were going to demonstrate for mutant rights," Jean said. "Will he really like that better than thinking you spent a school night banging a waitress in a tight shirt?"
"Are you drunk?" Warren asked.
"I think so," Jean said.
"Lucky you." Warren shook his head. "I'm going to try to drag Summers away from his armchair paratrooper kick, but it may take a minute."
"I'll see if Hank is ready to go," Jean said. "I really do have a headache." She made her way back over to the table tapped Hank on the shoulder. "You ready to go?"
"All right," he said, restacking his papers neatly. "You should read this article about mitochondria."
"But probably when I'm sober," Jean said. She dodged around the table and leaned down so Dr. Lehnsherr so he could hear her. "We're going to go crash," she said. "There's a bottle of Excedrin in the motel room calling my name. Oh, and Warren got hit on by an undercover cop. Whee."
"An undercover cop?" Dr. Lehnsherr and Raven exchanged glances. His hand twined with hers between their chairs. He had the very precise enunciation she'd only heard in his voice a few times, when he'd come home drunk after the worst of his fights with Charles. "Where?"
Jean rubbed her forehead. "You're not going to make a scene, are you?"
"Never mind," Dr. Lehnsherr said. "I see him."
"We're going to bed now," Jean said. "You should too."
Dr. Lehnsherr smiled. He'd made himself almost impossible to read. "We'll be along."
Outside it was cooling off, although the air still smelled of hot asphalt and exhaust fumes.
"Think we should worry?" Jean asked as they walked. Hank nodded. "Think we should go back?" He shook his head. "Right," Jean said.
She let him into her motel room, and they flopped on opposite beds. Jean flipped the TV on telekinetically, winced at the bright light, and then flipped it off again. The drone of the air conditioner was hypnotic. "Long day," she said after a while.
"Mmm-hmm." Hank sounded distracted.
"What?"
"You know that I'm pleased and honored to have you as a friend, don't you?"
"Aww," Jean said, feeling a sense of alcohol-enhanced well-being creeping over her. "I like you too, Hank."
"I've always thought ..." he said, and then trailed off, awkwardly. "That is, Warren and Scott are both ... well, I've never felt comfortable attempting to compete."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh. Nothing. Really." He reached for his stack of articles and succeeded only in knocking them off the bed.
"Here," Jean said. "Let me get those for you." She waved a hand, and the stack of papers fluttered back onto the bed. "See? All fixed."
"Yes," Hank said gently. "No harm done." He came over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Sleep, now. We want to be at our best for the demonstration tomorrow."
"Mmm," Jean said, and curled up on top of the scratchy comforter. She heard the door close, and flipped the deadbolt on with an effort. Lights off now. Sleep.
In the morning, she glared at herself in the mirror. Jean Grey, you are too stupid to live. There wasn't a damn thing she could say to Hank now, either. She knew him well enough to know that the subject was now quietly but firmly closed. She yanked a brush hard through her snarled hair. Telepathy is supposed to make this easy, she thought. Right?
There was a hard rap on the door. "We're leaving without you in ten minutes," Dr. Lehnsherr called dryly.
"Sure it is," Jean said to the mirror, and hefted her suitcase.
*****
March 21--FAYETTEVILLE
Cumberland County Sheriff's Department officials reported yesterday that detective Patrick Delaney was assaulted outside a local bar by unknown assailants. Witnesses reported seeing Delaney leave the bar with a red-haired man who has not yet been identified. Police sources said Delaney was on duty as part of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department's ongoing campaign to combat solicitation in local bars and public areas under North Carolina's Crimes Against Nature law. Delaney was found unconscious around four a.m. and was transported to Cape Fear Medical Center, where he remains in stable condition.
Dawn in Miami was gorgeous, pink bleeding slowly across the horizon and outlining palm trees swaying in the warm moist air. Light glinted off sprawling buildings, glass and metal twisted into the most fantastic of shapes. Like trees without roots, Erik thought. He wondered what it would be like to be able to feel the water under the ground, to feel as well as know that they were crawling on the surface of an ancient sea.
He waited for Raven to join him and knew it when she opened the motel room door and drifted over to his side. She didn't speak for a while, although he didn't think she was watching the sunrise.
"What did I do that you don't like?" Erik asked finally.
She looked contemplatively at the palm trees. "Pretty, aren't they?"
"Raven."
"You didn't want them involved the other night," she said.
He shrugged. "It would have complicated matters."
"I'm just not sure you should have lied to them," she said.
"They'll get enough of a look at the truth soon enough," Erik said. "I don't expect today to be very pretty."
"If it all seems to be going peacefully …" Raven began.
"We won't have to start the trouble," Erik said. "I assure you."
They found a parking garage reasonably close to the site of the protest. Warren stroked the fender of his convertible nervously. "I'm not sure this is the best place to park it."
Erik shrugged. "If you'd rather park it on the street in the middle of a crowd, feel free. It's not my car."
"I didn't say that," Warren grumbled. Erik turned away and rolled his eyes at Raven.
"Over-privileged," he murmured as she came close enough to hear. She smiled up at him sharply. He could see the tension in her body; she held herself like a dancer. He kissed her temple, quickly, and then strode to catch up with the children.
It was a long enough walk that Erik was grateful when he could hear the noise of the crowd ahead: a higher, sharper note than the usual drone of businessmen on their way to work and the rumble of passing traffic. He saw the children draw closer together ahead, watching the street. He nodded approval, knowing that Jean would sense it even though she couldn't see it.
Erik caught at Raven's arm and signaled to her to hold back a little once they were actually in view of the crowd. The noise was familiar, the hastily-lettered signs ("Mutant Rites Now" made him wince), the occasional ragged efforts to get a chant going that died out within a few meters. What was strange and alien and lovely was the sight of this particular crowd.
Oddly-colored hair, to start with, flashes of blue and white and magenta showing through the crowd, but that wasn't unusual for students. Even on the fringes of the crush of people, though, Erik could see a girl with bright green skin and eyes like new leaves, and a man whose skin glinted such a bright copper that Erik reached out curiously with his mind to see if it was truly metal (it was, but liquid and flexible as normal skin).
He could see fur and iridescent scales and a boy with a fluttering nest of tentacles instead of hair. There were people in the most unlikely places, clinging to the sides of the buildings and balancing easily in the tops of palm trees; and here and there through the crowd of the mostly-ordinary he could just get a glimpse of oddly-shaped people, hulking and taller than the shop windows, or inhumanly angular and thin. One corner of the street was lit by a golden, unearthly light, and there was music playing from no visible source.
He had to fight the urge to reach out and touch the nearest one of them (a tall girl in an overcoat that didn't hide the feathers at her wrists), to find out each and every one of their names. To touch them as Charles could. To know them.
The children had stopped, too; he glanced over at them in time to see Henry spring easily to the top of a car to get a better view.
"Hank!" Scott protested.
Henry shrugged. "Just conducting reconnaissance."
"That's my job," Warren said. "You're stepping on my territory, here."
"Forgive me, Warren," Henry said. "Am I interfering with your alpha-male dominance displays? That was never my intention."
Jean turned on Warren, as if he'd said something. "No."
"I won't," Warren said, but he was looking up at the rooftops. Erik followed his gaze and saw that a handful of people were sitting on the edge of the roof across the street; he could see the dark shape of folded wings behind at least one of them.
"What if there are TV cameras?" Jean asked.
"It's not as though I'm going to give out my name and address," Warren said.
"It's not as if you're exactly anonymous," Scott said. "'Worthington Enterprises Heir Exposed as Flying Mutant.'"
Erik looked up at the rooftop and looked speculatively at Raven.
" No," she said, and tugged at his jacket sleeve. "We're not here to play."
"Another flyer would be useful," he pointed out.
She shook her head. "You want to play."
He sighed. "How often do we get the chance?"
"I was hoping to get a chance to talk to Robert, but there's such a crowd …"
"He'd have an easier time spotting someone blue than we will spotting him," Erik pointed out.
"I'm … not sure, Erik." She looked out at the crowd, biting her lip. "Not yet."
"As you like," he said lightly. He spread his arms and levitated up to the hood of the car. Raven made what was either a noise of protest or a strangled laugh. Henry nodded to him seriously.
"There are security cordons at both ends of this two-block area," Henry said. "They're keeping the opposition demonstrators on the other side of the lines. Presumably they'll open the one at the north end when the march begins."
"Presumably," Erik murmured. He looked out across the police barricade, at a smaller but noisy sea of more polished signs; he could see many copies of "No More Mutation" and "Registration Now!" Some of the other, hand-lettered signs were uglier.
"They can't spell very well," Henry said, presumably in response to "God is Punnishing You."
"Neither can we," Erik muttered.
"R-i-t-e-s, yes." Hank shook his head and looked concerned. "Won't anyone think of the poor homonyms?"
"It's not funny," Jean said. She'd climbed up to sit at Erik's feet.
"Sometimes you've either got to laugh or cry," Erik said.
He came back down to the sidewalk reluctantly, when he could no longer ignore Raven's pointed looks. He slipped an arm around her waist and strolled through the crowd with her for a while. The children stopped to talk to a group of students from the University of Georgia, one of whom explained with alarming intensity that she was a mutant because of the X-rays she'd had as a child.
Erik didn't have the patience for explaining everything that was wrong with that, but Jean and Hank seemed to be settling in to teach a sidewalk seminar on middle-school-level genetics. He left them to it, and he and Raven went on with Warren and Scott following, talking to each other too quietly for Erik to hear through the crowd noise.
Ten o'clock came and went, leaving Erik looking at his watch in irritation. He wondered why it seemed to be a universal constant of the sort of people who organized protests that they were incapable of starting on time. He got as close to the north end of the block as possible, trying to get some idea of what the hold-up was, but the crowd was too dense to get up to the police barriers.
Raven squeezed his hand and slipped away; a minute later, he saw a red-haired police officer with familiar features shouldering protestors aside. He waited, rather impatiently, until she came back, brunette and female again.
"I'm not sure I like this, Erik," she said. "They've moved the opposition behind police barriers on the march route, but the police are staying at the front and rear of the march. They haven't got anyone on the sidewalks."
"At least that way we're not surrounded."
"They're on our side here," she said. "They don't want trouble. We don't want trouble. In theory."
"You can't assume they're on our side," he said. "Better to assume they're not."
"Yes, but--" Raven broke off as the crowd started to move. "Where are the others?" Erik turned to look. He could see Warren and Scott a few meters away. Jean and Hank were hidden from view somewhere in the crowd.
They made it a block and a half. Erik had stopped looking at protestors, which made his fists clench, and was looking up instead at the girl with broad black wings who was making lazy circles above the march even with the level of the rooftops. The Georgia student group shouted and waved, and the girl swooped down toward them.
"Oh, no," Warren said from behind Erik. Erik realized what he meant a moment later as the girl nearly hit the projecting awnings of a coffee shop, rolled wildly to correct course, and swept in a long, low arc over the crowd of anti-mutant protestors, only a few feet over their heads, visibly sharp talons grazing hair. People screamed, and one man threw a plastic cup, spraying coffee across the crowd.
The girl beat her wings to try to gain altitude, knocking over signs and sending flyers swirling out of people's hands. Her talons dipped as she raised her wings, and people around her screamed and ducked. She was clearly trying to get out over street instead of sidewalk, and it was one of the protestors on the very edge of the street who swung his sign. The sturdy garden stake connected with hollow bone, and the winged girl hit the asphalt hard, trying to scramble up to her feet with one wing a crumpled burden.
"Everybody back! Stay back!" one of the police officers was shouting into a megaphone; the front ranks of the march were trying to press forward to help her, but meeting firm pressure from nightsticks and riot shields.
Warren was tearing at his jacket. "Scott, help me," he said desperately, and Scott began flipping open buckles and catches on the harness that held Warren's wings so fast that it was obvious he'd done this a thousand times before. Erik reached mentally to feel at the girl's clothes, but she wasn't wearing enough metal for him to lift her.
Someone on the sidewalk kicked over a barricade, and it fell with a crash as people started to spill onto the street around it. Somewhere along the line of the front of the march, someone tried to shoulder past a police officer, who shoved back hard enough that the man fell, earning angry shouts from the crowd. Behind him an argument was breaking out over one of the barricades, which rocked as people on both sides pressed against it.
"Do something!" Scott shouted in Erik's direction, as Warren shook out his wings and leapt into the air.
"What?" he snapped. "I can't stop a riot." Although he knew who could have. This blood is on your hands, Charles, he thought, as he heard the first sounds of breaking glass.
*****
Jean frowned and tapped Hank on the arm. "What's all the shouting about?" She was nearly shouting herself to be heard.
"I'm not certain," he replied, frowning himself. "I can't see what's--oh, hell." She followed his gaze to see Warren throwing himself into the air, white wings flashing. On one side of the crowd, an argument was getting heated.
"Do you think someone fell?"
"I don't know," Hank said, voice tight. "Jean, can you use your telepathy to reach Scott?"
"I can't," Jean said. "There are too many people. It's too loud--" There was the sound of breaking glass. "People are scared, panicking--"
"Everyone please stay calm," Hank called to the people around them. It didn't seem to be helping.
"They shot her!" someone screamed. "They shot that girl!"
Jean was sure she would have heard a gunshot, even over the din. "No, I don't think--"
"You get what you deserve!" a woman yelled from nearby on the sidewalk.
"Yeah," a wild-eyed boy in a dirty jacket shouted, "you'd all be better off dead!" He shook his fist, and a thin albino girl scrambled back out of his way.
"Don't touch her," the boy with her snarled. He waved an empty bottle, and Jean readied herself to deflect it somewhere harmless if he threw it. Hank was shouldering his way through the crowd toward the combatants.
"There's no need for all this," he said. All three of the teenagers ignored him.
"I'll touch her all right," the boy on the sidewalk said. "C'mere, sweetheart, want a kiss?"
"Go to hell," the other boy said, and threw the bottle. Jean batted at it mentally and sent it spinning off toward the wall, but something was wrong; it had been too heavy when she moved it, and rapidly grew heavier as it flew.
He's changing its density was all she had time to think before it struck the wall just below the jutting balcony of a restaurant.
"That's a supporting wall strut," Hank said almost conversationally, and then the front wall of the building began to fall.
Jean reached out desperately, trying to stop the rain of shards of concrete and broken glass. The effort made her head pound. She could see Hank grabbing people and half-throwing them off the sidewalk. A child shrieked, her forehead bloody. Hank! Jean cried out mentally, and pointed at the little girl when he raised his head. He snatched her up and sprang out of the way of another falling piece of balcony.
The barricades lay tumbled and thrown. People on both sides of them were pushing back toward the south end of the block, just trying to get out of the way. The police at that end of the street were shouting into megaphones, but it only added to the unbearable level of noise.
Someone swung a sign, connecting with a black girl's chin and knocking her to her knees as wood splintered. The posterboard was too crumpled for Jean to be able to tell what side he was on. The girl next to her scrambled toward the wall and then up it, clinging to handholds Jean could barely see; she grabbed at a broken edge of concrete, and a piece the size of a tabletop peeled away from the wall and fell.
I can't, Jean thought, a second before a red blast hit the concrete and it splintered into a cloud of gray dust that fell like rain. Scott!
I'm here. Jean still couldn't see him in the crowd, but she didn't need to; she could feel him steadying her. She pushed her way to the edge of the crowd and knelt beside a woman who was sprawled moaning on the sidewalk. "Hold still. Where are you hurt?" Scott, there may be people trapped in there --
More blasts of red removed the largest of the jagged slabs of concrete from the front of the building. Can't do any more, the whole building could go --
Jean felt the rush of air just before Warren landed beside her, sending people stumbling out of the way. "There are people hurt up there," he said.
"Worse than here?" Jean snapped.
Warren seemed to take in the devastation on the sidewalk for the first time, and paled. He looked down at the woman Jean was examining. "Can I move her?"
"Better than leaving her here to get flattened," Jean said. "I don't think she has spinal cord injuries." Of course, if she was wrong … But if she thought about that right now, she wouldn't be able to do anything. This is what medicine is, kiddo, she told herself. Make the call. "Take her," she said to Warren, who easily scooped the woman up in his arms and took off.
There was the sound of sirens in the distance. Thank God, Jean thought, and looked around for the next person who'd been hurt.
*****
"Where is she?" Erik snapped as Raven crouched beside him on the roof. She'd come up the fire escape; he couldn't hold her and the young flyer as well, even if the girl hadn't been struggling. She'd gone limp in the air, and was now a dead weight in his arms, cradled in an awkward position he hoped wasn't pressure on her broken wing.
"Jean? I don't know," Raven said. "Is this one--"
"In shock, I think," Erik said, making an effort to keep his voice down. The girl felt too light in his arms. There were bruises spreading across one side of her forehead. "Go and find help."
Raven looked over the edge of the building at the chaos below. "Where?"
"Damn it," Erik said. "Just do it."
Her mouth tightened, but she slipped away toward the fire escape, flipping over the building's edge with boneless alien grace.
Erik held the girl while he waited, his arms cramping. Her breathing was shallow and fast, her eyes closed. He wondered how many people had seen him lift her to the roof, and whether any of the policemen below would be unwise enough to try to come after him.
He should get up. He should leave her lying on the pebbled roof and go back down into the street and fight. He cupped his hand over the girl's dark hair. "No," he said. He was hyperaware of every metal thing on the roof. The door handle and sheet-metal air-conditioner and the rivets in the concrete. The roof shimmered with heat haze.
Raven returned, after some indefinite length of time, with Hank, who leapt easily from the top of the fire escape to the roof and crossed quickly to kneel beside Erik.
"Shock is more dangerous with an avian metabolism," Hank said after a minute's examination. "She should be in a hospital."
"No," Erik snapped, holding her tighter. "They'll destroy her."
Hank looked at him with a gentle expression he'd never seen the boy wear before. For the first time it struck Erik that Hank, too, was a man, not a child. "A hospital will treat her like any other patient. She's done nothing wrong."
"Like any other patient? You know better."
"I'm not a doctor, and I don't know her physiology--" Hank stopped and looked up at Erik. "I think she's dying." He reached for the girl, easing her carefully out of Erik's arms and into his own. Erik found it hard to let go.
"Where is Jean?" he asked.
"Helping the ambulances, down where the building face collapsed. Warren and Scott are with her."
Erik scrambled to his feet and strode to the edge of the building. He could see the broken concrete, and saw with some satisfaction that the humans who had been below it when it fell had not fared well.
He couldn't see Jean, but he did see Warren, launching himself up from the street at a mad angle, then diving for the rooftop. He landed neatly, looking grim.
"They arrested Scott and Jean," he said, adding in a rush, "There wasn't anything I could do--the police came in and started arresting everybody. I was lucky to get away."
"You let them be taken!" Erik knew he was shouting and didn't care. It was something of a relief to shout. He advanced on Warren. "You worthless, idiotic--"
"What was I supposed to do?" Warren yelled back.
"Fight for your friends," Erik said.
"This girl is dying," Hank snapped. "Shut up and help me get her down."
Warren took the girl from Hank, balancing her against his shoulder. "They'll just be taken downtown," he said. "They don't hold protestors long."
"I've got to find them," Erik said. He couldn't shake the nauseating sense that this had all happened before and was repeating itself, like the nightmares that never changed despite his horror-stricken foreknowledge of their end.
He detested the faint sound of his own voice, and he made himself say sharply, "I can't expect any help from you ."
"You know, unlike Scott, I don't care what you think," Warren said, and launched himself from the roof, carrying the unconscious girl, her wings falling under his like a dark shadow. Hank sighed and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead.
"We should go bail them out," he said. "Or I should."
Erik shook his head sharply. "No."
"You levitated in front of the news media," Hank said. "I think you're not the person the police would like to deal with right now. Trust me."
"I don't," Erik said, with reluctance. "I can't."
Raven put a hand on his shoulder, less a lover's gesture than a comrade-in-arms'. "I'll go," she said. "Trust me."
"I do," he said, and wished that were entirely true.
*****
Jean stood on the courthouse steps for a minute with Raven and Scott, stubbornly resisting the urge to flee to the shelter of the car.
"I thought Dr. Lehnsherr would be here," she said, trying not to sound disappointed.
Raven looked away. "Even Erik has limits."
"He wasn't the one having a hard time," Scott muttered, but Jean thought maybe she understood.
"I didn't think it would be this way," Jean said.
Raven shrugged. "We did."
"If we'd had our act together, we could have stopped it," Scott said.
"No," Raven said. "I don't think so."
Jean put a hand on Scott's arm. "Maybe we could have."
"Maybe if Xavier had been here," Raven said. "But he doesn't do things like that, does he?"
"You don't know anything," Scott snapped.
Jean thought he was right; Raven didn't know anything about how hard it was to get places in a wheelchair, or about the responsibility of caring for children. And ...
"You hate him, don't you?"
"He's an old friend of Erik's," Raven said, looking out across the street choked with rush hour traffic. "We ... I've never actually met the man."
"The two of you could come up to Westchester with us," Jean said. "Talk about what to do. We're all in this together."
"Are we?" Raven asked. "Us against the humans?"
"It doesn't have to be like that," Jean said.
"It is," Raven said. "And I think this afternoon showed it."
"I think you saw what you were determined to see," Scott said.
Raven shrugged. "So did you."
"It's complicated," Jean said.
Raven shook her head. "Not everything is complicated. Some things are very simple."
"How are we going to explain this to the professor?" Scott asked wearily.
Jean winced. "Talk about Martin Luther King a lot?"
"That might explain the getting arrested," Scott said. "Not the lying about going on a road trip with Dr. Lehnsherr and his new girlfriend."
"We didn't lie."
"We didn't tell the truth."
"That's hardly important right now, is it?" Raven said. Jean could feel her thinking about Erik. Worried about Erik. Afraid she'd let him push himself too far. "Not next to what's happening in the country right now." She stalked off, presumably toward the car. Jean thought she'd wait for them, but it hardly mattered now.
Scott sank down on the marble steps. "This is important," he said. "This is my life. It's important."
"I know," Jean said, rubbing his shoulder. "I know."
*****
March 22--MIAMI
A demonstration by "mutants' rights" groups took a tragic turn yesterday, in an incident that killed 2, injured 23, and damaged a building. Police blame the damage on the use of mutant powers. The incident, involving the partial destruction of a store-front by what witnesses describe as an explosion, took place in the midst of a near-riot, as protestors clashed with bystanders and opponents.
"This only emphasizes the importance of registration," Commissioner Jenkins said. "Whether this was a terrorist act or the tragic result of an uncontrollable genetic illness, the culprit needs to be taken off the streets so that normal citizens can be safe."
The dead were identified as Marta Rodriguez, age 23, of Miami, and Amanda Vickers, 19, of Atlanta, Georgia. Police said Vickers fell and was trampled in the crowd, and that medical personnel were delayed in reaching her because a man had removed her to a rooftop while she was unconscious. Some witnesses identified the man as part of the Boston-based "Brotherhood of Mutants," although for the moment his name remains unknown.