As soon as the door closed behind him, Xavier swung his wheelchair around, and fixed him with frosty look. "What happened in Japan?"

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I thought Jean shared that with you."

"She did. I was wondering what it is you left out."

He knew this was coming. Before he left for Japan, Xavier had asked him to try and make some peace with Logan the next time he saw him. When he pointed out they had absolutely nothing in common, the Professor said they would always have one thing in common if nothing else: their status as mutants. He felt there would always be common ground there. "I tried to make a connection with him, I really did," he said, annoyed at Logan anew for making him defensive. "But he doesn't trust anyone, and he's as bad tempered as a rabid weasel stuck in a threshing machine."

One of Xavier's pale eyebrows arched at the analogy, but he didn't comment on it. "It  takes time, Scott. No one can change the habits of a lifetime overnight."

"He's not going to change. Why should he? I'm sorry, Professor, but for such a low class guy he's a complete snob. He thinks he's better than us."

Xavier actually considered that for a moment, and Scott thought he'd finally gotten through to him. But then he got a strangely blank look on his face that Scott always knew was bad news, and his voice lowered, which, opposite other people, was another bad sign. "Did you know that low class man is fluent in seventeen languages? And that's only the ones that he agreed to be tested for - it's quite probable he speaks most if not all of the world's most common languages. I've never met anyone with such a natural proficiency for it. And where - and why - he learned them is just as mysterious to him as to the rest of us. I don't expect him to completely trust anyone, possibly ever. You know what's been done to him, Scott, and even if he does find some answers I'm not sure they'll make him much happier."

"Okay, so he was tortured," he admitted, throwing up his hands. He knew this sounded callous, but how long could you milk a thing? They weren't even responsible for it. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't give him the right to treat us all like shit."

"He was mutilated, and they took away his memories to cover their crime. I might have a hard time getting over that myself."

"He doesn't even want to be here."

"Logan doesn't know what he wants, besides vengeance. And let's face it, he is never going to be the most...ingratiating man.
But he comes back, Scott. He's trying harder than you realize. I hope you're not projecting your distrust of Bob onto Logan."

He grimaced, putting his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Are you going to tell me you trust him too?"

Xavier gave him a ghost of a smile. "He's never given us a reason not to trust him. I admit he's an...odd man, but I don't believe his intentions are anything but good."

There was a pause before "man" too, and he could guess why. "So, we're taking him on faith too?"

"He saved your life."

There it was, just like that. Scott looked away, feeling a muscle in his jaw twitch as he swallowed hard. The very idea ate at him like acid. "Maybe not," he replied weakly, staring down at the steel plated floor.

He didn't look up, but he could feel Xavier's withering stare like a pair of hands pressing against his back. "Scott," he said in that warning voice, like he was a stern father warning his wayward son. But Xavier was pretty much like a father to him, wasn't he?

"Logan's bad enough," he said, finally looking back at him. "Do we have to tolerate his weirdo friends too?"

Xavier sighed, and said, not without humor, "Yes."

Scott rolled his eyes, glad his visor prevented Xavier from seeing it. "Fine."

He turned around to go, but then the Professor said, "You can tell a lot about a person by actions without forethought, instinctive reactions. What was Logan's first reaction when you were attacked in Japan?"

Scott thought about it, and then paused as he remembered, scowling at Xavier's little observation.

"He protected the girl," Xavier said, since Scott was in no hurry to answer. "Before you judge him too harshly, think about that."

He wanted to point out it was probably a fluke, one of the aberrant things that happened occasionally, a statistical blip, but he knew better than to argue with him further.

Xavier had his opinion, and he had his.

***

Jean was pretty pissed off. He seemed to push her buttons pretty easily, didn't he? Well, at least she didn't throw him through a wall.

"It's awful, isn't it?" Bob said suddenly, appearing in the doorway.

He wished he was shocked, but he wasn't; now he was just annoyed. "Don't start." He warned.

But since when did Bob listen to anyone else? He grinned, and came inside, although he remained out of Logan's reach. "It's awful when not only you're caught in the middle, but when you become a symbol. It's bloody awful being the representative of somethin', trust me."

He was not asking; he'd given up on asking Bob about anything. "Why did you want her to come along?" He asked instead. "To piss off Scott?"

"Oh, like that's hard," he replied. Fair enough. "No, mate, she's cool. Or at least when she really lets go, her powers are. Telekinetics are fucking impressive, as long as they have their powers under control, and aren't trying to blow up your head."

"That happen a lot?"

"More than I'd rather admit."

Logan decided he was telling the truth, but you could never know for sure with Bob. Reality was a malleable concept to him.

Suddenly serious, Bob leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, and added, "She holds back too much. When she really lets go, she can kick some ass. And around you, she really wants to let go."

That could be interpreted in any number of ways. "What do you mean?"

Bob suddenly held a finger up to his lips, and a few seconds later Jean came in, having traded in her dress and heels for blue jeans, sneakers, and a green t-shirt with matching windbreaker. Her thick red hair was held back in a high ponytail too, which he found mildly disappointing, as he preferred her with her hair loose. Pulled back tight, it sometimes made the planes of her face look too severe.

Logan stood up, and she looked between him and Bob, a small line of annoyance arcing between her brows. "I hope I'm not late." Didn't sound like she meant it.

"No worries," Bob replied breezily, straightening up. "Now, I hate to pull rank, so I'm not gonna, but I think you should follow my lead until we know what we're dealing with. Unless Logan gets some crazy urge and runs off on his own."

Logan shot him a harsh glance, but in the end he could only shrug. Yeah, well, maybe it was a fair cop.

Jean simply nodded,looking weary. "Fine."

Bob looked at her curiously, and said in a low voice he almost didn't hear, "It's okay, darlin'. Really."

She seemed to relax, shoulders loosening a bit, losing some tension, and Logan figured that was a mild push. But why? And about what, exactly? What was 'okay'?

Before he could ask, Bob held up a hand towards him in the universal stop gesture, and said simply, "You'll feel nothing."

And just like that, they were suddenly in Los Angeles.

Logan didn't quite stumble, just looked around fast enough to almost lose his balance. They were in an alley somewhere, near an industrial dumpster overflowing with noisome trash that some homeless guys were using as a urinal. As he shook his head to try and banish the smell, Jean looked around in surprise, ponytail slapping her shoulder, and asked, "Does this ever cease to be weird?"

He assumed she was asking him. "Not really."

Bob had already walked up to the mouth of the alley, looking out at the river of cars streaming past them. L. A. didn't have pedestrians really, just people who did business on the street, homeless people, and people whose cars had broken down.

Bob turned back to look at them, with a pair of mirrored sunglasses on. How he materialized sunglasses Logan didn't even want to know. "My targeting gets better and better. We're a bit west of Sunset, and, if I'm right, straight in wish girl's path here."

"And then what?" Logan wondered.

Bob thought about that for a moment, looked back down the road, and then said, "Well, that's a very good question."

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes. If he popped his claws now, he could gouge them out. Would that be such a bad thing, really?

"Look, you're the professional heroes," Bob pointed out. "I'm just a dabbler."

"Who regularly averts apocalypses,"  Logan countered wearily.

"It's a hobby."

"We're insane," Jean exclaimed, throwing up her hands as if in surrender. "We are all insane."

"That would explain a lot," Logan agreed.

"Okay, so, this is reconnaissance, " Bob said, like they'd been debating that. "So what's the best way to reconnoiter in an urban situation?"

Logan glanced up to realize Bob - and now Jean - were staring at him. "What? You're asking me?"

Bob looked at him like he was making a joke. "No. I'm askin' the invisible trash elf over your shoulder. Yes, you."

"Why me?"

Bob shrugged with his hands as Jean looked between them, fascinated with the exchange. "Ain't that your area, mate?"

He stared at him in disbelief. "Why is that my fucking area?"

Bob just looked vaguely amused. "Well, let's see, there was that time in Vancouver when - "

"Fine," he interrupted crossly. He wasn't sure which Vancouver incident Bob was going to refer to, but he didn't really want this coming up around Jean.

"What happened in Vancouver?" She asked curiously.

But he wasn't going to answer that. "Later," he lied, and came to the mouth of the alley to look past Bob.

This was part of the busy downtown Hollywood corridor: shops that verged from quaint ("Helen's Candle Emporium") to commercial ("Starbucks") to kinky ("Maximum Bondage Leather Goods") lined both sides of the narrow, well traveled street. The only pedestrians were the occasional shoppers leaving or going to stores (and only in L.A. would you see a woman in a 'Hilda of the S.S.' black leather get up leading a young shirtless guy down the street by the chains through his pierced nipples) (Well, maybe you'd see it in San Francisco...), and there were so many young (or youngish) looking women it was hard to scour every face before they disappeared from view.

He wished Xavier had gotten a whiff of this Miranda; he'd have been able to just catch her by scent, and need not bother with sight.

"All right. Bob, why don't you zap across the street, and go to the end. Jean, stay here in the middle. I'll take a topside point at the head of the street."

"What do you mean topside?" Jean asked, but not before he had moved to the side wall of the building on their left side and sprung his claws with a familiar noise and a familiar pain.

"I could zap you - " Bob began, but Logan had already dug his claws into the brick, placed his feet flat against the wall, and scrambled up to the roof. "- or you could do that." He finished coolly.

He looked down at them, glad to be looking into shadows and not into the harsh hard light of a Southern California afternoon. Jean gazed up at him, her expression somewhere between amazement and sarcasm. "You've done this a lot." Not a question.

He retracted his claws and nodded.

"It's a gift, let me tell you," Bob interjected. "You have to meet a certain balance between your legs and the claws, or the claws cut straight through. I learned that the hard way on Dis. It's an art, mate - I'm impressed."

Logan didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything.

"How do we stay in touch?" Jean wondered. "If someone sees her, how do we contact each other?"

"Bob, you zap in and tell us; Jean, send it to me telepathically, Bob, keep an eye out for a signal from me; and if I see her first, don't worry, you'll know."

"No attack," Bob reminded him. "She could wipe even you out, Logan."

"Would that be so bad?" He replied sarcastically.

"Yes," Jean said, perfectly serious.

He looked down at her, and felt a sudden pang of sorrow, although he didn't know if it was for her, himself, or both of them. "Everyone look sharp," he said, then turned away and started moving across the roof, towards the roofs of the other buildings that lined this side of the street. Save for two alleys that were cut through,  probably as short cuts for deliveries at the rear, the buildings were all uniform and cheek by jowl, and he could traverse them quite easily. And no matter that it was an extremely, glaringly bright day - no one looked up and noticed him even once.

He kneeled down at the corner of a building at the head of the block, trying to carefully scan the faces of all the female walkers, and even the drivers of expensive cars - because, let's face it, a teenager of any sort wouldn't wish they had a beater car.

Logan could feel the sun on the back of his neck, sweat starting to ooze from his forehead, and he suddenly wished Bob had materialized him some sunglasses too.

She has wished herself to a more interesting place - L.A. - but while that wasn't hard, the pain remained in her head, humming like a live wire. She tried to wish it away, but it hadn't worked. Everything else she wished away went without a trace, so why didn't that work?

She was starting to think there was more going on than she realized. But she wasn't sure if she should be upset or not.

She wasn't sure where she was, exactly. She'd been to L.A. once, and that was when she was five years old. It had seemed like a golden city then, full of impossible glamor and glitz, a sunny place where everything was glamorous and you could buy all sorts of neat things. But right now it seemed dirty and tacky, just another city with a tendency to try and gild its crumbling buildings with neon and murals, signs and sigils of a different, phony age. But gilded shit was still shit, just worth more on the open market.

She sat in an ice cream parlor, in one of the little red tables by the front window, all by herself as she lugubriously spooned up globs of melting chocolate ice cream and let it fall back with soft plops into the plastic coated paper cup containing a small moat of melted mocha almond fudge, mixed in with whipped cream and strawberry sauce. This was her favorite sundae, not allowed to her since her mother put them both on that stupid diet two months ago, but all that was happening had robbed her of most of the simple joy of even this.

The quiet, save for the small mechanical noises of the freezers kicking on and the regular hum of the air conditioner, was starting to get to her. She'd wished everyone away as soon as the pimply teen behind the counter got her her ice cream. She enjoyed it for about four minutes and a third of the sundae, and then it all seemed to pall. She wished she knew why, so she could make it stop.

She was vaguely aware that she had certain impulses that seemed very foreign and strange: it was almost like they weren't coming from her at all. Which was crazy, but wasn't all of this fucking nuts?

She had made an entire town disappear. She had simply shown up in Los Angeles, without having to grab a car or a bus.

She wished suddenly that she could talk to someone about this. But who? Her mother was gone, and would have dismissed her anyways.  She'd never been close to her father, or any other member of her small and dysfunctional family.

As she stared out the window at the dull, pear shaped people walking by, she suddenly wondered if it could be so easy.
"I wish I had a friend," she muttered, chuckling to herself.

It was that easy. Without any sense of displacement, there was a teenage girl sitting in the (formerly) empty red vinyl chair across from her. She was pretty in an ordinary sort of way,  her hazel eyes bright and her mouth crimson, her nose slightly pug and her oval face framed by a close cropped halo of wavy brownish blonde hair. She was wearing a multicolored floral print halter top, and her manicured fingernails were painted a deep blue. She had not been Miranda's idea of a friend (although honestly she'd had no idea in mind), and something seemed off about her, although she couldn't say what.

"Are you real?" She asked, not sure what to make of the stranger in the chair before her.

The girl laughed, and folded her pale hands together on the red lacquered table. "Of course I am, Miranda."

"How do you - "

"I'm you're friend, remember?"

Miranda studied the girl warily. This still didn't seem right, but her head hurt less, and she felt slightly less dizzy. "What's your name?"

"Cressa."

Now there was a phony, Hollywood sounding name if she had ever heard one. Even stupider than her name. "I'm sorry."

Cressa cackled, in a manner that wasn't forced yet still seemed so. "Oh, come on, what's a shitty name?" She looked around the empty ice cream parlor, a moue of disappointment curving her lips. "What's say we get out of here and go have some fun?"

Miranda knew things were even wronger now than they had been before. It was like the world had been kicked loose from its axis, and was now spinning out of control, headed straight for the heart of the sun. But if everything was crazy, or at least going that way, where was the harm in going with it?

What else could she do?

Miranda sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest, and continued to eye her 'friend' warily, even as she replied, "Sure, why not?"

**

The Drai'shajan was near him too.