Sam quietly let himself in to the studio, getting past the locked doors quite easily. Using the street light from outside, he got a instant picture of how the place was laid out and was able to move stealthily from the sitting room into the studio, and from there to the door leading to the darkroom. If Jim wasn't in there, it made a great place to wait for his sister's kidnapper.

He silently opened the door and slipped into the room, only to be greeted by the sudden impact of a small, blunt object against his nose. Seeing stars, he reached for the light switch and quickly turned it on, to allow Jim to see how angry he was at the photographer.

However, it wasn't Jim who had broken his nose, it was Emma's head of security, Tony. Sam stood back and quickly took in the situation. Celeste was working with this man on a day to day basis and liked him, but her judgement wasn't that good. However, this man had saved his sister's cover, which meant that he owed him a chance to explain himself before fighting him. "What are ya doin' here?" he whispered as he shut the door.

Tony smiled at Sam's protective air. The other man liked being the one people could turn to because he liked helping them with their problems. And his taking Celeste and Ariel hostage had caused them some major problems, so the other man really had it in for him. Instead of giving Sam the direct answer he wanted, Tony motioned towards negatives he held. "Giving the police an easy raid."

Sam looked around and noticed that every picture being processed was of a child or teenager engaged in immoral and often illegal conduct. He deliberately turned away from the prominently positioned pictures of toddlers. "Good idea," he allowed. Noticing a box of tapes and developed pictures at Tony's feet, he reached in. Tony grabbed the box away from him. "What's in there?" Sam asked, warily.

Tony didn't explain the tapes, but handed him the negatives and prints. "I took out all the pictures of Meltdown I could without destroying Laura's case." Although it wasn't his job to look out for members of other teams, it was to his advantage to do so, and Celeste would have wanted him to do it. Sam didn't look at the pictures, but took Tony at his word. He was too busy getting angry at the pornographer.

The two men heard the muffled bell as the front door swung open. "Pete," they both agreed. Jim had no reason to hide his presence.

"You back there, mates?" the Englishman called out. Tony opened the door to allow Pete to make his way back. "Rahne called and said that Celeste said that Laura was going to make a statement." Tony had no phone, and Sam had turned his off before coming in.

"That means that the police will be by in about three hours," Tony said. "Enough time to arrange for a nice little reception..." Pete nodded.

At that moment, Sam knew what Bishop felt like. "We won't get to beat him up?" he asked, a little disappointed. The man had tried to kill his little sister, after all. And to Sam, there was nothing more important than his family.

Pete picked up a tape out of the box and looked at the label. "I think we can squeeze that in," he promised as he dropped the tape back down. Tony had managed to locate every last tape of Celeste's rape and gathered them to be destroyed.

***

Dimitri Merrick watched as his wife left to put his daughter to sleep before turning to Jim. "You did what?" he asked.

"Laura Kirk was going to rat on me, so I thought it best to get rid of her." Jim smiled. He wanted money to help him to leave town. "And if the police connect me to her disappearance, I might have to name names..."

Jim was an annoying fly, Dimitri realized. And the best thing in the world for an annoying fly was a fly swatter. "Get that last batch of pictures from your studio and meet me at your room." That would give him plenty of time to get the best flyswatter around after the man.

Jim left the room, smiling. Dimitri waited fifteen seconds before picking up the phone and dialing a number he knew by heart. "Torres? It's me." He waited for an answer. "I need a favor..."

***

Celeste was pale and shaking by the time they dropped Laura off at the police station, so Paige agreed to wait with her friend. Angelo was to ride back with Celeste and Emma and then take either Bobby's or Sam's car back to the police station to pick his teammate up. Celeste would come back in the morning and give her statement. After a brief nonverbal communication, Emma decided to stop by the drug store and pick up some over-the-counter pain killers for her assistant.

While in the parking lot, Ange turned to her. "You okay?"

Celeste shook her head no. "This is why I warn you about STDs, Ange. They are no fun." He was silent in the dark so she added, "It's not my place to tell Paige about..."

Angelo agreed. "It's not." It was up to him to tell Paige about the twins. "And thanks for not telling anybody."

Celeste nodded. "What's with you and Tony? I've never seen him so mad or ever do anything as stupid as going for his gun." She knew it was prying, but she worked with both men and needed to know as much of the truth as she could.

"If I could change things, I would," Angelo started. "Tony and I were closer than brothers when I first joined the gang." He stopped, remembering the way the older man had looked out for him. "We were tight, you know? He was more like a father than anything else. He'd never ask you to do a thing he wouldn't do himself and we trusted him." That was the Tony they both knew. "He loved Torres, I mean loved her."

Celeste stared at him, her stomach upset and not because of her pain. Torres was the mother of Ange's twins and Tony had loved her. An unfamiliar emotion washed over her body. "And?" she prodded, not giving herself time to analyze what she was feeling.

Angelo sighed. "I slept with her the night that Tony found out he was to move up to the Network." The facts were black and white and he deserved Tony's hatred. "And the saddest thing of all was she was using both of us, playing us against each other. Tony couldn't take her with him- it's too dangerous for a woman at the Network compound, so she made sure he wouldn't take me. And she made sure I wouldn't leave the gang."

Emma was on her way back to the car as Celeste frowned. There was more to this story, that much was for sure. Tony would be angry, but not murderous, at Ange if that was all there was. Instead of getting deeper into the muddy history between the two, she tried to reassure Angelo. "I'll sit down and try to help you mend fences if that's what you want."

More than anything, that was what Angelo wanted but the timing wasn't right. It wouldn't be right for a long time. "Manana," he told her. Maybe many tomorrows, but some day he could hope that they would be on speaking terms again.

***

Rahne smiled as she got off the phone with Li'l Bit. "That lass can talk yer ear off!" she exclaimed. Kitty nodded, she had overheard a lot of the conversation off the speaker phone.

"Shades of Jubilee," she agreed. "I was waiting for her to pass out from not being able to catch her breath." Rahne giggled at that. "So she plays poker like Sam, huh?" Rahne had caught Li'l Bit during her weekly poker game, which had led to strip poker, which had led to Li'l Bit impishly informing Rahne that there was nothing little about the singing group Little Texas.

"Well," Rahne admitted with a smile, "If Sam and A ever get married, A cannae wait tae play strip poker with him." He'd win her clothes in a heartbeat.

Kitty laughed at that. Rahne was getting a wicked sense of humor. "It was a good thing Mike talked her out of suing Dimitri though." Mike had managed to make the singer think that she risked revealing Cannonball's secret identity if a reporter dug too deep into her past.

Rahne nodded, still lingering over what she'd do to get her clothes back and what she would do while Sam had them. "Sam would want her to know who was behind it, though." A grin ran across her face as a wonderful idea came to mind. She had learned that because she was so animalistic, she would have these urges. That made her look forward to getting married and acting on them.

Kitty read that slight grin and laughed. She'd smiled that smile a little too often not to know when to add a suggestion. "Hot fudge works great." Rahne blushed as she realized Kitty had read her mind, but made a mental note of it.

***

Torres laughed as she hung up the phone. There was no way she was going to take the job Dimitri offered her. Right now, it served her purposes best to avoid Tony at all costs.

When she took over the Network from him and had that girl that he was so sweet on, then and only then would she meet up with Tony. It would be interesting to see what he would give up so Celeste would die an easy death.

***

Tony sighed in the silence. "No matter what, it's the waiting that will get to you." Sam nodded as he started to pace. Funny, if he didn't think that something had happened between this man and his friend, he'd be tempted to like Tony.

Pete agreed. "An' if Sam doesn't stop bloody pacin', I'll break his bleedin' leg on general principle." Sam stopped and sighed. Logan had complained about him talking too much, so he started pacing.

"Sorry, three bone limit per night," Sam told the two as he sat down. "Tony already broke muh nose." It had healed up very quickly. "So ya taught Celeste how ta fight?"

Tony nodded in the darkness. "The way Matt's treating her, I wanted to make sure she could take care of herself if he hit her." He didn't doubt Celeste's ability to defend herself or the fact that, if her boyfriend did strike her, he'd be sorry within a minute. "I'm just sorry she has to go back to him."

Sam agreed. His mother's older sister, his aunt Elisa, had been a battered wife most of her marriage and he didn't think kindly of anybody that would deliberately hurt a woman. "Ah sent Matt away," he said with a smile.

Tony sighed, remembering the X-men's tendency to overkill. "Celeste needs to handle her boyfriend on her own." Pete listened in carefully. He had been under the impression that Tony and Celeste were involved. "But if you did something that might make him do something rash, it might have been the right thing for her," he allowed.

"Huh?" Sam asked.

"Celeste will not allow herself to be hit, not even for her sister's sake." Tony explained. "It might be the only thing that will wake her up to how bad the situation has become." If Matt dared phyically harm his friend, then he would personally get revenge. After Celeste got done with him, that was.

"She the same lady wot you took to Charleston?" Pete asked carefully, trying to understand the two's relationship.

Tony nodded. "But that's a matter for Celeste to explain, if she wants to." That way a cover story would be easier to maintain. "We did go to the pow-wow though." Pete picked that moment to pull out a cigarette. "You light that and I'll use that to set your pickled liver on fire," he warned the older man.

Pete paused, thinking not so much of the threat but the nicotine craving that must have motivated it. Tony had earned his nickname because had had a cigarette in his mouth at all times. Watching as the younger man started to unwrap a piece of peppermint, he smiled. Putting away the cigarette that he hadn't wanted, he nodded. Whatever the relationship between the Dragon and Celeste, it was enough to make the man give up smoking. Pepperment wrappers had littered Tony's van.

Sam held a hand up as he heard Jim walk in. "It's show time."

***

Bobby was waiting in the lobby when Emma came into the hotel. She started to ask him why he didn't come on up to the room when she saw the uncommonly serious look on his face. "What happened?" she asked, immediately worried about her students.

"Mom and Dad were in New York, for a convention, and Mom had a heart attack." Emma closed her eyes and grabbed Bobby's hand. "Dr. Reyes at Mother of Mercy said it looks like it's serious." His hand felt like ice.

Without thinking twice about it, Emma called her secretary and got her to get the home number of the head of the American Heart Foundation. After calling her, she got the numbers of the top cardiologists in the nation. What good was having money and power if you couldn't use it? "My private jet is at the Pine Valley Airport, why don't you take it?" she suggested. "I'll drive you over there."

He kissed her for a moment. "Thanks, Em." Pressing the check that he had received earlier that night into her hand, "I'll let you know how it goes."

Emma shook her head. "I'll see you there first thing in the morning." Bobby smiled at her, knowing she meant it.

***

The first blow from Tony caused Jim to knock over a box of pictures waiting to be scanned onto his web page. They scattered around, and Sam happened to look down, where he recognized Tabitha in a few shots. As Tony hit Jim again, Sam started gathering them. One picture, of the photographer and the same man who had been in the pictures with Tabitha, made him pause.

"Don't draw blood," Sam warned Tony. The Cherokee stopped as Sam explained, "Micky died of AIDS a couple of weeks ago."

The pale look on the man's face was all the three men needed to see to know that those words hit Jim deeper than any blow.

***

Angelo followed Celeste up to the suite and changed out of his tux. He would ride back to the police station and take Paige back to the apartment and sleep on the couch there, because he didn't feel like it would be a wise idea to stay around Tony. After saying goodnight to the women, he left. Emma left to drive Bobby to the airport after quickly changing clothes.

Celeste ordered a pot of chamomile tea from room service before explaining her role in the night's events. The warm water and the natural pain killer would help her wait for Pete to return with her medicine.

After a quick briefing, the three women stared at each other. It was awkward because Kitty naturally assumed that Celeste would take Emma's side in the upcoming fight. Instead, Celeste tried to reason with her. "Bobby's mother is in the hospital and Emma's daughter is leaving next week. Can you delay the fight?" She was in no mood to referee any disagreement that night, and she knew she would be dragged in.

"Why should I do that?" Kitty asked. "This fight has been five years in coming." Rahne shifted uncomfortably in her chair, watching the tension build between the two women, feeling like an official in a tennis match.

Celeste knew that there was no good reason except Kitty would be taking the high moral ground. "Because I've worked too long and too hard to try to help my friends to see it go down the drain." A fresh wave of pain washed over her body and she curled up with a pillow. If the younger woman was to go after her boss tonight, she would find a way to get off the couch and strangle Kitty. Emma was too fragile, although she knew she was one of only three people to be able to call her that, at this point to risk a confrontation. The other two people were the people who needed her.

Rahne turned from Celeste to Kitty. Her reason for agreeing with Celeste had less to do with Emma and more to do with the woman making the request. She was in pain, trying to hide how much, and it was an hour into her daughter's birthday. Rahne remembered the date because Celeste mentioned she had picked a local kid and gave them a wonderful birthday party, secretly, since she couldn't do that for Nina. She and Sam had arranged to do the same thing for a child from the AIDS hospice in silent support of their friend. "A agree."

Kitty looked stunned at both women. "How could you?"

"Next week," Celeste suggested, "you can have an afternoon and have it out with Emma then. I'll even leave the two of you alone." After a moment, she tried to explain. "That way, you can say what needs to be said and take the high ground. I'm not saying you two don't need to talk...." She stopped and then sweetened the pot, "And you'll know everything about her and Pete." Creative blackmail could do wonders.

For a second, it seemed the older woman had overplayed her hand. Kitty blinked, furious. Then she agreed.

The phone rang, and Rahne answered it, glad to have something to do. After a brief conversation, she turned to the women. "That was Sam. Jim let them know that Dimitri was in on the blackmail scheme and they're goin' ta get him now."

***

The three men had left Jim tied up in front of the police station with a manila folder with selected pictures hanging from his chest. As Pete drove off, he asked Sam, "Which of your teachers taught you that method?" The idea of leaving Jim to be discovered impressed him, and he was willing to bet that wasn't an Xavier- approved plan.

Where Sam had grown up, nothing was more important than family, so when Jim tried to kill his sister, he had asked for the treatment he'd gotten. "Actually, it was muh own idea." He turned to Tony and asked, "Sure he won't talk none?"

Tony nodded. "If he so much as opens his mouth about us being there, his time in jail will be most unpleasant." Pete nodded, knowing that, as it was, there was no chance Jim would leave the state prison alive. The Network had ordered that all of the rape tapes disappear, and the man had disobeyed them. "And those pictures of Merrick at the FoH rally really do help you."

The pictures had been hidden on the underside of a drawer, where it would have taken some time for them to be discovered. Pete smiled, grateful that Jim had broken so easily.

***

Gloria muffled her cry as her husband backhanded her across the sofa. His anger was unlike anything she had ever seen. He loomed over her outstretched body and started hissing, "Ungrateful brat! I've set her up in the group and she doesn't repay me!"

Unsure if the wise woman would go or stay, she crunched herself against the cushions. A tear escaped her clenched eyes as she awaited her husband's next action. Dimitri picked up a vase and threw it across the room, shattering it against the wall. Maddie started to cry.

After a second, he asked, "Aren't you going to tend to her?" Gloria quickly got up and raced into the baby's room.

***

Celeste held up the picture of Nina and blotted away her tears. The hardest thing she had to live with was knowing what she had done to her daughter, the child her body had carried for nine months. Her love for Nina was a mother's love, which was why this day was so difficult for her.

Rahne walked into the bedroom carefully and cleared her throat. Celeste closed her cameo as the younger woman asked, "Ye okay?" Her friend turned over, trying to hide her tears. "Yuir cramps gone?" Rahne clarified.

"Not as bad," Celeste admitted as she got off Tony's bed. Although for safety reasons, they encouraged the idea that they were lovers when they were out together setting up Emma's Underground, she saw no reason to continue that charade for her friends. They usually shared a one-bedroom suite with Tony taking the couch when they were alone. Tony said it gave him an extra chance to protect her with him in another room.

Rahne bit her lip and seemed to want to ask her something. Celeste sat on the edge of the bed and waited until the younger girl sat down. "I know what I did to Kitty wasn't nice," she admitted. When she lied or misdirected someone, she had a good reason.

Rahne nodded. "Not that...." After a long moment, she asked, "Ye love Nina?" Because Rahne had been given to the church to be raised, she sometimes doubted her mother's love for her.

Adoption, to Celeste, was the ultimate act of love. It was saying, "I love you, and I love you enough to give you the kind of life you deserve," to a child. It was love that allowed her to walk out of the abortion clinic and start talking to the adoption agency. It was love for her sister that made her agree to sell her child to Dr. Jacobs for the unnamed woman. She just wished she had been able to give Nina up for adoption instead of setting a price on her baby's life. "More than I can say, Rahne." New tears sprung to her eyes as she remembered breast-feeding her newborn daughter, and the absolute love that overcame her.

"Do ye want to see her again?" Rahne whispered, knowing that Celeste needed to talk about her daughter and that she needed some form of reassurance that her birth mother had never forgotten her.

Celeste nodded. "I'll never forget her, even if I never see her again." She paused and fingered the cameo she always wore. "She's the only child my body will ever bring into the world, but she's not the only one I'll love." Rahne turned to her and laid a compassionate arm around her. "Family is who you make it." She'd be lost if she ever had to leave the students at the Academy.

Rahne nodded. "Mum and A are like that. We're a family of love." She started to tell Celeste about Moira's desire to adopt her, but paused. It might be rubbing salt into an open wound to do so. "What did she look like?"

Celeste started to open the cameo but stopped. She wanted to say the words and relive the moments Nina was hers, and it wouldn't be the best idea to show Rahne her daughter's picture. "She was small, beautiful, with the biggest blue eyes..."

Rahne sat back and listened. Every time Celeste talked about Nina, the younger woman had the feeling the older was holding back something. Maybe in time, she'd tell the whole story.

***

"What are you doin' here, Nate?" Pete asked Cable as he spotted the older man stalking the apartment. Sam shook hands with the man that was like a second father to him, and Tony just nodded at the legend.

While the company his former student was keeping was enough to make Cable raise an eyebrow, he nodded back. Somehow, he had never seen Sam and Pete as the type to get along. However, he admitted, they both gave something the other needed. Adding in the Dragon, a man that was dancing just on this side of the angels, the mixture could get quite interesting. Instead of commenting on the bunch, he just explained, "I'm waiting to give Merrick the court order."

In the background, they could hear a vase being shattered against a wall and a baby screaming. "Is the kid alright?" Pete asked. Cable nodded. They could hear a man yelling. Tony explained to Sam that it was dangerous to interfere in a domestic dispute because the woman would get it worse later.

"Did find something out," Cable told them as the man shut up. The three turned to him. "I did a probe of him and someone did some psychic surgery on him."

Sam slumped against the wall. After all this time and work, they had discovered who was behind the hate crimes in Pine Valley. Dimitri Merrick had profited from exploiting mutant prejudices and fears. And ironically, it had been a mutant who had caused all the trouble in the first place. "What do we do now?" he asked.