Note: Half the comments about Violations made me think I needed to take some time with Tony and Celeste, so I am. This story occurs between chapter six and the epilogue of Violations. And as always, what's Marvel's is Marvels, what's mine is mine.

The first thing Celeste did when she got back from her business trip to Seattle was to toss the picture of Matt and Ariel that she kept on her desk in her trash can. There was no need to keep reminders of Matt around, and she had better pictures of Ariel at home. It felt great to be free of Matt and all the emotional games she had had to play to keep him happy. He had wanted her to need him but, try as she might, she wasn't the needy type.

Then, she turned her attention to the rest of her desk and sighed. It was hard getting back into the groove of things when she'd been out of state for two weeks. It seemed like her files were mating and reproducing like little Summers.

She reread her calendar and checked off her morning meeting with the public relations department. Her afternoon meeting was canceled, which left her plenty of time to get to her support group and then finish her work later tonight. With any real luck, she could go home by midnight.

Her phone rang, and she answered it briskly. It was her sister, calling from her study hall. "Hey!" She smiled as she sat down. "What's up?"

Ariel yawned over the line, and quickly apologized. "I was wondering if Julie, Paige and I could get together and study at our place and then stay the night." Jubilee was known as Julie whenever Ariel made a phone call from school.

"Sure, don't see why not." Celeste gave her permission easily for something as benign as that. "Feeling any better?" Lately, Ariel had been very, very tired and pale. Celeste had written herself a note to make a doctor's appointment for her sister, but she hadn't had a chance. She pulled that note to the top of the pile.

"Some, I slept though chem again." The teacher talked in a monotone and she already knew the material backwards and forwards.

The big sister side of her wanted to laugh at that, but the legal guardian wanted to scold her sister for saying that. Celeste settled on a neutral, "Don't let that happen too often."

"I won't." Ariel promised, reminding herself what Matt had told her last week when he took her out to supper. Celeste needed her support because it wasn't easy being a full-time parent and a full-time secretary to Emma Frost. And she agreed with him. She didn't understand the reason that her sister had given for breaking up with Matt, that he wasn't supportive enough of her. He tried everything he knew of to make her sister feel special. "Should I make supper?"

Celeste sighed as she reviewed the files for the next meeting. "I'm not going to be home until late. Still on that macrobiotic- vegan kick?" Ariel scorned red meat with a passion and every other week found a new vegetarian diet to follow, which was why she wasn't that concerned about Ariel being tired. The girl needed a talk with a nutritionist.

"No." Late meant about midnight, so her sister would grab something on the way home from the office. "Why don't I bake two chickens and save the rest for soup?" That way, when Celeste came in "later" she'd have something quick to eat. They had learned to take care of each other.

"Sounds good." Celeste signed the files in front of her and placed them in her out box. "I'm going to have to let you go or I'll never get out of here in time to lead my support group."

"That's the other thing I wanted to call you about. Umm..." Her sister's voice trailed off as she tried to find the right words to say. It was hard to imagine her sister as a rape victim but, as Matt told her, her sister needed all the support she could get because the rape had made her weak. "Congratulations?"

Celeste smiled. "Thanks." It was hard for Ariel to understand what she had been through. She was stronger for having faced her pain and come though it. "Pray for me?"

"Sure!" That was easy. "Bye. Love ya."

"Love ya too." With that, she hung up the phone.

***

Cordelia was waiting at the car when Celeste got there. "I'm nervous," the teenager started. "What if no one likes me, or thinks that I'm weird?" Cordelia looked at her friend with a timid smile on her face.

Celeste smiled at her and remembered what it had been like to go to her first meeting. "I know what you're feeling. My first meeting, I was terrified of the other women, what they might say, what they thought of me. But we came together as a group and helped each other down the road to recovery." She was a big believer in support groups.

Cordelia climbed into the car. "I want to thank you. I mean, if you hadn't been there that morning, I don't know what would have happened." Celeste had been instrumental in helping her and Emma in so many ways.

"De nada." Celeste started, slipping into Spanish, which she spoke like a native. She caught herself. "How are you and Emma doing?"

Cordelia started to pick at a pile on her sweater. "It's hard, you know? She thinks that she was responsible for what happened, and I kindof agree..."

"The only person responsible for what happened was your attacker." Celeste shared in some of the guilty feelings. "However, we do have some blame in not thinking of you as a target." Her voice dropped. "And I feel awful about it."

Cordelia looked at her friend, and sighed. How would it feel to know that because of an oversight something terrible happened to someone totally innocent of the situation? "I don't blame you or her, just that..." Her voice trailed off as she tried to find the words to fill in the blank. Somehow, she felt when she could finish that sentence, she would be very close to recovering from the rape.

After a moment, Cordelia asked another question, one she had been wondering about for a while. "What about sex?" While she didn't have Emma's appetite for men, she had slept with her last two boyfriends. "I mean, do you ever get those feelings back?"

Celeste nodded, with a slight smile. "When you are ready, yes." To be totally honest with herself, the chemistry she'd shared with Matt wasn't the kind that made her want him physically, so it hadn't been an issue in their relationship. It had taken being reminded what a spark felt like to know that she and Matt didn't have any.

Cordelia looked long and hard at her. "Have you?" It had been four years since Celeste's rape and, if anyone would tell her the truth, it was her. "I mean, I can tell my mother isn't the best one to ask about this..."

They arrived at the women's outreach center and Celeste stopped the car. Being as honest as she felt like being, Celeste answered the question. "I met one guy that I would have gone all the way with, but he wanted to stop." Cordelia looked at her, waiting for the rest of the answer. "With him, things were... weird." She could be honest enough with herself to know that she had been attacted to Tony that day.

Cordelia waited for the rest of the answer, but it never came. "So, do I need to sign in anywhere or anything when we get in?"

"Follow me." They walked though the doors together.

***

After the session, Celeste dropped Cordelia off at the school and came back to work. Emma was waiting at her desk, wanting a full update on the meeting. "Sorry," Celeste started. "What's said behind those doors is private."

Emma nodded, and tugged at her jacket. "I wanted to come, but I let myself get caught up in my work."

"I figured as much. Cordelia might need you to talk to tonight." Emma was having a hard time facing what had happened at The Clinic, so Celeste didn't expect her to come to the support group meeting. Emma started to walk out the door. "Emma, you know you can come anytime you want. It- it'll mean a lot to Cordelia- and to me." Emma was Celeste's mentor and friend as well as boss. She understood her like few people did.

"Maybe." She left the room. Celeste lost herself in the task of getting her files up to date.

At six, when her secretary knocked on her door to let her know it was time to go, she had actually made some headway on clearing off her desk. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was indeed solid oak. After finishing up one more small task, she grabbed her bag of clothes and changed.

Although Shaw was as good as dead, Emma had wanted absolute control over what had been his financial kingdom. So when Celeste had discovered the link between the Coreview group, who owned Transglobal airlines, and Shaw, she had made it her business to get the goods on Transglobal. Though some impressive research, she discovered that there had been some cutting corners that had resulted in the crash of flight 149. Now, all she needed was the information that sat on a computer fifteen miles away from here.

Thanks to some well placed bribes, she'd be able to slip in and out without being noticed. All she needed to do was steal the computer's backup tape from today and they'd have the proof they needed to nail Coreview. After changing from her clothes into some street clothes, she walked back out to the parking lot.

***

Paige sat down between her friends and sighed. This is good for me, she reminded herself. I need to act like a normal teenager for a change. Therapy was starting to help her to understand more about herself, including her need to be a perfectionist. But Dr. Tolan was still waiting for the right time to talk about her Uncle Teddy and, when she started facing that down, these moments would be rare.

Maybe I shouldn't have asked Sam not to mention what I'm going though. But as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she buried it again. She didn't want anybody's pity.

"So, what play are we watching tonight?" she asked her friends. Jubilee's dyslexia made it hard for her to concentrate on reading, so the whole class watched or listened to plays in literature. So far, it had gotten them out of Beowulf. Ariel had a class about literature in performances which required them to watch movies.

"I've got to write an essay on the differences between the film version of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and the book." Ariel sat back on the couch. "It was that or write a modern day version of the story. And, since the last time I did that and took a pro-mutant stand, I got an F, I thought I'd go for the A." She was an honor student in the public school system. "My GPA needs the boost. If Celeste hadn't gone down to the school and convinced Mrs. Johns that Mark Twain would have taken the same approach, I'd failed the class." She'd gotten a C on her story, another C could knock her out of the running for valor valedictorian.

Paige smiled at her friend as she popped some popcorn. "It means more to us that you tried. Sam loved the scene where Jim screamed and ranted about sea sickness to hide the fact his friend was green by nature." Ariel just didn't care that her best friends were mutants.

"I try." Jubilee popped in the tape and they started to sit down, when Ariel realized something. "Hey, Mr. Cigarette isn't watching us again tonight." Since the day that some people had tried to take Ariel and Celeste hostage, they'd been under constant watch.

Taking the bowl of popcorn from Paige, Jubilee asked, "Why does Emma think it's so important to keep you guarded?"

Ariel sighed. "Because it wasn't just Tony's rule that he left no witnesses to his failures, it is the Network's rule." She'd gotten quite used to being watched, and it was just a part of her life. "Mr. Cigarette is the rarest of them all but, according to Emma, he's the best. He was watching last night."

Jubilee fought the instinct to look out the window and asked, "Why don't y'all just come to live with us at the Academy?"

Ariel shrugged, "I want to get into a top college so I need to go to a real high school. Besides, your science program stinks." Paige fished out a piece of ice from her coke and dropped it down her back. "It does! And I want to be a doctor." With instinct born of years of practice, Paige managed to slide the ice so it got trapped in her friend's bra. "I'll be right back," Ariel told her friends, muttering under her breath about payback ideas.

***

Tony had had a late meeting with Emma about improving the security system around the school, and stopped by to see Celeste. They needed to have a long talk about a lot of things, including what had happened the first time they met. But she had gone to change, and he found a note on her desk indicating that she was going to do a little breaking and entering at Coreview.

So he stood against her car, one ankle crossed over the other, waiting for her to arrive. Crossing his arms, he admitted that this was just like the woman he knew she could be. Impatient, but wanting the job done right. He'd get her to let him tag along, just to make sure she'd got the details down. And in case she didn't want him to follow, he'd lifted a few items from her purse.

Celeste came walking out of the building, her long blonde hair safely hidden behind a dark wig, and her makeup done to give her the appearance of being a different person. Instead of walking over to the car she usually drove, she walked over to a beat-up car that Emma kept around for emergencies. She started to dig into her purse to find the keys, but Tony had them.

He walked over and stopped behind her. He started to tap her on the shoulder, but she grabbed his hand and quickly twisted it so she was behind him. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Helping you." Tony winced as she twisted his arm a little bit more. "Wrong answer?"

Celeste released his arm and waited for him to turn around to face her. "My sister's the black belt, I'm just a brown belt, but I think even you would admit I could do a decent job of defending myself." Men! Why did they always assume she was the weak and helpless type? "Now give me the keys and the tape and get going!"

Tony could always eyeball his opponent and tell what kind of fight they'd put up. Celeste would be the kind to meet him blow for blow, jab for jab, giving as good as she got until they tired each other out and fell into each other's arms. And he couldn't outreason her, he could tell by the set of her chin. "Look, just in case something happens, let me come with you."

Celeste started to veto that idea out of hand, but stopped. She had never had the chance to tell him off for the way they had met. "Get in." Tony walked around the car and unlocked his door. Climbing in, he reached over and unlocked the driver's side door and then handed her the keys.

***

Emma walked into Cordelia's room and sat down on her daughter's bed. "How did the session go?" Cordelia looked up from her book.

The teenager sighed and leaned back on the bed. "Good, I think. Wish you could have come." What was she supposed to call Emma: mother, momma, mom? It was one of many questions that hadn't been answered yet.

"I'll go next time." That was one promise Emma was going to keep. "But today, I got so caught up in setting up the board that I couldn't stop." Emma had started to set up a board of examiners for mental heath clinics. By year's end, she wanted to get it so that people would be looking for the board, made up of outside inspectors, to give their seal of approval.

"I mean, it felt good to say 'I was raped' to a bunch of people who knew what I was going though." Emma reached for a pillow. "I didn't feel so alone, you know?"

Emma shook her head. "No, I don't know." After a split second, "It was comforting?" There were times she got so tired of being alone.

"Very!" Cordelia knew Emma was reaching out to her. "'Ma, it was the best." She paused, surprised at what she had called her mother.

"'Ma?" Emma tried to hide her smile.

"'Ma. Short for Emma or mother." She liked saying it. "Is it okay?"

Tears nearly sprang to her eyes. "Yes." They started talking, real and honest talk for the first time, ever.

***

From the time they had left the parking lot until the moment they arrived at the office complex, Tony heard what Celeste thought about his attempt to capture Jubilee. Finally, he started giving his viewpoint. "And you were determined to keep me off guard. Looking at us with those big blue eyes... We thought we were dealing with the original brainless blonde! You almost had me order pizza."

Celeste started to laugh at that. "Shame I gave up acting after my parents died." Funny, that was the first time she had actually laughed about her former career. "And thanks," she added with her voice much lower. "Moira said that you saved my life."

"I had to do something- I mean if I had taken you to that van, you would have gone back with us. I had to be able to tell the telepath that ran the Network that I thought you were dead, or I'd be dead. But I couldn't just let you die." Tony looked at Celeste with an earnest expression that he couldn't fake. "And after what didn't happen between us...."

Celeste nodded. "You stopped when I wanted to. That means a lot to me. It's why I forgave you." In a way that she couldn't explain, she honestly liked Tony. She trusted him to do what was best.

"I'd never force a woman to sleep with me." His own little sister had been raped, and he knew the damage that it did. He avoided the women at the Network's compound for that reason. "It's something special between me and her."

Celeste started to get out of the car, but Tony stopped her. "In case things go bad..." He pressed his gun in her hand. "Know how to use one of these?"

Celeste examined the 45 and expertly checked to see that it was loaded correctly. Her second cousin, Mike, used to take her hunting with him and her father had a shooting range in the basement. She knew how to use and respect a gun. "Impressive."

"Thanks." Celeste hid the gun in her bag and they started to enter the building.

***

Jubilee loved the movie. "My gosh!" she said as she got her angle on the book. "I'm going to do my paper on a comparison between the mutant underground and the father!" Jubilee nodded towards the book on tape. "I can't wait to hear the book now."

Paige agreed. "I think mine's like that, so maybe we can share research. I want to know what does it take to make someone like the daddy." She got up and started to fix herself a plate of food, but turned to Ariel. "I mean, why are you and Celeste pro-mutant?"

"Simple, Stella's death hit us so hard. So, when my daddy hired a mutant, we knew it was right." Stella had been the oldest of the three sisters, and had died from a rare birth defect. "That, plus Celeste's learning disabilities taught us we couldn't change how we were." Ariel got up and walked back into her bedroom to change into sweats. She'd been cold and tired and on edge all night.

Coming back out, she turned to the two girls. "Ever get the feeling that someone you love is in danger?" She had what her granny called a listening heart, which was sensitive to when others were in danger. "Just feel like a goose walked over my grave."

Paige nodded. "Used to drive me crazy with my brother. I'd get worried about him and he'd turn up fine. I learned to stop worrying so much."

Ariel nodded, but picked up the phone to call Celeste. "No answer."

Jubilee shrugged. "Knowing her, she just isn't listening for the phone." Ariel agreed. Her sister could get so caught up in what she was doing, nothing could distract her.

***

As the footsteps got closer, Celeste quickly scanned the room for a place for Tony to hide. The front door was glass, the furniture was small and not very bulky, and there was no back to the desk. When the doorknob started to turn, Tony quickly kissed Celeste.

She knew what he was doing, using her to hide his face and startle the guard into leaving, so she didn't panic. She slipped the tape she had come to get into her front pocket and kissed him back. Sitting down on the desk, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

The light flickered on, and they broke apart, giving the impression that the janitor had brought her boyfriend into her workplace for a quickie. "What the--" the man started. Celeste let her face grow red as the two men stared at her. "This place isn't supposed to be cleaned."

"No English. I clean." Celeste started as she picked up some papers. Tony nodded. "Clean good."

The man grabbed her arm and started to show her the door. The other man started to do the same, but stared at Tony's face. "Dragon?" They were busted. "Since when does the Dragon take a job as a janitor?"

***

Angelo frowned at his trig homework. Midterms were coming up and he was more worried by the fact that Paige was down than about his grades. He frankly didn't care what the answer to 3 was.

Ev walked in with a smile on his face. "Want to come with us to the movies tomorrow?"

Ange closed his book. "Who's us?"

"Me and Jubilee, Ariel and Brad, you and Paige." Ev had been recruited to the "Get Paige and Ange Together" campaign.

"Two couples go to see a movie while Paige and I watch it. Some fun..." But it would do Paige a world of good to get out of the mansion and back to the mall. "Sure." He'd suffer though anything to help his friend.

"Want to invite Cordelia?" Ev sat down as he asked that. "She's a student here now." For the time being, Cordelia was attending classes at the school.

That was true, and it took the pressure off him and Paige looking like a couple. "Let's. Maybe ask Celeste too?" It was going to be hard for her to be alone for the first weekend home.

"Rahne invited her out to eat." The two women were dear friends.

"Sounds like a plan." Ange smiled and shook his head. A perfectly normal Friday night. He and his friend would go out with the new girl and two couples. Life was good.

***

"And for the record," Celeste told Tony after the basement door slammed shut. "This is your fault." She started to try to untie her arms. They were sitting back to back with a post between them, hands tied together, feet bound separately.

"I know," he admitted. "And thanks for not rubbing it in." Celeste could hear the smile in his voice as he struggled with the ropes that bound them together. "Thank goodness they didn't take your bag."

"I need my hands free to use the gun." Celeste started but stopped as she broke out laughing. "I'm ticklish!" Tony was squirming as he tried to loosen the ropes.

Tony filed that piece of information away as he told her to be still. "I did a job a couple of months ago for the former boss of the guy that recognized me." He started to try to reach for the knot while he still had feeling in his hands.

"That struck me as weird." Celeste started as she accidently grasped Tony's hand. "Why don't you work on untieing your right hand and I'll try to get my left undone?" She was ambidextrous by nature.

"Good idea." Tony let go of her finger and started to try to concentrate on his hand. "What struck you as weird?"

"Well, that you're the best, and Emma keeps you on the payroll." She knew what Emma was paying Tony and what he was worth didn't match. "She pays you less per week than you could make in a day."

Tony wasn't an idiot. He knew that when he found someone that could survive in his world, like Celeste could, he'd better latch on to her. "What I get in exchange is invaluable." To work with someone with the Celeste's potential was an opportunity not to be missed.

"And a hint--" Celeste smiled as she got a break with the rope. "Give up smoking. I know when you watch us."

Tony started to loosen the rope on his hand. "It would be a lot safer for your sister and you if you just moved to Emma's school. That way, we wouldn't have to watch you." Emma had ordered around-the-clock protection for the two sisters.

"Yeah, but Ariel would have to drop out of her school." That was Celeste's main objection to moving to the school. "But with the Hellfire Club and all... it might not be a bad idea." She shrugged as she admitted that.

"Ariel wouldn't have to change schools. We could work something out where she could go and still be safe." After a moment, he announced, "I can get this rope undone." Suddenly he felt a lot of slack from her side. "But not as fast as you," he said with a lot of respect. His other arm was suddenly free.

"I played a magician in a made-for-tv film about a girl who was trying to make it big in magic." Celeste untied her feet and turned around to find Tony rubbing his legs.

"I liked that movie." He started to look around the room for a way out. He had watched the movie because the girl had a great body. He'd been a fan of Celeste's since her early commercials.

"Thanks." Celeste pointed to a window about ten feet up. "I can pull myself out and pull you out." She had the upper body strength to do it. Tony held out his hands as Celeste got the rope together and slipped it into the bag. Lifting her up, he watched as she pulled herself out the window.

After a long moment, Celeste lowered the rope to him and he started to climb his way out of the room. "I was getting worried," he smiled as they started to find their way to the car. "Thought you might still be mad at me."

"To hear you say I can take care of myself is enough to make me want to pull you out." Celeste smiled back at him.

"That you can," he admitted. "Are you going to move?"

Celeste nodded. "You made me think about it and I do a lot of things that might put Ariel in danger. I'll tell her tomorrow after my lunch with Sam and Rahne." She rubbed her wrists and sighed. "I hope the rope burns go away by then."

Tony grabbed her wrists and noticed the pink marks around them. It had been his fault that something bad had happened to her. "Shit!"

Celeste smiled, remembering his promise that no one would hurt her. "You can't protect me." She had had enough protection and sheltering with Matt. "But next time, you can come with me." They were at the car.

Tony smiled at her invitation. "What's a little B & E between friends?" With a smile, Celeste tossed Tony the car keys. He opened the door for her and then got in his side. It would be nice to have a friend like her.

"Nothing at all." Celeste assured him. It would be great to have a friend like him. Someone who understood her enough not to change her.

They drove away from the complex with smiles on their faces. They both knew that friendship wasn't the right word for their relationship, because beneath all the respect, innate trust, and high esteem they had for each other, there was something deeper.

But as friends, they had the chance to learn what it was.