Isabella sat next to Paige. "I don't understand. Why did Emma need to help her sister?" She was still learning about mutant anatomy and psychology.

Paige sighed and searched for the best way to explain it. "Cordelia senses things deeper, she's a telepath. Her attack was that much more terrible because of that fact."

The nurse shook her head. "It's a lot of stuff that we weren't taught in nursing school." Back in Pine Valley, where she had trained, they barely talked about how to care for mutants.

"Nothing is simple when you wear an X." Paige got up and sighed. "Have you ever gotten what you wanted and then found out that you never wanted it in the first place?" It was a thought she had been thinking a lot lately.

Isabella blinked at the sudden change in conversation. "Yeah, a few times." She looked at the teenager and smiled, remembering when she felt like the world had engulfed her. "Happened to you?"

Paige sat down again and thought. "Maybe. Maybe I just don't want to think about what happened to Cordelia, you know? What did she--"

"Nothing. No one asks to be raped, no one deserves to be raped." The firmness of Isabella's voice surprised even her. "There are sick people in the world. Men and women who prey on the weak and defenseless."

Paige looked up at her. "Why?" She tried her best not to think about Teddy.

"Sick. They are sick. They want to show that they are more powerful than their victims." Isabella sipped her coffee and observed Paige, who sat back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. "And then, the legal system's a joke. Last week, remember, a man got off because the woman begged him to use a condom?"

"My daddy nearly killed a man for hurting a child." Paige removed a strand of hair from her face. "And nothing else was done. Mainly because Teddy died a few months later, I guess. He was drunk, hit a patch of ice, ended up in a lake and drowned, trapped in the car."

"At least your father did something." Paige was trying to tell her more, Isabella could tell that. All she could do was try to draw it out of her.

"Why do people think the woman..." Paige's voice trailed off as she tried to think of the words she wanted to say.

"I don't know, Paige, I don't know." The conversation stopped as Celeste walked out to meet Moira.

***

"Ye look like ye died last week an' no one tol' ye," Moira told Celeste after she parked the car. Moira was in remission from the legacy virus, and was actually feeling like her old self.

"They told me. I refused to believe them." Celeste sighed. "Thanks for coming." It was seven in the morning.

Moira slipped on her lab coat as she asked, "What happened? Sam's sister made it sound urgent."

With a slight accent on her first word, the younger woman started to explain, "Paige didn't understand what was going on. Cordelia Frost was raped this morning." Sam's younger sister had gotten tired of being compared to her brother.

Moira closed her eyes for a second. "Och." Shaking her head, she continued, "So Emma called ye out tae help." The blonde nodded. "Still workin' for her?" Another nod, this time as they entered the main building.

"It's a good job with a great future." Publically, Celeste was learning how to run Frost Enterprises. Secretly, she was running Emma's mutant underground.

"My offer still stands." Moira had offered to pay for Celeste to become a councilor specializing in rape recovery. Even when Moira made it clear that Celeste would pay her back with volunteer work, Celeste turned down the offer. It wasn't her pride that made her do it, but knowing that Emma's underground needed her too much.

"Maybe in the future." It was a polite way of saying no, and Moira understood it. They quickly arrived at the clinic and Celeste formally introduced Moira to the school nurse.

***

Emma chose to stay in the examination room with Cordelia, so Celeste went out to wait with Paige. "How long does the exam last?" Paige started.

"It depends on the extent of her injuries." Celeste stared at the wall. After a long moment, she continued, "As many as one out of three women are raped in their lifetime and nothing is done."

Paige was shocked to hear that. "I thought rape only happened to bad people." One out of three was staggering.

"I was eighteen when I was raped, Paige." The younger girl stared at the older. "And, yes, there wasn't much I hadn't done. I was semi-wild, ran with a fast crowd. Doing what I wanted when I wanted it. Smoked some pot. Drank a lot. Led on a lot of guys. But I told them no, mostly because they didn't have protection or didn't know how to keep their mouth shut." Celeste smiled as Paige looked at her shocked. She wasn't the same person at twenty-two as she had been at eighteen. Losing her parents, giving birth, and raising her sister, had done a lot to change her.

'Then my date, Peter, slipped something in my brandy alexander, and I was out of it. He raped me." She was careful to leave out a lot of the details that she knew. She had finally come to peace with that chapter of her life, and used that peace to help others, but she didn't like to talk about the specifics.

"But you don't look like a rape victim." Paige started to get comfortable in her chair. Maybe Celeste could help her with her problem. "I mean, you look normal."

Celeste smiled bitterly. "There's no typical rape victim. A three year old can be raped as easily as an eighty year old. It doesn't matter what age, color, or gender you are." Inwardly, she reflected that she was sounding like one of the pamphlets she handed out, but Paige was leaning forward to hear what she had to say, so she continued, "And it's not her fault."

Paige got up, and started to pace. Celeste watched her for a moment, counting on the silence to make the younger girl talk. Minutes passed.

"What if you don't know what happened to you?" Paige finally asked. Celeste walked up to her and hugged her. She felt a tear hit the back of her neck.

"Then, you talk to someone. Me, Sam, Dr. Tolan. She helped me a lot." Finally, Paige pushed herself out of the embrace. "Just start talking."

"I don't know if I can." Paige wrapped her arms around herself and continued. "Please don't tell Sam." She ran out of the room. Leaning her head up against the other side of the door, she felt so foolish, crying over what had to be nothing. Just because Uncle Timmy had molested Li'l Bit didn't mean he had molested her.

Then what about those memories she had of him standing at the corner of her bed? Could she have just made them up when she saw Cordelia come in?

Paige looked inside her heart, and found no answers. She didn't know the truth.

***

Celeste watched Paige run out of the room and started to go after her when Emma stepped out of the clinic. "Cordelia's okay?"

Emma shook her head. "There was some tearing. Moira's going to operate." For a second, Emma looked exhausted. "He knew!"

Sebastian knew everything, from Emma's time at The Clinic to the fact that Cordelia was her daughter. And he had used the knowledge to attack Emma where she was most vulnerable. "Death is too good for him," Celeste began.

As the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, Emma Frost excelled in the arts of ruthlessness and manipulation. Her capacity for icy retribution was reknown within the halls of the debauched social club. When she took the role of headmistress to Generation X, she had put that part of herself aside, trying hard to play on the side of the angels for once. But that cruel side of her remained and now, with her daughter tended to and left in safe hands, it was time to indulge it once more.

It was time for revenge.

"No, it's not." Emma disagreed. She had already started to make plans to retaliate. Shaw would beg for mercy and pray to the God that he had scorned all of his luxurious life before he died.

"Certainly, we can't stop with what we had planned, but he needs to experience what he did. An eye for an eye." Celeste suggested, trying to guide Emma away from killing the man herself. Not that Shaw didn't deserve to die, but Emma didn't need to kill him. In her own way, she was trying to help Emma become a better person.

"You mean, making him think what happened to Cordelia happened to him. I like that idea." Emma caught on to the way her assistant was thinking.

"And you, and me, and every woman he ever saw being raped." If he watched television, he saw a lot of violence directed towards women. "Make him think he's us."

An evil look crossed Emma's face. "Every time he closes his eyes. He'll be insane within a week." It could be very easily done for a woman with her drive and connections. Celeste nodded as she saw she had gotten her point across.

After a moment, "I found this in Cordelia's pocket." Celeste handed Emma the note. "I knew that you had a lot going on so I waited."

The note was written on the club's stationary. Emma read it out loud, "I will have what I want." It was a repeat of the same threat he'd made before.

"Why does he want this school so much?" It didn't make sense for someone to be going after the school as hard as the Hellfire Club had been. Considering Celeste hadn't heard of the Inner Circle until two weeks ago, her ignorance was understandable.

Emma folded the note and quickly made plans. "Power play. I've taken the school away from the club and they want it back." The Hellfire Club wanted to raise an army of mutants devoted to their cause, and Emma wouldn't allow her current class to be involved with them. "Come with me."

***

Emma opened the safe and handed her assistant the documents that she'd spent the better part of a year gathering. "Shaw asked for it, he'll get it."

Celeste nodded. "About time. Standard media leaks?" She slipped out of her role as Emma's friend and back into her role as Emma's assistant.

Emma shook her head. "The top five go to The Daily Bugle--"

That surprised Celeste. "Knowing how J. Jonah Jamison feels about me, you want me to drop off this kind of dynamite?" She and her uncle Jonah hadn't talked in five years.

"It's never too late to mend fences." Emma sat down, the strain of the day getting to her. "And I need to have this done fast. Before he attacks any of my students." The guards around Emma's ski house had been doubled, and their trip extended by a day in order to give Emma the time to think.

"If I'm not back by tomorrow, keep my sister here, will you? I'm going to tell her the truth about my..." Celeste's voice trailed off as she finally said the words out loud. "My rape and my daughter." It felt good to say those words. "And the fact that Nina was adopted." It was a half truth, but it would be so easy to omit certain details. Ariel had asked for the truth weeks ago.

"I'll keep Ariel here as long as needed." Emma promised, knowing what Celeste was really asking. If anything happened to her, her sister would be taken care of. "And I need you to tell--"

"Tell the X-Men what happened, so they can loan you the money to buy out Shaw with." Celeste knew her mentor's mind.

"How much will you explain about your role with the school?" It was an important question, one that Celeste thought about long and hard before she and her boyfriend started doubling with Sam and Rahne.

"I'm your assistant, if I have to explain anything. That's enough for them." Celeste quickly took the folders and placed them in her briefcase. "What good will it do to tell them about your underground?"

Emma watched as Celeste's body language cooled down to match her own. At times like this, it was no wonder that she had picked Celeste. "You're getting to be a lot like me." It was said in a tone of admiration.

Celeste shook her head. "No, my blood is warm." She smiled at Emma's compliment. The only thing that really separated the two was Celeste's compassionate nature.

"I'll see what I can do about it." Emma said. Celeste left the room. Was that a joke or a promise?