Lights in the Dark

The big man with the studded shoulderpads was shouting from the top of the stairs: "Could you hurry up with the food please, Cruiser really needs it!" The two girls turned in his direction. The man, obviously someone with superstrength, was very agitated. "I have to say, ladies," he told the two owners of the cappuccino bar, "it would have helped a lot if you'd told us about the bloody great cavern you have hidden beneath your tavern. Surprises like that, and the warriors who protect it, we could do without!"

The two women behind the bar quietly conversed, while the busboy came up to the girls' table, bearing a mountain of sandwiches on the tray on his left hand, three hot coffee mugs on that in his right. The brunette couldn't resist asking: "Somebody need a rescue?"

"Just the hired help," replied the young man, half of whose head was shaven bald. "Who gets the latte?"

"My bookbag, please," came the reply, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Ohhhh-kay." The waiter was nonplused.

"Forget it, roomie," said the younger girl with the straight blond hair, "absolutely no way, it's not our problem. This homework's our problem. We don't turn it in, we're history."

Conal set down the mugs on the table and withdrew, carrying his food tray up the stairs. Hidden behind Kitty's hand, Lockheed's snout appeared from her bag, and his long extended tongue began to lap up the foamy caffelatte.

"I mean, we're risking trouble enough just being here!" Illyana added for effect. When Conal Savoy was out of hearing, she relaxed. She lowered her voice: "Well, 'roomie', by the pricking of my thumb I'd say this is the place."

"Yup," replied Kitty Pryde, better known to the world and its media as Shadowcat, co-founder and mainstay of the British mutant team Excalibur. Quoting from the opening scene of Macbeth, Illyana Rasputina had not simply made a literary joke, she was obliquely referring to her supernal senses. Senses she had developed as a young sorceress, raised under the tutelage of the notorious Belasco, who had kidnapped her to his daemonic Limbo and raised her for several years as his pupil. Later she had defeated him and returned, only to find that while she had grown to a thirteen-year-old, only seconds had passed since she left on her native Earth. Using the Russian codename Magik, she had joined Charles Xavier's junior team, the New Mutants, but during a later adventure that had taken them to Limbo, she found herself unable to return to Earth. For years of her subjective time she was stuck in the daemonic realm with its unpredictable time streams and eddies. Only a few months ago had she managed to escape, sneaking out under the coattails of a group of dimension-hopping villains. Annoyingly, but not unexpectedly, she re-entered her native dimension at a point somewhere in the middle between the time she had left and the one where (when!) she would have been if she had not traveled to Limbo that day. Back then she had been less than a year younger than her best friend, now she was Shadowcat's junior by about two. But what had come as an even bigger shock was that everyone thought she was dead. During the same adventure that had left her stranded in Limbo, a pre-teen doppelganger of her, who must have been created by one of the many time paradoxes Limbo generated, arrived on Earth. She had contracted the Legacy Virus and died within two years.

Kitty continued, she too keeping her voice down: "By the features in this magazine I'd say you're right." She pushed the slightly battered copy of Newstime towards Illyana Rasputina. The gossip section featured half a column, including a color photo of the happy couple, on the wedding of Fire, a member of the Justice League, and Guy Gardner, late of the Green Lantern Corps. Neither the bride and groom, nor these organizations, existed in Kitty and Illyana's native universe. By the printed evidence, they were on foreign ground, in the home dimension of the foursome that had unwittingly helped Magik to escape from Limbo.

After her return from her second exile Illyana had returned to school, joining Generation X at the Massachusetts Academy. Apart from the normal curriculum she concentrated on learning to handle her sorcerous talents, trying to balance the dark arts she had learned at Belasco's feet by apprenticing in white magic with the Scarlet Witch. It helped that Wanda Maximoff was now living in the Xavier Mansion, as part of the Avengers/X-Men exchange program. During the fall break Wanda had taken her to her own teacher, Agatha Harkness, and Dr. Strange was also taking an interest in the young Siberian.

Kitty and Illyana were in Crossroads on the trail of Illyana's 'schoolmate', Jubilation Lee, who had recently disappeared. That had happened around the time that Illyana had returned, shortly after Jubilee had met with her old friend and, at times, surrogate father, Wolverine. She had left a telephonic message at the Xavier institute, but had been too excited to notice that her unstructured account had been cut off, leaving her message all but unintelligible. So now here they were, acting as if they were 'ordinary' students from Jubilee's school so as not to arouse suspicion, while the two headmasters and two GenX'ers were unobtrusively posted in different places outside.

"You're the sorceress," Kitty said to Illyana, "so what do you think? This town or this cafè must be some kind of nexus between realities."

"Definitely this house, Katya," said Magik, "I feel it in my bones. It is entirely different from the vibes I got outside. And you heard what big guy said about the cavern beneath. I wouldn't be surprised if that cavern is a passageway to ... somewhere else entirely."

"But the folks don't seem to keen on us snooping around. Well, I guess we found out pretty much all we could as 'normal' customers..." Kitty moved to rise. "Unless Jubilee actually bothered to leave a message for us. Now you ask when you pay at the bar, I'll go and have a look in the little girl's room. That's always a possibility, and would be pretty much Ms. Lee's style..." Actually, she had not met Jubilee that often, but her reputation had a way of getting around. Kitty had insisted on being involved in the investigation because she felt a certain empathy for the young Chinese-American. Like her, she had once been relegated from the X-Men to the junior team, only Kitty only had to stay with the New Mutants, while Jubilee's transfer to Generation X was permanent.

Illyana had no luck: the owners remembered Jubilee when she showed them a photograph, but they had no message. But Kitty, when she rejoined her, had a contented smile on her face.

"It was behind the mirror," she said in a low voice as she slipped a small envelope into Illyana's bookbag. The two friends proceeded towards the door.

"Hey, what's keeping you, Illyana?"

"Dunno, something's holding me back by the bag..." She paused for a quick analysis. It must be that issue of Newstime and the letter inside that did kept the bag from passing back into their native universe. "Kitty, could you come back in and shield me from view," she whispered, "I want to try something."

Magik quietly summoned a small stepping-disk onto the threshold. Lockheed suddenly took flight, his flightpath curving around the disk as Illyana carried her shoulder-bag over it. She was able to get outside into the free air with it, but when she opened the bag, the contents had visibly aged. The paper of the magazine had yellowed and crinkled, while the apple which Illyana had brought along for Lockheed to eat was only a small disgusting sticky brown mass.

"Damn," cursed Illyana beneath her breath, "guess we'd better try to find another way to get Jubilee back..."

The two got into Emma Frost's limo, which was waiting with its motor running and Sean Cassidy at the wheel. In the back they were received by the White Queen, Synch and Husk. "Well, let's have a look at the letter," said Kitty, "it's addressed to all of you."

Dear Logan, Ms. Frost, Mr. Cassidy, fellow Xavier students,

just a few lines of explanation. I tried to leave a message on the machine, but the dumb thing cut me of. Now, where to begin?

I hope some of you'll remember (cause your memory is'nt what it used to be) the time our universe merjed with this other one and we were set up as some kind of american gladiaters to decide which was going to survive. I'm not sure you will, becuase I did'nt forget about it only because I kept a diary. I mentioned it on the machine, so I guess it's to late to tell you not to read it. Maybe it'll help to get your memories back. And you'll have seen all the juicy detales about me and Robin, the guy who suddenly appeared on my bed and who beat me hands down in our part of the contest.

Any way, last summer I suddenly got a chance to go to Robin's realty + to see him again just after Logan + me met in Crossroads. I did'nt know if I'd ever get another one, so I took the plunge + got on a bus to Gotham (that's the city where Robin lives - it does'nt exist in our universe. I had to lerk around for a while, but it was only a matter of time since Robin and his partner, The Batman (they allways say 'the Batman', as if the 'the' had a captial 'T') go on patrol every night.

So we met again, and of course Robin was bowled over seeing yours truly (was there ever any doubt?). Not so the B-man, who is a bit of a scientific whiz and got a bit antsy about visitors from another dimention. He even took me to Crossroads to try + get me to go back. But I could'nt get out of Robin's universe. Not that I tried THAT hard. But we decided that the caffè was accessible for visitors from your Earth, because we found a recent 'Daily Bugle' there. Which means we MAY have a chance to at least meet here and see what we can do. How does my birthday strike you? In the meantime, I think I'll try to make most of my chance to reaquaint myself with Robin (grin).

Well, take care everybody. I'll try to be at Crossroads on my B-day, it would be mucho appreciated if some of you could be there.

Hang loose,

J.

JFK Airport, early in the morning. A battleship-gray Rolls-Royce stopped in front of the terminal. The driver, a dignified older man impeccably dressed in an old-fashioned three-piece suit, walked around the car to open the door for his passengers. An attractive young woman in a sharp costume got out, followed by a big-framed, blue-furred man in slacks and a pullover.

"Thanks, Jarvis," said Dr. Henry McCoy, better known to the public and the media as the Beast. "I'll take the suitcase of our television reporter extraordinaire."

"Very well, sir. I shall return in an hour to pick you up, then. Goodbye, Ms. Tilby," he added to the journalist, somewhat formally inclining his balding head, "and, as I we won't be meeting until then, I would like to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy 1998. Godspeed, Ms. Tilby."

Trish and Hank waved good-bye as Edwin Jarvis, the Avengers' faithful butler, drove off in search of a place to park. They walked inside to check in Trish's luggage and then sat down together in a nook of one of the cafeterias over two nondescript plastic cups of coffee. It had come as an big disappointment for both of them when Trish had suddenly been assigned to cover the latest crisis in Genosha, which put paid to their plans to spend the holidays together with Hank's parents.

"Well, Blue," said the young journalist, "this is a bit of a come-down from your folks' full Christmas dinner."

"Yes, Patricia, and that makes it three Christmases in a row that we cannot celebrate together. And it adds a certain esthetic balance, as last year we can't do it because of my professional activities, while this Yuletide season we are confounded by yours."

The year before that they had just separated (temporarily, as it thankfully turned out) in disagreement over their professional ethics. But both were too diplomatic to bring that up. Henry McCoy, wearing his genius scientist hat, had wished to keep the fact that the Legacy virus now also could be contracted by Homo sapiens sapiens a secret. Trish had made it a story in her news program, whereupon Hank had accused her of personally betraying him and he and Charles Xavier had attempted to fool the public into believing Legacy was still just the "Mutie Plague." Which ultimately was a stupid mistake, as other scientists were also researching the virus and for a while the reputation of McCoy and MacTaggert fell back behind some of the other teams when within the next year it gradually emerged that Tilby's report had got most of the facts right.

Hank had let his personal feelings of betrayal outweigh the real problem of whether it was right to keep the news of the new danger from Stryfe's virus a secret from the public in order to prevent a mass hysteria that might vent itself against innocent mutants, or whether it would be more immoral to keep the public in the dark and thereby increase the risk of infection. But a combat injury gave him plenty of time to think and meditate, and on reflection he decided that there was something to be said for Trish's point of view too. The public's reaction was rather mixed. The more violently inclined had indeed intensified their attacks on mutants, but in other sections Legacy consciousness rose and led to calls for more funding of research into the disease, the emergence of a rudimentary support network, and to the collection of money to supplement the in many ways insufficient public funding of Legacy research.

Hank eventually reconciled with Trish, and he only had to grovel a little. He apologized for not taking her concerns seriously, she promised she would make a more determined effort to at least talk things through with him when she worked on a story of similar importance, and then they no longer had to use words for a few minutes.

Trish too apparently had thought of this, for after a moment's reflection she smiled and answered: "Of course the balance would be even prettier if by next Christmas we'd be together on a more permanent footing..."

Hank's jaw dropped, and his plastic cup almost did the same. Had he just heard what he thought he heard?

"Uh, Ms. Tilby, is this an oblique reference to some form of rite of passage with view to some connubial arrangement or maybe a form of concubinage, or is this hirsute Hankster inferring too much into your parole?"

Trish had to smile at this very Hank-like utterance: "Why, Dr. McCoy, no more than four syllables in a word? No, I think you got my meaning just right. And what do you think?"

For an entire second the Beast was actually at a loss for words, so Trish pressed on: "Or would you prefer me to get on my knee and ask you to move together with me. Or maybe even..."

"...marry you?" Hank quickly recovered his composure. "As a matter of fact, I have cogitated on these matters somewhat..." Ever since we started keeping toothbrushes in each other's bathrooms it was hard not to think about them, he thought.

"Aaaannnd?"

"Look, Trish, we've been through a lot of things, we keep having fun together, we get menaced by superpowered homicidal sociopaths together, you're not allergic to my hair..."

Trish took his right hand and stroked its furry back. Over the years they had known each other his strange blue fur and even his well-developed canines had become the most natural things in the world to her, even though they were in fact the legacy of an experiment gone wrong. Only in springtime did she sometimes complain about him shedding hair and leaving it everywhere.

"...you're everything I would ever want in a female of the human species. We've worked out our misunderstandings and, ahem, disagreements, we're comfortable with each other..."

"...no longer have those inferiority complexes we used to have about each other," she added. Hank remembered the fears he had that Trish might ditch him after he had first met her (conventionally) handsome ex-husband at that, but noticed she had just said 'we' and 'each other' -- in his own worries he had not taken into account that as a superhero-slash-scientific-genius he could also put others in awe. He continued:

"...and learned not to listen to well-meaning friends telling us we're too good for each other." Such as the aforementioned ex who pointedly asked Trish what she saw in 'this blue-furred freak' or, more recently, Warren and Logan, who did not bother to hide their displeasure that he got back together with 'that back-stabbing bitch'. Trish held her own in the exchanges ('excuse me for not unquestioningly accepting the judgment of a man who did his best to kill a good friend so that a mass-murderess could go on killing; but maybe I'm prejudiced because Selene's victims were flatscans?'), but the air still was highly charged whenever Trish and Logan were in the same room.

"No, Patricia, the thought of spending the rest of my life together with filled me with joyous anticipation, I only never seemed to be able to find an opportune moment to bring the subject up. And I was not sure what kind of an arrangement you envisaged, since you have been singed, matrimony-wise."

"You sure it's not that you aren't sure yourself? Look, Hank, I don't want to push you into a marriage if that's not what you want."

"No, ma très ravissante Patricia, in that respect Norton and Edna McCoy's little boy is quite old-fashioned." He took both her hands inside his.

"Most charmingly so, Blue. So, when do we make it official?"

"No, first I have to do something..." Taking some effort to loosen it, he slipped off his college alumnus ring. Then, dramatically placing his paper napkin on the floor, he got on his knee, held up the ring to her and solemnly intoned: "Patricia Tilby, would you consent to marry me?"

"Henry P. McCoy, my adorable blue-furred jester, I was about to ask you the same question."

As was his wont, Hank had injected a little humor into his proposal, but it was a solemn moment. He rose as she pulled him up and they silently embraced. As they joined in a lingering kiss he could feel a tear rolling down her cheek and getting soaked up by his soft facial hair. An elderly woman sitting at the next table smiled at the couple and a passing young man wearing an Avengers baseball cap gave Hank a thumbs-up sign. And still their kiss continued, with no bigots around to take offense (luckily!) and nothing to spoil their happiness but the prospect of Trish's imminent departure.

When Jarvis picked him up about half an hour later, 'Master Beast' wore an almost euphoric expression.

"I trust everything went well, Dr. McCoy?"

"It did indeed, Jarv old buddy, it did indeed."

Lyubeznaya Katya!

Hope you are doing well in Scotland.

Sorry you're so busy with Excaliber that you could not be with us the day before yesterday when we celebrated Jubilee's 18th B-day (or is that the 19th by American reckoning? i keep forgetting) in the caff we staked out this summer in Crossroads. (Hey, i just remembered, isn't that also the name of one of these really cheezy old British soap operas?). I guess most of the others preferred going there to passing through Limbo to get to the universe where J.L. is now living. But judging by all accounts I probably would be the only one who'd immediately feel at home in her Gotham (grin).

We were quite a crowd: all of Generation X were there, with both headmasters, plus Logan, Rogue and Ororo of the X-Men. Jubilee had her boyfriend along for the ride, who seemed a nice guy. He's about her age, but not as precocious as Ms. Lee. However, they do seem happy as clams together (why you Americans consider molluscs a standard of happiness is beyond me) and Jubilee does not seem to intend to come back anytime soon. And of course she would wait until she reached her majority before she met with us on neutral ground. I think Ms. Frost was tempted to make her return telepathically, but now she's one of the good guys she's no longer allowed to do that.

In any case, we're not even sure if under present conditions it is possible to travel between our respective realities without complications (you'll recall the incident with my shoulder-bag), so maybe it was best to leave things be. Jubilee did not exactly choose a safe place for her new residence, but she does seem to have made some useful friends and superpowered mutants are not treated different from other super-types. But not everything is wine and roses in Gotham -- Jubilee puts on a brave face, but in an unguarded moment she admitted that the Bat-Man's taskmasterly attitude at times had made her yearn back for Sean and Ms. Frost.

It really was an eerie experience. I mean, this was the first time I met her face to face, and one of the most harrowing things she remembers from her time at the School is me (or rather my younger self which had somehow gotten out of Limbo) dying of the Legacy Virus. But why am I telling you that -- you went through the same thing, if not worse (you were a lot closer to me and my younger self than she was). Talk about feeling like someone is dancing on your grave (or, more appropriate to you as the near-genius straight-A fiend, Intimations of Mortality).!

It will be great to see you again for the Holidays, even if you'll doubtless room with your new boyfriend (you rat!); still, it will be nice to finally get a chance to meet him.

See you soon,

your ex-roomie,

Illyana

The Midnight Runner, Excalibur's ultrasonic airplane, approached its destination, the grounds of the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, against a cold blue, cloudless winter sky. It flew low across Breakstone Lake, banked to the left and approached the landing portal hidden in the hills about half a mile from the main building. The plane's pilot was an experienced hand at this -- back in the days when he still was with the X-Men, Nightcrawler had piloted the old Blackbird in and out of that tunnel more times than he could remember. But now he came here as a visitor, and thankfully purely for a social call, on a holiday visit to old teammates and a family he had not expected to have. Beside him, as his co-pilot, sat Shadowcat. As the plane touched down and rolled into the tunnel, Kurt noticed that she fell silent. This after keeping up an almost non-stop conversation with Kurt and their two passengers, Amanda Sefton and Peter Wisdom, for nearly two hours. It suddenly struck Kurt: It had been here, in this system of underground hangars and passages that a thirteen-year-old Kitty Pryde had single-handedly fought and defeated a demon, demolishing large parts of the equipment in the process. The demon, one of the N'garai, had attacked while the X-Men were away, picking up Kitty's parents from the airport. They had come from Deerfield as a holiday surprise, and, as Kurt now remembered, that was the last time Kitty had celebrated Hanukkah with both of her parents. Carmen and Teri Pryde divorced the year after, and now both were in a witness protection program (after Mr. Pryde became the leading witness against a Yakuza group) and their daughter was no longer able to see either of them.

"So, da wären wir, Kätzchen!" he said to his teammate, trying to lighten her somber mood. "Hope you don't mind I drive, but after what you did to the Blackbird..."

Katherine Pryde smiled, her eyes softening: "I knew you would remember. But you haven't called me Kätzchen in, what, two years? Fuzzy-elf."

Kurt grinned. No, he hadn't, he thought as he carefully guided the plane into the third hangar, which had been added at the last reconstruction of the complex. They came to a full stop, and as they disembarked they immediately saw a small welcoming committee consisting of Storm, Rogue and Magneto coming from the neighboring hangar, under the nose of the new Blackbird. This was the one Forge had constructed a couple of years ago -- its design with twin rudders and swept-forward wings had immediately made the members of Excalibur nickname it the Thunderbird 2 after the 1960s British TV series. The far hangar was empty at the moment. Normally it housed the X-Men's converted Lockheed RS-150 (which still bore the legend 'Kitty's Dragon' next to the cockpit), but now it was in Britain. Banshee and Psylocke, who were going to spend Christmas and Hogmanay with their loved ones, had flown it over so that they and the stay-at-home Excaliburites would not be planeless in an emergency during the holiday season.

Rogue was the first to come up to the visitors, enthusiastically hugging first Kurt (who was, after all, her foster brother) and then Kitty, kissing her on the cheek. Kitty at first froze, but kissed her back, French style, when she realized that she was unaffected by the Southern mutant's power. The last time they had met, Rogue had still been unable to control her gift and curse to absorb the abilities and memories of everybody she touched skin to skin. Kitty looked at her former teammate quizzically, but Rogue inclined her head toward the silver-haired man standing nearby. Kitty's eyes brightened in realization: Magneto was projecting a bio-electric field to 'isolate' the two.

"Magnus has gotten real good at this, Kit," said Rogue, adding, "an' these days he hardly ever de-magnetizes credit cards when he does it," with a mischievous twinkle. Kitty reached for her wallet, but then broke out giggling instead.

Magneto smiled at her: "It's okay. I can sense it. Nothing to worry." Not as effusive as Rogue, he merely shook her hand: "Nice to see you again after all these years." When Magik returned, Kitty only had time to visit her and Generation X in Snow Valley and to make a short excursion to Crossroads, but not to call on her former teammates in Salem Center.

She looked deep into his eyes, which to her subjective feeling looked a bit out of place in his young face, as if they had been the only outer feature of his body not rejuvenated by Mutant Alpha. She almost sensed the seven decades of his biography when she looked into his steel-blue eyes. The suffering, the happiness, the unspeakable horror of growing to manhood in a death camp, the determination that carried him through, regret over the loss of so many loved ones, some because of his own mistakes, and, dared she say it, true wisdom grown from experience. Since their last friendly parting (in Latveria), Magneto had abandoned the X-Men, become a villain again, had his brain wiped by Professor X, regained his memories, returned to "the fold" and moved together with Rogue. Kitty had helped set up and sometimes led a new super-team in Britain, gone through a succession of Excalibur headquarters, saw her best friend die of a virus created by a crazed enemy, broken up for good with Colossus, started living together with a heavy smoker, and unexpectedly saw her friend return from Limbo, if not actually from the dead. Yes, we do lead eventful lives, Kitty thought.

As the welcomes continued, Ororo came up to Kitty, looking as beautiful and self-assured as always. If she didn't love her so much -- first like a surrogate mother, then like an elder sister -- she'd feel envious of the way she always seem to achieve the kind of perfection Naomi Campbell and others had to spend hours in make-up to attain just by getting out of bed. Kitty had seen her friend go through many changes, not all to her liking and not all as dramatic as the time when Ororo started to be more open about her feelings, when she suddenly cut her hair in a mohawk and wearing studded leather. She seemed serene again, comfortable in a stylish, but simple black dress that would have been to light for the season on anyone but the weather-changing mutant.

"I'd say 'Welcome home, Kitten,'" said Storm as she was almost bowled over by her young ex-teammate's enthusiastic embrace, "but I guess Britain is your home now..."

The windrider quickly glanced towards Pete Wisdom, and both inclined their heads semi-formally. But their eye contact was soon interrupted as Rogue, having finished saying hello to her foster-brother, now approached the former secret agent. In the meantime, Kurt and Magneto busied themselves with the baggage while Rogue bowed down to touch Amanda's swollen belly. Kitty and Ororo resumed their conversation.

"Yeah, I suppose it really is. But Salem Center is too..." Kitty fondly smiled at her former teammates. "It's not this matter of 'once an X-Man, always and X-Man, or words to that effect. I mean, you, Ororo, you and Rogue and Logan and whoever, you're practically the only family I can actually visit when I go to the States."

The suitcases were now stowed in the transport, and not having used it for a long, long time, Kurt said: "Oh goody, we get to ride the monorail!" as they all got in.

Kitty could not resist, and piped up: "I hear those things are awfully loud?"

Kurt gleefully took the cue and answered: "It glides as softly as a cloud!"

Amanda joined in with: "Is there a chance the tracks could bend?"

"Not on your life, my Hindu friend!"

The three non-British members of Excalibur joyously launched into the song and dance routine. Meggan had turned them all into huge fans of The Simpsons, and as she liked playing the records, they knew the words by heart. And Amanda and Kitty just loved doing the voices.

"What about us brain-dead slobs?"

"You'll be given cushy jobs!"

"Were you sent here by the devil?"

"No, good sir, I'm on the level!"

"The ring came off my pulling can."

"Use my pen-knife, my good man.

I swear it's Springfield's only choice,

Throw up your hands and raise your voice:"

"Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!" Rogue lustily joined in on the chorus, while Magnus had a look of blank incomprehension on his face, Storm smiled amusedly and Pete Wisdom rolled up his eyes in despair over his teammates' silliness. And so to the strains of a song from a cartoon show the seven passengers hurtled through the curving tunnels towards their destination, the X-Mansion.

"But Main Street's still all cracked and broken!"

"Sorry mom, the mob has spoken!"

"Monorail! MONORAIL! MONORAIL!"

The four new arrivals were quartered in Rogue's and Magneto's old rooms. When he first returned to Xavier Mansion, less than a year ago, Magneto had taken a room in the dormitories, but soon he had found that that accommodation was not at all to his liking. Never too comfortable with larger groups of people (a legacy of living in the huge barracks in Auschwitz, where everybody was prevented from having any privacy at all), he finally had enough of continually encountering X-Men singly and in groups whenever he went from his room to Rogue's or vice versa. Rogue too soon had her fill of the way some of her teammates looked at her when she went into or came out of Magnus' door -- Scott's and Warren's surliness, Jean's way of not looking at her, Logan's leering grins (his idea of humor). Within a few months of Magnus moving into the Mansion the two lovers moved out together, into an old gamekeeper's lodge in the wooded part of the Xavier estate. And after Logan and the other team jokers had used up their Lady Chatterley wisecracks, everyone settled down to the new normality. The frictions between Magneto and the original X-Men (who had long been accustomed to despise Magneto as a living antithesis to their idolized mentor, to say nothing of the fact that they had fought against him for years since they were minors) took a while to erode. Of the four original X-Men currently in residence, only Iceman had warmed a little towards the team's new ally once he realized how happy his friend Rogue was with him.

As Kitty and the others now learned, Magneto's presence had had a bit of a catalytic effect on the discussions inside the team as well. Even some time before, the discussions about the best ways to make Charles Xavier's Dream a reality had somewhat intensified after Emma Frost started to participate in the policy-making councils as the co-headmistress of the 'freshman class'. This began to shift the balance among the more politically minded X-Men, where up until then Professor Xavier had normally prevailed over the occasional opposition from some of his later recruits by virtue of his authority and thanks to the unwavering support of his original five students. Although some of the 'new' X-Men could not always be bothered to conform to Charles's ideas of the proper modus operandi for underground mutant superheroes, Storm found herself with a lot less support when she confronted him e.g. over his 'the public needn't know' policy after Kurt, Kitty and Rachel had left for Britain and Psylocke became engrossed in her personal problems. Logan frequently affected boredom, saying he had given up on ever convincing 'Chuck' and his pet students (and although Wolverine was all for mutants coming out of the closet, he was quite the opposite on many other matters, a habit that dated back to his spying days, if not to the time before), and almost the only person Ororo could count on to listen to her arguments with an open mind was Rogue. With the White Queen added to the mix (she related the concerns of some of her pupils who were repelled by the prospect of having to hide what they were for the rest of their life, and in this she was sometimes supported by her colleague, Sean Cassidy), political discussions became livelier again. Rogue too, took a more active part in them and one memorable day revealed that part of the reason was that she had secretly started meeting Magneto and, among other things, discussing his view of the relationship between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens superior with him. When she came out with this, she gave a concrete demonstration by taking Magneto into the conference room, there was immediate uproar.

For all that had happened in the past, Magnus and Charles Xavier still regarded each other as friends. True to his declared principle of not turning away anyone, Professor X invited Magneto to stay, and he agreed, provisionally. Although he did not become a full-time member, he helped out on bigger, more dangerous missions, such as the Onslaught crisis -- he did not want his profile to become too high or his association with the X-Men to make headlines too often. He also occasionally was invited to lecture on Mutant Civics at the Massachusetts Academy. Emma Frost felt strongly that her students should get to know the different approaches to mutant/non-mutant co-existence, and a month ago she had organized a Q&A session with Professor X and Magneto for them.

And not just in Snow Valley, but also in Graymalkin Lane discussions became more open and at times tempers would flare up. On one occasion that passed into Xavier Institute folklore, Cyclops compared Professor X to Martin Luther King once too often, causing Wolverine to growl: "As I recall, Brother Martin didn't go about in whiteface or teach Negroes how best t'disguise themselves as white folk."

When he picked himself off the wall against which Scott's optic beam had hurled him, he just grinned, saying it had been worth it, just to get that reaction. By which he primarily meant him losing his cool, not the giggles and laughs from some of the others present. Scott of course turned beet-red and ash-white and left the room. Charles Xavier was embarrassed as well, remembering how he had chided Kurt for no longer using his image inducer to disguise his appearance.

The four visitors from Britain had of course heard quite a bit about this through their regular communications with their American friends and ex-teammates, but now over lunch with the X-Men currently in residence. It became evident that although the old camaraderie still was there, it was now accompanied by more frequent discussions than before. Although the X-Men were still pretty much united in pursuing Xavier's dream, they were of different minds as to the best way how to arrive at that destination. And some of them had by now grown too cynical or too realistic to see the Dream as anything but an unattainable ideal, something that probably would never be entirely realized, but which, like perfection, they should aim for as they tried to make the world a better place.

The X-Men had grown more like a real family than before. As a family that bickers among itself but immediately closes ranks when an outsider attacks one of its members, so the X-Men would always stand up for each other, no matter how big their differences or personal antipathies were. But Kurt, Amanda, Kitty and (by extension) Pete were 'family', so at lunch they got a bit of an impression of how things were. Not a complete one though, because perennial opposites Cyclops and Wolverine were not there, the former having left for Anchorage to celebrate Christmas with his grandparents, and the latter having set off into the wilds of the Canadian tundra to get as far away from Christmas commercialism as possible.

After lunch, the guests went for a walk and wintry fun and games in the grounds of the estate, accompanied by Charles Xavier, Ororo, Warren, and Sam and Paige Guthrie, who had delayed their departure for Kentucky to await the Excalibur foursome's arrival.

Katherine Pryde took the lighted shammes, the candle that was the servant of the other eight, from its special holder in the Hanukkiah, the nine-branched bronze candelabrum standing on the window-ledge behind the table. Raising it a little, she began reciting the three blessings of the first evening of Hanukkah:

"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu,
melech haolam, asher kideshanu
bemittsvotav, vetsivanu
lehadlik neir shel Channuka."*

It had all been Rogue's idea. Although Kitty now was with Excalibur longer than she had been with the X-Men, Rogue still was fond of her former teammate. On hearing that Kitty would be spending the holidays at the Mansion, she had suggested to Magnus that they got everything ready to celebrate the festival with her, "seein' that she cain't do it with her folks 'cause o' that witness protection thing." Magneto, who had for most practical purposes turned his back on his ancestral religion in Auschwitz, had somewhat reluctantly given in to her entreaties, in part because he remembered that there had been a connection between him and Kitty when he had last come to live in Westchester. So now, just after sundown, the guests crowded into the living room of Rogue and Magnus' lodge: The four 'Britons', Gabrielle Haller, Charles Xavier, Kitty's best friend Illyana Rasputina, and Magnus' daughter, Wanda Maximoff. Though not really a religious person, Rogue really had thrown herself into her project with gusto, making the decorations mostly by herself. Somewhat incongruously a few green and black garlands hung across the room among the white, blue and gold stars and 'Happy Hanukkah' banners -- Magneto had laughingly pointed out that the red and green garlands she had at first bought really were for 'that other winter festival', whereupon she had taken black paint to the red parts to reproduce the color combination of her X-Men costume "t'add a personal note".

Peter Wisdom watched Kitty attentively. Although he and Shadowcat were lovers for well over a year now, her obvious joy at performing this ceremony was a side of her he did not see often. She did not wear her religion on her sleeve as Rahne did on Muir Island or Sam did in America, but it was visible in her face that this was an important part of her identity -- this too was who and what she was, where she came from. It dawned on him that he would have to take her Jewishness into account in their future together more than he had at first assumed. Not that it bothered him. Especially compared to not being allowed to smoke when they were in an enclosed room together, it was actually be something he would enjoy exploring. He'd definitely have to take a greater interest in arrangements for Passover next year. Hmm, he hadn't been to a Seder since that time six years ago, when he helped Jardine track down the 'cabalist killer florist of Catford' (Lord, he hated tabloid headlines).

"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu,
melech haolam, sheasa nisim
la-avoteinu bayemim haheim
bazeman hazeh."**

Kitty and Magneto had both lost kin in the Shoah, although in her case it was more distant and not as complete an annihilation as that of his family. Her grandfather had emigrated from Poland shortly after World War 1, but his sister, her great-aunt, Chava Rosanoff, was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, and there the man who would become Magneto met her and saw her die. Magneto remembered the day when he went with Kitty to the National Holocaust Memorial in Washington to inquire about her relative, and realized that the woman she was looking for had been someone whose death on the electrified barbed wire. A few months later, Kitty had almost critically wounded and stuck in mid-phase when the X-Men tried to stop Sinister's death-squad, the Marauders. He had set heaven and earth in motion to save her young life then, having to abase himself before Mister Fantastic and even risk indebting himself to Doctor Doom for because he and the X-Men did not possess the means to prevent Shadowcat from slowly disintegrating.

"Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu,
melech haolam, shehecheyanu
vekiyemanu vehigianu
lazeman hazeh."***

Katherine lit the first candle and then set the shammes back into its forward-curving holder. Magneto's mind traveled further back in time, back to his youth in Lithuania and the Hanukkah of 1939. The Red Army had already moved in to set up bases, but theoretically the country was still independent and at peace. His family had already been uprooted, forced to flee their home in the port of Memel earlier that year when the Nazis annexed it to Germany and abolished its Lithuanian name, Klaipeda. Unable to get visas to emigrate overseas, they moved to his grandparents' hometown of Kovno (Kaunas) and had to celebrate the festival of lights in a cramped apartment that simply did not bear comparison to the house his father had bought when he moved with his small import firm to Memel in 1924. But as the larger part of the family fortune had been lost in the World Economic Crisis of 1929, that was all they could afford. Hanukkah was a subdued affair in 1939, celebrated in the shadow of German troops in neighboring Poland and Soviet soldiers at home, but worse was to follow. In July 1940 Lithuania became a Soviet Republic, and less than a year later, his parents and sister were slaughtered by the Germans in a pit in a Belorussian field. Hanukkah was a festival of hope in the midst of darkness, but in 1939 that hope had been an illusion.

Rogue's heart went out to Magnus when she saw the tears running down his cheeks. She had worried a bit about what kind of events and emotions this journey back into her mate's past might drag up from the recesses of his memory. She wanted to comfort him, but Wanda, who also had noticed her father's silent grief was there before her to take his hand and squeeze it. Magneto gratefully looked in his daughter's eyes. As he kissed Wanda on the forehead, Rogue felt secretly pleased. During the three months the Scarlet Witch had spent with the X-Men, the barriers between Magneto and his estranged daughter had slowly eroded somewhat, but moments such as this were rare enough to be savored.

There still were things between them, things of which he now was ashamed -- especially his treatment of her and her brother Quicksilver in the early years of the original Brotherhood -- but they were at least talking. Wanda was becoming convinced that her father had turned over a new leaf, and she was beginning to see what had made him what he had been.

Back in a corner, Illyana sat silently, scratching the back of Lockheed's head. Although she tended to stay away from the daemonic realm she once ruled and was accustomed to the sight of a Star of David from the pendant her former roommate always wore, she felt a slight unease. Ambassador Haller and Professor Xavier stood together, immersed in thought and memories, maybe of the last time they had celebrated a Jewish festival together with Magneto, all those many years ago in Israel. Little Irene, secure in her brother Kurt's arm, enthusiastically pointed out the bright candles to Amanda. Strong Guy had brought her to Westchester the day before, awaiting the arrival of her parents, Mystique and Valerie Cooper on Christmas Day. At the moment they and some other members of X-Factor were in Germany, wrapping up a mission in Europe. Kurt, always glad to be with his baby half-sister had spent most of the afternoon playing with Irene.

After the lighting of the candle, it was now time for all to sing, starting with the traditional Maoz Tsur. Rogue, who had photocopied songsheets for herself and the other Gentiles attending, had been rather surprised to discover that it was sung to the tune based on that of a Martin Luther hymn. Charles Xavier of course was fluent in Hebrew since his first stay in Israel, but Illyana, Rogue, Pete, Kurt, Mandy and Wanda were a little halting as they joined in:

"Ma-oz tsur ye-shu-a ti,
le-cha na-eh le-she-bei-ach;
ti-kon beit te-fi-la-ti,
ve-sham to-da ne-za-bei-ach.
Le-eit ta-chin mat-bei-ach,
mi-tsar ha-me-na-bei-ach,
az eg-mor, be-shir miz-mor,
cha-nu-kat ha-mix-bei-ach."****

Little Irene was more remarkable for the enthusiasm of her contribution than for the correctness of her pronunciation. But that was not surprising, as she only was one-and-a-half years old. Those present noticed that Magneto sang the third verse with especial fervor. It was the one that had left the most lasting impression on him when he was a boy, and the one that still meant the most to him now. In English it runs:

"Children of the Maccabees,
Whether free or fettered,
Wake the echoes of the songs,
Where you may be scattered.
Yours the message cheering,
That the time is nearing,
Which will see
All men free,
Tyrants disappearing."

They sang a few other songs, both spiritual and more secular, before Rogue switched on the stereo and let Mendelssohn's Elias provide the background music for the rest of the evening.

"Time to unwrap the presents!" Nightcrawler gleefully announced. Rogue and Magneto had done most of the evening's preparations, but this was the part he contributed to, as Rogue had forewarned her 'stepbrother' of the surprise for Kitty. To tell the story of Hanukkah was not necessary -- the grownups knew it, and Irene was really too little to understand the concepts involved. There also were not that many presents, as there were still seven evenings of Hanukkah to come, not to mention the upcoming Christmas celebrations. Kitty got a silver cat-shaped pendant from Rogue, a Klezmatics CD from Magnus, a copper Hanukkiah from Gabrielle and comparable gifts from the others. Kurt's present made her Kitty laugh out loud: he had assembled a model of a demolished Blackbird, just as it had looked after Kitty's first Hanukkah in Salem Center. Kurt and Amanda had brought home-made dolls for the hosts, very much like the Bamf and Mandy dolls they had made for each other around the time that Rogue joined the X-Men. The Roguey doll for Magnus was a little furry skunk dressed in familiar black and green togs, while Rogue's Maggie doll looked more like a human, and wore a helmet that had been made from a toy kitchen pot. For Irene Kurt had brought a humming-top, remembering Margali telling him that when he was little, he had liked his humming-top best of all his toys, and that he fought with his foster-siblings over it until it broke. Magnus meanwhile gained indulgent smiles when he said that when he was young, all his parents gave him and his sister was a little Hanukkah Gelt, and more usually the chocolate kind, not real coins.

Then they sat down for supper, that is all except Irene, who had already been fed before and was busy playing with her top and the dolls. Rogue and Magneto had spent a large part of the afternoon in the kitchen, trying to get the latkes -- potato pancakes fried in oil -- just right, as Magnus's mother had made them. Today also being an occasion to welcome Kitty and the others to America and to the new house, the supper was a little bigger and more fancy than what they had in mind for the other nine nights. Not too big, of course, as the huge Christmas dinner at the Mansion loomed on the horizon. The main course was fish gebroten in smetene (fish baked in sour cream), for which Rogue had chosen carp, a popular dish for the winter holidays in Eastern Central Europe. But there also were the latkes (served with applesauce) and for afters an assortment of jelly doughnuts and traditional German Christmas cookies -- a contribution from Gabrielle Haller, whose family was from Berlin and for whom Hanukkah, Pfeffernüsse, Dominosteine, and Lebkuchen simply belonged together. Normally a Hanukkah celebration only lasts about half an hour, but tonight, when so many people who had not seen each other for so long were together, it was hardly surprising that the evening's conviviality continued for a few hours.

It was just after one a.m., but Rogue was still sitting up in bed, reading. The guests had left two hours ago, and shortly after so had Magneto. He wanted to take a walk along Breakstone Lake, to be alone with his thoughts. Rogue knew that Magnus sometimes needed these moments of lonely privacy and respected them. Although she itched to go out and look for him, she tried to read one of her childhood favorites, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which she had not read in almost a decade, but found it difficult to concentrate. She always kept listening for Magnus' footsteps.

Finally, he entered the bedroom. Rogue looked up from her book. "You okay, love?" she asked, "Ya look kinda worn thin..."

"Well, it was a busy day," he protested as he sat down on the bed beside her. They kissed in greeting.

Rogue sighed: "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. Leastways as far as ya're concerned ah mean. Kitty an' the others seem t'have enjoyed it, all right. Ah'm sorry. Ah'd kinda hoped the celebration'd help ya bring back some nicer memories, 'specially considerin' how much fun we had in the kitchen in the afternoon, but ah reckon all this also stirred up some pretty bad ones. An' it was awful crowded with all the guests, an' ah know how hard it c'n be for ya to talk with more'n three people at a time."

"Well, that really could not be helped. When we invited Kitty, we couldn't well ask young Wisdom or Illyana to stay away. And it would have been rude not to invite Charles and Gaby. But you know, my love," he continued with a smile, "when we first started to date, you gave me the impression you had no relatives at all, and now their numbers seem to grow daily."

Rogue giggled at that quip, a reference to the time when she had first got seriously involved with the silver-haired master of magnetism, years ago in the Savage Land. At the time she had honestly believed that both her foster-mothers, Destiny and Mystique, were dead (in Destiny's case this belief was correct, in Mystique's it happily turned out to have been a deception) and she did not yet know about her two 'foster-brothers', Nightcrawler and Graydon Creed, and her foster-sister Irene was not yet a twinkle in Raven's eye. Magneto rarely talked about it, but one of the things that had drawn him to her then was her resilience in adversity, for Rogue then not only had lost her family, but also her powers (temporarily) and she had no idea if the X-Men were still alive or not. Yet she had refused to fall into despair.

But Magnus continued with his answer: "As for the memories, those will always be a bit of both. As I told Wanda, it is impossible to think of the good times with my family when I was a boy before the war without remembering how they were butchered later or how few of the 35,000 Jews in Kovno survived the Shoah. While in 1944 there was no Hanukkah in Auschwitz, but we could see that the guards were getting nervous about the approaching front. A month later I finally managed to escape with Magda. And at least some of the tyrants really did disappear months before Hanukkah came around again."

"So ya're not mad at me for talkin' ya into this?"

"No, I guess it was almost cathartic. It reminded me that I am not just Magneto, 'Mutant Master of Magnetism', but I'll also always be Magnus, son of Jacob and Alma, survivor of a culture that was all but annihilated. Being with Kitty and Wanda reminded me of what I could have had if Anya hadn't died or Magda hadn't left me, but also that it is not entirely too late for me and my surviving children at least."

Rogue gratefully looked up to her man: "Well, ah'm glad ya took such an interest in this party. Ah first had thought of it just for Kitty, but thanks t'you ah also got t'know, t'understand you better. Ah mean, ah've had some glimpses through m'power, but they were always so jumbled... What ah'm tryin' to say..."

But no more words were necessary. All that needed to be said had been said. Rogue and Magnus kissed in close embrace, and then finally came to bed. As a couple, they liked to make love, but tonight they did not have to, it was enough to just hold one another and to fall asleep in each other's arms.

* Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast hallowed us by thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of Hanukkah.

** Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who didst work miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season.

*** Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast kept us in life, and hast preserved us, and enabled us to reach this season.

**** Rock of Ages, let our song/ Praise Your saving power;/ You, amid the raging foes/ Were our sheltering tower./ Furious, they assailed us,/ But Your arm availed us,/ And Your word/ Broke their sword,/ When our own strength failed us.

Valerie Cooper was beginning to feel that it was going to be raining every time she was visited her widowed aunt. It had rained the last time, when she had been in Aunt Emma Andreesen's art nouveau house in the spring of last year, and it was raining now, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1997. But it was warm inside when her grandfather's youngest sister opened the door for her three visitors and showed them to her lilac sitting-room. In a way Valerie felt pleasantly surprised at how comfortable everyone was in this showpiece of her quarters, sitting around the coffee-table with the Advent Wreath with its four lighted candles, but then her ex-husband and her (for lack of a better word) consort had already straightened out their potential for hostility in the preceding week.

They had been on a mission in Southern Germany, one that involved a crisis at a US Army base in Bavaria, and Edmond Atkinson had volunteered to act as liaison for military intelligence. Mystique had not been able to resist the old saw about that being an oxymoron, and from then on the ice had been broken. They discovered that they had a very similar, dry sense of humor, and after a few days together they felt very comfortable with each other and the blue-skinned ex-terrorist and the African-American secret agent found they worked well together in action. Val still had taken a while to get used to the changes he had gone through since their divorce, but then their jobs had not made it easy for them to keep in touch. At some point Edmond started working out in a big way and gained several pounds of muscles. She had already witnessed the new, bigger frame at Irene's christening, but subconsciously she had refused to register it and thus it had once again come almost as a shock when he entered her office ten days ago.

Irene. She would be glad to see and hold her again when she got back home tomorrow. At the moment her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter was in the care of Strong Guy in Westchester, where she and Raven were going to spend the holidays with Raven's son Kurt and with Rogue, her, no, she corrected herself, their foster daughter. Valerie and Raven were going to leave tonight, using the X-Factor jet which now was waiting at Fuhlsbüttel airport. Havok and Polaris would pilot it and had by now presumably returned from their last-minute Christmas shopping in order to get a few hours' sleep before their departure. They were going to drop off Valerie and Raven in New York and then proceed to the big Summers family Christmas gathering in Anchorage. Alex and Lorna at the controls meant, among other things, that Val and Ray could indulge a little in Aunt Em's Glühwein (mulled wine) as well as the tea and Christmas cookies.

American by birth and Canadian by choice (naturalized after her wartime service), Emma Cooper Andreesen had lived most of her life in Hamburg. She had married a native journalist a few years after World War 2. Now firmly rooted near the Alster, she had not felt tempted to return across the Atlantic after Ernst Andreesen died four years ago. With the zeal of the convert immigrant she had taken up German Christmas customs, although she still liked to prepare mince pies and Christmas pudding as well as Braune Kuchen and Zimtsterne. But that was in keeping with her adopted home town, which 200 years ago had already been joked about as the most English city on the continent.

Aunt Em was in a good mood today -- she was always glad to see Edmond, having continued to look on him as a nephew-by-marriage even after he and Val had 'amicably divorced'. And she was warming to Raven, whose unusual relationship to her niece had become tabloid fodder all over the world. But she had at least met Raven briefly once before, during the 2nd NATO metapowers conference this spring. She was also looking forward to celebrating Christmas Eve with the family of her eldest son. "At my age I can finally fully enjoy Christmas again, with Sarah having to do all the hard work," she explained. "And the advantage of celebrating Christmas in Germany is that you have to wait half a day less than across the pond."

"Umm, maybe we should ask Uwe and Sarah for a second opinion on that this evening," Val couldn't help saying.

"Uwe had better agree with me," Emma chuckled, "or I'll just have to remind him of the time when he was twelve when he was dead against us going on a winter holiday with your grandparents." Her voice changed into a high-pitched whine: "'We'd have to wait until Christmas morning for our presents,' he said, as I recall." There was laughter all around.

"Should've gone to Holland then," said Raven, "there you get your prezzies on December the 6th!"

"Hmm, with a last name like Darkhölme, shouldn't St. Lucia's Day beyour cup of tea?"

The foursome then discussed various matters of the extended Cooper and Andreesen families, with Valerie and her aunt providing most of the information, and Raven and Edmond the odd observation and witticism. The impending Heiligabend celebration at cousin Uwe's home in Wellingsbüttel also figured largely in the conversation. Emma had already forewarned her son that she would bring along three visitors, and now she wasn't taking no for an answer from her three guests. "And it will be much easier to get to the airport from there," she assured them.

"Oh, all right, since you're twisting our arms," Val had finally given in for herself and Raven, "I guess it'll be nice to see them again."

Edmond, who had to stay on in Europe in any case, also was game, pointing out that he had not yet attended a German family Christmas celebration in any case. "Oh, you'll get the hang of it soon," Emma assured him, "in our family we also sing English carols, and you can just hum along to the German ones."

"Well, I do know 'Silent Night'," Edmond replied pensively.

"Just follow Uwe and Sarah's lead, and you'll do all right as far as the kids are concerned," added Valerie. "Perhaps I should warn you that there's probably going to be a rush when everyone is let into the Christmas room. Uwe's bound to tell the kiddies they can still catch a glimpse of the Christkind if they hurry to the window."

"Christkind?" Edmond seemed a little puzzled, but Raven rushed to explain.

"This is a Protestant region, and German Protestants long had problems with worshipping saints like Saint Nicholas. So here Santa Claus doesn't bring the presents, but the Christ-child does."

"But I must have seen dozens of Father Christmases downtown today," Edmond protested.

"That's creeping commercialism eroding the old traditions," Mystique sniffed dismissively. "Now you have Santa Claus all over the world, and all over the world he looks like the Coca Cola ads."

"Ever the cynic, eh Raven?" Edmond smiled indulgently, which apparently slightly annoyed Mystique.

"In any case, it is still the Christkind in many family celebrations," said Emma. "And the children are not to see the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, so the room with the tree, the Nativity figures and the presents is locked off, sometimes for days. In our family, they have to sing carols until the bell is rung three times, and only then are you allowed inside."

"Sounds like pretty hard work for the kids..."

The seasonal theme reminded Emma of the fact that this year it was exactly fifty years since her first Christmas in Hamburg, and as Raven and Edmond had not yet heard the story, she told them how she had met their mutual acquaintance Nick Fury at that time of the year in 1947:

"After the war, Nick Fury went into covert operations for the first time. He and his Howling Commandos were still young and had come to enjoy the life of adventure they led. So about half of the Howlers were only too happy to accept when the OSS offered to take them on as a covert action team. This was in part an effort to make the Army look more favorably on 'Wild Bill' Donovan's outfit, but it didn't help them much: the OSS was still disbanded in the fall of 1945. A few months later Fury and his men wound up in the new CIG which a year later became the CIA. But they were split up in the big expansion of 1947, and December that year he was sent to Hamburg.

His job was to track down Franz Krautwurster, a scientist who had worked on several German secret weapon projects during the war and bring him to America."

"Krautwurster?" asked Raven, failing miserably to repress a giggle, "you're making it all up!"

"Yeah, just the kind of name a pulp novel writer would give a bad guy," added a grinning Edmond.

Emma gave them her stern grandmother look, but her eyes twinkled.

"Nevertheless, that really was his name. The CIA wanted to bring him to the States, but unfortunately he was in the British internment camp in Bad Nenndorf, so they had to pull a few strings. I suspect Nick Fury's British wartime connections helped in that respect. Anyway, he picked up Krautwurster at Nenndorf and brought him to Bremerhaven, which then was an American enclave in the British Zone of Occupation. There they put him on a transport ship under the cover of darkness. Fury then decided to pay a visit to his British Howler buddy, what was his name?"

"Percy Pinkerton," offered Valerie who had had dealings with the head of SHIELD for years and been regaled by him with the occasional war story.

"Yes, that's right. He was here with the British forces, I forget in what function. Could've been the BFN. Anyway, Fury arrived here shortly before Christmas. Of course things looked rather different in the city then. Where people had Christmas trees, their fuel value was usually more important than the trimmings. Large parts of the city still lay in ruins, people had to live squeezed into small cellars and Nissen huts, and supplies of food and coal were already precariously low. Everybody was afraid there would be another winter like the one before, when hundreds had died of the cold and malnutrition. Still, life went on, the city was slowly reconstructed, its first freely-elected post-war Senate had just finished its first year in office, and Ernst could even take me to the theater."

She turned towards Raven, who, being new to the house, could not be expected to know all the details of the Andreesen family history. "He was from Hamburg, but he had emigrated before the war (he was a Social Democrat) and joined the British Army. Now was an officer in the military administration. I was in the ATS. Anyway, it was the day after Ernst had taken me out to Ida Ehre's Kammerspiele to go and see Draussen vor der Tür that we bumped into him and Pinkerton in the NAAFI. Ernst introduced them to me -- he had met him before, earlier that year. Of course I'd read about Nick's exploits during the war, so it was a huge thrill for me to meet him in the flesh. The textbook rugged American hero he was..."

Emma Andreesen silently and dreamily looked into space. "Anyway, der langen Rede kurzer Sinn,* er, to cut the long story short, we met a few times, and on one evening at Ernst's flat we had a convivial evening -- as in 'somewhat under the influence' -- and talked about all sorts of stuff that really fell under the Official Secrets Act."

She lowered her voice a little, just for effect: "As they started talking shop, it turns out that Ernst's section -- they had to ferret out war criminals -- had just been about to bring Krautwurster to trial for being involved in experiments on humans. You should have seen Nick Fury's face. He went ash white. Of course he was so far gone by that time that he then started bellowing about how his superiors had hoodwinked him, that he hadn't fought the war to let a rat like Krautwurster get away."

Edmond sat up: "You mean they didn't prosecute him for his crimes?"

"No, of course not. That they would have done in Europe." Emma's mutant contemporary interjected. "It happened a lot. Many Peenemünde scientists would have been tried for involvement in war crimes if they hadn't been needed for the US rocket program."

"And I guess the Russians and the other powers also found ways of overcoming scruples if they felt they could use people," added Valerie. "But we were interrupting you," she placatingly said to her aunt.

"Hrrhhm. It took a while to calm him down, and then Ernst was suddenly called away. They'd discovered a 'big fish' among a bunch of black-marketeers arrested in a raid earlier that day, and he had to interrogate him at once. Nick and I stayed behind, and, um, basically flirted a little. I must have had a bit of a crush on him -- he was so different from Ernst, he had a more earthy, animalistic appeal, I mean, he even looked a bit like a pirate with his eyepatch..." She blushed prettily, causing her listeners to smile. "I rather think he fancied me, but we didn't do that kind of thing on a first date in 1947. Unlike you young'uns!"

Emma comically wagged her finger at Valerie and Raven, reminding them of their bizarre early history and causing Edmond to grin broadly. "Anyway, it all made for a pretty miserable Christmas. I felt guilty towards Ernst for flirting with Nick, and Nick got disillusioned with intelligence work, and he and most of the Howlers signed up with the US Army again."

She took another sip of tea. "Ernst was angry at his superiors for allowing Krautwurster to be smuggled into the States. He really was brassed off with the secret services after that. But that was only one reason. At one of our earlier evenings he had been with this English guy whom he had met in the UK in '46. Being in his cups, Fury introduced him as a colleague, and he turned out to be a high-ranking MI6 officer en route from Turkey. He tried to sound Ernst out, but Ernst became monosyllabic. There was something about him that made him dislike him. Maybe it was his vocal and militant anti-communism that he found off-putting. Ernst had no particular love for the communists, but at that time many of his political persuasion still believed in the feasibility of a unified German state that would be a democratic socialist one. And the beginning Cold War threatened that aim, and in fact would lead to the creation of two German states. The irony is of course that sixteen years later it turned out that the man actually was a Soviet agent."

Edmond and Valerie gasped.

Only Mystique, who ever since Emma had mentioned Nick Fury's presence in Hamburg fifty years ago, had become most attentive, was unsurprised. "Kim Philby," she said, "yes, I now remember the occasion. I knew your voice was familiar, but of course over the years your accent..."

Now it was Emma's turn to be amazed. "You were there? But he had a man with him... well, that doesn't mean anything in your case... and Valerie told me you're much older than you look..."

"Let me get this straight," Val interrupted, "you worked with Kim Philby? Why did you never mention--"

"Well, you never asked," Raven answered without batting an eyelid -- and unaware (or uncaring) that she was using a trademarked Wolverine phrase.

"I guess you learned the art of deep cover from the master." Edmond seemed a little amused that Raven had not told this little tidbit of her past to his ex-wife.

"You could say that," Mystique replied as if it was nothing special. "I was eighteen at the time, although the MVD believed I was older. And a man. I became a Soviet agent in '43, as soon as I discovered my powers, because I couldn't bear remaining passive in the war. In '46 they placed me in the British embassy in Ankara. Uncle Joe was in one of his paranoidphases, and when Philby was transferred to the Turkish station, I was ordered to keep an eye on him. Of course I told him as soon as we met, and I became his protege for a while. Then a few years later I went freelance."

"Didn't the Russians go after you?" asked Emma Andreesen. "After all, you knew their most important penetration agent..."

"Of course they wanted me dead. But what can I say, I was young, I thought I could beat the world, I was reckless..."

"Hard to imagine you once were so different from your shy, cautious self," said Valerie with a sarcastic smile.

"Anyway, after Kim escaped to Moscow in '63, the pressure was off. In the meantime I'd changed identities a few times, met Sabretooth and -- as Leni Zauber -- became his wife for a while, and then met Irene."

"I guess you then went on to emulate Philby by infiltrating the Pentagon hierarchy as Raven Darkhölme," added Valerie.

Edmond Atkinson scratched his goatee: "I suppose Raven Darkhölme isn't your real name, is it? I mean the one you were born with."

"Now Edmond, a woman's got to keep some secrets if she wants to retain her mystique," the indigo-skinned mutant joked. "But it's the name I'm sticking with. The three women who loved me as a mother or a mate knew me as Raven, so it is now my real name, whether or not I was born with it." She exchanged a tender look with Val.

"Well, it isn't the first time a nom de guerre supplants the original name," said Emma, thinking of former chancellor Willy Brandt (who had left his birth-name behind when he emigrated before the war) and of Rogue, another case in her own family.

Mystique continued: "Anyway, in '47 Kim and I were on her way to London, to have me transferred into another section to increase my effectiveness as a double agent. Kim Philby was being groomed as his successor by Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, and so he took in a few foreign stations on his way home for a visit. The stay in Hamburg was pretty dreadful, as I recall. Although I remember feeling a little attracted to you, Emma. You had that wholesome English Rose look. Guess I was too engrossed with your face and hair to notice the 'CANADA' on your shoulder."

As usual, Mystique dropped her little bomb with a nonchalance that would have infuriated a saint. But Aunt Emma kept her cool, just smiled and toasted her with her half-empty cup of tea. Her niece had told her about Raven's conversational habits, so this gambit did not come entirely unexpected. Val raised her right eyebrow hat Raven, whose lips widened and thinned in a superior smile.

"In any case," Mystique continued, "Philby did not mention me in his autobiography. Rather unsporting I thought."

"Well, maybe his KGB superiors wouldn't have allowed it," suggested Emma. "By the way, I think his unmasking had something to do with Nick Fury's decision to rejoin the CIA after Korea. He must have been quite mad because he had let himself be taken in by him after World War 2. But he always preferred combat assignments to real intelligence work, even if they now came under the heading of covert actions. But I guess now that he's crippled, he's really stuck behind a desk. I wonder if he remembers me."

Valerie and Raven left the Andreesen Christmas celebrations at around half past eight, when it was pitch dark already. Too tired to answer stupid questions and unwilling to engage in discussions with strangers, Raven had assumed her old look as Raven Darkhölme, director of DARPA, with black hair to match her given name. The taxi that took them to the airport, an ivory-colored Volvo, was driven by a young woman who worked on the holidays to finance her university studies. The two passengers sat in the back, letting the events of the day pass review before their minds' eye. Mystique thought about the eclectic mix of carols they had had to sing -- British, American, German, and one from the middle ages which kept switching between Latin and Low German:

In dulci jubilo
singt, weset fro!
Al mines Herten Wunne
lit in presepio,
de lüchtet so de Sunne
in matris gremio.
Ergo merito,
Ergo merito,
des sullen alle Herten
sweven in gaudio.**

Raven snuggled up to her strangely silent mate. "You okay, dear?" she asked.

"Just a slight headache. I really wish Aunt Em hadn't used such a cheap plonk for her Glühwein."

Raven started massaging Val's temples, and the younger woman exhaled in audible relief. Mystique admitted that she actually had enjoyed the visit, as Valerie's German relatives had made every effort to make her feel at home. But then, as in many other things, European's lagged a few years behind America as far as mutiphobia was concerned. Valerie's three nephews and nieces had stared at Raven with wide eyes, but it was a matter of curiosity, not fear. But then Raven's younger son, Nightcrawler, had become quite a celebrity in Germany ever since Excalibur set up shop very much in the public eye in the UK. They were even a little disappointed that she did not sport a prehensile tail too. Much to the amusement of the grownups, Raven quickly grew one to please them.

Now in the back seat of the taxi, Mystique was disgustingly cheerful, chatting on brightly (albeit in a low voice, so the driver would not hear) about how she enjoyed being with the Andreesens and Edmond. Val listened a bit testily, because of her headache; but she also felt a bit embarrassed because she had clicked so well with her ex now she had a chance to have a real conversation with him for the first time in many years. But the festive atmosphere (or was it a side-effect of the mulled wine?) and Raven's ministrations mellowed her mood. Bedding her head on Ray's lap she felt a compulsion to talk about (confess?) her feelings for Edmond Atkinson.

It had been a much more simple, straightforward romance with him, conforming much more to the expectations she had formed in high school than her relationship with Raven, which had clearly started off on the wrong foot. She now thought she felt she was as secure in her relationship as she ever could hope to be with a woman like Raven, but she could not help wondering about her failed marriage to Edmond. Would it have lasted longer, would it have survived until today if, for instance, they had had children?

Raven, eminently practical as she was, did not find it productive to speculate about what might have been. Although she had to admit that she still had moments when she suddenly felt the loss of her first great love, Irene Adler, more acutely. So she was not surprised that Val would still care about Edmond.

"Oh, don't be so damned understanding, woman!" Valerie moaned. "Doesn't it upset you at least a little that I still feel ... something about him?"

"Val, when you're my age..."

"Oh no, not that again," Valerie said, comically twisting her eyes upward, that is towards the door, as she was still lying down.

"Nevertheless, dear, I know about these things," Raven stated flatly, "and I know you. You're not going to go back to the dashing Major Atkinson. You know it wouldn't work out."

Val had to agree: "No, I guess not. It was just that I felt more comfortable with Ed than I ever had since our first year of marriage. But maybe that's because deep down I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of us getting back together and so I wouldn't have to adjust my life to his. And vice versa."

"But you do have to tailor your life to mine?" Raven said in an expressionless voice that made it hard for Val to decide whether she was joking or serious. "I hope that's not too much of a strain for you."

"Well, no relationship is always easy." Val said diplomatically. "You always have a little give and take. And of course with someone as old as you..." here a mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes, "... I've got to expect that you're set in your ways and make allowances..."

She then had to laugh uncontrollably because Mystique was tickling her under the ribs. "Okay, okay. But you know you're not making things any easier!"

Raven relented and gently put her hand to Valerie's cheek. X-Factor's government liaison visibly relaxed, savoring the moment. She started again: "No, actually a lot of things turned out to be much easier than I had imagined. Okay, we get our share of hostility in public, but my family has been very supportive once they got over the initial shock."

"I guess so" said Mystique, who was not so sure, "your parents still call me 'Ms. Darkhölme', though."

"Now, now, Raven, it was a bit much to get used to at one and the same time: their daughter announces she's bisexual, she's hooking up with a mutant ex-terrorist old enough to be her mother, and she's pregnant. Others have problems with any one of that list. And you've only met them a few times, so they still hardly know you. But they're holding up pretty well. And compared to your Graydon..."

"My elder son makes everybody else look good," snorted Raven, making light of the man who had been the most prominent mutiphobe leader in the US and even a viable presidential candidate until his parentage became public knowledge.

"No, seriously, in our private lives we've had much smoother sailing than I had dared hope. Your other kids are wonderful. Rogue especially. She always knows how to cheer me up, and I kind of get a kick out of the way she treats me as a mixture of stepfather and elder sister. And of course you've always been a considerate lover and consort." As Raven gently stroked the bullet scar on her scalp with one hand, Valerie squeezed the other.

"Not to mention we keep having great sex..."

"Yeeesss," Val slowly admitted, "but there's a downside to that. When I have sex with you in another shape, it's almost as if I'm cheating on you with somebody else, and then I start to fear that you..."

Raven was taken aback: "Good grief, isn't it a little early in our 'marriage' for you to fret about that? Don't over-interpret everything, love. Anyway, I get my kicks out of being somebody else with you, never fear. And you do have a great bod."

"But what'll happen when I grow all wrinkly and saggy? Don't laugh, please... I feel weird -- I know you're twice my age..." Val said apologetically, "still at times I have this irrational fear that one day you'll leave me for a younger woman..."

Raven was a little annoyed: "Don't be silly, you know I'm not that shallow."

"Of course not. I told you the fear was irrational. Still, I know your libido, and on days like this, with a headache like this, I wonder if I'll always be able to keep up with it. You know, with a power like yours, when you're apparently impervious to old age, it's enough to make a flatscan girl feel inadequate."

"Fishing for compliments, are we?" inquired Raven in a schoolmarmish voice.

"Well, your story of meeting Aunt Em 50 years ago got me thinking. By the way, did you have to tease her that way? Even if it wouldn't surprise me if you really had felt attracted to her then." But Val did not leave Raven time for an answer. "Anyway, I was thinking, and you don't have to answer this, but -- were you always faithful to Destiny? Sexually, I mean."

Mystique froze. Valerie too fell silent. Had she gone too far? Even though they had named their daughter after Irene Adler, her relationship was one of the subjects they tended to give wide berth in their intimate conversations. At last, Raven asked: "You really want to know the truth?"

Val pondered for nearly half a minute: ".... yes."

Raven sighed in resignation: "Well, when she began to feel her age, she said that she didn't mind if I had an occasional fling as long as she didn't get to hear about it. I don't know if it was because she was a precog and knew I was going to stray, or because in her family and generation the standards for marital fidelity were less stringent for men than for women. And that she looked on me as part male because I had fathered Kurt..."

Val, whose brow had furrowed at the reminder of early-to-mid-20th century sexual double standards, nodded. Raven had told her the truth about Nightcrawler some time ago, how she had conceived him with her leman, how Irene had given birth to him in a village in the Alps, and how they had handed him over to Margali Szardos to protect him from old enemies like Sabretooth. Despite their physical resemblance and the contradicting accounts of how the baby had been found (once it was in the arms of his dying mother, once in those of his dying father), Kurt had at first suspected nothing or been too indolent or scared to inquire. Only after Raven was drafted into X-Factor did he muster up the courage to ask and found out the truth. Talking to Valerie about the matter, Raven had suggested she could inject a little levity in the situation by saying "Kurt, I am your father" in James Earl Jones' best Darth Vader voice, but it was perhaps for the better that she didn't. All this flashed through Valerie's mind before Raven continued:

"Still, I tried to curb my sex drive after a time. Irene never gave any indication of being unhappy, but I found it was easier to look in the mirror if I did nothing more than flirt with other people, even if Irene and I made love less and less frequently and energetically. Of course my relationship with her had been less sexually active than ours is, even before she went through 'the Change'. But it wasn't always easy. Sexual urges aren't easy to control or predict. You'll no doubt remember that after Irene's death I went through a phase when I seemed to need it more than ever before. I won't try to prophesy how things will turn out with us. I don't even know if I'll have a normal life-span or a longer one. With my job descriptions I'd be surprised if I died of natural causes in any case..."

"Now there's a somber thought..."

"But really, Val, why so moody tonight?"

"Oh, just my usual holiday blues," Val said resignedly, "I'm afraid you'll have to get used to the fact that you're stuck with a woman for whom the pre-Christmas stress is replaced with the post-holiday depression with absolutely no gap in the middle."

Val couldn't rightly tell in the bad light, but she was sure Raven grinned.

"Well, if I didn't know for certain that we haven't made love as man and woman for half a year, I'd have felt duty-bound by the stereotype board to ask you if you're pregnant."

Val had do laugh silently at that gentle upbraiding. "Speaking of which, when we were in the kitchen, Sarah asked me if we intended to have more children."

"And? What did you tell her?"

"What did you think I told her?" Valerie was a little annoyed with herself. "No, don't answer that question. Actually I hemmed and hawed a lot, talked about having to keep my job in mind and all that..."

"Well, I could have the next one," Raven suggested with an unreadable expression. "I mean, we could fertilize one of your eggs and have it implanted in me. People do that sort of thing all of the time these days and I'm sure we could talk Hank McCoy into doing the necessary..."

"I don't know," said Valerie unsure. "Of course," she paused for some mental calculations, "it would be nice for Irene to have a brother or sister who's a little over two years younger. Still, I wanted to have at least one more baby myself, only I never seemed to be able to decide when."

"Hey, I second that emotion," said Raven, "if only because you're so gosh-darn cuddly and sexy when you're pregnant." She enthusiastically hugged her slightly embarrassed lover, "It looks so cute when your navel pops out." She turned to admonishing the driver: "Behalten Sie die Augen ruhig auf der Straße, junge Frau!"***

"So we're agreed we're going to try for another one?" Raven's voice returned to its previous low tone. "Now all we have to do is decide which one of us is going to be the mother this time."

"Now there's something you don't hear every day," grinned Valerie despite herself. "Of course we also could both have kids. Three would be a nice, round number, don't you think?"

Now it was Raven's turn to become meditative, finding the sudden prospect of enlargening her family that much a little daunting. "Well," she finally said, "we definitely should not rush into things. Not that I'd discount that possibility. I mean, if we're going to claim more maternity leave, Uncle Sam might find it more 'economical' if we did it all in one fell swoop..."

"Okay, we'll sleep over it." Valerie's spirits were raised, although it was impossible to say if that came from the relief of having discussed some of her hang-ups with Raven, the joyous expectation of another child or Schadenfreude over Raven's sudden unease.

* "The long speech's short meaning." F.Schiller: Wallenstein.

** In sweet jubilation/ sing, be glad!/ All my heart's joy/ lies in the crib,/ it shines like the sun/ in the lap of the mother. / So verily/ So verily/ for that shall all hearts/ soar in joy.

*** "Just keep your eyes on the road, young lady!"

"Merry Christmas, darling!" Lorna Dane brightly said to Alex Summers.

X-Factor's plane was descending towards the North American coast from its sub-orbital flight, so its pilots and passengers could start thinking in terms of Eastern Standard Time, six hours behind the time zone from which they had left, shortly before 11 p.m. CET. They had not flown full thrust, wanting to save on fuel, and now it was shortly after midnight on Christmas Day 1997 on the East Coast.

"Merry Christmas, Lorna." Havok, the pilot, was not really in a holiday mood. He had not slept well on the last afternoon in Hamburg, and for much of the first half of the flight there had been some distracting noises from behind the door of the passenger compartment. "Couldn't those two have been a little quieter?" he grumbled.

Polaris, who had just turned back to the book she was reading, had not paid attention to the last remark. "What did you just say, Alex?" Reasoning that Forge's sophisticated computer guidance system really made the co-pilot redundant, Lorna Dane had taken the opportunity to catch up on her academic reading, something she preferred to do with music playing from the headphone plugged into her left ear. Consequently she had not noticed to the sounds emanating from the interior of the plane behind her.

Alex Summers was about to repeat what he had said before, but now he felt rather churlish to complain about Mystique and Dr. Cooper enjoying themselves and said nothing. After all, he had said he was going to fly the plane, so he shouldn't really complain. And who knows, he might actually miss having passengers during the second stage of the trip, from New York to Alaska. That got him thinking of the impending visit to his grandparents' home in Anchorage, where he would be meeting his brother again. Not the best of years for the Summers family was 1997, what with the disappearance of Cable in the supernatural battle in Connecticut this July, and the subsequent crisis of Scott's marriage.

Scott had taken the news very hard that his son Nathan had been fused with his dark alter ego, Stryfe, to become the super-powerful Monarch in another reality. In his grief he took to visiting the grave of Nathan's mother, Madelyne, his first wife. Brooding over her death and her son's disappearance, he experienced a delayed reaction, all of a sudden the pent-up remorse over leaving Maddy to found X-Factor and be reunited with his first love, burst forth. For the longest time he had dismissed Maddy from his thoughts, something that had been made easier by learning that she had been Jean Grey's clone and had died after striking a deal with a demon and trying to kill her own son, now suddenly he became obsessed with the woman who was so like and yet so unlike Jean. He agonized over the question about how big his responsibility was for putting a loving wife and mother on the slide that turned her into the vicious Goblin Queen.

His dark brooding did not make living with him any easier -- the shadow of Madelyne Pryor-Summers arose between Scott and Jean, in more senses than one. For, as she once confessed to Lorna, she now too was forced to look at what Scott had done (at the time it happened, Scott and his friends had been careful to keep his marriage and fatherhood a secret from her). She began to wonder what kind of a person her husband really was, if he could so completely abandon his wife and child -- leaving them without protection in the face of enemies who knew who he was, and even without leaving anything, such as a phone number, that would have enabled Maddy to contact him. This alienation and Scott's withdrawal into himself combined to draw them apart. They began to sleep in separate rooms, and for a while Scott even considered joining X-Factor, a prospect Alex did not exactly relish.

Then came a moment of weakness, in which Scott sought solace in the arms of Psylocke. Their teammates still wondered why she had done it (that Scott would be at least physically attracted to her was no mystery). Some thought that she had taken pity on him, others that she had been responding to the more basic urges and instincts of the body she had inherited from the assassin Kwannon. Both participants of the affair soon regretted it. The irony was of course that Betsy was to regret it more than Scott, for Scott's marriage already was going through a rocky patch when Jean discovered he had cheated on her, but now the romance between Psylocke and Archangel also came to a screeching halt. The air was rife with gossip, unkind comments ('Scott can resist anything but temptation') and rumors -- some of the more filthy-minded teammates even began to suggest that Jean might already have taken her revenge on Scott with Logan, who had been pining for her for years. Scott and Jean finally resolved to make an attempt to save their marriage, to go for professional counseling in the new year, but, unluckily for Betsy, Warren happened to run across Charlotte Jones the week he found out. And as he told her of his pain, he discovered that his old feelings for her had not entirely died. Now Warren was going to take her and her son Timmy on a Christmas vacation, and was quite intent on rekindling his romance with her, deciding that his involvement with Betsy had been a transitory passion, and not a real relatinship. So Psylocke found herself at a loose end, at the moment.

Of course, under these circumstances Cyclops was simply too preoccupied to be an effective leader to the team. This time he realized it himself and stepped down voluntarily, leaving his colleague Storm in sole command at first. Ororo for a while considered to ask the Beast to cut short his stay with the Avengers to help her, but then she decided to appoint Rogue her deputy. Alex remembered how Raven had shown her foster daughter's letter around, in which Rogue wrote in a mixture of pride and amusement how Ororo had told her: "I think you're ready for leadership now. As you've been a bit of a headache for Scott and me this past year, going to Magneto behind our back and generally doing what you wanted, maybe it is time for you to look at the problems of discipline from the other side. See how you do with the shoe on the other foot." Actually the events of the preceding year had served to make Storm and Rogue grow closer.

The door at the back of the cockpit opened, and through it stepped Valerie Cooper and Mystique. Val's hair had a rather disheveled look and she looked somewhat hot and damp, while Raven looked as impeccable as only a shapechanger with supernormal control of many bodily functions can.

"Merry Christmas, you two," Valerie offered, quickly joined by Raven.

"Merry Christmas," Lorna wished them back.

"Merry Christmas," said Alex and could not resist to add: "Guess you've already seen to it that you got a good start for happy holidays?"

Valerie was a little embarrassed, but Raven was unfazed and grinned: "Well, heavy making out is a good therapy for a headaches and a sure way to prevent motion sickness. Said so in Cosmo, so it must be true."

Everybody laughed, and Alex added: "I'll be sure to remind Lorna of that the next time someone pilots us. So, ladies, we'll be arriving at Xavier International Airport in about 20 minutes."

It was still pitch black night when Havok and the three women de-planed in the underground hangar complex. They were met by Rogue, who was wearing a warm overcoat over her nightgown. The X-Factorites had arrived earlier than expected, but as soon as she heard the aircraft's roar, Rogue had flown to welcome the guests and show them to their rooms. The others were all asleep, only Dani Moonstar was still up, on duty in the communications center (which the more military minded -- such as Forge and Wolverine -- insisted on calling the War Room).

"Hope y'all had a good flight," she said, yawning profusely. "Sorry, bin a busy day. Alex 'n' Lorna, y'all go in the left door, the Darkhölme-Cooper party is to the right."

After seeing that Havok and Polaris had everything for their stop-over night, she joined Val and Raven for a quick look in Irene's room. The newly arrived parents were impatient to see their daughter. The little girl was fast asleep in her bed. They would have to wait until the morning.

In the meantime, Rogue sat down with the other two and filled them in about some recent events at the Mansion and the Academy, and in particular about her young sister's progress in learning to speak. Irene was slowly learning to form words with more than one syllable, but she persisted in addressing her siblings Rogue and Kurt as 'woa' and 'goor'. Valerie and Ray also had things to relate, but after half an hour Rogue decreed that it was time for everybody to go to their beds.

Then she did something totally unexpected. She kissed Mystique good night.

And nothing happened.

"Whu--?!" was all that came over Raven's lips.

Val was not appreciably more articulate: "How--?!"

Rogue grinned contentedly. "Mah li'l Christmas surprise. Magnus and me have been training for half a year now, an' with some help from Emma Frost an' Psylocke we finally licked the problem of me controllin' mah powers. Ah was gonna keep it a secret until the mornin', but then ah couldn't resist. An' ah wanted you t'be the first t'know."

"Child, I'm so happy for you," whispered Raven. As if in a daze, she put her arms around the girl she had chosen as her daughter.

Years ago, when Mystique still was the leader of the 'Brotherhood of Evil Mutants', Rogue had left her foster family to seek help because she could not control her powers and was driven almost insane by living with two personalities -- her own, and the one she had permanently absorbed from Carol Danvers. She joined the X-Men and there found a new purpose in life, even got some measure of relief for her mental problem, but ironically neither Professor Xavier nor the X-Men discovered a way for her to overcome the main problem that had caused her to ask them for help. The trouble with her double personality became better and worse over the years, until they were finally solved more or less accidentally, after she passed through the Siege Perilous and the two personas were reincarnated in two separate bodies ('Carol' then almost succeeded in killing Rogue, but luckily Magneto suddenly appeared and saved her). After that Rogue had been preoccupied with other things and lost sight of her goal of controlling her powers. It was a hectic time during which there was always some crisis or other in which the X-Men were involved, to say nothing of her romance with Gambit. For Remy thought it suited his purposes if Rogue believed there was no way for her to control her powers (it eroded her self-confidence, and when she said to him: "How can ah ever love you, really love you, if ah can't trust you?", he could counter with "An' how can I ever love you, if I can't touch you?" to sidestep the question of his deliberately keeping her in the dark about his dark secrets, even though she was almost driven insane by the subconscious glimpses she had absorbed from him in their first and only kiss). But after Onslaught they finally had time to spare to address her problems, and Magneto was much more intent on helping her find one than any of her teammates ever had been. Elizabeth then suddenly remembered that Rogue, while under the control of her 'Carol' persona, had once touched her bare back with her bare hand with no ill effect, which indicated that the reason she could not control her powers was psychological. Professor X, who had lost his telepathic powers in the Onslaught crisis, was unable to help her, but luckily Psylocke and the White Queen could. But perhaps the main thing had been the fact that living with Magnus -- who could counteract her absorbing power by building up a biomagnetic field -- had helped her overcome her obsessive fear of being 'incurable'.

All this flashed before Rogue's mental eye, and not a little of it through the minds of Raven and Valerie. There were tears of joy in Raven's and Rogue's eyes at this moment they had been waiting for ever since Rogue had kissed Cody Robbins so many years ago.

Their emotions were contagious -- Valerie's eyes became misty and at last she cleared her throat and piped up: "Hey, no fair, I want a good-night kiss too!"

"I'm sorry, 'dad'," said Rogue, pulling Val into her and Raven's embrace and kissing her on the cheek. "But try and act surprised when I announce it to the others in the morning."

Christmas used to be one of those occasions when the Waltons-like aspects of the X-Men came to full bloom, but this year it was evident that Charles Xavier's 'family' was going through some changes. For instance, the two students who in the eyes of most were seen as his favorites, the ones who to him were as his children, were not only away, but on different coasts. As Scott and Jean's marriage had run aground in the fall, they did not spend the holidays together. Scott was in Anchorage with his grandparents, while Jean was at her parents' home in Annandale-on-Hudson.

Other X-people, such as Hank McCoy, Betsy Braddock and the Guthries also had left to be with their families, while Emma Frost was celebrating Christmas in Snow Valley with most of Generation X and Bobby Drake. Afterwards, Jono and Angelo would be accompanying Everett to his family home in St. Louis. Gambit had set out on a voyage of self-discovery and to take care of unfinished business after he had finally, and not too soon, come clean to his teammates about his sinister past. If it hadn't been for the inrush of visitors from X-Factor and Excalibur, the Mansion would have been a very empty place. Of the original five X-Men only Warren was present. Storm, the current sole leader of the team, was holding the fort, and so were Bishop (who had nowhere else to go), Rogue, Professor X and Dani Moonstar.

On the other hand, Irene Cooper was at the Mansion, and as the only child present she was automatically at the center of attention for the festivities. Once she woke, her parents took her downstairs to the parlor room, where the Christmas tree had been set up. The stockings hanging above the fireplace soon had the undivided attention of the blue-skinned, strawberry blonde little girl. Of course everyone had a present for her, but in spite of the huge pile of gifts she also was most determined to get at the Dresden china coffee-cups her foster-sister got from Valerie. But they simply were too delicate and fragile.

"Isn't it always the way," said Dani, "you always want what you can't have."

"At least when you're a little child," said Ororo.

Everyone was busy unwrapping presents and looking at everybody else's. Accustomed to real candles from his childhood, Kurt sniffed at the electric tree-lights, causing the older X-Men present to exchange amused glances -- that was one of the Yuletide complaints from their German former teammate they remembered only too well from the old days. They loved him for it.

Irene's presence also was the reason that more carols were sung this year than in 1996. She loved to hear her extended family sing, and at times even joined in herself. Although her language skills were still far from perfect, she had become quite adept at recognizing tunes and at 'singing' them out to indicate what song she wanted to hear from the grownups. Somewhat incongruously Irene's fiat also added the Maoz Tsur, Frère Jacques and Row, Row, Row Your Boat to this year's recitals.

After Rogue announced her success in learning to make skin-to-skin contact without absorbing the other person's memories and powers, and after everyone who wanted to tried it out themselves, the morning became more relaxed. The Salem residents had lots to talk about with their guests and each other, from politics to private affairs, shared reminiscences and more personal memories, speculations about what absent friends and old enemies might be up to during the holidays. Val and Ray, as usual, discussed movies they had seen recently, while Ororo and others asked Kurt and Amanda if they had already chosen a name for the child they were expecting.

Charles Xavier sat by the window in his hover-chair, talking with Magneto. He congratulated him on his, Emma's and Betsy's success with Rogue. "I really wish I could have helped too," he said, "but unfortunately ourdark sides prevented that, old friend."

Magnus tried to comfort him: "You did what you could, Charles, and she appreciates that."

"Did I really?" Xavier wondered. "Then I'm not so sure if I can take that as much of a consolation." His smile was a little sad. "It wouldn't be the first time you saw my efforts as ineffectual."

Magnus had to smile at that, too. They had had their fights in the past, but they seemed less important these days. When the X-Men had started, it seemed that every young mutant was either a follower of Xavier or of himself, but these days the younger ones seemed to be less pliable, more intent to find their own way. Charles saw it with his X-Men -- especially the later recruits, but even some of the original five no longer followed him unquestioningly. And he saw it with Rogue, who even though she loved him deeply, was determined to be her own woman and do what she thought was right. Hmm, whatever Mystique's failings were as Rogue's surrogate mother, she had not raised her to be anyone's sheep. Maybe he should mention that the next time he talked with Raven alone. She'd enjoy hearing that...

Xavier went on: "She came to me for help, and yet there always seemed to be something I found more urgent than thinking of ways to help her. First there was the mystery of Madelyne Pryor, then Rachel appeared, we had to heal Roberto and Rahne and Piotr. And we could not have done that without Rogue..."

"Hey, Prof, ya had to set priorities." Rogue had silently come up towards the two from behind, something she could not have done if Professor X still had his psionic powers. "An' it was mah own fault -- maybe if'n ah had kvetched 'bout mah problem more ya would have put a bigger effort into solvin' it. But those were real emergencies ya were talkin' about."

Xavier raised an eyebrow. 'Kvetched'? Was this an effect of Rogue living with Magneto or was her residence in the New York region finally beginning to tell?

"An' ah had different priorities mahself, such as gettin' the others t'accept me, an' there ya were way ahead ot 'em." She put her ungloved hand on his.

He mused. Getting accepted? That was only part of it. In her first few weeks as an X-Man, she had endured terrible pain, risked lasting injury and being killed for people she barely knew and who were openly hostile to her. But it was very much like her not to make a big deal of that.

"'Sides, who says a cure was possible then, with me 'n' Carol always at each others' throats in m' mind? Rachel once tried it, but even with her powers boosted by the Beyonder she couldn't. Ah reckon it was only once ah made peace with Carol that ah had a chance, but by that time ya werein outer space with the Starjammers." She sighed. "An' if it's any consolation, ah could live with havin' t' wear gloves most of the time, leastways until ah became interested in Magnus an' later Remy..." She walked over to Magneto and pecked him on the cheek before walking off to another group: "...and finally in Magnus again."

Lorna Dane was a little sorry that Bobby Drake, who in younger years had had a big crush on her, was not there. Hearing from Warren about Bobby's recent interest in the former White Queen however became a great pretext for virtually everyone to gossip about his love-life. Which, in spite of some people's reservations about Emma Frost, was a more pleasant subject than that of Lorna's 'in-laws'. But she and Alex could not tarry overlong and had to leave shortly after breakfast to take off on the second leg of their flight.

Pete Wisdom used seeing them off as a pretext to go outside for a smoke (although he usually hated fresh air). Some time back the Beast had declared the Mansion a smoke-free zone, and the resident non-smokers were only too glad to enforce that policy against the chain-smoking English mutant ex-secret agent. When he came back in, he grumbled about being allowed to light up "not even one bleedin' fag" inside to Kitty, who however (rather pointedly, he felt,) reminded him that there was a small child in the room. Still, she did cheer him up by promising to take him to Harry's Hideout tonight, after Hanukkah celebrations, so he could enjoy a few pints and a smoke in warm cosy surroundings and in her company.

"So, Pete," she added, "how have the X-Factor guys been treating you?"

"Oh, not bad, but that's 'cos they're not as close to you as some of the others. Now Storm and Charley, they've been going over me and our relationship in great detail. Guess they care about you, but it was a bit too much like an interrogation. And I should know, havin' been to my share of them, on both sides of the table."

Kitty smiled sympathetically. "Buck up, Pete, it's only a few more days. I warned you that a lot of people here look on me as a kind of younger sister or even daughter. At least it's not as if I were a Guthrie. Can you imagine what it would be like if Sam was my elder brother? Cause I don't think he'd be too happy if Paige started dating someone like you!"

Pete Wisdom could imagine too well. He had never told her, but when he and Kitty started getting serious about each other, the male members of Excalibur had once taken him aside and threatened to do all sorts of unspeakable things to him if he hurt her.

"Well, Kitty, at least you don't seem to've kept any other psychopathic ex-boyfriends in your old locker here," he quipped, alluding to the time Colossus had come within an inch of killing him in a fit of jealous madness. After being subdued and undergoing therapy the giant Russian finally learned to accept Kitty's choice. But it was a terrible time for everyone: Piotr had opened the back door to the dark recesses of his mind and soul and had been horrified to discover what he was capable of, Peter was confronted with his mortality, and Kitty, besides worrying if her lover would survive, was reminded in the most unpleasant way imaginable that she had not known Colossus as well as she thought she had.

So it was hardly surprising that both Pete's and Kitty's smiles were a bit forced. But luckily they discovered that they were standing under the mistletoe and soon were kissing as if there was no tomorrow.

Late in the afternoon, they all assembled around the big table in the dining room for the big Christmas dinner. Professor Xavier sitting at the head said grace and then set about carving the turkey. Most of the seventeen at the table partook of the bird, although some preferred Ororo's vegetarian option, a spicy mushroom dish. And a few had a little bit of both.

The two youngest guests sat near the head of the table, Irene on a raised chair next to her mother (she was primarily interested in the applesauce), and Timmy Jones on Charles Xavier's right hand. His mother, a detective with the NYPD, could not be there, as she had been saddled with the Christmas late shift. But in a couple of days she, Warren and Timmy would go on a vacation together. Years ago, when Warren had first started dating Charlotte Jones, Timmy's grandmother had been unhappy that her son's widow was going out with Warren, whose family was as WASP as it got. But Timmy had liked his mother's new admirer and had defended him with the words: "He's not a black man or a white man, he's a blue man." And as luck would have it, he now sat where most blueskins at the long table were clustered: Warren sat next to him, and across the linen, china and flowers he could see Irene Cooper and Nightcrawler.

Lockheed was perched on Kitty's shoulder, with his tail curled around the back of her neck. Every now and then she handed a morsel to Lockheed, while conversing with her neighbors Bishop and Wanda, two of the people she knew least about. She talked mostly with the former XSE operative from the future, as the Scarlet Witch was a lot more busy on her other side, talking with Raven Darhhölme, and her own father. At the bottom of the table sat Storm, with Dani and Magnus on her left and right. She raised her glass and offered a toast: "To absent friends!"

There were a lot of them to remember: Scott, Alex and Lorna in Alaska, the other party in Snow Valley, Logan somewhere in the Great White North, Hank in the Midwest, Rachel, Sean, Moira and Rahne on Muir Island, Betsy and the remaining members of Excalibur in Braddock Manor, and so on. Looking across the length of the table at Charles, Ororo saw a far away look in his eyes -- he probably was thinking of his consort, Majestrix Lilandra, painfully aware that he could no longer contact her telepathically. Storm herself thought of Forge, whom she had invited to spend the holidays in Westchester, but who said it was more important for him to stay in Washington with the X-Factor skeleton crew. As if it wouldn't have been easier to bring them with him so they could take off from New York in an emergency. She felt a tear coming on. Did this mean it was finally over between them?

Raven was relaxed as she always was, at least on the outside. Under her foster-daughter's eyes she made pleasant conversation with Magneto and Wanda Maximoff, cheerfully remarking that since Magnus and her foster-daughter lived together, they were now all family. A remark the Scarlet Witch took a while to digest. Danielle Moonstar gave Rogue tips on how to run a super-team, giving her the advantage of her experiences as co-leader of the New Mutants. On Rogue's left, Pete Wisdom listened incredulously to an assortment of horror stories Illyana told him about her former roommate Kitty.

Finally, over desserts, Magneto proposed another toast: "To Charles's dream. We may not always agree on how much of it will ever become a reality, and we may sometimes fight over the best road to get there..." he looked along the table and back -- at Raven, the former terrorist and now government agent, at Wanda, the government-sanctioned superheroine, Bishop, the paramilitary from the future, at Valerie Cooper, the politician, at Warren, who once has sworn by covert operations and hidden agendas, and at the other X-Men at the table, who belonged to a group that for all the changing climate still basically operated illegally -- before lifting his glass to the man who for decades had been his other, different self, Charles Xavier: "... but it was and is a dream worth having, and a dream worth fighting for."

Lyubeznaya Katya,

please forgive me that I took so long to write, but it has been a busy week in Ust-Ordynsk. As you will remember, the Rasputins used (Russian Orthodox) Christmas as pretext for a big family get-together. I got to meet countless uncles and aunts I had never seen before who all wanted to have an explanation why I looked so old. At least in our family people aren't easily fazed. Piotr also was there, fresh from summer in the Savage Land. He sends his love.

You know Pryde, traveling through Limbo majorly sucks. I always end up losing touch with my contemporaries (at least this time by only about a couple of years) and that plays hell with my relationship to friends and relatives. I mean, you and Petya had already broken up when I, ahem, last left, but now he's 'sort of married' (his own words) to the queen of the Fall People? And that he has a six-year-old son?

That quite a few of my relatives suddenly got religion (well, with our family name that is probably just fulfilling people's expectations), and some even joining weird American and Japanese sects? Aunt Olga however still keeps the Red Flag flying and got into a major row with Uncle Vladilen.

Everything was so strange, so little was as I remembered it. But it was good to link with home and my family again. Please write soon.

Best fishes and a fond fondue,

Illyana

Heartfelt thanks to Rivka Jacobs for providing encouragement and furnishing the texts of the blessings and other Hanukkah-related information. She saved me from making at least one glaring mistake (by pointing out that the first candle this year is lit on the evening of the 23rd December, and not the 24th as I had originally thought).

Continuity:

The Tales of the Twilight Menshevik essentially diverge from the world of Earth-616 (aka the Mainstream Marvel Universe) after X-MEN v.2 #3. In other words, everything not written by Chris Claremont or incorporated by him into his storylines is subject to change by the author. More obvious differences to current Marvel continuity include the following: No survivors of the Age of Apocalypse entered this reality. Madelyne Pryor is still dead. Magneto regained his memories on Avalon. The Onslaught Crisis did not result in the apparent death of many Marvel heroes and the creation of a Heroes Reborn universe. There was no Operation: Zero Tolerance.

I shall endeavor to keep dead people dead in my stories, even if I already brought back Magik. But hey! she was in Limbo. Time works differently there.

Characters' Ages:

I tried to figure out the most realistic ages from the comics and assigned them to the year 1996, the year in which A Day's Work is set. However, the Tales of the Twilight Menshevik happen in 'real time', and therefore most everyone is about a year older than in the comics now.

There are two notable differences to Earth-616:

In this reality, I stick to the age Chris Claremont gave to Jubilee and disregard its reduction by Scott Lobdell (even though I love his GENERATION X). And as the date of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff is inextricably linked to the biography of their father, they are noticeably older than in the comics, namely in the early 40s. We'll have to credit their still youthful looks to their mutant physiology. Luna, by the way, is six years old, and Magneto's biological age is somewhere between 30 and 35.

Prologue:

The opening dialogue is a literal quote from SOVEREIGN SEVEN #3, where Kitty, Illyana and Lockheed visit Crossroads. Wolverine was shown to be a patron too in SOVEREIGN SEVEN #2.

Chapter 1:

The Monorail Song by Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, George Meyer, John Vitti, John Swartzwelder, Conan O'Brien and Frank Mula was first performed in the Simpsons episode Marge Vs. The Monorail. It is copyright Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

One thing that may have rumbled at the back of my mind when I first plotted this chapter was that episode of Northern Exposure where Maggie prepares a Passover Seder dinner for Joel.

The Bamf and Mandy dolls mentioned here can be seen -- drawn by Paul Smith -- in UNCANNY X-MEN #168 and 174, respectively. Now all you have to do is imagine what dolls of Rogue and Mags in that style would look like...

Before World War 2, 165,000 Jews living in Lithuania. They were known as Litvaks and their culture was in many ways different from that of Jews e.g. in neighboring Poland. For instance, Lithuania home to the orthodox Mitnaggedim and the ascetic Mussar movement, traditional opponents of the more emotional Polish Hassidim. Before the invasion began, Stalin had had 25,000 Litvaks deported into the interior of the USSR. Under German occupation, Germans and their willing Lithuanian helpers almost totally annihilated the Jewish community. In the 1960s the Jewish population in the Lithuanian SSR was estimated at 25,000.

Sources used include:

Naf Avnon and Uri Sella: So eat, my darling. A guide to the Jewish kitchen. Jerusalem - Tel Aviv - Haifa 1977.

S.Ph.De Vries Mzn.: Jüdische Riten und Symbole. Wiesbaden 1981.

Jakob J. Petuchowski: Feiertage des Herrn. Die Welt der jüdischen Feste und Bräuche. Freiburg - Basel - Wien (1984).

Ruth Sirkis: A Taste of Tradition. The How and Why of Jewish Gourmet Holiday Cooking. Tel Aviv 1978.

But the biggest help was Rivka Jacobs' painstaking research and her patient explanations, for the Hanukkah details and those of Magneto's biography.

Chapter 2:

It is a German custom to have a wreath made of fir-twigs in the house in the weeks starting with the four Advent Sundays (i.e. the last four Sundays before Christmas). If this Adventskranz is large enough, it is suspended from the ceiling like a chandelier, otherwise it is simply put on a table or something. There are four candles on the wreath, and during the week starting with the first Advent Sunday, one candle is lit, during that of the second two, and so on. There is a resemblance to the custom of lighting one more light on each day of Hanukkah, but I do not know if there was some conscious connection. As for the lighting of the candles on the Advent-wreath, there are two schools: one insists on always lighting the same candle (meaning that the last candle remains unused until the 4th Advent), while others light different candles on different days so that all candles become shorter at roughly the same rate during the three to four weeks before Christmas.

The late Ida Ehre, who escaped the Holocaust, founded the Kammerspiele in 1945 to perform the plays the Nazis had banned. Until her death in 1989 she directed one of the most important of Hamburg's independent theaters. The building (Hartungstraße 9) originally had been used by a Masonic lodge and been converted into a Jewish cultural center/theater in the early phase of Nazi persecution, when German Jews were barred from 'Aryan' theaters, but still allowed to pursue their own cultural life. Draussen vor der Tür (Outside before the door) by Wolfgang Borchert (1921-1947) is perhaps the most famous German drama of and about the immediate post-war era. Its (anti-)hero is a soldier returning from captivity into a home which has become totally alien, where people do not want to hear about the horrors of the war (especially those for which they themselves were responsible) and into whose society he no longer fits. Borchert, whose health had been irreparably damaged in World War 2, died one day before the premiere, on 20 November 1947.

Krautwurster does sound a bit like a joke, but at least the name Krautwurst really exists -- I found it in a dictionary of family names.

ATS stands for Auxiliary Territorial Service, BFN was the British Forces Network, the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes) is the British equivalent of the PX.

The OSS (Office of Strategic Services, 1942-45) was dissolved by order of President Truman on 20 September 1945, only to be replaced in January 1946 by the CIG (Central Intelligence Group), which became the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) through the National Security Act of 1947.

The secret service/secret police of the Soviet Union went through several permutations after being founded as the Cheka in 1917. Before it became the KGB, it had last been renamed in 1943, when the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) became a ministry (MVD).

A useful source was:

Philip Knightley: The Second Oldest Profession. The Spy as Patriot, Bureaucrat, Fantasist and Whore. London 1986.

Chapter 3:

The two-sentence exchange between Rogue and Gambit is a quote from X-MEN v.2 #45.

The flesh-to-flesh contact between Rogue (with Carol Danvers in control) and Psylocke was in UNCANNY X-MEN #239 p.23. According to reports posted on the Internet, this was deliberate on Chris Claremont's part, indicating that psychological problems were the reason Rogue could not control her power.

Rachel found she was unable to give more than temporary relief to Rogue in UXM #202. Rogue made her peace with the personality she had absorbed from Carol in UXM #293 (the conflict resurfaced after the first Genosha storyline, though).

Copyrights:

This story is (c) Tilman Stieve (Menshevik @aol.com).

Anya (Magneto's dead daughter), Archangel (Warren Worthington III), Edmond Atkinson, The Avengers, Bamf, Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Beast (Henry McCoy), Belasco, Beyonder, Bishop, Blackbird, Braddock Manor, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Paul Burton (Trish Tilby's ex-husband), Cable (Nathan Summers), Cannonball (Sam Guthrie), Colossus (Piotr Nikolaevich Rasputin), Valerie Cooper, Graydon Creed, Cyclops (Scott Summers), Daily Bugle, Carol Danvers, Destiny (Irene Adler), Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange), Excalibur, Firestar, Trevor Fitzroy, Forge, Friends of Humanity, Nick Fury, Gambit (Remy LeBeau), Generation X, Genosha, Elaine, Jean & John Grey, Gabrielle Haller, Agatha Harkness, Harry's Hideout, Havok (Alex Summers), Hellfire Club, Hellions, Cameron Hodge, Howling Commandos, Husk (Paige Guthrie), Iceman (Robert 'Bobby' Drake), Inner Circle, Mr. Jardine, Edwin Jarvis, Charlotte, Grandma & Timmy Jones, Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), 'Kitty's Dragon', Kwannon, Latveria, Legacy Virus, Lilandra Neramani, Limbo, Lockheed, Edna & Norton McCoy, Moira MacTaggert, Magda, Magik (Illyana Nikolaevna Rasputina), Magneto (Magnus), Magneto's family, Marauders, Massachusetts Academy (Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters), Meggan, Midnight Runner, Mister Fantastic, Mister Sinister, Dani Moonstar, Mutant Alpha, Mystique (Raven Darkhölme), Nereel, Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), New Mutants, N'garai, Onslaught, Phoenix (Rachel Summers), Percy Pinkerton, Peter (son of Nereel & Piotr Rasputin), Polaris (Lorna Dane), Professor X (Charles Xavier), Carmen & Teri Pryde, Samuel Prydeman (Kitty's grandfather), Madelyne Pryor-Summers (Goblin Queen), Psylocke (Elizabeth Braddock), Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff), The Right, Cody Robbins, Rogue, Chava Rosanoff, Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), Amanda Sefton (Jimaine Szardos), Selene (Black Queen), Shadowcat (Katherine 'Kitty' Pryde), Siege Perilous, Starjammers, Storm (Ororo Munroe), Strong Guy (Guido Carosella), Stryfe, Deborah & Philip Summers, Sunspot (Roberto da Costa), Synch (Everett Thomas), Margali & Stefan Szardos, Opal Tanaka, Trish Tilby, Amelia Voght, Warpath, White Queen (Emma Frost), Peter Wisdom, Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Wolverine (Logan), Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, Xavier Mansion, X-Factor, X-Factor, Inc., X-Men, Leni Zauber are TM and (c) Marvel Comics Group.

Batman, Fire, Gotham City, Green Lantern Corps, Guy Gardner, Justice League, Monarch, Newstime, Robin (Timothy Drake) are TM and (c) DC Comics.

Crossroads, Cruiser, Reflex, Conal Savoy are TM & (c) Chris Claremont.

Violet Jones & Pansy Smith are TM & (c) Emma Bull & Lorraine Garland.

Emma Cooper Andreesen, Ernst, Sarah & Uwe Andreesen, Irene Cooper, Franz Krautwurster are (c) Tilman Stieve.