"I didn't take you for a cynic."

"A cynic is one who believes the worst of people. I believe the best. Only, we are not always faced with the best."

"Like now?"

"Oh," he said, and felt another smile creep close. "This situation is not entirely bad."

Jean studied his face. After a moment she said, "I can tell you believe that."

There was a peculiar tone to her voice, as though the importance of that statement depended more on her own ability to read his face, than on his sincerity. He understood, and was not hurt. Jean had lost her telepathy; he could not imagine the difficulties she faced adjusting to this newa"and no doubt, isolateda"life.

Rogue stirred, mumbling in her sleep. Kurt said, "I am the same man you have always known, Jean. Haven't I always believed what I say?"

She flushed. "I didn't mean it that way, Kurt. I just..."

He touched her hand, and for the first time in his lifea"because he did not count his mothera"his skin looked the same as the person sitting beside him. It did not matter to him, but he noted it because it was new and different, something to remember.

"It is all right," he said softly. "I simply want you to remember that even if you cannot hear us," and he tapped his forehead, "you are not alone. Nor have we changed. Be confident in that, Jean. Besides, it is not as if you went around reading our thoughts before you lost powers."

"Of course not," she said. "But I could feel something, whether or not I wanted to. Energy, maybe. I suppose ... I suppose that even though I never acted on it, just knowing I could was rea.s.suring."

"Because it meant that no one could hide from you." Kurt smiled. "It will be all right, Jean. Look upon this time as a lesson."

"In humility?" She gave him a wry smile.

"I was thinking in terms of learning new skills, but I suppose yours is the more profound thought."

She shook her head. "My powers didn't emerge until p.u.b.erty. Up until that point, I was just like everyone else, and when I first went to Xavier's I told myself that would never change. That I would never forget what it was like to be ... normal. But... this... all of us ..She looked down at herself, touching her flat chest. "I forgot, Kurt. I got so wrapped up in being other' that I forgot what it was like to be just... regular."

Kurt was far too polite to belittle her feelings, but he said, "I suppose that depends on your definitions of normal and regular. I, in my original state, do not look normal or regular, but I feel like I am those things."

"So what you're saying is that I need to change my point of view."

Kurt heard a sound on his left. Logan, rolling over. His eyes were open and he stared at Jean.

"No, darlin'. What he's trying to say is that you're full of it."

"Hey," Scott said, from his place in the corner.

"It's true," Logan said, "and Jeannie knows it. Being a mutant may have given her different life experiences, but she's the same d.a.m.n person she always was, with or without them. She's got a better heart than ninety-nine percent of the world around her, and that kind of thing doesn't depend on mind-reading or lifting objects or shooting cosmic flames up someone's rear end. Don't you feel sorry for yourself, Jeannie. Your powers don't make or break you. Right, Kurt?"

"I suppose," he said, though he would have chosen different wording. Logan's approach, however, was more effective, and it was something Jean needed to hear. Having a strong sense of ident.i.tya"knowing the heart of ones self apart from gifts and powersa"was essential to staying sane during such hard times. Better than moping, at any rate.

Then again, perhaps he was asking too much. Kurt had been bom differenta"had grown up differenta"but the circus had raised him as an equal, a valued friend and son, and had never treated him as anything else, despite his appearance and powers. Jean, on the other handa"like most mutantsa"had lived her life a certain way, and then overnight been forced to change. No smooth transition, no lifetime spent learning how to be comfortable in one's skin, apart from one's skina"simply, a transition that seemed more like a violent rite of pa.s.sage into adulthood than like the blessing of some extraordinary new ability.

Under those circ.u.mstances, Kurt was not surprised she was having trouble adjusting. She had been conditioned to live one way, and now that conditioning was being shattered and she had nothing to fall back on but ideas and memories and notions of what was normal and human.

None of that mattered. At least, not to him.

"Logan." Scott stood up.

"It's all right," Jean said. "He has a point."

Rogue cracked open one eye. "Are we fighting?"

"Just a little," Kurt said, patting her shoulder. "Go back to sleep."

"Actually, don't." Scott crouched beside them. "We need to plan."

"Plan what? How long we're going to ride this train? What we're going to do for food or money? How we're going to contact the Mansion again? Don't know if that requires a plan so much as finding opportunities and acting on them." Logan leaned on his elbow. His shirt rode up his ribs, revealing a great deal of skin and the hint of a breast. Kurt did not think he noticed or cared. Still thinking like a man. Which ... was probably a good thing.

Jean tugged his shirt down. He gave her a questioning look and she said, "It's nothing."

Kurt partic.i.p.ated in the planning discussion, but not for long. He had little to contribute, and like Logan, believed that events would play out as they must, and that the road home would be won by taking opportunities, by living bold.

So he sat and watched the train roll through the limits of a gray city that smelled like chemicals, pulp and paper manufacturing, past that into green trees, the Snohomish River valley. Farther, through the Cascade Tunnel under Stevens Pa.s.s, where the agricultural valley shone bright under the sun, lovely and peaceful. Kurt felt as though he was dreaming with his eyes open, such was the beauty.

Then he closed his eyes and dreamed for real, and when he awakened he saw mountains capped in snow, rivers rolling past small hamlets lost in evergreen forests, and then he closed his eyes again, lulled by the rocking of the train, and when he opened his eyes once more, some time had pa.s.sed because the mountains were gone, far behind them, and the train was arriving at its destination.

"We're in Wen.o.bee," Logan said. "Right on the edge of the Columbia River."

In the distance, Kurt saw a large arching bridge crossing the wide blue river to connect one cityscape to another; monotone suburbs surrounded by parks, and deeper, toward the city heart, brick and steel and gla.s.s. The train moved quite slowly.

"Now what?" he asked, to no one in particular.

"You shouldn't have fallen asleep," Logan said, crouching beside him. "Then you'd know."

Kurt smiled. "Then let me make some a.s.sumptions. First, we will disembark from this train, and then second, we will look for another that is headed farther east, and board it"

"You're missing the part where we all get some grub and try to make some phone calls."

"Is there anyone you can contact who would help us?"

Logan shook his head. "I would try SHIELD, except their access number is secured by voice recognition. They've even got random automated questions so no one can pretape anything. If someone calls who isn't recognized, they're patched through to an answering service."

"That is better than nothing."

"Maybe, but SHIELD has got so much red tape and so many cranks who hack their number off the internet, I doubt they'll pay much mind to a woman who says she's Wolverinea"or who tries to make any claims of knowing him."

Just then Kurt spotted other trains, parked in the distance like large rusting bricks. He watched as their train slowed to a crawl and curved around the gravel lot. He glimpsed vehicles in the distance. White trucks. A lot of them.

"We should get off this train," he said, uneasy. "Now, in fact."

Logan peered over his shoulder. "c.r.a.p. They must have found that kid I clobbered."

"We knew they would. He probably informed the authorities that we were on this train."

"c.r.a.p," he said again, and looked back at the others. "We have to jump."

"The train is moving," Rogue pointed out.

"Yeah, and if we wait until it stops, that'll be too late. We've got maybe one minute tops before we round this bend, and after that, all those security guards are going to see us jump. It has to be now."

Logan grabbed Kurt and pulled him to the edge of the platform. The slow-moving ground made him slightly dizzy; the gravel looked sharp. Rogue limped up close behind him. His own knee felt better, but he was not sure what such an impact would do to it.

"Come on," Logan said, pushing on his shoulders. "Sit down on the edge and then push yourself out. We've done this before. I shouldn't have to explain the mechanics."

"The last time was with aliens from outer s.p.a.ce," Kurt said, declining to add that he usually teleported his way out of situations like this. He sat down and swung his legs out over the moving ground, took a deep breath, and jumped.

He hit the ground harda"his knee protestinga"and then Rogue was there beside him, staggering, her face pale with pain. Kurt watched as Scott and Jean jumped, followed closely by Logan, who held the plastic bag to his chest All of them hit the ground wrong, their legs and bodies forming awkward angles, and it was clear that knowing the correct way to jump from a moving object mattered only half as much as having a body that was fit enough to do it They picked themselves off the ground and hobbled between trainsa"narrowly avoiding security and other yard employeesa"until they reached the last of the rail- cars and gazed upon the edge of a business district that was pleasantly decorated with trees and painted murals.

"Maybe we're overreacting," Jean said.

"Maybe not," Scott said, looking around. Kurt glimpsed the wheels of a truck speeding quickly down the gravel pathway on the other side of the nearest train. "Come on, let's get out of here. It's not safe for us right now."

"When is it ever," Logan muttered, but they joggeda" as best they could, given their aches and painsa"across the street. They hit the sidewalk, took a quick left, and disappeared down a wide clean alley that was breezy and lined with the colorful back doors of shops and restaurants. Tables had been set out; well-dressed men and women smiled and laughed over their drinks and food. Kurt's stomach rumbled. He forced himself not to look. He thought, from the corner of his eye, that people watched them. Subtle, yes; no one stared outright, but he felt the quiet scrutiny nonetheless, the dip in conversation as they pa.s.sed.

He could not imagine it was their clothes that drew attention; they still looked relatively clean, though Kurt knew that would not last. He wondered, too, if their faces had been on the news. That would be enough to cause anyone to look twice.

Or maybe it was nothing at all. Kurt, however, felt as though he had blue skin again. As a mutant, it was rare that people stared outright. Those around him always ogled without looking, consciously making the effort to look past hima"as though studied indifference did not count the same as rudeness.

"Logan," he said quietly, "are people watching us?"

"Yeah," he said. "We look poor. Our skin isn't the right color, either. Must be a bad combination in this part of town."

"You cannot be serious."

''You mean, how people can still be that way? Why do you think mutants have a problem?"

"But we look human."

"Human ain't got nothing to do with it. We look different, Kurt. I'm not saying they're holding that against us, but difference always attracts the eye. In some parts of the country we'd be the most 'different' thing for miles."

"I suppose I am naive," Kurt said, staring at his hands, those dark human hands. "I thought such things were past. When I think of what is said and done to mutants, anything else feels . . . archaic."

Logan clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't let it get you down, Elf. If it wasn't race, it would be mutants, if it wasn't mutants, it would be religion, if it wasn't religion, it would be something else. Just the way it is. And who was it giving Jean a lecture this morning about feeling good about herself?"

Kurt said nothing. He could understand fear and ignorance of mutations because the physical distance was, on occasion, quite wide. It took time for people to become accustomed to the radical. But to be human and still be looked at strangely...

Well, that was just wrong.

They walked for a long time, without much purpose other than to keep moving. Kurt's knee hurt; he did not think Rogue felt well, either. All of them were tired and hungry.

Scott stopped at the first pay phone he found and dialed the Mansion. Waited. And then his facea"that stranger's face, which was becoming not so strangea"paled.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, and though his voice did not waver, his expression was so troubled that Jean reached out to touch him. "I'm a friend of Ororo. Is she around? No? Are you sure?" He paused, and then quickly hung up. He stared at the phone.

Jean said, "Scott," and he looked at her, at all of them, and Kurt knew what he was going say, felt sick in his stomach with fear, dismay.

"That was me," Scott said. "That was me who answered the phone."

"Jesus," Logan said. "And he wouldn't let you talk to 'Ro?"

"He recognized my voice. His voice. Whoever. He knew who I was. He said my name. Mindy's name, anyway." He closed his eyes. "They must be censoring the calls that come in."

"What do they want?" Rogue asked.

"They want to ruin us," Jean said. "Or even if they don't, that will be what happens. Can you imagine? The government and public already distrust us. If someone goes out, using our bodies with an agendaa""

"We might as well shoot ourselves in the head." Logan clenched his hands, digging his nails into his palm. Kurt could feel his friend's rage grow strong, tight, and he touched Logan's shoulder.

"Calm yourself," he said quietly. "You cannot afford to lose your temper." Nor did he have a healing factor to fix him if he tried to drive his fist through a wall.

"Who said anything about losing my temper?" Logan growled. "I just want to kill someone."

"Later," Scott said, and there was a hard quality to his face that was mirrored in everyone around him. Kurt wondered if he shared that intensity, that sharp resolve; all he knew for certain was he felt sick at heart, ashamed for deeds committed that were out of his control. With his face, with his body, with his powera"the stain would be his to bear, as well.

"We need to steal a car," Logan said. "Something, anything to get us moving again. Fast."

"And if we get caught?"

"What do you think is more important right now?"

Getting home. Kurt could see it on Scott's face. He did not like the idea of stealinga"hated it, in facta"but he felt the same powerful urgency infesting his teammates.

"So we steal a car," Jean said, taking a deep breath. "Fine. Go at it, boys."

"You the new cheerleader for the poor and criminal?" Logan asked, walking away from the pay phone.

"G.o.d help me, but I am," she said.

They found a grocery store. Scott and Kurt went inside to buy food. They spent less than seven dollars and came out with two loaves of day-old discounted breada"as well as half-price doughnuts of the same agea"peanut b.u.t.ter, one gallon of water, a tiny bottle of antibacterial hand gel, and a package of toilet paper.

"I hate to admit it," Scott said, "but it's been a while since I had to pinch pennies like this. I used to be good at it."

Kurt said nothing, juggling the water for a better grip. In the circus, everyone was poor, but no one minded because you always had as much as the person performing next to you. He missed that sometimes. Life had been much simpler.

Logan, Jean, and Rogue sat outside on a bench, waiting for them.

"Do we do this now?" Logan asked, and then in a lower voice, 'There aren't any security cameras in the lot."