HEROES/X-MEN MOVIEVERSE: Untitled
Man, I suck. I suck so bad. I thought this was supposed to be done for a ficathon Aug. 22nd. So I slog through writing this story, which I'm really not happy with because it wanted to be a lot longer and I was totally rushed, and I find out that oh my god, I'm a month late -- it was JULY 22! Crap!

Anyway, here it is. Written for ladybug218. I hope she likes it.

Molly was playing hopscotch with a friend she had never really had in a shopping mall that was also a desert when she felt someone Looking at her.

People looked at her all the time. But this wasn't a look, it was a Look. And when she Looked around, she Saw a half-shadowed figure, and recognized the being as the one she had once Looked at before who had Looked back at her.

Terrified, Molly ran for her bedroom, which was connected to the mall via a very, very long hallway with lots of doors that might be locked. She managed to pull each one open and slam it behind her but there was still more hallway ahead of her and still more doors. Go away! Don't follow me! she yelled back through the doors.

Molly, I only want to talk to you. I mean you no harm.

Yeah, and the boogeyman had sounded nice at first when he was talking to her parents. Molly knew better than to listen. She reached the final door and ran into her old bedroom, the one from the house where she'd lived with her parents.

"Oh, no," she whispered. She knew who was downstairs.

"Molly," the boogeyman called from downstairs. "Molly, come on down. Be a good girl and I won't have to hurt you."

Frantically she turned back to the door she had come from, and gasped as it opened. But the person who stood there wasn't in shadow anymore. He was a bald man in a suit and tie.

"Molly," he said, "this is your mind. The boogeyman isn't here. You don't have to be afraid of him. Or of me."

"You're really here," Molly said, trembling. "You're really in my head. You're Looking at me."

"Well, you Looked at me. It's only fair," he said, but he was smiling.

"Molly, get down here!" the boogeyman shouted in the same tone of voice her father would use.

"Let's not stay here with him," the bald man said. He pointed at a new door out of her room. "Shall we go for a minute?"

"Who are you?" Molly asked.

"My name is Charles Xavier, and I'm a teacher. I would like to teach you."

"You can Look at people like I do?"

"Yes, although I use a machine to help me do it." He opened the door, and she saw a well-lit cavern lined with metal panels, and a chair in the center with a helmet attached to it. "I can also read minds, like your friend Officer Parkman."

"You know Officer Parkman?"

"We've never met, but I know of him." He shut the door and sat down on the bed. "Listen, Molly, and remember. You're dreaming, but this is a lucid dream, a telepathic connection, and you will be able to remember it if you choose. Tell Niki and D.L. what I am telling you. I run a school for people like you, people with powers. It's in upstate New York, Westchester County. I am going to contact Niki and D.L. in real life about offering a place to you, and I'm sure they'll be suspicious, but I don't want you to be afraid. I found you because you found me, and I know that frightened you."

"It's okay. I'm not used to being Looked at."

"It's unnerving to find other telepaths, yes. I can sympathize. My school could be a home to you, where you would learn to control your powers and use them to benefit humanity."

"But what about Micah? And Niki and D.L., I don't want to leave them!"

"Micah is also a child with powers – he is also invited. And I have taught adults before. If Niki and D.L. wanted to come live with me also, they would be free to do so." He leaned forward. "There would be other children to play with, children with power, besides Micah. I know he's your good friend, but I know you're lonely sometimes with no other friends. And the best part is..." His voice grew conspiratorial. "Some of my students are trained to fight bad guys with powers. People like the boogeyman. So you would be even safer here than you are with Niki and D.L."

"Niki says the boogeyman is dead."

"But you don't agree, do you, Molly?"

Molly frowned. "I can't find him... he might be dead... but he just doesn't feel dead. I don't think he's dead. He's too scary to be dead."

"Well, it may be that your fear of him is so great you can't be convinced of his death, or it may be that you have an intuition that you can't consciously explain. In any case, though, he isn't the only scary person in the world. At my school you could learn to defend yourself, and you would be protected."

"I don't know."

"Think about it. Discuss it with your foster parents. I'll be waiting for your call."

Molly blinked. She was lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling. The alarm clock said it was 7:35, ten minutes before she had to get up to get ready for school.

What was the other Looker's name? Charles Xavier, that was it.

She got dressed and went out to the kitchen to get breakfast.

D.L. was already up, eating waffles. "Molly? You're up early. Is something wrong?"

"Did I tell you about the guy I didn't want to Look at because he Looks back?"

He frowned. "I think so, yes. It sounds familiar."

"I just saw him. In my dream. He says he's a teacher and he wants me to go to his school."

Niki appeared in the doorway from the hall, wearing her bathrobe. "Who says?"

"The guy who can Look back at me."

"He says he's a teacher?" D. L. sounded a bit incredulous.

"And he has his own school. He says it's for people like us, with powers. I could go there, and Micah, and you guys could live there if you wanted, and we would all be safe from the boogeyman there."

"Oh, honey." Niki came in and tousled her hair. "Sylar's dead, Molly. Hiro Nakamura ran him through with a sword. You don't have to be afraid of him."

"I'm more worried about this teacher, frankly," D. L. said. "He seems to know quite a lot about us."

"He says he can read minds, like Officer Parkman."

"Well, that's just wonderful."

"Did he tell you anything about himself?" Niki asked. "His name, his physical location, anything like that?"

"Yeah, he said his name was Charles Xavier and his school is in New York. Do you think I can go?"

"I think we would need to find out a lot more about this Charles Xavier and his school before we can even discuss it," Niki said. "Now, have you had breakfast yet?"

"Not yet..."

"Then D. L. can make you some waffles, and I'll go wake Micah up, and you two can get ready for school. We won't worry about this school in New York right now, all right?"

Molly sighed. She had liked Charles Xavier, once she'd gotten over her initial fear of him. He seemed like a very friendly person. The boogeyman had seemed friendly and charming to her parents, but Molly had been scared of him as soon as she saw him – that was why she had run and hid under the stairs, and then after he had murdered her parents she had been too frightened to leave until Officer Parkman had found her. Charles Xavier had scared her terribly the first time she had Looked at him and felt him Looking back, but when he'd actually talked to her in her dream, she had wanted to meet him in person.

But she was grateful to Niki and D.L. for taking care of her, and she didn't want to do anything that might make them send her away, like talking back or arguing. So she said, "Okay."

After the kids were in school, Niki said, "He can find her anytime he wants, if he can visit her in dreams. What do we do about it?"

D. L. shook his head. "I don't know. But we need to track him down and find out what he wants. We can start by calling Mohinder, ask him if he's ever heard of the guy."

"Do you think he would have? Mohinder's not Bennet."

"No, but if it's a school for people with powers? Mohinder's one of the only scientists who believes in beings like us. So if he doesn't know about it, then it's probably on the shady side."

"It's already past 10 in New York. He'll be up." Niki picked up the phone.

The couple had an odd relationship with Mohinder Suresh. He had wanted to adopt Molly himself, very much, but had run into too many legal difficulties as a single man on an immigrant visa. So he'd asked Molly to find Niki and D. L. for him, assuming that a couple who already had a child with powers would be a better fit for Molly than strangers. Niki and D. L. had barely known the man, had essentially met him for half an hour in Linderman/the Company's lair in New York before the showdown with Sylar, but Niki couldn't bring herself to turn away an orphaned child, so they had met with him and agreed to adopt her. Since then Mohinder had been like an uncle to Molly, sending presents from New York and calling her weekly. A Las Vegas barmaid/ex-stripper and a construction contractor had little in common with an Indian geneticist, so they had rarely had a conversation that wasn't about Molly, or the condition of having superpowers, but Niki was fairly sure Mohinder would do anything in his power to help Molly out.

As it turned out, he did know the name. "Charles Xavier is an American geneticist who was a friend of my father's. He actually wrote the forward to my father's book. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he has powers, too."

"He told Molly he was a teacher, not a geneticist."

"Well, my father was also a teacher, if you consider ‘professors' to be ‘teachers'. Perhaps he was simplifying things for Molly by using the word ‘teacher' instead of ‘professor.' But it is rather odd for a geneticist to be opening a school... unless he was searching for the evolved humans, too, and found that enough of them were children that it justified creating a school for them..."

"Your father didn't mention that Xavier had a school?"

"My father never mentioned a great deal. And I've never met Xavier personally, though my father did mention his name in my hearing once or twice when we were discussing his work."

"Do you think we can trust him?"

"I couldn't say. My father trusted him, but my father also trusted Sylar. But you have other avenues to turn to, for information. Matt Parkman is with the FBI now, and would have access to their files on Xavier. He might still have contact information for Noah Bennet – I don't anymore. And you have, forgive me, an unparalleled information resource right there in your home. Anything on any accessible computer or computer network, and Micah should be able to find it for you."

"Thanks."

She relayed the conversation to D.L, who nodded. "We can have Micah look into it when he gets home. Meanwhile, I've got to get to work—" he was working construction again, since his name had been cleared when Niki had turned herself in for Jessica's crimes-- "so why don't you contact Parkman?"

"All right." The fact that he had to get to work wasn't the real reason he wanted her to do it, Niki knew – D.L. was uncomfortable talking on the phone to people he didn't know well.

After D.L. was gone for the day, Niki called Parkman's cell phone. He was another one they had a relationship with solely because of Molly – he was her personal hero, and he seemed to have great affection for her, but the fact that Jessica had tried to kill Parkman once hadn't really endeared Niki to him, and Niki felt profoundly uncomfortable around a cop with mind-reading abilities, given that she knew who had killed Linderman. She didn't really think Parkman would turn D.L. in, given that Linderman had owned the Company and Parkman had gone on his own quest for revenge on the Company, but cops were cops and you really couldn't trust them.

"Parkman here."

"This is Niki Sanders." She never knew what to call him – "Parkman” too rough, "Matt” too familiar, "Officer Parkman” incorrect since he was now with the FBI, "Agent Parkman” too distant for someone who her adopted daughter drew Valentines and made clay figures for. "I need some information."

"What for?"

"Someone's made contact with Molly through her dreams. He claims to be a telepath like you. His name's Charles Xavier. We need to know who he is and if he can be trusted."

"Well, I can't tell you if you can trust him, not without reading him myself—"

"I know. I just want to know if there's anything you can find out for us."

"Yeah, it'll take me a day or two. I'll email you whatever I can find."

"Thanks."

The email actually came through earlier than that – early afternoon, right before she expected the kids home, she got the email.

"NICKY HE HAS A SCHOL IN NY AND FORMER ASSOCATE OF TERRORIST ERIC LENZER BUT NO RECENT CONTAC. NOTHING ELSE. ATATCHED FILES." The attached files pertained to a man named Erik Lehnsherr, who was wanted by the police on suspicion of terrorist activity, though it was unclear as to terrorist activity for what cause, and Xavier's known association with him. Xavier's school had apparently been founded by Xavier and Lehnsherr together about ten years previously; it was called the Xavier Institute for Gifted Students and had a very small student body. And as Molly had said, it was located in Westchester County, New York, so that much at least tied out.

She didn't want to contact Noah Bennet. According to Molly, Bennet had been willing to kill her to protect his own daughter. At least, Molly hadn't said so exactly, but Niki could read between the lines of what she had said about her encounter with Bennet. And Niki knew people like that intimately well. Just like Jessica, Noah Bennet would break any law and destroy any life he thought might harm his family, or that stood in the way of his protecting his family. Niki didn't particularly want to be on his radar at all, let alone to owe him a favor.

No, with the information she had now, there were easier ways to get the information she needed.

Micah was quite thrilled to be given such an important job as researching the man who had contacted Molly last night, and quite willing to keep it secret from Molly that he was doing it. Niki hadn't wanted to raise Molly's hopes, so she didn't want to tell Molly that they were researching Xavier's school at all.

First he did an Internet search. That was easy enough. It also didn't get him much. There was a glossy-brochure type website for the Xavier Institute, and some people on messageboards ranting about how they didn't get in, and some people in Westchester talking about how the school was kind of weird.

Then a records search, both public and private. That was much more interesting, because he was able to find the students that way – Xavier's was an accredited learning institution and former students' identities could be found by hacking the College Board to find everyone who'd ever taken the SAT who'd identified themselves as a student of Xavier's. Then Micah was able to search Lexis-Nexus and other databases for information about those people. There was Scott Summers, who had been charged with a plot to blow up his school on prom night, and then had entered Xavier's school. There was Henry McCoy, who was now a genetics researcher working for Brand Laboratories. There was Jean Grey, another genetics researcher, who had been catatonic for a year following a car accident that killed another girl when she was 11, and who had ended up at Xavier's shortly after that. Summers and Grey were both employed as teachers at the school, as was another former student, a naturalized American citizen of African birth named Ororo Munroe.

None of this actually told Micah what his mom wanted to know, which was – was the school safe? Was its founder trustworthy? So he had to take the next step. Concentrating, he broke the codes that protected the Xavier Institute's own servers, and began the process of downloading information from them.

A chat window popped up on his desktop.

-- not cool, dude –

Micah focused on his connection. Someone had, in fact, managed to trace him back through his connection and found his IP.

He tried again, more carefully, going through more layers of misdirection, more baffles to hide his IP and his identity. This time, though, he had even less time to download files when the chat window said,

-- micah sanders, you're being a bad bad boy... knock it off –

That wasn't promising.

-- Who are you? – Micah sent back.

-- i'm cypher ... and i want you off my server, ok? have your mom call the prof and talk to him like normal people. we're in the phone book. –

Then the remote server Micah was connected to suddenly dropped connection, as if it had been shut off or physically disconnected from the network. And when Micah checked the files he had downloaded, he discovered they were encrypted with something he had no hope of breaking – maybe 1028-bit encryption. Maybe they were just written in an alien language to begin with. They were useless.

Micah had dealt with killers, illusionists, and alter egos possessing his mother. He was not an easily rattled boy. But his hands were shaking. Cypher? The guy was a hacker legend. He had supposedly, in order to make a point about copyright protection, made all the phones in Disney's headquarters ring at once and play a faked obscene phone call from Mickey Mouse, and no one had ever been able to trace the phone number or the servers he had done it from. Another legend said that he used to work for the government translating Arabic web sites, but when some military Arabic translators got fired under Don't Ask Don't Tell, he had hacked those websites to post detailed information about Donald Rumsfeld's whereabouts, and been charged with terrorist activities but never caught. Micah found that story a trifle unlikely. What would a hacker be doing working for the military anyway, or translating web sites? The one about Disney, though, he could believe, since he himself could do that if he felt like it.

Was Cypher like him? A technopath? (Was that even a word?)

He saved the chat log, and then went to get his mother to show it to her.

Niki was deeply concerned on finding out that a super-hacker presumably at Xavier's school had managed to trace her boy back to his machine and identify him. D.L. was even more so. "We need more information about these people," he said. "Especially now that they know we're researching them."

"I don't want to try to ask Bennet."

"No, I agree. It's time we did some hands-on work." He took a deep breath. "Micah, don't break any laws, but can you get me a redeye flight to New York for tonight, cheap?"

"Sure thing, Dad," Micah said, and got back on the computer.

"No. You're not doing this alone."

"Niki, I gotta. You can't come with me – if these people are after Micah and Molly, you're the one with a power you can use to defend them. My power's more for breaking and entering, or running away, and this is a situation that calls for breaking and entering. If it gets to the running away part, we have a problem."

"I'm not staying home again, wondering if you're alive or dead. Maybe Mohinder—"

"He can't protect the kids against someone with a power, and you know it. It's gotta be you, Niki."

She sighed. "All right, but we all fly to New York. Molly and Micah and I will stay in a hotel as near there as we can manage, and you bring your cell phone and call me every hour. You miss one, and I'm coming after you."

"They'd be safer staying here."

"No, they're not. Everyone who wants to knows where we live. If Micah makes reservations in a fake name—"

"For the hotel, right?" Micah said. "Because we could get in a lot of trouble with Homeland Security if we try to get on a plane with the wrong ID."

"Micah, honey, get us a flight to Baltimore. Then get us an Amtrak ticket to New York under fake names." A flight to BWI Airport could look like a trip to Washington DC, Baltimore, or points north of there – there'd be no way to guess exactly where they were heading.

"Okay. Trains aren't as bad." He grinned. "Oh, hey! Trains have machines that just print out your ticket there. If I don't reserve it in advance – if we just get the tickets at the machines when we get there – we'll be totally invisible to the grid. And I can get us close to Westchester on the Metro-North line... want a hotel in White Plains?"

"I have no idea where that is," D. L. said.

"It's a city, I think. About fifteen minutes away from Salem Center, which is where Xavier's school is."

"Sounds good," Niki said. "Use the Watkins family ID for the hotel reservations; it's easier for Molly to remember." The assortment of fake IDs had bothered Niki at first; it had been Jessica who had acquired most of the original ones, and Niki had always thought of herself as a law-abiding citizen. Jessica was a criminal, D. L. was a criminal – Niki herself was just a working mom. But now she recognized that she was a working mom who was an accomplice to the murder of the local crime kingpin, that she, her husband, and her kids were all people the government or spook organizations might have an interest in, and therefore having extra identities was just a good idea. "Thanks, honey."

Two days later Niki, Micah and Molly were safely ensconced in a Hampton Inn in White Plains, and D. L. was approaching the gates of the Xavier Institute on a bicycle, since anything motorized would make noise. He had left the rental car with the hazards on by the side of the road, a largely unused (at least at night) highway running through thick, dark woods. It was startling how much woodland and how many virtually empty, tiny roadways there were this close to New York City – he had always imagined that much of New York State would be densely packed city or sprawling suburb like the immediate surrounds of Vegas.

The grounds were surrounded by a high iron fence. He concentrated, and pulled the bicycle through with him. He couldn't have pulled a bicycle through a wall, but a fence had a lot less solid material to work with. Then he laid it against the inside of the fence, and padded quietly toward the house, looking out for cameras and using the shrubbery for cover.

It was 2 am, and the building – a single, sprawling huge mansion – was mostly unlit, only a few second and third story rooms lit as if bedrooms, and a small light in the back of the house like a stove light in a kitchen. It didn't look much like a school, although from all the sports equipment it did look like kids might live here. D. L. chose one of the darkest windows on the first floor, took a deep breath, and walked through the shrubbery and then the wall next to it.

It didn't look like a school inside, either. The hardwood floors were highly polished, and the furniture consisted of expensive real wood chairs and tables, the occasional armchair, all screaming East Coast wealth, the kind that was so secure in how rich it was it was ostentatiously un-ostentatious.

Carefully D. L. explored the first floor, sticking to the shadows, cautiously walking through walls when he found locked doors. Most of the locked doors led to classrooms, the first evidence he'd seen that this was really a school. One led to an elevator, but he didn't want to risk going through the floor and possibly falling down the shaft, and an elevator was too cramped a space to use when he couldn't use his powers to escape it, under circumstances like this. He headed upstairs to see if there really were children here and if they appeared to be in good condition or if they were locked in their rooms or something.

The bedroom doors were, for the most part, locked, but from the inside. He poked his head cautiously through a few of them to look at the doorknob from the other side. Teenagers, boys and girls, slept in the bedrooms, one or two to a room and never two of opposite sexes. He didn't see anyone Molly or Micah's age. At the end of the hallway there was a wall that didn't correspond to any wall downstairs, and the door to it was locked. D. L. started to step through it, and experienced a moment of intense heat and pain. He staggered back, and a girl's head fell through the wall as if she were stumbling toward him. She was a white girl with dark brown hair, no older than 13, with eyes that widened as they focused on him.

She opened her mouth as if to scream. He grabbed for her head, and she went back through the wall, so he followed her, intending to try to stop her from screaming and alerting the whole house. There was that moment of pain again as he reached through the wall for her, and then he was through. He tried to grab her head. It slid through his hand for a moment, so he tried to shift into immaterial himself, and was forced to go solid again by the pain. She seemed to feel it too, because she staggered backwards rather than continuing to try to go forward through him.

And then he heard a voice out of nowhere. D. L. Hawkins. Kindly stop terrorizing my students and come see me.

D. L. blinked. He was in an office, an office he'd seen downstairs, facing a bald man in a wheelchair, who was dressed in a suit. "I understand your desire to keep your family safe," the man said. "But breaking and entering into my home was a bit unnecessary, don't you think? I did invite you all to come see me in person."

"How did I get here?"

"You didn't. I'm a telepath. I'm simply projecting an image that I find a more comfortable discussion ground than reality, since the truth is, right now I am in my pajamas in bed. However, if you would like to actually meet in my office in reality, I can have Kitty escort you downstairs. You'll have to wait there a few moments for me to get dressed, but she can offer you refreshments – a soda, or perhaps one of those snack chip bags she was sneaking back to her room at 2 am." D. L. got the distinct impression that the last comment was actually aimed at the girl. He turned, and saw she was standing next to him, looking somewhat abashed.

"It was Jubes' idea," she said.

"I'm not sure why you think that makes it better."

"I don't like this," D. L. said. "No offense, but yeah, I'd rather meet in person."

"Very well. Kitty, bring Mr. Hawkins to my office. I'll be down in about half an hour."

The office and the man vanished, leaving D. L. in the hallway with the girl, who was wearing blue Hello Kitty pajamas. The icon of Hello Kitty was sitting at a keyboard with a monitor, and there was a slogan under the picture, "K1TTY 1Z R33T!" Three bags of snack chips – Doritos, kettle chips, and Smartfood – lay on the floor at her feet.

She scooped them up. "Uh, hi, I'm Kitty," she said. "You're, uh, Mr. Hawkins, I guess."

"D. L. Hawkins. Yes."

"Um, okay. Come with me downstairs. You phase too, right?"

"Phase. You mean, go through solid objects, right?"

"Yeah, it's like partially phasing out of reality, so we call it phasing. I never met anyone with the same power as me before." She stepped through the wall, apparently confident that he would follow. He did, and she headed down the hall for the stairs.

"So, what were you doing sneaking around here at night? I mean, I guess you're not a supervillain or something because Professor Xavier wouldn't have told me to take you to the office if you were a bad guy, but generally speaking, good guys don't break into your house in the middle of the night, so were you like trying to steal stuff, or what?"

D. L. tried very hard not to be offended. The girl's careless assumption that he was here to "steal stuff” could be racial, but it could also be that that really was the easiest explanation for what he was doing invading their property in the middle of the night, and it wasn't as if he'd never used his powers for burglary. "Your Professor Xavier made an offer to my family. I wanted to investigate and make sure that things were..."

"On the up-and-up?"

"Yes, more or less. I've had dealings with powerful rich men with an interest in my family before, and our powers. They didn't go well."

"So what was that all about with the ow? Did you notice that? When I phased through you it was like I just phased into a car engine, or something. That was hot! I mean, not the good kind of hot, the temperature kind of hot. That burns you. Did you notice that?"

"Yes. You've never experienced that before?"

"Have you? Because I never met anyone that could phase before."

"Neither have I. And no, that's never happened to me before."

"Did you want, like, a Pepsi? Or some Doritos?"

"No. Thanks."

"We have Gatorade, too. And ice water."

"I don't really want anything."

"Okay, but if you change your mind, let me know. My grandma would totally take my Jew card away if I didn't offer you food and she found out about it."

Despite himself, D. L. laughed. "There is one thing you can get me."

"As long as it's not the Smartfood. Because that isn't mine, Jubilee bought it."

"You can give me information. What is this place? What do you do here?"

They reached the office. The door was presumably locked; Kitty didn't even try to open the door, just phased through it. She was very casual in the use of her powers, D. L. thought. "Probably the Professor would prefer it if I let him tell you about us. I don't – I've only been here a few months myself."

"Yes, but I'd prefer to ask you. You're a student. I'd rather get a student's opinion before I let my children come here."

"You have mutant kids? What can they do? Do either of them phase?"

"Mutant?"

"You don't know? That's the word for people like us. With powers. Some people say we're a separate species, and others say we're just a kind of evolved human being. I know of only one mutant who had kids, and his kids were mutants, but I don't know him personally. Or his kids. But you have mutant kids?"

"Are all the students here teenagers?"

"No – most kids don't manifest their powers until they're teenagers, but we have a few who got their powers while they were still young kids. I was 12 when I got mine, but almost 13. When did you manifest yours?"

D. L. ignored the questions about himself. "What do you learn here?"

"Well, regular school stuff, for starters. I was in advanced classes back home in Chicago, but here they do your own pace for math and language arts, and then science and art and music you do with whoever is at your level, and history and current events you do with your age group. But then we also have powers training, individually and in groups, and if you're older you can train to use your powers in combat."

"In combat?"

"Whoops, Professor Xavier's calling me! Gotta go!" She promptly slid through the floor and vanished.

It was another ten minutes before Xavier appeared at the door, in his wheelchair, wearing what appeared to be a bathrobe with a blanket over his legs. D. L. immediately said, "What the hell did Kitty mean, kids are training to use powers in combat?"

"Where would you have been if you hadn't had any idea that you could kill with your power when you faced Linderman, Mr. Hawkins?" Xavier asked.

D. L. froze. "What do you mean by that?"

"I read minds. I'm quite aware of Linderman's fate, and I'm quite aware that it was self-defense. I won't hold it against you or threaten to turn you in to the police, if that's what you're concerned with. But you need to understand that the ability to use your powers in combat is a necessary defensive skill for a mutant. Between predators like Sylar, and those who would use and misuse you like Linderman and his Company, our kind face dangers that ordinary people do not. All mutants must learn how to defend themselves with their powers –"

"Oh, and how is someone like Molly supposed to defend herself with her powers? Just because she knows where someone is—"

"Molly's power may prove to be fundamentally like my own, in which case there are very few limits to how she could use it to defend herself," Xavier said calmly. "But even if all she is ever able to do is locate people, defensive training would involve actively scanning for known threats on a frequent basis to identify when they're on the move and when they might be coming for her, or for those she loves. With proper training, Molly could never be surprised by a shapeshifter or illusionist, as Micah was. She could never be kidnapped, because she would always know when someone with ill intentions was coming toward her, and she could develop strategies to escape. She could also work with a team that actively hunts down predators and terrorists, and stops them. If she so chose. As could you and Niki, for that matter."

"Who qualifies as a terrorist or a predator, in your book? I went to prison for years for murders I didn't commit. If you're hunting people down—"

"I'm a telepath, Mr. Hawkins. If people are not guilty of a crime, I wouldn't waste my resources on pursuing them. If they are guilty, but had good reason, such as self-defense, then that's not really my concern either. But I am concerned with preventing mutants from committing crimes against ordinary people, or other mutants, for pleasure or personal gain. Or because they believe in a Cause they're willing to kill for. And I have the ability to tell whether people actually committed a crime or not, and if they intend to do it again."

He rolled over to his desk. "My primary purpose in training young mutants is simply to see them achieve their potential. And not cause terrible accidents through a lack of control. But, yes, some of my students train to be protectors. I have a team – I call them the X-Men – of mutants trained to fight other mutants, in order to protect humanity as well as mutantkind. If I had known about Sylar, earlier, I might have stopped him from killing. Likewise if I'd known of the Petrellis, and the prophecy about the destruction of New York City, I could have stopped that."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't know about them. I thought I said—"

"Why didn't you know about them, Mr. I'm A Powerful Telepath?"

Xavier sighed. "I am ashamed to admit that this entire year I've been distracted by personal problems. My close friend and former associate in the creation of this school... may be involved with terrorism. I'm concerned about him, and I've been overly focused on trying to find a way to stop him, should it prove necessary. So yes. I foolishly missed a serial killer murdering my people and the near-destruction of a city merely 40 minutes away from my doorstep, because I was too focused on a different problem. And I don't plan to let that happen again."

Well. D. L. hadn't expected that. Rich, powerful white men, in his experience, rarely admitted they were wrong, and even more rarely did so to him, a black ex-con construction worker.

"How did you find out about us?"

"I did sense Peter Petrelli's loss of control over his power, and I scanned everyone near him when it occurred to find out what was going on. Since then, I've also detected all of you with Cerebro, a device my associate and I built to find mutants."

"What about Sylar? Molly thinks he's still alive."

"Molly can't sense him, though. Neither can I. That may mean he's dead, or it may mean he's somewhere that telepathic location is blocked, or it may mean he's developed the power to shield himself. But if he is somewhere that telepathy is blocked, I will find him as soon as he emerges. That much, I can be certain of."

He certainly seemed nicer than Linderman. More willing to admit to his mistakes, less overtly manipulative, and Kitty had seemed like a normal teenage girl, no more afraid of Xavier than Micah and Molly were of D. L. himself. But that didn't necessarily mean they should trust him.

"I need to call Niki," D. L. said.

"Go ahead."

D. L. made the call in the hallway. Perhaps there was no point in trying to hide what he was saying from Xavier, who could read his mind, but there was no sense in gift-wrapping it, either. Niki, predictably, was very upset that D. L. had gotten caught, but when she heard that D. L. was in Xavier's office listening to his pitch, she insisted that she come out there to join them immediately. "If he wants to talk to us about a school for Micah and Molly, he needs to talk to us both."

"I agree, but it's awfully late at night to bring the kids out, and I don't feel safe leaving them alone in the hotel room." He sighed. "Look, my big secret investigation was a bust. If Xavier wants to talk to us, and we both want to be there, why don't we both come back out here tomorrow?" Mohinder was in New York City; Micah and Molly could be left with him for the day, possibly. He'd be annoyed at being asked to be an impromptu babysitter – the man was a scientist, and had a job at Columbia University now – but it would be better than leaving them alone.

Niki hesitated on the phone. Then, "All right. Come on home."

When D.L. explained the change in plans to Xavier, he seemed to consider them quite reasonable. "I would certainly appreciate a chance to meet with both you and Niki in some attire other than my pajamas," he said, smiling. "Come by tomorrow around 2 pm."

Mohinder was, predictably, not thrilled with having to babysit on short notice, but was willing to do it. He took Molly and Micah to work with him; Molly was no stranger to medical research, and Micah would probably enjoy a chance to learn something about biotech, Niki figured.

She and D. L. went back to Xavier's school, where they met with him in the office, and he explained something about the school. Mutants – he used that term rather than Mohinder's preferred "evolved humans”, though he said that they essentially meant the same thing – had been appearing in the human population ever since shortly before World War II, possibly as the result of genetic changes caused by the toxins of the Industrial Revolution, possibly related to the discovery of radioactive materials like radium. Mutants usually manifested at puberty, but some manifested as children and some could remain dormant into adulthood, until some stressor triggered the change. Last year, heavy sunspot activity had caused several intense magnetic flares – one of which had occurred at the same time as the solar eclipse Niki had seen the day she'd learned of Jessica's separate existence – and these flares seemed to have the ability to trigger some people's dormant powers.

"I was, however, in a poor position to notice that mutants were manifesting at a rapid rate in response to these flares, because a former friend of mine was exploiting them for his own ends."

"Let me guess – Erik Lehnsherr?" Niki asked.

"It's pronounced Lens-herr, not Len-sher, actually. But yes. Erik has powers over magnetism. He's long believed that there will be a war between humanity and mutantkind once they realize we exist, and last year, he was exploiting the magnetic pulses of the solar flares to experiment with EMP's and the like, various magnetically powered weapons he could use against humanity if he believed it necessary... which, I fear greatly, he eventually will." He sighed. "It consumed far more of my attention than I probably should have allowed it to, since the explosion of the Petrellis and the reports of flying men, exploding men and suchlike have brought the issue of mutants to the attention of the media. If I had managed to contain it before it came to the point of a Congressman and his brother publicly exploding in midair... and now there are politicians fanning the flames of people's fear and uncertainty to get votes and attention... but be that as it may."

"Look, let me be blunt, Professor Xavier," Niki said. "Why should we trust you with our kids? You just admitted to screwing up pretty seriously. And we've had people chasing after us who want to use our powers or manipulate us before. Why should we assume you're any different?"

"I can't prove that I'm any different unless you give me the opportunity to," Xavier said. "However, you knew that Linderman was a crime boss long before either of you ran afoul of him. You knew Sylar was a danger before you met him. People don't generally change their natures because they have powers; good people remain good, bad people remain bad. I have twenty students, and many of their parents can give me references if you wish, so long as you understand that some of the students haven't told their parents about their nature as mutants. I have three full-time teachers here who were my students, and four former graduates who are out in the world, earning a living."

"Is one of them a super-hacker named Cypher?"

Xavier laughed. "Oh, that's right. Douglas caught your son breaking into our computer system." He glanced at a photograph on his desk. "Yes, Cypher is one of them, though he is more of a computer developer and less of a ‘super-hacker' nowadays. He chose not to join our X-Men because his powers don't lend themselves to combat, but he tries, in his own way, to make the world a better place. He also does our school computer security. My other graduates include a genetics researcher, a courier, and a former member of a secret governmental task force who is now a stay-at-home mother. I can give you names, addresses and phone numbers if you want to contact these people and verify my treatment of them when they were students."

"You'd just give us all this contact information? Including for people who used to be members of secret government groups? Maybe that's a little too trusting on your part," D. L. said. "How do you know we won't misuse that kind of information?"

Xavier looked D. L. in the eyes. "We had this discussion last night, Mr. Hawkins," he said. "I can afford to trust because I know whether people plan to betray me or not. I understand you don't have the same luxury. That's why I offer you my bona fides."

"All right," Niki said. "Give us whatever you've got. Your school certainly seems nice enough, and Micah needs a real intellectual challenge -- but before I'm going to trust you with my kids, I'd better know that other people who trusted you with their kids weren't disappointed."

"That's quite fair." He wrote several names down on a pad of paper with phone numbers. "The top three are my graduates who don't teach here, and below that are several of the parents, including the parents of one of my teaching graduates. Contact as many of them as you like – these parents are all ones who are aware of mutants."

"Okay, we will." Niki stood up. "Let's go."

On the car ride back to the hotel, D. L. said, "So, what are you thinking?"

"I'm hoping it's real," Niki said. "We still need to call all these people, but... did you see that place? It was beautiful. And for there to be kids Molly and Micah's own age, they can relate to, that they don't have to hide their powers from..."

"One of the teenage girls was sneaking snacks into her bedroom for her and her roommate, last night. It certainly seems like the kids have fun there."

"Yeah." Niki nodded. "If Micah and Molly want to do this... assuming the names check out... let's do it."