text: It was good being in a piece of technology not acquired by anything other than cold hard cash. Jean, while she might miss the train ride, did not think she would ever recall those moments of vehicular theft with the kind of fondness that would make her go back for a repeat performance. She also much preferred flying to driving.
  
  "You're thinking dramatic, aren't you?" Scott said to her, when she took her seat beside him at the controls of the mini-jet.
  
  "I'm thinking big," she said. "Epic."
  
  "That's good," he said. "We're going to need something epic in order to get out of this whole and intact."
  
  "Pessi—" She stopped, sensing those fingers in her brain, light and full of fire. So familiar, so—
  
  Jean shut her eyes. Scott said her name, again and again, and she lost the connection in the sound of his voice. The fingers disappeared. So close... she had been so close to figuring out what was in her head.
  
  "What is it?" he asked, and he looked so concerned she could not bring herself to be mad at him for interrupting her concentration. They could not read each other's minds anymore, which was a loss that Jean thought they had overcome during the journey. For most of her life she had relied too much on her mind and not on words, not paying attention to the subtleties of an expression or the clear quality of a gaze. Not anymore. Even if she somehow managed to regain her body, she was not going to let herself forget.
  
  They entered the city and Scott put the mini-jet in stealth mode. They found the mutant-rights march without much difficulty. It had been in the works for almost a year, planned for by a coalition of people whose one common bond was that they believed mutants and humans could coexist in respect and peace, each side helping the other in mutually beneficial ways. It was a goal that Charles Xavier supported wholeheartedly, and the X-Men had agreed to be present at the event, both as security and as role models.
  
  "Is this what our body-snatching has been all about?" Rogue wondered out loud. "Just as a means of destroying our reputation?"
  
  "It won't just be our reputation. If the X-Men are seen going wild, it will reflect badly on all mutants, including Maguire." Scott frowned. "Somehow, I don't think he cares,"
  
  "We must have burned that guy something good," Logan said quietly. He had the teddy bear in his lap and was staring at it with the same intensity he usually reserved for really good beer, the Super Bowl, or a beautiful woman. Jean smiled. She had seen the teddy bear several times on their trip; Logan occasionally removed it from the sack to stare and prod. Jean thought he and the bear had developed a special language; it told him things about Maguire that it told no one else.
  
  The sun disappeared behind the clouds and the air coming in from the vents smelled sharp, like rain. Jean closed her eyes, drawing in that scent She summoned up all the strength left to her, everything she would need to fight, and she imagined sharing that strength with her friends. The odds were against them. Only human now, out of shape and exhausted—while their real bodies, those they had been born with, were both gifted and at the top of their form. Jean knew why Ororo was concerned for them, but she also knew that this was their job, to do or die.
  
  We are going to die, she thought, but for some reason, the idea did not frighten her. The past few days had soothed her soul in ways she could not yet describe— only, she knew now what she was made of, and though her hardships had not been as great as she thought they would be, it was not strife or fighting that made her feel so polished on the inside. It was living human, being with her friends and seeing how far they could go on so little, and realizing that in her life, they and her husband were all she needed.
  
  And even if she did not have others, she had herself. Herself, stripped down to nothing, no distraction of power, until she could see her spirit clearly. It was a good feeling, that self-knowledge. It made her feel strong.
  
  The heart of downtown came into sight and Scott flew the mini-jet like a sport's car, bending around buildings at breakneck speeds that would have made her sick had she not been concentrating so fiercely on finding their counterparts.
  
  "There," Logan said. "Down below on that rooftop."
  
  Jean looked, and sure enough saw six figures standing on the rooftop edge of an office building, gazing down upon the main core of the parade. She did not know why they were there, rather than on ground level with the other participants, but it made their lives easier. Jean preferred to fight out of the public eye. Too many people could get hurt that way.
  
  Logan said, "Come on, Cyke. What are you waiting for?"
  
  "Nothing," he said, and flashed Jean a quick grin that still managed to warm her toes. "We're going in. Everyone, hang on tight."
  
  She appreciated the warning. A moment later the mini-jet dived toward the earth, streaking past the noses of the impostor X-Men and their handler, winging them in the face with their tail wind. Kurt grinned.
  
  "I am going to enjoy this," he said, "even if it is the last thing I do."
  
  "Might be," Logan said, but he was smiling, too, and Jean knew that his agenda involved a mighty punishment upon himself—or rather, his impostor. Jean did not know how to resolve the paradox of hurting their own bodies as punishment for crimes others committed while using them. It was like hurting themselves—literally—and if they ever were transferred back into their own selves—
  
  That doesn't matter now. The only thing that matters is keeping these people from hurting innocents, keeping them from ruining the X-Men with their actions. There is more at stake than your lives. You have to do what must be done and don't look back.
  
  The mini-jet rattled, swinging wildly. Scott muttered, "That's it. Chase us, you arrogant little jerks. Come on."
  
  Again, that wild rattle, turbulence so severe Jean thought the jet might come apart. It was her, she realized. Herself, Jean Grey, using telekinesis to rip them apart. Her method was clumsy, though; Jean sensed a lack of any true focus. Only a generalized intent that reminded her of when she had first started using her powers for real and found her mind a clumsy and unwieldy tool.
  
  "They don't know how to use our powers," she said in wonderment, as Scott struggled to find a place on the roof to land. "They have some superficial knowledge, but they're learning about themselves as they go along."
  
  "You sure about that?" Scott asked.
  
  "Yes," Jean said. "Otherwise, I would have disintegrated this jet by now."
  
  "I'm sold," Logan said. "Land this thing, Cyke. Let's end this."
  
  Scott landed on the rooftop, less than a hundred yards from where their counterparts stood, their attention temporarily off the parade. It was a bad area to fight in, but Scott had not wanted to take the risk of trying to lure them away, only to have the impostors stay behind to continue with their plan of discrediting the real team.
  
  Of course, if these men and women were as unskilled as Jean thought they were, the small fighting space would work to their advantage. The real X-Men were a team of friends and family, and they worked like one. Maguire might have spent the past year prepping his patients to make them more malleable for time in their bodies, but Scott doubted he had taught them other skills. He doubted he had taught them trust.
  
  Trust, which could only be learned through hard experience and shared suffering and joy—things that served to strengthen the bond between his teammates, to turn them into something more than their parts.
  
  Logan was out first, teddy bear in one hand. Rogue followed close at his side, with Kurt beside her. Jean went next, but Scott caught her hand before she left the jet and drew her close for a long hard kiss.
  
  "We'll do that again when this is over," he said.
  
  Jean smiled, caressing his throat. "We'll do more than that," she promised.
  
  The air smelled cold and wet; strong winds whipped their bodies, gusts that threatened to spin Scott's small body end over end. He eyed the competition. Funny, he had fought all these people more than once in Danger Room simulations—and in the flesh—and though he believed he knew their every weakness and how to exploit them, he felt as though all those exercises had to be thrown out because the minds inside the bodies were different, and the psychology of these men and women was even more different than the normal.
  
  Ororo had called Maguire a telepath. A telepath of remarkable strength, if he was able to transfer minds or souls into different bodies willy-nilly. Was he also strong enough to force a mentally disturbed individual into a kind of healing? Temporary or fixed, that was the only way Scott could explain how five individuals with such difficult consistent problems, could stand before him looking competent, ready to fight, like soldiers.
  
  Scott looked at Maguire, but found that the man was focused entirely on the teddy bear in Logan's hand. A look of such haunted despair passed over his face that, for a moment, Scott forgot why they were there. The expression disturbed him; it felt like a reminder of all those times he thought he had lost Jean, and had suffered through the gamut of unbearable pain, mourning the loss of the only woman he had ever loved.
  
  Of course, Jean always managed to come back from the dead. It was a gift of fate that had served her well over the years.
  
  "Where did you get that?" Maguire said to Logan. His voice was low, cultured. "You've been in my home?"
  
  'Yeah," Logan said, hugging that bear to his chest. "Funny, your home. The only two things in it that seem to mean something to you are this bear and the photograph on your desk."
  
  "Give me the bear," he said quietiy.
  
  "This bear and I have gotten to be real good friends," Logan said, ignoring Maguire's request. "Real good. Looks to me like it used to be someone else's real good friend. I'd say that someone was a sight smaller than me, though. I'd also guess that the woman in that picture was your wife. And I think I might also guess that something very bad happened to those two people, something that involves us, that created a connection you just couldn't get out of your hair. You couldn't let go. Am I getting close, Jonas? Does any of this ring a bell?"
  
  Scott stared at Logan. Everyone stared, including Maguire. He wore the face of a broken man, but even as his throat worked, his fists clenching tight against his thighs, Scott saw his face go as hard as he had ever seen a man look, and Maguire said, "That would be accurate. You... you and your team had a fight with some... some renegade mutant. Some idiot. My wife and child got in the way. Innocent bystanders. I couldn't save them. I tried. I tried so hard to find bodies to place them in because that's what I do. Just like wrapping a gift, wrapping up my wife, all of her, everything, her soul— and then doing the same to my baby, holding them all inside me, stored so carefully, until I could find them a place to live." He shook his head. "They were too close to death when I got to them. I put them inside me but there was not enough time and they... trickled away. I could feel them inside my head, just like sand, and I couldn't save them."
  
  "So you go after us?" Scott said. "You ruin our lives?"
  
  "My wife would still be here if it hadn't been for you and your methods. Every time you fight with someone, an innocent gets hurt. Your powers are simply too great, and the destruction you cause—" He stopped, still looking at the teddy bear. "No, I won't discuss this. You are criminals. If nothing else, you are guilty of manslaughter. Every time a bystander dies when you fight another mutant, you are guilty of such a crime. I want you punished. I want people to see you, always, for what you are."
  
  "All you will do is create more difficulties between mutants and humans," Kurt said. "Surely that is not worth this. Surely your wife would not—"
  
  "You did not know my wife," he said in a deathly quiet voice. "Don't you dare say another word about her."
  
  Scott studied their bodies, the impostors. Not one of them had moved since the beginning of the conversation with Maguire. They stood like statues, without expression.
  
  "You're doing it to them, aren't you?" he said to Maguire. He pointed at them. "You've got all five of their minds inside you right now. That's the only reason they're acting even a little sane. You're controlling how much goes into the body. You're letting in only the good parts, the healthy bits."
  
  Maguire's breath caught. "A good analysis. Yes. Yes, that is what I'm doing."
  
  Jean shook her head. "You'll kill yourself doing that, or go crazy. I don't care how talented or strong you are, one person cannot cope with maintaining five distinct individuals inside their head."
  
  "I don't have to do it much longer. After today, I'll let their minds go. If you want, even, I'll put you back where you belong. Or not."
  
  Jean frowned, looking at her counterpart. She touched her head. "You may not have much of a choice," she said, and Scott gave her a curious look. There was something in her eyes that felt like a promise. Maguire did not notice. He looked at Logan again and held out his hand.
  
  "Make me," Logan said, and reached behind to tuck the bear between his belt and lower back.
  
  Maguire narrowed his eyes.
  
  "Enough," Scott said. "You can't fight all of us, Maguire. Your head is too full."
  
  "That's all right," he said. "This has gone on long enough."
  
  He snapped his fingers. Their counterparts jolted into wakefulness, like watching windup dolls.
  
  "Well," said the impostor Cyclops, sneering. He gazed at Jean. "Isn't this surreal. I never knew what I looked like in real life, outside a mirror."
  
  This was getting too complicated. Scott had assumed that the transfer was a simple crossover, that the woman he now inhabited would inhabit him, and that Cyclops would be quiet, so quiet.
  
  But that would never be believable. That would never work.
  
  Scott gazed at their counterparts and noticed one of them staring at her feet. Rogue. There was no mistaking that quiet avoidance, the shy phobia. An interesting choice. Very calculated. Rogue's power did not require any action on her part to work. All someone around her had to do was drag a person over to be touched.
  
  Wolverine had his claws out, sharpening them on each other like steak knives. He looked at Rogue, their Crazy Jane, and winked. "My body treating you well, darlin'?"
  
  Rogue cracked her knuckles. Logan said, "You better put that focus on me, bub. I'm the one you need to worry about."
  
  "Really. Is this body yours?" Wolverine smiled. "I like it. I like what it can do to people."
  
  Scott watched terrible rage pass through Logan's face, and he thought of jubilee on that infirmary bed. Oh, yes. Someone was going to pay for that. Dearly, and on many different levels.
  
  Cyclops touched his visor and let off a blast at Scott's head. Scott had never thought anyone could be a bad shot when all you had to do was look at your target, but Jean was right. His aim went wide.
  
  "When I get you?" Cyclops said. "You're dead."
  
  "Maybe," Scott said. "Or maybe you'll be surprised."
  
  The thing about fighting crazy people, Logan thought, was that they behaved in crazy ways. Crazy, unpredictable ways that nonetheless could be counted on for certain constants: Crazy people fight crazy, fighting crazy means fighting the unpredictable, and if you can't predict your opponent, you better stay the hell away because he will take your sorry butt.
  
  Unless, of course, you were just as crazy as he was.
  
  Being all kinds of crazy, Logan was fairly certain he qualified, which meant that he had every confidence the fight would turn in his favor. It had to. There was no way he would let this scumbag keep walking after beating the crap out of a friend.
  
  Wolverine flashed his claws, striking a pose like some wannabe martial arts fanatic: arms over his head; one leg in the air, poised to kick. The Crane, maybe. Logan thought he looked like a fool.
  
  Wolverine sneered. "You scared to come at me?"
  
  "Sure," Logan said. "I'm real terrified."
  
  "Good," he said, too crazy to understand sarcasm. "I'm gonna gut you like a pig."
  
  "Come on, then," Logan said, and kissed the air between them.
  
  Wolverine snarled and lunged. The first time Logan moved fast enough.
  
  The second time, he did not.
  
  Rogue saw the impostor's claws come slashing down against Logan's side; she forget her own obligations, her priority to take care of herself, and ran to him. Around her there was chaos in miniature: Scott, dodging the wild, ill-aimed strikes of his impostor, which also threatened to take out some of the team. She saw Scott get close enough to ram his shoulder into Cyclops's gut; both men tumbled to the ground, grappling with each other.
  
  She came up fast behind Wolverine, the impostor, the real Crazy Jane, and grabbed his head and neck. She remembered the hospital when she touched his bristly hair, the sensation of killing someone by breaking open the skull. She had spent the last few days trying so hard not to remember, to bury it deep like she did most of the unwanted things in her mind, but touching Wolverine brought it back because he moved with the same crazed abandon, the same rage, and he flung her off before she could get a proper grip and take him down.
  
  Wolverine turned on her, claws flashing. Logan rushed him from behind; his face was red and blood streamed down his ribs. For a moment he looked into Rogue's eyes and the message was clear: Get away. Right now.
  
  So she did. Scott and Cyclops still wrestled on the ground, while Jean and her counterpart appeared locked in a staring match. Rogue did not see Maguire anywhere.
  
  She found her impostor standing in the rooftop corner, a lonely slender figure who stared at her feet. Rogue wondered if she had ever appeared so whipped; it was not a good look on her. She stood for a moment with some distance between them, and said, "Hey."
  
  Nothing. Rogue knew quite well what her impostor was capable of; it scared her, she scared herself, but she stepped even closer, and still there was no eye contact, no movement, not even when she nudged her with the tip of her shoe.
  
  "Come on now," she murmured to the impostor. "Sugah, I got better things to do than this."
  
  Still, nothing. Rogue suspected she might be able to put a gun to this woman's head and pull the trigger, all without a single reaction or attempt to escape. Shaking her head, confused, she turned her head and spied Kurt. He stood in the middle of the rooftop, watching Nightcrawler teleport.
  
  With one last glance at her counterpart, she turned and ran to him.
  
  "Hello," Kurt said to her. "No luck with your impersonator?"
  
  "She won't lift a finger against me," Rogue said. "You?"
  
  "I won't let you catch me!" cried the impostor, as he continued to bounce in and out of the sky. Rogue waved a hand in front of her face. The air smelled horrible.
  
  "Doesn't teleporting like that make you sick?" she asked him.
  
  "Ja." Kurt smiled. "Just wait."
  
  She did, and several teleportations later, Nightcrawler dropped out of the sky like a rock and landed between herself and Kurt. He vomited. Rogue nudged his tail with her shoe.
  
  "I expected a little more," she said.
  
  Jean felt as though her brain was on fire. Truly, with flames licking the inside of her skull, little fingers searching the soft tissue for a place to push down burning roots.
  
  The woman across from her said, "I love this."
  
  Jean said nothing at all; if she opened her mouth it would be to scream, and she refused to give her the satisfaction. The impostor was already far too satisfied with the abilities that had been given to her, and Jean knew with quiet certainty that she was being played with. There was nothing subtle about the way that woman used her telepathy. She slapped it about like a great big bat; but she was still kicking Jean's butt, so there was no way for her to feel too superior.
  
  For a moment, though, Jean felt something cool wash through her head, a different kind of fire, and it felt familiar, like home, like all those little touches that had accompanied her on the long journey from Seattle.
  
  And then her counterpart made a flicking motion with her hand and threw Jean off the side of the building. Jean imagined she heard Scott cry out her name, but the wind was strong and the roar like a train, like that rolling mountain train, and she looked down and the city was rising to meet her like a city parting from the sea, and the fire was gone from her head but she felt those light fingers again and then something deeper, something that made the force of her heart swell and then draw away, sucked outward until a new fire kissed her face, old as the universe and catching her arms like wings, and she cried out—
  
  —and then she was on the roof again and her body was engulfed in fire and her mind felt the touch of the universe singing down into the root of her soul, that old soul, those voices—six billion—rising in a symphony, and she threw herself off the building, the Phoenix diving to earth, and she reached out her hands and caught Jeff's limp empty body, caught him just yards from hitting the packed crowds, and she cradled him in flame and returned to the roof, and began calling for Maguire.
  
  Rogue saw Jean fly off the roof. She raced to the edge of the building, running so fast she caught her foot and skidded hard until she hit the low barrier wall. Tears streamed down her face; she scrambled to her knees to peer over the buildings edge and saw a tiny figure hurtling toward the ground. She forgot that she had no powers because the urge to jump after her friend was so great she almost followed. A hand touched her back; Kurt, looking at her with a question in his eyes. She sagged against him.
  
  And then Rogue felt heat and she turned to see wings of fire stretch bright around Jean's impostor. The woman threw herself off the building, streaking toward earth to catch that tiny body before it hit the ground, and Rogue watched, breathless, as they returned to the rooftop.
  
  Kurt said, "Do you think it is possible?"
  
  "I don't know," she said, but the Phoenix alighted beside them and lay down Jeff's body, and Rogue looked into the woman's face and saw something more familiar than simple flesh: a softness in the mouth that did not reach the eyes, those blazing radiant eyes that held a farseeing gaze, the same that had peered out of a man's face for almost a week now. Rogue heard an equally radiant voice, familiar and strong, call out to Maguire. She looked and finally saw him; he stood on the other side of the mini-jet.
  
  Jean went after him. Their Jean, back inside her body. Rogue knew it. She touched Kurt's hand and gazed out across the rooftop. She did not like what she saw. Logan was down on the ground, holding his side while trying to dodge the fast strikes of bright claws. Scott's left arm had scorch marks all over it. Cyclops had thrown him off and the distance between them was dangerous; the man danced away, his hand on the visor like it was a lifeline.
  
  Rogue ran to help him. Halfway there, clouds of smoke surrounded her and two strong arms engulfed her waist. She heard Kurt yell out and then the world disappeared—
  
  —and reappeared a quarter of a mile over the city.
  
  "I'm tired of playing games," Nightcrawler said.
  
  He dropped her and disappeared.
  
  She fell to earth, screaming.
  
  Jonas Maguire had one of the most powerful minds Jean had ever encountered. He was not, she thought, a particularly strong telepath in the most basic sense, but the things he could do, his capacity for holding vast amounts of information, staggered her. She peered into Maguire's mind and saw that Renny had returned, but that he was fighting to break free of the trappings that contained him. Renny had tasted Jean's power. He remembered, and he wanted more.
  
  "Return them to their bodies," Jean said, and it was her voice again, her body, and oh what a feeling to come home to familiar flesh, that beautiful shell that was hers and hers alone. "Do it."
  
  "I won't," Maguire said, backing away from her.
  
  "Then I'll force you," she said, and burned past his mental shields. She caught glimpses of his life: a woman stretched beside him on a bed of grass with a baby sleeping between and the sun so soft and warm on their lovely faces, and again, his wife, his Maria, dancing in the kitchen to sweet lullabies as the baby crooned, and later, hugging a teddy bear, and later making love on a quilt, and later, dropping them off for a day of shopping while he went to the hospital, suffering terrible nausea at lunch, awful doom, looking out his office window to see smoke rising and oh, he tried, but he could not take just any body, not that mother over there with her own child, not that man, not that one, or that one, and Maria slipped away into the darkness, the darkness singing to her baby and then he was gone, too, gone from that life until Maguire became something new, something darker, something—
  
  "Stop," he croaked, tears running down his face. "Please."
  
  "Fix them," she said, and still he hesitated. Jean returned to his mind and found the tendrils leading to Mindy who was in Rogue, Rogue who was in Jane, and forced his mind upon the task and watched him make the switch.
  
  Someone caught Rogue before she hit the ground. Dazed, heart thundering, she stared into green eyes and found herself, that shy face that was so familiar. Relieved, she hugged the girl and forgot—she of all people, forgot—and her skin brushed skin, and suddenly she knew what it was like to die from her touch, that black hole made of skin as Rogue fed on Rogue. A sucking sensation, as though every pore in her body pushed outward and shriveled. She imagined what the impostor must be feeling—power and memory, a disparate personality folding over her mind, trying to take control.
  
  The impostor cried out, eyes rolling green into white, and suddenly Rogue was in the air again, free-falling. She saw herself, the woman she had been, floating in the air above with her hands on her head, and all her good will disappeared as she thought, I hope I drown you.
  
  And then, abruptly, she was that woman. She was herself in that body that only seconds before had seemed so far away. Rogue hovered in the air and the transition was so seamless that at first she did not realize, did not believe; only, this floating sensation was her still falling, hallucinating.
  
  But she looked down and saw Jane rushing away from her, flailing in the air. Rogue moved on instinct, dropping like a stone, and it was beautiful to have a body that obeyed her when she wanted to defy gravity.
  
  She caught Jane, but the woman barely breathed. Rogue remembered her dying self, caught in the web of her skin. It was not a good memory. She returned to the rooftop.
  
  Mindy now waited inside Maguire's brain, but she and Renny both were burst from the seams of their confinement, flooding into that place where Maguire kept his own sacred space, and Jean could not stop the flow of their spirits, or how they overwhelmed. She tried to help him, but—
  
  —Logan was next.
  
  It was always a lie when people said they were prepared to meet their end. Logan had told that lie once or twice, and he was telling it to himself again. He was bleeding pretty bad. Not that it was getting his spirits down or anything.
  
  He staggered to his feet and managed to dodge a direct blow to his stomach. Those claws sank into his lungs instead. He tasted blood, and gazed into his own smirking face—
  
  —and then he found himself on the other side of the claws and his body felt good and strong, and oh—oh, poor kid, that poor girl—and he sheathed his claws and caught Patty as she fell to the ground, dead. The teddy bear stuck in the back of her belt looked especially mournful.
  
  Jane did not want to leave Wolverine's body. She fought viciously and nothing Jean did could hold her. She wanted blood and she went after the sweet spot inside Maguire's mind, tearing out a chunk. Jonas screamed.
  
  Jean tried not to listen. She found Kurt and—
  
  —his counterpart enjoyed this joke a little too much, dropping people off in the middle of the sky and then dashing away to parts unknown. Kurt thought it was especially rude, and especially terrifying to be free-falling through the sky, but he saw Rogue fly toward him and he trusted her to catch him—
  
  —and she did, but Kurt watched her do it from a distance and he looked down at his hands, his lovely blue hands with their thick nails and oh! His tail. Oh, how very wonderful to be home again.
  
  Patty was harder. Not as bad as Jane, but she whined a lot more and at this point Maguire was no longer building barriers. Patty flowed like a snake from Nightcrawler into the comers of Maguire's mind, writhing on a round white belly, but Jean had no more time for these people because Scott was the only one left, and she did this one special, with a light touch—
  
  —a very light touch on his mind, and he knew it was Jean the moment she entered his thoughts, because though she had flown off the roof, the Phoenix always rose: his Jean, his lovely wife with her beautiful heart, and she carried him from that burning, hurting place— his borrowed body seared, skin cracked and black and peeling, his lungs full of fire—and with a sharp kick she knocked the malevolent stranger out of his real body.
  
  She placed his soul inside the flesh, settled him sweet, and with a kiss and a touch unwound a golden thread, pinning it to his heart, pinning it to hers.
  
  And then he opened his eyes and the world was red again and Jean stood in front of him, radiant in that red, and he leaned forward and hugged her.