xp_logs | Saturday afternoon, after Charles meets with Betsy . . .

As Saturday afternoon rolled on, Charles found himself sitting by the window in his study, sipping tea and watching the students (and a few teachers) cavort in the snow outside. Their shrieks and giggles, faintly audible through the glass, were momentarily overpowered by a bass whoop from Hank, diving off the second-floor balcony, and Charles had to smile.

Jake had woken up an hour earlier, checked that he still had his breasts, sighed and gone to find something to eat. He had found food and had a confusing conversation with one of the teens -- Angel? Angelo? Angelus? Maybe he was watching too much tv -- and was now ready to face the professor again. He brushed his hair out of his face and knocked on what he thought was the study.

Charles turned at the knock. "Come in."

Apparently it was indeed the study. Jake stepped into the room, glad that he was at least presentable this time. He considered firetruck-red pants and a cream coloured blouse to be way more presentable than the blue worn-for-two-days-and-slept-in-on-plane suit he'd been sporting the day before. "Hi again. Do you have the time to continue our talk now?"

"Ah, Mr. Gavin. Yes, I should; it's shaping up to be a rather light afternoon for me, or at least I devoutly hope so."

Jake closed the door behind him, turning with a wry grin. "I think you just jinxed yourself, professor."

Charles smiled ruefully. "I should know better than that by now, shouldn't I? Still, I'll risk it. Did you sleep well?"

"I did, thanks." Jake walked over to Charles and stopped beside him, looking out of the window. "Looks like your people are -- is that Alison Blaire?"

"Yes, it is; she teaches music, among other things, and serves as our student counselor. She's become a good friend."

Jake nodded slowly. "I see. Do you have any other celebrities hidden around here? I've always wanted to meet Liv Tyler..."

Charles laughed. "I'm afraid Miss Tyler is not, to the best of my knowledge, a mutant. But Elisabeth Braddock, one of our other teachers, graced the covers of numerous fashion magazines in her day, and if you follow biochemistry or genetics you will likely have heard of Henry McCoy or Moira MacTaggart, both old friends."

"I think I've seen Dr. McCoy on tv..." Jake trailed off. He gave Charles a surprised look. "Braddock?"

"Why, yes--have you met her? Or perhaps her brother, Brian?"

"Yeah. Once, actually. Brian Braddock, I mean. Business," he added. He rubbed his hands together. "So. How do we do this?"

"Well, the first thing to do is relax; I don't bite. Feel free to sit down, have something to drink. I liberated some of the leftover desserts from Thanksgiving dinner, if you'd like. And then, when you're ready, I think the easiest way to find out what, exactly, we're dealing with is for me, with your permission, to enter your mind and assess the situation. It will be painless, and over quickly, I promise."

Jake sighed. "I thought you might say that." He looked around for a chair and discovered he was standing right next to one. He sat down and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I had some therapy, right in the beginning... Dream therapy. Gloria Dayne? I have to say, that didn't help much at all."

"This will be . . . somewhat different. And, I hope, more effective. In some ways, telepathy makes a poor substitute for slower, more traditional therapies, but it is often a useful adjunct, and in this case--since the triggering incident was telepathic--I think we can expect better results. But I try not to be too optimistic; in my experience, there's no such thing as a quick fix. Not one that lasts, at any rate."

Jake nodded. "It would be great if there were, though," he said wistfully.

"Mm, perhaps. But people value what they work for, I find." Charles smiled. "Whenever you're ready, Mr. Gavin."

Jake took a deap breath, and let it all out, trying to relax. "Okay. I'm ready. I think. ...Wait. Will this hurt?"

"I very much doubt it, and I will be doing everything I can to prevent causing you any distress. It will go more easily the more relaxed you are."

Jake nodded, somewhat reassured. He closed his eyes, sitting back in the chair, trying to relax again. "Okay. Do your thing," he said after a minute or so, trying not to sound like he was headed to his own execution. There was no need for that.

Charles simply tilted his head slightly, and whatever expectations Jake might have had about the process of telepathy went almost certainly unfulfilled; there was no sense of intrusion, no fingers flipping through his memories, no overwhelming rush of power, only a distinct sense of enormous respect: Michelangelo examining a Rembrandt, learning every brushstroke and pigment, knowing as only another artist does how much effort and sacrifice went into the finished work.

The sensation held for a long moment, and then passed, and when Jake opened his eyes again he found Charles sitting exactly as he had been, a thoughtful and slightly puzzled expression on his face.

"Er. Did it work?"

"Not . . . entirely." Charles paused. "I'm afraid it's a bit more complex than that. I can see what the solution to your problem is, but it's not something that can be encompassed in a single session. Perhaps if I'd known about it earlier, I don't know--but the changes in your unconscious self-image have had a great deal of time to set, and you may require just as long to retrain yourself."

Jake narrowed his eyes. "Explain. Are you telling me because my sources are so incredibly incompetent it takes them seven fucking months to find you, I'm going to be stuck like this for at least seven more?" His voice rose at the end.

"Seven months is, I think, the worst-case scenario. It's a matter of the quick fix opposed to the actual solution, again, I'm afraid. Whatever happened to you during Stryker's attempt at genocide altered your self-perception at a very deep level; I could--probably--simply alter it back, but not without significant risk of damage to your psyche. Imagine a river which has had its course changed by a dam. Remove the dam, and the river goes back to its original banks, yes--and also floods everything downstream." Charles folded his hands in his lap. "I might also add that if we take the time, now, to bring this aspect of your abilities under conscious control, you will be much less vulnerable later on to similar alterations."

"I thought they were under my control," Jake sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I've never had this kind of problem before," he added plainatively.

"You've never encountered this kind of situation before, either. I can and will help you--there are psychic defense techniques I can teach you that involve similar control, for example, and we may be able to use a combination of telepathic and traditional psychiatric therapies to determine why you settled on this form in particular, but it will take time. You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to, of course."

"Dad is going to freak," Jake muttered to himself, before sighing deeply, giving in to what he'd, if he were to be honest, known was coming all along. "I'll need to call the office, arrange things."

"Yes, of course. There's a telephone here, as well as one in your suite if you'd prefer, and unless you'd rather do it yourself, I can inform the staff and students of your presence."

Jake winced. "I think I'll use the one in my suite. I've already run into a couple of... your people. Students, I suppose. I'm getting a bit tried with saying: "It's a long story" when people ask about my name, so, I don't know."

Charles smiled. "You're a shapeshifter with an annoying control problem, currently stuck in an embarrassing form. It doesn't strike me as a very long story at all--and telling it once where everyone can see, will mean you won't have to repeat it."

"You know, it sounds so much better when you say it like that. Yeah, please do inform the staff and students." Jake tilted his head. "How do you do it, by the way? Bulletin board?"

"We have a sort of online public journal system, similar to weblogs but limited to the mansion's secure server; it was one of Dr. McCoy's ideas, several months ago, and has become very popular. Either he or Kitty Pryde, one of the students, can set up an account for you if you're interested."

"Yeah, I'd like that, actually." Jake gave Charles a self-conscious glance. "I... like being in the loop, you know?"

Charles nodded. "I will try to keep you as informed as I can, then, and please consider my office door always open if you have questions. Welcome to Westchester, Mr. Gavin."

Jake rose out of the chair. "Thank you. I think."