xp_logs | Some time ago.

Pete and Charles did finally have that chat...

Set between the soldiers and the love potion.

Pete leant back in his chair, stretching and rolling his head backwards, wincing as his back and neck gave out audible popping sounds. He glanced at the ashtray, where his last cigarette had burnt itself out untouched after that first drag. He killed the secure session he'd been using to go over some briefings on the current state of affairs in South Africa, and glanced at the clock, only to discover that he didn't really have time for another before his meeting with Xavier.

He picked up the printouts he'd run off earlier in the day, and headed downstairs, pausing only briefly to straighten his tie before knocking on the door to Xavier's study.

Xavier wheeled himself out from behind his desk at the sound of the knock, promising himself that he'd get back to the pile of marking sitting there after this meeting.

"Come in, Pete."

Charles stopped by the more comfortable chairs beside fireplace, and indicated the decanter on the sideboard as the Pete shut the door behind him.

"Help yourself."

"Cheers. It's been a long day..."

Pete poured himself a measure, then picked up another glass, turning to the older man questioningly. A brief nod in response, and Pete poured a second measure. He handed it over, then sat, placing his folder of papers on the small table beside him. He took a sip of his drink.

"D'you think the pair of us did something really stupid in a former life, or something?"

Charles raised an eyebrow. "It's possible, I suppose. What makes you ask?"

"Well, here you are, trying to run a school for weird kids that can't seem to go five minutes without some kind of explosion or personal crisis, while I'm trying to do what I can round the place, and keep half an eye on the rest of the world at the same time. I figure we've got to have done something pretty bloody daft..."

"Or, to look at it another way, maybe we're both building up excellent karma for next time round." said Charles, smiling slightly. "So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I had a list somewhere," said Pete patting down his pockets.

"No, seriously, though, the first thing was just to say sorry about the other week. I'd never have come here, if I thought it was a remote possibility that they'd come after me. I got overconfident about being able to keep the bastards off my back. Won't happen again."

Charles nodded.

"Apology accepted. I'm sure you didn't mean for it to happen, Pete. I take it you've made sure that there'll be no repeat?"

"Yeah. If anything happens to me, it's going to ruin the lives of just about everyone with a reason to want me dead. And on the off-chance that someone authorises another hit anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll hear about it within the hour, so I'll be able to get the hell out of here."

"Then let's say no more about it. But I'm sure that's not the only reason you wanted to see me, is it?"

"Not even close." said Pete, with a slightly relived smile. "I wasn't entirely kidding about that list. I guess the first thing is the security round here. Jake and I have been talking it over, and he thought there was no way you'd go for a curfew enforced by extreme sanction, but I said that you had to be getting tired of some of the little toerags by now..."

"Tempting as the idea might be at times, I'm afraid that Mr Gavin is right, although we might want to revisit the idea with regard to some of the faculty. Have you come up with something else?"

"Jake's thinks there's mileage in satellite surveillance. We can get a satellite of our own monitoring this place, set to trigger alarms when people it doesn't recognise get onto the grounds. I don't understand half of it, but he assures me it's possible, and that it'll give less false positives than just about anything else we've come up with. We'd have to get a lot of the software custom written, but he knows a couple of people who might be good for it, and I thought it might be an idea to involve Pryde as well, so someone here has a solid idea of how the thing works."

Charles nodded again, as Pete gestured to file beside him.

"That's what we've got so far. Jake's still working out a lot of the details, but I thought I'd give you a chance to give it the once over and check you're OK with what we're proposing before we go ahead, since you do own the place, after all."

"How very considerate of you."

"Yeah, we thought so. Goes against every instinct that we have, you understand."

"Ah, if only we could boast the same success in teaching students to overcome their character flaws. There may be hope for you after all, Mister Wisdom. I'll look it over this evening."

"Cheers. While we're talking about Jake and Kitty, though, she brought something to my attention the other day that you ought to know about - Jake's keeping his father very bloody well informed about what's going on here. If I understood her right, Kitty caught some weirdly encrypted data going out of here not long after the raid, and cracked it open just to make sure that it wasn't something that the bastards had left behind, but it turned out to be Jake filling his Dad in on what'd been going on here in quite some detail."

"Are you worried about it?"

"Well, I figured he'd probably be doing it anyway, even before Kitty found proof. I'd rather he wasn't doing it, but it's not like his Dad's going to be selling the information on to anyone - that's ain't how Infonet works. So for the time being, I'll try and keep an eye on Jake, and make sure he's not up to anything shadier, but I think we can probably leave it at that for now."

"That sounds reasonable to me, but do let me know if he starts to seriously abuse my hospitality."

"Sure. And not that I'm looking to sound paranoid here, but there's a couple of other potential security risks we're looking at, as well."

"Paranoid? You? Perish the thought. If only you were wrong a little more often, though..."

"Ah, I just don't mention things I think I might be wrong about. Still even by my standards the first one's faintly ludicrous, but Jake and I are both just being cautious on this score."

"Don't tell me that Mr Gavin is a bad as you, please. I don't think I could handle the idea that both the guidance counsellors at my school were conspiracy theorists..."

Wisdom ignored the crack.

"It's this LeBeau geezer that came in at New Years. Jake tells me he's a dead ringer for a professional killer of the same name who vanished without trace a few years back. A really fucking nasty piece of work - I've done shitty things, but this guy puts most of what I've done in the shade. Only problem is that the LeBeau we've got here is about fifteen years to young to be that one, but Jake's pretty sure it's the same guy. Judging by what I hear of the guy, he's got the skills, but coming in here would be outside his MO. So fuck knows what's going on, basically, but we figured it was weird, so I'm just giving you a heads-up."

Charles frowned.

"That is... troubling. Especially since Mr LeBeau seems to have remarkable natural shields. The man manages to be conspicuous by his psionic absence. I had assumed it was just as a consequence of the sort of paranoia that living on the streets can engender, and that he'd relax with time."

He sipped his drink, thinking for a moment.

"Still, I don't think I can just cast him out for what may be nothing more than a co-incidence, although judging by that frown on your face, you don't agree."

"Up until two seconds ago, I was willing to go along with ‘weird co-incidence', because I figured that no-one would be idiot enough to walk into a house full of telepaths with hostile intent. But if he's as bloody hard to read as you're suggesting, then maybe he is the same bastard, taking a gamble, and even if he isn't, I'm a whole lot less happy about the risk"

"I've generally found that a policy of trust is worth the risk." There was a mild rebuke in Charles tone. "Had he presented himself to us, I might agree with you for once, but don't forget, it was us that went to find him, and from what Betsy says, he took quite some convincing. I think for now, we'll take him at face value, especially you say he's quite a lot to young to be this bogeyman you're suggesting."

"Yeah, OK." Pete sipped his own drink, as much to keep from sighing as anything else. "It's not like LeBeau being a bit dodgy makes him unique around here."

He paused for a second.

"Look, you know I'm not here to undermine you, right? That I'm not running any kind agenda here? Far as I'm concerned, it's your school, and you get to say how things go."

"Are you about to tell me anything I haven't heard or thought before?"

"I hope not, I really do. I'm seriously worried about the kids' safety, here. And yeah, I know I'm as much to blame as anyone, but still - you're sitting on a school full of people with shady pasts, and running training for a paramilitary outfit, while trying to run classes for seven year olds. You're brighter than I am, and if I can see how this looks to an outsider, I'm damn sure you can..."

Charles looked at him.

"I'm not blind to the dangers, Pete. And the thought of them keeps me up at night, too. But I cannot compromise the principles of trust on which I founded this school. It has to be a haven for any that need it. Otherwise what're we doing here but setting up another exclusive club, a little Hellfire Club of our own? I cannot and will not countenance that. And if the X-men can save even one life, or change one mind about the dangers of mutants, then how can they be abandoned? We're not without our own friends in government, and as time goes on, I genuinely believe we'll make more, and that the threat from that quarter will recede. It's just a question of time."

"I hope you're right, god knows I do. But I still think we should look at trying something to reduce the risk."

"Like what, exactly?"

"Like moving the X-men the fuck away from here. Putting the bit of the operation that really scares the government away from the kids."

"And denude the school of teachers? As things stand, the X-men represent trustworthy mutants who have mastered, or are well on their way to mastering their gifts. Can you think of anyone better qualified to help the next generation of mutants?"

Pete sighed.

"No, honestly, I can't. And I don't honestly know how much of me thinks it's a good idea because it'll really make the kids safer, and how much of it is just because I just don't like the idea of the X-men."

Xavier raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, well, that's a conversation we've had more than once before now. Is there any need to go over it again?"

"No, not really." said Pete. "But I'm stumped for better ideas here, and I dunno, Charlie, when you've got former street kids offering to teach the rest of the student body how too shoot just so they can try and feel safe, then something just ain't right..."

Charles sighed.

"No, it isn't, and I think the matter with Angelo is in hand. But more generally, I'm at a loss to suggest what else we can do without compromising the school, other that keep on as we have been, and try and come up with something better as fast as we can."

"Damn. I was pinning my hopes on the idea that someone cleverer than me might be able to come up with something."

"I fear we all are, but then, there are some remarkable people here, faculty and students - I haven't given up hope yet. Still, I do appreciate you coming to me, rather than just complaining on the journal system as seems to have become so fashionable of late, and I'm sure we'll both keep sitting up at night trying to work out what to do."

"Oh, I think you can count on it."

"Good. Are you done telling me where I'm going wrong, now?" There was a note of wry humour in Charles' voice.

Pete smiled ruefully. "Hey, no-one said you had to listen to me, you know. Almost everyone else has more sense. No, I've got one other thing. But this one, I think you'll like."

"There's a first time for everything, I suppose." There was a slight smile on Charles face as he said it

"I think we need to get a decent minibus, and start using it regularly. The kids are going stir-crazy, and I'm sure half of it's because they're never away from the bloody staff. I'm behind the idea of this place being a safe haven, I think for some of them, it's starting to feel like a ghetto."

Charles' smile widened and raised his glass.

"An excellent idea - I've been thinking about something similar for a while now, but with everything that's been going on... Jamie has already started organising something with some of the local children, I believe, but yes, I'm sure may of the children would benefit from a chance to get away on a regular basis."

Pete raised his own glass in return.

"Yeah, I like Madrox's plans, but I can't see all the kids going for them. I figure we get a minibus, and work out a rota for the staff to use to drop the kids off in New York, and pick them up later that way everyone gets to do their own thing. The older kids can keep an eye on the younger ones - no staff supervision unless there absolutely has to be, we give everyone a mobile phone, and they're pretty much as safe as any kid would be these days. Hell, once a month, I'll even volunteer to drive the older ones to a club and pick them up later."

"You may have cause to regret that offer, you know. Can I leave it to you to make arrangements, and let everyone know when the minibus arrives then?"

"Sure. And as much as I hate to sound like Colombo, there's just one more thing. I feel a bit awkward about it, honestly."

"Are you sure it's only one more thing? I see to recall that you've said that at least twice already."

"No, this is definitely it. It's this bloody counsellor job. It was funny enough at the time, and I'm happy to help any of the students if I can, but I'm not remotely qualified for it, and neither's Jake. And honestly, it's never going to be my top priority, or where I'm most useful."

Charles sipped his drink.

"I was sure it wouldn't be when I suggested you take the job. Even so, I think you're being hard on yourself, but I agree that the job seems to have become rather more demanding in recent months than we might have foreseen. I'm trying to arrange to have Doctor Samson available on a more regular basis for the more troubled of our students in the hope that you'll simply be left dealing with students falling behind on their class work and teenage romances breaking up. I'm sure you're more than capable of handling that."

Pete sighed with relief.

"Thanks. I don't want to do the wrong thing and leave any of the poor sods scarred for life..."

"Really? I would have thought you'd have made it your mission to frighten and disturb as many of them as possible. As I said - there may be hope for you yet."

Pete grinned.

"Just so long as you remember you said that when you find Artie sniffing marker pens, that's all..."

Charles returned the smile.

"If I find Artie developing a solvent abuse problem, I will, of course, have no hesitation in making you believe you're an eight year old with a bed-wetting problem. I'd always assumed that was understood."

"I was afraid of that."

"I find it best to spell these things out ahead of time. On another topic entirely, though, a friend of mine was kind enough to acquire a bootleg Rolling Stones recording for me that I think you might enjoy - it's an early live show from before Charlie Watts joined the band."

Pete's eyebrow's rose, as Charles reached for a remote.

"You're not turning into one of those scary obsessive completists on me, are you?"

"Pete, I was going to Stones concerts before you were born. And as much as it might astonish some people here to discover that I listen to music other than the classics, I think I'm as entitled to enjoy a little nostalgia as much as the next man."

A background of crowd noise filled the room as the recording started.

"Ok, Ok. Hey, speaking of Watts, did you get a chance to hear that Tentet Set recording I copied you yet?"

The two men settled back as the guitars started...