The minute he was gone, Celeste's chin lifted from her chest. "Logan?" she whispered cautiously into the gloom. Her thoughts were sluggish and hard to hold onto, blending into calm nothingness before one could summon the strength to form the words. "Are you.....all.....rrrrrr ......rrrrrr....."

She suddenly didn't know what she was asking, couldn't remember the words, couldn't identify the language. What was it? ".....A-l-l-l....r-r-r-right?" There. That was it. She started to feel ridiculously pleased with herself, but stopped when it made her concussion throb.

His heart broke at the child's voice that asked him if he was hurt, the words meticulously spoken and filled with a woman's concern. Logan shook his head, for the moment too shocked to answer, when he finally did, it sounded a lot less gentle than he would have liked. "Are you off yer nut, darlin'?" He hissed, "You just got yer head cracked six ways from Sunday an' yer askin' about me?!"

Celeste blinked, her eyebrows lowering over her eyes. Wha' whazat 'bout a nut? An' Sunday? She giggled. He wuz so funnie.

Another voice, this one gentle but commanding, answered from the darkness. "Quiet, Logan. Technically, she is 'off her nut'. She's probably suffered massive head trauma and that headband she's wearing has reduced her brain function to a slow trickle."

Charles paused as another giggle erupted from the other side of the room. "I wouldn't try to talk to her if I were you."

Celeste laughed again. They tocked funnie oover there. Involuntarily, another question came from the bottom of her psyche, the responsible queen. The child's mouth moved slowly, putting forth gold-star effort. "Is ev-ry...ever-y one...a-l-l...rrrr...rrrrr...?"

They understood. "We're here, sugah." .

"Still breathin', *p'tite*."

"Quite all right, for the moment."

"We are doing well, Callie."

She waited, confused at the silence. "Wha'....'bout...Cy-c-Cyke an' hissss.....hisss...'S woman?"

"We're not going anywhere for a while."

"Scott and I are fine, Celeste."

She had to say something else...something important. "Ssssss...So...sorry I failed."

Her head fell forward, limp, and she collapsed into blackness, her mind surging into silence.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." At first, Celeste thought it was her mother trying to rouse her. Well, she wasn't going to ruin a perfectly good sleep to get up and go to some boring official function. She snuggled deeper into the mists of the Dreamscape. For a moment, silence buzzed in the air.

"Celeste...." She was more insistent now, and Celeste tensed, waiting for her mother to throw off her covers and expose her to the cold morning air. It was that simple twitch of her shoulders that caused pain to shoot down her back and up her neck in burning arcs. How long had she been out? A day? Two? Callie's eyes opened, and she focused on her tormentor. "I know it hurts, darling. Just give yourself to me and it will all be over."

His voice was so calming, so loving, so beautiful. How could she ever have thought him evil? She opened her mouth to say *yes*-

"Roast in sulfur, ya slime-suckin' piece o' gutter trash!"

Celeste forced her eyes away from Thepis, slowly focusing on the person who had bellowed in that strange accent.

He looked so very odd. Callie was sure she'd never seen him before, and at the same time, she knew he was the reason she must never give in. Thepis turned back to Celeste. Her face had hardened from a little girl's to a queen's in seconds.

"Ah. I should have known you would make this difficult for yourself." He sighed, and turned away, walking to a computer to configure some new program. "I suppose I have no choice but to use torture to gain your submission." His regretful tone wasn't genuine enough to hide his glee.

Celeste made no sound. She simply stared at Logan, whose eyes were wide and fixed in horror. She looked at Xavier. Utter sorrow was reflected from every line of his body. Her lips turned up at the corners, and she winked. Thepis came back and slid the headband from her forehead. "I want you to be able to feel it all at once," he explained, "The headband will reduce your perceptions of this experience. I believe your return to normality will be rather quick."

He was wrong. The instant the electrodes came away from her skin, Celeste's lucidity returned. But he must not know that. She raised watery, blurred eyes to her enemy. The child's voice wailed, "Why do you hate me?"

He made a dismayed sound and reached up to stroke her hair. "Oh, darling, I don't hate you at all. I love you."

Celeste's teeth ground together. Bastard.

He smiled consolingly and sauntered over to a control panel. "Now, be sure to tell me if this hurts." Celeste watched his hand reach toward a blinking red switch.

She gasped as gentle hands folded around her own. Their fingers interlaced as the panel Callie hung against glowed yellow with the force of a thousand psionic blades. She gasped as she was yanked backwards, away from her own body and everything she held dear. Mentally, she flailed about, blindly reaching for someone she couldn't remember, someone to help. Her mind brushed Jean's, and together they fell screaming into the abyss.

Celeste reached out for Jean, and they clutched each other as they fell through the emptiness of this new place, dropping through a haze of gyrating colors and shapes as though they were trapped in a kaleidoscope operated by a madman. Their world solidified as they hit bottom.

Jean relaxed her grip on Callie's arm, cracked open her eyes, and sat up carefully. Celeste rubbed her head and drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin atop them.

"Where are we?" Jean asked, then started as an echo sounded, louder than her words had been.

Celeste answered mentally. #In limbo. I just got out of this place yesterday, and now here I am, back again. . . .#

#What exactly is this 'limbo'?#

#It's like your astral plane, Jean. It's a place between the worlds. Between good and evil, light and dark, life and death.# She laughed quietly. #You're gonna love it here. Boring as all hell and nothing to do but think.#

#Why are we here?#

"That is where I come in, Phoenix."

Celeste head jerked up at the sound of that voice, clear and perfect as a lullaby. "Mother!"