After that bit of excitement, the X-men resettled into their routine...sort of.

They went back to helping The Way rebuilding, in their spare time.

Logan was visibly troubled, however. He'd been giving a lot of thought to his blunders of the last week or so, and how three people at least had told him he was in the wrong (four if he counted Wally, though he was the least blunt).

Shine was anxious to get back to their mentoring schedule, as she felt too much had been interrupted by the crisis...and now it looked as though Rogue was going to join the list of people.

Rogue was still slow about taking these steps. She acted like an animal wading into water for the first time: slow and hesitant, but curious.

Shine didn't talk to her the way she did to the two older, more experienced newbies. She recommended, gently.

Storm told Logan it was just changing her approach and it had nothing to do with her being more stern on them--by which Storm meant him, because Shine's more fiery way of talking to them never bothered her at all. She rather enjoyed the challenge.

Logan would have too, if he hadn't felt like he'd screwed up.

Shine was attentive to Mystique also, while she was still recovering, but as she was getting some help from Kurt there now, she turned more attention to the others.

And that was how they ended up sitting at the table, talking about the reading and the experiences of the last few weeks again.

Logan was pretty quiet though.

"Is something wrong?" Shine finally asked him. "Surely you got something out of all this. Romans is one of my favorite books...and Galatians too.... Didn't anything interest you?"

"It's not that." Logan had barely noticed any of what he'd read. "I don't think this is workin'."

Storm looked up from checking her own notes and shot Shine a look that basically said, Here we go again.

Shine, to her credit, did not lose her patience.

"Logan, don't you say that every time you try something new?" she said. "You know, the first burst of enthusiasm doesn't last, and it's not supposed to."

"I know that," Logan said, though he really didn't know it as well as he imagined he did. "I'm talkin' about...changin'. Ya said yerself I'm still angry. I can't stand that woman (he meant Mystique) and anyone else who ever does me wrong... I know ya told me if I can look at it different with one person, I can with the others, but I've tried... I still hate 'em."

Storm looked down. This hit home a little too much.

Shine appeared to be thinking--or...no, they'd both realized since taking her instruction that often her silence was her consulting with God, silently, and then speaking.

Storm was of the opinion it worked, since she always said something insightful afterward. Logan thought it was a little unnerving--always made him feel like an invisible force was watching him. [Star Wars?]

Shine then spoke, "Mind if I ask, Logan, are you also trying to forgive yourself?"

"Huh?" Logan said.

"Well, you think all this is not working because you still are angry at other people, but most of your anger is directed at yourself, on a given day," Shine said, as smoothly as if this should have been obvious from the start, not a great discovery. "If you are skipping that step, then you will not be able to overlook other people's errors either."

Logan frowned at her. "I figure I know I've done plenty of wrong things, and that's my problem. I don't need someone to sugarcoat it for me."

"Excuse me?" Shine was a little angry.

"What I mean is, all that forgivin' yerself crap is just to make it okay to screw up again," Logan said. "Sure, God might forgive people, at least that's what this says--" He pointed at the Bible. "--and you and the Preacher says, but I can't just forget what I've done...too much.

Storm shook her head but was quiet.

"I believe we have the source of your problem, then," Shine said. "You'll have to start all over, Logan. Luckily you can. 'His Mercies are new every morning', as the Psalms says. This is what you do--you get angry at people, and that reminds you of your anger at yourself, and then you are angry that you are still angry, and then you are miserable, because you suppose this means you are not changing,"

She pretty much had summed it up, yeah.

"So?" Logan said. "I can't help it... I just get full of rage... I know that's not good, but I'm not that good."

"You being good was never a question," Shine said firmly. "What have we been talking about for weeks? It's not about that... One of these days this will get through your thick skull." She smiled wryly. "Let's see if we can start small though... Let's try a metaphor. You know kids, right?"

"Uh...yeah." Logan frowned.

"They do stupid things all the time," Shine said. "But would you give up on teaching a kid just because they make mistakes?"

"No, of course not," Logan said.

"One up on my dad," Shine muttered so low they barely heard her, but aloud she said, "And that's right. Now, to God, we're all children. We know less, we can do less, and we understand less than Him. He doesn't expect us to just figure it all out. But He's not gonna give up on us because of that. He will keep working until we are pure. You are just barely starting, Logan. It is you who gives up on yourself so quickly, not God. God is still reaching, repeatedly. That is why you met Kurt, and me, and everyone else who's been helping you. You're having a hard time extending that to others because you just don't buy it yet. Luckily, God even knows that difficulty will happen."

Logan was quiet.

"Look at what Romans says." Shine gestured widely. "'There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.' Some people have found it useful to say this every day when they get up or several times in the day. Guilt is a big problem for most of us."

She leaned on her hands now. "You start to believe it, and you'll start to treat others accordingly. It has to come in the right order. You can't give what you don't get."

Logan looked at her skeptically. "I don't think sayin' a cute, little sentence every day is going to help."

"I'm sure that the way you do it is helping, then," Shine said cuttingly. "Or not doing it, I should say. It comes back to the easy or the hard, Logan. It's a small enough thing to try, but if having even that much faith is hard for you, what could you hope to do with a harder task? Faithful in little, faithful in much, that's our rule. Try it and see if it makes a difference."

One thing with Shine, too, as a teacher, once she gave you instructions, she expected you to do them before she told you anything else to help. And if you didn't, she'd be as immovable as a stone. They'd learned this already.

Logan had fought her advice pretty much constantly, so far, as it never sounded like it would work to him...but then he'd had to give in...

He thought he was going in circles on this issue of anger, as he always did...but it was true he had not really tried anything she'd said to deal with it--he was just trying to swallow it by sheer will. Trying her little tips always seemed to him to be making too light of his life-long struggle.

But Shine wasn't budging--that was clear.

"And if it doesn't work?" He tried for a loophole.

"Try it with the expectation that it will, and you'll be shocked," Shine said. "I don't think asking if it doesn't work is any use. Who's to judge? Even if you felt nothing, the sheer effort would show you'd made some change, wouldn't it? Like you would actually do as I say for once." She stood up, smirking. "I'll leave it to you to decide. One other tip--I like to sing when I feel guilty, or worthless, or anything like that... It's rare now, but back when I started, just like you, I was frustrated with my many errors and realized how messed up I was, and when I did therapy, it was the same. So having things to remind me, not just of the Word, but even to say it, was very helpful. Music is one of the easier things to use--easy to remember, easy to do. And you don't need anyone else's input for it either."

She started humming. Then as she moved to grab herself some snacks, she started to warble:

"Tell me I'm forgiven and loved, 'cause I hear it from the street corner praise stands on how God is love and a man can be clean!

"But my joy has been on holiday, and my peace is almost passed away, tell me I'm forgiven and free!

"('Cause I try and try to rectify, my hopeless situation, but I bought the lie 'I still have work to do.' Now I'm working 9 to 5 like I can earn my own salvation, but there is no condemnation in You!)

"Oh, whisper to me now that it's for real, 'cause in the silence of these walls righteousness lost its appeal. Dirty deeds have done me in, oh, but that can't stop the faithful friend. Give me mercy once again as you heal. Here it is, I'm feeling it...

(chorus)

"Oh, He died, He died to rectify my hopeless situation, and His blood commands my guilt to leave. Here on Calvary I stand, empty pockets, open hands. Now there is no condemnation for me!

"Child, you're forgiven and loved. (x2) Child, you're forgiven and, child, you are loved. Child, you're forgiven and loved."

https://youtu.be/dbObOC1lPeY

* * *

Mystique submitted to Kurt keeping an eye on her with her usual sullen resignation. Kurt tried to make it easier for her.

But she was adamant that there was just nothing for them to talk about.

Kurt was wavering between feeling sad for himself and feeling sad for her.

"Is it wrong?" he asked Morph, who was surprisingly sympathetic. "Maybe I should just let her alone... I'm sorry. This is not  your problem."

"It's fine," Morph said. "Kind of nice to talk about someone's other than my own for once, actually."

Kurt sighed.

"You know, she's a tough person to figure out," Morph commented. "She acted really callous about it when Creed forced us to work against you all, but she sometimes does things like she's trying to help, and she saved you one time, right?"

"Ja," Kurt said. "She does have a conscience... It is not that that bothers me...it is how little she seems to care about what actually matters...family, faith, happiness... I have never met anyone so determined not to care about such things."

"Well, I have," Morph said. "Caring about that stuff can be real hard for mutants. Even the X-men."

Kurt sighed again. "Perhaps my experiences have been more divergent from what's normal than I had supposed."

"I'd say that's for sure," Morph said dryly. "But you're lucky... I wish I didn't have the regrets I do." He fiddled with a pencil. "So why is it so important to patch things up with your mom anyway...? Also, she doesn't look old enough to be your mom--do you think she shapeshifts that?"

"I have no idea," Kurt said. "Perhaps ve do not age so fast. I have looked young for my age."

"Do you think it could be the blue?" Morph said. "'Cause Hank doesn't look as old as he is either."

"Well, under fur it can be hard to tell," Kurt said. "You'd have to ask her. I cannot change my appearance... Perhaps that is a blessing. I feel it must be hard for people who are torn between two vorlds. I have never had that problem."

"It is hard," Morph admitted. "I bet it would be harder if your natural form didn't look human too. I guess I had it easy compared to many mutants, but you're still a freak if anyone finds out." he shrugged.

"Perhaps you could help me understand her." Kurt brightened. "You must have had some of the same experiences... Do you understand why she is so opposed to us?"

"I don't think we're that similar," Morph said.

But he thought. "Well...you know, I know at least that once you've strayed, it's real hard to feel like you belong with good people again... Maybe if it happened over and over again, you'd just get to feel that way about everyone."

"I vonder why my mother always chooses to vork on the side of evil," Kurt said. "I can't sense that she is as evil as these men who vant to destroy everyone... It is like she does not think about it."

"Who knows?" Morph shrugged.

"Talking about Mystique?" Shine walked in. "Where is she?"

"She stepped out," Kurt said. "Personal reason." He twitched his tail. "Ve have just been speculating about why she is rejecting us."

"Ah," Shine said.

"You seem to know people's minds pretty well," Morph said. "What's your take on it?"

"You could always ask her," Shine said. "She's always quick to condemn herself to others. She'd probably answer..." She sat down.

"But if I had to guess, she reminds me of some of my other friends...many of them, actually... I seem to get sent to these sorts of people often. While everyone is a little different, a common thread is that people are drawn to anything that gives their life purpose, even if it's a bad purpose. If they have nothing else in themselves, no morals, no dreams of their own, they find someone who's like a flame, and they're like a month. The cause itself doesn't matter to people like that."

"That matches some of what she has said," Kurt said, "according to my sister. I find that sad. Devoting yourself to evil just for the sake of purpose is a great folly."

"I think it's sad not to have any dream of your own," Morph said.

"It's far more like the X-men than you think," Shine said. "Which she knows." She gestured nonchalantly. "So she has said to Rogue. United under one man's vision."

"But Xavier's vision is a good one," Morph said.

"One none of you believe in except for him," Shine said. "And perhaps Hank."

"What do you mean?" Kurt said.

"Just the amount of times X-men have considered leaving to pursue other things, alone, convinces me," Shine said. "Kurt, you'd know as well as I--true believers do not just leave something for the next shiny thing."

Kurt was silent.

"To get back to Mystique," Shine said, just as if she had not called Morph's whole world into question in a few sentences, "she has no dream. In her words, she 'survives', and people who do that do anything. It is sad." She tilted her head. "But I've had a hard time condemning them, even aside from my faith, for I see no reason, really, to not hold that view, if you don't know God. Survival is as much as we can hope for if we're on our own.... Plus, Raven reminds me too much of girls I've known from rough backgrounds...people who stop caring because it ends poorly for them when they do. I can read certain things as plain as a book."

She tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. "You spend enough time working with people with trauma, and you start to spot the signs of each kind. Her kind is very difficult. It's the product of years of neglect and mistreatment in various forms."

"Are you sure of this?" Kurt said.

"No one is like that at birth, Kurt," Shine said. "Selfishness is inherent to man, it's true, but the form it takes is shaped by how we're treated. Spoiled people are soft, pathetic whiners. They think everything is to suit them...but all they usually need are a few reality checks in the form of difficult experiences, and they'll start to adjust. Bullied people tend to become mousy, small...hesitant.... They must be lifted up. Other times they become hardened to it and learn to expect that treatment, even to invite it. Those are the hardest. You must constantly give them what they do not expect, and always as kindly as you can, if you want them to see. On top of that bullied air, if they have that utter lack of direction, it shows also that they long ago gave up on themselves and any worth on their part. Probably they were never treated like they had any, so they do not treat themselves that way. If you learn to take all these factors into account, a survival mentality no longer is shocking. It is only shocking if there is any exception to it, namely, like taking a bullet, literally or figuratively, for someone else."

She clasped her knees. "You begin to see these qualities as rare jewels in the ugly setting that selfishness and fear make of our characters. But all of us fall to both those things in some way. You both know that. But when you have been trampled on enough times, it is hard to retain any good qualities." She smiled a little. "I have always had an especial fondness for people who do. One of my favorite students was a boy who was hated by his entire village, and his life was attempted on many times, even by his own father--who was responsible for making him a terror to them to begin with. But he got shown a kindness from someone, and he latched onto it, and his two siblings helped him. He grew beyond all expectation for him, becoming one of the kindest, most loving and understanding people I have ever had the privilege to know and work with. We mentored him into knowing more about dealing with people shrewdly and with care. He was rough around the edges, but a heart of gold. I love him." She smiled fondly. "To go from being half crazy, to a world leader for love...that is God.
"Another of my most challenging cases was one who'd lost his whole family, had been tormented for many years by it. It drove him mad, I think...but one day he finally saw he'd just been repeating the same cycle for years, and he'd go on doing it, till his death, if someone didn't help him get out of it. He asked me to help him. Wally and I spent months working with him closely... It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, teaching wise. That kid fought me more than anyone I've ever met."

She shook her head and chuckled dryly. "But he was a very sensitive soul. It was why he couldn't bear the evil he saw. He had to learn that we can't carry that in ourselves. We can't fix it all, but we can heal, and we can let God do the rest. He came back from the edge of insanity. But I had to be so patient, I almost wanted to quit at first...but, you know, I came to love him. For one thing, he was never content to just stay one way. As annoying as he was about it, he pushed forward, whatever way he could. He didn't lay down and die. And given how he was treated, I found that remarkable. The human soul is an amazing thing. An animal would have quit ages ago."

She looked up at them again. "Jewels in mud, that's what we've been compared to by many teachers. I have to agree. 'O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors', Isaiah 54:11, as the Good Book says."

Kurt was smiling. "How true."

Morph shook his head. "I wish I could look at people the way you two do."

"I think that's a good start," Shine said. "However damaged we are, Morph, we are meant to be glorious, and with enough time with God, we will be. Even with God, humans are capable of amazing things, since we are in His image. No other creature is. You've no idea how great an honor that is."

"Even mutants?" Morph said.

"Mutants are humans, Morph," Shine said. "In any way that matters." She stood back up. "I never saw a difference."

She walked back out of the room.

"When she talks like that, I really almost think I could believe it," Morph told Kurt. "I think it would be great to see the world that way."

"Miss Shine is a special person," Kurt said. "Even I, who have believed for a long time, sometimes vonder if it is vorth it to try. She has a gift for strengthening people. I alvays feel more sure of my faith after talking to her. I notice that Mr. West makes me feel more accepting of others in the same vay. They are gifted strongly, are they not?"

"And you've got that inspiration thing going," Morph said. "Logan thinks pretty highly of you."

"I am just a humble servant," Kurt said. "The inspiration is of the Lord. I could say the same of them. But I believe ve all reflect Gott's glory in unique vays. I find their vay to be encouraging to me. Encouragement is a highly valued trait between brethren in the Bible."

"If she's right about your mom," Morph said, "then...what do you think happened to her to make her the way she is?"

"I do not know," Kurt said. "But just what I have learned since being here...I fear for the truth of the matter."

He didn't know Mystique had been standing in the hall, listening in on this for several minutes, or he would not have said that.

Mystique bit her lip and shook her head to herself.

One thing she told herself she was never going to do was tell Kurt exactly what had happened to her. She would not ask for his pity like that... Also, she thought it would upset him. He lived a sheltered enough life at his monastery or in this house. Why spoil it with the kinds of things she'd witnessed, all the evil and selfish ambitions of the people she'd worked with or under, and herself, and just the regular humans too...?

She didn't feel the same with Shine. Shine had that air of having seen a lot already, and her stories indicated she was no stranger to human error... How she was able to think of them the way she did even so, that was the mystery. But at the very least, Mystique doubted she could shock her.

Morph she'd have thanked to stay out of her business at all. Since when were he and Kurt such pals anyway?

Now he was saying something...

"If it was that bad, I can see why maybe she'd keep it to herself," he mused. "I wouldn't tell something like that to people who were holding me hostage... Kind of messed up... Actually, I experienced having someone who was holding me hostage go through my brain. It was horrible."

"I am sorry," Kurt said. "I vish there vas not such evil in the vorld."

"Well...you know," Morph said, "it's not that there's people like Sinister out there that bothers me so much, it's when people who are good weaken. It seems like good should at least be as strong as evil, but it's like it's weaker."

"Oh, no, Herr Morph." Kurt shook his head. "You are mistaken. It is not gut that is veak, it is us. Ve cannot adhere to it because of our sinful nature. Gut itself is powerful...powerful enough to save us even when ve seem far, far beyond hope."

Mystique could listen to no more. She made her way back down the hall and out the door into the yard.

She had no intention of running this time. Even standing this long had made her dizzy. She just wanted to stall on going back inside.

It was nice outside, if she'd been able to appreciate it.

I have to get away from here, she thought to herself. This place...these people are going to turn my head if I let them...make me think things that are completely mad... I can feel it starting already.

Even thinking this did not make her feel any better.

If Rogue's running off had produced a change in Rogue by her realizing what she was running from was not in one place or group, then it had worked on Mystique to make her realize that whatever she was trying to get, she wouldn't get it...and left without that, she had no purpose...

She was already starting to wonder why she should even bother escaping; she'd end up in this position again in no time. She had once been able to lie to herself and say she would not--it would be different next time.

Somehow working for Sinister had taken that delusion out of her, almost unnoticed... She knew she would not. Women like her were made to fall into the hands of people who had a use for them, nothing more.

She couldn't remember a time of her life when she had not felt that way. Acceptance was based on use. She had abandoned her children when she had no use for them and had been kicked out of anywhere where they ceased to have a use for her.

How little Kurt understood that even his difficulties with acceptance were nothing compared to being able to serve people who still thought of you as inhuman, even while they had a use for you...or as tools, in Apocalypse's case.

Would it have been better to have any ability other than shapeshifting? Mystique had often thought it proved more of a curse than a blessing to be able to blend in...yet she couldn't help it. She was like a chameleon. It was her defense mechanism. She lacked any reason to abandon it...and the resolve to do so.

In fact, spending so much time in her natural form had been...a little weird, after all these years. Maybe it was having an effect on her mind too...making her focus more on different things.

https://youtu.be/nyK0DhJLn4c

Thinking all this, she listlessly supposed getting away from here wasn't going to make that much of a difference, but she'd still rather be free to make the poor choices she did than forced to do nothing at all...

While standing out there, she didn't notice any X-men around, but quite suddenly, someone appeared in her peripheral.

She turned in time to see the last thing she expected to see...

Sabretooth?

Mystique thought her mind had snapped. The strain of the last few days--now she was seeing it for real.

But then he said loudly, "Mystique?!"

And she thought, I can't be imagining that voice...

She never realized how much Creed looked and sounded like his father.... How unpleasant.

However shocked she was, her voice came out fairly flat, "Sabretooth...huh...Back for revenge?"

"Something like that... What the h--- are you doing here?" Sabretooth said. "Don't tell me you're working for these punks now?"

"As if," Mystique sniffed. "But it's none of your concern." She didn't think informing him she was captive would do her any favors. He'd exploit her helpless condition if she did that... He was a bully, she knew that.

But being that he was a bully being snubbed didn't sit too well with him either.

"Always so high and mighty," he said, taking a savage step toward her. "I'm sure you're mixed up in this business somehow. Now I understand why that son of yours was with them. What have you been telling them about me?"

"Really, Tony," Mystique said, trying to back up and finding she was hitting a wall, "you give yourself way too much credit. Why would I have even bothered to bring you up?"

"Don't get coy with me." Sabretooth grabbed her arm. "I ain't going in there until I know what you're scheming with those good for nothing X-men. Now spill."

Mystique supposed she'd better lie...only how? As soon as the others found out he was here, they'd contradict it...but the truth?

She froze up.

Why did she have to be the one to come out here?! Was this some kind of cruel joke at her expense?! Did she just attract bad luck?!

[Given your life so far...I mean, would you really think otherwise, Mystique?]

However, she was surprisingly put out of her misery by the appearance of Kurt and Morph, who had finally suspected her delayed arrival might indicate she'd left the area altogether.

"What on earth?" Kurt said.

"I'd swear there was another shapeshifter," Morph said. "But as far as I know, there's only two of us, so that must be real."

Sabretooth turned to glare at them, but as he didn't know Morph and he barely knew Kurt, he wasn't that threatened.

"Well, if it isn't the son," he said. "At least you're a mutant... Who's this? Your latest?" Meaning Mystique.

"Oh please, don't even joke." Mystique made a face, trying to pull free.

"Unhand her, sir," Kurt said. "That is my mother, and vith all her mistakes, I vill not let you harass her."

"Oh, this?" Sabretooth said. "We're old friends... She owes me anyway. I took care of that useless son of hers for years."

"I forgot about that," Morph said. "Wow...Logan told me about you, and I've seen brief glimpses, but it just did not compare."

Mystique was sure that was an insult, but Sabretooth must have thought not. "Logan downplayed how intimidating I was, I bet."

"Sure," Morph said flatly.

"Let her go," Kurt reiterated.

"Fine." Sabretooth let Mystique go with a jerk that sent her to her knees...and hurt a lot. She hissed.

Morph helped her up, to her surprise.

Normally she'd have smacked him away, but fighting with them in front of her old...problem...seemed unwise.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt asked Sabretooth.

"I've got a score to settle," Sabretooth said. "And a bone to pick... Figured this was the place to find those idiots. What are you doing here, blue boy?"

"I...vell, I'm visiting for a time," Kurt said, "as Gott has called me... I am afraid you can't just barge in on this property. The X-men and you are hardly on good terms. I suggest you leave now, or ve vill have to escort you out."

"You threatening me?" Sabretooth said.

Kurt's tail waved. "I do not vish to fight you."

"You don't wish? Well, maybe you can't avoid it." Sabretooth swung at him with his claws.

"Kurt!" Mystique cried.

Kurt poofed out of his reach with ease and reappeared on the eave of the house.

"Sir, it is unvise to engage in combat at this time," he said.

"I'd like to see Kurt throw it down," Morph commented. "Uh...you might want to get back though." 

Mystique didn't want to see Kurt throw it down.

Sabretooth cracked his knuckles. "This outta be fun."

[Uh oh....]