Pete understood this. He respected Lockheed's grief. Didn't pretend to actually LIKE the crazed purple anteater, just understood and respected. Lockheed respected that. There was a whole lotta respectin' goin' on.

Back in the present, he was methodically counting heads. Rahne: still on the phone. Moira: taking her nap, as per loudly shouted instructions. McCoy: keeping an eye on Moira in case she tried to escape. The furry doctor had gotten a series of increasingly more pointed queries as to when he was going back to the States, since nobody there had yet twigged that he was only still here because he worried about Moira's still-fragile state of health. They'd been working together for a very long time and the man was genuinely and deeply fond of her. Pete thought that it was nice that McCoy worried about Moira. It gave Pete more free time to worry about everyone else.

Lockheed: Sleeping in Kitty's old room, on her old pillow. Poor little guy was still suffering badly from depression. Pete made a mental note to 'forget' to hide his cigarettes next time he had one. Just to cheer Lockheed up a bit.

Brian: Working on something mechanical and clever, as usual. Meggan: Sitting forlornly at the kitchen table staring into a mug of tea. <*Warning, Pete Wisdom, Warning!*>

He sat down beside her. "You all right, luv?"

She nodded unconvincingly. "I'm fine, Pete. Just a little bit tired, is all."

"Bullshit," he snorted. "You can't lie to me, remember? I'm too brilliant and cunning and all."

That bit of outrageous ego coaxed a little smile out of her. "Truly, Pete, there's nothing wrong," she said as sincerely as she could manage, which, since there WAS something wrong and she was a truthfully inclined person, wasn't very much. "I've just had a horrid night's sleep and-"

"Meggan, if you don't wanna talk about it you've only got to say." He touched her arm gently.

She knew he meant it. He always did. If she didn't want to talk, well then, he wouldn't make her. If she did, then he'd listen without making fun of her or correcting her or telling her she was being silly. Pete loved her no matter what silly things she said. In fact, he said them even more often than she did, even if when HE did it it was on purpose. "Pete¡¦ She sighed, patting his hand gently. "I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, if you must know."

He blinked. "And that got yer into a tea-gazing funk? I mean, I know it's bad, but it's not THAT awful¡¦well, unless that Riker git gets to talk¡¦

She bit her lip, for once not rising to Riker's defence. "It was¡¦It was about this alien woman. She was like me, an empath who¡¦who became whatever the man she was with wanted her to be." Huge, sad green eyes met a gentle, slightly bloodshot blue one. "I don't want to be like that, Pete. I want to be myself."

He took her hand gently, stroking the back of it with calloused fingers. "Nothing wrong with that, luv." Meggan immediately burst into tears, and was promptly if awkwardly enveloped in a comforting, tobacco-and-aftershave scented hug. "Are you all right, Meg?" he asked worriedly, stroking her hair. That prompted another outburst of sobs as she clutched at his jacket, and he found himself rocking her gently and making soothing noises.

Eventually she lifted her head, sniffling. "C-can I borrow your h-handkerchief?" Silently, he fished it out and handed it to her, and she blew her nose. "Y-you see? This is w-what I mean."

He blinked. "What is? I mean, I know *I* think Brian's the human equivalent of snot, but I didn't think you agreed with me."

She shook her head. "I m-mean, my nose never r-runs when I'm w-with him. Even when I c-cry."

Blink of the one eye. "It doesn't? What about if you have a cold?"

"I don't g-get sick." She wiped her eyes. "But w-when I'm with Brian, my nose doesn't run, and my eyes never get red and my hair never gets tangled and I never get b-body odour and I n-never itch¡¦

"That last part doesn't so bad," he said gently, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. "See what you mean, though. That sort of thing might make a girl feel a little unreal."

"Th-that's it exactly! I feel like¡¦like a blow-up doll!" She wiped her eyes again and looked up at him. "It's like that w-with a lot of people. They just see what I'm like when I'm what Brian wants, and they think that's all I am. But you're not like that. When I'm with you, I'm¡¦a person. Who gets tired and smelly and bored and who gets a runny nose."

He smiled wryly. "And who gets snot in her hair." Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead gently. "I'm yer friend, Meg. I'll care about yer just the same if yer a gorgeous blonde or a giant weevil." Pete did, as it happened, know what a giant weevil looked like. There had been a close-up picture in his science textbook when he was at school, and it was one of two that had stuck in his memory (the other being the 'after' picture in the section on human exposure to radiation). This being so, he was careful to keep any sort of weevil sympathies out of his emotional aura. He'd love her anyway, but there was no point in ENCOURAGING it.

Had she still been helplessly-emotional-Brianesque-Meggan, she'd have gone into floods of tears at this incontrivertable evidence of his platonic affection. Fortunately, flighty-but-basically-sensible-Peteian-Meggan was coming to the fore. "I know you will." She looked down. During the course of the conversation, a good few inches had vanished from her bust. Her waist was now big enough around to hold all her vital organs, and she'd acquired a bit of muscle tone. "You *are* a good influence, all things considered."

Pete looked down too, and blushed, grinning a little. "Yeah, well¡¦I like th' ones that look real. Sorry."

She smiled wistfully. "No need to apologize. So do I."

There was a long pause. "So¡¦how do yer feel about it all?" Pete asked softly, stroking her cheek with a callused, slightly grubby thumb.

She took a deep breath. "I¡¦I'm not sure who I am, really. There have been so many influences, so many different people to be¡¦it's hard to be sure which parts are really me."

Pete thought of something. "You know what you could do? There's someone¡¦name's Rogue, I think¡¦in the X-Men, who absorbs personalities. She might know a bit about it. You could talk to her."

It was utterly typical of the current nice-and-endearingly-fussy Pete that he used the word 'could' instead of 'should'. It was a suggestion, not in any way an order or command, and if she didn't feel like doing it then he'd never bring it up again. "Maybe I will." She nibbled on her lower lip. "But¡¦usually I don't even think about these things. Brian likes me to be¡¦cheerful."

He was silent for a moment. "Point," he admitted. "So¡¦got a plan, then?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Now that Moira's not so busy with her research, she's spent a lot of time helping me figure out how to use my powers, and we figured out that if I really, really try, I can sort of¡¦lock myself into one incarnation. It means I can't shapeshift or use my empathy to adjust to a situation, but it also means that I can't be¡¦well¡¦influenced. And I can unlock myself again if I *really* need to."

Pete hadn't gotten where he was today (with only one missing organ) without being able to put two and two together and get at least three. "And yer telling me this because you want to do it? Fix yerself in one shape, like?"

She nodded. "I think¡¦I want to be ME, Pete. I love Brian, and I want to be with him, but as *myself*, not a¡¦a life-sized Barbie doll." She bit her lip. "So¡¦I think I should leave for a little while."

Pete opened his mouth, closed it again, and bit down hard on his tongue in order to keep himself from shouting an emphatic denial. She was one of his people! *His* people! She couldn't go away! Taking a deep breath, he squished the possessive urge firmly. "'Ave you told Brian yet?" he asked, trying not to sound hopeful. Brian, bless his strait-laced and grabby heart, would Kick Up A Stink about this. And loudly, too. Pete was ever so slightly comforted by the thought of how upset Bullet-Head would be.

Meggan's voice held an unaccustomed¡¦well, not steely, on her worst days she couldn't do steely, but certainly a quite solid aluminium note was in her voice. "He'll live. He's done it to ME often enough." She folded her arms, pouting.

He had, too. Damn. His cunning plan foiled, Pete fell back on what he hoped was disarming honesty. "You've got to do what's best for you, luv, I know that. But¡¦ he sighed, giving her his best melting puppy-dog look. "I'll miss you. Don't want you goin' away."

She smiled, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "I know you will, Pete, but I won't be gone long. Only a few days, maybe a week at most."

"You'll call, won't you? If you're going to be longer?" his voice held an unusually plaintive note. Meggan melted immediately.

"Of course I will," she agreed, hugging him gently. "I know how you worry, and it's very sweet, honestly it is. I promise I'll call you by Saturday, all right? If I'm not home before then?"

"All right," he agreed forlornly into her shoulder. "You look after yourself, though, all right? Promise?" She was going away!

"Promise. I'll be extra-careful." She kissed his cheek and stood up. "I'm going to get some things together and write Brian a note. I¡¦I can't tell him face to face, he'll just try to talk me into staying." She bit her lip. "And I just can't stand up to him, I know that, and I know I should, but¡¦

"But yer an empath and he influences you." Pete sighed. "Yer right, luv. Scarper."

Meggan scarpered.

Pete polished off her tea, and went off to do another headcount.

Rahne he found still in the comroom, engrossed in a conversation with her Southern friend that was heavily peppered with the 'remember when' and 'what about the time' of a serious bout of reminiscence. Lockheed had found his way in there too, and was curled around her shoulders, making the odd coo or grumble into the phone. No need to worry about them.

Meggan was upstairs packing whatever it was elementals packed to go away, and Brian was presumably still out, which didn't matter since he was never included in the headcounts anyway. He wasn't one of Pete's personal people.

McCoy was in the lab, playing Freecell with his toes. It was something he did a lot when he was waiting for something to finish doing whatever it was experiments did. Pete didn't know, and didn't really care. As long as people stayed where he could find them they could amuse themselves any way they damn well pleased.

Moira wasn't in her bed, which gave him a bit of a nasty turn, but he leaned a bit further into her room and spotted her curled up in the windowseat with a blanket wrapped around her. Sneaky little scottish witch. He ambled into the room, not bothering to look noncholant as he checked her over for signs of a relapse. She KNEW what he was doing, and it saved time and effort all around if nobody pretended different.

"I'm fine," she informed him a bit irritably.

"Right. You always say that." He picked up her hands and examined her fingernails. Nice and pink, instead of the purplish blue they'd been. Good.

"If ye try to look down me throat I'll bite ye," she said waspishly.

"As charmin' as always, McTaggert." He sat down beside her. "But you look better. Rahne's been bouncing around like a puppy talkin' bout how you'll be all better for Christmas, like." He looked down at his hands. "Meggan's leaving for a bit."

Moira blinked. "Meggan's *what*?"

"Goin' off t' find herself." Pete contemplated his hands. They had somehow developed a slight tremble. "She said she'd been talking to yer about it."

"Oh." Moira thought about it a moment and nodded. "Aye, that'd be the best way t' go about it. Going somewhere nice and remote where she'll be quite alone." She'd been planning to say more, but at that point Pete-Wisdom-The-Suicidally-Tough started to cry, and she lost her train of thought.

He didn't burst into tears, as such. As far as she knew, he never had. The one tired blue eye just filled slowly with tears, and he turned his head to look out the window so she wouldn't see. Moira sat perfectly still, rather stunned, for a long moment. Then she laid an awkward hand on his arm. Pete didn't move. "She'll be all alone," he said softly.

"Aye¡¦but she can take care of herself¡¦ As soon as she said it, Moira realized her mistake.

It was too late. "Take care of herself?" Pete hissed. "Of course she can take care of herself. Right up until she *can't*." He turned his head, a tear trickling slowly down his cheek. "Kitty was supposed to be able to look after herself too, remember?"

Moira bit her lip. Too late to back out now. "Aye. But Meggan won't¡¦won't¡¦

"Won't be out on the roads at night?" Pete said grimly. "Won't be in a car? Won't be driving *drunk*?!"

She hadn't thought he knew. Nobody had wanted him to know that Kitty, on her way back from her 21st birthday party at Harry's, had been over the limit when she crashed head-on into another car, whose driver had also been drinking. All anyone had told him was that there had been an accident, that she hadn't had time to phase, that it had been over very quickly, that she hadn't been in any pain. "Wisdom¡¦och, dammit, Pete, we didn't want ye t' feel bad about it," she said softly.

He rested his forehead against the window-pane, more tears following the first. "I could have stopped it. I quit drinking. If I'd been there, I'd have been sober and I'd have been driving. I could've *saved* her."

Moira bit her lip. "Pete¡¦

"It would have been different if I'd been there," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I wouldn't have let her drive. I'd have *known*." With a soft gulp, he covered his face with his hands. "I¡¦I read the police report. She did phase. But she passed out, didn't she? And¡¦and she wasn't phased all the way out of the car." His voice was anguished. "They had to cut her body out! And I could've saved her!"

Longstanding enmity be damned, Moira wrapped her arms around the thin, shaking body and hugged tightly. "Ye'll drive yuirself mad thinkin' that way," she said gently. "Accidents happen, Pete, and it's no use thinkin' that ye could've done this or that t' stop it."

It was all too much. He'd left his mother on her own and she'd died and he'd left Kitty and she'd died and Meggan was going away where he couldn't take care of her if she needed him to and he was babbling it all out into Moira's thin shoulder as she rocked him soothingly. She rubbed his back gently, a habit left over from long years of motherhood, and blinked back tears of her own as she tried to process the confused jumble of words. Kitty she'd known about, his worry for Meggan she'd guessed at, but this was the first she'd ever heard about his mother's death. That¡¦shook her. Somehow she'd never pictured Pete as having a mother. Well, obviously he had to have had one as *some* point, but¡¦well¡¦she'd never really thought about it. Now she knew the woman was dead. That she'd died, in her son's eyes, because of something Pete had left undone.

Suddenly a lot of the man's desperate fear of leaving Rahne, or Meggan, or Moira herself for even a minute made a lot more sense. Not once, but twice now a woman he'd loved had died because of his absence. No wonder he was so obsessive about keeping track of those he had left.

Pete shook silently, trying to contain the desolate sobs he'd held locked inside himself since he'd found out how Kitty died. But he couldn't keep his grief down any longer, and he hid his tears in the older woman's shoulder. Their long rivalry was forgotten in the quiet, bitter torrent of grief and loss that poured out of him, until at last the flood eased, and he sat up shakily. "Sorry," he muttered, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve and wondering if he'd ever get his dignity back.

Moira dabbed carefully at his eyes with the soft edge of her blanket, and tugged him down again when he went to get up. "Och, don't go wanderin' off now," she said softly. "That's why it bothers ye so much, isn't it? Ye think they died because ye weren't there. Because ye didn't do enough."

Tired and drained after a totally out-of-character bout of tears, Pete managed a miserable shrug. "Yeah, well¡¦that's how it was. And don't tell me that 'accidents happen', 'cause I bloody know they do, but that doesn't make me feel better."

"I know how ye feel," Moira said quietly. "And confidence for confidence bein' fair, settle down and make yuirself comfortable." She pulled the blanket around herself, and leaned back against the window-frame, closing her eyes. "And let me tell ye about not doing enough, and about my son."

Finis