Jean adjusted her uniform before heading into the interrogation room. She felt a little silly wearing a combat uniform inside the mansion but Scott had insisted and it seemed like less effort simply to comply with his wishes. The only problem was that the back of her head always seemed to itch when she wore this costume indoors for any length of time. She walked down the hallway and noted that Rogue was standing in from of the door to the room. "Hi Rogue. What's up?" she asked.

"I thought I might just listen in on your little talk with Joseph. Just in case things get a little out of hand if you know what I mean, sugar." Rogue said in her characteristic slow southern drawl {which this author has helpfully translated into standard english}.

"I don't think that will be a problem but I'll let you know if any problems occurs. Thanks for the offer though."

"Anytime, Sugar." Rogue wandered off and Jean steeled herself. This was going to be very difficult. Then she went in and faced the most infamous criminal on the planet.

"What happened, Jean? Why have I been locked in a room like some sort of criminal?" Joseph asked.

"Do you think you are a criminal?" Jean replied. The trick was to get him talking and then try to figure out what was really going on inside his head. If he really was Erik Magnus Lensherr then there were going to be some tough decisions. If he wasn't then it was imperative that she clear him as quickly as possible to minimize any feelings of betrayal he might be feeling because of his confinement.

"Everyone keeps telling me that I used to be a criminal but I can't remember it." Joseph looked almost pitiful as he tried to reconcile the past deeds ascribed to him with his current actions.

"What can you remember?" Jean asked. It was important to her that she establish how much of what happened in the Danger Room was buried in Joseph's subconcious and how much was part of his surface thoughts. The greater the separation, the easier it would be to use her powers to burn away that part of the brain. Professor Xavier had hit with a powerful blast but he had been too weak to do fine detail work. Something had survived and it scared Jean. She couldn't help but remember the terror she felt staring into pools of magnetic fir where eyes should be.

"I just remember bits and pieces. Fragments of things that I can't really put together properly. I remember a couple of blonde girls-- one burning in a fire and another I was afraid of. I remember somebody who looked like Wolverine only a lot less feral and with metal claws. I remember a camp where I was trapped and couldn't get out." Joseph looked slightly pale. The memories he had were not good ones; but them Magneto had not lived a good life. it was clear that they disturbed this relatively innocent and carefree boy.

"When did you start to remember these bits and pieces?" Jean asked. How long had there been a serpent in their midst? From the very beginning?

"I have been having dreams about this for a while now. I tried to suppress them but they kept returning. Why can't I use my powers?" Joseph didn't have Magneto's ego connection to his powers if he took this long to ask, Jean thought. The real question is how he will react to being told the truth about why he can't use them.

"The collar around your neck is a Genoshoan slave collar. It is suppressing your powers so that you won't pose a danger to anyone in your current condition." Jean looked at Joseph as his face went white and for a second she could she the old rage returning. It was uncanny how, every now and again, Joseph suddenly looked like the Magneto of old.

"I'm not dangerous. I would never use my powers against you and after all this time you should know that." Jean could tell that Joseph was genuinely hurt by the steps that they had taken. Why did he have to be so much of an innocent? It would have been easier if he didn't see this as a betrayal.

"Tell that to Ororo. She suffered second degree burns." Joseph blanched and looked away, unable to meet Jean's eyes.

"I wasn't in control. I couldn't stop. It was like someone else was in control and I couldn't prevent him from hurting her. I tried to make him stop but he was too strong." Damn him, he really was upset about this. Stop yourself, Jean, or you will get emotionally involved with your patient.

"Did you feel any emotions from this other person?"

"Yes."

"What were they?"

"A sense of betrayal and an endless amount of sorrow. It was very

disturbing. Did the X-Men know me as a friend . . . you know, before I lost my memory? The way Storm talked it was almost as if I had once been an ally." This was something that Jean feared. She remembered Magneto as an unholy terror and she had never understood the alliance between him and the X-Men. It blurred the lines of black and white between the X-Men and Magneto.

"What do you think?" Give nothing away.

"I don't know for sure. I have dreamt of brief episodes of conflict with the X-Men. I even saw you there once-- only you seemed different somehow. More powerful and more passionate; I remember surprise and fear as you fought back harder than I could have imagined. An image rises up from you like a great bird of fire and, with my injuries, it is all I can do to prevent you from destroying me. But I don't remember working with you or the others. Not really. You would think I would remember something like that. Were we allies once before?"

"I can't tell you. Tell me, Joseph, what does wearing the collar make you feel?" Push to the center of his sense of betrayal. If the old demon will respond to anything, he will respond to this.

"I feel betrayed. I have tried so hard to be a part of the X-Men and now you trust me so little. Was I really that bad before. Listen, Jean. I have to know what I was. If there is any chance of stopping the monster from returning I want to find it. Whatever took control of me hurt a woman I respect and admire. It might even have killed you if Storm hadn't intervened. You are my friends-- the only people in the world who will give me a second chance after the crimes that I have committed. I don't want to hurt you, ever!"

"Do you think that it is fair that you should be judged for crimes that you don't remember committing?" Jean stared into his piercing blue eyes and brushed the surface of his consciousness. He stared back into her liquid, emerald eyes.

"The people I killed are still dead, aren't they? They weren't given second chances so why should I? If there is anything I can do to atone then I will do it." Joseph held her gaze.

"Listen to me Joseph. I want to believe you but after the incident in the Danger Room you can see why I'm nervous about trusting you. I don't think that it is necessarily your fault, but I think that part of Magneto may have survived buried in your mind somewhere. I want your permission to try and find it and destroy it."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you can stay here and nobody will harm you." Jean lied. "But if I can, I'd rather deal with the problem at the root."

"Okay, you can look into my mind. I have nothing to hide." Joseph shivered in fear as he remembered his last reaction to a psionic probe. This one was infinitely more gentle and he barely felt it as Jean slowly left her body and entered his.

Jean dived deep into the depths of Joseph's mind. Joseph was young in terms of mental age and he was easy to read. He was no more or less than he projected; although Jean was surprised to find that he dimly disliked her. She forced herself to go deeper and sought the core of his being. The center where she would find all of the answers to the question of where Magneto was hiding.

Suddenly the landscape changed and she found herself on a hill overlooking a concentration camp. Beside her stood a figure in blood red armour and a horned helmet. His eyes glinted with magnetic fire and his whole presence radiated power and passion.

"So, assassin, have you come to finish what your mentor could not." Magneto asked.

"Where is this place?" Jean asked.

"We are overlooking a concentration camp that has been gone for a lifetime now. That is Auschwitz where millions of my race died as a result of the racist dreams of a mad dictator. This is what I remember when it becomes hard to force myself to carry on and I grow weary. I remember the smell and the torture and it gives me the resolve not to abandon my goals." Magneto's voice was deep and resonant even here and he had a quiet confidence that Joseph lacked.

"So that you can emulate his racist dreams?"

"So that I can prevent this sort of horror from ever occurring again to anyone whether they be human or mutant. I don't want to be like Hitler. Instead I want to change the world so that this can never happen again."

"Funny way of showing it given that the first thing you did when I awakened you was to try and kill. What does it say about you that your first instinct was to commit murder?"

"It says that I was dormant from the moment that Charles fried my brain until you awoke me. I was still reeling from the shock of the battle aboard Avalon. I am over it now. You killed me there and I

am just taking a long time to die. My body is no longer mine but the shell inhabited by a stranger. I never thought that you would do something like this to me."

"I tried to stop him, Magneto, but you had gone too far and crossed a line beyond which there could be no forgiveness. I'm sorry, I didn't want it to end that way either. But you must realize that it did end and that it is time for you to die. There is a new person in your body now and the continued presence of your memories threatens to drive him insane."

"It also threatens the lies that you have told him. If the truth remains within him then he might discover it and turn on you. Don't you realize that the truth will always come out?" The scene changed and now Jean saw a young Magneto with a woman who looked a lot like the Scarlet Witch. They were in a long cabin and a young blonde girl was playing on the floor.

"It wasn't my decision to lie to him."

"It wasn't my decision sounds a lot like you are avoiding responsibility. If you want to see my demons then I will see yours as well. Why is it that you suddenly want to defer all responsibility to other people? Are you afraid to think for yourself?"

"No, it isn't that. It's just that other people often know better than me how to do things."

"Nonsense! You are a smart woman and you have both fire and passion in you. Yet you let yourself fade away and define yourself as the mother of another woman's child and the wife of Cyclops. What about Jean?"

"We aren't here to talk about me. I'm not the evil maniac who tried to conquer the world!"

"No, you are the evil maniac who tried to destroy it." The scene changed and Jean looked with horror as Phoenix consumed the sun of a solar system with a life bearing planet. She watched with horror as the Asparagus people died by the billions. "Phoenix had your soul and your essence when she did this."

"But I wasn't fully responsible. The power was driving me insane and I couldn't control it." The scene changed again and they stood in the Muir Island research facility.

"According to Moira MacTaggert, I was also driven insane by my powers. Why is it that they accept you and not me?"

"Because, at the core you are an evil rotten person. You crave power for the sake of power and don't have an ounce of nobility in you. What have you ever done that was truly selfless?"

"Do I have to be a saint to wield great power? How can you judge me? The pampered daughter of privlege whose mutation did not mar her beauty. You could be a human for all that anyone can tell the difference. Where is the struggle in your life? My entire life was a war and a struggle. You fought the battles that you wanted to. I fought the battles I had to." The scene changed again and now they stood in Asteroid M, far above the Earth looking down on a planet of people who hated mutants.

"But I fought for a just cause. I fought for what was right."

"So now you are going to show it by killing me. Murder is the way to righteousness. And then, for the best of reasons, you are going to lie to Joseph about what he is and what he once was. Fine, I won't resist if you can answer one question. What makes you different from me if you are willing to do this?"

"Nothing." Jean watched as the background shifted once again and they stood in the mansion. Magneto stood there talking to the New Mutants in a gentle but stern manner about unauthorized extracurricular activities. "But there isn't enough of you left to make a whole person. The memories and the will are here, but they are shadows of what once was. Professor Xavier was the most powerful telepath on earth and I fear he did a very good job. What else can I do?"

"Use your powers to heal and not to destroy. Integrate me and Joseph to prevent the conflict that would cause insanity. Then, tell him the truth about me. You see me as I am now, Jean, no secrets and no lies. I am open to you and you can judge me for yourself as I am. Decide what to do on your own. Use your own judgement and not that of Scott."

"But what if I choose wrong? What if Joseph becomes a monster and uses his powers for evil?"

"Is it better to do evil in the hope of preventing evil or to do good in the hope of preventing evil? Decide, Jean."

Jean forced herself deeper into the core of Joseph's mind to the very core of his being. It was a simple matter to alter a few thought streams so that the two personas no longer conflicted. In time Joseph might even regain memories of his life before and he might be able to draw on some of the will that Magneto had once possessed. She thought she saw a figure in blood red armour smiling at her as she brought them together. Then she realized what was

wrong.

"My God, you were able to survive that. How strong are you?"

"As strong as I needed to be, Jean. I survived worse before and I fear I will face similar problems in the future."

"But what will I tell the others?"

"Tell them that Joseph is cured. It is the truth, isn't it? I know my past now and I can use it to build my future. I have the ability to freely chose and I have much of the knowledge of a lifetime in me. Don't worry, Jean, I'm not about to go on a mad rampage. Rogue's lies are more pathetic than evil-- her desperate need to have a man that could love her. She had been hurt by Gambit and felt she needed total control of the relationship. I do not hold it against her." Magneto reached up and removed the collar. "And, of course, at full strength I am immune to power damping fields. A Magneto used more than once against the X-Men."

"Joseph."

"Yes, Jean?"

"You were right, it was good to make my own decisions for once!" Jean smiled at him and they left the room together.

It was good, Joseph thought, to finally know that he had not been an entirely evil man. He was what Rogue had said he was, but that had only been a small part of a larger picture. Now, it was his responsibility to find a future that encompassed the good that he had always tried to do without the evil that he fallen into. It would be hard, but at last he had the hope that he needed to do it. He rubbed his chin and decided that he was definitely going to have to try and grow that beard.