Jim Ellison woke up with a headache. He found himself curled around Blair protectively in what looked and smelled like a hospital room. Jim felt a stinging in his hands and looked down. His knuckles were bruised and scraped like he'd been in a fight. Suddenly, it came back to him. The fight between himself and the people here who tried to keep him away from his Guide and what had happened afterward. I hope I didn't kill anyone, Jim thought to himself.

He sensed Blair begin to wake up so he got up and off of the cot. Jim looked around for the first time and noticed that what he thought was a hospital was actually closer to being an infirmary. Jim spotted a bathroom and went in to use it. He came back out and found Blair sitting up on the cot they'd been sharing earlier looking at him confused.

"Uh, Jim," Blair began in confusion. "Why are you here?"

Jim smiled at Blair and sat down next to him. "You called for me, remember?" Jim asked. "Your mind was attacked and you cried out my name. Weird as it sounds, I heard you in Cascade."

Blair sensed his discomfort with the subject and let the why of Jim's presence drop. He looked down and noticed the bruises and scrapes on Jim's knuckles. "What happened to your hand man?" He asked in concern.

"Hands Chief," Jim told him displaying the other hand that was just as bad. "I got into a fight with the people here when they tried to keep us apart. I think I went primal because I remember a lot of growling. The last thing that's clear in my mind before the growling is some old, bald guy in my head trying to do something tome, uh my mind. I remember asking what he was doing and then I guess I went 'Cave Man' because I don't remember much after that except a black lady with white hair and blue eyes calling me Guardian and leading me down here."

Blair looked up at Jim in confusion. "You went 'Cave Man' cause they tried to keep us apart?" He asked in shock.

Jim shook his head and stood. He paced back and forth while trying to find the words to explain. "No, Chief," he said. "I think I went 'Cave Man' because of whatever the old, bald guy tried to do to my head. I was pushing primal when I got off the plane. This was something else. I actually remember hitting the people but not what I said besides the growls. It's almost like the guy turned off my modern brain and probably unintentionally released the primitive Sentinel."

Jim chuckled at Blair's look of surprise at his explanation. Jim let him off the hook because he could tell that Blair was still a little out of it.

Blair in the morning was not at his sharpest. "I've been practising talking like you Chief," he teased, "I've been trying to figure out explanations in the way you would phrase them."

Blair looked at him and they both dissolved into laughter. They spent five minutes getting themselves under control and then Blair went into the bathroom to get cleaned up. He came out and found Jim toying with his gun. "Did the primitive Sentinel not bother to draw it?" Blair asked.

Jim looked up at him and shook his head. "It hasn't been fired Chief. I guess he, uh I mean I didn't bother with it. I completely forgot about it until just now," Jim told him.

"Neat" Blair said. "Hey Jim, how do we explain your being here to Daryl?"

Jim looked at him for a minute lost in thought. "I guess we tell him that whoever is in charge here called me when you collapsed. It's about the only thing I can figure to explain why I'm here," Jim told him. Just then, both of their stomachs growled. They looked at each other and began laughing again.

"Guess we should see what they have to eat in this place," Jim said. He stood and pulled Blair to the door. It slid open and the found themselves next to an elevator. "I used stairs last night but I guess an elevator works just as well," Jim muttered to himself. Blair laughed and they got in. The elevator let them out in a hallway Blair remembered walking with Daryl just before he was struck down outside.

Jim used his hyper active senses to lead them to the kitchen. The black woman Jim remembered from the night before was standing by the stove. She turned and looked at them as they came in.

"Good morning," she said to them. "I'm glad to see you both awake and I know that Professor Xavier will be too."

Jim looked at her blankly. "Professor Xavier?" He asked uncertainly.

Blair smirked and looked up at Jim. "The old, bald guy, man." He told Jim. Jim looked at Blair sheepishly and then walked over to the fridge.

"You wouldn't happen to have eggs here would you?" Blair asked the woman whose name he remembered was Ororo Munroe.

She looked at him and nodded. "Top shelf to the left," she said to Jim who had his head stuck in the fridge. A muffled "thanks" came from Jim's direction and Ororo got out the frying pan for them. "Your friend likes eggs?" She asked Blair.

Blair shrugged and looked over at the cabinets. "He likes eggs and they happen to be one of the foods you have here that I know is safe for him. Jim has a lot of allergies to a lot of things." Blair told her and took the eggs Jim handed him.

Ororo watched the two men work around each other and her. They seemed to be perfectly in synch. She knew what they were for certain now. A Guardian and his Companion. Jim turned to her while they ate the omelettes that Blair had made for them.

"You called me Guardian last night," he said to her. "Why?"

Ororo looked at him for a few minutes in silence. "It is what you are," she said at last. "I suspected as much when you snarled the word 'Guide'. Why would you do that if you weren't a Guardian?"

Jim looked at her in surprise. Blair's jaw was doing an imitation of an open flytrap. Jim leaned over and closed his mouth.

"Normally, I'd want to know how you know about Guardians and Companions," Jim said to her. "However, since you helped me last night I won't push right now." Ororo watched as the two men finished their breakfast and washed their dishes.

Blair turned to her then. "Is Daryl all right?" He asked her. He remembered Daryl was standing next to him when he collapsed and he vaguely remembered Daryl calling his
name worriedly.

Ororo looked at him for a moment before she answered. "Daryl is fine. He was very worried about you. He said you've only ever collapsed from exhaustion before and that you didn't look tired at all when you got here."

"I've also been known to collapse when somebody turns off my conscious mind." He told her acerbically.

Jim winced and reached for his friend. "Down Chief," Jim said. We can't blame the lady for what the other people did. She did help me get to you."

Blair nodded and looked at Ororo apologetically. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just don't like having my brain invaded by strangers."

Ororo looked at him understandingly. She knew how it felt to have one's mind invaded. "We are the ones who should be sorry," she told him. "Entering your mind without permission is something that we all usually abhor. It's just that the professor was surprised by your mental power. You set off a machine that usually only registers people of the mutant persuasion."

"He could have just asked," Jim said pointedly. His head cocked in what Blair called his classic listening pose and suddenly he growled low in his throat.

Blair reached for him in a gesture of calming. Jim looked at him and subsided but he was still keeping himself between Blair and the door. A few minutes later, a group of people came into the kitchen. They all looked as if they'd been through the ringer. Blair looked up and noticed the satisfied, feral gleam in his eyes. Blair shook his head and sighed.

"Good morning professor," Ororo said.

Jim watched as the old, bald man in the wheel chair (which he hasn't noticed last night) smiled at her. "Good morning Ororo," he said in reply. "I see our guests have eaten."

Ororo looked at where Jim and Blair were sipping coffee and watching the rest of the X-Men file in to the kitchen. She then looked at the professor. "Yes, they have," she told him and the others. "They also did their dishes. Including the frying pan they used to cook the omelettes they ate." The rest of the team looked at Jim and Blair curiously but backed off at Jim's glare.

He still did not trust them. They had dared to come between him and his Guide. In primitive times, that was an offence punishable by death.

"Let me say welcome to my school." The professor said to them. "I also wish to extend my sincerest apologies for what happened last night." Blair felt Jim tensing to pounce on the man who had knocked him out and enraged a full Sentinel so badly he'd gone beyond Primal to Primitive. Jim shot his iciest glare at the professor and the man noticed it because he kept his distance.

A huge, black man who was only a few inches shorter than Simon Banks noticed it too. "The man apologised," he said to Jim. Blair figured he'd better jump in before there was a repeat of last night, whatever had happened.

"Jim won't calm down until he's sure there is no more threat to either of us. What you guys did to me put him in full Protector mode, he will stay that way until he's absolutely certain that no more harm will come to us."

The big, black man backed off remembering what had happened to him last night when he'd gotten in Jim's face. Blair watched as he unconsciously rubbed his jaw and his right wrist.

Blair figured this man had stood in Jim's way and actually touched him last night. Jim continued to glare at them until they left him and Blair a space of five feet. Only then did Jim relax even the slightest bit.

"Chill Big Guy," Blair said to him. "I don't think we're in any danger. I think you took care of that last night." Jim looked at him as if to say 'I'm only looking out for you'. Blair nodded at him and took another sip of his coffee.

Jim regarded their hosts for a long, silent minute before he spoke to them. "Blair wants me to give you a chance to explain what you did and why. I want to know what you did to him and what you tried to do tome. I'd like to know now but I have to tell Daryl that I'm here and we decided to tell him that you called me," Jim told them in a reasonable tone.

The professor nodded his acceptance of their plan for explaining Jim's presence at the school. "We can talk now. Most of the students are in class at this time. I'm very interested in how you knew exactly where Mr. Sandburg was. That room is well out of a normal hearing range." Jim looked at the professor and laughed. He looked at Blair and then at Ms. Munroe and decided that these people probably already knew something was up. Of course after what he had done last night he would have been surprised if they hadn't figured out that something was strange about him.

"How much free time do you all have?" Jim asked the assembled people around him. He knew what he was opening himself up for but he really didn't seem to have a choice in the matter.

Professor Xavier looked at him and then at his watch. "Well, we have a few hours before we have to watch the kids in the D.R." He said to Jim.

Jim looked at him measuringly. "If I tell you our secret then you had better reciprocate." He said in a voice that brooked no arguments.

The professor nodded that he accepted Jim's terms for the explanation. He had figured after last night's altercation that it would take compromise to get to the bottom of this mystery. "I agree Mr.Ellison," he said. "I will meet you in my study in a few hours. Meanwhile would you care to explore the school?"

 "I'd just as soon get this over with." Jim said to him.

"Could we do it now?"

"I don't see why not. Shall we adjourn to the what the…?" Xavier said as the school was suddenly rocked by something.

Jim cocked his head and listened. He suddenly turned to Xavier and asked "Who do you know with a really heavy foot step?" Xavier looked askance at Jim and started to ask another question before the rumble came again.

"Xavier!" A loud, sneering voice called. "I've come for the natural psi. Give him to me or face the consequences!"

"Up and at 'em troops," A gruff voice said. "Seems like Mr. Pierce wants Mr. Sandburg fer his very own."

Jim looked at the X-Men hard. "I still want a full explanation when this is all done," he said. However, No One threatens my guide and gets away with it."

Jim stalked out of the room gun at ready and headed for where the voice was coming from. Blair could feel his anger building as he approached it.

"Jeez," Blair muttered," Don't they ever shut up?"