I wasted no efforts in trying to get Layla Miller back from the future -- not out of love, not out of duty, but because I was the only one willing to fight for her, and someone had to fight for her. Cyclops was too busy looking at the big picture to remember those pawns he was moving across that big chessboard of his were people.

So, what I'm trying to say is, she's not the great love of my life. That would be, in a word, wildly inappropriate. Oh, sure, in some future, somewhere, she's my wife. And? I've had wives. For all I know -- for all we know -- she's married to a dupe, just like everyone else. It wouldn't be the first time. It probably wouldn't be the last.

But none of that is me making a decision.

Jamie closed what negligible distance there was between them, stopping just short of actually touching her. Though his face was impassive, his eyes gave him away. He looked at her like he'd always looked her -- like she was a puzzle, or something to be figured out.

"If I made a move right now," he said, "would you stop me?"