Chapters:

Chapter 1

His mind is tired, but that’s no excuse. He keeps closing his eyes in an effort to block out the noise, and it helps exactly as much as one might expect. They shouldn’t be here, should have taken the plane back to Westchester immediately, but they can’t just leave Logan.

Charles doesn’t know whether to hope he’s gone back to where he came from or not. Is it the end for them if he has? Is it the end for him if he hasn’t? How many more people have to die because no one will listen, because no one will stop to think objectively for one bloody--

He feels Erik’s presence from the hallway outside. From the lobby, if he’s being generous, but he should have sensed him from the street. His brain is overtaxed and hurting the way his legs would be if he could still feel them. It seems all he does is trade one pain for another these days.

The pressure of the thoughts around him is like a heartbeat in his ears, pounding too hard and incessant for relief, but Erik’s mind slides through them like water. His presence is as weightless and gentle as Hank’s, familiar as the day he left. It’s the only thing that lets Charles say goodnight to Hank without begging a syringe off of him first.

He knows Hank brought more than enough serum for himself. He knows using it means giving up on anything other than blind luck when it comes to finding Logan. Charles also knows that he hasn’t slept since Paris, and they’re not in rural Westchester anymore. An exhausted telepath will do this city no favors.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” Erik says, when Charles rolls into his room and lets the door slam shut behind him. He’s in the middle of the bed, propped up on all the pillows with a book held in front of him like a shield. He doesn’t look at Charles.

“Have you seen Raven?” Charles asks.

“Mystique?” Erik counters. He’s still wrapped in both coats, his boots on top of the folded blanket at the end of the bed. “You let her go.”

“Have you,” Charles grits out, “seen her.”

Erik lets the book tip forward onto his chest, open but unreadable as he stares at the opposite wall instead. “No.”

“Have you heard from her,” Charles insists. “Do you have any idea where she might be. Don’t play word games with me, Erik; I’m not in the mood.”

“I saw her two days ago,” Erik says. “On my way out of Paris, she caught me and threatened to kill me. I told her about your time traveler. She wasn’t impressed. That’s all I’ve seen or heard from her outside of today, at the White House. With you.”

Charles sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He didn’t expect any different. Not really. They’ve lingered for Logan, after all. Not Raven. There’s no reason to think that she’d just--

“You look terrible,” Erik says.

When Charles looks up, he’s being studied: the wall forgotten, the book ignored. Erik is looking at him the way he does when Charles spends too long--

The way he used to look, Charles thinks. The way Erik used to look at him, because he doesn’t look at Charles at all now. There is no “how Erik looks at him” anymore.

Except that clearly there is. Erik’s doing it right now.

“Yes, well, someone dropped a stadium on me,” Charles says sharply. “Sorry if I haven’t had time to freshen up. What are you doing here?”

Erik’s expression doesn’t change, but then, it rarely does. “Reading, mostly.”

“Reading,” Charles says, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or--or throw something. “Of course. Don’t let me get in your way.”

He wheels himself into the bathroom, where the sink is too high and the towels are too low. The bar by the toilet is mostly useless, but between the counter and the wheel lock on his chair, he manages. He hasn’t got the energy or the mental fortitude to even undress, let alone attempt the shower, so he washes his hands and calls it a night.

Erik is still there when he goes back out. Still in the middle of the bed. Still in those ridiculous coats. The book is splayed across his chest, but now his eyes are closed.

Charles rather thought Erik was here for the helmet. Once he saw that Charles doesn’t have it, he should have been off to pester Hank or to ransack the plane. Or both, given that neither is likely to yield his prized accoutrement.

Instead, he appears intent on sleeping on Charles’ bed. It’s a problem, because Charles is planning to sleep on that bed. That’s why he has the bed in the first place. That’s why he has a hotel room in a city he’s seen far too much of this week, when he could be spending the hour it takes to fly home: because he needs to sleep. Or as close to it as he can get, anyway.

“Look,” Charles says.

Erik opens his eyes, but he does not in fact look. At anything but the wall.

“If you’re just going to lie there, at least take off your boots,” Charles says. “I want a pillow and all of the blankets. Also, I get half the mattress, not whatever’s left over when you’re done lounging like a--whatever you’re lounging like. Shove over.”

He throws back the covers and turns his chair, locking the wheels against the bed. The nightstand is solid enough that he can brace himself up, and he grabs his trousers to haul his legs after him. He really is filthy, he thinks, making sure the blankets cover all of him before he lies down. But fatigue is a tangible thing at this point, lack of reality starting to seep in around the edges, and it’s a hotel. They’ll clean up after him.

There’s a pillow under his head. He doesn’t notice until Erik pushes a second one at him, muttering, “You’ll want one for your back as well, I suppose.”

“They’re my pillows,” Charles says, with a petulance he’s pleased to hear. If he complains, maybe he can ignore the twisting loneliness that follows Erik’s words. No one else knows that. No one else has ever known how he likes the pillows when he sleeps, except maybe Raven when they were children.

His eyes are closed. He doesn’t know when the lights went out, or how, but when he tries to open his eyes he realizes it’s dark and Erik’s with him. Which explains the lights, but not--anything else.

“Do you want me to leave?” Erik’s voice asks, very quietly.

Charles can feel a pillow pressed up against his back in the dark, and he’s certain he didn’t put it there. He can hear the cool murmur of Erik’s presence, so close and steady it drowns out the angry natter of the world beyond. It’s as near to peace as he’s had since Paris, when Erik fell asleep beside him and didn’t dream.

“I never wanted you to leave,” Charles mumbles.

He knows he could be imagining it: the presence, the calm, the touch of Erik’s mind. That happens sometimes, that people invent the thing they want the most and convince themselves it’s happening. It lets him sleep at last, so it’s even physiologically self-serving: perhaps a coping mechanism of the brain.

If it were exactly what he wanted, though, Erik would still be there in the morning, and he isn’t. He’s left behind his copy of “Catch-22,” which seems to indicate the visit was more than the product of an overburdened mind. Charles wants to stay another night to find out, but Logan’s been picked up and they can’t get to him without more resources than he and Hank have to hand.

He leaves a message with the front desk when they depart, but he doesn't expect Erik to get it.

Chapter 2

They needn't have worried about Logan. He's waiting for them in Westchester when Hank pulls up to the gate. Charles can see through to the front door when he gets out to unlock it, and Logan is lurking there, smoking what is in all likelihood a legally problematic cigar.

Charles swiped some of Hank’s serum the moment they decided to regroup in New York, so it isn’t immediately clear that Logan has no idea who they are. He’s wary and uncommunicative and apparently uninjured: in other words, exactly as they’ve come to expect. But eventually they understand that he didn’t find the house by memory.

“She tell you I was coming?” Logan says gruffly, after Hank has greeted him by name and Charles has clapped him on the shoulder and invited him inside. It’s the most Logan has said since they arrived.

“Who?” Hank says. He recognizes the key concept much faster than Charles does, which is discouraging, but his brain is a bit off without the telepathy. Off-balance. Off-kilter. Just… off, somehow.

Still.

“Xavier’s sister,” Logan says.

They’re the only words Charles hears for several seconds. Fortunately, Hank is less prone to fixation these days, and he coaxes most of the story free on his own. It seems Logan has a gap in his memory about four days wide, which fazes him not at all. What has made an impression--positive or otherwise, it’s difficult to say--is the shapeshifter who commandeered a police boat to stop him from drowning.

Raven, Charles thinks. Mystique. She stayed in Washington after all.

Logan has a card with their address on it. Not a business card, but a hand-scrawled location on the back of a torn scrap of paper. Charles’ name is there too, along with a phone number, and he stares at the writing for a long moment after Logan hands it over.

He doubts the man will stay. Logan is suspicious and curious and strong… so strong. He’s not here for help. He’s here to assess a potential threat, to eliminate it if need be, or simply to wipe it from his list if he deems it unworthy.

Charles doesn’t count on Logan and Hank hitting it off. He’s blind without his telepathy, he thinks. More blind than ever, and he likes that sometimes, he does appreciate the silence. But sometimes when people talk to him he hasn’t the faintest idea what they’re trying to say.

He leaves them to it. He means to go downstairs, because Hank and Logan can entertain themselves and he should probably do… something. With Cerebro. The records from his last session, perhaps: Hank will have left them out, and Charles only needs another sweater and some tea to make a night of it.

“I can’t tell if you’re ignoring me,” a familiar voice says, “or if you’re actually this--”

Charles never finds out what he actually is because the lamp on his dresser crashes to the floor when he startles. He flung out a hand for the light, the other bracing himself, and yes, he might have gasped. The house is supposed to be empty.

Erik appears when the bedside lamp comes on, starkly real against the thick shadows of what’s nearly midnight, now. His expression is hidden but his words are slow and measured. “Walking again, I see.”

“Don’t start with me, Erik,” Charles warns him.

Erik doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move from his position on Charles’ bed, sitting again, with all of the pillows behind him. He’s wearing his boots and at least one coat, pulled tight around him like the chill is sneaking in. His hair is sticking up, Charles thinks.

His hair is sticking up, and he’s blinking.

Erik was asleep.

Charles stares at him, surprised and angry and too confused to call what he’s feeling anything else. “If you need somewhere to go,” he blurts out.

“Don’t,” Erik says. It’s a bit disingenuous, Charles thinks, given that he’s been sleeping in Charles’ room. “We both know you haven’t forgiven me for shooting her.”

“On the contrary.” Charles runs a hand through his hair and glances down at the lamp on the floor. He should probably pick that up. It might not even be broken; he didn’t hear anything shatter. “I think her shooting you settled the score rather nicely, don’t you?”

He sees Erik move, reaching up to touch his neck. Charles keeps his eyes fixed on the lamp. “She should have killed me,” Erik says.

The lampshade is twisted atrociously, and there’s no way to see the bulb in the shadows. If he doesn’t touch it, it could perhaps exist in a quantum state of broken and not for… well. Indefinitely.

“There are other ways than killing,” Charles says. He never had much patience for quantum realities. “You didn’t need to die to be stopped.”

“A way without death is unbalanced and foolhardy,” Erik says. “To think no one will die is as impossible as expecting everyone to do so.”

“How can you say that,” Charles snaps, lifting his gaze at last, “when we’ve lost so many? You’ve seen where killing gets us, Erik. You know what happens!”

“I know what happens when we let them kill us,” Erik says coldly. “I know what I’m fighting for, Charles. Do you?”

I’m fighting for you, Charles wants to say. I was always fighting for you. So that no one else has to go through what you went through, so that you are the last. So that when they come for us, there will be someone to speak up.

He looks away instead. He hasn't fought for a long time. He needs to be closer, needs to be out of this room, he needs to know what Erik is thinking. He knows it will break him.

“I need a shower,” he mutters. “There’s food in the--and clothes. If you want.”

The light is still on when he comes back, and Erik is still there. His eyes are closed, but Charles knows better. He doesn’t need to touch Erik’s mind to see the tension in his frame, the white of his knuckles where his hands are folded across his chest.

He isn’t pretending to sleep. He’s wishing he could.

It’s a feeling Charles is all too familiar with. He supposes he ought to take advantage of the silence while he can. Hank’s records will still be there in the morning. Besides, what if someone comes looking for him? Surely Hank would check here before he would think of the basement, at this hour, and Charles can only imagine what a confrontation with Erik would do to them now.

He retrieves two additional pillows from the nearest hall closet, then takes another blanket as well, in case Erik is recalcitrant. When he returns, Erik’s eyes are on the door. Charles ignores him in favor of yanking the quilt as hard as he can--it does nothing to shift Erik, of course, but he thinks it makes his feelings clear.

“You take up a lot of space for someone who won’t even remove his coat,” Charles says.

The bed is exponentially easier to manage when his legs work as they’re meant to, but he’s not tired enough not to be self-conscious. “Is this going to be a regular thing, then?” Charles asks before he can stop himself. “You’re some sort of… bed warmer, now?”

It’s exactly what he didn’t want to say. He doesn’t want to call attention to this, tries not to even think of it himself, in case looking directly at it makes it disappear. But as quiet as his mind is, it’s awkward to have no sense of Erik when he’s so close… easier to touch than to read.

All Erik says is, “I’ve been called worse.”

Charles shoves a pillow between them and presses his back to it, pulling the other under his cheek. He doesn’t bother about the blanket. He can feel them now; he’ll wake if he gets cold. It’s fine.

The light goes out a moment later. The bed doesn’t shift in the slightest, because Erik didn’t move. His presence is indiscernible when he’s still and silent, insulated by everything between them, yet Charles is eerily aware that he’s not alone. His breathing is the loudest thing in the room.

Then he feels it. The slightest displacement of air, a hint of movement against his scalp that doesn’t come from skin. Fingers closer than they were a moment before.

Erik is touching his hair.

Charles closes his eyes, squeezing them shut when they burn. He forces his breathing to steady. He won’t be the one to speak. Not when he doesn’t know if what comes out will be don’t or please.

Erik doesn’t say anything. His hand doesn’t move. For all Charles knows he sits there all night, fingers tangled in someone else’s hair. Charles sleeps uneasily, unexpectedly, with no whisper of Erik’s consciousness in his dreams.

In the morning he’s alone.

Chapter 3

The lamp is still on the floor, so he assumes he hasn’t hallucinated Erik’s presence two nights in a row. Except it’s not a very convincing argument, is it? Any hallucination that detailed could startle him into knocking over a lamp.

The bulb glows brightly when he turns it on, so he restores it to its place on the dresser. The lampshade won’t balance quite right anymore, or maybe it just needs more fussing than he’s prepared to do. No one else will see it, anyway. No harm in letting it lie.

Charles pauses before he leaves the room. It’s a silly thought, but he digs Erik’s book out of his bag, in case--just in case. There’s no reason to think Erik will be back, certainly. He sets the book out anyway, in case Erik didn’t mean to leave it behind.

He takes the wheelchair with him when he descends into the basement. Not for any reason having to do with Erik, of course. Just because Hank is always around, scolding him for taking too much serum, so Charles sits down while he tries to remember what he can about the coordinates Hank recorded.

It’s frustrating, not being able to go back to Cerebro to confirm one impression or another. Over the course of the morning, though, his legs go quietly numb, and he’s so focused that he almost doesn’t notice Hank coming until he realizes: he can’t hear or see him yet. He knows Hank is there regardless, and he can no longer stand up.

“Charles?” Hank sounds more curious than worried, and Charles wonders what he’s done to earn that kind of trust. “Are you down here?”

“In here, Hank.” All the lights are on for once. Hank can’t miss him. Still, it’s kind of him to call out, perhaps uncertain of what Charles can or can’t sense right now.

“Hey, Charles.” He rapidly reassesses when Hank appears in the doorway: his friend is clearly excited, pleased in a way that has nothing to do with Cerebro. “You’ll never guess who’s here.”

On the tip of his tongue are the words, let him go, Hank, or even, this isn’t your fight. But Hank looks too genuinely pleased to be talking about Erik. So Charles schools his expression and says, “Oh?”

“It’s Alex,” Hank blurts out. “Alex is here. I told him he should come down and see you, that you missed him, but I don’t think he--well. He’s outside now. Trying to fix the front gate. He says it’s embarrassing.”

“That’s splendid,” Charles says, surprised in spite of himself. “I thought his tour ended in April.”

“They moved his date up,” Hank says. “For going back to Vietnam. You want to see him?”

He will always appreciate that Hank waits until Charles says, “Yes, of course,” to add, “He says he’s seen Mystique. Not since we did, but overseas. In Saigon.”

He unlocks the chair and turns, coordinates forgotten on the table behind him. “What was she--do I want to know?” he asks, quickly coming to the conclusion that no, he does not.

Hank tells him anyway. “It looks like Trask was using military mutant identification to find test subjects for his research,” he says. “When they’re injured, discharged, or otherwise removed from active service, Trask Industries steps in and pays their way home. Except they never get there.”

Charles was right. He didn’t want to know. “We have to get to them first,” he says, rolling through the door ahead of Hank.

“Yeah, it sounds like Mystique had the same idea,” Hank says. He sounds proud instead of impatient, which is something of a balm to Charles’ pride. “She went in as their CO and took out Stryker herself. Alex says she got his team to the airfield and onto the transport with the rest of their unit. They all made it back, except for Mystique. Alex says she stayed behind on purpose.”

“She stayed behind,” Charles repeats. But why? “Not to kill Stryker, obviously. To follow him, do you think?”

“It would explain how she ended up in Paris,” Hank says.

“Yes it would,” Charles says, frowning. The lift is waiting for them, and this time he lets Hank go first. “Do you think she’ll go back? Continue… making sure mutants come home?”

“I don’t know.” Hank seems surprised by the thought. “I mean, with Trask in custody, won’t his company be subject to scrutiny? It abducted people, experimented on them against their will. Someone has to be held accountable for that.”

He’d like to think this is the end of it too, but it’s not. Erik was right. If it could happen at all, then it can happen again. It can keep happening. And it will, unless someone does something to stop it.

“Someone should have been held accountable already,” Charles says. “Trask is clever and influential, but he can’t have operated in a vacuum. The machine he created will continue without him.”

“So removing him isn’t enough.” Hank doesn’t seem disappointed. If anything, he sounds determined when he asks, “What do we do now?”

It’s a question for which Charles is wholly unprepared. “I expect we’ll need to find out who he’s taken and where they’re being held,” he says, somewhat vaguely. “And keep the organization from taking anyone else, of course.”

The sense of grim satisfaction he gets for this is tempered by Hank’s obvious relief that Charles is taking an interest in current events. He thinks he should be insulted by that reaction, but mostly it’s just depressing. He has no credibility, precious little influence, and only a single stubborn companion with which to change the course of a nation.

He supposes he’s started with less.

He didn’t anticipate what a genuine pleasure it would be to see Alex again. And Logan--he’s still here, he must have stayed the night, Charles thinks. Hank didn’t say. But he’s helping Alex to reset the gate, one side propped open while they lift the other back into place.

Someone’s retrieved the sign from the weeds, he notices. It’s a bit worse for wear, but it looks less forlorn when not half-obscured by dead grass and leaves. They should keep it, he thinks, rather fancifully. Perhaps they’ll want it again someday.

When Hank asks if they can go grocery shopping later, he’s feigning a casual air that puzzles Charles. Hank’s the only one who’s been to the store in months. He can hardly think Charles would stop him now.

“Certainly,” Charles says, and only then does he realize what it means that Alex isn’t looking at him. “I hope you’ll take Alex. I don’t know that you’ll be able to carry enough food for the both of you alone.”

“Sure,” Hank says, clearly relieved. Why either of them thought Alex staying would be a problem is a mystery to Charles. “I mean, it’s not like he knows how to make a grocery list, so. He pretty much has to come if he expects to eat.”

“Fuck you, Beast,” Alex tells him. “I can write.”

It’s decidedly reflexive, something he’s heard so many times it’s become part of his speech, and it’s not as though Charles has refrained from swearing lately either. But there’s something about the day--seeing the two of them together again, or maybe just uncovering the sign--that makes Charles say, “Mind your language, please, Alex.”

Alex replies, “Sorry, Professor,” and no one corrects him.

Logan stays behind when they leave. Charles doesn’t need to ask to know that he’s been assigned guard and guardian duties in Hank’s absence. It’s a sobering thought, so he tries not to look too closely at it. He invites Logan to join them for dinner when the boys return, and they watch with varying degrees of surprise as Alex cooks a very passable chicken course.

Logan insists on cleaning up afterwards. Rather, he starts to clean up afterwards, and glares at Alex when he tries to help and says, “Sit down, kid.” He allows Hank to assist, however, and Charles doesn’t say anything when both boys accept a beer afterwards.

Logan offers one to Charles as well, and he recognizes the gesture for what it is. He takes it in the name of camaraderie and welcome. It’s terrible, of course, but none of them are accustomed to socializing anymore, so they disperse before the lack of palatability becomes an issue.

Charles turns in at the most reasonable hour he’s seen in days. He tells himself it doesn’t matter that his room is empty. The house is not, and that’s unexpectedly comforting. Besides, he can’t face Erik now: not with a clear head and all of his faculties. He’s liable to say anything, and none of it could be blamed on exhaustion or mental numbness.

In the end, he lies awake for hours. He tries to convince himself that he’s not waiting for anything, but when he finally succumbs to a fitful doze, he’s no closer to believing it.

Chapter 4

Ironically, it’s the comfort of sleep that brings him fully awake again. The doze settles out under a murmur of familiar thoughts: restless tension and distant pain overwhelmed by the soothing slide of a lovely mind. He knows that mind, knows it unthinkingly and half-awake, and he opens his eyes.

The room isn’t nearly dark enough to hide Erik’s presence on the other side of the bed. He’s crumpled against the quilt: no pillows and no words, not even close enough to touch. Charles would worry he’s hurt but for the fact that he’s finally removed his boots.

It’s late, so late it’s early, and dawn is haunting the horizon. Erik won't be able to escape unseen this time. Torn between pointing this out and greedily soaking up the peace, Charles hears himself mumble, “Where’ve you been?”

Erik may be sprawled and ungraceful and immovable, but Charles is sure he’s awake. He should be more surprised when Erik grunts, “Azazel. Not as dead as I thought.” Then, in a tone reserved for friends and the family one hasn’t disowned, he adds, “The bastard.”

Charles means to make a sound, something noncommittal and vague. There’s no love lost between him and Erik’s enabling teleporter recruit. Conscript. Teammate, what have you, the point is Charles doesn’t like him, but the relief and drowsy... relief, humming through Erik makes him lazy and kind.

“You know,” he says, and he thinks the words sound almost clear coming out. “You can get under the quilt.”

Erik doesn’t pause. Or move. “Too tired,” he mutters. “Let me sleep, Charles. You’re the only way I can.”

Charles tries to work this out for so long that his eyes have closed and he thinks he’s dreaming before he has to give in. “What?”

“Hush,” Erik says, and it’s mostly a sigh.

So Charles does. This time sleep is easy and everywhere. He dreams of water on a warm day, gentle and sparkling in a breeze he can’t feel. It’s more restful than not dreaming, and it’s a long time since that was last true.

There’s sun on the bed the next time he wakes up, and Erik. Face-down on the quilt, his careful defenses abandoned even while he’s completely dressed. He’s wearing yet another coat, Charles notes. Open and disheveled, it’s functioning more like a blanket than an article of clothing. The socks on his feet look new and thick, and his boots are nowhere to be seen.

Charles knows what it means when Erik abandons the pretense of alertness. Or he used to know. Erik only slept like this when he trusted something or someone else to keep watch. Charles, the children, the house itself. He was never so casual on the road.

Erik thinks he's safe here. But he's still on top of the quilt, and he hasn't touched Charles beyond the hand in his hair, so he isn't certain of his welcome. He may no longer expect to be turned away, but he's still afraid to speak.

He should be, Charles thinks. Charles is terrified.

He would stay and stare until Erik opens his eyes and shutters his mind, until the sense of trust and safety is gone. He would stay far longer, all things being equal. But they aren’t equal, and Hank will knock on his door if he doesn’t show his face by ten.

“Erik,” he says quietly. “I’m going to get out of bed now. If you’re not here when I come back, I will be very disappointed.”

There’s no physical response, but the ripple of acknowledgement from Erik’s mind is unmistakable. It carries no promise or sense of intent, but he certainly heard and understands. Charles tries to breathe through the sense that his heart is suddenly resting in Erik’s hands.

He doesn’t visit the kitchen with any real plan other than tea. Erik didn’t so much as twitch while he puttered around the room, and once he’s washed and dressed Charles has to go or the warning will be for nothing. He takes with him all the anger he can muster: at Erik, at Raven, at Logan for talking him into this insane second chance.

Anger is the only thing that makes leaving bearable, but he knows the fact that he can feel it means it’s already too late. Erik will crush him, or he will run, and either way the end result will be the same. There aren’t enough ripples in the world to change this tide.

It isn’t them he’s angry with, after all. It’s himself.

“Hey, so, I saw the sign at the gate and it looks older than that card you had; have you thought about having someone make a new one? Also, how come there’s no one here? I thought this was supposed to be a school.”

Charles pauses long enough to achieve visual confirmation: Peter, of course. Did he run all the way here from Virginia? He doesn’t bother to ask, because Peter will be three questions ahead of him before he even gets it out. He rolls over to the counter instead, settling for, “Hello, Peter.”

“Why are you in a wheelchair?” Peter wants to know. “Did you get hurt in Paris? I saw Erik on the news; he wasn’t kidding when he said he knew crazy, huh? Did that blue girl hurt you? How come he can fly? That’s pretty far out.”

“No,” Charles says. “She didn’t hurt me.”

“Look, I’m sorry to bother you,” Peter says. “I tried to find you earlier but it looked like you were busy, so I’ve been waiting here forever. My sister’s like me, and it’s getting weird, but you have a school, right? Can you help her?”

Making tea is automatic, even when he’s being bombarded by Peter’s consciousness made verbal. The boy thinks as fast as he moves. The world is lucky that the necessity of putting thoughts into words slows him down enough to be understood.

“Like you, how?” Charles asks, even though he’s pretty sure he should be asking, how much earlier? Peter likely knows Erik is here. Generally speaking, it’s safest to assume Peter knows everything about his environment that can be observed. “Is she fast?”

“No, she’s lucky,” Peter says. “Things do what she wants them to. It’s starting to upset my mom; she thinks Wanda’s going to get caught. Wanda, that’s my sister, did I tell you that? My mom thinks someone’s going to notice and they’ll attack her with those giant robots.”

“I see.” Charles has to admit, as much as it pains him to do so, that’s she’s probably right to worry. “Can she… your sister, can she--not want things to… do things?”

Peter gives him a look that he definitely deserves. “Are you a teacher?” he asks, with all the skepticism of someone who has broken into the Pentagon. Without, it’s worth admitting, any significant assistance.

“No,” Charles says with a sigh. “No, I am most assuredly not. What I’m trying to ask is whether or not your sister has any control over her… unusual abilities.”

“They do what she wants them to,” Peter says. “Except turn off. Can you do anything? Like claws or metal or anything?”

“I’m a telepath,” Charles says.

“Telepathy, that’s reading people’s minds? You know what I’m thinking? What am I thinking right now?”

“That you should have asked Erik,” Charles tells him, “except for how he’s crazy. Which, no, he’s not, but probably best you think of him that way. He’s been known to recruit children.”

“To what?” Peter says. “He’s been in prison. He hasn’t been recruiting anyone. Anyway, he’s a lot less crazy than anyone else who gets kept in a plastic bubble. Do you think you could talk to my mom? She thinks you’re with the government.”

“I’m not,” Charles says. And then, when Peter doesn’t immediately speak over him, he adds, “With the government, I mean.”

“Yeah, but you were,” Peter says. “I looked you up. Is Hank a teacher? He acts like one, and his power is being smart, so. I think Wanda would like him.”

“Yes,” Charles says quickly. “That’s an excellent idea; I’m sure Hank would be delighted. Shall I call your mother, then?”

He doesn’t mean to spend the entire morning trying to keep up with Peter, reassuring Peter’s mum, and explaining the plan he makes up as he goes along to Hank. Someone thoughtfully bought pastries the day before, so at least he gets breakfast. He does not, however, return to his bedroom until noon has been and gone.

He stopped worrying--worrying, not hoping--that Erik might walk into the kitchen himself as the hours passed. Charles asked him to wait, if not in so many words, and then he quite rudely disappeared. Erik is perfectly entitled to have left the room empty and silent.

It is silent, but it isn’t empty. Not entirely. Erik’s book has moved from the dresser to the bedside table, which makes Charles wonder how long he waited… and it has a new bookmark in it. A folded slip of paper with two lines on it, unsigned.

Charles,

Forgive my departure, but there’s a lock that needs breaking. Tell me tonight how I may assuage your disappointment.

Erik hasn’t been stopped. Of course he hasn’t; Erik is unstoppable. It’s not as though Charles didn’t know. The note is polite, sweet even, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. Erik never wanted to drive him away. He only wants to go where Charles will not follow.

Tonight, then. Tonight Erik will break his heart again.

Chapter 5

Peter’s mother agrees to visit on Saturday, which gives them two days to make the grounds look respectable and the buildings only temporarily dormant. She's aware that the school is closed, that the war has taken its toll and they don't know when or if they'll be able to reopen. But Charles suggested the possibility of private tutoring, emphasizing Hank's experience with a wide variety of unusual abilities, and even over the phone he can tell she's desperately hopeful.

He wants to be worthy of that hope. He’s certainly not alone: Hank is enthusiastically supportive, and if it’s as much because Charles is interested in something again as it is because he wants what’s best for Peter’s sister, well. The plan hinges on Hank’s participation, so Charles doesn’t quibble. Alex doesn’t question anything, save what he can do to help.

Logan is skeptical of the entire situation. He’s also still here, which baffles Charles as much as it amuses him when he says, “I know you got people to dust and rake and keep the rats out, but this place looks abandoned. No one’s gonna let their kid come here.”

“It just needs a bit of care,” Charles says. “You’d be surprised what an army of people can do in a couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Logan says. “And where do you get an army, bub?”

Charles sees Hank and Alex exchange glances, and he smiles.

Two separate grounds crews stay until dusk the first day. The interior cleaning and maintenance crews stay until ten that night. Hank and Alex keep out of their way with an ease born of familiarity, but Logan seems unnerved by the sudden activity.

“This is voluntary labor,” Charles reminds him. “You know that, right? They’re being paid quite handsomely.”

Logan doesn’t look at him. “Just don’t like having so many people around,” he mutters. That’s clearly not it, but his uneasiness is personally unflattering and Charles sees no reason to acknowledge it.

Peter disappears sometime after they feed him lunch, and Charles assumes he’s gone home. He’s still curious about how Peter travels: surely covering such a distance on foot would exhaust him, no matter how quickly he can do it? It seems as though traveling any other way would bore him, though, so there’s no obvious answer.

Charles is outdoors, discussing the “X” garden with a landscaper, when he senses the arrival he both welcomes and dreads the most. He glances toward the house, but Logan has gone off to skulk somewhere and neither Hank nor Alex are in view of the front gate. Charles waits, then, patiently listening to the woman put into spoken words the option he’s already decided to accept.

Erik doesn’t hesitate in the light of day. He doesn’t hang back or call out. He strides up the drive as though it’s his own, taking his place at Charles’ shoulder and staring at the landscaper until she says what Charles needs to hear, and he tells her so. “Thank you,” Charles adds, smiling at her. “That will be lovely.”

To her credit, she doesn’t give Erik a second look. She returns to her crew and Charles stares after her, trying not to smile. “You’re early,” he says.

“I left abruptly this morning,” Erik says. “I didn’t have a chance to… thank you.”

The hesitation before “thank you” is almost imperceptible, but for the fear that accompanies it. He’s outwardly composed, as calm and controlled as Magneto often appeared. But Erik is deeply afraid that this confrontation will be the one that ends them… the one that bars him from the house and the unexpected peace he found here, all those years ago.

At Charles’ side.

“What could you possibly say,” Charles wonders aloud, “that would change anything between us now?”

It’s exactly the wrong thing to say, and he feels Erik’s flinch more than he sees it. He’s oddly philosophical about it for almost a second: he has a knack for hitting the wrong note with Erik, and he shouldn’t have expected time or a tacit truce to change that. It’s the seconds afterwards in which he panics.

“I mean only that gratitude on your part is unnecessary,” Charles says quickly. “As I’ve done nothing to deserve it.

“Except freeing you,” he adds, before Erik can answer. “Although perhaps a bit late, given you were wrongly imprisoned. Not killing you, I suppose, that was good of me, but you can’t really have expected… or letting you go? After the disaster at the White House? You’re welcome for that, though it wasn’t my idea.”

He can feel Erik about to speak, but he has to say, “Well, it was somewhat my idea. Just not one I’ve had yet.”

“For helping me sleep,” Erik says. He’s apparently decided to ignore everything Charles says, which honestly Charles thinks is for the best. “I find myself troubled by… simple discrepancies. Since my incarceration. They’re easier to tolerate when--”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s just as well. Charles has no idea what he’s talking about anyway. Letting him continue isn’t likely to do either of them much good.

“Anything I can do,” he says lightly, and the phrase is a pleasantry. Nothing more. He doesn’t mean it, and of course Erik knows.

“Anything?” The word is low and powerful in Erik’s voice, carrying more than they ever were. A word, at its best and at its worst, for what they wanted to be. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Charles.”

“Try me,” Charles says recklessly. It’s a bluff, through and through, and the only curiosity is how quickly Erik will call it. Might he let it play out, once? Twice?

The concessions he could get from Charles are nearly unlimited, assuming he couches them in reasonable terms and doesn’t ask for force. On the other hand, Erik has never been one for reason--or safety. He’s just as likely to start grandiose and increase his demands from there.

“Don’t tempt me,” Erik says at last.

“Well,” Charles says. He isn’t disappointed in the slightest, really. “You’ve learned restraint.”

“You haven’t,” Erik replies.

Charles doesn’t have to look to know that Erik is gazing across the grounds at the workers swarming over every visible meter. “This is for the children,” he says, more sharply than he meant to.

“Is it?” Erik sounds judgmental in a way he has no right to be, and Charles lashes out without thinking.

“I’m sorry, is it not bloodthirsty enough for you? Would you rather I spent my time culling humanity? What do you want from me, Erik!”

“I want Alex.” It’s harsh and fast and unwilling: the words sound torn out of him, except that they make sense. More sense than anything he could want from Charles. Alex’s power is the most easily weaponized, and his control after years of military practice is phenomenal.

“Oh,” Charles says quietly. Involuntarily.

“Not--” Erik stops. “I won’t take him from you,” he says. “I just need to talk to him.”

“It’s his choice,” Charles says. His gaze is fixed on the remnants of the garden. “Alex can do what he wants.”

“One of his teammates--a fellow soldier,” Erik says, perhaps realizing how unclear that is, “found me. He asked for help in… halting Trask Industries’ interference. In the war. They’re taking soldiers after they--”

“I know.” Charles hates that he needs to be told, that he has to admit he knew yesterday and still has done nothing. “What do you need Alex for?”

“I trust him,” Erik says simply. “I need him to confirm information I’ve received.”

So you can do what with it, Charles thinks. He doesn’t ask. It’s better not to know.

“I also want… dinner,” Erik says. Carefully. “With you, ideally.”

Charles laughs, and even he can’t tell if it sounds bitter or manic. “You want dinner with me,” he repeats. Because he asked what do you want? Because Erik isn’t tired enough to close his eyes and pretend he can’t hear what Charles is saying?

Because eating will give them something else to talk about, and maybe they can avoid this conversation for a while longer. It’s not sustainable, this… sleeping together, trying not to speak to each other--but it’s better than nothing. It’s better than being alone.

“All right,” Charles says.

Chapter 6

It isn’t as awkward as he expects it to be.  The house has plenty of kitchens, of course, but the only two currently stocked are the one he and Hank use and the housekeepers’ kitchen.  Charles thinks about taking over the latter, if only to avoid questions he doesn’t want to answer, but it seems unjust to make them all suffer just because he’s uncomfortable.

The smaller kitchen is empty, at least to start, and Erik always relaxes when he’s there.  Rather, he always used to relax when he was there, but it gets harder to remember the intervening years when Erik makes a tiny knight out of a metal spoon and smiles.  Charles admires it while Erik catalogues the contents of the refrigerator.

“Hank will complain about sets with missing utensils,” Charles says.  He turns the horse over in his hands, privately considering the sculpture a much better use for an old spoon.  “I suppose it will give him some relief from complaining about me.”

Erik is collecting vegetables on a cutting board beside the open refrigerator door.  “Is this salmon yours?” he asks, without turning around.

“I think it’s Logan’s,” Charles says.  He has a vague memory of Logan telling Hank to pick it up the other day.

“Good,” Erik says.  He sets the paper-wrapped package on the counter and closes the door.  “It always tastes better when you take it from someone else.”

Charles tries and mostly fails not to laugh.  “You’re a terrible person,” he says.

“I know,” Erik agrees, and the curl of pleasure in his mind is wordless and warm.  “Do you still like salmon and rice?”

“I like how that’s a concern only after you’ve decided to cook it,” Charles says, but he can’t stop smiling.  “Go on, then.  What do you care?”

“You think I’ll only steal for myself?” Erik counters.  “Tell me what you want; look away if it’s not yours.  These brats have plenty to eat.”

“They went out yesterday,” Charles says, then holds up his hands when Erik gives him a pointed look.  “No, salmon and rice is… fine.  Excellent.  Thank you.”

It is, too; Erik is a lovely cook.  He’s very efficient about it: the rice is half-cooked in its pan when he lays strips of salmon on top of it.  Chopped vegetables are added a few minutes later, and he’s made some kind of glaze for it by the time it’s all finished cooking.  All told he uses five implements, counting the cooking pan, glaze bowl, two sharp knives and a spoon, and not including the cutting board.

Charles enjoys watching him, but he likes the idle comments more.  “Decent knife, is it yours?” and “Where did they get snap peas this time of year?”  No response seems to be required, which makes it easier to try.  He even manages to make Erik laugh, though immediately after he can’t remember what he said.

He turns Hank’s attention from the kitchen twice: once when Erik is just serving the salmon, and then again as they’re arguing amiably over who will wash the dishes.  Erik suggests that leaving them piled on the counter may magically produce clean dishes without any effort on their part.  Charles is countering that they have a low sink for a reason--he might as well do some of the work--when he senses Hank in the hallway again.

Erik catches the glance he gives the door and pauses.  “Are you keeping the others away?” he asks.  His expression is neutral, but his mind is clearly amused.

“Yes,” Charles admits.  He’s too deep in flirtation to stop now, so he adds, “Can you blame me for wanting to have you to myself?”

Erik’s slow smile indicates that he’s willing to overlook other reasons Charles might have for keeping them out of sight.  “It seems to work to my benefit as well.”

“Not when it comes to the dishes,” Charles tells him.  “Stand aside, my friend.”

Like so many things with Erik, it’s an argument he’s destined to lose.  This one doesn’t bother him as much as most.  By the time Alex approaches the kitchen, considerably more determined than Hank, Erik’s destroyed another spoon to make a second knight, they’ve raided what was likely meant to be a secret candy stash, and the dishes are still unwashed.

Charles hasn’t laughed this much since the last time he was drunk.  Which was last Thursday, actually.  He’d forgotten how good Erik is at being friendly, at being nice, like a foreign land where they speak a language he’s always known but not used in more than a decade.  It makes his breath catch when he remembers what Alex's presence means.

Erik sees it on his face, the split-second decision not to hide.  He doesn’t consciously decide not to choose for both of them, but something in him must.  Because when Erik raises his eyebrows, Charles just says, “Alex.”

Erik’s smile fades, the easy warmth of the moment slipping into nothing.  “He’s on his way?”

Charles nods.  He watches Erik’s regret, determination, and tenuous hope claw at the fear in his mind.  He doesn’t know what any of it means, and being a telepath is supposed to give him the advantage, it’s supposed to be informative and helpful but it’s not.  He knows that Erik is thinking not now and don’t leave and I don’t even care about them but none of it tells him what to say next.

“Can I speak to him,” Erik says quietly.  “Just for a few minutes.”

Charles clears his throat, pulling away from the table.  “Of course,” he says.  “I can do the--or, if you want me to leave--”

“No.”  The word is quick and undeniable and Erik adds, not without a hint of humor, “Surely you don’t trust me alone with one of your students?”

“They were our students,” Charles says.  He feels numb with the loss of an intangible connection.  “And Alex was a teacher when he left.  He hasn’t needed my protection for some time now.”

Erik gives him a look he can’t fathom.  “They all need our protection, Charles.”

“No,” Charles snaps.  “They don’t.  They need to live in a world where they can handle themselves, where they can make their own decisions and their own compromises.”

“They shouldn’t have to compromise,” Erik says.  The line is stubborn and well-worn.

“Everyone compromises,” Charles insists.  “Everyone gives if they expect to receive.  You want the whole world to bend to you, but it won’t.  Not if you’re unwilling to bend yourself.”

“Don’t lecture me.”  Erik’s mind is a mess of fear and despair.  The contrast with his careful, even tone is enough to make Charles reel.  “You’ve ceded this fight, Charles.  Your way doesn’t work.  It’s time for a new approach.”

It echoes oddly in Charles’ head: Erik’s voice and Magneto’s decree, made years hence in a darker world.  For a moment Charles can hear them screaming, can feel the fire Logan watched consume everything he knew, and he doesn’t realize he’s yelling until he slams his hand down on the table and the pain brings everything into focus.  “I will not see this world destroyed by your quest for supremacy!”

Erik’s mind is close and terrifying and Charles can’t feel anything else.  “We already are supreme,” he says, the words icy and sharp and unforgiving.  Charles closes his eyes in a futile effort not to hear, grinding the heel of his hand into his temple, but he can’t shut it out.

“I won’t see us annihilated,” Erik growls, every word tearing through his mind like Logan’s claws against the current of time, “by your delusions of peace.”

The Sentinels are silver and insectile, their faces nothing but condemnation and death.  Failure.  Inevitability.  The end of everything.  He can’t fight them, can’t stop the obliteration Logan saw creeping across the world.

Professor.  It’s Alex’s voice in his head, a reed against the tide.  Charles latches on without conscious thought, gasping when Alex bears up under the strain: relief from the crushing weight when someone else shoulders some of the pain.

“Stop it.”  Alex’s voice is in the kitchen, too, all around them, as implacable as Erik.  “You’re hurting him.”

"No," Charles whispers.  His palm is splayed against the table and he pushes, bracing himself as he repeats, “No.  It’s all right.”

Alex’s mind is gentle and familiar, strong in its acceptance of what they are… and what they’re not.  He doesn’t expect any more of Charles than Charles can give.  He’s ready to fill in whatever gaps he can, and he trusts Charles do the same.

Charles has never felt more humbled by Alex than he does tonight.

He draws in a breath, and if it’s more shaky than he’d like, well, there’s no help for it.  “It was just--”  The end, Charles thinks, but he says, “A… flashback.  From… Cerebro.  That’s all.  Nothing to worry about.”

It’s more than a lie.  It’s several lies, but he sees no reason to compromise Logan, and they’re familiar with the nightmares Cerebro sometimes induces.  It’s not nothing, though, so he amends, “It’s not Erik’s fault.”

That much, at least, is true.  Strangely, it’s Alex who believes it.  Erik only looks like Charles has struck him, shocked and wounded and raw, and it’s the first time the pain in his mind has bled through to his face since...

Charles doesn’t want to remember, so he doesn’t.  “Erik has something to ask you,” he says, pushing himself away from the table.  “I’d leave, but there are dishes to wash, so.  Pretend I can’t hear you.”

“No,” Alex says.  It’s calm, but the look he gives Erik isn’t kind.  “I won’t go with you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”  The shift of Erik’s focus from him to Alex is a welcome relief to his beleaguered brain, and Charles can almost stop listening.  “Do you know a man named Toad?”

There aren’t that many dishes.  The ones he and Erik ate off of make up the majority of them, so he doesn’t bother to fill the sink.  Charles finishes before they're done speaking, but he doesn’t dare leave.  He feels sure that if he disappears, so will Erik.

Alex doesn’t volunteer much in the way of detail, but he answers Erik’s questions and fills in some of the dangerous empty spaces.  Charles wonders, suddenly, if Hank is putting this together too.  If he’s questioned Alex himself.  If he took Charles’ ambiguous suggestion the day before to heart, and is even now cooking up some form of remote interference from his lab.

Charles thinks that perhaps he should talk to Hank more.

“I’ll talk to Hank,” Alex is saying.  “But I’m not leaving here without food, because he’s been on two snack runs and both times he came back empty-handed.”  The look he gives Charles leaves no doubt that Alex knows why that is.

“Yes,” Erik says.  “Of course.  I should go.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Charles says, and he’s proud of how steady his voice sounds.  “Come, play a game with me.  I’m dreadfully out of practice.  You must allow me to recover my form.”

“Recover it?” Erik says.  He feigns mild surprise, but that's as far as it goes.  He doesn’t dare further criticism, even in jest, and Charles wonders whether it’s him or Alex that Erik is afraid of now.

“Recover it,” Charles repeats firmly.  Alex is opening drawers and banging through cupboards--too pointedly ignoring them, Charles thinks, but he won’t complain--so Charles wheels toward the door without wishing him good night.  

“As you say,” Erik murmurs, but Charles can feel him following.

Chapter 7

It’s exactly as awkward as he expects it to be.  The spell is broken; they are no longer two friends hiding in the kitchen together, giggling over their terrible table manners.  They’re soldiers on opposite sides of a war, albeit one Charles has largely given up fighting.

He stares at the chessboard for a long moment, but he doesn’t move to take a side.  He can feel Erik behind him.  Waiting.

The silence stretches, and he wonders if they might stay like this all night.  If eventually one of them will suggest going to bed, since sleep is the only thing they’ve managed to accomplish without arguing so far.  He thinks he might even agree.

“Allow me to apologize,” Erik says at last.  The words are quiet and sure, but he hesitates before he continues as though he expects Charles to object.  “I didn’t come here to fight.”

“No,” Charles agrees, his eyes fixed on the chessboard.  “You came here to win.”

Erik doesn’t dispute it.  “Those machines were only built for one thing, Charles.  We are at war, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

For once, he thinks, let me say the right thing to Erik.  “Ours has always been a fight for survival,” Charles says carefully.  He’s not sure he ever admitted that before, not in so many words.  But isn’t that what evolution is?  “We don’t have to make it us or them.”

“No, we don’t,” Erik agrees.  “Because they already have.”

Charles turns around, and he’s used to staring up at people.  He’s used to staring up at Erik whether he’s in the chair or not.  He still feels utterly helpless in the face of Erik’s implacability.  And still he has to try.

“Tell me,” Charles says.  “Where is the threat right now, at this moment, that demands such a swift and unforgiving response?  Who stands in the way of any life you would build for yourself?”

Erik holds his gaze without flinching.  “You do.”

Charles blinks first.  “Ah,” he says, because he’s at a loss.  “I see.  Well…”

“You stand in my way,” Erik says.  “I do this for you, Charles.  Because you’ve shown me that it’s more than just me, that there are people who deserve someone to fight for them.  People like you.  Yet you dog me every step of the way, standing between me and everything I would give you.”

“No,” Charles says sharply.  “Don’t put this on me, Erik.  I won’t be responsible for everything you’ve done.”

“What have I done but try to secure our future?” Erik demands.  “To make sure we live to see it?  You told me once that Shaw had friends.  I’m telling you now that Trask has an army.  Keep me from raising one against him, and you will die.  We all will die.”

“Why not just kill me!” Charles snaps.  “If I’m in your way, then remove me.  As you would them!”

“I do this for you,” Erik says fiercely.  His fists are clenched, but nothing rattles.  Nothing moves, or bends, or threatens them in any way.  “Not despite you.”

Nothing threatens Charles in any way.

“Why?" he says, some of the helplessness muted by regret.  How can they be doomed to different sides of this conflict when all they want is each other?  “Why am I different?  Why kill the humans who try to stop you, but not me?”

“Because you’re not human,” Erik says impatiently.  It’s the answer Charles knew he would give, far from the only answer Erik believes, and he can’t help being disappointed.  A small, selfish part of him will always want Erik to say, Because I love you.

“And they are.”  He’s too tired for this, suddenly.  “They don’t deserve to die for being human any more than I deserve to live for being a mutant.”

“There are more of them,” Erik insists.  “They have privilege and might and the force of millions on their side.  We few aberrations can be eradicated at their whim.  One misstep, the wrong tattoo, a flash of different-colored skin, and they wipe us out.”

“We give them no reason not to,” Charles murmurs.  As soon as the words are out, he knows they’re wrong, he knows it even before he feels Erik’s rage.  All he can do is close his eyes.

“They shouldn’t need one!  We don’t need to earn the right to live!”  The words are like a tangible thing, twisting in the air between them, but they don’t echo.  There’s no replay of them in Charles’ mind, no memory of cleansing fire when Erik shouts, “No one needs a reason not to commit genocide!”

Charles opens his eyes, but the study is as it was.  There’s no overlay of a burning world or the weight of death and fear pressing in on him.  There’s just Erik.  Just Erik, angry and wounded and so desperate for something, anything to put right the wrongs he’s witnessed.

“Nor do you, my friend,” Charles says quietly.  “Yet you press on.  I fear you may have become your own enemy.”

It makes no impression on Erik.  It’s a truth he has already confronted and rejected.  “I have become yours,” he says.  “Which is far worse.  But it’s a fate I accept if it means you and your children will have your peace.”

His children.  He doesn’t know what it means that Erik sees them, that there’s a vision in his mind that can’t possibly be his.  The house, the school, filled with students who aren’t training for war.  The semester that Charles and Hank and Alex and Sean fought so hard for, and now seems so long ago.

“You’re not my enemy,” Charles says, frowning at the idyllic impression.  Are those students he’s had?  Or ones he will have?  “I made that mistake once, when I let them take you.  I won’t make it again.”

Of course, it’s no more likely that Erik’s seen the future than it is for him to know a past he wasn’t part of.  The children he speaks of are hazy and indistinct, not unfocused but unknown.  He imagines children here because Charles does.  Nothing more.

“He told you something,” Erik says.

Charles blinks and the hallway full of careless students is gone.  The study is empty save for him and Erik.  “Who?”

“Your time traveler,” Erik says.  “He told me you and I sent him back here, together.”

“Yes,” Charles agrees.  “Is that… all he told you?”

“Did he tell you more?” Erik counters, but the answer is clear in his mind.  Logan said nothing else to give him hope.  But it was enough to make him ask.

“He showed me,” Charles says.  “The two of us, together at the end of the world.”  He glances at Erik, and then away.  “It’s the only thing I saw from that time I wouldn’t willingly forget.”

Erik doesn’t answer, and Charles knows what he’s thinking.  Of course he does; how can he not?  He doesn’t need any powers to remember the last thing Erik said to him before their first mutant class was broken forever.

I want you by my side, Erik told him.  We're brothers, you and I.  We want the same thing.

Maybe they did.  Maybe Charles was just too blind to see it then… too short-sighted to know what his ideals would look like after ten years of loss.  Now he knows what they’ll look like after fifty years.  Now he knows that Erik was right, and that Erik will one day believe the same about him.

Charles isn’t willing to wait fifty years for that day to come.

“Hank’s on his way,” he says abruptly.  He doesn’t want to wait, but they’re a few minutes and four wrong words from tearing each other apart.  They have to stop this.  “I’d rather not turn him away again.”

"Of course," Erik says.  The words are quiet and distant, and he doesn't follow when Charles rolls toward the door.  All Charles can feel from him is relief.

“Come in,” he says, before Hank can knock.

Hank walks in without surprise, without hesitation, though Charles sees his eyes flick over the room and his awareness takes in the untouched chessboard.  He doesn’t acknowledge Erik at all.  “Housekeeping issue,” Hank says.  “Adele needs to speak with you.”

His mind says: Darwin.  It’s unintentional, unprojected, and impossible to ignore.  Hank is lying to get him out of the room, so that he can talk to Charles about Darwin, because he doesn’t want Erik to know that he’s--

“Right,” Charles says, frowning.  Hank thinks Darwin is alive.  The rest is a tangle he can’t sort through without more effort.  “If you’ll excuse me?” he adds over his shoulder.

There’s no reply, and he pauses before following Hank out of the room.  “Erik,” he says.

“Go,” Erik tells him.  “Take care of your people.”

Hank is listening, but Charles has to ask.  “Will I see you… later?”

Erik looks at him for a long moment before he nods, just once.

Chapter 8

“You think this is wise?” Hank asks before he’s taken two steps from the door.  He doesn’t care if Erik overhears.  “Letting him in here, letting him--”  Sway you, he thinks, but out loud he says, “Engaging with him like that?”

“The government built the Sentinels,” Charles says, torn between arguing their case and asking where Hank is going.  Certainly not to see Adele.  “Augmented by Raven’s DNA or not, they still exist.  And they’re still meant for us.  To come after us.  We can’t stand against them without Erik.”

“You want to fight?”  Hank doesn’t sound as incredulous as Charles might have hoped.  “I thought you wanted to show them a better way.”

“We can’t have students here that we can’t protect,” Charles says sharply.  

“We can’t have kids here at all if they’re going to be in danger,” Hank says.  “We can’t take them out of their homes and then put them in harm’s way.”

“Who’s to say they’re not at greater risk where they are?” Charles asks.  “You didn’t agree to work for the CIA because of the vast publication opportunities, did you now.”

“Some people can pass,” Hank says.  He feels angry but it doesn’t show.  Hank’s become much better at controlling his temper.  “They should be allowed to hide if it’s what they want.”

“Everyone makes their own choices,” Charles agrees.  “Darwin, for example.”

It surprises Hank into thinking about it, though he realizes his mistake almost immediately.  It’s still enough time for Charles to know they’re talking about the same person: Armando Muñoz, who joined Division X as Darwin, and was apparently never as dead as his friends claimed.  Charles stops where he is, raising his eyebrows.  Hank pauses beside him without meeting his gaze.

“Angel was pregnant,” Hank mutters.  “Darwin wanted to go after her.  He knew you wouldn’t let us.  He and Alex stayed in touch.”

There’s more to it, but Hank obviously didn’t want to tell him that much.  “So he’s not dead,” Charles says.  He knows it’s stupid the moment it’s out, but it’s too late to take it back.

The look Hank gives him is remarkably similar to the way Peter looked at him this morning.  “His power is surviving,” Hank says.  “I told them you wouldn’t believe it.  Alex thought he could sell it.”

It’s quite the trick to play on a telepath.  Charles remembers the day they disbanded Division X in the wake of Shaw’s destruction: he was distracted, disoriented, worn down by jet lag and sleepless nights and the strain of keeping Moira’s team alive.  Not to mention Erik, a loose canon in enemy territory, and Emma, whose unceasing mental suggestion had aggravated his own occasionally tenuous hold on reality.

He was dismayed to learn they’d lost Darwin.  He knows that.  And he worried for all of them in the wake of such a tragedy… more so when they seemed unable to accept it.  They continued to think of Darwin as one of their own for weeks, months even, a friend not gone but simply missing.  He thought it strange they should all manifest the same odd and persistent form of denial, but as it seemed to give them strength, he remained silent on the subject.

“That explains quite a lot, actually,” Charles muses.  “Alex never carried as much guilt as I expected.  You say you kept in contact with him?”

“At first,” Hank says.  “It was mostly Alex, though.  When he joined up, we stopped hearing from Darwin.  I think they wrote letters.”

He knows they wrote letters.  Hank’s carried this secret for more than a decade, and Charles never suspected.  He’s rather impressed.

“I see,” Charles says.  Except he doesn’t, not really.  “So why bring it up now?”

“Angel’s daughter has purple skin,” Hank says.  “She just got kicked out of school for fighting.  Only she wasn’t fighting.”

“I see,” Charles says again.  Expelled, then, and not for what she’s done.  For what she looks like.  He wonders if she has a mutation other than the color of her skin.  That’s one they all share, after all, if typically in less unusual shades.

“Darwin called,” Hank tells him.  “Alex is on the phone with him now, but he’d like to talk to you.”

“I’d like to talk to him as well,” Charles says.  He keeps his tone pleasant, he’s sure of it, but the look Hank gives him as they cross the foyer is nervous.  He supposes his reaction to phantoms of the past hasn’t been particularly reliable, of late.

Alex is sprawled across the parlour sofa when they come in, phone cord wrapped around his wrist and his gaze on the ceiling.  “It’s probably because they’re shiny,” he’s saying.  “Butterflies sparkle, right?”

There’s a pause, and when he sees them Alex swings his legs over the side of the sofa and sits up.  “Yeah, it’s a probably a camouflage thing.  Maybe they’re supposed to look like flowers, I don’t know.  Hey, the professor’s here; you want to talk to him?”

Alex catches his eye and points at the receiver, and Charles nods.  “Yeah, okay,” Alex tells the phone.  He’s unwinding the cord from his wrist and pulling it out from under his foot.  “Hang on.”

The receiver is warm when Charles takes it from him.  “Armando,” he says, giving Alex a faint smile.  “Good evening.”

“Hey, Charles.”  Darwin’s voice in his ear is strange, a relic from another time.  Charles thought he might have forgotten it until he hears it again.  “Listen, I’m sorry I bailed on you like that.”

“Ah, yes, well,” he says, looking from Alex to Hank.  “Hank filled me in a bit, just now.  I’m sorry things weren’t… better then, I suppose.”

He’s terrible at talking to people on the phone.  He’s improved somewhat since he started using the serum.  Probably because he’s had to learn to understand people without knowing what they’re thinking.  Still not his strongest area, though.

“Yeah,” Darwin is saying.  “Me too.  Wish they were better now.”

Charles breathes out, something that’s more than a sigh and not quite a laugh.  “You’re not alone,” he says, staring at the darkened windows across the room.  “If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word.”

“You got any space for a family vacation?” Darwin asks.

“Plenty of it,” Charles says.  “Whenever you want.”

“I have a kid,” Darwin says.  “She’s been having some trouble at school.  Could use a break from the bullies, you know what I mean?”

“Only halfway at best,” Charles says, “but there’s room here and more for anyone that needs it.  Do you know where we are?”

“Sure,” Darwin says.  “Be up this weekend, if it’s all right.  Maybe stay the week.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Charles tells him.  “I’m sure we’ll all be delighted to see you.”  There’s a pause where he doesn’t know what to say, he can’t remember if he was going to ask something else, and he can’t tell whether or not Darwin is about to speak.  

It’s more charmingly awkward in person, he thinks.  On the phone it’s just uncomfortable.

“Did you want to speak to Alex again?” Charles asks at last.

“Wait, Charles.”  Darwin was gone before they started calling him “Professor,” Charles realizes.  He hasn’t unlearned the habit, the way Hank has.  He never had it to begin with.

“Thank you,” Darwin’s saying.  “I appreciate this, okay?”

“Thanks are unnecessary, my friend,” Charles tells him.  “We’ll see you soon.”

He hands off the phone to Alex, who takes it with a searching look as he presses the receiver to his ear.  “Hey,” he says, not taking his eyes off of Charles.  “You good?”

Charles doesn’t hear how Darwin replies, but Alex nods to him before he turns away.  “Okay,” he says.  “Yeah, that’s good.  She’ll like it; she can have her own room and everything.”

“I suppose we’d better make sure there are rooms ready,” Charles says to Hank.

“You want me to find Adele?” Hank offers.  “She’ll like having a girl around again.  Even if she’s only eleven.”

Eleven, Charles thinks.  Angel’s daughter is eleven now.  It’s nothing short of astonishing: the time gone, just like that.  He tries not to imagine how fast fifty years could fly… he’s afraid he already knows.

“Thank you,” Charles says aloud.  “That would be lovely.  I’ll talk to Camberra about stocking the kitchen, as well.”

“What about Erik?”

The question brings him up short.  “Excuse me?”

Hank sounds exceptionally neutral when he asks, “Will Erik need a room?  I mean, if he’s staying here.  He’ll need a place to sleep.”

The impressive part is that Hank manages to keep his thoughts in order as well.  Nothing comes through past the repetitive thought that if Erik’s staying, he needs a room.  It’s careful and deliberate, and Charles knows when he’s being kept out.

On the other hand, it isn’t as though he’s been completely honest with Hank.  He could say that Erik isn’t staying, after all: he just shows up to sleep, then vanishes without a word.  He could say that he doesn’t expect Erik again… that Charles doesn’t wait for him.  That being unconscious beside the man he loves isn’t the best part of every day.

He could admit that if Erik were given a bed of his own, he’d likely stop showing up at all.

“No,” Charles says instead.  “He doesn’t need a room.”

Chapter 9

He doesn’t regret saying it until precisely 3:35 the next morning.  That’s the moment when his own previously empty room becomes less so.  Charles doesn’t sleep well alone, not without serum or drink or both, and that makes it all the more frustrating to have what sleep he gets interrupted.  Again.

That, or he’s just cranky that Erik wasn’t here earlier.  He likes having Erik with him at night.  He likes having Erik with him, period, and if it has to be while they’re sleeping then he’ll take it.  It’s harder for them to hurt each other when they’re asleep.

The soothing wash of Erik’s mind is almost enough to coax him back to calm, but Erik hits the bed hard and he literally smells of metal and Charles is speaking before he can think.  “I know you know where the shower is,” he grumbles, twisting enough to prove he’s awake.  Mostly.

Erik’s thoughts, usually so clear and pleasant, drag sluggishly around the suggestion.  He was late the night before, too, and Charles wonders what he could possibly have done between their confrontation in the study and the small hours of the morning.  Whatever it was, it’s made him exhausted and careless.

Still he gets up: wordless, slow, and stumbling a little as he makes his way across the room.  Charles lifts his head to stare after him in the darkness.  He can feel Erik’s determination moving away from him… in the direction of the shower.  He’s tempted to take the gesture as the miracle it is and close his eyes again.

He doesn’t, though.  Because he’s the better man, he reminds himself, pressing his hands over his eyes and stretching as much as he can, trying to convince his body that this isn’t the worst possible time to get out of bed.  His body, quite rightly, doesn’t believe him.

Charles forces himself out of bed anyway.  Most of their sweats have the “X” design embroidered on them now, but they’re just pajamas and Erik better not care.  He doesn’t have a lot of options, anyway.  All of his old clothes are in storage on another level, and Charles isn’t feeling that magnanimous at half three in the morning.

The bathroom door is ajar.  Charles considers knocking for the second it takes him to remember he’s still wearing his watch.  Erik knows he’s here, whether he’s thinking about it or not.  So Charles nudges the door open far enough that he can drop the sweats inside.  A concession for a concession.

The bed is more welcoming on his return than it seemed even when he left.  Sleep has not fled in the face of activity.  Indeed, it’s more peaceful and immediate once he finally levers himself back onto the mattress.  Nothing to do with Erik’s presence, of course.  He’s clearly the culprit; he can’t also be the balm.

“Must I wear the uniform to join you now?”

The words are low and quiet and Charles doesn’t startle, but he’s awake and he definitely wasn’t a moment ago.  “What?” he manages, weighing the effort necessary to lift his head.  The choice not to is simple: he’s sleeping, Erik should be, and no eye contact is required.

“I assume clean clothes mean I’m welcome in the bed?”  Erik’s tone is prickly but his mind is tentative and uncertain.  Surely he can’t think that Charles won’t want--

“You are,” Charles mutters, before he can get lost in the confusion.  “You always are.”

Erik doesn’t believe him, but that’s nothing new and it never held them back before.  It rarely held them back before.  He flips the covers, rustles pillows in the stillness, and the bed shifts strangely while he settles himself in it.  

Erik says nothing else.  Charles means to, he does, he’s only waiting until Erik stops moving.  He’s drifting in the warm comfort of almost dreaming when he realizes there’s a hand on his shoulder.  It’s been there, maybe for some time, but his voice won’t cooperate.  I can’t just roll over, Charles thinks.  I just got everything the way I want it.

“Let me,” Erik whispers.  It’s a question with no answer.  Neither of them know how much Charles will allow, or how much Erik will ask.

He feels that hand in his hair, pushing it away.  Then Erik’s lips are on his skin, mouth on his neck, soft and nearly still.  “Thank you,” Erik murmurs.  The words reverberate in Charles’ mind: not because he expects to hear them in the future, but because Erik is pressing them carefully into his thoughts right now.

Charles opens his eyes, blind in the darkness and all too aware of Erik’s turmoil.  “Conducting nighttime raids,” he asks, “or operating in another time zone?”

Erik is still behind him, but he doesn’t pull away.  There’s a flash of vertigo with remembered movement, speed, and silence.  The air is the only thing that screams, and Erik is satisfied.  “Both,” he says after a moment.

Charles swallows, because Erik was satisfied.  Now he’s afraid.  So is Charles: afraid to know, afraid to push, afraid to ignore it and become the thing Erik hates the most.

Someone who doesn’t question.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Erik says, so softly it’s barely there.  And it’s so clear in his mind that he doesn’t know, he isn’t sure whether this is the right thing to say or not.  Will the words please Charles or anger him?

But you were satisfied, Charles thinks.  It’s this more than anything that makes him reach back, fumbling for Erik’s hand to pull it over his shoulder.  He means only to kiss his fingers, clumsy reassurance in the face of doubt, or even a return of Erik’s earlier thanks, somehow.

Erik takes it as an invitation instead.  He slides closer without a word, wrapping his arm around Charles and burying his face in Charles’ neck.  The quilt is doubled up and heavy between them, but all Charles can feel is his warm breath and the anchoring squeeze of Erik’s fingers.  It’s the closest to forgiveness he’s ever felt.

For the first time in a long time, Charles wishes he didn’t sleep so well.  His chest is heavy when he wakes up, his shoulder is stiff and his skin is hot.  He’s been still too long, but Erik’s arm is still draped over him and all he wants is to stay like this a little longer.

“Awake?” he hears Erik murmur.  It’s too gentle to disturb him if he were not, and he closes his eyes again.

“How can you tell?”  He meant it to be clear, but the words are slurred and he sounds more comfortable than he feels.  He still doesn’t want to move.

He expects some clever observation about breathing or muscle tension.  Erik pays attention to that sort of thing, and his senses remain sharp.  He can probably tell the difference between Charles awake and asleep from across the room.

“It feels different,” Erik says after a pause.  “In my head.  Like the room is… don’t laugh,” he says abruptly, and it takes Charles a moment to realize the words are directed at him.

“What?”  He tries, then, to shift onto his back, but he can’t.  Erik is pressed tight against him, and the quilt keeps him from exercising any kind of torque on his lower body.  “Why would I--?”

“The room is brighter when you’re awake,” Erik says with a sigh.  “Please tell me that’s a side effect of your telepathy, and not me being inexcusably sentimental.”

“All sentimentality is excused,” Charles tells him.  “Also, it’s very difficult for me to move right now without rudely pushing you aside.  Would you mind?”

He hasn’t got past “move” before Erik is pulling away.  “Polite to the last,” Erik says, easing back a bit as he sits up.  He shifts the quilt with him, giving Charles more room, but it’s difficult to tell whether the gesture is intentional or not.

“I’d say you bring it out in me,” Charles says, pushing himself up, “but that would be a lie.”  He drags his pillows around behind him before reaching forward to rearrange his legs.  When he sits up again, Erik is offering another pillow.

“Yes, thanks,” Charles says.  He stuffs it behind him and leans back, taking a moment to appreciate Erik’s bedhead.  “I shouldn’t say this, as it will only invite comparison, but your hair is really quite charming in the morning.”

Erik almost smiles.  “Yours is a disaster,” he replies.

Charles doesn’t even try.  “To be fair,” he says, “that’s largely true whether I’ve slept on it or not.”

“It’s not a bad look on you,” Erik says.

He pushes his hair back now, if only to make sure he can see Erik’s full expression.  “You’re not serious.”

This time Erik does smile.  “Don’t fish, Charles.”

It’s easy and obvious and it makes him laugh.  “Then don’t tease,” Charles counters, no real intent behind it.  It’s the appropriate response, is all.

The look Erik gives him in return is unmistakable.  It has intent and more and Charles can feel it like heat curling all around him.  Erik is thinking about kissing him.  The sense of it is charming and sweet, but there’s a hunger behind it, a desperation that isn’t entirely about them.

Charles knows it’s there.  Erik knows that he knows.  He doesn’t say anything, and Charles looks away.  Things are messy enough already without trying to add sex and maybe some ambiguous desire for salvation to… whatever it is they’re doing.  Whatever they are right now.

Whatever they’ve become.

“This is new,” Erik says at last, drawing Charles’ eye as he picks at the front of his borrowed sweatshirt.  The black “X” is circumscribed by a circle over his heart.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Charles assures him.

Erik’s expression says he believes that about as much as Charles expected him to.  “It’s cute,” he says, tracing it with his finger.

Charles clears his throat.  “Your clothes,” he begins.  “I mean--your old clothes.  They’re… if you want them.  They’re still here.”

Erik is watching him again, unreadable.  His mind is surprisingly calm.

“In storage, of course,” Charles adds hastily, “but I--we kept them, in case--”  There is no in case, nothing he can say that explains why they weren’t put to use or given away.  Nothing but the simple truth that he couldn’t stand to see anyone else wear them.  “I could--”

“Thank you,” Erik says, mercifully interrupting his babble.  “Do I have any hope of finding them guided by your directions alone?”

He dares to offer with what is likely the same amount of trepidation Erik had the night before, telling him about the raid.  “I could--”  Charles lifts his hand slowly, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his temple.  “Show you?”

Erik holds his gaze for a long moment before nodding.  But he does nod, and Charles tries to keep his breathing even.  His touch is light, the images as focused as he can make them.  He used to be good at this: even so preoccupied, he could glide in and around errant thoughts as easily as walking down the street.

Now he feels the drag of his own reluctance.  He fears that he will reveal more than he ought, that Erik will see how quickly he could be overcome.  Erik’s mind is itself more difficult than he remembers… kind and cool and inviting, yet filled with secrets he keeps tripping over.

They’re all secrets Charles knows, of course.  He isn’t blind to Erik’s fervent wish for reconciliation.  He can’t help but be aware that Erik loves him, wants him, and would do anything for him except be a different man.  To acknowledge this, however, is to potentially move forward, and any movement toward the future is paralyzing now.

“I missed that,” Erik says quietly.

He’s still in Erik’s mind, and he drops his hand quickly.  The room reasserts itself with a vengeance, the bed, the quilt, Erik’s gaze too close even as Charles tries to look away.  He blinks hard, shaking his head.  “You never wanted me in your head,” he says roughly.  He wishes he could pretend it didn’t bother him.

Erik’s tone doesn’t change.  “Don’t tell me what I want,” he says.

Charles covers his eyes, then rubs his hands down his face in an effort to pretend he didn’t.  “Did you see?” he asks the bed.  “Can you find your way?”

All Erik says is, “I’ll let you know.”  

Erik is careful to leave the quilt loose when he gets up.  Charles is just as careful not to get caught watching him as he leaves.  Between the two of them, it’s the most self-aware denial he’s ever participated in.

He tips his head back against the pillows and breathes for several long minutes after Erik has gone.

Chapter 10

Erik isn’t back by the time Charles is dressed, but he’s still in the house, so Charles leaves a note that he’s in the kitchen and sets out to make it true.  Two things happen as soon as he puts a wheel outside the threshold of his room.  One, Peter appears beside him, and two, he can hear Alex yelling for Hank to come to the phone.

Peter’s appearance is disconcerting on several levels, but Charles doesn’t have time to be grateful for Peter’s (likely newfound, and that’s another embarrassment) reluctance to enter his bedroom.  He tries to split his attention between Peter’s sudden wealth of information about the Sentinel program and Alex’s conviction that the CIA is calling them, and he’s moderately successful until Logan steps in front of him and halts all forward progress.

Logan’s seen Erik.  Erik is in the kitchen now, Charles knows as soon as he checks, and Logan hasn’t spoken to him.  But he isn’t happy.

“What are you even doing here?” Charles asks irritably, before Logan can voice his complaints.  “Did you move in while I wasn’t looking?  God knows everyone else has.”

“It’s all right for a castle,” Peter says.  “Kind of a target, though.  I mean, there’s nothing to stop a bunch of giant robots landing on your lawn.  Is that what the CIA is for?  I thought you didn’t work for the government anymore.”

Logan doesn’t spare Peter a glance.  “Maybe you didn’t notice, but I’m ninety percent sure the guy wearing the X pajamas almost put a bullet in the back of your head in Paris.  You sure you want him walking around the place?”

“Leave Erik alone,” Charles tells him.  “Do you have a place to sleep?  There’s laundry downstairs if you want it, and clothes.  Peter, if you come up with a way to keep giant robots off the lawn, do let me know.”

“Charles?”  Hank meets them in the foyer, and Alex is already coming over to join them.  “Who’s on the phone?”

“It’s Moira,” Alex says, glancing first at Peter, then Logan.  “She says it’s an unofficial call.”

“Well it would have to be, wouldn’t it,” Charles says impatiently.  “Since officially, she doesn’t remember this number exists.”

“You want to take it, then?”  Alex looks from him to Hank (who nods, because Charles needs a babysitter) before he gets out of the way.  “She says there was some kind of incident.  With a kid.”

Moira used to call with mutant news whenever she got wind of it.  The urgency of the calls trailed off after the closing of the school, and the frequency dwindled as the years passed.  He thinks she mostly ends up talking to Hank these days.

He’s not quite sure what to expect when he picks up the phone, so he settles for, “Hello?”

“Charles!”  It’s unmistakably Moira, though to what purpose he can’t imagine, and she sounds both pleased and relieved.  “You don’t know how good it is to hear your voice.”

“Darling,” he says with a smile, because if there’s one thing that comes back reflexively, it’s this.  “It’s been too long.  I hope you’re not calling with terrible news.”

“No no,” she says quickly, “nothing like that."

He closes his eyes in silent thanks.  He still dreads the call that says she’s been discovered, or worse, that she’s gotten too close to someone too dangerous.  Shaw was only one example in the pattern of her life.  

“It’s just,” she’s saying, “I saw you, on the news, and I didn’t know--I didn’t realize--”

“How long my hair has gotten?” he offers, raising his eyebrow as Hank peers around the doorway.  If they want to hear what she has to say, why are they standing out there?  “I know, really, I do.  But I’ve been told it’s not a bad look on me.”

“That you’re back in Washington,” Moira says.  “Have you been lobbying?  I thought you meant to stay… well, invisible.”

“I wasn’t there for the school,” Charles says.  “Nor the cause.  We followed Raven, I’m afraid, and she led us to… well.  As you saw.”

“To Erik,” Moira says, and he blinks.

“No,” Charles says.  To Erik?  What does she think he’s been doing all this time?  “To Trask.  She meant to kill him, you see.  Erik only…”  He puts a hand over his face for a moment before he realizes that now Alex is peeking in.  “Well, he got in the way.”

“Uh-huh,” Moira says, and even over the phone he can hear her disbelief.  “Look, Charles, I can’t tell you anything about Erik that you don’t already know, but don’t try to bullshit me.”

“I would never,” he says, waving at the boys to come in.  He honestly has no idea why they stayed in the foyer if they’re this interested.

“Don’t even try,” she says.  “So are you back in the incident business, or what?  Because there’s a kid up in New Hampshire who just rescued eight high school students from a dormitory fire.”

“Very heroic,” Charles says, watching Alex and Hank sidle into the room.  Logan isn’t with them, and he can’t see Peter but that doesn’t mean he’s gone.  “So far I’m not worried.  Unless this child also started the fire, in which case, I recommend either impulse management or some sort of counseling.  Possibly both.”

“By flying,” Moira says.  “On wings.  He picked them up, one kid at a time, and flew them out of third and fourth floor windows to the ground.”

“Is he all right?” Charles asks, frowning.  “Did he strain himself?”  Angel’s wings were strong enough to hover on, and even she hadn’t been able to carry someone else in flight.  “What was the reaction?  I assume this was a public rescue.”

“Caught on camera,” Moira confirms.  “He looked fine, even, um, posing a little bit?  It was hard to tell, but Sean says it’s different when you’re just lowering people to the ground.  Gliding isn’t as hard as lifting.  Which makes sense, I guess.”

The reminder makes Charles smile.  "How is Sean?  You managed to convince Erik he died, by the way.  My condolences."

"Did we?" Moira says.  "Brilliant.  He'll be pleased.  He's doing very well--he runs now, did Hank tell you?  Competitively, even.  Says it reminds him of Hank and--and Alex.”

He has no reason to think she was going to say “you,” so he pretends not to hear the hesitation.  “Yes, and Alex is back,” Charles says, catching Alex’s eye with a nod.  “You spoke to him, I believe.”

“I did,” Moira says.  “I’m so glad he’s safe.”

“We’re all very glad,” Charles agrees, smiling.  Instead of looking away, Alex cracks a smile in return, and that’s a pleasant surprise.  “Hank says hello, of course.”

Hank does indeed lift a hand to wave, and Charles nods to him too when Moira says, “Oh, tell him hi for me, would you?  I hope his latest stealth experiment didn’t have the unfortunate side effects he was worried about.”

Charles raises both eyebrows.  “Stealth experiment, you say.”  He watches Hank grin like it’s something to be proud of, and it undoubtedly is.  Charles is just sorry this is the first he’s heard of it.  “I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

“Do,” Moira says.  “He can reach me at the Massachusetts number for the next day or so, if he has time to chat.  I’m sure Sean would enjoy hearing from him as well.  He’s up at Phillips Exeter now, but he’ll be back this evening.”

“Phillips Exeter,” Charles says, adding up “high school” and “dormitories” in his mind.  If he’s disappointed by the implication that Sean would be happy to talk to Hank, but not to him, well.  That’s not her fault.  “The site of the fire?”

“Yes.”  Moira sounds more serious, suddenly.  “They won’t be able to make this one disappear, Charles.  And I don’t think he’s interested in fading into the tabloids.”

“What’s his name?” Charles asks.  Exeter is a posh school; it’s not impossible he’d recognize one of their students.

“Warren Worthington,” Moira says with a sigh.  “The third.”

“Ah,” Charles says.  He’d have to be pretty far gone not to know that one.  “Mutation in the Worthington line, really?  How interesting.”

“Charles,” she says.  “Erik was on broadcast television.  And Raven.  People saw them, heard them.  If there are more children like Warren out there…”

“And there are,” Charles murmurs when she stops.  He doesn’t know the name of Angel’s daughter.  How had he forgotten to ask?

“It’ll be desegregation all over again,” Moira says.  “Rampant racism at best, a witch hunt at worst.  At every school and workplace in America.”

“What do you want me to do?”  He feels a whisper of movement at his shoulder and he tries to modulate his tone.  Peter is (was?) in the room.  He may or may not be unstable; the least Charles can do is try not to set a poor example.

“We can only shelter so many,” he says evenly.  “Even if the school were to… re-open, we can’t--we can’t be everywhere, Moira.”

“I’m not telling you to re-open,” Moira says, in the tone of voice that means, yes, she’s telling him to re-open.  “All I’m saying is that Erik got his fifteen minutes.  Maybe you should consider having yours.”

“Right,” Charles says.  What can he say to that?  It’s flattering that she has such faith in him, but he’s certainly no inspiration.  His best friend has to make sure he drags himself out of bed every morning.  “Well.  I’ll take that into consideration.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Moira says, but she sounds more fond than upset.  “It’s good to hear from you again, Charles.  Don’t leave it so long next time.”

“I won’t,” he promises automatically.  “And the same to you.  Let us know how you get on.”

“I will,” she says.

It’s only after they awkwardly take their leave that he realizes he didn’t ask how she is.  How she’s doing now, herself, not just Sean and mutants and the potential collapse of the country’s social infrastructure.  She probably didn’t expect any different.  It wasn’t only her career that made her leave the remains of Division X, after all.

“I hope you’re better at public speaking than you are on the phone,” Peter says, pausing by a chair on the other side of the room.  “Also, Erik looks more crazy than usual in a black turtleneck; why would you keep that?  I think he’s making you breakfast.  Is that weird?  Can I go see the flying kid?  Where’s the school that burned down?”

“Wait,” Hank says.  “Erik’s here?”

“If he uses up the rest of the milk, I’ll kill him,” Alex says.  “I can do that, right?  He can’t stop me.”

“Did he stay the night?” Hank asks.  He’s far too suspicious for someone who’s been harboring Logan the entire week.  “I thought you said he didn’t need a room.”

“Of course he doesn’t need a room,” Peter says, and really, Charles should have seen this moment coming.  Peter is the irresistible force, and they, the immovable object.  “He sleeps with Charles.”

Chapter 11

If he'd known that’s all it takes to achieve perfect silence, even for a moment, he would have… well.  Kept his mouth shut as long as possible, really.  Even if he did suggest Erik walk around the house in pajamas, he isn’t prepared to talk about it.

"Thank you, Peter," Charles says with a sigh.  "That was very helpful.  And I wouldn't personally recommend accosting a wealthy and recently outed mutant with no warning, but obviously I can't stop you."

“You’re sleeping with Erik?” Hank says.

"Only in the most literal sense of the word," Charles says.  He probably can’t tell Hank to mind his own business.  Not when he is Hank’s business, these days.  "You're doing stealth experiments?"

When Hank only stares at him, Alex says, “He’s trying to make the plane invisible.  When you say literally sleeping together, does that mean you and Erik are really close friends, or there’s a reason Moira doesn’t ask for you anymore?”

“Moira and I get on fine,” Charles tells him.  “And Erik--”  He feels his voice break, and he hopes he stops fast enough that it’s not noticeable.  “Erik’s been alone a long time, hasn’t he.”

“Erik dropped a stadium on top of you four days ago,” Hank says.

“I reminded him of that,” Charles says.  “One could argue, of course, that he dropped it without intent and I happened to be in the way.  Still, the end result was the same.”

“He tried to kill me!” Hank exclaims.  “He probably did kill Logan!  He turned those Sentinels on us and tore us apart!”

“I’m not telling you how to feel about him,” Charles snaps.  “I’m asking you to tolerate his presence in the house.  If you can’t do that, then…”  There is no then.  Hank has to tolerate Erik.  There’s no other option.  

“Then I suppose we’ll have to divide it down the middle,” he finishes, a little weakly.

Hank glares at him, clearly aware of what Charles didn’t say.  “I don’t want him in the lab.  At all.  Even when you’re there.”

“Fine,” Charles says.  “Then stay out of my room.”

Hank scoffs.  “With pleasure,” he says.

“Are you guys for real?” Alex asks, looking from one of them to the other.  “This place is huge.  Logan manages to avoid all of us 23 hours a day.  Pretty sure Erik will do the same thing.”

Charles isn’t sure of that at all.  Not if Erik is commenting on the gardens and taking over the kitchen.  Still, if Alex can appease Hank then Charles isn’t going to argue.  He doesn’t bother telling them that Erik’s been here every night since they got back from DC anyway.  

They follow him to the kitchen, unfortunately, where they find both Erik and Peter.  Charles didn’t notice Peter go, but that’s typical.  He’s helped himself to an apple, only half-finished, and he’s leaning against the refrigerator door like his entire purpose is to get in Erik’s way.

Erik glances over his shoulder and catches Charles’ eye.  He looks neither surprised nor irritated as he turns back to the stove.  “Good morning,” he says, the fry pan lifting off of its burner.  “I’m afraid the rest of you will have to make your own eggs.”

There are two plates beside the stove, and Charles doesn’t hide his smile.  “How many of the rest of us?” he asks.

“Not you,” Erik replies.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Hank says stiffly.  “Charles, I need to speak with you about the TI facilities.  When you’re done here.”

“Of course,” Charles says.

A plate is set in front of him, and Erik says, “Don’t mind the Cleveland site.”

“What’s in Cleveland?” Peter wants to know.  He tosses the apple core and steals the fry pan, fresh eggs already sizzling when Charles looks up.  “TI, is that Trask Industries?  Do they have a location in Cleveland?  Is that where they send the mutants they steal from the military?”

“Not anymore,” Erik says, sitting down across from Charles.  “Salt?”

“It’s one of the locations,” Hank counters.

“Was,” Erik adds.

“Thank you,” Charles says, dusting his eggs with salt before handing it back.  It’s a dangerous question on so many levels, and he shouldn’t feel so careless asking, but the offhanded words are out before he can take them back.  “Last night?  Or the night before?”

“They didn’t tell us where we were going,” Alex says.  “But it would have made sense to split us up.”

“Last night,” Erik says, but he’s looking at Alex.  “If I gave you a facility roster, would you be able to make anything of it?  Patterns, broken units?  Missing soldiers?”

Alex hesitates.  Charles catches his automatic review of names and positions, mutants he served with, fought with, those he saw fall and those he knew shipped home.  The only ones he heard from afterwards were the ones who hadn’t been identified.

When Charles closes his eyes, he remembers Erik saying, “It starts with identification.”

“Maybe,” Alex says at last.  “I’ll try.”

Hank is silent when he’s barefoot, but Charles feels him leave without another word.  He tries to look, but all he can see is mutants being marched off with inhibitor collars and he scrabbles for something, anything to take away the vision.  He’s sure his eyes are wide and he can feel the kitchen table under his hands but he can’t see.  It’s all gray and ugly shadows and people with dead eyes.

“Professor?”  It’s Alex’s voice.  He’s reaching out and Charles jerks back, throwing up walls in his path.  “Are you all right?”

“Charles.”  Erik’s hand is on his and his mind is right there.  Charles shouldn’t, he won’t, but the marching figures become bodies and he’s so weary of these horrors.  At least Erik’s rejection will sear away the sight of the future.

Sorry, Charles thinks, and he almost means it.  He’s falling in, diving for the nearest secret in a half-hearted attempt to hide from its owner, and Erik’s mind flares bright with the intrusion.  For a moment Charles can see him: sitting there at the table, frowning, concerned.

I can’t control it, Charles thinks wildly.  It’s not my fault.  Erik isn’t forcing him out.  The secret is that he won’t, and Charles would do anything to keep this just a little longer.

“You have to focus,” Alex is saying.  He sounds quiet and far away.  “On where we are.  Something current, but safe, probably the way--”

“I know what to do.”  Erik does know.  He brought Charles down off a Cerebro high more than once, during the early days of testing.  He’s louder than Alex, harder, a rock that the river is forced to flow around, and he's so solidly in the kitchen where he holds Charles’ hand that it creeps into his mind and Charles opens his eyes.

Not quite, Erik thinks, staring at him from the other side of the table.  There’s no Alex here, no Peter.  It’s just them, anchored in the temporary stillness Erik learned to create for him.  I told you I missed it.

Charles stands up, leans across the table, and kisses him as gently as the awkward angle will allow.  I miss you, he thinks.

The kitchen becomes colder and more real, and Charles is sitting in front of a half-empty plate of eggs.  Erik is staring at him, just the same as before, and Charles wonders if he ought to apologize again.  His behavior around Erik is consistently horrid.  The only comfort he has is that the reverse is also true.

“Are we sure he’s the crazy one?” Peter asks the room at large.  Or maybe just Charles, because he continues, “I don’t want to be a downer, but man, you have some serious episodes of weirdness.”

“Problems with reality,” Charles murmurs.  It's what Moira used to say.

He’s surprised Peter even hears it, let alone pays enough attention that he asks, “Problems with reality, what?  What does that mean?"

"You're having trouble with your powers," Erik says.  "Is it the treatment?"

"No," Charles says, but most of his attention is still on Erik's hand.  When he thinks about it, he admits, “Perhaps in a sense.  My powers have... atrophied somewhat, through disuse.  I'm afraid they’re easily overwhelmed of late."

Erik’s expression is calm and dangerous when Charles looks up.  He hasn't moved his hand.  "And what overwhelmed them just now?" he asks.

Charles' gaze goes inadvertently to Alex.  Erik follows his gaze, and Charles says quickly, “It was a Cerebro flashback.  Nothing more.”

“A what?” Peter asks.

Erik ignores him.  “Then why did you look at Alex?”

“A device for augmenting my telepathy,” Charles tells Peter.  “I tried to use it last weekend, and I couldn’t control it.  Logan offered me… safe passage, I suppose.  Mental access to his future, to… to stabilize myself.  It was effective, but unpleasant.  My continued efforts with Cerebro afterward seem to have--imprinted the experience on my memory.”

“Why,” Erik says, very deliberately. “Did you look.  At Alex?”

“Because he thought of something that reminded me of you,” Charles snaps.  “It triggered the memories.  It’s not his fault if mutant genocide is somewhat distracting.”

Erik lets go of his hand, drawing back with a terrible expression that’s quickly shuttered.  He asks, “What did you see?” but everything in him rebels against the thought of finding out.

He doesn’t want to know.

Which, fine, Charles doesn’t want to know either.  Only he didn’t have any choice in the matter.  “I saw the world burn,” he tells Erik.  “I saw those Sentinels turned into killing machines--mutant, human, it made no difference.  Once the killing started, it didn’t stop.  Nothing could make it stop.”

Erik stares at him, and Charles can’t make any sense of what’s in his mind.  

Into the quiet that ensues, Alex asks, “What was I thinking about?”  His voice is even, but he feels badly about the trigger.  

Charles shakes his head.  “It’s nothing you could have avoided.  Please don’t let it trouble you.”

“It wasn’t you,” Erik says.  He’s talking to Alex, but he’s looking at Charles.  “It was me.  Wasn’t it.  I make you think of genocide.”

“No,” Charles says.  “Of course not.”

“Maybe a little,” Peter says, out of nowhere.  When Charles glares at him, he shrugs.  “You didn’t see him going after that blue girl in Paris.  Are you sure she didn’t hurt you?”

“No,” Charles says again.  “What does that have to do with--”  And then he knows.  He knows what it has to do with him, probably everyone knows, but he still doesn’t need to hear it spoken out loud.  “You thought that was worse than the stadium in DC?”

“No one got hurt in DC,” Peter says.  “The Sentinels fired into the crowd and didn’t hit anyone; I’m one hundred percent sure that’s not what they’re designed to do.”

“I got hurt,” Charles says.  “Hank got hurt.  Logan got tossed in the river.”

“Hank did not get hurt,” Erik says irritably.  “And your powers don’t work on machines.  I had to keep you out of the way.”

“Next time try asking,” Charles retorts.

“I asked eleven years ago,” Erik says, glaring right back at him.  “You said no.  I remember it quite clearly.”

“Eleven years, wow.”  Peter’s drinking juice now, eggs gone, the frying pan cleaned and put away.  “That’s a long time.  Don’t they give you counseling in prison?”

“No,” Erik says shortly.

“You could get some now,” Peter says.  “Something to look into.”

Alex snorts at that, then holds up his hands when they all look at him.  “Can I go?” he asks.  “I’m gonna go.  Do something.  Probably help Hank.  Have a nice breakfast.”

Charles looks down at his food, then over at Peter, who’s now empty-handed.

“What?” Peter says.  “I’m leaving because this is boring.  Nothing to do with you.  Except in that you’re the ones who are boring, so.  Bye.”

Charles blinks at the suddenly empty kitchen.  “We should try to determine how we did that,” he says.  “Do you suppose there’s a mutation that allows people to instantly clear a room?  I could look for that.”

Erik is not distracted by the idea of new mutations, relevant or otherwise.  He pushes his plate aside and says, “Tell me what you saw in the future.”

Chapter 12

He considers not telling Erik anything.    It's the easiest path for him, and the most unfair for Erik.  He's done a lot of that lately, choosing easy over fair, and there's no reason this should be any different.

"I need to know," Erik says.  "How am I to prevent something I can't see coming?"

How are any of us to prevent it, Charles wonders?  He doesn’t know what good talking about it will do.  He's seen it himself, if secondhand, and he has no more idea what to do now than he did when Logan first arrived.

He tells Erik anyway.  As best he can, he describes what Logan knew of how things play out.  If Charles is lost somehow, if he can’t go on, then at least someone will know what’s coming.

Erik asks no questions.  He doesn’t interrupt once, even when Charles breaks down and has to look away.  He listens with the same intensity he always gave to Charles' lessons, even--sometimes especially--when they weren't aimed at him.

Afterwards, he takes Charles’ plate and gets up to do the dishes without a word.  It’s a little unnerving, and if Charles wasn’t so grateful for the time to compose himself he would say so.  Instead he concentrates on breathing, watching his fingers clench on the edge of the table before checking the time.  Probably another twenty minutes before Hank comes to check on him.  Forty-five if he’s really angry.

“Charles,” Erik says.  He’s still at the sink, and he doesn’t turn around.  “The future that you saw.  Do you believe Mystique is the keystone on which it rests?”

He takes another deep breath and pushes himself away from the table.  “Logan did,” Charles says.  “Does.  Or will, I suppose.”

“Do you?” Erik insists.

He hesitates, about to offer his services as dish dryer when he’s confronted by Erik’s unspoken certainty: no.  No, he doesn’t believe that, and neither does Erik.  He doesn’t believe any one person can shoulder responsibility for the future.

“We’re all responsible for our actions,” Charles says at last.  “What we do defines who we are.  Raven made a choice--a choice I believe to be the right one--but her actions can’t free us from the consequences of our own.”

“Charles.”  Erik feels amused but his expression is indecipherable when he hands over a dish towel.  “I’m asking if you want me to find her.”

“Oh,” he says.  He doesn’t know what surprises him more at this point: that Erik thinks he can do it, or that he would offer.  “I… well.  I suppose I already know what she thinks of coming home.”

“I could bring her home,” Erik says.  He doesn’t look at Charles, and he’s thinking of a sharp plastic point pressed against his throat.  “If you think it would help.”

“Could you?”  Charles doesn’t laugh, but he’s aware of the hopelessness in his tone.  “If she won’t stay of her own accord, then her presence will only sow greater discord.  I do have recent personal experience with the phenomenon.”

Erik pauses, staring into the sink.  “Me,” he says.

It’s close enough to a question as to make no difference, so Charles says, “Yes, you.  You don’t make this easy, Erik.”

Erik doesn’t move, but Charles can feel the dangerous whiplash of fury across his thoughts.  “What would you have me do?” Erik asks, very calmly.  “Stay here and self-destruct with you?  At least out there I can make a difference.  Here you live on lies and willful ignorance.  You’re blind and deaf to a world on the verge of tearing itself apart.”

“I’m not the one who put it there!”  Charles throws the towel on the counter and wheels himself back so he can glare at Erik without straining his neck.  “The world’s managed to survive these past ten years, Erik!”

“Through no effort of your own, I see.”  Erik flips the last plate into the drainer and lets the water out of the sink.  His thoughts are jagged and sharp and no less inviting for it: his mind is a safe harbor that promises no harm, even in his silent rage.  “I fail to see how leaving the world to burn qualifies as a survival strategy.”

“Perhaps if you would stop setting it on fire,” Charles snaps, “I might be more successful!”

“You blame me, then.”  Erik replaces the dish towel, largely unused, before turning to look at him.  “I’m the keystone.”

“No.”  There’s no other answer, but he finds he can’t justify it so quickly.  “No, you’re… the future isn’t set, Erik.  What Logan saw--it’s up to all of us to change it.  Not just you.”

“And what contribution will you make?”  Erik’s gaze is steady, the anger still scalding beneath the surface.  “Will you lull the world to death with complacency and ease?  They won’t spare you for disarming yourself.”

Charles can’t ignore the intent behind the words.  “My power was never a weapon,” he says.

“Your power was always a weapon,” Erik tells him.  “You call it telepathy, but that’s a lie, isn’t it?  A disguise.  A word you use to allay the fears of those lesser than you.”

Charles doesn’t answer.  He never said that to Erik, not in so many words.  He even thinks of it as telepathy now--so conditioned to the polite fiction that he’s practically redefined the word.

Perhaps he and Raven were never so different as he imagined.

Erik hasn’t moved, but his focus is narrow and close.  “It’s mind control, Charles.  And you should be proud of it.  Not running scared from a world that doesn’t understand.”

Charles holds very still.  “Don’t use your recruitment speech on me.”

“Why?” Erik wants to know.  “Would yours work better?  You’re not alone, you know.  You never have to be alone again.”

He holds Erik’s gaze evenly to keep from closing his eyes.  “I think you should leave,” he says.

Erik looks interested rather than insulted.  “Really?” he says.  “So that would work?  If I told you what you told me, all those years ago… would you think about it?”

“I don’t know what you’re on about.”  Charles can’t afford to lose this fight--not this one, not this time.  Because his “recruitment speech,” his introduction to every new mutant they met, had always been exactly what he wanted to hear himself.

“Would it haunt you?” Erik insists.  “As it does me?  Because I’ll say it, Charles.  I’ll tell you that we can shape the next stage of human evolution together.  And I’ll say it without derision, if that’s what it takes to make you join me.”

Charles looks away, blinking hard and staring at the floor while he tries not to know how serious Erik is.  “You need to go.”

“I know you,” Erik tells him.  It doesn’t even sound mocking when he says it, just… true.  Honest.  Less arrogant than Charles had sounded, surely.  “I know everything about you, and I can help you.”

“Get out,” Charles says.  The darkness behind his eyelids trembles, red and stinging and hot.  “Before I make you.”

There’s a long moment of silence, but he knows Erik hasn’t obeyed.  Then Erik’s voice is closer, his mind quiet and calm in the seconds before he drops his hand to Charles’ shoulder.  “I’m not afraid of you, my friend.”

You should be, Charles thinks.

He feels a flicker of doubt when Erik murmurs, “I’ll see you tonight,” but he doesn’t open his eyes and he knows Erik will come anyway.  Erik can’t stay away, and Charles can’t let go.  It’s not as though they haven’t been here before.

He considers putting his head down on the table after Erik leaves.  He considers taking some serum and going for a run--his legs will be stiff after days in the chair, and physical pain would be a welcome relief from the agony in his head.  He considers drinking until he can’t remember any of it anymore.

In the end, he goes down to the lab and finds Hank.  He listens to Hank and Alex tell him everything they know about Trask Industries, the apparent sabotage of one of three associated research facilities, and the chance that the remaining two hold living test subjects.  He doesn’t disagree that on-site reconnaissance is required, and this seems to mean it will go ahead.

Charles offers to provide cover.  He doesn’t miss the motion when Alex kicks Hank, giving him a glare that clearly says, I told you so.  Hank’s return expression is equally clear: you haven’t been here.  Charles ignores them both as completely as he can.

Peter doesn’t turn up for lunch.  Neither does Logan, but the latter doesn’t surprise Charles.  He does get Hank to admit that Logan’s been staying in the teacher wing with him and Alex.  Charles doesn’t ask if they need anything: Hank will have seen to that if Adele hasn’t already.

Darwin arrives that evening, accompanied by a girl whose skin glitters violet in the fading light.

Chapter 13

Angel's daughter is Eva Salvadore, and she is both polite and unconcerned.  She greets everyone she’s introduced to, but she doesn’t smile and Charles detects no underlying interest behind her greeting.  She asks questions, but only of Darwin, and she never strays more than a few steps from his side.

Eva is nine years old.  Hank looks baffled by this, as though suddenly doubting his ability to perform basic arithmetic.  Alex doesn’t react at all, and his easy comfort with the girl is as telling as anyone’s surprise.  He’s the only one of them who isn't introduced, and it’s clear he doesn’t need to be.

Charles finds that the difference between nine and eleven is unexpectedly important to him.  She is the decade that hasn’t passed, the chapter that isn’t yet closed.  The chance to set something right--if only he could figure out how.

They arrive a bit late for dinner, but Darwin says they ate on the road.  He’s easy and unflustered, even as Eva thinks of waiting with her backpack and duffel bag and being picked up after his shift was over.  It’s routine to her, and she likes eating with him better than she likes eating at a table.

Still, Charles thinks.  It cries out for some sort of acknowledgement, so he offers, "There's ice cream in the freezer.  If you'd like something to top it off."

“Yeah,” Alex adds.  “There’s fruit, too.  If we put some berries or peaches or something on the ice cream, it’s practically healthy.”

“Well,” Darwin says.  He’s only pausing to increase the anticipation.  “I guess this is a special occasion.”

There are only two flavors of ice cream available, but Eva accepts a scoop of each.  She rejects all offers of fruit.  Alex puts fruit in his bowl first and adds the ice cream after.  Then, so casually that Charles almost misses it, he slides the bowl to Darwin and scoops a second one for himself.

“We should get some chocolate syrup,” Hank is saying.  “And sprinkles.  People still put sprinkles on ice cream, right?”

“Beast, how old are you?”  Alex’s retort is immediate, but the for God’s sake goes unspoken.  “Of course, sprinkles.  Why is there no whipped cream?”

“Sounds like the result of an inadequate grocery list,” Hank says.  It’s pointed and deliberate, but far from provoking Alex, it just makes him smirk.

“You have maple syrup,” Darwin observes.  “Is it okay to use that?”

“Yeah, of course,” Hank says.

Charles feels Darwin’s attention on him, so he adds, “We developed an informal system, in the early days of house rules, by which food reserved for a specific purpose is labeled with someone’s name.  The rest is fair game, as it were.”

“Really,” Darwin says.

Charles thinks they may have forgotten to tell Logan that rule.

“Hank can take you grocery shopping,” Alex says.  “If there’s something you want.”

“I’m not actually the only capable adult in this house,” Hank says, but he doesn’t sound as indignant as he might, given that it’s not irrevocably true.  “Car keys are in the garage.”

“Can I have maple syrup?” Eva asks Darwin.

“May I,” he corrects, and it’s so automatic that Charles smiles.  “Yes, you may.”  Darwin passes her the bottle, adding, “Go easy on it, okay?  That’s the real stuff.  It’ll be extra sweet.”

“Good,” she says, but she frowns suspiciously at the glass bottle.  It’s clear even without hearing her thoughts that this is not the sort of syrup she’s accustomed to.

Charles detects no thought of hunger from Eva, no sense of greedy longing or wistful intensity.  She likes the ice cream, and it’s a treat, but it isn’t so unusual that she’ll try to wheedle a second bowl.  She accepts that her father’s friends sometimes give her food and thinks nothing more of it.

In his curiosity about her life, he almost misses the hesitation just outside the kitchen.  Erik is here--again, he’s early, what is he looking for?--and now he knows Eva is here too.  He knows Darwin is here.  He knows that it’s at least possible for some of them to be in a confined space without shouting.

This is half the class, Charles realizes with some surprise, gathered here in their kitchen so many years later.

“Erik’s here,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Logan too,” Alex remarks, and Charles may be the only one who knows he deliberately misunderstood.  “You’ll get to meet them eventually.  They mostly do their own thing.”

“Who’s Logan?” Darwin wants to know, and Alex grins.

So it’s Hank who looks at Charles and says, “Is he here now?”

Under cover of Alex’s perhaps too-enthusiastic description of Logan’s claws and apparently decent taste in beer, Charles says, “Yes.  Is it all right if he joins us?”

Hank eyes him.  “Are you asking,” he says, “or is he?”

Charles knows there’s no right answer, so he tells the truth.  “I’m asking.  He's planning to leave."

Wait, he thinks.

Hank thinks they should let him go, but he just says, "If you want him here.  You get to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone."

Join us, Charles thinks.  Come meet Angel's daughter.

We've met, Erik replies, and of course they have.  She wasn't nine then, and Erik isn’t surprised to see her with Darwin.  He isn’t surprised to see Darwin at all.  She doesn't want to see me.

She couldn’t have been more than a baby, Charles tells him.  She won’t remember you.

“Oh yeah,” Alex is saying.  “And his future self came back in time to get Hank and Charles to fix the Sentinel problem.  They busted Erik out to help.”

“My contribution is debatable,” Erik says, entering the kitchen with a confidence that belies his words.  “Good evening.”

Charles smiles at him, and Erik raises an eybrow in return.  Hank folds his arms, but Alex says, “Hey,” like it happens every day.  Darwin gives him an assessing look before nodding once.

“Erik,” he says.  His tone is cool but not confrontational, and it isn’t the past week that colors his opinion.  It’s a shared experience much older: encounters in the wake of Cuba that Charles never knew about.

“Darwin,” Erik replies.

Darwin’s tone softens considerably when he says, “Eva, this is Erik.  He was a friend of your mom’s, a long time ago.  Back when you were born.”

“Hi,” Eva says obediently.

"Hello," Erik replies.  "You're a beautiful girl, Eva."  He avoids any mention of her mother.  Wisely, Charles thinks.

"Thank you," she says, pushing her ice cream around in the bowl.  She doesn't look at him.

"Ice cream, Erik?" Charles suggests.  It's not only a diversionary tactic: Erik used to like ice cream, and Charles has fond memories of watching him with it.

“Yes,” Erik says, but he feels confused.  “Thank you.”

Alex goes to get him a bowl before Erik can do it himself, and Charles pushes the nearest carton toward the empty space beside him.  Darwin nudges the maple syrup in the same direction.  Eva lets him hook her chair a little closer, shifting her elbows on the table without looking up from her bowl.

Erik takes the hint, but as he eases in between Charles and Eva he thinks, You don’t hold a grudge the way you used to, old friend.  There’s doubt in the thought, and the vivid memory of Charles’ fist in his face.  Exactly a week ago, now.

I hardly think you’re going to kidnap me from a crowded room, Charles replies.  In truth, he isn’t looking forward to being alone with Erik again, and Erik’s early arrival has neatly postponed the problem.  

“We’ll have more guests tomorrow,” he says aloud, watching Erik scoop ice cream into the bowl Alex provided.  “Peter’s sister will be visiting with her mother in the afternoon.”

“We’ll stay out of the way,” Darwin promises.

“I was rather hoping you wouldn’t,” Charles says.  “Wanda is about Eva’s age.  If you’re interested, she might like to meet you.  Naturally it’s up to you and her, but there’s certainly no need for anyone to avoid each other.”

“Okay, I’ve heard of Peter,” Darwin says, glancing at Alex.  “He’s fast, right?  And Wanda’s his sister?”

“Yeah,” Alex says.  “Peter says her powers are kind of unpredictable.  Hank’s gonna help her with them.”

“I’ll try,” Hank corrects.  “If her mother’s okay with it.  That’s why they’re coming up tomorrow, to meet… all of us.”

“Most of us,” Erik says under his breath.

“Whoever’s here,” Charles says pointedly.  He doesn’t ignore the look Erik gives him for this, but he’s distracted by movement on his other side.

Eva leans over and asks Darwin, “Is she like me?”

“Yes,” Darwin says, putting a hand on her hair and smoothing it down the back of her head.  “Everyone here is like us.”

Chapter 14

"You realize what you're doing," Erik says later, when they two are the only ones remaining in the kitchen.  Darwin has gone to put Eva to bed, and Alex, somewhat surprisingly, went with them.  Hank left at the same time: to catch up on the news, he said, which was at least half true.

"Avoiding you?" Charles suggests absently, drying dishes that could easily have remained in the drainer.  He's afraid to look at Erik and see the future.  If Erik's insistence on mutant dominion has been tempered by time and practicality, while Charles struggles to see the humanity he once believed in whole-heartedly, then he doesn't know where that leaves them.

"Here, with the school," Erik says.  "You're building a mutant society."

"We need services," Charles tells him, stacking bowls beside the sink.  "It can't be all fighting, all the time.  Surely you see that.  We need to educate, to shelter.  To offer a safe haven."

"All of us together," Erik says quietly.  "Protecting each other."

“Yes!” Charles exclaims.  “Don’t you see, we can help each other, if we only--”

The overwhelming sense of satisfaction from Erik’s mind is enough to set him back, to give him pause in the face of a memory he still wishes he could bury.  Those are my words, Erik is thinking.  I said that.  I told you we want the same thing.

“No,” Charles says.

“Which part of what you just said do you disagree with?” Erik asks.

“We won’t be separate,” Charles insists.  “We’re not isolationists.”

“Aren’t you?”  Erik raises his eyebrows.  “Darwin said it: we’re all mutants here.  Not a human among us.  Not this time.”

“The house and grounds are filled with humans,” Charles protests.  Or they were.  The grounds crews have gone home by now, and housekeeping will fall back to a skeleton staff tomorrow.

“In their proper roles,” Erik agrees.

“They’re not servants,” Charles snaps, irritated by the same assumption Logan made.

“I didn’t say they are,” Erik tells him.  “You just said that mutants should be the ones teaching mutants.  That we should provide our own shelter, and our own services, in the face of an intolerant world.  I agree.”

“The world won’t become more tolerant if it never sees us for who we are,” Charles says.  It’s a difficult cause to champion, given the warning Logan brought, but Raven was allowed to walk away.  The Sentinel program has been suspended, at least for now.  He clings to these small signs of hope.

“Then why not face it together?”  Erik sounds so reasonable that Charles reaches for his mind, trying to look past the calm and the certainty to whatever must lie beneath it.  “Why not model the cooperation you would ask of humanity?”

Between us, his thoughts say.  And it isn’t a coincidence; there’s nothing innocent about it.  Erik knows exactly what he’s doing.  Each of his words is precisely chosen to turn Charles’ own arguments against him.  

Join me, he thinks, and Charles can’t.

“I won’t,” he says aloud.  “I know what you’re doing, Erik.  I can’t join you.”

Distraction ripples through Erik’s calm, but it’s not anger or frustration.  It isn’t even disappointment that Erik feels at those words.  It’s longing, regret, and determination.  Charles isn’t sure he actually spoke when he hears Erik say, “Then let me join you.”

Charles stares at him, waiting for what he’ll truly say.  When nothing comes, he’s helpless in his disbelief.  “What?”

“Let me join you,” Erik says.  “You told Hank you have no plan to hold off those Sentinels but me.  I can hold them off.  I can help you, Charles.”

It’s earnest enough to be convincing.  Charles hates himself for believing it, but he can feel everything in Erik’s mind whispering please and listen.  His eyes are hot with emotion he dares not acknowledge as he murmurs, “Oh, my friend.  You never needed to persuade me of that.”

“You said the fact that I don’t stay is a problem,” Erik insists.  “So I’ll stay.  We can do this together.”

“Don’t be cruel.”  Charles wants to glare at him, but it’s all he can do to blink without looking away.  “You don’t want to be here.  You’ve made your opinion on that very clear.”

“I don’t want to be here and do nothing,” Erik says.  “Make no mistake: if I stay, we will act.  But we’ll do it your way.  According to your rules, not mine.”

Charles tries to smile and fails.  “Even I can’t follow my rules,” he points out.  “What makes you think you’ll have better luck with something you don’t even believe?”

“That’s where you and I are different,” Erik tells him.  “You could never compromise your ideals in order to achieve a goal.  I’ve been doing it all my life.”

This, Charles tells himself, is the heart of it.  He makes himself ask, “What goal?”

Erik doesn’t hesitate.  “Unification,” he says.  “Logan said it would take both of us, did he not?  I know you don’t believe that work is done.”

The two of you sent me back here together, Logan told him.  This is your plan, not mine.  An impossibly difficult plan, but uncomplicated in its goal: to free Erik, to send him and Charles after Raven together.  Fifty years of war, undone by a single action.  By a mistake corrected, a schism healed.

By reconciliation.

Charles closes his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face in a futile effort to sort what he wants from what he has.  Erik is here, again.  Reaching out, as he did before.  And if Charles turns his back, will it be another decade before they meet again?  Or five?

What if it doesn’t happen at all?  If they really have undone the future, there’s no guarantee of a reunion in their old age.  If neither of them make it, is that better or worse than one of them getting there alone?

What if they never get another second chance?

Charles opens his eyes.  Erik is still waiting, desperation and hope behind the thinnest veneer of calm.  Charles can’t watch him walk away, but neither can he let him stay.  Not like this.  It’s torture either way, and he’s had enough.  Erik thinks he’s self-destructing now?  Watch him try to hold onto something he never really had.

“I am in love with you,” Charles says, as clearly as he can manage.  “If you stay, I can’t pretend otherwise.  Not to you or anyone else.”

Erik stares back at him, his neutral expression subsumed by incredulity.  “That’s your ultimatum?” he says.  

Charles swallows.  “Yes,” he says.  He feels compelled to point out, “You already agreed to abide by my rules.”

“So I did,” Erik agrees.  He’s studying Charles with surprise and something too wary to be entirely pleasant.  “I dare say you’re aware of my feelings for you.”

“That’s not enough,” Charles warns him.  “Knowing isn’t enough; I know everything.  I want an end to the charade or nothing changes.”

“Fine,” Erik says.

It takes him a moment to process the word.  “Fine?”

“Fine,” Erik repeats.  “Feel free to embarrass me with your public gestures of affection whenever you deem it necessary.  In the meantime, you owe me a kiss.”

Charles blinks, too startled to know whether this is agreement or rejection.  “Sorry,” he says, though he’s pretty sure he’s not, at this point.  “What?”

Erik is walking around the table, and Charles has the sudden wild thought that he might take the kiss he feels he’s owed right now.  Here.  In the kitchen, where it’s not only completely inappropriate but awkward and dangerous too.

It’s ridiculous, of course, and Erik halts a few steps away.  He leans against the counter, just far enough back that Charles doesn’t have to crane his neck.  “In your quiet space,” Erik says.  “After the flashback, this morning.  You kissed me.”

“Ah,” Charles says.  “Yes.  Well.”  He’s always been too vulnerable in those moments, in the space between everything and nothing that Erik calls “quiet” or “still.”  More quiet or still for Charles, surely, than it is for Erik.

“I didn’t get a chance to respond,” Erik says.

Charles tries again to smile.  He thinks this time it at least makes an impression on his face.  “I thought you not shoving me away was your response.”

“Well,” Erik says.  His gaze drops, sweeping over Charles with an assessing look before catching his eye again.  “It’s a start.”

Chapter 15

Almost inevitably, the rest of the night goes to hell. He could have ignored Hank yelling for Alex, but the concentrated burst of attention in his head is clearly aimed at him. Hank has gotten very good--possibly better than he knows--at mentally reprimanding him, and he’s making use of that practice now.

Charles touches his temple in silent explanation, turning instinctively toward the disturbance as he tells Erik, “Sorry, Hank’s--”

Running down the hallway, and Hank can cover a lot of ground very quickly. He’s in the doorway before Charles decides what to say. “Sean’s on the phone,” he says. He’s not even out of breath. “Moira’s gone.”

Charles frowns. “What do you mean--” But he knows, it’s in the front of Hank’s mind, and Sean is risking his own exposure to get them the message. Sean thinks the CIA took Moira, he thinks they’re tapping the safe house phone, and he thinks they’re coming for Charles next.

“I see,” Charles says. “And what does the CIA want with me? Does he know?”

“You were there,” Hank says. “She saw you. So did everyone else. We watched Erik and Raven walk away; they’re going to have questions. And Moira can tell them where to find us.”

“They don’t know that,” Charles says, but they do. If Sean’s right, they know full well she’s been in contact with the school. “Never mind. Is Sean all right?”

“No,” Hank says. “He’s got the Worthington kid with him; someone tried to burn down another dorm. This time with him inside. Locked in a closet. One of his friends told the firefighters; they got to him in time, but he’s pretty shaken up.”

“Do they have someplace to go?” Charles asks. He’s trying to remember if anyone in the Worthington family has come out as sympathetic to the mutant cause. He’s fairly certain Warren Worthington II will not. “Does he have any idea where Moira might be?”

“No, and no,” Hank says. “Officially, Sean’s an informant under an alias. He needs us to pick him up. But I don’t think he’s planning to leave without Moira.”

“As well he shouldn’t,” Charles agrees. Their loyalty, fragmented by time and distance, is still strong between the cracks. “I might be able to find her. Can they get to an airfield?”

“Hey,” Alex says, appearing in the kitchen doorway beside Hank. “What’s going on?”

“Moira’s gone,” Hank says. “Charles thinks he can find her. Sean thinks the CIA’s going to arrest us all; he wants us to come get him and Warren.”

“Warren,” Alex says. “The flying kid?”

Hank nods, but he doesn’t step back. “That’s not our only problem,” he says. “I mean, I know it’s the most important one, but CBS is reporting an external audit of Trask Industries.”

Charles, trying to catch Erik’s eye long enough to ask permission, turns back to Hank when Alex’s alarm spikes. “They’ll have to get rid of anyone they’re holding,” Alex says. “They can’t risk letting someone talk.”

“When?” Charles asks.

“The audit’s already in progress,” Hank says. “The report didn’t say what they’ve found. If they’ve found anything.”

“Even if they do,” Alex says. “Who’s to say the government treats mutant prisoners any better than Trask? If we don’t get there first, there might not be anything to find.” His gaze slides over Erik to Charles when he says, “We can’t wait for Sunday. They’re gonna spend the whole weekend cleaning house.”

“I assume you know where the remaining facilities are,” Erik says. He’s still leaning against the counter, watching all of them carefully. “I have the Cleveland records. If Alex can give us some idea who we’re still looking for, I imagine we can work out how to find them.”

Hank scoffs. “What, by tearing all the supports out of the building and seeing who survives? Sorry, I find mass destruction inefficient in… almost every situation, actually.”

“I can find them,” Charles says. “As we planned. Even at supersonic speeds, though, we’ll be hard-pressed to make both Roanoke and Seattle in one night.”

“Roanoke,” Erik says.

At the same moment, Alex says, “Seattle.”

There’s a second of silence, longer and heavier than it really is, before Charles decides to ignore them both. “Hank,” he says. “Can Alex fly the Blackbird? In its current configuration?” Charles could fly it himself, once upon a time, but he hasn’t kept up with Hank’s modifications and his certification is outdated.

Hank and Alex exchange a look, which Charles is unfortunately sure means, Only if you’re not afraid to die.

“Sure,” Hank says aloud. “Probably. You want me to go to Massachusetts, then?”

“Yes,” Charles says. “I’ll use Cerebro while you do pre-flights with Alex, try to give you an idea what you’re walking into.” He doesn’t like sending Hank and Sean in alone, but he likes sending them in blind even less. “Think there’s any chance you could convince Logan to go with you?”

Hank looks steadily back at him, thinking of airfield security and what to do with Warren and how he and Sean are going to handle a tactical operation. “You think we’ll need him?”

“No,” Charles lies. “Don’t do anything foolish. Get Sean, get Warren, and get back to the plane. Moira is unlikely to be in immediate danger, and we’ll need to be done in Roanoke very quickly. I expect Sean already has a plan for locating Moira. If it requires more than the two of you, sit tight, and we’ll be with you as soon as we can.”

“If you think they can wait,” Hank begins, but Charles interrupts him.

“Best assume they can’t,” he says. “I’ll see what I can find out before we take off. In the meantime, prep both jets.”

Hank nods, and he jostles Alex when he moves out of the doorway. On purpose, it seems, because he says, “I’ll meet you in the hangar,” and Alex glances at him in a way that doesn’t disagree.

Erik still won’t look at him long enough for Charles to ask, to guess whether another intrusion would be tolerated, but he proves he’s not completely oblivious when he says aloud, “You don’t need my permission, Charles. But if you’re trying to spare my feelings, don’t. Say what you have to say.”

“Do you have any way of contacting Azazel?” Charles asks bluntly. He meant for the question to be private, but if Erik prefers to hear it aloud, he can do that.

That isn’t what Erik was expecting, and Charles takes childish pleasure in his surprise. “Not until tomorrow night,” Erik says. Holding Charles’ gaze at last, he adds, “But you do.”

He’s already shaking his head, mentally adding Erik to the Blackbird with him and Alex. “I don’t know him well enough; without a general location it will take too long.”

“Madrid,” Erik says. “Try Madrid.”

It’s the best they’ve got, because Seattle by jet will take half the night. Too long if Moira turns out to be in serious trouble. “All right,” Charles says. “Talk to Alex about potential detainees on your way to the hangar. I’ll be with Cerebro.”

“Give me five minutes,” Alex says. “We gotta let Darwin know what’s going on.”

“Right, of course,” Charles says. They’re about to launch two very conspicuous aircraft and possibly a teleporter at a variety of government and corporate entities that have every reason to care who they are and what they’re doing. And there’s a child in the house, with a guardian he hadn’t thought to inform.

He’s worried that this entire plan--and “plan” is stretching it, really, even “mad scheme” is generous--is riddled with holes like that: things they’ve forgotten or willfully ignored. He and Hank and Alex agreed on a strategy with regard to the Trask facilities. Sean may or may not know what he’s doing when it comes to the CIA. But Erik is a wild card, as always, and time is not on their side.

“Charles.” Erik’s hand is on his shoulder. Alex is gone, and they should be moving as well. “What do you want me to do in Seattle?”

“I want you to release anyone being illegally detained,” Charles says. “Before Trask Industries can make them disappear. I want you to destroy as little evidence as possible, and I don’t want you to kill anyone. Is that clear enough?”

He senses assent from Erik, but he doesn’t hear anything, so he looks up. Erik nods once but he doesn’t take his hand off of Charles’ shoulder. “You don’t have to ask, you know,” Erik says.

Charles knows he isn’t talking about the instructions. “Obviously,” he says. “I’m in your head often enough by accident. Nonetheless, from time to time it seems polite to accept an invitation.”

Erik isn’t interested in politeness, and he wishes he could be there to see Charles in Roanoke. But all he says is, “Consider the invitation issued.”

Charles reaches up to pat his hand, fumbling for his fingers awkwardly. “Yes, well,” he says. “I’ll… keep that in mind.”

He feels Erik’s gentle wash of amusement at the pun, and it seems like more than he deserves.

Chapter 16

Moira is being held in a conference room at the West Springfield Police Department.  The door is unlocked, but there’s an officer posted on the other side.  Charles appears just inside the door, so that if she startles and someone notices, at least she’ll be looking in the right direction.

“Darling,” he says.  “Don’t say anything.”

Her head comes up in surprise, but otherwise she doesn’t move.  She’s staring directly at him.  She seems all right, he thinks: tired, impatient, and dreadfully bored, but perhaps not in the kind of trouble he feared.

“Well,” Charles amends, “I suppose you’d know if you can talk better than I would.  Can you talk?  For what it’s worth, the chap outside seems quite distracted by his coworker down the hall.”

“Charles,” she hisses.  “What are you doing here?  You’re the one they want; you must realize that.  Sean should know better!”

“Oh, he does,” Charles assures her.  “This is all me, I’m afraid.  But I’m not really here, so there’s that.  How are you?”

“You’re in my head?”  She relaxes a bit with the news, which makes a nice change.  “Have you spoken to Sean?  Is he okay?  I tried to leave him a message, but they didn’t give me time.”

“He’s fine,” Charles says.  “Terribly worried for you, convinced he’s going to be arrested any minute, and demanding we swoop in with an extraction unit immediately, but by and large, fine.  What about you?”

Moira sighs.  “Bored out of my mind,” she says, but he can feel the nerves and the fear wearing her down.  “Lucky, though.  This is the initial phase of the interrogation: protective custody, sleep deprivation… withholding food is next.  I know the drill.  Right now they’re still pretending we’re all friends and this is for my own good.”

“Are you obligated to stay here?” Charles asks.  “You have to consent to protective custody.”

“Nowhere else to go.”  Moira’s smile is too resigned for his liking.  “The CIA is my life, Charles.  All I ever had outside of it was you, and you’re exactly where they want me to turn.”

“Well, then, we agree on something.”  He frowns, mostly to amuse her.  “Troubling, that.”

“I promised to keep them away from you,” Moira reminds him.  “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Rubbish,” Charles says.  “They know where to find me, and the school’s been closed for years.  Who are they going to hurt by turning up on my doorstep?”

Moira looks at him just the way Hank does when he’s said something monumentally stupid.  “You can’t tell me Erik’s not there with you,” she says.

It gives him pause.  “Well,” he says.  “Actually.”  No one will leave without word from him, and Charles can feel them in the house if he concentrates.  “No, you’re right, I can’t,” he admits.  “But you’re not protecting Erik, are you.”

“Maybe I’m protecting myself,” she retorts.  “If I walk out of here, I lose everything.  My job, my security clearance, any chance I have of working for the government again.  My whole life.”

“Not everything,” Charles says quietly.

Her response softens at that, nostalgic and more than a little regretful.  “Charles, if you say one word about your feelings, I’ll know you’re lying.”

“You have a place with us,” he insists.  “More than me, more than us, though I hope we’re still good friends.  They care about you too.  You’re more family than most of them have had since they were little children.”

She’s looking down at the table now, shaking her head, and it’s the first time she’s taken her eyes off of him.  “If I leave, I compromise my partner,” she tells the table.  “I compromise everyone who’s ever worked with me.”

She does them no favors by letting herself be interrogated, either, but they both know that.  There’s no need to say it out loud.  Instead, Charles offers reluctantly, “I could really do it this time.  If it’s what you want.”

Her head comes up, and the flash of fear is alarming and unmistakable.  "Don't you dare," she says.  "I won't forget any of you.  Not for anything."

Which, he thinks, rather answers the question.  But it's not his decision, and maybe he's learned something from Raven after all, because he won't make it for her.  “Tell me what I can do for you,” he says instead.

“You can find Sean,” Moira replies.

That’s all she gives him, and it’s genuinely the most important thing on her mind, so he nods.  “I’m sending the plane for him now,” Charles says.  “I’ll let him know where you are, that you’re all right for now.”

“No, don’t tell him where I am,” she says quickly.  “He’ll just come looking for me.  If his cover’s not blown already, showing up here will do it.”

“His decision,” Charles reminds her.  He knows putting Sean at risk will make her reassess.  He’s sorry to manipulate her but not sorry enough to stop.  “I’ll not make his mind up for him any more than I would yours.”

She raises her eyebrows, and frustration makes her snappish.  “Well, that’s a change, then.”

“Isn’t it.”  He forces a smile.  “I’m trying something new.”

He leaves her with a sense of reassurance that will last as long as she lets it.  He thinks of Sean, considers seeking him out, but decides against.  Sean is unlikely to be happy to hear from him, no matter the news, and Charles has a long way to travel still.

He reaches, and the world spins beneath him.  Around him.  Dark and bright and loud and whisper-soft.  The ocean is a blessing almost unremarked, the Iberian Peninsula defined by light and thought.  The minds between here and there fall away and he’s floating on half-remembered dreams.

He doesn’t want to come back down, but some unburied reflex kicks him into focus.

Madrid is quiet in the early morning hours.  It might even be peaceful if his awareness wasn’t stretched and distorted from one continent to another.  If he hadn’t used so much energy to find and communicate with Moira, the city might be less overwhelming.  As it is, he’s lucky Azazel is so strong.

He's less lucky that Azazel's perception is unwelcoming in the extreme.  Charles won't be appearing to him without a fight; Emma must have taught the Hellfire Club to resist telepathic suggestion.  Or maybe that’s just the nature of Azazel's teleportation, that his awareness skitters from one place to another like live electricity.  It’s painful to focus on, let alone hold onto.

“Charles.”  He introduces himself, or tries, when it becomes clear Azazel is both aware of and uninterested in him.  “Charles Xavier.  Listen to me.”

Azazel is not impressed.

“Erik sent me,” Charles says, into the flickering maelstrom of foreign thought and pinprick fire.  “Magneto.  He’s headed for a mutant detention facility.  Tonight.”

Tonight doesn’t mean the same thing where Azazel is, but Charles’ sense of time is imbued in the message.  Azazel’s accusation and dismissal come through simultaneously.  It’s not a promising start, and Charles doesn’t know how long he can keep this up.

“Freeing prisoners,” Charles insists, wincing as Azazel’s perception fades almost entirely and then slams back.  “Helping people like us.”

Azazel resists the category of “us,” but more importantly, he’s not alone.  He’s heard nothing to convince him he should change that.  He already has plans to meet Erik; this latest emergency will wait until then.

“We expect them to be killed soon, if not immediately,” Charles says.  “There’s two locations.  I’m taking the nearest one and Erik needs a lift to the farthest.  Otherwise he comes with me, doesn’t get to destroy anywhere near as much, and sulks about it for days.”

There’s a flash of humor in the lightning.  Azazel wants specifics, and it’s the closest he’s come to words since Charles found him.  He’s considering it.  Probably.  Or his lover is waking up and he’s distracted.

“An hour from now?” Charles suggests.  “Salem to Seattle and back.  Though I’m sure he wouldn’t turn down help while he’s there.”

Azazel thinks very clearly, Don’t push it, and the words are sharp and cutting despite his humor.  They’re likely meant to be.

Charles feels it like a lashing force against shields he can’t reinforce without killing communication.  He barely manages to add, “You know where the house is?”

This time he gets only acknowledgment.  It’s enough.

He lets himself go in the split-second between heartbeat and conscious thought.  The mistake is instantly clear but it’s too late.  He’s stretched too far and spread too thin.  He feels the tide of thoughts and raw emotions sweep him away, drawing and drowning him far from anything he knows, but when he reaches out in desperation someone catches his hand.

Erik, he thinks.

With a snap that’s violent and frankly unprecedented, he’s standing in the cockpit of the Blackbird.  

He’s standing.  

In silence.

The deck spins and dips dizzyingly with the sudden lack of motion, and Charles grabs for the back of a chair.  He fumbles it, reeling, blind and deaf as the voices are forcibly muted.  Gravity is not forgiving: he’s buckling when hands clamp down on his arms and hold him up.

“Erik,” he whispers.  The quiet space.  

Erik is holding him.  He’s holding the space.  The Blackbird is solid and strong and empty save for them.  Charles tries to think about what that means, about where Erik is and who can see him and what they’ll hear.

He can’t.  He can’t think about it.  He can barely think at all--that’s how he got lost, and it’s how Erik caught him.

Erik’s mind wants to pull him in and Charles isn’t interested in anything else.

Charles.  The thought sounds broken and desperate.  Like Erik knows how dangerous this is--how dangerous all of it is.  I will take everything you let me have.

Please, Charles thinks.

He can feel Erik’s arms around him.  His face is pressed against Erik’s shoulder.  He holds on as hard as he can and he feels Erik’s fingers clench against his back.  It’s safe and quiet and strong… and it doesn’t get him to Seattle.

I have to go, Charles thinks.  Azazel’s coming in an hour.  Moira’s in West Springfield, at the police department.  I’ll find anyone there is to find at the Trask facility and be back in a few minutes.  Thank you for this.

You don’t have to look, Erik reminds him.  I found them in Cleveland; I can find them in Seattle.

Just…  He can’t not say it, not here, where there’s nothing but honesty.  Be ready to bring me back.

If anything, Erik tightens his grip.  He turns his head so that his lips are pressed against Charles’ skin, and his thoughts are whisper-soft but plain as day: I always have been.

Chapter 17

Finding specific mutants he’s never met, on the other side of the country, based on nothing but the coordinates Hank programmed into Cerebro… it’s a strain.  It’s complicated by exhaustion and the overuse of powers that were completely broken less than a week ago.  He does it for Erik, for Alex, for everyone who’s had to watch helplessly while people they love are torn away.

He does it, but it’s not without cost.  He screams for Erik when Washington tries to swallow him, and Erik catches him but this time Cerebro latches onto him too.  Charles can feel metal everywhere, hot and bright and reaching out for him, burning along currents of rage.  He tries to let go and he can’t.  He can’t turn off the horror that Cerebro is lighting up.

When it all goes dark, he’s so grateful he doesn’t care if he’s dead.  He’s numb, drifting, without sense or care.  Except that he can feel the chair.  He can hear Hank saying his name.  His head hurts so bloody much right now, he can’t possibly be dead.

He tries to ask, but all that comes out is a groan.

“Charles,” Hank says again.  At least he’s speaking quietly.  Probably.  It’s hard to tell without anything to compare to, but he’s not in Charles’ head, and that’s a blessing.  “Cerebro’s offline.  Are you all right?”

“Buggered,” he mutters.  He thinks he’s speaking coherently now, which is something.  “How’s Erik?”

There’s a pause, and then Erik’s voice says, “I’m fine.”

“You wouldn’t let him touch you,” Hank says, and Charles thinks to open his eyes.  It’s still stupidly dark, but he can make out a tall and lanky shadow that can only be Hank.  “Are you--”

He breaks off, and Charles hears it anyway.  He’s in Hank’s head after all, he’s in everyone’s head, Erik is worried.  And afraid.

“I’m all right,” Charles says, as convincingly as he can.  He reaches out, wincing at the horrible way his head throbs as soon as he moves.  He pats Hank’s arm awkwardly and reaches for Erik.  “You’re sure Erik’s not hurt?”

“I said I’m fine.”  Erik crowds closer behind him and Hank’s head turns, probably glaring at him as Erik touches the back of his chair.  Not him, Charles notices.  “You’re the one who collapsed.”

His hand connects with Erik’s, and more reassuring than the sound of his voice is the comfort of his mind.  It’s soft through the pounding of blood and thought, and Charles lets out a shaky breath.  “Fantastic,” he manages.  “Time to go, then.”

“Should you be flying a rescue mission?”  Erik is blunt and to the point, as always.  Charles appreciates it almost as much as he appreciates the knowledge that Erik will accept whatever answer he’s given.  As long as it comes from Charles.

“Likely not,” Charles says, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple.  He tries to push away the pain and he fails miserably.  “But I’m what we’ve got, and Alex will do the flying.  I should be recovered enough by the time we get there to find anyone who needs finding.”

He doesn’t add that it would save time if he could do it from here--there might not even be mutants in Roanoke, not alive, and it’s an hour round-trip.  But he doesn’t dare use Cerebro again, not tonight, not even if Hank could power it back up.  Charles may not give in gracefully, but he knows when he’s beaten.

“There are four mutants in your facility,” he says, dropping his hands to the wheels of his chair.  He unlocks it, and Erik and Hank take the hint, stepping back to let him turn.  “Three underground and stationary in the northwest corner--I’d guess at least two levels below the surface.  The last was moving freely on the fifth floor when I saw her.  Probably not a prisoner.”

“All right,” Erik says.  “I’ll stay on comm until Azazel gets here.  Do you need anything?”

“Painkillers,” Charles mutters.  “Strong ones.”

“Your head?”  Erik is right behind him as he rolls out into the corridor, and he’s clearly fighting Hank for the honor.  Charles would be more tolerant of their stupid feud if it wasn’t raging in the very front of his mind.

“No, my legs,” he snaps, more curtly than he’d meant to.  “Sorry.  If you could just--both of you.  Just… stop.”

They don’t know what he’s talking about, but they’re confused and at least that’s better than combative.  He doesn’t bother enlightening them.  He does catch Erik’s hand again, to stop him from leaving when they reach the hangar and Hank breaks off for the upper levels.

“Be careful, darling,” Charles murmurs.  He’s frowning up at the Blackbird, wondering how long it’s had a vaguely reflective hull.  Shiny, maybe.  Not reflective.

“I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to keep you alive,” Erik replies.  “Don’t undo it all tonight.”

“Oh, you’ve--”  Charles raises his eyebrows, catching Erik’s eye.  He feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  “I see.  Well.  The same to you, I suppose.”

Erik’s expression lightens, and on him it’s almost a smile.  He doesn’t bend down, but he does reach out.  His thumb brushes against Charles’ cheek.  Charles leans into the caress until his face is pressed against Erik’s palm, and they stay that way for several seconds before Erik lets his hand fall.

“I’ll see you later,” Erik says quietly.

Charles nods.  It’s all he can do, but his ride is here.  He’s the one who has to leave.  He feels every moment of it, but when he slides into the cockpit beside Alex, he can’t remember anything but Erik’s hand on his face.

“Hank said you might want this,” Alex says, by way of greeting.  He’s holding something that’s probably stronger than aspirin and Charles takes it gratefully.

“Bless Hank,” he murmurs.  He swallows it without question.

Alex has to wait for Hank to clear the above-ground hangar, taxiing into position and waiting to witness their takeoff.  Alex’s voice is calm and measured as he talks them through the systems check, wing test, and engine ignition.  If he feels more excited than he sounds, Charles isn’t about to call him on it.

The Blackbird doesn’t need a runway, and the jet communicates with the hangar computer to line up their vertical ascent.  It’s still a bit breathtaking to watch.  Alex whoops when they break away from “tower” control, and Hank tells him not to clip the wings on the way to Virginia.

Alex grins fiercely out into the darkness and promises, “Only in the name of a greater good, Beast.”

They’re out of sight before Hank’s plane lifts off, but his voice comes through loud and clear.  “Fire suppression system’s programmed just for you, Havok.”

Alex laughs, and it doesn’t hurt Charles’ head at all.

Those painkillers must be a hell of a thing, he thinks later.  He feels slightly better by the time they make Virginia: his head is still throbbing, but the pain is distant and muted.  He’s sure it will come back the moment he reaches out, so he leaves it as long as he can.

The Blackbird’s descent is far more harrowing than its takeoff.  Alex flies too low and brakes too fast and Charles doesn’t watch.  He takes the proximity for all its worth, stretching into the building and opening up as much as he dares.

The pain doesn’t sharpen.  He almost doesn’t care when the most familiar presence he’s ever known overwhelms his mind.  He’s sure he gasps.  He wants off the plane, wants to be out there, now, and he’ll inject himself with Hank’s serum if that’s what it takes.

“Professor,” Alex is saying.  Maybe has been for several seconds.  He can’t hear anyone tonight; Cerebro’s torn his focus to shreds.  “Charles.  Talk to me.”

They’re down.  They must be down.  Alex has his hands over both of Charles’ and he’s somehow become the calmest person Charles knows.  “Raven,” Charles whispers.

All Alex does is squeeze his hands.  “Raven’s inside?  Is she okay?”

“Yes,” Charles says, trying to pull his hands back, trying to get at his flight harness.  “She’s fine.  Let me go.  I need to be in there.”

“Why?” Alex asks.  “To blow her cover?  To get in her way?  What are you going to do?”

“I want to talk to her,” Charles insists, but he stops struggling as Alex’s certainty sinks in.  Raven knows where to find them.  She’s not with them for a reason.  He takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the reality of the situation.  “I just want to talk to her.”

“Can you do that from here?” Alex asks.

Charles breathes in again.  He manages to nod, because he can’t go in with Alex.  He’s a liability in the chair, and he’s no use at all without his powers.

“Tell me where to go,” Alex says.  It’s right there, obvious in his mind: the knowledge that he can’t stop Charles if he chooses to leave.  He isn’t going to try.  He trusts Charles to do what he has to, and if that’s going after Raven, so be it.

It’s the only thing that keeps Charles in the jet once he’s gone.

His awareness trails Alex through the building, down, and why is it always down?  Everything is hidden underground.  Raven is underground.  She’s moving, not confined, but there’s no one around her and Charles won’t go into her mind without a better reason than loneliness.  Not this time.

Alex releases five adults, all military, by the simple expedient of destroying any door or lock that gets in his way.  He and Raven are converging as his group grows, and Charles tries not to hold his breath.  She might run when she sees anyone, let alone Alex.

A teenager joins Alex’s group, and they’re right on top of Raven when they round the final corner.

She has a child with her now.  The last mutant on Alex’s list.  Charles feels Alex’s calm focus shatter the moment the groups collide.  Charles flounders for a split-second, but he’s close enough to them and whatever Hank gave him does its job: he hangs on.

The boy with Raven is wearing red sunglasses.  Charles knows what it means through Alex, and it’s implausible, impossible, but it’s true.  Raven lets go of his hand.  Scott runs into his big brother’s arms without a second’s hesitation.

Charles hesitates.  He can’t speak to Raven without Alex.  He won’t co-opt one of the others after what they’ve been through.  She’s right there, and he can’t even talk to her.

Scott, Alex is thinking desperately.  Scott.  What the hell.  Professor.

“Mystique,” Alex says.  Charles hears it as a tinny echo until Alex pulls him in, deeper with his attention.  His arms are still around Scott.  “The professor wants to talk to you.”

Talk to her, Alex thinks.  His thoughts are disparate and strange, as fractured as Charles has felt him since he came home.  Fractured, but not unfocused.  His focus has simply split: he’s holding his brother, he’s trying to help Charles reach his sister.  Talk to her.

“Raven,” Charles says with Alex’s voice.  He isn’t about to refuse the opportunity.  “Thank you.”

She’s staring back at him.  “Charles?”

“We’re leaving,” he says, conscious of young Scott pressed up against his chest.  Not to mention the soldiers at his back.  “Will you come with us?”

There’s a long moment where he can’t help but hope.  Then she shakes her head slowly.  “I’ll help you get everyone out,” she says.  “But I have more to do tonight.”

“We can wait,” Charles says.  They can’t, and she smiles like she knows.

“I know where to find you,” she says.  “Tell Hank hi for me, would you?”

“Consider it done,” he tells her.  It’s easy to keep his voice steady when it’s Alex doing the talking.  “Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” she murmurs.

She and Alex get out of the building without a single alarm.  Well.  Without a single functioning alarm, and that’s really all that counts.  Charles manages to let go while Alex makes inquiries among those who linger about homes and hospitals.  He ignores the distribution of funds and medical advice.  He’s vaguely surprised when one of them asks for contact information.

He expects someone to hassle Alex about taking Scott, but he’s disappointed.  It isn’t just humanity that’s cynical and apathetic these days.  He supposes altruism is too much to ask of soldiers abducted and imprisoned by their own country.

Watching Alex lead Scott back to the Blackbird, though, he thinks maybe miracles do happen.

Chapter 18

By the time they get back to the house, Charles has taken more of Hank’s surprisingly effective painkillers and he feels like there might be a day in the far future when his head doesn’t hurt anymore.  He can’t imagine that day right now, but he can hope it exists, and that’s better than he’s been able to do for hours.  He likes not wishing for death.  He thinks it’s very well-adjusted of him.

He also thinks Alex has the right idea when he suggests that Charles follow him and Scott to the infirmary.  He may get a little distracted on the way, but he’s surprised to find Darwin waiting there for them.  Isn’t he supposed to be with someone else?  With Eva?  Where’s Erik?

“Looking a little out of it, there,” Darwin’s saying to him.  Probably to him.  He’s saying it, anyway, and Charles is the only one paying attention.  “Something I can get for you?  Water?  Food?  Pillow and a blanket?”

“No,” Charles says absently.  “I mean, yes.  Where’s Erik?  Do you know?”

“He’s been gone about two hours,” Darwin says.  “Should be back any time now.”

“I see.”  Charles frowns, watching Scott push his sunglasses higher on his face.  He destroys things by looking at them, Alex says.  Sort of like Erik.

“You okay, Professor?” Alex asks over his shoulder.  “You need someone to focus for you?”

He does, desperately.  But Alex is busy and Raven isn’t here.  Why doesn’t anyone know where Erik is?  Not that he should be asking Erik for anything, not when he’s lying so that he can--so he can--

“It’s all right,” Charles mutters.  “I just need a bit of quiet, that’s all.”

He doesn’t know why Erik’s lying, and it’s maddening.  He can feel everything about Alex’s worry for Scott: finding him in foster care, losing touch with him during the war, his determination to wrest custody from the state.  He can feel Darwin’s respect for Alex’s newfound steadiness, the sense of Eva dreaming several floors away, and a lack of Logan anywhere on the grounds.

He can’t untangle what would make Erik stay when he’s said it himself: he wants an army, not a huddled collection of children, both young and old.  He loves Charles, certainly, but that’s nothing new.  It was never enough before.  Why is it suddenly important now?

“If you want to lie down,” he hears Darwin say.  That wasn’t the beginning of the sentence, either.

“Sorry,” Charles answers reflexively.  “What?”

“Private room,” Darwin says.  “Next to the office, right?  Close the door, turn out the lights, it’s like you’re all alone.  Does that help?”

He wouldn’t want to be alone even if it were possible--not more than he already is, anyway, which right now feels like quite a lot.  Still, he hears himself say, “Just for a minute, then.”

He doesn’t close the door.  He certainly isn't going to sleep.  His head is worse when he’s lying down, not better, but it’s too much effort to sit up again.  He covers his eyes and tries to think about as many mutants as he’s met.  The contemplation of genetic structure is, as always, a relaxing reprieve from the social constructs surrounding phenotypic variation.

Wings and colored skin and powers of the mind.  People who spit acid.  People with tails, and feet like hands.  It’s funny how many different ways the human body has of adapting to radiation.  Or trying to adapt.  Evolution is a haphazard process of trial and error, with no guarantee of success.  In the end, only the reproducible adaptations survive.

It sounds like something Erik would say, he thinks.  Has Erik ever reproduced?  Charles thinks he should know that.  One of them should know, and Erik obviously doesn’t.  Or he doesn’t care.

Charles may or may not drift off to thoughts of a tiny Erik or Erika, running around the grounds with a ferocious sword that reshapes itself to suit a child’s whim.  

He misses Logan’s return entirely.  He’s only aware of the man’s presence when he notices Hank again, nearby and not alone.  It’s dark, suddenly.  Someone must have closed the door.

He thinks he needs to get up and find out what happened in Massachusetts.  He will.  He’s just gathering the strength to sit up, to plan out the transfer back to his chair.  Sean is in the house again, and Moira.  A young man who must be Warren.  Little Eva is awake and fascinated by the boys, by Scott and Warren, and he watches them through her eyes until he realizes can't stop.

He can’t pull himself free.  He wonders if he should be alarmed.  He’s caught in someone else’s mind, but Eva isn’t worried and at least she can see what’s going on.  He supposes it’s easier than getting out of bed himself.  He watches idly while she flits from one of them to the next: Scott with his glasses and Warren with his wings, even Sean when he hums at her and Hank when he takes off his shoes.

Moira seems pleased.  Someone turns on the television.  After a time, Eva curls up on the couch next to Darwin.  She and Charles close their eyes, reassured by the cozy glow of the parlour and the presence of people like them.

They sleep right through the news of Erik’s death.

It's all wrong.  He’s falling, muted and useless, scrabbling for purchase where there is none.  No orientation, nothing to hold onto, there’s no one.  Anywhere.  He’s alone, and the only thing that hurts more than his head is his hand.

“Charles.”  The voice comes with no gentle tumble of thought behind it.  There’s no sharp focus or quiet space to ground him.  But it’s there--it’s familiar even as he recoils from echoes of an intruder killed, a suspect brought down by building security, identified as convicted felon and fugitive Erik Lehnsherr.

Erik is holding his hand.  That’s Hank standing beside the cot, and Darwin in the doorway with--

“Eva,” Charles whispers.  He pushes his hair out of his face.  He's sitting up, he kicked the blanket off--he kicked the blanket.  He can’t hear anyone.  Eva isn't speaking, and his heart is in his throat when he looks at Hank.  “Did I--is she okay?”

Hank glances over his shoulder.  “She seems to be aware of what happened, yes, but there’s no, um, ill effects as far as we can determine.”

“You were in my head,” Eva offers.  It’s the most she’s said to him… ever, actually.

“We couldn’t wake you up,” Hank says.  “She said she could feel you for a while, but you’d stopped talking.  You didn’t react to--”  He glances at Erik, but he says, “Anyone.  I injected you with the spinal treatment in the hopes that shutting down your powers would kick you back into your head.”

“And so it did,” Charles murmurs.

“We thought you might have heard the news,” Darwin says.  “But having Erik here didn’t seem to help, so.”

Charles glances down at their hands.  “No, I--”  Erik isn't just patting his hand or covering his fingers.  Their palms are pressed together, hands locked in a white-knuckled grip, and it doesn’t look like he’s planning to let go.  “What news?”

He lifts his gaze in time to see the look Hank and Darwin give each other.  Erik is very casual when he says, “I found your fifth-floor mutant,” and Charles tells himself that it’s only fear he’s feeling now, nothing more.  Of course he would worry for Erik’s life.  Flashes of a news bulletin, of shock and disbelief, of Erik’s still form in black and white--none of that is real.

None of it can be real.  Erik is right here, holding onto his hand harder than the fading ache in his head.

“Did you,” Charles says.  He tries to take a real breath, more than just shallow gasps, and he finds it’s possible.  “And the others?”

“Easily located,” Erik says.  He dismisses them with a shake of his head, but then he adds, “All mobile.  Capable of making their way, at least as far as home.  What homes they have.”

Charles doesn’t like the way he says that, but even he can tell he’s missing the point.  “Then what happened?”  He looks down at his watch, but his wrist is turned away from him and he can’t pull it back without releasing Erik’s hand.  “Are you late?”

“The fifth-floor mutant,” Erik says.  “The head of night shift security at TI-Seattle, as it turns out.  She can replicate matter.”  His gaze is steady, and Charles is aware of Hank and Darwin watching him too.  “Her specialty is cadavers.”

Charles blinks.  “How unusual,” he says, but that’s not the point either.  That’s not why they’re all staring at him.  That’s not why he remembers--

“Oh, god,” he whispers.  He does remember.  He saw it, he knew.  “Are you dead?  There was a special bulletin, wasn’t there.”  He can hear his voice rising.  “Suspect confirmed dead.  Preliminary identification Erik Lehnsherr.  You’re dead!”

“I’m not dead,” Erik says, but he sounds a bit uncertain about it.

“You are so dead,” Charles tells him, and he’s sure there’s no hysteria in his voice at all.  He’s perfectly calm.  There’s just a body with Erik’s face out there.  It isn’t real.

He looks past Erik to Darwin and Eva still lingering in the doorway.  “Eva, my dear.  I’m very glad you’re well, and I hope you can forgive my earlier intrusion.  Right now I’m about to swear rather a lot, so perhaps you and Darwin would like to go… somewhere else.”

“Sure,” Darwin says easily, though he looks to Hank first.  “Glad you’re all right, Charles.  See you in the morning.  Well,” he adds, putting his hands on Eva’s shoulders, “later in the morning, anyway.”

“Good night,” Eva says politely.  She looks curious, finally, but she allows Darwin to steer her across the infirmary toward the doors.

Charles pushes himself to the edge of the cot and gets his feet under him.  When he tries to stand, Erik gets up as well, and Charles pushes him away.  It works not at all, given that he’s still gripping Erik’s hand and he’s less than steady on his feet.  Still, he thinks it conveys his message effectively.

“Let me be,” Charles mutters.  “Bloody Hank’s going to inject me without my consent, I might as well get something out of it.”

The lovely thing about the side effects of gene suppression is that he can’t feel Hank’s reaction.  It’s unfair, perhaps, but everything is and he really doesn’t care now.  He doesn’t have to care.  Hank’s thoughts are locked firmly outside of his head, so he can say whatever he wants.

“Charles,” Erik begins.

“You bloody wanker!” Charles shouts, pushing him again.  He stumbles and Erik catches his elbow, holding him up.  Charles hits his chest as hard as he can.  “You’re dead!  You went and made yourself a corpse, and I can’t even hear you!  I can’t hear you!”

Erik’s hand twitches in his like he’s trying to let go.  Charles yanks his other arm free, awkward and uncoordinated while his brain frantically sorts through the overload from his nervous system.  He doesn’t know how he ends up wrapped in Erik’s arms.  He doesn’t know why he’s fighting it, except that Erik is a monster and Charles would give anything to be inside his head again.

“I can’t even hear you,” he mumbles, pressing his face into Erik’s neck.

He can feel Erik’s hand hard against his back, hot and reassuring.  The other one is still twisted in his own, crushed between their bodies.  “I’m sorry,” Erik says softly.  “I’m right here, Charles.”

He shakes his head, but all he feels is the damp press of Erik’s shirt against his cheek and the silence in his mind.  “I can’t hear you,” he whispers.

Chapter 19

He wakes up in his own bed and tries not to remember anything.  He closes his eyes before he can see, burrows back into the pillow before he can hear, and enjoys the drag of sheets over his legs when he shifts.  His head hurts, but not much when he doesn’t move.  Nowhere near enough to make him regret waking up with Erik.

Charles opens his eyes again.  He’s in bed with Erik.  Because Erik’s been sleeping with him.  Erik’s been here since DC, since Logan, since they almost killed each other again and Charles let him go.

He rolls over, intending to ask Erik why he lied about staying.  That’s all it takes for the rest of it to come back, and he remembers Scott.  He remembers Eva, and the assault on Trask Industries, and he’s so sure Erik is dead that it’s almost a surprise to see him sitting on top of the quilt, propped up against the headboard, reading a book.

“Why’re you dressed?” is what comes out of Charles’ mouth.  It's mumbled and rough, but the words are probably understandable.

“Because I refuse to walk around the house wearing pajamas with your initials on them,” Erik replies without looking up.  “You didn’t tell me I’m not allowed in the lab.”

Charles can’t quite process that.  “Did you…”  He can’t even imagine how it came up.  Some sort of pajama party in the labs?  Are they telling stories and playing Spin the Bottle?  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Hank stopped by to check on you,” Erik says, turning the page.  “He said he couldn’t come in because you promised I’d stay out of his lab.  It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but that’s typical when Hank is talking.”

“Oh.”  Charles thinks about it.  “I might have said something like that.  He’s not very pleased about having you here.”

“So I gathered,” Erik says dryly.  “On the other hand, he’s clearly aware we’re sharing a bed.  Aside from what he thinks of me personally, he seems to have no significant objections.”

“They all know that,” Charles says, throwing an arm over his face to block out the light.  Or to hide his expression.  He probably should have said before.  “Peter told them.”

There’s a long pause, and for that moment he finds it strangely terrifying to have no awareness of Erik.  What if it’s all a trick?  What if the mutant who replicates matter made some sort of clone?  What if Charles is still asleep, trapped inside himself, and this is just a hallucination?  How would he know?

“How does Peter know?” Erik asks at last.

“No idea,” Charles says with a sigh.  How does anyone know anything, really?  They take it on faith until something disproves it.  “Same way he knows everything, I suppose.  He thinks he can go wherever he wants to because no one can stop him.”

“Well,” Erik says, sounding amused.  “Thank goodness the rest of us are more civilized.”

Charles smiles beneath the shield of his arm.  “Tell me something,” he says.  There isn’t going to be a better time, and so far, no matter what they do, they end up back here.  It’s almost reassuring.

“Anything,” Erik says.

Charles lowers his arm, tipping his head back a little to look up at Erik.  He refuses to sit up.  As long as he’s lying down, he can pretend they’re going to stay here all day.  “That’s a tempting offer.”

Erik’s book is on his lap now, half-closed.  He raises his eyebrows at Charles.  “Is there something you think I wouldn’t tell you?”

“Why are you here?” Charles asks, point-blank.  “Why do you keep coming back?  And for god’s sake, why did you say you’ll stay?”

Erik looks at him for a long moment, and for once, Charles doesn’t care what he’s thinking.  Knowing what Erik’s thinking never helped him before.  He wants an actual answer.  He wants the words, because Erik has always said the things he believes out loud, for the whole world to hear.

“Those aren’t the same question,” Erik says at last.

Charles rolls his eyes.  “Oh, for--then answer them one at a time.”

“I’m here because last night you seemed confused about whether or not I’m alive,” Erik tells him.  “According to Hank, you won’t be able to sense me at a distance until at least tomorrow, so making sure you could see me when you woke up seemed the polite thing to do.”

It’s rather more literal than Charles meant it.  It’s also very considerate, and a delicate way of not mentioning that Charles may have refused to let him go.  “As politeness has always been your primary concern,” he says, “that makes perfect sense.”

“The kindest thing, then.”  Erik reaches over to set his book on the table.  “Do you intend to correct all of my answers, or only the ones you don’t like?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Charles says, trying not to smile.  He may not hear what he hopes for, but Erik is quite charming when he wants to be.  “Do go on.”

“I keep coming back because you haven’t asked me not to,” Erik says.  “And I’d rather be by your side than anywhere else.”

Charles rolls onto his side and props himself up on his elbow.  “Why?” he asks.  “Why do you want to be with me?”

This of all things seems to puzzle Erik.  “I don’t know,” he says.  “I suppose… being around you makes me happy.  I find you… inspiring.  Intriguing.  Comfortable, for all I’m loath to admit that I seek comfort.  Is there a right answer to this question?”

“Yes,” Charles tells him.  “You could just say you love me.”

Erik gives him an unfathomable look.  “Love isn’t a reason.”

Now Charles misses his telepathy sharply, because he has no idea what’s behind that expression.  “It is to me,” he says quietly.

“Then I love you,” Erik says.  “Of course I love you, you are--you’re… no one could not love you, Charles.  But that’s not enough.  You know that.  We agreed, without a shared ideology--”

“Sod ideology,” Charles says.  “You said you’d stay.  Why?”

“Because you said I was right,” Erik tells him.  “I am right.  We want the same thing; I just don’t know how to say it so that you understand.”

“You’re hoping to convince me,” Charles says.  It’s what he’s most afraid of: that Erik is only here because he thinks Charles will join his army if he waits long enough.  Or if he provides enough incentive.

“I already have,” Erik says.  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe our understanding of this… struggle,” and Charles hears him not say war as clearly as if he could read his mind, “is converging.  You’re playing offense.  I’m playing defense.  Our roles are reversed, yet we still manage to work together.”

Erik sounds calm, almost unfeeling.  Charles remembers every appeal he’s made this week in vivid detail.  Always there was a sense of desperation, of pleading in Erik’s mind.  It’s remarkable how cold he sounds when Charles can’t hear anything else.

As though he knows what Charles is thinking, Erik lifts a hand and brushes his thumb gently over Charles’ temple.  “Perhaps we were too hasty in going our separate ways,” he says quietly.

Charles sits up abruptly.  His legs respond when he pushes one of them over Erik’s lap, bracing his knees on either side of Erik’s hips.  He has no explanation except that he can’t let Erik leave, and he’ll physically hold him down if he has to.

“Listen to me,” Charles says.  There’s nothing to do with his hands but lean into Erik, and Erik reaches up to grab his wrists.  Hard.

“You think you have to cloud my mind to make your argument?” Erik says, still dangerously soft.  “Say what you have to say.”

“No, I wasn’t--”  Charles frowns, because maybe he was.  He probably was.  It’s quite an enviable position, actually, and he wouldn’t mind--  

“I want to lie,” he blurts out.  “I want you here.  I want to tell you anything that will keep you with me.  But we’ve always been honest with each other, and I won’t see that change now.”

Erik shakes his head, a tiny gesture of agreement that makes Charles want to reach out.  To touch his face, his mouth, to capture that expression of accord.  But Erik holds him fast and all he says is, “I ask nothing less than your honesty.”

Erik's own honesty is one of his greatest gifts.  Of course he expects it to be returned--and he, unlike Charles, has no choice but to take it on faith.  Charles draws a breath and lets it out.

“To wage war against humanity violates everything I believe about life, and love, and spirit,” he says.  “We are human, you and I.  With mutations that set us apart, I won’t argue that, but the nature of the distinction is arbitrary.  I will not turn my back on my own people.”

“And I’ll not stand by and watch ‘your people’ stab you in the back,” Erik retorts.  “Ask what you will of me, Charles, but don’t ask me to watch you die.”

He clenches his fists against Erik’s chest.  “I’m not the one who died.”

Erik glares at him.  “She did that as a favor to me,” he says coldly.  “I asked for it when I found out what she could do.  To stay here, without endangering you.  No one looks for someone who’s dead.”

Just like that, the horrific bulletin clicks into focus.  The news announcing the death of America’s most wanted mutant will close criminal cases across the country.  Erik’s profile: off of posters and print ads, eventually even out of the news.  Pulled from active law enforcement databases.

Charles sits back, some of the fight going out of him.  “You did that on purpose,” he murmurs.

“Of course I did,” Erik says.  “Do you imagine me so careless as to leave a body behind by accident?”

Charles shakes his head slowly, watching Erik’s expression.  “No,” he admits.  “You’ve never been careless in your life.”

Erik’s grip on his hands is loose, now.  Even as he notices, Erik’s thumbs rub gently against the inside of his wrists.  “With you,” he says quietly, “sometimes, I’ve come close.”

Charles swallows.  “I don’t think you answered the question,” he mutters.

“I answered all your questions,” Erik says.  His hands are sliding carefully up Charles’ arms, curling around behind his elbows as his eyes flicker over Charles’ face.  “Maybe you just didn’t like what you heard.”

“I liked--”  The words are out before he can think, and he finishes awkwardly, “Some of it.”

“Well,” Erik says.  He’s very still all of a sudden.  “That’s something.”

Charles is staring at his mouth.  It’s not subtle and he doesn’t even know when it happened.  He almost feels like he should apologize.  Instead what comes out is, “It’s quite a lot, actually.”

Erik doesn’t move.  “At some point,” he says, “I expect you to either take advantage of this position, or let me up before I do something regrettable.”

Charles looks away.  “Yes,” he says, and there’s really nothing appropriate he can do with his hands.  “Quite right.  I’m sorry for, um…"

“I’m not,” Erik says quietly.  He doesn’t let go of Charles’ arms.  “I’ll take that kiss now.  Before you go.”

Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out a bit shaky.  “Considering the circumstances of the alleged debt, I think you’re supposed to be the one--”

He stops talking when Erik lifts a hand and lays it alongside his face.  When Charles doesn’t protest he does the same on the other side, cupping his face and waiting until Charles can hold his gaze.  “I’ll take everything you let me have,” Erik reminds him.

If it’s supposed to be a warning, Charles thinks, it’s a poor one.

“You’ve already taken far more than that,” he says, pressing one hand to Erik’s to hold it against his skin.  It’s warm and compromising and almost reciprocal, like much of their relationship.  “But I’m used to living without my heart.”

“It’s a wonder you’ve missed it,” Erik replies.  His eyes are bright and alive, the way they always look when he argues with Charles.  “When you’ve had mine all these years.”

Charles can’t hide his smile.  He does try, but it’s hopeless, and he can’t even look away.  “That’s very good,” he says. "Very smooth."

“I’m glad you approve,” Erik tells him, his mouth turning up at the corners.  “Now kiss me, or get off my lap.”

In the end, it’s not much of a choice at all.

Chapter 20

Charles is certain he spends more time in bed with Erik than is wise.  In fact, if that doesn’t describe his entire week, he doesn’t know what will.  It’s not entirely his fault, of course--Erik ought to bear half the blame--but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s nearly lunchtime before he has any idea what’s happening in the rest of the house.

As long as he’s kissing Erik, of course, he doesn’t much care.  The urge to hold and be held is undeniable, almost irresistible, and without the siren call of Erik’s mind to distract him he finds his focus is sharper.  He’d wager they’re both a bit touch-starved and clingy, but they can’t--he can’t… his self-control is better for the mental blindfold, at least.  And Erik seems determined not to overstep.

Never let it be said that Erik can’t do anything he sets his mind to.  He’s cautious and gentle and he asks all the right questions about what Charles can feel and when.  He seems aware that even Hank’s spinal treatment doesn’t fix everything.  Charles never gets up the courage to ask if he figured that out from watching, or if Hank told him in a fit of pique or unexpected compassion.

Either way, it’s the best morning he’s spent in longer than he can properly remember.  They keep their clothes on, mostly, but he lets himself be tumbled and Erik lets his shirt get rucked up and they both laugh until they’re silly with it.  No one else kisses like Erik does, like his mouth is the only way of knowing the world.

When Charles arches his back, breathless and blissful with his heart hammering in his ears, Erik kisses his jaw instead.  He presses lips to his throat, his neck, and pulls his shirt down to lick at his collarbone until Charles reaches for him again.  He lets Charles put his hands everywhere, which is reckless and brilliant and delightful.  

Charles finally pushes him off, climbing on top of him again, and Erik’s head falls back against the pillow.  He’s stopped laughing, but he’s warm and sweet and it’s several long minutes before he asks, “Is it different?”

“Yes.”  Charles kisses the place where his pulse pounds beneath his skin, then fumbles for Erik’s hand so he can press a kiss to the inside of his wrist as well.  “Of course.  Which part?”

Erik lets him have the wrist, but he raises his other hand to Charles’ face.  Two fingers linger deliberately against Charles’ temple as he says, “This.  Without this.  Is it different?”

Charles feels himself still, not intentionally, but sobered by the reminder.  He presses his mouth to Erik’s wrist again before he replies, “Yeah.  It’s… quieter, I suppose.  Darker.  I can’t--I can’t feel it properly.  Up here.”

He feels Erik sigh, but it sounds more like relief than regret.  “That’s good,” Erik murmurs unexpectedly.  His fingers slide over the curve of Charles’ face, thumb brushing his jaw.  “Thought I was losing my touch.”

“Am I--”  Charles pushes himself up, watching Erik’s breath catch and his eyes close.  “Too much?”

“Only in the sense that--”  Erik reaches for him instinctively, half-lidded gaze following as Charles rolls onto the mattress next to him and stretches out alongside his body.  “Hank’s seen me in these clothes.  If I have to change them, we may be pushing the limits of his acceptance.”

Charles can’t help laughing.  He props his chin on Erik’s shoulder, fingers restless on the nearest arm as he tries to find Erik’s hand again.  “My friend, the clothes you’re wearing are mussed beyond all recognition.  I'm not sorry to say."

Erik’s hand finds his instead, fingers weaving together as he brings them to his lips.  “We’re not all held to your impeccable standard, Charles.”

He’s so tempted, so--he wants to be on top of Erik, pressing him down onto the bed, but Erik’s politely drawn a line and Charles disregards it at his peril.  He can’t--he just can’t.  Not when his mind is dark and his nerves are firing unpredictably.

Not when he’s so gone on Erik that he doesn’t know whether they’re beginning or ending anymore.

“You look like you’ve been rolling about in the sheets,” Charles tells him instead.

“Which I have been,” Erik replies, amusement plain in his voice.  “You care about Hank’s opinion, so I must.  I have less concern for the others.”

“Peter’s mother is visiting this afternoon,” Charles says.  He can’t keep from smiling in the face of Erik’s disinterest.  “With a young child.”

“They’ll have less reason to suspect me than the others do.”  Erik squeezes his hand.  “Care for a shower?”

“After you’re done,” Charles says, and he gets exactly the look he expected.  

“You lack a certain sense of adventure,” Erik tells him.  

He can’t stop smiling.  “I rather think of it as possessing a sense of self-preservation.”  

“As you will, then.”  Erik lets it go, and Charles can’t hear what he thinks about while he’s in the shower, so they’re probably even.  

There's no ambush waiting outside the bedroom door this morning.  Charles assumes that means Peter is traveling with his family if he's coming at all.  Erik must be expecting someone as well--probably Hank--because he remarks, "It's never been easier to leave your room unobserved."

"There was no need to sneak around," Charles tells him.  It's arguably untrue, but there isn't now, so he says it anyway.

"There's still reason to sneak around," Erik tells him.  "You've just talked me out of it."

"Oh?"  Charles smiles.  "How did I manage that?  I think I'd like to try it again."

"You want the secret, you figure it out," Erik replies.  It’s as playful as it is challenging, and Charles resists the urge to lean into him as they walk.  "It shouldn't be that difficult."

The kitchen, too, is empty, but there's a note on the refrigerator door.  Prof X, it says.  Me and Darwin took the kids to the lake.  Tell Sean to bring Warren when he's done talking to his dad.

It's signed "Alex," but it really doesn't need to be.  As Erik makes no effort to read over his shoulder, Charles says, "Apparently Alex and Darwin have gone to the lake with Scott and Eva."

"Cold day for it," is all Erik says.  He seems preoccupied by the toaster oven, but then he adds, "Where did they find child-size outerwear?"

"There were some hand-me-downs in the laundry room," Charles says.  "Left over from our school days.  And presumably Eva brought her own."

“Yes, she looked well-prepared for the climate,” Erik says with a straight face.  “Can I toast anything for you?”

“You could warm a pastry,” Charles says.  “If you would.  Tea?”

“Black,” Erik says.  “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he replies.  It’s automatic, but the verbal gratitude surprises him.  Erik is typically less free with it where others might overhear.  “Others” being anyone who isn’t inside Erik’s head with him.

He was once less free with it, anyway.  It's hard to judge how much Erik is the same now, and how much he's simply the same around Charles.

“Alex also mentioned Warren speaking to his father,” Charles says, making an effort not to dwell.  “I suppose, with Moira no longer an agent of the federal government, we should consider the potential for kidnapping charges.”

Erik looks over his shoulder and Charles catches his eye, enjoying the lessened height difference as he leans against the counter, but it’s Moira’s voice he hears first.

“Fortunately,” she says, “Mr. Worthington isn’t interested in pursuing a criminal case.  Despite the fact that we transported his son over state lines without his authorization.”

“Moira,” Charles says, turning toward the door with a smile.  “It’s good to see you.”

She steps into the kitchen but doesn’t come any farther, gaze slipping to Erik.  She nods when he cranes his neck to see her, but he just glances at Charles again and turns back to the toaster.  Charles makes an apologetic face in her direction.

Moira rolls her eyes, unimpressed.  “You too,” she says, in a tone that makes it questionable.  “As far as I can tell, Mr. Worthington is relieved that someone else has taken charge of his son. Which is a shame, because Warren is a hero in every sense of the word, and he deserves better.  Like an education,” she adds pointedly, “and a safe place to stay.”

Charles raises his eyebrows.  “Even at our best," he says, "we were never a prep school.  Surely Warren would prefer to finish out the term with his friends.”

“I think he’d prefer to finish the term without being burned alive,” she retorts, “but you can ask him yourself.  I think his father wants to speak with you too.”

“I’m sure he does,” Charles murmurs, trying not to sigh.

“In the meantime,” she says, “I need a ride back to Virginia.  Do you have someone who can take me, or should I call a cab for the airport?”

“I’m afraid Hank is busy this afternoon,” Charles says.  He may not have been at his best last night, but he’s sure Alex isn’t to be trusted anywhere near a public airfield.  “How soon do you need to go back?”

“Ideally, today,” she says.  “They’ll search my apartment as soon as they can get a team together, if they haven’t already.  I’m afraid you’ll have to put me up for a while.”

“Of course,” Charles says.  “I said the house is ours; I meant it.  You have a place here as long as you want it.”

The door of the toaster oven bangs open and Erik says, “They’ll be expecting you.  Are you sure going back to Virginia is wise?”

“I left them written notice,” Moira tells him.  “They have no authority over me.”

Charles glances at Erik, and finds him looking back.  “Perhaps someone should go with you,” Charles says.  “Just as a matter of… well.  Just in case.”

She sighs, looking from one of them to the other.  “It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard," Moira admits.  "I'll take Sean, then, if he's willing."

Charles raises an eyebrow.  He's a bit useless, and Erik’s dead, so the choices are limited.  Still.  "Not worried about his cover now?"

"He's off the payroll either way," she says.  "And he knows how to keep his head down.”  Unlike the rest of them, she means.  He doesn’t have to hear her thoughts to know she’s thinking it.

“Right then,” Charles says.  “Take a car, at least.  Cab fare will be dreadful from here, and you’ll need it when you come back.  When are you coming back?”

“Tonight, if we can manage it,” Moira says.  “I’ll call you when we get there.  I mean, if you’re--if it isn’t too much--”

“Yes, do,” Charles says quickly.  “And for what it’s worth, I am… terribly sorry, about all of this.”

Moira shakes her head once.  “I knew what I was doing,” she says.  “Probably.  But if they make me disappear, I expect you to come after me.”

“Always,” Charles agrees.

The toaster oven clatters again, and when Charles glances over he realizes Erik has already set a plate next to his elbow.  It’s his own toast he’s retrieving now, while Charles’ perfectly warm pastry sits next to a jar of jam, a knife, and two empty teacups.  He smiles at the reminder.  “Thank you, darling.”

Erik catches his eye, and that’s it.  That’s all.  It’s enough.

He barely notices Moira fold her arms, an odd expression on her face while she watches them.

Chapter 21

Sean accompanies Moira to the airport, so Charles takes it upon himself to invite Warren to the lake.  He has no idea how long ago Alex and Darwin left: Moira doesn’t know either, and Sean doesn’t seem inclined to tell him.  Still, Warren is at loose ends, and Charles hasn’t been to the shore since it froze for the winter.

Erik begs off the walk, though not decisively.  At first he thinks Erik’s hesitance is due to concern over Charles’ mental state.  He did fall apart rather convincingly last night, and if it’s hardly the first time, well, that’s not likely to reassure anyone either.

Then Erik says, somewhat stiffly, “I’ll stay out of the lab.”

Charles can’t hear what Erik’s thinking.  But it’s familiar, suddenly: the first thing he and Raven did when they came home, all those years ago, was to tour the house to see how it had changed.  If it had changed.

“Do make yourself at home,” he says.  He tries to sound encouraging, and he’s not sure if it works or not.  “Hank considers the labs… a private workspace.  That’s all, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure,” Erik echoes.  The look he gives Charles makes it clear he believes nothing of the sort.  Charles is disappointed that he’ll have to rely on those looks, and Erik’s own recounting, if he’s really planning to take a tour.  He’d like to know what Erik thinks as he moves through the house.

He doesn’t ask if that’s why Erik waited until now to investigate.

When Warren collects his long overcoat and puts it on over the bulky sweatshirt that covers most of his wings, it creates a welcome distraction.  “Do they get cold?” Charles asks before he can think.  “Your wings, I mean.”

“No sir,” Warren says.  “At least, I don’t think so.  They don’t--I mean, they don’t get much chance, I guess.”

“Because you’re always covering them up,” Charles says.  He’s confident in the guess even without being able to read Warren’s mind.  “You don’t have to, you know.  Not here.”

Warren doesn’t answer.  It took Hank a long time to be comfortable going barefoot around the house, too.  He still doesn’t wear his blue fur with any regularity, not since he found a way to suppress it.  Warren may be just as self-conscious about his mutation.

Or, Charles realizes, watching him huddle against the wind on the way to the lake, he may not have much choice when it comes to clothing.  He doesn’t have feathers on his arms, after all.  Keeping his skin warm may require binding his wings to fit them under sweatshirts and coats.

Charles has a tailor who could help with that, but it’s probably too soon to offer.  Warren seems to have little concept of his wings except as something he has to hide.  He thought of them when people were in need, though, so that’s encouraging.

“Do you have a mutation?” Warren asks, staring off in the direction of the water.  Ice, now.  Charles wonders idly if it’s solid enough to walk on.  Likely not, with the unseasonably warm weather they had last week.

“We all have mutations,” Charles says.  “Skin color, finger joints, the lack of a tail.  All genetic mutations that permeate human populations.  These days we’re just seeing more dramatic variation--perhaps in response to the increasing pace of environmental change.”

He sees Warren give him a sideways look.  “You don’t look like a mutant,” he says bluntly.

Charles could argue the point, but he knows what Warren is asking.  “I’m a telepath,” he says.  “I--”  He waves his hand vaguely in the direction of his temple.  “Read people’s minds, know what they’re thinking.  That sort of thing.”

You call it telepathy, he hears Erik say.  But it’s not.

“Sounds useful,” Warren says noncommittally.

Charles huffs in amusement, his breath curling white before the wind snatches it away.  “Not as much as you’d think,” he says.  “Especially now.  I can either walk or read minds, these days.  I can’t do both.”

Warren sounds bitter when he says, “At least you can pass.”

Charles thinks of dissociation, of drowning in someone else’s life half a world away, of visions he can’t shake and promises he could never keep.  He thinks of Erik snarling, stay out of my head.  He thinks of Raven accusing him of reading her mind when he was so careful, so controlled, lest any hint of the awareness he can’t turn off slip through.  

In the end she left over a guess anyone could have made.  It was a long time before he could accept that the trust between them didn't break--it was never there in the first place.  Not in either of them.

He doesn’t say anything.

They find Alex and Darwin behind the boathouse, building a tent city from tarps and a supply of old clothespins.  Alex calls out to them, and Eva peeks out from behind a piece of green plastic.  She scampers over to Charles as soon as she sees him, and he’s surprised when she hugs him without a word.

“Hello, love,” he tells her.  “Do I take this to mean I’m forgiven for last night?”

She doesn’t answer, but Darwin smiles when Charles catches his eye, so it’s probably all right.  He’s lucky he didn’t do worse than follow around behind her eyes.  He could have given her some lasting fear of… well, any number of things, really.  Instead she seems to have escaped without so much as a headache.

“What happened last night?” Warren asks, but his voice gets Eva’s attention and she pulls away from Charles.

“Where are your wings?” she wants to know.

“They’re under my coat,” Warren tells her.

“Oh,” she says.  “Do they get cold?”

Charles smiles when Warren’s gaze flicks to him and then away.  “No,” Warren says.  He doesn’t sound impatient.  “But I get cold if I don’t wear a coat.”

She frowns up at him.  “Why doesn’t your coat have holes for your wings?”

“That’s a good question,” Alex says.  He looks more relaxed than Charles has seen him since he came back, and he’s clearly talking to Eva as much as anyone else.  “I mean, our coats have armholes, right?  Why can’t yours have wingholes?”

“It’s not much of a disguise if it has wingholes in it,” Darwin observes.

Warren looks at him, and it’s clear from his expression that Darwin’s correct.  “No sir,” Warren agrees.  “Not everyone’s as nonchalant about them as all of you.”

“I think they look nice,” Scott says unexpectedly.  He’s standing next to Alex, a fistful of clothespins in one hand and a long stick in the other.  His hair is mussed and the sleeves of his borrowed coat are rolled up, but his glasses sit comfortably on his face and he looks anything but timid.

“Me too,” Eva agrees.  “When I can see them.”

“They’re pretty sharp,” Alex says at the same time.  “I gotta tell you, I wouldn’t mind being able to fly.”

“Sure,” Darwin says, but his tone sounds odd and Charles can’t tell what’s behind it.  “Who wouldn’t?”

He and Alex exchange glances, and Charles is curious enough that he almost misses the look Warren gives him.  “Quite,” Charles says, as soon as he notices.  “As eye-catching as your particular mutation is, it certainly evokes positive connotations.  Very beautiful, really.”

He’s already known an Angel.  He isn’t at all sure he’s ready for another, but as usual, the world is unconcerned with his readiness.  He clears his throat, adding, “The estate extends to the water, and back to the road from here.  On the other side of the house you’ll see a satellite dish just past the fence.  You’re welcome to fly anywhere you like, of course, but between those boundaries you can be sure you’re over friendly territory.”

Warren is staring now, and Charles wonders where the explanation went wrong.

“Don’t you want me to stay out of sight?” Warren asks at last.

“Well, there aren’t many people to see you around here,” Charles tells him.  “Sean never had a problem.  There’s a thought, actually; you might ask Sean for directions.  It probably looks rather different from the air.  Just don’t--well.  He’ll likely be more helpful if you don’t mention me.”

“Okay, yeah,” Alex says.  “What happened with you and Sean?  Hank says you’re not talking.”

It seems they’re not, although Charles hadn’t been aware of the extent of it until this morning.  “I expect he’s angry with me for giving up on the school,” he says vaguely.  It’s as good an answer as any.

“Sean?” Darwin echoes.  “Since when does Sean get angry?”

Alex huffs a laugh.  “Since Erik,” he says.  “He and Erik are like this.”  He spreads his arms out, holding his hands as far apart as they can get.  “Let’s face it, the professor was the only one he really trusted.”

“Why do you call him Professor?” Warren wants to know.

“Funny story,” Alex says with a grin, and Charles tries not to sigh.

At least it’s better than talking about Sean, he tells himself.  Or Erik.  Or Warren’s father, or the school, or almost anything except the weather.  He manages to ignore most of it, anyway.  Eva and Scott are more successfully ignoring their tent city until Alex finishes embarrassing Charles and Warren asks the kids for a tour of the tarps.

This is eagerly granted.  The tents do cut the wind significantly, which Charles thinks is impressive given that they’re only held up by clothespins.  Either Alex or Darwin remembered the emergency rafts, currently more than half-inflated and being used as furniture inside their makeshift camp.  And there are snacks, definitely not from the boathouse: candy that looks familiar and granola bars that don’t (Alex and Darwin respectively, Charles guesses), liberally distributed to anyone who holds out their hand.

He doesn’t mean to break up their activity.  But he feels he should be available when the Maximoffs arrive, in case Hank wants him, and eventually he has to start back or risk missing them entirely.  The rest of the group decides to return as well, likely to get out of the cold, and Alex secures the tarps while Darwin hauls the inflatables back inside.

There’s already a car in the drive when they reach the house.  It’s easy enough to identify when Peter appears in their midst, pacing them as though he’s been there all along.  “Hey,” he says, ignoring the way Scott and Warren jerk away from him and Darwin turns Eva to his other side.  “Why is the news saying Erik’s dead?  Hank’s got Wanda practicing magic tricks on electronic equipment; do you think that’s safe?  Who are all of you?”

“This is Peter,” Charles says, because the children are clearly more intimidated by Peter than he is by them.  “He’s a friend.  He helped us in DC,” he adds, mostly for Darwin’s benefit.

“Hey,” Peter says again.  “You all have ‘unusual abilities’ too?”  Charles can hear the quote marks, and he tries to remember if any of them have said the word “mutation” to Peter.

“No,” Warren says.  “Just wings.”  He holds out his hand.  “Warren Worthington.  Nice to meet you.”

“Uh-huh,” Peter says.  He does shake Warren’s hand, if warily, which is more than Charles expected.  Then he adds, “Wings are cool,” and Warren cracks a smile for the first time.

“I’m Scott.”  Scott steps forward, holding out his hand the same way Warren did.

Peter looks from him to Alex, squinting his eyes, and Alex nods.

“Hey Scott,” Peter says.  He takes Scott’s hand and shakes it once.  “Nice glasses.”  Glancing back at Charles he says, “So, TI-Seattle, lot of kids?”

“No,” Charles says.  “We were in Virginia last night.  So was Scott.  Warren came with friends from New England.  Eva and Darwin are here on vacation, actually.”

Peter waves in their direction, and Darwin lifts a skeptical hand in return.  He doesn’t introduce himself or Eva, but to be fair, Peter no longer seems interested in them.  “What were you doing in Virginia?” he wants to know.  “Why wasn’t Erik there?  Was he there?”

“He isn’t dead,” Charles says, and Peter rolls his eyes.

“Obviously, I just saw him two minutes ago,” he says.  “You said he isn’t crazy, which actually makes him more disturbing, not less.  So I didn’t ask.”

Charles finds himself smiling inadvertently.  “There were two outstanding TI facilities,” he says.  “Seattle and Roanoke.  We split them.  Erik met a mutant who can create--”  He pauses long enough to think of the children and then says, “Convincing evidence.”

“Convincing evidence, what, like dead bodies?  That kind of convincing evidence?  Is he trying to get people off his trail?  Good plan.  I think my mom would like knowing there’s other kids here.  Can I tell her, or is it some kind of secret?”

“Well,” Charles says, glancing at the others.  “I think that’s up to them.”

To his surprise, it’s Eva who speaks up first.  “I’m not a secret,” she says.  Like it needs to be said.  It occurs to him that she may have heard the words before--that she may have had reason to wonder, and was clearly reassured.

“My dad knows I’m here,” Warren says.  “Can you call him, by the way?”  This is definitely meant for Charles, but he still has no idea what he’s supposed to say to Worthington the Second.  

Warren adds, “I think he wants to talk to you about your… school.”  He says it in the awkward way young men say things they know are awkward without knowing why.

Charles tries not to sigh.  Of course they don’t know why the school is a difficult subject.  He can’t will a functioning institution into place just because there are--

Well.

Students.

He doesn’t have to look at Peter to know he’s smiling.

Chapter 22

The meeting with Peter’s family doesn’t go quite as they planned.  Hank’s part is fine: he has Wanda and her mother set up in his old classroom, playing with gadgets and making comfortable conversation.  Charles follows Peter there, and it’s a manageable number of people after Alex and Darwin break off for the kitchen and Warren elects to go with them.

Or it would be, except that he glances into his study on the way and sees Erik.  Backlit by the window, with no discernible mental presence, he's so much like a ghost that Charles almost keeps walking.  Then Peter says, "Hey, Erik, want to meet my mom?"

Erik replies, "Not particularly," and Charles gives him a reproving look.  It doesn't mean anything, it's just an automatic reaction to Erik being rude.

Erik clearly takes it as something, because he joins them in the hall.  "Your study is a mess," he says.  As though Charles might not have noticed.

"It's fine," he says.

"Surely you have someone to tidy up," Erik says.  "Or the rest of the house would be a disaster as well."

"They're not allowed in the study," Charles tells him.  "It's fine the way it is."

"It looks like 1960 in there," Erik says.  "After a three-day sit-in."

"It reminded me of you," Charles replies, as evenly as he can manage.  "I didn't want to change anything."

This, at least, has the power to silence Erik.  It makes Peter shake his head, which Charles might have ignored if he didn't ask, "What happened between you recruiting him and him killing the president?  Because maybe it's super obvious, but I can't figure out why you want to sleep with him and punch him in the face."

They're within hearing range of Hank’s classroom, and it's probably not a conversation Charles should have with Peter in any case.  So he just says, "You haven't known him very long yet."

"Funny," Erik replies.  "I was going to say the same about you."

"You can't punch me," Charles tells him.  "I'm in a wheelchair."  Erik raises his eyebrows, and he adds, "Well, sometimes."

“I assure you,” Erik says, “it wouldn’t be the first time I punched a cripple.”

It’s an unfortunate introduction to Peter’s family, all of whom (including Peter) are staring as they pause in the doorway to Hank’s classroom.  Hank looks more exasperated than disgusted, which is an interesting reaction, but there’s really nothing to be done about it.  Charles steps through the door after Peter and the entire room turns wobbly and surreal.

The lancing pain in his back makes him stagger.  For a split-second he has the absurd thought that Erik actually punched him, but he can feel Erik’s shock in his head and he’s too far away.  Hank moves.  Peter’s mother says something.  And the girl in the princess dress ripples like a mirage, a child and a young woman occupying a single space.

Thoughts crush his awareness into something deep and dizzying.  The loudest is a child’s voice, shouting DADDY, slicing through his head even as he slams his hands over his ears.  It does no good.  Something digs into his ribs.  Pain tingles under his skin, radiating down his legs, nerve damage and numbness warring with the chaos in his head.

Charles.  Hank’s quiet voice is everywhere.  It sparkles like water in the sun and it outshines the pain, turning the world white and whispery.  He can breathe.  Hank is standing beside him.  Holding him up.  And in the white space, directly in front of them, is a young woman with Wanda’s eyes.

“Charles.”  It’s Erik’s voice as his awareness fades back into the room.  “Are you all right?”

It’s barely a question, but Erik’s mind is sharp and focused and not on him.

“Fine,” Charles manages, squinting at the girl next to Peter’s mum.  He still can’t see her properly, and her age is impossible: eight or eighteen and nowhere in between.  Peter’s baby sister and his equal, all at once.

“Is the treatment wearing off?” Hank asks, his voice low.  “It’s been out of your system for a few days, maybe it’s… weaker, without the cumulative effect.”

He hears Hank, but it’s like they’re not even here.  He and Hank are witness to the implosion of memory in the room, but they’re not a part of it.  They can only watch as Peter’s sister takes a step toward Erik, and then another, and then the little girl is wrapping her arms around him and Erik is frozen, as though he wants to run but has forgotten how to move.

“No way,” Peter says.  “You knew a man who could control metal!”

His mother is looking at Erik, and her expression is afraid and angry and--

Not surprised, Charles realizes.  She’s the only person in the room who isn’t shocked, and he presses a hand over his eyes in a futile effort to clear his vision, but she doesn’t change.  Her voice sounds perfectly controlled when she says, “Hello, Erik.”

Erik doesn’t reply.  “Peter,” he says instead.  “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Peter says.

“And--”  Erik doesn’t move, hasn’t even looked away from the woman standing beside Hank’s desk.  “How old is your sister?”

This time Peter doesn’t answer, folding his arms and staring at Erik--not at his mother, Charles thinks.  He’s deliberately not looking at her, and Charles knows the answer before she says it out loud.  “Wanda and Peter are twins.”

Erik stares at her for a long moment.  “You never told me.”

Charles closes his eyes, because that was the moment when Erik accepted it, and Charles knows he isn’t wrong.  Erik knows Peter’s mum because Erik is Peter’s father.  And Wanda, impossible as it may seem, is his daughter.

“You say that like I had any way of getting in touch with you.”  Her voice is even, but Charles can feel her regret.  She would have told him, he thinks.  She would have told you.

Erik turns toward him in surprise, his hand landing gently, absently, on Wanda’s shoulder when he moves.  Charles knows because he can feel all of it, and he shouldn’t be able to, so he opens his eyes and the little girl is gone.  In her place, Peter’s twin is solid and real in Erik’s hesitant embrace.

“Can you see that?” Charles murmurs.  He frowns at a room that no longer wavers: everything is clear and sharp again, except for the fading feeling in his legs and the pounding in his head.

“Did the girl hugging Erik just turn into a teenager?” Hank whispers back.  “Yeah, that’s what I got.”

“Wait, she looks normal to you?”  Peter is standing next to them, ducking his head to squint at Wanda from Charles’ height.  He should probably stop hanging on Hank and find a place to sit down.  “Because usually I can see her, but everyone else thinks she looks about eight.  Even Mom.”

“Usually?” Charles repeats.

“It doesn’t work on Peter,” Wanda says softly.  It’s the first time she’s spoken since Charles heard her screaming in his head, and her words carry in the quiet room.  She doesn’t lift her head from Erik’s shoulder.  “It only half works on you.  I’m sorry about your head.”

He frowns, because last he knew, Hank’s serum didn’t rely on cumulative effect.  “What did you do to my head?”

“I don’t know,” she murmurs.  “I just know it’s different.  I changed it somehow.  It’s probably not permanent.”

“You have a mutation,” Erik says roughly.  He doesn’t let go of her, though, and he’s just uncomfortable enough that Charles knows it’s deliberate.  “What is it?”

“I make things possible,” Wanda tells his shoulder.  “Things that shouldn’t be able to happen can happen to me.  Or around me.”

“Did you hurt him?” Erik demands.

“No,” Charles says quickly.  “The treatment’s just worn off early, is all.”

He can feel Erik gripping Wanda’s shoulders, pushing her back gently.  Irresistibly.  “Did you hurt him,” he repeats.

This time Wanda turns her head, catching Charles’ eye.  He blinks, and everything goes white as she mimics Hank’s mental presence and slips into his head.  She’s gone again as quickly as that, but she shakes her head.  “No,” she says.

“As I said,” Charles reminds them, fascinated by the intrusion.  “Are you a telepath, my dear?”

“No,” she says again.  “Not like you.”

Erik scoffs.  “No one is a telepath like Charles,” he says.

“I think I’d like to sit down now,” Charles murmurs.  Hank helps him to a chair, which isn’t quite as awkward as it once was, but it gives Erik pause.

“All the news reports are saying you’re dead.”  Peter’s mum is looking at Wanda now, unable to pull her eyes away long enough to address Erik properly.  It’s just as well, since Charles knows full well Erik is watching him.

“Exaggerated,” Erik says.  “Charles has been kind enough to provide me a place to stay.  I thought to return the favor by making myself less of a target.”

“Very convincing.”  She’s followed his gaze, but Charles isn’t sure he can look her in the eye.  “Mr. Xavier.  It seems I have you to thank for rehabilitating not one, but two of my boys.”

It gets his attention, as it was meant to, and he forces a smile.  “Well, the job’s not done yet,” he says, as lightly as he can.  “Please, call me Charles.”

She nods once.  “Magda,” she says.  He knows she means to reciprocate, he knows the truth of it, but it still can’t prepare him for hearing the words aloud.  “I’m Erik’s wife.”

Chapter 23

"It's a pleasure," Charles says, and to some extent, it is.  The words aren't solely a pleasantry.

Magda smiles at him.  It's a tired look and she thinks he's lying.  He doesn't dare tell her she's right--just not for any of the reasons in her mind.

To know someone who could live with Erik, who could imagine a future with him?  It's more of a rarity than Charles wants to admit.  He's intrigued by Magda for more than who she is, but it's not polite to say and in the confusion that's currently his mind he isn't sure she'd want to know.

At the same time, she is Erik's wife.  He can't pretend he isn't envious.  He can't ignore Erik's discomfort, or Hank's surprise.  That Hank thought he and Erik were lovers was never more obvious than it is now, when he's mentally trying to reconcile the fact of Erik's spouse with Charles' hopeless devotion.

"Did you say--"  Hank can't stop himself from asking, and Charles doesn't blame him.  "You and Erik are married?"

Magda understands that she's not the one Hank is questioning.  Charles likes that about her, even as he resents the familiar look she gives Erik when she cedes the question to him.  They've been separated years, nearly decades without any contact; surely a look like that is presumptuous at best?

And what of you?  It's his own traitorous mental voice that asks.  You let him be imprisoned.  Eleven years since you last spoke, and you’ve made it clear you'll cast him out unless he lets you love him.  Surely his is the greater presumption.

"We were," Erik says haltingly.  "We are.  I... regret that I've been no father to our children.  And certainly no husband to you."

Charles frowns, because Erik does regret the absence of the children in his life.  He does not regret parting ways with Magda.  It's a terrible thing to think, but Charles can't help being aware that Magda is human.

"Well, this is awkward," Peter says.  "Even more awkward than you usually are.  Dad--can I call you Dad?--don't feel bad; you'd have been a terrible parent.  Mom, way to go not telling us we're related to the guy who killed the president."

"He didn't kill the president," Charles says.  

Hank gives him an incredulous look, and Charles frowns.  How did Hank not know that?  No wonder he's been less than impressed by Erik's welcome.

"You'll be a parent now," Wanda says quietly.  She's hard to read, even accounting for the din in his mind, but he thinks she may plan to hold onto Erik forever.

He knows how she feels.  It's a wrenching sort of fear that makes him realize she isn't his only competition.

"You don't know me," Erik says.  It's directed at Wanda, and it's gentler than he might have been, but it's painful nonetheless.  

"Wow, okay," Peter says.  "I'm gonna go tell the others now, so we don't ever have to do this again."

"You didn't kill the president?" Magda asks.  Charles can't decide whether to be pleased that she wasn't sure either, or irritated that she's obviously willing to take Erik's word for it.

"I failed to save him," Erik says.  "In the end, I suppose that's all that matters."

"Hey, Warren's dad is on the phone," Peter says, reappearing beside Charles.  "Can I find you?  Just warning you, if I can't someone else will probably try.  Warren already talked to him," he adds, just as Charles opens his mouth to stall.

Charles sighs.  "Yes, all right," he says.  He isn't contributing anything to this reunion anyway.  "Have you been downstairs, Peter?  I'm afraid someone will need to fetch my chair."

"From the sick room?" Peter says.  Of course he’s been there.  "I'll get it."

He's gone again before Erik says, "You can't walk?"

Charles tries to smile.  "I don't believe I can stand right now," he says.  "Let alone walk."

"What's wrong?" Magda asks.

"I suffered a spinal injury, some years ago," he says smoothly.  This is one question he's answered many times.  "Sometimes it acts up."

"I shot him," Erik says bluntly.

This is the thing that makes Wanda pull away, Charles notes with a sigh.  "You didn't shoot me," he says, for all the good it will do.  "You don't even carry a gun."

"You know perfectly well that doesn't stop me."

"Stop being ominous and frightening," Charles tells him.  "I was injured during a covert government operation.  Erik was there, yes, but he didn't cause my injury."

Erik glares at him, utterly failing to stop being ominous and frightening.  "That's not what you said at the time."

"Your elevator's slow," Peter says.  The chair looks none the worse for his speed, though Charles isn't particularly focused on it right now.  "I got your chair," he adds unnecessarily.  "You could just put in another phone so you don't have to go so far."

"It's not usually a problem," Charles says.  He tries to push himself up, but as he suspected, it's no good.  "Hank, if you'd be so kind?"

Erik stays where he is, but Charles can feel his fists clench.  It's just as well he's not holding Wanda anymore.  Having all of them watch him and Hank clumsily execute the transfer from one chair to another isn’t his favorite distraction, but at least they’re not talking about Cuba.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Hank asks.  He lets Charles rearrange his own legs, because Hank actually does know when to step back.  “I’m sure Wanda and Magda will be all right for a few minutes.”

“Stay, please,” Charles says.  The wheel lock is jammed--it’s so strange that it takes him a moment to realize what’s happening, but then he sighs.  “Erik.”

Erik’s eyes meet his, and Charles knows exactly what he wants.  Which is strange, given that Erik seems to have so little idea what he wants these days.  But now, in this moment, all Erik wants is his attention.  Not even his forgiveness--just his attention, that Erik might speak to him.

Against his better judgment, Charles alters their perception of time and steps into Erik’s mind.  Let me go, Erik.  This is your family.

You are my family, Erik says fiercely.  His focus turns the shared vision solid and warm.  He comes closer, lowering himself to the ground, kneeling in front of Charles.  “I would stand with you in the face of anything,” he says.  “Stand with me now.”

“Oh, darling,” Charles murmurs, reaching out.  His hand rests on the side of Erik’s face, and Erik’s gaze stays steady and sure on him.  “They’re not your enemy.”

“Neither are you,” Erik says.  “You knew about Magda.”

“I did,” Charles agrees, tracing his cheek.  The faint hint of pressure is all he can feel of Erik’s hand on his knee.  “I do.  I’m not leaving, darling.  I’m just going to answer the phone.”

“To speak to someone you’ve been avoiding all day.”  Erik sees through him far too easily, and it’s as comforting as it is aggravating.

“I won’t stop you from going,” Erik adds when Charles doesn’t answer.  In their silent reverie hangs the echo of his words: I could, but I won’t.  “But don’t think I won’t fight for you, if it comes to that.”

“Not everything has to be a fight,” Charles says quietly.  “There must be something more.”

“It’s all I know,” Erik tells him.  “Except when I’m with you.”

Charles huffs, his breath the beginnings of a laugh as he pushes gently at Erik’s cheek.  Erik allows his head to move, the playful almost-slap making his eyes lighten, but he doesn’t look away.  “You know just what to say,” Charles says with a smile.  “Don’t you.”

“I know you,” Erik says simply.

It’s a tease and a threat, all at once.  Charles feels his smile fade as he lets his hand fall.  “Don’t destroy me, Erik.”

Not again.

“Never,” Erik says.

It’s a rash promise, made without full understanding of the terms.  It’s unlikely to withstand a challenge, but Charles finds himself accepting it anyway.  “I’m not leaving,” he says.

Erik is standing with Magda again, and Charles feels the wheel lock release under his thumb.  “Thank you,” he says, glancing around the room.  Hank and Magda noticed nothing.  Wanda seems a bit disconnected under the best of circumstances, so who can say.

Peter, on the other hand, is standing with his arms crossed and a skeptical expression on his face.  Too late, Charles realizes that slowing down their perception of time only brought them more into sync with Peter’s.  He probably saw every expression on their faces while they spoke.

At least he didn’t hear them.  Peter largely ignored their relationship before he learned of Erik’s true identify.  Charles can only hope he'll be as forgiving now.

His retreat is as graceful as he can make it.  Which isn’t very, considering all the… well.  Considering.  But Magda thanks him for his time, and Peter waves cheerily, and Erik… stays with them, so.  That’s probably a victory, of sorts.

It doesn’t feel like one, but he tells himself it is anyway.

Worthington the Second is, remarkably, still on the phone when Charles gets to it.  Even more remarkably, he seems disinclined to rant at Charles and instead offers his support for an all-mutant academy.  A boarding school, Charles thinks.  Of course.  Where he won’t have to actually interact with his mutant son.

“What would it take?” Worthington asks him.  “Is it money you need?  Resources?”

There was a time when he would have tried to explain the reality of a country at war.  A country that takes its poor and disenfranchised and makes them into soldiers, while those with power and influence tell them where to go and how many casualties are considered acceptable loss.  A country only too happy to send them away, and much less ready to welcome them home.

A world where Warren would be protected by his father’s fortune, the way Raven was once protected by the Xaviers’, while children like Erik are rolled into mass graves without anyone bothering to check that they’re dead first.

“No,” Charles says at last.  “Money isn’t the problem.”

“Then what?” Worthington wants to know.

There was only ever one answer to that question.  “I suppose it would take... people who need it,” he murmurs.

“Well, you have that,” Worthington replies, a touch impatiently.

“Yes,” Charles agrees.  He thinks of Erik, still railing against some invisible divide.  He thinks of  Alex, calm and steady and pretending he's seen it all, and then he thinks of Scott.  He thinks of Eva and Warren and Peter.

“Yes,” he says again.  “It seems I do.”

Chapter 24

He rings Moira as soon as he gets off the phone with Worthington.  She picks up, and he can't decide whether he's surprised or not.  Grateful, certainly.

"It's Charles," he tells her.  "Am I intruding?"

"Charles," she says, before adding, "No, not at all," so he assumes Sean is in the room with her.  "I tried to call, but the line was busy."

"Yes, you missed Warren’s father," he says.  "Talking me into reopening the school."

"Oh, that’s typical,” Moira complains.  "I can say it until I'm blue in the face, but a man you've never met says it and suddenly it's a brilliant idea."

"Technically," he offers, "we have met?"  He takes her point, but he can hear her repeating the conversation--presumably to Sean--in the background, so he doesn't argue further.

"Well, congratulations," she says at last.  "I hope you don't expect me to teach or tell bedtime stories or whatever you do there."

"Of course not," Charles lies.  "I take it everything's all right in Virginia, then?"

"I hear you changing the subject," she tells him.  "As it happens, we're fine, but you have a problem."

"Shocking," he says.  It isn’t at all.  "What is it this time?  Bombings?  Assassinations?   Watergate, is that our fault now too?"

"It could be," she answers.  "If you're not careful.  They have you and a couple other guys at the Pentagon the day Erik escaped.  They’ve identified you.  The other two are just a matter of time."

"Hank?"  He should have known.  He did know; that's why they killed the surveillance feed.  Visiting the Pentagon isn't a crime, but of course he and Hank are inextricably linked to Erik.  The slightest hint of association would be enough.

Admittedly, the presence of his former teammates at the exact moment of Erik's prison break is more than a hint.

"No," Moira says, surprising him.  "Was Hank there too?

"Never mind," she adds quickly.  "I don't want to know.  It was you and a tough-looking guy in a leather jacket, plus some kid in goggles and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.  Ring any bells?"

"Bugger," he mutters.  "They weren't supposed to catch Peter.  I told him not to stop in front of the cameras."

"The kid wasn't on camera," Moira says.  "His description came from a guard they peeled off the inside of an elevator.  Apparently he was duct-taped to the wall."

Charles tries not to smile.  "Yes," he says.  "Peter's very clever with his powers.  Not one to use a battering ram when a tack hammer will do.  It's quite impressive, really."

"I don't need to know this," Moira reminds him.  "Warn these guys, okay?  Discreetly.  They're going to have the federal government at their door, and I don't know what happens next."

He debates telling her for half a second, but ultimately, they're safer together than they are alone.  "They're both here," he says.

"Of course they are," Moira says with a sigh.  "At least they're better off on private property than they would be on the street.  Try not to threaten national security while I'm gone, all right?"

"Your wish is my command," Charles says.  "Are you certain there's nothing I can do for you there?"

"Don't make it worse," she tells him.  "We'll call again before we leave."

"Understood."  He only smiles a little, but she can probably hear it.  She doesn't sigh at him again, so things must be going well.  Government interest in them aside.

He wants to speak to Alex first, but he knows it's largely out of a desire to avoid facing Magda.  Perhaps more than largely.  Perhaps entirely.

So he makes his way back to Hank's classroom, where he can hear voices and giggling even before he arrives.  He pauses in the doorway, looking down in surprise.   They're all on the floor: Erik and Wanda are sitting across from each other, with Hank and Magda hovering on either side.  Hank looks fascinated.

Peter’s nowhere to be seen, but that doesn't mean he isn't here.  

The floor is moving.  Charles watches it glint between them and he wonders if it’s a sheen of metal or melted or both.  Likely both.  He’s seen Erik melt metal without heating it before, so many times, and in his more whimsical moments he'd let Charles touch it.

Wanda is touching it now, but not with her hands.  She’s… disrupting it, somehow, like tossing stones in a pond.  Only there’s nothing--sometimes her fingers flash, or a spark flickers in the air as she throws invisible somethings at the floor--and the shimmer of metal reacts.  It glows, it ripples, it makes a shape… never the same thing twice.

He opens his mouth to ask--it’s beautiful, it’s inexplicable, what is she doing?--but Magda catches his eye.  He reluctantly leaves the analysis to Hank, tipping his head toward the hall instead.  This is the moment.  This is the best opportunity he’ll have before she has to decide whether or not to drive back to Virginia tonight, and the safety of this family is more important than a new and very curious mutation.

Wanda’s mother leaves her with Hank and Erik, though not without a backwards glance.  It must be strange to see her perpetual child suddenly a young woman, but he feels Erik’s attention from inside the classroom and he knows he doesn’t have long.  Magda may be willing to speak to him, but Erik won’t let them get far.

Charles doesn’t waste the moment.  “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he tells her.  “Do you know why we came to see Peter last week?”

“You needed him to help you get Erik out of prison,” she says.  She raises her eyebrows at his surprise.  “You think I don’t keep track of my children?”

“Well, no, of course not,” he says quickly.  “If you’ll forgive my saying, though, Peter seems particularly difficult to… keep up with.”

“I’m not stupid,” she says.  “You didn’t arrest him, so you obviously needed him for something.  You didn’t tell me what it was, so it couldn’t have been legal.  Then, oh, magically, the most heavily guarded man in America turns up in reports from Paris the next day.  A man who just happens to be Peter’s father.”

Charles studies her, trying not to smile.  “Peter told you,” he says.

“Of course he did,” she says, rolling her eyes.  “He can’t resist bragging; he knows no one will believe him.”

“I have a friend in the CIA,” Charles says.  “Rather, she used to be in the CIA.  Anyway, the point is, Peter was described by one of the guards we, ah, encountered during our activities at the Pentagon.”

“The Pentagon?”  Magda doesn’t make the connection, until she does.  “Is that where Erik was being held?”

“I’m afraid so,” Charles says, wincing at her disbelief.  She doesn’t challenge it, though, so he adds, “I was recorded on a security camera before--my, um, associate disabled them, and I’ve no doubt the guard who saw Peter confirmed he was with me.  That is, all of us.  Myself and--and Erik.”

“And your associate,” Magda says.

“Effectively,” Charles says after a brief pause.  “Yes.”

“You’ve implicated my son in his father’s prison break,” Magda says.  “His father, who happened to be the country’s leading domestic terrorist up until his apparent death, what… sixteen hours ago now?”

“Maybe fourteen,” Charles says.  “The time difference, you know.  But I was mostly unconscious at the time, so I couldn’t say for sure.”

“You were sleeping?” Magda says skeptically.

“No, I was--”  He thinks better of it almost immediately.  “Yes.  Yes, I was sleeping.  That’s exactly what I was doing.”

“You broke Erik out of prison,” Magda says.

“Yes,” Charles agrees, confused by the repetition but relieved enough by the sure footing to play along.

“He’s very protective of you,” she continues, and he feels himself freeze.

“I suppose,” he says, after a hesitation that can’t be helped.  “We were… good friends, once upon a time.”

“Until he shot you,” Magda says.  She’s watching him very carefully now.

“He didn’t--”  Charles stops, then sighs, aware that he’s already given away more than he meant to.  “Yes,” he repeats.  “I didn’t see him after that.  Not until--recently.”

“Change of heart?” she asks, folding her arms.

“You could say that,” Charles says.  “Look, I think you should talk to Erik about this.  It’s not my place to…”

“To what?” Magda counters.  “Hide my husband’s homosexual tendencies from me?  I agree; it’s not.  To defend him for something that happened before you ever met him?  Or to cover up the fact that you’re my replacement?”

Charles opens his mouth.  There are any number of things he could say, running the gamut from, It’s my place to do anything I like in Erik’s name, all the way to, You think he’s protective of me?  But even the more socially acceptable, No one is ever replaced, seems dangerous in the face of her certainty.

“That’s enough,” Erik’s voice says.  He steps into the doorway, staring expressionlessly out at them.  “If you’re going to discuss this loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen, you might as well do it in here where the rest of us can participate.”

“I’d rather not,” Charles says without thinking.

“Noted,” Erik tells him.  “And overridden.”

Magda doesn’t even try, though Charles knows she already regrets the confrontation and isn’t interested in continuing it.  Wanda is missing, and Hank cringes when they file back in.  “Peter picked her up,” he says.  “Can I be excused?”

“Yes,” Charles tells him.  Someone should be, he thinks.

“No,” Erik says.  “What happens to Peter if they identify him from the Pentagon?”

“Well, it depends who gets sent to their door,” Hank says, his gaze darting over all of them.  “Obviously, probably, someone gets sent to their door.  Whoever it is will probably bully him into custody.  After that--”

“Bully?” Erik repeats.  Like he’s never heard the word in his life.

“I mean, Peter’s not on camera,” Hank says.

So they heard all of it, Charles thinks.  How wonderful.  

“A description is subjective at best,” Hank is saying.  “And with the goggles, they won’t be able to get a good sketch.  They don’t have anything to go on other than the fact that he returned our rental car, which is irrelevant if he didn’t know anything.  But--”  He glances at Charles then.  “Some government agents are more convincing than others.”

“It’s not as though they’d be able to catch Peter,” Charles offers.  “All the same, I’d rather you didn’t have to answer that knock at the door.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you recruited him,” Magda says pointedly.

It’s the word that makes him look at Erik: recruiting, and the memories it evokes.  That’s all.  But Erik looks back, and Magda isn’t blind.  “Are you sleeping together?” she asks bluntly.  “I think I deserve to know.”

“You’re excused,” Erik tells Hank.

Hank disappears fast enough to give Peter a run for his money.

“Would it make a difference if we were?” Erik asks, staring at the empty doorway.

“None of your damn business,” Magda snaps.

“But this is yours?”  Erik turns back to her, eyebrows raised, no other sign of the fear inside on his face.  He’s afraid of--

Charles swallows.  Erik is afraid of what he’ll think.  Of how Charles expects him to handle this.  He’s facing his wife, the mother of his children, and his mind is pleading for Charles not to think less of him.

“No,” Magda says with a sigh.  The anger’s gone as quickly as it came.  “I guess it’s not, is it.  Maybe what you do was never my business, and I was just too blind to see it.”

“We’re not,” Charles blurts out.  It isn’t fair, he’s deceiving her, but she’s hurt and lonely and afraid.  There’s nothing else he can do.

“We have,” Erik says, implacable.  “We’re not now.”

Magda meets his gaze.  “Thank you,” she says.  Strong as the steel blue staring back at her, she finds Erik's honesty comforting rather than upsetting.  After the briefest hesitation, she adds, “Knowing matters to me.”

Erik nods, and just like that… Charles can see the couple they were.  The couple Erik still remembers, sometimes, when he’s thinking about love and partnership and what it means to compromise.  Magda is the first adult reference he had for safe harbor amid the waves of rage and despair.

Charles hopes he isn’t the last.

Chapter 25

Magda and the twins don't drive back to Virginia that night.  Peter gives them a tour of the house, which is both amusing and vaguely alarming.  Hank finds them guest rooms in the student section, and he thinks irritated thoughts in Charles' general direction when they ask where Erik's room is.

"You should have a room," Charles murmurs, ignoring Hank.  It’s a quiet moment in the foyer when Erik pauses beside him.  There’s the sound of children down one of the hallways, but neither twin is yelling and Warren and Scott seem to instinctively keep their voices low.  Eva is high-pitched in a way that carries, but he’s quite sure there’s no intent behind it.

“I have a room,” Erik replies.  He doesn’t shout, but neither does he whisper.  “You should know; you sleep in it every night.”

It makes Charles smile.  “A space of your own, then.  Where you can keep things you don’t want me rifling through.”

“I have nothing like that,” Erik says.  His gaze is intent, and Charles can feel it without having to look.  “No pretending, Charles.  You said that if I stayed, we wouldn’t pretend.”

“This isn’t a pretense.”  He isn’t sure what semblance of propriety could remain after this afternoon, but he’ll forgo it if Erik does.  “Announce our sleeping arrangements to the entire household, for all I care.  Just take a room.  For… an office.  Or--or a second shower, when we’re in a hurry.”

“Ah,” Erik says.  “And now the truth.  You prefer to sleep through my morning activities and wish I wouldn’t make such a racket in the bathroom.”

“Well,” Charles says, because it’s the graceful way out.  “There’s that.”

“And where would you have me that would be far enough away?” Erik inquires.

He’s afraid to say it, but Erik likely noticed during his own self-guided tour.  “Your old room’s open,” Charles admits.  “Unless you think that’s bad luck.”

Erik’s look is less wary now, more amused.  “Suddenly superstitious?”

Charles shakes his head.  “Only about this,” he says.  He knows it sounds like teasing, but he’s not.  “Only when it’s important.”

Erik doesn’t answer, but when he disappears with Azazel later that evening Charles finds his coat in the room next to the one they’re sharing.  Not across from it.  He thinks it must be an uncomfortable way of making a point, given the temperature outside, but he appreciates the gesture.  It feels like some indication that Erik might stay even if Charles somehow drives him out of his bed.

He manages to catch both Hank and Alex conferring outside the parlour before dinner.  Hank’s gaze lights on him and he mentions nerve tests, which is the point at which Charles stops listening.  He can’t walk, but he can hear Erik’s thoughts, and right now he doesn’t care about reversing the balance.

“Yes, of course,” he says, because Hank is insistent.  “But what about the school?”

Hank and Alex exchange glances.  “The school?” Hank says.

“I want to talk about re-opening,” Charles tells them.  

Hank smiles.  Charles thinks the endeavor might be worth it for that alone.  Alex looks from one of them to the other, then asks, in typically blunt fashion, “You want me in on this?”

“Yes,” Charles says.  “If you’re willing.  Obviously I can’t guarantee anything, but your assistance would be invaluable and greatly appreciated.”

“What about Scott?” Alex wants to know.

“He wasn’t reported missing,” Charles says.  “That’s negligence, endangerment, possible abuse.  Given your recent record, I think you can expect to be granted temporary guardianship while a formal custody arrangement based on your familial relationship is worked out.”

The corners of Alex’s mouth quirk upward.  “Thanks,” he says, clearly sincere.  “I mean, can Scott stay here.  As a student.”

Charles blinks.  “Of course.  This is your home, Alex.  Your family is always welcome.”

Alex folds his arms.  Charles is aware only belatedly that he’s said far more than Alex expected to hear.  He grasps Alex’s arm in lieu of patting him on the shoulder and lets him be, turning back to Hank.  “Is teaching something you’re still interested in, my friend?”

“Do you really have to ask?” Hank counters.

“Not to know the answer, perhaps,” Charles says.  Hank has stayed by his side, not only out of loyalty, but out of an abiding interest in--and deep compassion for--all of mutantkind.  “But to show you the respect you’re due?  Yes, I think I must.”

Hank is still smiling.  “In that case,” he says.  “I’d be honored.”

“Darwin would help,” Alex says abruptly.  If his voice is a little rough, Charles pretends not to notice.  “If it meant a place for Eva.”

Darwin’s steadiness would be a boon to any child, no matter their age.  “I’ll speak to him,” Charles promises.

“What about Warren?” Hank asks.  “Did you talk to his father?”

“Yes,” Charles says.  “His father’s quite keen on the idea, but in the end it must be Warren’s choice.  We wouldn’t have anywhere near the cachet of his current school.  Even so, we might be able to offer other advantages.”

Hank thinks of the labs.  Alex thinks of flying.  Neither of them remember fire or closets or cameras, and it makes Charles smile.  His wish for any student would be that they choose where to go, rather than where not to go.

No one asks about Erik, or Peter and Wanda.  Hank doesn’t mention Sean, and Alex appears to have exhausted his initiative on Scott and Darwin.  Charles knows the feeling too well: he’s content to let the rest of the evening proceed as it will, right up until the point where five children and an equal number of adults end up in the small family kitchen at once.

“We do actually have a dining room,” he says, surveying the chaos from the door.  “If you could tell me how many of you are staying, we might successfully employ a cook as well.”

He receives no answer, but he's certain at least half of them didn't hear him in the first place.  There are guilty flashes of acknowledgement from Darwin and Magda, so he adds, "If you don't answer, I'll assume you're staying."

Before anyone can reply, he adds, "That's settled, then.  Keys are in the garage if you want groceries in the meantime.  Please only take a car if you have a license valid in the state of New York, and don't take the blue one, that's Hank's."

By now most of them are listening, so he says brightly, "Right then.  What's for supper?"

Alex and Darwin are making sandwiches for the kids. Charles has no qualms about letting them make him one too.  He can’t get to the counter with the crowd in the kitchen, and this way he gets a place at the table with Eva and Scott.  Eva is much more chatty tonight.  Scott seems both tolerant and protective of her, but it’s Warren he watches the most.

Charles would have thought Warren too would have trouble maneuvering in small spaces.  Without his coat and sweatshirt, though, his wings fold smoothly against his back and add surprisingly little bulk to his frame.  He shares stove space with Magda, heating canned soup while she grills bread and cheese and tomatoes.

The twins are the most disruptive influence in the kitchen.  They barely balance it with fleeting moments of usefulness: finding plates, locating knives, occasionally entertaining Scott or Eva with sleight-of-hand.  Actual sleight-of-hand, Charles thinks, not powered tricks, although with Peter it’s hard to say for sure.

It occurs to Charles that he hasn’t seen Logan since last night.  He almost asks Hank, but it reminds him of other people Hank cares about and he passes on Raven’s greeting instead.  Hank has already heard about her from Alex.  Still, Charles promised.  These days he keeps the ones he can.

Erik returns shortly before midnight.  He brings clothes with him, and he's left a bag next to his coat in the other room.  He doesn’t say anything about where he’s been, but Charles spent the evening attached to electrodes--first his spine, then Cerebro, while Hank tried to figure out how to fix at least one of them--then making arrangements with Adele, Cam, Warren, even Moira when she called to say they’d be on a red-eye.  He’s tired of talking too.

“I suppose,” Erik says, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, “I should ask you how you are.  But I find I’m afraid of the answer.”

Charles pulls his arm away from his face and stares up at the ceiling.  He’s already in bed, and he doesn’t know why he left the light on for Erik except that he didn’t want Erik to think he wasn’t expected.  He doesn’t have any answers.

“I’m here,” he says at last.  “You’re here.”

He pauses too long, because Erik says, “We’ve been here before.”

Charles looks over at him, somehow lost in a single room.  One he should know as well as anywhere he’s been.  “So far it’s enough.”

“It’s never been enough,” Erik replies.  Too quick, too forceful: he regrets this so deeply.  As much as the powers he couldn’t control, the lives he couldn’t save--he regrets hurting Charles because he didn’t have to.  There’s no counterbalance, no consolation… no reason.  

It just is.  And it’s wrong.

“I guess we’ll have to do more, then,” Charles says softly.  He’s committed his share of wrongs in the name of reasons long defunct, made mistakes he’d give everything to undo.  There’s no way back.  The only way out is ahead.  “Won’t we?”

It’s less than he’s ever been able to offer, yet it brings Erik to his side.  As he crawls into bed, Charles thinks, This time.  This time, they’ll hold on.

“Yes,” Erik murmurs.  His hand comes to rest at the side of Charles’ neck, fingers just brushing skin as he pulls the pillows closer.

Every time.  From now on.

“born on different sides of life, we feel the same and feel all of this strife
so come to me when I’m asleep, we’ll cross the lines and dance upon the streets”
--spandau ballet, “through the barricades”