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i.
It had felt something like the rush of the ocean filling his lungs again, with hearing all those voices all at once after so many years of silence.
(He thinks of the screams, thinks of the horrors that quietly whisper along the edge of his mind, of the future that Logan’s showed him, with a quiet horror that seeps into his veins and he thinks that he does not want this future of theirs, he doesn’t want this suffering of theirs either.
Once upon a time he would have accepted their burdens, would have jumped straight to the plans and calculations, would have done everything to find and take as many mutants as possible under his wing, under his protection, provided a safe haven in the form of the school which he had decided to build.
(It was a dream he had shared and talked about with Erik. And yet all he can feel is the burn of the alcohol on his tongue, and the myriad of silence which suited him just fine)
Somewhere in his memories he remembers jumping from a ship into the dark waters and saving a man who was willing to die for revenge. Remembers forcing an angry mind filled with rage and anger and hatred to calm down and he wonders if this is the same, if he should be calm.
But he can’t, because of the pain and anger and fear and hope in those voices.)
He thinks back to old dust filled studies, and the feeling of movement, of walking again.
(He remembers the months after Cuba, remembers the taste of bile in his mouth as he tries not to move but it’s too late and the words are falling out of his mouth like a gasping mantra - I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my legs.
He thinks himself a fool, but the first time that Hank tests out the serum and he takes the first steps, slowly and shaking and there’s a grin on his face that he can’t stop from forming.
There’s a certain kind of rush to his head, the sort that makes him feel as if he’s a fizzy drink about to burst and it’s all that he can do to not run around and yell as if he’s on top of the world.
He thinks that he can slowly remember how to breathe again, how to stand up and move on.
For a while he believes in the little kernel of hope, that he can rebuild the little life of hope and peace and patch up the holes left in his family.
(A family that would never be whole, not truly, because Raven wasn’t there and Erik was gone.)
And then the war came, and tore apart what shaky foundations he had, and there’s nothing but the hysterical laughter that rips out of his throat as if his life depends on it and he slowly, slowly starts to shy away and close up, lock up, toss away the key so that he can hide in the dark and think of the sweet dreams that lace his every thought with each swing of the bottle that he takes.
(And he thinks of old Cuba and the sands that was warm underneath his skin and the pain that shot through him and a curved, bent bullet)
He doesn’t know why, but he sits in front of the chess set that’s slowly covered in dust, and he thinks of moving one piece – and wouldn’t that change the entirety of the game now wouldn’t it, Charles
He laughs, and laughs.
And it is nothing but the sun that dances in his eyes as they gleam with something like hatred and anger, and there’s a question that hisses in his head – one voice, that doesn’t go away into the silence.
Aren’t you supposed to be happy, Charles?
He wants to burn the chess set.
ii .
He knows that Erik would object to him slipping into his mind again – taking control, taking away his autonomy, but honestly – he can’t bear the brunt of the metal on him anymore and the smell of blood is getting to his head.
It’s as easy as slipping into the cold, unknown dark waters – just like not too long ago – and he knows Erik’s mind, knows it just as he knows rage and serenity and he thinks that he can let go soon enough, knuckles white as he grips onto Hank because his legs are going out from underneath him but it’s alright – Erik’s free to go, although he feels a certain anger that simmers underneath the surface.
He memorizes Erik’s face, quiet in the tension drawn seconds that have just passed and he nods, slowly, the words leaving him and ride along the airwaves, making their way towards Erik’s ears and honestly, he could have handed him to the authorities, have him placed in an even more secure facility but he knows the quiet loss of isolation, so he lets him go.
It is as simple as “Goodbye, Erik” to make him blink and lean against Hank and he knows that he’ll see Erik again, perhaps in the not too distant future.
iii.
Slowly but surely, they open up the school again, and Charles remembers the three names that Logan had told him - Jean, Scott, Ororo - and soon enough, he sets up with Hank to slowly rebuild Cerebro, dust slowly fading into the quiet light as he learns how to be himself again, slowly coaxing his shields up again, compartmentalizing again and letting the gradual lull of the thoughts that he heard and emotions that he felt through Cerebro drift over him in a familiar pattern.
(It felt as if he could map oceans and navigate the skies, and he felt like Icarus whose wings would never had burned, if he hadn’t flown so high into the sun’s rays.)
When the war is pronounced over and done with, Charles feels that feeling of hope creeping into his veins once more and he looks at Hank, and they share a quiet smile.
Things will be alright, everything will be alright. Everyone will be safe.
He doesn’t expect a knock at his door during the late afternoon hours and the school isn’t occupied at all by any students and it’s Charles, not Hank, who answers the door, moving aside in the chair so that he can open the door wider and there’s a smile of relief as he nods at the sight of one of his students coming home.
“Alex, it’s good to see you again.”
“Yeah, you too, Professor”
(He knows that Alex is relieved to be home – he can feel it, radiating off of the young man in waves in a familiar pattern of warmthhomelovesupport - and he can smile to himself before telling Hank to come on down and greet their newest student, which earns him a roll of the eyes and a scoffing sound but he don’t miss a beat at the amplified sense of relief that someone had survived this entire ordeal and had finally come home again)
There’s the quiet buzz of the television set and he’s sure that Alex is tired so he tells him point blank to go and wash up and to come down into the kitchen for a late lunch of sorts and he promises not to burn down the kitchen this time, don’t worry Hank – and Charles thinks that he can do this, slowly rebuild what he thought he lost not too long ago on a beach in Cuba.
iv.
The television set crackles with the news stories that bubble up to the surface – Mutants being regarded as allies and pro-Mutant legislation being passed- and suddenly hope seems like a tangible feeling.
(The boys keep tabs on him and soon they’re joined by Darwin, who, really wasn’t dead all this time, just waiting for the right pull to snap back into a physical form after being blown into tiny molecules but he felt the pull of the Professor when they had tried to find Raven the first time, Cerebro lashing out in pain and uncertainty and fear, he had felt fear too. But it was a small comfort, knowing that Darwin was back with them.
Sean joined them as well – turns out, Emma Frost had a few tricks up her sleeve and Erik had only seen what would have been astral projections.)
v.
Charles meets Pietro and Wanda and Lorna with a smile and a wave. Pietro is as quick as he is a pain in the ass, but Wanda balances him out, calm and shy at first, but fiercely protective and they read off of each other with that sort of accuracy that twins would have between them.
(He’s reminded of Raven when they were young when he looks at Wanda and Pietro, and there’s a small wave of fondness that rolls off of them when they’re together with Lorna, who’s animate and is slowly starting to manifest her powers –from the looks of it, another metallokinetic – and Charles could only hope that he can keep it all together, piece by piece, slowly but surely)
Raven, to his surprise, visits in the summer months, and there is a carefree air around her that is electrifying and freeing and grounding all the same. They both know that not one nor the other can control each other, and it shows, of course.
(Charles knows that Raven isn’t some little girl who needs protection. She’s a survivor, surviving and living life and fighting the fair fight and he can only be fiercely proud of her, the little girl who grew like lightning before his eyes and chose her own path – not one that destiny chose for her, or that anyone instilled on her – be it him, or Erik.)
Raven takes to Wanda and Lorna quickly, a grin on her face as she marches up to his desk and perches on the corner, blue skin and flaming red hair and yellow eyes face him and he can only raise an eyebrow in question as she speaks – “I’ll teach the kiddos self defense every once in a while.”
“Raven , you know you’re more than welcome to stay, that is, if you want to stay. No one is going to force you to - ” Charles starts before Raven interrupts him with a smile and a hand placed over his
“Charles, even you know that I get homesick sometimes. I think, I’ll stay for a while. Besides,
I can’t let you boys have all the fun with running a school.”
It was a start.
(He thinks he’s been dreaming, and he’s reminded of the not too distant time where he was drinking through a bottle and was being told by a stranger that he had sent him – this stranger- from the future back in time because of some sort of bloody war and fuck, it was too early for this shit – surely, he’d be dreaming.
He’d like to think he was dreaming, even when reality had slapped him in the face and told him to wake up )
The little kernel of hope that had slowly started to blossom and bloom leaves a trail of warm fire in his chest and there’s a hesitant smile that graces his face. He thinks of puzzle pieces that slowly fit together after being scrambled and tossed and thrown about a room only having to have landed underneath some rusty old couch and forgotten about for years on end, only to be found again and the picture may have been faded, may have been washed out or worn down, but it was still there and the puzzle pieces still fit.
(They may have looked more like a patchwork quilt than a cohesive puzzle but that was more than enough, because each and every one had their own set of threads to sew and stitch together to make the puzzle pieces fit and that was alright)
Sometimes he thought of old patchwork quilts and how each and every stitch had its own story to tell, and he thought of everyone whom he touched with Cerebro and the passing currents on the ocean and he thinks back to the night when he had jumped from a ship to save a man who he didn’t even know, who had rage and anger and Charles was the point of serenity for him and they shouldn’t have melded together, shouldn’t have been able to read each other like the sun and the moon or the sea and the wind but they did.
Somehow they had made their own little patchwork quilt without even realizing that they did.
vi.
Erik’s return to the mansion was that on a spring day, with the wind dancing along the edges of the sun’s rays and Charles had been in his study, pouring over paperwork and looking over the latest coordinates which Cerebro had given him on his last search for students.
It was like the all too familiar smell of the ocean which kept on resurfacing amongst his thoughts.
Erik, however, had come with a bouquet of purple hyacinths and yellow daffodils tied together with a dark purple ribbon and a bottle of scotch which he had put down in front of Charles’ desk without a word.
(Later, after a few drinks and a couple of rounds of chess, he had mentioned something about a florist shop operated by four mutants – a woman who simply went by Clarice (although sometimes he would hear her talking to her coworkers and they’d call her Blink), a man with a sharp eye and skill with knives by the names of James, a man who tends to the potted flowers around the shop, with a knack for radiation and heat energy by the name of Roberto, and finally a man by the name of Bishop who kept tabs on everyone and whose powers also dealt with energy – it had reminded him of the mansion, and Charles could only raise an eyebrow in response –
“You know Charles, the sort of patchwork families that people make with each other. Isn’t that what we had?”
Charles could only lick his lips and down another glass of Scotch before nodding – just a jerk of his head – and speaking up “I suppose yes, we did have something like that.”
Before you left and put a bullet in my back. Before you decided to block me out.
There’s a silence that drags on between them but it’s not filled with tension, not like the plane ride that had happened, with yelling and anger and tension that raised the hairs on the back of both of their necks when they thought about it.
‘We can have that again, maybe. A patchwork family of our own. ‘ goes unsaid between them, but it’s there, hanging in the air like a silver lining in the sky.
It was a tentative shot in the dark, uneasy steps and unequal footing but soon enough they managed to learn how to breathe around one another again.
Slowly, surely. Perhaps.
There’s something like a hesitant brush of fingertips against fingertips and it’s as if time freezes and suddenly Charles thinks of it as a waltz – a complicated waltz which results in them dancing around each other, hidden lines of subtle hints of the pain and damage that’s been done but also, the hope that they’ve built upon each other from each other.
It’s something like a steady hymn between the whispers of breaths and perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not just Charles who’s hearing the waltz in his head as he goes to move his queen across the chessboard and his hand brushes against Erik’s and it’s a tad bit ridiculous, but his breath catches and perhaps, just perhaps, they’ve been meant to dance along to this patchwork waltz inside of their hearts since they met each other, in the quiet hum of the cold waters of the ocean.
(Slow and steady, and a one two three one two three one two three)