Chapter Text
Four solid weeks pass before Charles is discharged and able to return to Westchester, and in that time he's seldom without Raven or Erik at his side. Frequently both.
The other children—and now, especially, Charles knows he should stop thinking of them that way—are already here. Settled in for the duration, probably busy making all kinds of modifications to the property under Hank's careful direction. The mansion is hardly equipped to function as a school, despite its size.
Moira is still here as well, Charles realizes as Raven pushes his chair towards the mansion, along a stretch of pavement that used to be a gravel drive. This change must also be Hank's handiwork. Charles would just as soon maneuver himself over the nearly flawless surface without help, the better to practice and grow accustomed to navigating with these wheels, but even without nudging at Raven's surface thoughts he can tell she feels better pushing him than walking beside. Charles finds it a simple enough concession at the moment. She'll learn to hover less with time.
It's Moira that comes outside to meet them, smiling at Raven and Charles in turn, not looking too long at Erik beside them.
"Welcome home, Charles," Moira says, and Charles isn't the slightest bit tempted to touch her mind. He can read the guilt clearly enough in her eyes, and he's had just about all he can take of other people's remorse.
"It's good to see you, Moira," he says. When Raven's hands fall from his chair, he grips the wheels and inches forward, moving closer to ask, "How is everyone?"
"Busy," Moira says, and her smile settles a little easier on her face. "Hank is a demanding taskmaster. You'll have this place ready for students in no time."
"Splendid," Charles says.
Hours later, when the mansion is quiet and dinner has been cleared—when Erik and Charles are alone in Charles's unfathomably broad bed—Erik broaches the subject Charles knows he's been stewing over all day.
"You'll have to wipe Moira's memories somehow. It's too dangerous to let her go back to Washington knowing about this place."
"I know," Charles sighs. Erik's pillow-mussed hair tickles beneath his jaw, and Erik's thumb brushes idly back and forth over Charles's collarbone.
Charles can't imagine ever getting used to this—the way his upper body can feel so warm and comfortable while he feels nothing at all of his legs beneath the blankets. He looks at them sometimes, two motionless appendages, and wonders whom they belong to. Sometimes he doesn't recognize them—it doesn't seem like they can be his—and he's becoming disconcertingly familiar with the sharp, ragged panic that hits him in such moments.
"Tomorrow," Erik says, pressing the unpleasant topic as though he senses that the direction of Charles's thoughts is even less pleasant. "Or soon, at least. She knows better than to report our location to her superiors, but we shouldn't take unnecessary risks."
Unnecessary risks like you? Charles teases, and is surprised when the thought doesn't come out with any hint of wry bitterness.
"I'm not an unnecessary risk," Erik grumbles. "I am a vital, calculated risk. There's a difference."
"My mistake," Charles says, almost smiling.
He senses that there's more. He can even feel the contours of it before Erik puts it into words, but he waits anyway, patient and quiet.
"I'm sorry, Charles. I know you're fond of her. But there's no other way."
"I know that," Charles says. It will break his heart to do this to her—to inflict such an act of mental violence on someone who's been nothing but the kindest, most loyal of allies.
He tells himself it doesn't have to be forever, and the thought makes him feel better, if only by a slim margin.
Charles. Erik shifts above him, drawing back and propping himself up on one elbow so they can look at each other eye to eye. He leans in, kisses Charles, deep and slow and deliberate. When he pulls back to look Charles in the eye again, he says, It will be all right.
And because Erik will never lie to him, Charles believes.
