Chapter Text
“We're so sorry.”
The doctors said, the words were sympathetic but the tone was clipped, professional, cold. It didn’t matter to Sharon, their attempt at comfort meant nothing to her, nothing meant anything to her it seems, she just felt empty. Her baby was gone. She was pregnant one second and then not the next. She should tell her husband, he could offer her some comfort but she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to tell him she had failed.
She wandered out of the hospital and into the parking lot, she’d love a drink right now but a cigarette would have to do. She lit it up and allowed herself to savor the way it made her relax, unclench her jaw and slump her shoulders. She was just about to inhale once more when she heard a very distinct sound.
A baby was crying somewhere off in the distance, she could not see it, obscured by the darkness but she knew it was out there, somewhere. It was startlingly loud, the baby had quite the pair of lungs. Sharon wouldn’t consider herself the most compassionate or empathetic person on the planet, but even she would not be so cruel as to leave a baby to fend for itself in the cold. She put out the cigarette, and began stalking towards the sound, her heels clicking against the concrete of the parking lot.
It was getting louder and louder and louder (lord, she didn’t think babies could be that loud) until, it just…stopped, seemingly instantly. Sharon was unnerved, babies didn’t just stop crying, they couldn’t, even adults couldn’t stop crying instantaneously. She glanced around, attempting to locate where the baby could be.
She caught something gilmering out the corner of her eye, she turned and there was the baby. At first glance it looked like a perfectly normal, healthy, baby boy (at least she assumed it was a boy, it was swaddled in a blue blanket), but as she looked for longer, there was something…off. The baby ears were oddly shaped, sharp like some kind of animal, and she swears the baby ear twitched towards the sounds from the street. But his eyes, his eyes were what unsettled her the most. Sharon felt the hairs on the back of neck rise as she looked into the baby’s eyes. They were bright, too bright almost like they’re aglow in the darkness (like an animal starting at from the darkness of the woods) and he looked up at her with this almost knowing gaze, which was foolish, the boy couldn’t be more than a few weeks old (God, he was tiny, even for his age–) he couldn't comprehend anything beyond his own physical needs; warmth, hungry, thirst. She should go back into the hospital, tell the staff, let them take care of him. They’d find a nice family to take him in, raise like he was their own. Perhaps, it would even be one of the staff.
But.
But.
The baby looked like her baby, like what her baby probably would’ve looked like. Brown hair like her husband, blue eyes like her, all the important details were correct, everything else could be explained away with recessive genes. If she took the baby, adopted him so to speak, and told her husband that this was their baby, their son, well her husband would never have to know of her failure. Besides, what child wouldn’t want to grow up in the opulence of her and her husband’s estate? They were a nice family, weren’t they? Surely, based on the fact the boy was dumped like trash on the side of the road indicated she was going to give a far better life then the one he was meant for.
She leaned down and took the baby into her arms and something changed then. His features seemed to change, he looked—well, he looked like her. Like her baby. All the unease, the slight offness of his features was just gone, leaving only a perfectly normal baby boy. Her baby boy. The boy looked up at her wide eyed and she felt an unusual feeling of sentimentality wash over her. He was strangely cute for something that had her so uneasy just moments before.
“Charles,” she muttered, that’s what she’ll call him, “Charles Franics Xavier.” The baby giggled at that, reaching up to her. Once more, the boy was being oddly endearing. Did all mothers feel this way towards their babies? She allowed the boy Charles to grab her face for a moment, she’d like to leave soon. Her husband would be back from his trip either tomorrow or this morning, which means she may only have a couple hours to be home before he is. He yawns suddenly, the crying must have tuckered him out. His eyes slowly blink close, as if he’s trying to fight off his tiredness but she repositions the boy to allow him to rest his head on her chest and he falls asleep quickly after that.
He sleeps the whole way to the manor and until dawn. (He’s so quiet, it scares her sometimes, he was so loud when she found him and now he just wasn’t.) She tells her husband it was a miracle, born prematurely and yet perfectly healthy. He buys it, boasts about how the boy looks like a perfect mix of both of them, she smiles indulgently, like she always does. There's fear at first, that he will figure it out but he has no reason to think she is lying in the first place. The fear fades with time and so does the knowledge of the lie in the first place. Charles just grows up to look so much like her it’s hard to believe he’s not her’s. The idea of him not being her blood becomes more unbelievable than the truth. So, Sharon eventually forgets that she was lying. The lie, with time, becomes a belief.
It’s a pity that she never informed Charles of his origin before she forgot.