The Kids from Yesterday

by Sahlo_Folina237

Summary:

In which Logan is sent back to 1962 instead of '73 and Erik beats Charles in every game of chess.

Notes:

• For nevertheless2000.
• Inspired by Everything Except Temptation by Macceh

Chapter 1: What's Future is Prologue

Notes:

So this is much more like a prologue or an introduction than actually part of the main story. It's not important to read to understand the story; it just sets the premise, which is explained in the author's note at the end of the chapter. The italics sections are taken directly from the X-Men: Days of Future Past movie, and the non-italicized parts are where it diverges from canon.

2023

The X-Jet descends amidst thick swirls of haze and fog. As the passengers disembark, the mist clears away revealing dreary and ominous skies. The lights of the X-Jet flash recurrently as the passengers – a tall black woman with white hair, a bearded fierce-looking man with a cigar, a bald man in a floating metal chair, and a old man with a black cape -- make their way boldly into the ruins of the ancient temple. Figures swarm in the darkness with looks of suspicion and hostility on their faces, sometimes displayed by brief flashes from the jet’s headlights as the figures slowly surround the newcomers.

“Professor!” calls a voice from the shadows.

A young bearded man appears, and gives a short reassuring pat to the arm of one of his mistrustful companions.

“Bobby!” The only female newcomer says with relief, as the young man comes forward down a small set of stairs and greets her with “Hey Storm” and a hug.

“Hey kid.” The newcomer with the cigar speaks affectionately.

Bobby nods at him in response.

“Professor,” says a young woman as she emerges from within the temple, side by side with a tall, muscular man. “You made it.” Bobby turns and joins the woman as she stops at the foot of the stairs. They look at each other knowingly, as if they have both hoped for and expected the arrival of the newcomers.

The bald man in the floating metal chair, whom both Bobby and the woman have addressed as “Professor,” smiles at the woman, his face glowing with optimism.

---

Five minutes later, the mutants have all congregated in an inner room of the temple.

“Whenever the Sentinels attack,” Kitty explains to Professor X, Magneto, Logan, and Storm, “Warpath spots them, then I send Bishop back to warn us of the attack before it happens. Blink scouts the next site, and… well, then we leave before they ever know we were there.”

“Because, we never were,” Warpath finishes.

“What do you mean, you were never there?” Logan asks, confused and unbelieving.

“She projects Bishop back in time a few days to warn the others of the coming attack,” Professor X reiterates for him.

“So she sends Bishop back in time?”

“No, just his consciousness, into his younger self. His younger body.”

“Wow,” Logan says, still incredulous.

“This might just work, Charles,” Magneto speaks up.

“What might work?” Kitty asks.

And Charles explains it all. He is a teacher after all. “The Sentinel program was originally conceived by Doctor Bolivar Trask. In the early ‘70s, he was one of the world’s leading weapons designers. But, covertly, he had begun experimenting on mutants using their gifts to fuel his own research. There was one mutant who had discovered what he was doing.”

“A mutant with the ability to transform herself into anyone,” clarifies Magneto.

“Mystique,” Colossus realizes.

“I knew her as Raven,” Charles reminisces. “We met when we were children, grew up together. She was like a sister to me. I tried to help her, but only succeeded in driving her away. She hunted Trask across the world. And at the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 after the Vietnam war, she found Trask, and killed him. It was the first time she killed.”

“It wasn’t her last,” Logan cuts in bitterly.

“But killing Trask did not have the outcome she expected,” Professor X resumes. “It only persuaded the government of the need for his program. They captured her that day, tortured her, experimented on her. In her DNA, they discovered the secrets to her powers of transformation. It gave them the key they needed to create weapons that could adapt to any mutant power. And in less than fifty years, the machines that have destroyed so many of our kind were created. It all goes back to that day in 1973, when she first killed, when she truly became Mystique.”

“You wanna go back there,” Kitty perceives.

“What led to Raven killing Trask was over a decade in the making,” Charles continues. “In 1962, I met Erik for the first time. It was only a little while after that that he convinced her to join his cause of promoting mutant superiority over humans. She never came back home, and she and I were forever estranged. If I’m sent back, I can hopefully persuade her to never join Erik’s Brotherhood. I could show her a better way, keep the assassination from ever happening, prevent her from being captured, and we can stop the Sentinels from ever being born.”

“And end this war, before it ever begins,” Magneto sums up.

“Uh,” Kitty says apologetically. “I can send someone back a couple weeks. Maybe a month, but you’re talking about going back decades. You have the most powerful brain in the world, Professor, but the mind can only stretch so far before it snaps. It would rip you apart. I’m sorry. No one could survive that trip.”

Logan has been listening carefully, and now reluctantly speaks. “What if someone’s mind has a way of snapping back? What if someone can heal, as fast as they’re ripped apart?”

“It’s a risk,” Bishop warns him.

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Logan replies dryly.

“Not just for you,” specifies Bishop. “You do this, you change history.”

“Well that’s kinda the point.”

“Some of us could be killed,” Bishop expounds. “Some of us may never be born. We have no idea how things may change.”

“We could keep going,” Blink suggests. “Keep fighting.”

“Until what?” Storm inquires.“You’ve got a decision to make. You can keep sending Bishop back in time over and over again to warn you, until one day he doesn’t make it, and you all die. Or you can give up this life. So that they and everyone else who died in this war can actually have a future.”

“You’re asking us to sacrifice our lives for a future we might not even be a part of,” Sunspot says, unhappily.

“Yes,” Magneto agrees.

“A second chance,” Professor X tells them. “ A better chance for everyone.”

“My people need to vote,” Bishop announces.

“They just did,” declares Charles, smiling. “They’re in.”

---

In the innermost room of the temple, Logan bars the door with a heavy piece of wood, shutting in himself, Kitty, Bobby, Professor X, and Magneto. He slowly walks into the center of the room, and looks down skeptically at the stone table. “So I wake up in my younger body, God knows where. Then what?”

“You’ll need to go to my house, and find me. Convince me of all of this.”

“Won’t you be able to just read my mind?”

“I will, but you have to understand that I was a very different person in 1962. I truly loved Raven, but I never really knew how. You’ll have to lead me, guide me.”

Logan scoffs. “Kindness is my strongest suit.”

“You’ll need me as well,” Magneto adds.

“What?” Logan asks.

“Mystique left Charles to come with me, and I set her on a dangerous path. A darker path. Charles and I had just met and we were both at pivotal points in our lives. You’ll need to show me -show us – a better way.”

Professor X nods in affirmation.

“Great,” Logan says. “So where did you go wrong, what do I need to change?

“Perhaps it would be better if I just showed you,” Charles decides.

And one by one images flash through Logan’s head as Charles telepathically projects them. Charles meeting Erik and saving his life in the ocean outside Miami. Convincing Erik to stay. Using Cerebro for the first time. Recruiting mutants from across the country. Finding the mutants partying in the room with the broken window, the statue cut in half outside. Going to Russia and capturing Frost. Dealing with the aftermath of Shaw’s attack on the facility and Darwin’s death. Erik persuading Charles to allow the kids to stay and fight. The week of training – Sean learning how to fly, Alex acquiring control of his energy blasts, Hank embracing his powers, Erik turning the satellite dish.

And, finally, the day they went to Cuba. Discovering Hank had taken the serum. The flight there. Erik lifting the submarine out of the water. The fight in which Banshee, Havoc, and Beast took on Angel, Azazel, and Riptide. Erik’s encounter with Shaw. The pain Charles felt by his telepathic connection with Shaw as the coin ripped through Shaw’s head. Erik emerging from the ruins of the submarine wearing the helmet. Charles being unable to read him. The missiles flying towards them. And then, the missiles stopping, turning. Charles begging Erik to be the better man, that the men on the ships are just following orders. Erik reacting to Charles’ statement. The missiles flying back towards the ships. Charles physically attacking Erik to make him stop. Erik elbowing Charles in the face. Charles persisting in telling Erik to stop, grappling to get at the helmet. Erik punching him in the jaw. Erik standing back up, keeping the remaining missiles on a path toward the ships. Moira firing at Erik as he deflects the bullets. Charles struggling to his feet. And then, Charles feeling the burn of the seventh bullet as it pierces his lower back. The missiles falling harmlessly as Erik rushes to Charles’ side and pulls the bullet out of his spine. Erik holding Charles in his arms and apologizing to him. Erik blaming Moira and choking her with her own dogtags. Charles telling Erik that Charles’ injury is Erik’s fault. Erik releasing Moira. Erik telling Charles they’re brothers, that they want the same thing. Charles informing Erik that no, they do not. The desperation and hopelessness they both feel as Erik realizes Charles is correct. Erik waving over Moira and standing up. Erik making his speech to the others. Raven walking forward, bending down to Charles. Charles telling Raven to go with Erik. Raven taking Erik’s hand. Angel, Riptide, and Azazel joining Erik. Raven telling Hank to never forget to be mutant and proud. Azazel teleporting the brotherhood away. Hank, Alex, and Sean running to Charles, who just then becomes aware that he can’t feel his legs.

The images slow as they segue into a brief coda—Sean’s death less than a year later at the hands of the government, Alex’s death two decades later, Raven’s transition into Mystique over the years, and Hank’s brutal death at the start of the war.

The images stop completely. Logan clutches the stone table, staggered by what he has just seen.

“That is what you must prevent, Logan,” Professor X says gravely. “The fate of the world rests on it.”

“Alright,” Logan answers, determined. “Alright.”

---

Logan lies on the stone table, attempting to psych himself up for the hardest mission he’s ever tried with the X-Men. He’s not just saving the world – he needs to save the past.

Kitty stands at the end of the table leaning over him, her hands on both sides of his head. “Basically your body will go to sleep while your mind travels back in time,” she explains to him. “As long as you’re back there, past and present will continue to coexist. But once you wake up, whatever you’ve done will take hold and become history. And for the rest of us, it’ll be the only history that we know. It will be like the last sixty years never happened. And this world, this war… the only person who will remember it is you.”

Logan listens somberly to Kitty’s speech as the weight of his task settles on him.

“All right Logan, I need you to clear your head and to stay as calm as possible,” Kitty finishes.

“What? What do you mean?” Logan asks, perplexed.

“If your mind gets rocky, it’ll be harder for me to hold you and you could start to slip between past and future,” Kitty simplifies.

“But what if I need to get a little rocky?” he persists, getting defensive.

“Think peaceful thoughts?” she suggests blandly.

“Peaceful thoughts…” mumbles Logan, unbelieving. “Do you have any good news?”

“Well, you don’t really age, so you’ll pretty much look the same,” she replies.

“You won’t have much time in the past,” Bobby cuts in. “The Sentinels will find us. They always do.”

“And this time we won’t be able to run,” Kitty adds. “We’ll have no escape. This is our last chance.”

“You really think this will work?” Magneto asks Professor X as they watch from a corner of the room.

“I have faith in him,” Charles answers.

“It’s not him I’m worried about,” Magneto corrects. “It’s us. We were young, we didn’t know any better.”

“We will now,” responds Professor X, confidently.

Logan shifts his head to look at the ceiling.

“See you all soon,” Logan says, his voice restricted. He closes his eyes.

“This might sting a little,” Kitty warns.

The process begins and strings of white light flow from Kitty’s hands into Logan’s head. Adamantium claws extend from Logan’s clenched fists as he lets out a blood-curdling scream.

Notes:

Basically, this is the scene from Days of Future Past in which Logan is sent back in time, but instead of sending him to 1973, they send to him to 1962, during the events of First Class.

Chapter 2: And the Night Shall Be Filled with Music

Notes:

This is the actual start of the story. Again, the italicized parts are direct transcriptions from the movie (this time X-Men: First Class).

1962

The sedan pulled up amidst scattered CIA agents and rubble. Charles Xavier hopped out of the front passenger seat and ran to where the remaining younger mutants were clustered on a concrete bench. Erik Lehnsherr and Moira McTaggert followed at a slower pace. “Raven,” Charles called urgently, and rushed to hug his foster sister. This had all been one giant fiasco. Darwin dead, Angel gone, and nothing but an escaped Shaw and a destroyed facility to show for it.

“ We’ve made arrangements for you to be taken home immediately,” Charles informed Raven, Alex, Sean, and Hank.

“ We’re not going home,” Sean contradicted.

“ What?” Charles asked, confused that this was a point of contention.

“ He’s not going back to prison,” Sean stated with a look of determination, gesturing at Alex.

“ They killed Darwin,” added Alex, as if trying to explain why they had to stay.

“ All the more reason for you to leave,” Charles responded, desperate to get them to understand how important this was. “This is over.”

“ Darwin’s dead, Charles,” Raven said, looking at him sadly. “And we can’t even bury him.”

Then the last thing that Charles would have expected happened as Erik spoke. “We can avenge him.”

Walking away from Raven, Charles said quietly, “Erik, a word please.”

Erik followed him to a corner of the rubble a few steps away.

“ They’re just kids,” Charles attempted to explain as he spoke in a low tone.

“ No, they were kids,” Erik disputed. “Shaw has his army, we need ours.”

Charles realized he couldn’t win against that argument, not if the “kids” themselves were resolved to stay. He turned and looked back at them. Did they understand what they were signing up for? Charles doubted it. But they stared back at him steadfastly, making it clear what they wanted. “We’ll have to train,” Charles told them. “All of us. Yes?”

“ Yeah,” Alex agreed, and murmurs of assent rose from the others as well.

“ Well, we can’t stay here,” Hank spoke up. “Even if they open the department, it’s not safe. We’ve got nowhere to go.”

Charles did not have to think for long about potential places to go. “Yes, we do,” he answered.

“Where?” Hank asked.

“Well, it’s a bit far from here,” Charles replied. “We’ll need some version of transport.”

“I can take care of that,” Moira said, and hailed a nearby CIA agent as she walked off. A few minutes later, a camouflaged army truck pulled up. “Pile in,” Moira called from the driver’s seat.

 

Seven hours later, they arrived at Charles’ childhood home.

“ This is yours?” Sean asked, awed at the sight of the Xavier mansion.

“ No, it’s ours,” Charles answered.

“ Honestly, Charles, I don’t know how you survived,” Erik teased. “Living in such hardship.”

Charles gave Erik a look that meant, “That’s not helpful,” but before he could come up with a verbal response, Raven stepped forward.

“ Well,” she said. “It was a hardship softened by me.”

Grateful to Raven for saving him the necessity of replying to Erik, Charles pulled her into a one-armed hug and kissed the side of her head.

“ Come on,” Raven told the entire group. “Time for the tour.” And she led the way into the mansion.

Charles was glad to see Raven so clearly in her element, and thankful that she had taken the spotlight. Raven led the team throughout the most important parts of the mansion; they found rooms for Moira, Sean, Alex, Hank, and Erik; and they even took a walk around some of the outside parts of the estate. However, it was a truly massive mansion, and after several hours of exploration, the sun had set, and Charles decided it was time for dinner.

About halfway through the tour, Moira had taken the truck to get supplies and she had come back with various items, including the ugliest grey sweatsuits Charles had ever seen and what she claimed was the perfect amount of food to feed seven people for a week. Charles briefly contemplated how she had determined this, but then he decided that she was a CIA agent and she had probably learned to be meticulous about nutrition and calories and whatnot from her training. They all gathered in the mansion’s elaborate dining room to eat a simple meal of spaghetti and meatballs that Moira had prepared.

The conversation consisted of speculation and brainstorming about what their training would be like, what Moira’s ability would be if she were a mutant, and why (or why not) Sean should cut his hair. Although Charles was happy to see that everyone was getting along and that they had recovered enough from Darwin’s death to joke around again, he was still willing to put a damper on the joyful atmosphere by reminding them how serious of a business stopping Shaw was going to be. He needed to make sure they all knew how difficult their job was.

Raven frowned at him when he brought it up. “Don’t spoil the mood, Charles. We can worry about that in the morning.”

“You all agreed to work hard to take down Shaw,” Charles reminded them.

“Raven’s right, Charles.” Again Charles was startled by Erik’s opinion. “We have time to train. Let them have their fun, just this one night.”

Charles backed down. He allowed the conversation to go on, until it somehow winded up at the topic of whether or not Erik was from outer space. Charles was done trying to make the group act or talk seriously, but nevertheless insisted the younger mutants contribute to the after-dinner clean-up. Fortunately, they were more helpful than expected, and soon everything was in immaculate order. Raven then claimed that it was a party, and therefore they all had to dance. Erik mysteriously disappeared at this point (Charles could telepathically sense him in his room, poring over the CIA files on Shaw,) but no one seemed to notice Erik’s absence as Raven grabbed Charles and pulled him out into the center of the spacious kitchen, which was serving as a makeshift dance-floor. Charles was greatly annoyed at Erik for leaving him with only Moira to watch over the teenagers and ensure that they didn’t burn the house down, until he discovered that dancing with Moira was actually rather nice, and he didn’t necessarily want Erik there to notice how much he enjoyed it.

The party seemed to drag on endlessly. It was around 10:00 when Charles put his foot down and adamantly demanded that they go to bed. Charles did not want the first day of training to be a disaster, and knew that they all needed ample sleep for everyone to give a peak performance tomorrow. He had to personally escort Raven to her room to guarantee that she was up to no further shenanigans, and by the time he finally arrived at his own room, he was exhausted and ready for bed.

Which is why he was highly irritated when the door opened, seemingly of its own accord, and he found Erik and Moira sitting in his room waiting for him. This was gonna be such a long night.

---

Erik had seen all that he’d liked of the CIA files on Shaw. There was no new information – at least, none that would be helpful; in fact, it was quite infuriating how little they knew of him and the danger he posed not just to the United States but to the world as a whole. Erik dropped the files back in his briefcase and closed it. Well, at least now he wouldn’t need to have a fight with Moira over why he had stolen classified documents from the CIA. He simply wouldn’t mention it.

Erik tossed the briefcase aside and sat down on the bed, contemplating what he should do now. He really wasn’t all that tired, and needed to have a chat with Charles in any case. He could sense Raven’s “party” still going on a floor below him – watches and belt buckles and zippers roaming around with the movement of their owners. Without really thinking, he stood up and wandered in the direction of Charles’ room. It was the only way to ensure that Charles couldn’t escape the conversation Erik wanted to have with him, and besides, Erik truly didn’t care if he were infringing on Charles’ private territory.

The door was closed, but unlocked. Erik let himself in and flipped on the light. The bedroom’s ornate décor was positively ridiculous; no wonder Charles had such an innocent, naive perspective of the world if this was all he’d ever known. Erik sat himself in a velvet wingback armchair facing the door, and waited. It wasn’t too long before he detected signs that the party was, finally, coming to an end – people were roaming a much wider area of the mansion than before, pieces of furniture were being returned to their proper places, and doors all over were swinging open and slamming shut.

Several moments later, he was startled to sense someone wearing a necklace in the hallway to Charles’ room. Perhaps it was Raven? No, not a necklace – it was dogtags. Moira. Hoping she wasn’t there for anything more than discourse with Charles, he stared silently as she entered the room. Moira did not seem surprised or perturbed by Erik’s presence, she merely nodded to herself and wordlessly picked a seat.

When the silence had dragged on long enough to be awkward, Erik spoke. “Party over?”

Moira nodded and laughed quietly. “Charles is working on it. He should be here soon.”

“And you’re here for… what exactly?”

“I wanted to have a chat. With both of you.”

“And you just magically knew I’d be here?”

“I suspected.”

Well, what did Erik know. Here he was, not only tolerating, but respecting a human. Erik straightened in his chair as he sensed Charles’ distinctive watch materialize from out of his range of casual perception and advance into the hall. Erik couldn’t resist reaching out with his powers and turning the knob as Charles approached the door.

---

Charles quickly scanned both the intruders’ minds as he stepped into his room. Erik’s mind, as always, was very chaotic, but Charles could feel that Erik had not anticipated Moira being there, and had wanted to speak with Charles alone. Moira was calm, ready for a discussion she had planned between all three of them. Charles inhaled deeply as he found a chair for himself. “So,” he began as he sat down. “Who goes first?”

Erik swept both his hands toward Moira in a deferring gesture, and Moira shifted, business-like, in her seat. Charles nodded at Moira to begin.

“Let me get straight to the point,” Moira started. “We are on a mission to take down Sebastian Shaw, a man who – well, we aren’t even sure how far his powers go. We’ve taken care of his telepath, but he still has a teleporter, someone who can summon tornadoes at will, and now Angel. Now, obviously, you both know that this won’t be a walk in the park – I’m not here to give you the ‘it won’t be easy’ routine. What I want to make sure of is you two. Are you both on the same page? What are you even here for? I’ve been going after Shaw and his Hellfire Club for a long time, and I can feel myself right on the verge of victory, but I wanna find out what else I’ve got myself into. Why were you in Miami, Erik? What’s your stake in this?”

“Well said,” Erik congratulated her. “If you must know, I have a personal vendetta against Shaw, and I –”

“And what is that, exactly?” Moira interrupted.

Erik looked slightly angry at being interrogated in this manner. Impulsively, he glanced down at his left forearm, which was covered by the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket. He hesitated and looked uncertainly at Charles. Charles nodded at him. Shrugging, Erik rolled up the sleeve to reveal the number, 214782, inked into his forearm.

Moira eyed it, curious. For a second, a look of confusion crossed her features, but then she nodded, leaning back in her chair and taking in a deep breath. Sympathy showed on her face, but Charles could tell she was trying to repress it. “Right,” she said quietly, “Shaw used to work for the Germans. Where did they put you?”

“Auschwitz,” Erik answered, smirking at her. “I believe I can safely say that I’ve been going after Shaw for longer than you have.”

Moira nodded. Erik continued. “As for Charles and I being on the same page, I imagine you’ve noticed that we’re both mutants. As such, I think we have pretty much the same desires and fears when it comes to how we interact with the rest of the world. And I presume that Charles’ reason for tagging along on this mission has something to do with his impeccable integrity, isn’t that right, Charles?”

Charles frowned at the way Erik had spoken. He seriously doubted that he and Erik had the same desires and fears on the subject of how the rest of society treated mutants, and he didn’t like how Erik had spoken disdainfully of Charles’ sense of morality. Addressing Moira, he said, “You don’t need to worry about Erik’s and my cooperation. Erik and I can work that out between the two of us. As for me, I’m helping you go after Shaw because it’s the right thing to do.”

Moira assessed them both carefully before nodding and staging her next question. “And the kids? Are we sure that they’ll be up for this? Can I be certain that you can guide them and lead them and pull them through this mess? Will you really be able to form a team, and not just a random group of people who happen to be mutants?”

“I can handle it,” Charles answered, a lot more confidently than he felt.

Moira looked over at Erik, who stared back, until finally she said, “Okay. That’s all I needed. I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll leave you boys to work out the details on how to make this operation successful.”

Charles was about to tell her that of course she could stay, when Erik caught his eye and subtly shook his head. Charles watched in disappointment as Moira exited the room.

Notes:

So the movie doesn't actually say where the "covert CIA base" is. But you do see Charles and Erik playing chess on the Lincoln Memorial, so I assume its somewhere near DC. Which means that then it would be about a seven hour drive (in 1962) from the base to Charles's mansion in Westchester County, NY.

Chapter 3: The Future is Bulletproof (The Aftermath is Secondary)

Notes:

The italics section in this chapter is not from any movie. I don't really like using blocks of italics to mean two different things in one fic, but it was the easiest way to do it.

“Fancy a game of chess?” Erik asked, several seconds after Moira had left.

“Always, my friend,” Charles responded, and crossed the room to retrieve one of his many chess sets.

As Charles worked on laying out the pieces into their proper starting positions, he peeked into Erik’s mind to see what kind of conversation Erik wanted to have. Charles was immediately drowned by a sense of alarm and fear.

“Erik, what’s going on?” Charles asked, without even explaining how he knew that something was wrong.

“The mansion gates just opened,” Erik replied, his voice full of warning. “A car’s pulling through.”

Charles’ fingers flew to his temple and he reached out with his mind and sensed a human – no, a mutant – just inside the gates. Charles could feel no nefarious intentions, but from this range, he couldn’t accurately tell what the man’s purpose in coming here was.

“He’s a mutant,” Charles informed Erik.

The chess game forgotten, they both jumped to their feet and rushed from Charles’ room to the closest staircase.

“He didn’t re-close the gate,” Erik told Charles as they neared the stairway.

“No one else is coming, at least, not that he’s aware of,” Charles said, catching on to what Erik was thinking. They hastily descended the stairs. “That’s strange,” Charles thought aloud as he probed the trespasser’s mind. “He’s come fresh from a war.”

“What war?” Erik asked, confused.

“Not a war I know about,” Charles answered as he caught glimpses of memories – memories of never-ending fighting, suffering, death, and destruction.

Charles stumbled and cried out as the emotional component of the memories hit him. Erik caught and stabilized him before he fell, and they continued toward the front exit together.

“What is it, Charles?” Erik inquired, impatient.

“So much pain,” Charles grunted. “And yet, oddly enough, a part of his mind seems familiar, somehow.”

“Familiar?”

“Like I’ve been inside it before.”

Erik opened the doors with a flick of his hand, and they walked out into the cool autumn night air. About 100 yards away, they could see the car’s headlights drawing nearer.

Charles sensed Erik bracing himself to stop the car should the trespasser choose to try to escape or run them over, but there was no need. The car crept forward, and as the stranger came closer, Charles’ telepathic connection with him grew stronger. “That’s also odd,” Charles remarked. “He was born in the early 1830s, but he considers himself to be almost 200 years old.”

“Born in the early 1830s, what kind of mutant are we dealing with here?” Erik wondered.

And then it clicked for Charles. “Wait! I know who it is, Erik. It’s just – he’s different. He’s not the same man he was before.”

“Well, who is it?”

“The guy in the bar who told us to go fuck ourselves,” Charles replied.

Erik let out a little laugh. “That guy?”

“Yeah,” Charles confirmed.

The car halted and turned off several yards ahead of them. The driver stepped out, and slowly walked toward them.

“Are you the Professor?” he asked Charles in a low, gruff, voice.

“You’re a Professor?” Erik blurted out.

“Yes, no, sort of, I guess, but not really,” Charles tried to answer both questions and ended up confusing everyone, including himself.

The man stared at him incredulously and tried again. “Are you Charles Xavier?”

“Yes. I can unequivocally state that my name is Charles Xavier,” Charles responded, glad that at least something about himself was perfectly clear.

“And you’re Mag– Erik Lehnsherr?” the man said, pointing at Erik.

Erik nodded. “And you’re James Howlett, right?” Erik asked.

“What? My name is Logan,” the man replied. “I assume it’s October of 1962.”

Charles had by now read enough of Logan’s mind to get the gist of what was happening. “Yes, October 16th to be exact. Come on, there’s no reason to keep standing out here in the cold.” Waving his hand in a beckoning motion, Charles turned and strode into the mansion.

Charles led them to a study on the same floor as his bedroom. When they had all three made themselves comfortable, Charles spoke up. “Would you kindly tell us your story, Logan, and why you are here?”

“My name is Logan,” Logan repeated. “And… I’m from the future.”

“The future?” Erik scoffed.

“Yes, the future,” Logan insisted. “In sixty years, the world’s gonna go to shit. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Erik looked over at Charles.

“He’s not lying,” Charles told Erik.

“Well, then he’s crazy,” Erik reasoned.

Charles shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Logan, go on, please.”

“That’s pretty much it,” Logan said. “Except for all the details, of course.”

“Yes, it would be nice to have those,” Charles shot back, getting frustrated.

“I don’t know,” replied Logan, seeming uneasy. “If I tell you what happened according to the future I know, and then that makes it not happen when it was actually supposed to, then I could screw this up worse than it already was.”

“Come on,” Charles argued, exasperated. “You can’t show up and say ‘I’m from the future’ and then not tell us what went wrong.”

“Let me guess,” Erik cut in. “Humans try to eliminate mutantkind?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Logan answered, evasively.

Charles was nearing his breaking point. He ostentatiously brought his fingers to his temple.

“Woah, easy there, bub,” Logan told Charles. “Look, the main thing we need to change happens in eleven years.”

“Then why are you here now?” questioned Erik, quite sensibly, Charles thought.

“Because what sets that off happens in a week.”

“Of course,” Erik said dryly.

After a moment of silence, Charles spoke up. “Details please?”

“Alright,” Logan consented. “So basically, in sixty years, there are these robots called Sentinels, and their mission is to kill off all the mutants. They were invented by this guy named Trask, who worked for the government. Apparently he was also involved in mutant experimentation. Well, anyway, in 1973, a mutant discovered what he was doing and assassinated Trask. She hoped that then the government would stop being interested in mutants, and the Sentinels would never be built. But, the opposite happened. They captured her, pushed through the Sentinel program, and used her mutant DNA to make the Sentinels more powerful than they could ever have been before.”

“And who was this assassin; how do we stop them?” Charles inquired.

“Her name was Raven. Raven Darkholme.”

“No. No. No, no, no, no, no,” Charles protested. “Raven would never kill anyone.” And Charles burst into Logan’s mind. This couldn’t possibly be true. Easily accessing Logan’s memories of Mystique, Charles couldn’t deny the truth any longer as he saw how merciless and skilled and deadly she was. And who was that old man who was always with her?

“I only ever knew her as Mystique,” Logan said. “She wasn’t only dangerous because she could transform into anyone she wanted, she was a very skilled fighter in her natural form.”

“So what do we need to change to make sure all this doesn’t happen?” Charles asked.

“Well, after you defeat Shaw–”

“We beat Shaw?” interrupted Erik.

“Yeah, you put a goddamn coin through his head,” Logan snarled.

Erik simply smirked in response.

“I’m sorry, back to Raven,” Charles said. “What happens to her?”

“As I was trying to say, she leaves you. Goes off and fights for mutant superiority or whatever.”

“But, why would she leave,” questioned Charles. “What could possibly turn her from the sweet, innocent girl I know today into a cold-blooded killer?”

“I think the question you should be asking is who,” Logan answered.

“Then who?”

“I knew him as Magneto,” informed Logan.

The entire world seemed to crash around Charles. This was all completely unthinkable.

Charles broke back into Logan’s mind. All that Professor X had shown Logan of 1962, Charles saw. He watched some events that had already occurred – the incidents in Miami and Russia, and the discussion between him and Erik about the kids that had happened earlier today. Then he saw events that had not occurred yet – the training, the argument with Erik during the chess game, and the entire debacle that was everything that happened that day in Cuba. But even as Charles was still reeling from the information that Erik would try to murder thousands of innocent Russian and American soldiers and then would take Raven and abandon a paralyzed and still bleeding Charles on a beach in Cuba, Logan was showing him more. All that Logan knew of the decades-long feud between Magneto and Professor X, all of Magneto’s schemes to end homo sapiens, all the fights that Logan contributed to in the many clashes between the two most well-known mutants in the world. Plus, the fate of Charles’s current teammates—Charles watched as Sean, Alex, and Hank all died before their time due to their mutant status, and as Raven transformed into a world-renowned mutant terrorist, rivaling only Magneto himself.And then, the war with the Sentinels, the fear, the death, the hiding, the constant running, the endless fighting, entire cities being razed to the ground, the world being reduced to ashes. And finally, it was only Logan, Professor X, and Storm, searching for Kitty Pryde and her group, if she was even still out there, but they couldn’t find them, not without Cerebro. And then, the turning point – Magneto showing up. Admitting that he was wrong all along, saying that the war was all his fault. Magneto helping Professor X build a version of Cerebro that could function from within the X-Jet. The debating, continual debating, over the specifics of the operation – when Professor X should be sent back to and what all needed to change. Logan never cared about the details of the deliberation – why each one argued so fiercely for their side of the dispute – but one particular discussion stood out to him, and Charles reached for that memory and watched it in its entirety.

It had been a little over a year since the X-Mansion had been taken. A year of running, hiding, fighting. Magneto had shown up less than a month ago, but it already felt like he’d been here longer than the rest of the time they’d been on the run. It was late, almost certainly past midnight, but Logan couldn’t sleep. He could hear Professor X and Magneto’s voices coming from the X-Jet control room. Usually he just blocked out their discussions, but now he was too tired to avert his attention from it.

“… changing the events in Cuba is the only way to make a truly wholesome future,” Professor X was saying.

“ I’m telling you, it is too dangerous to go back to 1962,” Magneto contended. “We cannot face the risk all over again of Shaw starting a nuclear war.”

“ We succeeded the first time, we can succeed again.”

“ We succeeded the first time because you weren’t strong enough to stop me from killing him. Do you have it in you to let me do so a second time, Charles?”

“ I could show you a better way–”

“ There was no better way, Charles!” Magneto interrupted vehemently. “And besides, even if there were, the man I was at the time – he was too stubborn, too focused on getting revenge. He would have stopped at nothing to get at Shaw. He could not be made to see the long-term effects his actions would have on the future.”

“ And after you killed him?” Professor X prompted.

“ After, he was too angry at humanity, too obsessed with the idea of mutant superiority. I was blind, Charles.”

“ That’s why I’ll allow you to see.”

“ Oh, you still don’t understand, old friend, do you?” asked Magneto, almost patronizingly. “You think I was blind out of ignorance.” Magneto chuckled humorlessly. “I wasn’t. I was blind by choice.”

“ By choice?”

“ I didn’t want to see, Charles. And when have you ever succeeded in making me do something I didn’t want to do?”

“ Which is why we must have hope.”

“ You always hope, Charles. And look where it’s got us.”

The memory ended. Charles moved on, watching the X-Jet arrive at the temple, the conversation take place with Kitty, how she said no human could survive being sent back sixty years, and Logan being chosen because of his healing factor. And then, Logan being sent back here, to the present. There was nothing left to see. Charles pulled out of Logan’s mind.

He found himself shaking. That was the future they had to prevent. But none of the decisions they needed to change were Charles’. They had all been Erik’s. Charles still couldn’t completely believe it. He’d thought he’d known Erik; he definitely knew Raven. It was all too wild – but before he could indulge anymore in denial, he felt his left wrist vibrating, more than the rest of him, anyway. Looking up, he noticed the curtain rod, the light fixtures, and the picture frames were all rattling. Charles glanced back down at his wrist; what was moving was his watch. It was at that moment Charles realized what he hadn’t been fully conscious of before – all that he’d taken from Logan’s head he’d been projecting. Everything he’d seen had been broadcast into the entire room. Well, shit.

Looking over at Erik, Charles saw he was breathing heavily and staring fixedly at the floor.

“Erik!” Charles called sharply. Erik flinched, eyes still focused downward, but the metal objects ceased their movement.

Charles sighed in relief, but he was immediately swallowed by panic. He had no idea what to do now.

Erik stood abruptly, his expression a mile-long stare.

“Erik?” Charles said the name for the second time in half a minute.

Erik said nothing, merely freezing where he stood.

Charles slipped into Erik’s mind and was hit by a maelstrom of emotion. Before he could begin to process any of it, Erik spoke in a low, dangerous voice.

“Get out of my head, Charles.”

Charles relented and did as Erik told him.

He watched carefully as Erik exhaled slowly. Then, without a glance at Charles, Erik turned and stalked out of the room.

“So… wh-what are we supposed to do now?” Charles asked.

Charles looked at Logan, who shrugged.

“I think we’re supposed to get some sleep, bub,” said Logan.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” Charles agreed heartily.

Chapter 4: I Touch the Fire and It Freezes Me

Charles showed Logan to a spare bedroom before heading back to his own. The first thing he noticed was the partially set-up chess game. Right. He had no energy to put it away.

Charles sank onto his bed, and buried his head in his hands. This had been such a long day. And receiving the news that the world was going to end in sixty years hadn’t even been the worst part. No, the worst part had been learning that according to someone from the future, Erik had killed Shaw, slowly and deliberately, with the full knowledge that Charles would feel every bit of Shaw’s pain as the coin went through his head. The worst part had been learning that Erik had then tried to murder hundreds of innocent people, and when that failed, he’d deflected a bullet into Charles’ spine and abandoned him. And if all that hadn’t been enough, it was learning that Erik had taken Raven and turned her into a monster like himself.

Charles stood and angrily swiped away a tear before it could fall down his cheek.

Betrayed. Charles felt betrayed. Erik was supposed to be his friend. And Erik had done all of that…

No. Erik had not done that. Erik would, if Charles didn’t do something about it. But it hadn’t happened. Not yet. And Charles was gonna keep it that way.

---

Charles woke, not at all well-rested, to an argument he sensed going on downstairs. In his groggy state, his telepathy only picked up on the bare minimum – emotions were high between two people who were in the kitchen. Entering someone’s mind to see precisely what was going on, Charles jumped out of bed in alarm. Moira had a gun on Logan.

Immediately, Charles froze both people in the kitchen.

Moira, Charles spoke through his mind. What’s going on?

Charles? Her voice in his head sounded panicked, but he could feel relief washing over her. Who is this man? Why is he here?

His name is Logan , Charles explained. He’s a friend, put the gun away.

When’d he get here? asked Moira.

Last night , Charles told her.

Did you know he was showing up? Charles could sense that Moira was confused.

No, I– look, I’m coming down to you. Don’t do anything till I get there.

It’s not like I could if I wanted to , Moira reminded him.

Right, sorry , responded Charles, and pulled out of Moira’s mind. He sent a quick message to Logan ( Hey, this is Charles. That’s Moira with the gun, this was all a misunderstanding, don’t do anything with those claws of yours, I’ll be there shortly ) and unfroze both him and Moira.

Charles hurriedly threw on some clothes and all but ran to the kitchen. When he arrived, he found Logan fiddling with some pancake mix and Moira still throwing suspicious looks at him. Thankfully, the gun was nowhere to be seen.

“Good morning,” Charles told them, announcing his presence.

“Hey,” Logan responded in his low voice, as he stirred milk and eggs into the bowl of mix. “Want some breakfast?”

“Yes, please,” Charles answered automatically. “Where are the others?” Charles asked Moira.

“Still in bed, I assume,” replied Moira. “So, who is this guy?”

“Oh, yes, this is– this is Logan, as I said. Er… he’s– he was one of the people we initially tried to recruit, but he, er, didn’t feel like he’d be much use at the time, and now he’s–”

“You’re a terrible liar, Charles,” Moira interrupted. Charles blushed. “Now, who is he, actually?”

Charles was trying to find a way out of the hole he’d dug for himself when Logan spoke.

“I’m Logan. And I’m from the future.”

“Is that the only way you know how to introduce yourself?” Charles couldn’t keep himself from saying.

“I just don’t see any reason to beat around the bush,” Logan stated, as he poured batter onto a griddle.

“You’re from where?” sputtered Moira.

“I think the word you’re looking for is when,” Logan quipped.

“You’re actually from the future?” Moira asked. She looked over at Charles.

“He’s telling the truth, Moira,” Charles verified. “He really is from the future.”

“Shit,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I know,” Charles concurred.

“So, I have about a million questions right now,” Moira said, “and I guess the most important is what’s it like, why’d you come back, and how?”

“Technically, that’s three questions,” Logan replied. “And the answers are: it’s like shit, to keep it from going to shit, and I actually didn’t come back in time, only my consciousness did. So this is just my body from sixty years ago that I’m… inhabiting.”

“Sixty years? Jesus, what’s it like in sixty years?”

Logan flipped a pancake. “I thought I already answered that,” he reminded her.

“Oh right. So, how did it go to shit?”

At this point, Charles cut in. He could sense the younger mutants waking up, and he did not particularly want all of them knowing where, or when, Logan came from. “That’s a long story, Moira, and I don’t think we have time for it right now. Why don’t we just eat breakfast, and we can explain everything to you later?”

Moira processed this for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay,” she agreed.

Charles heard footsteps from the hall, and then Raven, Alex, and Hank paraded in.

“Where’s Banshee?” Charles asked them.

“He’s comin’ along,” Hank told him.

Several seconds later, a bleary-eyed Sean stumbled in, and collapsed on a large, rectangular, coffee table.

“Who’s that?” Raven and Hank questioned Charles simultaneously, pointing to Logan.

“Oh, right, yes. Everyone,” Charles said, speaking up, “this is Logan. He’s er…”

“He’s a recruit who just came in last night,” Moira broke in, saving Charles. “He’ll be training with you, and he’ll be helping us when we fight Shaw.” Moira suddenly faltered and turned to Logan. “You are helping us fight Shaw, right?”

Logan smiled. “Yes, of course, why else would I be here?”

Charles had to take a deep breath. It was only then that he remembered the entirety of last night’s conversation with Logan. Logan wasn’t here to make sure they defeated Shaw; he was here to make sure Erik didn’t betray them, betray Charles. Thinking of Erik – where was he? Charles felt no guilt as he telepathically searched the mansion for the man who just the previous night he would have considered his best friend.

Erik was awake and sitting up in his bed. Charles tried to sift through Erik’s thoughts and emotions, but they were scattered and difficult to pick up.

Not coming to breakfast? Charles spoke inside Erik’s mind. Probably a smart move.

Charles could feel Erik’s anger at the intrusion, but Charles didn’t retreat.

What, you don’t want me to join the big happy family? Erik taunted.

Clearly we got some issues we need to work out between us , Charles responded. And I’d rather not bring the “happy family” into it .

Yes, we have got some issues , Erik agreed. For starters, you’re in my head without permission.

Erik paused, but Charles didn’t say anything to fill the silence. He didn’t try poking around Erik’s mind, either. He just waited, listening.

You know, if we’re gonna “work out our issues,” I’d suggest we begin with something basic, maybe mutual respect. Let’s say, you don’t mess around in here – Erik brushed his temple with his forefinger – and I don’t drop that chandelier on you.

I could stop you, Charles replied.

That’s not the point. Charles could feel a tinge of exasperation coming from Erik. The point is: I’m giving you two options. Either we can have a truce, or, we can fight it out.

And you promise there’ll be no metal mishaps of any kind if I leave you alone?

No words were said in reply but Charles could feel assent within Erik’s mind.

Alright. I believe we have a deal. Mind if I ask one last thing?

Erik’s anger had subsided, and Charles took the fact that it did not flare up again to mean approval.

You ever gonna come out of that hole you’re hiding in?

I thought you didn’t want me coming down there , Erik answered, dodging the question.

But I mean like, you’re not gonna stay in your room forever.

Okay, time to leave. Charles didn’t argue and pulled out of Erik’s mind.

“So, what’s your mutant name?” Alex’s question to Logan brought Charles back to what was happening in the kitchen.

“The Wolverine,” Logan answered, as he heaped fresh pancakes on a plate.

“I like that,” Raven said. “What’s your power?”

In response, Logan balled his left hand into a fist, and extended his bone claws.

“Awesome,” Sean’s voice came muffled from where he lay sprawled, almost completely facedown, on the table.

“Hey, where’s Erik?” Moira asked.

Charles very carefully pretended not to have heard her. Raven noticed.

“What, did you two have a lovers’ quarrel?” she teased. Charles was not in the mood to appreciate the joke. He grimaced and shook his head.

“Well, then I should check on him,” Raven reasoned. “He might be sick.”

“He’s not sick, Raven,” Charles said, automatically.

“Then, what happened, why isn’t he here?” Alex interrogated.

Charles looked to Logan or Moira for help, but Logan was setting the table in the dining room and Moira just shrugged and gave him a face that said “this is your problem” and maybe also a hint of “you’re telling me more when I catch you later.”

“If he doesn’t want breakfast, then he doesn’t have to come down,” Charles responded.

“This is ridiculous,” Raven snapped. “I’m gonna go see what’s going on with him.” She turned and made to exit the kitchen. Charles caught her by the arm.

“I don’t– think that’s a good idea,” he told her, panicking slightly. “Why don’t I just do it.” He tried to get past her, but she blocked him bodily.

“Because you already know what’s going on,” Raven answered what hadn’t even been meant as a question.

“No, I don’t, not really,” he tried to insist.

“Then why don’t you tell us what you do know?” Alex said, calmly.

Charles sighed and decided to go for a version of the truth. “Well, last night, when Logan showed up, er, Erik didn’t take all that kindly to his presence.”

“Why, did they know each other already?” Hank asked.

Logan came to Charles’ rescue. “One could say that,” he said, in a voice that did not welcome further inquiries.

“So, does this mean that Erik won’t be with us when we fight Shaw?” questioned Alex.

“No, not at all,” Charles replied confidently. “It just means we need to give him some space; he’ll come around eventually.”

“When’s eventually?” Raven asked.

“Hopefully soon,” Charles answered. “For now, let’s just eat.”

“Good idea,” Sean said, and led the way into the dining room.

After breakfast, Charles took Alex to the basement and had him practice hitting mannequins all morning. It did not go as well as Charles had initially hoped, and very little visible progress was made. Still, Charles was certain that he’d find a way for Havoc to control his powers, and, over lunch, Charles discussed with Hank ideas about how to do so. They ultimately agreed that Hank would try to construct a suit that could absorb and redirect the energy blasts. For the afternoon, Charles would focus on Sean, trying to pinpoint how exactly to maximize Banshee’s gift.

Erik had not shown up for lunch. Raven was growing increasingly concerned about him, and finally threatened to check on him herself unless Charles did. So now Charles found himself dutifully knocking on Erik’s door, wondering just how bad the encounter would go.

“Go away, Charles.” The voice from inside was wary and closed off.

“Erik, I just wanna see how you’re doing,” Charles said.

Silence. Charles resisted the urge to break into Erik’s mind, remembering his promise from earlier.

“Raven’s worried about you, she’s practically losing her mind. Please, Erik–”

“I said go away.” Charles could feel his watch and belt buckle beginning to vibrate. He sensed Moira and Raven, a floor below, freaking out as the chandelier in the dining room began to sway dangerously. Charles had little choice but to walk away. As he tracked down Sean, what bothered Charles the most about Erik’s behavior was that Charles didn’t know if he was disappointed by it or not.

Charles worked with Banshee throughout the afternoon, and felt like he had achieved considerably more with Sean than he had with Alex. By the end of the session, Sean could shatter glass on the first try from a wide variety of distances and angles.

Erik was not at dinner, and no one, not even Raven, said a word about it. Logan had by now won over the hearts of everyone, including Moira, with his dry wit and excellent cooking. Nonetheless, the atmosphere at the supper was heavy, and there was little joking around. They discussed business and nothing else.

When dinner was over, Moira dragged Charles outside where they could be alone for a private chat. As they walked around the extensive property that came with the mansion, Charles felt a little like he was a witness in a murder trial with the questions Moira threw at him.

“So this guy Logan is from the future?” Moira asked.

“Yes,” Charles answered laconically.

“But you don’t want the others to know?”

“How very perceptive of you.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Charles was confused.

“Why do you not want the others to know?” Moira clarified, exasperated at Charles’ slowness.

“Well, it would just be a lot of explaining, and if I told them he was from the future, then they’d want to know what happened, and I don’t necessarily want them knowing that and–”

“Yes,” Moira interrupted. “And what does happen, exactly?”

Charles let out a long sigh.

“Do we lose to Shaw?” Moira asked.

“No. That’s not it.”

“Then what is?”

Charles grimaced. “Erik tries to destroy all the Russian and American ships.”

Suddenly, Moira’s expression seemed to match Charles. “Why?”

“Well, they did send all their missiles at us.”

“But, so, does he succeed, does he kill all the people on the ships?”

“No. You shot at him. He deflected all the bullets, but it distracted him for long enough that he lost control of the missiles and they all fell harmlessly.”

“There’s something else you’re not telling me,” Moira said, almost accusingly.

“Then Erik left. Taking Raven. I still don’t know how he poisoned her against me.”

“No, that’s not it,” Moira pressed. “It’s something about me shooting at him. Does he kill me?”

Charles gasped at the way Moira posed the question, so nonchalantly.

“No,” Charles answered quickly. “As Erik’s deflecting the bullets, one goes into my spine, paralyzing me from the waist down for the rest of my life.”

“Oh. What happened after that?”

“Well, Sean is killed in less than a year by someone who discovers his powers. Alex dies in a couple decades in a war where he’s part of a mutant team that’s being exploited by the government. Raven joins Erik and they become the most feared terrorists on the entire planet. And Hank is one of the first casualties in the final human-mutant war that Logan comes from, the one that ends the world.”

Moira took all this in stride, but Charles could sense her heartache and determination. “Well, I guess we’re gonna have to prevent all that from happening, won’t we?”

“Yes. I guess we are,” Charles concurred.

“So… Erik knows all about this?” Moira asked, changing the subject slightly.

“Yeah. He was there when Logan arrived and when I read Logan’s mind, I kinda projected everything, and Erik must have picked up on it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have better control over your powers than to accidentally project what you’re reading?”

Charles shook his head, not at the question, but because this was something that had been puzzling him. “I’m still not exactly sure how it happened. I wasn’t really aware I was doing it at the time. However, I was in a highly emotional state, and I have noticed before, on multiple – highly embarrassing – occasions that that can cause issues with my telepathy. It’s not altogether inconceivable that my being agitated led to the projection, and if so, you’re absolutely right, I need to work on gaining more control over it.”

“What’s the other option if it wasn’t because you were agitated?” Moira inquired.

“Well,” Charles replied, frowning somewhat, “there’s a possibility that I was purposely doing it, subconsciously.”

“Hmmm. I guess that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself,” Moira said, dismissing that particular tangent. “So why’s Erik been hiding all day?”

“I don’t know, at least, not the specifics of it. He was very shaken when we learned it all last night. I tried to read his mind, but, he can tell when I’m in there, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to do anything that might – set him off.”

“You don’t think he already is?” Moira asked, surprised.

“Set off? God, no. If he were truly set off, it’d be a lot more than just chandeliers swinging.”

Moira nodded. “Do you have any idea when he’ll ‘come around’?”

Charles shook his head. “No. But I do know we can’t pressure him into it. He’ll have to decide to of his own accord.”

“Okay. I hope he doesn’t starve before then.”

Charles chuckled at this, but did not respond verbally. Moira had no further questions, and they walked back to the mansion in silence. It was long past dark, and Charles was more than ready for bed.

---

Erik sat with his back to the headboard, where he’d been sitting all day. He sensed cutlery moving around for the, what, third time that day. Must be dinner going on now. Erik didn’t even consider the possibility of joining the other mutants for their meal.

His thoughts had winded down from a vicious boil into a low simmer, and he was finally beginning to process everything he’d found out last night.

Apparently, Erik was going to make some decisions that he would later regret so much that he would send someone back in time to stop himself from making those decisions. However, his older self had not believed that his younger self would be capable of changing. And what all did his older self regret, anyway? Erik remembered the conversation Logan had overheard.

Magneto had claimed there had been no way to stop Shaw except for killing him. Erik not only wanted this to be true to justify his desire to kill Shaw, he also saw the logic in it. Shaw was an incredibly powerful mutant; Erik had seen it himself. So the older Erik did not regret killing Shaw. Which meant that Erik could continue planning on doing so without having any qualms about it.

So what did Magneto regret? Sending the missiles at the ship? Deflecting the bullet into Charles’ spine? Abandoning Charles? These all felt too obvious. It was like in chess; there are the moves that checkmate, and then there are the moves that set up the checkmate. Erik needed to find what set it up.

It must have to do with Raven. She had been the one to assassinate Trask afterall. Somehow, he had convinced her to go with him. Maybe, Erik just needed to do everything else the same, but leave Raven. But what had he done to persuade her to join him and his cause? Had he been successful in showing her that her natural form was something to be proud of, not something to hide from? If so, he didn’t want to change that. But what did he need to change, what should he do differently?

It had been so straightforward just yesterday. He was going to kill Shaw. Then he would invite Charles to join him on his quest to spread mutant dominance around the globe.

Now it was all one big mess. What he should and shouldn’t do.

He was startled out of his reverie by a knock on the door. Erik sensed that damn wristwatch and scowled darkly even though no one was there to see it.

“I thought I made it perfectly clear I didn’t want your company, Charles,” he said, his voice loud and flat.

The annoying posh British accent replied, “I know, but I brought you some food anyway.”

Now that he focused on it, Erik could sense a fork outside the door as well.

“I’m not hungry, Charles,” Erik lied.

The wristwatch disappeared, and the fork fell a few inches.

“It’s not Charles,” a female voice carried through the door.

“Raven?” Erik let out, jumping to his feet.

“Let me in, Erik,” Raven pleaded.

Erik hesitated, then, still by his bed, unlocked and opened the door.

He was disappointed to see, instead of blue skin, blue eyes. Raven stepped into his room and kicked closed the door behind her, carrying a mounding plate of potato casserole and roasted brussel sprouts along with a glass of water. Erik just barely stopped himself from running and snatching the food from her.

“Charles doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” Erik found himself asking.

Raven shook her head. She seemed self-conscious as she walked up and handed him the plate and cup. Erik took it from her and sat down in a chair, deliberated with himself for a moment, then gestured for her to sit as well.

She took the seat, but did not lean back in it. Erik dug into the food, attempting to keep some semblance of dignity as he ate as fast as he could.

“So,” Raven began. “You let me in but not Charles?”

Erik frowned but did not answer.

“I’m beginning to think your beef isn’t with Logan,” Raven said.

“What?” Erik asked through a mouthful of food.

“Yeah. This morning, Charles and Logan tried to give us the impression that you and Logan don’t get along,” Raven explained. “But that’s not right, is it? No, something happened between you and Charles.”

Erik continued shoveling casserole into his mouth.

“So, what is it? You invited me to sit down, so clearly you wanna talk.”

Erik swallowed. “Maybe I just like listening to you babble.”

Raven contemplated this while Erik went back to eating. “Okay, fine.” She changed tactics. “Is there anyone else in this mansion who you’d allow in here?”

Erik remained impassive.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Raven said and paused, but Erik did not respond. “So why am I special, Erik?”

Erik couldn’t answer the question even if he wanted to. The truth is he didn’t know.

“Well, if you don’t wanna talk about the mid-life crisis you seem to be going through, I’m sure there are lots of other topics of conversation to choose from.”

Erik almost choked on a brussel sprout. Raven was more funny than she knew. “How about your own?” Erik suggested.

“My own what?” she asked.

“Mid-life crisis. Might not be so mid-life.”

“What are you talking about?” inquired Raven.

Erik put down his fork and took a gulp of water. “Well, you’re fed up with your brother because he doesn’t understand your insecurities, and he views you as something fragile to be protected and not a warrior to fight by his side. You’re not much younger than him, and yet he treats you like a child, not because he thinks you are one, but because he wishes you were, and that pisses you off. You think you’re in love with Hank McCoy because he’s cute and he shares with you the aspect of a visible mutation that he hides from; he wishes to create a ‘cure’ for it, but you’re so not sure you wanna take it, because you wish more than anything that you could be comfortable in your own natural form. You wanted friends that were like you, and you found them after we recruited everyone, but when Darwin died and Angel left, you realized that the world was not yours to take from – it tries to take everything from you and so you have to hold on to what you’ve got as strong and as long as you can. I think all these factors add up to a crisis of sorts, would you not agree?”

Raven stared at him with her mouth open for about ten seconds before finding her voice. “How’d you know all that?”

“I may not be telepathic, but I am very perceptive.”

Raven sighed. “Well, we all got shit to deal with, don’t we?”

Erik snorted mirthfully. “Yes, we do.”

They sat in silence while Erik finished the remaining casserole on his plate. Raven stood, retrieved the dishes from Erik, and walked to the door.

“Thank you for the food, Raven,” Erik told her earnestly.

“No problem,” she answered. She was about to leave, when she turned around as if she had just remembered something.

“Hey,” she started, then waited till she was sure that Erik was listening intently. “Um, look, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Charles. But, as aggravating as he is to deal with, he really, really just wants to get along with everyone. So that means that, whatever it is between you two – well, it’s tearing him apart. And as worried as I am about you, I’m more concerned for him. Whatever you do, don’t let this thing drag on for too long, okay? Please? If not for Charles, then do it for me, for all of us. We need to be a team to win against Shaw. I just – I don’t want the others to feel like they can’t trust you.”

Erik shut his eyes and breathed, in and out. When he reopened his eyes, Raven was gone.

She was right, Erik realized, after several minutes of pondering her parting words. At this stage, trust was more important than truth. Whether he was actually trustworthy, he didn’t know himself.

Chapter 5: The Rearview Only Blinds You

As Charles walked the long hallway leading to his room, his thoughts centered mostly on getting to sleep as soon as possible. He was tired, so tired, not just from a long day of hard work, but also from having to process Logan’s disturbing revelations about the future. He reached his door and absentmindedly walked through.

Charles was startled when he saw Erik in an armchair, sitting upright in front of a coffee table which had a prepared chess board laid out on it. Alarm bells were ringing in Charles’ brain. Not only was he too tired to play chess, he also wasn’t ready for this – clearly Erik wanted to have a conversation about Logan’s future. But he couldn’t turn Erik away; he could never turn anyone away. Not saying a word, he crossed the room, and sat facing Erik on the other side of the board. Erik picked up two pawns, one black and one white, and shook them together in his hands. He then held out his fists to Charles, who lightly tapped Erik’s right knuckles. The hand opened to reveal the white pawn, and no shifting of the board was necessary for play to commence.

Charles bent over and moved his king’s pawn two squares forward. Erik responded with the Sicilian defense, and soon Charles was lost in the movement of the pieces and the ever-changing dynamics of the game. He refused to speak first; Erik had invited himself into Charles’ room – Erik should have the courage to start the conversation he so obviously wanted to have. So the game continued in silence, Charles in his weary state barely being able to hold his own against Erik, who was plainly more alert than Charles. The game moved forward and they traded two pawns each, along with Erik’s white square bishop to one of Charles’ knights. Erik sacrificed a pawn to gain position. Charles offered a queen trade, but Erik refused. Charles was trying to find a countermove to Erik’s knight forking his queen and rook when Erik finally spoke.

“You’re afraid.”

“I can find a way to climb out of this,” he replied, knowing he probably couldn’t.

Erik placed his hands on the table. Charles could practically hear Erik smirking and saying in his head, no you can’t . But what Erik said aloud caught Charles off-guard. “I’m not talking about the game, Charles.”

“What am I afraid of?” Charles asked, genuinely curious as to what Erik was thinking.

“Apart from me taking Raven and leaving you paralyzed on a Cuban beach after trying to kill hundreds of men who were ‘just following orders’?” Erik retorted, his lips curved in a tight, half-smile.

Charles winced. Just thinking of the possibility of Cuba playing out as it did in Logan’s future… “Yes, apart from that,” Charles said.

Erik put his hands together and looked down at them. His mouth worked in an odd motion. He seemed just about to say something but then he stopped and leaned back in his chair. He remained like this while Charles returned to contemplating his next move, finally deciding something on a whim. Wrong move , Charles could hear Erik saying internally.

“You’re afraid of--” Erik apparently couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence. Instead, he put Charles in check. Charles was too tired to find the perfect countermove, and was, in any case, more curious about what Erik was gonna say than he was concerned with winning. Thus, play continued for several more moves, while Charles’s situation became increasingly desperate.

They could both see that Erik was just one or two steps away from ending the game. Charles knew better than to concede at this moment. Erik had had the game for a long while. Instead, before Charles chose whatever pointless decision he could in a hopeless endeavor to stave off Erik’s ultimate victory, Charles looked up and examined Erik’s face.

“Are you ever gonna spit it out, or do I have to read your mind?” Charles finally said, annoyed. Erik kept his expression blank as Charles frustratedly relocated a pawn. One move later and Erik’s rook, knight, and bishop declared Charles checkmate. Charles threw down his king in sign of defeat and stared beggingly at Erik.

“You’re afraid of me,” Erik said, so quietly Charles had to strain to hear.

Charles couldn’t deny it without lying.

“You’re afraid of me,” Erik repeated, a little louder. “You’re afraid that I won’t listen, that I’ll just do what I did before. You’re afraid not only of what I’ll do, but what I’ll turn into.” Erik stopped. Charles waited for him to go on as Erik picked up a chess piece and looked questioningly at Charles, challenging him to a rematch. Charles shook his head. Erik shrugged, and started carefully putting the pieces away. Charles joined, and Erik resumed talking, this time in a wavering voice.

“And you’re not just afraid that I’ll turn into that person, you’re afraid that I already am. And me – I’m afraid of myself too. I’m terrified that I’ll become – Magneto. But you wanna know what I’m even more afraid of?”

“What?” Charles asked, obligatorily.

“That I was right the first time. That you were wrong about – all of it. That if I try to change it – change me – then we’ll end up with something worse. Logan talked as if I’m the only one who has to alter anything, that I was the one who messed up his future, but… what if he’s wrong? What if it’s actually you who needs to change? What if there’s something that we’re missing?”

“Erik,” Charles stated firmly. “I can’t answer those questions for you. In a week, you’ll have to make some decisions. I can’t make those decisions for you. This isn’t something I can convince you of, no, it’s something you have to work out for yourself.” Charles paused, trying to find the correct words to say. “You’re not the only one who made mistakes, Erik. I don’t know what I did to Raven to lose her, but… look, there’s a reason she did what she did. I don’t think it was only you who influenced her actions.”

“How very reassuring.” Erik had regained his cool composure, but now his voice sounded detached.

Charles sighed. “Erik, you’re my friend. That hasn’t changed; I don’t want that to change. You don’t need to feel like you have to hide from me.”

Erik exhaled audibly. It wasn’t a sigh or a huff; it wasn’t even scoffing. It sounded pained and wearied. “I wasn’t hiding from you. I was… I guess I was trying to hide from myself.”

“And how’d that work out for you?” Charles questioned.

“Well, I’m here now. So not too well, I suppose.”

Charles didn’t understand what Erik was trying to say. “What do you mean?”

Erik looked at Charles and smiled just slightly. “I can never hide from myself around you.”

Charles was surprised by this display of raw honesty from Erik, and he couldn’t find anything to say in reply.

“You know, you should thank Raven,” Erik said as he closed the box holding the chess pieces. “She came to my room and had a chat with me a couple hours ago. She brought me dinner. I don’t think I’d have come here if it hadn’t been for what she said.”

“What did she say?” Charles asked.

“She said that all you want is to get along with everyone and you can’t stand it when something gets in the way. She said that we have to get past our differences if we hope to beat Shaw.”

“Well, she’s not wrong.”

“Yes,” Erik agreed, but he seemed distracted.

“What is it, Erik?” Charles inquired, concerned. “And don’t tell me another time-traveler has shown up; I can’t take that happening two nights in a row.”

Erik laughed quietly. “No, I was just wondering who had made that potato casserole; it was very good.”

“Oh, that was Logan. Apparently he’s now our self-designated cook. If you don’t wanna miss any more of his meals, maybe you could show up to them next time?”

Erik grinned. “Maybe I will.”

Chapter 6: The Halftime Air Was Sweet Perfume

Little happened the next day as far as training went. Banshee and Havok were still waiting on their suits, and Hank was working all day on designing and constructing them. Charles spent a lot of the morning with Hank in the lab, watching over the progress, giving tips every now and then.

Erik had appeared for both breakfast and lunch, and Charles had immediately shut down all talk about his absence the previous day. However, Charles had also noticed Alex and Sean giving suspicious looks when Logan and Erik seemed to get along fine, and Charles wondered how long the story of there being a feud between them would hold up. But Charles chose not to worry about this, deciding that he could deal with that if and only if he absolutely had to.

Because they couldn’t work on activities involving their powers, Logan suggested in the early afternoon that everyone except for Hank have a workout session. Although Charles attempted to wriggle out of it by saying he needed to help Hank in the lab, Erik privately reminded him that refusing to participate would make him look lazy and uncommitted in the eyes of their trainees.

“Alright,” Charles reluctantly agreed. “But if I catch you using your powers to cheat, I’ll make you spend the rest of your life believing you’re a seven-year-old girl.”

They used a ground-floor spare room that Raven and Logan had worked on converting into a gym the day before. There was minimal equipment – just some weights and a few exercise mats – but they made do with it.

After an hour of what he considered to be intense exercise, Charles found an excuse to leave early when Moira popped in to tell them she needed to make another supply run because apparently Logan showing up had messed with her perfect amount of food she had bought two days before. Charles “offered” to go with her, and he wasn’t sure if the look Erik gave him meant “you just wanna escape the workout” or “you just wanna be alone with Moira,” but he didn’t care.

Moira accepted his offer, and Charles enjoyed himself immensely as he watched Moira pick out precise quantities of carefully selected grocery items. She complained constantly about how her calculations had been thrown off, and decided that she would just round up whenever she hit a snag because “Logan eats enough for two, anyway.”

When they returned to the mansion, they found a human tower being constructed on the lawn. Erik and Logan were serving as bases, their arms interlocking. Alex and Sean stood on their shoulders, using the same position. Raven was attempting to climb to the very top. She had a foot on Logan’s right and Erik’s left shoulder, and was in the process of crawling up Sean and Alex. Charles ran over to them, and was about to call the whole thing off, when he realized with relief that the three wannabe acrobats were wearing harnesses with plenty of metal buckles. What they were doing was still stupid, but Charles wasn’t going to stop them now that he was sure no one would be hurt.

“Erik, give me a boost,” Charles could hear Raven saying.

Raven defied the laws of gravity as she rose in the air several feet. She was now kneeling on Alex’s shoulders, but Alex was crumpling and swaying under the load.

“Hold him steady, Erik!” Sean called.

Alex stopped wobbling, and Raven clambered to her feet, spreading her weight between Sean and Alex. She slowly stood straight, and finally seemed to find her balance.

“Okay, Erik, let go,” Raven directed.

The whole tower quivered for several seconds, but then regained its steadiness.

“Wow,” Moira said under her breath, as she stood beside Charles.

“Woohoo!” Raven celebrated loudly as she spread her arms. Charles and Moira started clapping.

Suddenly, the whole thing toppled. Charles watched in unwarranted fear as Raven, Sean, and Alex free-fell for only a split second before they were safely lowered to the ground.

There were smiles all around as Logan and Erik pulled away from each other, and Raven ran from person to person, embracing everyone. Sean and Alex were cheering, and they both seemed extremely proud of themselves. However, Charles couldn’t resist giving Logan and Erik a withering look, as if they were naughty schoolboys.

Erik stared back at him. “What?” he asked guiltlessly.

Charles didn’t even answer; he just accepted Raven’s hug as a grin came back to his face. It was good to see everyone working together and getting along so well.

The jovial spirit was maintained throughout dinner, and it was only increased by Hank’s announcement that there was little left to be done on Havok’s and Banshee’s prototype suits. After supper, they all congregated in Raven’s favorite sitting room and chattered amiably.

The conversation jumped through a variety of topics, all harmless and most of them hilarious. Eventually, however, it turned to Logan’s true identity and why Erik was “scared” of him. Although neither Erik nor Logan looked uncomfortable, Charles was.

“Alright, everyone,” Charles said, standing up. “It’s getting late; I think it’s time for us all to go to bed.”

Hank looked at Charles with an all-too-knowing expression, but it was Alex who spoke first. “You’ve been avoiding this conversation all day. When you gonna level with us?”

“It’s not him who needs to level with you,” Logan answered.

“Well, then, you level with us,” Sean added his voice to the mix.

Charles glanced over at Logan, who seemed ready to explain everything. Don’t tell them the truth about yourself , Charles telepathically told him.

Why the hell not? Logan retorted silently.

Because if they focus too much on the big picture, they’ll lose sight of what’s in front of them , Charles replied.

Logan seemed to consider this for a few seconds, then nodded at Charles. Logan spoke to the entire room. “Basically, Erik and I have a… history. And it’s not a pleasant one.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what we picked up yesterday morning,” Hank said, seeming eager for more information.

Erik leaned forward in his seat and Charles was surprised when he started talking. “So, when Logan showed up, it was a bit of a shock. I must admit, I was rather displeased at his appearance at first. However, Charles and I had a chat about it last night, and, uh, we both agreed that it is for the best. We’re all adults; Logan and I are capable of handling our… rift in a mature fashion. There’s no reason to be worried about our cooperation. For now, at least, we have the same goal.” Charles was concerned at how easily and credibly Erik had lied. Alex, Hank, and Sean accepted Erik’s version of events without difficulty, and while Charles was relieved he would not have to invent a tale himself, the deception didn’t sit right with him.

Charles could tell by glancing at Raven, though, that she was not convinced by Erik’s smooth storytelling. She did not say anything; she merely eyed Erik appraisingly, and departed the room without a word. Alex, Hank, and Sean followed shortly thereafter.

“What was that?” Charles asked Erik when they had left.

“That?” Erik said. “That was me covering your ass. A thank you would be appreciated.”

“You – covering my ass? – A thank you – you lied!” Charles was finding it hard to express his vexation.

“No,” Erik disputed, his voice calm as ever. “I simply refrained from stating the whole truth. What were you gonna do, Charles?”

Charles didn’t know how to respond, so Erik went on. “You clearly don’t want them to know the truth about Logan. Else you would have told them yesterday. Now, I have laid to rest their curiosities and their fears with a few harmless words that weren’t even false. Go ahead; thank me.”

Charles tried to sigh, but it came out more like a huff. “Suit yourself,” Charles said, conceding Erik’s point. “But I could have taken care of it myself.”

Erik looked at Charles doubtfully and was about to answer, but Logan beat him to the punch.

“Sure you could’ve.”

Charles rolled his eyes.

“Okay, boys,” Moira spoke. “Why don’t we all do as Erik said we were capable of doing, and act like adults?”

Charles nodded. “Alright, yes, thank you Moira. Let’s do this formally. I, Charles Xavier, challenge you, Erik Lehnsherr, to a game of chess.”

“Oh my–” Moira started, exasperated. “That is NOT what I was meaning!” But she was grinning as she stomped out of the room in protest.

Erik watched Moira leave, then turned to Charles and smiled. “Do we do it at dawn? Do we have to pick seconds?”

“No,” Charles answered. “I was thinking, we’d just say that whoever loses has to admit that they were wrong in this little argument.”

“Well then, I accept your challenge.”

Thirty minutes later, Charles found himself thanking Erik for covering his ass.

 

The third day of training featured Sean falling out of a window and Alex starting practice with his own specially-designed suit. Alex’s semi-success significantly bolstered his confidence in achieving mastery over his powers, whereas Sean’s dismal failure sent him spiraling into even greater apprehension about using his abilities to fly.

Hank met with Charles outside the mansion the next afternoon. They started out with some preliminary exercises – for example, Charles instructed Hank to swing across the monkey bars hanging from his feet. He was reluctant at first, but when Charles persuaded him to try them, Hank accomplished all the tasks given him with ease. They then moved on to racing, and when Charles was finally satisfied enough with Hank’s growing comfort around the physical aspect of his mutation, Charles sent him back to the lab.

---

Erik watched from a window as Hank performed quasi-gymnastics per Charles’ directions. The kid truly possessed an amazing gift; the things he could do with it were extraordinary. However, from what Erik had observed of him over the past few weeks, it seemed that Hank’s crippling insecurities were driving him to waste his natural power.

Erik had little hope for Hank’s self-esteem. He had wallowed in shame for too long. Raven, on the other hand… Erik could convince her that her natural form was nothing to be ashamed of, was beautiful even. He knew he could because Logan had shown him that he’d done it before.

But what if doing so would turn Raven into the woman who assassinated Trask? Did he dare take the risk? Or would he leave Raven afraid of herself because of the chance that it would keep her from starting a war which would end the mutant race?

No. Raven didn’t assassinate Trask because she learned to be comfortable in her own skin. That had merely been a step along the way. The real reason she had killed him was because Erik had led her into the belief that mutants were superior to humans. A belief that Erik still held to firmly, by the way.

So Erik could still convince Raven of the exquisite creature she was without fear that she would inevitably start world war three sixty years from now. All he’d need to do is not invite her on his quest for global mutant domination, leave her with Charles, and hope Charles wouldn’t undo the good Erik had done. And if she ever got the idea of killing Trask, Charles would keep her from it at the very least.

Erik was pulled out of his revelry at the clinking sound of a weight bar being lifted off the rack. Turning, he saw Raven on the bench press. Oh, this was such a good opportunity.

He didn’t even use a hand gesture as he ripped the bar from her hands and left it floating several feet above her head. For good measure, he knocked down the stands as well. Raven gasped and flung herself up on her elbows as she noticed Erik slowly walking towards her.

“If you’re using half your concentration to look normal,” he said as he approached, “then you’re only half paying attention to whatever else you’re doing.” He stopped for the full effect of his next sentence. “Just pointing out something that could one day save your life.”

His eyes left her face and found the bar hovering above her. With no warning, he let the bar drop.

Raven swiveled her attention back towards it, gasping once again. As her arms shot up to catch the bar, Raven’s whole body transformed in a flash from her usual facade to her genuine self – scaly blue skin, yellow eyes, red hair. She truly was marvelous.

She looked back at Erik, an expression of fear and hurt on her face.

“You want society to accept you,” he spoke, in gentler tone than before. “But you can’t even accept yourself.” He turned and left the room.

Chapter 7: So Beautiful, the Space Between (A Painful Reminder, and a Terrible Dream)

Charles woke the next day in a slight panic – they only had two days before their fight with Shaw. Of course, he only knew this due to information given to him from the literal future. He wondered vaguely how much of Logan’s timeline they’d already altered, and how much more it would take to truly prevent it. He even briefly considered whether in their efforts to avoid the disaster that was Logan’s timeline they were inadvertently leading the world to something worse, even though he could not imagine what that would possibly be. Oh well. He shouldn’t be worrying too hard about destroying the world and instead he should focus on what was currently the best shot at saving it. Thus, he worked with Alex for several hours, until, at last, he seemed to have gained an adequate mastery of his powers.

That night, Charles, Erik, Logan, and Moira sat in a study, discussing how well this entire change-the-future-for-the-better plan was actually going.

“I still don’t understand why we haven’t told the others what’s actually going on here,” Logan said, to Charles’ great discomfort.

“I told you, it would make them lose focus on the mission,” Charles answered him, irritated.

“I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong, but he has a point, you know,” Erik told Charles. “You can’t honestly think it’s right to keep this from them forever, and if they are gonna find out, then, well, it’s probably best to tell them sooner rather than later. Besides, aren’t you the one who’s always going on about honesty and trust and all that?”

“This is bigger than that, Erik,” Charles countered. “Our decisions will shape the events of the next few days, and ultimately, the future of the entire world. Currently, the power for change, true change, rests in our hands. We can’t risk that, even if it means keeping the truth about this situation to ourselves.”

“So you’d deny people free will in order to get the outcome you want?” Erik asked.

“No one’s denying free will to anyone. They made their decision before, of free will. If anything, if we tell them about Logan’s future, it will be denying them the freedom to make the choice they wanted in peace.”

“And what about me, Charles? What about my choice? You know what my choice was before. Should I have been allowed to make that “in peace”? And Raven? She chose to kill Trask. But now we decide that she’s not allowed to make that choice anymore because it will end the world. Where do we draw the line?” Erik’s voice was colder, more closed off.

“You chose--”

“To make the wrong choice?” Erik interrupted. “Or was it just a choice that you disagree with?”

“Trying to kill hundreds of innocent men is --” Charles was cut off again.

“Innocent?” scoffed Erik, his tone scathing. “Honestly, it’s hard to believe you sometimes, Charles, you can’t seriously believe that those men were – are – truly innocent.”

As important as this conversation was, it was getting into some very dicey territory. It was teetering on the edge of “will Erik actually choose mass murder” – a discussion Charles and Erik had very carefully avoided ever since their tentative reconciliation a few nights before.

“Look, that’s not the subject at hand. Logan was sent back in time by both our future – previous future – selves. The burden is laid on us to fix what we broke.”

Erik smiled grimly at this. “You’re beginning to sound a lot like me, what with the superior, arrogant attitude.”

Before Charles could respond, Moira chimed in. “I actually agree with Charles on this one. I think it’s better that the others not know for now. If we tell them, they’ll naturally have questions, and, I mean,” Moira turned to Logan, “where you come from, they died right? I don’t think that’s something we need to be burdening them with.”

“Thank you, Moira,” Charles told her sincerely.

“Well, it seems to be a tie,” Logan said. “Two for, two against.”

Erik stared impassively at the wall for a full thirty seconds before turning to Charles and nodding to him. “Fine,” he conceded. “We won’t tell them. But, if any of them, especially Raven, ask any more probing questions, I will tell them the whole truth.”

“Alright,” Charles agreed.

“And what about Hank?” Logan asked.

“What about him?” responded Charles.

“Well, he’s currently working on his ‘cure,’” Logan explained. “Tomorrow night, he will take it, and he’ll turn into the Beast.”

“Good for him,” Erik said matter-of-factly.

Charles tried not to let that influence him as he thought about this. He knew how much the “cure” meant to Hank, but at the end of the day, Hank’s decisions were his own. Hank was aware that attempting to modify a mutation was an incredibly complex business, and at the end of the day, he would have to face the consequences of his actions. It wasn’t like Hank would die from it; it was not Charles’ job to interfere.

“I believe he’ll just have to deal with it,” Charles stated eventually. “You did say the formula made him stronger, yes?”

Logan nodded in confirmation, while Erik, for some reason, chuckled.

“Well, if we’ve got the future all planned out nice and easy, then I’m off to bed,” Moira said. Logan immediately followed her out the door, while Charles and Erik habitually stayed for a round of chess, during which they talked about everything and nothing at all.

---

The next day, Charles finally succeeded in convincing Sean to fly. Well, maybe more accurately Erik pushed him off a 100-foot radio telescope, but Charles still saw it as his accomplishment. The training had gone exactly according to plan – Alex, Sean, and Hank knew how to make the most of their abilities, and everyone was in the correct mindset to face Shaw.

Well, everyone who was under his leadership. Erik had no leader. And while he had trained with the rest of the team, Charles had not done any one-on-one training with him. It was time to change that. If they were going to Cuba tomorrow…

But when Charles told Erik that it was time for some training of his own, this had most certainly not been what he was picturing. Somehow, Erik had acquired a gun, and Charles now found himself pointing said gun at his best friend, finger on the trigger. Erik grinned and leaned into the barrel, but Charles lowered the weapon, shaking his head.

“No, no, I can’t, I’m sorry,” Charles explained. “I can’t shoot anybody point blank, let alone my friend.”

“Oh, come on,” Erik argued, grabbing Charles’s hand and placing the muzzle back to his forehead. “You know I can deflect it, and you’re always telling me to push myself.”

Charles pried his hand free from Erik’s grasp. “If you know you can deflect it, then you’re not challenging yourself,” he retorted. He look at the gun in frustration, trying to find the correct words for the situation. “Whatever happened to the man who was trying to raise a submarine?”

Erik deflated at this. “What, I can’t–” Charles handed back the gun, partly to rid himself of the thing, and partly as a sign of trust. “Something that big, I need the situation, the anger,” Erik expounded.

“No, the anger’s not enough.”

“Well, it’s gotten the job done all this time,” Erik stated darkly.

“It’s nearly gotten you killed all this time,” Charles disputed. “Hey, come on, let’s try something a little more challenging.” He led them to the fence several yards away. The giant radio telescope sat in the distance, looking to their left.

“See that?” Charles gestured toward it. “Try turning it to face us.”

Charles waited while Erik tried and failed. “You know, I believe the true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity. Do you mind if I…” He brought his fingers to his temple and wiggled them to mime telepathy.

Erik shook his head and Charles reached into his mind. He didn’t invade it; he had no intention of taking control or even reading Erik’s current thoughts. And while Charles tried to be as gentle as possible, this wasn’t an entirely non-intrusive procedure. He went straight for Erik’s memories, not sifting through them one-by-one, but simply looking, looking for the correct one. With each memory, an emotion – many times multiple emotions – was attached, and damn if they weren’t almost all negative. All the ones that were at the forefront of his mind certainly were, and Charles had to do some digging to find anything truly positive. He kept searching, and yes! He’d found it, something truly shiny. The memory was dusty, as if it had sat on a shelf for years and never been touched. But when Charles took it out and brushed it off, it positively glowed, brighter than anything else in Erik’s mind.

It was of Erik’s childhood, before the war, before the Nazis, before Shaw. Him and his mother, as she lit the center candle of the menorah the last Hanukkah they would ever spend together. Everything was peaceful and quiet, as it should be. And he was loved. And as Charles brought the memory to the forefront of Erik’s mind, he shared in all of the turbulent emotion which Erik felt at seeing it – the nostalgia, the warmth, the heartbreak, the desperate longing. But Charles stayed grounded, holding both their minds steady as a tear trickled down Erik’s cheek, followed by one down Charles’s own.

“What did you just do to me?” Erik asked, his voice low.

“I accessed the brightest corner of your memory system,” Charles answered. “It’s a very beautiful memory, Erik, thank you.”

“I didn’t know I still had that,” admitted Erik, shaking his head slightly.

“There’s so much more to you than you know,” Charles stated sincerely. “Not just pain, and anger. There’s good too, I felt it. And when you can access all that, you will possess a power no one can match. Not even me.” He reached out and patted Erik’s arm. “So come on, try again.”

Erik turned back to the radio telescope and extended his hand toward it as another tear escaped his eye. Slowly, the huge hunk of metal turned toward them and Charles’s heart swelled at Erik’s success. Erik fell laughing onto the wooden fence; he had actually done it. “Well done,” Charles told him warmly.

“Hey,” Moira called from one of the mansion’s many windows. “The President’s about to make his address.”

They all gathered in front of the television as JFK announced the political situation. Charles supposed that it would have been news for him if he weren’t cheating with knowledge from the future, but he thought he did a fine job pretending that he was just hearing it for the first time. God knows Erik did. Damn, that man could really act.

And now, it was settled. They were leaving for Cuba first thing in the morning, and Charles was no closer to learning what Erik’s plans for it were.

Chapter 8: The Lady, or the Tiger?

“So, have you made up your mind?” Charles asked Erik, as he nudged a pawn forward.

“About what?”

“Tomorrow. Cuba. Shaw. Have you decided anything? What will you do if missiles are sent at us?”

Erik was silent briefly as he contemplated his move. “Why don’t you just…” He raised his hand to his head and waved it around.

Charles was slightly confused – was this a deflection or an invitation? “I won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with,” he declared.

“Oh, well in that case…” Erik repositioned a bishop while shaking his head, but suddenly his face changed and he spoke quietly. “I don’t mind.”

“What?” said Charles, blindsided.

“Go ahead, read my mind,” Erik confirmed.

“You sure?”

Erik nodded, smiling grimly. “Just don’t see what I have planned for the game.”

“Alright,” Charles agreed, and he placed two fingers on his temple.

Charles entered Erik’s mind, feeling no anger or even fear concerning his presence. In fact, Erik seemed to be emotionless regarding Charles’s intrusion, which was strange, since Erik was usually firm in his dislike of his mind being examined. There was, however, a large amount of anxiety and nervousness, and when Charles probed into this, he found enthusiasm, dread, and shame. Enthusiasm at the prospect of finally defeating Shaw. Dread of the unknown – what would come after. And shame, shame that if the natural order of events had taken place, he would have been the cause of Charles’ injury; he would have been to blame for the group’s fracture; he would have abandoned his friend in the name of – what? A cause, a noble cause, which he still believed in. But now he knew for certain that Charles would never agree with him on it. He had been living in denial, bizarrely hoping that Charles would one day just realize that Erik was right, but now Erik saw clearly. They did not want the same thing and it pained him, and the pain burned him, and that pain now hit Charles deeply, so much that he almost backed out of Erik’s mind. But Charles was here on a mission and he needed to complete it.

Carefully, he looked deeper into Erik’s psyche, but, at first glance, all he could find was more confusion and unrest. Then, he located it, Erik’s memory of what Charles had projected into his mind that fateful night when Logan had first arrived. Charles reached for it and investigated Erik’s thoughts surrounding it. The thoughts whirled by, they were loose, floating freely, but Charles found a few that had been constructed into actual ideas.

Erik had never trusted Charles. Erik wasn’t sure if he did now, but in the glimpses Erik had seen of Logan’s future, one of the most important things that stood out to him was Erik’s words in the submarine: “I’m sorry, Charles, but I don’t trust you.”

Erik was quite unsure if Charles trusted him. Clearly, he had before, but after seeing what Logan had showed them… it wouldn’t make sense for Charles to.

Erik would still do his best to help Raven understand her true beauty, even if he wouldn’t actively try to lead her into his overall philosophy. Erik still believed that she deserved more than what Charles had been giving her.

Concerning their trip to Cuba tomorrow, the only thing Erik was positively decided on was that he would kill Shaw. The rest – what to do about the missiles, starting his own team – Erik was positively unsure what to do. Not only was he worried about the long-term implications of his actions, he also was truly doubtful of the proper moral choice. Apart from killing Shaw, Erik sought the protection and freedom of mutantkind. And while he had been so confident in himself just a week ago, he now did not know how to achieve that end.

Charles withdrew from Erik’s mind and let out a shaky breath.

“So, what am I?” Erik asked, almost immediately.

“I’m sorry?” queried Charles.

“What am I gonna do? What have I decided?” Erik almost begged.

“You truly don’t know,” Charles said, both in question and in observation.

Erik reached over and took a sip of his martini, glancing down at the chess board. “And you’re okay with that?”

“I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?” Charles replied, attempting to keep his tone light.

Erik jerked his head back up, and their eyes met as he asked, “So you trust me?”

Charles resisted his instinct to say “implicitly.” Instead, he hesitated and moved a knight before he finally answered. “I personally think that the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. I’m choosing to trust you, Erik. I’m trusting that you’ll make the right choice.”

Erik captured the knight while barely looking. “You don’t understand,” he said, exasperated. “To you, everything’s clear, morally speaking. But to me… how do I know what the right choice is?”

“Erik, I doubt myself everyday,” admitted Charles. “I worry that I’m not doing right by Moira, Raven, Hank, even you. We have the chance to change the world, to save the future, tomorrow. Tonight. Every day since Logan got here and before that. Each and every one of our actions effects what comes after, and you have to decide. You have to decide what you want the future to look like and then pursue that future. I can’t make that choice for you, Erik.”

“Funny, that’s the same thing you said to me the other night.”

Charles pushed his queen several squares. “That’s because it’s what I believe. And since even you yourself don’t know how you plan on shaping the future tomorrow, I intend to act like you won’t destroy it.”

“Thank you,” Erik spoke earnestly as he put Charles in check. “And what about Raven? Are you concerned that I’ll alienate her from you, turn her into a killer?”

“No,” Charles replied.

“Why not?”

Charles moved his king to escape the check. “Because I would stop you if you try.”

“So you will fight me if it comes down to it?”

“Will? No. Would. I would not allow her or anyone else to unleash the hell that is Logan’s world. I don’t believe you would either.”

While Charles was speaking, Erik had placed him in check again. “Ah, so you would deny people, even your own sister, free will in order to get the outcome you want?”

Charles did not like the direction this conversation had turned. When Erik had asked this question a couple nights before, it had been in front of Logan, and, more importantly, Moira. Now, he didn’t have to cater to that audience. “Wouldn’t you?” he asked, moving a bishop to block the check.

Erik clicked his tongue, “But I’m the one unleashing hell, aren’t I?” he said as he moved his queen and declared checkmate.

Charles sighed and knocked over his king. “Why’d you let me into your mind, Erik? I could do all kinds of things to you, to everyone I meet. I could – I could unmake you, rebuild everything from scratch – your memories, your hopes, your beliefs. Hell, I might even be able to kill you using just my mind. I’m constantly discovering new aspects to my power, and it – I don’t think about it all that much because I live with it, it’s a part of me. But when I think about all the things I can do, it’s terribly psychologically disturbing. And it frightens me. And you should be scared too. Not of me. But of what could happen if you allow that fear to get to you. If I was always worried about the times I’ve used my powers inappropriately – and I have, quite a lot – then I couldn’t go out there and save the world.”

“That’s it? That’s how you justify it to yourself?” Erik asked, almost sardonically. “And you wonder why it is that I have such a hard time trusting you. If you’re really that secure in your moral standards, then why did you ask for permission? You clearly don’t for everyone.”

“I’m not– I just can’t always be second-guessing myself. And you shouldn’t either.”

“So is this what we’ve come to?” scoffed Erik. “You hold me to your code of conduct, am I supposed to hold you to mine?”

Charles shook his head and he leaned back in his chair. “Erik, please. You have to believe me. The last thing I want is for us to be enemies on this.”

“Dodge and deflect, that’s always been your tactic, hasn’t it?”

“Erik, what is this?” Charles asked, his voice shockingly close to breaking.

“You tell me,” answered Erik immediately. “Go on, read my mind.” This time, he said it like a challenge.

Charles grabbed his glass of scotch and swallowed a larger amount than he was intending. He grimaced at the burning sensation and shook his head. “No. You’re only saying that to show that we’re different. We don’t have to be. I won’t believe it, not until you prove it to me first.”

Erik deflated at this. He finished his martini and made toward the door, leaving the completed chess game on the table. “Nice chat, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Erik,” Charles called.

Erik stopped as he reached the door. “Yes, Charles?”

“I meant everything I said. I want us to want the same thing, my friend.”

“So do I,” Erik acknowledged.

“Good night,” said Charles, as Erik exited the room.

---

Erik paused as he stepped into his room. Raven, a seemingly naked Raven, lay in his bed.

“Well,” Erik admitted, “this is a surprise.”

“The nice kind?” Raven asked, all artificial smiles and hopeful naivete.

Erik didn’t even hesitate. “Get out Raven, I wanna go to bed.” Then, so as not to seem too cold in his dismissal, he added, “Maybe in a few years.” He crossed the room and turned his back to her as he shuffled some items on the dresser.

“How about now?” Raven’s voice came from behind him, but it had changed, seeming more mature.

Erik turned to see that she’d changed her appearance to look older. But she was still hiding behind the mask of a “normal” face. “I prefer the real Raven,” Erik told her.

She changed back to how she’d been before, still smiling innocently.

“I said the real Raven,” Erik reiterated.

She frowned, and slowly, she allowed her natural blue form to transform her body.

“Perfection,” Erik said earnestly.

“Could you pass me my robe?” she asked, her voice close to breaking.

“You don’t have to hide.” Erik grabbed her robe and sat down on the bed with her. “Have you ever looked at a tiger, and thought you’d want to cover it up?” He gave her a smile, gentle and warm.

She beamed back at him shyly. “No, but…”

“You’re an exquisite creature, Raven. All your life the world has tried to tame you. You don’t need to be afraid of what they think. You shouldn’t try to change who you are to be the ideal Raven that they want you to be. Everything about you – your personality, your character, your appearance – it’s perfect. You are perfect, Raven, the way you are. ”

Raven shook her head. “Charles doesn’t think…” but she trailed off.

Erik refrained from telling her what he thought about what Charles might think. However, he was very curious to know what all Charles had told Raven about her natural appearance.

“What does Charles think?”

“Charles has always said that I shouldn’t– that it’s unthinkable. And Hank – he finished the serum. He offered it to me, but, I don’t wanna hide. But, Charles – he, he scolds me for the smallest slip-up, but he will use his powers on whoever he fancies and somehow it’s okay because people don’t know – just because he can manipulate minds – but he refuses to do it for me when I just wanna be…”

“Seen?”

She nodded as tears gathered in her eyes.

“You are seen,” Erik assured her. “And, even though he might not– Charles does love you. He’d trade the world for you.”

She grimaced bitterly. “Right. So, what’s going on with Logan?”

Erik smiled internally. He’d been correct; she knew more than she had been letting on. “What do you know about him?”

“Charles has been lying about him. You don’t know him. He often refers to things that don’t make sense. Something is… off about him.”

“So that’s what’s been bothering you? Look, the deal about Logan is– I’m not saying Charles is right, but there is a reason why he hasn’t been telling you.”

Raven gave Erik her full attention.

“The truth is that Logan is from the future. Apparently, in sixty years, the world was well, ending, and the, whatever versions of Charles and I that were in that world sent Logan back to this week to fix everything.”

“You’re serious,” Raven realized, searching Erik’s face.

“I’m afraid so,” Erik told her. “In Logan’s world, tomorrow, I killed Shaw and left Charles paralyzed in Cuba, taking you on a quest for the rise of mutants around the world. Ten years later, you killed a government bastard who was experimenting on and torturing mutants, hoping that his program would be discontinued, but instead you were captured, and they used your exceptional DNA to create a weapon which destroyed the world.”

Erik could see her mind spinning, trying to make sense of it all. “Why would Charles not tell me?”

There were many answers Erik could give her in response to that, each varying in levels of honesty. “Charles was going to tell you after. He didn’t want you to be worried during your training and he certainly needs you to be focused when we face Shaw. He knows how important it is that you know this, but, you know Charles, the thought of all this is a little hard to accept. Him and his fantasy dreams of everyone being as righteous as he is. Hopelessly optimistic arrogant jerk.”

Raven laughed a little at this, but then reached for her robe and sat up. “I, um, this is– I need to process this.”

“Just don’t let it inhibit you tomorrow. We need everyone functioning at peak performance.”

She slipped off the bed and put on her robe. “He was really gonna tell me after we beat Shaw?”

“Yes,” said Erik. “Look, after we avert global nuclear war, then I’ll take your side in whatever war you wanna have with Charles, alright?”

She grimaced and didn’t say a word as she made for the door. “Raven, please,” Erik called. “I understand if you’re–”

She whipped around and lashed out at him venomously. “What do you understand? You’re just like Charles. You talk about being free and not having to hide, yet you yourself don’t have to advertise your mutation to every human you meet.”

“Raven, you know I’m not afraid to–”

“No, but you are!” she almost shouted. “Maybe not before, but this week, after, after Logan, I suppose, you…” she gesticulated wildly and let out several huffy breaths. “You’re really gonna let the fear of what might happen control you to the point that you would just blindly do what Charles says is right?”

Before he could answer, she had slammed the door behind her.

---

Charles’s eyes scoured the fridge, hunting for something to drink. After the apparent fiasco of his conversation with Erik, he wanted something flavorful and relaxing, but not too strong.

“You know, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if you hadn’t found me here that night,” Raven’s voice came from across the room.

Charles seized an unopened bottle of red Burgundy and glanced over at her. “I’m sorry, what?” He paused to notice that she was in her blue form, the sash to her white bathrobe tied in a loose bow above her waist.

“You told me that night that you weren’t afraid of me,” she went on, as she seated herself at a table. “But, I wonder, are you now?”

“Raven, what’s gotten into you?” Charles asked, closing the fridge and approaching the table himself. In times like this, he wished he’d never made that promise to never read her mind. She seemed composed, at least from the outside, but her words had a biting quality that almost scared him.

“I spoke with Erik. He told me everything – about Logan, him, myself.”

Charles swallowed uncomfortably as he sat across from her and set the bottle to the side.

“Do you consider me a killer, Charles?”

“What, no!” he answered vehemently.

“Then what do you think of me?”

“You’re my little sister, Raven.” He tried to say the words as affectionately as possible.

“Little,” she spat the word back at him like it had been an insult. “That’s all I’ve ever been to you, a pet. Is that why you didn’t tell me? Because I’m too little to handle the truth? Well, maybe that’s why I did it in the first place, to prove to you that I’m not your – plaything.”

“Wh-what?” Charles spluttered.

“You wanted to change the future?” Her tone was dark, concealing an underlying bitterness that Charles couldn’t understand. “You didn’t think to consult me, when it was my actions that needed changing? You were just gonna, what, not tell me, and somehow ‘gently guide’ me in another direction, manipulate me into following a different path? You think that because you’re virtuous enough you can just decide what’s supposed to happen? Who made you the moral authority here, Charles?”

“It’s not like that,” he tried to explain. “You’re only saying that because–”

“Don’t patronize me, Charles,” she snarled. “Did you really think that I would stay a little girl forever?”

Charles sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. “I’m sorry, Raven, I truly am. I should’ve–”

She pushed back her chair with a squeak and stood. “It’s always ‘should’ve’ with you, Charles,” she snapped. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Charles watched her leave, utterly bewildered. Since when was she like this? Erik. Erik had told her the truth about Logan. What else had he been telling her?

Charles’s mind practically leapt to find Erik’s. He was sitting in bed, staring at a coin, the coin that he had failed to lift as a kid, leading to his mother’s death. The coin now danced fluidly between his fingertips, and Charles could feel that Erik’s mind was everywhere and nowhere at all.

Erik . Charles made his presence known.

Erik tensed, wrapping the coin into his fist. He did not respond with words, but Charles felt his confusion – was there an emergency? Was Erik needed somewhere?

What did you tell Raven? Charles stated it as a question, but if Erik didn’t tell him, there was a non-zero chance Charles would find out for himself.

Charles could feel an exasperated mental sigh coming from Erik. She asked about Logan. I explained the time travel situation.

No, about me , Charles clarified.

I swear to you, I attempted to paint you and your decisions in the best light possible. Charles read no lie in this.

So then why does she think that I’m trying to control her? Charles asked.

Erik was “saying” something else, but all Charles could hear was, Because you have.

That’s really what you think of me?

Charles could feel Erik pause a second, and then he realized what Charles had actually heard. Erik internally grimaced; he was not happy with Charles reading his private thoughts. Nevertheless, he continued. You yourself said that you would keep her from killing Trask. Why are you surprised that she picked up on that sentiment? That you would if you had to. And that transfers into smaller things. You can claim all you want that you’d only jump in at the last moment to keep someone from ending the world. But the truth is, there is no clear line. What all would you allow her to do before you stop her?

But I don’t want to control her, I’d only do that if I–

Then prove it. Erik mentally snapped. Have faith in her. She’s stronger than you think. I promise she’ll surprise you. Now get out of my head.

Thank you, Erik , Charles said sincerely, and did as Erik ordered.

Erik was right, at least partially. It wasn’t Charles’s job to make sure everyone made the right decisions. Now for that drink… Charles glanced at the bottle he’d placed on the table. He’d be needing something a lot stronger than this.

Chapter 9: Because I Could Not Stop For Death (He Kindly Stopped for Me)

It took a little under two hours for Hank’s Blackbird jet to fly them to Cuba. The atmosphere in the aircraft was tense; even Logan was a little on edge. Raven, who was now wearing her natural form proudly, hadn’t spoken to Charles all morning except for a curt greeting; Hank was blue too now and not too happy about it; and Erik still radiated mistrust and indecision – but Charles didn’t have time to focus on any of that right now.

The Russian and American warships faced each other like chess pieces before a match. The board was set, and Charles knew somewhere out here, Sebastian Shaw was planning on flipping the entire table. Okay, it wasn’t the best analogy, Charles admitted to himself as he stared out at the boats. The Russian ships had all stopped before the embargo line – except for one, which was heading straight toward it with no sign of slowing down.

Charles reached out with his mind toward the rogue ship. There was nothing, then – pain, pain, explosive pain, as Charles suddenly lay supine on the floor of his own ship, his dead crew scattered all around him. He had failed them, he, Captain Sergei Korneyev, had failed his country. This was the beginning of nuclear war between the two most powerful nations in the world, and it was all his fault, he couldn’t prevent it. The tailed, red demon thing turned around and gave an evil grin when it noticed he wasn’t dead. As it prepared a lethal kick to his face, all Charles could think was his wife and two daughters were back at home, and how would they survive when they heard he was gone? Vera was so strong and beautiful, she loved to paint these awful paintings that Charles hated so much, and – was she pregnant again? He’d never find out. His older daughter Anya was the most beautiful dancer, and, oh, his sweet Alina, she was the most precious thing in the whole world, and he’d never see her again, not ever–.

And Captain Sergei Korneyev was dead and Charles was back in his own mind, alive and well, with Raven at his side and Erik across from him – and he and his team were all that stood between the world as they knew it and a world at nuclear war. Charles tried to shake the Captain’s thoughts from his head as he opened his eyes.

“The crew of the Aral Sea are all dead,” Charles informed them. “Shaw’s been there.”

“He’s still here, somewhere,” Erik said.

Charles dove into the mind of the “tailed red demon thing” – Azazel, Shaw’s teleporter. “He’s set the ship on course for the embargo line,” reported Charles.

“That ship crosses the line, our boys are gonna blow it up, and the war begins,” Moira warned them.

Charles didn’t even think twice as he grabbed control of some Russian commander and forced him to fire on the Aral Sea . But Charles knew that wasn’t the end, even as the American soldiers celebrated, because Shaw was still out there and that could not have been his only plan. So Charles read Azazel’s mind once more – Shaw was consuming the nuclear power on his vessel so that he himself could be his own atomic weapon. Next, Charles guided Sean as he used his powers to function as sonar, finding Shaw underwater. And then, it was Erik’s turn, as he stood on the open front wheel of the jet clinging to the landing gear, tasked with raising a submarine from the ocean with only the strength of his mind.

Charles peeked into Erik’s psyche – he had found the submarine, that monstrous piece of metal, but even though all his attention was focused on lifting it, Charles could tell that Erik was not in the proper headspace to actually do it.

Remember, Charles told him. The point between rage and serenity. He didn’t manipulate Erik’s thoughts or emotions; he merely stayed there as a guiding presence as he felt Erik’s fears melt away and true concentration kick in. And then, he watched in wonder, delight, and captivation as slowly, the submarine surfaced and rose into the air, water spilling from its turbines. Even as Charles stared in awe, Erik suddenly clenched his hand-hold tighter and Charles felt Erik’s mind contort in pain. He reached out telepathically to support Erik – but Charles abruptly found himself blocked by icy crystals and white diamonds.

She was back. Shaw’s telepath, Emma Frost, was somehow back. It was impossible, this shouldn’t be happening. She wasn’t supposed to be here, not just because they had left her in the hands of the CIA (not the most trustworthy caretakers, now that Charles thought about it), but because in Logan’s future, the one he’d read, he was most definitely certain that she had not been here. Of course, it didn’t matter now. He had a task, to prevent World War III, and whoever stood in his way, be it Shaw, or Emma, or Erik, or Raven, he would stop them.

Charles doubled his mental efforts and took the brunt of the psychic pain upon himself. He recoiled physically back into the jet, but was somehow able to stay focused enough to watch from Erik’s perspective as he slowly lost control of the submarine, letting it crash onto the beach. Then a tornado came out of Riptide’s hands and Hank was calling out for everyone to hold on and Charles was holding out his hand to Erik and they were spinning, spinning out of control. Charles hauled Erik back into the jet. Immediately, Erik threw himself bodily onto Charles, acting as a makeshift seatbelt, using his powers to trap them to the floor as the jet rolled over and over. Finally, it halted upside-down on the sand. The tail end of the plane had been broken off, leaving an opening from the aircraft more or less facing the wrecked submarine.

Erik slowly lowered himself and Charles to the ceiling of the jet, and Charles sprang up to release the others who were still strapped in their seats. Fortunately, everyone was alright and still in combat condition.

“I don’t know how, but the telepath girl is back,” Charles explained to them.

“How did we not know she’d escaped?” asked Moira indignantly.

“She can control people’s minds,” Charles pointed out. “The government probably still doesn’t know.”

“So that’s what that was back there?” asked Erik, rubbing his head.

“Yes, and she can do it again and she almost certainly plans to,” Charles replied.

“She can do what?” Alex asked.

“Induce mental pain telepathically,” answered Charles.

“Severe mental pain,” Erik clarified.

“Sounds fun,” Logan said. “What’s the plan?”

Charles thought quickly. He didn’t know which of him or Emma was stronger psychically, but she certainly had more experience than he did. He scrambled to the broken end of the jet and saw Azazel, Angel, Emma, and Riptide standing in a line in front of the submarine, as if in defense of whatever was inside. Right.

“I read the teleporter’s mind,” Charles said. “Shaw’s draining all the power in his sub; he’s turning himself into some kind of nuclear bomb.”

Moira checked an instrument in the jet and responded urgently. “We’ve got no time, the Geiger counter’s going out of control.”

“Alright, Moira, this is what we’re gonna do,” Charles spoke confidently. “Get on the radio, tell them to clear both fleets out immediately.”

“I’m going in,” called Erik from within the jet.

“Beast, Havoc, Raven, back him up,” commanded Charles. “I can take care of Emma, but Logan I want you on her; try to make her switch to diamond form and that way she won’t be able to use her telepathy. Erik, I can guide you through once you’re in, but I need you to shut down whatever it is that’s blocking me, because it isn’t Emma’s shields. Then we just hope to God that it’s not too late for me to stop him.”

“Got it,” said Erik and the whole team moved at once to follow Charles’s orders.

“Good luck,” Charles called after them.

The team sprang from the jet like a bullet from a gun. Charles stayed at the opening to the jet, watching in suspense as the beach turned into a battlefield, the whole thing playing out like one of his nightmares. Mutant fighting mutant, person fighting person. Alex, Hank, and Raven instantly took on Azazel, Angel, and Riptide. Charles made contact with Erik’s mind as Erik ran toward the submarine, tearing a hole in the side and using the excess metal to crush Riptide into the sand.

Erik, Charles spoke into Erik’s mind. Make for the middle of the vessel. That’s the point my mind can’t penetrate; we have to assume that that’s where Shaw is.

Hey, honey, I’m home, Emma’s voice now spoke into Charles’s mind. Charles threw up what mental shields he knew how, attempting to keep her out of his teammates’ minds, but the truth was he was dreadfully inexperienced dealing with other telepaths, as she was the only other one he’d ever met. He could feel that she had frozen Logan; he decided not to fight her just yet as long as she wasn’t causing anyone pain or trying to control their actions.

Didn’t expect to see me here? Emma asked. You thought you’d got it all figured out didn’t you? You thought you were gonna win this time because you have knowledge from the future?

Charles stiffened. What all did Emma know? She continued. Well, I decided that the future is indeed changeable. It’s funny how that works isn’t it? I was just gonna let them keep me locked up and wait for Sebastian to come and find me; I didn’t need to be there for his grand premiere. But then your time traveler came along and, well, forgive me, but I just had to get involved.

Charles kept half of his brain focused on Emma’s words while the other half saw Erik approach a throttle on the wall. That’s the nuclear reactor. Disable it.

Emma was still talking. I had thought his plan was impenetrable, but knowing what I do now, I’m not surprised you were able to stop him. He’s always been too kind for his own good, and he especially has a soft spot for little Erik. Of course he’d want to bring him into the fold. But hey, maybe he wasn’t so wrong about Erik after all. Wouldn’t you say so, Charles?

Charles bristled at this. He could feel Emma straining at his telepathic defenses, and he felt his mind being stretched to the limits of its capabilities. Erik, get out of there, it’s a trap. Emma knows. Shaw knows our plan; he’s going to kill you.

Charles could sense Erik’s complete apathy towards Charles’s warning. He didn’t say it in words, but Charles read Erik’s thoughts clearly enough: No, I need to find him, I have to find him, I will do whatever it takes to find him. Further, Charles felt that somehow, Erik had been looped into Charles’s communication with Emma, and Erik had been listening as intently as Charles.

Fine, Charles told Erik. But whatever you do, do quickly; Emma’s incredibly strong and I can’t possibly hope to hold her forever. You’ve gone into the Void now, so Shaw’s gotta be there somewhere.

He’s not here; he must have left the sub, Erik replied.

Oh, I can help you with that, sugar, Emma said into both their minds, and the wall behind Erik opened to reveal a room whose interior was fully covered with mirrors. Shaw stood inside, an imposing helmet on his head.

“Erik,” Shaw greeted him with a smile. “Emma told me you were coming. So good to see you again.”

Charles felt Erik’s mind stop as Shaw spoke, as a chill rage coursed through him. Slowly, Erik approached Shaw, as he surreptitiously allowed the Nazi coin to fly into his hand. Erik gripped it like a lifeline as he crossed the threshold and the door closed behind him. And suddenly, Erik was gone; Charles could no longer sense him.

Chapter 10: Through the Looking Glass

As concerned as he was for Erik, Charles knew there was nothing he could do for him at that moment. Thus, Charles turned his full mental energy toward containing Emma. He could sense her in his own mind, digging through his memories, attempting to bring up past traumas, or simply induce emotional pain through her own powers. Well, two could play that game.

He broke fully into her mind and found himself surrounded by glassy shards of scattered thoughts and elegant crystals of cold reason. Her psyche was a castellated maze of diamonds, and everything, everywhere was blindingly white. It was the most unique mind he’d ever infiltrated, and a part of him was scared that he could dive too far and never find his way out.

He didn’t know what exactly he was searching for at first, but when he sensed a wisp of fear which was not his own, he captured it and clutched it tightly. Slowly, it began to unravel, and Charles felt it all – her fear that he could overpower her, her wildly fanatical belief in Shaw’s cause, her frustration with Shaw for his distrust in her, and her anger at Shaw for keeping on the helmet and blocking her out. He pulled on this last thought and a fog of rage engulfed him. Shaw and her had always been a team; they worked together in all things. He had a brilliant mind, and when their consciousnesses were linked, there was nothing to stop them. And yet, as soon as another telepath came along, Shaw had resorted to wearing that awful helmet and he hadn’t cared that it shut her out. He hadn’t trusted her; and now, she was going to complete their plan, with or without him.

Charles felt like he was getting somewhere; if he could exploit her insecurities to destabilize her emotional state, perhaps it would weaken her telepathic abilities. The instant he consciously thought this, he felt a wintry laugh bubble within her and suddenly he realized his mistake. He felt the crystal walls of her mind locking into place, trapping him in an frost dome, as she strove to snare him in a telepathic cage inside her mind. He abruptly ceased all use of his powers, and, narrowly, he escaped.

He was back in his own mind, staring out at the Cuban beach from the crashed jet. To the left, he could see the waves lapping at the shore, where, not far beyond, the Soviet and American ships still occupied the water. To his right, the crashed submarine lay parallel to the coastline. Emma stood in front of the sub facing the jet, and Logan, still in a fighting stance, was frozen in place as he endeavored to attack her. The other mutants had long since taken to the skies. Suddenly, Charles sensed Erik leap back into his telepathic field of view, but Charles knew that whatever happened next with Shaw would require his full mental capacity. He needed Emma out of the game, if only temporarily. He reached out and freed Logan, watching as he sprung at her, claws extended. Emma instantly metamorphosed into her diamond form to ward off Logan’s attack.

Keep her in diamond form for as long as you can , Charles instructed Logan.

Then, trusting Logan to hold her off, Charles’s mind leapt to find Erik’s.

---

Erik stepped into Shaw’s chamber of mirrors, and, as the door closed behind him, his connection with Charles ceased. For the first time, he missed the outside presence in his head. For now, he stood face to face with the man who had murdered his mother and then proceeded to torture him for eighteen months straight. And Erik was alone, like he had been all those years before.

“May I ask you something?” Shaw said, with his signature expression of faux compassion. “Why are you on their side? Why fight for a doomed race who will hunt us down as soon as they realize their reign is coming to an end?”

Erik barely registered his own agreement with Shaw’s words as he drew back his fist and let it collide with Shaw’s helmet. If Shaw hadn’t turned his head as the punch landed, Erik was sure he would have broken his hand. Shaw quivered with overflowing energy, but regained his composure and spoke again.

“I’m sorry for what happened in the camps. I truly am.”

Erik needed to find an opening, any form of weakness. He’d bolted into this situation so confidently and full of determination; now he felt like his fourteen-year-old self – angry, frightened, incapable of acting when it mattered. He didn’t resist as Shaw lightly tapped him on the forehead and sent him flying into the wall. He fell hard on the floor and let out a groan of pain and frustration. This wasn’t working.

And then, he was indescribably relieved to hear a familiar voice speak inside his head.

Erik, I need you to get the helmet off Shaw’s head; that’s what’s blocking me. Charles sounded deeply shaken and almost desperate. And Erik, do it as quickly as you can, we don’t have much time.

Erik didn’t think twice as he reached out with his powers and smoothly but swiftly lifted the helmet from Shaw’s head. Shaw immediately moved to grab it, but then, almost as instantly, he froze as if stopped in time. Erik hesitated as he grabbed the helmet from mid-air.

Put it on , Erik was surprised to hear Charles say. If I’m not strong enough to beat Emma, then I need you, at least, to not be under her control. But I can’t hold Shaw much longer, so just go ahead and end it quickly.

Erik promptly placed the helmet on his own head and once again felt the connection with Charles vanish. And as much as he wanted to savor this moment, as Shaw stood powerless in front of him, Erik knew he had to act quickly. Unclenching his fist, Erik released the coin into the air and sent it as fast as he could straight through Shaw’s skull.

And just like that, Shaw was dead. Erik exhaled shakily as a few tears rolled quickly down his cheeks. He had completed the one goal in life he ever felt mattered; he had found his creator and destroyed him. What would now become of the monster that Frankenstein had made?

---

As Charles’s mind made contact with Erik’s, the first thing he felt was powerlessness, despair, and the aching desire to act, to do something. Beneath this was a grasping turmoil and a volcanic fury. And then, as Charles spoke into Erik’s mind, it calmed slightly, as if Charles’s presence was a comfort. A new resolve sprang up within Erik and, as Shaw’s helmet was removed, Charles braced himself.

As soon as he sensed Shaw’s mind appear, Charles plunged in and cried out in pain as he wrestled with it, attempting to bring it under his dominance. He had never consciously used his powers like this before – yes, he had misused and even abused his powers in times past, and he had indeed forced people into doing things against their will. But now, his intent was not to read or manipulate, but to actively repress and subdue, and every part of Charles’s being revolted against controlling another person in this manner.

And yet, there was nothing else to do, as Shaw struggled against Charles’s influence. Charles could sense the raw power that Shaw currently possessed, it was more than Shaw had ever dared to consume, and he was practically drunk with it. And while holding Shaw in one physical position was more or less easy, the difficult thing for Charles was to contain that power within him. It churned violently, longing to erupt and be let loose on a path of destruction. Or was that just Shaw’s own desire for ruin, brought to the surface?

Being inside Shaw’s mind was… an experience, and not one Charles was enjoying particularly. Shaw’s fond memories mostly involved some form of brutality, and yet he seemed to be sorry for the way he had treated Erik in Auschwitz. Maybe sorry wasn’t the correct word. Regret worked a lot better. Shaw saw his torture of Erik as an unfortunate necessity, to bring Erik to his full potential. Because Shaw loved Erik as his own son. And Shaw genuinely wished for all mutants to unite in harmony and fulfill their destiny in the extermination of the human race. These were not sentiments that Charles wished to explore further, and they made him even more uncomfortable since he had read disturbingly similar attitudes in Erik.

Charles was almost shocked when Shaw spoke into his mind. It wasn’t speaking like Charles was used to in his own telepathic conversations; it was very quick, fleeting thoughts, but somehow fully formed and easily readable. Clearly, Shaw had practiced this with Emma for the fast, nonverbal exchange of information.

If you don’t want to read my thoughts, why don’t you just change them? You could, you know. You could make me believe anything you wanted, want anything you believed. You could erase all my memories and reconstruct me into a totally different person. You are so gifted, Charles. I almost wish I could have had you as my student instead of Erik. We would have had so much fun.

This needed to end before Emma inevitably overpowered Logan. Charles sensed Erik’s hesitation concerning the helmet, and Charles realized that not only should he not be trying to control Erik here, it was also important to have a second line of defense if Emma succeeded in besting Charles telepathically. Thus, Charles instructed Erik to put on the helmet, and as Erik disappeared again from his psychic vision, Charles couldn’t help but wonder what he would have been feeling at it if Emma weren’t here – if instead this morning had played out like it had where Logan came from. What had Charles thought in that world, when Erik had donned the helmet for the first time?

It didn’t matter now, as Erik proceeded to open his balled fist and let the coin fly.

What, you’re just gonna hold me like this, while he kills me, Charles? I’m proud of you, that’s such a big step. You know, it’s that spirit that will take you––.

The coin drew nearer and then it was tearing through Charles’s skull and death was so near – but Charles hardly felt any real pain, emotional or physical, as Shaw’s consciousness evaporated from existence.

And then, Charles felt everything .

Oh my God, what was that, what the hell is going on on that beach – Shouldn’t we be doing something? – Is this really the start of World War III? – I just want to see my family again – Did she really mean something when she looked back at me like that? – Good, the Geiger counter is going back down – Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners – Holy shit, that submarine just came out of that water and rose up into the air – This must be a dream – Whose job was it to clean this bathroom? – What are our orders? – *♯But time has stood still since we've been apart♯* – How the fuck am I supposed to know what to do? – God, I’m so hungry – Whose plane was that? – Why does Moscow always give me the spooky jobs? – Are we out of ice, again? – I don’t think he’d listen to me even if I told him – I hope the world ends, then I wouldn’t have to keep doing this anymore.

Charles’s head felt like it was about to explode. Dimly, Charles recognized that the only explanation for a telepathic catastrophe of this caliber was one Emma Frost. She had somehow managed to force Charles inside the minds of every commander, officer, crewman, janitor – every last sailor – onboard those goddamn boats, and now he experienced in full all their thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams, prayers, desires, resentments, sufferings, secrets. Charles felt them all, every emotion. All at once.

And he couldn’t take it. Every part of his psyche screamed at him to find some way to make it stop, to turn them off, to get them out of his head by any means possible. Using what little mental stamina he had left, Charles activated his powers, and threw everything – the thoughts, the images, the voices – from his head.

Charles’s mind was his own again, but it felt like it had been slashed into ribbons and sewn back together with the most fragile thread. He wasn’t even sure if all the pieces were in the correct place. Charles opened his eyes, which he hadn’t even realized were shut. He was still standing just inside what remained of the jet. On the beach, Emma stood with a smile on her face; Logan lay motionless at her feet. The others had returned to the beach – Azazel, Riptide, and Angel formed a small group near the far end of the submarine, and Raven, Hank, Sean, and Alex had congregated only about fifteen yards in front of Charles, directly between the shoreline and the submarine. The next thing Charles noticed was that everyone on the beach – except for Emma, who still had that smarmy grin – was screaming in pain. Charles ran to Raven, who had fallen to her knees as she writhed in agony.

“Raven, what’s going on?” he asked.

“Make it stop, Charles!” she grunted out.

“Make what–” and then he realized. He hadn’t shut out Emma’s influence; he had merely taken the voices she’d forced into his head and projected them out, into the open and susceptible minds of everyone else around him. That meant that – no. As much as he knew that Emma was to blame for what was going on, Charles couldn’t help but fault himself. If he had more control over his powers, then – but he wasn’t even sure how he was doing it, much less how to make it stop.

Charles looked up at the sound of creaking metal. The submarine wall opened to reveal a dead Shaw, suspended by his metal-encased wrists. The body floated out into the open air, and then was dropped unceremoniously to the sand as Erik himself emerged from the submarine, helmet on his head, levitating with a graceful and dramatic ease. Emma turned to see the commotion, and stiffened at the sight. There was a brief pause in the cries of pain from around the beach.

This was Charles’s opening. He slammed up mental shields, in an effort to keep out all telepathic influences. Emma would not be able to touch him like this. The screaming stopped. Charles watched as Raven let out a shaky breath of relief.

Emma turned back toward Charles, and her expression was now one of cold determination and derisive amusement. She laughed, a short, breathy, chilling laugh, as she spoke again, her voice still holding the same light-hearted, superior, steely tone she always used. “Really, Charles, I would hope that a telepath as powerful as you would have better command of their powers. I invoked a simple mind trick and you lacked the mental fortitude to stop me, or at the very least to just take it like a man. You didn’t even have the awareness to shield your friends. Like you aren’t right now.”

Charles realized with a sense of terror that she was right; in blocking Emma out completely, he had left his team utterly defenseless to telepathic attacks. Charles’s only comfort was that Erik, at least, was safe. Meanwhile, Emma seemed content to monologue a bit further. “You really thought I might be weakened by seeing that?” She motioned to Shaw’s crumpled body. “Honey, Sebastian was just a means to an end. An end which I will now accomplish.” She then looked toward the ships and Charles could see that she was concentrating her psychic powers toward them, but he had no strength left to fight her.

Suddenly, a huge metal beam crashed into the sand just a few feet behind her. Emma didn’t even flinch; she simply smiled and turned to the still-levitating Erik and the many metallic bars, ingots, panels, slabs, chunks, and shards which hovered in the air around him, poised to be launched. “You don’t wanna do that, sugar,” she stated calmly.

“I think I do,” Erik replied, and, motioning his hand, he sent a large crossbar toward her chest.

She sidestepped it easily, then snapped her fingers. Immediately, Raven, Logan, Hank, Alex, and Sean all gave brief gasps of pain. Erik hesitated, the metal pieces standing still.

“They’re all living in my head, darling,” she explained. “If I die, what would that do to them? You know, to be honest, I’m not actually sure, but I can’t imagine it would be pleasant. You really wanna find out?”

When Erik did not respond, Emma turned back to Charles and continued. “Didn’t you wanna change the future? You should be delighted to hear that I’ve got you covered. You know,” and she nodded to Logan, “I should probably thank you. If you hadn’t come all the way back from sixty years in the future, I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

“And what are you gonna do?” asked Erik, his voice betraying just a hint of underlying anger.

Emma smiled, almost manically. “I’m gonna make those ships fire on each other. That’s all it takes, and then, the world ends. And mutants, only mutants, come out stronger. We are the children of the atom.” She stated the last sentence like it was her whole life philosophy narrowed into seven words.

And then, Emma focused her attention back on the ships. Charles could see her mind working, but he was afraid of what would happen should he attempt to stop her. His last foray into her mind had been risky at best. To do so now, when she was fully unwearied and he was essentially depleted, would be no less than dangerous. Charles glanced up at Erik, and in one look, Erik expressed willingly so much more than he’d ever wanted to share any time Charles had read his mind. Written on his face was sheer helplessness and indecision: should Erik go ahead and kill her? Would it be worth it? Would Charles forgive him if he did? And in a split-second, it shifted to include reproach and yet encouragement: Emma was a telepath, and handling her was Charles’s job. And even if Charles thought he wasn’t strong enough, hell, even if Charles indeed wasn’t strong enough, Charles was still their best option and Charles had a responsibility to do all he could. And then, panic: the guns were moving, and the missiles were moments away from being launched. Should Erik catch them if they fired?

Charles hated everything about this. Taking one last look around the beach, he saw his mutant team, Raven, Logan, Hank, Sean, and Alex, scattered close to him; Erik still floating in front of the submarine, ensconced in suspended pieces of metal taken from it; Azazel, Riptide, and Angel still standing in the distance, unsure what to do; the jet to his back right, where Moira stood at the entrance, watching; and Emma, facing the ocean, her back to the jet and the submarine, thoroughly concentrated on her telepathy, one step away from starting nuclear war.

Charles took a deep breath, brought his fingers to his temple, and plunged into Emma’s mind.

Chapter 11: The Little Gap in the Ice (About as Wide as Our Chances)

As fascinating and brilliant as it was, Charles did not like Emma’s mind very much. Its regal, chilling, sophisticated atmosphere wore down on Charles’s own psyche, causing him to mentally recoil upon entry.

The first thing Charles did was to construct what shields he could to prevent her from controlling or even reading the minds of others. He refrained from building rigid barriers around their minds, as he knew that with the strength of their combined powers, that could potentially lead to the permanent linking of both their consciousnesses. Rather, he cast a strong net around her mind so as to keep it contained within itself, and once the net was securely in place, he slipped in fully.

He found himself in the same white maze, the same palatial structure, the same crystal halls. Charles instantly reached out to grasp control over her mind, to bring it to heel like he had with Shaw. He failed, spectacularly. Her force of will was simultaneously a cold, unyielding monstrosity which he could not penetrate, and an elusive sprite which escaped his grip and almost taunted him to try again.

A clear, bell-like laugh erupted and rang throughout the glassy corridors of Emma’s mind.

You wanna overpower me, sugar? Emma’s steely voice echoed in his own head. I’m afraid you won’t get very far when you go at it like that.

Like what? Charles asked, but only to pass the time, as he threw himself at it again.

She evaded him just as easily as the time before, laughing again as her volition flowed through his mental hold like ice water. For all her cold hardness, her consciousness as a whole was amazingly slippery.

You’re not putting yourself into it, darling, she teased.

And then it became a dance, a wearyingly fast-paced and seemingly never-ending dance. Whereas with Shaw, Charles had merely had to keep everything calm and contained, Emma was a force unto herself and he could not possibly restrain her as simply as that. Charles caught glimpses of her current thoughts and emotions: her determination to finish her objective, her concurrent love for and anger with Shaw, her heartbreaking grief at Shaw’s death, her anger and jealousy that Charles was as strong a (or could it be a stronger?) telepath than she, and that all that exceptional talent, all that raw power was being wasted on one as delusionally optimistic and hopelessly naive as he. Charles did not want to get too far inside her head, but he had to hold her captive, and so he was driven deeper.

Suddenly, he felt her break into his own mind, entering with the force of a wrecking ball and almost demolishing his concentration as she rampaged through his own thoughts and feelings: his fear, not knowing how this would all end, his hatred of attempting to wrest a person’s will from their control, his fear for and desire to protect Raven and Moira and Erik and the rest of his team, his strong wish for nuclear war to not happen today.

He multiplied his mental efforts to subdue her mind, but he could feel her straining at his net. And while this time he actually achieved a grip on her, like grasping a fine gossamer thread, as soon as he did he felt his own mind growing more icy, his own thoughts turning glassy. As strong as his telepathy was, his unrefined power could not match her expertise and skill.

You can’t bend me to your will like that, honey , her tone was even more condescending than usual and now had a victorious edge to it. You’re still holding back. You can’t unmake someone without first giving them yourself, all of yourself. Then they start to come apart.

Charles wasn’t sure how much he agreed with this doctrine, but the underlying principle sparked an inspiration within him. As he felt her tearing through his defenses and overpowering his own mind, he acted on the last of his energy and courage. Accessing her mind again, which was laughably easy considering how little stamina he had left, he searched the diamond corridors for it: the trap that she had so elegantly assembled for him, to lock his mind away in a hidden place in her own psyche. It was still there, a smooth, white, panel, opening in the floor to nothingness below. Before he could second-guess himself or allow her to read what he was thinking, he reached for the source of her volition yet again and clung to that smooth, translucent thread with all his willpower, and then, in one decisive motion, he sprang into the trap, dragging the filament with him. The panel instantly slammed shut on them and they were locked together in the bowels of her mind.

Then, it was as if Charles just let himself melt; he allowed everything inside of him to flow out into the dismal, hard, white chamber.

What did you just do? Emma hissed, and for the first time, Charles detected fear in her voice. Or was that just what she was thinking?

It was hard to tell now, as, rapidly, the line between his and her thoughts morphed into a blur and then into nothing at all until their minds were inextricably linked in a psychic lock of frozen crystals and brick walls. Because he could see it now, his own mind. He’d never visualized it to himself before, but now it was sprawled out before him, and he was inside it, and it was merged with Emma’s majestic castle: a mansion, not unlike the one he grew up in and now owned, but there was more light, more softness, more warm laughter. It stood unassailable in a vibrant green forest, and the sun’s rays forever shone on its bastioned roof.

The mansion was familiar and inviting, and yet simultaneously foreign and unsophisticated and uncomfortably warm. And there was pain, unspeakable pain, as everything she believed, felt, knew – every aspect of her psyche – was suffused into his own, and it was no longer his own, but theirs. Charles felt, with such horrid clarity, the desperate need to save the mutants, to secure their future. And he knew exactly how to do it. The humans were a dying breed anyway. The only logical thing to do was to eradicate the humans while further propagating the mutants. They were the children of the atom.

Charles sensed his thoughts, the ones that had previously been only held by him, crystallizing into solid gems; conversely, the thoughts which had been hers, so clear and cold, were melting into murky puddles. The frozen white halls were now flooded with color, and the mansion was slowly freezing. It was chaos, pure unadulterated chaos.

And chaos was the enemy of progress. It was what he’d always known, and what Sebastian could never understand. But now Sebastian was dead, and so now Charles would simply fulfill their beautiful, glorious plan alone. And as sad as it was to see him go, Charles knew he could do it alone. He would start nuclear war, and save the world. Save the mutants. They were the children of the atom. It was the cold, hard truth. There was no other way of thinking.

And yet, just as strong, he felt a burning compassion and empathy for everyone, mutants and humans alike. Everyone had their own unique talents and inherent capabilities. The mere presence or absence of a genetic mutation within someone had no bearing on their value. And while mutations were altogether fascinating and he would love to learn about every mutation possible and just how powerful they could become, there was no sense of superiority over those without. No desire to annihilate the humans.

And these feelings were so conflicting and yet he held them both so tightly, they were the core of his belief system, and they were both mutually important. And it hurt. His head was splitting and he just wanted to be himself again, but he didn’t know who that was anymore. Who was he – she – originally?

Was he Charles Xavier or was she Emma Frost? He had been raised in Westchester County, New York, but then again, hadn’t she actually grown up in Boston? Her father had always been harsh with her and her mother had turned to drugs as a coping mechanism; but no, his father had died when he was young and his mother had turned to alcohol after she remarried an abusive asshole. He’d always known he wanted to go into science, and once he’d discovered the truth of his mutation, all he’d wanted was to study genetics to become a teacher to educate others about the glorious wonders of it; but maybe it was that she had escaped her controlling and oppressive household and was thrown out into the world with no clue as what to do, and then she’d found him, Sebastian, and they had built a life together. And now, who were they? What would they do, now that their minds were inseparably fused?

End it , both parts of their mind cried out at once. The Charles part had realized the necessity of nuclear war, and the Emma part was screaming, because how could she have wanted to hurt all those people? It was all too confusing, and this had to stop, but no matter how much they strove to fracture their psychic bond, it only seemed to grow more intense. And it was just too much, and they were both yelling for it to end, anything for it to stop.

Suddenly, something fiery tore through their spine and into their abdomen, and all there was was pain. No true feeling anywhere, just a searing pain in the back, and it hurt. And they were going to fall, and they were going to die, it hurt so much. And then more explosions of pain erupted across their back, but these they could hardly even feel, as what they vaguely identified as bullets ripped through their body while they collapsed onto wet sand. Slowly, the blood, their life, drained from them. Whatever mission they had sought to accomplish, they had failed. Whether they had in the end wanted to exterminate the humans, or live in harmony with them, they would never get to know. And then, after an eternity of agonized waiting, their consciousness ebbed away, and they knew nothing more.

Chapter 12: Déjà Vu

Before Shaw’s body could collapse to the ground, Erik had enclosed the corpse’s wrists in fragments of metal he pulled from the walls. Then, parading his fallen enemy before him like a medieval battle trophy, Erik tore through the submarine until he reached the outside. The exterior wall opened to reveal the beach, where demolished shrubs and palm trees dotted the sand, and the ocean beyond, where the humans’ warships were looming.

Shaw’s body floating before him, Erik emerged from the submarine. He looked out on the beach spread out below him. Emma was almost directly beneath but a little in front of him, her all-white attire visible under her impeccable blonde hair. Beyond Emma and to the left, Charles stood surrounded by their group of mutants, the hideous bright yellow suits standing out against the sand. The rest of Shaw’s team was to Erik’s far right, near the tail end of the submarine. Past the opposite end of the sub to the left, Erik could sense the metal of the crashed jet.

The next thing Erik noticed was that everyone, except for Emma and Charles, were screaming in pain. Erik briefly wondered what was going on, and then he remembered Emma’s talent for inducing mental pain telepathically. Absentmindedly, he contemplated whether Charles had the same capability.

Emma spun on the spot at the sound of the metal creaking. When she caught sight of Shaw, the screaming lessened and Erik allowed the body to freefall to the sand below. If he got her attention, then maybe she’d lose focus on using her powers. The screaming stopped completely, and Erik waited for Charles to overpower her in a psychic battle, but it didn’t come. Rather, she started talking, in her flirtatious and arrogant manner, and, despite how bored he was, Erik knew the situation was perilous. Distinctly, he missed Charles’s guiding presence in his head, the firm advice and comforting voice giving him direction. For now, he was unsure what to do. He couldn’t remove his helmet for fear that Emma would control him. He’d had Emma inside his head twice, and no matter how much he disliked telepathy, she was an infinitely less pleasant person to have reading his thoughts than Charles.

Since Charles had given him no indication as to what his next move should be, he did what he did best: attack. Reaching out with the full might of his powers, he pulled every kind of metal from the submarine until he had a sizable arsenal of beams, girders, and slabs, which he allowed to slowly drift around himself, still levitating about fifteen feet in the air.

When Emma seemed to be finished talking, Erik sent a warning shot, letting a large beam fall within a yard of her. Almost instantly, Raven gave a short cry of pain. The others, too, but Erik wasn’t as concerned about that. And Emma was saying that if Erik killed Emma, then he’d hurt Raven, and now Erik was truly worried. Charles had done nothing, so did that make fixing this mess Erik’s responsibility? He had only come here to exact vengeance on Shaw; that had been his only mission. Erik had fulfilled it. But now, Raven was in danger and Charles was seemingly in over his head. This wasn’t supposed to happen; Emma wasn’t even supposed to be here. They had changed the future too much already, and he didn’t like it. And somehow, the whole situation was endlessly more complicated than it had looked the night before. What was Erik supposed to do now?

He settled for dragging out the conversation to hopefully give Charles time to recuperate from whatever telepathic fatigue had overcome him. However, Erik grew steadily more concerned as Emma continued with her tone of nonchalance, and then she revealed her plan about the ships, and Erik didn’t even care. Because why would he? If nuclear war for the humans meant a better world for the mutants, then why should he intervene?

He turned to look at Charles and attempted to convey all these thoughts on his face. Should Erik just let her do it? To stop her carried a high risk of hurting Raven, as well as the other members of the team. But would Charles forgive Erik if he stood by while Emma started World War III? Further, why hadn’t Charles stopped her himself? Erik had only been there to kill Shaw, not because Erik disagreed with Shaw’s views on mutant-human relations, but because Shaw had murdered Erik’s mother. Emma Frost was a telepath and therefore Charles’s problem; if Charles couldn’t handle her, then Erik couldn’t be blamed for what he did or didn’t do in response to her. And finally, Erik attempted to express urgency; if Charles were to make a move it would have to be now. The warship’s guns were moving, preparing to fire. This was Charles’s fight; if he didn’t want nuclear war, then he’d have to prevent it. Or should Erik just go ahead and catch the damn things and avoid a global conflagration?

Erik was relieved when Charles closed his eyes and put his fingers to the side of his head. Erik waited for what could not have been more than a few minutes. The guns across the water remained dormant. And then, both Charles and Emma were screaming in unison, their cries visceral and yet somehow unnatural.

Before Erik could make a decision on what to do, he saw Moira walk quickly and confidently from the opening of the jet, approaching Emma from behind as she pulled a pistol from her waist holster. Erik sensed each bullet with full clarity as Moira pulled the trigger twelve times in rapid succession. Each metal projectile found their target, and when the magazine was empty, Emma’s body lay a crumpled mass, her white long-sleeve minidress ridden with holes and now heavily splotched with red, her heeled knee-high boots soaking up the blood that her dress and the sand had not.

But this was not what held Erik’s interest. Charles had fallen too with the same motion, and was now lying sprawled in an identical position to Emma’s corpse. The chunks of metal which had been slowly circling Erik now clattered on top of each other as Erik’s power withdrew from them. Immediately, Erik dropped himself to the sand beside Charles, cradling him in his arms and calling out his name. The others quickly gathered around, Moira and Raven kneeling next to them.

At first, Charles seemed to be unconscious, but a handful of moments later, his face contorted as if in agony and loss, and he grunted in pain. Slowly, Charles opened his eyes, and a look of complete confusion overtook his features.

“What happened, are you alright?” asked Erik.

Charles just shook his head, and a tear escaped his eye. “Where is she?” he spoke at last, his voice shaky and low.

“Who?” Raven asked.

“Emma,” he said, as if it were obvious.

“She’s dead,” Erik explained.

Charles’s expression turned indescribably sad, but he did not seem surprised. A few more tears ran down his face, but he said nothing.

Erik looked up as he sensed the turrets in the water turning, targeting the beach. Beside Erik, Moira gasped in horror as the ships fired, and Erik felt each of the fifty missiles as they launched from the humans’ artillery and flew in their arching trajectory toward the beach on their mission to annihilate him and his fellow mutants. He had displayed his power by lifting a submarine 20 feet into the air with the power of his mind. The humans could not understand it, and people fear that which they do not understand. And now they, the weak, pathetic, fearful humans, sent their missiles to destroy him and those like him. They would never be able to accept him or his people, and if they got their way, mutants would not exist. It would only be just to send the missiles back to them, to destroy them like they wished to destroy him. It would always be humans versus mutants; Logan’s future had proved that.

As the missiles approached the beach, Erik stretched out his hand and caught each missile mid-air with an easy confidence. And then he held them there, and forced himself to look down at Charles. As their eyes met, all confusion abandoned Charles’s face, and it transformed into an expression practically overflowing with understanding and empathy. And he didn’t know why, but, slowly, Erik reached up and removed the helmet from his head.

“Your move, Charles,” he said, his voice quiet and full of surrender.

Charles gave the smallest of laughs, and his mouth widened in a twisted smile. With a low grunt of pain, Charles shook his head. Then, he seemed to relax, and he brought his hand to his temple, and Erik felt the gentle intrusion into his mind.

You might want to brace yourself , Charles’s voice was much stronger telepathically than it had been verbally. I’ll try to make it as mild as possible.

Curious, Erik waited, until he was hit by a storm of emotions and thoughts which were neither his nor Charles’s. Fear, blinding fear – Waiting, agonized waiting – How the hell is this happening? – Have they reached the shore yet? – What stopped them? – Is it the same thing that brought the submarine out of the water? – Damn it, Moscow really does only give me the spooky jobs – Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil – Nuclear war seems to be the least of our worries now.

The thoughts flickered through his brain, and Erik knew exactly what they were. When they stopped, Erik was brought back to himself, kneeling in the sand, his left arm under Charles’s neck, holding him in a half-sitting position. And looking up, the missiles still hovered over the ocean a little beyond the shoreline.

Erik turned back to Charles, and struggled to find the proper words for the moment. “What you said last night… you want us to want the same thing. I’m not sure if we do. I hear their thoughts and all I think is – ” he stopped, but he knew that Charles understood.

“I know, Erik,” Charles said, his tone free of any judgment or condescension. “I know. I – Emma – it’s hard to describe. We – our minds… merged. And I felt, on a level I had never before – you know, I’d always thought that because I could read minds, then that meant that I understood people. But now, I understand that that’s not the case. I might know your thoughts, and where they come from, I might have access to all your memories, even feel every emotion you feel, but, that doesn’t mean I can – I still bring all of my thoughts into it, my perspective, my biases, my own life experiences.” Charles wiped sand and tears from his face as he went on. “And so when I listen to other people’s thoughts, I might pretend that I understand their way of thinking, but I don’t. But with Emma – I wasn’t sure, Erik, who I was, whether I was Charles Xavier or Emma Frost. And everything she thought – it made so much sense. Because to her it did, and I was her. That’s why – I understand now, Erik, I do. Your approach to this. But I don’t agree. And neither did the men we became in Logan’s future. If you don’t trust me, then trust yourself.” While Charles’s words were almost desperate, his voice was not pleading, but soft and composed.

“Yeah, well that other me also didn’t think I had the capacity for change,” Erik pointed out.

“Then prove him wrong,” Charles challenged. “Only you control your decisions.”

The missiles smoothly twirled 180 degrees, poised to be sent back to the ships.

“So you wouldn’t stop me, if I…?” Erik waved his right hand in a forward motion.

Charles gave a small chuckle. “Oh, I would,” he said calmly. “But you have to make a choice first, my friend.”

Erik shook his head. “Then why don’t you just make me want what you want? You could. You could make everyone think just like you.”

Charles grunted again in pain. “Because as I said last night, I don’t want to control people. It isn’t my goal for everyone to believe exactly as I do. But if you try to kill those 8,322 people, I will stop you.”

Erik half-snorted, scoffing. “So what happens when you’re wrong, and you try to stop someone from doing something that’s actually right?”

“Well then, I hope you’re there to stop me,” Charles replied earnestly.

Erik looked back to the beach, and while he kept his face hard, something inside him felt torn.

Sluggishly, as if they were themselves hesitant and unsteady, the missiles drifted back toward the boats. The farther they went, the more Erik felt the fear, the certainty of imminent death, the soul-crushing terror of the humans. This did not stop him. Charles would have to do better than that if he truly wanted to save the humans.

Unbidden by Erik, a memory was brought to the front of his mind. The concentration camps, the torture he endured at the hands of Shaw. The numbers being engraved on his arm, because that’s all he was to them, a number. And before, when he and his family were forced to wear a yellow star to publicize their lesser status. The first time he was taken away to the camps, locked in a packed, filthy, barrack, in which the most prominent smell was fear. Why was Charles showing him this?

Because I want you to see, Charles’s voice spoke in his head. Why did they take you, Erik? Why would they do such horrible things to you and everyone else in that camp?

They both knew what Charles was getting at, but Erik obliged him with an answer anyway. 

Because we were the wrong race. Erik injected as much bitterness and righteous anger as can be shared in a single sentence.

And what makes you want to hurt the men on those ships? Charles asked, his tone as if he had just declared checkmate.

Erik couldn’t help but take offense at this. That’s not–they started it.

No, Charles countered. They don’t understand what’s going on, and now they are reacting in fear. But if we could explain–

Erik cut off Charles’s statement with an even louder thought of his own. That’s never going to happen. They will never accept us.

Maybe you’re right, Charles sounded tired. Maybe I am just a naive fool. But I won’t – I can not agree that because something will probably happen then that justifies the destruction of the world to prevent it. We have to do our part, our best. Then, all we can do is wait and hope for others to do theirs.

Erik grimaced. And when they come for us, Charles? When they attack us with something I can’t catch with my mind, what happens then?

Then we do fight back, Charles spoke with a solemn conviction. We stand up for our cause. But not like this. If you do this, you are only proving them right. That they should fear us. That we don’t want to live in harmony with them. That we are all like Shaw, that we only care about the future of our race.

And why shouldn’t we? Erik asked honestly, and more tears rolled down Charles’s cheeks in response.

Erik could feel a faint, instinctual reaction seeping through the cracks of the telepathic connection. I’m sorry, who do you sound like now? But clearer than that, Charles intentionally projected, We share a common cause, I really do believe that. In Logan’s future, we fought each other for decades. But it doesn’t have to be that way for us. I don’t want that to be our future. Do you?

Erik exhaled wearily, and found himself shaking his head. He watched almost passively as, one by one, the missiles exploded harmlessly mid-flight like a shower of fireworks in daytime. And as each one detonated with no casualties, Erik felt emotions which were not his own – relief, wonder, an easing of fear, a hope that maybe he wouldn’t die today, and a strong desire to just return home. Get out of my head, Charles , Erik almost growled.

Charles, still propped up by Erik’s left arm, smiled and chuckled.

“Are we done, is it over?” asked Moira.

“I think so,” Erik answered as Charles nodded.

“Are you okay?” Moira asked Charles, as she grabbed his hand and tried to help him up. Charles cried out in pain at the movement, falling back into Erik’s arm.

“Actually, I–I–I can’t feel my legs.”

“What?” Raven said, horrified.

“To be honest, I think I’m lucky it wasn’t worse,” Charles replied. “I – we – Emma – we weren’t just connected, we were… amalgamated. And she – she died. I think we dissociated just a little after that first bullet, else, I could have died too. As it was, well, the bullet hit our – her – spine.”

“Alright, then we need to – I suppose a hospital can’t fix this,” Moira said.

“I’m afraid not,” Charles agreed.

Leaving Charles to Moira’s care, Erik stood up. The team was scattered around him, each member in varying states of perplexity and exhaustion.

Logan, however, was different. He was looking around as if he’d never seen any of them before, confusion exuding from all his features.

“Where am I?” he asked aggressively. “Who are you people?”

“You don’t remember who we are?” replied Erik in confusion.

Logan shook his head fiercely. “What the hell did you do to me?”

Charles’s voice came from where his head rested in Moira’s lap. “You’re with friends, there’s no need to panic. You’re on a beach in Cuba, you’ve–”

But before Charles could explain any further, Logan had bolted into the woods.

“Logan!” Alex called, but he did not return.

“What’s up with him?” asked Sean.

Realization dawned on Erik. “He doesn’t remember us,” Erik deduced. “It’s no longer his future self’s consciousness in his mind. We did it. We changed the future.”

As Alex, Hank, and Sean bombarded Charles with questions about this, Erik surveyed the beach. A thick haze wreathed the warships in the ocean. He turned to see the crashed jet, the pile of metal taken from the submarine beyond it, and Azazel, Riptide, and Angel standing in the distance, as if still uncertain what they should be doing.

Erik extended his hand to them. “Join us,” he called.

Hesitantly, they walked toward him. “You killed our leaders,” Azazel said in way of greeting.

Erik simply nodded, refusing to show any shame or regret. It would be dishonest.

“What is your mission?” Azazel asked.

Erik almost faltered, but quickly found a reply. “Protection. For all mutants. Unity for our people in the face of adversity.”

Azazel looked to Riptide and Angel for input, and they communicated quietly among themselves for a minute or two. Erik did not try to listen or intervene.

Eventually, they turned back to Erik and Angel gave him a sad expression. “We’re sorry,” she said in her soft, sweet voice. “But we’ll find our own way.”

Erik saw no point in trying to persuade them further. He nodded again as they locked hands. “Take care,” Erik told them, and they disappeared in a flash of red smoke.

Erik turned back to the mutants he’d arrived with. He picked up from the general conversation that Moira had gone back to the jet to radio for help. Following Raven’s and Sean’s example, he sat down in the sand to await further developments.

A military helicopter arrived a couple hours later. There had been little discussion in that time, and none of importance. Erik watched paramedics place Charles on a stretcher, and he felt the familiar aversion to accompanying government agents as he himself took a seat in the cabin, Shaw’s helmet in his hands. The ride to Miami was uneventful, and Erik did not participate in the small chat between the younger mutants and the marines. When they landed in the late afternoon, Moira already had a plane lined up to take them back to New York. No one was exactly sure why she was so adamant that they return there, but just the same, no one objected, since the alternative seemed to be a hotel or yet another government facility. It was nearing midnight when they finally reached the Xavier mansion, and they all immediately retired to bed.

Chapter 13: Epilogue: Now I See Intentions Don’t Mean Much

Charles woke to the familiar comforts of home: the feel of soft silk sheets, the smell of sandalwood incense, the dark wood ceiling… wait, that wasn’t this bedroom’s ceiling. The pattern was wrong. The room was different, too, smaller, and the decorations weren’t – why couldn’t he move? Turning his head, because he couldn’t turn his whole body, he saw a wheelchair by his bed. And then it finally clicked, and he remembered everything.

He exhaled a long breath. Maybe yesterday had just been cursed. They had thought they could change the future, make it better. But what all had they changed? They had defeated Shaw the first time around, as well as avert nuclear war. Charles had still been paralyzed. What was different?

Erik hadn’t taken Raven and abandoned him, but… Charles didn’t know where he stood with Erik. In the end, Erik had blown up the missiles of his own accord; Charles had not had to resort to telepathic coercion. But what did that say about Erik? Somehow, Charles didn’t think it made you a good person if you freely choose to not kill 8000 innocent people, even when you really want to.

But what did Charles know about Erik? Charles had once told Erik he knew “everything” about him. Charles didn’t think he’d say that now. Not when he truly had known everything about Emma. Emma. Something akin to grief and loss stirred inside Charles as he thought about her.

As unpleasant as the mind-melding experience was, it had been even worse to come out of it. When he had just been trying to adjust to who he was, who they were. And then, suddenly to have half of himself brutally ripped away, to be forced back into his own mind, but with all her memories, all her thoughts, beliefs, emotions. And noticing as all the parts of her were assimilated into him. But not built into his own mind. Taken apart, broken down, piece by piece. Carefully considered, judged, weighed. Because now that he could distinguish his thoughts from hers, hers were no longer as valuable, they could not be measured with the same scales. They must be pondered in light of his own, and only then could they be accepted or discarded. Most were discarded.

And Charles couldn’t even feel guilty about this, because she was wrong, wasn’t she? And yet, he still remembered everything about her, her whole life history, her ideologies, her favorite lipstick. He had thought like her, he had felt like her, he had been her. As much as he missed the use of half his body, the loss of half his consciousness was worse.

But when he had woken up on that sand, he had had no time to process this, as he had been immediately thrown back into the action – not physically, but psychically. And he had had to make decisions – were they the right ones? Had it been right to allow Logan to leave like that, when he had no clue why he was there? If something bad happened to Logan now, wouldn’t it be Charles’s fault? But wouldn’t it have been even more wrong to force Logan to stay and listen while Charles explained what was going on?

Was Charles right to continue to hope that Erik could change, that he could someday see the world the way Charles saw it? Was that even a worthy goal? And what to do with Raven and the others, now that they knew about his concealment of a matter as important as time travel? Charles knew from yesterday that they had not been pleased to learn of his deception, even though they had not said much about it due to his injury and their fatigue. How were they feeling about it today? Charles restrained himself from using his powers to find out.

With difficulty, Charles maneuvered himself into the wheelchair by his bed. Moira had somehow procured it for him yesterday, between the helicopter and the plane. Clumsily, he wheeled himself out the door and down a hallway, and soon found himself in the grand foyer of his childhood home.

He now dimly remembered the events of last night, when they’d arrived at the mansion exhausted. While Erik had offered to use his powers to lift the wheelchair up the stairs, Charles had declined, instead opting to sleep in a guest room on the first floor. He was now very glad of the decision, as it allowed him to (relatively) easily get to the kitchen, where he promptly discovered that the cabinets were too high for his limited reach.

Frustrated, he looked in the fridge and opened the first alcoholic beverage he could find, only then realizing that the glasses would be out of his reach as well. Screw it, he decided, and took a swig directly from the bottle. It was stronger than he’d been expecting and he almost choked as it went down his throat.

And that was how Erik found him, drinking straight from his finest bottle of single malt scotch at 8:52, in the morning, on a Tuesday.

Erik clucked his tongue. “Become a lush already, Charles? Lower-body paralysis can’t be that bad.”

Charles ignored Erik’s teasing, and instead handed him the bottle. Erik hesitated, and then took a sip himself.

Shaking his head, Erik passed it back. “I prefer gin to whiskey.”

“Suit yourself,” Charles said, gesturing to the still-open refrigerator.

Erik soon found what he was looking for, and, as one blessed with the use of his legs, was able to obtain them two glasses. Presently, they were sitting at the small kitchen table with drinks and a few snacks between them, allowing themselves to momentarily forget the debacle that had been yesterday.

And that was how Moira found them, drinking and laughing like old friends, at 9:04 a.m. that Tuesday.

“Drinking? Seriously?” she asked.

Like a naughty schoolboy caught in the act, Erik pointed to Charles. “He started it.”

Moira turned to Charles, and he was glad when Moira’s face showed no pity. “Whatever,” she said, dropping the subject as she started looking through the fridge herself.

“I wish Logan was here,” she muttered as she reached for a box of eggs. Soon, she was preparing a simple but sizable breakfast, while Charles and Erik were already both on their second glasses.

And that was how Raven and Alex found them, at 9:17 that Tuesday morning. Raven, still in her blue appearance, gave everyone a falsely cheery good morning and set about helping Moira with breakfast. Before long, the meal was ready, and Moira and Raven both blamed Logan’s absence for anything potentially wrong with the food.

As it was, the breakfast was delightful. They had all concurred that there was no need to retrieve Hank and Sean, as no one could be criticized for sleeping late after everything they had been through the day before. Fortunately, the conversation did not dwell too long on the previous day’s events, and while Charles spoke significantly less than usual, he found himself enjoying just listening to the casual banter and light teasing thrown back and forth across the table. If he allowed his imagination to wander just a little, it could easily be just a few days before, when they were still training, when he still – no. It was over. Daydreaming about what could have gone different was useless, especially since Charles had information from a different future which told him exactly what could have gone different, and it was monumentally worse.

Naturally, the conversation eventually turned to what would come next for them, and, for some reason, Erik decided to put Charles on the spot and ask him about his immediate plans.

Charles found himself answering easily. “Well, I’d always thought it would be a lot of fun to run a school.”

“What kind of school?” asked Alex.

“Boarding school. For all ages. And now that we know how many of us there are and will be – alone, unprotected, in need of something to be a part of – I’ve been thinking for some time that maybe it could be for all the mutant kids out there who just want the closest thing to a normal life they can get. You’d all be invited to be professors, course.”

They all laughed, but Charles could tell that Alex, at least, was intrigued by the idea.

Raven was in the middle of asking where this school would be, when Hank joined them.

“Hank!” Raven greeted him, smiling broadly. “Charles was just telling us about his plan to start a normal mutant school.”

And so it went, because honestly, it was Charles’s fault he had taken in a sister in the first place.

When breakfast was finished, Hank turned to Charles. “I’ve been working on – I prepared some testing equipment in the lab. Concerning your paralysis. It’s ready whenever you…”

Charles could tell that Hank wanted this done as soon as possible, and Charles himself was interested in what his exact medical condition was. “I think now is as good a time as any.”

Since they had nothing else to do, everyone else joined Hank and Charles as they navigated their way to the former art studio.

“Basically, it’s two tests,” Hank explained as he showed them several medical devices; Charles couldn’t tell whether he’d constructed them himself or if he’d just modified them. “First, we’ll just go ahead and see if there is any actual physical damage to your spine. You’ll need to be lying here to do it.” Hank tapped on a long metal table. “And, uh, we’ll need to remove your shirt.”

Between Hank and Erik, Charles was easily lifted and placed on his side on the table, where, after a few questions to determine where precisely he lost feeling in his body, Charles felt a needle injecting into his bare back. “That was a local anesthetic,” Hank told him. “The area should begin to feel numb in a few minutes.” Hank fiddled with a few other tools while they waited, and then returned to Charles with another needle. While Hank described the procedure in detail, Charles payed little attention to the specifics as something was withdrawn from his spine and another injection took place. Hank then pulled a large scanner over Charles’s back and watched the results closely as he used a device to tilt the table so that Charles’s head was elevated slightly.

Charles waited patiently while Hank and the others meticulously scrutinized whatever it was that was so interesting. At some point, Sean joined them, munching loudly on the breakfast they’d left him. Eventually, Hank flipped up the scanner and reported his findings.

“The fluoroscopic imaging shows nothing physically wrong with your spine, which is, of course, to be expected, as you didn’t suffer any physical injury. But that means that it’s gotta be what you had suggested – it’s psychological.” Hank’s voice seemed almost excited as Charles felt yet another needle in his back.

“What’s with the happy voice?” asked Raven.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hank said quickly, his tone deflating. “It’s just – it’s fascinating. I’ve heard of cases like this, but obviously, this one is unique ‘cause, you know, telepath. The mind is the most powerful thing about someone, if it doesn’t think that you can walk, then, well, you can’t walk.”

“What, you’re saying that Charles is doing this on purpose?” Erik asked, cynical as always.

“No, not at all. That’s what this next test is for.” Hank brought over a device quite similar to the one Charles’s had worn to use Cerebro.

As soon as Charles tried to lift his head to take a better look, he felt an instant wave of nausea overtake his whole body, forcing him to drop his head.

“Oh, yeah, the lumbar puncture will do that to you,” Hank explained. “Just lie back until it goes away. The anesthetic’s worn off, so we’re ready when you are.”

After a few minutes, Charles nodded to Hank to go ahead. Carefully, Hank fitted Charles’s head with the gadget, wires running seemingly everywhere. “Essentially, what the EEG does is read your brain waves. I’ve made a few modifications to get more precise readings, but the basic principle is the same.”

Hank made a few adjustments with the mechanism, and then turned it on. Charles felt nothing but what remained of his nausea as the device began moving pencils back and forth on several sheets of paper. They must have made sense to Hank, because he nodded in comprehension. “Everything seems normal. Say something, anything.”

“The cow jumped over the moon,” Charles said immediately.

“Perfect!” Hank exclaimed as a couple pencils jumped.

These questions went on for some time, until eventually, Hank moved on to actual tests involving Charles’s paralysis, all the while paying close attention to the lines on the papers.

Finally, Hank removed the contraption from Charles’s head and sighed.

“What’s going on, is his brain broken?” asked Sean.

Hank ignored him and turned to face Charles. “Usually, in psychosomatic injuries, there’s a heightening of activity in the limbic system, but with you, well, I suppose it’s only been a day, but still, you’d expect – ” he trailed off. “Essentially, what usually happens with this kind of thing is an emotional response triggers the suppression of the neural interactions which initiate physical movement. But with you, the amygdala’s functioning like normal, there is no reduction of brainwaves coming from the prefrontal cortex – your brain’s not reacting emotionally at all.”

“So what does that mean?” asked Erik.

“By itself, it doesn’t mean anything,” Hank answered. “But… it’s intriguing. The neural connections which would normally – ”

“Just explain it in English, Hank,” Raven interjected.

Hank let out a long breath. “Basically, his brain is acting just like you’d expect it to if his spinal cord actually was severed at T11 – that’s the vertebra where, presumably, the hot telepath girl was shot. It just isn’t sending or receiving signals below that line. And it’s not just blocked – for him, trying to walk is like, well, it would be like telling your arm to fall off or to grow a new limb. It’s not something your brain recognizes as a possibility.”

“Is there anything that can be done?” Moira asked.

Hank shook his head. “This is completely unprecedented. The only thing that could fix it would be – uh, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like to, um, speak with Charles alone, please.”

Little protest was made as Hank ushered them from the room and closed the door.

Hank returned to Charles and helped him back into the wheelchair.

“So?” Charles prodded. “Is there anything you could do?”

Hank, who had seemed a little distracted, eventually answered. “That I can do? The only thing that would work is something that alters your brain function, but – the scientific knowledge about the brain is just too limited. Especially with you being such a powerful telepath, it would be way too dangerous to even experiment with it. Even for me. I’m sorry, professor, I can’t help you with the technology we have available. It probably won’t ever – the problem’s just too complex.”

The truth was that Charles had not been expecting anything more, and while of course he was disappointed, at least he was not surprised. “Is there anything else?” Charles inquired.

Hank fidgeted with an instrument in his hands. “Yes.”

“What?”

“The time travel,” Hank replied faintly. “How did it work?”

“Why do you wanna know?” asked Charles, confused.

“I mean, it’s just, scientific curiosity.”

Hank was a terrible liar, not to mention the fact that Charles was a telepath. And even if Charles wasn’t reading him intentionally, there were some things that he would just subconsciously pick up on. Charles felt understanding, followed closely by horror, well up inside him.

“What do you want to change, Hank?”

Hank shook his head. “If we could – all kinds of things. We could go back and make it so that you don’t get paralyzed. We could save Darwin – and all the men at the CIA base, when Shaw attacked. We could convince Angel not to… there’s so many things. If we could go back, we could make it happen… perfectly.”

It was now Charles’s turn to shake his head. “And who decides what version of events would be perfect?”

“What, am I wrong to want to save my friend?” Hank almost yelled. “Was that ‘supposed to’ happen, or something? What are the rules here?”

“There are no rules,” Charles answered. “Emma wasn’t in Cuba, the first time. You mess with time, it messes right back. It doesn’t matter anyway. We couldn’t do it. Logan was sent back by a mutant who wouldn’t have been born for another forty years. What you’re describing – it’s not how it works, Hank.”

“Yeah, because you know all about how it works.” Hank’s tone was bitter and almost hostile.

“What do you mean by that?” Charles needed Hank to say what he was actually talking about.

“I mean that…” Hank looked down at his furry arms, blue hands, sharp claws. “What all did you know? What all could you have changed that you didn’t? Why didn’t you tell me – us – what was going on?”

“I have a feeling you’re talking about something very specific, Hank. What is it?”

Hank looked Charles in the eyes. “The serum. Did you know what it would do to me? That it would turn me into this?” He held up his hands and waved them about in emphasis.

Charles nodded. “We discussed telling you, but, we couldn’t without explaining the whole time travel deal.”

“And why was it so important to keep that a secret?”

“It wasn’t a secret,” Charles answered, getting defensive. “We just – it was important that you all stay focused on the mission.”

“Is that the only thing you cared about – the mission?” Hank was almost growling now.

Charles allowed his emotions to get the better of him as he shot. “I’m sorry, the world as we know it almost ended yesterday. World War III – nuclear war – was averted by this much” – Charles brought his forefinger to his thumb and almost touched them – “and if you think that your cosmetic problem is a bigger issue than that then you have your priorities mixed up, my friend.”

“Excuse me, I’m the one whose priorities are mixed up?” Hank repeated incredulously. “You’re the one who thinks he can – play God! You received a message from sixty years in the future, and you didn’t tell me, or Raven, or Sean, or Alex, because you weren’t willing to risk whatever nebulous terrible things might happen if you did. Okay, fine, but don’t pretend that that in and of itself was a decision without consequences.”

Before Charles could reply to that, Hank went on, as if it was a rant that had built up over the last 20 hours and only now spilled out.

“And you have the gall to ask who gets to decide what version of events is perfect. Did you think that person was you? You sure acted like you did. Trying to order everything like you wanted it – your own perfect way of handling everything neatly. Is that why you said that about Emma being there when she wasn’t supposed to? Because it wasn’t how you had planned it? Did you plan it for me to take the serum that would turn me into… – And why did Erik and Moira get to know and not us? What made you think that it was your right to make that decision for us? Of course, yes, it would have changed things had we known. But, what the fuck did you recruit us for if you don’t trust us?”

Charles sighed before responding, and he tried to do so with as calm and patient a voice as possible. “What made me think that it was my right to keep the truth from you? I suppose it wasn’t. But, the decision was before me nevertheless. I had to make one. I had to decide between giving you full volition and autonomy or giving you a chance at what I saw as a better future.”

This gave Hank pause. “What do you mean, better future?”

“In Logan’s world, you died, Hank,” Charles blurted. Then, at seeing Hank’s expression, Charles clarified. “Not yesterday. Later, when the world was burning. Alex too. Raven became a killer. And Sean, well, he didn’t make it past next year. What was I supposed to do with that information?”

Hank had eased up a bit, but he still shook his head. “I don’t know, Charles. But… I just, I can’t – I don’t know what all you’re planning for your mutant school, but, I don’t wanna be a part of it. I’m leaving.”

“I see. Just know that you’ll always be welcome here, Hank.”

Hank cast his eyes around the room. “Thanks. I’ll be leaving as soon as – I mean, there’s nothing else for me to do around here, is there?”

“I am sorry, Hank,” Charles said sincerely. “I mean, I’m not saying that what I did was definitively wrong, because I don’t know. Which means that I don’t know if it was right either. I did what I did. I hope someday you can forgive me.”

“Yeah, me too,” Hank said quickly, and he led them out of the lab.

By then, it was time for lunch, and, after the meal, Hank said his goodbyes, gathered what few things he had brought with him, and left.

Of course, this then prompted a much more genuine conversation about everyone’s future plans. Charles reiterated that he really did want to start a school, right there in the mansion. Alex revealed that he was not too thrilled at the prospect of going back to prison, and, if they could arrange it, he’d love to be a teacher at Charles’s school. Sean admitted that he had nowhere to go, so he might as well stay for at least the time being. Moira said that her place was still at the CIA, and that she’d be returning to Langley the next day. Neither Erik nor Raven disclosed their plans, if they had any.

They passed the first part of the afternoon playing games and just enjoying each other’s company, reveling in the beauty of a world not at nuclear war. At some point, though, Alex suggested the idea of a workout, and the nice thing about being in a wheelchair was that nobody blamed Charles when he said he wouldn’t be joining them. Charles instead withdrew into the library where he buried himself in a book for a couple hours.

Charles was interrupted from his reading by a knock on the open door. Looking up, he smiled a little more than he was intending at the sight of Moira standing in the doorway, a well-fitting purple dress falling daintily to her knees.

Charles closed his book and cleared his throat slightly. “Come in,” he said pleasantly.

She smiled back at him and entered, crossing her legs as she sat in a chair across from him. “So did we really succeed?” Moira asked, jumping straight into the most pressing question on her mind. “Did we really prevent the future Logan came from? The world won’t end in sixty years because of – because of a mutant-human war?”

Charles wanted to say yes. Instead, he answered, “One catastrophic fate has been averted. That doesn’t mean there won’t be others. The fight doesn’t end here, Moira. Humankind will now know that mutants exist. It’s on us to prove to the government – to everyone – that mutants aren’t a threat. That we deserve equal rights. And I believe that can happen. I even believe, maybe foolishly, that it will. But I also know that there’ll be times when it’ll look like it won’t. That’s why we need to stand together, that’s why we need this school, that’s why we need you helping us. It’s the only way it’ll work.”

“So when I go back and make my report, I can—there are high-ranking CIA officials who trust me, and others who I know how to manipulate. I get them on my side, I keep any government involvement in mutant activity to a minimum, that’s my mission?”

“Something like that,” Charles answered, not sure himself what she’d need to do exactly. “I have full confidence you’ll be able to figure it out. Besides, I’ll always be here if you ever need anything. We’re still on the government’s side.”

“Maybe so,” Moira said, “but, you’re your own team now. It’s better. If you officially work for them, there’ll be no barrier to them trying to control you, to use you for their own gain. But if you’re on the outside, an allied force, they have to take your wellbeing into account. And believe me, they’ll want you on their side.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

“Well, anyway, Logan’s not here anymore and the others are still doing their workout, so I suppose I should go make dinner.”

Charles couldn’t help but feel disappointed as she left the room.

Charles resumed reading, but it was only a few minutes later when he was interrupted again, this time by Raven’s voice.

“Figured you be here.” Her tone was flat, neither jolly nor antagonistic.

Charles looked up and smiled. “Raven,” he said, allowing her to start whatever discussion she wanted.

She picked a seat. “I’m leaving too,” she stated bluntly.

Charles sighed. “I assumed as much,” he said eventually.

“How, did you read my mind?” she asked reprovingly.

Charles chuckled. “I didn’t need to.”

“I made it that obvious that I don’t like it here?”

When Charles didn’t respond quickly, she continued. “I mean, it’s not – I don’t hate it. It’s not that it isn’t home, it’s just… not.”

“I think I understand,” Charles told her sympathetically.

She shook her head. “I’m not mad at you. Well, I am, but – ” She sighed. “I suppose it’s just that I need to go and figure out who I am for myself.” She stared down at her scaly blue hands. “I wish you had trusted me. I wish you had told me about Logan, about myself. I understand why you didn’t, though. Don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Charles smiled. “Thank you.”

Then she actually laughed, not the carefree laugh she used to make when they were kids, but a wistful laugh. “What, you’re not gonna try to tell me I can’t go?”

Charles shook his head almost forcefully. “I should never have tried to control you, Raven. I don’t know if I ever did it deliberately, but, I suppose I just wanted a little sister.”

“You have a little sister,” Raven assured him. “She’s just all grown up.”

It was now Charles’s turn to laugh. “I suppose you’re right. Just don’t do anything that would lead to the end of the world in sixty years. Or sooner,” he added an afterthought.

“Got it,” she assented, smiling. “No bringing on apocalypses, I’ll write it down.”

“Where are you gonna go?” Charles felt like it was safe to ask, even if she didn’t wanna tell him or if she didn’t know herself.

“I don’t know, just, wherever.”

“Excited to be on your own?”

“Excited to get away from you, anyway. Besides, who’d wanna go with me?”

“Fair point,” Charles conceded.

“Hey!” she reprimanded him, and they both laughed. “I was so adorable as a child burglar that even a stuck-up, rich brat like you couldn’t resist taking me in.”

And somehow, just like that, they fell to reminiscing the escapades of their childhood, and Charles was grateful for it – in that moment, to share a simple, meaningless laugh with his sister meant to him the whole world.

---

That night, Charles and Erik found themselves alone in a familiar study after everyone else had gone to bed.

“So, Moira’s going back to the CIA tomorrow?” Erik said. “I wonder what they’ll think of her report.”

“They’ll listen to her,” Charles answered optimistically.

“And if they don’t?” Erik asked.

“Then we’ll do everything we can to show them that we, at least, are not a threat.”

Erik paused, considering Charles’s words. When he spoke, it was as if he’d just realized something. “You really do have faith in humanity.”

Charles’s reply was almost instant. “I see no reason to distrust people until they prove they are untrustworthy.”

Erik reached for his martini, shaking his head. “I suppose I just seem like a cynic to you, don’t I?”

“No. Well, yes. But –” Charles laughed at the irony of what he was about to say. “It’s a good thing, really. Because sometimes, you’re right. Sometimes, people can’t be trusted. And those times, I hope you’re there to tell me you told me so.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Erik promised.

“So, have you thought about what’s next for you?” Charles asked. “Considered taking up teaching?”

Erik smiled as he set down his martini. “You’re gonna miss me, aren’t you?”

Charles chuckled. “Where are you thinking of going?”

“Where ever I’m needed,” Erik answered immediately. “The school – it’ll do great without me. You’ll find teachers, students. I truly believe that it’ll do a lot of good for our people, Charles. But, some won’t be able to attend. Won’t want to. I can help them. The lost, leaderless ones with wandering hearts.”

“Well, I know of one already,” Charles said, unsure himself whether he should be mentioning it.

“Who?”

Charles didn’t hesitate. “Raven.”

Erik’s face froze in surprise. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“Sometimes, you just have to take things on faith,” Charles repeated his point from earlier. “You yourself taught me that about her. She needs something I can’t give her, and… I truly think you can help her where I can’t.”

“You’re not worried that I’ll…” Erik didn’t finish, but Charles knew what he was saying.

“No, I’m not. What Logan showed us, it was from a different world. But this world… it won’t be like that. Moira’s already coming up with plans to ensure the government doesn’t ever hire Trask, or experiment on mutants. We have allies, Erik. Not just mutants. We can – we were given a second shot at this. At shaping the future. I refuse to believe that we’ll mess it up this time.”

“But what if I do?” Erik’s voice was low and almost desperate.

Charles met his eyes. “Then I’ll stop you.”

Erik looked down. “I still have the helmet. I’m taking it with me.”

“Good,” Charles said sincerely.

“Why?” asked Erik.

“For when you need to stop me.”

“You really believe in all this,” Erik said, half-question, half-observation.

“I do,” Charles confirmed. “Just know that, if ever you need help, with anything, I’ll be there for you.”

“Same to you,” Erik vowed.

“You sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Charles asked one last time.

“You’re psychic, Charles,” Erik replied, smirking. “You can convince me to do anything.”

Charles nodded. “Take care of Raven for me, will you?”

“Of course.” Erik summoned a metal chess set from across the room. “Up for one last game?”

Charles smiled. “Always, my friend.”

Notes:

And we have finally made it to the end!
I swear I did tons of research on the medical procedure described here; it's called myeolography. I have no actual medical knowledge though so all of what I know comes from quick Google searchs and ChatGPT lol. If you see something dreadfully wrong with the way that I do it, I can just say that that was Hank's modifications to it.
Anyway, I hope anybody who read this story enjoyed it! Comments and kudos are appreciated. Constructive criticism is greatly encouraged!