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Find My Way Back Home

Part I: Don't you go


When that kind of scruffy looking broody guy and the kid who can move alarmingly fast break him out of prison Erik follows them, for what else is there to do? Apart from the fact that being imprisoned is really not all that much fun, and that it gets boring very quickly, especially with no entertainment whatsoever – apart from that he wants to, needs to feel metal again. It has been ten years, ten years in which his sixth sense has been deaf, blind, and numb all at the same time.

The humans incapacitated, tortured him in a way they cannot even imagine.

But, well – nothing new about humans there, right?

The kid pulls of an incredible stunt, getting rid of the bullets when Erik cannot for lack of metal in them, and the scruffy looking broody guy gives him no chance to ask any questions, simply takes the two of them outside and to an airplane waiting close by – together with the second surprise of that day.

Hank is standing next to the plane, all angry and distrustful (and maybe, maybe Erik can understand him, but that changes nothing about the fact that he thinks him weak for his choices, and anyway, where has the fur gone?), but he smiles at the scruffy looking broody guy.

"Thanks, Logan. Any problems?"

"Nothing Pietro couldn't handle," the scruffy looking broody guy – Logan – answers, his voice as sombre as his face has already promised, before clapping his hand onto the kid's shoulder. "Thanks for helping."

"No problem," the kid answers, voice still bright with excitement. "That was fun!"

Logan flashes him a short, toothy grin. "I'd imagined you might say that."

Pietro returns the grin, before raising his hand in a mock salute towards Erik, tilting his head and then he is gone, leaving no trace whatsoever.

Erik cannot help raising an eyebrow.

"He's not coming with us, then, I take it?"

Logan's eyes are impatient. "Obviously. Now move it, we're on a schedule."

"Where're we going, anyway?"

He does not receive an answer.

Giving Hank – Beast – Hank – arrgh, this is confusing! – a wary glance Erik sighs and gives in, following the broody guy on board the rather nice looking plane. He can feel Hank entering behind him; however, where the young man makes for the cockpit Erik simply stops, closing his eyes as he finally allows himself to feel the metal around him.

It soothes the formerly constant pain – once again being able to sense what his body and mind were deprived of for a decade. He does not think he will ever forget what not being able to felt like.

For the first time in so many years feeling at least close to content he sighs, before opening his eyes again, the sensation of all the metal around him a soothing thrumming at the back of his thoughts. He is alone in what seems to be a small room meant for storing, a door leading in each direction but ahead. The one to the left Hank went through, and the one behind him is closing right now. He feels the engines of the plane come to life as Hank starts them – another installation of his own, perhaps? – and uses his hold on the metal structures around him to steady himself as the machine takes up speed and then is lifted into the air.

Deciding that, if he wants to know what is going on, he will have to talk to the broody guy he finally moves towards the door on his right. He might not like being ordered to do anything, really, but Logan did break him out of prison. Besides, the guy is a fellow mutant.

His own honour – or what he has left of it – compels him to do so.

Sighing once again he steps forward even as he commands the door handle to move – and is it not a nice door, made of nice, expensive wood? – and moves into what looks like a rather pretty sitting room, complete with sofas, tables, cupboards, bookshelves… and seat belts.

Also, there is a space left open for what looks to be a wheelchair, and-

Is that…

Charles?

Of course it is.

He should have guessed, Erik berates himself, after all Hank is here; and he knows the blue boy to have been the only one who ultimately stayed with the Professor. That plan of a school did not work out all that well, huh?

Formerly distanced, bright blue eyes suddenly explode into anger as Charles apparently picks up that stray thought.

Instead of pursuing the matter, however, the telepath averts his gaze and chooses to stare out of the window even as Erik remembers, close to panicking, that he does not have his helmet, that Charles can read his thoughts, thoughts he has no right to read, not now, not ever-

The professor shows no reaction whatsoever, and, slowly, Erik forces himself to calm down. He chooses a seat as far away from who used to be his friend as is possible in the confined space; and Logan, whose face is even darker than before, moves to sit with Charles.

For all that they are looking like they are occupied with watching the clouds and reading, respectively, they might be having an entire conversation.

It is not like Erik cares.

His face might be as thunderous as the scruffy guy's, he thinks in a moment of dark amusement, before debating whether he should ask them what this is all about. It does not seem like they will tell him on their own, and now that he knows Charles is involved with whatever this is, he is no longer ready to follow them blindly.

What used to be trust, it seems, has turned to an extreme version of the exact opposite.

"Are you going to tell me what we're going to do, or will you simply make me come along?"

Charles' terribly blue eyes let go of the clouds, and as the telepath turns his head they find Erik's once again, both them and his face carefully blank.

It is the scruffy guy, though, who answers.

"This might be hard to believe," he begins, and already Erik cannot help but roll his eyes. Really? This is how they are trying to convince him to do god-knows-what? "But I'm not from here… now… whatever. I- … I'm from the future, and you sent me here. You and Charles."

If not for those last words, Erik might actually have believed him.

There is no telling, after all, what mutants might be capable of.

However, that he and Charles might do something together, in whatever kind of future, is highly unlikely.

"And what future might that be?" he asks, mocking words that are meant to show how much he is not persuaded.

The scruffy guy's eyes grow dark and angry. "One you should do anything to prevent." His voice is aggressive, and as his fists clench there is a raw, unhidden kind of pain in his voice that almost convinces Erik, no matter Charles' involvement. "We… mutants… are on the verge of being exterminated. There're so few of us left… The humans invented weapons – called Sentinels – we can't fight. When they find you… there's no chance to survive. Many of us were transported to camps" – and from the dangerous look in his eyes as he watches Erik flinch he chose those words very much on purpose – "and disabled using collars which make us unable to use our powers, and I'm not sure whether any of them are still alive where – when – I come from. The only ones who ever made it out of one of these camps… are those now sacrificing themselves as the mutant who sent me here makes this possible. Everyone… everyone is ready to die, including the two of you, because this? This is our last hope. Our only chance left."

With that Logan averts his eyes once again, his whole frame brimming over with anger, and returns to staring at his newspaper, which might as well burst into flames any moment.

Eyebrows raised Erik stares at him, then turns to focus on Charles.

Logan's anguish certainly seemed genuine enough, and from the distant sorrow on the telepath's face he can tell that Charles has found a similar truth in the time-traveller's mind.

It is true, then.

"And what, pray tell, are we supposed to do to prevent that from happening?" he asks, voice still dark and sarcastic.

"We stop Mystique from killing Trask."

Erik's raised eyebrow is quietly prompting Logan to elaborate; however, the time-traveller has taken to staring at Charles, now. Another quiet conversation, then.

"And who would that Trask guy be?"

"The one who invented the Sentinel-program."

For a moment, Erik cannot believe it.

Then he realizes that Charles is involved, that this has to be Charles' plan, ever-adverse-to-human-killing Charles, and why is he even surprised? Only Charles would think it a good idea to stop a war by letting the one who created the most powerful enemies live.

The fury kicks in, then, as it always does when the stupidly naïve telepath tries to keep him from saving their kind once again.

"And why should we stop her from killing someone who is set on exterminating mutant kind?"

Logan's eyes are dark and thunderous once again. "Because if she kills him they 'll capture her, and in her DNA they'll find what they need to make the Sentinels ultimately lethal!" He seems to be quite close to losing control.

So is Erik.

"Then why don't we let her kill him and stop them from capturing her?"

"Because," and Logan's expression is that of that someone praying to the gods for patience as he is dealing with a defiant child, which makes Erik all the angrier "that would prove to the humans that we are a danger and need to be gotten rid of in the first place!"

Once again, this sounds so very much like something Charles would preach.

Erik, however, barely registers that the telepath has not said a word so far, keeping his features carefully schooled into a blank mask.

"So what – we stop her from killing him and let him continue with his attempts to rid the world of us?"

Logan rolls his eyes and rises, apparently unable to stay seated any longer.

"For god's sake, I thought your older self was annoying – I had no idea! Of course we don't let him continue, but we can't give those humans who until now disapprove of what he's doing any reason to suddenly support his sick ideas, and that's exactly what would happen! I know that, learned it the hard way!"

For how he is raging, steam might be coming from his mouth.

"What do we do then?" Erik asks, refusing to give in and play along. They broke him out of prison, yes, but he is most definitely not going to act according to their stupidly peaceful plans!

"We expose him," Logan finally explains. "First, we stop Mystique from killing him, and then we work on letting the world see the sick shit he's doing. But we can't let her kill him!"

Barely managing to stop himself from answering with a petulant 'Yes, I understood that!' Erik clings to the fury. It is always easier to be angry; and, oh, he has reason enough to be!

"So, we let those research facilities exist even a moment longer than necessary?"

Briefly he registers that Charles tenses; however, he chooses to ignore the telepath for now.

The bone claws shoot from Logan's hands as he finally loses control.

"Because I've seen such facilities," Erik continues, and now he is yelling. "And I've tried to rescue those locked up there!" His head whips around, focuses on Charles where carefully blank blue eyes are staring at him. "I did something! But where were you, Charles? Where were you when they needed our help, your help?" The metal around him begins to shake as the telepath's fingers are clinging to the armrests of his wheelchair, face still a blank mask.

"Where were you? Because they died, Charles, they all died as your precious humans killed them, and you did nothing but watch as they took those we were supposed to protect! Emma – Azazel – Sean – Janos – Angel – all of them were taken! They captured them, and took them god-knows-where, and we never saw them again! But I know what happened to them – ever heard of the Mutant Genome Project, Charles?"

The plane is trembling, and Hank is shouting for them to calm down, sounding increasingly panicked. Logan is boiling with fury, and so is Erik. He barely manages to hold his control over his power as he remembers the faces of all those he lost to the Project – all those Charles, maybe, could have saved.

As he and the time-traveller are shaking with anger, however, Charles is still sitting there, eyes and face as blank as ever.

I have heard of it, yes, soft words brush against Erik's mind, and just like this, he deflates.

There is no use arguing with Charles – even more so now that he seems to have learned how to control his emotions.

Also, the tiny touch of the telepath's mind against his reminds him of times when Charles was not his enemy, but his friend, and although he would never admit it – after the other one has retreated, as fast as was possible, the loss of the so well-known presence almost pains him.

He does have to confess, though, that there was something different in the way the younger one's mind approached his this time – it seemed much more controlled, and much less emotional.

Much colder.

Somehow, that saddens Erik.

He is, however, very good at banishing thoughts like this one, and soon he has returned to staring angrily at Logan as the time-traveller lines out the plan, after Hank has straightened their flight path.

It certainly sounds easy enough: go in – stop Mystique from killing Trask – get out again.

That Charles does not offer even one word of his opinion on the matter is certainly surprising, considering that this has to be his plan, but Erik chooses not to care.

He will work with them on this, as promised, and then they will go separate ways once again, after all.

So why should he mind the difference in Charles' behaviour?

Well.

He does care, despite everything that has happened.

That does not matter a thing, though, when they move in to stop Mystique – Hank taking care of Charles' chair – and Erik decides that he has to kill her in order to save their world.

Charles- … Charles does not even tell him to leave it. He does, however, get into the head of that Trask guy, who manages to keep Erik inside the room after he has shot the falling Mystique instead of going after her; using whatever sick kind of technology. Logan seems to be having some kind of flashback or seizure, and Beast is beating up the guy who shocked Mystique after they came in.

Calling all kinds of metals in the room to his aid Erik quickly gets rid of Trask, and then rushes towards the window-

But, of course, Mystique is long gone.

He turns around, then, and meets those distanced blue eyes from across the room as they are staring at him, a distinctly disappointed note in them.

'I never thought you would do that', they seem to be saying, and 'You betrayed us – me! – once again!'

Erik masterfully ignores the distant pain, and instead allows the fury full bent once more.

Charles, after all, was just sitting there and watching with his terribly blue eyes, the entire time – sitting and watching and doing nothing as they fought; not interfering with even one word.

His anger, again, gets the better of him.

"Jeez, Charles, are you even above talking?" he sneers, ignoring the way the blank mask finally gives way to something else (shock, pain, panic?), and then he leaves too fast for the telepath to follow in his wheelchair.

They stopped Mystique from killing Trask – he is not, in no way, required to stay.


TBC