Lost
Charles Xavier jerked awake, sweating. A nightmare again, but, as usual, he couldn't remember what it had been about. God he was thirsty. He reached for his water glass and lifted it. Empty. "Damn" he muttered and slipped off the bed.
At least, that had been the plan.
Xavier's arms pushed him sideways but his legs refused to move. Momentum brought him halfway off the bed and he tumbled to the floor, gasping as pain shot up his spine from the still healing bullet wound in his lower back.
He had forgotten, for a moment.
Xavier cursed as he realized that in falling, he had pushed his wheelchair out of reach into the hallway. He was stuck.
Despair coursed through him, potent as the agony in his back. Useless legs rested on the tangled blankets and his cup, which had fallen beneath him, was pressing into his shoulder. Tears clouded his vision as his unfeeling left leg followed him to the floor with a thud. "That should have hurt." he whispered into the darkness. "That should have at least a little painful."
As his right leg slid down as well-thud-the lump in Xavier's throat grew bigger. He tried to swallow, to stay calm, but a sob burst from his mouth as tears dripped onto the wooden boards.
Charles Xavier. Telepath. Mentor. Leader. Professor. Optimist.
Cripple.
He wanted to scream the word into the night, scream it so the world would hear it and know that enchanting, clever, wealthy Charles Xavier was a bloody cripple.
Grabbing the glass him, he hurled against the wall with all his might. Crash. Crystal shards fell to the floor, glimmering like water in the moonlight that shone through the window. For once in his life, brilliant Professor X wished for a power that could destroy, demolish, disintegrate. A lot of good telepathy does when there's no one you want to talk to.
"Cripple. Cripple cripple cripple." he sobbed as the tears fell thicker. He knew he should call someone: Hank, Banshee, Moira, but he couldn't. He couldn't bear their eagerness to help, their looks of pity, the stubborn persistence to act as though nothing so terrible had happened.
As he lay on the cold floor, Xavier whispered the names of the two people he needed most. The two people he knew would never come.
He knew he shouldn't miss miss them, they had chosen their path, as he had chosen his, but he couldn't forget them.
His oldest companion. His closest friend.
He had lost so much that day on the beach. So much.
There was a window in his room. A window overlooking the grounds of Xavier mansion. Memories flashed through his mind. A blue girl and a scrawny boy playing tag in the grass, laughter ringing through the air. Two men, one tall, one slight, jogging under the trees, identical grey tracksuits damp with morning fog.
All lost. He couldn't even see out the window anymore. Not without his chair.
Xavier closed his eyes with pain, giving in to the memories as sobs wracked his body.
"Erik. Raven."
Miles away, Magneto and Mystique woke, feeling as though a voice was calling their names, but unable to hear even a whisper in the silence.
All around the country, people cried out in their sleep or wiped an inexplicable tear from their eyes, helpless to resist the force of the telepath's grief.
And Charles Xavier lay on the floor, crying for all he had lost… crying until exhaustion and painkillers drew him back into a slumber that brought no rest.