One moment, I'm lying paralyzed on the beaches of an island in Cuba—the next, I'm being flung away through space and onto the pristine waxed floors of a hospital god knows where. Other than the astonishingly horrible pain in my lower back, I see wisps of reddish smoke as nurses and doctors rush to my writhing figure on the floor. I feel a prick in one arm and I gratefully fall into a warm haze of sleep.
I awake, I'm not certain how much longer later, to find the stirrings of a familiar presence in the chair beside my bed. I am too weary to move—too frightened in case I shatter into a thousand shard of glass. I smell the husky tang of faded aftershave and I sense a guarded mind, tinged with regret, anger and boiling worry. Self-hate and deprivation of contentedness tell me whose mind it belongs to long before I tilt my head and see Erik sitting with his face resting against one hand, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair. The metal arm is dented and the metal is curled just under the strip of leather padding. The helmet rests in his lap on its side, the empty face of it glaring at me mockingly.
I've fallen asleep again just as his head is lifting—those tortured eyes finding mine as I am snatched by greedy darkness.
Erik…
The second time—or is it the third time—that I awaken, I am alone. It is dark. The monitors connected to my heart beeps every now and then. There's a tickle of cold air at my nostrils, a pinch in my arm where the IV has been stuck. My stomach hurts and feels hollow, and my chest is heavy with the weight of remorse and tire. I want to sit up but I feel nothing. From my belly button down, there's dead weight and empty space.
"I'm sorry," Erik's voice, the accent raw and dragging, is words loud and grating in the quiet darkness of my hospital room. I look around wildly, the heart monitor beeping at my sudden start, and I see him. He's a silhouette, a shadow in front of the drawn white linen of the window. He's sitting on the window seat there, his head encased and protected by a damned shield of metal that my mind cannot penetrate.
"If you were," I spit between clenched teeth. "Then you would be here."
Erik's frame shivers and the familiar slender body of Raven takes his place. Her waterfall of golden hair swings lightly as she comes to the bedside and sits, her body stiff. I cannot see her eyes but I can feel her mind; agony has bit her like an old scar refusing to fade and she fights to hide it. She wants to be strong, but her love for me—her brother who abandoned her—is killing her inside.
"He was here," she says, her tone venomous. "He wanted to make sure you were safe."
"And you?" I ask. "Are you here to see me safe or is this something else?"
Raven stands and her body's image shifts, her skin rippling like feathers or dominos. Her yellow eyes seem to gleam threateningly in the dark. Raven—no…Mystique—leans in close until I can see the speck of orange in the very center of her speckled pupils.
"We love you, Charles," she says coldly, as far from affection as it can be possible. "Erik. Me. We love you. But things are different now. Nothing will be the same ever again."
"What happened to my Raven?" I ask, retaliating selfishly. Mystique straightens and moves to the foot of the bed, her silhouette a lingering panther poised to spring.
"She was never yours, Charles," she replies softly. "This is why things are different."
"So it's my fault?" I exclaim, but the room is suddenly empty and void of flaring yellow eyes. I stare into the space where she stood, willing her to return. She doesn't.
As sleep takes me yet again, I am more willing to fall into it, but the truth in Raven—Mystique's—biting words rings true and silences all thoughts but one—one thought that leaves me a trembling mess of fear and regret and unfulfilled hopes:
Am I no different than the man I once claimed to be my friend?