Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.
Midnight. Two days after Erik's return to the mansion. Erik Lensherr's POV:
"Erik, can I come in for a moment?"
Charles was standing at my door, his face half obscured by the mass of curls that fell onto his shoulder. Surprised that he was still awake this late, I motioned him in.
He collapsed on the easy chair in front of me, and it was then that I realized how exhausted he looked. There was a haunted fear in his eyes that nearly broke my heart as I remembered him from the days past. A youth, alive, vivacious, and beautiful, reduced to a sheer wreck, tormented by fear and useless pain. And I dared not think what part I had played in bringing about this catastrophe.
He sat there, silent, and I was afraid to awake him from this stupor. I imagine that I had an absurd fear that, once roused, he would be transformed into some inhuman, raging animal, absorbing me in his madness. He was like a sorcerer whom, masked by day, revealed a darker and truer nature by night. So we sat, he absorbed by wandering thoughts; I, afraid to think, to perceive.
At last he spoke, and the sound was so unexpected that I nearly started. "Erik," he said, and there was a peculiar tinge of hysterics in his voice, "I'm frightened."
I moved closer to him, "what, Charles? Afraid of what?"
"Afraid," he continued, "of myself. Of what I might do."
Seeing the puzzled look of concern on my face, he sighed and said, in a rush of suppressed words, "I have been having these dreams, Erik. Night after night. Every time it's the same dream, Erik. And it's so real, so terribly real!"
"In this dream, it is always a bright, cheerful afternoon. I am sitting at my desk in my study. I am waiting. There is something I must do. And, as the clock shows the time 4:28, I get up. I reach into the second drawer of my desk, and take out the revolver that's been there for a long time. I walk to the window. The sun is so strong it dazzles my eyes. I lift up the gun, and-and"
"And what?" I prompted him.
He smiled a grotesque smile. "And then, I shoot myself."
And two days later, Charles Francis Xavier was dead. He was found, lying near the window in his study. He held a gun in his right hand, and blood seeped out of the bullet hole on his right temple.
