Author's Note: Once again, groveling obeisance to Stars and Garters, my merciless (and nearly always right) editrix, who will make me a better writer in spite of myself. This will be a shorty, only 3 chapters. As for the cameo in this chapter, you're welcome.
Advisory: Adult language and situations, implied violence and imagery may be disturbing to readers under age 13.
Legal line: Characters © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Characters and Situations created in "X-Men: First Class" © 2011 Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation. Author receives no compensation from this publication.
-o0o-
The medevac-configuration craft had taken off from Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Germany without incident. The Lockheed Hercules C-130E was new; it flew steadily at 28,000 feet in a moonless night, bound for the Azores en route to Virginia.
The covert mission had proven collaterally successful, with benefits.
Erik Lensherr exited the head and made his way aft through the dimmed cabin, returning to his seat. He shrugged back into his B-9 jacket, passed a forward-moving officer without comment, settled himself once more and buckled up. He gazed out the nearest ice-cold window, into blackness punctuated only by whirling turboprops and the rhythmic pulse of red light. Ninety more minutes to the Azores, then onward. He looked forward to stretching his legs during the brief stop at Lajes Field.
Erik leaned against the fuselage and closed his eyes, cushioned with only minimal comfort by the wolverine fur-lined hood. He was just drifting off…
-While you're up…-
He kept his expression neutral while unbuckling once again in abrupt exasperation. Moira McTaggert glanced over at him curiously, but Erik ignored her. He waited for another forward-moving man to pass, then stalked further aft to the medevac bays.
Emma Frost lay unconscious and restrained on the first stanchion, face mostly obscured by a black rubber oxygen mask. Light glinted off a glass IV bottle; the line dripped slowly into her arm. Blanketed and secured, she appeared to not pose any problem, though Erik knew full well what the medics couldn't: with mutants, particularly one as powerful as this woman, there were problems, and then there were problems. Erik moved to the next stanchion.
To the casual observer, Charles Xavier looked like he was merely sacked out in-flight. To those who knew him, however, the mental vigilance he was holding against Emma Frost was plainly evident. Erik was expecting, and therefore not alarmed by, how Charles appeared even after only a few scant hours of this.
Holding Sebastian Shaw's telepath against her will for an extended time was truly holding a tiger by the tail, and Charles was the only one aboard who could do it. Emma had been suspiciously compliant for the most part since her capture, though Charles' occasional reactions made it clear she was not going quietly. Finally he'd given up any pretense of riding forward with the rest of the personnel, deciding it was just better to grin and bear it where he could keep a closer eye on her. The flight surgeon had proposed IV sedation, and that made things somewhat better for all concerned.
Charles was at present huddled up in a jacket a size too large, trying with minimal success to get some sleep. Erik tapped Charles' shoulder with a wary glance back up the aisle. Charles turned and caught his gaze.
"What?"Erik glared.
"They keep coming back here – ostensibly 'looking for something'…" Charles rubbed his face, bleary with fatigue.
"And looking at her. No doubt." Erik nodded. "I told you, Charles. Now see how we're already on display for them."
"I rather think it's due to the fact she's a pretty girl held hostage on a military craft, but that's just a guess," Charles groused.
"Moira's a girl too," Erik countered.
"Moira can handle herself."
"And how are you handling Miss Frost? You look rather peaked; I'm sure she's lovely." Erik quipped.
"I'm sure I look like hell. That first hour was quite the adventure. The sedative did the trick, only it spills over into my mind as well, so now it's hard to think straight. But it's better than fighting her the whole way. At any rate, all this activity doesn't help. It's disturbing my concentration."
"So what do you expect me to do about it?"
"Sit in that last row and stop them doing it. We're not here for their entertainment!" Charles flared.
"No need to show teeth, Charles. And I am right, you know," Erik's smug amusement was maddening. He spied the opened Meal, Combat, Individual carton and cans nearby, and nodded toward them. "Do you want the rest of my MCI?"
"Oh, my God, no. I couldn't eat what they gave me."
"Nor should you. It isn't even food, as I understand the definition. Although Moira and I did have the most interesting conversation with a Special Ops about how the peanut butter makes an excellent smoke candle, how to turn the B-unit can into a field stove, and how a chunk of C-4 plastic explosive makes a hotter cooking flame than the fuel tablet. It was all very educational."
Erik had contemplated the highly efficient meal, remembered another cardboard package, from that winter's day not so very long ago, when he would have killed for one…when people had died for them.
Unwanted memories flooded forward…
-o0o-
The Allied truck burst the unguarded, padlocked gate open with greater force than Erik could have mustered. Sporadic gunfire peppered the camp - Allies shooting the remaining guards who attempted escape, guards who shot prisoners in a vain last-ditch attempt to silence truth. All alone in the world now, more frightened than he'd ever been at Schmidt's hands, the terror of being shot on the very brink of freedom had overwhelmed Erik.
He felt a bullet whiz past, heard a scream, turned in time to see the guard fall heavily behind him. He hoped he'd done it.
And then, silence. It was all over.
Days ago, things had changed - even through the soul-crushing pain and horror of daily existence, Erik had noticed it. Klaus Schmidt had stopped asking for him to be brought in - for the insidious man always asked so politely, never demanded or ordered - and the activity level amongst the camp guards and staff had increased, intensified somehow. Bewildered, the prisoners kept their heads down, but furtive whispers had trickled amongst them.
The Allies were coming.
And then the trains had come once more, prisoners reloaded for transport to points unknown, many more shot, thousands of bodies left in great heaps as the crematories failed from the overwhelming volume.
The only good thing about winter was the freezing cold kept the stench of decomposition at bay.
The day prior, Schmidt had finally asked for him again, but had done nothing to Erik - merely spoken, as false and smiling as ever as he boarded a staff car.
"You and I, we're going on a little adventure to the Tyrol, Erik, a much nicer and safer place to continue our studies, wouldn't you agree? I must ride with these men now, but I've arranged everything for you. Tomorrow will come another train, for only the best people here, for you, Erik. And it will bring you to me. Just wait here tonight, only one more night, and get on the train tomorrow. The guards will know where to put you."
The car sped off in a spray of slush and black ice, and that was the last time Erik had seen Klaus Schmidt.
Then the camp and nearby village had emptied almost entirely of officers, staff, guards and their families. They'd simply chained and padlocked the camp gates. Erik tried to break it with all his might, but to no avail. Even if he could, where would he go?
The next hours had been just as filled as ever with hunger and cold, death all around and night terrors, but a new uncertainty permeated the camp. Most of the guards were gone, still nobody dared move or speak out of turn. The thousands of unburied bodies lay in gruesome silent heaps. Erik heard the other children crying in the freezing darkness of the Children's Building, but he was numb to everything about him now.
In the watery light of dawn, the promised train had never come.
In its place, now more Jeeps and trucks roared in, Allied soldiers inundating the camp grounds - Erik recognized them as primarily American, but there were other insignia he didn't recognize as well. Wary, Erik had peered out the window at them - who were these men, after all, but merely more who would now possess his fate?
What difference did a uniform's color make?
Stunned by the initial sights alone, the Allied soldiers quickly got down to it. Erik saw three men in the back of one of the trucks, throwing out small cardboard packages to prisoners now crying, pleading, desperately reaching. Erik didn't care what it was, he wanted one too. It had to be food. He stumbled forward, focusing and reaching with his mind as well as dirty hands. But his nascent power remained cruelly capricious; he was so tired and cold.
A tall, lithe brown-haired officer saw him. "Heads up, kid." The man pitched one out, and Erik caught it easily.
"Whoa, nice arm, Jimmy, you should play for the Yankees," another soldier quipped.
Cradling his prize, Erik had run around behind the Children's Building and huddled into an inconspicuous heap while the tide of liberation swirled around him. He didn't care, he was hungry. He broke into the tins and wolfed down everything in them. He perused the packets of coffee and cigarettes curiously, pocketed them - he would quickly learn to trade these. Schmidt had kept him better-fed than the others, of course, but . . .
Schmidt!
Erik's breath caught. The Tyrol. They had to find him, capture him, kill him! Erik bolted up, then ran stumbling back to the trucks, where the food apparently was all gone by now. He saw the three men were now standing next to their vehicle; they stiffened briefly at his erratic approach. One nudged the officer called Jimmy and pointed toward him.
Hey Howlett, your friend's back. Jesus, he's just a kid!
Sie müssen mit mir kommen!
Jimmy smiled gently, but Erik recognized a familiar depth of anger in the man's sable gaze. The soldier extended a hand to guide Erik toward the waiting transport truck.
C'mon, kid, let's go find your Mama.
Nein! Kommen Sie mit mir! Wir brauchen einen Arzt!
What the hell's he - hey Liebowitz, c'mere, what's this kid saying?
Another soldier turned away from a clutch of meek, crying prisoners and approached them. Erik saw a gold Star of David pendant glinting in the dilute winter sun. The man's kind face and eyes ill-concealed the numbing horror they'd witnessed so far that day. He smiled warmly at Erik.
Ich bin ein Jude…Was brauchst du, Kind?
Sie mussen einen Arzt suchen!
He needs a doctor.
Yeah, don't they all…come on, kid, we'll go find you a doctor, Jimmy nodded pointedly toward the truck. Liebowitz nodded, smiled in encouragement and led Erik to the transport - also with a star, this one white. He gave Erik another C-ration and a blanket, helped him aboard amongst several urgent medical cases, and the truck had taken Erik Lensherr away, from one hell to another. Just as he had been taken before, but now to a future with only one certainty in the entire world…
…he was alone.
Liebowitz sat with him, reached into a pocket and produced a Hershey bar. He extended it and smiled with a genuine kindness Erik had not seen on the face of another human being in months.
Wie ist dein name, Sohn?
"Erik?...Erik..."
Erik gave a hard start, thoughts shuddering violently back to the present. Charles was watching him with apprehensive intensity.
"What?" Erik blurted, cursing his lapse. The incisive blue gaze made him shiver - even with his powers focused entirely upon guarding Emma, Charles must have caught something before Erik could pull it away. The telepath smiled with what Erik had already come to recognize as habitual conciliatory kindness, extending a small packet.
"You can have my chocolate if you want."
"I hate chocolate."
Charles did feel a flicker of …something, but it was snuffed in an instant.
Erik changed the subject. "We'll be on the Azores in about an hour; I'll see if I can find something palatable while we're refueling."
"I will be forever in your debt." Charles twisted back around to face the bulkhead, hunkering further down into his jacket with a discomfited sigh.