As I was diligently working on/brainstorming the next sequel in my Onslaught series and desperately trying to finish my thesis, I found this story half written (amongst approximately 25 other half written stories…oops) and decided to take a break and finish it.

The title comes from Christina Perri's "The Lonely", which I listened to a lot while writing this.

It had been two years since the glimmer of hope when I felt the chess piece move. Two years, and that's still the best I can do. Apparently, I'd lost that careful balance between rage and serenity somewhere along the way. Nowadays, all I tend to feel is empty.

"You're worthless."

The proper British accent dripped with bitterness. I didn't even need to look. I knew Charles would be leaned against the wall looking at me coolly. Young, vibrant Charles with working legs and wavy chestnut hair and bright blue eyes full of bitterness that I put there. Because this wasn't really Charles. Charles was dead and gone. This was the Charles my mind created and my mind is a dark, ugly place. It could never recreate the optimism and joy Charles radiated, so it did the best it could. It created an image and filled it with all the feelings I thought Charles should have felt towards me, but never did. Sometimes, the apparition comforted me. Most of the time it just tortured me the way I deserved for letting the Phoenix kill my friend.

"Why won't you just leave me alone, Charles?"

"Because you don't merit the peace of being left to your own devices," the apparition said as it walked towards me. It circled the chair I was sitting in and bent down so it could whisper in my ear. The vicious smirk that I knew its face wore was virtually audible. "Don't you remember? Peace was never an option. What makes you think I shouldn't bother you after you allowed me to be killed? After you murdered so many just for standing in your way, regardless of whether they were human or mutant? After you ruined so many lives?"

"It's been two years," I pleaded. I'd long since lost the pride that kept me stoic all those decades I was Magneto. Charles had slowly broken me down until my carefully constructed shields were weak as cardboard in the rain. I knew the telepath in the room with me wasn't real. I knew it was a creation of my own mind. It's an odd realization, when it hits you that your own mind is breaking you down. Maybe it was some form of mutant dementia. Or maybe Erik Lehnsherr, the man I'd rejected so many years ago in favor of Magneto, was finally reaping his revenge.

"Two whole years?" the apparition gasped in mock horror as it made its way around the table and took the seat across from me. It folded Charles' hands on the table and slouched forward, a sad imitation of the real Charles' perfect posture. "Well, that's certainly nothing to the decades I spent in a wheelchair because you put a bullet in my back. Two years is truly enough penance for turning my student into a monster and letting her kill me. Or perhaps now you've moved on to the penance for taking my sister from me and turning her into an unrecognizable weapon…your tiger, if you will. How is my sister, by the way? You didn't abandon her like you abandoned me, did you? Sprawled out on the ground, in pain and suffering after taking a shot meant for you? Oh wait, you did, didn't you?"

"Stop."

"You didn't. Not when I begged you. You killed innocent people. You tried to use me to commit genocide. You drove a coin through my head while I screamed in agony. What good did my begging do in stopping you?"

I let my chin fall to my chest. Why couldn't my mind project someone else…anyone else? I thought of Mystique, human and terrified in the truck after being shot with the cure. I thought of Rogue, handcuffed to a machine, begging for me to release her. Countless others I'd tortured or killed over the years flashed before eyes I only now realized were shut tight against the onslaught. I prayed one of them would take Charles' place across the table. Anyone else, I implored to my mind as I opened my eyes. Instead, I was greeted with the same malicious smirk I'd been trying to escape.

Charles leaned further over the table. "You know it will always be me."

The next moment, Charles had disappeared. I got up to take my daily walk. He'd be back before long. I'd learned to take advantage of the reprieves when I could.

Charles' apparition had first appeared to me three weeks after I'd lost my abilities. I'd been playing chess alone in the park when someone sat opposite me. I looked up, ready to reprimand whoever it was, when I met with blue eyes that held a cruelty Charles never in his life possessed. From that point forward, I was haunted by the visage of my lost friend. Charles' apparition recollected all the horrible things I had done in my life. It was like some horrible, slow motion version of my life flashing before my eyes. Sometimes I wondered if I was slowly dying…if this was some twisted version of the clichéd life-flashing that those who died over an extended period of time got…not a flash, but a slow replay.

It had been two years and the dread I felt waiting for his next appearance, knowing it would happen but not knowing when, only grew. Charles picked apart every moment of my life. He especially liked going back to the biggest ones, all of which involved Charles himself in one way or another: Cuba, kidnapping Rogue, sending Mystique to incapacitate her former brother, trying to take advantage of Charles' weakened mind to make him kill the humans, my utter failure with the Phoenix, and Charles' subsequent death.

Cuba had only recently become a staple, especially with so many other failures it could pick to dwell on that were fresher in my mind. But once it'd brought it up, my remorse never ceased to entertain it. All the death and the suffering…I could explain that away. The ends justify the means. But Cuba and Charles' paralysis had been accidental. A completely unnecessary event brought about by lack of consideration for what was happening around us. It was in that moment that everything changed. In that moment, the Charles who haunted me had been created within my mind, lying in wait until two years ago when the dam finally burst and released him on my psyche. Sometimes, I wondered if I was truly insane.

By the fifteenth time Charles had appeared, I had become somewhat accustomed to him. Still, whenever the phantom materialized, it never failed to startle me, especially once it took to showing up in unexpected places. I rolled over one morning, groggy from the few hours of sleep I'd managed, and came face-to-face with 30-year-old Charles. He was staring turned over on his side to fully face me hands pillowed under his cheek like a child sleeping. I shot up in bed as fast as my 70-year-old body would let me and turned to where Charles had been only to find the spot empty. With a sigh, I ran a hand over my face.

I walked out of the bedroom to see if I could manage some toast and coffee. Charles was leaned with his back against the wall of the living room right next to the bedroom door as I came in. I didn't bother to turn to see him. I knew he was there all the same. It was my mind after all.

"Good morning, Charles. Was that necessary?"

"Always!" Charles said with his forged cheerfulness, just an echo of the enthusiasm Charles used to possess when we were on our infamous recruiting trip back in 1962. He pushed off the wall with the foot he'd had pressed against it. "One must stay on one's toes, especially in old age."

I sighed. "I'm glad you're so concerned for me."

"I was always concerned for you, my friend. Even as I was ripped apart atom by atom. I only wish you'd held the same concern for me. Then perhaps we wouldn't be in this predicament."

I closed his eyes and exhaled, forced to lean with both hands on the counter to brace myself against the still fresh memory. The way Charles had looked at me as he'd been killed was so serene…so forgiving…so Charles. "How long are you going to continue to bring up events I can do nothing to change?" I snapped.

"Until you're a decrepit, insane old man everyone, mutant and human alike, looks at and pities."

I couldn't keep the shock from my face as I whipped around to face Charles' imposter. Charles returned my gaze with not a trace of amusement, then disappeared. It didn't matter. He'd be back sooner or later.

Two years later, I didn't have the fight I'd tried to display against my mental Charles when all this began. I'd long since resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be my life until the day I died and given up trying to rationalize everything I'd done. After all, I was finally living life with Charles by my side. It was only right that it not live up to my hopes. That was the way my life tended to go.

After a few days and countless more visits from Charles, a knock on the door startled me out of my trance of self-loathing. Hardly anyone ever came by. Occasionally, a girl scout would drop in trying to earn a badge for helping old people or something of the like. The person down the hall also felt obligated to make sure I was alive every month or so. He'd dropped by last week though. It was probably somebody asking for donations for some organization or another.

The knock sounded again, more insistent this time. I forced my weary legs to stand, knees creaking as I made my way to the door. Once I unlatched the lock and opened the door (and carefully avoided any thoughts about how much easier it would have been with my evaporated powers), I had to force myself not to let my jaw drop. It was not somebody asking for donations.

Moira McTaggert had aged well. I had kept tabs on her for a time, ready to kill her if she endangered Charles or the school, but I'd never had to take any action against her. Not long after Charles had erased her memory, she left the CIA and pursued genetics with a passion that rivaled even Charles. The rest of her life was devoted to helping mutants. Inevitably, the two had come back into contact with one another and remained close in the years that followed.

"You're not an easy man to find, Erik Lehnsherr," the woman said, walking into the small apartment with purpose. All I could do was take a step back and allow her in.

"There's a reason for that," I managed to choke out without sounding too taken off guard.

"You'll want to hear what I have to say. Besides, what are you going to do? Knock a chess piece over at me?"

I felt myself recoil before I could stop it. Charles' specter had chipped my shields so thoroughly I hardly knew how to hide my reactions anymore. It must have been obvious because Moira's features softened.

"I apologize. I'm not here to berate you, as much as I'd like to."

"Then why are you here?"

"On behalf of someone else."

"Who's that?"

"Charles."

I froze, a fury I hadn't felt in years building in me. "Is this some kind of joke? Do you think it's funny to come torture old men about the dead?"

"Not at all. We thought he was dead, too. No one was more surprised than I was when a coma patient at my facility woke up and called me by name."

I let out a bark of disbelieving laugh.

"It's true," she continued. "At first, we thought maybe the patient had somehow picked up my name while comatose, but this man had been completely brain dead. Then, he started saying things that only Charles would remember. Conversations that we'd had, students he'd taught," she paused and made sure to look me straight in the eye, "bringing a memory of your mother forward so that you could move the satellite dish by the mansion."

All the air left my lungs. No one else had been outside with us when that had happened. Even if they had, no one else had seen the memory he'd brought forth and I couldn't see any reason why Charles would reveal such a personal memory that couldn't possibly be relevant to anyone but me. Moira could only know if…

"I felt the same way at first," the woman said, with a sympathetic smile. "Don't think his death didn't affect me. I mourned just like everyone else. Trust me, though, it's him. Different body, same mind. We've run every test imaginable. He remembers everything. It took a while, but the body is almost fully recovered and healthy. Charles is back."

"Why are you here?" I managed to say, pleased when it came out above the whisper I was sure was all I was capable of. "If Charles is back, why aren't you with him?"

"He wanted me to extend an invitation. We've been trying to find you since his abilities manifested again. He was still too weak to travel all the way to America, but he wanted to inform you as soon as we found you."

"Invitation to what?"

"To return. Your plans for humanity are in shambles and, honestly, it doesn't look like you have too much going on here. He's offering you the opportunity to seek asylum with us…with him. He's going back to the school as soon as he can travel, within the month as luck would have it."

For the first time in two long years, I felt a twinge in my chest…hope. Even if it was a trick, a trap, how much worse could it really get for me? My body was frail and wouldn't stand up to much more than a casual stroll in the park. My mind…well my mind had turned on me long ago as evidenced by the blue-eyed phantom now hovering in the corner giving all its attention to an oblivious Moira.

"I…" The thought trailed off before it could fully form. My mind was too busy reeling.

"It's a lot, I know. How about this? I'll wait on the bench downstairs, just outside the building. Take an hour or so, absorb everything, then come see me. I have to get back to Muir by tomorrow. We took the liberty of booking two tickets, but if you still feel you need more time when I need to go, I'll leave you contact information."

I felt myself nod. Moira headed towards the door, pausing as she opened it. "I've never been your biggest fan, Lehnsherr. You know that. You've done a lot of bad things. There were a lot of times where if you had taken it one step further, if you had succeeded, this offer wouldn't be on the table." I flashed to Alkali Lake…Charles stopping just before he could kill the whole of humanity. If he'd had two more minutes...it would have been unforgivable in his eyes. I almost shivered. Moira either didn't notice or didn't care. "In spite of all that, Charles is willing to let you live out your life in relative safely. Everyone deserves a chance to be something better...to make up for their wrongs. Not many people who have done the things you've done get that chance. Think hard before you give it up."

In a flash of red pea coat and graying hair, Moira was gone. I sat down hard on the ratty couch that had come with the apartment and looked at the clock. Had it really only been 10 minutes since Moira had knocked on my door? In that 10 minutes, everything had changed. Charles was sitting next to me the next time I blinked.

"Do you really deserve this? Do you think I should simply welcome you back with open arms?"

I thought hard, Charles' phantom never breaking its unblinking gaze at my face. Everything the specter had been torturing me about, every moment I'd had to relive over the past two years weighed me down. Finally, voices from my past still echoing in my head, I took a breath and looked back at the empty eyes beside me.

"Perhaps I don't deserve this. You probably shouldn't accept me back. But you've always been stubborn. I've never been able to tell you what to do nor have I had any success trying to convince you to do what's best for you. Why should that change now?"

There was a half smile with not quite the same level of maliciousness it usually possessed, then I was alone again.

Half an hour later, I shut the door to the bare apartment, clothes and my few belongings tucked in a small suitcase. Moira gave me a smile as she folded her paper and put it in her briefcase. "He'll be happy to see you."

I wasn't so sure, but there was no going back now. Charles was getting a second chance. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for mine as well.

Notes:

If you've seen the other stuff I've written, it becomes obvious I have a thing for DarkCharles, whether it's in the form of Onslaught or, in this case, of Erik's rebellious mind. Oh well. Someone's gotta write it. Might as well be me.

Also, Erik might be a bit OOC. My take is that he's an old man who has lost literally everything and that's gotta have some kind of effect on how he thinks and acts. Between his little glimmer of hope to regain his powers failing and his apparition of Charles coming to torture him…well, that's where this possibly OOC Erik came from. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Review if you so desire :) It's always appreciated as long as you don't rip me apart.