If you don't want to sue me, ignore this next paragraph….
DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership or other rights in the characters, plots, or other intellectual property of 20th Century Fox or Marvel. Instead I claim right under the Fair Use Doctrine to write stories involving certain characters to provide a different characterization that may actually shed light on different aspects or to provide a deeper understanding of those characters, and thus to provide a different viewpoint or richer understanding of—and thus renewed or greater interest in-the original source material. I do nothing with the intent to be financially compensated.
Anyway, on to the show….
xxxx
He didn't intrude on their lives that often. Knowing Raven she would have expected him to try and read her the very next day after she left, but he kept his telepathic distance for several months after she'd left him.
His baby sister.
She'd wanted to be more once, but it didn't feel right to him, at least at the time. The next thing he knew she was flirting with Hank and then throwing herself at Eric. Was she that insecure, or was she just angry with him? The few times he did covertly sneak into her thoughts, he gleaned no clues to that mystery.
Mostly what he saw were the angry, righteous thoughts no doubt planted there by Eric. Thoughts of overthrowing the current "regime" and instituting in its stead some system where their kind would not only be respected, but feared. She-they-he-wanted their kind to be on top, to be the ones in control. Good God, how was that any different from what Shaw wanted?
He did see other things, too. Once, much to his horror, he inadvertently found himself in their minds as they were sharing an…intimate moment together. He quickly pulled out, hoping to God the sudden action didn't cause them to become aware of his presence.
Once, he saw the two of them walking down a street in a large city he couldn't identify, with Raven in her "normal" form, as a blonde girl she'd see in a fashion magazine she kept in her room in the mansion. Cars were passing quickly by, and suddenly Eric maneuvered Raven to the side of the sidewalk farthest from the passing motorists and put himself between them and her. The protective gesture was not lost on Charles. In a way it pained him more to see that than to see them going at it. It meant more, obviously.
That summer after the incident in Cuba, there had been news stories about "unusual people" joining the civil rights marches and being involved in skirmishes with the authorities. Charles groaned inwardly each time he saw these reports, because he knew exactly who was instigating these things.
Why the need for a war? Wasn't it a war that cost Eric everything he held dear? That scarred him for the rest of his life? That made him so vengeful? Their fellow mutants were getting hurt and being killed-didn't he care?
Enough. He had to intercede-on all their behalves.
One September day, Charles sat in his study and focused... "Eric, what the hell are you doing?"
There was no answer; he tried again: "Eric, Goddamit, you can only keep that helmet on so long..."
Then, out of the void: "Yes, Charles?"
"Eric you can't wage this war-you won't win."
Annoyance; then, "And what makes you so certain of that?"
"There can never be acceptance through force, through violence."
"The first time we've talked in months and you insist on rehashing old subjects."
"Eric, our people are dying and you are content to let them be slaughtered to make a point."
He could feel the rage, even over what felt like a great distance-at least a thousand miles, if not two or three. He expected no response, or a great oration on how his way was right and how the two "species" could never coexist peacefully. Instead, so calmly and sincerely:
"No Charles, because you will not help us."
Charles balked. Was Eric actually blaming him? Did he honestly expect the two of them to be enough to conquer the rest of humanity? What's more, did he honestly have so little respect for his brother's convictions that he'd say such a thing, inferably trying to sell him on joining them in their fight, even now?
Charles could do nothing but change the subject. "What about her, Eric? Do you care if you she gets hurt?"
"Of cour-. Raven can take care of herself. I've trained her well. She's willing to fight for her people."
"What, because you seduced an impressionable young girl into being your obedient foot soldier? Eric-"
"No wonder she left you. You clearly didn't have any respect for her."
After a pause, "Good-bye Eric."
xxxx
A day after this fruitless conversation with Eric, Charles tried to contact Raven. She was never one to take his advice, at least directly, before, but maybe this time would be different. He hoped so—there was nothing else he could do. Unfortunately, Eric must have told her about their telepathic chat, because she steadfastly refused to let him in. It was the same thing every other time he tried, except for one day in November of that year. A few days before Thanksgiving, the whole world had changed in an instant when an assassin's bullet inexplicably curved and smashed through the head of the President. A man named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on suspicion of being the shooter, and Eric Lensherr was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice.
That night he tapped into her thoughts. There was only crying for several moments.
Then silence.
"Raven?" ever so gently.
"What Charles?" with annoyance, but mostly fatigue.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"It doesn't sound it."
A long breath, then: "I told him not to go, a while ago. He was determined to do what he felt was right, but I had this bad feeling. He said I was abandoning our cause, one of our own. We argued. I shut up. I put on a brave face when he left a few days ago, but inside I was dying. Now I don't know if I'll ever see him again..."
An image entered Charles mind just briefly-Raven lost more than just a lover and partner today.
"Raven," Charles said quickly, "come home to the mansion. I'll take care of everything. I-"
"I don't need your help, Charles."
Then just like that, he was cut off.
He tried a few more times after that, but to no avail. Eventually he gave up trying. He had to let her go. He never did, fully. He buried all those feelings deep down, where they germinated into resentment and self-loathing, which he tried to distract himself from by throwing himself headfirst into his work, then when even that disappointed him by Hank's wonder drug, but it was always there, steadily growing.
Then he saw her after a decade, hurt, writhing in pain, and all the negative thoughts dissipated, with only the love and concern left.
"Every thing's alright. Eric and I came to get you. It's alright," he cooed. She calmed down. Looking into his eyes, she realized. "Charles?! I never thought I'd see you again...Charles." her voice went from soft to hard and her eyes shifted to Eric behind them. He was holding a gun of all things, at both of them.
In a way it was shocking: What on God's earth was he doing, in the middle of their trying to protect this woman and all mutants if Trask got his hands on her... But in a way, it wasn't surprising at all. "Of course you'd be jealous..." he'd say if he had his powers, which he cursed himself for not having, at that moment of all moments.
"Run, Raven, run," he whispered to Raven, and she did.
xxxx
Later, he was able to find her through Cerebro. They were trying to stop her from committing the murder that would trigger the genocide of their people, which would lead to the end of all humankind, not to mention lead to her own suffering and death, but it seemed as if there was no convincing her.
"I know what I have to."
He cursed himself afterwards for letting his own need for her to return to him tinge his supplications, which really were more demands, he saw later, after playing the scene again and again in his mind. He would always end up playing the taciturn father to her when things got rough in the past, he came to realize, and he was still doing it. "You haven't changed one bit Charles."
She was right.
He could divine that she was boarding a plane to Washington-to kill Trask at the great unveiling of the new sentinel program the President was planning the next day, it seemed. They had to keep trying. He couldn't accept the theory that things were on a set course, and that there was no hope for someone like Raven. "Just because someone stumbles, and loses their path, doesn't mean they're lost forever," Charles said.
They flew the jet to the capital later that night. They arrived ahead of Raven, and trailed her from the airport. They followed her to a cafe where she had breakfast and scanned a newspaper. Through her eyes he saw an article detailing the sentinel event in front of the White House that day. He also saw a page of local rental listings. Her eyes were mostly focused on one for a vacant town home not far from the hub of the capital.
They followed her to the town home, where a nice wad of cash and a little flirtation had the owner handing her the key as quick as lightning. He, Hank, and Logan had already entered the house by jimmying the back door. Her eyes went wide when she saw the three of them sitting and standing in her new dining room.
She quickly shook away the surprise and put on a harder face. "You need to get the hell out of here." She said this to all of them but was only looking at Charles.
Before Charles could say anything Logan stepped in. "Raven-"
"Who are you? I don't know you!"
"You were almost teammates once," Charles disclosed, "but unfortunately our friend here was not as...friendly back then."
There seemed to be a flicker of recognition in Raven's eyes. "What's so different now?" Her tone was still hostile.
"I…. Charles, I can give the whole 'I've come from the future to try and save all mutant and human kind' speech but I have the feeling it's not going to work here."
"I think I would agree. Raven?" He held out his hand to her, but she just turned away while she shed her black floppy hat and trench coat.
"Dammit Raven-" Charles tried to sit up and reach for her, but a sharp pain lanced through his lower back and he cried out. He crashed back into the simple wooden chair he'd been sitting in, and would have fallen over with it had Raven not rushed to grab him. They were face to face-closer than they had been for many years, seemingly decades. "Charles, how long have you been unable to walk? You should know-"
"Only about four years, I think, give or take." Upon her confused look, he clarified: "Hank developed a drug, a few years after...Cuba. It allowed me to walk but took away my powers. I considered that under the circumstances my powers would probably serve me better. I never could high kick worth a damn."
She laughed softly. In that moment something opened up between them that had only very rarely been open before, and Charles took the opportunity. He reached a hand to her temple and caressed it. A series of images gradually flooded into her mind: images of death and destruction, images she immediately understood as being "the future." Eric had mentioned something similar when they were in that phone booth in Paris. She still couldn't believe it. It was all too incomprehensible, especially the way Charles presented it to her. She shot back from Charles. She stood stock still, breathing deeply, her lips a thin line. "I told you a long time ago to keep out of my head, Charles." Her voice was low, husky, but it was still hers.
Charles put on a hard face this time. "It's tempting when you aren't willing to sit down and talk with me."
Raven sighed. She sat down across the flimsy wooden table from Charles and folded her arms. "Talk." She looked to all of them. "Give it your best shot."
Logan started. "There's a mutant in the future...who can teleport others back in time. Kitty Pryde. She sent me-or is sending me back right now, actually, in order to stop the one event that will lead to a war between mutants and humans, and eventually to most everyone being killed."
"The sentinels," Hank finally chimed in, "the mutant-hunting robots Trask has developed. There will be several generations of them, ah-according to Logan. They don't truly become dangerous until Trask Enterprises designs them with the ability to transform so they have any mutant power, similar to…."
Raven shut her eyes. "My power."
"Right," Hank said.
Raven opened her eyes and crossed her legs. "Eric told me. He also informed me that they already have my DNA, so it's too late for that. The only option left is to kill Trask so he won't be able to develop the sentinels."
Logan stepped forward. "Except where I come from history says that you assassinated Trask in Paris, were captured, tortured, and with the help of your genes the deadlier breed of sentinels are born anyway. It doesn't matter whether it's Trask or somebody else."
"His death will send a message," Raven practically spat through her teeth.
"But that's the whole point Raven! It is not even so much that you might be captured and they tear apart your flesh to get what they need for those bloody robots, it's that you-a mutant-cold bloodedly kill this man. That is what will spark the hysteria and the hatred! That is what starts the war."
Raven shook her head. She looked as if she was becoming queasy. "Even if I do nothing Eric will start the war anyway. He'll find a way." She stood up, unsteadily. She limped toward the nearby staircase. "And you fools freed him!" she shouted over her shoulder.
"Wai-wait, how do you know he'll start it?" Hank asked.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Because he told me so. A long time ago…." She started to ascend the stairs.
Charles turned to Hank. "Go see to her wound, please, Hank. Lord knows the last time it was looked at."
Raven stopped on the middle of the stairs. Her look was decidedly deadly. "You won't do that Hank. Please leave my home now, all of you." She continued up to the second floor.
"What do we do now?" Hank asked, looking from Charles to Logan. Charles said nothing for several moments. He knew what he had to do. He took a breath, to steady himself. He had to do it quickly, to not hesitate, or else there'd be no point in trying. With all his might, Charles pushed himself up from his seat and stood next to the table.
"Woah, steady there," Logan said as he rushed to his side, expecting him to fall. Hank was at his other side.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said to them. He looked up at the darkness of the second floor through the staircase's railings. "I have just enough."
xxxx
There was a knock on the door.
"Hank, please. I'm fine. I had it changed a day ago. Please just take the others and go."
The door opened and she looked up to see-to her astonishment-Charles standing in the doorway, with no one helping him.
"Sometimes I have enough of the serum left in me to walk around for a while"-he explained-"but just for a little while, I'm afraid."
He shuffled over to the bare bed where she lay and sat at the end beside her. He swung around a satchel bag and opened it to reveal various medical supplies.
"I'm fine, Charles," she was quick to say.
"I've never had to read your mind to know when you weren't being truthful. Now let's see…."
She tensed when he lifted her right bell-bottomed pant leg and rolled it back. Wrapped around her calf was a considerable wad of gauze. There were small spots of dried, dark blood peeking through. He grabbed medical scissors and sheared through the wrappings. Raven sighed when she saw his reaction.
"It's not that bad. See?" She shifted into her normal blue form, but that didn't do anything to detract from the fact there was still drainage from the wound.
Charles dispensed with the old bandaging and quickly went to work to clean the wound and apply pressure to it. As he was wrapping it up he spoke: "A day hasn't gone by that I haven't regretted being as bold as Eric."
She was confused. "To fight for the cause?"
"No. To...accept your advances, make one, I don't know. A part of me honestly couldn't see you that way."
Once he had tied the new bandages she gracefully swung her legs over his head and onto the ground where she rose to her feet, all while trying with all her might to not appear to be in pain or temporarily disabled. "That was the problem." She transformed back into the blonde magazine girl. "Even when I looked like this, I think."
He hung his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It wasn't that I didn't want to, but…. I felt an obligation to you. We grew up together. You had no one but me, and I you, after my parents died. A romantic relationship seemed a trifling thing compared to what we already had."
She rushed forward in the room, towards nothing in particular. "Which was what? Me loving you by supporting you, listening to you; you loving me by reprimanding me, judging, nit-picking, but never really…."
"Noticing you. Eric certainly did, didn't he?"
She turned back to him. "You hate him, I know…."
"Who wouldn't-" he responded quickly, then paused. "...be angry at the person who essentially caused your injuries, then left you for dead while he disappeared with the one woman you loved more than anything in the whole world?"
Their eyes locked. She wasn't sure what to say. She changed the subject, kind of: "Whatever happened to Moira?"
"I cared about her but she had to return to her life. Any further association would have put her in danger."
She stepped closer to him. "So cold and logical. Do you ever do anything out of passion, Charles?"
"Probably as often as you've done anything out of logic and common sense."
She seethed. "Get the fuck out! I-"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…." He grabbed her hand but held it gently. "I'm sorry about a lot of things. I can't help what choices Eric made, but I could have been a lot smarter about my own, before he even came into our lives.
"I love you Raven."
A slew of emotions rushed through her and showed on her face.
She swallowed. "Charles, I…." She shook her head as tears formed in her eyes. "There was this was one time, when we were kids, and I got into this thing about having to climb all the trees around the mansion. Scared the shit out of you, I think, because you were always begging me to come back down, and I know you never climbed up there with me when I begged you to.
"I finally just stopped doing it, because I almost fell, and it scared you. I didn't want to scare you. But I was always sort of mad at myself, after that, because it wasn't what I wanted."
She tugged her hand out of his. Her face hardened. "I have to decide here."
Charles stood up. He said nothing as he hobbled past Raven and toward the door.
He managed to reach the top of the stairs, where he called down to Hank and Logan because he knew he didn't have enough in him to make it down by himself.
As they helped him down, Logan asked, "So, did you get into her mind, convince her not to kill Trask?"
Charles didn't answer right away. The look on his face was grim. "We're going to the rally today," he whispered to his companions once he knew they were out of earshot. Both Hank and Logan immediately understood: They were going to have to stop this woman at all costs.
xxxx
She pointed the gun at him.
"Get the hell out of my head!" she screamed.
He couldn't understand her. He never would, he concluded, but he just couldn't get over how, after everything that had just happened, she was still intent on killing Trask. What was the point? She was now a hero. "You've just saved the lives of all these men. Are you going to throw away this chance?
After a beat Charles shook his head. "You were right, darling. I've been trying to control you since we were children, and look where that's led us."
"It's up to you, Raven. I have faith in you."
She hesitated. The woman-not the girl, not her brother, not her lover-was now trying to decide what she should do. He didn't have to read her mind; he could see it in her eyes.
He pulled back-partly to leave her to make her decision, partly because his injured, bleeding body couldn't sustain his using his powers any longer. A weak breath escaped his lips.
"I have faith in…," he whispered feebly.
He shut his eyes in relief when he heard the plastic gun drop on the grass nearby.
He smiled when she called out to him, "Eric's all yours!" He immediately summoned whatever strength he could dredge up and focused on Eric. Within moments he was free of the stadium's twisted metal lighting grid. Hank rushed in to help him up.
"Thanks, Hank."
He exchanged his good-byes with Eric. No, he wouldn't let him be arrested. Like Raven he had to decide his own fate, to figure things out. Arrest would mean death, and no chance for redemption. Plus he felt vaguely in the back of his mind that he would need his friend's help sometime in the future. The year 1983 popped into his mind for some reason.
He couldn't think of what to say to Raven. She looked as if she was about to cry, overwhelmed by everything that had happened. She didn't say anything, either. There was everything and nothing in her expression when she looked to both him and Hank. As she hobbled off, Hank asked: "Should we really just be letting them go?"
"It's alright Hank. They will make their decisions, and I have trust they will be the right ones. I know there will come a day when we're all together again."