Hello everyone! I've decided to celebrate my birthday (about half a day early), with this fic! All new! New fandom, new pairing and new style! (not in writing, I've written first person before, but I'm not quite sure how else to refer to Yaoi).

So yes, I'm choosing to clarify here: this fic is Yaoi. While the story itself will be narrated by Moira, the main pairing is Charles and Erik. I won't go too in-depth into their relationship anyway, but it will be there. If any of you don't like this, I'm deeply sorry, but after watching X-Men: First Class I'm incapable of seeing either of them with anyone but each other.

Having said all that. Let the fic begin!

Hope

By: Lalaith Quetzalli

She was their last hope, humanity's last hope. Her mission: to go fifty years back in time and kill mankind's greatest threat before it could destroy them. And yet, when long-forgotten memories come back, just who, and what, will really be that threat? What is Salvation really?

Part One. The Last Hope

My name is Moira MacTaggert, former CIA Agent, Doctor in Biochemistry and Genetics and recently redrafted into the CIA…or well, what would have been the CIA if anyone gave a damn anymore about old, useless protocols.

I have been especially interested in genetic mutation and in mutants as a whole ever since I was twenty-eight, when I was fired from the government Agency and decided to try at an entirely different career. I'm not fully sure what interested me in that in the first place, though I know somehow Dr. Xavier was involved, I remember attending his thesis presentation in Oxford for some reason during my last long-term assignment as an Agent. In any case, while going back to school wasn't the easiest thing ever, it is certainly something I do not regret, as it has given me a great many satisfactions over the years.

In the last several decades I've had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds in the field, like Dr. Hank McCoy, a mutant himself, and the aforementioned Dr. Charles Xavier, who actually leads a school dedicated to helping and protecting mutant youths. Such a place, I've found so absolutely fascinating the few times I've been there, and at the same time so strangely, almost painfully, familiar…

One of the most recent times I was there was in fact a few years ago, when I attended the funeral of one Charles Xavier. It was so strange there, even as I felt a pang of grief inside my heart, greater than anyone should have felt for someone who was little more than a colleague, a work-friend at most. Almost as if a part of me knew he had been, or should have been, in fact, more. In any case, I never had much time to ponder on that line of thought, not with how the whole world pretty much went to hell not long after that.

'The Cure', that thrice-damned thing I can hardly believe I was even a part of! I should have known treating mutations as a sickness was wrong, in fact, I'm quite sure a part of me knew it was very wrong. It's not like I have ever been afraid of mutants in general (what several people have been known to do with their abilities, particularly Magneto and the members of his Brotherhood, is another matter entirely); and yet I also knew some of the actual mutants truly saw their differences from humans as a sickness, and I just wanted to help them…it just all went so terribly wrong.

I've always known that even the best of intentions can have the worst of consequences. It's what the 'road to hell' is paved with, and all that. I also understood that even the best of inventions could be used in the worst possible ways, military ways, ways of destruction and war…I mean, I did live through the Cold War, the Missile Crisis…even if most of the details of those days are hazy at best. However, nothing could have prepared me, prepared anyone really, for what happened on Muir Island that awful day…

For most that day in itself, the memory of it, is bad enough. It's only worse for those of us who actually know, who understand, how that day was the beginning of it all: the beginning of the fight, of destruction…of the war! The beginning of the end…Some of us always knew, or at least suspected, war was inevitable; and even if we had ever been optimistic enough to believe it could be averted, the situation a few years prior on Liberty Island, and then less than a year ago when the whole world fell on its knees, quite literally, was more than enough to open our eyes to the painful truth. And yet…and yet nothing could have prepared anyone for what came after Alcatraz… it was, and still is, terrible, worse than the worst possible nightmare. Worse than the Holocaust, than the persecution of Christians and any other religious group around the world, than the Inquisition…it's the End of the World, literally.

Somehow, and I'm still not quite sure just how, I've managed to stay alive this long. Even with the constant fight, the seemingly endless pain and grief and death…

For a while I stayed in Westchester, Ororo Monroe, the new Head of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters gave me refuge when I had nowhere else to go…I had to see how little by little the place became less of a school and more of a refuge, how the children became less carefree children and more war-torn soldiers…it was painful to watch, especially so, because something inside me also told me it had happened before, that it had been meant to happen all along…but I did not want it to be like that. These were children for god's sake!

They were children…

The voice that whispered in my head was foreign and familiar at the same time, it wasn't the first time I had heard it; and like every time before, I couldn't really pinpoint the origin. I didn't really care at that point, there were far more important things to care about: like the young mutants, the children with too-old eyes that kept arriving to the Institute, looking for a safe place to rest, and for a chance to help…

The strangest of all the days I spent there was perhaps the day an old man arrived to the mansion. Mrs. Monroe, Storm, as almost everyone called her, referred to him as Erik Lehnsherr; however, I could hear the students whispering all around, about how he'd been a mutant yet was no longer one, how he'd been Magneto…

I didn't like him, I pretty much held him at least partly responsible for all that had gone wrong in the last five decades…really, it should have been less, the world as a whole hadn't concerned much with his doings until Liberty Island…but something told me he'd done things, bad things, long before that. I just, somehow, couldn't remember it.

How did I know that much? Well, the way he looked at me was a clue; while his expression showed absolutely nothing, there was an odd battle in the light in his eyes: like a mix of shock, disbelief, fury, and something else I couldn't quite name. He knew who I was, more than just by my name or my profession, He Knew Me, the same way I knew him, even if I couldn't really remember. I heard Dr. McCoy once comment, in response to some of the younger X-Men complaining over the man being allowed inside the estate, on how the man had not always been an enemy, he'd once been a friend, he had been the Professor's friend…and then I wondered if I had known him, like I knew the Professor, in that time I couldn't recall more than flashes of… And I wondered what had gone so wrong that they had ended up as enemies, I had no idea; in fact, only Dr. McCoy seemed to know anything about it, and he refused to say a word…

Eventually I had to leave the mansion, we all had to. The war just kept escalating and a moment came when the place was no longer safe. What had supposedly begun as a war of humans versus mutants had become a full-out civil war, everyone against everyone. Because really, not all the mutants cared for being on the same 'side'; and at the same time, not all humans were against mutants. It was a war of everyone against everyone, no matter their race, gender, name, or even their genetics…being a doctor and a former agent it had been a very long time since I had placed much faith in things like God, like heaven and hell, like good and evil…but if there was ever a hell, we were living it. In that neverending war I was sure would only end up with the total destruction of the world. It was such that it was unlikely even the mutants would be able to survive the chaos we were all causing…

And all that has brought to where I am today, sitting in an old chair, deep underground in some military facility in the middle of nowhere. What few leaders of the old military and spy agencies still live today are all here right now, because of me…they brought me here, said they wanted me to be an agent was again. I thought they had to be insane. I mean, really! I am almost eighty years old! What's more, they kicked me out when I was twenty-seven, when I actually had something to offer to the CIA, to my country, why exactly would they want me now?

Then, as they explain their plan, their half-brained, absolutely-insane, incredibly-ridiculous plan, I suddenly understand: Time travel, they have found a way to make time travel possible. Only because, as is logical, two versions of the same person must not exist in the same place at the same time, and one cannot go to a time and place where they do not exist yet…they have to send someone who was in the time and place where they need them, and I am the only one who fills all the specifications. Because, like I've suspected all along, I was there, every step of the way, during the so-called Missile Crisis, I just cannot remember.

I am to be sent back, or at least my mind will. My seventy-seven-year-old mind, to my twenty-seven-year-old body, it's why my age doesn't really matter, I won't be old once I get there, I will be who and what I was at that point in time. And I have a mission to fulfill: to stop the two greatest threats to humanity before they can actually become a threat to us all…the two threats, the leaders of the two greatest teams of mutants: the Brotherhood, and the X-Men…Magneto and the Professor… only I am to stop them before they can even become that, I am to stop them when they are still Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier.

The mission is fairly simple and to the point: after the mutants have taken down Shaw in Cuba (because we still need them to stop Shaw, as he's a mutant and can only be stopped by those who are like him), I am to make sure Lehnsherr and Xavier are permanently incapacitated, by any means necessary.

I do not think about how ridiculous, and unfair, and downright cruel it is that I am supposed to let a group of teenagers and two adults risk their lives to stop a madman and his henchmen, only to then betray them, disable them, possibly kill them. I cannot think about it because, no matter how terrible it might be, how bad it might make me, it cannot be worse than what we're living, the war, the massacre, the chaos, we've been going through the last decade!

So no, I don't think about how bad the mission is, how, one way or another, I'll be little better than a traitor and a murderer at the end of it; because, in the end of it, it cannot be worse than what the whole world is right now, right? Oh Lord, I hope so!

xXx

It took a while for everything to be ready; though they were all working as fast as possible. It was something hard and complicated to get ready, and yet they were too afraid of them all dying before they could be ready that there was no way for them not to work fast.

Finally the day comes, I am surprised at how simple things are for me, at least on this stage of the plan. While most of the people in the base were busy getting everything ready for her journey, I worked on strengthening my mental shields as much as possible. None of us know for sure on what day I will be arriving exactly, only that it will definitely be before the chaos in Cuba takes place. It means that I will have to spend from a day to several weeks in the company of who I know to be the most powerful telepath ever born; if I do not want my mission to go to hell before I ever got the chance to go through with it, I need to make sure he will not find anything in my mind related to it.

It is ironic how it was the Professor himself who taught me the basics of mental shielding, though others expanded on it during my time in the mansion. Since the war, you never knew when a telepath might be with you or against you, even when you are siding with the mutants; and there are others with psychic gifts that could be just as powerful, and terrible.

And that brings me to yet another matter: sides. Most people would never understand why I went from being a CIA Agent, to working with Professor Xavier, to being part of the team who created the 'Cure', to being with the mutants in the Mansion, to once against being with the government. It seems all very fickle, and awful when seen in those simple terms. But it has never been simple, not at all. I was CIA because I believed in what the Agency was meant to do, in my country, in protecting it; I also shared the Professor's belief that peace was a possibility, yet, what he did not seem to realize, was that not all mutants wanted to be so, which is why I also helped create the 'Cure'. And in the end I went back to the CIA because I honestly want to prevent the apocalypse that seems to be taking place all around me.

I was taught, many years ago, that sometimes sacrifices are necessary, and that there isn't always a good answer for everything, a good option, only one that might be less bad. I do not like the idea of having to kill two men, one who I am quite sure has never been anything but good, but if it is the only way to stop the world from ending I will do it…I know it will most likely end up costing me my life, there is no way I can take down all the mutants who presumably were on Cuba with me on that day; but as long as I could take down Lehnsherr and Xavier they won't have leaders, the X-Men and the Brotherhood will never be formed, the world will be safe…or that's what I've been telling myself.

When the day comes I am lead to a chair in the middle of the room. Then, after a long speech reminding me of my mission, of what is at stake, my duties, the honor of my country, and a lot other things I find useless and ridiculous in our precarious situation; a doctor approaches me with a syringe of…something, I do not even want to think what might be there. He is to inject it into my neck, into the artery that takes blood straight into my brain, and somehow that will allow my mind to travel back in time…I don't bother asking the how, it isn't important. All that is important is for it to work.

"Good luck Agent MacTaggert." Is the last I hear from my former superior right as pain overtakes my brain and darkness envelopes me. "Godspeed…"

xXx

The dizziness is such that I cannot help but double over, holding my head between my hands. It takes me a few seconds but eventually I begin to notice things, like the fact that I am no longer seating in a hard and old wooden chair but a much more comfortable cushioned seat. After all the dizziness has passed I look to the side through the fringe of my hair, to make sure I haven't already called attention to myself, I can see there's no one close enough to me to actually notice me, which could be explained by the fact that I am sitting in the very last row of the small auditorium, and while it isn't exactly packed full, those present actually seem to be interested in the person talking on the stand.

"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward…"

He keeps talking, but I do not need to hear anymore, from what little I actually can remember, that particular speech is clear in my mind. It's the speech given by Dr…or to-be-Dr. Charles Xavier, his thesis presentation.

I am back, I am truly, unbelievably, amazingly, back in time to the Summer of 1962…

"Professor in Genetics, Charles Francis Xavier." Comes the official announcement.

I am still a bit put out by the whole time-traveling situation, so I do not move from my place until everyone else had left, it's not like I am in any hurry anyway, I know I won't be meeting with the professor until tonight, and even then, he won't be telling me anything useful until we are back in CIA HQs…that, however, does not mean I can let down my guard, he can try to read my mind at any moment, I have to be prepared for that.

That's pretty much what I spend the late afternoon doing, preparing (and making sure I remember everything I ought to know in this time and place).

At evening I make my way to the pub that, I know, caters to the Oxford crowd. There is Charles, drinking what should be considered a quite unhealthy amount of alcohol in one go, does that not affect his telepathy any? In any case, I shouldn't be having that kind of thoughts right now, not when he might pick up on them if I'm not careful.

As soon as he moves away from the cheering crowd (and really, cheer for being able to drink way too much alcohol, apparently without breathing?) I approach him.

"Congratulations professor." I smile brightly at him, focusing on keeping only thoughts of the present time and place at the forefront of my mind, and trying to replicate the curious but naïve individual I was the first time around.

"Thank you very much, it's harder than it looks actually." He comments flippantly, looking at the now-empty glass container he holds in his hands.

"No, on your presentation." I correct.

"Oh, my presentation." That seems to surprise him briefly. "Ah, you were at my presentation, how nice of you. Thank you very much…"

"Moira MacTaggert." I introduce myself, still smiling.

"Charles Xavier." He responds in kind.

"Do you have a minute?" I inquire.

As he begins talking about genes, my hair color, some kind of mutation, all while leading me to an empty table I cannot help but wonder briefly, has he always been that much of a flirt? Yes, yes he was, maybe I was too focused on my work the first time around…or that was just part of all I couldn't actually remember… The act he puts on, because I know, instinctively, that it is an act, is kind of dorky, but I can see how a good number of women might fall for it; I'm not blind, I have eyes, Charles Xavier is a very handsome man, and his manners are those of a gentleman. Still, I am quite irked knowing he's quite probably the reason my memory of these months has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese.

He goes on for a while about mutation, evolution and the like, and I think I might have let him go on longer than I did the first time around, but eventually I do interrupt him, pointing out how I am there on business.

"I really need your help." I try to make him understand how serious it all is.

"All right." He nods, paying more attention.

"The kind of mutations that you were talking about in your thesis. I need to know if they may have already happened…in people alive today?" I ask him, trying to be vague, yet giving him enough information to actually get the kind of answer I need.

I see him look at me oddly, as he cocks his head to a side slightly, then, as he raises a hand to touch his temple slightly I have to use all my self control not to slam all my shields up in a second. I knew he had read my mind during our first meeting! I just hadn't actually thought about it back then, but in that moment, even with everything I still don't know, I realize what that gesture of his means. And as afraid as it makes me to know he's in my mind, I have to focus on the fact that, if he did things like that in my past, then he's probably seeing what I saw in the Hellfire Club, and he needs to see it, to help. So I allow it to go on for a number of seconds, enough time for him to look over my memories of that night, praying that the shields I keep up, protecting the memories of a time yet to come, for him at least, go unnoticed. Eventually, as I begin to get a bit too nervous about the time he's spent looking into my head, I cannot help but interrupt him:

"Professor?" I call him, moving my hand in front of his face. "Professor are you alright?"

I think I might have said something about drinking and being sober the first time around, but in this moment all I want is for him to get out of my head before I'm found out; and it's not like a sentence or two are that important in the grand scheme of things…right?

"Something tells me you already know the answer to your question." He declares, finally, as he lowers his hand. "This is very important to me, and if I can help you, I will do my utmost."

"Thank you."

The reassurance does me well, and at least I know I haven't ruined things so far. Now I just need to get him back to Langley, make sure that part goes as planned as well, and begin to plan how exactly I'm supposed to take down the most powerful telepath history has seen! Oh, and let's not forget a Master of Magnetism as well! Who in the seven hells ever believed one single person could take on this mission alone?! Right, there weren't more options, I was said to be their last hope? Now I have to hope I won't ruin it and have history turn out worse!

xXx

Plans are made for us, and Charles sister, Miss Raven Xavier, to leave the following morning for Langley. I know that Miss Xavier is a mutant as well, though I cannot fully recall what it is she can do. Still, I choose not to focus on that for the time being.

The following day I can only feel thankful for the rather long flight, while it usually irks me, in that moment I'm just not ready for the horror that I know will be the meeting where I'll be introducing Mr. and Miss Xavier. The fact that I could barely sleep at all last night does not help matters any. I did not even dream! Or if I did, I do not remember…that seems to be a constant with me, not being able to remember things…it really, really annoys me.

After a day spent packing, flying on a couple of planes (we had to change planes in New York since we were in commercial flights), I take my two guests to a hotel (I cannot take them to my apartment when I only have one bedroom); and we make plans to meet for breakfast the following morning so I can then take them to the CIA HQs; Director McCone has already been informed of their arrival, and while he doesn't like it, he has agreed to give them a chance. His reaction is no surprise to me at all, my superior has never liked having people unrelated to the CIA be present, much less speak, in meetings, particularly high-ranked ones; and I suppose that the fact that he still hasn't forgiven me for what he sees as a 'failed emergency report' last week doesn't help matters any.

Still, in this moment I can hardly find it in myself to care, what began as an annoying but almost harmless headache this morning is now worse than the worst migraine I've ever experienced. By the time I get to my apartment I can barely manage to stumble to my bed and, still in my clothes, I fall right on top of the covers.

The beat of my heart seems to be somehow deafening in my ears, my head feels as if someone were wielding a mace against a brick wall, repeatedly, I cannot move a muscle and the darkness seems to envelop me faster and faster every second.

I do not have the slightest idea what is going on, though in my last second of awareness I could swear I can almost hear and feel as something snaps somewhere deep inside my brain, and then a rush: of voices, images, sensations, knowledge, rushes over me and I black out.

Please, please don't hate Moira, I swear she's one of the good guys here. I'm just trying to be objective. She's working with less knowledge, less memories than she should. That will be changing, you'll soon see how...

Next chapter: Memories

P.S. Updates will be posted weekly.