Hey guys, this is the first chapter in what I hope to be a series of one-shots in between the movies that take place in Mind and Metal series. In this chapter Charlotte tells the boys what the doctor had discovered and what is happening to her, and during the their travels, Erik and Raven miss Charlotte and struggle with the Brotherhood. Enjoy.
Christmas Miracle
The phone fell from Charlotte's hand and clattered on the ground.
Hank had never seen the professor so stunned before and wondered what Dr. Collins could have said to make her react this way. Then he noticed the paleness in Charlotte's face and recognized the nausea on her face. Quick as he was able to, he dove for the wastebasket they had been keeping nearby and brought it over in time for Charlotte to throw up in it. Alex came over, pulling Charlotte's hair back just as they had been doing these last few days and rubbed her back.
Sean had come over and picked up the phone Charlotte had dropped. "Hello?" he asked. "I'm Sean Cassidy. Father? No, I'm not!" Hank saw the teenage boy's face blush scarlet red.
Charlotte pulled her head away from the wastebasket, and Hank offered her his hankey. She wiped her mouth with it, thanking him before taking the phone away from the flustered redhead. "Hello? Yes, it's me. That was one of my students. It's alright."
Hank watched as Charlotte talked on the phone with the doctor. He glanced at Sean, wondering what the doctor had asked before he continued to listen to Charlotte.
"I was just surprised by the news. You're absolutely certain? Oh. Yes." Charlotte blushed, and Alex looked at Hank questionably. Hank shrugged, not knowing what was going on yet. "Yes, I would be able to come in after the holidays. Two o'clock? Yes. Thank you. I'll do that. Thank you Dr. Collins."
With that, Charlotte hung up. Hank watched as she took a deep breath. She still seemed a little shocked.
"Um, Professor?" Hank asked. "Is everything alright?"
"What?" Charlotte suddenly seemed to remember him, and Alex, and Sean were in the room with her. "Oh, yes. I'm alright. The doctor just wanted to confirm something with me."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "And that something would traumatize little Banshee over here?" He motioned to Sean who was still red.
Charlotte sucked in a breath. "You guys know that these last several days I haven't been feeling well?"
Hank nodded. It had been frightening seeing the professor puke every morning and if she so much as put something in her mouth.
"Well, the doctor wasn't sure given my recent paralysis, but he tested it multiple times, and it's confirmed: I'm pregnant."
After seeing Sean's reaction on the phone, Hank had a suspicion, but to hear it confirmed out loud, Hank was still stunned by the news, and so was Alex.
"Uh… How… How far along are you?" he managed to ask.
"Six weeks," Charlotte answered.
Six weeks. Hank did the math in his head. That would have been their last days of training before Cuba.
"The father?" Sean seemed to finally break out of his shock.
Hank knew there was only one person whom that could be. Charlotte nodded. Erik Lehnsherr.
Hank looked at Alex and saw the same anger and sadness he himself felt. When he had known Erik during their time preparing to fight Shaw, he had developed a respect for the man. During their training, Raven use to talk to him about Erik and her sister. Even Hank with all his awkwardness towards relationships had been able to see something growing between the professor and Nazi hunter. They had talked about it with Sean and Alex.
Alex, who had slowly begun to trust everyone was still a bit cautious about their relationship. He had seen people in relationships similar to Charlotte and Erik's and they usually end with the guy turning out to be a complete asshole and breaking the girl's heart. Alex had begun to care for Charlotte like an older sister/mother figure, and had no desire to see heart broken. Hank could remember after Cuba, Alex's furious rant as they waited to hear from Charlotte's surgery. "I knew he was dangerous. I knew he was bad for her. I knew it!"
Hank had been furious too at Erik and Raven. How could two people who claimed to love and care for Charlotte abandon her when she needed them the most? They did not deserve her love for them.
"Are you going to tell him?" Alex was the one to ask the question.
Charlotte closed her eyes and turned her head down sadly. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I've tried communicating with them, but ever since they broke Emma Frost out of the CIA, I can't even get a glimpse of them. They want nothing to do with me."
Hank's anger increased tenfold, but he forced it down. Getting angry would not help Charlotte at all.
Thankfully, Sean moved the conversation away from Erik. "how is this possible? The pregnancy I mean," Sean asked, his face still blushing.
"I honestly don't know, and neither does the doctor," Charlotte answered. "But I have a theory that mutation had a hand in it. Both Erik and I are mutants, so there is a high chance that the fetus-baby is a mutant as well which could explain how they were able to survive when I was paralyzed."
"That's a possibility," Hank agreed. It had been a miracle itself that Charlotte had survived without proper medical treatment for so long before they finally managed to get her to a hospital for proper treatment. Now, to find out that Charlotte was pregnant despite the damage that had been caused to her body was extraordinary. Maybe mutation was the reason Charlotte was pregnant and hadn't lost it when she had been shot.
He saw Charlotte close her eyes in concentration before they opened up in astonishment. "I can't believe I didn't realize it before, and not just that-" she paused, closing her eyes again, and Hank knew she was probably using her telepathy to feel the baby inside her.
"Professor?" Alex asked, concerned.
A smile appeared on the woman's face. A happy smile Hank realized even as a tear escaped her eyes. "There's two," she breathed.
Hank felt his eyes widen and his jaw drop, and Alex and Sean held the same expression. "T-T-Two?" Hank managed to make out. Did he hear that right?
Charlotte nodded, smiling nervously. "Yes. Twins."
"Twins?" Alex asked, still in shock.
Charlotte nodded, smiling nervously. "Yes. Twins actually run in my family."
"Wow," Sean said, surprisingly the first to recover from this. "Can you tell what they are?"
Charlotte shook her head, laughing a bit. "No, not that early. For now, I just feel two little minds inside me, both happy and content."
Just like their mom, hank realized. For the first time since Cuba he saw Charlotte really smiling, not the fake smiles she put up for them but an actual smile. Hank realized that's what mattered: Charlotte happy. They were in for a long road, but seeing Charlotte happy would make it worth it.
He bent down and gave her a gentle hug. "This may not be the ideal circumstances but congratulations, Charlotte."
Tears sprung into Charlotte's eyes. "Thank you, Hank. that means so much to me." She took a shaky breath and tried to wipe the tears with her sleeves.
"You're going to be an amazing mom," Alex said.
"Going to be? She already is," Sean said. "Kids' are going to be the luckiest ones on the planet."
"I'm already crying you guys, and my emotions are a mess," Charlotte smiled through her tears.
Hank placed a blue furry hand on her shoulder. "All we want to say Charlotte is that you got us. You're not alone in this."
Charlotte smiled gratefully at the three boys before her. What had she done to deserve such amazing friends. "Thank you. All of you. This means more to me than you'll ever know." She pulled all of them into a group hug and none of them hesitated. They were a family.
When the group hug ended, Sean asked, "So can we go eat before dinner gets too cold?"
Charlotte laughed. "Yes. Now that I know I'm eating for two more I'm ready to eat a buffet."
Alex chuckled. "Well, you're in luck. My mother sent me some of her cook recipes, and we made enough to feed an army."
They all left her study, Hank hung back with Charlotte. "Did you schedule an appointment to see the doctor again."
Charlotte nodded. "Yes, he'll see me first thing after the holidays."
They made it to the kitchen, and Charlotte was astonished to see that Alex and Sean had indeed made enough to feed an army. There were bowels of mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, a basket of rolls, cranberry sauce, a stuffed turkey, and several pies.
"You guys made all this?" she asked, astonished.
"Well, most of it," Sean admitted. "We actually bought the rolls, cranberry sauce, and some of the pies, but we all worked together just like you said and we managed to pull it off."
Charlotte wondered if they would be able to eat all of this, but between three teenage boys, and a pregnant woman it shouldn't be a problem. She smiled at the three boys before her. "Merry Christmas, you guys."
Merry Christmas Erik and Raven. Wherever you guys are.
000{{*}}000
The cold didn't bother Raven as she sat on the edge of the balcony at their latest safehouse, a Manhattan penthouse overlooking the city as snow covered it and Christmas lights shown through. It never did even when she was a child living on the streets before she met Charlotte.
She just had to get away from everyone. Ever since Angel's death a month ago, things had been tense with Erik trying to find the murderers responsible. Tonight, Erik had slammed his door shut after arguing with Emma. personally, Raven couldn't stand the snobby blonde telepath. She was such a bitch. But they needed her Erik had told her. That didn't stop him from getting into fights with Frost. It took everything Raven had to keep those two from killing each other. Erik was a terrific leader, but Raven wondered if it had been wise to bring Emma into the Brotherhood. She was nothing like Charlotte.
Maybe that was the problem.
Raven missed Charlotte. This time of year they'd be shopping for presents and hiding them from each other, get tangled in a snowball fight with their fellow Oxford classmates, and then when they made it home to their apartment Raven would cook their Christmas dinner while Charlotte decorated their apartment because she couldn't cook to save her life.
Raven made sure not to show it to anyone, especially Erik. Charlotte was a forbidden topic among the Brotherhood. Emma made the mistake of mentioning her a couple of days ago, and Erik nearly tore her head off. Even though she had been shielding the Brotherhood from Charlotte's telepathy since they broke her out of the CIA, Emma had been keeping an eye on Charlotte. They knew Charlotte was busy trying to open her school and had been trying to look for them. Then a couple days ago, Emma told them about Charlotte feeling sick and nausea every morning. This worried Raven. Charlotte never got sick. Not since they were kids. She had wanted to go to Charlotte, to see if she was alright, but Erik shot it down.
Raven heard a Puff and looked inside to see that Azazel had returned from a supply run.
He turned his head, and saw her on the balcony and made his way over to her. "Where is everyone?" he asked her.
It had taken a while to get comfortable with him, but Raven had actually come to like him. "Riptide left to get a drink somewhere quiet, Er-Magneto went to his room, and Emma is probably filing her nails somewhere," Raven told him.
Azazel sighed. "They were at it again."
"Yep," Raven nodded her head. "I can't stand her."
"She's a complicated woman to understand," Azazel said.
Raven looked at him. "Are you actually defending her?"
Azazel shrugged. "I've known her longer than you and Magneto. She's lost a lot, and I think the reason they don't get along is because they're too much alike."
"Alike? Who has she lost? Shaw? Her lover? The man who tortured and killed people? Please," Raven scoffed.
Azazel sat down next to her. "When you're everyone's delivery man you learn things about them that normal people wouldn't."
"Like what?" Raven asked, leaning forward.
He grinned at her. "Nice try, красивая, but even I am not reckless enough to anger a telepath."
Raven laughed.
"Have you two seen our fearless leader?" The mood was shattered by Emma's presence.
Raven had years of practice living with a telepath to know how to keep her thoughts silent. She narrowed her eyes at the blonde woman. "No, he's in his room."
Emma rolled her eyes. "Please, he's not. I just found out that his professor is not sick and I thought he would like to know, so I knocked on his door. He didn't answer, so I opened the door and there was no one there."
Raven stood up and exchanged a worried look with Azazel. She didn't hear Erik leave. If he wasn't in his room then where was he?
000{{*}}000
The cold didn't bother Erik. After years of living in poverty he was use to it. He felt so lost like he was stumbling in the dark. He had left their hideout to think, keeping his helmet on so no one would find him and disturb him.
Ever since Emma had told him about Charlotte's illness, he had been distracted, worried about her. He had been worried ever since he had left her on that beach. Even dropping by the hospital she had been placed in hadn't helped.
The boys hadn't left her, even Hank in beast-like form, except when they had to eat and clean up. So when they all had left, Erik took his window of opportunity and went in the hospital room. Charlotte had looked so pale, so fragile, broken actually, and it sent shards of glass into his heart. He did that to her. He put her there, and he had never felt so horrible, so rotten in his life.
He had taken the bullet out of his pocket. The bullet he had put into her spine, crumbled with traces of her blood. He never meant to hurt her. The only person who showed him any kindness, who sneaked a way into his heart, and he repaid her by leaving her bleeding on the Cuban sand. Charlotte had always managed to see the beauty in everything, and maybe that's why the bullet in Erik's hand melted and shifted without him being consciously aware about it until he felt it land in his hand. The bullet had changed into a rose. The cold color altered into a warm red. He had added a chain to it from the doctor's utensils in the room and had let it there beside Charlotte. That was the last time he saw her.
Erik realized that he had levitated himself in front of the Xavier mansion in Westchester. The sky had grown dark as the evening rolled by and snow fell, covering the estate in a white blanket.
Erik could see several rooms in the mansion lit and Christmas decorations everywhere. He never celebrated Christmas, growing up Jewish. Raven had wanted them to have a Christmas tree in their hideout, but he allowed only a small one for her to keep in her room. After all, they were on a tight budget.
He wandered around the mansion outside. Charlotte wasn't in her study. Was she so sick she had to rest in her bedroom? Erik followed the lights until he reached where the kitchen was. Sitting at the table with piles of food were the boys and Charlotte. Sean was telling them some kind of story, and they all burst out laughing.
Erik's eyes were on Charlotte. She looked tired, maybe even thinner now, but she was smiling, so happy that Erik thought her to be glowing. She talked with Hank, laughed at Sean's jokes, and rolled her eyes whenever Alex made a sarcastic remark.
Erik didn't know how long he stood there, until Charlotte pulled away from the table, carrying her dirty plate to the sink. Erik felt his heart in his throat. Charlotte was in a wheelchair! Why? How? Horror hit him as realization sunk in. He had kept an eye on her hospital to know that she had been in there for two weeks, making him wonder if the bullet wound had hurt Charlotte more than he thought. Did he do this?
Charlotte placed her dishes in the sink right in front of him when she looked up. Their eyes met. Blue-green-gray and sapphire blue. The only thing separating them was the glass window above the sink. Shock filled Charlotte's eyes along with surprise. Erik panicked.
He ran.
Down the path and the stone stairs when he heard Charlotte's voice.
"Erik?"
He froze. It was too dark for anyone to see, and he wore his helmet so Charlotte had no way of detecting him with her telepathy. "Erik?" He flinched. She sounded so sad, so desperate that slowly he turned his head around.
At the kitchen door, with light shining behind her was Charlotte, one hand on the switch of her chair, and the other around her stomach. Her eyes were searching the darkness. Searching for him. "Erik, please."
It made him want to go to her, touch her face, feel her soft ebony locks, and her lips on his. He wanted to hold her like he did in Russia, but he couldn't. He caused enough pain in her life, and she would never understand the things he had to do to keep her and fellow mutants safe. She had her part in this war, and he had his. They could never collide. It was for the best. She would open her school, and he would fight for mutants' place in this world. It was time to accept that.
With that he turned away from her and levitated away, never seeing the heartbreaking tears that fell down Charlotte's face.
000{{*}}000
красивая= Beautiful
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. I'm not sure how often I'm going to be posting chapters for this series, but I'm probably going to be focused more on my Mind and Metal series for the time being this summer. I've got plenty ideas for one-shots but I was kind of torn between doing this and the other series and I decided to work on Mind and Metal more. If anyone has any questions about the series, I'll try to answer them as best as I can without spoiling them too much. Thank you.