I originally meant to post a Once Upon A Time story but for some reason I couldn't get this bunny out of my head.
It all started when I was listening to the song, Coming Home but only the Skylar Gray part.
Enjoy...
The notes played softly and he looked up from his work concerned.
Since the accident, the only time she touched the violin was when it rained or if she was feeling desperately sad and thinking of what could have been.
Charles looked out the window to the dark but dry skies. Sad it was then.
He left his desk with the intent to cheer her up and get her to start acting like the Raven he loved and maybe get the shadow of the other man out of their home, once and for all.
He knew that when they had begun working with the CIA, Raven would have never imagined that this would be her future or that they would end up on opposite sides of Erik and their fellow mutants. But then he hadn't ever pictured her and him being anything but family and he certainly never thought he'd be constantly competing with Erik for her affection.
The accident had blurred a lot of lines they'd drawn and erased some completely.
"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked studying her.
"Just read them, you'll save yourself some money. Not that you need it," she replied dryly.
"Erik, again I see," he said angrily after seeing the other man so much in her mind.
She nodded and set down the violin on her lap to free her hands. She needn't have bother, Charles immediately moved to her side and pushed her wheelchair through the connecting doorway and into the training room that been converted for her physical therapy.
"We can try to contact him if you really want to."
"No. I don't want to be seen by anybody like this," she said giving him the violin and wheeling herself to the long padded table. "And you don't like him around me."
"Thanks for that." He said laying down the instrument in its case. "You won't be in this thing forever, even now you are recuperating."
"That does not make me feel better," she replied as he lifted her onto the table and gently began the physical therapy she'd been told to do everyday. "What if I don't walk again?"
"You'll have me to take care of you."
He shifted her and she said quietly, "I don't want you to take care of me forever and it makes it worse that you think it's your fault I got hurt."
"It was my fault. If I had not been fighting with Erik I would have noticed where you were."
"Stop it." She said and he dropped his hands to his sides and sat beside her.
"Raven I can never make it up to you for what I did. I wish I could. I wish I could force Erik to come back and apologize and make him suffer for all the pain you've had to endure but since I can't do that at the moment, then at least let me help you."
She reached forward and held his hand. "You already have. What happened was an accident. I chose to go along. I chose to get in between you but if you really want to help me stop beating yourself up."
He got up and began massaging her legs again. "If I do will you play for me when you're not sad?"
"Sure, I could use the practice."
"Yeah you could." He said kissing the knee that he was working on.
"Do you think we will see him again?" She asked curiously.
"I'm sure of it but maybe with less traumatic results."
She laughed and he helped her roll onto her back to continue her regimen. "I'm serious, don't think that because of what we have that I would ever stop you from seeing him. If you really want to see Erik again, I can find him for you."
"I don't want him to see me like this. I want to be able to stand when I tell him off."
This time it was Charles that laughed and he was glad to have her fiery personality back. Morose Raven was not something he liked seeing. After finishing the last of the exercises, he delicately placed her back in her chair and wheeled her to the dining room.
A quiet dinner and movie later he took her back to their room but he wasn't getting ready to retire. "Aren't you coming to bed?" She asked.
"I have some files that Moira wants me to see. The CIA is keeping us in the dark for now but she was able to sneak a few notes of their more interesting programs out to me."
"Don't stay up too late."
He leaned down and kissed her gently. "I can't promise anything."
She kissed him back and after he tucked her in, her voice called out in the dark. "There is one thing I want you to know that I haven't told you."
"And here I thought I knew everything about you."
"I'm glad it was me and not you."
His face was in darkness but he was sure she didn't need light to know the expression on it and the harsh tone in his voice left no doubt as to what it was. "Never repeat that. Do you hear me? Never."
"I won't but it doesn't make it less true."
"Goodnight." He replied and closed the door leaving her in darkness.
Raven rolled into his empty side. "I'd have left you, Charles but this gave us a chance."
On the other side of the closed door, Charles leaned against it as he relived the accident in vivid detail just like he did every day since it had happened. And like every time he relived it, tears escaped out of his closed eyelids.
"It's us or them!" Erik shouted.
"No. Erik this isn't the way." Charles shouted back as he struggled to turn the artillery towards the ocean and away from the ships that had targeted them.
"They'll keep coming back after us. To them we are the enemy."
"We can't sink to their level. We have to be better than them." Charles said struggling to hold on.
"We already are." Erik said.
Charles knew he couldn't hold them back much longer. He saw Moira pulling her gun and he nodded for her to shoot. He never saw Raven sneak closer to distract Erik. Never saw her standing between them. All he was focused on was making the many bullets and torpedoes splash safely into the water.
He heard the shooting and saw Erik block every bullet but one. Charles felt the pain of being slammed to the sandy earth by another's body.
Heard the delayed scream that could only belong to Raven. Felt the helpless way her body was sprawled and shielding his.
He used his considerable power to move her just enough to be able to crawl out from underneath her. She lay facedown in the sand and he saw the jagged hole in the middle of her suit. He cradled her unresponsive body in his arms and instantly felt the warmth of her blood spreading over his own legs.
"Raven? Raven?" he begged the silent woman. "Please sweetheart, speak to me."
Erik had seen what had happened and he tried to apologize but Charles had only snarled at him to get away from her. He would have done something to the other mutant had she not cried out in fear. "I can't feel…feel them," she said in a broken voice. "I can't feel my legs."
She began to cry and only when he bent to console her did he become aware of another sound beside Raven's anguished sounds. He heard Moira gagging behind him and he turned to see Erik chocking her with her own tags. Her eyes pleaded with him as she pulled at the chain and for one brief second, Charles indulged the thought of letting Erik finish her off.
"Stop him." Raven whispered.
The red haze lifted and Charles in a single burst of power split the dog tags apart. Moira dropped gasping to the sand and Erik spun to face him. "It's her fault."
"No, I beg to differ. It's yours." He wanted to get up and hurt him but Raven was more important.
"It was… an…accident," Raven said through pain filled breaths. "Let him…go."
"You heard her. Leave." Charles commanded focusing on the tear marked blue face.
"I'm sorry." Erik said stepping back and gathering the rest of his crew. Charles' team ran forward and formed a semi circle around their team leaders. "Believe that I would never hurt you. You know that don't you?" He entreated to the fallen mutant.
"You were told to leave." Beast said standing a little taller and therefore blocking his view.
Defeated Erik shouted to them, "this changes nothing. I will not give in to the humans. We will not give in, no more hiding." And with a pop the group disappeared from the beach.
Unable to hold her camouflage through the pain, Charles had asked permission to enter her mind and set up a psychic block long enough to get her help. They staunched the flow as best they could and with great care had carried her back to the plane where Moira made several calls.
The CIA had arrived surprisingly quickly and Moira had sat in the front with the pilot not willing to face the hostility of the rest of the mutants. Everybody else in the team had just watched as Charles spoke quietly to the unconscious Raven, "don't you dare leave me."
He blinked back the images of that day and pushed from her door and wondered if Raven remembered that she'd told him exactly what she had said earlier, that she was glad it had been her, when he'd been told that she might not walk again and while she'd been in a drug-induced sleep.
He sat in his study but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't concentrate. Eventually he did the only thing that would give him peace. He closed the files, turned off the lights and went to bed.
He slipped beneath the blankets and held her close. "I wish it had not been you but I'm glad you allow yourself to be here. I need you so very much. More than you'll ever know."
She smiled and unbeknownst to him, the images of Erik began to vanish.