A few random thoughts to begin with:
- You know you're working with obscure, under-used characters when *Xavier* is your popular head-liner.
- This takes place after XM#113 ('ware spoilers), and turned out surprisingly continuity-heavy for such a short fic. Explanations follow.
- Those familiar with my work may notice that this bears a rather strong resemblance to "Distant Voices." In some ways, this is the story I would write now if I could do that over again.
Disclaimer: Marvel's.
Rating: Someone says a bad word. PG-13, then, as per usual.
Wake
By Andraste
In the first few seconds of solidity he almost passed out. The pain and disorientation were much worse than he remembered, especially magnified by sunburn, dehydration and lingering grogginess. He found himself kneeling, hands braced on the ground, stones cutting into his palms, and might have vomited if there'd been anything in his stomach. When he eventually managed to suck in a lungful of air, he grimaced at the strange, stale taste. Jesus. He hadn't felt this shaky since . . . No, not even Bastion. Stryker, then. He wondered why they always had white hair.
"You OK there, Chucky?" The voice definitely wasn't the one he'd been expecting, and he looked up to find Astra, perched on half-decayed column, reaching into an open packet of corn chips.
Obviously this was some kind of bizarre dream. Any second he'd wake up and Ororo would be bending over him, taking his temperature. She'd tell him he had the flu, that his telepathic delirium had kept the house awake all night. He'd be forced to stay in bed, and Jean would make him chicken soup, which he hated. He'd be polite and eat it anyway.
He would not be looking at Erik's lifeless body with eyes that were still unsettled in their sockets. Astra would not be whistling "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" in between mouthfuls of Doritos. Amelia Voght would not be lying next to him on the surface of the moon, unconscious.
He cursed, ignored the villainess, and reached for his ex-lover. Relief washed over him as he found she was breathing steadily; with any luck she hadn't been solid enough to hit her head when she fell. He shouldn't have listened when she said she'd been practicing since her last jaunt through space. Brushing Amelia's hair away from her eyes as he pulled her into his lap, Charles noted absently that she'd changed the dye since last time he'd done this. Then, she'd disappeared from her guest room before he'd woken up the next morning. He hoped that her most recent change of heart would be longer-lasting. It was good to have someone familiar to hang on to at a time like this, although he had to be careful not to read anything serious into her actions.
"Maggie never liked teleporting either," said Astra, gesturing at his body with one salt-encrusted hand. "The one time I took him into Antarctica he tossed his cookies all over my boots. You'd think that a teleporter would hold up better, though."
"She's not a teleporter, she's a transubstantiator. The vacuum of space disagrees with her." It was hardly the most relevant point to make. "Astra, do you mind if I ask what you're doing here?" It occurred to him that she must have tagged Erik somehow, and he wondered where else she'd left her marks.
"Just came to make sure the bastard was really dead." She shrugged, and shook the last of her crumbs out into an up-turned palm. "It'd be a pity not to take one last look at the guy in skin-tight armor, too. I never said he wasn't hot."
Charles blinked at her, feeling even sicker than he had before. Which was probably the general idea. "Fine. You've made sure. Would you care to leave?" He wondered whether he, of all people, had any right to bar Erik's enemies from this final farewell. Even those who were going to eat junk food and then litter the moon with the wrappings.
"What's the big hurry Chuck? Frightened someone's going to auction off the corpse to the highest bidder?"
"We decided that it would be wise to get this over and done with." Because with Sinister and Apocalypse, and Astra herself, around there wouldn't have been anything so civilised as an auction. "Somewhere out of the way." Apparently, even the moon wasn't far enough, but Amelia couldn't reach any further.
It was an oddly appropriate setting for his funeral. The breathable atmosphere and the scattered ruins of the city that had once flourished here only served to underline the fact that this was a dead place. Magneto had always preferred to look down at the Earth from a distance, and his remains would now drift in the void along with the debris from his failed space stations.
"Heads up - we're about to have company." Astra's habitual smirk had vanished, replaced by a frown. She examined a device built in to one of her gauntlets intently.
He was coming after all. The response was much quicker than Charles had expected, and he was disappointed that he wouldn't have more time to prepare, or to make certain that Amelia was alright. Looking around, he could see no sign of his hoverchair, which must have been lost in transit. Maybe it had solidified somewhere, orbiting the earth. A curious piece of space-junk for astronauts to puzzle over in years to come.
The first sensory warning he had was a slight extra pain in his head; a poor telepathic alert given the usual amount of psychic noise the mutant made. Perhaps he'd been learning to shield properly. Xavier composed his face, straightened his spine and wished he'd taken a moment to shave before they left.
Exodus appeared over the foreshortened horizon in a forceshield that shone like a tiny sun, a globe of yellow light moving closer in an eerie silence, even once it entered the atmosphere. Evidently he hadn't lost his taste for the dramatic completely in the twelve months since he'd abandoned his own conquest of Genosha.
Xavier was so busy watching the light show that he didn't notice Amelia stirring until he felt her grip on his hand tighten sharply. She was looking at the time-displaced mutant with an expression of naked hatred, and Charles felt his heart sink again. He was in no condition to be the token rational person at this strange gathering. Once again, he wished that he could have brought someone else - Gabby, a trustworthy student, even Wanda and Pietro, who had more right to be here than he did himself. Yet he had wanted, needed, to shield them from this hasty last rite.
He'd been unable to convince his ex-lover that inviting Bennet du Paris was necessary, and had only suggested it because he could see no other way to avoid a crisis later. Magneto's former follower was fanatical and dangerous, and if someone sensible didn't deal with him now there were bound to be serious consequences.
"Bennet," he said as the other man landed next to Erik's body. "I am glad that you heeded my summons so promptly."
Astra had frozen the moment she saw him, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and Charles was ashamed to find that he was pleased to see her discomforted. If she'd met Paris before, the encounter had obviously not been a friendly one.
"I could have prevented this." Exodus sounded miserable, not homicidal. Good. "He should have let me stay by his side."
Now was not the moment to question the reality-warper's track record as a protector of his adopted liege lord. "Many people tried to reason with him over the years; but he was disinclined to listen. I'm sure that you did you best to assist him after your own fashion. It must be enough that you mourn his passing."
"As it must be for all of those who could have prevented this?"
Xavier flinched; that was much too close to the bone. He told himself to remain calm and controlled for just a little longer. Talking Bennet round had to be simpler than persuading an entire hostile nation not to tear his students and allies apart, and he'd done *that* just a few hours ago. The leader of the X-Men had always relied on his telepathy rather than his charisma for subduing mobs, but that was hardly an option against so many mutants. He had known for certain that they were all going to die.
One moment he was opening his mouth to call Logan a cold-blooded murderer and damn *moron* into the bargain, and the next he'd found himself making a telepathic speech. The moment after that, the speech was *working* for some reason beyond Xavier's comprehension. Perhaps the Genoshans were too tired, shocked and heart-sick to argue. Perhaps he was still hallucinating, strung up on Magneto's cross, and none of this had happened at all.
"We could all have done something," said Amelia, making an effort to sit up, "but so could plenty of other people." She had a point, and Charles was pleased with her diplomacy. "I don't think that any one person is to blame, unless it's *him*."
Xavier waited to see if Exodus would backslide and protest that his former master was infallible. Paris said nothing, however, instead bending his head to examine the corpse with a gaze that returned again and again to the precise but effective wound in the chest. Next to the memory of Magneto living, Magneto dead looked like a bad wax-work, and the star thief wasn't the only one who'd had to check to make sure. Charles himself couldn't yet believe that it was real, and he'd held its cooling weight in his arms.
Although they'd done nothing to make themselves presentable, he and Amelia had spent some time preparing the body. Washing and brushing his friend's hair, Charles had been shocked to find it tangled and greasy. Erik had always been quietly vain about his white locks, had washed them every day, and carried a comb in his pocket.
"I tried to help him. He said that he no longer desired my services, and I turned away from him and all his plans."
Exodus began to pace like a caged animal. Xavier noticed that he was absent-mindedly walking a couple of inches off the ground, which seemed appropriately surreal.
Astra, who had relaxed visibly once his attention was away from her immediate vicinity, found her voice again. "Hey, you're not the first minion to leave Magneto 'cause he wouldn't screw you."
Charles sucked in a breath, but Bennet only looked at her blankly, in a way that made the telepath wonder if he even knew what the word meant.
"Don't look at me. *I* said no," Amelia murmured.
Then Exodus moved so fast the thief didn't have time to blink, let alone teleport, before both his hands were around her neck and squeezing. Hard. "Take that back."
His voice was soft, and that worried Xavier more than his customary ranting. He was not the rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, that he'd been the last time they met. The veneer of sanity made him more dangerous, and Charles had been foolish to think that this could ever be easy. Foolish, and too tired, and too old.
"Bennet, please. I invited you hear to make your farewell, not to sully his funeral with the violence you have renounced."
"She was his enemy, and the creator of the travesty that bore his face and sullied his name with weakness. The filthy whore has no *right* to insult him, or to suggest that he would lay so much as a finger on her poisoned flesh. She should not even *be* here!"
"Which of us has the right to refuse her? You said yourself that Magneto did not desire your help, and he spent the last week of his life kidnapping and torturing me. He would call Amelia a traitor." That made him pause. Astra was turning blue. "Bennet, listen. Killing her will not bring him back."
He threw her to the ground, with enough force to leave bruises, and now it was Astra's turn to choke and gasp in the thin air. Xavier allowed himself a flicker of pride for averting the crisis without recourse to violence. He wasn't going to turn this into a farce like Illyana's funeral. Not unless he absolutely had to.
"Thanks for the save, Chuckles. Remind me that I owe you one when I take over the planet and I might let you have the Greek islands."
Still trembling, Amelia got to her feet. "Astra, for once in your life will you shut the fuck up." Charles couldn't have put it better himself.
They all watched Exodus as he examined the corpse again, tracing a line in the air above it with one finger. Xavier began to wonder just *why* he had dropped the star thief . . .
"I could wake him," the mutant said thoughtfully.
"Bennet . . ." This was exactly what he'd feared.
"He woke me, when I was asleep under the mountain. He woke you, when you were lost in the snow. Do we not owe him the same courtesy?"
Charles was slightly surprised to find that he still had the strength to be angry. Exodus had been there, in Antarctica, had seen him vulnerable, frozen and snow-blind, a voyeur intruding on the last private moment of his friendship with Erik. He pushed the feeling aside to be dealt with later.
"That was not why I asked you here," he said.
"Are you certain?"
A question that he hoped no-one would ask. When mutant heaven had revolving doors instead of pearly gates, was it wrong for a reality-warper to raise the dead? Was leaving Magneto a corpse as bad as killing him? Was healing him as good as murdering the thousands he might destroy in his revenge?
Secretly, Xavier had always found the near-inevitable resurrections of his students and friends more destabalising than their deaths. Every time another one returned from the grave, it made the next loss harder to accept. He knew that it would take him a long time to believe that Erik was gone. Especially when he didn't have to stay that way.
"I . . . I don't know," he said, looking up at the three who stood over him. Perhaps one of them had a better answer to the philosophical conundrum.
The last time someone had crucified him, after Stryker had found a way inside Charles Xavier's head and calmly taken him to pieces, he had almost stopped trying to find his own way alltogether. Erik, an ally in that particular battle, had extended a hand with the same half-smile he had worn in defeat that afternoon. He had promised to find an answer for all of them. If he'd been there now, with no Cyclops standing by to hold his mentor back . . . Where were Erik's answers when they were needed?
"Hey, leave me out of this," said Astra. "I've always wanted him dead anyway. Of course if you *did* bring him back, I'd be able to kill him myself."
Exodus shook his head. "My choices have not always been . . . for the best, Xavier. You have a reputation for wisdom. In this, I will allow you to guide my hand." As usual, he was refusing to accept the consequences of his own power.
"You knew him best," Amelia said softly.
People had often said that, and Charles always worried that it might be true. He could grasp Erik's anger, but not his frequently irrational expression of it. He didn't understand how Magneto could put wires through a former ally's eye sockets and into his brain. He didn't understand why he'd guided those wires so gently around the optic nerves, instead of just ripping his enemy's eyeballs out. He didn't understand how he could try to slaughter the X-Men and then call Charles Xavier an old friend with his last breath.
He knew Erik better than anyone living, and looking into his eyes today he hadn't recognised him at all. He wanted his friend alive, but that psychotic madman was no-one he knew.
"Please, son," he heard himself say. "I think he needs to sleep."
An internal voice with a suspiciously mixed accent told him that he was a coward and a hypocrite. That, too, could be dealt with later.
"Very well," said Exodus.
Even with the limited oxygen in the moon's atmosphere, the corpse went up like paper under Paris's energy blast. Xavier wanted to scream again, but found himself gaping in horrified silence. This was no way to conduct a funeral.
Erik had never liked funerals. He'd told Charles, drunk, that he knew all there was to know about dead bodies, and none of it was about hiding behind dark suits and appropriate expressions. He'd said that funerals were not about the dead, but occasions for the living to tell polite lies over a pile of decomposing meat in a box.
Today there were no boxes, no dark suits, only ashes, and melted mettle, and the smell of burning.
"What would you have done if Bible Boy hadn't showed?" said Astra. "Used kerosene and a match?"
Xavier swallowed. Time to say his farewell, since he wasn't going to get a better chance. "Goodbye, old friend," he said in Polish - the first language should also be the last. "I am glad that our last words, at least, were not angry ones. And I sincerely hope that the next argument we have will begin with you conceding my points about the afterlife and the merciful God."
Amelia sank slowly to her knees again, and wrapped her arms around Charles's neck, and sobbed.
Exodus pointedly ignored them all, and began to sing. He had a beautiful baritone voice, not surprising since he came from a time and place where *everyone* sang, all the time. Inevitably, it was 'Done Nobis Pacem.'
An inappropriate goodbye for an atheist, and Charles wondered if anyone ever told Exodus that his master had been born a Jew. Xavier felt the tears begin to slide painfully out of his own eyes, the music prompting recollections of other more conventional services from long ago. He had managed to hold them back again before Bennet finished.
"There," said Exodus bitterly. "It is done, and he is gone forever, as you wished."
"I did not truly want him gone, but I believe that it is for the best even so. I hope that you agree with me." Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to stop Exodus raising Magneto from the ashes, if his resurrection of the Acolytes was anything to go by. He would cross that bridge if and when he came to it. "If you require assistance in dealing with your grief, the X-Men's door is always open."
He could see that Bennet was a force of nature, a great power with no direction. Charles had let too many of those, his own son included, slip out of his grasp and into the hands of evil. Perhaps he could help Exodus before he harmed anyone else.
"You make a kind offer, and one I do not in truth deserve," Paris said. "I will think on it, Charles Xavier, and we shall meet again."
Amelia frowned. She was right - Xavier knew Bennet couldn't be trusted, though perhaps he could be channeled. For now, however, he was gone, returned to his forceshield and to space. Charles was, all in all, relieved. One problem he didn't have to face right now.
"Astra? My truce and offer of hospitality extends to you as well. If you require a bed for the night . . ."
He was only asking because he was certain she'd refuse, and sure enough she made a face. "Forgive me if I don't stick around for the sandwiches and the group hug," she said. "I'll give Lilandra a big kiss from you next time I rob her vault." Her voice was oddly choked, and Charles wondered briefly if what she'd felt for Erik had been more than a combination of lust and loathing. But in an instant she was gone, vanished in a flash of light to the other side of the galaxy. He'd have to call the Shi'ar majestrix and tell her to put extra guards on duty.
When she'd gone, the remaining mourners just sat for a while, curled up together, waiting for a second wind that never came. Eventually, after he'd watched the Earth rise with blurry vision, Charles Xavier remembered that he was exhausted, sore and thirsty. He wanted to go home.
"Is there any chance of you transubstantiating us back to the mansion so I can take a long, hot bath?" he asked.
Amelia managed to find a smile, and wiped her face with the back of one hand. "Sounds like a plan. Mind if I join you?"
He blinked, and she grinned the way she always did when she managed to surprise him. "I thin-" Charles said, and this time round she didn't even let him get the second word out before she kissed him.
He didn't wake up.
The End.
Notes for the Confused
* For those not keeping up with recent canon, Magneto recently decided to take over the world after his Genoshan forces recovered from the Legacy virus, and began by kidnapping Xavier. He was subsequently attacked by the X-Men and murdered by Wolverine in UXM#113. "Eve of Destruction" is now officially the Stupidest Magneto Story Ever, a title it liberates from "Fatal Attractions."
* It will be obvious to those familiar with the Phoenix saga that this story takes place on the blue area of the moon, which has a breathable atmosphere and the ruins of a city according to Marvel Lore.
* Charles really does get kidnapped by white-haired men a lot. The other two that he's thinking of are Bastion, leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance, who kept him prisoner after the Onslaught debacle, and William Stryker, the villain of "X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills." There is some debate over whether this graphic novel is canon or not, but I say it's too good not to be. The supposed 'errors' in continuity are more minor than most regular titles have these days in any case. Go buy a copy if you don't have one already.
* Astra is a Walking Plot Device introduced by Marvel to explain the presence of Joseph and justify the "Magneto War" story, which I'm not explaining here. In a gratuitous retcon, she was made a foundation member of the Brotherhood who walked out before the events of UXM#1.
* Amelia's last jaunt through space happened during the fall of Avalon (around XM#43) when she made her way to the mansion to warn the X-Men and landed in Charles's lap - literally.
* Exodus declared himself a pacifist of sorts and mind-controlled the citizens of Genosha into living in harmony during one of the 1999 annuals (I forget whether it was adjectiveless or Uncanny). Magneto was away fighting Apocalypse at the time.
* Illyana Rasputin's funeral took place in UXM#304, and was part of the "Fatal Attractions" crossover. Magneto and Xavier detracted from the dignity of the proceedings by having a huge fight in the air above the grave.
* I read something about Exodus resurrecting dead Acolytes in the "Quicksilver" solo series years ago on racmx, although there was some debate about whether he'd used his powers to do so or not. Since said powers are a plot device at the disposal of writers, and I am the writer today, I declared that he could. It is possible that this contradicts canon.
* Charles and Exodus are talking about the events of X-Men Unlimited #1. Xavier got himself lost in the snow and was rescued by Magneto, in what was arguably his last sane and kind act.
* The first time Amelia kissed him (UXM#309) he got as far as "I think you should know I'm a m-". It would have saved a lot of angst later if she'd let him finish the word.
- You know you're working with obscure, under-used characters when *Xavier* is your popular head-liner.
- This takes place after XM#113 ('ware spoilers), and turned out surprisingly continuity-heavy for such a short fic. Explanations follow.
- Those familiar with my work may notice that this bears a rather strong resemblance to "Distant Voices." In some ways, this is the story I would write now if I could do that over again.
Disclaimer: Marvel's.
Rating: Someone says a bad word. PG-13, then, as per usual.
Wake
By Andraste
In the first few seconds of solidity he almost passed out. The pain and disorientation were much worse than he remembered, especially magnified by sunburn, dehydration and lingering grogginess. He found himself kneeling, hands braced on the ground, stones cutting into his palms, and might have vomited if there'd been anything in his stomach. When he eventually managed to suck in a lungful of air, he grimaced at the strange, stale taste. Jesus. He hadn't felt this shaky since . . . No, not even Bastion. Stryker, then. He wondered why they always had white hair.
"You OK there, Chucky?" The voice definitely wasn't the one he'd been expecting, and he looked up to find Astra, perched on half-decayed column, reaching into an open packet of corn chips.
Obviously this was some kind of bizarre dream. Any second he'd wake up and Ororo would be bending over him, taking his temperature. She'd tell him he had the flu, that his telepathic delirium had kept the house awake all night. He'd be forced to stay in bed, and Jean would make him chicken soup, which he hated. He'd be polite and eat it anyway.
He would not be looking at Erik's lifeless body with eyes that were still unsettled in their sockets. Astra would not be whistling "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" in between mouthfuls of Doritos. Amelia Voght would not be lying next to him on the surface of the moon, unconscious.
He cursed, ignored the villainess, and reached for his ex-lover. Relief washed over him as he found she was breathing steadily; with any luck she hadn't been solid enough to hit her head when she fell. He shouldn't have listened when she said she'd been practicing since her last jaunt through space. Brushing Amelia's hair away from her eyes as he pulled her into his lap, Charles noted absently that she'd changed the dye since last time he'd done this. Then, she'd disappeared from her guest room before he'd woken up the next morning. He hoped that her most recent change of heart would be longer-lasting. It was good to have someone familiar to hang on to at a time like this, although he had to be careful not to read anything serious into her actions.
"Maggie never liked teleporting either," said Astra, gesturing at his body with one salt-encrusted hand. "The one time I took him into Antarctica he tossed his cookies all over my boots. You'd think that a teleporter would hold up better, though."
"She's not a teleporter, she's a transubstantiator. The vacuum of space disagrees with her." It was hardly the most relevant point to make. "Astra, do you mind if I ask what you're doing here?" It occurred to him that she must have tagged Erik somehow, and he wondered where else she'd left her marks.
"Just came to make sure the bastard was really dead." She shrugged, and shook the last of her crumbs out into an up-turned palm. "It'd be a pity not to take one last look at the guy in skin-tight armor, too. I never said he wasn't hot."
Charles blinked at her, feeling even sicker than he had before. Which was probably the general idea. "Fine. You've made sure. Would you care to leave?" He wondered whether he, of all people, had any right to bar Erik's enemies from this final farewell. Even those who were going to eat junk food and then litter the moon with the wrappings.
"What's the big hurry Chuck? Frightened someone's going to auction off the corpse to the highest bidder?"
"We decided that it would be wise to get this over and done with." Because with Sinister and Apocalypse, and Astra herself, around there wouldn't have been anything so civilised as an auction. "Somewhere out of the way." Apparently, even the moon wasn't far enough, but Amelia couldn't reach any further.
It was an oddly appropriate setting for his funeral. The breathable atmosphere and the scattered ruins of the city that had once flourished here only served to underline the fact that this was a dead place. Magneto had always preferred to look down at the Earth from a distance, and his remains would now drift in the void along with the debris from his failed space stations.
"Heads up - we're about to have company." Astra's habitual smirk had vanished, replaced by a frown. She examined a device built in to one of her gauntlets intently.
He was coming after all. The response was much quicker than Charles had expected, and he was disappointed that he wouldn't have more time to prepare, or to make certain that Amelia was alright. Looking around, he could see no sign of his hoverchair, which must have been lost in transit. Maybe it had solidified somewhere, orbiting the earth. A curious piece of space-junk for astronauts to puzzle over in years to come.
The first sensory warning he had was a slight extra pain in his head; a poor telepathic alert given the usual amount of psychic noise the mutant made. Perhaps he'd been learning to shield properly. Xavier composed his face, straightened his spine and wished he'd taken a moment to shave before they left.
Exodus appeared over the foreshortened horizon in a forceshield that shone like a tiny sun, a globe of yellow light moving closer in an eerie silence, even once it entered the atmosphere. Evidently he hadn't lost his taste for the dramatic completely in the twelve months since he'd abandoned his own conquest of Genosha.
Xavier was so busy watching the light show that he didn't notice Amelia stirring until he felt her grip on his hand tighten sharply. She was looking at the time-displaced mutant with an expression of naked hatred, and Charles felt his heart sink again. He was in no condition to be the token rational person at this strange gathering. Once again, he wished that he could have brought someone else - Gabby, a trustworthy student, even Wanda and Pietro, who had more right to be here than he did himself. Yet he had wanted, needed, to shield them from this hasty last rite.
He'd been unable to convince his ex-lover that inviting Bennet du Paris was necessary, and had only suggested it because he could see no other way to avoid a crisis later. Magneto's former follower was fanatical and dangerous, and if someone sensible didn't deal with him now there were bound to be serious consequences.
"Bennet," he said as the other man landed next to Erik's body. "I am glad that you heeded my summons so promptly."
Astra had frozen the moment she saw him, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and Charles was ashamed to find that he was pleased to see her discomforted. If she'd met Paris before, the encounter had obviously not been a friendly one.
"I could have prevented this." Exodus sounded miserable, not homicidal. Good. "He should have let me stay by his side."
Now was not the moment to question the reality-warper's track record as a protector of his adopted liege lord. "Many people tried to reason with him over the years; but he was disinclined to listen. I'm sure that you did you best to assist him after your own fashion. It must be enough that you mourn his passing."
"As it must be for all of those who could have prevented this?"
Xavier flinched; that was much too close to the bone. He told himself to remain calm and controlled for just a little longer. Talking Bennet round had to be simpler than persuading an entire hostile nation not to tear his students and allies apart, and he'd done *that* just a few hours ago. The leader of the X-Men had always relied on his telepathy rather than his charisma for subduing mobs, but that was hardly an option against so many mutants. He had known for certain that they were all going to die.
One moment he was opening his mouth to call Logan a cold-blooded murderer and damn *moron* into the bargain, and the next he'd found himself making a telepathic speech. The moment after that, the speech was *working* for some reason beyond Xavier's comprehension. Perhaps the Genoshans were too tired, shocked and heart-sick to argue. Perhaps he was still hallucinating, strung up on Magneto's cross, and none of this had happened at all.
"We could all have done something," said Amelia, making an effort to sit up, "but so could plenty of other people." She had a point, and Charles was pleased with her diplomacy. "I don't think that any one person is to blame, unless it's *him*."
Xavier waited to see if Exodus would backslide and protest that his former master was infallible. Paris said nothing, however, instead bending his head to examine the corpse with a gaze that returned again and again to the precise but effective wound in the chest. Next to the memory of Magneto living, Magneto dead looked like a bad wax-work, and the star thief wasn't the only one who'd had to check to make sure. Charles himself couldn't yet believe that it was real, and he'd held its cooling weight in his arms.
Although they'd done nothing to make themselves presentable, he and Amelia had spent some time preparing the body. Washing and brushing his friend's hair, Charles had been shocked to find it tangled and greasy. Erik had always been quietly vain about his white locks, had washed them every day, and carried a comb in his pocket.
"I tried to help him. He said that he no longer desired my services, and I turned away from him and all his plans."
Exodus began to pace like a caged animal. Xavier noticed that he was absent-mindedly walking a couple of inches off the ground, which seemed appropriately surreal.
Astra, who had relaxed visibly once his attention was away from her immediate vicinity, found her voice again. "Hey, you're not the first minion to leave Magneto 'cause he wouldn't screw you."
Charles sucked in a breath, but Bennet only looked at her blankly, in a way that made the telepath wonder if he even knew what the word meant.
"Don't look at me. *I* said no," Amelia murmured.
Then Exodus moved so fast the thief didn't have time to blink, let alone teleport, before both his hands were around her neck and squeezing. Hard. "Take that back."
His voice was soft, and that worried Xavier more than his customary ranting. He was not the rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, that he'd been the last time they met. The veneer of sanity made him more dangerous, and Charles had been foolish to think that this could ever be easy. Foolish, and too tired, and too old.
"Bennet, please. I invited you hear to make your farewell, not to sully his funeral with the violence you have renounced."
"She was his enemy, and the creator of the travesty that bore his face and sullied his name with weakness. The filthy whore has no *right* to insult him, or to suggest that he would lay so much as a finger on her poisoned flesh. She should not even *be* here!"
"Which of us has the right to refuse her? You said yourself that Magneto did not desire your help, and he spent the last week of his life kidnapping and torturing me. He would call Amelia a traitor." That made him pause. Astra was turning blue. "Bennet, listen. Killing her will not bring him back."
He threw her to the ground, with enough force to leave bruises, and now it was Astra's turn to choke and gasp in the thin air. Xavier allowed himself a flicker of pride for averting the crisis without recourse to violence. He wasn't going to turn this into a farce like Illyana's funeral. Not unless he absolutely had to.
"Thanks for the save, Chuckles. Remind me that I owe you one when I take over the planet and I might let you have the Greek islands."
Still trembling, Amelia got to her feet. "Astra, for once in your life will you shut the fuck up." Charles couldn't have put it better himself.
They all watched Exodus as he examined the corpse again, tracing a line in the air above it with one finger. Xavier began to wonder just *why* he had dropped the star thief . . .
"I could wake him," the mutant said thoughtfully.
"Bennet . . ." This was exactly what he'd feared.
"He woke me, when I was asleep under the mountain. He woke you, when you were lost in the snow. Do we not owe him the same courtesy?"
Charles was slightly surprised to find that he still had the strength to be angry. Exodus had been there, in Antarctica, had seen him vulnerable, frozen and snow-blind, a voyeur intruding on the last private moment of his friendship with Erik. He pushed the feeling aside to be dealt with later.
"That was not why I asked you here," he said.
"Are you certain?"
A question that he hoped no-one would ask. When mutant heaven had revolving doors instead of pearly gates, was it wrong for a reality-warper to raise the dead? Was leaving Magneto a corpse as bad as killing him? Was healing him as good as murdering the thousands he might destroy in his revenge?
Secretly, Xavier had always found the near-inevitable resurrections of his students and friends more destabalising than their deaths. Every time another one returned from the grave, it made the next loss harder to accept. He knew that it would take him a long time to believe that Erik was gone. Especially when he didn't have to stay that way.
"I . . . I don't know," he said, looking up at the three who stood over him. Perhaps one of them had a better answer to the philosophical conundrum.
The last time someone had crucified him, after Stryker had found a way inside Charles Xavier's head and calmly taken him to pieces, he had almost stopped trying to find his own way alltogether. Erik, an ally in that particular battle, had extended a hand with the same half-smile he had worn in defeat that afternoon. He had promised to find an answer for all of them. If he'd been there now, with no Cyclops standing by to hold his mentor back . . . Where were Erik's answers when they were needed?
"Hey, leave me out of this," said Astra. "I've always wanted him dead anyway. Of course if you *did* bring him back, I'd be able to kill him myself."
Exodus shook his head. "My choices have not always been . . . for the best, Xavier. You have a reputation for wisdom. In this, I will allow you to guide my hand." As usual, he was refusing to accept the consequences of his own power.
"You knew him best," Amelia said softly.
People had often said that, and Charles always worried that it might be true. He could grasp Erik's anger, but not his frequently irrational expression of it. He didn't understand how Magneto could put wires through a former ally's eye sockets and into his brain. He didn't understand why he'd guided those wires so gently around the optic nerves, instead of just ripping his enemy's eyeballs out. He didn't understand how he could try to slaughter the X-Men and then call Charles Xavier an old friend with his last breath.
He knew Erik better than anyone living, and looking into his eyes today he hadn't recognised him at all. He wanted his friend alive, but that psychotic madman was no-one he knew.
"Please, son," he heard himself say. "I think he needs to sleep."
An internal voice with a suspiciously mixed accent told him that he was a coward and a hypocrite. That, too, could be dealt with later.
"Very well," said Exodus.
Even with the limited oxygen in the moon's atmosphere, the corpse went up like paper under Paris's energy blast. Xavier wanted to scream again, but found himself gaping in horrified silence. This was no way to conduct a funeral.
Erik had never liked funerals. He'd told Charles, drunk, that he knew all there was to know about dead bodies, and none of it was about hiding behind dark suits and appropriate expressions. He'd said that funerals were not about the dead, but occasions for the living to tell polite lies over a pile of decomposing meat in a box.
Today there were no boxes, no dark suits, only ashes, and melted mettle, and the smell of burning.
"What would you have done if Bible Boy hadn't showed?" said Astra. "Used kerosene and a match?"
Xavier swallowed. Time to say his farewell, since he wasn't going to get a better chance. "Goodbye, old friend," he said in Polish - the first language should also be the last. "I am glad that our last words, at least, were not angry ones. And I sincerely hope that the next argument we have will begin with you conceding my points about the afterlife and the merciful God."
Amelia sank slowly to her knees again, and wrapped her arms around Charles's neck, and sobbed.
Exodus pointedly ignored them all, and began to sing. He had a beautiful baritone voice, not surprising since he came from a time and place where *everyone* sang, all the time. Inevitably, it was 'Done Nobis Pacem.'
An inappropriate goodbye for an atheist, and Charles wondered if anyone ever told Exodus that his master had been born a Jew. Xavier felt the tears begin to slide painfully out of his own eyes, the music prompting recollections of other more conventional services from long ago. He had managed to hold them back again before Bennet finished.
"There," said Exodus bitterly. "It is done, and he is gone forever, as you wished."
"I did not truly want him gone, but I believe that it is for the best even so. I hope that you agree with me." Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to stop Exodus raising Magneto from the ashes, if his resurrection of the Acolytes was anything to go by. He would cross that bridge if and when he came to it. "If you require assistance in dealing with your grief, the X-Men's door is always open."
He could see that Bennet was a force of nature, a great power with no direction. Charles had let too many of those, his own son included, slip out of his grasp and into the hands of evil. Perhaps he could help Exodus before he harmed anyone else.
"You make a kind offer, and one I do not in truth deserve," Paris said. "I will think on it, Charles Xavier, and we shall meet again."
Amelia frowned. She was right - Xavier knew Bennet couldn't be trusted, though perhaps he could be channeled. For now, however, he was gone, returned to his forceshield and to space. Charles was, all in all, relieved. One problem he didn't have to face right now.
"Astra? My truce and offer of hospitality extends to you as well. If you require a bed for the night . . ."
He was only asking because he was certain she'd refuse, and sure enough she made a face. "Forgive me if I don't stick around for the sandwiches and the group hug," she said. "I'll give Lilandra a big kiss from you next time I rob her vault." Her voice was oddly choked, and Charles wondered briefly if what she'd felt for Erik had been more than a combination of lust and loathing. But in an instant she was gone, vanished in a flash of light to the other side of the galaxy. He'd have to call the Shi'ar majestrix and tell her to put extra guards on duty.
When she'd gone, the remaining mourners just sat for a while, curled up together, waiting for a second wind that never came. Eventually, after he'd watched the Earth rise with blurry vision, Charles Xavier remembered that he was exhausted, sore and thirsty. He wanted to go home.
"Is there any chance of you transubstantiating us back to the mansion so I can take a long, hot bath?" he asked.
Amelia managed to find a smile, and wiped her face with the back of one hand. "Sounds like a plan. Mind if I join you?"
He blinked, and she grinned the way she always did when she managed to surprise him. "I thin-" Charles said, and this time round she didn't even let him get the second word out before she kissed him.
He didn't wake up.
The End.
Notes for the Confused
* For those not keeping up with recent canon, Magneto recently decided to take over the world after his Genoshan forces recovered from the Legacy virus, and began by kidnapping Xavier. He was subsequently attacked by the X-Men and murdered by Wolverine in UXM#113. "Eve of Destruction" is now officially the Stupidest Magneto Story Ever, a title it liberates from "Fatal Attractions."
* It will be obvious to those familiar with the Phoenix saga that this story takes place on the blue area of the moon, which has a breathable atmosphere and the ruins of a city according to Marvel Lore.
* Charles really does get kidnapped by white-haired men a lot. The other two that he's thinking of are Bastion, leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance, who kept him prisoner after the Onslaught debacle, and William Stryker, the villain of "X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills." There is some debate over whether this graphic novel is canon or not, but I say it's too good not to be. The supposed 'errors' in continuity are more minor than most regular titles have these days in any case. Go buy a copy if you don't have one already.
* Astra is a Walking Plot Device introduced by Marvel to explain the presence of Joseph and justify the "Magneto War" story, which I'm not explaining here. In a gratuitous retcon, she was made a foundation member of the Brotherhood who walked out before the events of UXM#1.
* Amelia's last jaunt through space happened during the fall of Avalon (around XM#43) when she made her way to the mansion to warn the X-Men and landed in Charles's lap - literally.
* Exodus declared himself a pacifist of sorts and mind-controlled the citizens of Genosha into living in harmony during one of the 1999 annuals (I forget whether it was adjectiveless or Uncanny). Magneto was away fighting Apocalypse at the time.
* Illyana Rasputin's funeral took place in UXM#304, and was part of the "Fatal Attractions" crossover. Magneto and Xavier detracted from the dignity of the proceedings by having a huge fight in the air above the grave.
* I read something about Exodus resurrecting dead Acolytes in the "Quicksilver" solo series years ago on racmx, although there was some debate about whether he'd used his powers to do so or not. Since said powers are a plot device at the disposal of writers, and I am the writer today, I declared that he could. It is possible that this contradicts canon.
* Charles and Exodus are talking about the events of X-Men Unlimited #1. Xavier got himself lost in the snow and was rescued by Magneto, in what was arguably his last sane and kind act.
* The first time Amelia kissed him (UXM#309) he got as far as "I think you should know I'm a m-". It would have saved a lot of angst later if she'd let him finish the word.