Oxford University, England 1962
It had been two years since Dakota first came back. Since Charles admitted, he did in fact love Dakota. Since Raven rubbed it in that she was right and had totally called it. Since Charles had gotten Dakota into Oxford; studying history in a simple two year program. Since Dakota and Charles were first happy together. A casual observer would think that everything would be just fine.
But it wasn't.
Charles and Dakota's relationship, though good at first, had become rocky. They had found that they did love each other more than anything, but they were not exactly right for each other.
Dakota did not like how Charles treated Raven; always holding her back and trying to control her. And over the last two years she noticed Charles was trying to do the same to her. She didn't say anything because she did not want to start a fight.
Charles did not like how Dakota shut him out. He didn't like how she made him feel, like he was always wrong. He did not want to say anything because he did not want an argument.
Their relationship always was going from good to bad. One step forward, two steps back. It took three steps back one night when Charles and Raven had their usual fight about Raven's disguise. Raven had been in her natural blue form walking around the apartment and Charles had gotten mad at her, for 'carelessly' walking around with the shades open. Raven finally got fed up and walked out on Charles lecture. She didn't say one word to him or Dakota. That night, when she was getting ready for bed she finally decided to talk.
"Mutant and proud," she said sarcastically. She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth; Dakota and Charles were sitting in the study looking over their homework. Raven continued brushing her teeth. "Mutant and proud?" she asked out loud. Charles sighed. Raven rinsed, and stared at her reflection. At that thing. That thing in the mirror. "If only." She walked into the doorway and looked at Charles. "Would you date me?" Dakota looked up over her seven page essay at Raven.
"Well, this is the start of an intriguing conversation." She flipped the pages back to the first page and sat it on the coffee table.
"Of course I would," Charles said, not looking up from his homework. "Any young man would be lucky to have you. You are stunning." Raven glared at Charles.
"Looking like this?"
"Like…what?" Charles asked, finally looking up. He did not realize she was in her blue form, and it startled him. "Blue?" Dakota raised an eyebrow at Charles. Raven looked down. Charles shrugged, "You're my oldest friend."
"I'm your only friend."
Dakota 'ahemed' and said, "What am I?"
Charles laughed, "Thank you for that."
"Well?" Raven asked. Charles grabbed his paper and walked around the desk to the couch. "I'm incapable of thinking of you that way. I feel responsible for you. Anything else would just feel…wrong." He sat on the couch.
"But what if you didn't know me?"
"Unfortunately, I do know you. I don't know what's gotten into you lately. You're awfully concerned with your looks." Dakota rolled her eyes and grabbed her essay.
"You obviously have no idea how girls work," Dakota mumbled under her breath.
"What?" Charles asked.
"Nothing."
Raven snickered. Charles just looked between the two of them, confused. Raven sat down beside Charles and curled up next to him. "I'm sleepy. Will you read to me?" Dakota couldn't help but smile; they did have a sweet brother sister bond.
"I can't. I have my thesis coming up. I have to study."
"Fine, read that. Your thesis always sends me right off."
"To Homo neanderthalensis, his mutant cousin, Homo sapiens, was an aberration."
Charles could tell Dakota was worried about something. "Peaceful cohabitation, if ever it existed, was short-lived."
Dakota was worried she would have her dream again. "Records show, without exception, that the arrival of the mutated human species in any region was followed by the immediate extinction of their less-evolved kin."
She started having the dream a few months ago. Every night it was always the same; she would have a dream that she knew by heart, when it was happening, but when she woke up she won't remember anything. Raven fell asleep pretty early on, when Charles was reading his thesis. When Charles noticed she was asleep; he slowly got off the couch. He made sure he didn't wake her. He laid her down on the couch and grabbed a blanket from the chair in the corner of the room, to cover her up. Dakota got up, too. She headed to the bedroom.
Charles and Dakota shared a bedroom; they were dating and all. But it wasn't that kind of a relationship. They were in love, not in lust. She got ready for bed herself. Charles came in; they didn't talk to each other. A few minutes later, they were ready and had the lights turned off.
The dream always started the same: Dakota feeling sick to her stomach. Like she had been on a roller coaster. Everything was fuzzy and dark; she barely could make out anything. All she knew was that something was happening and someone had to be stopped. It also was ridiculously hot in her dream. It was like she was in Florida, or Texas, or Cuba, or something. Her head hurt. It felt as if someone had hit it with a frying pan. But it wasn't her pain she was feeling, it was Charles'. And like all the times before, she could just make out Charles a few feet away, in her blurry vision, but then…
She felt a burning, stabbing pain in her back. She screamed and fell down. This was about where she woke up.
She screamed. Charles woke with a start. Dakota sat up in bed breathing heavily. Charles sat up, too. "Hey," he said he put his arm around her, "the dream, again?" She nodded.
She turned towards him, "They are getting more frequent. And I still don't remember a bloody thing when I wake up." Charles looked at her, worriedly; which did not make her feel better at all. "I just have the feeling that something…terrible is going to happen." Charles brought her close to him and hugged her. He ran a hand through her hair.
"Everything is going to be alright. Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen." Dakota closed her eyes, trying to find peace in his words. But she still worried. So, they sat in bed; in each other's arms. Charles rubbed her back trying to relax her. Dakota did love him, even if he could be a jerk sometimes. But he was the sweetest jerk.
Three steps back, two steps forward.
A week or so later was when Dakota graduated from Oxford with a history degree. A week after that, was when Charles gave his thesis and graduated himself. "Professor of Genetics, Charles Francis Xavier."
It was raining that day. "So, how does it feel to be a professor?" Raven asked. Charles groaned.
"Don't call me that. You don't get to be called a professor until you actually have a teaching position."
"She knows that, but it suits you," Dakota said with a smirk.
"Don't say that. Do say, 'Let's go have a drink.'"
"Let's go have a drink," Dakota and Raven said in stereo.
"Wonderful," Charles said. They walked from the university to the bar that Charles had met Amy all that time ago. They all, were unaware that a woman was following them.
Many people in the bar were also celebrating their graduation from Oxford. Twice, people offered to buy drinks for everyone in the bar. "Are you sure you don't want anything?" Charles asked Dakota.
She smirked, "Charles, you know I don't drink. At all. If you were asking me if you could buy me a pack of cigarettes, then that would be a different story."
"Smoking is bad for your health."
"And drinking isn't?"
Charles chuckled, "Just checking. I getting a drink, and I just wanted to make sure you didn't want one."
Charles agreed to take a 'drinking challenge'; which basically meant he had to drink a bunch of alcohol out of a really long glass. "Talk about a freaking huge drink," Dakota said when she saw the glass in question. "I thought you wanted a drink, not seventeen drinks at one time!"
Charles stood on a table in the bar, to take his drink. Everyone in the bar was cheering him on. Once he finally finished it he yelled, "Yeah!" Everyone clapped and 'hoorayed'. Dakota got up on the table with him and pulled him by the collar and kissed him. Everyone cheered even more. Dakota pulled away, and saw everyone staring at her. "Oh, I'm his girlfriend. That's not just how I do things." She jumped of the table and Charles stumbled down.
"I'm so proud of you," Raven said pulling Charles into a hug.
"Thank you," Charles laughed, "I need another drink."
Dakota's jaw dropped. "After all of that," she motioned to the huge empty glass, "and you still want another drink? Dear heart, what's wrong you?"
"You only live once."
"I never thought I'd see the day the Charles 'the worrier' Xavier would live his life like that. YOLO."
"YOLO?" Raven asked.
"It's a term…from the future."
"You want another cola?" Charles asked Raven. She nodded and Charles, half walked, half stumbled to the bar.
"I have a feeling he going to be feeling that in the morning," Dakota said.
He was just to the bar when a woman stopped him. "Congratulations, Professor."
"Thank you very much. It's much harder than it looks, actually," he said in reference to his drinking challenge.
"No, on your presentation."
"Oh, you were at my presentation? How nice of you. Thank you very much."
"Moira MacTaggert."
"Charles Xavier." They shook hands.
"Do you have a minute?"
"For a pretty little bean with a mutated MCR1 gene? I have five." Charles was dedicated to Dakota and he would never cheat on her, but he was always flirting with other woman. He saw no harm in it; it made Dakota furious. (Not to mention to jealous.) He put an arm around Moira and walked her to a table. "I say 'MCR1,' you would say 'Auburn hair.'" They sat down. "It's a mutation. A very groovy mutation. Mutation, right, took us from single-celled organisms to the dominant form-"
"You know what? This routine may go over great with the co-eds, but I'm here on business."
"What?"
"I really need your help."
Charles hesitated, "All right."
"The kind of mutations that you were talking about in your thesis. I need to know if they may have already happened." Charles raised his hand to his temple. "In people alive today." Charles entered Moira's mind softly, so she won't know he was there. She was a CIA agent, who was looking into an organization called the Hellfire Club. She had found a secret room and saw an American Colonel there with the owners of the club. As Charles continued to read her mind, he saw what she had seen. A woman with diamond skin, a man with red skin appear out of thin air, and a man by the name of Sebastion Shaw, talking about human mutations. His eyes widened.
"Professor?" Moira asked. He took his hand away from his temple and exhaled loudly. "I think we should just talk when you're sober. Do you have any time tomorrow?"
"Something tells me you already know the answer to your question." Moira glanced away from Charles. "This is very important to me, and if I can help you, I will do my utmost."
"Thank you." Moira got up and left, and Charles went back to where Raven and Dakota were.
"So, who was that?" Dakota asked trying to act like she didn't care; but she did.
"That was Moira MacTaggert."
"Ahh."
"She's a CIA agent."
"Wait, what?"
The next day, Charles met with Moira to talk over what she exactly wanted. Dakota and Raven stayed at the apartment, waiting for Charles to come back. Waiting was not one of Dakota's strong suits. Neither, was patience. (Despite her name being Dakota Patience.) Charles came back in the afternoon. "So, what does she want?" Raven asked.
"She wants me to give a presentation for the head of the CIA. She wants to convince him that the people she saw were real and not a figment of her imagination." Dakota nodded.
"Alright. So, I assuming you said that you yes, because you usually do. So, when do we go to give this presentation?"
"We leave tomorrow, and I give the presentation in four days." Dakota nodded.
"Okay. Next question; where is it we are going?"
"The CIA headquarters, in Langley, Virginia."
"So, we are going to fly there?" Raven asked, glancing at Dakota.
"Yes."
"By plane?"
"Yes."
"And how is Dakota getting there?" Dakota asked.
Charles sighed, "Look I know you have a fear of flying, but-"
"But nothing!"
"Dakota! We are the only people who can help her. I mean, think about. The other CIA agents don't believe her because she's, well…a she." Dakota sighed.
"Sexist people. Fine." She walked to her room. "I guess I better pack. Talk about guilt tripping a person, dear heart. Jeez."
Charles rubbed his head and looked at Raven, "I guess we're going to Virginia."
That's the end of Chapter 2! Exciting! Or X-Citing! {See what I did there ;) } Chapter 3 will be up soon; don't worry. Review please. Thanks! P.S. Next chapter will have Dakota, Charles, and friends meet Erik.
