Here's the first proper chapter! I hope you like it xx

*Chapter 1*

Charles hears her long before he sees her. He knows he promised to never read her mind and for the most part he'd kept that promise, even when she'd been working for the Brotherhood - against him, but within the area of his school all minds are forfeit to him. He scans them routinely, his students to check they are alright, and everyone else, to make sure they will not hurt his students. He can hear (feel) her anger and hurt from miles away, even before he realises who it is and can see what has happened from the very surface of her thoughts (and the news).

She is lost and alone and afraid.

He feels flattered that, even after all this time, she would still come to him.

He hates what they've become, mere strangers. Most of his X-men don't even know Mystique's real name, never mind that fact that she's his sister. He can't remember that last time they spoke, properly spoke. They've grown so far apart she's even willing to poison him, though he'd sensed that she'd asked Erik very thoroughly before conceding to the plan.

He knows why she left him and knows that he cannot blame anyone but himself, and perhaps Erik for seducing an insecure and confused young woman. He blames himself for that, not seeing how scared she was - of herself - not seeing her pain at his lack of acceptance. He blames himself because he'd promised to never read her mind and he didn't know how to function with people, how to read people, without it - and he'd never needed to before. She was the first person he'd ever considered constraining himself for, even before his parents. He trusted her, and loved her.

But he didn't understand people without their thoughts. Even when he was blocking them out he could hear a faint trace of their most trivial thought. For everyone except Raven. He'd been keeping his shields up for her for too long and he can't sense anything and so his mind automatically reverts back to when he could read her, seven years old and in need of protection. All of his interaction with her was based on his mind's instincts because if he can't trust that, trust the thoughts of others around him, then he's lost all faith in this world because there is nothing left.

She didn't get that it wasn't being blue he had a problem with. It was the nudity. She may have been beautiful in her natural form, but he was her brother. He didn't particularly want to seeit.

They are different people now, harder. He wonders if there's still any of the old Raven left, the one who had coke at a bar and brushed her teeth with his toothbrush.
He can feel her pain and her loneliness like it's his own, and in a way it is because siblings have a bond that goes beyond friendship and normal relationships - especially when there is a telepath involved - and knows that now she is actually sitting outside, almost on the steps of the school, her pride has gotten the better of her. She won't enter - not like this - and it's a miracle she hasn't been spotted by either one of the students or by one of the teachers. Luckily Charles doesn't have a class this lesson, instead wheeling out to meet her. It doesn't take long, not with everyone in class and far out of the way.

He finds her (sees her) sitting on the steps, looking sadly at the ramp he is wheeling down. She is brunette and wearing clothes for the first time in however many years. He pauses the wheelchair beside her and neither of them speak. They don't even look at each other - not in the eye. Then everything will have changed. They have not looked each other in the eye since 1962.

So many things have changed.

But so many things have stayed the same as well.

They are family.

And she doesn't hesitate to take the hand he offers to take her inside.

She follows him in and he can feel her wonder and her sadness at the changes in her childhood home. He can feel the loss and pain, descending on him like a cloud, because she may be his sister but he doesn't fully trust her anymore and so hovers on the edges of her mind, barely noticeable. She probably has noticed though - she grew up with a telepath for a brother after all and has spent immeasurable hours of time with Emma Frost as part of the Brotherhood.

They make it to Charles' bedroom undisturbed, Charles gently directing any students in his path out of the way. They reach his room quickly, quicker than Raven remembers, and she pushes open the door. Charles can feel her pang of sadness as she notes the changed heights of most things in the room, the handrails, the support.

So much time has passed and they are so different now to what they were before. Raven is a trained killer, looking barely older in her brunette form than she did in her blonde, in her natural human state. Charles is paralysed, aged, but also wiser. He is better at reading people without his telepathy but he is also less realistic, more ruthless. He knows now the price of war, even better than he did before, and now he knows that not everyone can be saved, no matter how much he'd like to.

But they are still family, still Charles and Raven Xavier against the world, even now when that world is torn apart by betrayal and greed and selfishness and power. Without speaking Raven climbs into the bed, trembling with the force of her tears sliding silently down her face.

He looks at her then, in the eye, and sees that despite everything, all the years, the deaths, she is still his little sister, to be protected from those that would cause her harm - even if she would now be the better one to do the protecting. He can see the same relief in her eyes and feels glad when he hears her think that she's glad she came home.

Charles takes a minute to manoeuvre out of his chair, even after so many years, but lies next to her, leaning on the pillows. He reaches forwards to take her hands, knowing they are no longer what they once were, but she collapses into his chest, tears soaking his shirt as her whole body shakes with the force of her cries.

They sit that way until her tears have stopped and then afterwards, into the silence, until both of them fall asleep.