Chapter 4: The Story

Charles pressed his aching back against the cushion of the seat he had taken for himself. He crossed his right leg over his left knee, and absently relished the ability to do so in the back of his mind.

He gently stroked the coarse hair in between his nose and upper lip with the index finger of his right hand. Philtrum, his mind supplied as he continued the soothing and repetitious caress.

He blankly stared straight ahead, at the side of Erik's head, and grazed his eyes over the brown, almost rust colored hair. He noted that it was just slightly longer than when he had last seen the man. There were small curls of hair that nipped at Erik's ears, and grazed the base of the other man's neck. He seemed fuller, somehow, thicker (and impossibly more masculine.) It suited him very well. As did the red blotch of skin that spanned his lower jaw; courtesy to both Charles, and then Logan when he bodily removed Erik from the plane.

Charles continued his unseeing stare as he replayed his brief conversation with Peter before he eventually managed to convince the boy to leave. He unconsciously furrowed his brows, and ceased his finger stroke. He pulled his hand away from his face, and splayed his fingers on his thigh. He dug his fingertips into his flesh, enjoying the dull pain that blossomed as he kneaded the muscle, but didn't remove his eyes from where they had officially settled on Erik's right ear.

"That number," Peter managed to spit out over his rapidly swelling lip. "I found a picture. A photograph. It's torn in two, and seriously old. Like, yellow and turn into dust if you touch it too hard, old. But that number...The man in the picture has that number."

Charles gingerly pressed the bag of ice against the teen's lip. He grimaced as the teen winced. "Sorry." At Peter's shrug, he continued. "Peter, you know that there are some people that survived the Holocaust, right? They carry their own permanent souvenirs of that time on their arm. It's common in survivors. Just because the man in the photo has a number tattooed on his arm, doesn't mean it's Erik."

Peter pushed the bag away from his lip with a huff. "I know that, Professor. I'm saying that it's him. It's his number on the arm. I know it is."

Charles nodded. "Okay, Peter. Who else is in this photograph?"

"I think it's my mother," he replied. He turned his large, dark eyes up to Charles. "I think it's my mother. And my sister. And..." He trailed off and looked towards the opening of the plane. There wasn't any more noise from outside, so Logan must've calmed Erik down. Or knocked him out. "I think it's my dad. My family." He squeezed one eye shut in concentration before another thought occurred to him. "There were names," he supplied, "On the back. Magnus, Magda, and uh...Anya."

Charles looked taken aback, and profusely apologized when he pressed the bag of ice too hard on Peter's sensitive lip. "Peter, that's a serious conclusion you've come to. How can you be so sure?"

"My mom, my adoptive mom," he amended, "Told me that the picture was one of the few things I had on me when I came to live with her. I mean," he ran a hand through his silver hair, "I could have nicked it, but I'm pretty sure that it's them. My real family."

The professor couldn't suppress a sigh. He offered Peter a curt nod, and handed him the melting bag. "Alright, Peter. If you'd like, I'll check it out as soon as I'm able. Okay?"

Peter nodded vigorously. He looked very much like the child he pretty much was.

"No promises," Charles warned, but couldn't help the small smile that the boy brought out of him. Sure, the speedster was annoying, but he had a certain kind of charm about him.

"I got it," Peter said with a wink. He winced as his beaming grin pulled at the shallow cut on his lip, but the delighted twinkle in his eyes didn't abate.

"Charles. Charles? Charles." There was snap of fingers in front of his face, that startled the young professor out of his deep reverie. The long, squared-fingers and the concerned blue eyes belonged to Erik. He was leaning forward in his seat, brow furrowed as he tried to capture his old friend's attention. "Are you alright, Charles?"

He cleared his throat, and glanced away. "Quite, Erik."

"You seemed deep in thought, old friend. Care to share?"

Charles very much wanted to snap at him, to tell him to mind his own, but he had told Peter he would try to find out the truth to his accusations. Once they reached Paris, they really wouldn't have time for idle chitchat, so he hunched forward and tried to meet those piercing eyes. "Actually, I was wondering the same of you, old friend." The familiar moniker didn't sound quite as friendly when slipping through Charles' lips as it did when it came from Erik.

"Pardon?" Erik placed his arm across the back of the sofa, and furrowed his brows even further.

"What was young Peter speaking of?"

Ah, there it was. The sudden narrowing of eyes, the tensing of muscles, and the tight clenching of a strong jaw. There was something to Maximoff's story then.

"Nothing of importance," Erik finally managed to grind out between impossibly clenched teeth.

"I'm afraid it is," Charles replied. "It seems our fellow mutant has, in his possession, a photograph that features a young woman, child, and a man with a very familiar tattoo."

The sharp warping of metal was Charles' warning that he was probably handling this conversation a little too brusquely. He cleared his throat, and sat back in his seat. He took a deep breath, and tried his best to level his once closest friend with an open and nonjudgmental expression. He softened his voice, and met Erik's eyes. He was shocked to see that they were bright, wet with unshed tears, and found himself faltering for a brief moment. "Who were they, Erik?"

"They," Erik's voice sounded strangled, and raw. He look away angrily, and clenched his hands into fists. The plane trembled, as if going through turbulence, but settled after a second. "They were..." He exhaled hard, before turning his head to return Charles' steady gaze. "They were my family. My wife. My daughter."

"What happened?" It came out as curious whisper.

Erik looked away, and removed his arm from were he was resting it with a jerk. "I met Magda before the Holocaust." That one word was uttered with such a horrific snarl of rage and hate and pain, that Charles physical recoiled even further. "I loved her from the very moment I saw her." A soft, fond smile graced his tight features. "We were just kids then. Then, then after..." After the camps, after Shaw, "We married. We had little Anya." Sweet, little Anya. She was the bubbliest little child Erik ever had the pleasure of being near. "Moved to Vinnytsia; settled there. It was fine, for awhile." His eyes seemed to darken. "I was found out. They discovered what I could do. They got scared. They burned my little daughter to death." The plane began to shake and groan with every they Erik snarled. "And I tore the town apart."

Charles braced his arms against the armrests, and silently willed for Erik to calm his mind, and when the plane settled with a soft groan, Charles was almost convinced that he had use of his powers again. He looked up at Erik, and watched the man worry his bottom lip with his pearly-white teeth. His dull eyes were trained on the floor; face blank as he continuously, and mentally relived the death of his darling little girl, and...and what of his wife?

"Magda?" Charles asked cautiously.

Erik titled his head to the side, but did nothing more aside from resignedly mutter in an eerily detached voice, "She fled. She was frightened." Of me.

Charles didn't need his powers to know that was what Erik had thought. He felt the man's pain and anguish as acutely as he had always felt anyone else's' when he had use of his telepathic and empathetic abilities. He wanted to apologize for Erik's pain; for what humans had, yet again, done to this man. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Erik didn't do well with pity anyway.

They sat in awkward silence for a long while after that. It was punctuated periodically with soft snuffles from Logan, and miscellaneous beeps and chirps from the cockpit. After awhile, the tension in Erik's muscles loosened somewhat, and Logan accidentally snored himself awake.

That was when Erik, eyes still focused on the carpeted flooring of the plane, finally asked, "How did you lose them?"

TBC...

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