A/N: I'm terribly sorry it took me so long to update this but I was on a sailboat trip with my best friend and her family and Danish yacht harbors apparently don't come with wireless internet access. The reason for that is beyond me ;)

Anyways, I wanted to split this chapter up but it just didn't feel right for the story so you get quite a lot of words with this one. There will be a reader's choice challenge for the upcoming chapters. See bottom for more information.

Again, I'm awfully sorry for the delay and I hope you enjoy reading this chapter!

Chapter 7

The mansion seemed to be still asleep while Hank walked through the corridors only dimly lit by the scanty bit of autumn-daylight able to penetrate the gathering rain clouds. Raven, Alex and Sean were not yet awake and probably wouldn't be for some time to come since they had sat together with him and Eric until early in the morning after the two of them had returned from the hospital.

Hank and Eric had seen no point in holding back any information about Charles' injury and current condition. The kids had all gone to bed rather unsettled and consequently sleep hadn't found them until sometime around four in the morning.

After the youngsters left them Hank had asked Eric about the things he and Charles had discussed. The furry mutant was not really surprised to hear that the young professor didn't blame Eric for his injury. After all, he had already forgiven him on the beach. But he had been glad to notice that Eric was obviously very much aware of the mess he'd caused and was willing to take responsibility for his actions.

So Hank had told him he would trust the older mutant again. If Charles had given this man a second chance he sure could do that as well. The metal bender had shown his gratefulness in his own way, not saying much but nonetheless somehow conveying his feelings.

They too, retired afterwards and Hank had dozed off about three hours ago at nearly six o' clock in the morning, but ever since his transformation he didn't need as much sleep as he did when he had still been human.

The blue mutant reached Eric Lehnsherr's suite and after hesitating for a moment he raised his knuckles and gave the old wooden door a soft tab. When there was no answer he tried with a little more determination. Still no response.

"Eric?" he asked through the door and when he tried to open it was surprised to find it unlocked. The German certainly didn't strike him as the type to leave his door open while being asleep. A short glance into the room gave him the answer; the metal bender wasn't here.

Hank closed the door, frowning. He had already been down to the kitchen which he'd also found empty and Eric wasn't one to sit down in the huge openly designed living-room. Maybe he went for a run around the grounds. The German had instantly loved the huge park of the mansion when they first arrived here some three months ago.

'Has it only been three months?' Hank wondered while he walked further down the corridor. It felt like another life; all seven of them living here training and working together for a couple of hours each day, Charles and Eric always retreating for a game of chess in the evening while he and the other youngsters would switch on the radio and talk sometimes well into the night. They would often make fun of the professor and Eric always spending their nights in the library and 'talking about serious adult-stuff as if they weren't in their late twenties but their early sixties' as Alex used to describe it.

'Wait a minute.' Hank thought. 'He may be in the library.' He hurriedly made his way over to the double-doors at the end of the corridor and knocked.

"Come in." he heard Eric's voice from the other side of the wood. "The door's unlocked." he said, just when the lock made a clicking noise and Hank pushed the doors open.

Eric sat in one of the two rounded chairs facing the table with the chessboard on top apparently reading one of Charles' science magazines. He was already dressed for the day wearing a burgundy turtleneck and –which was very unlike him – a pair of slim, dark jeans. On Hank entering the library he looked up and the younger mutant instantly detected dark circles beneath the grey-green eyes. Walking further into the room Hank's gaze swept over the couch equipped with a pillow and a blue woolen blanket.

"You slept in here?" he asked a little confused. After all, Eric had his own suite just like everybody else.

"Well, 'slept' is not quite the right word; it was more like a short nap, but…. Yeah, I've spent the night over here. The fireplace is actually very cozy." Eric answered in an attempt to explain himself.

Hank strongly doubted that it had anything to do with the fireplace but rather with this room being Charles' favorite one by far, yet he didn't say a word. He would simply have spoken out of place.

Remembering why he wanted to talk to Eric, Hank said: "I wanted to ask you a couple of things."

The older mutant tiredly rubbed his eyes. "Sure, go ahead."

"Okay, so… I suppose you want to go back to the hospital later this day, right? With Charles getting his diagnosis and all."

"Yeah, so far that was my plan."

"Right – So, ahh… I thought it would be best if- if you are the only one with him when he gets to know the full… extent of his injury."

When Eric said nothing Hank quickly explained himself further.

"From what you've told me he reacted rather composed to his paralysis but I don't think that it will stay that way. He seems to be in a state of shock which is actually quite normal for someone in his situation. However, I think hearing the final diagnosis today won't leave Charles emotionally unaffected and therefor it would be best if the kids and I stay here. And if he wants to see Raven or someone else I can drive them around later. Are you okay with that?" he hesitantly asked the older man, who had said nothing during his explanation.

"I am. What about Moira? Did she want to come over for the diagnosis or anytime later?" Eric remembered her talking about visiting Charles last night.

"Uhm, no she won't. In fact she cannot because she has to work again today. She just sent me a fax about half an hour ago, saying that she will stop by at the weekend and she told me to give you kind regards." Hank added, smiling.

"Thanks, Hank. What's the other thing you wanted to ask me?" the metal bender asked, quite curious about what else the young mutant wanted to tell him.

"It's about the cars. I would like to take the others out into town for grocery-shopping later since we really need a couple of things." When he saw Eric raising an eyebrow, he quickly added: "I will stay in the car, of course. It's not that I could just walk into a grocery store and expect people not to notice anything." His cheeks were slightly lilac from blushing. "But…. If you could take the MG for the drive to the hospital that would be very much appreciated. Since there will be four of us and several bags of groceries I could really need the Mercedes." The furry mutant sounded a bit sheepish and Eric had to smile.

"Of course I can take the MG, that's no problem." Well, actually it held the potential of becoming one, because it was a typical British car designed to drive on the wrong side of the road but he would deal with that in due time.

"Great, and - that's it, I believe." Hank said, already heading for the door. "Although - " He turned around again to look at the other man. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Eric shook his head. "I probably don't need to tell you that my appetite is rather lousy these days. I'm not really hungry."

The young mutant frowned, his bushy eyebrows nearly touching. "But starving yourself to death won't help the professor getting better; quite on the contrary, you'll need your strength if you want to support him."

Eric sighed, smiling faintly and rising from his chair. "So, it's pancakes then?"

The drive had been surprisingly uneventful for sitting on the wrong side, Eric thought, while he walked through the corridors of the hospital searching for Charles' new room. One of the nurses down at the ICU station told him that Mr. Xavier had been moved to a private room in the paraplegia-wing of the clinic.

On entering it Eric felt uneasiness welling up inside him at the sight of the wheelchairs standing out here in the corridors.

'You need to get used to this.' he thought, pulling himself together. 'Because you can't help him adjust to his situation if you haven't even accepted it yourself.' He had reached room number 107 and knocked.

"Come in, Eric." Charles' voice greeted him from the other side of the door and the metal bender went inside.

"So much for the surprise." he said, closing the door behind him and walking over to Charles' bedside.

The telepath turned his head slightly to look at him. "I am sorry, my friend. I didn't mean to spoil this for you."

Charles was still lying flat on the back, the IV connected to his right hand but the cables and the heart rate monitor were gone. He seemed to be much more alert and coherent, judging by the clear and focused look of his blue eyes; although there were ashen circles beneath them and he remained rather pale.

"You look better than yesterday." the older mutant stated while he pulled up a chair to the bedside and sat down.

"Well, I'm beginning to feel quite up to the mark, indeed." Charles said, running a hand through his thick chestnut-colored hair. "After I've been brought up here this morning they reduced the pain medication." He gestured towards the IV inserted in his right hand. "Since I'm no longer drugged with morphine the dizziness is gone and I'm nearly in full control of my ability again. Although it doesn't help that much with the pain so I probably don't need to tell you that last night wasn't too good." he confessed trying to lighten his statement with a smile. When he noticed the dark shadows beneath the German's eyes he added: "Yours apparently wasn't either."

Eric shrugged. "Well, Hank and I had a rather long conversation about the events on Cuba after we filled the kids in on you and your situation. And sleep does not find me easy anyways."

"You and Hank are okay with each other?" Charles asked a bit worried and was relieved to see the other one nod.

"Yeah, we actually had breakfast together this morning. Pancakes."

"I should have liked to see that. Both of you in the kitchen with a frying pan and pancake dough." the telepath teased.

Eric couldn't help but return the smile since he and Hank had made quite a mess before they had gotten a hang on it.

"I'm sure we will do it again at some point and your advice would be most welcome."

Charles' smile faltered a little and he dropped his gaze. Just thinking about home made him feel terrible.

Now that he wasn't drugged down anymore and very much aware of his surroundings and his own condition he longed desperately to return to the mansion and simply enjoy a peaceful afternoon in his library- just him and Eric playing chess, not thinking about his worries and troubles.

'But there is no going home.' Charles thought bitterly. He would never again 'go' home or take a 'walk' through the garden.

'Thanks to this.' he thought and brought his left hand to touch his thigh. He couldn't feel a thing.

Naturally a good observer, Eric noticed the movement.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, trying to hide the worry about Charles' sudden change of mood and the look of defeat he now noticed in his friend's eyes. Charles turned his head to give him an unreadable look.

"Well, it's…. I don't know. It's hard to say." he struggled to explain, making a vague gesture and Eric nodded his understanding. If it were him lying on that bed suddenly being paralyzed he would also have a hard time wrapping his mind around it.

Charles didn't know how to answer Eric's question without giving away how he truly felt. The rational part of him wanted to assure his friend that everything was alright, that he was doing just fine. His reasonable side saw no need to bother anyone with his fears and insecurities.

The other part of him wanted to be honest with Eric because he desperately needed someone to ease the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that built up inside him. His emotional side wanted to tell the other mutant that he was scared about not only the following days or weeks but scared about his whole future. How was he supposed to handle his disability? What if he couldn't handle it?

He had always had to be the stronger one because they all needed a leader, someone to guide them; who gave them a purpose. And now he didn't even know what to do with himself. What would the others think of him? Especially Raven. What was he supposed to do with the rest of his life?

He certainly couldn't continue his work for the government and go on another mission like the one in Russia with Moira and Eric.

There it was again. He couldn't 'go'. Charles had never before paid any attention to how often this word occurred in the English language and now it greatly bothered him that this word could no longer be applied to him.

'Time will show.' He thought, trying to calm himself down. 'It's useless to brood over what might be. You need to focus on the present, make sure the others don't worry about you-especially Erik. He is far too worried about me right now.' It was always easier to suppress his situation by focusing on the problems and worries of others. The logical part won and so all he said was:

"I…. I'm good, really." Charles sounded more as if he was trying to convince himself and the metal bender didn't believe a word he said.

Eric had never seen the eloquent professor at such a loss for words to explain or comprehend a situation. Charles' knowledge and empathy had always made him seem wise far beyond his twenty-eight years and his warm and endearing personality had helped them through some rough spots during the last couple of weeks.

Now he found himself in a tough situation and it was hard to tell how he would cope with it. So far he had dealt with his paralysis quite logical but you couldn't lose the ability to walk without getting emotional. Least of all Charles who was - despite all his logic - a rather sensitive person.

But Eric didn't want to press on that matter and so he told Charles about Hank's plan to go out for grocery-shopping and for a couple of minutes they just talked about the youngsters, reminiscing about some of the training days, for example when Sean had fallen out of the window during his first attempt to fly, Alex setting the underground training bunker on fire or making fun about Hank waiting in the car for Raven, Alex and Sean to return from their upcoming shopping trip.

"Raven misses you, you know? She was very upset yesterday when she couldn't come with me and I thought it best to sneak out of the house this morning, while she was still asleep. Otherwise I'm not sure what she would've done to make me take her with me." Eric told his friend, trying to lighten the mood a bit and the other young man smiled sadly.

"I know and I miss her, too. Please tell her that, Eric."

"I will. Maybe, if you'd like to see her, Hank could drive her over in the evening or something." the metal bender suggested, but seeing Charles' smile slowly fade from his lips he knew that although his friend missed Raven he didn't want to see her. Or maybe, Eric thought, he didn't want her to see him.

Charles diverted his gaze back to the ceiling after declining Eric's offer to get Raven brought over. He knew that his adoptive sister would be angry and disappointed when she learned that he didn't want her to come. But he had his reasons, right?

From what Eric had told him the kids knew about his injury and the paralysis and he was not feeling up to talk about this with Raven at the moment. If she came over there would be no way of avoiding this subject. It was already hard enough to talk about this with Eric.

And he wanted to spare her. He wanted to spare her the sight of him right now, not being able to do anything apart from lying on this bed.

When they heard a knock coming from the door Charles turned his head and Eric shifted on his chair, both gazes fixed on the door as Dr. Hill entered the room.

After the doctor had shaken both their hands he didn't waste his time on small talk, a fact Eric liked about the human, not being much of a talker himself.

"Well, Mr. Xavier, you probably know that I'm here to inform you of your diagnosis."

"Yes, I do. Please go ahead, I'm ready." the young professor said, being polite as ever.

'That's a lie.' Eric thought, while studying Charles' face carefully and he realized that this was the first lie he'd ever heard from his friend. He had experienced all kinds of answers from him; sarcastic, charming, painstakingly- true, but never, not even once had he ever lied to him. If someone was to ask Raven, Eric was damn sure that she would give the same answer. Lying just wasn't Charles; the metal bender could tell by the odd expression on his face that was meant to look convincing and composed and maybe the human believed it, but Erik certainly did not.

The doctor however simply nodded and took an X-ray from the folder he carried and handed it over to Charles who tilted it slightly to look at it properly. It showed his spine, of course, and he immediately spotted what was wrong with it.

Two of his lower-back vertebras looked like a jigsaw puzzle, shattered into various pieces which were now held together by a couple of thin metal bars and four screws.

"As you can see on the X-ray scan the bullet that entered your spine has shattered the vertebras Th11 and Th10, completely severing the spinal cord within. We stabilized the fractures with two small stainless- steel bars and four screws and given the fact that everything heals in order there will be no reason to remove them as they won't affect your mobility. However there was no way to restore the neural pathways." The surgeon stopped for a brief second before continuing.

"The damage of your spinal cord resulted in a paraplegia from the waist down and the chances of a recovery from this kind of injury are slim to none. I'm sorry to say this, Mr. Xavier, but you will most likely never be able to walk again."

He paused and studied Charles closely to see how his patient reacted to this devastating news.

The young professor let his gaze stray out of the window for a moment, his facial expression unreadable. There wasn't really any sign of reaction towards the fact that he would be dependent on a wheelchair for the rest of his life. But Erik saw his friend's blue eyes clouding and a guarded look appearing on his features when he turned his head back to look at Dr. Hill again. His gaze was devoid of any emotion now and Erik shivered unconsciously at the sight of it. It didn't suit Charles in the least.

"How long do I have to stay here before I can return home?" Charles asked, deliberately avoiding the word 'go'.

"Well, to provide that the fractures heal correctly it is essential to keep you immobilized for at least three weeks. Depending on your physical condition it'll take another week or two before you're allowed out of bed. Afterwards there will be another three to four weeks of physical therapy and some weight training to improve your physique. I'm not making any promises but if everything goes according to plan you should be home in about two months."

Charles nodded absently, staring at the ceiling again. Two months before he could leave but he wouldn't return to the life he knew. It would be something completely different because he would return in a wheelchair and that meant a lot of changes. He would need a ramp for the stairs leading to the front door, an elevator inside so he could access the first and second floor of the mansion. Maybe he wouldn't even fit through the doors anymore. But what bothered him most was the fact that he would be dependent on the help of others and that was the one thought he couldn't stand.

The young professor sighed heavily, trying to keep his emotions at bay and screwed his eyes shut.

Erik saw Charles closing his eyes and turning his head away and knew that he was now lost in his own, no doubt rather unsettling thoughts, so the German turned towards Dr. Hill who was still in the room.

"Thanks for everything. I think he'll need a few moments." Erik said quietly. The surgeon who had handled situations like this a lot of times before nodded understandingly.

"Yes, of course. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to approach me."

Once he was gone Erik returned his attention back to his friend.

"Charles, you okay?" he asked. Stupid question, of course the other wasn't okay but Erik wasn't as skilled with words and handling problematic situation as Charles.

"Yes, I …." The telepath brushed a hand over his face, exhaling a shaky breath. "Please, could you…. Could you give me a couple of minutes?"

" 'Course. I'm just downstairs for a tea. Will you… call me back?" he asked placing two fingers at his temple in an imitation of Charles.

His friend offered him a small smile. "Sure, I will."

Erik took a hesitant sip from the Styrofoam cup and the hot tea burned its way down his throat. Yet he felt oddly detached from the unpleasant feeling; his thoughts were still with Charles in his room. Right now he wished he had his friend's telepathic ability. Maybe knowing what the other thought would make it easier to find the right words in this truly messed-up situation. Always given the possibility, of course, that there were the right words for such a situation. And somehow Erik believed there weren't.

When he thought of the devastated and frightened look replacing Charles' usually optimistic and compassionate features he was sure that there was nothing in this world, words or actions, to make this better or easier to handle.

Erik finished his tea and then waited for another ten minutes but when Charles didn't call him back he decided to go check on him nonetheless. He had a bad feeling leaving the other alone to deal with his emotions that were without a doubt running wild at the moment.

When he reentered his friend's room he was glad that he'd decided to check on the telepath, not waiting for him to call him back.

Charles had apparently tried to push himself into a sitting position but hadn't managed more than a few inches before keeling over to his side, almost losing his balance completely because his upper body leaned dangerously far out of bed and his unfeeling legs couldn't function as a counterbalance . His face was drawn taut with pain from straining his broken back so hard and his pale cheeks were stained with tears. Erik hurried over to his side.

"What exactly do you think you're doing? Are you out of your freakin' mind?" he asked, clearly agitated while easing Charles back down onto the pillows moments before the young man would have lost his balance completely and fallen out of the bed. "You're only making it worse!" Erik couldn't believe how careless his friend was with his own health.

Although the pain had drained the color from his face and he was having trouble to breathe normally Charles shot the older mutant a furious look.

"How could this possibly get worse?" The way he spat out those words made it clear how frightened, angry and devastated the telepath was about his disability.

"God, Erik. Tell me how this could get worse?" This time it was a barely audible whisper and new tears started to run down the telepath's smooth, lightly freckled cheeks. One of his hands clutched Erik's cashmere sweater and he looked at the taller man with a lost and forlorn expression in his huge, radiant blue eyes.

Erik looked at his friend for the longest time seeing the fear, the worry, the helplessness and the devastation. He brought one hand beside Charles' head on the pillow, while bending down low until their foreheads touched, his other hand lightly caressing Charles' still wet cheek.

"We'll figure this out, alright? I promise you we'll find a way to make things work."

Charles closed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath and leaned into Erik's touch. "Okay."

And that's it for today. As mentioned above here comes the reader's choice challenge.

Since I won't describe every single day during Charles' recovery I picked out three possibilities how to continue the story in the next chapter. It's completely your choice.

Raven visiting Charles for the first time in the hospital (about three days after the events of this chapter)

Charles' first time in the wheelchair (about 4 ½ weeks after this chapter and of course Erik comes over to check on his friend ;))

Charles sneaking out of the hospital with Hank's help for a night at the mansion (about seven weeks after this chapter)

AND there is another choice for you to make, my dear readers ;)

Should "Please, brother" become an Erik/Charles story?

I'm really torn if it should since it's definitely holding the potential of becoming one.

I would love to know your thoughts on these things for every answer will make it easier for me to continue writing and developing a proper plot for this story.