Chapter Seven
Jean Grey continued to remember the smoke stacks that clouded her memories. The plumes of smoke and ash, seeping bone shards that appeared to engulf her sense of touch. "Professor, what is Sonderkammando?" The red-haired teen was shocked to find that the professor would not answer her. It astounded her; the Professor would always answer questions regardless of the context. She remembered of how his mind remained closed to her as his blue eyes appeared to be in the distant past. The German words that had bombarded Jean's mind with their hardness, desperation, and cruelty faded from her mind as her nights were no longer haunted by nightmares. The adolescent telepath swallowed, her fists clenching despite of how calm she seemed to the outside. She didn't know how, but the memories of the Holocaust would not allow live her life in peace. Perhaps it was because a living and breathing person had those memories. Shards of the living hell still haunted Jean. How can he live? Not once, but many times did Jean realize that there was a lot that the students, herself included, did not understand about Erik. She didn't know of how Erik could live with the living nightmare he had somehow survived, of the memories of a terrible mutant named Schmidt experimenting on his power; touching dead bodies, their skeletons protruding against their skin, and –
Stop. Jean heaved a breath and forced herself to remind herself where she was. My name is Jean Gray. I am in a New York library, and safe. She could hear her faint breath among the books, and as a distraction listed the titles in her head. No one is going to hurt me. I am safe.
"Jean?" The red-haired teen almost jumped at Scott's touch. She turned and found his red-tinted glasses staring at her in concern. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah." Jean cleared her throat and gave him a silent nod for thanks as she moved closer to look at the books again.
"I knew this was a bad idea," the brown-haired mutant teen said under his breath.
Jean sharply turned toward him, "I need to understand, Scott." Her abrupt anger towards his words faded as she saw his concerned and exasperated expression. "I need to understand what I saw."
"Fraulein Grey…" Jean inwardly sighed as she heard the ever-present reluctant tone in Kurt's voice. Scott was not the only one with reservations about coming to the library to look for books about the Holocaust. "Would it not be best…to ask for Herr Lehnsherr's…help?" Kurt finished feebly, and the three winced at thee implication. "I mean to say," Kurt corrected hurriedly, "that it would save time –"
"I don't think Magneto would actually talk to her about the Holocaust," Scott said with a raised eyebrow. "He's not exactly a sociable person."
"It would make him go back too square one, too." Scott, Jean, and Kurt looked in astonishment as Peter held three slim books over his head and carelessly leaned over another bookshelf. "Say, don't you know anything about the Holocaust?" The silver-haired mutant asked Kurt suddenly. "You're German, so this must be old knowledge to you."
For a moment it looked like Kurt was about to flee. The blue teen licked his lips uncertainly, and spoke slowly. "We…don't talk about it very much. And given of…what I am, they didn't teach me very much beyond primary school. So I think…you three know more than I do."
Peter shrugged, "Nothing more than the gas chambers and the cattle cars."
"Is that all that there is?" Jean asked incredulously as Peter held out the books so she could see them. "These are children's books!"
"There's really nothing much about where Dad's camp is either," Peter muttered his breath as Scott glanced at him sharply. Although Erik had been living at the mansion now for about two months, the said mutant was still uncomfortable that the metal-bender was staying. He's not an enemy anymore, Jean thought as she remembered of how she shared his memories. Now however, her gaze lingered on a title from a slim-bound book. Jean reached carefully and took the light novel in her hands. "Night," she whispered. A black cover with white stripes starting on the end with the author's name in the same script as the title. Elie Wiesel.
She could see Kurt staring at the book curiously, and saw that there was a frayed edition in German as well. Jean took both of them, and ignored the frowning stare of the librarian as the four books were checked out. The crunch of the fallen leaves soaked with rain echoed in her ears. For some reason, the one sound seemed to be impossibly loud. Perhaps now Jean could get answers to what she was seeing; perhaps, if she read the meager books she had gotten about the subject, she could understand. The others took notice of Jean's silence and didn't say anything to relieve it. Jean was surprised that Peter wasn't "running ahead" or talking, but she saw a pensive expression on his face that she saw more often than not. Jean's thoughts deepened as to why both she and Peter did not talk to Erik. Although the mutant was quiet, his broken-self had started to heal under the Professor's gentle care. Hank had said that all classes were cancelled for today, so something must have happened. And so Jean had decided that they should go to the library and look for books on what she had seen in Erik's memories. If anything, Jean thought that the mutant would be happy to know that he had a son; the horror that he experienced was enough for Jean to think that. But perhaps her silence, and Peter's, was a base instinct.
Fear. Fear of the unknown.
She didn't know of how Erik would react. A part of her did not want to know who or what the Sonderkammndo were, but she had to rest her mind even though it could transform into another nightmare.
"Danke, mein ferund." Erik softly smiled at the image of confusion Charles was giving him. His hair was slightly askew and wet with the tears that Erik had shed. The dark-haired mutant found that he was not ashamed of his tears. Instead, his heart warmed at the memory of the words the telepath had spoken to him. I never thought you could outdo yourself Charles, with your talk of genetics and beautiful mutations. But you did.
"You said…" There was a crease in Charles' forehead, and it was as the twenty years had not happened and Erik had said something incredibly thoughtless or callous, or both. In his mind, the dark-haired mutant could see the younger Charles Xavier. With luscious dark hair and clear blue eyes that know nothing of the pain and despair that Erik would cause him. The voice that haunted him, even within the dark hours of the Pentagon and the Polish countryside. Am I…?
"When I moved the satellite, you said that there was more to me than pain and anger." Erik said those words carefully, measuring them as he saw Charles' eyes widen in recognition. He moved his hands from Charles' shoulders to his lap and continued speaking in a monotone voice. "I can still remember every moment of that day twenty years later."
"I as well," Charles whispered. Erik gazed at his expression, and found both pain and joy in them. "For me, it remains to be one of my most precious memories." Why? Erik wondered, his mouth turning into a frim line at the thought. He's had a happier…beginning than mine, and –
No, that is not true, my friend.
Charles was sadly smiling at him.
Remember my favorite tree? You said I was a nostalgic person, and I suppose it is so. His blue eyes gently lifted to meet Erik's through their telepathic connection. My father once took me to the tree and read to me when I was a toddler. Shortly after his death, my mother became an alcoholic and was unable to healthily grieve the loss of…her partner. I would often hide there whenever I could, trying to create memories that I could not remember.
Guilt immediately assaulted Erik as he remembered thinking many times of Charles' pampered and soft childhood. Charles – he tried to say.
A gentle touch of forgiveness framed the mutant's mind as the telepath soothed his feelings. You did not know. Nor did Raven, really. By the time I had found her stealing food, my mother was already remarried. To a man named Kurt Marko, who abused her and I with his son Cain.
Hot white-anger surfaced at the mention of anyone who had hurt Charles as a child. Erik gritted his teeth as his hands clenched in an attempt to control the anger he was feeling. It did not work.
I know I appear to be in control of my mutation, Erik, but there was a time in which I thought I was going insane. I was nine when my mutation manifested, and I didn't understand the voices in my mind. The calm voice was beginning to soothe Erik despite his anger over Charles' stepfather and stepbrother, family that was supposed to protect him but had done the opposite. We are more alike than you know. I thought I was going insane, with all the voices and feelings I felt.
At twelve, I understood I was hearing other people's thoughts. It seemed that as soon as I understood this, my mutation became stronger. Strong enough to…
Charles stilled. His eyes closed as if in pain, and Erik, almost without thinking, grasped his smaller hand in his own. After a couple of moments, the telepath calmed and didn't remove his hand as he began to speak haltingly.
"I was sixteen, almost ready to leave for Oxford when Kurt suddenly stumbled. …He did not want me to leave him, to relinquish his property…and began to shout. He…beat me. I do not know when it stopped. I just…" Charles halted, and stared at Erik's knowing expression. He did not tell his friend to continue. Erik knew better than that. Only when someone was ready would they allow their horrid thoughts and actions to be exposed. Erik knew what Charles was going to say before he said it. The metal-bender knew that Charles had killed his tormenting stepfather with his telepathy. "I just wanted him to stop hitting me," the horror-stricken telepath stated as if he was sixteen years old again. "I didn't mean to kill him."
"He deserved it." Charles opened his mouth to speak, but Erik spoke without restraint. "He was your tormentor, Charles, and got what he deserved." The scar of Shaw and of the wounds the mutant posing as a Nazi doctor echoed in his mind as Erik's blue-green eyes stared into the pained depths of his the slightly trembling mutant before him. The metal-bender sighed and knew that the concept of vengeance and retaliation would not work with Charles. Despite knowing the agony and horror that Erik had suffered under Shaw, the telepath had stated that killing him would not bring him peace. "Listen very carefully to me, my friend." Again, he saw the knowing eyes of Charles Xavier and his beautiful blue and pure depths. "Killing Shaw will not bring you peace." And yet, Erik did not call Charles a hypocrite as some less observant mutants would. He was…
Erik paused in his thinking, knowing the words in his mind but unable to say them.
His hands went around Charles' waist, pulling him closer as they lied on the bed together. Charles' head rested against his sternum, and Erik could still feel his friend shaking. It was – no, it was a fact that his old friend had never told anyone that he, who believed in humans and mutants coexisting, and was a beautiful fool with his ideals and dreams, that his hands were stained with old blood. Erik could only think of saying this to him.
"Alles ist gut," The German words came softly from his mouth, a small sob brushing against his throat as he spoke his own mother's last words to Charles. "Alles ist gut…" How did Charles have this effect on him? To open his heart when no one could? Not even Magda knew about how his mother died. His wife had not demanded anything of him. She knew of who he was, and the vague details of what he experienced. Magda, with her beautiful dark hair and blue eyes that pieced Erik's soul, had not asked him for anything in return when she married him. She did not know of how he had hunted Nazis from the time he was a teen until he had met a man named Charles Xavier. She did not ask of why he wanted a new life, away from the bloodshed and ideal that he pursued. Magda, who had died and then whose body had been found among the ash of death of the home they had made together, rotting away, did not allow his memories of his former life to have another meaning besides sadness. Even when singing the song that his parents and…she had sung to him, there was an aura of grief behind it.
Nina didn't know of how hard it was for her father to sing the same words that he first remembered hearing. Erik remembered the memory, warm and held tight to the gentle hands that held his very small body, singing sweetly. He could feel the cotton material of her dress, and the fragrance of herbs and soap surrounded him. The soft and high voice that echoed in his dreams, a dream that he thought of now as Erik held Charles in his arms. And now there would never be another chance to sing the lullaby, for Nina was dead. Her mother, who he had loved, was dead. Charles had told him of how the X-Men had found Magda and Nina tied to a tree, exposed to be eaten and devoured as his house was completely burned. "I'm so sorry, Erik. You have lost so much, and…I'm sorry that we could not stop this." Somehow the words had no effect on his traumatized state. It seemed that the words should have been said to Henryk, who was lost in the sea of rage and despair. It had seemed that at the time when Erik had joined Apocalypse, all that remained of him was rage and agony. All he ever knew was violence and death. It had taken his parents, his family, and had almost destroyed his relationship with Charles.
Erik had thought there was no good in him.
"Alles ist gut…liebeling."
"What does that mean?" Erik's thoughts were broken as Charles asked him what the whispered, almost caressed word meant. His body was no longer shaking, and Erik found it hard to look into his eyes as a lump built in his throat.
His lips caressed his upper lip for a moment as Erik thought back to the moment Mystique had told him that he hadn't lost everything. I cried at the thought of you. The memory of the satellite. Charles' voice, smooth and calm as he cried from Erik's joy at a precious memory reclaimed to him. Not even my family made me think of the man they believed I was. He was aware of nothing but his emotions, caged inside him for the past twenty years, came free. Erik was thinking those thoughts, allowing Charles to hear them. For a moment, a pulse of fear surged inside of him until he told himself that it was okay. I lived your way for ten years, and I could only think of the words that said to me on that day in October twenty years ago. I wonder why that is now even though…I know.
If a single person is a world…then you are the savior of that world, Charles. Erik searched Charles' eyes, and could find wonder and shock in his eyes.
Mein…licht…
"I realized," Charles stated thickly as his eyes began to drown in unshed tears, "when you left Washington that there was no world without you, Erik. I was so alone before you came, living only a half-existence before I pulled you out of the water. It was not only your world that changed." Charles swallowed as tears began to trail down his cheeks. "Mine as well changed. Irreversibly."
"Why didn't you speak to me, at that time?" The confusion still haunted him at times, even though twenty years had passed since those days and nights in the Xavier mansion. Erik remembered with clarity of how he had been a fugitive, running from a government that would likely kill him for committing a crime that he did not commit. There was only one place where the metal-bender could think of going. The snow was melting on his hair when the oak door to the Xavier mansion opened, and stood a shocked wheel-chair bound Charles.
Pain was conveyed in his old friend's expression. Charles seemed to be hesitant to speak, but Erik's clear blue eyes bored in his own as if conveying his personal memories of during the time his younger self had taken refuge in Charles' childhood home, from the FBI hunting him for the assassination of the president.
"It was too painful, Erik." Every crack of agony could be heard, and the dark-haired mutant allowed his old friend to use his fingers to stroke Erik's face. "You, being there was too painful. It reminded me of so many things. I…was not angry with you then. But I hurt so much."
"And it tore a hole in me when you decided to turn yourself in."
"I had to," Erik whispered. He was aware of Charles nodding, of his fingers continuously to gently stroke his face as if he was a lover. I had to keep you safe.
"I mourned you…as if I would a lover."
Erik's heart stilled. Charles was crying still, his tears falling from his eyes, but to Erik, he was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. He could feel Charles' emotion; he was bare, exposed. Nothing was hidden. Love. The thoughts, the memories burned almost white-hot against his mind as Erik saw himself through Charles' eyes.
I'm sorry. Erik had no idea why Charles was thinking this. He took Charles' hand from his face and held it to his heart. Those blue eyes never left him.
Liebeling…means darling, Charles. His eyes went to Charles' lips, his face, and his nose. I…had a long time to think in the Pentagon, and it was there that I realized that I was in love with you. Charles' face moved closer to his own. Their breathing slowly became in sync. I remember how shocked I was when you broke me out of the Pentagon, and…
"I never want to get inside that head again!"
I'm sorry, Charles mouthed. He looked crestfallen at his words that he had stated years ago, but Erik stilled his thoughts as the mutant put his hand across Charles' cheek gently.
We both hurt each other, Charles. I thought that it would be best if I left your side, to spare you more pain. I found of life which was an idyll façade, a dream that shattered the moment Apocalypse came. I thought that I had lost all the good inside of me.
But…the thought of you…
"Erik…" Charles murmured. Their foreheads were touching, and soon they were close enough that Erik could count every one of Charles' freckles. Erik leaned forward and was about to press his lips to Charles' when –
"Uh, if you're about to kiss, I can just, um…leave."
Erik's head snapped to see Peter Maximoff struggling to control his staring as his eyes looked toward them. The irritation that Charles projected was enough to make both Erik and Peter wince, and no one spoke for a moment.
"I mean, if you guys are going to kiss and then…get all…everything, the door is just –"
"Peter." Erik stated through gritted teeth at the rambling silver-haired mutant. "Why are you here?"
It seemed that whatever Peter was going to say, he had forgotten it. His eyes widened, and the younger mutant gaped at the two metal-bender and the telepath before taking a deep breath and speaking strangely haltingly.
"So, remember when you got crazy for the second time and you had all the metal around you like 'round the garden like a teddy bear, and you asked me why I was there?"
"Yes," Erik replied. "You said that you were there for family, as well."
Peter swallowed. "Well…you see, I was there for family." There was a pause. "I'm your son."
