Charles walked down the hall quickly, his hand firmly holding Zara's. He didn't adjust the minds of those passing them, but instead just played a small trick that made the pair of them seem much less interesting. Students and staff alike walked past, their eyes sliding over them as though they were simply part of the furniture.
Zara's mind was frantically going over the fact that she had just said fuck in front of Charles, no, The Professor and also her employer. Though maybe not for much longer. Zara's grandmother obligingly popped in as well, saying something about how pretty girls shouldn't have ugly mouths, and Zara let out a sound that was halfway between a giggle and a hiccup. Charles gave her an appraising look over his shoulder, but didn't let go of her hand or stop moving for a second. He touched an innocuous-looking panel on the wall, and it opened to reveal a well-lit staircase behind it. He pulled her through and the panel shut behind them.
"Ooooo, just like the movies," Zara said, her voice switching to an ominous calm. "Taking me to the morgue? You didn't say exactly how much time I had left, you know..."
Charles put one arm around her as they went down the stairs, mostly to make sure she kept pace with him. "Zara, I am in awe of your strength of mind, but don't get hysterical now or I will make you drink scotch."
"Tell me where we're going."
"We're going to see Hank."
"Why?"
"Zara, I promise I'll explain everything soon."
And that did it. Something inside of her finally snapped. She tore her hand out of his, losing her balance and slipping down the last step on to the landing. Charles reached out to grab her, or steady her, and she shoved him away with all of her strength. "NO! I am not taking any more of your—" She searched for the right word and nothing came, so she could only shriek in rage. "I swear if you do not tell me everything that is going on, straight out, this instant, so help me Charles, I will do my best to beat you to death right here!"
His arms went around her and he held her tightly, whispering her name. "Zara, Zara, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, just go a little further with me, all right? Please? Just a little further, I'm so sorry for this, Zara..." And he pressed his lips to her forehead.
The rage shot even higher and she twisted in his arms, trying again to push him away. "Don't you dare kiss me like that, Charles! You do not get to kiss me on the forehead like you're soothing a child with a nightmare! On top of everything else—" Her voice broke and the rest came out in a despairing sigh. "-you do not get to do that to me, too."
Charles dropped his hands to his sides, then took two steps back from her. They faced off, both panting from the struggle. Charles slowly sat down on the steps, turning his palms up as if he was surrendering.
"Shall we stay here, then?"
"Yes." She leaned back against the wall, ignoring the warmth where his hands had been. "Start talking."
"Zara, the pain you've been experiencing since you were young is a mutation of its own, but it has been directly affected by your empathic abilities and the shields you built to contain them. And now, it's been affected by my opening the shield. What I saw last night was that your energy is pouring out from behind that shield, and it needs somewhere to go. You have a bit coming out to me—that's our connection. The rest is turning back on you. Energy," he said, looking up at her, "has to be somewhere. I put yours in motion. Now that it's moving, it wants to keep moving. But most of your shields are still there, so it's creating...kind of a backflow. A whirlpool."
"I don't feel any different."
"Well, I just grabbed your shoulders, held your hand and pulled you along, then had my arms around you pretty tightly. Are you hurting?"
She gave an experimental shrug of her shoulders, a flex of her hand. "Not much."
"Have you been sore?"
She remembered sitting easily at her desk during class that day. "Not very."
"The energy is moving, it's not staying static and attacking your joints. That makes the pain easier."
"Then that's a good thing."
"If it was moving freely, yes, that would be better. But most of your shields are still in place. Your energy is getting pushed out like water behind a dam. Pressure like that breaks down rock, it will break down anything. The problem will come when the rest of your shields burst under the strain. Some of the energy will come to me, because we're connected. A lot will snap back at you, like a rubber band. The rest...will go elsewhere. I can't predict where."
"But that can't be anything that would hurt you..." she trailed off. Charles looked back at her, silent. "We're talking about empathy, here. How can that hurt someone? How can it hurt me?"
"You think empathy isn't powerful? It's one of the most powerful things on earth, Zara. It can change behavior, it can change anything. It's mental energy that can cause physical reactions. If I watched you bite into a lemon right now, my mouth would water. A physical reaction created from a thought, without touch, without anything else. That's just the most basic explanation."
"But..." she shook her head. "You can make people do things, forget things. You can know exactly what they're thinking and why. There's no way any "power" I have could match what you can do."
"It doesn't matter at all if you can match what I can do. That's like trying to match two people's fingerprints. It's meaningless. What you can do is different, and it's incredibly valuable. If I can read the literal words on the page of someone's mind, you see the pictures. The subtext."
"It can't be enough to hurt you! Or me! Or anyone!"
"Zara, with the proper means, I could give just one gallon of water enough pressure so that the force would kill you. You have much, much more than one gallon of energy building up behind those shields."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Relieve the pressure. We have to remove your shields."
She was still for a long time. "Remove?"
"Zara, yes."
"Completely?"
"Yes."
Her voice got quieter. "You said I would remove them, when I was ready, when I didn't need them anymore."
Charles sounded ashamed. "You're going to have to add that to the increasingly long list of things I've been incorrect about."
"You know what I don't quite understand, Charles? Why, if you found this out last night, you didn't tell me last night."
He looked at her, an expression that she had never before seen on his face. "Do you really want to know?"
"Of course I do..." she said, a lot less forcefully than she intended.
He stood, slowly, never taking his eyes from hers. Two steps, and he was standing inches from her again. Zara felt every molecule in her body straining to move forward, to touch him. He was so close, the intimacy of the eye contact became overwhelming, and she dropped her gaze to the floor.
No, Zara. Look at me.
Her eyes met his again, her vision blurred, and she let herself be drawn into a blue haze. She saw the Charles of last night in front of her, hair mussed and blushing. Charles, blushing. He held up his hand, and a tiny spark of light appeared between his fingers.
Hold out your hand.
She did, and he placed the spark in her palm. From there, it changed, elongating and becoming a thin, quivering thread of azure and gold, pulsing as though it was alive. It was alive, she realized. The thread shot upwards, over her head, and then back to Charles' hand, seemingly of its own volition.
Ready?
He tugged on the thread gently, and it pulled her forward, into his arms, and—
—she was yanked backwards, the thread was gone, and the stairwell smashed back into her vision like a punch to the jaw. Charles was there, still close, but looking over his shoulder-
At Hank McCoy, who was standing at the stairwell door with an embarrassed look on his face. "I'm...sorry...Professor, I was just wondering where you were, because of the time, you know..."
Charles sighed. "Yes, thank you, Hank. You're right." He turned to her. "Zara, I'm sorry. You have to come with us, now."
Whether he had influenced her, or she had simply reached a point of overload, she didn't know. It was much easier to let him put his arm around her and guide her down the rest of the steps, past Hank, into another hallway. It must be below the main levels, she thought faintly, as it was much more utilitarian. No dark wood panels here, just concrete and fluorescent lights. Through another door, into what was obviously a lab, white and steel and colored strands of wires. It seemed like it should be cold, but it wasn't. Then Hank was in front of her again, his expression even more embarrassed, if that was possible. He held up a bundle of cloth in front of her. "Miss Reilly..." he said quietly, not looking at her, "I need you to change into this."
It was a hospital gown, she realized absently. Her hand reached out and she took it, and Charles had her arm and pulled her gently towards another door, a dressing room-how civilized, she thought. The door clicked shut behind her and she reached up to the back of her neck to find the zipper of her dress.
Charles stood a respectful distance from the dressing room door, watching Hank's preparations, wishing he could go back over the past 24 hours and change a lot of things. They would have still ended up here, but she might not have been so afraid, so angry. He had only himself to blame for that. It had been so unexpected, so seductive, to hear her voice some of his pain, the pain he had never shared with anyone, and to know that she understood. He had given in to that, let himself bask in it, for just a moment, just one damned moment when he held that understanding around him like a blanket. He had shut out everything else because she had felt so good. He was sorry, desperately sorry, that it had caused the fear she felt now, but he could not be sorry that he had shared that moment with her. It had been so long since anyone had seen him, felt him, not as "the Professor", but just as a man.
The door clicked open and Zara stepped out, wearing the gown, her hair loose over her shoulders. He wanted to hold her tightly, whisper reassurances, protect her with his body and his mind. That's what you're doing, he reminded himself. You will make it up to her. If she'll let you.
He smiled and held out his hand once more. She placed her hand in his, limply, and he drew her to him, his other arm wrapping around her shoulders as he walked with her. "Zara, we're going to do this together. You will be aware, I will be with you." He turned her gently to face him. "I promise, I won't let anything hurt you."
Something hard touched the back of her legs, and she sat down on a soft surface-some kind of bed, she realized. She looked a question at Charles and he knelt down, radiating compassion and safety and lightly rubbing his thumbs over her bare arms. "Your mind is going to be working hard, Zara. This way it doesn't have to expend any energy on keeping you standing. That's all." He guided her back, she felt the pillow cradle her head, and then his fingers touched her temple and she slid down into a warm and silver pool of thought.