A/N: Hello! Me again, reporting live from the crazy (read: startlingly chilled) city that is London during the Olympics. My absence can in part be blamed on that (HOLY CRAP THE OPENING CEREMONY I CAN'T) and mourning the loss of my iPod, left in the back of a cab. Hopefully the lost property office will find it, but I doubt it. Luckily I keep a lot of my ideas stored up here *taps side of head* but it's still irritating. Sigh.
Sorry, I'll stop whining and get right down to the review replies. Forty reviews in total, people! Thank you all so much :)
Cheyo Motart – awww, thanks m'dear! However long you have to wait, I'll always carry on. Eventually.
lunar wolfe - thanks! I'm afraid I wasn't able to see the vid – could you possibly send me the link in a PM? I'm really interested to see what it is now :)
LifelessLil – I hope this doesn't count as forever… Hehe… *rubs back of neck sheepishly* thank you for your kind words!
curvesforever – Thank you! Ehehe, I feel the same way. I just want to give him a cuddle and make it okay for him. But you're right, that's best left to Erik… ;)
Again, thank you so much for all the wonderful feedback. You guys really make my day ^_^ Hope you enjoy the show!
Chapter Five
That's never happened to Charles before.
Ever.
In his entire life.
No one has ever made him feel that – dare he say it – peaceful before.
How did that even happen?
He could feel the poisonous whispers already flowing through his veins, was bracing himself for the voice to take over, but then –
But then Doctor Lehnsherr's mind just… opened up.
It unfolded like a picture book in front of his eyes, the hopes and fears and dreams and memories all spilling out into the room and filling it up with colour and noise and flavour. It felt like he was flying above a vast, wonderful country, with all the sights and sounds and smells of a childhood that he had never known.
But it was more than that. He's gone further into people's heads before, but even then he always retained a sense of detachment, never quite immersing himself in their world.
This time, he let the doctor's mind wash over him and draw him in, so rather than merely observing the action he actually took part in it. Therewas that birthday party with all his new friends from school, when Thomas ate so much he nearly exploded; here was his first day of university, lugging his huge suitcase up the steps of the train station; and further back, holding tight to a big hand as he skipped to catch up with Papa's long strides.
He was automatically drawn to the brightest corner of the man's memory system – a Hanukkah celebration when he was ten. He felt the sheer happiness of the moment, and it filled him up to the brim until he couldn't help the small smile that crept up on his lips like a thief.
But then he goes away, and Charles is left once more in the too-white room with nothing but the voice to keep him company.
He turns his face to the window and dreams of flying.
XXX
Eric sits on the edge of his bed and sighs.
He finds himself wondering, not for the first time, if anything he learnt at school is actually useful in the real world.
He slumps backwards onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling, running through the facts in his head. Paranoid schizophrenia – he said that he hears a voice, that it tells him to hurt people. Eric racks his brain, trying to remember what Professor Cairns told him about the illness. Schizophrenia is classified as a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by poor emotional responses. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking – well, that's Charles all over. Typically occurs in early adulthood… Accompanied by significant social or occupational disfunction…
Eric wonders if perhaps this has something to do with Charles's mother – from what he gathers, she was not the most loving of parents. So, a neglectful mother, leading to abandonment issues in later life. But that wouldn't be enough to provoke assault, would it? There has to be something more, something staring him right in the face…
Eric runs his hands through his hair and down his face, coming to rest at his jawline. Of course.
He is such an idiot.
The official medical report of the crime said that the attack on Kurt Marko had been unprovoked. But schizophrenia rarely occurs without help. It needs some sort of catalyst to bring it to the surface.
What if it was just revenge for years of abuse?
Charles's parents split up when he was ten, and the former Mrs Xavier remarried soon afterwards. But then she died, leaving Charles and his little sister in the care – more at the mercy – of Kurt Marko and his son, Cain.
It's a shot in the dark, of course, but it might just be right. The signs are all there – the way Charles's eyes widened slightly when Eric brought up his stepfather, the web of thin white lines criss-crossing his wrists that look suspiciously like whip scars…
Eric slaps himself on the forehead. He is so stupid.
Charles Xavier was abused by his stepfather for God knows how long before he finally snapped and killed him.
Or, at least, that's Eric's theory. He could be wrong, but he really doesn't see any other cause for the problem.
Now he just has to get Charles to admit it.
And then, of course, there is the white feather, and what Charles said just before he left the room –
No, that wasn't real. He imagined it. It was just his overworked brain making things up.
At least, that is what he tells himself.
XXX
It starts off innocently enough. He's wandering through the gardens of the university, stopping now and then to note down the different types of plants and insects he spots. Papa always says to write down everything you observe – it might come in useful some day.
And yet, as always, he is never free of that devil whispering on his shoulder.
Papa's not here anymore, is he?
No. No, he is, look, he's over there, he's just coming out of the science block, he's waiting for me.
Papa left. He left you and Mother and Raven, and he's never coming back.
He left? No, Papa would never do that. He loves us very much, he says it every day -
Are you really so naïve as to think that he was telling the truth?
I – I don't - He's there –
When are you going to open your eyes and realise that he's gone?
He loves us, you'll see. Look, he's coming over here now –
That's not Papa.
Yes, yes it is –
Then why is he undoing his belt?
I… I don't…
He's getting closer…
Papa? Papa, what are you doing? I'm sorry if I made you angry, please don't hit me, Papa –
How many times do I have to tell you that that's not Papa?!
No, please, Papa!
"Papa!" The last word is screamed out into the cool darkness of the summer night, and with it comes Charles, jolting back to reality, the harsh colours of the nightmare still staining his vision.
He blinks a few times, and the image fades along with the dream. Already he is struggling to remember exactly what he was afraid of.
It doesn't take a genius to guess, though.
He looks around the deathly silent room, bleached white by the moonlight, a shiver skittering down his spine. He doesn't seem to have woken anyone, but he does a quick check anyway, just to be sure. He closes his eyes and listens hard for the sleeping minds of the hospital staff.
The orderly on duty first – slumped in his chair at the end of the corridor, completely and utterly dead to the world. Then the nurse at the opposite end; she's not asleep yet, but judging by the novel clutched in one hand, she will be soon. One by one he passes over the doctors and nurses, pausing a moment at each to observe their dreams. Some are happy – winning the World Cup, or meeting their heroes. Some are embarrassing – turning up for an exam in their underwear, or being asked to play an instrument they've never even touched before in the London Philarmonic Orchestra. And some are just bizarre – finding out they have the ability to fly, only to come crashing back down like Icarus tumbling into the sea.
He lingers for a while in Doctor Lehnsherr's mind. He is sailing the ocean blue in a pea-green boat, accompanied by an owl and a pussycat. Charles is pleasantly surprised; he has always loved that poem.
He reluctantly backs out of the man's head, quietly closing the metaphorical door shut behind him. He wraps the blanket around his shoulders and sits in the middle of the bed, his legs crossed like a child waiting for a bedtime story. He doesn't want to go back to sleep. He can feel Kurt lingering at the back of his mind like a malignant ghost, just waiting for his chance to pounce again.
Suddenly, the seed of an idea is planted in his head.
Could he?
No, it's silly. He'd be caught for sure.
No harm in trying…
Yes, there is. You'll be punished, you know you will.
He debates with himself for a good five minutes before he finally reaches a decision. The linoleum floor feels sticky under his bare feet as he carefully swings his legs off the bed and pads towards the door. He reaches for the handle, fully expecting it to be locked tight, like it always is.
It turns easily in his hand and the door swings open.
Charles stands there, speechless, before the soft thunk of the door hitting the opposite wall brings him back to himself. How – how did that – his room locked every night, every night -
A flicker of something runs across his subconscious, like someone cautiously prodding a finger into his mind. He ignores it.
He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and steps through the doorway into the corridor, blinking in the too-bright light. The nurse isn't asleep yet, but he soon rectifies that with a hand in front of her face and a soft word whispered in her ear.
The cowardly part of his brain worries that he shouldn't be doing this, you'll get caught, they'll electrify you again, and then they'll find out about what you can do and send you to a laboratory and do experiments on you, but he tells it to shut up and slips down the stairs, silent as a shadow.
As his toes sink into the wet grass, he wonders idly why he suddenly feels so much braver than before. Three days ago, he'd've never dreamed of setting foot outside his room, let alone properly outside.
But what a wonderful place outside is. The sky stretches far above him, all the way from one horizon to the other, stuffed full of stars. It's like someone spread millions of little diamonds across a black velvet cloak, swirling them around in beautiful patterns until they formed constellations. There's Orion, with his belt of three, and Taurus the great bull, and over there, the Plough. He follows the pointing line of its curved end to Polaris, the great North Star, burning bright and proud amid its brothers and sisters.
His father once told him that the light of the stars takes hundreds of years to reach us, so if anyone looked at the Earth from another planet, they'd see things that have already happened. And this works both ways – the little pinpricks of light he's seeing now could have exploded centuries ago, and he wouldn't know until the light completed its long journey and relayed the message.
He sits down, his back against the gnarled old apple tree, and stares up at a constellation that's dying in a corner of the sky.
A/N: By the way, if anyone reading this has any experience with schizophrenia or any kind of mental illness, please feel absolutely and utterly free to tell me if I'm getting anything wrong or offending you in any way. As I think I've mentioned, I am a complete amateur, so I've probably made a few mistakes along the way.
Thank you for reading and good night!