A/N: Let's continue trucking along shall we...

The moment Erik stepped foot on the floor where their bedrooms were located, his powers grasped ahold of the metal knob on Charles' door, flinging it open with more force than is necessary. Erik inwardly cringed at the sound of the door slamming into the wall.

He burst into the room, breath short from the slight panic and exertion. The room was already empty and encased in darkness, save for the natural light from the hallway that spilled inside.

"Charles?" he called out cautiously, taking a couple more steps inside the room, as if the telepath would emerge from some unknown hiding spot.

Suddenly, he heard the door slam shut behind him, fully submerging him in the darkness. That was DEFINITELY not Erik's doing.

Though startled, Erik made no sudden movements to show his surprise, choosing instead to grasp ahold of all the metal objects in the room with his power. If he was to be attacked, he would go down fighting.

Heart beating, Erik waited for a sign of Charles or the intruder to make their presence known.

Silence.

His breathing was the only sound he could hear in the room. Erik took a couple steps back, reaching for the light.

"Alex? Sean?" he called out, remembering the two teens that had been trailing him only moments before. Where were they? Erik switched on the light to see nothing out of place, and no one in the room.

"Charles, please! Stop this!" cried a voice laced with tears and desperation. A very familiar voice, but not one belonging to anyone inhabiting the grounds, currently. It was coming from the hallway. Erik opened the door and stepped back out into the empty hallway.

"I can't!"

"You can't or you don't want to?!" another choked out sob.

The voices were coming from downstairs.

"We can do this together. You will never forgive yourself if you don't try."

Erik took off running down the stairs.

"He's coming...stop him."

Erik suddenly fell to his knees at the bottom, barely managing to catch himself with his hands. He looked up and, for a split second, his gaze connected with familiar blue eyes. They did not belong to the man he knew, but to a mere child.

"Sleep." commanded the boy and Erik's vision slowly faded. The last image he saw was the boy's hand being enclosed by another hand belonging to a young girl with blonde hair.

Erik's eyes fluttered open and he immediately noticed that he was surrounded in darkness, once again.

He recognized his surroundings immediately; this was his own bedroom.

He groaned as he felt a migraine starting to form. What was he doing in his room? And why was it so dark? Reaching over to turn on his lamp, Erik turned to look out the window. The curtains were open and the moon shone a small ray of light into the dark room. The night sky indicated a good amount of time had passed since Erik stepped into Charles' room.

A sudden burst of anger at this knowledge coursed through him as he climbed off the bed and back into the hallway. Erik raced down the stairs to Sean and Alex's floor just in time to see the two boys emerge from their own bedrooms in a similarly confused state.

"Why did you do that?! Why?" Charles shouted angrily, as he came face to face with the man who now haunted his every waking moment. Currently, they weren't on the beach or Westchester, but in the very submarine that was Shaw's main hub. The megalomaniac sat on his stark white sofa, wearing an ironic suit of white and sipping from a martini glass. If it weren't for his anger, Charles would have laughed at the innocent facade Shaw so effortlessly put forth.

"Charles!" he greeted with a twinkle in his eye. "Sit. Have a drink."

"Why Emma?"

Shaw cocked his head curiously. "Well Charles, wouldn't you know the answer? It was your idea after all."

Charles shook his head. "No, you influenced me somehow. Just like you influenced Erik and the boys away."

"I influenced you?"

Shaw leaned forward and placed his empty glass on the table before standing up. Slowly, Shaw sauntered his way to the trembling telepath.

"The great and powerful Charles Xavier! You can freeze time, alter or destroy memories, make a man see what you want him to see, know what you want him to know...even kill with only a single thought, and I'm barely scraping the surface."

With every step Shaw took towards the younger man, Charles took one back. Hitting the wall with no place to go, Shaw stuck out his arms and placed both hands on either side of the other man, trapping Charles in his gaze.

"I wish I could say I am sorry, but I'm not." Charles whispered sadly, averting his eyes out of shame.

"No no no, Charles," Shaw said with a laugh. "your power and conviction in Cuba electrified me. It actually brought me to life. Can't you see that?."

Charles's brows furrowed in confusion.

Shaw gently brushed a stray hair away from Charles' forehead, suddenly becoming somber. "Emma cannot help you, Charles." Shaw stepped back and pointed one finger towards his left to a single white door. "But she can..."

Charles shook his head fervently.

"Charles?" came Raven's voice from overhead.

Shaw frowned with disappointment while Charles sighed with relief, grabbing onto the lifeline that was his sister.

"Charles?"

Raven braced herself as Charles awoke from his position on the bed at the hotel room they booked upon arriving into town. She had left him alone to grab the two of them something to eat from down in the lobby.

After paying for a decent meal that would stop the growling in their stomachs, she came back to the sight of Charles tossing and turning in the bed, asleep. But, what was most disturbing, was the amount of activity in the room caused by Charles' nightmare.

What a strange world they lived in. Any other person that stepped into a hotel room where the lights were flickering on and off and the hands of a clock spinning counterclockwise so fast that it was a blur, would say that it was the work of a ghost. Exorcists would most likely be called in and the hotel would become a popular haunted tourist spot. But to Raven, it was just a sign of Charles in distress.

Rushing into the room and dropping the food onto the table next to the door, Raven was immediately hit with the strength of the power that Charles was projecting, almost sending her to her knees.

As Charles opened his eyes, they immediately flickered over to the damning object sitting atop his sister's head. Apprehension glazed over his determined eyes.

He could visually see her, but it was as if a huge void was sitting before him. Raven quickly moved out of her kneeled position on the floor and stood back so that Charles couldn't physically remove Shaw's...well..Erik's helmet from her head.

"Raven, what are you doing?" Charles asked her as he sat up in the bed, eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Why do you have that?"

"I would think it would be obvious that I would need protection from Emma Frost." Raven explained after a tense moment. She raised up a finger before Charles could utter a word. "At least that's what I told myself in the beginning...because I didn't want to face what's really happening."

Charles stood up and Raven took a step back reflexively. She didn't miss the obvious hurt written all over his face. She was sure that her face read of fear instead of the neutral expression she thought she could carry throughout this confrontation.

"And...what's really happening?" Charles asked cautiously.

"She's happening." Raven told him softly.

Charles shook his head determinedly.

He had to tell her, had to make her understand – even if he didn't quite understand it himself.

Charles sat back down on his bed, cupped his hands together and looked back up at her. With a sigh he said, "If you sit down and take that thing off, I will tell you what's been going on with me since Cuba."

Raven didn't move a muscle.

"Please," he begged. "I will not converse with a void."

Raven took a deep breath, lifted the helmet off of her head and shape shifted back to her natural form. Erik's words ran through her head about survival tips (seems his constant paranoia was not entirely uncalled for).

"Always be aware of everything that's around you. Know where ALL the exits are and how to get to them. Never leave your back open to an enemy." At the time, she almost rolled her eyes.

She pulled the chair from the front of the desk to the far corner of the room directly in front of Charles and the door to her far right. That way, she has her back to the wall with a clear view of everything in the room and the exit, should she so need it. It stung her to take such precautions against her own brother.

It took a few minutes for Charles to tell Raven about experiencing Shaw's death, the coin ripping through his psyche, the hallucinations of Shaw, and the infrequent loss of control over his powers. She sat through it all, her face rearranged to a stellar poker face and the helmet on her lap for easy accessibility.

"This is how it started last time, Charles," Raven told him after a short period of silence. "what is different now?"

"Last time..." Charles trailed off as tears stung his eyes. Fighting back the tears, he bit his knuckle as he felt the bed dip behind him.

"Well, this is disheartening...she's confused, scared, not ready to face me again. She will do anything to not let that happen." Shaw chuckled.

"Last time what?"

"It wasn't just in my head." Charles told her. "Right now, there's...something broken inside me and I need help to fix it."

"Charles, that's what I've been trying to offer!" Raven cried out in frustration.

"No," Charles said shaking his head. "I do not need pills. I do not need to talk. I need a telepath, and we only know of one other."

as always special thanks to my beta Jess :)

Next chapter already 90% finished...