Author´s note:

Wow, a whole lot of reviews on the last chappy. Nice :-) Thanks a lot guys.

2wingo: Awww, thanks. Yeah, I wanted to keep the situation somewhat open and cliff-hangery. Hope that worked, but judging from your reaction it seems so.

PsychoSpiff: Good to hear ;-)

KumadaPuma: Oh, good, because I wanted readers to grow suspitious during the fighting scene already. I tried to describe "Pyro" fight light Mystique would...and found it was incredibly hard...especially if English isn´t your mother tongue. Nice to hear you like the story and my portrayal of Magneto. I base this purely on Ian McKellen´s acting and hope this works. Oh, judging from your bio I just found another McKellen fan:-D

Meow: Glad you liked it. So wondered I.

BlueFlyhight: Another new reviewer, welcome:-) Hm... I´m not yet sure whether I liked the scene after the credits as I did not feel that shocked by Charles´ death. I thought he´d die before I saw the movie and was proven right. All I hoped for was that Erik wouldn´t be killed. I agree, their friendship is essential to th plot and to Erik´s life.

Okay, here´s chappy 10 for you guys.

Chapter 10

Shape shifter tricks

He did not know what he was supposed to feel. He had no idea what she expected him to say or what he would say, as nothing had prepared him for this moment. Since he had seen her, seen Raven, in the city a few days ago, the thought of her showing up at the lair had occurred occasionally, but he had never considered it in depth as he would never have thought her to actually show up, although he could not find reasons for his arguments.

"You didn´t expect me to come back, did you?" Her voice had not changed... or, indeed, it had changed a lot again since he had last heard her speak. The deep, resonating, mysterious voice was so different from the voice of the human, lying naked on the floor of the convoy, whispering his name in desperation and misery.

"I don´t know what I expected" was all he could manage in return. He did not move, did not stand up or make any attempt to release her.

"As I thought." she said, her eyes not straying away from his, a barely concealed fury still obvious in her yellow, reptile-like gaze. "Thinking I would not come back, thinking the great Magneto was the only one to regain his powers."

He scowled and briefly considered her thought only to find this had indeed been what he had thought. When he had found his powers were beginning to recover, he had never for some reason considered the possibility of hers to do likewise. The fact that he was a class 4 mutant, stronger than most, stronger than Mystique and her abilities of a shape shifter that were classified as 3, had been enough to ban this thought or not even let it occur. Or maybe his own euphoria had made him that blind to what might happen to Mystique... and others. He had been a fool indeed.

She gave the band of metal which was still tightly slung around her blue ankle and locked to the ground a long, disgusted look. "Too much of a coward to talk like equals, Erik?" she said. He got up and while doing so waved his hand. The metal bond fell to the ground. He felt tired, but realized it was a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. It was more.

"Why have you come here, Mystique?" he said, feeling anger with himself for not being able to sort out his emotions in this moment. He did not know what he was feeling, what he was supposed to feel. He couldn´t tell whether it was happiness, fear, insecurity.. maybe a bit of all. She, on the other side, seemed to be clear about her emotions. With a swift and gracious movement she got up and looked him straight into the eyes. "My first thought was to kill you." she said blatantly and he was not surprised to hear these words. She shook her head slightly. "After being loyal to you all these years... I would have let them kill me only to make sure you survived." She stepped a little closer and he had to fight his urge to back away. "When I was lying on that floor, when I saw what happened, I wished their ammunition had been lethal. And even if I had known it was the poison... even if I had registered it... I still would have jumped."

He knew. He knew that every word she spoke was the truth. Had she kicked or hit him again, this could hardly have hurt him more.

"But you... you walked away."

He shook his head. "I..." his throat was feeling dry. "I had no choice then. I did not leave Mystique behind. The person I left there was a human."

She gave a low and joyless chuckle. "I did never consider you to be so stupid, Erik." she just said. "It was you who once taught me to accept yourself. To accept what you are. And when I really needed you most, you turned your back on me."

He replied nothing, for deep inside him he could understand her. He had abandoned her, he had left her there and then, not even looking back, not even thinking about how she might feel, lying there, being a helpless human being. There had been a moment later, however, when he had known what it must have been like for her... and this had been the moment when he had been lying on his back with four needles in his chest.

She waited, tormented him for a few seconds, but obviously did not expect an answer from him. Then she turned around and began to walk towards the door. "So..." she then said, her voice being almost as she had always sounded. Superior with a slight hint of mockery. "The news were full of what was said happened to Magneto at Alcatraz. I take it they were wrong?"

"The cure has begun to wear of" he replied, for the first time not feeling joy when saying or thinking this.

"Oh, really?" She gave him a half mocking, half angry glare over her shoulder.

"I thought you to be smart enough to guess this Erik. It will wear off eventually." She turned around "The antidote did not kick in. Mutations can´t be ´cured´ like this." she remarked. "You, of all people, should have known."

He stepped closer, reached for her, trying to touch her upper arm. Wanting to let her know with this simple gesture that what he had done to Raven Darkholme was nothing he would ever have done to Mystique.

She reacted with her usual speed. With one quick movement she whirled around and he found himself pinned to the iron wall. Their eyes met, hers ablaze with fury. "Don´t." she snarled. "Don´t touch me ever again, Eric Lehnsherr!" Then, she released him and walked out.

He knew she would stay. As independent and proud as she had always been, he knew that in some respect she was just like him: they were outcasts... outcasts again... and just like him, she would not live in disguise any longer, not pretending to be a human and live among them as she could have done easily. Since a short time after she had begun living with him, she had abandoned her disguise only using her mutation for a purpose whatever way this purpose was. Apart from that, she had always been proud of her mutation, proud of being different...because he had taught her this was the only way of living worthy of someone like her. And Erik knew she would go on like this. She would stay, she would not go back to where ever she had been, pretending to be a homo sapiens.

Still, things had changed and after all these years Erik had the feeling they were strangers to each other. Or at least it felt just like this, like the two of them were surrounded by an invisible wall of regret or disappointment that, at least for the moment, could not be overcome.

He had not seen her for the rest of the day, only when he entered the kitchen late in the evening he found her sitting on the kitchen counter drinking a can of coke. She loved coke in cans. He scowled slightly while he walked over to the fridge, pondering how Pyro had been sitting at exactly the same place days ago.

"It hasn´t been you all the time, has it?" he asked casually, not really expecting her to answer. He knew the answer already. A shapeshifter she might be, but whoever she became during her transformation, she only took over the homo sapien abilities and appearances. She could take over the Wolverine´s claws when she turned him, but not his healing powers. And likewise, she could not have been Pyro in disguise all the time, because Pyro had manipulated fire balls in his presence and Mystique in disguise couldn´t have done the like.

"Of course not" she gave back. "being around you all these days would have been a danger for you more than you dare guessing Erik. Had I been around you all the time, I don´t know whether I could have held myself back."

He nodded and knew in an instant that only this afternoon he had not been encountering Pyro, but Mystique. "I knew it." he said. "This was not Pyro´s fighting. Pyro doesn´t fight."

She laughed dryly. "Liar." she gave back. "You didn´t know. It wouldn´t have been the first time I tricked you." Their eyes met and they both smiled before they realised what they were doing.

He lowered his gaze. "True." He just said.

Yes, she had tricked him, he mused. She had done so several times and he had never been angry with her, because for him, these little tricks had always been fun. They had always been an expression of Mystique´s joy in and pride for being a mutant. The very day he had grown to know that the mutation of the blue girl that was living with him was more than a catlike agility and talent in any kind of martial arts, he had been a little angry... not because of what her mutation had turned out, but because of the circumstances under which she had revealed it to him. He was sure she still snickered about this event at times. She had used to give him knowing and teasing glares whenever a woman with brown hair and green eyes walked by where ever they were, reminding him teasingly on how she had played a prank on him once, making him believe that the brunette beauty he had only recently met in a café was nothing more than that... a brunette beauty.

They did not talk for another few moments, until, to his surprise, she started their conversation again. "Since when do you know?" she asked and he knew in an instant what she was referring to. "I was in a park." he said "And one of the chess pieces moved when I focussed on it. At this time, however I thought it to be the wind or my own misperception. It was Pyro who in the end made me discover that I was recovering." she nodded, but did not add her share of the story.

"You played chess?" she asked. "On your own? Erik, that´s poor."

He smiled.

"I never played chess a lot. Actually, I hated it" she said and he did not know why she was picking on this topic, until she jumped off the counter, placed the coke can on the table and gave him an undefined look, before she turned to leave the room, impersonating a little girl´s voice when saying: "My dad told me how to play this."