Part XI

The clearing was quiet. The others were long gone and darkness had fallen. Only a few insect noises broke the silence as Erik looked thoughtfully at the moon as it slowly cleared the horizon. When he finally began to speak, his voice sounded tired.

"I suppose your temper shouldn't have come as a surprise to any one. After all, it was truly my temper that frightened your mother so much that she ran from me. I don't believe it was the powers - what I remember of her words that I heard through my haze of battle... the powers surprised her, but they didn't scare her. It was the killing. She was a gentle soul born in horrid times. If I had lashed out in self-defense and killed, even then, I think she would have stayed. But I lost control - there is no other word for what I did that day than slaughter. She was a strong woman - she made up her mind that she could not live with the killer that I had become and she left. I don't know if you can appreciate how difficult that was for a woman of that time. The same determination and strength of spirit that got her through the camps saw her through to where she finally birthed you and Wanda."

Erik rubbed his right temple lightly, then looked briefly to Pietro.

"If I could go back in time, I think one thing that I would change is telling you and your sister that I was your father. It wasn't as if you were still of an age for a father to do you any good. I'm afraid all I managed was to muddle both of you emotionally. Rock what little stability you had gained. I hope you can believe that was never my intent. Looking back, it was selfishness on my part. You both had gained things that I had never managed. And I was lonely. So I bulled my way into your lives and frankly didn't do any of us any favors."

"When I left earlier, it was to find Creed. I needed to know where your sister was buried and I knew he'd remember. He was actually sorry for her death - which means neither he or Ororo were the ones that killed her. Unuscione did. From what they overheard, Wanda had been kept in the dark about there being children present when they attacked Creed's home and was highly upset with the rest of the group. You know Unuscione's temper. She took the same view of Wanda wanting to protect a feral child as she once viewed the X-Men for protecting humans. Wanda never saw the attack coming."

"Unuscione and the other two that had come on the mission were having an animated discussion about whether or not they might be able to convince me that Creed had attacked Wanda, who struck back and killed him before succumbing to her own wounds. Of course, Ororo and Creed rather removed the need for that argument. Does it feel strange that they were actually the avengers of Wanda's death instead of the cause of it?"

"Much as it pains me to admit it, I am, at least in part, to blame for Wanda's death. I have known many humans that were beyond the characterizations we tended to use. Your mother, for one. No-one should be more aware than I of just how much harm that sort of talk can cause, yet I allowed it and even encouraged it. Ususcione was a product of that. I knew the influence I had - I should have tempered my speech more, but .. that would have made me sound too much like Charles. And there was a time that I did all that I could to avoid sounding like Charles."

"Part of the curse of growing old. Looking back - seeing where a changed action or a different choice of words could have made life so different. Creed has an entirely different way of looking at things - not that it's hard to imagine the two of us not seeing eye to eye. A little harder to imagine, perhaps, that I begin to find his and Logan's viewpoints more... attractive is not really the word. Possibly sensible? Closer."

"Much as I have disparaged their intellect over the years, I cannot escape the fact that the two of them have formed a community that I would have to imagine even Charles would be proud of. Mutants, altereds, humans, various races, various religions - working together, raising their young. An occasional discordant noise, but more harmony than sour notes. The children are growing up with the idea of whatever talents they were born with are as natural as the air around them."

"You will have put a bit of caution into the children with what you did to the two girls, but mostly, you just made the community here that much stronger. Even the most timid among them are protective of the children - and the children's minds will have already made note of the lengths their adults went to in safeguarding them. When I decided to stay here, I made a promise myself - even if only to myself. To safeguard these children until, as Creed would put it, they are old enough to fight their own battles."

A soft sigh escaped him as the darkness grew deeper.

"These are Wanda's remains. I thought it most fitting that they be with you."

Kneeling, he laid the metal encased remains beside the other set of metal encased remains, using a short burst of power to meld them together before maneuvering another piece of metal to shove the piled dirt into the hole. He just remained there, looking at the dirt until a voice spoke behind him. The last voice he would have expected to hear.

"The scavengers are coming out - they're being drawn to the scent. It would be a good time to leave."

Turning his head, Erik saw Dorrie standing, left hand on a tree trunk and her tail switching slowly. Then he slowly rose and brushed off the dirt. He couldn't quite read the expression on her face, but she extended her right hand out to him. As he walked over, he thought back over the day's events. The alarm had first gone up shortly after a pair of squirrels had ran through.

"You don't miss much of what happens around here, do you, Dorrie?"

She just gave a slight smile and glanced to the treetops.

"I try not to. I have a lot of friends in high places."

He didn't take the offered hand, just let his gaze follow hers to the treetops. Then he started the walk back. Dorrie just clasped her hands behind her back and moved alongside. Her not saying anything at all bothered him a bit.

"Do you have anything you were wanting to say?"

She gave him a sideways glance as her tail switched again.

"No. Not really. I mean, I won't pretend that I understand, but if you can live with it, I certainly can."

Erik looked at her again - no, she wasn't being cruel. He hadn't thought so from her tone, but a look at her face confirmed in. Sorrowful but not condemning. He didn't think he would ever understand the woman. And told her so.

"Have I mentioned before that I find you incomprehensible?"

"I believe so. Possibly not those exact words. Why?"

"You've never been shy about letting your opinions be known. Why so quiet now?"

The tail switched another couple of times before she responded.

"What earthly good would it do? Nothing can be undone. Besides, that's pretty much the unforgivable - threatening a kitten."

"Kitten? You sound like Creed."

"Baby squirrels are often called kittens as well."

"Oh."

Then it hit him without warning - hard as a bolt fired from a crossbow. Magda. Wanda. Pietro. Falling to his knees as the totality of his losses hit him, he choked on a sob and then the tears began. As if she had been expecting this, Dorrie knelt in front of him, gathering him to her as if he was a child as she wrapped both her arms and tail around him, letting him weep as long as he needed.

Unknown to both, there were two pairs of eyes watching from the shadows. Logan gave a small frown as they kept an eye out to protect the two from the prowling scavengers.

"Think he'll be alright, Vic?"

"Yeh... he will, Jimmy. Me an' you both had t' kill folks we loved. We lived."

That took Logan off-guard. He knew that Vic knew about Mariko, but that Vic might have had a similar love? That was news to him.

Vic just gave his brother a side-glance.

"We all got our secrets, Runt. Now ain't th' time fer tellin' this one."