Chapter 5

"…'cos I don't wanna get over you,
I don't wanna get over you…"

~ "Sorrow", The National

Ororo had been outside one Sunday afternoon, working on their homework for Hank's class, when she heard a great clamor from the front gates of the school. As they watched, the gates opened on their own volition and allowed a group of people to enter.

As the group came closer, the student recognized them from a photo in a newspaper article.

She ran into the mansion and was grateful to find Hank in the nearby hallway. "Hank! The Brotherhood—they're here!" she exclaimed. "Or some of them—they're here—out front—"

The blue haired mutant hurried to the door, but paused and said, "Go inside in case this gets messy, Ororo. Quickly." Reluctantly, she did, though she watched from a cracked window.

Hank folded his arms as he waited on the front steps as the group approached. Ororo studied them as they neared. A helmeted man in his forties that she knew as Magneto; a blue-skinned, red-haired woman; a red-skinned man dressed in a sharp suit.

"What do you want, Magneto?" Hank asked, saying the name with a bitter edge.

The man was unperturbed by the vehement tone. "What happened to Charlotte?" It took Ororo a moment to realize he meant Professor X.

Alex soon joined Hank. "Do you mean before or after Cuba and Anya?" he asked coldly.

Staring out the window, Ororo tried to remember any reference before to Cuba but could think of nothing that would be so significant.

Magneto frowned momentarily before schooling his features to impassiveness. "You know very well what I mean, Alex. Within the past week, what has happened to her?"

The two teachers shared an alarmed glance. "What makes you think something's wrong?" Alex asked defensively.

Magneto snorted. "I have been corresponding with Charlotte for some time now. She never takes more than a day to reply unless she has given a warning beforehand. Something is obviously wrong; she has not replied in a week."

After a long moment, Hank sighed. "If we can trust you not to harm anyone while you are here, then you had better come in."

The two students exchanged a shocked look before they watched Hank led the three inside. Alex followed them, as if to keep an eye on them, but called over his shoulder, "Ororo, it's impolite to eavesdrop. I thought you had homework to do."

Hank led them to the sitting room and motioned for them to sit. "I'll be back momentarily," he said and went upstairs to Charlotte's room. He knocked quickly and entered.

"Professor?" he said quietly. "We have a few...visitors who want to see you."

She coughed heavily and asked hoarsely, "Who?"

"Magneto and Mystique," he replied. "And, um, Azazel, though I think he was their transport."

"Erik and Raven," she whispered to herself. The telepath nodded. "Alright, I'll see them in my study."

He did and wheeled the chair from her room down the hall to her study. She went to her desk and found several letters atop her desk, unopened. "Send them in, please, Hank," she asked. He nodded and went to retrieve them. While he did, she skimmed the letters she had missed.

Several minutes later, the door opened.

She smiled up at her guests. "Erik, Raven," she greeted warmly. "Come in, please." They did. Relief was on his face, reluctance on hers.

It had been more ten years since they had spoken face to face. Neither of them knew of the full extent of the injuries she had left that beach with.

"Why don't you both sit? Now, I must apologize for not replying to your letters, love. I was ill with pneumonia," she explained. "I am a bit more susceptible to it now. I was on bed rest for several days. That is why you got no reply. I never got your letters until now. I apologize for the worry. This is the first I've been out of my rooms in a few days."

Charlotte wheeled the chair out from behind the desk to see them.

"Oh, gott," Erik whispered, a hand covering his mouth.

Her sister's mouth parted in shock. "Please tell me that is because of the pneumonia," Raven said softly.

The telepath clenched her eyes shut and shook her head slightly. "It's not."

"Char, please stand up," the shapeshifter said shakily. Fear—denial—no, no, no—can't be—desperation—please, Charlotte— Her thoughts were in an uproar as she stared at her once-sister.

"I can't," the telepath snapped quietly. "I can't stand up."

Erik sat down into a chair in horror. "How...how long?"

She closed her eyes. "You know the answer, love. When I last saw you...that was the last time I stood."

He gave a pained noise. "I did this." The professor opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off. "Don't. You told me as much ten years ago. I did this." He took a shuddering breath. "Charlotte," he said roughly. "Why did you never mention...?"

"Because I knew what your reaction would be," she replied and smiled sadly. "You weren't the only ones who left the beach unchanged," she said quietly, but then reached for them. "Come here, Raven, give your sister a hug."

The blue woman did and hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. "And...I go by Mystique now," she added quietly.

"Yes, I've heard," the professor said with a small laugh and looked to the other. "Erik?"

Carefully, he came to her side, bent down, and embraced her gently, as if afraid she might break—afraid he would cause her more pain than he had already. "You should have told me. You let me live in ignorance of this for more than ten years."

"Oh, my love," she said, holding him there tightly. "I knew it would only hurt you more." She released him and he settled back into the chair.

Neither visitor replied for a moment. Mystique looked out the wide office windows to the sprawling campus below. "The school looks wonderful," she remarked. "Just like you dreamed."

Charlotte nodded proudly as she gazed out over her school. "Yes, I'm proud of it. It is missing a few important pieces, but otherwise, yes, it is very near that which I dreamed it could be."

Mystique momentarily wondered what she meant by missing pieces—if she meant Anya, if she meant Erik, if she meant her sister, if she meant all three.

"How are your students?" she inquired politely.

"Few, but well," the professor replied with a fond smile. "We have full staff now so we will be recruiting new students during the summer."

Her sister nodded, but glanced at Magneto. "It was good to see you again, Charlotte, but I'll go now." She stood and embraced Charlotte once more. "I hope you recover quickly. Good luck with your school."

Charlotte nodded. "Thank you, Raven. And...stay safe, please."

"No promises," she replied with a small smile and left Charlotte and Erik alone.

Silence filled the office for a moment. Charlotte wheeled her chair to sit beside him where he sat in the armchair across from her desk. "I apologize for worrying you, love," she told him, "but I am glad to see you again."

He nodded. "It is good to see you again as well." Erik studied her face—aged ten years since he had last seen her, with silver threading her dark brown hair. There were gentle lines around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes had remained the same blue as ever, if slightly sadder as she met his gaze. "You're getting old," he noticed quietly.

She laughed softly. A hand went to his temple, where his hair, longer than it had been before, was beginning to turn white. "Yes, we both are, aren't we?"

He nodded in agreement. He felt older than his forty-some years.

His eyes strayed to her desk, on which he could see his recently opened letters. To the left of those, however...He pulled the metallic object to him and held it up for inspection.

"It is the bullet you stopped," she explained quietly. "That day during our training."

Erik nodded, memory flooding back from that day.

...Seeing her putting the gun to her far quicker than he had thought she could move...her hand pulling the trigger... "No!"...her proud expression after he stopped the bullet...telling him, "Oh, I have faith in you, love..."

"You kept it," he said, surprised.

The professor smiled. "Yes. I was proud of you and it was a fond keepsake from a good time."

His hand went to his breast pocket and extracted a very different bullet from a very different moment in time.

"Ah," she whispered when she saw it in his palm. The bullet was small and crumpled with dried blood in the creases. Her blood.

Once, in her study over a quiet, private game of chess (filled with imparted secrets and thoughts shared between them), he had extracted a small Reichsmark coin from his pocket. He carried it with him always since he was a child. "A reminder," he'd said. She'd stared at the coin and asked, "Of what?" Erik had levitated the coin into the air, spinning slowly as they watched. "Of the unforgiveable. Of the unforgettable."

He had left the coin on a Cuban beach. It was also there that he had picked up a new reminder: the bullet.

"What's this a reminder of?" she asked softly.

Erik looked up to her, eyes roaming over her face from under his helmet, before replying quietly, "Of things I can neither forget nor forgive. Of things and people I have lost. Of things I can never change...Of you."

"Erik..." She stared at him wordlessly.

With his free hand, he slowly removed the helmet.

For the first in ten years, she could feel him, could feel his mind for the first time since that day on the beach. She took a long moment at the sensation of feeling his long-missed presence. Only then did she dip into his mind.

It was a well of regret, of guilt. She realized he kept the bullet with him, in his pocket, always: a reminder of the price he was paying for his actions, of the loss he had sustained, of his mistakes, of the possible future he had forfeited…

It pained him to see the wheelchair, to realize the full extent of how he had hurt her, how much he had taken from her: In one fell swoop, I took her best friend and her sister…and now I discover I have taken from her any possibility of walking ever again.

She leaned over and kissed him gently. "Erik, I forgave you many years ago. Do not linger on what you could have done differently to change this. A thousand little things contributed. The fault does not lie solely with you, love."

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. If I had one wish, it would be to change this.

"I know," she told him softly. "But we both know it would not have ended much better if we had…

"We are too proud to give up our beliefs, too stubborn, too arrogant in our belief that we are right. It would only have hurt us more."

In his mind, he was staring at her—disabled, forever hurt, never able to walk again, because of him.

Nothing could hurt more than this, Liebling.

She smiled tightly, determined not to let herself shed another tear. Her throat felt pin-hole thin and she took a calming breath. "I hope in time you can find it in you to forgive yourself, because I already have," she told him.

He nodded and tucked the whole bullet back to the desk and returned the other to his pocket. His hand paused in his pocket before he withdrew a worn photograph.

The professor's inhalation was soft but sharp. "Oh, Erik," she said softly as she stared at the old ultrasound photo.

"She would have been like you," he said quietly. "Your brain, your warmth. Our stubbornness. Your eyes."

"Don't," she whispered, laying a hand on his arm. "Don't make me think of maybes and could-have-beens. It hurts too much."

He tucked the photo away carefully and then embraced her softly, both giving and receiving comfort.

Several minutes later, she straightened. "Come now, I believe Raven and Azazel are waiting for you."

I expect you will continue to write, then? He inquired, picking up his helmet as he stood.

Yes, I shall. Goodbye, my love.

Auf Wiedersehen, meine Liebe, [1] he replied and then his mind was gone again, hidden by the helmet.

"I'll show you out," she said and led him from the study.

Raven and Azazel were in the sitting room, sitting in silence, with Hank and Alex. Charlotte sighed at the sight of them. "Honestly, you two, at least try being hospitable," she scolded, though it was with a smile. "Were they here to attack, they would have done it by now and the same for Erik. He could have killed me with my underwire long ago."

The boys flushed and sputtered. Raven's lips quirked up slightly in amusement. Erik simply rolled his eyes.

The telepath looked to the other two guests. "Thank you both for coming," she said as they all stood and prepared to leave. "Stay safe, Raven, please. Azazel, thank you for being our messenger." The teleporter gave a short bow of acknowledgement.

"And Erik," she said as they turned to leave. "Ich liebe dich." [2]

He smiled. "Ich liebe dich auch." [3]

And then they were gone. Again.

German Translations:

[1] "Goodbye, my love."

[2] "I love you."

[3] "I love you too."