Thanks to AnnaStormRogers and Voodoo for reviewing!
Travel with a teleporter was very simple. Everyone joined hands and in the blink of an eye, they were outside the mansion. The office building disappeared and everyone's eyes adjusted slowly to the light of the moon, the stars, and a few cheery windows.
Ruth offered her hand to Erik. After a moment, he shook.
"You are a cold, efficient man and I would never trust you with my life or those of my friends," she stated, "but you are the man to get the job done."
"And you are an insufferable woman," he returned, "and indispensable in a fight. If you ever tire of his moralizing and naïve sermons—you know better, I think. You would be welcome among us."
"I enjoy the moralizing. Like an erudite puppy."
"Aw, just screw and get it over with, you two," Sean teased.
"Yeah. I needa go in an'… bed." Alex's energy was swiftly dwindling.
Sean and Alex started toward the house.
"I'm going, too," Raven announced. "Just for a minute. Come with me?" The last was directed at Erik.
Ruth hesitated. "This may be… not the best idea."
"No," Hank said. He shook his head. "No, Charles will want to see her."
Emma and Azazel, to whom Charles meant nothing, elected to wait outside. Angel did, too. This had been enough for her, working with Sean and Alex again.
This late, somehow, they thought the others might be asleep. If he knew his little brother would be standing there the second he walked through the door, Alex would have tried to do away with the blood. His face was bloody. His chest and abdomen were bloody. His t-shirt was not only bloody but ragged and torn.
It wasn't how he wanted Scott seeing him. Not the one of the pair who remembered their parents' death.
"I'm okay," he said. He tried to hold his jacket together, hiding some of the blood.
"But—you're—you look—"
"He's okay," Sean assured him.
Scott wasn't convinced. That much was clear.
The other students clustered behind Scott, looking curious and concerned but none so upset. Charles looked more patient. He saw that Alex and Sean were, while not in the best state, well and whole.
"Hey—c'mere." Alex motioned Scott over and hugged him. Ninety percent of the time, Alex didn't hug. Now he was too relieved and too tired to care. It was a drop of comfort and a good dealing of leaning, but there was affection in it, too. "I'm not goin' out that easy."
"So."
Erik stood just inside the door. Someone who looked like Angel stood beside him, both looking between the gaggle of children and a man they never thought would opt to work with the less mature set. Charles, working with the under-eighteens? Now Erik understood his friend's reluctance to let him wander the halls, insisting the others meet him at the gate.
"This," he realized, "is what you tried to keep from me."
Alex maneuvered himself and his brother away from the situation—"I really need to turn in, I'm runnin' out of sand here." That was addressed at Charles, partly explanation and partly request for permission. The slight nod was all he needed. "Help me out here, twerp, make yourself useful." It was a kick in the danglers for his pride, but it got the job done.
Erik was a powerful speaker and his reasoning was difficult to dispute. He offered a surety Charles did not, a chance to protect oneself while Charles wanted to protect others. Purely on his own moral convictions, Alex stayed with the X-Men, but Erik's side had very tempting rhetoric.
It wasn't a choice his little brother needed to face.
Charles turned to Ruth and asked, "Are you all right?"
"Yes, of c—oh," she realized. She had kissed Alex not ten minutes ago and still had his blood smeared across her mouth. "Yes, it belongs to someone else. Don't suppose I shall return it. You have discovered my secret vampirity, I see."
"Vampirism," Doug piped up.
That proved to be a mistake. Before, the adults were aware of the students but had more pressing matters. Now their attention was on the teenagers.
"And I assume this is no longer a school night for the rest of you," Ruth stated, giving the students a meaningful look. She had stepped away from being a soldier, a fighter, whatever she had been. Now she was a teacher again and not happy with her students.
"But—" Ororo objected.
"C'mon." Laurie started to tug her down the hallway by her t-shirt.
"Quit it!"
"Enough," Ruth snapped. "I am counting, you have until eser."
"Until what?" Laurie asked.
"Until—" Doug began. His ability allowed him to understand anything he heard or read, regardless of the language. He was clever enough to see when Ruth's expression meant 'shut it, right now', and obeyed.
"If I did not know, I would hurry," Ruth advised.
"C'mon," Ororo taunted, tugging at Laurie's t-shirt.
Doug gave a long-suffering look before heading after the two bickering girls.
"I never imagined you would have children around," Erik commented, "not voluntarily."
"Neither did I," Charles admitted. He did not point out that it hadn't been voluntary, not at first. No one forced him to take Scott in, besides needing to be able to look at himself in the mirror.
"So what is this, some sort of school?"
"That's exactly what it is." Charles leaned aside, getting a better look at the girl behind Erik. He recognized Angel, of course. More than he recognized her face, though, he recognized the mind inside it. "Will you come in?"
"We don't have time," Erik replied. "A school, Charles? You were going to be a genetics professor, now you teach the ABC's. How could you let this happen to yourself?"
"Erik—" Charles began, harsh and cold. How could Erik—of all people—the man responsible for his paraplegia—how dare he!
Charles stopped at a gentle hand on his shoulder. He rarely understood her thoughts. Ruth thought in Hebrew, the cadences and syntax a language very different to those Charles understood. This one he heard loud and clear: if you are ashamed of them, I am ashamed of you.
"I don't need to explain myself to you and there is nothing wrong with what I am doing here. Some of their mutations are dangerous—to them or those around them," he said. "I would think you of all people could appreciate the need for mutant children to be protected."
"Mutants." This made more sense to Erik. "All of them?"
Charles nodded. "Every one."
Erik looked around. He had been in this building before and it had changed little, but he seemed to see something different this time. "This is your home and little would cause me to bring any conflict here, but so long as this is a home for young mutants," he declared, "it has my protection."
From the look on Charles's face, he was neither thrilled nor certain about that protection. "It's a home for all mutants," he said. "That includes you, if you want it."
"Good night, Charles."
"Good night, Erik." Before they turned to go, Charles added, "Raven?"
She paused. "You knew."
"Of course."
Angel's form melted away. Her hair became red, her skin became blue, and something akin to scales grew over patches of her body. She lacked the intimate physical characteristics usually kept concealed and, as such, was naked.
He wasn't comfortable with that, but he didn't flinch. The pity in her eyes was more difficult.
Over the past year, Charles had become so accustomed to what he now was, he sometimes forgot it was new to others. He was used to being in a wheelchair. Necessaries in the house were adjusted. Thanks to Hank, Charles had access to the bomb shelter. He could dress and bathe himself and was over the shame of those being accomplishments.
He missed things. Of course he did. Having so many able-bodied young people around reminded Charles that while he had never goofed around the way they did, now he no longer had the option. He couldn't run or wrestle or play football. He couldn't do other things, too—well, he could, but not that anyone would—not now, not with him being as he was—as Ruth's presence reminded him.
But he was still a complete person, in his mind and his life if not his body.
Raven looked at him and saw a cripple. She saw him broken and there had been a time Charles would have agreed with her.
"Raven."
He reached out to her and she froze.
"It's not a choice, Raven. You do what you need to do, but when you are ready to come home…"
Raven reached toward him. "You'll let me?" she guessed.
Charles shook his head. "No," he said. "I'll welcome you."
Her fingers brushed against his and she flinched back like she had been burned. Without another word, Raven turned away.
Erik turned to leave with her. He paused just long enough to look Ruth in the eyes. She stood behind Charles and that moment of eye contact decidedly excluded him. "If you change your mind…"
"I adore puppies," Ruth replied.
Erik smiled a grim, cold, disturbingly happy smile.
Then they left, him and Raven, leaving the entry hall suddenly very empty with four people crowded into it.
"So, uh…"
Hank hadn't spoken since walking through the door. The look on his face then left 'awkward' in the dust.
"Debrief," Ruth suggested. "Tomorrow morning, perhaps?"