Trust me, I've been waiting for this update just like you guys. xD

I'm yet to finish writing the rest of this story, but so far I've done everything up to Chapter 12 - still unedited, but we'll get to that eventually. I'm afraid that it'll take longer for me to finish this story than I'd originally planned. I'm moving out of home and into a dormitory next week, right before classes start. And to be quite frank, I am terrified. I've never been away from my family for more than two days. I have roommates that I'm friends with, but still.

I'm going to try to speedrun this shit and have it finished by next week, but it's highly unlikely. But not to worry, ellesmer won't abandon ship! We WILL get through this. Just please, be patient with me. My nerves are out of whack and I've just been so exhausted this past month, I barely got to touch this story. I'm sorry you guys. :(

But enough drama about me. Let's get back to Charya!

(WARNING: Slight sexual content in this chapter. Nothing too explicit, as I'm not willing to change the rating just yet, but you'll get the picture.)

Do forgive any errors, and enjoy!

Chapter 4

After eating dinner at the mansion, Arya went into town to buy ice cream, as she had promised Charles. It was meant to be a quick trip; the movie was waiting, and neither she nor Charles could sleep too late, because they still had classes to teach in the morning.

She had already paid and was on her way to the car when she saw Rob. He was standing all the way on the other side of the parking lot, but despite the distance, it was obvious that he was staring right at her.

Something like that normally wouldn't have fazed her. Anyone who knew Creepy Robby was bound to become a subject of one of his stare-downs, and they'd get used to it. But what got Arya's heart racing was the fact that his eyes were glowing red, and he had a sort of sneer on his face that didn't look particularly friendly.

She gawked. In an astonished whisper, she said, "You're a mutant?"

There was a reason that she couldn't have known, and that was because she had never removed her gloves outside of the campus before. Nothing had ever happened to force her to such extreme measures.

But in all her years of knowing Rob, he had never shown any kind of emotion. Joy, sadness, anger—a lot of people thought that he couldn't feel anything at all, and that it was some kind of aftereffect from having participated in two wars. His face had always been blank, detached, which was why Arya felt more frightened than she should have been when she saw the apparent, angry scowl resting on his mouth.

He took a step forward, and she took a step back; in doing so, her back hit the side of her car. The dull thud snapped her out of her shocked stupor. Hurriedly, she slipped both her gloves off and thrust her hands out, making sure that he saw the symbols on her palms. She wasn't sure why she thought that it would frighten him, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.

"What do you want, Rob?" she demanded. "Food? Money? Shelter? I can get you all those things. You don't have to hurt me."

As soon as the words left her mouth, the red light in his eyes grew brighter. It felt as though his gaze was burning into her skin, cutting into flesh, tearing through muscle, searing through bone—

Suddenly, Arya felt something poking at her mental walls. It didn't feel like Charles, and it definitely wasn't Jean.

Arya willed the tendrils of her mutation forward. They shot through the air like bullets, bullets that only she could see.

She made to Breach his mind and stop his mutation in its tracks, but she found her path blocked by an iron wall. No matter where she looked, she couldn't find a crack that she could force herself into. It surpassed even Charles' mental ability to block her, which startled her.

A look of unpracticed ease was on his face. Desperately, Arya tried knocking down his walls with blunt force. It didn't work. Some part of her hadn't expected it to. The only option left was to touch him, but he was still so far away.

He was still prodding at her mind, looking for a way in. His attacks were heavy, relentless, forcing Arya's face to scrunch up in concentration. She refused to grant him entry, refused to let him know about Charles and the Institute.

Inwardly, she cursed herself. Why had she never thought to look more into Rob? Why had she never thought that his constantly staring at her was suspicious? Why had she never thought to see if he might've known her, or if he might've been a mutant? Stupid, stupid, stupid—

And then quickly, unexpectedly, she felt him slip into her mind.

She tried, frantically, to chase him down and throw him back out, but he was already in too deep.

She'd imagined the inside of her head to be like a massive office. Behind the desk was where she sat, holding a pen and writing down every single thought that crossed her mind. Standing by the walls were dozens and dozens of filing cabinets, where her memories and ideas were stored away in folders bursting with sheets of paper.

And if someone, without her consent, chose to read her mind (which had never happened before), she'd imagined it to be like having a tidal wave crash over the room. The desk, the papers and the filing cabinets would be swept away, free to be read by the person who had invaded her privacy.

But it didn't happen like that. Instead, it was like having a ghost slip into the room. Her mind numbed, and it was as if all her thoughts ceased to exist for that moment in time. The ghost flitted across the room, looking through the filing cabinets but never actually paying attention to any of the written words.

It was looking for something very specific.

It stopped at a corner in the room, where the shadows of her mind could be found. There, the ghost pulled out a folder, opened it, and Arya's mind was suddenly filled with her one waking nightmare.

All the people she had ever come to know rested on the ground, lined up like prisoners who had been shot on death row. Their faces were unseeing, and their blood pooled beneath them, soaking into the soil and coloring it black. She looked at each of their faces in horror.

Her parents, Chloe, Charles, Raven, Hank, Alex, Sean, and Jean… even Erik was there, and she barely felt anything for him anymore—and she was standing above them, untouched and alive.

The vision was whipped away from her, and then she was standing in the parking lot again. But she was in front of Rob, with her hand holding his wrist in a vice like grip, and she could vaguely recall that it hadn't been like that when he'd entered her mind.

Rob was looking at her with wide eyes. "How did you do that?"

It was the first time she'd ever heard his voice. It was hoarse, scratchy, like he hadn't used it in a long time (which could very well be the case.) She hated it.

"If you weren't an old man, and if we weren't in a public parking lot, you would be dead right now," she growled.

The shock left his face, replaced by casual disenchantment. "So you can halt mutations," he remarked. "Is that all you can do?"

"I'm not telling you anything."

"I know who you are." It sounded vaguely like a threat. "I know that you were involved with what happened in D.C. ten years ago, and I know that you know who and where Magneto is."

She backed up but kept her hand on his wrist, not willing to let his powers free just yet. "What do you want?"

"You're weak," he said. A steely glint crept into his eyes. "I want to make you stronger."

"Why?"

"So you can protect the ones you love. So you can keep them from dying, let them have a full life… Something I wasn't able to do when I could still do it."

So he's lost someone, Arya thought, trying to figure out his motives. In the war, maybe. That could explain the constant, haunted look in his eyes, as if he had seen every horrible thing there was to see.

She narrowed her eyes. "How do I know that I can trust you?"

"You can't," he said. "But you have to trust me anyway."

"I don't have to trust anyone, especially not you."

"You will if you want your husband to stay alive."

Glaring, Arya struggled to think of a biting response. Of course he knew about Charles; if she had to guess, she'd say that it was him who had given her that frightening vision. He must not have read her mind after all, not the entirety of it, at least. He knew Charles, but he didn't know that they weren't married.

"He's not my husband," she ended up saying, and to her own surprise, she sounded without conviction.

If Rob noticed, he didn't show it. "But you love him," was all he said. "He is vulnerable, along with the rest of them. And I can assure you that they will die, unless you let me help you."

Your failure; all your loved ones, lying dead in front of you. That should have been enough. She wanted it to be.

But she just couldn't bring herself to trust a complete stranger—a mutant who had practically been stalking her for the past ten years. Had she been younger, more naïve, she would have agreed to his proposition without a second thought. But now she knew that there were mutants like Erik, those who strived to gain your trust and discard it whenever they pleased, again and again.

And it would be her who paid the price.

"I want to get stronger. I will," she told him. "But I've known you for years and today is the first time you've talked to me, about power. I'm sorry, but it seems too convenient. I can't trust you."

Slowly, she pulled her hand away from his wrist, and she saw the bright light of his mutation return to the center of his head. Pulsating. Stretching outward.

She barely had time to register how stupid of an idea it was, to let go of him, before she was enveloped in yet another vision.

She was back on that beach in Cuba. Their old group—Hank, Alex, Sean, and Raven—were huddled around a lone figure lying on the sand.

Erik was there, cradling Charles' head on his lap. Arya was prepared for the pain in his eyes, his bared teeth. She wasn't prepared for the open wound that was on his chest, gushing blood and tainting his X-suit red. He wasn't breathing.

"Stop," Arya said. A strangled whisper. "Take it away."

It all seemed too real. The only thing that kept her anchored to sanity was the memory of that day, the real memory. Moira's bullet hadn't killed him, only paralyzed him. He was alive. He was waiting for her, back at the mansion.

Erik began strangling Moira. It's not real, Arya told herself. But the image of Charles' unseeing eyes still made her sick.

Rob's hoarse voice reached her ears.

"Nothing is more hateful than failing to protect the one you love," he said. "Let me help you. Let me make you strong."

Charles was silent, unmoving. The light in his eyes was gone, but he looked to be at peace, surrounded by the ones he loved.

Arya never wanted to see the scene again.

"Okay," she said.

The vision dissipated. Rob was staring hard at her. "Meet me here tomorrow, at sunset."

She nodded. Wordlessly, she turned around and entered her car. She placed the grocery bag on the passenger seat, pushed the key into the ignition, turned it, and drove away. In the rearview mirror, she saw Rob standing in the middle of the parking lot, watching her go. She turned a corner, and he was gone.

What the hell was she going to say to Charles?

Nothing, she told herself, on her way upstairs to her room. You'll tell him nothing. He didn't need to know. She could go out in secret, make up some half-assed excuse that was reasonable enough for him to believe it. Oh, but she hated lying to him.

She tried balancing out her guilt with the fact that she'd be improving fairly quicker with her abilities (with Rob's help), and that Charles would be proud of her. It wasn't enough. And when she saw him sitting on her bed, sans wheelchair, she was barely able to keep it together.

"About time," he said, holding his arms out to her.

She put the ice cream down and snuggled up to him, breathed him in. "Sorry, I got held up… by their cash register, no less."

"Again?"

"You really can't get a decent fix in Westchester nowadays, can you?"

And then she felt him move closer to her, tangling their legs together. She pulled back, wide-eyed, and he was grinning coyly. "Are you so sure about that?"

"You took the serum," she murmured, unsure what she should feel. He had his legs back, but for the price of his telepathy; she couldn't know which was more important, then, with his body pressed against hers and his breath on her neck.

"It'll only last for a couple of hours. Besides…" He pulled her collar down a bit and placed a chaste kiss on her shoulder. "I've missed you."

Despite herself, a slight blush crept into her cheeks. Tilting her head, she captured his lips with hers, deciding to humor him. For a few precious moments, she stayed in that state of joy. She knew she would never get tired of him. Never.

The elation, the whirlwind of sensations—she wanted to bottle it all up and keep it with her forever. But then, she remembered what had happened in the parking lot of the grocery store, what she had agreed to. She remembered that she would lie to him—would have to lie.

She gave him one last kiss before pulling away, forcing a smile onto her face. "The ice cream will melt if we don't eat it soon," she gently scolded.

"There's a freezer."

"No, we'll finish our little session later, after the movie."

Charles groaned, obviously disgruntled by her decision. After twenty years of being together, Arya had learned that the only way to make him feel better was to annoy him. Not enough to make him mad, but just enough to make him want to get back at her. She handed him a spoon and a tub of ice cream, and flicked his ear.

"Ow!"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, like that actually hurt."

"It did!"

Humming, she put the movie in, snatched a spoon and a tub of ice cream for herself, and returned to sit beside Charles. Shoulder to shoulder, they pulled the lids off of the cartons and took their first bites of the ice cream, just as the movie started.

Arya watched the opening credits with a growing sense of excitement. From time to time, she would glance at Charles, wanting to see his reaction to every single thing, and little by little, her conversation with Creepy Robby slipped away into the back of her mind.

Some country-folk song started playing from the TV, and Arya reverted her attention to the movie. Two men were driving down a straight road; it was dark out, and they were singing along to a cassette tape. After a few minutes, the tape broke, and they started playing a Name That Tune game.

Charles was amused by it so far. The acting was great, but Arya knew what was going to happen, hence her excitement.

Eventually, the men's conversation turned to The Twilight Zone, the series.

"Hey," the passenger said, after a few minutes of banter from the both of them. "You wanna see something really scary?"

"You bet," said the driver.

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, this is really, really scary now."

"I trust you."

"Okay… Pull the car over."

Arya was practically jumping in her seat by then. Charles could sense her anticipation but couldn't make any sense of it.

The driver in the movie was equally skeptical. "Pull the car over?" he said.

"You wanna see it?" the passenger urged.

"Well, show me while I'm driving."

"No, I can't—I can't tell you about it. It's only a couple of seconds."

"Alright. Two seconds, okay? What is it?"

"Just pull it over. I'll show you."

"Okay."

Taking a large spoonful of ice cream, Arya very subtly scooted away from Charles. The better to see his face when it finally happened. In the movie, the driver pulled over at the side of the road and faced his friend.

"Scare me," he said.

The passenger looked so excited, and Arya couldn't help but to wonder whether she looked like him at that moment. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Okay, go ahead."

Arya wasn't even looking at the TV anymore. She was watching Charles out of the corner of her eye.

The man in the passenger seat turned away from the camera, making Charles hum thoughtfully—an attractive sound coming from the back of his throat that turned into a yelp of surprise and terror once the passenger turned around again.

As the passenger-turned-monster proceeded to attack the driver, Arya was sprawled across the pillows, shoulders trembling with the force of her laughter. "Your face!" she said into a pillow.

"What the fuck was that?" Charles practically yelled. Arya tried to shush him, she wanted to, but the profanity that left his mouth just sent her into another string of laughter. He stared at her in bewilderment. "What movie is this? What movie did you pick out?"

The narrator had been speaking, accompanied by a familiar score. And just as Charles asked his question, the narrator said, "You've just crossed over into… The Twilight Zone."

The movie's title screen came up, and Charles read it out loud. "The Twilight Zone," he said. "I thought that was a television series."

"They made it into a movie," Arya replied, still gasping for air.

"And you thought that it would be good for date night?" It sounded more like a statement than a question. He had crossed his arms, and there was an embarrassed flush to his cheeks.

Hastily, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his stomach. "Sorry, babe," she said in a whiny voice, earning her a raised eyebrow.

"Babe?"

Arya shrugged.

Sniggering, he pulled her closer to him, so that her head was resting on his shoulder, both of them resolutely staring at the television. "Come on. Let's get back to the movie."

It took them a few minutes to get back into the groove of things. Once they had established that it was an anthology type of movie, and that none of it was really connected to one another, Charles finally understood why Mr. William Connor was there and in a bar in the first place.

When the freight car containing William Connor pulled away to a concentration camp, and as the third segment began, Arya's thoughts travelled elsewhere, very far away from the movie.

She was wondering about Rob, about what he could do to help her. It was obvious that he had some sort of telepathic ability, considering their previous encounter. But it didn't seem to be like Charles' or Jean's. When he had invaded her mind, his mutation had searched for something very specific; it was almost automatic—unintentional, even.

And then there was his resilient mental wall, even thicker than Charles', and as far as Arya knew, Charles was the most talented telepath in the world.

Arya was looking forward to learning more about Rob. But in the same way, she knew that Rob was looking forward to learn more about her as well.

She was anything but willing to give away all her secrets.

An argument had erupted from the television, followed by a loud scream. Arya came back to her senses just as the character, Uncle Walt, pulled his hand out of the top hat. A large, monstrous rabbit popped out, trembling, teeth bared. Charles startled beside Arya, making her jump as well and reflexively reach for his arm.

When Anthony, the young boy who had summoned the Rabbit, finally banished it from his sight, Arya relaxed against Charles.

"Jesus," he muttered.

"You should have seen Hank's face when we first watched this," she told him. "He was scared out of his mind."

"How much longer does this go on for?"

"Just one more segment, I think."

Utter chaos had followed after Uncle Walt's "rabbit trick". Ethel's note was revealed, and Anthony threw her into the television, where a cartoon dragon chased her down and ate her; the front door opened up to a human eye; a demonic creature burst out of the television set—before finally, Helen asked Anthony to make it all disappear, which he did.

As the two of them stood in literally nowhere, speaking to each other, Arya closed her eyes. She wasn't going to sleep. She wasn't even sure if she could. But everything was just so peaceful at that moment, so perfect, that she couldn't help but to tear up a little.

She rubbed at her eyes just as the segment ended.

"I liked that ending," Charles said. "Anthony is a very… interesting character, isn't he?"

"He's a potential Xavier student if ever I've seen one." Arya chuckled. "What'd you say? You wanna visit Cerebro and have a go at finding him?"

Chuckling, he shook his head. "I think Helen's got a better hold on him than I ever will."

Arya hummed thoughtfully. She wanted to argue, but the next segment had started, and she wanted Charles to watch and understand the entirety of it. Carefully, she took his spoon and empty tub of ice cream, and put it inside the grocery bag at the foot of the bed.

"Tidy," he commented, rather slyly.

She shushed him and stared pointedly at the television. He submitted himself to her silent request, but not before planting a kiss on her shoulder.

They watched as John Valentine attempted to kill the gremlin that was damaging the plane from the outside. He failed, and the creature scolded him for spoiling its fun, but it didn't kill him. The plane landed, and John was forced into a straitjacket and an ambulance.

"Oh no!" Charles said when it was shown that the man driving the ambulance was the same man from the first segment, the passenger who had turned into a monster.

"Wanna see something really scary?" the driver said, to which Valentine's eyes widened in fear.

They continued driving into the night, and as the scene faded out, it was accompanied by the opening monologue from the first season of the original series.

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."

"Aaand cue credits!" said Arya, jumping out of the bed. As she was fixing up the television set, switching off anything that needed to be switched off, she glanced over at Charles with a raised eyebrow. "What'd you think of it?"

"… It was very lagging, wasn't it?"

"But it was enlightening, right?"

"I wouldn't call it that," said Charles. "I'd call it… thought-provoking. You can't help but wonder if there really is a fifth dimension out there, a Twilight Zone, if you want to call it that."

Arya shot back onto the bed and made it bounce. Charles bounced along with it, laughing, and she couldn't help but to smile. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Oh, I liked it alright." He raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to come closer. "But there's something that I'd like more."

He was using his bed voice—low and husky, and never failing to send warmth pooling in her stomach. All too happily, she straddled his waist and smiled in contentment when his hands came to rest on her hips.

She leaned down and kissed him, breathed in his cologne that was accompanied with a hint of chocolate and vanilla. His hands roamed, like she was a canvas and he was a master painter at work. She gave in to his movements. They made quick work of each other's clothes, and then he was inside her, making her feel so deliciously full.

Her eyes were closed tight. She was trying hard not to spontaneously combust, but she was so afraid of everything that could happen, of everything that had happened; she couldn't help but to feel needy. And he felt so perfect against her, within her.

But she felt her guilt too, cold like a knife in her gut. She had to make it up to him.

"God, yes, Charles." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. Her chest felt constricted, from the pain and the pleasure, and a lone tear escaped her cheek.

"I love you so much," he whispered into her ear. "So much… Arya…"

And she fell even deeper into him than before.

[in a very small, ashamed voice] I'm aware that Apocalypse is set in 1983, and that Twilight Zone: The Movie was also released in 1983, making it quite impossible for Hank to have gotten a videotape of it so soon. But for the sake of Charya fluff, let's just overlook that little piece of poor judgment on my part, please?

R&R! (RAK AND ROLLLLL-)