Sebastian Shaw came to when cold water saturated him. Opening his eyes, he saw the feeble beam of a dying flashlight, feet encased in muddy shoes, and dirt. A lot of dirt. He was buried up to his neck, no, up to his chin in wet earth, not wet enough to be mud, just wet enough to be very, very heavy. He couldn't move. He was wet, filthy, cold, and immobile. It was still dark out, and wherever he was, it was away from electric lights, away from any buildings.

On the plus side of the column, someone had removed the helmet and dressed his acid burns.

That was not a great deal on the plus side. "What?" He realized he sounded squeaky and panicked, so he tried again. "What is this? Release me! Release me at once! I want my lawyer and I want a phone call."

"Damn," someone male marveled. He looked up, and since he could not see a patch of paler skin, guessed it was the darker skinned young man. "You got balls, calling for your lawyer. Balls but no brains. It's not happening, man. You're lucky we're keeping the CIA off your ass. You killed six of their men and put one in the infirmary. Several of them want to have a word or two with your head and one of these shovels. Okay, you can turn the water off now!" he called to someone unseen. Picking up the flashlight, he made as if to walk away.

"Wait! I'll give you half of everything I own, if you dig me up! I'll adopt you as my son!" Shaw pleaded.

"And Satan took Christ up on the mountain top, showed him all the kingdoms of the earth, and said, 'Dominion over all these will I give to you, if you will only bow down and worship me.' Sorry, not interested." The flashlight bobbled as the youth walked away.

Well. Once he was free, that boy would be the first to die. Second, if Jenny Song were still alive. When had he last made such an error in judgment? Because she was tiny and cute and perky (might as well admit it, because she was female) he had assumed she was harmless. Even though she had told him outright how intelligent she was, he had thought her powerless.

Shaw tried to summon up his own powers, to cleave the earth that imprisoned him, but he only succeeded in warming himself, and only slightly. He had thrown away his stored kinetic energy in lashing out at Jenny, exactly as she must have planned. And still he couldn't move, not even a finger. Before burying him, they had wrapped him in bandages—no, in some sort of adhesive tape, arms bound to his sides and legs bound together. He was helpless.

For now, at least. When the sun rose, he could sip of its boundless energy, grow strong.

But as the sky lightened, he realized he was in the shade of a giant tree, his face towards the north. Not even a wan sunbeam to warm him, and by then he badly needed warmth. The cold wet dirt sucked away his body heat. He also faced the humiliation of a bursting bladder and cramping bowels. He was already wet, so the urine was the lesser problem, but eventually he had to relax his sphincter, shit himself. They would pay dearly for this humiliation.

Now he could see them keeping guard over him from a distance. A new pair of mutants came to take over from the other, and one of them came nearer, his hands full. It was Logan.

"Hey." he grunted. "Here." He screwed a bottle of water into the dirt, a straw angled so Shaw could suck on it, and then unwrapped a bar of chocolate, placing it where he could reach it with his lips. Then he put a hat on Shaw's head before ripping off the old bandages and slapping on new. "Joon-Yi is big on the Geneva Conventions, don't ask me why, 'cause she didn't sign them and neither did you. She doesn't want any business about anybody sayin' we treated you unusually cruel. Maybe that's how she knows there's a difference 'tween us and you. So ya got food and water and medical treatment. The hat's because body heat escapes out the top of your head. I ain't doin' this for you, I'm doin' it for her."

After providing that small kindness, Logan stomped away. The vibration impacts weren't enough to make a difference in Shaw's power levels.

He waited; the guard changed again. Why the wait? What were they waiting for? They couldn't keep him buried there forever…

And then Erik came, striding over the field, not on the ground, but on discs of metal, one disc darting forward to act as a stepping stone for each foot as he lifted it. No vibrations that might strengthen him. Lensherr stopped when he was about ten feet away from Shaw, close enough for them to see each other but not so close that he would have to stoop to Shaw's level.

"You very nearly killed my wife," Erik stated, impassionate and cold.

"I wish I had," Shaw snarled.

"I'm sure you do," Erik returned, with a warning note of anger. He continued, calm and cold once more. "Seeing you here like this: filthy, humbled, helpless, in it up to your neck figuratively and literally, all your influence, your schemes, your money, your power and your powers come to naught, at my mercy—and you are at my mercy, make no mistake—I could not have planned it better had I tried. These are the ultimate intolerable circumstances for you."

"I—I'm sorry," Shaw abased himself. "Erik—this is—I saved you, Erik. I singled you out. If not for me, you would have gone to the gas chamber that day. I preserved your life."

"Yes, you did," Erik admitted, a slight tilt to his head. "You saved my life. And my mother's too. Only then you had her shot in front of me, so close her blood spattered my face. I can still feel it on my cheek when I think of it."

"I'm sorry. Believe me, I have regretted that before this," he scrambled to redeem himself, if only a fraction, in those steel blue eyes. "I taught you, Erik, didn't I? What you were, how to use your powers…"

"So you did. With instruments of torture. But do you know something? I would have learned anyhow. Those young people who made such short work of you and yours all learned without your sort of guidance. My friend Charles, my wife Joon-Yi—they didn't need your help to become what they are. All you taught me was hatred and anger, and in Auschwitz I hardly needed your help to learn those either.

"You also abandoned me, and for many years I wandered the earth believing myself alone, a freak and a monster. Now I'm among my own kind. There was a book of fairy tales my mother read to me—you recall your Andersen, do you not? There was a duckling that believed he was a freak until he met a company of swans and learned he was a swan. And they are such beautiful creatures, swans." He pointed with his chin toward the group of mutants at the edge of the field, out of earshot. " 'Oh, brave new world, that has such creatures in it.' Shakespeare; I'm mixing my references. It's a world you will not live to see."

"You can't just kill me! The CIA will, will," Shaw tried.

"The CIA are very happy with the Lensherrs just now. Perhaps it wouldn't have been my first impulse, but Joon-Yi's first thought, when your people attacked, was of their lives, and they are quite appreciative. I'm not above using credit she built up. This is a freebie, as they put it." Erik reached into his pocket, pulled out something. It drifted toward him in the air, turning so he could see it was a coin, and a coin with a swastika on it. "Do you recognize it? It's the same coin you wanted me to move that day. I can move it without difficulty now."

Hanging in the air before Shaw's eyes, it changed. The millgrain edge thinned and became tiny, sharp sawteeth. "Erik," he croaked.

"Hush. I am not you. I said, before, that you were at my mercy, and I will have mercy on you."

"Thank—."

"The appropriate mercy. It will be quick and clean. And I will walk away knowing I have done the right thing." The coin blurred with speed before it dug into Shaw's forehead and put an end to Klaus Sebastian Shaw Schmidt forever.


A/N: Don't worry; this is not the end of this fic, but I can see the end from where I'm standing. At this moment, it's practically writing itself.

Of course, the question is, what will I write after this? Right now, there's a potential Sherlock fic (the BBC twenty-first century version starring Benedict Cumberbatch and John Freeman.) nagging at me. Yes, there will be an OC. I know lots of people like and write slash, but I don't believe I could write it and do a good job of it. I have only found a small handful of slash writers whose work I really enjoy, mainly because I like stories that are properly stories, with more than just sex, and ones that are just sex get boring very quickly.

Also, to me a slash pairing with characters who are ostensibly straight in canon is like saying—what, women can't be as strong and interesting and adventurous and funny and dedicated as men, so you have to put two men together? Hollywood still tends to shoehorn women into narrow and uninteresting roles, playing the hero's improbably beautiful love interest and a handful of other equally boring parts rather than making them female heroes. And when they try for female heroes, often they get them wrong. But I do think women can be all those things, and so I write fanfic. End of rant.