Annalise woke up with the sun streaming into her bedroom. The curtains were closed firmly, but the light was getting in despite that. She winced into the daylight and rolled onto her other side, arm flailing out and looking for Erik. But she didn't find his body. Instead she found the cold sheet. Her eyes opened wider and her burrows furrowed. Where had he gone? She sat up, tugging the duvet with her to keep her naked body covered. Looking around, she frowned and climbed from the bed. She reached for her dressing gown and shrugged into it, tugging her hair from her collar. Padding bare foot around the bedroom, she moved into the hallway and down to the bathroom. The door was wide open.

"Erik?" she called his name and peered her head around the door, looking inside.

A part of her had hoped to find him there. Perhaps he was showering? But there was nothing.

"Erik?" she called out again once she was moving down the stairs to the kitchen. "Erik?"

But there was no response. There was nothing. Annalise felt a crushing weight in her chest at the empty house. The silence was deafening. Wrapping her arms around herself, she looked around the empty space, longing for him to appear from nowhere. She thought that he would stay with her. She had thought that he was going to stay by her side. But he was nowhere to be found.

Looking to the kitchen window, she noted something unusual. There were a bunch of sunflowers in a vase on the windowsill. She hadn't put them there. Stepping forwards, she then saw the folded piece of paper against the vase. She recognised his writing straight away. Moving to unfold the paper with shaking hands, her eyes scanned the writing.

My darling Annalise,

I know that what I have done will upset you. I know full well that waking up to an empty bed would have hurt. Believe me, darling, it pained me just as much as it pained you. I wanted to stay in bed. I wanted to wake up next to you like I used to. But I couldn't. I could not stand by and do nothing. The future depends on Trask not using Raven's blood. Our son's future relies on him being stopped and I do not trust anyone to do that other than me. I have to be the one to ensure that everything goes to plan and that Peter can grow up in a safe world. I know that you would have tried to persuade me. You would have tried to make me stay here and let Charles or Raven be the one to stop Trask. But you know me. You know who I am. You know that I cannot agree to sit back and let other people risk themselves. The man you agreed to marry was not like that. Once I have done this then I will come back to you. Once Trask is stopped then I will do everything in my power to be with you once more. But you need to think about what it is you want, my love. A life with me would be dangerous. You would constantly be looking over your shoulder and I love you too much to subject you to that life. I want it to be your choice. But know that I will always be waiting. Forever.

All my love,

Your Erik.

Annalise dropped the letter onto the kitchen worktop and grabbed hold of it. She felt unsteady on her feet, wobbling as she wondered just what it was that Erik was going to do. She didn't want to let him hurt himself. She didn't want to see that. And so she called the one person she knew who loved Erik as much as she did.

….

"Mum!"

Annalise had called Charles and warned him that Erik had ran off. He had promised her the night before that her house was no longer bugged and so she felt somewhat confident that she could speak freely with Charles. She had waited for Peter to return from spending the night at his friend's house before she spoke with him.

"Hey," Annalise said, finishing putting a load of washing in and then reaching for the glass of wine she had poured for herself. Peter entered the kitchen and watched her as she forced a smile onto her face. "Did you have a good night?"

"Yeah, Bobby and Jesse were heading to the mall later on. I told them that I might meet them there," he said to her, shrugging out of his leather jacket and draping it over the back of the chair. "Has there been any news on dad? I heard about what happened in Paris."

"He…he was here last night," Annalise said and Peter's eyes widened.

"Should we talk outside?"

"He got rid of the bugs for us," Annalise assured her son. "He came to tell me what was happening. That man we see on the TV sometimes, Trask, he intends to use Raven's blood to create these creatures…robots…that destroy mutants. In the future there is nothing left. Your father has gone to find Trask. He intends to stop him before he makes those creatures."

"Jeez," Peter said in a low voice. "I mean, I knew about the whole destroying mutants thing from Charles-"

"-He told you?" Annalise interrupted.

"I eavesdropped," Peter admitted, "but how is dad going to stop him?"

Annalise took another gulp of wine. "That, I do not know," she admitted in a low voice. "I told Charles about this and he said that he thinks he knows where he might be going. Apparently there is an event in Washington D.C. where Trask will be. He is going to try and diffuse the situation, but I don't know if the situation can be diffused. I just…I don't know."

"Do you think that you can talk to him?" Peter wondered from her in a soft voice, moving to sit down at the kitchen table. Annalise rested against the worktop, leaning back and folding an arm over her waist as she shrugged.

"I tried," she said, "but he still left last night."

"I…well…I heard something else from Charles," Peter admitted to his mother. "He was talking to Logan about the beach on Cuba. We learned about Cuba in history class. We learned how war was averted and there were mutants present. But Charles said that my dad…he was going to turn the missiles on the men. But you stopped him. You were the one who stopped him. He stopped because you were there."

Annalise looked down. "I don't know if that is true."

"They said that it was. You had…mum, you never told me that you had been tortured by Shaw. You never told me what he had done to you."

"I try not to think about that," Annalise whispered. "And your father stopped because he is a good man, Peter. He realised that it would be wrong to do what he thought of. He realised and he stopped. I did not make him."

"Perhaps," he replied, "but I think that he listens to you, mum. I think that you have more power over him than you acknowledge and…that is why I think you should go and try to find him. I think that you should go to him and stop him from doing something and getting himself arrested."

Annalise looked to her son and wondered if he had a point.

"Tell me that you don't want to go to him," he urged, hands flat on the kitchen table. "Tell me that and I will stop nagging you."

"I…but how would I get there in time?"

Peter smirked. "Are you forgetting who your son is?"

….

Annalise had no idea what she was doing. She was scared. She was not going to deny that. She was dressed in a pencil skirt and white blouse. In hindsight it wasn't the best outfit to be in, but she hadn't realised what she would be faced with. The utter destruction in Washington D.C. scared her. She had told Peter to stay away and her son had, reluctantly, agreed. She didn't know if he would, but she could only hope that he would do as she had asked.

"Jesus," Annalise whispered at the sight she was confronted with. People were running away from the White House lawn and in the direction towards the Potomac. But she was pushing through them, unable to comprehend how, what looked like, a massive football stadium had been dropped around the White House. She found a way in through an entrance, climbing over rocks in her flat shows and stumbling around. She groaned loudly as she moved, coming through the other side and into the lawn area.

She could see the White House on the other side and in between that and her was a familiar floating figure. There were metal creatures hovering around him and Annalise suspected that they must be the creatures that he had warned her of. She stumbled closer towards him, looking around for any sign of Charles, Hank or the man from the future.

"Erik!" she shouted his name.

Instantly he turned around to face her. He was dressed in a purple suit and his helmet was firmly on his head. Annalise walked closer to him as he lowered himself to the ground, moving towards her as she came towards him.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded to know from her.

"I couldn't let you go," she said earnestly, moving her hands to his neck, the only place where she could reach his bare skin. He looked her in the eye, seeing the look of frantic worry on her face. Shaking her head, she gripped tightly to him. "I know that you intend to stop Trask, but not like this…not killing…destruction…"

"What other way is there?"

"I don't know," Annalise admitted, "but I know that if you do this then I worry what will happen to you because when I see you here now all I can think of is Cuba. All I can think of is those missiles in Cuba and the anger that you felt. And I never wanted you to feel that anger again."

"He is not an innocent man, Anna," Erik said in a low voice.

"Perhaps not," she agreed, "but when has killing ever brought peace?"

It was then when there was a sudden voice in her head.

"Annalise, it is me, you cannot let him do this. If he kills Trask then he goes back down that dark path…the path we tried to keep him from in Cuba."

"Charles?" Annalise thought back. "Where are you?"

"Trapped under metal. I need you to talk sense to him."

"Anna?" Erik spoke, sensing that she had become distracted. She looked to him, her eye meeting his as she shook her head. "Just let me do this, for our son's future."

"There is another way."

"Sometimes there isn't, my love," Erik said and before she could do anything or he could be persuaded otherwise, he moved his hand out, a piece of metal from the stadium snaking out and wrapping itself around Annalise's hands, tying them in front of her as she shook her head and struggled against the metal. "Stay here," Erik urged as more metal wrapped around her ankles and she fell to the floor.

"Erik!" she yelled his name loudly, refusing to back down.

But he ignored her. Instead he held his hands out in front of him and Annalise watched in awe as a large metal bunker came flying out the front of the White House, landing on the grass before them. The door to the bunker was ripped off and Annalise did her best to try and escape the metal, but she was failing miserably. Instead she could only watch as Erik trained TV cameras onto himself and spoke loud and clearly about how mutants should be proud of who they were. How they had powers and could use them. The worst part was that Annalise did not disagree with him. She knew he was right. So long as people feared mutants then they could not live in peace. But it was not supposed to be like this. This would only make them fear them more.

Before Erik could make a move towards the bunker, the familiar sight of Raven appeared in her blue form. Annalise watched her as she advanced on Erik, knocking him out cold on the floor from a single gunshot to his neck. She shrieked loudly as he collapsed to the ground and Raven held her gun up and towards Trask. With Erik knocked out, his grip on her disappeared and the metal holding her fell from her body.

Crawling forwards to Erik, she knelt next to him and moved a hand to his neck, urging him to wake up.

"Get out of my head, Charles!" Raven suddenly yelled loudly.

"Erik…wake up…come on," she demanded from him, voice low and soft.

Annalise barely heard the sound of Raven's gun falling to floor as she shook Erik, trying to get him to open his eyes. Removing his helmet from his head, she tossed it out of the way and whispered for him to open his eyes. Eventually he did so, looking to her as she sighed in relief and he sat up. Annalise helped him move, her arms around him as Raven turned to look at the pair of them.

"Killing him isn't the right thing to do," she suddenly said. "We should know that."

And with that, she walked away as Charles called out loud: "Erik!"

"Free Charles," Annalise demanded from him. He nodded his head once and Charles was freed from the metal that had been crushing him. Hank helped him to his feet and Annalise helped Erik as well. He noticed that his helmet had gone and his eyes moved over to Charles as he did his best not to panic. But he knew that if Charles wanted then he could have him stay on the spot. He could have him arrested and taken away.

"If I stay here then you know that I am as good as dead," Erik said.

Charles nodded. "I know," he said.

"Where will you go?" Annalise asked from him. "What will you do?"

"I don't know," he admitted to her. "But I cannot stay here."

"Why did you do this?" she demanded from him, hitting him on the chest once. "Why could you not have just stayed in bed with me? Why couldn't you have just done that?"

Erik sighed lowly, hand moving to her chin to tilt her gaze up to meet his. "You know why," he whispered back to her. "Tell Peter that I love him. Tell him that one day we will have time together."

Annalise nodded. "Where will you go?" she asked, her mouth dry and her throat clenching as Charles used his powers to keep the men in the bunker away from the couple, giving them time to make their escape.

"I don't know," Erik said to her. "But I will tell you when I know. You know that the CIA…FBI…they will be crawling all over you for a little while until things die down."

Annalise nodded. "I knew that before I came here," she said to him, feeling tears falling down her cheek. "I only just got you back and now you have to go again. It's not fair, Erik. None of this is fair."

"I know," he said to her. "But one day there will be a place for us. I will give you the life I always wanted you to have, but right now…your priority is Peter. It has to be our son and not me."

She bowed her head once more, her forehead hitting his chest as she closed her eyes and felt the tears pool in her eyes. She felt Erik wrap his arms around her, holding her tightly to him before he pulled back and kissed her, the motion languid and slow as Annalise longed for him not to pull away from her. But he had to. Letting her go with one final kiss, his hands vanished from holding her and she watched him hover in the air. He gave a grateful nod to Charles before looking to Annalise.

"One day," was all that he said to her before he left her alone for the second time that day.

…..

A/N: Do let me know what you think!