"It's been a long time, Emily," Charles called from the dining area.
Emily moved through the rather cramped kitchen, making tea. She was particularly grateful he hadn't asked for coffee because her stomach was already turning as it was, so she wasn't sure she could've handled the scent of coffee. In the weeks leading up to the showdown with Doyle, she'd developed a rather severe ulcer that still hadn't quite healed and left her stomach sour and churning.
"A long time," she agreed, trying to remember exactly how many years it had been since she'd last spoken to him.
Emily had grown up around mutants.
Ever since she'd been a little girl, her mother had been the American Government's Ambassador to Mutants. She'd lived among them, played among them – in fact, at first, she hadn't realized she was any different from them.
It hadn't been until, at the age of seven, she'd asked her mother when she'd be able to attend Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters that her mother had laughed and rather condescendingly told her that she was 'just a human, Dear' and to go play and leave her alone.
Charles had been a little kinder in his approach. He frequently worked in close conjunction with her mother, giving speeches, and generally working to improve the global opinion of mutants, so it was no surprise when he found her moping in the gardens outside the Ambassadorial mansion.
"What's wrong, Little One?" he'd asked her, extending a hand to stroke her messy hair off her tear-stained face.
She looked up from where she was seated on the edge of the fountain, head in her hands as she pouted. "Mother said I'm just a human," she whimpered.
"What's wrong with that?" he said with a laugh at her child-like melodrama.
"I don't want to be human!" she whined. "I want to be a mutant like you!"
"Why do you want to be a mutant?" he asked patiently.
She couldn't quite meet his eyes. "I want to be special..." she whispered.
"You already are," he insisted. "In fact, I think one day, you'll be more important than anyone – especially your mother – even realizes..."
"I imagine you're glad to be back," he remarked, interrupting her memory fugue.
Emily shook herself back into the moment, carefully set a mug of tea in front of him, trying not to slosh the hot liquid everywhere. "You have no idea," she agreed, settling into a chair across from him, legs curled up underneath her. She took a deep inhale of the peppermint aroma of her tea, hoping it would settle her stomach.
"Erik's been a wreck without you," Charles informed her – his lips quirked up to show that his was kidding...but only partly.
Emily laughed a little, nodding knowingly. "I've been informed I'm a large portion of his impulse control..."
Charles gave a snort of laughter. "Try all of it." He shook his head, then. "You changed him, Emily. For the better. And without you...he was lost. He was a ship without an anchor."
"I never wanted to leave him like that," she murmured, suddenly staring down at the table as if he needed her eyes to read her sadness. Her fingers danced skittishly around in the ring of condensation left by a glass of juice from that morning's breakfast.
"He was always proud of you," Charles said, almost apropos of nothing. He reached over to lay his hand on top of hers, stopping its frenetic movement.
She nodded slowly, distantly. "He was right, though. I was too young, too green for an assignment like that. I should have listened. I almost died because I thought I knew better, because I was stubborn and immature and so so determined to prove that I was something...something important."
"You always were," Charles insisted. "Especially to Erik. I think, all those years ago, when I told you that you were destined to be someone important, this is what you were destined for." He gestured widely to indicate the entirety of the situation. "You turned him off a dark path, Emily. I've seen what he's capable of, who he might've become – when you changed him, you changed history. As corny as that might sound."
She attempted a wobbly smile as she attempted to parse his words and whether she believed them.
Again, he changed the subject. "He had me check in on you from time to time," he admitted. "While you were on assignment. To be sure you were alright." The look on her face must have been filled with panic because he quickly assured her, "I didn't tell him the whole truth, of course."
The knowledge of everything she'd done with Doyle to get the profile surged up her throat like bile. "It would kill him – he can never know," she urged.
At that moment, before anything further could be said on the subject, Erik ducked into the house, wiping sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He crossed the room to drop a kiss to the top of Emily's head. She smiled tenderly up at him, still after all this time, unable to believe that she'd survived to be here with him once again.
"I've just been having a friendly conversation with your lovely wife," Charles informed him conversationally.
"Not too friendly, I hope," Erik joked.
Emily glanced over at Charles, eyes sparkling with mischief. "You've caught us."
"Have you been enjoying having your wife home?" Charles asked with an equally mischievous grin.
"You have no idea," Erik said, smirking.
Emily rolled her eyes. "You're incorrigible," she muttered.
"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it just as much," he retorted, fingers dancing along the back of her neck in a subtle reminder of just how much she'd enjoyed it...
The touch made a shiver race down her spine, but she tried to conceal it from eyes all too skilled at noticing... "That may be true," she said pointedly. "But there's no need to broadcast our sex life to everyone who asks."
That just made him laugh harder. "With Charles around, there's no need to broadcast – if he wanted to know, he already would..."
She scoffed, rolled her eyes playfully. "Sometimes, you have all the maturity of a twelve year old boy. I don't know why I love you."
"As if you could've possibly resisted me," he retorted. "Don't act like you didn't have a crush on me before we ever met."
"Cocky bastard," she muttered under her breath...even if their banter made her feel like she was finally home.
