Parting Words
By Sleepwalk
Disclaimer: The Xmen are a property of Marvel Comics and are licensed to Warner Bros. Television.
No profit is made from this otherwise original work.
It had been, overall, an uneventful day. Ororo had gotten Jean and Scott safely into the city and to their respective dorms. The tension between humans and mutants had yet to affect his charges on this day and, although they undoubtedly felt the absence of their senior teammates, the children had spent the hours relatively crisis-free.
It was there, in his study, that Charles Xavier opened a dog-eared copy of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and was met by a curious surprise.
Dear Professor,
I hope this letter finds you as intended, on the day of our leaving the Institute. I really can't guess at how you felt today. I wish I could do you justice in doing so, but I fear I won't. I can, however, tell you how I feel.
I am elated. Ecstatic, even. I am doing what I was meant to do. I am proving that your theories and teachings hold merit. I am a mutant and I am succeeding. I am not locked in a cage. I am not harvesting human slaves for mutant tyranny. I am not hidden away in a crystal tower with padded walls and gilded fences. I am a mutant and I am an eighteen-year-old girl entering her freshman year in college.
I am not afraid in the same way as Scott is. He is afraid to be without your guidance, afraid that he may fail you in some way and that your presence alone could prevent it. I don't need your guidance. I want it and appreciate it, but I don't need it. You taught us to become our own people, with our own beliefs. Besides, when I have doubts, I still have Scott. And even though he may be only half the wisdom of Charles Xavier, he has twice the intensity.
As for your own doubts, sir, might I offer some advice? Look around.
Look at the people you have entrusted your students with. They have lived without your help their whole lives. They owe you nothing and yet they follow and believe in you: training, teaching and caring for your students while adhering to your principles.
Look at the children you have gathered of various walks of life. Different colors, cultures and lifestyles living together in harmony and friendship. It is my belief that if mutations did not exist, if we were all "normal," that the Institute would be exactly as it is now. We are not children of the devil. We are not children of the atom. We are children of an idea, of a dream. And I know that I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sincerely,
Jean Elaine Grey
Xavier refolded the letter and tucked it back into its envelope, the envelope into the book and left his study. For one night, he did not doubt his goal of coexistence. How could he? If a smile and a tear could share his face, then humans and mutants could make a go of it couldn't they?