As promised there is sufficient smackage for Rogue in this chapter. On a side note in this story I AU it a bit, just a little. Ok, the whole chapter is AU. However the reason I'm telling you so early in the story is because I have the Prof using telekinesis. Please don't flame me! It was very necessary to have all of them fly. Any-who... You'll understand later. I just hope you can forgive me for massacring the Professor's background. Read and Review!
'Till the End
Chapter Twelve
The Three Musketeers
"I'll bet your wondering why I'm here, in your dreams?"
"Well, not really I dream about you quite often."
Smiling and coming closer Alana asked, "Oh, really? And," she touched his cheek with her burgundy gloves, "do you dream of the me before or the me after?"
*She looks as beautiful as she did that night when she...* Not strong enough to complete the thought Charles Xavier asked her, "Alana, why?"
Alana backed off, her claret coloured satin dress whispering as she walked to the edge of the stone balcony. "'Why?' Charles, my love, which why do you want to know?"
"All of them," he said coming up behind her and turning her so that he could see her eyes. "I want to know all the whys for everything that has happened. I want to know why, Alana. I want to know why," he swallowed thickly the words sticking in his throat, "I want to know why you left me."
"Then," she whispered hoarsely, "you shall know all that made me leave you, from the beginning 'till the bitter end."
*This is just a dream I'll wake up and I won't remember anything. This dream, it can't tell me what I want, need, to know.*
"You're wrong, Charles. This isn't a dream where you'll wake up and remember nothing. This dream, it can tell you what you need to know. Charles, I didn't stay on this Earth just so you could forget all the things I've been trying to tell you in the best way I can."
"I don't understand. How..." She covered his mouth, the satin glove gone, the dress turned into the white robe of an angel and the room... The room spun around them and became a white cube. Looking around he thought he might have died. Had he died and gone to Heaven? Was that why his beloved Lana was here? To guide him through this time?
"So many questions, Charles. Don't worry usually, if your patient, answers will come to you. Let's start at the very beginning, shall we." The room spun again, a swirl of green, blue and gold encasing them. When the spinning stopped Charles saw that they were in a forest. Before them sitting on the edge of a clearing, and the edge of the entire land it seemed, were three young people. A teenage boy, no older than seventeen, his hair shockingly white sat on the left side of the trio. In front of him, about a foot off of the cliff, floating in midair were four metal orbs. He was lazily rotating them with ease. On the right side of the trio sat another young man. His hair was thin and was the colour of wheat blowing in the wind. This young man, tired of his friend receiving the full attention of the third member, picked up a boulder from across the deep ravine and hurled it crashing into the orbs. The beautiful young women in the middle of the two shook her head, her waist-length brown hair blowing in the breeze. Suddenly she stood up, turned around so that she was facing Charles and Lana and jumped off the cliff. Neither boy moved to help her but instead of arguing with each other they looked and laughed. Tentatively, Charles came closer to the edge already knowing what he would see but needing to make sure. When he looked over he saw the beautiful brunette doing summer-salts in the air above a blue river dotted with fishermen's huts. Turning around and facing Lana he said, laughing, "I'm dreaming in Charles Dickens."
"If only," Lana whispered sadly. Hoping she wouldn't have to watch his face fall she turned and gestured to the two young men frozen in the memory. "Do you remember this day, then?"
"How could I ever forget it? It was the day I worked up enough courage to ask you to go study. Lord, that was a long time ago. I can't believe that I remember it so clearly. We all flew down to the river as soon as the sun had set, just like we did every night that summer. But Eric had lost one of his orbs back up at the cliff. We went back up to look for them, but you and I were of no use. Eric told us to go on home, that he'd use his powers to find it. I walked you to your door. You were so beautiful. I asked you if you'd like to go out with me on Saturday. There were so many ums and ahs I'm still surprised you understood what I said. I sealed our fate, however, when you asked when we'd meet up with Eric. I said... I said that I wanted to be alone, alone with you. And you still said yes."
Caressing his cheek, Lana said, "I would have said yes to you if you had asked me the second we had met. I loved you. I still love you." Closing her eyes, Alana stepped away from him and walked towards where they had come from. Holding out her hand she said, "Come now, we have more to see." When he reached her outstretched the world spun and landed on a frozen scene.
They were in his office. A bald young man and a gorgeous young woman stood behind the desk, they were both very angry and obviously yelling at the man in front of the desk. This man was covered in red and purple metal body armor. His shoulder length white hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he held a helmet that matched his the rest of his costume under his left arm.
"Lana," Charles said confused, "Eric leaving has nothing to do with you leaving me."
"But, Charles, it does. When Eric decided that he no longer wanted any part of our 'Three Musketeers' group it forever changed both of our lives. Don't you remember what happened? This is only two days after your 21 birthday. The birthday that allowed you to fully and completely own all of the Xavier money and property. Eric had changed over a long period of time. Though neither of us recognized the severity of the changes at that time. He had new ideas on how the children would be taught. Do you remember what we agreed on when we became the Three Musketeers?"
"Yes. 'All for one and one for all. We'll stay together through it all. We'll teach the children right from wrong. And some day we'll all belong.'"
"Ever since that summer when we met up we'd wanted to start a school. We decided that humanity would eventually figure out that we existed and that we needed to give them a good impression of us. We were going to head a school. We were going to teach them to use their powers to help others not themselves. When I took your side of this argument we lost Eric. You changed. We both changed after this. You had hoped Eric would be your best man at our wedding."
"I had the ring in my pocket that night. I'd just gotten it back from the engraver's. I was going to ask you on our anniversary. But after Eric left, I couldn't do it not so soon after his betrayal. I waited until my heart had healed. I asked you to marry me at Jacque's, our favorite restaurant, a month later. I was the happiest man alive. We wanted to get married as soon as possible. We'd been together for five years by then. I had a conference I had to go to in D.C. When I got back we were going to go to Hawaii and get married at sunset on the beach. Everything changed at D.C."
"When I got the call telling me you were in the hospital and that you might never wake up I cried for hours," Lana whispered a tear tracing a line down her porcelain cheek. "I didn't know who else to call. I was so scared. I looked up Eric, or Magnus as he was going by then. He came to the Institute. I still don't understand why he came in the first place. He comforted me. He calmed me. He stayed with me. I was so sure he would leave me and I'd be left all alone. I fell asleep in his arms.
"When I woke up, the next morning, we were on our way to the District of Columbia Hospital. He didn't say much to me, he didn't have to. He was there for me. And that's all he had to do. For the first two days we were there I didn't leave your side for more than five minutes at a time. It was all Eric could do to make me eat. I was dying from the inside. You were gone and I didn't have a reason to live."
Lana raised her arm and the scene shifted to show a stark white hospital room. There were two young people sitting in chairs next to a young man in a hospital bed. The woman in the chair looked as though her world had suddenly come crashing down around her. The white haired man was trying his best to comfort her, but comforting women, even old friends, was not his forte.
Lana was crying openly now. "I didn't understand how this could happen to us. It wasn't possible. And in this moment, this exact moment I changed. I wasn't going to sit around and let people be destroyed for no reason. I wasn't going to let people ruin other people's lives. I was going to do something about it. And I was going to teach other people to do something about it too."
"But, Lana I was only in a coma for three days. I woke up and I saw you crying. I remember asking you what was wrong."
"You came to at 2:15pm on the third day that you were in the hospital. I remember it perfectly. I told you that I loved you and that I'd never, ever leave you. It was a promise I broke. When you found out that you no longer had the use of your legs you changed too. But the hardest part was yet to come. The traumatic experience had irreversibly frozen your secondary power of telekinesis. You never fully recovered from that and it showed. It still shows.
"It took us only a month to figure out that we had changed. We still loved each other dearly, but sometimes love just isn't enough. I packed my bags and I left. I left without saying so much as a good-bye. I changed my appearance. Gave myself red hair, green eyes and a tight-fitting green costume. I even gave myself an accent while I was in costume. I was firmly settled into my new life style when I found out I was pregnant."