To Return the Favor
Rating: Age 13 and above
Spoilers: Everwood through series Finale. Xmen, movie-verse mostly, through the end of X2. I used to read the comics in high school and early college back in the mid to late 80's to early 90's. There may be honorable mentions in passing to other characters based on that history.
Disclaimer: I own a car payment. And a boxed set of the Xmen movies. And an evil plot bunny that refused to go away, even with flaming arrows. Everything else is owned by Marvel comics and the WB.
The not too distant future…
The ground crunched beneath his feet as he stepped out of the car onto the gravel drive. A flood of memories hit him as he looked up at the mansion where he'd spent 2 summers honing his abilities. Unlike so many others his family never turned from him because he was a Mutant, and he was very grateful for that.
/Welcome back, Dr. Brown. If you would join me in my study I would appreciate it./ the voice of Professor Charles Xavier cut in and brought him back to task.
It was a short journey to the Professor's study, up the steps, through the main entrance and to the right but the grief and distress he could feel even before he opened the front door was almost overpowering. He mentally checked his own dampers before going in. It wouldn't do to go out of control after all these years.
"Thank you for coming here on such short notice," the Professor stated shaking the hand of the younger man. "I know that Everwood to New York is still a tiresome journey even to someone as well traveled as yourself. May I offer you something to drink?" he continued gesturing to the coffee bar along the edge of the room.
"Thank you," he said as he fixed a cup of something hot to drink. "I felt the grief, the rage and the general distress from outside. I don't know what has happened but I'm not sure how I can help. My abilities have never really been… well, 'conducive to battle,'" he finished and looked back at the Professor.
"That's good, because I'm not looking for a foot soldier, or even a general, right now. What I am looking for is a healer. And your mutant abilities and learned skills fit right in with what we need right now," Charles' eyes seemed to bore right into him with intensity as he continued.
"Let me explain a little about the last two weeks and I think you will understand better. Do you remember Dr. Jean Grey? Last week she fell in battle. Just prior to that we had a security breach and several of our students were kidnapped and held at a military type facility in Canada. It was during their rescue that she fell. Another student chose to abandon his peers in their hour of need and join another team. Given all these factors we have many suffering from grief, betrayal and post traumatic stress disorder." There was a note of somberness and buried beneath there was anger in the Professor's voice as he finished.
"So you are all certainly in need of a counselor at this point. Wasn't Dr. Grey also the on staff physician?" Dr. Brown asked.
Charles grimaced and sighed before he continued, "Yes, she was. I'd really like to offer both you and your wife staff positions here, both teaching and caring for the students and other staff members."
"I will of course have to discuss this with her. As you can guess she may be reluctant to leave Everwood, but I will try to sway her. I'm curious, why didn't you just ask her here as well?" the younger man questioned.
Charles explained, "I know that your wife does not have any mutant abilities and I didn't want to be accused of trying to force her with my own. Besides, I also know that your empathic gifts don't shall we say 'stick out in a crowd,' so you could go through life hiding them if you chose. I didn't want to be the on to 'out' you to your wife if you had hidden them, Ephraim."
"Oh trust me, Amy knows. The music room in our house has special dampers on it so we can talk without emotions getting in the way. She learned early on that if you don't want to broadcast you feelings to your empathic husband while you sort them out you either retreat to the music room or send him to play for a while. It keeps us stronger being able to deal with actual issues and not just the feelings that surround them," he explained.
"And do you think she might be interested in working for a school that helps children develop all of their gifts?" Charles inquired.
"I think she'd love the challenge. I think she's almost bored silly playing second or third fiddle in our fathers' family practice back home. Pretty much all either of us would have to do is pass the state licensing exams and we could practice here. But that would just be for the psychiatric part of my job, you would still allow me to also teach music right?" Ephraim questioned.
"Of course we would. To cut you off from your music would be to deny that you have gifts outside of the realm of mutations and we believe in developing all gifts here. There is one other thing," Charles paused and turned serious again.
"Your son is here, the one that you lost to adoption. He arrived about a week ago and wants to learn to use his abilities as well. Will either of you have a problem with that?"
Ephraim paused and looked at the older man, some degree of shock present in his face, but answered, "I won't and as long as we tell Amy up front she should be ok as well. Does he have the same abilities that I have?"
"Although at this point we have very few parent to child mutant gene examples, I can tell you they are usually similar but almost never the same." The Professor had assumed his teaching voice again.
Ephraim decided to question him a little further by asking, "And what about our girls? Do they have the gene? Also would you want us to live on campus and would the girls go to school here or in town?"
"We can test their blood for the presence of the gene but it may never manifest, just like your sister Delia never showed any abilities. And of course your girls are welcome to go to school here. We would pretty much need access to our doctor on short notice so on campus life may very well be in your future. Now we do have a gatekeeper house on the grounds that could be used if you don't want to live in the actual staff quarters but we will take that up once Amy says 'yes.'" Charles teased.
"As long as Amy agrees we can be here as a family within a month. If she doesn't agree to take the physicians job I will still help you until you can find another suitable counselor. I owe you that much and more," Ephraim declared emphatically.
"No, using your abilities to help others the way your have since you gained control has been payment enough. But I'll take you up on that offer anyway," Charles agreed with a smile.
"So, do you have anyone that needs an appointment right away? I don't have to fly back until tomorrow night," Dr. Brown suggested.
"Excellent, I took the liberty of asking Ororo to set up an office for you off the music room so that you could use either space."
"Thank you for remembering my preference for using music therapy in some cases."
"You are welcome. And thank you. There is a very loud rumor out there that you turned down your last job offer. Tell me about that on the way," Charles' voice was teasing again as he lead the way.
" Well first of all, Amy doesn't like Allison. And Allison doesn't understand that I prefer to play jazz over rock n' roll…"
The men continued amiably down the hall to a new beginning for the school in the realm of healers.
fin
I really don't have intentions of a sequel. This was an evil plot bunny that bit between the next to the last and the last episodes of Everwood. I do not mind if others want to take the idea out and play with it but I request that established relationships and genders not be shattered. Otherwise have fun.