This is for Beuniquebeyou and Grace.
Happy birthday to you guys.
"Victoria. Vic. Please wake up! "
They brought Victoria, and someone named Eric, back to the mansion, but while Eric and Charles are downstairs in Charles´ office, Victoria hasn´t gained consciousness yet. They found her floating near the sinking ship and thought she was dead. But she still had a pulse so they brought her back here and are keeping her warm with all the blankets they have. Raven hasn´t left her bedside the whole time.
"Raven?"
"Oh my god! Vic! Welcome back!" tears are running down her cheeks.
"How long have I been gone?"
"4 hours. How are you?"
"I´m fine. Just tired and cold."
"What did they do to you?"
"Nothing really. Shaw just threatened me, and locked me up."
"How did you end up in the water?"
"When I felt the ship rocking I melted my way through the door."
"That´s my girl." Raven hugs Victoria tightly, laughing shakily.
"You did great, Victoria." Charles stands leaning against the door frame. When he steps closer to the bed to sit down at her side Victoria can see dark rings under his eyes, he looks tired.
"Vic," He sighs, eyes closed, "Vic."
New tears were running down Raven´s cheeks, she squeezed Victoria´s hand one last time and silently left the room.
When Victoria looks back at Charles she meets his blue eyes, they are not as bright as they usually are.
"Charles…"
"You scared me, Vic. You scared me to death."
"I was scared to death too, I thought I had to drown out there."
"I…" but he can´t find the right words. He just hugs her tightly instead.
"I´m fine Charles. I´m fine, you saved me."
"No, I didn´t," he looks to the floor again, "after I couldn´t hear you anymore… I jumped into the water. There was someone else down there, I had to stop him from killing himself. It wasn´t until the water cleared a little when we saw your floa…" his voice breaks away, "I thought you were dead." He whispers, looking deep into her eyes.
"I´m not, Charles, I´m not. I´m here."
He nods and hugs her again.
A subtle knock on the door makes them break their embrace. A tall man enters, short hair, piercing blue eyes, he looks grim.
"Victoria. This is Eric."
"Hey, Victoria. How are you feeling?"
He has a soothing voice and as soon as he starts talking his grim face lightens up.
"I´m fine, thanks for asking. How are you? I heard you nearly died in that water, too?"
"Ah, it was nothing. But I´m fine, too, yeah."
"Can you manage to stand up?" Charles asks her doubtingly.
"Yeah, sure." Victoria swings her feet around to stand up but she does it too quickly and promptly falls down again.
"Hey! Not so fast." Eric says, stepping forward to catch her. He swiftly puts his arm around her to support her and takes her hand to lead her out of the room. Charles stands there for a moment staring after them, not really following what just happened. It would have been his job to support her, wouldn´t it? Then he follows them into the hall and downstairs without saying anything.
"Where are we going?" Victoria asks.
Charles takes the chance to get beside them to look at Victoria. "You´ll see."
When they enter the library they find three people obviously awaiting them. Only Raven was a familiar face to her, she isn´t sure about the woman but she knows she hasn´t seen the bespectacled man before. Victoria stops walking, not knowing what´s going on. Raven stands up and takes Victoria from Eric´s arms.
"Vic, these are Victoria MacTaggert and Dr. Hank McCoy, they are with the CIA."
"Nice to meet you." The woman smiles at her. Victoria remembers her now: She saw her briefly when Shaw took her.
"Nice to meet you, too." She shakes her hand.
Hank nods, saying nothing.
Raven steers Victoria over to a sofa and sits her down while Eric and Charles remain standing near the door.
"Now that we are all together, and have been introduced," Charles starts speaking, "what shall we do about Shaw?"
"Kill him." Eric whispers, not so quietly.
"Well, we can´t do much, can we? We failed already."
"Make him suffer." Eric says, this time not even bothering to lower his voice. Charles shoots him a pleading look.
"We need more manpower." Hank suggests.
"What do you mean?" Raven asks, not taking her eyes off him.
"Well," noticing Ravens look he starts to stumble, "There… ehm…must be more, right? I…I mean more mutants. We need to find them."
"He´s right. We need more of you people." Moira nods, looking expectantly at Charles. He clears his throat looking around.
"I agree. We need to find more mutants who are willing to help us."
"We could use Cerebro to amplify your telepathic powers." Hank says.
"Zebra- what?" Victoria asks confused.
Hanks seems excited and eagerly explains to her how he developed a device called "Cerebro", which is Spanish for brain. He tells her how it can be used to strengthen brainwaves and how Charles could use it to find other mutants.
"It´s a great idea. We will try it later, but we all had an exhausting night and should rest. We´ll meet later at Devision X."
They all nod and start getting up except from Victoria who remains in the seat, silently mouthing Devison what?
While Hank and Moira leave, Raven shows Eric a room he can stay in. Victoria stands up, too. When walking past Charles he hold her back by putting an arm around her waist. She looks at him in surprise and opens her mouth to say something. But Charles shakes his head to stop her. He pulls her closer, not breaking eye contact.
Charles. What are you doing?
He smiles, their lips only inches apart.
Charles…
He kisses her passionately, and she can feel how a warm spark forms at her heart, wandering through her chest, shoulder, arm, into her hand, fingers and leaving her body completely. Charles stops kissing her and looks her deep into her eyes, warmth spreading through his body.
"I love you, too."