Wow. Just wow. I love you guys. Especially Argetaie, for that amazing review you left me (my roommate wanted to smother me because I was apparently annoyingly happy over it), and mpathy for sticking with me through this entire thing. mpathy, just for you, I'm planning a chapter featuring the character you keep asking me about! ;) Well... Sort of... You'll see. But you'll get him/her, I promise! (Ambiguity is for everyone else - no spoilers!)

Don't hate Jesse too much. He's not black and white he's just... well he's an ass but he's a well-meaning ass.

Let me know what you think!

Chapter Eleven: Secrets

When I wake up, a little over a week after the boys brought me back, the house is eerily silent. I sit up quickly and quietly, head canted to listen. It's Saturday. The past weekend had been a raucous of screams and yells and loud OW!'s reverberating around the halls, even at ten in the morning. This time it's silent except for the bang of a single door. I stand and move to the window just in time to see a bush of curly red hair disappear into the forests on the estate. A glance at the clock shows that it's six in the morning.

What is my daughter doing going into the forest at this early in the morning?

I head downstairs, still quiet, ears straining for noise. Nothing. I walk the halls with every intention of following the young woman, though unless she's wearing metal I doubt very much that I can catch up to her. Down past the lab where there are no noxious fumes, past a study, through halls that feel warmer and are covered in scrapes and a few burn marks to the kitchen -

Charles is there.

I halt, standing in the doorway, but he doesn't look up from where he is reading the paper and nursing a cup of coffee. "Good morning, Erik," he greets calmly. I swallow hard and he raises his head, a slight smile on his rosy lips. "Very early in fact. What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I managed after I swallow several times. Charles just smiles blandly and turns his head to regard the kitchen door. I can't help but notice he's not meeting my eyes.

"Anya seems to have inherited my knack for running. She goes for long runs both very early in the morning and very late at night." His lips twist slightly. I almost forgot that he does that when he's upset. There's something about her running… something I should ask…

I let it go.

There's a lump in my throat and I swallow to try to get around it… But seeing Charles sitting, glancing wistfully every so often at the door, it won't go away. This is the first time I've seen him, really seen him, in a week. The last time he was berating me for chasing that blind prick around - not that I'd actually kill him of course, his mutation is far too valuable, but the thought crossed my mind when I saw the boy who could have killed my daughter. Especially when I saw how he was looking at her. I shake the thought off and glance at Charles. He's studiously voiding looking at me now, having a deep discussion with his coffee. I open my mouth -

"How's Raven?" he asks abruptly. I blink and shut my mouth a little belatedly, a little angrily. I don't know what I was going to say but I would have preferred if he let me say it - whatever it was. Then I realize what he's asking and flush. There's a part of me that very much wants to correct him - to inform the telepath that her name is Mystique, not this human bullshit - but I catch my tongue, bite it hard. I'm not even sure why I temper myself, but I have to.

"She's still fighting for the cause, as far as I know," I say reluctantly. I don't want to talk about this. "Incredibly loyal -" Charles' eyes flash and his mouth tightens around the next words.

"Yes, but how is she?" he demands, a touch abruptly. I exhale slowly and stand, less because I want to and more because I need to get space if we're actually going to talk. I head over to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup, not looking at him like he is not looking at me.

"She was alright. Strong, incredibly brave…" I pause. This isn't what Charles wants to hear, is it? He knows this already. I sigh heavily and pour myself a cup of coffee to keep my hands busy. "She missed you," I admit in a low voice. "She missed all of you." He inhales sharply, painfully. I close my eyes tightly against the noise. God this wasn't supposed to happen… Any of it. Not like this. "I'm surprised she didn't come back, to be honest." Charles snorts delicately.

"If you're surprised then you don't know my sister," he says bluntly. "The only people I know of who could possibly match her in stubbornness are you and Anya." I turn around to see him smiling and shaking his head, a far-away look in his eyes at some distant memory. I smile slightly, feeling my face pull in a way that it hasn't for five long years. It hurts, the muscles no longer used to being forced in this way. It doesn't make me stop though.

"She inherited my stubbornness?" I ask, shifting the topic from Mystique to my daughter. Charles smiles, close to those bright smiles that use to make my heart thud in my chest, yet still too pale of an imitation for my tastes. Instead my heart squeezes tightly. Regret pushes at my mind, my heart, tightens painfully around my guts and nearly knocks the breath from my lungs. He should have been spared. Damn it, he was supposed to be by my side as we lead our race into a new and better future, not this!

"Maybe stubbornness is the wrong word… your determination, I suppose." The smile becomes fractionally brighter, though still not at full strength. "She's quite set on changing the world." He shakes his head ruefully. "To be honest, it's a little nerve-wracking as a parent, how she jumps without thinking despite how intelligent she is. If there's a wrong, she reacts. Rather like you." He takes a sip of his coffee and smirks at me. "She inherited your penchant for brawling as well." I rub my jaw and wince. The bruise faded but the force of the punch is still with me.

"If she would hone her skills I could see where she would be a good fighter," I murmur. I'm surprised when Charles' smile disappears and anger hardens his features.

"Leave my daughter out of your bloody war, Erik! It's bad enough she wants to train to fight in it, I don't need you -"

"She wants to what?!" I hiss. My mind reels. I had just been referring to her rather abysmal idea of punching... but she wants to fight?! "No. Absolutely not. She's staying out of this!" I declare, angry and clenching my fists around my coffee mug. Charles subsides with a quizzical brow raised.

"Why?" It's said so blandly that I glare at him. I know what this is, but I'm not going to admit it. "Why her? You were perfectly willing to subject the rest of the children to Shaw." Charles is relentless, gazing at me with his piercing eyes. "What makes Anya so -"

"I buried her once. Human or not, I won't do that again." I drag the memory of lowering her then-tiny body into the ground up out of the dark wells of my mind until I hear Charles gasp. There's smug satisfaction in seeing him go white but there's a tinge of despair in it too. "She might be inferior, but I watched her die before." Cold white skin, tiny lips parted, green eyes glazed over… Charles whimpers and I stop. "Don't expect me to. She's off limits."

We stop talking for a long time, as Charles collects himself and I bury those memories back into the depths where they belong. When he speaks again, he is subdued, but still fierce. I have to admire that, his resilience, the way he is so bent on his own morals that he will keep going even as it rips him apart. The metaphor does something painful to my chest.

"You might not want to involve her, Erik, but Anya will not be content with people dying around her. Especially her brothers, her friends. If you do this, she will fight, and there's not a damn thing either of us can do about it. Bring this war on us and my daughter will run head first into it to defend those she loves." His eyes are icy and cold, nothing like how he used to look at me. "If the boys ever get called to the war in Vietnam she might follow them and she will fight against it with everything she has. That's who she is." He wheels back slightly so he can drop his head into his hands. "You bring this war Erik, and I lose all of my children. Do you understand?" There's no negotiating with that tone, no pleading with it or showing it logic… Because it's not wrong.

"She won't fight," I say anyway. "Even if I have to chain her to the fucking floor, she's not going into the war when it comes." He snorts and shakes his head.

"That won't stop any of them."

"She's human, what can she do?"

"I'm afraid one of her human friends has taught her how to pick a lock, Erik. At the very least the amount of trouble they get up to at school leads me to believe they can escape any situation." I jolt a little, watching him with furrowed brows. That's where she disappears to everyday? She goes to a human public school? The disgust must show in my thoughts because Charles groans. "Erik…"

"What happened to your dreams of a safe haven for mutants Charles?" I demand. Charles glares.

"Apparently being affiliated with a terrorist is not conducive to opening a school," he says shortly. Awkwardly we look away and Charles sighs. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - I'm sorry."

"I would have come back," I say softly. "If I'd known, I would have come back."

Charles exhales slowly and smiles for real for the first time. "I know." I duck my head and Charles clears his throat. "Right. Well, Anya should be back soon and the boys should be waking up from various parts of the city now." He rolls his eyes. "They have taken to ar hopping with gusto unfortunately." I snort out a laugh.

"You're surprised?" I ask. Charles laughs too, and I glory in the sound of it.

"Unfortunately no. When Anya was younger Aex used to use her to pick up girls. Rather effective actually." He huffs in exasperation but he's smiling. 'Apparently protective older brothers are attractive."

Hell yeah they are, I think, remembering a certain cerulean eyed man who was protective to the point of idiocy of his younger sister. His smile drops and he flushes dark red. I smile, and I know I must look like a shark when I do. Charles clears his throat, still blushing, and wheels out from beneath the table. "Well… I… yes, alright, I really must be going to check on the boys," he mumbles. I want to laugh at how he beats a hasty retreat. I really do. But seeing that his retreat is so much slower because he is restrained in that chair…

The words that Charles doesn't want me to say are bubbling up in my throat again. But he's gone before he can hear me say them.

XXX-XXX

That prick who hurt my daughter waltzes into the house like he owns it, radiating smugness, a few hours later. Anya is taking a shower, Beast is conducting experiments on a mutant's blood he obtained through the CIA with a muttered "this is incredible I have to figure this out," and Havoc and Banshee are sparring in the backyard. Charles is "reading" - I call it "avoiding" - and is ensconced somewhere in the house. So when Jesse Winters walks in with a smirk that makes me grit my teeth there's only me.

"Get out."

"No thank you," he says calmly, taking a seat. "Anya will be down in a bit and I'd like to talk with her before her friend Annie calls to ask her if she wants to go investigate a haunted house." A flicker crosses his blind eyes, a twitch of his eyelid, and I narrow my eyes. Is he lying, or is he withholding information? I can't really tell, and that is… unsettling.

"I don't want you near my daughter. Get out." The bench he's sitting on starts to vibrate as I move the nails in it in a threatening manner. Winters, though, doesn't react. He grins at me.

"Funny, that you call her that. She's human you know… well, most of the time." He winks and I glare. Mutant or not I'm going to impale this kid with the nearest wall sconce if he doesn't stop being an arrogant jackass.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"A secret for another day." The sconce lifts off the wall. Winters' smile doesn't slip, but he speaks faster. "And you will let me near your daughter..." He raises a fist and I tense. Banshee told me of his power. I know full well what he can do and I am not interested in a demonstration on me at the moment.

"Like hell I -"

"Or I tell Anya everything." Slowly, he turns his hand, and flips out a very familiar coin between his fingers. I watch it fall, track it with my power, stop it and raise it because I can't believe… No…

It's the coin I killed Shaw with.

"And not just about you either. I tell her about Shaw, Cuba… Raven Darkholm… I tell her about the village you killed when she died as a child… How it was you that broke Charles' spine... And I tell her all the little things about Charles that will completely destroy her angel for her." I raise the coin and spin it in place. It rotates and I see it is not the same coin, just a copy. Another one.

Anya doesn't need the actual coin.

"Charles doesn't lie to her," I say. He smirks.

"No, but he doesn't talk to her either. All I need to say is Charles had a sister… And she will investigate… and she'll find a few other things that will break her trust in him forever." He reclines back in his seat and watches the coin spin with an aura of satisfaction. I want to punch him for it - or better yet, send this coin through his head. "Would you really destroy the relationship the man you love has with his daughter?"

I glare at him and take the coin, blatantly refusing to acknowledge what he said. The little shit...

"Charles would have told her about Cuba."

"Charles is an optimist who wants his daughter to have a relationship with her biological father that doesn't entail her hunting him down and shredding him. She only knows that you left Charles to raise four kids by himself." I don't know if I should curse the man for being so honourable or if I should beat him for giving this asshole blackmail potential. Winters cocks his head and raises the hand with the brown eye. It spins wildly before settling on me. He closes the eyes in his face and hums. I feel sick, numb. There is nothing hiding us from this boy's power. "Interesting. I can tell her about that lullaby you used to sing her, when she was three and couldn't sleep in the new place you brought her. Shall I? It might remind her that you weren't always running away from the people you love."

A choice. I feel cornered and I don't like it. Things would be so much simpler if I could kill this bastard...

Anya would never forgive me.

"If you want to," I say flatly. Winters smirks.

"I think I might. Well hello there," he says pleasantly. I glance up and see Anya, her hair wet and dripping, looking down at us with concern. I keep my expression blank. No need to give this fucker more than he already has.

"Don't you dare try to kill him again," she says angrily to me, green eyes flashing. "Damn it you can't go around killing everybody that pisses you off! What the hell did Jesse do to you anyway -"

"This coming from the girl who beats any and everyone to a pulp," Winters teases lightly, rising to his feet. I feel my eyebrows raise and Anya flushes, punching Winters none-too-gently on the arm.

"Jesse -"

"Despite the punch she gave you Anya is actually a wonderful fighter," Winters comments, lounging back against the stairwell.

"Oh really?" I hear myself say, but I'm not focused on the words. I'm focused on how when Anya rubs her face angrily the muscles of her biceps move in a way that indicates an extreme amount of training. I'm focused now on the scars across her knuckles, scars I hadn't noticed before in the wonderful shock of finding her alive, from years of fighting. I'm focused on the wiry build of her, a build she most certainly did not inherit from Magda, as that woman had been curvaceous and knew it too. I focus on her for what feels like the first time… and I feel cold dread instead of relief that she's alive.

She's human; she has no business being in this war. Yet here she stands, training for it daily.

"I'm okay," she mumbles. "Could be better. Jesse, for the love of God, please shut your mouth." Winters pantomimes zipping his mouth shut and Anya rolls her eyes. The eyes she inherited from me. The phone rings, somewhere in the house, and she sighs. "Please stop being an ass for two seconds." I can't tell who she's directing this at as she walks away. Perfect. Whole. Undamaged.

"He saved her."

"And you found her," Winters responds. There's no arrogance, no mirth, this time. It's honest, bare, agonized. I glance at him sharply, but he's watching as Anya walks away, something dark crossing his face. "You find her even when Charles says 'impossible.' He lets her down, eventually. You never stop looking for her." His white eyes are glazing over. "You better start trying to like her human friends - one of them is the only way you're going to find her when she -" He cuts off abruptly. I glare at him, a lurch in my chest that is so painful that I bite back a gasp. Why do I need to find her?!

"When she what?" I growl. Winters shrugs.

"Doesn't matter. Not yet."

Anya's return is the only thing that keeps me from strangling him.

"I'm headed out; Elliot found out about a haunted house and he and Annie want to check it out." She blinks when she sees my tense stance and Winters ducking his head. "Jesse what did you say?" she demands.

"Nothing! Why do you always ask that?" he balks. Anya puts her hands on her hips and glares, and I chuckle because I've seen that particular look enough times from her mother before.

"Because whenever I turn around you're upsetting my family. Enough." He raises an eyebrow condescendingly and her glare hardens. Her stance doesn't change but something in her face shifts. Suddenly, she looks nothing like her mother, and everything like me. A rush of pride floods me when I see her meet his challenge with her own, and I grin. That's my girl, I think in awe.

"Jesse." One word, and he's blinking and nodding rapidly. My grin widens. Anya relaxes and looks like Magda's younger sister once again. "Think you lot can behave for a few hours?" she asks calmly.

"So long as he keeps from looking at me," I mutter. She doesn't glare at me. In fact, her expression is almost… amused.

"Join the club. Jesse, be nice."

"Why do you always assume it's me?" he whines.

"Because it is always you. I'll be back in a little bit." She kisses Jesse's cheek and doesn't punch me, which I assume is a good thing.

"Anya!" Winters calls suddenly. She turns, one hand on the door. His face is no longer passive, no longer smug, but a little panic. The fist with the blue eye is flexing slightly. He swallows, and then says, "Bring an axe."

"Bring a what?" we both exclaim at the same time. We stop, turn to each other, mouths slightly opened. It's more than a little jarring.

"Not for today. Just leave it there. You'll need it for the Adrenalized." He's earnest and sincere and completely insane. Anya rolls her eyes but her fingers have tightened on the door.

"You're full of it Jesse."

"Why does she need an axe?" I snarl. Winters just shrugs.

"You'll see."

Anya only sighs and shuts the door, probably to do as he says. I wait until the door is closed before I grab the kid's shirt and haul him towards me, shaking him slightly. "Why does my daughter need an axe?" I snap again. Winters frowns and doesn't even attempt to make me let him go.

"A bad day is coming. She'll need it then." He pauses, tilts his head. "Actually, it's the same day you accept humans as being equal." I snort and toss him back.

"And why is that?" I'm angry but also a little… curious. "Humans are inferior. Always will be." That at least is the truth.

"Then you haven't met the Trio yet." He grins, a creepy grin that makes me shiver and scowl in irritation at the reflexive response. "See you around, Erik," Winters calls merrily, waltzing around me and whistling.

I'm so fucking sick of secrets in this home.

Right there with you Erik.

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