Charles wakes alone the next morning; but the sheets are still warm beside him, and Erik has left an imprint where he was sleeping. He calls out for him, more out of curiosity than concern, and the reply comes from halfway across the grounds where he's decided to go for a morning run. His mind feels calm, but Charles can sense the disquiet vibrating underneath – Erik had spent the evening with his thoughts mostly locked-down, even against Charles' quiet presence, and the experience had unnerved him.
A grumbling from his stomach prompts Charles to clamber out of bed and go in search of food. He hasn't been there yet but he's sure that the kitchen is still in the same place as it was all those ago, where Raven had rippled to blue in front of him and he'd realised, his heart soaring, that he wasn't alone.
He stops short as he reaches the top of the stairs – there's a student, a girl, stood at the window and staring out of it. Her gloved hands are balled into fists at her sides and her face is set, unmoving, and when Charles reaches out to her all he can feel are waves of fear and confusion cresting straight from her core. He approaches her quietly and follows her gaze; in the near distance, he can see Erik's figure moving quickly and precisely across the grass.
"I know who you are," she says quite suddenly and turns to face him, and Charles is momentarily taken aback. "And I know who he is too."
"Then you know that he is not the same man that forced you to absorb his powers. You're frightened of him though?"
"No," she says quickly, and her face sets into a defensive expression for a moment before it crumples again and she lets out a breath. "Yes."
"I would be surprised if you weren't," he says, and she seems to take it for the small comfort that it is. "I should think that most people would hate him, after what he did."
"But I don't," she says, and twists her hair again and again around her finger. "Hate him, I mean. I feel like I should though. I want to. But my power doesn't just absorb abilities, it's much more than that. I got all of his memories, too – that's how I knew who you were, I saw you both in his mind. And I saw everything that's happened to him, everything that was done to him to make him into Magneto. I've seen his deepest desire, and it's to help people like us, to keep us safe. He doesn't go about it in the best way, but he just wants to protect us from what he's experienced himself. So I can't hate him."
She moves away from the window and sits on the very top step of the stairs, and the sunlight coming in from the window glints off the white streak in her hair; Charles watches Erik for a few seconds longer before joining her. She's fidgeting nervously, picking at her gloves as though she wants nothing more than to take them off. Here is another student, come here to learn and be kept safe, and be taught to control her powers instead of them controlling her. Here is his dream, come to life, but he can't even remember achieving it.
"For what it's worth, I think that you're being extremely mature about it all," he offers after a moment, and she gives him a half-smile in return.
"It's easier, seeing him like this," she admits. "If he looked like he did on Liberty Island, it'd be different. It's weird though – he doesn't look like him. He doesn't look like a bad guy, like someone that'd kill people because they get in his way. But I know that he is, or at least was. I know that loads of stuff happened to make him how he is."
Charles starts quite suddenly, struck by the possible implications of what she is saying.
"Marie," he says urgently, and she blinks in surprise at the use of her real name. "You said that you absorbed all of Erik's memories?"
"Yeah, but I'll lose them soon enough. Memories stick around longer than powers, but not forever."
"Then do you know why Erik and I parted ways in the first place?" he asks, and her face drops, and he knows that she saw it. He could take the memory himself, could be deft and nimble and she wouldn't even know that he'd been in her mind. But he doesn't want to do it that way; he wants her to give up the memory of her own volition. He wants her to trust him, the way that she trusts his older self. "I need to know."
"The memories I got... they're only as strong as he remembered them himself. His memories are all either specific details or really general ideas. I can't make sense of them, really."
"Then let me look at them myself," he pleads, and though she looks away, he knows that she will let him. "Please, Marie. I need to know how to stop this from happening."
She looks at him for a moment that lasts so many heartbeats, and then nods, and squeezes her eyes shut – bracing herself for the memory that she's about to dredge up, and Charles' presence in her head. He pauses for only a split second before reaching out and touching her mind, and soaking up the information.
It's a sudden shock to the system, and it's nothing like when he pulled the memory from Erik's head – as buried and lost as it had been, it had still been crystal clear and untainted. But this, this swirling mass colours and noise and smell and feelings is overwhelming and terrifying.
He sees a beach, smells metal – he sees himself, fingers to his temple and disillusioned, and everyone's looking at the sky. Then it's sand everywhere, pressing into his skin and knuckles against flesh, and then gunshots ringing loud and screaming – it's metal in his hand and Charles' skin feverish and familiar against his hands, and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, and my friend, we do not.
And then, unyielding and unshakable and rattling around inside his own head as everything falls apart around him, a thought that's trapped inside his helmet even though he wants nothing more than for Charles to hear him (though he'd never say it out loud), even if you do not want me by your side I will always protect you and fight for you until you are safe, or I am dead.
And then he is sat on the stairs in his mansion, his hands trembling where it's clutching Rogue's, and he remembers to breathe.
Erik returns from his run breathing heavily, and his face is flushed and his back damp with sweat. The first thing that he does when he comes through the bedroom door is strip off his shirt and head towards the bathroom and Charles follows him; Erik's reflection looks at his in the mirror and smile – and it's a very soft, very private smile that Charles doesn't think he's ever seen before. And this man would do anything to keep Charles safe, even if it means killing thousands of innocent men who are just following orders.
He steps close and slides his hands around Erik's chest, pressing against his back and resting his cheek against the back of his neck, and allows all of the affection and respect and contentment and love that he possibly can flow through him and into Erik. Because neither of them can say it, but they both know that it's true anyway.
This is the man who would do anything to keep Charles safe, and he is not letting go.
"Why is he here?" Scott asks abruptly, as soon as they enter the room, and Charles halts in surprise. Erik very nearly walks into the back of him.
"Because I'm here," Charles snaps back in return, and crosses the room to sit on the empty sofa.
"Professor, we asked to speak with you alone..."
"And you'd be fools to think that I wouldn't share the whole conversation with him as soon as I left the room anyway. But this is pointless, and not what you called me here to discuss, so can we move on please?"
There's a sense of unease in the room that Charles doesn't need his powers to feel, and he's acutely aware of the gazes of the others tracking Erik's movements as he sits beside him on the sofa; and if Erik's own apprehension is anything to go by, he's just as mindful of their distrust.
"We wanted to talk to you about what's happening, Professor," Storm says eventually, with a meaningful look. "And whether or not it can be reversed."
"Unfortunately I'm no more knowledgeable than you are. As I've already told you, the last thing that we remember is going to sleep in 1962, the night before going to stop Shaw from starting World War III. Neither of us have any memories between that night and recently."
"And you've remembered nothing since?"
"Nothing at all," he says simply, and shrugs. "I have very few suggestions. Are there any students here, or any other mutants that you know of, with an ability that could cause this? A power that de-ages people, say, or removes memories. Anything of the sort?"
"No," Jean says with a sigh. "But we need to work out what's going on here, and get it fixed. We can't continue this way – the students are going to start asking questions. And as soon as either one of you uses your powers around them, one of them will work out what's going on. If you're both stuck this way, we need to have a plan."
"I've always felt that the truth is the best option," Charles concedes, and turns to his left, where Erik has been silent throughout the discussion. "Erik?"
"I don't want to," he says quite abruptly, and everyone turns their gazes to him. His knee is pressed against Charles' thigh and he can feel him vibrating, a mass of barely-contained tension. He's looking down at his hands where they rest on his lap, and doggedly not looking at them.
"Don't want to what?" Charles asks, and Erik lifts his gaze.
"I don't want to go back to how it was before. It would be an entirely wasted opportunity. Look around yourself, Charles," he pleads, and gestures around at the room. "What have you achieved?"
"My friend, this school..."
"But what of outside the mansion?" Erik presses, leaning forward in his seat. "Can you go out onto the streets in the cities and use your powers? Can you show the world who you really are? Can your children walk amongst humans and feel safe? Do they sleep soundly at night, knowing that if strangers found out that they were members of an entirely different species, they would not be spurned or attacked?"
"It's not like that –" Scott starts, but Erik cuts him off sharply.
"It's exactly like that, and a school like this – hidden away from human eyes – would not be needed otherwise," he says vehemently, and turns to Charles. "Don't you see? Humans are still caught between fearing us and hating us. There might be a few like Moira that don't but they're in the minority, just like before. I don't know what everyone's been doing for the last three decades but it's not working."
"So what do you suggest instead?" Charles asks, and for a moment, Erik's eyes light up and for the first time since he moved the satellite dish, he looks almost hopeful.
"We can change things, my friend. We have a chance here to try again, to make a difference this time. More of a difference."
"And what would you do differently this time?" Storm asks, and she fixes Erik with a stern glance. "Something more along the lines of your own methods?
"Magneto's methods," he retorts, and his face pulls downwards into a scowl. "And no. Clearly, neither approaches to humans have been effective. Magneto has been too aggressive, Xavier too passive. We need to reach a compromise and start anew."
I would never have thought you a man concerned about humanity's acceptance of us, Charles says, and he feels Erik's surprise at the sudden mental statement in the midst of normal conversation. But this is something that he does not want the others to hear; they are suspicious enough of Erik as it is, without Charles' confusion over his intentions exacerbating anything. There's more to this than you're letting on.
I won't lie to you – I have no interest in humans accepting us. But I do take issue with them controlling us, and I'm tired of living in fear of humans and what they might do to us. We can try again to change the set of their minds.
And? he prompts, and Erik's gaze flickers briefly to the others before settling back on Charles, with a look in his eyes that dares Charles to mock him.
And I cannot stand the thought of a future where you and I are enemies, he says, quite simply, and Charles more than understands. He presses his leg more solidly against Erik's knee, and Erik almost smiles.
"We can continue my work with fresh ideas and all of the knowledge of our previous mistakes," he says out loud, and looks back at the others. They clearly know that he and Erik just had a private exchange, but none of them are willing to call him on it. "Erik is right, we've been given a second chance. With the progress that's already been made with establishing the school and training new students, we can turn our focus to improving human relations. And now, we have an extra thirty-eight years to work with, and unrecognised faces. We can reinvent ourselves and bring new perspectives to the debates. This doesn't have to be a bad thing that's happened."
Storm, Jean and Scott exchange pointed looks for nearly a minute, and Charles lets them have their own private conversation – he glances at Erik, and he is looking straight back, with a startlingly intense expression on his face. Erik reaches out just slightly to touch Charles' wrist with the very tips of his fingers, and immediately Charles is hit with the same unerringly sentiment that he'd pushed into Erik's mind just hours before.
This doesn't have to be a bad thing, Erik repeats firmly, and Charles knows that he's talking about so much more than just this. He feels content; Erik is correct in that for as much his dreams of a safe haven for mutants have come true, there is still so much unachieved – and yet here he has the opportunity to try again, and get it right this time. There are few more things that he could ask for.
Jean makes a noise of agreement across the coffee table, says something about needing to formulate a plan to explain the situation to the students, but Charles isn't listening. His whole being is focused on that point of contact on his wrist, and everything that the future promises to be.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" Erik asks, and he twirls his rook twice between his fingers before setting it down (black, always black, like the soul that Erik thinks is inside him but Charles knows so fiercely otherwise). Charles takes a moment to assess the board, to run through all of the possible strategies that Erik is employing; he seems to be playing an offensive game and aiming straight for the first rank. He usually does.
"You're being very vague," he says by way of a response, and shifts a pawn forwards. They are fed and watered and washed, and Charles can feel his own contentment mirrored in the slouch of Erik's shoulders, in the way that his foot is pressed against Charles' calf beneath the table, in his warm eyes and easy smile.
It's a relief to see him anything other than tense – today, after they had eaten their lunch and were sitting quietly on a bench in the gardens, Jean had come to ask if they wanted to sit in the back of her Mutant History class with the students. They had said yes, of course, and followed her through the hallways and Charles couldn't help but grin at the cheerfulness rippling from the man beside him purely because Jean had called him Erik.
For all that Erik proclaims not to care for other people's acceptance, he feels much more comfortable now that he knows at least one other person here does not hate him for things that he can't even remember doing.
But this is the first game of chess that they've managed to play since they woke up, and it's refreshing; it's almost like being back home, sipping on Scotch with a fire roaring on the hearth and the trees rustling in the breeze. The room, however, is not the same – between the day before war and now, Charles had moved from the top floor to the ground floor, and the wheelchair behind the screen in the corner is a painful reminder of why.
Charles hasn't said a word to Erik about it. He wants to tell him so desperately, wants to tell him the extent of what went wrong on the beach, but he can't bring himself to. He knows that Erik will blame himself, will hate himself, and he doesn't want to destroy the calmness that Erik has managed to find here for the moment.
"You know what I mean," Erik prompts, and runs the tip of one finger around the edge of his glass. "Staying here, like this, and not trying to change things back to how they were. Are you sure you're happy with the idea?"
"I can't see why I wouldn't be content with it. I mean yes, I hadn't really considered it before you pointed it out, but it seems silly in retrospect to want to reverse the process. As you said, we now have an extra thirty-eight years to make an impact. We could disagree about our respective approaches to handling the situation until we talk each other's ears off – and I'm fairly sure that we will, it would be terribly boring if we agreed with each other at every turn – but I can't deny that this is an opportunity, and it would be foolish to squander it."
Erik doesn't even consider his answer; he just fixes Charles with an intense look and holds it until Charles wants to look away. But he doesn't.
"I didn't ask if you were content, I asked if you were happy," he says slowly, and Charles smiles and pulls Erik's mind into his.
"Half of my dreams have been realised, and I'm experiencing them with you by my side. Why would I not be happy?"
It's the answer that Erik was looking for and he stands, pushing at Charles both mentally and physically until he topples backwards onto the bed with a laugh. The chess game lies incomplete and forgotten behind them. It is irrelevant, like all things but their minds entwined together.
It comes to him in the middle of the night, when the mansion is quiet with the gentle humming of dreams and Erik is warm and snoring beside him, arms wrapped around him and face pressed against his shoulder. It comes hard and fast and out of nowhere, and the force of it wakes him from sleep.
It's disorienting to start with. It was not a dream, or certainly no type of dream that Charles has ever had before – no, it felt like a memory, but the sort that has been buried for years and years, completely forgotten, until suddenly something stirs it and it rises to the surface. But it's just the tiniest detail from a memory, a flash of some sort of nostalgia. He knows that it is important, but he has no idea why.
"A man," he says out loud, staring up at the ceiling, and projects the image directly to Erik. He watches as it filters down through his subconscious, through all of the careful defences that he knows just how to avoid, and through the layers of dreams. He watches Erik turn where he's stood on the sand, grains lingering in the creases of his clothes and blood flecking his knuckles, and the air tastes of twisted metal.
"Who's this?" he says – curious, but not fearful – and Charles shrugs. The man is tall, at least as tall as Erik, and built like an athlete. He's wearing a curious blue suit, not dissimilar to the ones that he's seen the X-Men wear whilst training, and his hair is a shocking white. There's a voice in the back of his head that says you know this man, but he doesn't; or at least, he can't remember him at all.
"I don't know, but I just had an extremely sharp memory of him. Not a normal memory though – it felt forced. Like someone – or something – was making me remember him, had triggered the memory."
"So it may well be somebody that you've encountered between 1962 and now?"
"Possibly. Perhaps it was him that did this to us, and I managed to reach out with my powers in the split second before whatever he did took effect, and I've somehow managed to recall the memory? I don't know, but it feels important. We can ask the others, see if they recognise him. I know that we've agreed not to change things back, but it could be useful to find out why it happened in the first place regardless."
Erik stares at the man for a few more seconds and then turns back to face the sea, the beach stretching out in an arch around him, and he holds out his hand to Charles.
"It can wait until morning. Stay with me for a while longer."
Charles nods, and the projection of the man disappears. He takes the few steps to stand by Erik's side and lets himself sink into this dream, and last it out until the sun sets over the ocean and rises over the mansion.
Charles finds Storm ushering students into the conservatory for their first lesson of the day; he projects the vision of the man into her mind but she just shakes her head, and calls down the corridor to John to stop messing around and get into class.
He finds Scott in the lower levels, training with Piotr, and he watches as optic blasts bounce off the metallic skin, leaving great scars on the walls of the room. Once they finish he asks the same thing of Scott but again, he shakes his head.
He finds Jean in the library, reading quietly with the book held in position telekinetically, holding a cup of tea with both hands. She looks up when he enters and smiles; the students all project to a certain extent, but most of them do it unconsciously and he can filter them out completely if he wants near-silence in his mind. Jean, however, knows how his power works and seems to project directly to him. He knows that right now, as she watches him walk across the room to sit opposite her, that she's thinking of how wonderful it is to see her Professor not needing his wheelchair.
"How can I help you?" she asks, and he is so terribly grateful for her acceptance of both him and Erik. They could have easily turned them away, pointed out that they were in effect strangers to them, but they didn't; they might still not be too sure of Erik but they've given them more than Charles could have expected. He likes to think, somewhat arrogantly, that it's a product of his older self's own morals and lessons that have nurtured their compassion.
"I remembered something last night. The briefest of memories, only an image – a man. But it's not somebody that I recognise, and neither do Erik, Scott or Storm. He feels important though and perhaps it was he who did this to us. Would you mind taking a look, in case you know who he is?"
She smiles and sets down her book and cup, and leans forward; he mimics her posture instinctively and she raises her hands to either side of his head, closing her eyes and easing her way in.
But he can tell, as soon as she's seen the memory, that she has no more idea of who this man is than the rest of them do. Her apology is palpable as she recedes and leans backwards and picking up her tea to take an anxious sip.
"Have you asked any students yet?" she suggests, but he shakes his head. Perhaps once they've explained the whole situation to the children he might feel more comfortable asking for their help, but not yet. They deserve to know who they are assisting before he requests it of them, and he is not in favour of taking information from his students by force. They are here to be protected; he will not betray that.
"It was always a stab in the dark anyway – he could be a memory from any point in my life between 1962 and now. There's no way that I could have expected you to recognise him," he says ruefully, and she nods slowly, but he can tell that she's not really listening. She's thinking, that magnificent brain of hers coming up with solutions, and it's beautiful to watch. He's eager to start training with her, to teach her how to harness her gifts and how to control them so that they bend to her will. She has the potential to be great.
"There is one thing that you could try, if you really want to know who he is," Jean says after a moment, and she lowers her cup very slowly. "You could use Cerebro."
The room seems larger than it did several weeks ago, when he was first shown it. It's the first time that Erik has been inside though, and he's fascinated – the technology on the console is far beyond anything that they two of them encountered in their own time, but Charles can see hints of the CIA prototype in the workings.
"So you got the designs for this from Hank McCoy?" Erik asks, running his hand over the panels, and Charles can feel the warm hum of the metal through the weak feedback link to Erik's mind, and the contentment that comes with them.
"We have no idea," Jean admits, and she touches her fingers briefly to an area in the middle of the console; it lights up, and the room seems to swell with potential. "You and the Professor built Cerebro long before any of us came to the mansion."
The floor of the walkway is cool beneath his skin as he kneels on the floor – Erik hasn't asked why it's been designed at waist-height, and Charles doesn't particularly feel like explaining. The headpiece is surprisingly light when he takes hold of it, and it feels comfortable and natural in his hands. He's aware of Jean walking away and out the doors, but Erik is still lurking uncertainly by his shoulder, caught between leaving and staying.
"I want you by my side," he says firmly, without looking up, and the words feel heavy and familiar on his tongue and he's struck with such a sudden sense of déjà vu that he nearly drops Cerebro, even though he knows that he's never said that phrase before. It feels like home and heartbreak at the same time, and he shakes it off.
He puts on the headpiece slowly, feels Erik's hand curling around his shoulder. He knows the theory behind this version of Cerebro; know how it's been modified from Hank's prototype, how he only has to think of a mutant in order for the machine to access them.
Charles takes a breath, and thinks of the man in his dreams.
He sees fire and crying and people shouting and screaming, and a woman burning to death. He sees a little girl with blonde hair and golden eyes, he sees mutants dying in the rain. He sees a massive machine firing down upon himself, he feels the pain that rips through his body. He sees a girl with dark hair, crying in the dark and curled up against him. He feels his mind trickle away, feels the psychosis setting in. He sees millions become hundreds in a few scant seconds, with just three words. He sees a woman with long red hair arching her body against his. He sees himself, a thousand different variations of different ages scattered throughout the snatches of life and he sees a mountain, rising up through the middle and encompassing everything; where it all started, where the world began to end. He sees –
Nothing.
He blinks, and groans; his whole body aches and his head is pounding and his ears are ringing. There's blood dripping into his mouth, hot and coppery where he's managed to force himself into a nosebleed. Cerebro is quiet around him.
"...Charles," he hears, quite suddenly, and realises that Erik is clutching him and he's lying on the floor of Cerebro, the headpiece abandoned a few feet away.
"Erik," he manages, and even that takes effort. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts; the image of a white lightning bolt is still seared into his mind. "What happened?"
"It looked like you were overloading," Erik says, and Charles can hear the residual fear in his voice. "You grabbed Cerebro but didn't take it off – it was like you couldn't, even though you were hurting yourself. I thought it was just because you weren't used to this version of Cerebro, but then you started to bleed and fell to the floor."
"Well I'll admit that it didn't go as planned," he says, and sits up slowly. His head is still spinning and the shape of the room is disorienting from a low angle – he looks around and can't help but sway slightly, but Erik takes hold of him and keeps him steady.
"Did you find anything out before you collapsed? Who is he?"
"I don't know," Charles mutters, and rubs at his temples. The headache is beginning to ease, but very slowly. "It was such a mix of images, memories of events that have happened and haven't happened and might have happened. There's something different about him, something not right – I couldn't get a decent hold of his mind. It's like it was too fluid, like he was everywhere in every time at once. But now that I know what to expect, I'll be better prepared to deal with it."
"You're not trying again," Erik says strongly, his forehead touching Charles' briefly and his hands holding on tight. "Whoever this man is, it's not important. It doesn't matter."
"But he –"
"No. I don't care who is he, or what he did, or anything about him. You are more important than any of those things and I won't have you risking your mind for something so inconsequential."
Charles knows that the expression on his face is mutinous and he nearly protests, nearly tries to reason with Erik, but the line of his mouth and the dark edge in his eyes says that he won't be reasoned with; not on this. So Charles nods and sighs, and Erik's body relaxes – almost as though until that point, he was ready to physically restrain Charles from picking up Cerebro again.
"Fine," he grumbles, and Erik helps him stand. His legs still feel too weak to support him fully and his head is still slowly spinning, so he leans heavily on Erik as they exit the room and make their way back upstairs. He doesn't want to rest, but he knows that Erik will insist upon it, and he doesn't have the energy to argue. So he doesn't complain as Erik steers him down the landing and into their room, and pushes him onto the bed.
And he can't object when Erik kicks off his boots and curls his own body around him, thumb rubbing slow, small circles in the indentation of his hip, either.
The next morning, Scott calls all of the students together, and tells them with no pretences that Max Eisenhardt and Francis Pembroke are in fact Erik Lensherr and Charles Xavier, and they children react in an unexpected manner – they insist upon proof.
Erik and Charles are both more than willing to provide, of course – every metal item in the room shakes and rises, and Charles reads a few minds. He even projects a brief explanation of what's happened to them – an abridged version, though. They don't need to feel his horror, or his fury, or Erik's despair at being cut off from the two things that ground him. Those moments are private and they belong to just the two of them, and he will not share them.
The students watch their demonstrations and relive the memories, and they assess the two men standing before them, proclaiming to be both humankind's greatest enemy and mutantkind's greatest hope, and they say nothing for quite a while. It's one of the youngest children that speaks up first – a boy with a forked tongue, who points at Erik and frowns. It's a fairly innocuous gesture but Charles can feel the concern bleeding from Erik's mind, the worry of rejection. He takes a step closer.
"He can't be Magneto," he proclaims, and lowers his hand. "He's not evil enough."
"He's not Magneto," Rogue says, quite suddenly, and everybody in the room turns to face her. The students all know the story of what Magneto did to her, and they watch her as though her decision on this matter will be the final one; and perhaps it will be. Out of all of the students, she's the only one who's been directly affected by Magneto and so the only one that truly has a reason to hate him.
"He's not Magneto," she repeats, and she looks straight at Erik. She doesn't smile, but neither does she frown. "He's Erik."
And just like that, the decision is made, and Charles basks in Erik's relief as the students accept him into their fold.
Charles comes down to breakfast one morning to find a blonde-haired teenage girl outside the main door, snoozing where she's curled up in a ball using her rucksack as a pillow.
He wakes her and she blinks sleepily, yawning in the morning light, and tells him that she's looking for Charles Xavier.
(part 3 coming soon)