All the blood drained out of my face. This really wasn't turning out to be my day.

Moira poked her head around the door. "Erik, what's taking so long-" Her sentence broke off as she caught sight of Charles on the floor. "Oh God, Charles, not again."

"Go away. I'm drunk and you're loud and he's a hallucination." Charles pressed two fingers to his temple and glared at us blearily. "You're a filament of my imagination and I can make you leave if I think loud enough."

"I think you mean a figment." I muttered, staring. I could say that Charles hadn't changed at all in the three years I'd been away, but I'd be lying. His hair was shorter, the soft, floppy locks cropped close to his head, and he had a few days worth of stubble spackling his cheeks. It's always awkward running into an old flame (Trust me, I have a very bitter ex-wife), but it's even worse when they stink of scotch. The sleek designer suits he had worn when I first met him had been replaced with a rumpled gray suit that looked an awful lot like rayon and had too-short sleeves. He had on a loose tie in a hideous color that could only be described as dishtowel green and there was a band-aid plastered on his forehead at a rakish angle. His lip was split and puffy like he'd bitten it.

He looked like shit. I still wanted to jump his bones.

"Come on, Charles, sit up. It's not safe to fall asleep when you've been drinking." Moira chided gently, pulling him to his feet. He swayed for a moment before collapsing into the swivel chair. It bounced under his weight and he turned a little green. Leaning his head on Moira's shoulder, he closed his eyes and whimpered miserably.

"I was just coming to bring Alex some pictures." He slurred. "But then he wasn't here, and there was just the bottle open on the desk, and then when I started looking at the pictures- I mean really looking, Moira- they were just dreadful, and r-really I shouldn't be here at all…" He hiccupped and glanced back at me, resignation written on his face. "You're not a hallucination, are you?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, Charles." I wasn't sure whether I was apologizing for not being a construct of his drunken stupor or for leaving him in the first place. I hoped he'd interpret it as applying to both; I hate apologies.

"Oh, bother." He looked very put out. I'd never heard him drunk before, but it seemed to have made his cultured Oxford accent stronger, if slightly more incomprehensible. The green pallor of his face seemed to darken suddenly, and he stood up, wobbling. "Excuse me, I have to go be violently ill."

He stumbled to the bathroom on bowlegs, slamming the door behind him. Moira sighed as the pitiful sounds of retching projected through the thin walls.

I turned to her, slumping into the chair Charles had occupied a moment earlier. "Sorry, I think I've accidentally landed on a different planet. Do you have directions back to Earth?"

"I didn't think he'd be here. He doesn't usually get up before three in the afternoon these days." The desk creaked as she leaned against it heavily. "Look, he's going to be out of for at least five minutes more. We should talk now; it seems like we keep getting interrupted."

"How long has he been like that?" The Charles currently throwing up in the bathroom was almost nothing like the well-groomed, upper class Charles I had memories of. Was this even the same guy I knew? He certainly didn't look like the heir to the prestigious Xavier shipping company; It was like an evil twin had replaced him. An evil twin with a drinking problem.

"Erik. We can talk about him in a minute. Now just listen to me. Okay?" Moira tapped her nails on one of the empty glasses on the desk. "You're probably confused."

"Yes, that would be an understatement."

She glared at me and I shut my trap. "I wasn't exaggerating when I said there was a war on, Erik. Shaw had a stranglehold on the city, controlled all the drugs, extortion, blackmail, kidnapping, everything. Had a backhander in every policeman's pocket. Except ours, of course, but you already know that.

"Anyway, when you killed him, suddenly that stranglehold loosened. For a few months crime was down, everything was going great. We thought we'd skipped a bullet." She laughed bitterly. "Yeah, no such luck. The first February after you'd left, things started getting bad again. There would be a few more dead junkies than usual in the bad parts of town, a few more people going missing, a few more cops with lifestyles outside of their price range. We started getting suspicious. Detective Munoz was looking into it when he disappeared."

"Armando disappeared?" Armando Munoz was one of the guys on the team Moira and I had put together when we were trying to take down Shaw. He was the first colored guy in the station, and they'd been more than happy to lend him to us- The Diversity Squad, the beat cops called us. A Yid, a dame, a Negro, and a Canadian (Logan). He'd gotten promoted when I got kicked off the force- he'd taken my place as Moira's partner, adapting to his new role more quickly than I thought was possible. I was still sore about that, but I liked the cat.

Moira nodded. "We thought we'd lost him, but he turned up a week later, dropped off on the steps of the station by a black car, untraceable plates. He was beat up pretty badly, but he was able to get us a lot more information. It was damn brave of him.

"Armando said he'd been snatched on his way home one night, bag over the head and everything. Apparently he got brought to a warehouse somewhere, ended up meeting with some little shit calling himself Shinobi. Shinobi Shaw."

If I had been drinking water, it would have snorted out my nose. "What?"

"That's what we said. Armando says the guy's claiming to be Shaw's son, product of a sordid night between the big man himself and a Jap prostitute. One of Frost's, I'm going to guess." Emma Frost owned the highest-class brothel in town. She had an on-and-off relationship with Shaw, but when it was off, he frequented the girls in her employ. God only knows how he managed to sweet talk her into letting him do that. "Anyway, the kid- he can't be more than twenty-five, Mando says- the kid says that this city is his birthright. He's claiming that it's his duty to pick up where Shaw left off when you filled him with lead."

"Okay." I spread my hands. "I don't see the problem. It's just one upstart crank with a superiority complex. Shouldn't be too hard to handle."

Moira shook her head. "It wouldn't be. Except he's not the only person trying to fill the void Sebastian left behind. This Shinobi guy- he kept ranting about someone called Selene. Said she was some sort of… competition, I guess. Anyway, soon after that the shootings started. Not just random crazies, either. These were cold calculated hits. They are, sorry." She corrected herself. "Every couple weeks there'd be a drive-by in Chinatown, a bunch of gangsters gunned down. We've been able to connect them to Shaw Jr. A few days later we'll find a bunch of guys dead in a cellar or an alley. And they're not random guys, they're mercenaries, bookies, people with a connection the underground. We're guessing they're working for this Selene broad, whoever she is."

The clock ticked loudly in the background, the record having run its course and ended a few minutes earlier. The static hiss of the needle spinning endless circles in the grooves of Cole Porter filled the room, white noise as I took in everything Moira had said. "So that shooting today? That was part of this?"

"Without a doubt." Moira said grimly. "The Wong cat's a local doctor, treats most of the people in that part of Chinatown. We had some evidence that he'd been fixing up guys in Shinobi Shaw's gang, but we hadn't wanted to pull him in for questioning until we had really concrete proof." She sighed. "They were probably blackmailing him into it, anyway. He seemed like a good guy by all accounts. I just wish we'd gotten there sooner." A shake of the head. "And that poor old lady…"

I cringed, remembering the look on Jubilee's face back in Betsy's apartment. A sharp lance of guilt stabbed through my chest. This was my fault. Everything had fallen apart, and it was all my fault.

"Oh please, don't look like that." I twisted my head to see Charles standing in the doorway. Well, more like leaning on the doorway, really. He pointed at my face. "Like that. Your mouth's all twisty and your eyes are squinting. That's the face of self-pity, my friend, and I know it very well." He hiccupped softly, putting a hand to his chest with a wince. "Ow. Anyway, stop it. Your face'll stick like that. And then the world will be without your lovely scowl." He shambled over and jerked his thumb up. "Out. My chair."

He settled into the seat as I vacated it, humming softly. Moira and I exchanged a glance and he glared up at us. "Stop talking about me."

"We didn't say anything."

"Yeah, but-" He waggled his fingers by his head, "You were thinking. Loudly, I'm sure. Do either of you know where Alex keeps his extra booze?"

Moira snorted. "I doubt he can afford extra booze. He's going to kill you for finishing up that bottle, he was saving it for a special occasion."

"How do you know?" Charles retorted petulantly, attempting to swing his feet up onto the desk but missing by a mile. His heel knocked over a paperweight that had been a thirtieth birthday present from my great aunt.

"Because he told me. People do that sometimes, Charles, remember? Talking? It's what humans do occasionally, with their friends." She stressed the last word, pulling a packet of cigarettes from inside her coat. "Here, have one of these, it'll help you sober up."

Fishing around in his pockets, he produced a crumpled, half-smoked snipe from his creased trousers. "I don't need your charity, Moira, I've got all I need, right here." He slapped his thigh loudly and then cried out in pain, looking at his hand in offended shock. "What was that for?"

It was getting unbearable in the office. I turned away from Charles, cracking open a window as Moira hauled him to his feet. It was hard to see him like this; it's hard to see anyone who's felt the need to get drunk alone. Not for the first time, I wished he'd taken up my offer to come with me when I left the city.

"You're embarrassing yourself, Charles." Moira muttered, slinging his arm around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll take you back to your place."

The drunken heir shook his head violently, pulling away from her. "No. I've got to stay here. Got to deliver the pictures to Alex. I promised-" He clung to Moira's lapels, his warm blue eyes huge and dismayed. He looked like he might cry. "Please, Moira, I promised."

She swore and glanced over at me helplessly. "Erik, I can't stay here. I've got to get back to the station, start an investigation into the shooting. Can you…" She trailed off, scrubbing a weary hand over her face. "God, I know it's a lot to ask right now, but can you stay here and keep an eye on him? Just until Alex gets home, then you can find a hotel."

I nodded. It wasn't like I had much of a choice- nowhere to go, no one to go home to. "Yes, of course."

The door rattled, Charles bumping into it as Moira led him into the next room. She sat him down on the shabby burgundy couch, stroking a loose strand of hair off his forehead tenderly. "Try to get some rest, all right? Sleep this off." Charles buried his face in her shoulder, murmuring something tearfully. Moira patted the back of his head. "No, Charles, nobody's going to be angry with you." Feeling like I was intruding on something personal I looked away, but the first stirrings of jealousy were nagging at the back of my mind. Stupid, I thought to myself. You have no claim on anyone, least of all him.

Moira crossed the room as Charles lay down, his head lowering tentatively onto a throw pillow. Her eyes met mine, and she silently mouthed, "Thank you". Once we were close enough to the door and far enough away from Charles, she sighed. "He should pass right out and stay that way for a few hours. That's what he usually does when he's been drinking like this, anyway. Just make sure he stays on his side, I don't want my oldest friend to choke on his own vomit."

I cringed at the thought. "I'll make sure."

"Peachy keen. Thanks again."

Guilt reared its ugly head once more. "It's the least I could do. Moira, I-" The words tasted sour in my mouth. "I'm so sorry. I didn't realize."

Her smile was thin and haggard but genuine. "I know, Erik. I know." She reached out suddenly and pulled me into a lightning-fast hug before moving back, blushing embarrassedly. "I did miss you."

I grinned. "I knew it." We knew each other well enough that the unspoken I missed you, too didn't have to be said. She punched my shoulder lightly.

"Tell anyone I hugged you and you're a dead man, Lensherr."

"Your secret is safe with me."

I watched her descend down the stairs, waiting until her form was out of sight to close the door. Familiar shadows played beyond the frosted glass window, and I turned back to the living room. Charles was dead asleep on the couch, snoring quietly. The camera he had been wearing the whole time was still looped around his neck, and when I tried to maneuver it off him he frowned angrily in his sleep and tugged it back, wrapping it in his arms like a teddy bear. I shrugged and sat down in the armchair across from him, grabbing a worn issue of Popular Mechanics off the side table (Not mine, must have been Alex's) and thumbing through it distractedly. My real focus was on Charles, no matter how much I tried to shift my attention elsewhere.

He whimpered in his sleep and clutched the camera closer. The copy of Popular Mechanics dropped to the floor as I leaned forward, alert and anxious.

It was going to be a long afternoon.