Gabrielle told him about the baby four months before its birth.

In a normal situation, it would have been embarrassing for a man not to notice that his wife was in her third trimester, but he really couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. They hadn't touched, after all, as a husband and wife should since before the wedding.

He'd never made love with his wife.

She went into the city a week before the due date, and came back sixteen days later with his son. She named him David, after her father who'd died in the camps.

David was a joy, and unmistakably Charles' son, despite the numerous vicious rumors to the contrary. His eyes were like miniature copies of his fathers' a bright, cerulean blue that held true as the boy aged. Charles delighted in every moment spent with his little boy, secretly thanking the deities that he didn't believe in for the escape from the hell that his life had become.

David, having just turned three years old, liked nothing better than to sit on Charles' lap as he wheeled them around the echoing rooms of the first floor. He couldn't quite feel his child, the shards of metal that found home in his spine on their wedding night had long since made sure of that, but there was a sort of...sensation of weight there, a pressure against his numb thighs that grew more tangible the farther up it went, until the point where David's warm behind was parked snugly against his stomach.

The muscles in his arms bunched and slid smoothly as he propelled the two of them down one hallway, through cavernous chambers and fine sitting rooms. Their destination, the kitchen, held their sought after prize of cocoa and biscuits.

David's mind was a familiar, beloved presence alongside his. Charles knew this little boy's thoughts as well as his own, having immersed himself in the blurry, not-yet thoughts the moment his baby arrived on his mental radar. The prospect of hot chocolate and cookies made the child's thoughts absolutely sing giddy songs of anticipation.

Charles slowed to wrap his arms around the tiny body and press his temple against the glossy black curls, wanting to sink into the boy's mind and never resurface. But David only put up with that for a moment before impatience made him squirm, and Charles laughingly resumed their trek.

When they reached the dark, cold of the kitchen, David jumped down and headed straight to the dried goods where the cocoa powder resided. Charles had to strain slightly in his chair to flick the light on, but he managed. David set the things out, climbing up onto the counter to reach the mugs, and standing on Charles' lap to get the milk. It always took some maneuvering to get the kettle on the stove and light it up, but he wasn't going to let his three year old try.

They'd developed that routine, his little son and he, out of necessity. Gabrielle, the only fully functioning adult, didn't like being bothered to fetch it. She was probably in bed at the moment. He sent out his awareness to encompass the entire house and yes, there she was, curled up in her room on the third floor. Not asleep though, just curled around a pillow and wallowing in her own self-pity.

It was only seven o'clock, they had an hour until David's designated bedtime. Once the kettle had boiled, David sat on the counter and they stirred the mix into the hot water together, and then moved to their favourite sitting room down the hall to curl up together on the monster of a couch, David with his cocoa and Charles with a cup of Earl Grey.

When the hour struck eight, they pretended not to notice. For another half hour Charles read out loud from the old book of fairy tales they kept stashed in the bookcase for cozy nights such as these. Eventually they migrated to the bathroom to brush David's teeth, wash David's face, and kiss David goodnight. Then the child scampered up the massive grand staircase, after a good amount of encouragement from his father because Gabrielle had forgotten to turn any lights on for him again, to his bedroom next to his mother's three floors above. Charles, as he'd promised, waited at the bottom until he heard the faint click of David's door shutting before he slowly wheeled back to the kitchen to clean up.

There was a spot of cocoa on the counter, close to the wall. No matter how hard he tried, Charles couldn't reach it.

The cleaners would get it then, when they came two days from now. Charles wheeled along the cold empty halls until he reached the bedroom that he'd slept in since the accident. It was just off the library and had been a study for over a century before it had been converted.

When he'd come home at last, after two months recovering in the hospital, he'd simply assumed that Gabrielle would move down with him into the new bedroom since he couldn't get up the two flights of stairs required to reach the master bedroom. It seemed, however, that she had already grown quite fond of the room during his time away.

He understood, of course, perhaps even better than she did herself. To this day, Gabrielle was frightened of him, of his alien, motionless legs, of his spindly metal wheelchair. Afraid of her crippled husband.

They had been married for just two months and they'd not yet slept in the same bed.

Since he'd understood, Charles took it graciously. He would give her time, he had told himself, to come to terms with the new life. It would take time, he knew, it was a huge blow for a woman like Gabrielle, to suddenly be saddled with such a burden.

He'd waited for a year before realizing that the depression that had set in during the weeks after the accident wasn't going to go away, that this was to be their life together, Gabrielle hiding upstairs and Charles doing his best to raise their son below.

The mansion that was to be their honeymoon palace became their prison. David made it bearable, even joyful some days. But there was always the oppressive cloud that was his wife's misery hanging over them.

Kurt had died the previous year, and Cain was off doing who knows what overseas. Sharon never visited, not since David was born. Charles hadn't left the estate now in months. In the beginning he'd made attempts, as hard as it had been on his ruined body, to get out at least once a week. Gabrielle had come, not every time, but enough to put on the air of healing, of a couple staying strong together after a tragedy. Then the excursions had dwindled to every month, and eventually not even that.

There was nothing for him on the outside. His family had given up all pretense of caring, he'd quit his position at the university in order to enlist, and then been honorably discharged before seeing action. The few friends he' had still wrote occasionally, but they were scattered all over the globe, jetsetting most of them, some had settled down in various exotic cities around the globe, living it up like wealthy young people should.

He had David. He was content. He chanted it, his own personal mantra day in day out. David filled his life with toddler games and new discoveries every day. But he was growing up so fast. How long would it be before he realized that the wheelchair wasn't a fun toy but the thing that had ruined his family before he was even born? And before that he would be of age to go off to school and what would Charles do with his days then?

He slowly washed up for bed, did the nightly battle with his pajama bottoms, and hoisted himself into his empty bed. He performed the necessary stretches robotically, knowing that they were required to keep his paralyzed legs limber, but unable to silence the nagging voice in his head, the one that was nobody but his-

What was the point?