Sorry this took some time to get out; things got crazy busy at school. Anyway, this chapter is a bit shorter, I know, but it's also a bit of an interlude. You'll see what I mean. Shaw plot picks up more after this, yay! But anyway, here ya go. I can't wait to hear from ya'll! Thanks so much for reading!
Chapter 15
Now
"Charles? Can you hear me? Charles…"
Charles's eyes flicker open groggily, and he blinks up in confusion at his husband as Erik brushes his hair from his forehead. Erik is leaning over him rather closely. "What…? Of course I can hear you. Am I awake, you mean? Quite, at the moment." The bedroom seems bright for morning and he lets his gaze shift to the window briefly. If he's correct, it seems to be early afternoon light. "Why is it so late? You should have woken me."
It's been several days since the visit to the infirmary that told them the tumor isn't cancer and can be operated on. They've waited for word since then. Charles knows he's been tiring easily—and that it's been getting worse—but letting him sleep more than half of the day away seems a bit excessive.
Erik is frowning at him now and Charles is prepared to argue, but then he realizes he's fully clothed and wonders just before Erik speaks.
"Charles…you've been awake all morning," he scowls worriedly.
Charles blinks. "I…what?" He feels the rest of it then—the barely suppressed panic and worry and everything with it from Erik. Recent feelings. From something that's just happened. Other things he can't quite put a finger on. He wants to sit up but he can't quite coordinate himself to do it.
Erik looks at him for a moment, and when he speaks he does it slowly, his fingers shifting down to rub over Charles's cheek instead. "You…you had a seizure, Charles. You don't remember anything? You were up all morning before that." His voice comes close to wavering, and Charles knows he isn't making this up. Erik is shaken, and he sees it now.
"I don't…I don't remember. What happened?"
"It was an hour or two ago…Jean called Hank, but he said there wouldn't be anything they could really do for you at the infirmary anyway; it's just one of the effects. So we just kept you here. Apparently whatever they gave you to prevent this isn't working went enough…"
Erik scowls again, and Charles swallows, trying to process what he's being told. "I uhm…well…nothing is perfect, I suppose…though I imagine it would have happened before now without the medicine."
"Maybe. Maybe not." Erik pushes out a sharp breath. "Are you all right?"
Charles tests the moving bit again, and it works this time. He starts to sit up and Erik pulls him gently the rest of the way, arranging pillows behind him for him to lean back into. He does, settling back but still a little uncoordinated. His left arm, the one that's spasmed before, seems especially uncooperative, and he makes a face. "I'm here," he says noncommittally.
Erik falls uncomfortably silent, just looking at him for a long moment. "You really don't remember anything?" he asks. "Not from this morning?"
"No…why?"
"You were up…but you were acting strangely all morning, before the seizure. I already wanted to take you to the infirmary anyway before it happened. I uhm…" He looks away.
"Erik? What happened?" Charles anxiously.
"Nothing…"
"There's something you aren't telling me." He would know it from the look on his husband's face, even if he couldn't feel Erik's mind.
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does. What did I do? I know they told us the pressure on my brain might affect behavior at times. I—"
"I know," Erik says firmly. "It was tumor making you act differently; it wasn't you. It doesn't matter."
Charles's tongue sticks in his mouth for a moment, because he knows that can't be a good sign, that Erik won't tell him anything. "Erik, what did I do?"
Erik takes his hand and squeezes it. "Nothing. You were just…irritable—woke up on the wrong side of the bed and stayed there, that's all." Erik kisses his forehead. "It wasn't you. I know you're not like that."
Charles raises an eyebrow. "Not usually, but if you don't tell me why you're upset I may become rather irritable."
"I'm upset because you had a seizure and it scared the hell out of me."
"I know, I know that…but that isn't it. Is it?"
"Charles…" Erik shifts closer, trying to distract him, but the door opens then and Kitty pokes her head in.
"Mommy? Is Mommy okay now?"
"Kitty, what are you—" Erik stops and sighs. "Yes, Mom is okay now."
Erik is the one who answers because Charles is staring at the bandage off to one side of her forehead.
"Kitty," Erik says, "Mom is okay now but he needs to rest. Why don't you go back and play."
"Okay…"
She goes, and by the time the door shuts again Charles can't get a breath. "E-Erik, what…oh god, Erik, what happened? Did I do that? Did I do that?"
"Charles, it's not—"
"Don't you dare lie to me!" His head hurts now, and he can get air but only in short gasps, and his eyes are full. "I did, didn't I? What did I do! What did I—oh god. God…!" He feels the tears on his cheeks and Erik takes his shoulders, though by now he knows not to shake.
"Charles, stop it! It's not like that! It was an accident. You didn't see her, all right? You didn't see her. It was an accident. That's all it was.
"But how…?"
"I told you not to try to do anything today and you wouldn't listen to me. You were…I don't know. I don't even know what you were complaining about anymore. You were just…banging around in the kitchen. That's all. You had a pan in your hand and you didn't see her. I promise you it was an accident. And she's fine. Kitty is fine. Just calm down..."
Charles knows Erik isn't lying, but he's already upset. He cries anyway, and Erik pulls him close and holds onto him. He loses some of his control and for a moment he sees some of it, in Erik's mind without meaning to—himself yelling and agitated and throwing things about in the kitchen—and he knows it all happened even though he can't remember.
"Shh…Charles, it's okay. It's all right. It wasn't your fault."
Charles clings to his husband tighter and chokes back a sob. "I want this thing out of me," he gasps.
"I know. Me too," Erik says unevenly. "Just a few more days."
"I don't want to wait a few more days," Charles mutters. He's tired. Panicking himself, apparently, takes energy. Energy he doesn't have much of right now. But he doesn't want to go back to sleep.
He doesn't want to wake up and be someone else again.
Erik doesn't let go of him until there's a knock on the door. Charles pushes away to sit up, drying his face quickly because he knows who it is. "You can come in, Kitty." Erik gives him a look, but he ignores it.
The girl comes in and smiles sheepishly at him. "You rested 'nough yet? You feel better?"
"Yes, I…Kitty, come here. Please." He holds out his arms and she climbs quickly up onto the bed and into them. Erik backs up on the edge of the bed to give her room to get there, understanding on his face now and he doesn't say anything to stop her. "I'm so sorry, Kitty," Charles tells her quietly. It takes everything in him to keep his voice steady for her. "I'm sorry, I—"
"It's okay. You didn't mean it. Daddy said so." She sits back on her haunches on his legs and points at her head. "An' I'm okay. It doesn't hurt real bad."
"Good…that's good." Damn the tears. They're in his eyes again. He kisses the bandage gently and pulls her back to him. "I'm glad." She stays still for a minute or two, but then she's squirming back again.
"Mommy? You wanna play Go Fish?"
It isn't quite what he was expecting, but Charles clears his throat and answers. "Well I don't see that I have much else to do at the moment…but you'll have to bring it here. I doubt your father will let me out of bed."
Kitty looks back at Erik, who nods. "Mom needs to stay in bed. But you can play in here if you want." He reaches to ruffle her hair. "I'll play too if you want," he says, smiling now.
"Yay!" Kitty jumps down and disappears.
When she's gone Charles slumps again, and Erik climbs up farther on the bed to be beside him and encircles him in his arms. Charles knows they don't have long before Kitty is back, but his chest hurts from the lump in his throat.
"I can't believe I—" But Erik shushes him again, not taking any of that, and kisses him. That, as usual, helps some. This will all be over soon. They both know the risks aren't over, the danger isn't quite past, but for right now Charles doesn't protest the assertion. He wants to believe it, too.
Kitty comes back with Bobby and a deck of cards in her hand, and both of them scrambling up into the middle of the bed. "We're ready!" Kitty singsongs.
"Hey, what about us?" It's Jean, grinning in the doorway with Ororo behind her, and Charles realizes it must actually be just late enough in the afternoon that Ororo has gotten home from school.
Kitty glares at Jean. "You peeked! I didn't tell you we were playing!"
"So?"
Bobby pokes Kitty in the side of the head as Jean and Ororo come in and make themselves comfortable on the edge of the bed. "Be nice." Kitty sticks her tongue out at her twin, and Charles chuckles softly.
"I suppose we'll all play then," he says. Erik's arm is comfortable around his shoulder, making it easier to stay sitting up even though he's worn out, and he smiles easily now.
And he supposes that—besides the first part he can't remember anyway—even if this were to be one of his last days here, it would be okay at least in the sense that it was a nice one.
But he hopes it isn't one of the last. He still has a lifetime of moments like this ahead of him to fight for.
It's only two more days before the surgeon and his team arrive, and it's good that it's only that because they aren't good days. Charles is tired so easily he's hardly out of bed, and he's in pain, though it's almost good that because of those things he sleeps so much because when he's asleep he doesn't have the chance for the tumor to affect how he acts too awfully. There isn't another incident quite like that—nothing that severe—but there are seizures. The first of the two days they bring him to the infirmary anyway, and they keep him there to monitor him.
Charles is awake long enough the day the surgeon arrives to meet him—a kind older man who shakes their hands and smiles quite a lot and tells them everything is going to be fine if he can help it.
"I'm only sorry I won't be able to do more of the actual surgery myself—bit old for it now. But my students are good surgeons—it's only that they have no direct experience with brain surgery. Only what I've taught them. But that's why I'm here; to make sure nothing goes wrong."
Charles takes to the man immediately, and it's one of the only things that keeps Erik calm.
"It's going to be fine, Erik. He knows what he's doing," Charles tells him when they're alone.
Everyone crowds into Charles's infirmary room that afternoon, there to be there, because they need to be, but they leave Erik and his husband alone again for the night. The operation will be in the morning. Erik sleeps with Charles, holding him to his chest and whispering to him until they both fall asleep.
The next morning they're both trying to be strong for each other, and Erik knows it. While they wait Charles is sitting quietly on the edge of the infirmary bed in his hospital gown, but his jaw is clenched. Erik gives up his short pacing laps and goes abruptly back to his husband's side and tugs him into his arms.
His throat clogs when he hears Charles sob dryly into his shoulder as he clings back. "Charles…"
Charles pulls in heavy breaths and swallows. "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm all right. It'll be all right. I'm all right…"
Erik makes a face. "I'm scared too, you know."
Charles laughs weakly, once, and holds on tighter. "I know."
The others aren't here now. They came yesterday afternoon, and they'll be in the waiting room, but last night and right now is for them. Erik shifts up on the edge of the bed beside his husband and they don't need to say anything else. They stay there, tangled in each other's arms, until the nurses come for Charles.
Remember your promises, Charles tells him. Before his symptoms became too deterring in recent days, they were slowly able to reconstruct Erik's memories the way they wanted to. Erik has the route to Schmidt's last-known location stamped in his mind now, tied to the front where it won't be forgotten.
I will. I love you. Always…andhe kisses Charles one more time before he's urged onto the gurney and wheeled away.
I love you, too.
Charles holds onto him in their minds even as they take him away, until, in the waiting room, Erik feels it when the anesthesia pulls him under.
The surgery takes hours. Through it all Jean is at one shoulder and Raven is at the other—when he's sitting down, anyway. When he isn't crumpled into a waiting room chair Erik is pacing again. Once or twice Raven tugs him back down.
"Come on…he'll be fine." He knows she's worried, too, but she's trying to help. Erik relents, sitting again, and Raven settles back in her own chair and lets her hands rest on her belly. "And as soon as he's fine this kid has got to come out. He's overstayed his welcome."
"Unless it's a girl," Erik offers, managing to smile a bit.
Kurt, on the floor nearby thanks to the lack of enough chairs, crosses his arms and huffs. "It better not be a girl. I want a brother."
His mother raises an eyebrow at him. "You'll take what you get, kid."
Erik shifts his attention to Jean. "How is it going?"
She's looking toward the doors, and she shrugs uncertainly, frowning. "Fine so far, I think. I mean, I can hear what they're thinking but I'm no doctor…I have no idea what they're saying. But no one's in a bad mood. That's got to be good, right?" Erik nods hopefully, trusting that she's right because he can't think anything else.
But moments later she sits forward quickly, and her eyes are wide.
Charles sees it all happen exactly the way he didn't want it to—exactly the way they were afraid of.
From somewhere outside his body he sees everything go downhill. He sees Erik inconsolable. His sister, too, upset, going into labor. Raven giving birth is tainted by the funeral two days later. He sees his family trying to move on, and they have each other but it isn't the same because Erik is never the same. He tries. But he isn't. He doesn't do what Charles asked him to do, because he can't do anything.
No. This isn't right. Erik is stronger than that. And when he makes a promise he keeps it.
Charles tries to scream but he can't. He's dead.
No…his eyes are opening. Slowly. Far too slowly, but there it is. The infirmary ceiling. He's back in his room, back in the infirmary bed and out of the operating room, and he isn't dead. It was a dream.
It's over. It worked. It must have. He can feel the bandages around his head—the patch of hair shaved away at the front on one side where the incision was, and the tug of fresh stitches. His body's responses are sluggish, but they're there, and Charles wonders why no one is leaning over him yet. Erik would be…
He shifts his gaze to the side of the bed, and there he is. There they are.
Charles smiles. The window tells him it's night, and beside his bed Erik is asleep in his chair and Jean is in another beside him, asleep against her father's shoulder with her legs curled under her.
He isn't sure how much he should move just yet, but with his eyes he sweeps the rest of the room. On the other side of the bed is Hank in another chair, and behind him on the room's other bed are Raven and Kurt. In chairs by the wall are Sean, Moira, Alex, and Ororo. The Summers must be keeping the twins for the night. Everyone else is here, and all of them are asleep.
He doesn't wake them. Instead Charles smiles to himself again, and goes back to sleep.
"For a few minutes there it was a little…but whatever it was, they got back on track. They're saying they got it all; you're going to be fine."
Erik is grinning softly, holding him close on the infirmary bed, and Charles isn't sure he's been getting enough air because his husband won't stop kissing him. He's a bit dizzy, but that might just be a usual post-surgery symptom, considering there was rummaging around in his head going on less than twenty-four hours ago. Either way, he isn't complaining.
It's early morning now, and the others haven't quite begun to stir yet but when Charles woke again he couldn't resist waking Erik this time.
It's hardly the first time he's woken up in the infirmary with Erik waiting for him, but it's the first time since after the coma after Bobby and Kitty were born. It's the first time he's woken this way and known what response he would get. But it wasn't that different, really, from before—Erik's face flooded with relief in the same way, Charles felt the same things from him—but this time he knew what everything meant, and this time Erik promptly kissed him and climbed into the bed with him without hesitation.
Everything else was the same, and Charles really understands, now, how long they were in love without even realizing it.
"I know…I almost can't believe it," Charles says softly.
He doesn't stay awake for long, and as he's drifting off again Erik tells him it's all right—that the doctor told them he will continue to tire easily for a while, while he recovers. Quite possibly for several weeks or more, along with other symptoms. But eventually he will be fine.
When he finally drifts into sleep again, he rests easy knowing Erik and the rest of his family will be there when he wakes.
Charles is still in the infirmary when Raven goes into labor three days later, but they bring a wheelchair to his room and let Erik bring him to the delivery room. He isn't necessarily needed, like he was last time, but Raven wants him there. He was there last time. When Kurt was born he was the only one there with her, holding her hand, the only one there at all because the children were too young and he left them with the Summers and Erik was at work.
Raven had no one else then. She does now, and Charles is more than grateful for it, but he wants to be there this time too. Erik wants to be there. It's their first grandchild and…a few weeks ago they weren't even entirely sure Charles would be here for this.
It's a girl, and Erik laughs, and when Charles looks at him strangely his husband tells him what Kurt said in the waiting room during his surgery. It's funny, and Raven is laughing a little too as she holds the newborn and Hank is sitting beside her. The girl's tufts of green hair don't surprise anyone. Nothing really would; her aunt Ororo has had white hair from birth and her mother is blue with hair of bright orange.
Erik claps Hank on the back, startling him but then he laughs too. Charles braces himself against the bed and stands long enough to kiss Raven's forehead. "I'm glad you were here," she whispers, and her voice nearly breaks when she says it but she smiles.
"So am I," Charles answers softly. He looks up and catches his husband's eyes across the bed, and Erik's eyes are damp and they're telling him the same thing Raven just voiced.
Charles is still here. They're grandparents now. Both are good things; things they've wanted.
But they want one more thing. They still have a mission.
