Okidoki, back to plot! I hope ya'll enjoy the chapter, and I can't wait to hear from all of you! Thank you so much for reading!
Chapter 16
Now (Four Weeks Later)
"How are you feeling?"
Charles raises an eyebrow as he climbs into bed. "You're beginning to test my tolerance of that sentence again. I am recovering, you know."
And he has improved quite a bit in the month since. Though he's still easily worn out, he's been up and about for more than half that time. Bouts of dizziness came more often at first, but it doesn't happen nearly as much anymore. According to the doctors Charles's recovery from the procedure is actually coming along quite well.
What hasn't stopped is the vomiting, but that isn't related only to the tumor and its removal.
"Were you sick today?" Erik asks.
"Only once…"
He huffs. "How the hell long is it going to take for your hormones to stabilize, anyway?"
Charles rolls his eyes and settles beside him. "It's been in the works for years, Erik; I hardly think it is going to be abruptly finished because you wish it to be."
"I just hate it when you're sick; you've been sick, too often, for too long…"
Since Bobby and Kitty were born. Since his immune system was shot to hell. Erik knows it hasn't been nearly as awful at it could have been, and Charles says so, but Erik only shrugs helplessly because that isn't going to change his mind. He still doesn't like it.
"Once everything does stabilize, will it be better?"
"I'm not sure. I would hope so. There's been speculation, but there aren't any guarantees of course." Charles makes Erik look at him, because he wasn't quite doing it. He turns Erik's face down to look him in the eyes and massages the side of his face with his thumb. "It doesn't matter. Either way I'm much better off already with this damned thing out of my head. I feel much better now than I have in quite a while, and there's still room enough for improvement. I'm content with that."
Erik snorts and smiles at his husband, shaking his head a bit. "Of course you are. You're you."
Charles rolls up on his side, pressing himself into Erik with a mischievous smile of his own. "Come now, I certainly have reason enough to be in a good mood at the moment."
They went for a check-in with Charles's doctor at the infirmary today, and Erik doesn't have to ask to know which bit of news the man gave them his husband is referring to. "Do you now?"
Charles is abruptly very to the point. "I'm not in the mood for coy, thank you very much; it's been nearly six weeks and—"
"Little eager, aren't you?" Erik interrupts, grinning because he can already feel the beginnings of Charles's erection against his thigh.
"Well excuse me; as I've said, I feel much better now than I have in a long time, you do happen to be my husband, and now that we've been given the go-ahead I would rather not waste any time."
"So why weren't we in here all afternoon?"
"We do still have responsibilities. God, I'm talking to a child—" Charles starts to push away petulantly, but Erik pulls him back and kisses him. Charles laughs against his lips and begins to tug at his clothes.
They don't get much sleep and Charles has to sleep in the next morning, but it's well worth it. He wakes satisfied and happy, almost able to forget the deadline that is only some fifty days or so away.
Now that he's well on the way to getting back to normal, he and Erik can resume their plans. They've been talking in the past weeks, but there hasn't been much Charles could do and they already had the route and coordinates to where Schmidt likely is before he went for the surgery.
Erik woke him before he left for work, which he resumed two weeks or so ago once Charles was steady enough on his feet. Jean is here, too, of course, so it gave him confidence enough to go back and leave Charles at home sure he would be fine. A few more weeks and Ororo will be home more often too, through with school.
Today Jean and the twins are in the kitchen when Charles emerges from the bedroom, but Raven is there too.
"There he is! Long night?" She smiles at him knowingly and Charles glares at her, but the scowl is quickly erased when the infant she's cradling looks up at him. Annoyance forgotten, he takes the seat at the table beside Raven and eagerly takes Lorna into his own arms.
"Well hello there…" The grin is instantaneous, and he doesn't particularly care if it looks a bit ridiculous.
Raven laughs. "And she's staying with you tonight, remember?"
"What? Oh, yes, of course."
"Thought I'd come early and visit some myself. Kurt's supposed to come home from school with Ororo."
Today is Hank's birthday, and Kurt and Lorna are staying here tonight to give Raven and her husband time to themselves.
"Right. I'll have to actually cook something tonight…"
"Or let Erik do it."
Charles makes a face at her again, but he can't keep it for long while holding his granddaughter. "What am I going to do with you? The lot of you," he sighs instead. He looks down at the girl in his arms. "We should just run away—you and me. We may be the only sane ones left. We have to save ourselves."
Lorna just gurgles.
"She agrees with me," Charles nods approvingly.
Jean comes over and kisses his cheek. "I hate to break it to you, Mom, but you're related to the rest of us. If we're crazy you're doomed to it."
"Thank you," Raven says emphatically.
Charles laughs.
Charles continues to improve in every other way, but over the next few days the vomiting begins to get worse rather than better or remaining the same.
"It might be wise to go back to the infirmary in the morning…" Charles says this while clutching the edge of the toilet in the middle of night, and Erik is at his back to keep him steady.
"Oh my god, you actually figured that out yourself this time."
Charles coughs something else out and drops back on his heels. Erik moves closer to give him a shoulder to rest on. "Doctor did say if it became excessive that could mean there was…some complication, or something. I uhm…I don't remember. My head doesn't hurt, though. It may only be hormones imbalances betting severely out of hand…those do come from the brain, and they were rummaging about in mine a few weeks ago. Something could be off, I suppose…"
Erik frowns. It shouldn't be anything dangerous, but Charles is right; they should still take him in tomorrow.
"All right…in the morning. Let's get you back to bed now. Or are you still nauseous?"
Charles makes a face. "I am, but I don't believe anything else is going to happen at the moment. I might as well at least attempt sleep."
Erik kisses his temple and picks him up to bring him back to the bedroom.
He wakes first in the morning and gets up to dress, moving out into the bathroom to wash up.
Erik?
The groggy voice is in his head, and he smiles. But he's brushing his teeth, and he can't answer through the wall. I'm getting ready. I'll be back in in a minute. Do you need any help?
No, no, I'm getting up, Charles grumbles. I can dress myself, thank you.
I love you too, Erik answers in amusement. His husband's gentle laughter in his mind at that is something he savors, knowing how lucky he is that Charles is still with him.
Soon enough he's dressed and ready and going back to the bedroom to check on Charles. He pushes the door open almost without thinking, not needing to touch it of course, and as it moves he just misses most of what looks like the sort of puff of smoke Kurt makes when he teleports. But what would Kurt be doing here at this time of morning?
"ERIK!"
This goes through his mind in a fraction of a second, ground to a halt by the scream both aloud and in his mind, and then the door is open and Erik sees Charles is up and dressed but he isn't alone in their bedroom.
Erik has just enough time lock panicked eyes with his husband before the red teleporter disappears and takes Charles with him.
Charles doesn't have time to react in any other form than to scream for Erik, but even that does him no good. His powers are recovering more slowly than anything else—which was expected, but damnable now—and he can communicate but he can't influence. At least not quickly enough to stop the teleporter from taking him. For the fraction of a second that Erik is in the doorway before his home vanishes around him Charles finds his husband's eyes, and it's the only thing he can take with him.
He doesn't know where it is he's taken. He doesn't have time to see it, really, as he feels a needle in his arm and everything goes black.
"CHARLES!" Erik screams and lunges forward, but he's grasping at empty air as the two forms vanish. He loses his balance and drops onto the bed and scrambles up again, turning in place and panicked. "Charles! No! Damnit…!"
He knows who the teleporter is now. He knows now that the red man he remembers in Schmidt's employ and the teleporter Raven was first paired with are one and the same. He knows it's the same mutant who has now violated their home and taken his husband.
He knows this must be Schmidt's doing.
"Oh god…!" Erik loses his footing and drops uncoordinated to his knees, slumping against the side of the bed. "No…oh god no, Charles…!" Nothing the doctor can want Charles for can be good.
This can't be happening, can it? This is the sort of thing he's had nightmares about. Charles in the doctor's hands has been a subject of nightmares since before Erik knew he was in love. No. He's asleep. It's another dream. He'll wake up and they'll be fine, Charles will be here, and they'll get ready and go to the infirmary and get Charles more medicine or something and everything will be fine—
"Dad, what's going on!"
His ears are ringing. Erik almost doesn't hear Jean through the racket in his head, and he gasps when he looks up. He realizes he's holding his head and that his face is streaked with tears. He has to force his arms down—has to force himself not to hyperventilate, too.
"Dad!" Jean is at his side now, taking his arm firmly, trying to haul him to his feet. She's only able to get him as far as up onto the edge of the bed. "Dad, what happened! Where's Mom? Where's Mom!"
She's panicking because he can't curb his own panic. Erik knows that, too, and it takes everything he has to push it back enough to keep her from taking on too much of it. "I…he…they took…oh god—!" It isn't working as well as he'd like.
He still isn't entirely sure this is happening.
"Dad, look at me!" Jean grabs his face and make him look at her. She knows something is wrong and that Charles isn't here and that whatever has happened is bad but he knows she doesn't understand.
But for her to understand it all she would have to know everything, and she can't know all of it. He can't show her any of it.
He has to be able to tell her. He can't do to her what he did to Charles.
This is real. Erik takes her arms to steady himself, slows his breathing further, and she's looking at him. She's waiting, but she's worried and impatient and he feels her at the edges of his mind ready in push in. After twenty-five years with Charles he knows that feeling, even if most would never catch such a thing.
"Don't," he says roughly. "I'll…just listen."
Jean swallows and nods at him, and Erik takes a deep breath. It's another few moments before he can stop running through everything he's afraid will happen to Charles in his head and tell her what she needs to know.
But he does it. He tells her what he and Charles have been planning, and what they know about the pairing system and the war and who is behind everything and he mentions, only briefly, that he knew the mutant in question. He tells her what happened only moments ago and he tells her that it must be Shaw—he gives her the name Shaw, because Charles mentioned it's the one more widely used now—who had Charles taken.
Erik is on his feet by then, digging under the bed for something. "I have to go. Now. Your mother helped me reconstruct my memories of the way to Shaw's last-known location, and that must be where he is. He would have no reason to move; no one travels very much very far anymore. I-I have to find him. I—here!" He finally finds a bag under the bed large and sturdy enough to pack supplies in. From what he and Charles were able to determine, the trip will take several days on foot.
He falls silent and stares at the bag when he realizes it's the one Charles and Raven brought with them when they came here.
Erik swallows hard and gets to his feet, face dry by now and blinking back the fresh tears that threaten it. He hurries around the bed and is trying to decide what to stuff into the bag when Jean touches his arm.
"What are you talking about? You can't go by yourself! Not if this guy is as dangerous as you're saying."
"I'm not going to put anyone else is danger."
"That's crap. This is Mom we're talking about." He looks at her and her eyes are still wide, but she isn't wrong. Still…
"No, Jean. Please just…Raven. Get her here."
"What about the others?"
"Not the others. They'll want to come with me, and I can't allow that. Shaw is too dangerous."
Jean is exasperated now. "That's why you need help! I should come with you. I could sense Mom from farther away. It'll be easier to find him—not to mention to avoid anybody else. I—"
"NO!" Shaw already has Charles. The last thing in the world Erik wants is for the man to get his hands on any of their children. "I need you here, Jean. I need you safe. Do you understand me?"
"If he has a teleporter none of us are safe anywhere," she says evenly. She's much more collected than he is, suddenly, and Erik scowls and begins pushing things into the bag. Not wanting to pack too much to carry easily, only one change of clothes goes into it before he moves out in the kitchen to raid the pantry.
"Dad—"
"I told you no," he says firmly. "You're staying here. All of you are staying here." After that there's more silence for a while, Erik taking things from the cabinets that are easy to carry and eat without preparation, that will last long enough. The house is silent around them, with Ororo off to school and the twins still asleep upstairs. Then Jean speaks up again.
"What about Logan?"
Erik blinks, and he thinks about that for a moment. He's about to open his mouth when there's a puff of sulfur behind them, and Jean screams in surprise. Erik reacts immediately, spinning, and pulling her behind him.
Shaw and the teleporter are on the other side of the kitchen table.
"Now, now, don't worry; I don't want the girl. Not right now, anyway."
Erik can't breathe. He knew it was Shaw behind all of this, but somehow he doesn't think he'd really reconciled the man he and Charles have been discussing with the doctor—the man who tormented him as a child. Somehow the images never became one until now, with the man standing only a few feet away. His face is unchanged, the smirk the same. The only difference is the helmet on his head.
"Already packing, I see," Shaw continues. "Good. Just make sure you come alone." He's straightening the cuffs on his shirt as if this is any other conversation.
"Where is Charles?" Erik seethes, finally able to get anything out at all. "What the hell do you want?"
"You know exactly where Charles is, Erik. And he'll be fine as long as you come now, and you come alone." Shaw smiles as if he's delivered some sort of good news, and then he nods to the teleporter and both of them are gone.
"Oh god," Jean gasps. She comes out from behind him, staring at the place where they were.
Erik is having trouble keeping his eyes clear again. "Did you uhm…did you get anything from him? Do you know what he wants, or…?"
She looks at him, wide-eyed again, and shakes her head slowly. "No…I…I don't know what happened. I couldn't sense him at all."
Erik doesn't understand. If Shaw wants him to come now, and come alone, why didn't he offer to let Erik go with him and the teleporter?
All he can think is that the doctor wants some time before Erik arrives there, and again…none of the reasons for that can be good.
Charles's eyes open on a stone ceiling that he knows just as well as Erik does by now. He knows where he is before he looks around at all, and when he does it's only confirmed, and he knows for sure who had him taken.
He's lying on the mattress in the dim stone room Erik spent five years in as a child, and Shaw must be behind this.
What he doesn't know is why.
Charles tries to move, tries to sit up, but he gasps and stops immediately with only his elbows under him when his middle twinges with pain and soreness and the pull of stitches.
"Wh…?" He pulls up his t-shirt and finds the old scar across his abdomen newly re-closed. That explains why someone decided to exchange the trousers he'd changed into just before he was taken for pajama pants. They aren't his, but the t-shirt is and he would assume his socks are his own; he can't see them, with the thin blanket that's pulled up to his waist covering them. "What?" Another cursory glance around him and he sees his trousers and sweater folded on the edge of the mattress above his head.
Dizzy, Charles falls back against the mattress and the thin pillows. The mattress itself is not the same one from Erik's memories. The same size, but a bit better, thicker, though he can still feel a hint of the flat surface under it. It isn't the stone. The mattress is on some sort of low platform that makes it more even. That is the only change the stone prison has garnered in thirty years.
The door is still walled up. He can't leave any more than Erik could.
And what have they done to him?
"Erik…" Charles whispers to the emptiness, but he knows no one will hear him.
He reaches out, trying to find any mind near him, but the only ones he can sense seem far away and it doesn't help that's he's still groggy from whatever they put him under with. He doesn't get anything of use.
A hand goes to his stomach, fingers tracing the stitches, and he can't help the pit of fear that settles in his stomach. What did they do? He feels…empty. He doesn't know if the feeling is physical or mental but it's there, and he feels it, and he feels different. He doesn't understand why.
The sound of the teleporter's arrival startles him, and he flinches. That hurts, but he swallows back the grunt and manages to only make a face instead.
When he sees whom the teleporter has brought with him, he's glad he didn't cry out. It's Schmidt. Shaw. Of course it's Shaw. The teleporter leaves again, and it's only the two of them. Charles reaches for the other mutant's mind instinctively, wanting to know why he's here…but he runs into the mental equivalent of a brick wall. There's nothing there.
That is when he really sees the helmet, and he must be frowning because Shaw smirks a bit and motions to it. "No, you won't be getting inside my head. I do plan carefully, after all."
Charles swallows and forces himself up on his elbows again. "What have you done to me?" he demands.
"Well, with all the hormone rearranging going on in there we had to save the rest of those eggs before they were rendered useless, didn't we? You're far too valuable for your genetic material to go to waste just because you can't reproduce on your own any longer."
"What are you talking about?"
"I keep the best scientists here, Charles. Technology and medical procedures have come actually come quite far since the world you remember before the war. Granted, the rest of the world doesn't know anything of it, but that's the way I like it," Shaw shrugs.
Charles is trying to process that. Shaw doesn't only have his own powers. He has everything. Everything he needs to keep the world under his thumb.
"Anyhow, freezing eggs and such is old news by now. Here, anyway. They're quite safe. They'll be useful. The other things you don't need anymore have been removed as well. That might help with the rebalancing your body's been attempting to do—with none of those pesky female organs in the way anymore."
Charles is beginning to understand what the man is saying. The implications of it. He's glaring now. "You can't do that. You can't just—just take—"
"I already have." Shaw smiles and takes a few steps closer, nearly leaning over him when he reaches the edge of the mattress. "You should thank me. We had remarkable timing. There were two embryos in your uterus, fraternal twins—just a few days old and very tenuously attached. In the state you're in, a few days more and your body would have aborted them and you never would have known they were there. Either that or it would have caused serious problems for you. We saved all three of you."
"Wh…what?" Charles's blood runs cold, and suddenly he can't breathe. "Th-that's impossible…"
"Not entirely. Whatever they've been giving you as a contraceptive apparently doesn't work as well as they were hoping. Either that, or missing doses when you had the other surgery a few weeks ago disrupted effectiveness. Either way, you were pregnant, Charles."
His arms slips out from under him again. The room is spinning. "But…but how can they be safe…what will you—"
"They've been frozen as well. They'll be just fine for quite a while that way, until I need them. Then we'll find someone else to carry them. It isn't as simple as it sounds, but it works."
Charles can't control the tears anymore. He knows what the emptiness is now. Maybe part of it is the missing organs but the rest of it is something he's felt before. Something he never wanted to feel again. At just a few days…there wouldn't have been minds yet for him to sense, but somehow he knew something. He had to have known they were there, somehow, or the emptiness panging in his chest wouldn't be there.
"No," he gasps. "You can't. You can't take them. They're not yours…"
Shaw scowls at him now. "No? You can't carry them yourself. I'm the only one who can keep them safe. And who do you think made sure you and Erik were assigned to each other? Who's responsible for the fact that you were ever together at all? If I hadn't taken such an interest in the both of you, you never would have had him and those embryos wouldn't exist. None of your children would exist."
The tears still fall but Charles swallows back the sobs and stares at him in horror. Shaw is much too close now, in his face and threatening.
"That's right, Charles. I've always known exactly where Erik went. It merely suited my purposes to let him remain free this long—to let him raise that family of yours. All of those children are exactly the sort of mutants I need. They'll all be useful, when it's time to make myself known and take my place as the leader of this planet."
"NO!"
Shaw looks like he might want to hit him, but he doesn't. He smiles coldly and straightens. "It won't be long. Everything is nearly in place. And before you complain any further you would do well to keep in mind that I am in control here. Now, if you'll excuse me…" The teleporter appears at his side and whisks him away.
Charles lets himself sob then, when he's alone. He curls on his side as much as he can as sore as he is, and he cries.
Erik help…
