Yes, I'm getting back to Ever in Your Favor very soon...let me write this dang research paper. Lol. Anyhoo, got this out for ya'll though. I hope you like it. Thanks so much! Can't wait to hear from ya'll, and have a great weekend!

Chapter 19

Now

Erik knows it the moment Charles is truly asleep again, because the weak pressure of calm over his mind lifts and he is left to deal with his emotions on his own. He's left to sob openly without worrying over whether he'll distress his husband any further, and he can't decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.

What he knows now is that it isn't only Charles he's failed to protect.


They're up early, packing what little they brought and trying to organize into two parties once Jean tells them what she discovered. Because the majority of them are siblings, it devolves into another argument, and it doesn't help that all of them are on edge and worried about their parents. Jean knows that, and is relieved when Logan steps in again.

"Look, Kurt will be going back and forth and we need fire power on both ends just in case, which means Alex and Scott are in separate groups. I'm leading the team into the compound, and we need Jean to lead us to them and Hank with the medical knowledge. If we're splitting evenly save Kurt, we only need one more." He looks at Alex and Scott pointedly, and Alex starts to say something because he's already made the argument that he should go in. It's his parents.

He makes the argument again and Logan only nods.

"Yeah. It's your parents. That's why you should stay out here and Glasses here should come in. It's gonna be tricky in there, and I need people level-headed. I wouldn't take ANY of you kids in there if Jean and Hank weren't necessary, but the situation makes it that way. It'll be better if there aren't any more of you down there. The more of you down there, the more everybody's gonna be on edge once we get to your parents. Especially them, once they know you're here."

"What difference does that make? We all care," Moira points out.

"I'm just trying to go on logic here—and I have been on a few rescue missions in my day, thanks."

She scowls. "I wasn't saying—never mind." She lets out a breath and looks around at the rest of them. "For the record, he's not wrong. We all know them; we know that. The fewer of their own they have to worry about being in immediate danger down there, the smoother the rest will go once you get to them. Charles may not be able to help you getting out, but Erik will, and he'll need to concentrate."

Alex huffs loudly, but the expression on his face admits defeat. "Fine."

So it's decided that Logan, Jean, Hank, and Scott will go in. Alex, Sean, Moira, and Ororo will stay on this side of the valley to move down into the village to find Nicole's family.

"What about everyone else down there? Aren't they all prisoners?" Ororo asks. "Shouldn't we do something?"

"We will," Jean tells her. "As soon as Shaw is taken care of they'll all be free. But we can't do that until we get Mom and Dad out of there, and we can't get Mom out safely unless Nicole will heal him. She'll want to, but she won't do it unless her family is safe. We pull them out first, we get Mom well again, and we figure out where to go from there."

She glances at Logan for approval, telling herself she doesn't need it but quietly satisfied when he nods at her anyway.

"It's solid," he agrees.

"And I'm following you guys around the valley so I know where you are, and I can keep up with everybody, right?" Kurt questions.

"Yeah, but if anything gets too hairy you're going straight home, understood?" Jean says.

"Hey, you may be Lorna's aunt but you're only my cousin, remember?"

"I'm serious!"

"I know, I know! I go home, we stash the kids with the neighbors, and I bring Mom. Then I get out again. I got it. Geez…"

There isn't anything else to go over, really. They wish each other luck.

"I'll find out who you're looking for; I'll let you know soon," Jean tells the others. Then they're on the move, and the sun has barely brightened the sky.


Erik remembers crying himself to sleep, but at least Charles wasn't awake to be upset by it. That is one of the few things that keeps him from being so upset again when he wakes. That lets him keep himself under control. There is still a rock in his gut, but there isn't a thing he can do about it.

Charles isn't moving beside him, but he can hear the uneven, pained breathing that tells him his husband is already awake himself. Erik sits up slowly, so as not to jar him, and when he glances down again Charles is looking at him from beneath heavy eyelids.

Erik rests the back of a hand against his forehead for a moment and feels the fever that is still there. Not that it would have gone anywhere.

"I'll get you some water," he says quietly. Charles hasn't said anything, but he can't remember getting any since well before they fell asleep the first time last night. Charles doesn't say anything, so he climbs off the makeshift bed and fills the cup sitting by the basin of water.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, a hand under his husband's head to help him drink, he notices that more of Charles's hair has abandoned him overnight. It's spread on the pillow and mattress.

Not much to look at anymore, am I?

The voice in his head is stronger and more amused than how Charles looks, but a corner of his mouth does turn up for a moment before he starts coughing. Thankfully, it doesn't lead to throwing up the water—he needs it—but it hurts him. Erik can tell that, and he finds a hand and squeezes it until it stops. Charles squeezes back.

I never cared what you looked like. It was always you I loved.

The coughing stops and Charles's eyes open again, and now they're damp. I love you so much, Charles tells him, meeting his gaze. I'm sorry…I'm not making this any easier, am I? All of that talk last night…I should have shut my mouth. I didn't. I don't know what came over me…

His throat clogs again, almost immediately. He could say it doesn't matter. Nothing is going to make this any easier anyway. But how would that make Charles feel? He doesn't say it. He doesn't say anything. He bends to kiss Charles's forehead, but he's barely done that when his husband's arms push up clumsily around his neck and draw him down for a real kiss.

You said you didn't mind my being selfish, didn't you?

Erik braces himself on the mattress on either side of Charles to keep off his chest and huffs softly against his husband's lips. I don't mind. I don't care. And he presses the next kiss deeper to prove it.

"Sweet, but hardly advisable at the moment."

They didn't notice the noise of the teleport. Erik sits up quickly, spinning and pushing to his feet, and barely avoids becoming dangerously dizzy.

But Shaw is there, and it forces focus rather quickly.

"Bastard…" Erik seethes. He took their children. He did this to Charles.

"Maybe, but you aren't in a position to judge, are you?"

Erik…

Charles can feel the boiling anger and helplessness and frustration, Erik is sure. But he doesn't listen. He listens to the emotions and he lunges before he's thought anything through.

Of course Shaw deflects him easily. He shouldn't be surprised when he finds himself flung into the rock wall and his breath soundly knocked out of him, but he's dazed anyway. And it hurts. He was thirteen the last time he was hit that hard. His head is spinning and everything aches and he can't breath and he isn't even entirely aware of in what position he's landed in at first.

Erik! Erik…!

Charles. In his head. Worried. Because it probably looks like he may well be seriously injured.

He isn't. He forces his eyes open and pulls air into his stubborn lungs and that hurts too, but he'll be fine. He was always fine before.

I'm fine…

"Honestly, Erik, I would have though you'd learned by now." Shaw is glaring down at him condescendingly. "I don't suppose you've changed your mind."

Erik just glares—hoping he's glaring at the right Shaw. He sees three.

He must not be. The other mutant smirks and turns back to the teleporter, and they're gone in an instant.

"Erik…?"

His vision is slowly righting itself, breathing is becoming easier, and he makes himself straighten where he's slumped against the wall at the foot of the bed. "I'm fine," he repeats aloud.

But it's harder than it ever was in the past, to get up after that, and he quickly realizes that he isn't as young as he used to be…and that it matters.

"No you're not…Erik?"

He stumbles to the bedside, never making it quite to his feet, and just makes it to the bucket in time to drop to his knees and empty what little is left in his stomach into it. He's about to chalk that up to vertigo and possible concussion from the impact until he realizes he's shivering a bit. He's beginning to get a fever himself.

"You're getting sick," Charles says, and his hoarse voice still clearly conveys the dismay. Maybe they almost expected it, but not this soon.

Erik picks up a fresh rag from the pile to wipe his mouth and shrugs as he shakes his head. "It doesn't matter…"

"But—"

Erik ignores him—climbs back into the bed right beside him anyway and kisses his temple. "I'm not going anywhere." If Charles has to go through all of this, he can deal with a little nausea and a fever.

Then there's the fact that his entire body aches now and his head is pounding, but that's unrelated.

"You shouldn't have done that," Charles mumbles after a few minutes. "You know it isn't a good idea to provoke him."

Erik silences him with a kiss.


Jean finds the woman she's looking for—Nicole, the mutant who can heal, who has been kind to Mom while he's been in Shaw's clutches—and she finds what she needs easily enough. The woman doesn't notice her careful intrusion. She'll have to be contacted later, once they're inside and the others have gotten her family out, but now isn't the time.

She finds images of an older women, a middle-aged man, and two young women, one still a teenager, really. Nicole's mother, husband, and children, then, she assumes. But those are the faces that rise in Nicole's mind when it is gently prodded with the word family, and those are the images she sends to the others back on the other side of the valley as she, Scott, Hank, and Logan work their way around.

She wonders why the village is in a valley—it isn't a very defensible position, after all. But she supposes maybe that is the point. If the people Shaw is keeping there rebelled he could easily have them surrounded by the more loyal and stomp out the rebellion before it really started. They would have nowhere to go.

And she knows that the sense of security not having more of their own children in the compound coming after them may give Mom and Dad will be false, because the mission down into the village the others will be undertaking is no less dangerous. Logan and Moira were both still right, but…

Be careful, she says, as soon as she's sent Alex and the others the images, and where to find who they're looking for.

YOU be careful, her brother shoots back. All of you get out of there alive. I will personally bring back and kill again any of you that don't.

Gee. Nice thought.

You know what I mean.

I hear you, Alex.


Erik waits until the headache has subsided enough that he can be upright again, and by the then the nausea is a bit less pronounced. He finds one of the containers on the floor and puts fresh ointment over the burn on Charles's chest, and it's tricky business. That hurts him. Quite a lot seems to hurt him.

Erik talks to him, keeps him close, but Charles is awake less and less as the day drags on, the pallor of his skin worsens and the rest of his hair falls to the pillow, and Erik is afraid he's losing him already.

Not now. Not yet. I'm not ready.

He'll never be ready.

It doesn't matter how much supposed control Shaw has had over their lives. How they came to be together doesn't matter. They're meant for each other, and they always were. Shaw didn't implant in them the parts of themselves that need each other; they were there before Shaw knew either of them existed. They were always there. Erik fully understands why Logan would rather leave the city system again entirely than be forced to be with someone else.

He's older than Logan appears, and aging, so they wouldn't make that demand of him, but it doesn't matter now, does it? If he can't find a way to take care of Shaw he's never going to leave here, is he? Shaw will threaten the children. Erik will have to stay until something can be done.

But why does Charles have to die? Isn't there another way?

Charles doesn't want him to agree. Not even to pretend to. It wouldn't matter; the moment Shaw realized he wasn't sincere Charles would be dead anyway. Everyone he cares about would be dead.

But he can't do this. He couldn't bear the thought of Charles dying before, when they were afraid he might, and he can't watch his husband die now.

Maybe he could pretend. Maybe he can buy enough time to figure out how to kill Shaw. Even if he won't allow Nicole to heal Charles entirely, it's all right. As soon is Shaw is out of them there will be no danger to her family and she'll make him well again. Charles is right that in that situation escaping with Shaw still at large would not give them that option and it wouldn't be worth it—he would die—but if he pretends and then he can take care of Shaw, rather than just getting them out…

But the children. If Shaw discovers that he isn't sincere before he can do something…they'll all be dead. It won't just be Charles.

There really isn't a way out of this, is there?

"I'm so sorry," he whispers against his husband's cheek.

Charles isn't awake. He doesn't hear.

Erik can't cry anymore. The tears just won't come, and he finds he's grateful for that. If Charles woke up, or Shaw appeared…

He's glad he can't cry anymore now. He imagines he'll have plenty of time for that later, anyway.


"Jean? What's wrong? Jean?"

Scott is the only thing keeping her from falling over entirely. As it is she's bent over, and it's like she can't breathe.

Sorry…it's just…just have to get everyone under control…

Mom isn't even awake—through the tentative hidden connection she can feel the background patterns of uneasy sleep—but Dad's emotions alone are so strong now it's as if they might smother her.

Other hands holding her up. Logan and Hank have stopped, come back to help. But it still isn't easy. Everything is so heavy, weighing on her, and she can't throw it off. Finally she has no choice but send as much calming effect through the link as she can without Dad knowing she's there. That she's doing it. Only then is she able to put everything back in its place in the back of mind and straighten and breathe again.

"Are you all right?" Scott asks anxiously.

She nods, but she doesn't feel all right.


By the time Shaw shows his face in the stone room again Erik has circled back to considering pretending to agree to Shaw's terms. Anything to keep Charles alive even a little longer. By then, by what must be evening or later, it's so clear that he's close to the end—a day or more earlier than they thought, even—that Erik is very near to panic.

Shaw has brought Nicole with him this time, as if he were anticipating the change of heart. Erik gets to his feet and looks at them, trying to make himself say something. I'lldowhatyouwantjustsavehim…

But Shaw is looking past him at Charles, pale and unmoving on the bed, and he speaks up before Erik has to.

"Hmm. I was afraid of that. It wasn't supposed to progress quite this quickly. Well…" He doesn't-quite-look to Nicole, who is clearly trying not to appear hopeful. "Go ahead and heal the surface burn, and whatever else you need to do to give him another couple of days. We can't have Erik rushed into a decision, now can we?"

Or rather, Shaw can't have Charles dying before having his fill of watching Erik go mad being forced to see his husband suffer. He's known the other mutant long enough to know something of how he thinks.

But Nicole nods quickly and moves to the bed, and Erik doesn't stop her. There isn't anything else. He knows that now. There isn't a satisfactory other option here, not in the corner they're backed into. He knows that Nicole backing up the progress of the radiation poisoning will do nothing but extend Charles's suffering.

But he has long since known that Charles is his weakness. He should say something. He should tell Shaw now that he'll never do anything for him. Shaw and Nicole and the teleporter would go and Charles would more than likely die before the night is out. It would be over. He wouldn't have to hurt anymore.

But Erik doesn't say anything. He can't. The selfish part of him wants more time, and it wins. His mouth opens more than once but nothing comes out.

He ends up focused on the floor, instead, and he isn't able to look up until the pop and the smell of sulfur that tell him they're gone. His knees give out and he finds himself on the edge of the mattress, and beside him Charles is stirring.

Erik looks at him, and indeed the burn is gone, but other than that he looks no better. Still, his eyes open and he seems to be breathing a bit more easily. His eyes drift groggily to his chest and he frowns, fingers coming up to trace over the clammy but smooth skin there.

"What…?" Then his eyes snap up, and he finds Erik looking at him. "You didn't—"

"No," Erik chokes out quietly. "I didn't. Shaw just…" He trails off. He can't finish, and Charles relaxes but he's looking at him in that way that tells him he's looking elsewhere for the rest of the answer. Erik feels the gentle presence in his mind, and he doesn't resist.

"Oh, Erik…" After a minute or two of silence Charles reaches up to him, and Erik takes the hint and carefully pulls his husband up against him. With the burn gone it's safe to do it now, to hold Charles close like this, and maybe his grip is a little too tight in response but Charles doesn't complain.

For a little while it's fine. Charles's head is nestled at his neck and Erik holds him and Charles's arms are around him. His grip is weak, but it's there. Charles is here. But then he's curled more in Erik's arms and he's clutching at his stomach instead and he's moaning and coughing.

There is nothing Erik can do. "I'm sorry," he gasps. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" This is his doing. Charles is going to suffer more because he was selfish. How could he be so selfish?

"Stop," Charles grates out. "Damnit, Erik, I would have done the same. Stop…" That's all he says, before he doubles over until the pain fades again, but once it seems to have done so he hooks his arms around Erik's neck again and drags himself back up to kiss him. "It's all right," he whispers.

It's not, but Erik doesn't say that. He nods weakly instead and holds on, listening and feeling it against him as his husband's breaths ease back to something closer to even and easier.

"Who knows?" Charles mumbles quietly. "Perhaps the extra time is good. Maybe a rescue will come soon." They both know that isn't going to happen. It doesn't help, and Charles has to kiss him again. "Erik, talk to me. Please…"

Erik swallows. "I know…I never doubt it anymore. That we were meant to be together, no matter how it happened. But I feel like I've failed you in so much. I just wish I had the time to make it right."

"Nonsense. You've always…well, to be quite honest I sometimes wonder how I deserve you."

Erik snorts against his shoulder. "That's ridiculous."

"Then I suppose we're both ridiculous. I even look it—my hair is gone entirely now, isn't it?"

And Charles has done the impossible. Laughter bubbles in Erik's chest and it come out in a small chuckle. "You do not look ridiculous."

"I'm the one who's bald at the moment; aren't I allowed to say so?"

"Whatever you want, Charles…"

They're quite after that, and Erik finds Charles's sweater that is still hanging over the corner of the mattress and gets it onto him to keep him warm. The fever is still there; he's still flushed and shivering despite the minor positive change. "Maybe you should try to eat." Before it gets worse again. Erik thinks about eating himself, but quickly dismisses the idea. His own nausea is worse now. He isn't interested.

Charles only nods, grimacing as a hand fists over his stomach again. Maybe if he can get something down it will put a damper on the cramping, at the least. Though he knows not all of it has to do with an empty stomach.

Erik tries to let him go enough to get up to get the bag that is still on the ground some feet away, but even though he can sit up against Erik now he can't support himself. Erik could lay him back down, but he would just have to help up again so he could eat. Frustrated, he pulls at the bag.

It comes to him, not enough left in it to be heavy enough to tear when lifted by the zipper.

It lands on the bed beside them, and they both stare at it.

"Erik…" Charles breathes.

There isn't any other metal in here. Of course there isn't. It was design as a prison for Erik, after all. But Shaw didn't take the bag. He didn't see the zipper. It's hidden under a flap that provides extra strength for the closure.

"I can't believe I didn't think about it." Erik swears. "I am so damn stupid…"

"No, you were just worried. We all forget things when we're upset. It's all right…" And Charles is smiling a little now as he rests against Erik's shoulder. Erik is pulling the flap back and taking the zipper from its moorings, melding the metal together into a single piece he can hide away in his pocket and hiding the torn pieces of zipper edging inside a pocket in the bag itself.

Charles is right. There isn't any reason to be upset with himself. It isn't much, and with Shaw's power to absorb energy how would he have hurt him in the first place? But…it's better than nothing. It's hope.