Hey ya'll! Sorry this took so long. Please don't hate me, lol. Things got absolutely crazy with finals and such at school, and then I had to get all moved home for the summer and find a job. Now I have one and I'm getting settled and getting back to writing. Anyway, i can't wait to hear from ya'll! (Also so I know ya'll are still otu there, lol.) have a great weekend everybody!
Chapter 20
Thirty-Seven Years Ago - Poland
Charles is almost four. He doesn't quite understand why his parents want to go so many places with so many people, but they're happy about it. The trains and boats don't bother them and they don't seem to feel the strange pressure in their heads that Charles feels when so many other people are around.
But it doesn't hurt, really, so he doesn't say anything, and he doesn't complain about all of the going places or the fact that they haven't been home to England for weeks.
"We'll have to do this again when you're older," his mother tells him as she smiles. He smiles back.
They just got off of a train. They're waiting for a boat. Charles knows that much, though he isn't entirely sure exactly where they are. After places like Paris he knows that here isn't exactly once of the highlights of their tour, but it's different. It's something to look at. Besides that, his father told him yesterday that they would be home in another two or three weeks. That much makes him happy, so he's in a good mood if nothing else.
They're waiting, and Father leads them through the crowded streets of the port city, unfamiliar language bouncing around in the air in the bustle. Mother asks why they couldn't find a taxi, but Charles's father laughs and says it's more fun this way. It's already arranged for their luggage to make it to the boat, anyhow.
Brian Xavier has always been more adventurous than his wife.
Father stops at a street vendor, and Charles holds his mother's hand and squeezes. He's trying to decide how he feels about the pressure in his head. Sometimes he wishes it would just go away, and sometimes it's kind of comforting. Now is one of those times, and he wishes he knew why.
And then something changes. The pressure has always been only that, only a feeling, and only when he's in or near crowds. He knows it has something to do with the people, but that's all he knows. That's why he doesn't quite understand what's happening when there is suddenly a bright point of light in the dimness of the feeling—something that pulls at him.
He turns around, and his eyes are drawn to a young boy not far away with his own parents—a boy maybe two or three years older than himself. The boy looks at him, and an odd shiver travels up Charles's spine when their eyes meet. It isn't unpleasant. It's really nice, actually. He smiles at the older boy, who hesitantly smiles back.
Then the boy is gone, he and his parents lost in the crowd.
Charles has seen so many people since they left home, and he sees more before they make it back. But the boy he remembers. More, too, the point of light in his mind that he realizes was somehow associated with the boy does not fade back into obscurity. Not completely. The more distance between them the dimmer it is, but even when they're home in England weeks later he can feel it. If he closes his eyes he can see it shining in the background.
As time passes he wishes more than ever that he knew exactly what it all meant, but at least the light is there. Somehow he knows that if the light is there, the boy is fine wherever he is. Charles wonders if, someday when he's not so small, he can go and find him.
Then Charles is five, and the war comes. Somewhere Father goes for work is attacked when he's there, and they don't know what happened to him. Mother is so worried she's sick, and Charles doesn't know what to do. The maids take care of him in the days that follow, but then the attacks come closer.
Mother is afraid to leave for fear Father won't be able to find them if he comes back. The older woman who heads the maid staff has taken care of Charles often since he was born, and Sharon Xavier asks her to take Charles somewhere safe, but he won't go. He doesn't want to leave Mother. Mother has finally decided that they'll all go, but it's too late.
As the bombs come down the pressure in Charles's head is suddenly pain, and all at once he knows exactly what it is—the touch of other minds, and so many of them are dying. It hurts, and when it's too much he's screaming, and then everything is black.
Mother dies in the attack. Charles doesn't know until days later when he wakes. The two maids that didn't die take care of him at first, but they get sick and they die too and Charles is alone. He's alone until he finds others, anyway—others who are different, like he knows now that he is. They're not all different in the same way, but they're different. They survived.
Charles misses his parents. Some of the other survivors are kind, but most of them don't want the responsibility of a child. He learns quickly to take care of himself, taking advantage of his newfound abilities as he learns to use them to gain needed information. Life is lonely, until he finds Raven.
In the stress of survival and the onslaught of new mental information from his abilities, the boy and the point of light are long forgotten.
Now
Having the burn gone helps, Charles feels more alert, but Shaw wouldn't allow Nicole to do much more and he can feel it. There isn't much improvement, otherwise. He's able to sit up against Erik's shoulder for a while, and they stay like that. Erik makes him eat something. They talk.
Somehow it's easier to talk now, with the small amount of hope that the bit of metal gives them. Charles knows that if it helps at all it will likely only help Erik to escape, later, but they don't talk about that part. They don't talk about the fact that it probably isn't going to change Charles's fate.
Charles manages to digest at least some of what he ate, but the rest comes up eventually. By then Erik is vomiting again too, though he didn't eat anything. He's still getting sick—slowly, but it's happening. Charles manages not to say anything. He knows it won't keep his husband from holding him and probably making it worse in the process. Erik isn't going anywhere.
They have to lie back down after that. Or Charles does, but Erik stretches out beside him again.
They've talked about the future. Erik has made the promises he needs to make. When they talk it's about the past—the things they remember fondly, for there are plenty of memories like that even though they have only taken full advantage of their relationship for a few short months.
Agonizingly short months. But they don't talk about that, either.
"The first time Jean made everything in the house float?"
Charles chuckles quietly. "She was seven. You were trying so hard to make certain the knives didn't fly about where they didn't need to be, and the look on your face…"
"She was stronger than me and she wasn't even trying. It was just a temper tantrum!"
Erik's arms are wrapped around him but for when Charles has to lean off the side of the mattress to wretch or to spit out the blood he coughs up. He tries not to see the haunted look in his husband's eyes that's always there when Erik gently pulls him back. He steers the quiet conversation back to whatever they'd been talking about, and tries to forget the look was there.
Kurt follows Jean and Scott and Hank and Logan around the valley, and they find the back entrance by dusk. There's a dirt road and a checkpoint several hundred yards before an opening in the side of the hill—a large bay of vehicles and storage, the more active entrance to the compound that's underground.
Jean sends him back to the other group then, so he can help them get the healer's family out of the village.
"I'll be in touch. We'll head in when you're in. It's probably better to do this more all-at-once than anything…" She glances at Logan when she says this, and he nods. With that, Kurt goes.
He appears where they left the others earlier in the day, and after a quick scan of the valley he finds Alex and Sean and Moira and Ororo behind a stand of trees near the village walls. He teleports to them.
"Jean said—"
"Go in. Yeah," Alex nods.
There isn't much security around the village. It has a wall, and Jean pointed out before they separated that there are a few of what must be Shaw's men at the gates, but that's all. No guard towers. No one on the walls. Then again, these people probably know that if they run Shaw can find them anywhere.
Kurt knows that's why they have to do this quickly. All of it. Get this Nicole lady's family out, get Uncle Erik and Uncle Charles and Nicole out and get Uncle Charles better, and then somehow take care of Shaw.
Otherwise all of this is for nothing.
The others probably think he doesn't get that, but he does.
They're at the back of the village, and Kurt glances at the wall. "I'll check on the other side. If it's clear, I'll bring you guys in. Jean showed you where in there to find them?"
Alex nods, and Kurt nods back and does what he said he would do. He teleports to just the other side of the stone wall, and finds a dim, empty alleyway.
"We're good. Let's go," he says when he goes back. Four passengers is more than he's used to, but not going very far it isn't too hard. Alex looks around, and he must be talking to Jean because he's quiet and then he point in a particular direction.
"This way. It isn't far."
Jean is able to keep them from being seen long enough for them to climb into the back of an incoming truck at the checkpoint. The driver moves to unload the truck once it drives into the hangar-like area, but a punch in the face from Logan and he's unconscious.
"The back-of-a-truck entrance…an old one, but if it's done right it still works," Logan shrugs.
"You've done this before, then?" Scott asks.
"Oh yeah. You live through a few wars, you get around to plenty of this kind of stuff." Sometimes it's hard to remember that not only does Logan know what it was like before the war, but he saw others. He's seen more than anyone else still alive today. This world must seem especially strange to him, Jean thinks.
They pull the unconscious man under the canvas flap and into the back of the truck with them and plan their next move.
In the village they find a small house not unlike their own, one among many. Alex leads them up to the back door and knocks, all of them looking about to be sure they aren't seen by anyone else. They likely wouldn't be in any danger from the other families trapped here, but better safe than sorry.
The door opens and it's the middle-aged man Jean sent them all an image of that's there. It also seems Jean has been hard at work.
The man ushers them quickly inside. "We've been expecting you."
Jean? Are you all right?
She blinks and glances at Scott when she catches the thought. Yeah…I'm fine. Just never had to do this much at once before. Telepathy isn't even supposed to be my primary mutation.
I know…be careful. Don't hurt yourself.
I have to do what I have to do for all of this to work, Scott. I can rest when Mom and Dad are safe and at home.
They're inside the compound now. Jean is able to keep them away from populated areas, which is quite a bit easier that making them invisible. She wasn't entirely she could do that when she did it out by the road until she succeeded. She was pleasantly surprised. Still, it wasn't easy.
She'll be glad when all of this is over.
Scott is still looking at her, but he doesn't say anything else because he knows she's right.
"How much farther?" Hank is asking.
Jean lets out a breath and does another scan before answering. "Not much farther."
"Any guards at the tunnel entrance?" Logan asks.
"No. No reason for them. The room Mom and Dad are in is blocked up; no one is supposed to be able to get to them. The tunnel is just left over from digging the place out. The tunnel entrance is somewhat hidden, but it doesn't matter now that I know where it is anyway."
"No going back now," Hank mutters quietly. "You might as well let them know we're here."
Jean nods a bit. "I was about to." Not that she's exactly looking forward to it. Mom and Dad aren't going to be happy. But she'll take the good yelling at they'll probably get later if it means her parents will be safe and alive then.
Being home alone for several days has been nerve-wracking. Someone had to stay behind to take care of Lorna and Bobby and Kitty, and it was logical that it be Raven, but that doesn't mean she's enjoyed it. She's spent the days worrying and pacing, and beyond that Scott's parents have been hounding her since the day their son disappeared from town with the others. She would rather be with the others. It's her own brother and brother-in-law in danger after all, and her husband and son have walked right into it with everyone else.
Kurt, of course, shouldn't be there. She should have known he would just follow them anyway, but it didn't make her any less furious when he did.
She knows Hank and Jean and Logan and the rest of them will do everything they can to keep him out of harm's way, but that doesn't make her feel much better.
It doesn't help, either, and the gnawing feeling in her stomach won't go away. She knows why it's there, but she doesn't want to think about it. She knows it's thanks to the awful feeling in the back of her mind—the connection to her brother, weak from distance. It doesn't feel the way it usually does. It feels…wrong, somehow. It isn't a feeling she's unfamiliar with. Something is very wrong, with Charles, but Jean hasn't kept in touch as much as she promised and Raven wonders about why.
Damnit, what's happening over there?
Charles falls back into sleep as the day drags on, leaving Erik alone with the thoughts he'd rather not think. Shaw and the unborn children he took and the ones they already have, at home, who may never see their mother again…
With the bit of metal from his pocket he takes to punching small holes in the walled-up door between the rocks, where Shaw won't see them the next time he shows himself. There probably isn't enough of the metal to take out the wall anyhow, and if he can't do that and get Charles out of here himself there isn't any reason to provoke Shaw further.
But it's something to do to not feel completely useless. Besides that, even if he could break them out of here now it wouldn't matter. Charles would still be sick.
Except for Charles's fitful sleep and the occasional ping of the metal into the rocks, their prison is silent for a while.
Then Charles starts awake in his arms.
"Charles?"
He's gasping, eyes darting about, not focusing even when they slow as if he's focusing on something inwardly instead. "Oh god," he breathes in panic.
"Charles? What is it!" Erik sits up beside him, holding his shoulders and staring at him, and finally Charles is focusing on him. "What's wrong?"
"The children! God…no no no no…" He's still only half there.
"Charles!" What about the children?
"No no…damn!"
"Charles, what?"
He doesn't even have the strength to push up on elbows or move much at all on his own, but the worry is clear on his face. "The children are here—"
Erik immediately feels sick to his stomach—or more so than he already felt, anyhow. "Shaw—?"
"They came on their own. They came for us. They—damnit, Jean…she won't answer me now. Though I guess it's really too late…they're already inside. They'll be here soon…"
"They'll what? But how did they even—?"
"Logan helped them. Scott and Moira are with them as well. So is Kurt. The only one besides the younger children who is not here is Raven, but she stayed behind to take care of the younger children and she was complicit with the plan to come after us." Charles is pinching the bridge of his nose now, grimacing, but then his arm drops bonelessly to the mattress.
Erik swallows. He hears himself ask questions, tight-lipped and his heart pounding. "Are they all right?"
"No one has seen them. They're fine at the moment," Charles answers wearily.
"Are all of them inside?"
"No…Jean, Hank, Logan, and Scott are inside. The others are in the village extracting Nicole's family."
Erik is panicked enough that it takes a moment for him to make sense of that. He feels even worse when he realizes what it means. "They know. They know what's wrong with you and that she won't be able to help you unless her family is safe."
Charles nods weakly, jaw tight. They know everything. Almost everything. Jean has been monitoring us and I've been weak enough that she was able to keep me from sensing it and from knowing that they were coming. They followed you here.
Erik falls silent as Charles gives him everything Jean gave him—something of a brief record of the last few days from her perspective. He sees the plan and everything else, and when he's processed it…he lets himself hope. More than anything he's worried for their safety, but…
Charles…this could work. What if it works? It's far too late to turn them back now, and Jean knew that. It's why she waited until now to let them know what they were doing. There's nothing to do but let this play out and do everything they can to keep it from going wrong.
Charles doesn't exactly answer. He squeezes Erik's hand as tightly as he's capable of squeezing it—which isn't very tight just now—and seems to be having trouble breathing.
Erik holds onto him, leaning down to kiss his forehead and will him to calm down. "It's all right. It'll be all right. The children will be fine and…and maybe this can work. We can go home and you'll be fine…"
We can't go home yet. Not with Shaw still alive. Even if we take Nicole and her entire family with us it won't solve the problem. He'll come for us.
"So we'll take care of him."
But…how?
"Let me worry about that. Just stay with me, all right?" Even as worried as he is, Charles's eyes are beginning to drift shut again. Nicole may have given him another day or two, but he's still almost as weak as he was before. It seems staying awake is becoming a challenge again already.
Charles nods uncertainly and turns his head into Erik's chest, and he's shivering now.
With their children's lives hanging in the balance now, Erik can't blame him.
Jean doesn't contact her mother again until they're standing at the end of the tunnel facing the walled-up doorway into in the room Charles and Erik are being held in. We're here. Are you as far away from the door as you can be?
Yes…
Considering he's on the other side of the wall, Mom sounds alarmingly distant. Jean feels the part of him that's relieved and glad he'll see her in a moment, but she also knows how worried about all of this he is. That much was made clear minutes ago, when she let him know they were here for the first time.
Jean glances at Scott and nods. "They're as clear as they're going to get, but the room isn't big. Just be careful, and I'll do what I can.
"Right." Scott closes his eyes before reaching up to his red-tinted glasses. He lifts them just enough that when he opens his eyes only a bit of the energy beams is able to escape. Jean uses her telekinesis to hold them back enough to keep them from blowing the glasses away entirely and leaving the beams uncontrolled. The result is the amount of energy they need to bring down most of the rocks blocking up the door.
Jean contains the blast as best she can as well, and it's easier when Scott shoves his glasses back down and she doesn't have to worry about pulling back on the strong energy beams. She keeps the rocks from going very far and lowers them to the ground, pulling away any still clinging in the doorway and clearing the entrance.
"Mom! Dad!" she calls.
Scott backs away and lets Hank in with her ahead of him. Jean has already seen the room through her parents' eyes. She knows where the bed is in the far corner and that it's where they are.
Dad is one his feet by now and Jean runs straight into his arms. She's vaguely aware of Hank moving quickly to the edge of the bed beside them.
"Daddy…" For a moment she lets herself bury her face in his shirt.
"You shouldn't be here," Erik whispers. But he isn't letting go of her.
"I know. I don't care…"
Jean swallows and pulls away, the momentary lapse already all but over. Now isn't the time. She wants to be home, but they aren't there yet. They have to get out of here first.
"Mom?" Erik lets her go and Jean is looking down at the bed, where Hank is already at their mother's side with a hand on his shoulder. "How is he?"
Hank opens his mouth, but Charles speaks first. "I am right here, you know." His voice is quiet, but the same humor she's used to is in it. She wants to say something else, but her voice sticks in her throat as she really takes in how Mom looks and realizes how sick he really is.
Feeling how worried Dad has been about it is one thing, but seeing it is another entirely.
Jean sinks to the edge of the bed beside Hank and takes her mother's hand. "We'll get you out of here. You'll be fine," she promises. "Nicole is already on her way to us. Or she will be as soon as she can get away from where she is without looking suspicious." Charles takes this more in stride, but Jean can feel the wave of relief from her father when she says this.
"We need to go," Logan says from the doorway. "Now. I know that tunnel is long, but I doubt that explosion went unnoticed no matter how much you dumbed it down."
"He's right," Erik agrees. He moves to pick up his husband, but Hank holds him off.
"I can carry Mom; I can do it more easily than you can, actually. And your powers are more useful in a scrape than mine are; we need your hands free in case we run into any trouble. "
Dad hesitates at that. Jean sees him glance at Charles, who nods minutely.
"All right…" He still doesn't look happy as Hank carefully lifts Mom from the mattress, but he doesn't protest. He doesn't look so well himself, and that probably has something to do with it. Otherwise he would put up more of a fight about it. Charles reaches for Erik's hand once he's up in Hank's arms and can reach it, and that seems reassure him.
It also seems to make him remember something, or maybe Charles is telling him something silently. His mouth presses into an anxious line. "I know, but we shouldn't do anything about it right now; you said yourself that once Shaw is out of the way, maybe…"
Mom nods and looks away, a pained look on his face. Jean can feel hope trying to push in atop the pain, but she doesn't know what it is her parents are concerned about. She blinks. "What?" The others are looking at them strangely too. Whatever this is, it's something she missed.
"Nothing," Erik says quietly. "Something we have to do. But right now we need to get your mother out of here."
"What about Shaw?"
"I can come back once the rest of you are safe."
"Not by yourself," Hank protests.
Logan nods. "Kid's right; this bastard's tricky. You're not taking him out on your own."
"And certainly not right now," Charles adds softly. "You're exhausted and you're sick yourself."
Something else she missed, Jean realizes, when she was trying not to intrude so much on the intermediate days of the trip and in the last day or so. Now that she really looks at him, besides the fatigue that was obvious she can tell that her father is pale and trying not to sway on his feet. When Erik reaches to pick up the near-empty bag from the foot of the bed—the one he brought with him—Scott takes it and throws it over his own shoulder before he can.
Erik only scowls, and falls silent and releases his husband's hand as Logan ushers them from the room and back up the tunnel. Jean lets Logan lead the way, and stay near her father to watch for any unsteadiness. He's stubborn, and he won't want help if there is any, but if she uses her powers to do it if needed maybe he won't notice.
Well…he'll notice, but he can complain about it later.
Nicole's family is nearly ready to leave when they arrive. They don't carry much, and when they're through packing the few things they bring they're ready.
"Where are we going?" Kurt asks.
"Let's just get out of the valley and we can go from there," Alex says. Then he nods to the four members of Nicole's family. "Take them first."
Kurt nods and tells them to hold hands. He's taken the older woman's hand and is about to take them from the small house to the rim of the valley when there's a puff of sulfur that isn't his own and Shaw's teleporter that Jean showed them is in the room.
"Kurt, go!" Alex shouts.
He doesn't want to, but he goes, because he promised Jean that he would do what he was told. That he would teleport away if there was trouble. But he panics. The teleporter is lunging at Alex and the others and he doesn't try to go to the rim of the valley.
He tries to go home. He tries to go to his mother.
A second later he's standing in the main room of Uncle Erik and Uncle Charles's house. He made it. He's never made it that far with passengers. He didn't think he could do that yet, at least not with that many…
Then everything is black.
Lorna is sleeping in her crib that was brought here from her own house and Raven is upstairs putting Bobby and Kitty to bed when she hears the heavy thump downstairs and smells the sulfur.
"Kurt?" she calls anxiously. No answer. "Kurt!" Only Kitty is still awake, and Raven tells her to stay put and pounds down the stairs. "Kurt!"
She finds four strangers in her brother's kitchen—an older woman, a middle-aged man, and two young women—but what she's looking for is her son. The two young women are on their knees, one of them holding Kurt as if she caught him mid-fall, and the man and older woman are leaning over them and worried.
"Who are you! What happened?" Raven demands. She pushes the man and one of the teenagers on the ground aside, drops to her knees and pulls her son into her own arms.
"I'm sorry," the man is saying. "He was trying to help us. You must be—your brother is…ill. My wife is a healer, but she wouldn't go against Shaw unless she knew we were safe…"
"Was it too much for him?" the smaller of the young women asks. "I don't even know how far we've come."
Raven swallow. "I-I don't know I—my brother? What wrong with Charles? What happened?" Her head is spinning.
The man answers again. "Shaw did something to him, to make his husband cooperate, I think. I don't remember all of it. The girl, Jean, she showed us some of it, so we would understand why we had to go when the others came for us, but only what we needed to know. I'm sorry…I don't think we were supposed to come this far now. I think the boy was scared; Shaw's teleporter appeared and—and I have no idea how he knew—"
"What?" But then Kurt is stirring, and her attention turns to him.
"Mom?" he asks groggily.
"I'm right here…"
His eyes flicker open, and he takes in her and the other four people over him and where he is. "I made it," he says, grinning a little.
"You shouldn't have tried that," Raven scolds angrily.
"I had to get them out of there. Nicole has to be able to help Uncle Charles or—" But he stops, as if he's said too much, and bites his lip. "I mean…"
Something in her chest clenches. "Or what?" Nicole must be the healer, and Raven doesn't like the look on the faces of the woman's family. Said exchanged glance is not making her feel any better about any of this. "Or what?"
"Or he isn't going to make it, dear," the older woman says finally, frowning at her son (or son-in-law?) and granddaughters for cowards.
Raven's stomach drops away into nothing, and she has to fight for the breath to ask the next question. "Wh-wh…what did Shaw do to him?"
She doesn't get an answer, because Kurt is scrambling awkwardly to his feet and pulling out of her arms. "I have to go back," he's saying. "I have to make sure Alex and Sean and them are okay. I left them—"
"Kurt, wait. That last trip took a lot out of you. You need to rest."
"Not while the other guys are in trouble! I'll be fine going by myself. It was having four passengers that was hard. I'll be okay. I have to go."
"Kurt—!"
But he's already gone.
Kurt goes back to the house in the village, but it's empty. "Guys!"
They're fine. Jean's voice, in his head. They're at the wall trying to find a way out without trying get past the few guards at the gates. Are you okay?
Yeah…fine. But what about the other teleporter?
He was trying to stop Nicole's family from leaving; he wasn't worried about the others. As soon as you left he left too—to find you, I would assume.
Crap. I'll get Alex and them out of the village and I'll go back. What if he figures out I took them home? He knows where home is. How did he even know we were trying to get Nicole's family out of the city? What's going on?
I don't know, Jean answers worriedly. He shouldn't have known. No one's seen us. I don't know.
Kurt is already out of the house and running through the back alley to the stone wall, and not far down he finds Alex and Sean and Moira and Ororo. Jean must be talking to them too, because they spin around and come back to meet him halfway. Ororo pulls him into a hug.
"Thank god you're okay!"
"Yeah, I'm okay. Everybody's fine…" He pulls away and just takes her hand instead. "Come on, let's get you guys over this wall." Still tired, he isn't able to take them much farther than just the other side, but at least he makes it as far as the stand of trees they'd used for cover before going in. "Sorry guys. You're on your own from here…"
"We know," Alex nods. "It's fine. Go on."
Raven is on her feet, still staring at the place where Kurt disappeared when another puff of sulfur makes her hope he came to his senses and came back.
But it isn't Kurt. The smoke is red.
She remembers the images Jean showed them—the teleporter taking Charles, and bringing Shaw here to taunt Erik. But Raven hasn't seen this mutant herself in thirteen years.
"You," she glares.
The red-skinned teleporter takes in Nicole's family behind her. "The boy has been here." He scans the room. "He has left again."
"Gee, you figured that out all on your own?"
The teleporter scowls at her only briefly before making a move toward the people behind her. Raven counters by moving over to plant herself more firmly between him and the others. "I don't think so. You want them, you'll have to go through me." Not that she cares much about them. But she cares about Charles.
"-have to go through me."
Kurt appears at his mother's side just as she says this, and he sees the teleporter staring her down. "And me," he says as firmly as he can.
The teleporter looks at them for what seems like forever, and his face is so stony that Kurt wonders if his mother made up what she's told him in the past.
He knows who the teleporter is—besides one of Shaw's lackeys. His mother told him that he father was a red-skinned teleporter, and he doesn't know of any others. But he tells himself it doesn't matter. Not only was his father never here, but now they know he was working for Shaw from the beginning. And that's worse.
Then the teleporter steps back, and he stared at Kurt for a long time but now he's looking at Raven. "You I cannot harm," he concedes quietly. "Or the boy."
Then he's gone.
Kurt swallows and looks up at his mother, who squeezes his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asks. He doesn't know if she means physically, after wearing himself out before, or if she's asking because she knows he made the connection.
"Yeah," he shrugs. Not because he is, but because he doesn't know what else to say to her.
"What…?" It's Nicole's husband, behind her, not knowing what just happened. The girls are wide-eyed.
Raven turns back to them, and when Kurt looks the older woman is patting the man's arm. "It's none of our business," she says. Raven lets out a breath of thanks at that, and now that it's clear that everyone here will be safe Kurt moves away. This time his mother doesn't try to stop him.
"Be careful," she says instead.
It would be better to just teleport out of here, but Kurt is busy. He and the others in the village run into trouble and they're on their own to find their way back to the hangar. As they near the end of the long tunnel Jean hears from Nicole, telling her that she's on her way now and will meet them there. The woman is glad that her family is safe and happy to be getting out of here.
Jean doesn't tell her about the hiccup in getting her family out of the village, but it doesn't matter now. They may be farther away then the plan originally called for, but they're safe.
However, Jean now has no idea where the teleporter is and still doesn't know how he knew to go to the village. Kurt, though, is on his way back here, taking it in smaller jumps so he'll be more recovered and able to help if needed when he arrives.
"We could probably get hold of a truck easy enough," Logan is saying. "Let Nicole and the kids get Charles out of here."
Erik makes a face. "If Nicole knows how to drive one. I'm afraid you're the only one of us who does."
Logan blinks in surprise, then shakes it off as he remembers how different this world is than the one he remembers from before. "Right. Let's hope she does, because I already told you I ain't letting you take on this Shaw character alone."
Jean sighs and quickly poses the question to their ally on her way. "She does."
Once they're out of the tunnel there will be plenty of metal, but Dad simply blasting their way out of here is out of the question. With Shaw's energy-absorbing abilities Erik's powers and even Scott's would be useless. Brute force will not take care of him. They have to think of something else, and Jean hopes Dad and Logan can because she hasn't any idea.
There may be no way to kill him. Not physically, Mom tells her silently. I don't know if your father fully understands that. His eyes have been closed for a while now, head resting against Hank's shoulder, but apparently he's still awake, if barely.
Then…what? Jean asks.
It may have to be done another way. He says it evenly, and she doesn't quite understand. If we do this the way your father and Logan seem to want to, I can ask Nicole do as much as she can in a short time and I'll have to come back. Perhaps Kurt can help with that. Once I'm stronger…if I can get Shaw's helmet off I may be able to…rearrange his mind. Be certain he will never harm us or anyone else again. Get him to end this ridiculousness about controlling the remaining mutant population and overseeing pairings.
You haven't told Dad any of this, have you?
He is preoccupied with our safety at the moment, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it will go more smoothly if he doesn't know what I'm planning.
Then why are you telling ME?
I need SOMEONE to know. And you do happen to be the rebellious one—which I mean in the kindest way possible.
Jean snorts inwardly, but she smiles a bit. Thanks.
The entrance to the tunnel was hidden behind crates in a little-used storage room, and Jean doesn't think to check for occupants until Logan is pushing the crates aside again. She scans quickly and finds nothing.
Which makes it that much more surprising when they all stop dead, finding themselves face-to-face with Shaw and several other mutants waiting for them in the storage room.
Shaw is wearing the helmet, which explains why she didn't pick him up, but the others…
One of Shaw's lackey's behind him is smirking at her. At her specifically. Jean glares back at first, at the barely-dressed woman in white, but the expression slips away in shock as she realizes what's happened.
The woman is a telepath. Shaw has a telepath. With Mom sick the entire time he's been here and Jean distracted keeping up with everything else, she was able to keep herself under the radar easily.
That's how the teleporter knew what the others were trying to do in the village. It's how Shaw knew to cut them off here, at the end of the tunnel.
They have nowhere to go.
