The night had passed rather well, in Charles's opinion. Everyone had eaten, and much of the food not eaten could be saved for another day. The children had given reports on their progress, both with powers and academics. Then the X-Men had regaled the table with stories from their worldly adventures.

His original students had given the account of Shaw and how this had all begun. Charles had been silent most of the meal, picking at his food, as despair floated about in his soul like a thick fog. He could never seem to escape the blasted thing. It clouted his breathing, made sweat break out on his brow, visited him in his nightmares.

It had the voice of his father, accusing him of being a devil for something that was out of his control. It felt like whippings and loneliness in a house that was a prison. It felt like the shattering bullet in his spine and airless lungs ready for bursting.

It smelled like blood and had the visage of crushed children. He felt as if he were drowning in it, as if the fog was consuming him, but he continued to hold his smile because now this wasn't just about him.

This was about the world which needed him, the mutants who depended on him and the humans who found hope in his words. They needed him to be as he had always been. The Professor X, strong, impenetrable, brave. They needed him to be their protector, and he would rather die than fail this sacred duty which belonged to him.

He did not know why it did, and he rather suspected it might have something to do with the devil heart his father seemed to have noticed, but that was beyond the point.

Despite this, he was not unhappy having dinner with Cecilia and Jason. They were good company, and played the attentive, comfortable audience. Cecilia's mind-hidden beneath swooping brows, dark lashes and grey eyes- captivated him. It was a beehive, swirling with intelligence and observations which were as good as any telepathy.

Yet it was also serene, filled with a quiet wisdom that reminded him of a pond's rippling surface. What really made Charles think, however, was that he couldn't connect to her emotions. Sure, he could hear her thoughts, but with other people, their hearts were like open books to him, pages sitting there for traversal, but her? She was like a cloudy pond which let a few hints pop to the surface like fallen leaves, but nothing else. It intrigued him. He had a feeling this woman was highly underestimated by most of society. At the end of dinner, while Emma and Azazel prepared their elaborate desert, he offered to show Cecilia the library.

"Oh please don't, Charles," Jason groaned when she readily accepted the offer. "If you show her that, I'll never see her again," he told him. Charles smiled and looked to her.

"I take it you enjoy reading?" She nodded eagerly. Charles chuckled.

"While you're doing that," Erik stood and looked pointedly at Jason. "Would you like to watch Angel defeat banshee in a flying race?" he wondered. Jason's face lit up like he had been offered candy behind his parents back. He glanced sidelong as Cecilia. She nodded, beaming the joy she felt at seeing him so happy. It made Charles happy. He remembered the feeling.

"No way, I'm going to win this time! Right guys?" Sean declared, ramming a fist to his heart in a sign of manliness or… Something. Cassidy snorted.

"In your dreams, ghost boy," she informed him.

"Go, Sean! Go Sean!" Kitty chanted, jumping up and down.

"Kitty's on my side! Prof?"

"I'm neutral,"

"That means he's on my side in Charles language," he wished he still had the ability to create his own language. His mind had been sluggish as of late. A side-effect of the concussion. I suppose I'm turning into a cripple in many different ways, he thought bitterly; leading Cecilia through the halls as the others raced to the balcony to witness Sean get thrashed by Cassidy. As was right.

Cecilia walked beside him silently. To his surprise, she did not seem overly awed by the paintings or lavish architecture. She didn't even look at it. He decided that the silence was nice but undeniably rude to maintain. "Cecilia," he began in the quiet hallways of the mansion. "May I ask you a question?" He asked.

Her answer was immediate. "Of course, Charles."

"What degree were you going to college for?" He wondered curiously.

She shrugged. "I don't know, really," she admitted. "I didn't have a specific career path when I began. I was beginning my junior year when I was expelled," he cringed in sympathy. So close. "I had contemplated being a lawyer or journalist. Hence why I studied public speaking," he studied her from the corner of his eye.

"I believe you'd make a fine journalist," he said. She smiled, flattered.

"Thank you," she replied. "You'd make a brilliant lawyer. I went to your speech in Pittsburgh. It was well done," he shook his head humbly, ducking his head. He deserved no praise.

"Moira helped me write half of that. I claim no credit. Where did you go to college?"

"Princeton University," his brow vanished beneath his bangs. He was impressed. Not many women got accepted into Princeton. The American school was renowned all over the world for their beautiful campus and intensive study programs. Cecilia read the thought either on his face or just by guessing. She was a shrewd one.

"I was one of the only women there. A blessing and curse, I suppose, considering that most of them didn't like me. Anyway, I think I would like to be a journalist one day, or a teacher. I spent a few weeks in the teaching program just to check it out."

"And?"

"A professor of music or literature, would I like to be," she announced, with a dramatic roll of her tongue. Charles chuckled.

"Do you play an instrument?"

"Only the violin. I loved that instrument so much, it was lovely. I wish I had it," he frowned, wondering what happened to it. Then her mind opened like a flower unfurling and he saw a brutal search after being found out, police knocking down doors and searching bedrooms for mutants. In the fray, the violin case was opened, the instrument totally disfigured by impatient hands and malicious hearts.

He decided that, indeed, there was much more to this woman than meets the eye. "You?" She asked.

"I played piano for awhile," Joseph had taught him. He still had the grand thing, actually, sitting down in the basement. "But I fell out of it when I went to college. I'd like to play it again," she hummed beneath her breath.

"It's never too late," she told him. His heart panged. For some, it was. For some, it was far past too late, and it was his doing that they would never have a chance to pursue future dreams. The fog rolled back into his heart.

"I suppose," he hurried to open the doors to the library, wanting desperately to change the subject. The large room opened up before them. It was circular, containing over a thousand books on shelves that reached the ceiling.

A spiraling staircase went up to the second floor, and a small chair and table set in the middle of the room were for reading. There was a ladder for collecting higher books like one harvested apples. Cecilia gasped in delight. Suddenly She was passing him in a blur of green shirt, sprinting towards the nearest shelf. She smelled like a crisp autumn morning. Charles watched with amusement as she searched the bookshelves, totally engrossed in her task.

"Any preference?" he inquired.

She looked up hopefully. "Mysteries? Historical fiction? Creative nonfiction?"

He pointed to the right, snickering. She looked starved for knowledge. He remembered the feeling well. "All to the right. Third shelf is mystery, sixth is creative nonfiction and first is historical fiction," for that was a personal favorite of his as well. Erik preferred nonfiction and Raven had never been much for reading.

He watched her for a few minute, noting the reverent way she handled the books she stuffed into her arms, creating a tower of them. He squinted at the titles. "You know another language?" he asked, surprised when he saw she had picked up a book in French. She did not even pare him a glance.

"Three. Spanish, German and French," she replied, straightening. Charles came forward to take some of her load. She smiled gratefully and stacked five books in his lap. He couldn't help but laugh when he noticed that they were in alphabetical order. That was something he would have done.

"Where did you learn three different languages?" he asked as she went off with the three still in her arms, looking for more. She let out a soft, musical laugh and tipped a higher one off the shelf. Charles rolled after her, his lap steadily collecting more novels. He glanced at them as she set the down, curious.

"When you smuggle mutants across country, you learn quite a few things. I was learning a bit of Arabic before we were caught," she explained. Charles frowned.

"That's incredible. But… How were you caught?" He was aware that this was perhaps a very dangerous and personal question, but for once, his curiosity got the better of him. Cecilia stopped moving for the first time since arriving. She stared at the bookshelf for a second, sadness in her eyes.

"I don't know," she replied softly. "I suspect someone else who was hiding mutants was caught, tortured for information, and told," she shook her head, coming from her spell. "That's how it usually happens," she said, collecting another book.

Charles felt pain spike in his heart, added to pity. "Usually?" he asked softly.

She cast him surprised glance. "Did you not know that mutants were already being prosecuted, hunted, tortured?" She asked. Charles shook his head and gestured around.

"I always suspected, deep down, I suppose. We all did. But, I've only ever spent my life here," he admitted. "Safe-and imprisoned- behind these walls. And I hid my mutation for most of my life, anyway. I suppose it never registered as real until… Until the bombing," he was ashamed when his voice cracked upon the word bomb. He had lost so much and come too close to losing so much more. Cecilia studied him with an emotionless face for a long minute.

Then she nodded not in shock or anger, but understanding. She was not angry at him for his ignorance when the rest of the world saw him as omnipotent. She was not shocked at his ignorance, either, but merely accepting. He found himself being relieved it was nice to finally be treated as a fallible being one in awhile. "I didn't realize the extent of it until we started hiding mutants," she admitted.

"It was Jason's idea originally. He wanted to do something to help others and I wanted to make a difference in the world. We were idealistic, young, naive, but when the danger became real, when we began hearing stories of experimentation, prisons, murders…" she shivered and turned back to the bookshelf, but she seemed to have lost her appetite for reading now.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she cried, just as Charles had begun to think that he messed things up again by being nosy. "I should have asked if I could read these before I just took them down," he shook his head hurriedly.

"No, no! It's quite alright. Really, it's only me and Erik who hang about in here. The others are not partial to books, it's a shame that they are all going to waste just sitting here," he told her. "Please, borrow as many as you'd like," he saw a flicker of gladness in her eyes. A knot in his chest loosened at the sight of it. He was pleased to have made her happy.

Then, the pond waters of her mind rippled with some deep emotion. He watched her expression, intrigued. "Charles, may I ask you something?"His answer was as prompt as hers had been.

"Ask away."

"How did you lose your legs?" He froze. True, in the team's narrative of Shaw, they had left out the part about Shaw shooting him and how he had lost control of his lower body. Charles had seen Jason glance at him as if wanting to ask, but Cecilia had placed a stilling hand on his arm. Charles had been grateful then, but now that she asked while they were here in this sacred, private wellspring of immortal knowledge, alone, his heart skipped a beat at the memory.

The blow to his back, stunning and hard and then pain, blossoming until it was fire in his veins…

Michaels' sad, soft voice telling him about the damage, how it was irreversible, no cure, no hope. No walking, for the rest of his life…

Charles let out a slow breath. Most people would have retracted the statement, but Cecilia only waited patiently. I do owe her honesty. That was all she had given him so far. She deserved the same courtesy.

"I jumped in front of a bullet," her expression requested more detail. "Do you remember Shaw, from the story earlier tonight?" A nod. "Well, he and Erik had a… History. Erik was tasked to go in and destroy the radiation machine, but I knew he would kill Shaw instead. I went in to stop him, but Shaw managed to escape in the turmoil and… Well… he was going to kill Erik. I couldn't let him," the rest he left up to her. She figured it out quickly, and when she did, her eyes softened with astonishment. Not pity, not sympathy, not hero worship, just….

Amazement. Charles had not yet gotten that from someone.

"You saved his life."

Charles blushed. "He saved mine a few days later. He jumped into the water and almost drowned trying to save me from drowning."

She nodded, then pressed on. "Erik is a survivor of the Holocaust, isn't he?" Charles was so stunned by this bold assortment that he could only gawk like a fish.

"How did you know that?" He finally gasped, wondering of perhaps she was mutant after all and just didn't know it. Was she another telepath?

"I saw the numbers on his arm," maybe not a telepath, but still a blasted genius.

"You are the most perceptive person I've ever met," he blurted, honestly. She smiled.

"Second only to yourself?" She teased. Charles smiled back.

"I read minds," he informed her with a snort. "I don't need to be perceptive. Just good at what I do," he stopped short, realizing how much of a pompous, arrogant brat he sounded like. But Cecilia just laughed and handed him another book to add to the pile.

"Cheers to that, Professor. Speaking of cheering, though, I have a suggestion for your speeches. If I may," he cocked an eyebrow. She had already proved herself to be more than intelligent in his eyes.

"I would be honored."

"Why don't you come with the MEM? March with us, I mean. You've done so much- but the people would feel less afraid if you were there at their side," this was, to his shame, actually a novel idea for him. He had read of generals who rode first into war ahead of their troops, of course, but somehow had never thought of himself that way Probably because he was confined in a sitting position forever. He hardly fit the mold of 'perfect hero,' now did he?

"I haven't actually marched with the MEM. How do the marches usually go?" he asked.

Cecilia glanced at him, and once again this woman was a mystery to him. He couldn't read her emotions, and her gray eyes were shrouded in shadow. He now knew why she had been so good at hiding mutants for three years.

"Well, it depends on where you are," she replied calmly. "I've only been to a few. Most of them begin in the morning- everyone shows up at a certain place coordinated by the resident MEM leader. Then we all get out signs and begin marching. Sometimes, its fine. We pick up support and go through peacefully, laughing away. One march, me and Jason stopped at a park and had a picnic," she told him, smiling at the memory. He got the distinct feeling that this was rare.

"Other times?" he asked softly, dreading the answer. She shook her head.

"Other times, there are people who lash out. Humans part of the anti-mutant societies. They do small things, mostly. Throwing rocks, insults, threats, but once…" she only shook her head; mind muddled into a memory Charles was terrified to delve into. "We were lucky to escape with our lives," guilt came crusading down upon him like an army. He stared at her, seeing the reflection of beatings and jailhouses in her eyes and closed his own, consumed by remorse for this brave person-a brave person who he had put in danger with his ridiculous hopes and far-flung dreams.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "I've done this. I'm the one who called mutants from the safety of their homes; I pulled the world into this state of perpetual hate and destruction… Into this war of ideals," he opened his eyes, finding them blurred by tears. "I'm sorry," he repeated with all his heart.

Now Cecilia was staring at him with shock. "Profess-Charles. You have nothing to be sorry for. Yes, you summoned mutants and their families from safety, but not from their homes. Anyplace where you have to hide who you are, afraid for your life, isn't a home. It's a prison. Don't you understand? You've set this world's population of mutants-and humans-free," he shook his head.

"Free to die?" he spat.

"Free to live," she contradicted. "Live without shame or fear. Do you know how many nights I've been kept awake; terrified that someone would take Jason from me? That he would have to hide his powers forever, his talents and gifts strangled until his spirit was broken?" He did. Because he had been kept up many nights with the same petrifying fear, frozen with the coldness of it, tears dripping from his lashes as he hyperventilated in bed, thinking that at any moment, he might lose his best and only friend.

Now, he still might.

Others had. And it was his fault.

Cecilia was not done yet. "It haunted my every step, the thought of what such an existence would do to us. But then you stood up, showed us another way, and now… Well, things are bad, but Charles peace has to be fought for. We're fighting, and we will win," she sounded so sure about it that it made tears come to Charles's eyes.

"But at what cost?" She was silent, and he sensed she did not know. But unlike others, she did not allow him to be strangled by the silence of unknowing. Instead, she sat down, crossing her legs beneath her, leaning against the bookshelf nearest to him and patted the ground next to her.

He stared at her, confused. She stared back, gray eyes unwavering. Warily, somehow mystified and spellbound by her seriousness, he lifted himself out of the wheelchair. Carefully, with great struggle, finally landed his rump on the ground uncomfortably-or maybe too comfortably- close to Cecilia's side.

"I don't know at what cost," she said at last. "Probably one that will feel too high. Still Charles, no matter the cost, you set my brother free from his prison. You gave me hope for a life without fear, without anger, without hate. Whatever offense may happen because of what you started-I will never stop being grateful to you for that. I will never stop believing in what you told me. You've given the world the chance for peace… No matter the cost, you have to believe that they'll take it," and with that, she flipped open a page of one of the books she had chosen, and proceeded, with a cheerfulness that belied that they had ever been talking about death and faith, to read out-loud to him.

Charles leaned back against the bookcase, closed his eyes, and for once, was at peace.