Dawn had long since come and gone when he sighted the mainland. Jean had grabbed a pillow and fallen asleep on the floor, as had Scott. They'd both had a very long night, and Hank could double as both pilot and watchman. Surprisingly, after the events of the night, he was wide awake.
He'd made the decision to skip going to Charles's property. He'd let him know once they got to the airport. Everyone was, surprising enough, in pretty good shape. Well, Emma and Moira weren't great, but what could be done for them could easily be done on the plane ride back. There'd probably be a stop at a hotel so they could shower up, since he didn't think Moira wanted to appear to Kevin wearing the dirt of the past month and smelling of jail. From what Jean had told him about the day in Charles's office, he was a sensitive child when it came to seeing those he loved in distress.
Leaning forward, he scanned the horizon. With everyone asleep, it was quiet, and that gave him time to think. Hank still had about an hour or so left of steering before he reached their destination, and after that he'd have more medical concerns to account for. Everyone would need feeding, and he'd need to figure out what Emma and Moira could eat that wouldn't make them sick.
He didn't think he'd have too big a problem with Laura. She looked like she might stand to gain a pound or two, especially considering her age. He wondered what the monsters who called themselves doctors at Essex's facilities had been feeding her. Hank dismissed it with a tapping of his fingers on the wheel.
Moira was the one who would be the real problem. Yes, Emma would need more care. Her bones jutted out at every angle, and she'd had harsh cheekbones to begin with. It made her look like she was about twenty and, clean her up and she might be able to pass, in baggy clothes, for an actress. He hoped they'd be able to figure out a way around it. It wouldn't do to have attention drawn to a teenager who was only a level or two above starvation weight.
But, again, Moira. She was pregnant. He tapped the steering wheel again, wondering. While Hank considered himself an expert in a wide variety of subjects, babies were not one of them. He'd studied them, certainly, and the gestation period. He was, he figured, alright.
In the coming days, however, they would need to keep very careful watch on her. She'd been through an ordeal, and he knew risks were high in the first three months or so of pregnancy. Add that to a situation where she'd been locked up like an animal and it might be enough to drive anyone mad, if she had known.
Movement caught his attention, and he looked over his shoulder. Raven was coming up from the lower level, looking tired. He turned back to the water, running over foods she could and couldn't have. Maybe he should do some reading in the next few days, find out what would help her recover faster. A baby was an extra strain on what he clearly knew was an already strained body.
Raven moved so she was standing beside him. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"I didn't mean to say you were stupid," she said, "Earlier. I just meant...I knew she was pregnant, you didn't, and I didn't know if Charles would feel comfortable telling you."
He paused, correcting their course slightly.
"What do you need?" he asked.
The flatness of the words surprised him, but they seemed right. She looked at him, surprised.
"Hank, what makes you think-?"
"Because," Hank said, "that's the only reason you ever come to me. The last time you came to me and just wanted to talk, didn't have something you needed, didn't want me on your side for something, we were teens."
"A lot has been going on lately Hank," Raven said.
"Yeah, it has," said Hank, "But I am, and always will be, the guy you go to when you need something. A guy you ask to fly the plane or to support you when you're worried about the CIA. I'm this other guy and..."
A thought hit him, and weighed him down. God, it was so obvious.
"I'm just..." he said.
He closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing hard.
"I'm just tired of it Raven," he said, "I'm tired."
Raven didn't say anything, not at first. He looked back over the sea, waiting to either fall asleep or for her to leave. Either way he had the feeling it would be a great mercy, and he was eager for them to happen.
Neither did though.
"Hank," she said quietly, "Look I didn't mean...I just..."
She sighed.
"We never really talked about what happened with us on Cuba," she said.
"That's...that's not what this...look," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "This isn't me trying to get closure, because, one way or the other, I think we both know what happened with us."
"I'm not sure we do."
Hank tightened the pressure on the bridge of his nose.
"Look, how about I start from my end," he said, "I fell in love with a girl I thought understood me. You felt drawn to someone you thought got you. But we weren't..."
He turned away from the steering wheel, probably a bad idea, and looked at her. He looked at her golden eyes, firey hair and blue skin. But more than that, he smelt gunpowder and blood on her. Doubtless, some of it was from himself, but the way she wore it felt like an aura.
"I was trying to pretend to be completely normal when you met me," he said, "You were trying to do the same. It took me a while to figure this out, but that's how it is, okay? We didn't actually know the other person, and now we do. And now you're the person who flits in and out of our lives always asking for things and I'm the guy who gives them."
"Flattering picture you're painting of me," she said dryly.
Despite her tone, he couldn't help but snort.
"It's not a great picture I'm painting of myself either," said Hank, "I'm the pushover, the sucker. I made Cerebro blue. How pathetic is that? All because I missed that girl I could talk to, who I thought got me. We were trying to be other people, and we fell into the roles around each other. But it wasn't who we were."
Taking a deep breath, Hank looked glumly out at the horizon. The sun was starting to hurt his eyes, make them water. That was it. He thought of the broken pen in his hand after their last argument, of the ink on his fingers, on the table.
"So can we please just cut to the chase and talk about what you want?" he asked.
Again, there was a pause. Maybe she'd leave, decide it wasn't worth it. He wouldn't blame her if she did. Hank doubted hearing a lecture was what she had in mind when she'd come up to talk to him.
"I need to leave the school and I need your help to leave quietly," she said, "I figured out while I was on the mission with Kurt. I can't stay here. Especially not now-"
"Bullshit."
She started and, truth be told, so did Hank. The utter conviction in the wordsurprised even him.
"You don't understand," she said.
"Then for once in our long acquaintance, explain it to me," he said.
She looked behind her shoulder. It didn't take a genius, although Hank could have easily supplied one, to understand what she was thinking.
"Come on," said Hank, "This can't be because of Charles and Moira."
"I'm a blot on the picture, the bitter sister," said Raven.
"If you think that's bad now, wait until you leave just as he gets close to being happy," said Hank, "Has it ever occurred to you that leaving doesn't actually make problems better?"
"Fine words after you just let Charles check out after all those years," snapped Raven.
Scott let out a soft groan, and they both looked at him, neither making a sound. When he returned to sleep, Raven's eyes returned to him, blazing.
"We didn't have a lot of time to talk back when you told me, but you let him become this addict instead of telling him to get back in the saddle," she said, "You let him get to the point where he might have slit his own wrists in the night."
There were, he knew, several things he could've said. He could've told her that at least he'd been there when she'd been God knows where. Hank could've said it was a fine thing for her to say when she hadn't even visited him once in all those years, had actually left him shot on a beach in Cuba.
But, truthfully, her words weren't anything he hadn't already thought himself.
"And I hate myself for it," said Hank, "I...I wanted so badly to help, but I didn't know what to do. I was lost and I let him get lost too. That's how I repaid years of kindness."
He shook his head.
"Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done, is done," he quoted, "But that doesn't mean I can't learn. I checked out with him for those years. I can't check out ever again."
Hank turned the wheel slightly, his mind gently tugging him back to when he'd stood in the doorway, congratulating Charles on his happiness. If, instead of letting him wallow, he'd helped him back up sooner, would it have been possible to congratulate him a decade ago? Longer perhaps?
Too late. All he could do was congratulate him now.
"You're part of that happiness he has right now, you know that right?" asked Hank, "We all are. I think you need to stop fighting all this. I don't know this for certain, but I don't think that's who you are."
"You said it yourself," she muttered, "You don't know me."
One of his hands clenched the steering wheel tighter. Softly, sadly, he said goodbye to the last part of him that was still a teenager.
"No," he agreed, "but I do think you'd regret leaving before you really thought about it. You said to me once, before all this started, that it pained you to think that Charles could've died and you wouldn't have spoken to him for years beforehand. Does that idea still pain you? How about the thought of never knowing your niece or nephew at all?"
Another thought struck him. It was going out on a bit of a limb, but not too much. Hank looked around, checking to make sure everyone was still asleep. Kurt wasn't there, and for that he was quite proud.
"And Kurt?" he asked, "Do you really want to leave your son behind?"
"Is it that goddamn obvious?" asked Raven.
"Sort of," he said, "But not to him, because that would be too much of a presumption in his mind. But...I think you owe it to yourself, to him too, to at least get to know him."
Raven looked down and, for a moment, he thought it had all been pointless. Her face was set, and her mouth was angry. But, even though he didn't know her, when she closed her eyes, he knew what her answer would be.
"Maybe I can stay for a while longer," she said.