Author's Note: wow... I GOT 6 REVIEWS! THAT MADE ME SO HAPPY! So happy in fact, that I updated this story before I began to write my other story. I had some issues with the start and my mother kept yelling at me to get off the computer while I wrote this. Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter. I rather liked it. And I love Ms. Anna. I don't like the way she started, but it was necessary. And I'm sorry if you don't like some of the stuff I wrote in this and some of the stuff Charles does in the dream, but too bad, this is my story. I would personally hate to lose anyone as a reader simply because of one of my choices, but I personally think everything I did this chapter is perfect for the way I want this story to go. So I understand if I get some flames, and though I will not appreciate them, I will not blame you for them. Anyways, thank you very much for taking the time to read my story. I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men: First Class or anything related to the X-Men story-verse. I do not own any characters but the ones I create.

"Again," the woman shouted, anger evident in her voice as she cracked the ruler on the table, inches from the young boy's fingers. Charles resisted his desire to pull them away because he knew it would simply give her reason to hit him. No man should fear pain, she always said. And he did not want to upset her. Despite being a woman, Ms. Anna was one of the top scholars of the modern age. That she was working as his tutor spoke more of the sexism of the modern age than any movement could. This woman's mind was just as good as any other scholar of this age and she had a tongue sharper than a lawyer. She was not to be messed with.

Charles picked the book, The Advanced Study of the Human Body, up again, carefully trying to read the words fluidly and confidently as Ms. Anna instructed. He found himself stumble on the same word as before, some technical term that was Latin in origin and no matter how Charles tried, he couldn't seem to get the second and third syllable to combine. He heard the click clack of Ms. Anna's and the rhythmic tapping of the ruler against her palm cease and knew she had had enough with his errors. "Do you think this is a joke?" she asked pointedly, Charles' eyes automatically seeking her face out. What he saw astonished him. Ms. Anna's always blank face looked shadowed. Her eyes lacked any emotion other than a deep look of exhaustion. Her hair was pulled back from her face as per usual, but several strands had escaped, jutting out in different directions giving her an unkempt sort of look. She looked years older and Charles knew he was seeing the effect the war had left on her after her son had been taken in a bombing.

"I'm sorry ma'am?" he asked slowly, too shocked to say anything else.

The look remained on Ms. Anna's face, but her eyes seemed to gain their fire back. "Do you think this is all a game? That it's funny for you to be sitting here, slacking off in your lessons while people out there are dying. While people are suffocated and burned to death. Tortured until they beg and scream to die?" she asked, her eyes gaining a haunted look and she seemed to lose sense of time, going somewhere deep within the recesses of her mind. "Bleeding as iron buries itself deep in their bodies, having been shot with the hate and intention to kill those others felt when they pulled the trigger. To cry yourself to sleep every night because you just want to die and it all to end, to finally be with those you love but have lost—"

"Ms. Anna…?" Charles asked, worried about the way his teacher looked.

His words fell on deaf ears. "—But you know there is no hope, because tomorrow all of the pain and agony is simply going to begin again. And the people who deal the blows laugh at you, mock you, degrade you, make you into an animal. All the while with a smile on their face. Your suffering delights them; they live to see you break and become something worse than human. Then, and only then, do they kill you like the animal you have become—"

"Ms. Anna!" Charles shouted, grabbing his teacher by the shoulders and shaking her. He felt a deep stabbing pain within him with each word she said and the image of Erik the day before, covered in blood and sweat after he was ruthlessly beaten by one of his trainers kept flashing in his mind. How he hadn't been able to even walk because the flesh on his legs had been torn into with a whip so many times that there was hardly any skin left unmarred. Charles felt the sense of fear again as he wondered what would have happened had his mentor not walked in at that moment and slammed the trainer into the wall, stabbing him through the hand and leaving him there, knife embedded in his palm and pinned him to the wall. "Ms. Anna, please, please stop," he choked out. He shakily begged the woman in his arms to stop, tears streaming down his face as the image of Erik being carried down the hall in the arms of his seething mentor burned into his mind. "Please, just stop," he choked out before he passed out.

Charles awoke in a room he knew better than any other. He had spent many day in here over the past two years, looking around as he paced. His eyes were magnetically drawn to the young boy lying on the only bed in the room. A gasp escaped his lips before he could help it.

Erik's face was drawn and pale, covered in sweat. His brown hair was matted and darker in spots where his blood had dried. The strands looked like black ink in contrast with his white skin. He was dressed in a light hospital dress and covered from his forearms down by a thick wool blanket. Even from here Charles could see Erik was shivering. Walking over, Charles was grateful he had discovered his ability to move objects in these dreams, though only if Erik was touching the item too. Which meant no matter how he tried, Charles couldn't lift anything, even in the physical world. So Charles lifted the blanket up, instantly dropping it back down as a sound of pure astonishment forced itself from his convulsing throat. But it was too late. The image was already seared into Charles brain.

He hadn't looked that bad yesterday, Charles thought in shock. But he was covered entirely with blood, the voice within him said, and you were too busy trying to lift that knife out and stab the trainer. Shut up, Charles shouted back, hand slowly reaching out and lifting the blanket painstakingly slow. Each inch that became exposed was horrific; the flesh was torn and jagged, crisscross patterns all over Erik's body where the whip had broken through the skin and tore into the muscles underneath. The wounds looked red and angry and the meat beneath it glowed blood red. At least the bleeding's stopped, Charles thought and none look like they're going to fester. They seemed to have administered some sort of antiseptic.

Erik shifted slightly and let out a quick exhale of pain. Charles' attention was drawn from the bloody carnage of the boy's legs to his face. Erik's eyes stared blindly up, open but unseeing. He's dreaming, Charles thought, moving up to Erik's side. Then the boy let out a broken sob and his arms came up, searching for something that wasn't there. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, clouded with sleep, but the fear within them was evident. Charles didn't know what was coming over him, Erik couldn't feel him, but Charles instinctively reached a hand out for the other boy's hand, curling their fingers together. For a moment, Charles thought his hand was simply going to pass right through the other boy's hand, but then Erik did something bizarre. His fingers curled around Charles', and he pulled both their hands down to his cheek. Charles didn't know how he did it, just that Erik was holding his hand as though it were really there and he could feel it. And his stomach was doing an odd sort of tap dance because of that. Trying to pull his arm away, Charles could feel Erik squeeze his hand tighter, pulling it closer to him and pulling Charles himself closer. At the same time, Erik lifted his other arm and pressed the palm of it against Charles' cheek which had stooped when the other boy had tugged him.

Eyes widening, Charles froze under the touch. It was all too intimate, all too real. He could feel Erik's hand, his warm skin pressed against his own, the points where their skin met heating up to a level that was both pleasant and painful. Then he relaxed into the touch, because Erik's eyes were staring into his and though he could see the other boy was asleep, there was something in his eyes that made him look… awake. And there was something else in the look that he couldn't place, but it made the strange dance in his stomach speed up even more. He was aware his heart was hammering within his chest, the sound almost deafening. But he could feel Erik's heart beating too, the tempo matching his. He felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in time with Charles and it made his head spin and his knees go weak.

Then the moment was ruined as the door to the infirmary slammed open. Charles' eyes shot to the door guiltily before returning to Erik's. Stepping away from Erik's hand, Charles pulled his arm, trying to free it from Erik's grasp. But Erik held on tighter and Charles felt himself getting desperate. The whole scene had shifted in a second and all Charles could think was that he had to get out of here, had to get away from this place. Had to get away from Erik. His eyes met with Erik's one last time and he could see the sleep starting to leave the boy, his eyes becoming less clouded but also losing that strange look of awaking from before. Right then, he saw Erik's lips move, his voice but a whisper.

"Please don't go."

And then Charles ripped his hand out of Erik's, the other boy trying to grab him back, but it was futile. As soon as the physical contact was broken, Charles felt as if he had been thrown into cold water and when he resurfaced he was back in his body, in the room he had been having his lessons in before. He was drenched and a worried looking Ms. Anna looked down at him.

That's when the tears came.

Whatever you're thinking, leave it in a lovely thing called a review