Erik cursed inwardly as he entered the Library that afternoon and found that girl curled up in an armchair with Charles's thesis. Her green eyes darted down each page rapidly, and she was already past halfway through, so absorbed she didn't even notice him coming in. Her dark hair hung into her eyes, and her knees were tucked up under her chin, only her bare feet poking out of the long forest-coloured sweater that he used to see on Raven. He considered slipping away before she realised he had been there; but then a breeze for the hallway behind him pushed his scent towards her; her chin came up sharply and she snapped the book shut as she turned to face him. She was, he realised, a bit afraid.
Madeline, he reminded himself, her name is Madeline and none of this is her fault or her responsibility. He had promised Charles he was going to try. So he was trying.
Erik had gone to Charles in the end, hating himself for his weakness but unable to endure his own isolation, or the hurt look Charles couldn't quite conceal when Erik was curt with him over lunch. He knew it wasn't fair to punish Charles for his own suffering. So he had gone into the study, knelt beside that bloody chair and mentally whispered: I'm sorry. Charles had run a hand softly through his hair.
I do understand, my friend. Truly. But it still hurts. I wish you could trust me with your feelings, not shut me out like this.
Erik stood up and took his hand, shame-faced, laid his cheek against it, hating the fact that just being with Charles made it feel like things were better when they weren't.
I don't even trust myself with my feelings, Charles, he thought. You knew what I was when you met me. Charles sighed.
Yes I did, much better than you do. And I fell in love with you anyway.
"More fool you," Erik said miserably. Charles shook his head but said nothing, just curled his fingers around Erik's jaw, drew him closer into a kiss that contained no small measure of despair. Erik responded, trying to blot out the past morning's separation with the passion that burned between them, tried to make everything else go away. And for a while, it worked. Charles gave himself up willingly, and the two of them put aside their problems in favour of this, just this, the one right thing that briefly seemed to redeem everything that was wrong between them. They ended up on Charles's couch, Erik's arms wrapped tightly around him, almost too tight, trying to convey in the strength of his grip the words he couldn't say. I do love you, he thought sadly. Just you. And Charles left it at that, aware how fragile things were becoming but not knowing how to mend them. He sat up suddenly, determined to turn the conversation back toward something that could do some good.
"So I hear you saw Madeline this morning. She's quite intimidated by you, you know." Erik snorted.
"Her and everybody else round here. Honestly, you'd think I've a cloven hoof the way some of these kids behave." Charles gently tweaked his nipple through his clothes.
"Well if you didn't walk around looking like thunder all the time… but anyway. I was thinking: why don't you try and talk to her a little bit? She seems almost too well-adjusted, if you know what I mean. Palling up with Raven, trusting us all so easily. That's marvellous, of course, as far as it goes, but after everything she's been through I don't think it can be the whole picture. I'd hoped you might know how to talk to her, get her to open up." Erik raised his eyebrows, leaning back.
"One lab rat to another, do you mean?" Charles grimaced.
"Not quite how I'd have put it, but, well, yes. You have a lot in common, after all. I was thinking it might be good for her, to talk to someone who might understand." Erik looked at him helplessly. It was one thing if Charles was out to win a halo; but expecting Erik to join in seemed optimistic to a fault.
"You don't think it might bother her that every time I look at her, all I see is a giant tube of blood? My God, I've been avoiding her all day just so I can keep myself from carting her off to the sick bay!"
Charles shook his head. "Running away from her isn't going to work, my love. She's one of us, for better or for worse. You're going to have to learn to live alongside her, to live with the possibility that she'll never-" Erik put his finger on Charles's lips.
"Don't. Please, Charles, don't. I need-" his mouth twisted round the unfamiliar word – "to believe in this. Aren't you always exhorting me to hope? Let me have hope for you, even if you're too saintly to hope for yourself." Charles shrugged, but Erik could tell he was deeply moved by this.
"Be that as it may, I would really appreciate it if you'd make an effort with the girl. You're the only one apart from me who knows what she can do, what she's been through. And it might be good for you as well, you know. I know you've been unhappy here lately." Erik tensed, his grip loosening as his instinct to escape kicked in. Charles tightened his embrace in response. "I know you feel like we're achieving nothing, that we're still hiding, that we ought to be fighting more for mutant rights." A deep sigh. "I know you're only here because of me. And I'm grateful for that, more than you know. But you can't hang your whole life on you and I, Erik. You're too strong a personality for that. You're going to end up resenting me, unless you find a way to reconcile the life you're living with the man you are."
Erik went even more rigid, if that were possible: Charles was skating far too close to all the things they had silently agreed to leave alone, lifting the lid on incompatibilities both at times feared were intractable.
"Madeline could be the way, Erik, and all those like her. I know how angry you are about what's been done to her, just because she's different. I know how it fills you with rage, as well it should. If you could just harness that rage, temper it with compassion, you could be a pillar of strength for all of our maltreated children. You could give them a role model, like Raven tries to do – 'mutant and proud'. You can make sure the younger ones grow up sure of their right to live in this world, in full command of their own gifts. You can teach them to be strong, to be brave. I know we don't see eye to eye on much, but surely you can see the value in that? Surely you can find a place in all of this?"
Charles's voice was urgent, wistful, almost pleading. Erik felt a stab of shame; he had failed even more than he had realised to convince his lover of his commitment to the school that was his life. He forced his body to relax, picked up Charles's hand and kissed it reassuringly.
"You always see the best in me. I don't know if I can be what you think I am. I'm too used to being alone, having no-one to worry about but myself. I'm too impatient with others' weakness. But I'll try; I really am doing my best, Charles. I want to be happy here. With you."
Charles kissed his neck. "That's all I ask my love. Just try with her."
Erik was slightly irked to find that what had seemed like an innocent request from Charles for a particular book from the library was in fact a not-so-subtle nudge towards getting this trying started. But he was here now, so perhaps there was no time like the present. Steeling himself, he sat down opposite the girl, who followed him with wary eyes.
"What are you reading?" he asked her - as if he didn't know.
"The professor's thesis. It's incredible. Did you know there's a mutation of a certain gene that can stop people ever breaking their bones? And one that means you can see more colours than normal people?"
"That's nothing," Erik said dismissively. "There's a little girl coming here next term who can control the weather." Madeline's eyes went round.
"You're kidding me."
"I don't kid," Erik said flatly.
"I just bet you don't," she batted back cheekily. Erik blinked. Charles was right about her – it was almost unnatural how swiftly she seemed to acclimatise to strange people, difficult situations. He remembered how he had been when the camp had been liberated; he was almost feral with fear and anger, bit and scratched anyone who tried to touch him, couldn't sleep unless there was a locked door between him and everybody else. How had she come out of her shattered childhood so… innocent?
"Have you got to his conclusion yet?" She looked a little bit guilty.
"Kind of. I haven't read that far, but I sort of skipped ahead for a while. This other stuff is amazing, but I wanted to read about – us. Real mutants, here now."
"What did you think?" he asked.
"I don't really know what to make of it. I mean, everything he says points to us being the next stage of evolution – but what does that mean for everyone else? We're still in a minority – but will that change? Will more and more children be born mutants, until there aren't any normal people left? I don't know." Erik was pleasantly surprised to find out how astute she was. If he was going to have to babysit a child to prove himself to Charles, it would be significantly less of a chore if she proved intelligent. He decided to test a theory on her.
"When homo sapiens arrived on the scene, they didn't just out-breed Neanderthals; they wiped them out. What do you think about that?" She frowned, but seemed to give the question serious thought.
"It's certainly a thought. I mean, the implication's there in Charles's work. If we're better, why wouldn't we take over? But then you think about what that would mean; families split, turned against each other. I mean, you wouldn't turn on your own family, would you, not just because they're normal and you're not?" Erik flinched. He'd gotten used to being around people who knew enough of his history not to mention his family (or else just knew better than to talk to him any more than was strictly necessary). Madeline's innocent question tore the scab off a wound that had never fully healed.
"I haven't got a family to turn on," he said curtly. "But no, if they were here, I'd never turn on them. I'd give my life to protect them." The girl looked mortified.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-" Erik waved her apology away, saw her register the tattoo on his arm.
"We were Jews in Germany. It happened to a lot of families. It doesn't matter now." With an effort, Erik unclenched the fists he hadn't even noticed he had formed. "Back to what you were saying then; you don't think mutants could take on the humans because they'd be turning on their own brothers and sisters, their parents, their friends?" She nodded, happy to let him take the conversation where he would, anywhere away from the place that caused that savage pain to flash behind his eyes.
"But what about the mutants whose families turn on them when they find out what they can do? Whose parents hate them, fear them? We have so many of them here, and there are many more. Raven's first family tried to drown her in a bathtub when she was seven. It was only when she found Charles she found her real family, her mutant family." Madeline's mouth had dropped open in shock.
"Poor Raven," she breathed, her eyes filling with tears. "How could they do a thing like that to their own daughter?" Erik scoffed.
"People have done far worse with less reason. I mean, look at your own parents, giving you up to God knows what just to save their other child, their human child. Look at Fiskel. The human race are mostly savages, a thin crust of civility over a seething mass of cruelty, superstition and fear. You can't expect anything of any of them, except that they'll stop at nothing to protect their own interests. We can be no less ruthless if we want to survive!" Erik stopped short, alarmed that he was almost shouting, breathing hard. He felt as if he'd said too much, exposed himself. And yet it felt so good to finally say it, to admit that he couldn't buy in to Charles's ethos of coexistence, of 'hope'. He looked into Madeline's face, expecting to see judgment, disappointment, or horror – what he would see if he had spoken this way to Charles.
Instead she looked thoughtful. A delicate frown creased her brows, as if she was considering a particularly complex equation, rather than his manifesto for an interspecies battle to the death. He reminded himself that she had spent almost her whole life in a private ward, and had no preconceptions about the world that she lived in. In some ways, she was as ignorant as a baby; but she wasn't stupid. She was quick-witted, he could tell even from this brief conversation. In some ways, she reminded him of Charles – so fascinated by new knowledge, so quick to make connections between one thought and the next. And yet, Charles used his brilliance like a shield, deflecting any ideas that disturbed his worldview with such dazzling displays of rhetoric it was impossible to argue against him. Whereas when Erik looked at Madeline mulling over what he had said, he realised that she was taking what he said entirely at face value, considering it from every angle – that her opinion wasn't yet formed, and what he said could still shape or shift it. It was a powerful thing, to watch her open mind work at the argument he posed. At this point, she could become anything, he realised. Anything at all.
"There's more to it than that though, isn't there?" she asked, bringing him back to himself. "It's not like being a mutant makes you exempt from human conditioning, does it? If we are bred by humans, raised by humans, live with humans, love humans, it stands to reason we'll be just as bad – or good – as them."
Shaw. Erik could see him even now, shooting his mother as casually as picking his teeth, destroying Darwin – his own kind – just for trying to protect his fellows. For all his power, he'd been as petty and sadistic as the worst of humanity. He blinked, shaking his nemesis from his mind and concentrating on what Madeline was saying.
"It's not that I don't feel a sort of – I don't know, species consciousness. But I wonder if that's because I never really had a family. Perhaps that's why you feel that way as well – because it was with mutants that you first felt you belonged?" He stared at her, amazed by what he took for presumption – then realised that it was nothing of the kind. Her expression was eager, as if expecting him to agree – or disagree, perhaps, but there was no intention to be rude. She simply following the thought through, not considering if what she said was impertinent. He bit back the sharp retort that had risen up in his throat, took a deep breath to steady his voice.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well," she explained contemplatively, "it seems like you're all kinds of outsider. First a Jew, then a mutant, being gay-" Erik exploded to his feet.
"You don't know anything about me!" he yelled. The cast-iron spiral staircase leading to the gallery began to tremble ominously. The girl shrank back into her chair, belatedly becoming aware of the offense she had given. In spite of her obvious apprehension, she put out a conciliatory hand.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be rude. I smelled it on the two of you – the way you're drawn to each other. I didn't mean anything bad by it!" The staircase stopped its staccato groaning as Erik fought for control of himself. Her voice was low. "I think it's beautiful that two people can love each other like that. I don't know how; but it is good to see."
Erik was panting, uncertain how this girl could so provoke and disarm with the same careless candour. He sat back down, a little bit abashed.
"It's alright. You didn't say anything wrong. I'm not ashamed of it – of loving Charles. It's just – gay? I don't know about that. There's only been Charles. There is only Charles. Before him, I didn't know what love was. I didn't have room for it." He slanted a suspicious look at her. "Are you sure you don't have any – extra powers? I don't talk about things like this. With anyone." She smiled tremulously.
"I've just got a big mouth I guess. I need to learn to stop and think before running it off. I'm really sorry if I made you mad." Erik decided it was time to leave, but he made an effort to smile back at her – a tight, constricted smile, but nonetheless.
"You should get back to your reading. Let me know what you think of the last part: 'to homo neanderthalensis, his mutant cousin homo sapiens was an aberration. Peaceful cohabitation, if ever it existed, was short-lived. Records show, without exception' – without exception – 'that the arrival of the mutated human species in any region was followed by the immediate extinction of their less evolved kin'. Does have a kind of prophetic ring to it."
"Only if you go out of your way to take it out of context." Erik jumped as Hank lumbered up behind him. "The professor asked me to tutor Madeline. What the hell are you trying to do to her?" He asked suspiciously. Erik clenched his jaw. Hank had never liked him, but at least when he was just a nerdy boy with big feet, he'd had the common sense to keep it to himself. Now he was built like a brick wall and covered in blue fur, he made no secret of his antipathy. Erik was frequently hard-pressed to heed Charles's request that he refrain from testing just how tough Hank was now with the aid of a steel girder.
"I'm not 'doing' anything to her, Beast. Just having a conversation." Hank growled sceptically.
"You don't have conversations. Are you done?" Erik ushered him theatrically toward the armchair and walked away. He turned on his heel in the library door.
"We'll talk more later, Madeline," he said, primarily to irritate McCoy, but was rewarded with a dazzling smile. A smile, he noticed, not without a certain disappointment, that she then just as blithely turned upon Hank. Maybe I'm wrong about her, he thought as he left. Maybe she hasn't got an open mind – maybe she's just another one who doesn't want to have to pick a side.