Erik was at Charles's side in a flash, holding him by the shoulders in a vain attempt to still his spasms, looking for some kind of recognition in those blank blue eyes.

"Charles. Charles! Charles!"

He didn't recognise his own voice. That pleading whimper couldn't be him, could it? He could hear a woman sobbing in terror – Raven? Why couldn't he hear Charles's thoughts?

Hank shoved him aside unceremoniously, a frown of concentration on his face as he checked the monitors whilst pushing Charles into the recovery position.

"He's going into shock. Maddy, adrenalin, now!"

Maddy was as white as milk, but sprang into action, her hands surprisingly steady as she prepared the shot.

"What's happening, Hank?" She whispered.

"I don't know."

Erik couldn't see Charles's face anymore. He couldn't feel his mind. He hadn't realised how much he had gotten used to that gentle connection whenever Charles was there – a companionable mental presence, not always active but simply there. He felt naked, blinded, abandoned. Panic rose like bile in his throat. All the metal in the room began shivering with his fear; the monitoring equipment began to groan ominously as the screws began loosening. Hank rounded on him, all his diffidence evaporating in his focus on saving his patient.

"Erik, get a hold of yourself or get out of here right now, before you kill him!"

Erik tried; he really tried - to reach for the serenity within himself that Charles had helped him find, to subdue his power to his will, to do it for Charles. But then Charles stopped fitting, and went so limp that he looked dead. The machine's beeps became a steady wail. A metal trolley slammed against the wall, rained scalpels and retractors everywhere. Hank turned a murderous look on him, and with a last desperate glance at the slumped body on the bed, Erik fled the sick bay. A poisonous blend of terror, self-hatred and helpless fury boiled in his chest, warred with the dead vestiges of his childhood faith, sought refuge in hopeless, homeless prayer.

Bitte, bitte, bitte, nicht er. Sonst etwas, sonst jemand. Nicht er...

It had taken Hank more than two hours to stabilise Charles; he worked with a single-minded focus, saying nothing except to bark instructions at Maddy, which she readily obeyed. Raven had sunk to her knees in the corner of the room, watching with a frozen expression as they worked over her brother, drawing blood, injecting fluids, fighting for that steady beep-beep-beep that would come for a moment then collapse again. Finally, finally, after so many false starts Maddy couldn't quite believe in it, the monitor settled into a jerky rhythm. Hank gave a sigh that seemed to come from the soles of his shoes, and sank grey-faced into a swivel chair.

"That's all that I can do for now. He's stable; I don't know when he'll come around, but if he makes it through the night without relapsing, he should be safe." Raven released a shuddering breath, began to choke out painful, noisy sobs. Maddy leaned back against her own cot, suddenly aware of how exhausted she was. The site of the marrow extraction was aching; was it really just this morning she had been operated on? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Hank? Was it my spinal fluid?" He nodded wearily. She shut her eyes, trying to absorb the fact that she had almost killed the man to whom she owed everything.

"But it was working! He could feel his feet. He could move his feet! What happened?"

Hank took his glasses off, pinched the bridge of his nose.

"It seems that Charles's own mutation reacted badly to yours. His system rejected the fluid violently, sending him into shock. When I worked out what was happening, I drained the transplant site, and that seemed to stabilise him. Has anything like that ever happened before, with Fiskel?" She shook her head mutely. "It must be a mutant thing. Like my cure backfiring – my mutation fighting Mystique's, coming out stronger." Raven flinched at her name, but she didn't speak. Her yellow eyes were fixed unblinking on the telepath, as if the shallow rise and fall of his chest depended on her witnessing each breath.

"I'll need to conduct more tests to be sure, but the scan of his spine shows that it's back – the way it was. If only I'd been able to do tests; but then your blood doesn't do what it does outwith a host… but I should have known somehow. I should have guessed. And now…" Hank leaned forward, put his head in his hands. Maddy crouched down on her heels in front of him, ignoring her body's protest, put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hank; it wasn't your fault." She took a shaky breath. "It was mine." Hank's head came up, the protest leaping to his lips.

"No. No. Don't say that, Maddy. It wasn't your fault." Her mouth contorted.

"It WAS! It was my blood – I poisoned him! If I had never come here, he'd still be all right!" Hank seized her arms. His golden, bloodshot eyes bored into hers.

"No! Madeline, listen to me. You gave him hope; you gave him his best chance at a normal life. He knew that there were risks; he took the chance. You gave him that choice. Don't blame yourself. And don't let anyone else blame you, either." He said this with such fierceness she wondered who he was referring to. Then she realised, and felt herself go pale.

"Erik. My God, he must be so worried. I have to go to him." Hank shook his head, didn't release his grip on her arms.

"Don't go to him; not yet. Stay here with me." He stared into her eyes, and she felt something pass from him to her, felt a demand, a plea, that she felt instinctively was more than she had room for right now. She evaded his gaze, looked down at the floor.

"Let me go, Hank. I have to go to him." His grip tightened, held – and then he released her with such a sigh. He turned away, put his head down on his arms on top of the work bench. She felt a shard of guilt twist in her heart, and then another when she noticed Raven taking in the whole exchange. But she didn't have room for that either, not now, not yet. She needed to find Erik, to somehow find the courage to tell him that Charles might still not make it, and that worse, everything he had gone through had been for nothing.

She found him almost immediately upon leaving the sickbay. His forehead was against the wall, as if he was trying to see through the concrete into the room beyond. He didn't look at her as she approached, and when he spoke, his voice sounded like it was coming from a long way off.

"He's – dead, isn't he. I can't feel his thoughts. You've come to tell me that he's dead." She shook her head vehemently, for a moment far too appalled to speak. He turned to face her, and she took an involuntary step backward.

She'd thought she had known fear in the past hours, struggling with Hank to coax life into Charles; she'd thought she'd known despair when Charles had crashed for the fifth time. She now realised what she'd felt had been a pale shadow of what Erik had experienced out here, knowing nothing, able to do nothing. His eyes were agonised, the eyes of a damned soul burning in hell. She forced words into her dry mouth, something to take away that awful pain.

"No, Erik, no, he's not dead! He's unconscious, but Hank says that he's going to be alright." A slight exaggeration, but she scarcely had time to feel bad for that before he was shaking his head.

"You're lying. You're just afraid of what I'll do." The lights began to dim and flicker as their metal casings began to vibrate. Against all common sense, but drawn irresistibly to his need, she stepped forward, reached out a hand to him.

"Erik, you know I wouldn't lie to you, not about that. I'm telling you, Charles isn't dead. Come and see for yourself if you don't believe me!" He looked hard at her, as if looking at a stranger, and she realised the pain of the last hour had stripped away all of the safety he had ever allowed himself to feel, forced him back into his past where suspicion meant survival, trust betrayal, weakness death. How could the slim reed of her words bring him back from that place? She was about to despair when suddenly, something gave in Erik's face. The anger died, and there was naked pleading in his voice as he whispered:

"He's still alive?" She nodded.

She only saw how rigid he had been when the tension left his body all at once. He leaned against the wall, his eyes closing.

"He's still alive. He's still alive." He repeated the sentence like a prayer.

Maddy patted him gingerly on the shoulder; he flinched, but didn't pull away. She took that for a good sign. He was trembling under her hand. But his expression was a tragic ghost of the one he had worn the moment Charles had moved his toes – less like a man given a sacred gift, more like one reprieved from torture, but still.

Then he stiffened. His eyes narrowed, became slits of grey ice.

"It didn't work, did it?"

She hesitated, and then shook her head.

"His mutation rejected mine; that's why he got so sick. Hank drained the spinal fluid, and he's back to – back to normal. I'm so sorry, Erik-"

He held up a peremptory hand, forestalling her, turning his face back to the wall again. He drew a deep, shuddering breath, then let it out in a slow, hissing curse.

"Damn it." His hands formed fists against the wall, started to beat against it in time with his words.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!" She flinched away as he began to punch the wall, blood blooming on his knuckles as he pounded on it with all his strength.

"Erik, stop it! You're going to hurt yourself!" He didn't stop, didn't seem to hear her. Screwing up her courage, she stepped towards him, grabbed his arm and pulled him around with all her strength.

"Stop it!"

He tore away, striking her on the shoulder, and she went down onto her knees, knocking her head against the wall.

He stood over her, breath coming in ragged gasps, face twisted with pain and grief and shame. The he collapsed in front of her, and made an awful sound - like the cry of a wounded animal – a primal moan of fury and despair.

Ignoring the throbbing of the cut on her head, she reached out tentatively. When he didn't resist she pulled him into her arms, squeezing hard, as if she could somehow wring out the pain. He sagged against her, and finally wept. His arms came up around her, and his injured fists still beat a feeble rhythm on her back, smearing her hospital gown with his blood.

"Damn it," he was still gasping through his sobs, "damn it!" She held on to him, bruisingly tight, a savage protectiveness rising up in her she didn't understand or question.

"It's all right; it's going to be all right." She squeezed fistfuls of his sweater, whispered the words into his ear, more concerned with the soothing sound than the meaning.

After all, they both knew that it wasn't true.