Maddy awoke reluctantly, was instantly assailed by the overwhelming power of her senses. She shut her eyes tightly, tried to hold her breath, to block out the scents of the sick bay, the sound of the rain that spattered the windows outside.

This isn't right. Charles promised to keep me asleep until the blood had worn off.

Charles. She could smell him, warm wool and faded leather and … whiskey? Her eyes snapped open.

He was sat next to her, slumped over in his chair, red-eyed and guilty-looking.

"I'm sorry," he said as soon as she focused on him. "I had to wake you up. I'm sorry, sorry."

He was slurring his words; he was, she realized, completely drunk.

"What time is it?" she asked. He squinted blearily at his watch.

"Coming up to midnight?" he answered, uncertainly. "I left you under for as long as I could, but – Madeline, I need your help." His voice broke on the last words.

She sat up sharply.

"Charles, what's happened? What's wrong?"

He shook his head, looked at her with eyes glossed with tears.

"Erik. We had a fight, an awful fight, and I – I made a terrible mistake. He says he's leaving. Now."

Madeline went cold. No. No. He can't. The dread went deeper than any she'd ever known. She wondered for a moment if it was her emotion at all, or one she was picking up from Charles's mind. She knew when he was as drunk as he was now, he sometimes lost control of his power, let his feelings bleed into others around him. And he looked just like Maddy felt – bereft.

"He can't leave. He can't. Where would he even go? He can't just go off all alone!"

Charles shrugged helplessly. "I don't know! He won't talk to me anymore. He just said that he had to go. He's put that bloody helmet on, so I can't see what he plans, I can't make him listen-"

"What helmet?"

"It's something Shaw had made before he died, to keep me out of his head. Erik kept it after Cuba, but he's never used it, never!" The hurt in Charles's voice lacerated Madeline's soul. Then she realized something terrible.

"Charles. The fight – were you fighting about me? About what happened?" His eyes confirmed it. She drew in a sharp breath, but Charles was shaking his head.

"It started that way, but Maddy, it's not your fault. It had been a long time coming; it goes much deeper than just your powers, goes to the heart of the destiny of our species. We've been avoiding it for too long, out of love – or fear. What happened today just brought matters to a head, that's all." His face suddenly fractured. "And I made such an unholy mess of things! But he can't leave me, Madeline, he can't. I don't know how to carry on without him here!"

Then Charles – the urbane, paternal, elegant Charles - began sobbing broken-heartedly. Maddy acted on instinct, pulled his head down on her breast, stroked his hair, patted soothing circles on his back. He took her hand, looked up pleadingly at her with unfocused, red-rimmed eyes.

"Please talk to him. You're the only person I think could persuade him to stay."

Erik was pulling shut the zip on his holdall when Madeline knocked and entered his room.

He had been saddened to realize how little he possessed when you excluded everything Charles had given him over the past year – clothes, books, small but significant gifts that Erik had treasured as much for the thought that had gone into them as for the items themselves.

All these he had not packed. Couldn't. He knew the only way he could go through with this was to leave every memory behind, to shut every door in his heart that could lead back to Charles, to the mansion, to the life they should have had together.

He had taken only one memento – the bullet he had pulled from Charles's spine that dreadful morning on the Cuban beach. It was bent and blackened, and still had a tiny flaking of Charles's blood on its snub-nosed tip. He put it in his pocket, without letting himself think about why. Then Maddy had appeared.

Even in Erik's desolation, he took the time to admire the changes human blood had wrought in her. Her every move seemed gilded with grace; her speed and silence testified to the comfort she felt in her own skin; her carmine eyes glittered like rubies in the lamplight. But her mouth twisted down when she looked at him.

"Nice hat," she said, and Erik shrugged self-consciously. He hated everything about the helmet – the stupid shape, the weight of it, the fact that it had been Shaw's. Wearing it felt wrong, like putting on the dead man's suit – unclean. But it was a means to an end. He still went cold remembering how utterly Charles had been able to control him. He could never allow anyone to have such power over him. Never again.

"Where are you going?" she asked, indicating the bag.

"I have to leave. Try to understand. Charles was right in the end – he near as damn it always is. He told me a long time ago that I couldn't hang a whole life on love – that sooner or later I'd have to find a way to live a life that was true to the person that I am." He heaved a sigh, thinking about that day, lying in one another's arms trying to find a way forward.

"I've tried to find that life with Charles, but I can't. I don't belong here. I never did. I see that now; I have to do what I believe is right, for me, for my people. I have to go, to take the war to them, before they gain the means to annihilate us. Because they will try. They'd be fools not to, once they realize that we were born to exterminate them. You're proof of that, Madeline. What you are, the predator you are – it's beautiful. It's meant to be."

She was shaking her head, biting her lip. Her red eyes were glossing with pinkish tears, and she made no attempt to wipe them as they fell.

"No. No. That isn't what it means. I don't know what these powers are, what they are for. But I refuse to be your excuse to run out on Charles, on all of us. Don't you dare try and make this about me." He turned away abruptly, guilt exploding in his chest at her words. He forced down the memory of Charles in here a short while ago, drunk, desperate, pleading with him to stay, begging for forgiveness. As if it had ever been as simple as that.

As though she was reading his mind, Maddy suddenly yelled:

"How can you walk out on him like this, now? How can you not forgive him for whatever mistake he made, after all that he has forgiven you?"

Erik shook his head angrily, punched the wall.

"It's not about forgiveness! I could forgive Charles anything. But I can't trust him any more!"

The words rang in the air between them, and as he heard them, Erik acknowledged to himself at last the full extent of what he'd lost. To lose the only man he'd ever loved was pain enough; but to have lost the only friend he'd ever truly trusted was so, so much worse. He bit his lip until it bled, hoisted the bag onto his shoulder.

"I have to go now," he rasped, clenching his throat to hold the tears down. She stepped forward fluidly, grabbed his arm.

"Erik, please don't go. He needs you here, we all need you." She took a deep breath, and then looked up at him with the nakedness of her love in her eyes.

"I need you."

He paused, reached out and stroked her face fondly with the back of his hand. She shut her eyes and trembled at his touch.

"You don't need anything, or anyone at all, Süßling. All that you need is to accept yourself – to let yourself become what you were born to be." She shook her head, the pinkish tears falling from under her closed lids; she leaned her face into his cupped hand. He brushed the tear tracks away with his thumb, realized suddenly how much he would miss her after he had gone. A mad thought came to him.

"You could always come with me, you know. I have a war to fight; I'm going to need an army. I could use your strength, your loyalty. We could do so much together." She opened her eyes, looked up at him with tragic yearning. He took her face between his hands, looked into her eyes searchingly. "You're so strong, Madeline. Now tell me: are you ready to be brave?"

She held his gaze for a long moment, and he felt in that moment the full burden of her love, love he knew he could never return, and hadn't earned, but was taking full advantage of to get his own way. Shame blossomed in his chest again. He was almost relieved when she closed her eyes finally, sighed, and stepped away from him. She shook her head.

"I can't. I can't leave Charles. Not now. You must see that. He's going to need all the friends that he has to get through this. And Hank and I are still hopeful that we might find a treatment that could work, that could help him to walk again. I can't come with you, Erik. Not now. Not yet." Her voice was low but resolved, and only a tremble as she said his name gave any indication of what the words had cost her. He sighed, stepped past her to the door, clasping her shoulder one last time as he went by. He paused in the hallway, looked back at her.

"When you're ready – if you ever change your mind – come look for me." She nodded jerkily, but didn't turn around. "By then, you'll know where to find me," he said, in such an ominous tone she spun around to ask him what he meant. But Erik had already gone.

Charles watched him from a high window as he left, crunching up the gravel path as the intensifying rain splattered off his leather jacket, streamed down the helmet. Although Charles couldn't call out to his lover's mind, some sixth sense seemed to stop Erik, and he turned to take one last look at the only place he had called home in his adult life. Their eyes met, and Charles put a hand up to the glass, pressed until his fingertips turned white.

Please. Please, Erik. Please stay.

He mouthed the words as well as thought them, yearning more than anything to reach into the metal bender's mind and show him how sorry he was. But the damned helmet cut him out, cut off the gentle mental link the two of them had shared almost unbroken since the day that they had met.

Erik looked up at Charles for a long moment, with the rain streaking his face. He stood there for so long Charles felt a spark of hope light up his heart. Then Erik set his shoulders, turned his back, and disappeared into the stormy night.