Madeline was sunk deep into a leather armchair by the fire in Charles's study, listening to him hold forth about his plans for the future he now had such hopes for. It still seemed a bit of a miracle to her to even be here, and to be listening to him talk with such animation, his hands waving about as they had always done when he was enthusing about something. It was just like the old days – scarily like the old days. Except there was no Erik watching him fondly, indulgently, and she was sitting in Erik's old place.

Madeline had had a few too many brandies, and her eyes filled with sudden tears as she imagined how he must be feeling now. She blinked them away, sat up a little straighter in her chair. Both she and Charles were pleasantly drunk, but she knew he would sense her distress if she didn't get ahold of herself.

That was another thing she had never thought she'd be doing again – getting drunk with Charles. When he had reached for the decanter and offered her a drink, she had looked at him warily – but he'd smiled reassuringly at her.

"It isn't what you think. That part of my life is over now. The pain I felt then – I didn't know it for the gift it was, the lesson. I've learned now from a wiser man that bearing pain, not running from it, is the only way to grow strong enough to overcome it. It's something Erik could have taught me, actually – if he'd been able to teach, and I'd been able to learn. But better late than never, I suppose – and at least now I can enjoy a drink or two without ending up face-down in a pool of my own sick. And if ever there was something to celebrate, surely it's this – all of us coming back together again. At least, all of us that are left. Well, almost."

He'd handed her a glass, and raised his own hers in a salute.

"To our mutual friend. To Erik – wherever he is tonight."

She'd been surprised by how easily the metal-bender's name came to his lips; before she left the mansion, he had become a forbidden topic between them, the source of too much grief, too many fights. Now, as he came to the end of his exuberant outline for the revived school, re-envisioned both as a refuge for the hunted and a recruiting ground for a team of elite mutant soldiers called X-Men, she felt confident enough to raise his spectre again.

"Charles. Aren't you ever tempted to go and use Cerebro, see if you can find out where he is?"

There was no need to say who she meant by 'he'. Charles sighed, sank back in his own chair.

"I have, of course. Some days, it's all I do think about. But it feels – wrong, somehow."

She cocked her head enquiringly, and he sat forward, suddenly earnest.

"You know, right from the very beginning, I forced our intimacy on Erik. Our very first meeting, I read his whole past in an instant, all his love and suffering and anger. Before he even knew my name, I knew him better than he knew himself. He never gave that gift to me; I never asked. I acted impulsively, selfishly – as I did so much of the time, back then."

Maddy shook her head.

"You saved his life. You're too hard on yourself."

Charles shook his head.

"I don't regret it, really – it seemed like the only thing to do at the time. But after that, I didn't really give him any choice about what happened next. I railroaded him into joining us; I pressured him into opening up to me, more and more. I only wanted to help him; but looking back, I went about it like a bull in a china shop. I so wanted to make him better I didn't give him any room to just be what he was at that moment – vulnerable, broken, angry. For someone like Erik – someone who had been alone and unloved for so long – it must have been a little… overpowering."

He looked so abashed that Maddy felt compelled to comfort him.

"You know how he felt about you, Charles. He wasn't 'overpowered' – he loved you. He really did."

Charles sighed.

"I know he did. But at what cost? He gave up so much for me, Maddy. But he couldn't give up what he knew in his heart to be right – not forever. If I had made a bit more room for that, if I had been willing to open my eyes, maybe it would never have had to come to this."

Maddy sat forward, trying to focus her hazy mind on what he was saying.

"Are you saying you think that Erik was right all along? That we are the next stage of evolution? That the humans will inevitably be eliminated?"

Charles shrugged.

"That's as may be. I'm not a fortune teller; I'm not God."

He sat forward, holding her gaze with eyes that were suddenly hard, intense.

"But one thing he was right about: the humans are dangerous to us. I've seen that now. They're afraid of us. They don't understand us. And that fear and confusion will inevitably lead them to try to destroy us. We need more time, time for them to hear us, see us, to understand we pose no threat to them – unless they give us no choice. And to give us that time, we have to be able to protect ourselves."

Maddy sat back, sighed. He was right; she knew he was. But still, it felt like something had been lost – not Charles's hope but certainly his innocence. She would miss that innocence.

"So what now? What happens about Erik?"

Charles looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled sadly.

"That's up to him. For the first time, I think. I need to stop trying to save him from himself. I need to let him choose –even if that means he my choose differently to what I might have wished."

His tone was somewhat wistful at that last. He huffed out a breath, tried to sound businesslike.

"He knows where I am. And he must know that my door is always open to him – I'd hardly have let him go after Washington if it wasn't. I still have hope for him. Raven came back, in her own good time. I can only hope that Erik will some day too."

Maddy frowned. Although it all sounded eminently reasonable, noble even, somehow it didn't seem right to her. Erik had been locked up for nearly a decade. He must have gone through some terrible things. But he had done terrible things too, to people who loved him, to people who didn't deserve it. This inconclusive strategy of Charles's didn't answer her inner demand for closure of some sort. She didn't know what it was she wanted from Erik any more- an apology, an explanation, just to see his face again. But she knew that leaving things like this wasn't enough for her, even if it was enough for Charles. Which she frankly doubted. He sounded like a man trying to talk himself into something; and although he seemed reconciled to his choice, the faraway look in his eyes as he finished speaking told her that some part of him would always be waiting for Erik.

Charles drew her worried train of thought to a close by putting his heavy-bottomed glass down on the table with a clunk.

"I think that's enough for me for one evening – bet that's not something you ever imagined you'd hear me say again!" He smiled his sweet, teasing smile at her, and she grinned back instinctively, rose to leave. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"Goodnight, Charles. Sleep well."

"And you too, my dear. Welcome home."

Maddy stumbled out into the corridor, pleasantly bleary. The brandy was still buzzing in her blood, and she didn't feel like sleep just yet. She headed for the library, hoping to find a book she could leaf through in bed until tiredness took her.

What she found instead was Raven and Hank, locked in an azure embrace on the library floor, and in a state of partial undress – well, Hank anyway. Raven, as usual, was in a state of total and unselfconscious undress.

So intent were they on one another that it took them a moment to notice she was there; they responded by guiltily leaping apart, Hank straining to button up his shirt before Maddy caught an eyeful of muscular, hairy blue torso. He started to auto-babble, despite Maddy's instant apologies.

"Uh, uh, hi Maddy. We were just, we were just, uh, reading-"

This was so ludicrous that when Maddy met Raven's eye, they both burst out laughing.

"Really Hank, it's fine. It's my bad, I'm intruding. I'll leave you to, uh…"

"Read?" Raven offered laconically. She had recovered her poise by now, and had slid an arm around Hank's waist. Emboldened by the contact, Hank stopped panicking and gave Maddy a sheepish smile.

"Great. Uh, good night!"

Maddy hid a smile as she backed out of the room.

"Good night!"

She went on up to her room without a book, but feeling lighter in her heart than she had for a long time. She'd always had an unease of conscience about Hank – both for having come between him and Raven, and for having hurt him by rejecting him. To be able to finally put those worries to rest meant more to her than she had realised it would.

As she pulled the covers up around her, her last conscious thought before sleep took her was: one down…

She would leave the mansion in the morning.