Hey guys! Here's chapter 29! Enjoy!

Laurien stared with wide eyes at the group before her, her breath catching in her throat as she watched the auburn haired woman emerge from the back seat and stand beside Hank. Someone called her name, and she dragged her gaze away from the woman, instead coming to rest on who had spoken, Charles.

Her stomach plummeted when she noticed the gold band on his left hand, just where she'd left it all those years ago. Her own left hand flexed unconsciously, devoid of anything besides old scars, though a slight indentation was still visible on her fourth finger.

Charles' gaze flitted down to where she was staring and then to her, his face falling when he saw her bare hand. Laurien took a small step back, because even at this distance, his emotions slammed into her like a brick wall. She ended up backing into the side of her truck, jarring her back into reality as she finally heard what the strange leather clad man, who had been gradually stepping towards her, was saying.

"Are you all right?" The man asked, his voice low and rough as his hand extended out kindly to her. Strangely, her eyes immediately noticed the slight yellowish tobacco stains on his fingers and she suddenly found herself longing for a cigarette of her own.

Laurien frowned in confusion at him, initially wary of the man, though from his calm and collected demeanor, she found herself trusting him more than she trusted herself at that very moment. She shook her head and waved off his helping hand as she made to get back into the truck, wanting to get as far away as possible from the situation that was stealing the breath from her lungs.

The man's firm, yet gentle hand on her arm stopped her, evidently not meaning any harm, but under the circumstances, the physical contact was enough to set her off. Laurien pushed him back with her powers, sending him flying back until he landed on the roof of his car with a loud metallic clang as the roof caved underneath his weight. She grabbed onto the door quickly and as it shut, the side view mirror revealed that Charles was running toward her.

After turning the keys and shifting into gear, Laurien floored the gas pedal, hearing the sharp screech of the tires on the road as the truck began to move away from the reminders of the memories that she'd much rather forget.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, frowning when she noticed that one person from the group was missing, when the truck suddenly came to a crashing halt. Laurien's head snapped forward with the momentum, and despite her hand managed to somewhat cushion the blow of hitting the steering wheel, the severe movement sent a shooting pain through her forehead.

Groaning, she looked up and saw that the front of her truck had charcoal colored smoke seeping out from the underneath the crushed hood. Her head was pounding heavily as she stared in confusion at the wreck, wondering how it had come about, seeing as she was still in the middle of the road. Suddenly, her door was wrenched open and she was unceremoniously yanked out of the truck.

Laurien yelped in pain as her body hit the ground at the wrong angle, clasping at the hand that was holding the collar of her shirt as it dragged her back toward the other car. She glanced up with difficulty, only to stare in disbelief as she saw the mysterious woman, Sera, pulling her along as if she weighed nothing.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Charles' angry, yet panicked voice met her ears as his arms suddenly wrapped around her middle, removing her from Sera's grip. Laurien opened her mouth to respond, thinking that the question was to her, though she was startled when Sera answered harshly.

"I got the job done, what more do you want?" She said, her smooth voice ringing eerily in Laurien's head as her vision faded in and out of focus. "I'm here for her now, I wasn't going to wait for you to string together some charming lie just for her to refuse to come with us anyway."

Charles growled, but didn't say anything in response as he tried to keep a hold on a struggling Laurien.

"Let go of me." She muttered, her nails digging into his arms. At their close proximity, Charles' emotions were overwhelming and all she could think about was how she desperately needed to put some space between the two of them.

"Laurien, stop." Charles managed from behind gritted teeth, gripping her tighter. "Calm down, we just want to speak with you."

"Get the hell away from me." Laurien hissed, blood roaring in her ears. She grabbed onto one of Sera's antique bracelets with her powers and bounced it off of Charles' forehead with a small ping that made the other woman laugh.

"Well, look at that." Sera chuckled, looking somewhat fondly at Laurien. "She does take after me."

Laurien stilled abruptly as her addled mind slowly registered her words, but before she could ask what she meant, she heard footsteps approaching. A hand held her chin and a sharp pinching sensation pricked at her neck, sending her falling into a dark abyss.

When she came to, the first thing she immediately noticed was how mightily her brain was pounding against her skull. Laurien winced, though she was thankful that it wasn't anywhere near as painful as she was used to. The pounding wasn't at all helped by the fact that a loud droning roar that was so unnervingly familiar to her ears surrounded her; she hoped that it was just a dream.

Reluctantly, her eyes fluttered open and she took in her blurry surroundings, unfortunately confirming what she'd feared. She was on another bloody plane.

Laurien took a deep breath, groaning as she tried to turn over in her slightly reclined seat, only to feel an unexpected bite of cold metal against her wrists as she was stopped. Frowning, she glanced down at her hands, seeing that they were bound together by a pair of handcuffs, the chain of which was looped around the armrest of the chair. She raised an unimpressed eyebrow and made to release herself with her powers, but nothing happened. A small spark of fear blossomed in Laurien's chest as she tried again, only for it to grow exponentially when she noticed that she couldn't feel the presence of the mutation in her veins; no icy pulsations, no fire, nothing. Thoroughly horrified and frightened, Laurien yanked fruitlessly at the handcuffs, ignoring the sharp pain as the edges dug shallowly into her skin, until shockingly warm hands suddenly grabbed her wrists, preventing her from doing any more damage.

"Please don't, darling."

Laurien looked up quickly, her pale brown eyes burning into Charles' own watery pair as he looked down at her in infuriating concern.

"What have you done to me?" She murmured slowly, her head still hurting way too much to be fully angry right at that moment, but she was sure that it would come around later and after waking up like this, she was very much looking forward to it.

"It's just the serum that Hank and I use, you've felt it before when–"

"Yes, I know." She said bitterly, lowering her gaze to his hands as the ring on his finger caught the light.

Charles crouched down in front of her, resting what was apparently meant to be a calming hand on her knee. "I'm sorry, but it's just a precaution, we thought that you might be a little bit too…" He faded off, in search of an appropriate word.

"What, Charles? Feral? Emotional?" She suggested in rapid fire, ripping her hands out of his grip. "Take your pick, they'll all be true, but that still doesn't give you the right to put that stuff in me again."

"Darling–"

"No, you don't get to call me that anymore." She snapped sharply, fuming thunderously underneath her steadily failing guise of calmness. "You lost that privilege a long time ago."

"Laurien." He tried softly, his voice brimming with emotion that she couldn't decipher as he lifted a hand to her cup her face. She flinched away from him, causing his hand to freeze abruptly before he then slipped it into his pocket and got to his feet.

"Why am I here?" She asked, looking down at her shoes, as she wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else but in that airplane at that moment. When she didn't get an answer, she tried a different tactic. "Where are we going?"

"Arlington County, Virginia." Hank's voice called from where Laurien believed to be the cockpit of the plane, his response prompting her to look over at Charles questioningly.

"We have received an urgent call." He said slowly, as if he were choosing his words extremely carefully, his gaze flicking over to where the leather clad man sat in the seat across from her. "From the future."

She opened her mouth, but quickly closed it, mulling what he had just said over in her mind as she forced her anger down in a desperate attempt to understand. What the hell was he on? She'd only been gone a few years and now he was talking nonsense.

"Pardon?" She tried, wincing at how stilted it sounded, but it was at least better than saying 'What the bloody fuck?' in front of a complete stranger.

Charles sighed, resting one of his hands on his hip as he rubbed his temple. "This is going to sound completely mad."

"Try me."

He moved over to another chair before flopping unceremoniously into it, shaking his head slowly. "Logan came to the mansion yesterday afternoon with some wild story of him being from the future."

"Your new bodyguard, Logan?" She asked, raising her eyebrows as she pointed at the disgruntled man the best she could with her captive hands.

Logan let out a small puff of smoke from his mouth in response as he tapped his cigar against the nearby ashtray, leaving Laurien to only scowl back at him before she turned back to Charles, her anger strengthening as she saw his unwaveringly serious expression.

"This is what you've kidnapped me for? You sure there's only tobacco in that cigar, because that sounds like some drug-addled storyline straight out of one of Hank's Star Trek programs."

She heard a small cry of indignation arise from the cockpit, but she ultimately ignored it as Charles sighed again.

"It's true, Laurien." Charles insisted exasperatedly, before giving Logan a quick side-glance. "At least, I think it is."

"Well, what if, hypothetically, we believed him, why does the future need your help in the first place?"

"Our help, actually." Charles corrected her as he brushed a strand of matted hair away from his face. "It's going to take all of us to change the course of events that leads to a world where the worst of mankind is in charge."

"You sure we're not living in it now?" She wondered aloud, her mind drifting bitterly to the bloated image of Nixon that she'd seen in the paper a few days ago. He was an utterly shady character and Laurien couldn't condone the way that he'd backed the Vietnam War, especially after the My Lai massacre in 1968. He'd been one of the reason why she'd traded in the United States for Canada, seeing as Pierre Trudeau was a much more agreeable man.

"Believe me." Logan finally spoke up, not taking his eyes off of the fat cigar between his fingers. "It gets a lot worse."

Laurien glanced at him, searching his tanned and weathered face carefully, wishing that she had Charles' mutation to see if he was telling the truth. But by the odd look in the man's hazel eyes when they lifted to meet hers, she found that she didn't need to.

"If this even is true, what could we possibly do to change anything?" She said skeptically, turning back to Charles.

"The only way that we can stop this from occurring is if we stop Raven from assassinating a man by the name of Bolivar Trask."

Bolivar Trask. Laurien frowned, the name was unfamiliar to her.

"Do we know where and when it will take place?"

"Paris, in four days, at the Peace Accords."

She cursed quietly under her breath, knowing that if what he said was true, the whole world would be watching as a decision was made between the warring countries. All witnesses to another assassination. "Then what are we doing flying to Virginia?" She asked cautiously.

Charles' mouth twisted into a scowl. "In order to stop Raven, we have to pick up one more person."

Laurien's insides squirmed uncomfortably as she immediately put two and two together. "Oh, Charles, you can't possibly think that this is a good idea. You, of all people, remember what happened last time he got involved."

"Yes, I do, Laurien." He snapped suddenly, his voice growing louder to the point that it would have frightened her if they were under different circumstances. "And I don't like it any more than you do."

"Probably less, I'd imagine." Laurien sympathized, before furrowing her brow, a torrent of question without answers throwing themselves at her mind in a barrage akin to gunfire. "But why am I here? Surely, you could do all of this without me."

"Don't sell yourself short, kid. They asked for you specifically." Logan murmured from his seat, his voice low and rough in reassurance. "The future Charles and Erik."

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "And future me wasn't there to say hell no?"

A strange expression flashed across Logan's face the moment she spoke, but she didn't get the chance to ask why, as a pang of pain pierced through her head. Laurien groaned, squeezing her eyes shut as she leaned her head back against the headrest.

"Laurien?" Charles' worried voice asked as she felt his warm hand on her arm.

She waved him off, not bothering to open her eyes until it eventually passed. "It's fine, it's fine, just…"

"You're still having them, aren't you?" He asked gently.

She nodded silently, turning her head to look out the window as she tried to discretely blink away the tears of pain that had suddenly filled her eyes.

"May I say something?" A smooth voice rang out from the back of the airplane, startling Laurien as she had completely forgotten about their other companion. The auburn haired woman wandered over to her seat, before crossing one leg over the other and pouring herself a glass of scotch from a bottle. "That is, if Charlie will allow me to."

"Sera, this is really not the best time." Charles muttered, bristling the moment the nickname met his ears.

"So you do actually know her?" Laurien accused, her anger returning in full force. "That's great to know ten whole years after I asked you if you did."

"It's not like that." He urged, rounding on her. "I had a good reason not to tell you."

"And what is that exactly?" Sera demanded, but when Charles didn't respond, she gestured toward Laurien. "May I?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"What?" The redhead narrowed her eyes at him. "You want to play mediator or something?"

"Yeah, Charles, you've already got me tied up here, I think that you've done enough for today." Laurien added as she jingled the handcuff chain against the armrest. "Speaking of which…"

Charles scowled, his jaw muscles twitching beneath his beard, but he tossed her the key before disappearing into the cockpit with Hank. Laurien quickly released herself from the cuffs and moved her hands slowly away from the armrest, wincing as her arm muscles groaned from being at an odd angle for a long period of time.

"You going to skedaddle as well?" Sera asked Logan as he puffed another drag from his cigar.

"Nope." He stated simply, earning him a small kick to the thigh from the other woman as she grinned at him, reminding Laurien of how Bastijn and Roosje used to tease one another.

"So, Laurien, we meet at last." Sera drawled from behind her now empty glass. "I wish we could've met under better circumstances."

"Yeah, me too." Laurien muttered.

Sera winced comically, rubbing her hands together as if she were an athlete preparing for a track and field event. "This is going to be difficult to explain."

"That you're somehow related to me?" Laurien wondered aloud. "I surmised as much, can't really go around looking like each other that much without putting two and two together. So who are you?"

The other woman shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Sera Carlijn. I'm Griet's sister, so I guess I'm technically your aunt."

Laurien shook her head. "No."

Sera frowned. "No?"

"No, you look even younger than me, so that's not possible. Besides my mother never mentioned any siblings."

"Yeah, well." Sera mumbled, her discomfort with the topic plain on her face. "We had a bit of a falling out in the early days of the war, so I'm not really surprised."

"Neither am I." Logan added, ignoring the dirty glance that he received from Sera.

"Why did you have a falling out?" Laurien wondered, sitting up straight in her seat.

Sera waved her away. "It's a very long story, I don't want to bore you with that."

Laurien's shoulders fell in disappointment. "How did you meet Charles then?"

Sera chuckled, playing with what appeared to be a shoelace tied around her wrist. "That's an even longer story."

"For fuck's sake, are you going to tell me anything?" Laurien demanded, her skin prickling in irritation.

"Maybe, but I'm like a magic eight ball, you've got to shake me a little bit to get the good answers."

Laurien sighed. "Do you have a mutation? Is that why you're so…?"

"No, I've just got really good genes." Sera stated, her tone so serious that Laurien was on the verge of believing her when the other woman finally cracked, her beautiful face breaking out into a wry smile. "Nah, just joking." She chuckled before turning serious. "Besides who did you think you got yours from? Not your mother. Christ, she had a hard enough time with mine, let alone the prospect of her having her own. She wouldn't have been able to survive if she was like me, she wanted to be like everyone else too much."

The way Sera's sour tone laced her words sent a tense contraction through Laurien's forearm muscles, her hands flexing as a burning sensation flared within her. If her mother had issues with Sera's mutation, then what had she thought about her daughter having one of her own? Laurien didn't want to think about the answer to her own question, and thankfully she didn't have to, as Sera continued on her spiel.

"Like my pal, Logan, here, I have enhanced strength, but not the claws, thank God. Could you imagine?" She laughed softly, before her eyes caught something on Laurien's face. "Oh, by the way, I'm sorry about your truck and your head, that was my doing, unfortunately." She added, as if it were an afterthought. "Anyways, the eye thing was more of an accessory than a mutation, no matter what Charles says. Yours on the other hand, makes me wonder what it would've been like if I had children, how the mutation might have stepped up if it were directly from me. It's dangerous, though, with powers like yours, I'm surprised the government hasn't gotten their hands on you yet."

"Believe me, they've tried." Laurien muttered bitterly.

"I can see that." Sera stated, staring with narrowed eyes at Laurien until she leaned forward. "Let's take a breather. You must be almost bursting, bathroom's over there."

Laurien frowned, but got to her feet and strode over to the bathroom all the same. As the door closed behind her, she rested her forehead against the cold material. She breathed deeply, trying to focus on keeping her inhales and exhales as steady as possible as she gathered her thoughts in her muddled brain.

"Holy shit." She whispered, pressing a hand to her mouth in disbelief as she feared that it was all just a dream. In the next moment, she would just suddenly wake up in her own bed back in Ottawa, passing another morning with the covers over her head as she waited for her stomach to get hungry enough to inspire her to get up.

Laurien honestly couldn't believe it that she still had a living family member, granted she hadn't even known that they were officially related until a couple of minutes ago, but it felt completely bizarrely wonderful in her constricting chest. Her hand hid the small tired smile that had been spreading uncontrollably on her mouth as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, attempting to ignore the subtle bruising on her forehead.

Out of nowhere, another painful pulsation sparked in her head, bringing her back abruptly to reality as Laurien gasped and her fingers scrabbled against the bottle that was mercifully still in her pocket. She quickly swallowed two of the pills, before grabbing another one, knowing that she'd need it if she were going to get through the strange situation waiting on the other side of the door, upon which a knock sounded.

Laurien quickly gathered herself together, glancing in the mirror to check that she was presentable before opening up the door to reveal the tall and burly bodyguard, Logan.

"You all right, kid?" He asked, his eyes flicking down to where she was placing the bottle of medication back in her pocket.

Laurien took a deep breath, wondering if there would ever be a time when she wasn't ready to collapse just from the sheer exhaustion of dealing with all these complexities. "The jury is still out."

His lip quirked at her attempt at a joke, but he looked at her with serious concern. "I know that it's a lot to take in."

"Yeah," She sighed before she glanced up at the solid man, clenching her jaw as her vision flashed a faint shade of green, her powers slowly coming back to her. "I can't help but feel like there could have been a better way to convey all that information. One that didn't involve me on a plane against my will."

Logan nodded sympathetically, "I know that you and the professor have a difficult history…" He started tentatively, but Laurien quickly interrupted him.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Logan." She stated honestly, pain bleeding out in her words. "Because you might be able to regenerate, but the rest of us can't, and you're opening up a lot of old wounds that might be impossible to stitch up again, you got that?"

"I understand." He said, looking at her with his soft hazel eyes, "Please believe me when I say that I wouldn't have asked you all here if it wasn't absolutely necessary."

Laurien held his gaze for a moment longer, her slowly returning powers conveying the desperation held within the man before her. Satisfied with his answer for the time being, Laurien nodded and made to walk past him, but she stopped suddenly and tightly gripped the sleeve of his shirt with her fist. "And please don't ever call me 'kid' again."

"Duly noted." He mumbled, a hint of a smirk on his face.

Laurien was surprised to find that a slight smile of her own was tugging at her lips as she released him and went back to her seat, where she was told that they'd be landing shortly.

So there's our introduction to Sera and Logan, I would like to know what your initial impressions of her are like. Do you like her? Hate her? Undecided? The big questions that come out of this chapter is what happened between Charles and Laurien, and where has Sera been all this time? So this one was a difficult one to write, because there's so much to explain and I didn't want you guys drowning in the explanation, so I'm leaving some things for later. Can't wait for Apocalypse, comes out next week! I've been realizing that it's a bit hard for me to write this story when I'm such a big fan of Cherik. Oh well. Hope you all enjoyed, thanks for reading, and please leave a review! (If you do, I'll love you forever!) Thanks!