Hello, long time, no see. I apologize for the delay, I was busy doing performances of my school's musical. I played a British nun, and it was very fun. (rhyme not intended) Had to do my best Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey. Anywho, Enjoy chapter 40!
Having opted out of going into Cerebro, Laurien watched solemnly as the sliding doors of the elevator closed, enveloping the three men in its stainless steel case and bringing them into the depths of the mansion. As the hum of the hydraulics began to fade as it descended, squeaking slightly from disuse, Laurien stood in utter silence in the middle of the decrepit atrium. She suddenly turned on her heel and eyed the large staircase leading to the upper floors, before taking the first few brave steps back in time.
It had been years since she'd stepped foot on the premises, yet it seemed like only yesterday that she had nearly rolled her ankle from a misstep on the same staircase in her haste to get a book to Alex before he was shipped off to Vietnam. She'd given him Orwell's Animal Farm. A month later, she'd received a package containing the book and a request for another. She had sent her copy of 1984, and after getting it back along with a good review, but a plea for something more lighthearted, she then shipped off Tolkien's The Hobbit. She had yet to be sent a letter or returned the book over three years later, and that fact worried her.
Laurien padded up the stairs, trailing her hand along the banister. The polished wood was smooth and satisfying against her skin until her fingers passed suddenly over sharp divots and she quickly withdrew her hand, as if it had burned her. She quickly glanced to the far side of the banister and felt a small shock burst through her when she recognized the telltale presence of bullet holes.
She took a deep breath and continued up the stairs, not realizing that she was holding her hand protectively against her chest.
The windows at the first landing of the staircase looked oddly frosted from the combination of dust on the interior and bird droppings on the exterior. Laurien opened one of them with difficulty, making it squeal in disgruntlement as the hinges turned to reveal the South lawn. A slight breeze caressed her face as she ducked her head out and took in the sights of a blissfully vast and overgrown lawn, from which she was, out of habit, half expecting a red furred pup to emerge.
Shasta was buried beneath the shade of the great oak tree on the mansion's grounds. The tree was rooted next to the man-made lake, and Laurien found herself squinting towards it, vaguely making out its grandiose outline in the distance. Charles had always mentioned how it was his favorite of the multitudes on the property, that he used to swing from the branches when he was little. That fact had specifically stuck out in Laurien's head when she'd buried Shasta between the roots of the tree before leaving. She didn't know why, perhaps out of spite, the burning anger that she had used to fuel her through the pain of digging through the hard earth, toughened by the cold of winter.
She couldn't be sure of how long she had stood with her head out the window, but as her body began to falter as it felt the deep bite of the cold, she ducked back inside. She delicately latched the window shut and started up the next set of stairs as she rubbed the feeling back into her hands, when the lights of the atrium suddenly flickered.
Laurien paused halfway up the staircase, wondering if it was just a figment of her imagination, but she was proven wrong as a subtle hissing began to emanate from the bulbs of the chandelier, the atrium dimming drastically. She stared curiously at the lights, wincing as the hiss grew louder, pulsating irregularly like a failing heartbeat. Their glow suddenly brightened immensely, forcing Laurien to shield her eyes. A sharp series of pops assaulted her ears, as the lights shattered, dropping a shower of thin glass down upon the carpet below.
Recognizing the signs, Laurien turned on her heel and quickly descended the stairs. Her shoes crunched the shards of glass as she dashed across the atrium toward the elevator, though knowing better than to try taking it, she rushed over to a Charles' study and burst through the door. Laurien made her way over to the bookcase directly behind his desk chair and pulled on a dusty copy of Hamlet, hearing the telltale click and release, as the bookcase swung out to reveal a dark hallway. She raised an arm and batted away the maze of cobwebs that had accumulated in throughout the underused path before it led her to a spiraling staircase.
Laurien kept one hand gripped tight on the railing at all times as she descended the dizzyingly long rabbit hole that the contractor had most surely not thought through correctly, until a blue hue gradually crept into view. She finally reached the bottom, though only to almost collide with Hank as he rushed through the doorway.
"Jesus, Hank! What happened?" She demanded, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
Hank seemed as alarm as she was. "I don't know, it overwhelmed him." He explained hurriedly before moving past her and up the stairs.
"Where are you going?" She called up after him.
"To go check on the generator." And then he was gone.
Laurien took one last deep breath before she exited through the doorway and into the usually brightly lit hallway that led to Cerebro. She made her way down the hallway, all the time fearing that Charles had finally gone too far. She neared the opening of the Cerebro, though quickly slipped back and hid in a nearby nook when she heard Logan's gruff voice approaching from within the chamber.
"You're just a little rusty."
"You don't understand, it's not a question of being rusty. I can flip the switches, I can turn the knobs, but my power doesn't come from here, it comes from...here." Charles gritted out, the waves of despair so palpable, even just in his voice. "And it's broken. I feel like one of my students. Helpless. It was a mistake coming down here, it was a mistake freeing Erik and dragging Laurien back into this, this whole thing has been one bloody mistake!" He seemed close to tears. "I'm sorry, Logan, but they sent back the wrong man!"
"You're right. Actually, it was supposed to be you. But I was the only one who could physically make the trip." Logan confessed. "And, uh, I don't even know how long I've got here. But I do know that a long time ago –well, actually, a long time from now– I was your most helpless student. And you unlocked my mind. You showed me what I was, you showed me what I could be."
Laurien heard Logan sigh. "I don't know how to do that for you, you're right, I don't. But I think I know someone who might. Look...into my mind."
Panic edged Charles' voice. "You saw what I just did to Cerebro! You don't want me inside your head!"
"There's no damage you can do that hasn't already been done, trust me."
There was a pause, allowing Laurien to take a shaky breath as she wondered if maybe she should find out a way to quietly leave. But before she could even take a step, agony pierced through her body like a lightning strike as Charles' waves of despair enveloped her, causing her to slide none too gracefully to the ground as she tried to control the pain and not cry out.
"You poor, poor man." Charles voice whimpered, sounding small and child-like.
"Look past me." Logan urged.
"I don't want your suffering." Charles gritted out from behind clenched teeth, before releasing a pained cry. "I don't want your future!"
Logan somehow remained calm despite the situation, as Laurien tried to latch onto his composure through the cracks of the tsunami. "Look past my future. Look for your future." A moment passed, as the bodily pain mercifully began to subside. "That's it." Laurien heard Logan say from what seemed to be a great distance, as she closed her eyes and put her head in her hands.
A dull headache was all that remained of the assault, prompting Laurien to pull her bottle of pills from her pocket and shake out two into her palm, beyond caring if they heard the rattle. Her hand trembled as she brought it up to her mouth and swallowed the pills dry. She waited, hearing Charles' heavy breaths slowly begin to calm into an steady rhythm.
The hallway lights suddenly brightened to their usual level, causing Laurien to wince and back to her feet as she heard footsteps approaching. She emerged from her hiding spot, only to see Logan crouching before Charles's wheelchair as the younger man held his fingers to Logan's temples. Hank came into view and gave Laurien a quick nod of reassurance before they both turned their attention back to the connection transpiring between the men before them.
After a moment, Charles lowered his hands to grip the wheelchair handles. "Find what you're looking for?" Logan asked, his eyes focused only on Charles as the telepath gave him a small nod.
"The power's back on." Hank said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement.
"Yes." Charles took a deep breath, his gaze fluttering from Logan to Hank before he realized that Laurien was there. They locked eyes for a moment, before he turned his chair and entered Cerebro once more. "Yes, it is."
"Where is she?" Hank asked as they rode up the elevator after Charles located Raven through Cerebro.
"She's in an airport, boarding a plane." Charles explained, rubbing his temple as he warded off the aftereffects of the session.
"Do we know where to?" Laurien wondered, watching him carefully.
He seemed to disappear within his mind for a moment before responding as the ding of the elevator signalled their arrival. "Washington, D.C."
"Alright, there's something I need to show you." Hank declared, before leading them to a small room just off from Charles' study, filled with television screens that broadcasted a multitude of different images. One of them, Laurien noticed, was playing an episode of Star Trek. "This is the system I designed to record any news about Paris, over all three networks and PBS."
"All three? Wow." Logan said, his voice exhibiting an amount of sarcasm that Laurien couldn't quite understand in this context.
Hank seemed unaware. "Yeah, and PBS. Look what I found."
He pressed a button on one of the many remotes, which ramped up the volume of one of the televisions displaying a newswoman standing in front of the White House. "Tomorrow in front of the White House, the President will make his announcement. He'll be joined by Secretary of Defense Laird and has even sought the help of renowned scientist Bolivar Trask, he's special adviser to combat this mutant issue. The White House has asked…"
"She's going to be there, isn't she?" Laurien murmured to no one in particular as she leaned up against the wall.
"Raven doesn't realize that if she kills Trask at an event like that with the whole world watching…"
Logan grunted. "Then I came a long way for nothing."
Hank continued on. "And there's more bad news. I saw the report, they found traces of her blood in Paris. For all we know, they already have her DNA, which is all they'd need…"
"To create the Sentinels of the future." Logan said, sighing as he ran a hand over his face.
Laurien cursed under her breath, slowly letting her head fall back against the wall she was leaning on.
Hank didn't let them dwell in their despair for long before adding another aspect to it. "Now there's a theory in Quantum Physics that time is immutable. It's like a river, you can throw a pebble into it, create a ripple, but the current always corrects itself." He explained. "No matter what you do, the river just keeps flowing in the same direction."
"More Star Trek, Hank?" Laurien wondered, feeling utterly dead inside.
"What are you trying to say?" A furrow-browed Logan demanded of Hank.
"What I'm saying is, what if the war is inevitable? What if she's meant to kill Trask? What if this is just simply who she is?"
Laurien shook her head, disbelievingly. "It isn't, it can't be. That's not Raven."
"Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, doesn't mean they're lost forever." Charles stated slowly, as if pulling it from something he had read from a book, years ago, and only now remembering. His words took Laurien by surprise. "No, I don't believe that theory, Hank. And I cannot believe that that is who she is." Charles turned his wheelchair toward the door. "Ready the plane, Hank, we're going to Washington."
"Not so fast." Laurien said as she quickly blocked the doorway with her body. "The presidential address isn't until tomorrow, and I believe a proper meal and rest are in store for us. I would hate for us to get this far, only for Hank to fall asleep at the airplane controls and send us all to our deaths." She gave Logan a quick side glance. "Well, most of us, at least."
Hank gave Charles a look as he stifled a yawn. "She does have a point." He admitted.
Laurien turned to the supposed time traveler. "Logan, does that work on your end?"
"Won't save us any time in the future if we leave right now, the address is going to happen at the same time, no matter when we leave." He said, shrugging. "Besides, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling peckish."
"Alright. Charles, is there any food in this house, whatsoever?"
"Uh…" Charles pondered unsurely for a moment before turning to glance at Hank.
"I believe…" Hank started, though paused and frowned. "There's some food in the pantry, but I wouldn't venture into the fridge if I were you."
"Wonderful." Laurien declared, clapping her hands unenthusiastically. "Take-out it is then."
Laurien found it difficult to sleep that night, and even when she finally descended into a fitful slumber, she was plagued by strange dreams.
Her own image had appeared before her eyes, smiling with contentment as she laid upon a blanket draped across the green lawns of the mansion property. Her temple was unblemished, and her violet eyes were bright and carefree. With a yawn, her arms extended above her in a slow stretch, showing her slightly swollen belly from beneath her blue shirt, denoting the early months of her first pregnancy.
A summer melody danced along the evening breeze as it swept through the trees, mingling nicely with the sultry warbling of Elvis' voice that emanated from the record player they'd brought out with them. She mouthed along to the words of the song and smiled wider when she noticed Laurien staring, her lips slightly stained from the juice of the blackberries they'd picked earlier.
A strange, foreign passion seemed to rise within her as she looked at herself. She adjusted her position as she lay next to her form. Familiar hands reached out, and while one tangled in her long hair, the other gently touched her body, trailing the skin of her thighs before gliding up further beneath her skirt. With deliberate movements, she elicited a soft moan from her lips, before capturing them with her own.
Laurien's eyes had snapped open and had found herself gaping incomprehensibly at the ceiling of her bedroom in the mansion. Thoroughly confused and feeling more than a little scandalized, she took a deep breath and threw off the covers to sit up in bed. After collecting herself, she got to her feet and exited her room. With her memory guiding her through the dark and empty hallways, she soon found herself at Charles' bedroom door, pausing to deliberate whether or not to knock on it as her mind ran a mile per minute.
"Come in." Charles' voice told her from the other side of the door, therefore leaving her no choice but to comply for risk of seeming completely rude.
Charles was sitting in his wheelchair by the window, still wearing the same rumpled clothes from earlier in the day. Slight tremors seemed to run through his body every now and then, as the withdrawals tortured him from the inside.
He glanced up as she closed the door behind her. "Laurien." He announced, his tone seemingly surprised at her presence despite knowing she was at the door.
"Charles," Laurien greeted as she leaned up against the nearby wall, attempting to suppress the small grin tugging on the corners of her mouth. "You were projecting again."
"I was…" Charles began slowly, before his eyes then grew wide as it dawned on him. "Oh, fuck." He cursed, slumping even further back in his chair as he shook his head. "My sincerest apologies."
"It's alright, though I believe Logan and Hank may be a little bit out of sorts when they see me in the morning." She noted, making a face. "Can't wait for that."
Charles chuckled, rubbing his lined forehead before looking at her thoughtfully. Slowly, the smile faded from his face.
Laurien shifted in discomfort, crossing her arms protectively over her chest as her own grin slipped away. "Charles?"
"How far along were you?" He asked tentatively after a moment. "The second time."
Laurien met his gaze, taking a deep breath. "A little over three months."
Charles' expression crumbled, and despite the distance between them, the wave of despair he emitted threatened to bring tears to her eyes. "I am– so sorry, Laurien."
Laurien shrugged, though it almost hurt her physically to do so. "You didn't know."
"How come you never told me?" He inquired, rolling the wheelchair away from the window and closer to where she stood.
She let out a shuddering breath, shifting again against the wall. "I was afraid of getting your hopes up, only for it not to take again."
Charles shook his head, shutting his eyes. "You need not have been afraid."
"No, I did." She murmured, glancing down at her feet before looking back up at him, suddenly finding the courage to ask something that had been bothering her for almost three years. "Would you mind just explaining what you were thinking then?"
Charles set his jaw before pursing his lips, as if a bitter taste had entered his mouth. "I– I don't know what I was thinking."
"Come on, Charles." Laurien prompted as calmly as she could, though her next words seemed to spill out under the immense pressure in her chest. "You're likely not to get this opportunity again, so just help me to understand what your reasoning was."
Charles stared at her with a pained expression that set fire flaring in her stomach with intense shame, before he took a shallow breath. "After Erik and Raven left, I was, well, not at my best, but I had you, Hank, Alex, Sean, and the school to help me." He disclosed, gripping the armrests of his wheelchair. "You all kept me in one piece when all I wanted to do was fall apart. Those years together were some of the best I ever had."
"It was the same for me." Laurien admitted, holding herself a little tighter.
"But after the miscarriage, Sean's disappearance, and our failure to find even one little trace of him, things started to get worse. When Alex and the students left, all I had was you and Hank, and I was desperate not to lose the both of you." Charles explained, his voice becoming muddled as his emotions rapidly rose to the surface. "With how I was feeling, mentally and physically, and with the nature of your powers, I felt that my emotions might have been detrimental to your health, therefore I sought to dampen your capabilities, in an effort to save you from my depression."
"But why didn't you first tell me of your concerns before resorting to such extremes?" Laurien demanded, taking in a shallow breath as her eyes began to water. "I could have helped you so you didn't have to go through it alone."
"I know, I'm sorry." He murmured out in a hoarse whisper, tears streaming down his face. "I didn't think of the repercussions and I thought that we were safe here. I would have never done it if I had known that they were coming for us… Oh, forgive me, Laurien."
Charles broke down, his body shaking uncontrollably as he bent double with his face in his hands. Laurien moved towards him wordlessly, kneeling down next to him before enveloping him in her embrace. She felt the need to say something, yet the words remained lodged in her throat. She instead resolved to hold onto him tightly, willing for peace to return to his mind and soul once again, as one hand clutching the back of his shirt in a white knuckled grip, while her other delicately stroked through his mess of hair.
They held each other until Charles released her, gripping her hand like lifeline while he used his other to wipe at his tear stained face. "This isn't going to work out, will it?" He asked, seemingly knowing the answer already. "You and I."
"I'm sorry, Charles." Laurien apologized, cupping his cheek with her hand as her thumb brushed along his bruised cheekbone. She looked into his impossibly blue eyes, knowing that despite herself, she did still carry love for him in her heart, but after all it had endured, nothing could restore it to its original condition. "I promise you, I won't leave until Raven's safe."
Charles gave a slight nod, his throat working furiously as he gasped out a hoarse thanks.
She gave him a small, sad smile. "We were a pretty good team though, weren't we?"
"Yes." Charles said, returning the smile. "Yes, we were."
Has anyone seen Mock The Week? I'm quite fond of it. I have it on in the background as I'm writing this.
Applying for a new job, hopefully it will go well.
I enjoyed the Oscars, very pleased that Mahershala Ali won for Supporting Actor. I've loved him since being introduced to him in Luke Cage.
Can someone please explain to me what being part of a community on this website means, because I seem to be a part of one and I haven't a single idea how I got there.
I have seen Split with James McAvoy, and it was fricken amazing! I saw it with some friends of mine and we found it quite funny actually, which is weird for that subject matter. My friend actually cackled in the middle of the theatre. I still have yet to see Logan, and have actually avoided spoilers, so if any of you spoil it... well, I can't really do anything, but I tell you I will be very cross with you and I will kill off a beloved character, so be mindful please. Thank you.
That's all for now, hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading, I love you all, and please review!