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It isn't even that Erik lied to him in the end: Charles should have seen it coming. He had a detailed plan and an objective years before he made the announcement, years before he showed up at Charles' doorstep, knelt at his side and said, "You should come with me." The first sign was the kneeling, to be sure, but Charles was too stunned at the magnitude of a plan that had somehow entirely escaped his notice. "If there's one thing I've learnt in all these years," Erik said, "it's how to hide from your all-encompassing sight."
"Hardly all-encompassing," Charles said, waving towards the bank of television monitors, all broadcasting the same thing. "If this somehow escaped my notice."
"You come with me," Erik repeated, and this time it was worded it as less of a request than a demand.
Charles said, "It would mean leaving my home. Leaving my children."
"I've made room for them too." He turned back towards the monitors, to screaming crowds and held-up cardboard signs. "Look how overjoyed they are, at the chance to get rid of us."
"I haven't fought all these years just to leave."
"All that futile effort," Erik said, and this time there was more than anger in his voice, there was desperation. Charles never had to learn how to read someone's voice or facial expressions, except for Erik's. With Erik it had become a necessity, and at some point he realized he could read Erik almost as well as if he could reach inside his head and pluck his thoughts out as easily as he did with everyone else.
"What are you hiding," he asked now, and Erik didn't respond. Instead he rose to his feet and shorted out each monitor, one by one. "The dramatics is all very well and good, but surely you can't possibly mean to terrorize me into leaving with you."
"Charles," Erik clasped his hands behind his back and stood, at attention, in front of Charles. "If you ever thought you knew me at all, and I imagine that you once thought you did, know this: I am not leaving here without you."
*
"The weather's been so strange lately," Charles told Alex, the final day of packing. It had been a nightmare, Charles hadn't realized he'd accumulated so much stuff throughout his lifetime, but somehow he had. He found himself wondering, once again, why on earth he was giving in to this madness, why he would leave everything behind. Something about the urgency in Erik's voice, perhaps.
"We have a weight limit," Erik growled at one point, as Charles contemplated whether the clock given to him by his grandfather was a necessity or not. Erik was always around these days, as if he was worried that Charles would change his mind. He had to be aware that Charles was looking into the matter, trying to find out what exactly was going on, even if they hardly had the time. It made him feel useful somehow, in the face of Sean going, "Are you certain?" and Hank's questioning gaze, and the children, who could decide if they wanted to stay or go. Most decided to leave, and Charles understood enough to know that it was Erik's influence, but he could hardly persuade them not to when he himself was leaving.
"What about the weather," Erik said now, looking up into the darkening sky, and for perhaps the hundredth time, Charles wished the helmet off his head. Erik hid secrets behind lies behind locked doors and that was par for the course, but if Charles were to follow him this far based on faith alone, the least he could do was show him the courtesy of removing the damned thing. "At this point, Charles," Erik commented mildly. "You would be better off not knowing."
Erik knew him, even now, far too well. "Shouldn't that be my decision to make."
"We leave in three days," Erik said abruptly. He frowned again at the sky, and Charles couldn't help but think: having you around the past two weeks has been devastating. Please, leave before you make things even worse.
It had taken years before all the memories he and Raven had left behind had faded. The kitchen was the first time he had seen her, tiny and blue and utterly beautiful. The study room was where Erik kept winning at chess, telling Charles with all the honesty he had to offer, he would not compromise and he would not back down. The bedroom. The bedroom Charles returned to months later to sleep in for the first time, after the hospital and exhaustive therapy, to find that the new sheets did not smell of Erik at all, but he'd left his imprint on every piece of metal somehow. Now Erik was leaving pieces of himself behind anew.
"Will Raven be joining us," he asked, for lack of anything better to say. And because somehow he'd gotten even more estranged from his own sister than he had from Erik. Some of it was even Charles' fault.
Erik nodded his head. "She's helping me tie up some loose ends. But she will be there." He tore his eyes away from the horizon and narrowed them at Charles. "You should get some sleep. We have long days ahead of us."
"Perhaps -" Charles began.
"If you change your mind now, I will chain you to this chair and drag you to the ship myself." Erik sounded absolutely serious.
Charles had to smile at that, but he only said, "Always the romantic."
"I do try," Erik said. "Oh and Charles. Leave the clock behind. It would be an atrocity even if it weren't too heavy."
*
It wasn't easy getting answers, with the Brotherhood it never had been. Eventually he found what he was looking for, tracing the minds of low-level government employees all the way upwards to the oval office and even further, to the UN. Signs and warnings and preparations, and he still had Cerebro's helmet clasped in his hands when the door slid open and Hank said, "Erik's here."
"Thank you," Charles said, and allowed a small smile to cross his face as Hank growled at Erik before leaving the room. "You always had such a remarkable effect on my staff."
Erik grinned. "The side effects of being so very popular." His grin faded away at Charles' look. "I see you've found out."
"I don't -" Charles said. "You could have told me earlier. We could have done something about it."
"Don't you imagine I tried to 'do something about it', Charles," Erik snapped. "You're not the only one who calls this planet home." He exhaled and looked around the room uneasily, and Charles had always been careful to use as little metal as possible, but if any were to be found, no doubt Erik already knew where it was, and how to use it as a weapon. "Notice how you weren't informed of this, Charles, even though your brothers and sisters of humanity were aware of it for far longer than I was."
Charles exhaled quietly. "They've kept it a secret from everyone."
"Yes, but specifically from people like us." His gaze landed back on Charles, and Charles felt the familiar ache of every other conversation he'd had with Erik, going back years. Going around in circles, over and over again. Both sides of the same coin at least, Erik told him once, but it never seemed to matter when they stood so far away from each other. "They have a list of people that they've deemed worthy of saving - scientists, doctors, engineers. People with money and influence. The only other criteria is that they have to be human. I made my own plans to save as many of us as possible. Would you like to fault me for that as well?"
"And they don't try to stop you." But he already knew the answer to that, just like he already knew what Erik had told him. They wouldn't stop him just in case Erik might decide to retaliate, or worse, take it upon himself to tell the world. Charles turned away, finally, and put the helmet back in its place. "Hank's built a portable version of Cerebro. I don't know if it'll be of any use, but -"
"If you must," Erik said shortly, safe behind the wall made specifically to keep Charles out. "It's of no consequence to me."
*
Hank confirmed it. "It all makes sense now," he told Charles. "The strange weather patterns, all those birds that couldn't find their way home. The bees. It's just - it wasn't supposed to happen for millions of years yet. No-one could have predicted it. Possibly if you were looking, possibly if -"
"Possibly if your mutation was the ability to manipulate magnetic fields," Charles finished softly for him.
"Yes," Hank said. "It doesn't really matter now - we'll be far enough away by then that we'll be safe, but I thought you should know."
"When will it happen?"
"Now," Hank said, his eyes downcast. "It's happening now."
*
The ship was a testament to the finest engineering on this earth. "All mutant hands, from design to construction," Erik said, a hint of pride in his voice. Even Charles had to marvel at it, although his enthusiasm couldn't possibly beat Hank's.
"I'd heard that Stark Industries was pushing research into this but I never imagined -" He wandered off, chatting animatedly with a tiny green-skinned girl whose uniform designated her as Chief Engineer.
"I'll show you to your quarters," Erik said brusquely.
"No, that's fine, I have a map." Charles waved his hand at his tablet. "I'm sure I'll manage." But Erik kept walking along next to him, and Charles said, exasperated, "Surely you have better things to do."
"Yes, but I need to retrieve something from my quarters as well. Yours is next to mine." At Charles' raised brow he shrugged. "You are Professor Xavier. The most powerful and influential mutant on this earth, next to me. If there is to be a hierarchy -"
"Mine would be one step beneath yours?" Charles grinned, and ignored Erik's sideways glower.
"It's just to the left," Erik said unnecessarily, and as soon as he reached his own door he disappeared behind it, leaving Charles to watch as the door hissed firmly in his face. His quarters were small, but perfectly functional. Charles took off his pullover, and stretched his arms, and belatedly, as he reached for a glass of water that was perfectly placed to accommodate his needs, he realized that it had been the same with the rest of the ship. The door slid open before he could fully contemplate what that meant. Erik.
"I just want you to know," he said, after Charles nodded his head to permit him to come in. "That I did what I thought was best under the circumstances. And that I wasn't selfish enough not to warn them. Even I was surprised that they already knew."
"No doubt it confirmed your opinion, then."
"They're leaving their unimportant behind to die. Even you couldn't possibly justify that."
"You made sacrifices as well, don't tell me that everyone that should be on this ship is -"
But Erik held up his hand, and Charles stopped talking. "You're right. I chose who mattered to me most first." He spun around and left, as quickly as he'd entered.
*
Hank startled Charles out of a conversation with Raven - with Mystique, who had only a few days ago started to converse with Charles once more, to bridge the gap that existed between them, a chasm, miles and miles apart. "I'll leave you too alone," she said, when Hank burst in. She slid up, graceful and exquisite in her nakedness, and Charles told her, I've missed you.
I know, she told him in return, and he felt foolish until she smiled, and her hand squeezed his before she left.
Hank watched her go, faintly uncomfortable, then said, "It's time. I thought you might want to know."
*
Charles found Erik in the observatory, arms clasped in his usual manner behind his back. "Are you here to rage at me, Charles, at the injustice of it all."
"Do you expect me to be your conscience," Charles said, but he had no rancor to offer, even if Erik seemed to want it. "Because if you are then I have to tell you even I cannot bear the weight of the annihilation of the human race."
"And yet here you are, alive still." Erik didn't move a single muscle. "Do you plan to wallow in guilt forever, is that your plan."
"I wasn't planning on wallowing." But of course he had been, despite his realization that there truly had been no other way. It hit him, then. "But what of you."
"I imagined telling you earlier, and the effort you would put in to save all of us. At the sacrifice of your own life, if that was what it took." Erik finally turned around, and his face was once again cast in shadow. Charles always pictured the helmet as a box, a smooth metal wall in place of where a human heart should be, but he was surprised to find that he found comfort in it now, in the absence of a voice that wasn't his.
"There might have been a way," Charles said, but he couldn't find it in himself to be angry. There was no point, not here, not now. "It doesn't matter," he said heavily, finally. "I'm not here to lay blame."
Erik walked the few steps forward and knelt, once more, at Charles feet. "I don't want to fight about this," he said. "Haven't we argued enough?"
Charles swallowed, and he rolled his chair closer to the glass. "Could we see it from here, you think."
"There's a projectionist on board. You've met him, he said when the time - there we go."
"Oh," Charles said, awed. "It's beautiful." He hadn't imagined it would be this beautiful. "How long." Erik stood and walked towards him. Charles felt rather than heard his approach, and when he looked up in surprise the helmet was off Erik's head. Erik floated it to Charles and Charles clasped it in his hands, determined not to let it go. "How long," he asked again.
Any time now.
He held out his hand, and Charles took it.