Chapter Text
Emma firmly believes her mutation gives her the edge over humans and most other mutants until the night Charles appears without warning at the far end of the Frost Estate's apple orchard. It's the beginning of January, and the wind outside is bitter cold and carries on it the remnants of the snowstorm that had just passed through the area. She's confused for a moment - he was supposed to be halfway to Majorca by now, had been complaining for weeks and weeks about being made to spend more time in close quarters with Kurt - and shares as much with him.
Please just come out here, he says. It's positively frigid.
Exactly the reason I'd prefer to stay in my warm, cozy bed, she grumbles, but she dutifully bundles herself up and makes her way through the fresh snow drifts to where he's hiding.
"Charles Francis Xavier," Emma hisses when she finds him. "Where the hell is your coat?"
"At the mansion," Charles replies, his teeth chattering. "Mum and Kurt gave the staff leave while we were to be away, so the doors are locked, and I can't get back in." His lips are tinged with blue, and a violent shiver overtakes him suddenly. Emma barely gives ripping her own coat off and wrapping him in it a thought, just wills her diamond form into being. "Really, Emma, I don't -"
"Shut it, Xavier," Emma says. She takes him by the hand and begins pulling him back toward the house. "Should I ask why you aren't with Sharon and Kurt, or shall I just assume the worst?"
"I didn't want to go to Majorca with them," Charles says, as if that's all the explanation he needs to give.
And, Emma thinks to herself, it sort of is. She holds her tongue until they're back in her room and they're wrapped up in bed together, and even then she's unsure how to approach this. She knows, from all the time she's spent reading Kurt Marko's mind, that he is not a good person by any means, but this - she clamps down on the sudden rage welling up inside her.
"If you get frostbite," Emma says instead, "I'll consider it poetic justice and laugh in your face."
Charles snorts in the middle of another full-body shiver. "You can yell at me in the morning."
"It already is morning, you idiot."
"Good night, Emma." Moments later, Charles' shivers subside and his breathing evens out.
Emma reaches out and smooths his hair out of his face, twirls a lock of it around her finger. She sighs, then moves in closer to Charles and draws him into a hug. You're going to be okay, Charles, she thinks, and she falls asleep wishing the idea takes root inside his mind.