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1973 & the Future
The future was dim, hazy, lit with warm tones from the stained glass window. Charles looked around, slowly, taking in the frozen figures in the room.
When he laid eyes on the bald man in the wheelchair, Charles felt a jolt run through him, like electricity, of strangeness and recognition. He moved off the table involuntarily, drawn to the man by a kind of magnetism he’d never experienced before.
“Charles.” The old man’s voice reverberated, grounding him.
“Charles,” Charles responded, naming himself. He searched the lines of the unfamiliar face before him, looking for traces of himself. I’m going to lose my hair? Such a shallow, superficial thing. Still, his heart sank a little.
“So this is what becomes of us,” he said instead, shaken to his core by the surroundings. “Erik was right. Humanity does this to us.”
“Not if we show them a better path.”
“You still believe?”
“Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn’t mean they are lost forever. Sometimes we all need a little help.”
Emotion rose in Charles’ throat, threatening to overwhelm him. His future self telling him he wasn’t lost – that had to count for something, at least.
And before he could help it, Erik’s face appeared in his mind’s eye. He’s not lost forever.
Charles violently pushed the image away. That hope will kill you, he told himself firmly.
“I’m not the man I was,” he said to the old man, the professor. He was a professor too, technically, but the other Charles deserved that title much more than he did. “I open my mind, and it almost overwhelms me.”
“You’re afraid. And Cerebro knows it.”
“All those voices. So much pain.”
“It’s not their pain you’re afraid of. It’s yours, Charles. And as frightening as it may be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it, it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have, to bear their pain without breaking. And it’s born from the most human part. Hope.”
Images of the school flooded into his mind, hundreds of young mutants laughing and talking as they passed through the halls. Relief hit Charles in a wave so strong it nearly knocked him to his knees. I can have that, again. I didn’t ruin everything.
The professor was smiling. “Please, Charles, we need you to hope again.”
He barely dared to ask it aloud, even in the privacy of his own mind.
“And Erik...?”
The professor smiled. “Erik is here.”
He directed Charles' attention to the tall silver-haired man standing straight by the pillar. Charles had noticed him before, and hoped, but hadn’t dared acknowledge him in case he was wrong. Now he could barely breathe. Erik. Age had changed his face, but beneath the lines and wrinkles he could see the same strong features, could recognize his spirit in the way he held his body. Charles looked back at the professor - at himself - hope flaming wildly in his chest.
"So we - we -"
He couldn't get the words out.
The professor nodded. "Erik's a little more stubborn than we are. He takes a longer time to come round. But he does." He smiled. “Finally, as we were meant to be, by each other’s side.”
He leaned forward, serious and intent. "We wasted so many years, Charles. We are old men now. But you are still young. All those years fighting each other. You can still change that. You can have the time that I never did."
Charles' heart sank. "Erik isn't going to stop fighting because of me."
"I thought the same thing. And so I never tried." The professor took Charles' hand, squeezed it. "He's the most beautiful person you'll ever meet. Don't let him go."
The last image of the professor’s face stayed in his mind long after the link dissolved, after Logan leaned in and asked, “Find what you were looking for?”
He wasn’t really expecting an answer; he knew already.
Charles didn’t say anything. He sat in the wheelchair, legs almost completely numb now, with only tiny twinges of pain to remind him that they were there. But there was a warmth in his chest he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Warmth that got stronger when he pictured Old Erik’s face, and the way the professor’s eyes had softened when he spoke of him.
Don’t let him go.
I won’t, Charles promised himself.
Many Years Later
Logan stopped in the doorway, disbelief and relief overpowering him. The professor – his professor, not the irritating young one – was sitting behind his desk, whole and unhurt. Peaceful.
“You did it,” Logan said, awestruck.
“Did what?” The professor moved out from behind his desk. “Logan, don’t you have a class to teach?”
Logan blinked at him. “A class…to teach.” He understood the words, but together they were the most bizarre phrase he had ever encountered.
“Yeah. History.”
“History. Actually, I could use some help with that.”
“Help with what?”
“Pretty much everything after 1973…I think the history I know is a little different.”
The professor beamed, his face lighting up. “Welcome back,” he whispered.
“It’s good to see you, Charles," Logan said, unable to keep the relief out of his voice. "It’s good to see everyone.”
“Well, I had a promise to keep. You and I have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yeah.” That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Charles asked.
Logan thought back to the White House lawn, the baseball stadium enclosing them like a giant circus ring – Magneto’s furious face – the metal –
the water –
“Drowing.”
“That was the day everything changed,” Charles said meditatively.
He went on to explain the events of the end of the 20th century. He’d reached the early 2000s, and was talking about the first openly mutant presidential candidate. when there was a light knock on the door and Logan turned around to see Magneto standing in the doorway.
He was old, with silver hair, just as Logan remembered him from the other future. He stared at him, mouth open – there was a face he had never expected to see again.
“Erik,” Charles said, and there was no mistaking the smile in his voice, the kind of smile that filled up the soul. “What can I do for you?”
“I didn’t realize you had company,” Erik said. “Hello, Logan. It’s not urgent, Charles, I’ll come back later.”
“Certainly, dear,” Charles said. Erik winked and left the room.
Logan turned back to him, mouth still slightly open. The Charles and the Erik that he’d left in the past could not have been further from this kind of relationship.
“Yes, it all worked out very well in the end,” Charles said, in response to Logan’s expression. “Much better than either of us hoped.”
Logan swallowed, raised his eyebrows. “So, uh…are you two…”
“We’ve been together for nearly thirty years,” Charles said, and though his expression didn’t reveal much, his eyes gave away the depth of his happiness. “I took the advice of an old friend. So much can happen when one doesn’t give up hope.”