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In the end, it is simple.
You take off the helmet because it is stifling. Once, it was protection. Once, it was safety. Now it’s just heat and dead weight, a thing that never really helped because Charles was already in your head from that very first moment in the ocean, with or without telepathy. The helmet never changed that, and you think you are beginning to realize this. Charles’s voice still echoes in your head, his morals and ideas still run through your thoughts, breaking down your own arguments, turning your own words back on themselves. He changed you in those few short months. It’s only now, years later, that you begin to realize how much.
You leave in the night when everyone else is asleep. Azazel is on sentry duty, and he says nothing as you pass. He only watches you with dark, impassive eyes, neither disapproving nor condoning. He won’t understand. None of them will. But they will say nothing because you have led them for the last five years, and if this is what you want, they won’t stop you. After all this time, you have earned that much at least.
You don’t ask Azazel to teleport you. No, you want time. You need time. A change like this, it doesn’t happen in an instant. You have to have a plan. An idea of what to say. Walking back after all that’s happened isn’t nearly as simple as it sounds. You haven’t spoken to Charles in nearly three years; the last time you exchanged words, they were heated and the conversation ended with Hank smashing apart your new car and you ripping Cerebro to pieces with a flick of your wrist. You regret that now, those angry words. You wonder what Charles must think. It’s been years, and yet you can remember him like you’d seen him yesterday. Those blue clever eyes, that sharp accent, the mile-wide smile—you don’t think it’s possible to forget something like that. You don’t think it’s possible to forget him, and you’d know, you’ve tried. God knows you’ve tried.
The train north to New York is much slower than your usual mode of transportation, but for once, you aren’t impatient. At the station, no one recognizes you, even though your face has been plastered across the news every morning for almost four years straight. It must be the helmet, you surmise. It changed you in more ways than one.
The dull hum of the train lulls you into a sleepy peace. You press your fingers against the metal walls, loving the thrum of power under your hands. With barely a thought, you give the train a slight nudge, so slight even the conductor won’t notice the increase in speed. The idea of controlling such a huge mass thrills you, reminds you of the satellite dish so long ago. You push the train again, this time a little faster, and the point between rage and serenity has never seemed so easy to reach. The train jolts as it rounds a bend, but you hold it firmly on the tracks, fully aware that if you released the press of your fingers, the train might fly right off the tracks. The power is heady, and the control is exhilarating. As the train races along, you keep it solidly on course, delighting in the danger, in the knowledge that if your hand so much as slips, the cars could go tumbling off into disaster. But they won’t because you have been training, learning, and this is as simple as levitating a coin between your fingers.
After a moment, you realize that a smile has spread across your face, a smile so real that it startles you. How long has it been? you wonder. How long has it been since you’ve used your powers for something so subtle, so quiet? How long has it been since your powers—or any powers, for that matter—have brought a smile to your face? You remember those long days ago at Westchester, when Raven amused everyone by mocking each of them in turn, complete with accents and attitudes. Hank had used his feet to juggle seven plates at a time, and Alex had made a war-zone of the kitchen by trying to light the candles on Sean’s birthday cake with his powers. You remember the laughter, especially the way Charles’s eyes lit up when he laughed. He was beautiful. They were all beautiful. You miss it with an ache that burns fiercely in your chest, and you’re glad you took off that helmet and boarded this train before anyone could talk you out of it. The years of war have wearied you, and though you still believe in the cause as firmly as you did five years ago, you no longer need to be the figurehead. You no longer want to be in the thick of things. You only want simple things now—Charles, the thrill of a train, a home.
Home, you reflect. There’s only one place you’ve been in the last five years that feels even remotely appropriate. You remember its long corridors, its dozens of rooms that initially appalled you with their extravagance. When you first came to the mansion, you couldn’t help but think of everything in terms of food—what that lamp would buy, what kind of price that tapestry would fetch in a market, how that plush rug would feed a family of four for a year. That kind of luxury used to disgust you. But then you realized that this was Charles’s, all of it was Charles’s, and that had made it precious to you. Charles had a way of reversing your views on everything, and this was one of them. You hold a certain fondness for the mansion now. You even miss the way the carpet in your room used to sink underneath the soles of your boots, something you used to hate. Home is a foreign concept to you—you lost yours before you could really understand what it meant to have one at all—but if you had to think of a place to label your own, all that would come to mind would be your room right across from Charles’s.
You wonder if it’s still the same, if Charles has given it away. He has to have dozens of students now; surely none of the rooms is empty. But you like to think—and this is one of the secret fantasies you have played over and over again in your head at night, when you are alone and stripped of all masks—maybe it is just as you remember it, and if you ever decide to return, you will find everything as you left it: with the covers thrown back to the left as you rolled out of bed every morning, with the clock mounted crookedly on the left wall, with the hidden compartments you built into the floor (with Charles’s approval, because you understood his need for trust just as he understood your need for peace of mind).
Well. You suppose you’ll find out soon.
“Is this seat taken?”
You start violently, eyes wide and hand automatically flying to the knife hidden at your hip. But it’s only a young woman, maybe your age, pointing to the space next to you with an inquisitive look. You notice for the first time that the train has filled up and that the spot at your side is the only empty one left. Strange. You definitely used to be more alert than this.
“No,” you mutter, turning your face to the window just in case she recognizes you. “Go ahead.”
She slides in beside you, setting a thick bag under her feet. Despite yourself, you glance down at the bag, surprised by the sheer bulk of it, and she catches you looking. A sheepish smile spreads across her face, and she explains, “I’m moving.”
“I didn’t ask,” you say gruffly, turning back to the window.
“Going home, actually,” she adds, not taking the hint. How very human. You narrow your eyes and don’t respond, but she continues anyway, talking to herself more than to you. “I’m from Connecticut. I haven’t been back in a few years.” She shrugs. “Had a falling out with my brother and sister.”
You grunt noncommittally, hoping she takes it as disinterest, but apparently, she takes it as the exact opposite. Turning toward you, she asks, “What’s your story?”
“I don’t have one,” you mutter, leaning your head against the cool glass of the window.
“Nonsense,” she says. “Everyone has a story.”
Not one I’m going to share with you, you think sourly. You cross your arms and refuse to look over, but the girl persists. In that respect, she reminds you annoyingly of Charles.
“Come on,” she insists. “It’s a long way to Hartford. Well, for me at least. Where are you headed?”
Maybe it’s the lack of true conversation in a long while. Maybe it’s because you miss having things to talk about other than weapons caches and the nearest government facility. Whatever the reason, you open your mouth and say, “New York.”
She seems surprised and pleased at your reply; you’re merely irritated at yourself and her. “New York?” she repeats with a smile. “We’re headed in the same direction.”
“Mm,” you mumble. You would have thought that would have been obvious, given that you’re on the same train.
“You visiting family?” She glances around and frowns. “You travel light, don’t you?”
You have nothing with you but the clothes on your back and the knife at your hand. Maybe it would have been smart to bring at least a small bag, but you hadn’t exactly thought through your departure. You were tired and fed up and you took off that helmet, and that was it. Now you wonder if you should have planned this out more thoroughly. If Charles turns you away, if somehow you don’t make it to New York, it would help to have at least some supplies. You could always return to the Brotherhood—but no, you won’t go slinking back there with your tail between your legs like a dog that’s been kicked. If Charles refuses to see you…well, you’ll think of something then.
You don’t know why you answer her, but you do. “It was impulsive,” you explain. “Sort of.”
She nods as if she understands. “Ah. I get it. When I first left, I stormed out of the house and never went back. I didn’t have any plans after leaving, and it took me forever to get on my feet. Sometimes people just…do things without meaning to.”
You understand that all too well. You hadn’t meant to tear those gates in the concentration camp, but you did, and you caught Schmidt’s eye because of it. You hadn’t meant to deflect that bullet into Charles’s back, but you did, and now Charles will live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. You certainly hadn’t meant to fall in love with the most infuriatingly idealistic, the most achingly kind man in the world, but you did, and that has changed everything.
You look out the window again and watch the landscape flash by. Every second brings you closer to the end. To him.
“I’m going home too,” you murmur, your mind far away—hundreds of miles ahead of your body, with Charles and the children and the mansion. You wonder if Charles can feel you now that you have the helmet off. Can Charles reach this far? Are you there, Charles?
The woman smiles at the wistfulness in your voice. “You sound homesick.”
Homesick? Maybe you are. Here, with no one of the Brotherhood to witness it and no one to be strong for, you can admit that to yourself.
“I can’t wait to see my brother and sister again,” the woman muses with a happy sigh. “It’s been too long.” She slides a curious look your way and asks, “Who’s waiting for you at home?”
You close your eyes and bring to mind those bright blue eyes and that welcoming smile. It’s an old memory and it should be faded, but it’s not. You see all the details as sharply as they’d been five years ago.
“An old friend,” you say, smiling at the memory. You set your fingers to the metal walls again and urge the train onward, flying toward the end, the beginning.
The woman tries to engage you in conversation again, but you ignore her, lost in your mind. Charles taught you how to do that, how to retreat into the safety of your thoughts and shut out everything else. He helped you do it on more than one occasion, and in those moments, it was just you and him. You pull back those memories now, focusing on the lulling hum of the train, letting your mind drift where it wants to go.
As always, as expected, it goes to Charles. You remember vividly the feel of his skin under your fingers, the breathless sounds he’d make and the secret smiles he’d share with you in the morning. You remember how he’d clench a pen between his teeth as he flipped pages in a book and how he’d sometimes get this beautiful, utterly content look on his face when he thought no one was looking. But you were. You were always looking.
You jolt back into awareness at a light touch to your shoulder. Again, your hand automatically seeks the knife at your belt, but you stop yourself from drawing it. It’s the woman, her bag in hand as she stands in the aisle.
“I’m going now,” she says with a smile. “Good luck.”
There is something sincere in her voice and her face that makes your hard stare soften. You study her for a long, inscrutable moment before answering, “Thank you. Good luck to you too.”
She tips another smile in your direction and disappears through the doors. You watch her go with an indecipherable feeling that gathers deep in your chest. It’s been years since you’ve had a peaceful interaction with a human; the conversation with the woman then should feel momentous. It should grate on your nerves, jar you out of your reverie. But it doesn’t. In fact, it feels almost normal. Not for the first time, you wonder if Charles had gotten something right after all, that underneath all his youthful naivety had been some truth. Can humans and mutants coexist? You didn’t think so once. You don’t know what to believe now.
A few short hours later, you’re at your station. It’s too soon—you haven’t formed a coherent speech yet; for all your grand eloquence when dealing with the Brotherhood, you are painfully unsure when it comes to apologies—but you get off anyway. No other place to go, after all, and Charles will read all of your intentions before you have words to articulate them. He can be annoyingly two steps ahead like that. Always.
You hail a cab and give the driver the address of the coffee shop in the town a few miles over from Charles’s home. Though you’ve lost the inclination to kill every small-minded human you find, you have yet to trust any of them. You won’t risk driving a human straight to Charles’s school, even if Charles can wipe minds as easily as breathing.
The town comes into sight, and you study the passing storefronts and houses with a critical eye. Five years and nothing much has changed. There is a barbershop where a liquor store had once been, and the library has received a fresh coat of paint, but other than that, the town might not have aged at all. You take it as a good sign.
After paying the driver, you pull your jacket a little closer around your body to ward off the chill and start walking. There is only one path out of town, and you take it without hesitation. Charles drove you and the boys here once or twice during your stay at Westchester. Once, you came for supplies at the grocer’s and the nearby furniture store (Charles had had to replace some chairs and tables after an unfortunate incident with Alex’s temper).
The other time, Charles took you all to an ice cream shop on the corner of the main street and sat you all down. The boys hadn’t protested a whit, devouring everything in sight, and Raven had ordered a conservative ice cream cone at first before going back for seconds and then thirds. You had sat in the booth empty-handed, wary of the sweets, unsure of what to get. Your childhood hadn’t exactly mirrored the others’, and this…ice cream is an unfamiliar treat. But you hate admitting insecurity of any kind, so you’d sat there stubbornly silent until Charles had come over with two cones, one for himself and one that he handed to you casually. You hadn’t asked for it, but he smiled and said, “Try it and see what you’ve been missing.”
You still remember the burst of sweet flavor on your tongue and how Charles had laughed at the expression of sheer surprise and delight on your face.
You walk for a long time. The light sky fades into darkness, the orange streaks of sun vanishing into dusk. The walk calms you, clears your thoughts. As you draw near the mansion and begin to recognize landmarks, you are struck with the urge to run. It seems as if you’ve been walking all your life and it’s just now that you’re beginning to reach your true destination. The end is so close you can taste it—it tastes like warm brandy and ice cream.
You are just coming over a hill when you feel it: the tentative, incredulous touch on the very edge of your consciousness, almost imperceptible. Something tightens in your chest, and it’s all you can do to keep from running the rest of the way home.
Erik? Charles’s voice echoes hesitantly in your head.
Hello, you think back, awkwardly because Charles had tried to teach you the proper way to project long ago, but you’d settled for the inept method of just pushing thoughts at him once you realized that he’d catch them one way or another.
His shock and wariness hit you like a storm before he manages to rein himself in. You can feel him hovering at the borders of your mind, not quite entering but not gone either. He is as hesitant as you are.
You’re walking? he asks finally. From town? That’s nearly six miles away. You could have called, I would have—
Sent a car? You know Charles can feel your amusement. With who? Alex would rather chew his own arm off than offer you any aid, and Hank…well, your last encounter with Hank was less than friendly. The others were taught to fear you, even the children. You have no idea what sort of stories the boys of the first class have been telling the new students, but you doubt they were flattering.
I would have come, Charles replies with a warmth you haven’t felt in a long time. When you don’t answer, he curls more deeply into your mind, still tentative but growing bolder every second you don’t protest.
You quicken your step. The tall spires of the Westchester mansion are just appearing over the ridge, silhouetted against the dark night.
Charles stays with you all the way up until you reach the front doorstep. When you raise your hand to knock, hoping no one hostile is waiting on the other side, Charles says, Come in, it’s unlocked. Then he slides from your mind, and you are alone again.
You look at the doorknob for a long moment, knowing that this is it: this is the choice, to go forward or to go back. If you leave now, you know Charles will not stop you. Azazel and the others will accept your return without question, and all will be as it was. And if you open this door, Charles will not stop you either; he will wait, as he has waited for five years, and the thought is…frightening. This man will wait for you, after all you have done. He is…unfathomable. As he has always been.
You close your eyes and imagine for a second how difficult it will be, how Alex will rage and Sean will scowl and even Charles—even Charles will be angry. The students will fear you, as they were taught to. Walking these halls will never be like it used to. It would be easier to turn away now, to forget this nonsense and walk back to the Brotherhood that has supported you when you needed it. You were a fool to think that things would be the same.
Open that door right now, Charles says, slipping into your mind so quickly it is as if he were never gone, or I will hurt you.
It seems like forever since you’ve smiled, but right then, your lips curve upwards unbidden, and just like that, it’s as easy as it always used to be. The door opens with a flick of your wrist, and Charles is waiting on the other side, his blue eyes fixed on your face.
“I’m—” you whisper, a thousand words to say and a thousand ways to say them but none of them good enough. You are sorry for the wheelchair—you will never not be sorry for that—but you won’t apologize for the war you’ve waged. Charles followed his beliefs, and you followed yours, and if he can’t accept that—
“Shut up,” Charles orders, easing his wheelchair back so you can step in. “Don’t say a word. Don’t even think it.”
You can feel him flickering in and out of your mind, taking in everything without having to hear it. You are glad for his telepathy then, because he will know everything you mean but don’t know how to say. His gift bridges the gap between your wordless sentiment and articulate apologies, and he takes it in within an instant.
“I left the Brotherhood,” you explain unnecessarily. “I wanted to…to come here.”
“To stay?” Charles asks, even though he should already know.
You open your hands, giving him the choice now. “Only if you want. Only if I can.”
Charles reaches up and grasps your wrist, his touch impossibly warm against your skin. “Of course you can, you great bloody idiot,” he murmurs. “Come inside.”
You follow Charles through these long-remembered hallways, boots sinking into familiar plush carpets. No one appears, and the mansion is silent except for the soft turn of Charles’s wheels and the press of your shoes on the ground. In a night like this, peace is oh-so-easy to believe in.
“Lift me?” Charles says, and you realize you’ve stopped at the foot of the stairs. Charles points up, and with a stab of guilt, you raise your hand, lifting the wheelchair as smoothly and gently as you know how. An apology is on your lips, but Charles says, “Don’t,” and you let it fall away. The two of you ascend the stairs in silence, and at the top, you set Charles down with hardly a bump. He wheels himself down the left hallway, and it takes you a moment to realize that this is the way to your old room.
“I want to show you something,” Charles says, stopping in front of the familiar door. “Open it.”
You grasp the doorknob with your hand, not your powers, and push it open, unsure of what to expect. The sight stops you in your tracks.
“I haven’t touched it,” Charles says behind you. “Neither has anyone else. If you want it, it’s yours.”
He makes it sound so simple, as if by accepting this room, you can turn back time and fix everything. Maybe he even believes that it’s that simple, but you have always been the one to see the situation more clearly. There are hundreds of issues to address, hundreds of conflicts to soothe between you and the boys, you and the new students, you and Charles. Five years later, and it can’t be this easy.
“That’s because you always insist on making everything so complicated,” Charles complains. “Take the room and then find the key to the liquor cabinet. Either Alex or Sean stole it, and I’m in no mood to be poking around in their heads to search for it.”
You stare at him, at his acceptance. “Charles…”
“Then come back up to the study,” Charles continues, ignoring you. “The chessboard’s still there. You’re in check. I’ll ‘mate you in three moves if you don’t come up with a better strategy than running around sacrificing your pawns to every piece I throw at you.”
With that, he wheels out, disappearing down the hallway and leaving you gaping after him. It takes you a moment to shake off the surprise—when will this man stop surprising you—and then you close the door slowly and reach out with your powers, searching for the unique signature of the small key that fits into the lock in Charles’s study. You find it hidden underneath the cushions of the couch downstairs and pull it up toward you, guiding it through the halls and straight to your open hand. Then you walk steadily to the study, which also turns out to be just as you left it that night before flying to Cuba. Charles is waiting across from the chessboard, studying the pieces as you walk in.
“Brandy please,” he says, gesturing to the liquor cabinet without looking up. “Not too much; I’ve got a little headache.”
You sit down across from him, sending the key over to unlock the cabinet and summoning forth a bottle and two tumblers without moving. Even that is the same: the thin metal strips you pressed into the glasses for convenience.
“Your move,” Charles says, accepting his drink with a nod of thanks.
You are too distracted by him to really play, and within ten minutes, you’ve squandered what few pieces you had left. Charles flashes a quick grin up at you when he picks up his queen and triumphantly sets her back down. “Checkmate,” when he says it, is possibly the best thing you have heard in five years.
You sip your drink and watch him, watch those blue eyes that are ringed by darker circles than you remember, watch the way Charles leans forward instead of crossing his legs like he used to. He has changed, and so have you. But every so often, when his brow furrows in concentration and when he smiles at you for no reason at all, you see in him the men you used to be. It warms you from an impossible place deep in your mind that might just be Charles tweaking your emotions, but you stopped caring about his mental intrusions the instant you took off that helmet.
“Rematch?” you ask, because Charles is clearly expecting a new challenge and you can hardly refuse.
He smiles, boyishly enough to take the shadows under his eyes away. “Of course, my friend. Pour me another glass of brandy, and we’ll make it two.”
Something loosens in your chest, and it’s as if you can breathe again. For the longest time, you were floundering in an ocean, and Charles reached in and pulled you out. When you left him, he still called after you, and he has been calling you home ever since. You want to thank him for that, for knowing what you needed when you needed it, even if you couldn’t return the favor. And now you are here again, sitting across from him surrounded by the dark, silent night, a chessboard between you and a glass of drink in hand. The companionship that stretches between the two of you is unmistakable.
Once, you wondered how a Charles Xavier was possible in this world, how a man could afford to be so selflessly, unbearably kind. But here, tonight, you don’t question. You don’t even think. You no longer care where the light comes from—it is enough that it comes.