Fic: Beneath the Surface - (13/~15) Charles/Erik
Title: Beneath the Surface (13/~15), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Fandom: X-Men: First Class, Charles/Erik
Genre: AU; Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5519
Summary: Charles is a young marine biologist and activist that, one day, makes the find of his lifetime. Inspired by this fanart
Author's Note: Still un-beta'ed. so, we're getting close to the showdown now ^^ I'm not sure if it's going to be two more chapters after this one or even three. Oh, and there's going to be an epilogue, too.
"Erik?"
Charles clutched the towel close to his chest, as if the almost painful grip of his fingers into the rough fabric could somehow pull him back to reality, but it didn't. Or maybe it did, just not as he'd hoped for, a rush of dread creeping up his spine.
He called out again as he looked towards the soft moving waves, endless blue and foamy white and nothing else, no one else to be seen. "Erik?"
And then Charles started to run, dropping the towel onto the ground until he felt cool water around his ankles, his flip-flops pulling him into the wet sand. He kicked his legs against the current, wading further into the surf as he desperately tried to hold on to the possibility that there was an explanation for this. Maybe Erik had just cut his foot on a sharp stone or seashell and had gone back into the water to wash it. Maybe there was a very harmless and trivial reason for this, though something in the back of his mind wanted to tell him that there had been too much blood on just one spot. And no bloody foot prints anywhere in the sand toward the water.
"Erik?" he called as loud as he could. "ERIK? ERIK?!" His throat starting to scratch with panic rising in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Just a few seconds and he'd laugh about himself, scold himself for being so silly to assume the worst. Erik would emerge from the water any moment now.
"Erik? Where are you? Erik?" He tried to sound hopeful as he called, not wanting to surrender to the panic clutching his heart, but he failed miserably as the last word stumbled hoarsely from his throat.
He heard a whistle behind him and spun around, seeing Alex and Hank jogging in his direction, and for a split-second he felt embarrassed for all his panic, for how he stood in the knee-deep water, his jeans soaked, acting like a lunatic just because -
"Erik?" he called again, shouted as loud as he could.
Calm down. He's alright, he's alright.
"God where are you? Erik please…"
"Hey, what's going on?" Alex called as he and Hank came closer, but Charles waded a few more steps through the water, a wave washing up to his hip.
"Oh my God, that's blood." Hank's voice barely registered with him as he called out again and again. And he blinked and squinted, feeling moisture in his eyes because if Hank sounded panicked too, if it wasn't just him, then - No!
"No, no, no, no, NO!! ERIK??" He didn't care that he got wet any longer. Wading further and further he dived forward, swam and tried to open his eyes despite the stinging of the salty water. But he saw nothing, waves and plankton blurring his view, the endless blue much murkier today.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he was already hoping it was Erik, that Erik had been somewhere close all along, just invisible beneath the surface, but when he was being pulled upward, gasping, he looked into Alex' concerned eyes.
"Hey, calm down, alright?" Alex said softly, but Charles wriggled free from the other man's grip and stood up, forcing his way back out of the water.
He hurried along the surf, gaze darting around. Maybe Erik wasn't in the water, maybe he was somewhere on the beach, further up north where the dunes narrowed the strip of flat beach. Charles called and called until his throat felt sore, but Erik was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere.
Gone.
"Oh no. No, no, no, please God no!" Charles begged, a clenching feeling of agony and fear in his chest preventing him from getting out anything louder than a scratchy cry. He almost didn't dare looking at Hank or Alex, knowing that they obviously didn't have an answer, didn't have anything to calm him down or assure him that Erik was okay. That he had not been taken. Or killed.
And Charles ran back the distance he had come from, looking around frantically to find someone, someone that might have seen Erik and could tell him where he was. But there was no one, the kids playing Frisbee too far away, nobody else on this part of the beach.
"They lead off the beach," he heard Hank call, and his heart hammered in his chest as he forced himself to follow. He could see Hank and Alex run up the low dune and towards where the street lay behind and a small parking lot, but even before he got closer he already saw Hank walk back, a look of such regret and worry on his face that it made Charles feel even worse.
"Nothing," Alex shouted as he, too, jogged back towards Charles. "There's nobody."
He knew the attempts were in vain; a nasty awareness formed in his mind that Erik was neither on this beach any longer nor in the water. That he had been taken. But he could not allow himself to rest, to even stop, stop looking and hoping because - No!
He moved, back and forth with hurried steps. Eyes always on the water, Charles dug a hand in his hair, almost pulled on it to distract himself from the panic. But he could not prevent it, felt as if his chest was bursting open with fear and dread as he screamed Erik's name. It felt like someone pulled the ground from under his feet, and Charles shook and trembled, having to lean forward to steady himself onto his knees, but he stumbled and sank into the sand. Trying to breathe. Almost failing with the horrible vice-like panic gripping his chest.
There were other voices behind him. He must have screamed so loud that they had even heard him in the house. Someone calling his name - was it Moira? - but he could not turn his head, could not move as he knelt in the sand. And he could not even think anymore, all that wasn't drowned out completely by this overwhelming fear being 'no'.
No, no, no, no, no…
"NO!!!"
Something moist touched his hand, and when he recognized the dog he had seen earlier his first impulse, for a split-second, was to kick it. This fear and despair raging inside of him so strong that it turned him into a whole new person, a person he'd never met or known because he'd never been so afraid and devastated in his entire life, and he felt horrible for even thinking something like that for just a brief flash of a moment.
He just sank onto his heels, hot tears falling from his eyes that he had not even registered forming. Sobs that shook through him and pulled all air from his lungs. Completely powerless, in every sense.
And then he felt arms around him, turning him around and hugging him so tight that he didn't know if it was making things better or worse. He just sank against Raven's shoulder, letting her hug him and whisper consoling and comforting phrases into his ear that didn't mean anything. Because Erik was gone. Shaw had got to them, somehow. Had found Erik and taken him. Had injured him. Erik must be in pain, frightened for his life, and there was nothing Charles could do.
"Hey! Hey Charles, you might wanna hear this," Alex called toward him, and a fierce glimmer of hope sparked up inside him, fighting against the blackness of despair as he barely raised his head. There with Hank, Alex, Moira and Sean stood someone else: the elderly woman and owner of the dog that still ran around Charles and Raven. She came closer, her features twisting in kind sympathy.
"I think I saw your friend. He was with another man, and I remember what he looked like."
~*~
The waiting area in the police station was quiet, just a mother with her young child sitting there a little farther away, waiting for somebody to either return to them or call them in for testimony, and a tall black man who cursed under his breath from time to time and mumbled something about 'damn car thieves'.
From their now quite large group only Moira and Hank had come with him, the others having stayed on the beach to ask more people if they had seen anything or look for further evidence. Raven had wanted to come, too, but Charles could almost not bear having her around, knowing that as soon as she'd look at him with her sympathetic eyes he'd lose it again and break down. He was feeling much more comfortable with Moira's pragmatic and Hank's quiet company, though 'comfortable' was stretching it by far.
Ever since he had fully realized that Erik had been attacked and kidnapped, Charles had been in a state near numbness, finding it hard to speak because his voice might break, a constant weight on his chest that he couldn't even relieve when he tried to take long, deep breaths.
The elderly woman with the dog - Patricia was her name - had told them in detail what she had seen when she had walked past Erik. He had been standing on the spot where Charles had found the towel with another man who had wrapped his arms around Erik, and it had occurred to Charles that the attacker must have done that to try hide whatever weapon he had used, maybe even to conceal the fact that Erik was already passing out from pain and blood loss.
Patricia had not looked too closely, thinking that the two men who had looked like very close friends or even lovers to her, would have preferred the privacy, but she did remember the shoulder-length black hair of the other man, his beige Bermuda shorts and a shirt, striped in light-blue and white. She even claimed she would be able to vaguely describe his face since he had stared at her for a brief moment - looking caught, she had said. That had been when she had decided the second of her two assumptions must apply, but she thought nothing of his stern glare because seeing two men in an intimate embrace in public still wasn't something completely usual.
Only once had she turned back and looked into their direction, seeing the black-haired man walking alongside the other, one hand tightly wrapped around his waist as they had disappeared between the dunes.
They had discussed their next steps for as long as they were able to let her wait, and Charles still wasn't completely sure that going to the police had been a wise idea, but with the shock and fear of losing Erik he had not been able to think as clearly as he usually would. It had been Moira in the end who had proposed to report him as missing and have Patricia report what she saw. And now they sat here, waiting, and although no more than ten or maybe twenty minutes had passed, Charles felt like an eternity of worry already lay behind him.
"I've had a thought," Hank spoke up after a few long moments of silence.
Charles turned his head slowly to look at his friend from where he was sitting next to him, Moira on his other side, leaning forward.
"About what?" she asked.
"About how Shaw found Erik," Hank replied, keeping his voice down so nobody would overhear them. "We know nobody could have told him. Nobody knew where we were going, we haven't even told Agnes."
Charles gave a soft snort. They had been cautious enough not to tell her, saying they'd go back to Manhattan instead. But even if they had, Agnes was the last person he'd ever suspect betraying them. He felt ashamed for even pondering about this option for a second. None of the people with him, not Hank nor Alex, let alone Irene or Raven, were capable of such a severe act of treason. Even if Hank had been worried about losing his job, he would never do something like this, and Alex seemed to even feel more content and happy than before. No, betrayal was no option Charles would even allow himself to consider.
"I also doubt someone followed us by car,” Hank continued. “We probably would have noticed, and frankly, the amounts of stops we made, someone could have taken Erik much sooner. You two were alone in your car. It would have been too easy to get to you," Hank explained, speaking along the same lines Charles had thought.
Charles had been so sure that Shaw would not be able to find them in Myrtle Beach. He and Moira had never shared an apartment or had any other kind of official affiliation, and Charles doubted Shaw would have been able to find out every single friend Charles had had in the past ten years and track them down. With Hank, they had probably seen his car the night he had come down to the house on Long Island, but Moira… He could not, for the life of him find an explanation.
"So how did he find Erik, then?" Moira asked, and Hank cleared his throat, looking a bit unsure about his own theory.
"Well. I think it is possible he planted a tracking device in Erik."
Charles looked straight at Hank, feeling his brow furrow as he tried to wrap his mind around the suggestion, but all he could do was slowly shaking his head. "When? We would have seen it if he had shot something into Erik's skin when we pulled him out of the water. Tracking devices aren't exactly small," he said.
"Um, no," Hank replied. "Not if you're talking about the usual ones used on sharks. Well, those you would've seen right away. But there's another possibility. He could have implanted a chip back when… when Erik was with him," Hank ended.
"But then why didn't he find him much sooner?" Moira wanted to know.
"I'm not sure. But… " Hank leaned forward, his lower arms on his knees. "Alright, you know the types of tracking devices recently used to track animals work with GPS-tracking. But Erik was with Shaw around fifteen years ago, right?"
"That's about right," Charles replied, not wanting to think about it.
"GPS technology is older than that, but it was a little more difficult to obtain, at least for the public. What we're looking for is an active GPS transmitter, not just one that works passively, and as far as I know it would have been impossible to get a hold of something like that if you're not working for the CIA. Even today, it's difficult," Hank explained, but Charles still didn't fully understand.
"For Shaw to track Erik it would need to be an active transmitter, not just a passive tracking device?" Charles asked, and Hank nodded. "Which Shaw couldn't get? So… I'm not sure where you're getting with this."
Hank sighed faintly. "It must be passive then. An active GPS tracking device needs to transmit data via cellular or satellite networks. So that's off the menu. A passive one needs to be close to a a specific device that can download the recorded data. You can't just put it on somebody and track them non-stop wherever they're going, you need to be in an actual close range to get a signal."
"So…" Charles started, slowly beginning to understand. "That day on the boat Shaw must have found Erik by coincidence then?"
"Exactly. And from then on he knew where he was and was able to track him."
"Yes, I understand that. But if he needed to be within close range why did he not attack while we were on the road then? You just said so yourself."
Hank sighed again. "Yes, I've been wondering about that too. And the only explanation I can come up with is that the chip's signature was reprogrammed by remote. Maybe it was some advanced technology even back then - no idea how, but let's assume Shaw got his hands on such a chip. He would not be able to use it as an active tracking device because someone would have caught wind of it. Furthermore, an active one would stop working after some point unless attached to a power source and re-charged. And back then there were no cellular or wifi networks strong enough to have it transmit via that technology. Or nothing strong enough to actually receive a signal of that strength. You can, however, turn a passive chip into an active one. Sort of. Indirectly,” Hank stopped and made another waving gesture with his hand, obviously trying to get his thoughts in order to explain his theory. “Someone would have to pick up it's signature and then have a satellite look for it. Maybe a communications satellite by a pro
vider stationed in, let's say Azerbaijan or China or wherever. He could have been using that. And all he needed to do then, without doing some kamikaze-like attack while we were driving down to Myrtle Beach, was wait until we'd remain stationary."
Both Moira and Charles looked at Hank for a while, contemplating what he had just said, and the younger man let out another sigh.
"Too much "Enemy of the State"? I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but…"
"No, no. I think… it's a possibility," Charles cut in, though he wasn't sure that bit of information was even helpful, other than letting them know how the unthinkable had happened.
"Of course, such a chip would need to be implanted surgically. So… um… have you seen any scars on him, maybe a two inch long, clean incision?" Hank asked, a very faint blush of color on his cheeks as he felt obviously uneasy asking something Charles could only know in a very intimate context. But that didn't matter now.
"There was something on his belly. I didn't ask him what it was. I mean he had other scars as well, the small one above his lip and one on his shin. I just thought those were from usual small injuries, but…" Thinking about it now, the scar on Erik's abdomen had looked a lot neater than the others, though faded and light.
“Did you... um... could you...” Hank blushed and his voice sounded a little hoarse. Charles had an idea what he meant to ask.
“It doesn't really matter though, does it?” Moira interrupted him, not snappish but with a slight undertone of exasperation. “Unless we could somehow use the chip to track Erik back - Oh, we... we can't do that, can we?”
“No,” Hank admitted. “We'd need to know the signature of the chip for that. And equipment I wouldn't know how to get my hands on.”
As much as Charles appreciated Hank putting thought into this, he realized that the whole conversation had been pretty much pointless, except for the fact that it had distracted him a little of the twisting feeling of anxiety in his chest. He leaned back against his seat and took a deep breath, trying to fend the feeling off as well as possible.
“Sorry,” Hank said, probably realizing the same. “I just meant to... Well, it wasn't your fault that this happened. Or anyone's. We couldn't know about this.”
No, they couldn't. Unless Charles had actually bothered to think about the tiny knot he had indeed felt beneath the scar. Then they could have come to the conclusion sooner that it was a chip and that Erik was being tracked, and Charles would've never let him out of his sight.
He didn't have time to dwell on these thoughts as in that moment the glass door on their right opened, and a police officer came back with Patricia in his tow. Charles immediately got up.
“Alright, ma'am, we have your details. We'll contact you if we need anything,” the man, a rather bulky looking fellow in his mid forties said monotonously.
Patricia nodded and gave Charles and the other two a faint smile. The officer already turned around to walk back into the corridor leading to the offices, and Charles almost didn't react, too confused for the moment to do so, before he finally pulled his wits together.
“Excuse me?”
The officer turned around and raised his eyebrows, looking slightly bored. “Yes, sir?”
“Don't you want my testimony as well? You only have what we told your colleagues when we called.”
The man heaved a sigh. “No, we've got all we need.”
Confused and a little baffled, Charles stared at him, unable to respond. Thankfully, Moira stepped in. “No, you don't. You don't even have a full description.”
“Mrs. Ferguson was able to describe both men sufficiently,” the policeman replied.
“Okay, good. But what about the possible culprit and the motifs. Nobody has asked us about that yet,” she said, stepping closer to the man, and Charles was quite thankful for her initiative.
“Ma'am, with all due respect, but this case is a mere formality,” the officer replied again and put his hand back onto the door knob.
Charles couldn't believe his ears. “A formality? I'm sorry... I don't understand.”
The bored expression on the older man's features changed to something close to smugness for a second as he looked down at Charles, clearly down with an unmistakable air of superiority and arrogance. “We get these kinda cases a lot,” he said. “You couldn't even provide us with a last name of your boyfriend, let alone any history or place of residence, and you've only known him for a few weeks. If I were to make a guess at what happened here today I'd say he found someone better and ran away.”
The nasty weight of fear and despair in his chest lunged up his throat, transforming into anger so strong that he felt it prickling on the back of his neck, and Charles was very close to just slamming his fist into the man's face, even though he could not remember ever having had such thoughts before.
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” Moira said, her fists in her hips as she stepped even closer, for her slender frame looking quite threatening all of the sudden. “You're a police officer, for crying out loud. It's your duty to issue a full investigation when someone reports what clearly looks like kidnapping or possibly even attempted murder. You --”
The man laughed briefly and shook his head. “Ma'am, you should stop watching CSI or whatever TV nonsense has given you such ideas. Do you know how many reports like this one we get? Especially in summer? People have a fling, lie about their private lives or don't give out -“
“He didn't lie,” Charles cut in, that anger searing inside of him so strong that he could barely contain it, though his voice remained relatively quiet when he spoke, only quivering ever so slightly with his fast thumping heartbeat. “He never lied to me.”
“What about the blood?” Hank added. “You can't deny that.”
“Yes, and we took a sample of that. But there are no further tracks in the area anywhere, and no weapon. And anyway, Mrs. Ferguson said the men were hugging.”
“I said it looked like they were hugging,” Patricia corrected the officer, who took another breath and shook his head. “The other man could have been stabbing Erik and I would not have seen it from that angle.”
“Stabbing? That would have left much more blood, ma'am. It was just a small amount which could have come from any small injury. We have that all on file and we'll take the steps that are required according to protocol. If we hear or see something we'll contact you. What we can't do is issue a state-wide search for someone that doesn't even have a name. Things like these happen, buddy,” he said in Charles' direction. “Especially in the queer scene.”
There it was again, that smug and condescending tone and look, as if Charles was nothing but a stupid little boy in his eyes, and Charles just snapped.
“You arrogant fuck! How the hell dare you -“
“Whoa, Charles, calm down,” Moira said quickly, grabbing his arm the second he started balling his fist, and he wasn't quite sure whether he would have struck the police officer or not.
“I could fine you for insulting a police officer,” the man said coldly, “but I'll let that one slide as I can see you're upset. I strongly advise you to leave now, though.”
Charles' nostrils were flaring, and he felt so fucking angry that he almost didn't care about any fines or even ending up in a cell for the night because, damn, he wanted to punch this asshole so badly. Instead, he just raised his hand, pointing his finger closely at the policeman's chest. “I'm going to file an official complaint against you, and I'm going to come back with a lawyer and talk to your chief personally,” he said, feeling his voice crack under the strain of holding back his anger.
The officer just let out a low snort and opened the glass door. “Feel free to try,” he said and disappeared through it.
Charles stood there, rooted to the spot for a moment, not knowing what to say or think. Of course he hadn't expected they would believe him easily had he really disclosed everything he knew about Erik's affiliation with Shaw - or what he could say without mentioning what Erik was, but that the authorities were actually so carefree about a possible capital crime completely threw him. Moira and Hank seemed to be as shocked as he, looking at him wide wide eyes, sympathetic but clueless what to say, and Patricia seemed seriously upset, covering her mouth with one hand and shaking her head.
“Man!” Charles suddenly heard the tall black man sitting two seats behind them speak up. “This place really bites. Wonder if I ever get my cab back.”
Charles doubted that the police would be as incompetent with something as trivial as car theft, though, and he snorted bitterly, to himself.
“Sorry, bro,” the stranger said, as he had gotten up from his seat, and he waved his hand in a helpless but sympathetic gesture.
“Dear Lord, I don't believe this,” Patricia Ferguson sighed, shaking her head sadly. “It was such a nice day on the beach when I went out with Rowdy, and now this? A man being kidnapped and the police doesn't even want to do anything about it.”
The stranger rolled his eyes. “Looks like the beach's no good place to be today. That's where they stole my cab. Man, I knew I shouldn't have come to South Carolina.”
Charles and Moira looked at each other, and the faintest glimmer of hope sparked up in Charles, unlikely as his thought may seem.
“On the beach you were saying? Where exactly?”
~*~
So the taxi really had been stolen from the parking lot near Moira's house. Armando, the stranger they had met at the police station, had told them so. He had just stepped out to find a place to relieve himself somewhere between the bushes framing the dunes, and when he had returned his taxi had been gone. Why Shaw's man hadn't come with his own car was a thing completely up to speculation, but Charles guessed that it might have been safer for them to steal a car (maybe the man who had taken Erik from the beach hadn't been alone then) and drop it off somewhere else than risk being seen in a vehicle that could be linked to them after all.
Though of course they had no proof that the two crimes were actually connected; it could have been mere coincidence. Armando had exchanged phone numbers with them anyway and said he'd contact them as soon as his car would turn up. If the police wasn't willing to connect the pieces and search the car for possible blood traces or other evidence, then maybe they could figure out how to do it.
When they had finally come back to the house and Patricia had picked up her dog, these very small clues didn't help to relieve Charles' worry, but the anger had settled again, leaving that odd numbness in him that made him sit slumped above the kitchen table, staring at nothing in particular and trying not to think. Because no matter what he thought about, what he tried to come up with, it led nowhere other than to remembering Erik, remembering that amazing day and night they had shared and fearing he might never see him again. Never hold him, kiss him... In a way, it almost felt as if Erik was dead already, as if those memories were all he had left, and that thought made his chest clench painfully, made him want to pull his hair out or scream, so enraged with himself that he had let this happen.
He hadn't even told Erik that he loved him, and now he might never get the chance. Even if Erik was alive, even if Shaw did have quite something different in mind than killing him, there was the possibility Charles would never be able to see him. He imagined a scenario in which Erik was really being kept in some aquarium amusement park as a circus curiosity, and all he'd be able to do would be purchase a ticket and see him through the glass. No, that was completely ridiculous. This wasn't the movie with the mermaid in Manhattan where the authorities would simply allow a creature with human intelligence to be treated like a lab rat. The public would never condone something like that. There would be protests and petitions and -
It was futile to think about it. Whatever Shaw was planning with Erik it could not be this but something none of them could have thought of yet. The other scenario now seemed almost comfortingly predictable, something they could solve while in reality they had no clue and no plan at all.
When his mind reached those thoughts, he found it hard, so damn hard to hold back the tears that prickled in his eyes, and he blinked, forcing himself to take a few deep breaths and just think nothing at all.
“Do you want some tea?” Raven leaned in above him, putting one hand on his shoulder, and same as earlier the touch almost hurt.
“No, thanks.”
“You haven't drunken or eaten anything all day, Charles. At least have a bite with us for dinner, okay?”
He gave her a brief, joyless smile and nodded, not sure if he'd be able to get anything down though. Seven hours had passed since Erik had disappeared, and Charles didn't know how he should even get through the night.
“Do you like zucchini?” Moira asked, her tone almost motherly as she called over from where she was standing at the counter, cutting a few vegetables to make a pasta pan dish. In another pan she was heating oil, several chicken breasts and steaks waiting on a plate to be roasted, but Charles could not think of the food as enjoyable.
“Sure,” Charles just replied, not caring at all.
“I don't like zucchini,” Sean said, his tone almost whining, and Charles thought that under normal circumstances Moira might have snapped at him. She didn't do so now.
“I still have some tomato sauce. You can have just the pasta with that and a steak.”
Sean smiled, probably more earnestly and wider than anyone else in the house could.
“Do you want me to fry the steaks already?” Raven asked, but Moira never answered. In that moment, the door bell rang.
Everyone present, the two women, Sean, Alex and Charles, raised their heads and looked at each other. Maybe the police had re-evaluated the report after all and was coming to apologize for the other officer's behavior and take their account. Maybe Charles would get a chance to mention Shaw as a suspect after all. His heart gave a few excited beats, fighting off the numbness in him for a few, precious seconds.
“I'll get it,” he said quickly before Moira could wash and dry off her hands. He quickly walked over to the front door, more swiftly than he would have felt able to move before, and he almost yanked it open when he reached it.
Who he saw standing there, however, was no policeman dressed in dark blue. Instead, he saw a short, white dress, and the woman wearing it smiling sweetly at him as the sea breeze brought the platinum blonde waves to sway softly.
“Hi, I'm Emma Frost. I don't think we've met, but I heard so much about you,” she said, the smile on her lips getting even wider as she tilted her head and regarded him. “I know where they are taking your shark friend.”
Charles was too surprised to reply.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 14
A/N: Oh, errr... um... I just realized I had said the one in the last chapter would be the last cliffhanger. Well, that sorta didn't work out. Sorry ^^ But this one's not that bad, is it? I mean it's more a glimmer of hope than a cliffhanger of DOOOOOM ^^
Fandom: X-Men: First Class, Charles/Erik
Genre: AU; Drama/Romance
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5519
Summary: Charles is a young marine biologist and activist that, one day, makes the find of his lifetime. Inspired by this fanart
Author's Note: Still un-beta'ed. so, we're getting close to the showdown now ^^ I'm not sure if it's going to be two more chapters after this one or even three. Oh, and there's going to be an epilogue, too.
"Erik?"
Charles clutched the towel close to his chest, as if the almost painful grip of his fingers into the rough fabric could somehow pull him back to reality, but it didn't. Or maybe it did, just not as he'd hoped for, a rush of dread creeping up his spine.
He called out again as he looked towards the soft moving waves, endless blue and foamy white and nothing else, no one else to be seen. "Erik?"
And then Charles started to run, dropping the towel onto the ground until he felt cool water around his ankles, his flip-flops pulling him into the wet sand. He kicked his legs against the current, wading further into the surf as he desperately tried to hold on to the possibility that there was an explanation for this. Maybe Erik had just cut his foot on a sharp stone or seashell and had gone back into the water to wash it. Maybe there was a very harmless and trivial reason for this, though something in the back of his mind wanted to tell him that there had been too much blood on just one spot. And no bloody foot prints anywhere in the sand toward the water.
"Erik?" he called as loud as he could. "ERIK? ERIK?!" His throat starting to scratch with panic rising in his chest, making it hard to breathe. Just a few seconds and he'd laugh about himself, scold himself for being so silly to assume the worst. Erik would emerge from the water any moment now.
"Erik? Where are you? Erik?" He tried to sound hopeful as he called, not wanting to surrender to the panic clutching his heart, but he failed miserably as the last word stumbled hoarsely from his throat.
He heard a whistle behind him and spun around, seeing Alex and Hank jogging in his direction, and for a split-second he felt embarrassed for all his panic, for how he stood in the knee-deep water, his jeans soaked, acting like a lunatic just because -
"Erik?" he called again, shouted as loud as he could.
Calm down. He's alright, he's alright.
"God where are you? Erik please…"
"Hey, what's going on?" Alex called as he and Hank came closer, but Charles waded a few more steps through the water, a wave washing up to his hip.
"Oh my God, that's blood." Hank's voice barely registered with him as he called out again and again. And he blinked and squinted, feeling moisture in his eyes because if Hank sounded panicked too, if it wasn't just him, then - No!
"No, no, no, no, NO!! ERIK??" He didn't care that he got wet any longer. Wading further and further he dived forward, swam and tried to open his eyes despite the stinging of the salty water. But he saw nothing, waves and plankton blurring his view, the endless blue much murkier today.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he was already hoping it was Erik, that Erik had been somewhere close all along, just invisible beneath the surface, but when he was being pulled upward, gasping, he looked into Alex' concerned eyes.
"Hey, calm down, alright?" Alex said softly, but Charles wriggled free from the other man's grip and stood up, forcing his way back out of the water.
He hurried along the surf, gaze darting around. Maybe Erik wasn't in the water, maybe he was somewhere on the beach, further up north where the dunes narrowed the strip of flat beach. Charles called and called until his throat felt sore, but Erik was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere.
Gone.
"Oh no. No, no, no, please God no!" Charles begged, a clenching feeling of agony and fear in his chest preventing him from getting out anything louder than a scratchy cry. He almost didn't dare looking at Hank or Alex, knowing that they obviously didn't have an answer, didn't have anything to calm him down or assure him that Erik was okay. That he had not been taken. Or killed.
And Charles ran back the distance he had come from, looking around frantically to find someone, someone that might have seen Erik and could tell him where he was. But there was no one, the kids playing Frisbee too far away, nobody else on this part of the beach.
"They lead off the beach," he heard Hank call, and his heart hammered in his chest as he forced himself to follow. He could see Hank and Alex run up the low dune and towards where the street lay behind and a small parking lot, but even before he got closer he already saw Hank walk back, a look of such regret and worry on his face that it made Charles feel even worse.
"Nothing," Alex shouted as he, too, jogged back towards Charles. "There's nobody."
He knew the attempts were in vain; a nasty awareness formed in his mind that Erik was neither on this beach any longer nor in the water. That he had been taken. But he could not allow himself to rest, to even stop, stop looking and hoping because - No!
He moved, back and forth with hurried steps. Eyes always on the water, Charles dug a hand in his hair, almost pulled on it to distract himself from the panic. But he could not prevent it, felt as if his chest was bursting open with fear and dread as he screamed Erik's name. It felt like someone pulled the ground from under his feet, and Charles shook and trembled, having to lean forward to steady himself onto his knees, but he stumbled and sank into the sand. Trying to breathe. Almost failing with the horrible vice-like panic gripping his chest.
There were other voices behind him. He must have screamed so loud that they had even heard him in the house. Someone calling his name - was it Moira? - but he could not turn his head, could not move as he knelt in the sand. And he could not even think anymore, all that wasn't drowned out completely by this overwhelming fear being 'no'.
No, no, no, no, no…
"NO!!!"
Something moist touched his hand, and when he recognized the dog he had seen earlier his first impulse, for a split-second, was to kick it. This fear and despair raging inside of him so strong that it turned him into a whole new person, a person he'd never met or known because he'd never been so afraid and devastated in his entire life, and he felt horrible for even thinking something like that for just a brief flash of a moment.
He just sank onto his heels, hot tears falling from his eyes that he had not even registered forming. Sobs that shook through him and pulled all air from his lungs. Completely powerless, in every sense.
And then he felt arms around him, turning him around and hugging him so tight that he didn't know if it was making things better or worse. He just sank against Raven's shoulder, letting her hug him and whisper consoling and comforting phrases into his ear that didn't mean anything. Because Erik was gone. Shaw had got to them, somehow. Had found Erik and taken him. Had injured him. Erik must be in pain, frightened for his life, and there was nothing Charles could do.
"Hey! Hey Charles, you might wanna hear this," Alex called toward him, and a fierce glimmer of hope sparked up inside him, fighting against the blackness of despair as he barely raised his head. There with Hank, Alex, Moira and Sean stood someone else: the elderly woman and owner of the dog that still ran around Charles and Raven. She came closer, her features twisting in kind sympathy.
"I think I saw your friend. He was with another man, and I remember what he looked like."
~*~
The waiting area in the police station was quiet, just a mother with her young child sitting there a little farther away, waiting for somebody to either return to them or call them in for testimony, and a tall black man who cursed under his breath from time to time and mumbled something about 'damn car thieves'.
From their now quite large group only Moira and Hank had come with him, the others having stayed on the beach to ask more people if they had seen anything or look for further evidence. Raven had wanted to come, too, but Charles could almost not bear having her around, knowing that as soon as she'd look at him with her sympathetic eyes he'd lose it again and break down. He was feeling much more comfortable with Moira's pragmatic and Hank's quiet company, though 'comfortable' was stretching it by far.
Ever since he had fully realized that Erik had been attacked and kidnapped, Charles had been in a state near numbness, finding it hard to speak because his voice might break, a constant weight on his chest that he couldn't even relieve when he tried to take long, deep breaths.
The elderly woman with the dog - Patricia was her name - had told them in detail what she had seen when she had walked past Erik. He had been standing on the spot where Charles had found the towel with another man who had wrapped his arms around Erik, and it had occurred to Charles that the attacker must have done that to try hide whatever weapon he had used, maybe even to conceal the fact that Erik was already passing out from pain and blood loss.
Patricia had not looked too closely, thinking that the two men who had looked like very close friends or even lovers to her, would have preferred the privacy, but she did remember the shoulder-length black hair of the other man, his beige Bermuda shorts and a shirt, striped in light-blue and white. She even claimed she would be able to vaguely describe his face since he had stared at her for a brief moment - looking caught, she had said. That had been when she had decided the second of her two assumptions must apply, but she thought nothing of his stern glare because seeing two men in an intimate embrace in public still wasn't something completely usual.
Only once had she turned back and looked into their direction, seeing the black-haired man walking alongside the other, one hand tightly wrapped around his waist as they had disappeared between the dunes.
They had discussed their next steps for as long as they were able to let her wait, and Charles still wasn't completely sure that going to the police had been a wise idea, but with the shock and fear of losing Erik he had not been able to think as clearly as he usually would. It had been Moira in the end who had proposed to report him as missing and have Patricia report what she saw. And now they sat here, waiting, and although no more than ten or maybe twenty minutes had passed, Charles felt like an eternity of worry already lay behind him.
"I've had a thought," Hank spoke up after a few long moments of silence.
Charles turned his head slowly to look at his friend from where he was sitting next to him, Moira on his other side, leaning forward.
"About what?" she asked.
"About how Shaw found Erik," Hank replied, keeping his voice down so nobody would overhear them. "We know nobody could have told him. Nobody knew where we were going, we haven't even told Agnes."
Charles gave a soft snort. They had been cautious enough not to tell her, saying they'd go back to Manhattan instead. But even if they had, Agnes was the last person he'd ever suspect betraying them. He felt ashamed for even pondering about this option for a second. None of the people with him, not Hank nor Alex, let alone Irene or Raven, were capable of such a severe act of treason. Even if Hank had been worried about losing his job, he would never do something like this, and Alex seemed to even feel more content and happy than before. No, betrayal was no option Charles would even allow himself to consider.
"I also doubt someone followed us by car,” Hank continued. “We probably would have noticed, and frankly, the amounts of stops we made, someone could have taken Erik much sooner. You two were alone in your car. It would have been too easy to get to you," Hank explained, speaking along the same lines Charles had thought.
Charles had been so sure that Shaw would not be able to find them in Myrtle Beach. He and Moira had never shared an apartment or had any other kind of official affiliation, and Charles doubted Shaw would have been able to find out every single friend Charles had had in the past ten years and track them down. With Hank, they had probably seen his car the night he had come down to the house on Long Island, but Moira… He could not, for the life of him find an explanation.
"So how did he find Erik, then?" Moira asked, and Hank cleared his throat, looking a bit unsure about his own theory.
"Well. I think it is possible he planted a tracking device in Erik."
Charles looked straight at Hank, feeling his brow furrow as he tried to wrap his mind around the suggestion, but all he could do was slowly shaking his head. "When? We would have seen it if he had shot something into Erik's skin when we pulled him out of the water. Tracking devices aren't exactly small," he said.
"Um, no," Hank replied. "Not if you're talking about the usual ones used on sharks. Well, those you would've seen right away. But there's another possibility. He could have implanted a chip back when… when Erik was with him," Hank ended.
"But then why didn't he find him much sooner?" Moira wanted to know.
"I'm not sure. But… " Hank leaned forward, his lower arms on his knees. "Alright, you know the types of tracking devices recently used to track animals work with GPS-tracking. But Erik was with Shaw around fifteen years ago, right?"
"That's about right," Charles replied, not wanting to think about it.
"GPS technology is older than that, but it was a little more difficult to obtain, at least for the public. What we're looking for is an active GPS transmitter, not just one that works passively, and as far as I know it would have been impossible to get a hold of something like that if you're not working for the CIA. Even today, it's difficult," Hank explained, but Charles still didn't fully understand.
"For Shaw to track Erik it would need to be an active transmitter, not just a passive tracking device?" Charles asked, and Hank nodded. "Which Shaw couldn't get? So… I'm not sure where you're getting with this."
Hank sighed faintly. "It must be passive then. An active GPS tracking device needs to transmit data via cellular or satellite networks. So that's off the menu. A passive one needs to be close to a a specific device that can download the recorded data. You can't just put it on somebody and track them non-stop wherever they're going, you need to be in an actual close range to get a signal."
"So…" Charles started, slowly beginning to understand. "That day on the boat Shaw must have found Erik by coincidence then?"
"Exactly. And from then on he knew where he was and was able to track him."
"Yes, I understand that. But if he needed to be within close range why did he not attack while we were on the road then? You just said so yourself."
Hank sighed again. "Yes, I've been wondering about that too. And the only explanation I can come up with is that the chip's signature was reprogrammed by remote. Maybe it was some advanced technology even back then - no idea how, but let's assume Shaw got his hands on such a chip. He would not be able to use it as an active tracking device because someone would have caught wind of it. Furthermore, an active one would stop working after some point unless attached to a power source and re-charged. And back then there were no cellular or wifi networks strong enough to have it transmit via that technology. Or nothing strong enough to actually receive a signal of that strength. You can, however, turn a passive chip into an active one. Sort of. Indirectly,” Hank stopped and made another waving gesture with his hand, obviously trying to get his thoughts in order to explain his theory. “Someone would have to pick up it's signature and then have a satellite look for it. Maybe a communications satellite by a pro
vider stationed in, let's say Azerbaijan or China or wherever. He could have been using that. And all he needed to do then, without doing some kamikaze-like attack while we were driving down to Myrtle Beach, was wait until we'd remain stationary."
Both Moira and Charles looked at Hank for a while, contemplating what he had just said, and the younger man let out another sigh.
"Too much "Enemy of the State"? I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but…"
"No, no. I think… it's a possibility," Charles cut in, though he wasn't sure that bit of information was even helpful, other than letting them know how the unthinkable had happened.
"Of course, such a chip would need to be implanted surgically. So… um… have you seen any scars on him, maybe a two inch long, clean incision?" Hank asked, a very faint blush of color on his cheeks as he felt obviously uneasy asking something Charles could only know in a very intimate context. But that didn't matter now.
"There was something on his belly. I didn't ask him what it was. I mean he had other scars as well, the small one above his lip and one on his shin. I just thought those were from usual small injuries, but…" Thinking about it now, the scar on Erik's abdomen had looked a lot neater than the others, though faded and light.
“Did you... um... could you...” Hank blushed and his voice sounded a little hoarse. Charles had an idea what he meant to ask.
“It doesn't really matter though, does it?” Moira interrupted him, not snappish but with a slight undertone of exasperation. “Unless we could somehow use the chip to track Erik back - Oh, we... we can't do that, can we?”
“No,” Hank admitted. “We'd need to know the signature of the chip for that. And equipment I wouldn't know how to get my hands on.”
As much as Charles appreciated Hank putting thought into this, he realized that the whole conversation had been pretty much pointless, except for the fact that it had distracted him a little of the twisting feeling of anxiety in his chest. He leaned back against his seat and took a deep breath, trying to fend the feeling off as well as possible.
“Sorry,” Hank said, probably realizing the same. “I just meant to... Well, it wasn't your fault that this happened. Or anyone's. We couldn't know about this.”
No, they couldn't. Unless Charles had actually bothered to think about the tiny knot he had indeed felt beneath the scar. Then they could have come to the conclusion sooner that it was a chip and that Erik was being tracked, and Charles would've never let him out of his sight.
He didn't have time to dwell on these thoughts as in that moment the glass door on their right opened, and a police officer came back with Patricia in his tow. Charles immediately got up.
“Alright, ma'am, we have your details. We'll contact you if we need anything,” the man, a rather bulky looking fellow in his mid forties said monotonously.
Patricia nodded and gave Charles and the other two a faint smile. The officer already turned around to walk back into the corridor leading to the offices, and Charles almost didn't react, too confused for the moment to do so, before he finally pulled his wits together.
“Excuse me?”
The officer turned around and raised his eyebrows, looking slightly bored. “Yes, sir?”
“Don't you want my testimony as well? You only have what we told your colleagues when we called.”
The man heaved a sigh. “No, we've got all we need.”
Confused and a little baffled, Charles stared at him, unable to respond. Thankfully, Moira stepped in. “No, you don't. You don't even have a full description.”
“Mrs. Ferguson was able to describe both men sufficiently,” the policeman replied.
“Okay, good. But what about the possible culprit and the motifs. Nobody has asked us about that yet,” she said, stepping closer to the man, and Charles was quite thankful for her initiative.
“Ma'am, with all due respect, but this case is a mere formality,” the officer replied again and put his hand back onto the door knob.
Charles couldn't believe his ears. “A formality? I'm sorry... I don't understand.”
The bored expression on the older man's features changed to something close to smugness for a second as he looked down at Charles, clearly down with an unmistakable air of superiority and arrogance. “We get these kinda cases a lot,” he said. “You couldn't even provide us with a last name of your boyfriend, let alone any history or place of residence, and you've only known him for a few weeks. If I were to make a guess at what happened here today I'd say he found someone better and ran away.”
The nasty weight of fear and despair in his chest lunged up his throat, transforming into anger so strong that he felt it prickling on the back of his neck, and Charles was very close to just slamming his fist into the man's face, even though he could not remember ever having had such thoughts before.
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” Moira said, her fists in her hips as she stepped even closer, for her slender frame looking quite threatening all of the sudden. “You're a police officer, for crying out loud. It's your duty to issue a full investigation when someone reports what clearly looks like kidnapping or possibly even attempted murder. You --”
The man laughed briefly and shook his head. “Ma'am, you should stop watching CSI or whatever TV nonsense has given you such ideas. Do you know how many reports like this one we get? Especially in summer? People have a fling, lie about their private lives or don't give out -“
“He didn't lie,” Charles cut in, that anger searing inside of him so strong that he could barely contain it, though his voice remained relatively quiet when he spoke, only quivering ever so slightly with his fast thumping heartbeat. “He never lied to me.”
“What about the blood?” Hank added. “You can't deny that.”
“Yes, and we took a sample of that. But there are no further tracks in the area anywhere, and no weapon. And anyway, Mrs. Ferguson said the men were hugging.”
“I said it looked like they were hugging,” Patricia corrected the officer, who took another breath and shook his head. “The other man could have been stabbing Erik and I would not have seen it from that angle.”
“Stabbing? That would have left much more blood, ma'am. It was just a small amount which could have come from any small injury. We have that all on file and we'll take the steps that are required according to protocol. If we hear or see something we'll contact you. What we can't do is issue a state-wide search for someone that doesn't even have a name. Things like these happen, buddy,” he said in Charles' direction. “Especially in the queer scene.”
There it was again, that smug and condescending tone and look, as if Charles was nothing but a stupid little boy in his eyes, and Charles just snapped.
“You arrogant fuck! How the hell dare you -“
“Whoa, Charles, calm down,” Moira said quickly, grabbing his arm the second he started balling his fist, and he wasn't quite sure whether he would have struck the police officer or not.
“I could fine you for insulting a police officer,” the man said coldly, “but I'll let that one slide as I can see you're upset. I strongly advise you to leave now, though.”
Charles' nostrils were flaring, and he felt so fucking angry that he almost didn't care about any fines or even ending up in a cell for the night because, damn, he wanted to punch this asshole so badly. Instead, he just raised his hand, pointing his finger closely at the policeman's chest. “I'm going to file an official complaint against you, and I'm going to come back with a lawyer and talk to your chief personally,” he said, feeling his voice crack under the strain of holding back his anger.
The officer just let out a low snort and opened the glass door. “Feel free to try,” he said and disappeared through it.
Charles stood there, rooted to the spot for a moment, not knowing what to say or think. Of course he hadn't expected they would believe him easily had he really disclosed everything he knew about Erik's affiliation with Shaw - or what he could say without mentioning what Erik was, but that the authorities were actually so carefree about a possible capital crime completely threw him. Moira and Hank seemed to be as shocked as he, looking at him wide wide eyes, sympathetic but clueless what to say, and Patricia seemed seriously upset, covering her mouth with one hand and shaking her head.
“Man!” Charles suddenly heard the tall black man sitting two seats behind them speak up. “This place really bites. Wonder if I ever get my cab back.”
Charles doubted that the police would be as incompetent with something as trivial as car theft, though, and he snorted bitterly, to himself.
“Sorry, bro,” the stranger said, as he had gotten up from his seat, and he waved his hand in a helpless but sympathetic gesture.
“Dear Lord, I don't believe this,” Patricia Ferguson sighed, shaking her head sadly. “It was such a nice day on the beach when I went out with Rowdy, and now this? A man being kidnapped and the police doesn't even want to do anything about it.”
The stranger rolled his eyes. “Looks like the beach's no good place to be today. That's where they stole my cab. Man, I knew I shouldn't have come to South Carolina.”
Charles and Moira looked at each other, and the faintest glimmer of hope sparked up in Charles, unlikely as his thought may seem.
“On the beach you were saying? Where exactly?”
~*~
So the taxi really had been stolen from the parking lot near Moira's house. Armando, the stranger they had met at the police station, had told them so. He had just stepped out to find a place to relieve himself somewhere between the bushes framing the dunes, and when he had returned his taxi had been gone. Why Shaw's man hadn't come with his own car was a thing completely up to speculation, but Charles guessed that it might have been safer for them to steal a car (maybe the man who had taken Erik from the beach hadn't been alone then) and drop it off somewhere else than risk being seen in a vehicle that could be linked to them after all.
Though of course they had no proof that the two crimes were actually connected; it could have been mere coincidence. Armando had exchanged phone numbers with them anyway and said he'd contact them as soon as his car would turn up. If the police wasn't willing to connect the pieces and search the car for possible blood traces or other evidence, then maybe they could figure out how to do it.
When they had finally come back to the house and Patricia had picked up her dog, these very small clues didn't help to relieve Charles' worry, but the anger had settled again, leaving that odd numbness in him that made him sit slumped above the kitchen table, staring at nothing in particular and trying not to think. Because no matter what he thought about, what he tried to come up with, it led nowhere other than to remembering Erik, remembering that amazing day and night they had shared and fearing he might never see him again. Never hold him, kiss him... In a way, it almost felt as if Erik was dead already, as if those memories were all he had left, and that thought made his chest clench painfully, made him want to pull his hair out or scream, so enraged with himself that he had let this happen.
He hadn't even told Erik that he loved him, and now he might never get the chance. Even if Erik was alive, even if Shaw did have quite something different in mind than killing him, there was the possibility Charles would never be able to see him. He imagined a scenario in which Erik was really being kept in some aquarium amusement park as a circus curiosity, and all he'd be able to do would be purchase a ticket and see him through the glass. No, that was completely ridiculous. This wasn't the movie with the mermaid in Manhattan where the authorities would simply allow a creature with human intelligence to be treated like a lab rat. The public would never condone something like that. There would be protests and petitions and -
It was futile to think about it. Whatever Shaw was planning with Erik it could not be this but something none of them could have thought of yet. The other scenario now seemed almost comfortingly predictable, something they could solve while in reality they had no clue and no plan at all.
When his mind reached those thoughts, he found it hard, so damn hard to hold back the tears that prickled in his eyes, and he blinked, forcing himself to take a few deep breaths and just think nothing at all.
“Do you want some tea?” Raven leaned in above him, putting one hand on his shoulder, and same as earlier the touch almost hurt.
“No, thanks.”
“You haven't drunken or eaten anything all day, Charles. At least have a bite with us for dinner, okay?”
He gave her a brief, joyless smile and nodded, not sure if he'd be able to get anything down though. Seven hours had passed since Erik had disappeared, and Charles didn't know how he should even get through the night.
“Do you like zucchini?” Moira asked, her tone almost motherly as she called over from where she was standing at the counter, cutting a few vegetables to make a pasta pan dish. In another pan she was heating oil, several chicken breasts and steaks waiting on a plate to be roasted, but Charles could not think of the food as enjoyable.
“Sure,” Charles just replied, not caring at all.
“I don't like zucchini,” Sean said, his tone almost whining, and Charles thought that under normal circumstances Moira might have snapped at him. She didn't do so now.
“I still have some tomato sauce. You can have just the pasta with that and a steak.”
Sean smiled, probably more earnestly and wider than anyone else in the house could.
“Do you want me to fry the steaks already?” Raven asked, but Moira never answered. In that moment, the door bell rang.
Everyone present, the two women, Sean, Alex and Charles, raised their heads and looked at each other. Maybe the police had re-evaluated the report after all and was coming to apologize for the other officer's behavior and take their account. Maybe Charles would get a chance to mention Shaw as a suspect after all. His heart gave a few excited beats, fighting off the numbness in him for a few, precious seconds.
“I'll get it,” he said quickly before Moira could wash and dry off her hands. He quickly walked over to the front door, more swiftly than he would have felt able to move before, and he almost yanked it open when he reached it.
Who he saw standing there, however, was no policeman dressed in dark blue. Instead, he saw a short, white dress, and the woman wearing it smiling sweetly at him as the sea breeze brought the platinum blonde waves to sway softly.
“Hi, I'm Emma Frost. I don't think we've met, but I heard so much about you,” she said, the smile on her lips getting even wider as she tilted her head and regarded him. “I know where they are taking your shark friend.”
Charles was too surprised to reply.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 14
A/N: Oh, errr... um... I just realized I had said the one in the last chapter would be the last cliffhanger. Well, that sorta didn't work out. Sorry ^^ But this one's not that bad, is it? I mean it's more a glimmer of hope than a cliffhanger of DOOOOOM ^^