Not All Who Wander (1/3)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
The vessel seems to pop into existence, where only empty space had been before. It glides slowly over a planet that looked for all the world like Earth in the late 1930s.
“Is it Earth, though?” the alien on board mutters to himself, eyes narrowed, then sets about jiggling knobs and yanking levels on the control panel. “If this is really an alternate dimension, there ought to be something showing... aha!” He glares into a screen. “Oh my, interesting interesting. The same planet, but... different people. Different people. Indeed.” (He hurries off before he can look more closely and notice that in fact they are the same people as the Earth he knows; merely, somehow, different.)
A klaxon sounds, and the alien looks wildly around. “Oh no no, he's here already? How could he be-- no matter.” And with that he sets about, frantically programming something into the large, odd-looking machine at the center of his spaceship. Until abruptly he is brought up short, frowning open-mouthed into his monitor.
“Don't tell me that,” he pleads with the monitor. “No, not now. Because that also means the Gem is useless unless I can-- and I can't! Not without someone else.” And with that he turns, throwing up his hands with a yell of frustration. “No problem,” he resumes muttering. “Can't take human form here, don't have the necessary proto-plasmic psychic-stabilization mechanism, or either it just doesn't work here. Well then, what's plan B? Well...”
He pauses, eyebrows raised, as if shocked.
“Could I?” he wonders aloud to nobody in particular. Then he dashes back to the control panel.
“First thing is, probably nobody on this Earth is mentally capable...” he trails off, willing the screen to show the results of its scan. It shows a single red blip. “Except you! Oh, you. And you're still in utero! Oh my, I have the most amazing luck.” He grins at the screen, then can't help kissing it, just a quick peck. “Okay, all right then.” He turns away, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath in and out. The klaxon bell gets even louder, jarring now. “I can do this,” the alien tells himself. “It's a bit unusual, but I'll be all right. Sexy can get herself somewhere discreet. All in good time, all in good time.” He spares another glance at the Earth, worrying briefly about their defensive capabilities against cybermen, but it is not new recruits they are after this time; the planet below should be safe.
An impact rocks the ship, and he has to grab a nearby railing to stay upright. “Well then, no time to spare! I'd best be off, my love, and I shall see you again when the time is ripe. Or right. One of those.” And with a last, loving look at his beauteous ship, he brings his palm down on the bright red button heretofore untouched.
And dissolves into thin air.
….
Charles Xavier discovers his powers quite early, and although his family is a significant disappointment, he quite fortuitously meets another creature like himself in his tenth year. He proudly sticks out his hand, and most of him is thinking how indescribably fantastic, what an enormous relief, that he isn't the only special child, and a bit of him is thinking about what wonderful games one can play with bright young ladies in dark kitchens, especially if there's custard to be had. And then years later when she asks him about dating, he gives her a once over and explains that she is like his sister, and really, why must little girls insist on growing up and then trying to kiss him? But he's not sure where that thought comes from.
He decides early on that he's going to be an incurable ladies man, and takes great amusement in these pursuits, though Raven frequently scolds him. And when he decides to earn a professorship in genetics and biology, it is with the memory of those mornings he wakes up still hearing the echo of a second heart beating in his chest, and he has to rise, dress, slip his mother's pocket-watch into his vest, and wet his hair down before things make sense again. As side-effects of his mutation go, it is probably the single oddest.
Things take a strange and wonderful turn when a spectacular brunette walks into a bar one night and offers him a job. He shows up to his first CIA meeting dressed to the nines, briefly considering a bow-tie and then rejecting it as silly. It's Raven who gets their point across while Charles is wittering about reading minds and being mistaken for a Communist, and then they have their own headquarters, staff, and a machine just for him. And before he has the least idea how to proceed, he finds himself on a ship in the dark, pursuing a war criminal and somehow ending up in the ocean with another mutant instead.
And then he finds more mutants, and the USSR looms large and threatening, and soon enough it's their turn to save the world from destroying itself on some island in the Caribbean - even the children, though it worries Charles more than he even expected it to. And then everything goes utterly to shit, Charles lying in the sand as his whole world walks off and leaves him behind.
One day he looks up at Moira and knows this is no place for her, that he should wipe her memory and leave her be. But then he looks down at his wasting legs, feels the lump of his mother's pocket-watch in his trousers, and somehow cannot bring himself to take her past away from her. So Moira stays.
….
It's nearly two years later when it happens.
Charles is returning from a training session with Sean, who continues to give him hell on a regular basis. Moira is waiting for him, half-sitting on his desk.
“I assume there is a reason you've chosen to park yourself on my polished wooden furnishing?” Charles asks her dryly. She rolls her eyes.
“I just wanted - what is that?” She interrupts herself, points with her chin at Charles' hand fumbling in his vest.
“Hmm? Nothing. What is it you wanted?” It didn't sound evasive in his head, but the moment he hears it aloud he knows Moira won't let it go. Her eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Nothing? I highly doubt that, Charles.” She looks intent now, more than just curious.
“Just my mother's pocket-watch, is all.” Charles is frowning a bit now, irritated though he can't quite say why.
“I didn't know you kept anything of your mother's with you,” Moira replies, softer. And the frown deepens on Charles' face.
“I...” he begins, noticing now that he never actually remembers her holding it. “I don't know... I thought it was hers,” he pauses and realizes he doesn't have an end to the sentence.
“Could I see it?” Moira's smiling gently, and it seems a harmless enough request. Charles digs it out of his pocket and hands it over, slightly nervous now.
She turns it in her hands, this fine golden thing, and now that he looks at it there's something odd about it, something not quite right. For one thing, such a well-made old piece would be an heirloom, but he's not aware of any of his relatives actually owning it, much less passing it down. And for another, the designs on the outside are... strange. They speak of planets and stars and the atom, and Charles feels something stir within him. Has he really never looked at it before, truly looked?
“I'd like that back,” Charles tells her, not angrily, and stretches his hand to it. She nods, murmurs a quiet “oh, of course”, and plants it on his open palm. It tingles where it touches him, and his mouth opens slightly in surprise. He feels that, in some unimaginable way, this thing is incredibly important. He brings it back to himself, turning it in his hands.
“You should open it,” Moira offers, and she seems almost as enthralled as he. He meets her eyes, then looks back down at it.
“No,” he shakes his head. “It can't be opened. It doesn't work. What did you want to ask me about?”
“How do you know it can't, if you've never opened it?” Moira shoots back.
“I just... I just know!” Charles proclaims. “I forget how, but I still know it! It's broken.”
“Charles,” Moira looks at him with concern. “Why are you getting upset?”
“It was my mother's,” Charles is mumbling to himself, staring at the watch. “I've always had it, from when I was a baby, but I knew it was hers... I just...”
Moira touches him gently.
“Try opening it,” she suggests. “Just once. What could go wrong opening a watch?” And Charles frowns, because the answer is nothing, and he knows it. His gaze swings back to the watch. He feels oddly full of dread.
He looks up at her for a moment, and she smiles. He tries to smile back.
Then, with a nervous lick of his lips, Charles presses the stem down and the lid swings open.
Charles immediate begins seizing, and Moira almost screams before she can summon her presence of mind. She pushes the emergency button, and yells into it. “Help! Hank, somebody. The Professor's having a seizure!”
But by the time she turns back to him, breathless with worry, he is calming. The movements slow and then stop, Moira watching with her hands on her mouth. Charles' head hangs low and she's not sure if he's conscious, but then he raises it and grins - grins! - at her, half-madly.
“Oh, Moira,” he says, and she sees real joy in his face. “I have some very good news.”
….
“Pacing,” Charles remarks under his breath. “I quite miss pacing. Though at least I can fidget with my hands.”
Moira and the children look at each other uneasily. He looks up at them and seems surprised they are there.
“Ah! Yes. Must explain.” He takes a moment to settle himself in the chair, facing the four of them with a solemn expression. “So. Moira, Hank, Alex, Sean. You know when you wake up from a dream and for a moment perhaps you can't quite remember who you are?” His expression shows him to be quite in earnest. Moira nods hesitantly. Sean shrugs. “Well, it's a bit like that, except for really not so much at all. Essentially, I woke up and remembered I'm someone else. You see?”
Four faces show four wide-eyed looks of confusion. Clearly not.
“Indeed. Well. Let's do the long version, then. A man in a spaceship is looking to hide. He finds a Mrs. Sharon Xavier, currently pregnant with a child of unusual abilities. The perfect hiding place for one such as himself. So he seals off his memories, hides his ship, and settles in to wait it out. The child is born, grows up, never knowing where he comes from. Then one day he wakes up and all his memories return. He knows who he is again. He's the same man he always was, it's just that 'who he always was' is a bit more unusual than he'd realized. So now, I suppose, you have one question to ask yourselves.”
“What question?” Hank hesitantly asks.
“Am I mad?” Charles winks at them cheekily. “Has Professor X completely lost his marbles? Total mental breakdown? Or is it possible, just possible....” His gaze lands on Moira's face, and she sees that smirking corner of his mouth that seems so new but is also so very, very Charles. “...that he might be telling the truth?”
Moira finds the same smile spreading across her own face, quite without her meaning for it.
“And what do we call you?” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Hank and Alex sending panicked looks at each other.
The smile on Charles' face spreads into a proud grin. “Oh, Charles will do just fine. Or Professor. But if you're interested in who I was before that? I believe I was known as the Doctor.”
….
The first order of business, Charles explains, was finding his ship. “It's all right,” he reassures them. “She's not far. Only in Zambia.” And when this is met with skepticism, “Oh, come now! It's the next continent over. We'll take the jet, be back by supper.”
“Professor...” Alex pauses, gathering his words. “Hank, Sean and I really do need to train.”
“Naturally!” Charles nods at him. “But one side-trip will hardly break the bank. 'Break the bank' - does that always mean money? I was never quite sure. At any rate, everyone needs a break sometimes, nobody knows that more than I do.”
It isn't in Zambia.
“Okay,” Charles begins. He is frowning at a large, square hole in the dust. “She hid. No matter. I'll try again, and Hank, I promise I will purchase you more gasoline.”
It isn't in Cambodia either.
“Clearly, different tactics are needed,” Charles explains calmly to his pupils and an exasperated ex-CIA agent. “Let's return home for now. I'll deliberate my next course of action.”
….
Moira sits across from him at Charles' desk. Charles is staring, rather petulantly, at a top spinning on the polished oak..
“Charles,” Moira speaks. The top slowed and clattered to a standstill on the wood when he looked up. “Are you sure about this? Let's be sure before we make another trip.”
“No,” Charles sighs. “It may very well not be in Canada either. I don't understand, Moira. I - I feel her, somehow. Or perhaps I merely think I do. But when I get there, she's long gone. Barely a ghost and a footprint left.”
“Have you considered that you may be having a breakdown?” Moira asks pointedly.
“Yes, yes. A possibility, to be sure, but not as likely as it would seem, I believe. A breakdown wouldn't feel like this. I still have my memories, but it's as if more have simply joined them. I feel almost the same man as before, really, but... I remember the Galaxy Wars of Parthos, Moira. I remember a thousand oppressed peoples who found they could free themselves with only the barest of hints. Untold fateful dangers averted by a clever notion at the last minute. People doing harm the way only people can do, and the least of them standing tall and refusing to participate any longer. And what I see tells me just how right Erik is, and how incredibly wrong as well. It gives me great fear for my students, Moira, but even greater cause to hope.”
“Charles?” Moira smiled, blinking a few times and swallowing. “You do sound a bit mad, you know.”
Charles makes a dismissive motion with his hand, laughing under his breath. “Oh, inevitably. And if I am?”
She settles back in her chair. “Then I suppose someone ought to keep things running around here while you're off chasing your spaceship,” she concludes.
“Moira McTaggert.” Charles leans forward, puts both elbows on the desk and folds his hands. “You are a treasure. I lose my legs, my sister, m-- Erik. But you stay. Why?”
“Of course I stayed.” Moira seems almost insulted. “To be a part of something I never dreamed, helping a people to find their place without resorting to violence? How could I not stay, for something like that?”
“Nothing to do with me, then?” Charles asks lightly.
“Not everything has to do with you, Charles.” Her smirk is perfect; one would never sense the lie in her words. “Perhaps you've gotten a swelled head.”
Charles throws back his head and laughs. Then he leans as far forward as he can manage, and plants a kiss on the tip of Moira's nose.
“My head does do that,” he admits after a moment. His chin rests in his hands. “It's a very busy place, you know. Moira... how do I usually locate what needs finding?”
“Besides magic, you mean? Well, there is Cerebro.”
“And why did we decide not to use it in this case?” he chews his lip intently.
“I assume because Cerebro can only find people,” Moira explains, in a tone Charles finds slightly insulting.
“Yes, of course. You know, people are always telling me things can't be done. 'Impossible' really begins to lose its impact after a while.”
“So your spaceship is a person.” Her eyebrows are raised.
“Well,” Charles begins sheepishly. “A bit. Sort of. It's a bit higgery-jiggery. Cerebro wouldn't recognize her.”
Moira still seems skeptical, but at least she is now amused. “At least, not until you reprogram the entire thing in a matter of hours? Because you are so very clever?”
Charles looks up at her with a smile full of self-satisfaction. “Precisely.” He winks cheekily. “Because I am so very clever.”
….
Hank begs off to fix his particle accelerator, though that hardly seems urgent to Charles. Alex wants to train, and Sean pleads illness. So he and Moira alone set off to the coordinates provided by cerebro (after much fiddling). Moira glares at him continuously the entire plane ride over, which is awful, especially since they're headed to O'ahu, Hawaii. It's a bit humid.
“That way,” Charles gestures up the river. Moira's eyebrows go up. Charles looks down sheepishly. Luckily, they brought a kayak.
“Hurry,” he says as they disembark, Moira unfolding his chair. He is restraining himself from squirming in her grip. “She's near.”
Moira is bemused more than anything by the blue rectangular box that seems to have found its way from London to the tropics. She turns to Charles.
“Isn't it beautiful?” he asks, tears in his eyes. She elects not to respond, for reasons of diplomacy. She turns back to the booth when Charles snaps his fingers and the doors swing open. Suddenly this all seems far less incredible than it had a moment ago.
“Come on in,” she looks down and to her left, and Charles is smiling, one arm outstretched. She takes his hand, and walks into another world.
“It's,” Moira breathes. She can't even finish her sentence for a moment. “It's bigger inside. Charles. Where did you find this?”
“I borrowed it long ago,” Charles smiles fondly. “From some very old friends of mine. Haven't exactly had the chance to return her.”
“But it looks so...” Moira tears her gaze from the strange ship and back to Charles himself. “You really are an alien, aren't you? A man from another world?”
“Guilty as charged,” Charles nods.
“And... this ship can take you home?” Moira's eyes are shining. Charles swallows and responds.
“Well, I really think we ought to take the jet home, don't you? Can't very well just leave it here.” Moira frowns in confusion for a moment, then nods and tries to smile.
“It would probably be best if I can fly home, leaving you here with coordinates already set. You shouldn't encounter any... what?”
“Why don't I fly the jet back?” Moira says hastily. “You can take the space-ship.”
“Oh,” Charles wrinkled his brow. “Yes, fair enough, I suppose. You can fly the jet?”
“Hank taught me,” Moira equivocates. “I'll do all right.”
“Well...” Charles hesitates. “All right. I'll meet you, then.”
Great, Charles catches as Moira leaves. He's already in love. And she's prettier than I am.
…
Charles tinkers in the booth for days (they're all madly curious, especially since the children have barely gotten a glimpse into it since they'd arrived home, quite improbably successful). The first time he emerges, Moira sees him over Alex's shoulder, and her hand flies to her mouth. He's standing.
“They're called bioreactive support structures,” he explains, as she and Alex rush over. He steps forward with his right leg to demonstrate. “A bit clumsy, but they get the job done. I can run faster now, even.” Metal curls and bends around both his legs, glinting in the sun.
“They're marvelous,” she beams at him. “Can you feel your legs as well?”
He forces a smile and looks at the ground. Moira feels her excitement drain.
“I can walk,” he looks back up at her. “And run. That's what's important, really. That's all I need.”
She bites her lip and nods back. “Yes, of course,” she manages, then has to clear her throat. “So. This is what you were doing in there, this whole time?”
A bit of mischief returns to Charles' face. “Oh,” he glances back at the booth, half-smiling. “I don't think I'd say that.”
….
Magneto is on the phone with Emma in Europe when he hears an awful noise. He excuses himself to her and is off the phone before he realizes he can't tell where it's coming from. Something is shimmering blue in front of him, and Erik has his helmet on and weapon at the ready before it's completely materialized. Riptide and Azazel are on recon at the moment, but Raven comes running in, uneasily holding her gun.
A blue box sits happily in the middle of the room. A door swings inward, and out walks Charles.
“Charles...” Erik starts. “Why are you here?”
.
“Because we need them, Moira,” Charles explains to his colleague, six hours prior at his mansion. He's trying his best to drive that skeptical expression from her face, and it isn't budging. “I'm dealing with a major threat, and two simply isn't enough. Besides, Erik's powers could save both our lives in this. We need their help.”
.
“Help?” Erik repeats, full of suspicion. “But, in Cuba. Wasn't that good-bye?”
“Well... maybe, granted, at the time, yes. But times have changed, friend. There's a madman coming after me with an army of metal soldiers, and I need your help or I'm probably done for.”
.
“But how can you possibly explain it to them?” Moira asks futilely. “They trusted you, Charles, and you had a whole other life they know nothing about. More than one.”
.
“Yes,” Charles responds to Erik's mistrustful face. “I am different than when you knew me. I have memories of other lives now, and I know I was them, once. I'm old, and my enemies are just as old.”
Erik adjusts his weapon. “What is this? What's happened to you?”
“He hasn't changed; not really,” Moira exclaims. “He's different, but it's him, I promise.”
“How can I trust that?” Erik looks into her eyes and flinches slightly. “You're vulnerable to his powers. You could be brainwashed.”
“She isn't,” Raven declares unexpectedly. She is looking right into Moira's eyes. “Of course he wouldn't,” Raven insists, waveringly. “Charles isn't that way.”
Charles turns to her with a fond smile, and she smiles back, a little. He makes an inquisitive gesture, and she nods, beckoning him over. As invited, Charles approaches and rests a few fingers on Raven's temple. He closes his eyes, and for a moment they are both silent.
“It is you,” Raven tells him joyfully. She pulls back, beaming. “It's the Charles I know. But, Erik,” and she looks over hesitantly, cringing at the sight of Erik ready for battle.
.
“No, I know,” Charles puts up a hand to stall Moira's next item because he knows what it will be. “he won't believe me at first. I expect that. We'll just have to, I don't know, be incredibly likable until he trusts us again.”
“Okay,” Moira responds carefully. “I just want you to know, that could take longer than you expect.”
Charles frowned at that, and he is frowning now, at Erik and Raven, so inaccessible still.
“Let me explain,” Charles commands, and they all turn to listen.
And he does. Charles tells them of the Master, his enemy, tortured for years at the hands of mutual enemies, now dangerous in his damaged state. The stolen army of cybermen poised to attack. His own life, before that desperate decision, and the reason for it.
“I need your help... mounting a counter-offensive, I suppose you might say,” he phrases. “Climb aboard an alien spaceship. Risk life and limb to save the planet. Sounds like fun, yes?”
“Charles... after years... and now this?” Erik feels incredibly confused. “You act different, you say you have new memories - how can I trust you are still the same man?”
“An excellent question and yes, I know, I haven't been keeping up with my Christmas cards. But there's no reason you and I can't get on, is there? I saw an article in the paper last week about Martin Luther King shaking hands with Malcolm X, you know. I'm sure we'll work something out. But you know what?” Charles grins at him. “If you have any questions?” and he gestures toward the box with a flourish, “let's discuss them. Step into my time machine.”