Sponge Away the Writing, part 3
Part 1
Part 2
In the end, it was Armando's resurrection and the revelation of Old Charles more than anything Charles could say that made Moira sigh and tell them, "My lease is up at the end of the month. I've got a job doing secretarial work for the law school right now, but it's boring me out of my skull. If my room in your castle is still open in two weeks, Charles, I'll see you then." Despite her practicality, she had always been fond of the unexplained.
*I'm still not entirely certain about the course you're heading on,* said Old Charles on the drive back home, *but if you're determined to follow through with it, this is a good first step. Moira's a dear friend, and she can bring both government and human perspectives to the table if you're looking to predict the response to bringing mutants into the public debate.*
Well, I was hardly going to go on the Tonight Show, Charles answered. It's simply a logical conclusion based on what you've told me. If so many problems have been brought about because the only visible mutants are criminals, then a logical way to combat them is to gradually acclimatize human society to the existence of mutants and then find a way for us to be both equally protected and equally accountable under the law.
*You overestimate how easy that would be rather gravely, I think. Mutant criminals will always pose a unique challenge to the criminal justice system--some cannot be contained without the prior discoveries of unconscionable 'scientific' research, and the ensuing isolation makes them especially vulnerable to abuse.*
Well, wasn't Old Charles just a constant ray of sunshine? You think I haven't thought of that? he asked. For me, you certainly don't know me very well. But I don't think the fact that something will be difficult isn't a reason not to try it at all.
Old Charles's presence in Charles's head seemed to be wrapped in layers of affectionate pride and frustration and fear. He was rather a complicated fellow, all told. *Proceed with caution,* he said. *Someone can learn that you are a mutant without learning quite all of what that means.*
Of course. A few indiscretions aside, Charles rather thought that he was uniquely qualified to keep secrets. He'd had so much practice.
True to her word, Moira arrived at the mansion at the beginning of July, having shed the summery dresses she'd worn in Cambridge in favor of the blazers and tweed in which Charles was accustomed to see her. Charles was mildly curious as to whether this meant she was more or less comfortable at the mansion than in a college town surrounded by academics and beatniks, but he really was making a concerted effort to stay out of her head and it seemed like a strange and presumptuous thing to ask about. He'd never worried so much about that sort of thing before, but the last eight months (and more particularly the last few weeks of traveling) had made him quite sensitive to the way the annoyance of an ignorant question could derail a good mood.
It would be a lie to say that things went on as if Moira had never left. To start with, Moira had never lived at the mansion at the same time as Armando and Scott. If Charles had ever harbored secret wishes that Moira might take on a motherly role to Scott, he would have been disappointed; being a woman who had been told a few too many times that sooner or later she would desire motherhood, she was in fact rather uncomfortable around Scott and treated him with the same kind of businesslike brusqueness with which she treated all of them. There was nothing hostile about it, but nor was there much of the friendship that had formed between them while they were all preparing to face Shaw. Charles put it down to distrust; after all, Alex, Sean, and Hank had gone along with Charles's initial decision to erase her memory. It would have to remain a mystery until such time as she chose to address it, since Charles was devoting quite honest efforts to keeping her thoughts out of his mind and wholly lacked the courage to bring it up with her himself.
Still, awkwardness aside, it really was fantastic to have Moira about. Besides being a curious and very competent assistant in Hank's lab, she had far more administrative experience than any of the rest of them (having undergone long years of secretarial work in the CIA before she had been allowed to graduate to field agent status), and every day revealed a new decisiveness in her character, one that had perhaps been overshadowed in the past by Erik's rather forceful presence. Under her aegis, the work of establishing the school resumed at a much accelerated pace. Yasuo Takiguchi agreed to join the faculty. So did Alicia Downing and two elementary school teachers, one, Jennifer Honey, human and one, Rachel Argosy, mutant.
It would have been impossible to conceal the true nature of the school from any of them once they arrived--Hank's presence alone would have rendered it impracticable, and the whole point of the place was for mutants to have a place they could feel safe. In order to prevent any unfortunate...mishaps, Moira suggested that each instructor tour the facility before signing any contracts. Even she had admitted that, should things go wrong, the situation might call for a little memory-altering on Charles's part, though she'd gritted her teeth as she said it.
To everyone's pleasant surprise, the issue never even came up. Yasuo was a man of science who was more interested in Hank's lab than in his appearance; Alicia's primary concern was with the messes Sean and Alex tended to produce; there was a very real chance that Jennifer was a saint. Charles probably shouldn't have been so taken aback that the human instructors reacted as well as they did to the revelation of radical human mutation. After all, Moira and Agents Levene and Mann had accepted Charles and Erik and Raven easily enough. Still, it was a revelation to Charles, who'd rather found himself falling into an uncomfortable "us vs. them" mentality the past half-year or so. The human mind, when asked to accept the strange and heretofore impossible and faced with incontrovertible proof, could, every now and then, rise to the occasion. It was enough to warm any scientist's heart.
As for Rachel, who looked a bit like Raven with black hair and no scales, well, she'd been fired from her job and ostracized by her community when her mutation revealed itself. She was simply overjoyed at the chance to teach again.
With the help of Old Charles, they found more students, those who were most profoundly in need of a place to go: a little girl, Ororo Munroe, who could control the weather but was picking pockets on the streets of Cairo; a teenager, Cessily Kincaid, whose body looked like liquid metal and whose parents kept her essentially under house arrest; a young Dutch man named Barnell Bohusk with wings and a bird's beak who was surviving mostly by eating out of trash cans in Amsterdam in the middle of the night. As air travel was extremely difficult for Charles to negotiate, between his wheelchair and the extreme mutations of some of the new students, in this, too, Moira's help proved invaluable. By the time Alex and Sean headed off for college in September, the school was, in fact, starting to look like a school.
There was simply no comparing the fall of 1963 with that of 1962. They might have taken place in two altogether different worlds. The latter had seen Charles Xavier, member of a convert CIA strike team, lose his legs, his sister, and quite possibly the love of his life; the former found Charles Xavier, headmaster of a small but promising private academy, working with his colleagues to develop curricula suited to the vastly varying requirements of his diverse student body, grading tests, and every now and then trying to make time for a workout in his gym. There simply weren't enough hours in the day to regret his complete lack of a social life, and that was just fine with Charles. It was almost a relief not to have to think about that sort of thing.
Perhaps it was because he had gotten so out of the habit of thinking of such personal matters that it came as such a surprise when Moira came into his study one night to announce, "I've got a date."
Charles was currently trying to beat Old Charles at chess, the first game he'd had time for in weeks. "Hm," he said, trying to sound as if he were listening.
"Yasuo asked me to go with him to that new James Bond film. From Russia with Love? It'll probably be ridiculous, but I guess it could be fun. I haven't gone on a real date in years."
"That's lovely," said Charles, still distracted. "Have fun." He really ought to have castled much earlier in the game; it was probably too late now.
*How odd,* said Old Charles. *Why on earth is she staring at us like that?*
It was this remark that made Charles look up. Moira was, in fact, staring at Charles like she was trying to read his mind. She was also quite dressed up. Charles was sure he'd never seen that much of Moira's chest before. If she'd been Raven, he'd have suggested she put on a jacket to avoid being cold, but he hardly thought Moira would welcome such a comment.
"Charles," she said. "When you erased my memory--" Charles winced. No conversation that began that way could possibly end well for him. "--why did you kiss me?"
Now that was a question he hadn't expected. "What?"
She sat down across from him at the chess table, crossing her arms and looking at him with her usual no-nonsense firmness. "I've been curious for a while, but we've been so busy and, to be honest, I wasn't in any mood for a personal conversation with you. But it's been a few months, and I'm not the mind-reader here, so I just thought I'd ask. Why did you kiss me?"
Charles looked down and distracted himself with a bishop, unable to meet her forthright glance. "What do you mean? You're a very pretty woman, I needed to be in physical contact with you anyway, I shouldn't think that much of an explanation would be needed."
"With another man? Perhaps not," Moira said, arching her eyebrows. "With you? You have the strangest romantic techniques of any man I've ever met, Charles Xavier. With you, I'm curious."
"Do you mean am I jealous that you're going out with Yasuo?" Charles hazarded. "Because I'm not. Obviously, if there were ever a time you and I might have gotten together, that time's long past."
"That isn't what I mean, although, for the record, I wouldn't give a shit if you were jealous. I don't need your permission to go out with whomever I like."
Charles set down the bishop. Ah, yes, he thought. This was why he was well shut of all this romantic business. "I never said you did. What's this all about?"
Moira sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'm completely off-base with this, but..." She looked to the ceiling as if asking God for assistance before continuing. "Let me tell you a little story about my old partner at the CIA, Sam Levene."
What the hell is she talking about? he asked Old Charles.
*I haven't the faintest,* said Old Charles, sounding genuinely baffled. *The last time I had such a confusing conversation with Moira, she was preparing to adopt Rahne, but she hasn't even been born yet!*
Charles decided not to ask who the hell Rahne was. Instead, he said to Moira, "You wouldn't by any chance like to let me read your mind, would you? Only so I can figure out what this conversation is about."
"Not a chance, Xavier," said Moira, narrowing her eyes at him. "Anyway. Levene. He was a nice guy. Not really the take-charge kind, not enough imagination to think on his feet the way you need to in that business sometimes, but a very competent agent. He didn't have a problem working with me, which wasn't something you could say about many agents, you know?"
Charles nodded.
"But there was something a little odd about Levene. He used to hit on me sometimes. Nothing too terrible, and not when we were alone. Everybody from the director to the janitor hit on me sometimes, so I didn't take it too personally. A lot of those guys were married--at least Levene didn't have a wife at home who could accuse me of seducing him.
"So like I said, it didn't bother me too much. But after a while, I started to notice something about the way Levene hit on me. Every time he did it, it was like he was playing a role--he'd talk one way, grin real big, square his shoulders when we were around other people, but then we'd step out of the room and everything about him would change, his expression, his posture, the way he talked. For a little bit, it confused me. And then it occurred to me that he wasn't hitting on me because he was attracted to me, or because he didn't respect me, or because it was just something he did around women."
Charles had the sinking suspicion that he knew where this story was going, but he played along nonetheless. "Why was he doing it, then?"
Moira looked at her hands. Her fingers twisted together in front of the chessboard. "He was doing it to keep a secret." She looked up again, fixing Charles with the weight of her gaze. "I suppose I can trust you to keep the secret, too?"
Charles leaned back and spread his hands in what he hoped was an open, questioning gesture. "Why on earth would I spread gossip about a CIA agent whom, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I've never met?"
She nodded, a wry smile tugging at one corner of her lips. "Right. Well, Levene shared a house with a man named Joe Rosenberg. Joe worked at General Electric, making computer equipment, I think. I met him once or twice. Nice guy. As far as everyone in their neighborhood was concerned, Sam and Joe were just two single guys splitting the rent on a house until one of them got married."
"But you thought differently," said Charles carefully.
"Well," Moira said, "all I can say is, if my ex-husband had ever once looked at me the way I saw Sam Levene look at Joe Rosenberg the morning I picked him up to go spy on the Hellfire Club in Vegas, maybe I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to divorce him."
Charles swallowed. She knows, she knows, she knows, he couldn't stop from thinking.
*Of course she doesn't,* said Old Charles, sounding less as if he were convinced and more as if he were trying to convince himself. *We've been friends for over twenty years, not counting that business in Cuba, and she's never spoken with me about that. Now lock it down before you frighten the children.*
"Why are you telling me this story?" Charles finally managed. His mouth felt dry.
Moira inhaled slowly. She looked as if she were going to reach out her hand to Charles's before deciding against it; still, he thought there was compassion in her eyes. "I guess because...if any man looked at me the way you used to look at Erik Lehnsherr, I sure as hell wouldn't leave him with a bullet in his back on the beach in Cuba."
Charles remembered how it had felt when he had first realized he was paralyzed--that horrible mix of pain in his back and nothingness in his legs and the sun burning too hot and too bright in his eyes. It might have been an exaggeration to compare that moment to this one. After all, Moira was hardly the first person to think--to understand, rather, that Charles was a homosexual. It was an insult Cain had thrown about numerous times in their youth. But though a number of people had realized his attraction to men in the past, only Moira, it seemed, had realized that it went deeper than sexual attraction when it came to this particular man. It was a stunning feeling, as if he sat naked in front of her, unable to speak or move or scarcely even to breathe. Even his attempts to reach outward with his mind for others' equilibrium failed. He was an insect trapped on a pin.
Pulling her hand back to her purse, Moira took an envelope out and pushed it across the table in Charles's direction. "Levene sent me this last week. He and I both thought there was more to this memory loss thing than the higher-ups would admit, so he's been keeping an eye out for me. He's putting a lot on the line."
Still reeling internally, Charles took the envelope. Inside was a small pile of black and white photographs, seemingly the product of a hidden camera. He sifted through them, feeling as if someone was squeezing their hand around his chest. Erik, still wearing that helmet, opening a file cabinet with nothing more than a gesture. Emma Frost, sorting through files. Both of them vanishing in a dark cloud through which the vague silhouette of, apparently, Satan could be seen. The accompanying note said, "Moira--Think Mann was on to something? Pictures from new CIA Op Center facility in Chicago. SL."
"What do you want me to do with this?" Charles asked, setting the photos down in the middle of the chessboard and looking up into Moira's solemn eyes.
Moira shrugged. "I don't know, Charles. But it's clear that Erik's making his move." She tapped the photos. "A lot of backup files from various facilities--including Mann's--were sent to this CIA Op Center office."
Of course, thought Charles, suddenly savagely angry with himself. He'd thought he was so clever, having the CIA agents destroy their own files, but he'd forgotten that some knowledge had been lost when Agent Mann and his assistants at the first Cerebro facility were killed. The only people who'd known about some of his work were gone, and so the files outlived the men who had written them. They'd been in the CIA's hands all this time, and now they were in Erik's. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"If I had to guess," Moira continued, "I'd say he's probably recruiting." She stood up suddenly, brushing imaginary wrinkles and dust from her skirt. "I admire what you're doing here," she said. "Your efforts to make a place for these kids, putting Alex and Sean through school, the science you're doing with Hank. But you'd better think about what you're going to do if Erik turns out to be the next Sebastian Shaw."
Charles's anger was swiftly turned outwards. "Don't you dare say that," he said. "Erik isn't Shaw. You can't even compare them."
Moira was silent for a long moment. "Maybe not," she said. "But two junior agents on watch duty were found dead outside the door of that file room. They'd been strangled with lengths of pipe. You know me, I've never thought that mutants in general pose a threat to the security of this nation, any more than I've ever thought that homosexuals pose a threat to security. But if Erik's not careful, he's likely to make some powerful enemies in some high places." She blew out a long huff of air before saying, "Well, anyway, I've got a date. Best go fix my hair."
"Your hair looks fine," said Charles automatically, used to this sort of thing after years being the main source of emotional support for a younger sister. "Moira, about Erik and me...."
"I won't tell anyone," she said. "You're not the only one who can keep a secret, Xavier." She laughed, once, long and low, and added, "But I think there's a fair chance some of them already know and just don't think about it loudly enough to end up on your radar. You're not as subtle as you think you are."
And with that, she whirled out of the room.
Charles pled illness to avoid having to go down to supper. Hank, ever suspicious, would have insisted on fully examining him but for Armando and Jennifer's calling him down to help keep the children in order. In the end, Charles was left with nothing but a sandwich and the dubious company of Old Charles.
Well? he demanded. What is this? What's Erik up to?
*To be honest, I've no idea,* said Old Charles. He seemed stunned, whether it was by the revelation that his feelings for Erik had not gone so unnoticed as he supposed or by the photographs Moira had shown them. *This is...the timeline has obviously been changed quite radically. In my life, I neither saw nor heard anything of Erik for another three years, and then he was quite cagey as to what he had been doing.*
Well, bloody think about it for a moment! said Charles, frustrated. He'd been perfectly content to avoid the issue of Erik with Old Charles, both to spare his older self's feelings and his own, but surely if Erik was going to make a habit of breaking into government facilities, he had something larger in mind. What is Erik doing in the future? What do you and he talk about when you meet?
There was a moment in which it felt as if Charles's head would burst, as if Old Charles had grown in size and force so as to push his way out, but the moment passed and Old Charles said, *As to your first question, he does quite a lot of things in the future. He tries to induce mutations in non-mutated humans. He tries to use Cerebro to wipe out the entirety of the non-mutated human race. He recruits to his side a number of rather dangerous and unsavory characters. And somehow his plans almost always involve killing mutant children or leaving them to die.*
What? That was not only illogical on the face of it--obviously, one who was as invested in the future of mutantkind as Erik was would hardly go about killing mutant children--but utterly out of keeping with what Charles knew of Erik's personality. He had no qualms about making children orphans, but when it came to their lives and persons, he would no more kill a child than any decent man would.
*As to your second question,* said Old Charles, sounding more bitter than Charles had ever heard him, *We talk about very little when we meet. Oh, we'll play the odd game of chess. He's been known to help me when the whim strikes him: rebuilding Cerebro, recruiting the odd mutant, that sort of thing. But God forbid that I should ever play any part in his plans other than staying out of his way.*
The sudden diatribe in the face of almost a year's worth of silence on the subject was overwhelming. Wait, wait, Erik helps us rebuild Cerebro? And then...how can one even use Cerebro to wipe out anyone? It isn't a weapon.
*Charles, my dear boy, Cerebro isn't the weapon. You are.* Old Charles sighed, his tones suddenly less bitter and more weary. Charles found he couldn't touch the substance of that remark without horror and self-revulsion, and he recoiled, pushing his mind into what he hoped would be more productive directions.
He recalled, months ago, Old Charles telling him that his relationships with Erik and Raven had always been on their terms. A dozen questions rose to the surface of his mind like bubbles in a boiling pot, but such unfocused communications were difficult to convey across the strange connection between his mind and his older self's. Finally he managed, Do you ever call upon him?
This seemed to catch Old Charles off-guard. *I beg your pardon?*
You said that he comes to help you but never allows you to return the favor. Do you call and ask for his help?
*I do not,* said Old Charles. *We arrange meetings sometimes--never very often, but occasionally. Sometimes we meet by chance, both being drawn to events that affect the mutant population. In the course of our conversations, I have occasionally...confided in Erik about certain difficulties. He's never been one to confide in me, but I confess that his help was quite invaluable when it came to rebuilding Cerebro.* After a pause, he added sourly, *Although, since the knowledge he gained then was almost certainly what allowed him to manipulate me into attempted genocide, I find I'm not terribly grateful.*
That's years from now, Charles said, struggling to think his way through the mess. Quite a lot happens between now and then. A man doesn't jump straight into that sort of thing. Now, Moira says that Erik is probably recruiting. That makes sense; if his goal is actually to impress upon the human race the inadvisability of attacking mutants, he needs numbers, right?
*Not necessarily,* said Old Charles, thrown out of his dark mood for the moment. *He's done a lot with very few at his side. But I suppose all of that was decades into his stint with the Brotherhood.*
The Brotherhood? Is that what they call themselves? That sounded like some fraternal organization like the Masons, not like a political group.
Old Charles laughed. *Well, better than the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which is what they took to calling themselves for a while in the nineties. They were trying to be ironic, I think. But to return to the point, you're right--at this point, recruiting would be the most logical step. Emma Frost hasn't got the range that you have, and they don't have Cerebro, so the CIA would doubtless be the best place to look for information about other mutants.*
What if.... Charles rotated the idea in his mind, examining it from every angle. What if I offered to help him?
Old Charles was silent for a long moment. *What,* he said at last, too flat to be a question.
Well, you've said it yourself. Erik has both helped and hurt you over the years; it doesn't seem like you've done much of anything but get in his way. React to his actions. If we make the first move--if we reach out to him first--isn't there a chance that could change the whole tenor of our relationship? Couldn't we prevent all those things in the future?
*Charles. I know how you feel....*
I rather doubt that you do. Old Charles had taken on his old, pedantic tones, and they irritated Charles more than he was able to express.
*Don't be absurd,* said Old Charles. *Nobody knows how you feel better than I do. I've spent years, decades telling myself the same thing. 'Swallow your pride, just sit down and talk with him, anything's better than nothing.' You don't know how many conversations I've had with him, how many times I've tried to keep him from getting himself killed. But the truth is, the philosophical gap between us is too large. I will never be willing to cut myself and mutantkind off from humanity. For all Erik's claims to wish for equality, what he truly wants is supremacy. To be 'a god among insects,' as it were. Tell me, where is the middle ground between those two positions?*
There's a hell of a lot of middle ground between a political disagreement and killing one another, said Charles, warming to his argument.
*Do you think I have ever, ever wanted Erik dead?* Old Charles's anger was like a storm viewed through windows: distant, but still intimidating. *There is no one on this earth whom I love the way I love him. I don't think I'm even capable of loving another being that way. But to try to build bridges with humanity with one hand and to reach out to a man who thinks nothing of killing humans with the other--it's selfish, Charles. If you think the school would be threatened by the revelation that you're a homosexual, how much more do you think associating with a murderer, a terrorist even, would hurt your students? In the last decade of my life, the only real connection I had to Erik was that I occasionally visited him in prison for a game of chess, and that was enough to send soldiers with guns to the school in the middle of the night. How will you explain it to the human members of your faculty, that you've decided to track down and help someone who thinks they're Cro-Magnons to be erased from the face of the earth?*
I said the wrong thing on the beach, said Charles. The non-sequitur seemed to derail Old Charles for a moment. I knew it as soon as I'd said it. That 'just following orders' bit. And again, when I told Erik I didn't want what he wanted. I could hardly think at the time, but now it strikes me that I didn't have a clue what he wanted. I still don't know. And I said the wrong thing to Raven, again and again. I've paid dearly for it. Don't you think--if there's even a chance I might say the right thing, if I can show Erik that maybe we do want some of the same things--it's worth the risk? Yes, I might fuck it up again, and I know the consequences for that could be dire. But if by some miracle I don't, couldn't we change the future for the better? We may have already begun. Isn't it worth trying?
Old Charles was silent for so long that Charles feared he'd sent his older self away. They'd never really argued like this before, and Old Charles, like Charles himself, showed a marked preference for avoiding conflicts. Perhaps Old Charles was right. Looking back, Charles had never really been able to keep Erik from doing anything, particularly not when set against Erik's sense of vengeance. Still. It wasn't as if Old Charles's way had worked all that well, either. Perhaps if Charles did fuck it up again and got himself killed, they could both go haunt the next version of Charles Xavier to come down the pike.
Charles had just about given up on receiving an answer and was about to devote himself to his sandwich when Old Charles said, quietly, *What sort of help do you think you could offer him that he would accept?*
Cautiously, Charles said, I think he and I both want the same thing right now: better ways of finding new recruits. You said that, at some point in the future, Erik helps you rebuild Cerebro. Why not now? We've got Hank, Yasuo, and Moira, and maybe Levene can find some of Mann's old files. There are already contractors coming in and out to renovate the school who could get the job started--it's actually quite a good time, everything's in flux as it is. Cerebro's net casts rather wide, and will probably cast wider, now that my own range has expanded. We're likely to get quite a mix of people, some of whom will find themselves more in sympathy with me and some more with Erik. If we include Erik and Shaw's former associates willingly--well, perhaps we can pool resources.
*Moira's not likely to approve,* said Old Charles, not sounding at all certain whether he approved, either. *Erik's killed two CIA agents, and Shaw's friends killed more.*
Including Mann, I know. Raven had been so terrified after the massacre at Mann's facility. She'd suffered nightmares for a week afterward, so vivid and horrifying that they woke Charles. He hadn't had the courage to comfort her afterwards, though, for fear she'd attack him for breaking his promise to stay out of her mind. It was amazing to Charles that she'd been able to put all that aside to join with Quested and Azazel. Still, If this all works out, perhaps we can prevent any more CIA agents from getting killed.
*Perhaps,* said Old Charles dispassionately. Then, *Talk to Hank and Yasuo first. If you can get them excited about the prospect of rebuilding Cerebro, they're more likely to be on your side when it comes to convincing Moira.*
On the contrary, said Charles. If Moira agrees with me about the strategic value of going to Erik, the battle's half won. I'm talking to her as soon as she gets back from her date.
*Of course. Given the decisiveness with which you ignore my opinions, it's really a wonder you bother to ask for them at all.*
Charles tried to apologize while at the same time not giving any ground, but Old Charles really had gone this time, perhaps hiding himself in his memories of the past--a future that Charles had to hope would never come to pass.
**
In the end, Charles's plan was revealed in one big conversation rather than a series of little ones. He hadn't really planned it that way, but as soon as he started talking to Moira she'd held up a finger and said, "Wait. I think this is a conversation that the rest of the faculty need to be in on." She'd darted out, and before Charles knew it, his study was filled with all three human instructors, Rachel, Hank, Armando, and Alex and Sean, who'd come home for the weekend. Well, thought Charles, at least this probably meant that Moira wouldn't bring up his futile passion for Erik.
On the downside, it was a very complicated conversation, given that, as soon as he'd gotten a few sentences about it out, Hank had gasped, Alex had shouted, "Hell, no!" and Alicia, practical as ever, had asked, "Who's Erik?"
Moira gave a brief and surprisingly even-handed summation of their meeting and ultimate break with Erik Lehnsherr. Alex came very close to blasting a hole in the wall as she neared the end of the story; he had to leave the room, Armando following on his heels, so as to avoid waking the children and wrecking the study while Moira finished.
When the tale was complete, Jennifer blinked, taken aback. "Wow," was all she managed.
Alicia frowned. "When I agreed to work here, nobody mentioned anything about secret government facilities and, and mutant supremacist murderers. I'm not going to be a party to anything illegal."
Given his druthers, Charles wouldn't have mentioned the recent attack on the CIA at all, but Moira seemed to have adopted something of a free information policy these days. "Of course," he said, deciding that it would be a mistake at this point to bring up Alicia's repeated use of tax fraud to make a point every time the government did something of which she disapproved. "I completely understand. Of course, nothing that you did could be construed as criminal. Erik's never been convicted of a crime in the United States, and Cerebro was originally designed under the CIA's auspices."
"Could you guarantee our safety?" asked Alicia, raising an eyebrow. God bless Alicia, she was thinking of Erik's "Brotherhood" more as anarchists rather than some sort of superhuman threat.
Charles gave the matter serious thought. Despite what Old Charles had said, Charles didn't honestly believe that Erik would harm any of the children at the school, or the original team who'd worked with them the previous fall. The more he thought about it, provided that Yasuo, Alicia, and Jennifer offered him no threat, he didn't think Erik would hurt them, either. Erik was capable of great violence, certainly, but he didn't go out of his way to offer harm to people who hadn't hurt him. He hadn't trusted the CIA, but it would never have occurred to him to attack them before the missiles had fired on them in Cuba. His associates were another story, but Charles couldn't believe that Raven would hurt any of them, and surely between them they could keep the rest of the Brotherhood in line. "I think so," he finally told Alicia.
"I don't know, Professor," said Sean, staring at his feet, a turmoil of emotion disturbing his thoughts. "I thought Erik made it pretty clear he wasn't interested in being friends with us anymore when he, you know, left us in Cuba." Under the mild sarcasm was real hurt; he hadn't looked up to Erik the way Alex had, but he'd liked him, and he hadn't understood what any of them had done that was so awful they had to be left behind with a seriously injured Charles to fend for themselves. Which was fair enough--Charles didn't really understand that, either.
Yasuo scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Well, it seems to me like there are two questions here, right?" he said. "Question one, do we rebuild Cerebro and question two, do we call up Erik Lehnsherr to help us with it? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think we can probably do the one without the other. I mean, Hank, have you got a decent recollection of the original design?"
"Sure," said Hank, who was always willing to devote himself to a scientific project. "I've still got some of my notes from the original, the ones I kept in my apartment rather than at the office. With the three of us plus Moira, we could get it rebuilt, no problem."
Charles sighed. "Yes, but that would rather defeat one of my main purposes with this project--to reconnect with Erik's group so that the only two groups working towards mutant acceptance in the United States aren't working at cross-purposes."
"I got news for Erik," said Alex, who had just reappeared with a long-suffering Armando. "Nobody's gonna accept mutants if he goes around killing people."
"No such thing as a nonviolent revolution," Armando said with a shrug. Every head in the room turned to look at him.
Charles thought for a moment before picking up the reference. "Malcolm X," he said. He'd read a transcript of the "Message to the Grass Roots" the previous week. Armando nodded at him with surprised approval.
"What?" asked Hank, confused.
Armando looked around the room, almost nervous, before shrugging again. "I don't know how much you guys follow all the stuff going on down south, but I've been watching it pretty closely. I got some cousins down there. And you got a couple different ideas, right? You got the idea of nonviolent protest, and you got the idea of revolution. And I'm not saying that nonviolent protest doesn't do anything--I guess it worked pretty well for Gandhi, and it takes a lot of guts to do it right. But I can understand the revolution guys, too. It's easy to say 'turn the other cheek,' but it's a lot harder to do, and it's hard to see why you should have to."
"Sure," said Yasuo, nodding. "That's why my older brother wouldn't join the army during the last world war, when the government stuck the whole neighborhood in a shitty camp out in the desert. But what are you getting at?"
"I don't know," said Armando. "Just--I can see where Erik's coming from, where maybe he might not want to sit around and wait for people to pass a constitutional amendment about mutant rights. I'm not saying he's right, going around attacking CIA facilities or whatever, but...maybe there's room for both, you know? Like, you can have a nonviolent movement and a revolution movement, and maybe they can be more than the sum of their parts."
"Exactly," said Charles, delighted. "Couldn't have said it better myself."
"Oh, yeah?" asked Alicia. "How do you accomplish that without both movements being hypocrites?"
"If nobody ever worked with someone they disagreed with, nothing would ever get done." Charles looked at Moira in surprise; she was the last person he'd ever expect to be willing to work with Erik, given that the man had tried to kill her and had killed some of her former colleagues. Moira noticed his expression and said, "What? Last year, you were about the only one who could do anything to keep Erik in line. Maybe you can keep his group from escalating their attacks now."
Charles wouldn't count on it, but he wasn't about to give up Moira's support, either, so he acknowledged her words with a nod and turned to Rachel. "Rachel," he said, "you've been rather quiet. What do you think about all this?"
Rachel looked at her hands, turning them over before putting them in her pockets. "I guess I don't have an opinion on whether we call your...your friend or not. I'm not all that into politics, and if you say it won't be a problem legally, I believe you. But I really do think you should set up that Cerebro thing. When... this happened"--she removed one hand from her pockets and gestured at her face as if to indicate her blue complexion, "I thought my life was over. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life afraid to leave my house, totally alone. But since I've come here...." Her voice became choked up with joy, which cut Charles with guilt like a knife, because now she hardly ever left his house. "I've got people who accept me the way I am, who think there's actually something positive about all this, and I think everybody should have that. If there are other people out there like us, who think they're the only one, we should change that. We should find them and tell them that we're here, and if Cerebro will help us do that, I'm all for it."
Jennifer reached out to clasp Rachel's hand and they shared a smile. Sean looked at their joined hands and then at Charles. "What does Old Charles say?" he asked.
Charles hesitated. He could lie at this point--tell them Old Charles was all for it. But these days he was increasingly dubious about his ability to lie without Moira seeing through it. She was unsettlingly like Raven that way. And what good would lying do? Alicia and Rachel still thought the whole situation with Old Charles was bizarre and disturbing; his endorsement wasn't likely to make them support anything. "He doesn't like the idea," he said finally. "But then, his Erik has done a lot of things that Erik in our time hasn't done yet, and might never do. I don't think it's fair to blame someone for acts they might commit in the future."
"Especially if the point is to get them not to do those things in the future, yeah, I get it," said Sean with a nod. He shrugged. "Yeah, okay," he said. "If Moira thinks it's a good idea."
Moira did, and as Moira MacTaggert went, so went the rest of the faculty. But Charles had a sneaking suspicion that it was Armando's words whispered in his ear, more than anything else, that made Alex nod eventually and say, "Whatever. I guess I can deal with it."
Part 4
Part 2
In the end, it was Armando's resurrection and the revelation of Old Charles more than anything Charles could say that made Moira sigh and tell them, "My lease is up at the end of the month. I've got a job doing secretarial work for the law school right now, but it's boring me out of my skull. If my room in your castle is still open in two weeks, Charles, I'll see you then." Despite her practicality, she had always been fond of the unexplained.
*I'm still not entirely certain about the course you're heading on,* said Old Charles on the drive back home, *but if you're determined to follow through with it, this is a good first step. Moira's a dear friend, and she can bring both government and human perspectives to the table if you're looking to predict the response to bringing mutants into the public debate.*
Well, I was hardly going to go on the Tonight Show, Charles answered. It's simply a logical conclusion based on what you've told me. If so many problems have been brought about because the only visible mutants are criminals, then a logical way to combat them is to gradually acclimatize human society to the existence of mutants and then find a way for us to be both equally protected and equally accountable under the law.
*You overestimate how easy that would be rather gravely, I think. Mutant criminals will always pose a unique challenge to the criminal justice system--some cannot be contained without the prior discoveries of unconscionable 'scientific' research, and the ensuing isolation makes them especially vulnerable to abuse.*
Well, wasn't Old Charles just a constant ray of sunshine? You think I haven't thought of that? he asked. For me, you certainly don't know me very well. But I don't think the fact that something will be difficult isn't a reason not to try it at all.
Old Charles's presence in Charles's head seemed to be wrapped in layers of affectionate pride and frustration and fear. He was rather a complicated fellow, all told. *Proceed with caution,* he said. *Someone can learn that you are a mutant without learning quite all of what that means.*
Of course. A few indiscretions aside, Charles rather thought that he was uniquely qualified to keep secrets. He'd had so much practice.
True to her word, Moira arrived at the mansion at the beginning of July, having shed the summery dresses she'd worn in Cambridge in favor of the blazers and tweed in which Charles was accustomed to see her. Charles was mildly curious as to whether this meant she was more or less comfortable at the mansion than in a college town surrounded by academics and beatniks, but he really was making a concerted effort to stay out of her head and it seemed like a strange and presumptuous thing to ask about. He'd never worried so much about that sort of thing before, but the last eight months (and more particularly the last few weeks of traveling) had made him quite sensitive to the way the annoyance of an ignorant question could derail a good mood.
It would be a lie to say that things went on as if Moira had never left. To start with, Moira had never lived at the mansion at the same time as Armando and Scott. If Charles had ever harbored secret wishes that Moira might take on a motherly role to Scott, he would have been disappointed; being a woman who had been told a few too many times that sooner or later she would desire motherhood, she was in fact rather uncomfortable around Scott and treated him with the same kind of businesslike brusqueness with which she treated all of them. There was nothing hostile about it, but nor was there much of the friendship that had formed between them while they were all preparing to face Shaw. Charles put it down to distrust; after all, Alex, Sean, and Hank had gone along with Charles's initial decision to erase her memory. It would have to remain a mystery until such time as she chose to address it, since Charles was devoting quite honest efforts to keeping her thoughts out of his mind and wholly lacked the courage to bring it up with her himself.
Still, awkwardness aside, it really was fantastic to have Moira about. Besides being a curious and very competent assistant in Hank's lab, she had far more administrative experience than any of the rest of them (having undergone long years of secretarial work in the CIA before she had been allowed to graduate to field agent status), and every day revealed a new decisiveness in her character, one that had perhaps been overshadowed in the past by Erik's rather forceful presence. Under her aegis, the work of establishing the school resumed at a much accelerated pace. Yasuo Takiguchi agreed to join the faculty. So did Alicia Downing and two elementary school teachers, one, Jennifer Honey, human and one, Rachel Argosy, mutant.
It would have been impossible to conceal the true nature of the school from any of them once they arrived--Hank's presence alone would have rendered it impracticable, and the whole point of the place was for mutants to have a place they could feel safe. In order to prevent any unfortunate...mishaps, Moira suggested that each instructor tour the facility before signing any contracts. Even she had admitted that, should things go wrong, the situation might call for a little memory-altering on Charles's part, though she'd gritted her teeth as she said it.
To everyone's pleasant surprise, the issue never even came up. Yasuo was a man of science who was more interested in Hank's lab than in his appearance; Alicia's primary concern was with the messes Sean and Alex tended to produce; there was a very real chance that Jennifer was a saint. Charles probably shouldn't have been so taken aback that the human instructors reacted as well as they did to the revelation of radical human mutation. After all, Moira and Agents Levene and Mann had accepted Charles and Erik and Raven easily enough. Still, it was a revelation to Charles, who'd rather found himself falling into an uncomfortable "us vs. them" mentality the past half-year or so. The human mind, when asked to accept the strange and heretofore impossible and faced with incontrovertible proof, could, every now and then, rise to the occasion. It was enough to warm any scientist's heart.
As for Rachel, who looked a bit like Raven with black hair and no scales, well, she'd been fired from her job and ostracized by her community when her mutation revealed itself. She was simply overjoyed at the chance to teach again.
With the help of Old Charles, they found more students, those who were most profoundly in need of a place to go: a little girl, Ororo Munroe, who could control the weather but was picking pockets on the streets of Cairo; a teenager, Cessily Kincaid, whose body looked like liquid metal and whose parents kept her essentially under house arrest; a young Dutch man named Barnell Bohusk with wings and a bird's beak who was surviving mostly by eating out of trash cans in Amsterdam in the middle of the night. As air travel was extremely difficult for Charles to negotiate, between his wheelchair and the extreme mutations of some of the new students, in this, too, Moira's help proved invaluable. By the time Alex and Sean headed off for college in September, the school was, in fact, starting to look like a school.
There was simply no comparing the fall of 1963 with that of 1962. They might have taken place in two altogether different worlds. The latter had seen Charles Xavier, member of a convert CIA strike team, lose his legs, his sister, and quite possibly the love of his life; the former found Charles Xavier, headmaster of a small but promising private academy, working with his colleagues to develop curricula suited to the vastly varying requirements of his diverse student body, grading tests, and every now and then trying to make time for a workout in his gym. There simply weren't enough hours in the day to regret his complete lack of a social life, and that was just fine with Charles. It was almost a relief not to have to think about that sort of thing.
Perhaps it was because he had gotten so out of the habit of thinking of such personal matters that it came as such a surprise when Moira came into his study one night to announce, "I've got a date."
Charles was currently trying to beat Old Charles at chess, the first game he'd had time for in weeks. "Hm," he said, trying to sound as if he were listening.
"Yasuo asked me to go with him to that new James Bond film. From Russia with Love? It'll probably be ridiculous, but I guess it could be fun. I haven't gone on a real date in years."
"That's lovely," said Charles, still distracted. "Have fun." He really ought to have castled much earlier in the game; it was probably too late now.
*How odd,* said Old Charles. *Why on earth is she staring at us like that?*
It was this remark that made Charles look up. Moira was, in fact, staring at Charles like she was trying to read his mind. She was also quite dressed up. Charles was sure he'd never seen that much of Moira's chest before. If she'd been Raven, he'd have suggested she put on a jacket to avoid being cold, but he hardly thought Moira would welcome such a comment.
"Charles," she said. "When you erased my memory--" Charles winced. No conversation that began that way could possibly end well for him. "--why did you kiss me?"
Now that was a question he hadn't expected. "What?"
She sat down across from him at the chess table, crossing her arms and looking at him with her usual no-nonsense firmness. "I've been curious for a while, but we've been so busy and, to be honest, I wasn't in any mood for a personal conversation with you. But it's been a few months, and I'm not the mind-reader here, so I just thought I'd ask. Why did you kiss me?"
Charles looked down and distracted himself with a bishop, unable to meet her forthright glance. "What do you mean? You're a very pretty woman, I needed to be in physical contact with you anyway, I shouldn't think that much of an explanation would be needed."
"With another man? Perhaps not," Moira said, arching her eyebrows. "With you? You have the strangest romantic techniques of any man I've ever met, Charles Xavier. With you, I'm curious."
"Do you mean am I jealous that you're going out with Yasuo?" Charles hazarded. "Because I'm not. Obviously, if there were ever a time you and I might have gotten together, that time's long past."
"That isn't what I mean, although, for the record, I wouldn't give a shit if you were jealous. I don't need your permission to go out with whomever I like."
Charles set down the bishop. Ah, yes, he thought. This was why he was well shut of all this romantic business. "I never said you did. What's this all about?"
Moira sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'm completely off-base with this, but..." She looked to the ceiling as if asking God for assistance before continuing. "Let me tell you a little story about my old partner at the CIA, Sam Levene."
What the hell is she talking about? he asked Old Charles.
*I haven't the faintest,* said Old Charles, sounding genuinely baffled. *The last time I had such a confusing conversation with Moira, she was preparing to adopt Rahne, but she hasn't even been born yet!*
Charles decided not to ask who the hell Rahne was. Instead, he said to Moira, "You wouldn't by any chance like to let me read your mind, would you? Only so I can figure out what this conversation is about."
"Not a chance, Xavier," said Moira, narrowing her eyes at him. "Anyway. Levene. He was a nice guy. Not really the take-charge kind, not enough imagination to think on his feet the way you need to in that business sometimes, but a very competent agent. He didn't have a problem working with me, which wasn't something you could say about many agents, you know?"
Charles nodded.
"But there was something a little odd about Levene. He used to hit on me sometimes. Nothing too terrible, and not when we were alone. Everybody from the director to the janitor hit on me sometimes, so I didn't take it too personally. A lot of those guys were married--at least Levene didn't have a wife at home who could accuse me of seducing him.
"So like I said, it didn't bother me too much. But after a while, I started to notice something about the way Levene hit on me. Every time he did it, it was like he was playing a role--he'd talk one way, grin real big, square his shoulders when we were around other people, but then we'd step out of the room and everything about him would change, his expression, his posture, the way he talked. For a little bit, it confused me. And then it occurred to me that he wasn't hitting on me because he was attracted to me, or because he didn't respect me, or because it was just something he did around women."
Charles had the sinking suspicion that he knew where this story was going, but he played along nonetheless. "Why was he doing it, then?"
Moira looked at her hands. Her fingers twisted together in front of the chessboard. "He was doing it to keep a secret." She looked up again, fixing Charles with the weight of her gaze. "I suppose I can trust you to keep the secret, too?"
Charles leaned back and spread his hands in what he hoped was an open, questioning gesture. "Why on earth would I spread gossip about a CIA agent whom, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I've never met?"
She nodded, a wry smile tugging at one corner of her lips. "Right. Well, Levene shared a house with a man named Joe Rosenberg. Joe worked at General Electric, making computer equipment, I think. I met him once or twice. Nice guy. As far as everyone in their neighborhood was concerned, Sam and Joe were just two single guys splitting the rent on a house until one of them got married."
"But you thought differently," said Charles carefully.
"Well," Moira said, "all I can say is, if my ex-husband had ever once looked at me the way I saw Sam Levene look at Joe Rosenberg the morning I picked him up to go spy on the Hellfire Club in Vegas, maybe I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to divorce him."
Charles swallowed. She knows, she knows, she knows, he couldn't stop from thinking.
*Of course she doesn't,* said Old Charles, sounding less as if he were convinced and more as if he were trying to convince himself. *We've been friends for over twenty years, not counting that business in Cuba, and she's never spoken with me about that. Now lock it down before you frighten the children.*
"Why are you telling me this story?" Charles finally managed. His mouth felt dry.
Moira inhaled slowly. She looked as if she were going to reach out her hand to Charles's before deciding against it; still, he thought there was compassion in her eyes. "I guess because...if any man looked at me the way you used to look at Erik Lehnsherr, I sure as hell wouldn't leave him with a bullet in his back on the beach in Cuba."
Charles remembered how it had felt when he had first realized he was paralyzed--that horrible mix of pain in his back and nothingness in his legs and the sun burning too hot and too bright in his eyes. It might have been an exaggeration to compare that moment to this one. After all, Moira was hardly the first person to think--to understand, rather, that Charles was a homosexual. It was an insult Cain had thrown about numerous times in their youth. But though a number of people had realized his attraction to men in the past, only Moira, it seemed, had realized that it went deeper than sexual attraction when it came to this particular man. It was a stunning feeling, as if he sat naked in front of her, unable to speak or move or scarcely even to breathe. Even his attempts to reach outward with his mind for others' equilibrium failed. He was an insect trapped on a pin.
Pulling her hand back to her purse, Moira took an envelope out and pushed it across the table in Charles's direction. "Levene sent me this last week. He and I both thought there was more to this memory loss thing than the higher-ups would admit, so he's been keeping an eye out for me. He's putting a lot on the line."
Still reeling internally, Charles took the envelope. Inside was a small pile of black and white photographs, seemingly the product of a hidden camera. He sifted through them, feeling as if someone was squeezing their hand around his chest. Erik, still wearing that helmet, opening a file cabinet with nothing more than a gesture. Emma Frost, sorting through files. Both of them vanishing in a dark cloud through which the vague silhouette of, apparently, Satan could be seen. The accompanying note said, "Moira--Think Mann was on to something? Pictures from new CIA Op Center facility in Chicago. SL."
"What do you want me to do with this?" Charles asked, setting the photos down in the middle of the chessboard and looking up into Moira's solemn eyes.
Moira shrugged. "I don't know, Charles. But it's clear that Erik's making his move." She tapped the photos. "A lot of backup files from various facilities--including Mann's--were sent to this CIA Op Center office."
Of course, thought Charles, suddenly savagely angry with himself. He'd thought he was so clever, having the CIA agents destroy their own files, but he'd forgotten that some knowledge had been lost when Agent Mann and his assistants at the first Cerebro facility were killed. The only people who'd known about some of his work were gone, and so the files outlived the men who had written them. They'd been in the CIA's hands all this time, and now they were in Erik's. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"If I had to guess," Moira continued, "I'd say he's probably recruiting." She stood up suddenly, brushing imaginary wrinkles and dust from her skirt. "I admire what you're doing here," she said. "Your efforts to make a place for these kids, putting Alex and Sean through school, the science you're doing with Hank. But you'd better think about what you're going to do if Erik turns out to be the next Sebastian Shaw."
Charles's anger was swiftly turned outwards. "Don't you dare say that," he said. "Erik isn't Shaw. You can't even compare them."
Moira was silent for a long moment. "Maybe not," she said. "But two junior agents on watch duty were found dead outside the door of that file room. They'd been strangled with lengths of pipe. You know me, I've never thought that mutants in general pose a threat to the security of this nation, any more than I've ever thought that homosexuals pose a threat to security. But if Erik's not careful, he's likely to make some powerful enemies in some high places." She blew out a long huff of air before saying, "Well, anyway, I've got a date. Best go fix my hair."
"Your hair looks fine," said Charles automatically, used to this sort of thing after years being the main source of emotional support for a younger sister. "Moira, about Erik and me...."
"I won't tell anyone," she said. "You're not the only one who can keep a secret, Xavier." She laughed, once, long and low, and added, "But I think there's a fair chance some of them already know and just don't think about it loudly enough to end up on your radar. You're not as subtle as you think you are."
And with that, she whirled out of the room.
Charles pled illness to avoid having to go down to supper. Hank, ever suspicious, would have insisted on fully examining him but for Armando and Jennifer's calling him down to help keep the children in order. In the end, Charles was left with nothing but a sandwich and the dubious company of Old Charles.
Well? he demanded. What is this? What's Erik up to?
*To be honest, I've no idea,* said Old Charles. He seemed stunned, whether it was by the revelation that his feelings for Erik had not gone so unnoticed as he supposed or by the photographs Moira had shown them. *This is...the timeline has obviously been changed quite radically. In my life, I neither saw nor heard anything of Erik for another three years, and then he was quite cagey as to what he had been doing.*
Well, bloody think about it for a moment! said Charles, frustrated. He'd been perfectly content to avoid the issue of Erik with Old Charles, both to spare his older self's feelings and his own, but surely if Erik was going to make a habit of breaking into government facilities, he had something larger in mind. What is Erik doing in the future? What do you and he talk about when you meet?
There was a moment in which it felt as if Charles's head would burst, as if Old Charles had grown in size and force so as to push his way out, but the moment passed and Old Charles said, *As to your first question, he does quite a lot of things in the future. He tries to induce mutations in non-mutated humans. He tries to use Cerebro to wipe out the entirety of the non-mutated human race. He recruits to his side a number of rather dangerous and unsavory characters. And somehow his plans almost always involve killing mutant children or leaving them to die.*
What? That was not only illogical on the face of it--obviously, one who was as invested in the future of mutantkind as Erik was would hardly go about killing mutant children--but utterly out of keeping with what Charles knew of Erik's personality. He had no qualms about making children orphans, but when it came to their lives and persons, he would no more kill a child than any decent man would.
*As to your second question,* said Old Charles, sounding more bitter than Charles had ever heard him, *We talk about very little when we meet. Oh, we'll play the odd game of chess. He's been known to help me when the whim strikes him: rebuilding Cerebro, recruiting the odd mutant, that sort of thing. But God forbid that I should ever play any part in his plans other than staying out of his way.*
The sudden diatribe in the face of almost a year's worth of silence on the subject was overwhelming. Wait, wait, Erik helps us rebuild Cerebro? And then...how can one even use Cerebro to wipe out anyone? It isn't a weapon.
*Charles, my dear boy, Cerebro isn't the weapon. You are.* Old Charles sighed, his tones suddenly less bitter and more weary. Charles found he couldn't touch the substance of that remark without horror and self-revulsion, and he recoiled, pushing his mind into what he hoped would be more productive directions.
He recalled, months ago, Old Charles telling him that his relationships with Erik and Raven had always been on their terms. A dozen questions rose to the surface of his mind like bubbles in a boiling pot, but such unfocused communications were difficult to convey across the strange connection between his mind and his older self's. Finally he managed, Do you ever call upon him?
This seemed to catch Old Charles off-guard. *I beg your pardon?*
You said that he comes to help you but never allows you to return the favor. Do you call and ask for his help?
*I do not,* said Old Charles. *We arrange meetings sometimes--never very often, but occasionally. Sometimes we meet by chance, both being drawn to events that affect the mutant population. In the course of our conversations, I have occasionally...confided in Erik about certain difficulties. He's never been one to confide in me, but I confess that his help was quite invaluable when it came to rebuilding Cerebro.* After a pause, he added sourly, *Although, since the knowledge he gained then was almost certainly what allowed him to manipulate me into attempted genocide, I find I'm not terribly grateful.*
That's years from now, Charles said, struggling to think his way through the mess. Quite a lot happens between now and then. A man doesn't jump straight into that sort of thing. Now, Moira says that Erik is probably recruiting. That makes sense; if his goal is actually to impress upon the human race the inadvisability of attacking mutants, he needs numbers, right?
*Not necessarily,* said Old Charles, thrown out of his dark mood for the moment. *He's done a lot with very few at his side. But I suppose all of that was decades into his stint with the Brotherhood.*
The Brotherhood? Is that what they call themselves? That sounded like some fraternal organization like the Masons, not like a political group.
Old Charles laughed. *Well, better than the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which is what they took to calling themselves for a while in the nineties. They were trying to be ironic, I think. But to return to the point, you're right--at this point, recruiting would be the most logical step. Emma Frost hasn't got the range that you have, and they don't have Cerebro, so the CIA would doubtless be the best place to look for information about other mutants.*
What if.... Charles rotated the idea in his mind, examining it from every angle. What if I offered to help him?
Old Charles was silent for a long moment. *What,* he said at last, too flat to be a question.
Well, you've said it yourself. Erik has both helped and hurt you over the years; it doesn't seem like you've done much of anything but get in his way. React to his actions. If we make the first move--if we reach out to him first--isn't there a chance that could change the whole tenor of our relationship? Couldn't we prevent all those things in the future?
*Charles. I know how you feel....*
I rather doubt that you do. Old Charles had taken on his old, pedantic tones, and they irritated Charles more than he was able to express.
*Don't be absurd,* said Old Charles. *Nobody knows how you feel better than I do. I've spent years, decades telling myself the same thing. 'Swallow your pride, just sit down and talk with him, anything's better than nothing.' You don't know how many conversations I've had with him, how many times I've tried to keep him from getting himself killed. But the truth is, the philosophical gap between us is too large. I will never be willing to cut myself and mutantkind off from humanity. For all Erik's claims to wish for equality, what he truly wants is supremacy. To be 'a god among insects,' as it were. Tell me, where is the middle ground between those two positions?*
There's a hell of a lot of middle ground between a political disagreement and killing one another, said Charles, warming to his argument.
*Do you think I have ever, ever wanted Erik dead?* Old Charles's anger was like a storm viewed through windows: distant, but still intimidating. *There is no one on this earth whom I love the way I love him. I don't think I'm even capable of loving another being that way. But to try to build bridges with humanity with one hand and to reach out to a man who thinks nothing of killing humans with the other--it's selfish, Charles. If you think the school would be threatened by the revelation that you're a homosexual, how much more do you think associating with a murderer, a terrorist even, would hurt your students? In the last decade of my life, the only real connection I had to Erik was that I occasionally visited him in prison for a game of chess, and that was enough to send soldiers with guns to the school in the middle of the night. How will you explain it to the human members of your faculty, that you've decided to track down and help someone who thinks they're Cro-Magnons to be erased from the face of the earth?*
I said the wrong thing on the beach, said Charles. The non-sequitur seemed to derail Old Charles for a moment. I knew it as soon as I'd said it. That 'just following orders' bit. And again, when I told Erik I didn't want what he wanted. I could hardly think at the time, but now it strikes me that I didn't have a clue what he wanted. I still don't know. And I said the wrong thing to Raven, again and again. I've paid dearly for it. Don't you think--if there's even a chance I might say the right thing, if I can show Erik that maybe we do want some of the same things--it's worth the risk? Yes, I might fuck it up again, and I know the consequences for that could be dire. But if by some miracle I don't, couldn't we change the future for the better? We may have already begun. Isn't it worth trying?
Old Charles was silent for so long that Charles feared he'd sent his older self away. They'd never really argued like this before, and Old Charles, like Charles himself, showed a marked preference for avoiding conflicts. Perhaps Old Charles was right. Looking back, Charles had never really been able to keep Erik from doing anything, particularly not when set against Erik's sense of vengeance. Still. It wasn't as if Old Charles's way had worked all that well, either. Perhaps if Charles did fuck it up again and got himself killed, they could both go haunt the next version of Charles Xavier to come down the pike.
Charles had just about given up on receiving an answer and was about to devote himself to his sandwich when Old Charles said, quietly, *What sort of help do you think you could offer him that he would accept?*
Cautiously, Charles said, I think he and I both want the same thing right now: better ways of finding new recruits. You said that, at some point in the future, Erik helps you rebuild Cerebro. Why not now? We've got Hank, Yasuo, and Moira, and maybe Levene can find some of Mann's old files. There are already contractors coming in and out to renovate the school who could get the job started--it's actually quite a good time, everything's in flux as it is. Cerebro's net casts rather wide, and will probably cast wider, now that my own range has expanded. We're likely to get quite a mix of people, some of whom will find themselves more in sympathy with me and some more with Erik. If we include Erik and Shaw's former associates willingly--well, perhaps we can pool resources.
*Moira's not likely to approve,* said Old Charles, not sounding at all certain whether he approved, either. *Erik's killed two CIA agents, and Shaw's friends killed more.*
Including Mann, I know. Raven had been so terrified after the massacre at Mann's facility. She'd suffered nightmares for a week afterward, so vivid and horrifying that they woke Charles. He hadn't had the courage to comfort her afterwards, though, for fear she'd attack him for breaking his promise to stay out of her mind. It was amazing to Charles that she'd been able to put all that aside to join with Quested and Azazel. Still, If this all works out, perhaps we can prevent any more CIA agents from getting killed.
*Perhaps,* said Old Charles dispassionately. Then, *Talk to Hank and Yasuo first. If you can get them excited about the prospect of rebuilding Cerebro, they're more likely to be on your side when it comes to convincing Moira.*
On the contrary, said Charles. If Moira agrees with me about the strategic value of going to Erik, the battle's half won. I'm talking to her as soon as she gets back from her date.
*Of course. Given the decisiveness with which you ignore my opinions, it's really a wonder you bother to ask for them at all.*
Charles tried to apologize while at the same time not giving any ground, but Old Charles really had gone this time, perhaps hiding himself in his memories of the past--a future that Charles had to hope would never come to pass.
**
In the end, Charles's plan was revealed in one big conversation rather than a series of little ones. He hadn't really planned it that way, but as soon as he started talking to Moira she'd held up a finger and said, "Wait. I think this is a conversation that the rest of the faculty need to be in on." She'd darted out, and before Charles knew it, his study was filled with all three human instructors, Rachel, Hank, Armando, and Alex and Sean, who'd come home for the weekend. Well, thought Charles, at least this probably meant that Moira wouldn't bring up his futile passion for Erik.
On the downside, it was a very complicated conversation, given that, as soon as he'd gotten a few sentences about it out, Hank had gasped, Alex had shouted, "Hell, no!" and Alicia, practical as ever, had asked, "Who's Erik?"
Moira gave a brief and surprisingly even-handed summation of their meeting and ultimate break with Erik Lehnsherr. Alex came very close to blasting a hole in the wall as she neared the end of the story; he had to leave the room, Armando following on his heels, so as to avoid waking the children and wrecking the study while Moira finished.
When the tale was complete, Jennifer blinked, taken aback. "Wow," was all she managed.
Alicia frowned. "When I agreed to work here, nobody mentioned anything about secret government facilities and, and mutant supremacist murderers. I'm not going to be a party to anything illegal."
Given his druthers, Charles wouldn't have mentioned the recent attack on the CIA at all, but Moira seemed to have adopted something of a free information policy these days. "Of course," he said, deciding that it would be a mistake at this point to bring up Alicia's repeated use of tax fraud to make a point every time the government did something of which she disapproved. "I completely understand. Of course, nothing that you did could be construed as criminal. Erik's never been convicted of a crime in the United States, and Cerebro was originally designed under the CIA's auspices."
"Could you guarantee our safety?" asked Alicia, raising an eyebrow. God bless Alicia, she was thinking of Erik's "Brotherhood" more as anarchists rather than some sort of superhuman threat.
Charles gave the matter serious thought. Despite what Old Charles had said, Charles didn't honestly believe that Erik would harm any of the children at the school, or the original team who'd worked with them the previous fall. The more he thought about it, provided that Yasuo, Alicia, and Jennifer offered him no threat, he didn't think Erik would hurt them, either. Erik was capable of great violence, certainly, but he didn't go out of his way to offer harm to people who hadn't hurt him. He hadn't trusted the CIA, but it would never have occurred to him to attack them before the missiles had fired on them in Cuba. His associates were another story, but Charles couldn't believe that Raven would hurt any of them, and surely between them they could keep the rest of the Brotherhood in line. "I think so," he finally told Alicia.
"I don't know, Professor," said Sean, staring at his feet, a turmoil of emotion disturbing his thoughts. "I thought Erik made it pretty clear he wasn't interested in being friends with us anymore when he, you know, left us in Cuba." Under the mild sarcasm was real hurt; he hadn't looked up to Erik the way Alex had, but he'd liked him, and he hadn't understood what any of them had done that was so awful they had to be left behind with a seriously injured Charles to fend for themselves. Which was fair enough--Charles didn't really understand that, either.
Yasuo scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Well, it seems to me like there are two questions here, right?" he said. "Question one, do we rebuild Cerebro and question two, do we call up Erik Lehnsherr to help us with it? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think we can probably do the one without the other. I mean, Hank, have you got a decent recollection of the original design?"
"Sure," said Hank, who was always willing to devote himself to a scientific project. "I've still got some of my notes from the original, the ones I kept in my apartment rather than at the office. With the three of us plus Moira, we could get it rebuilt, no problem."
Charles sighed. "Yes, but that would rather defeat one of my main purposes with this project--to reconnect with Erik's group so that the only two groups working towards mutant acceptance in the United States aren't working at cross-purposes."
"I got news for Erik," said Alex, who had just reappeared with a long-suffering Armando. "Nobody's gonna accept mutants if he goes around killing people."
"No such thing as a nonviolent revolution," Armando said with a shrug. Every head in the room turned to look at him.
Charles thought for a moment before picking up the reference. "Malcolm X," he said. He'd read a transcript of the "Message to the Grass Roots" the previous week. Armando nodded at him with surprised approval.
"What?" asked Hank, confused.
Armando looked around the room, almost nervous, before shrugging again. "I don't know how much you guys follow all the stuff going on down south, but I've been watching it pretty closely. I got some cousins down there. And you got a couple different ideas, right? You got the idea of nonviolent protest, and you got the idea of revolution. And I'm not saying that nonviolent protest doesn't do anything--I guess it worked pretty well for Gandhi, and it takes a lot of guts to do it right. But I can understand the revolution guys, too. It's easy to say 'turn the other cheek,' but it's a lot harder to do, and it's hard to see why you should have to."
"Sure," said Yasuo, nodding. "That's why my older brother wouldn't join the army during the last world war, when the government stuck the whole neighborhood in a shitty camp out in the desert. But what are you getting at?"
"I don't know," said Armando. "Just--I can see where Erik's coming from, where maybe he might not want to sit around and wait for people to pass a constitutional amendment about mutant rights. I'm not saying he's right, going around attacking CIA facilities or whatever, but...maybe there's room for both, you know? Like, you can have a nonviolent movement and a revolution movement, and maybe they can be more than the sum of their parts."
"Exactly," said Charles, delighted. "Couldn't have said it better myself."
"Oh, yeah?" asked Alicia. "How do you accomplish that without both movements being hypocrites?"
"If nobody ever worked with someone they disagreed with, nothing would ever get done." Charles looked at Moira in surprise; she was the last person he'd ever expect to be willing to work with Erik, given that the man had tried to kill her and had killed some of her former colleagues. Moira noticed his expression and said, "What? Last year, you were about the only one who could do anything to keep Erik in line. Maybe you can keep his group from escalating their attacks now."
Charles wouldn't count on it, but he wasn't about to give up Moira's support, either, so he acknowledged her words with a nod and turned to Rachel. "Rachel," he said, "you've been rather quiet. What do you think about all this?"
Rachel looked at her hands, turning them over before putting them in her pockets. "I guess I don't have an opinion on whether we call your...your friend or not. I'm not all that into politics, and if you say it won't be a problem legally, I believe you. But I really do think you should set up that Cerebro thing. When... this happened"--she removed one hand from her pockets and gestured at her face as if to indicate her blue complexion, "I thought my life was over. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life afraid to leave my house, totally alone. But since I've come here...." Her voice became choked up with joy, which cut Charles with guilt like a knife, because now she hardly ever left his house. "I've got people who accept me the way I am, who think there's actually something positive about all this, and I think everybody should have that. If there are other people out there like us, who think they're the only one, we should change that. We should find them and tell them that we're here, and if Cerebro will help us do that, I'm all for it."
Jennifer reached out to clasp Rachel's hand and they shared a smile. Sean looked at their joined hands and then at Charles. "What does Old Charles say?" he asked.
Charles hesitated. He could lie at this point--tell them Old Charles was all for it. But these days he was increasingly dubious about his ability to lie without Moira seeing through it. She was unsettlingly like Raven that way. And what good would lying do? Alicia and Rachel still thought the whole situation with Old Charles was bizarre and disturbing; his endorsement wasn't likely to make them support anything. "He doesn't like the idea," he said finally. "But then, his Erik has done a lot of things that Erik in our time hasn't done yet, and might never do. I don't think it's fair to blame someone for acts they might commit in the future."
"Especially if the point is to get them not to do those things in the future, yeah, I get it," said Sean with a nod. He shrugged. "Yeah, okay," he said. "If Moira thinks it's a good idea."
Moira did, and as Moira MacTaggert went, so went the rest of the faculty. But Charles had a sneaking suspicion that it was Armando's words whispered in his ear, more than anything else, that made Alex nod eventually and say, "Whatever. I guess I can deal with it."
Part 4