"It is the greatest gift we have; to bear their pain without breaking. And it's borne from the most human part: hope."

-Charles Xavier

"No," Charles mumbled, his eyes snapping open to reveal pupils filled with panic. Moira turned, startled by the desperation in his voice. "NO! Don't do this, Erik!" he slammed his hand down on the window again, giving into a rare sign of fury. "Damn him!" Charles cursed in a voice hoarse from shouting commands. Moira looked up in sudden alarm as the exclamation was uttered by one of the most improbable people on the face of the planet.

Charles Xavier was no saint, Moira knew that, but he was no defiler of language either. And, as he had continuously informed Sean and Alex, a dam was a large structure built by either humans or beavers to hold something at bay or something inside. It was not an explanative to be used whenever one saw fit.

However, that was in front of his students, and when everything was alright. He said things like that when they were sitting in the study helping him go through endless masses of books and Alex and Sean had decided to build a book house with little to no success. That man was very different from the one who crouched a few feet away from her now. This man reminded her strongly of a military general; focused, determined, brave, his mind stretched to take in every inch of the battlefield as his senses attuned to each of his soldiers.

And this was not the study; this was war.

Or the preventing of it, in all reality. "What is it?" Moira hissed as Charles suddenly surged to his feet. A string of dark chocolate hair, soaked with sweat, wriggled irritatingly in her eyes. She felt as if she were being baked beneath the hot Cuban sun, gutted by the knowledge that if this went wrong…

The world as they knew it would be over.

"That bloody idiot," Was Charles's only answer. His eyes were an opaque shade of blue that Moira had learned meant that he was deep inside of his own mind, probably controlling someone else's. The thought no longer terrified her. Charles shook his head. Moira could see every muscle in his body tense, hesitating.

"Charles…" The hesitation ended as quickly as it began. Suddenly, all she saw was a blur as Charles rocketed past her, and smelled a bit of fragrance that was partly adrenaline and partly British tea.

"Charles!" she shouted after him, jumping to her feet. Her blood rushed in her ears. What was going on? Were they in danger? "What's going on?" She shouted, and heard only a faint sound that was Charles, yelling an answer over his shoulder as he raced from the safety of their destroyed ship towards the submarine where Erik had vanished moments before.

"Erik's in trouble!"

Charles had never run so fast as he did then, his legs working of their own accord. The hot Cuban sand went flying in his footsteps as he jumped over smoking debris and ducked into the darkness of the submarine, all the while thinking of Shaw and Erik in there alone.

He was still holding the villain by his mind, but he had been cut off from Erik. He could feel the rage consuming his friend, devouring him… He could feel the goodness in Erik slipping away, and he would not allow that to happen, or else everything they had fought against would just be born anew.

All the same, he dared not let go of Shaw for fear that he would hurt Erik and escape. Charles could hardly even think of the consequences if Shaw were allowed to roam free. He would cause another world war; he would decimate the human race. Thousands dead, dying a cruel and slow death, another genocide.

Speaking of cruel, slow deaths… Please, Charles thought, one half of him desperately seeking the solace of Erik's psyche, so full of pain but also fostering seeds of true goodness, a goodness such as Charles rarely ever felt. Please don't do this Erik. Be the better man…

Charles choked on grains of sand as he finally found his way into the submarine. His eyes had scarcely taken time to adjust to the dimness of the interior before he was feeling his way through the giant rooms, following the trail of cold revenge that Erik had left. His heart hammered in his ears, a persistent itch of go, go, go, go! that spurred him on. Through Shaw's eyes, he saw Erik standing there, twisting a small coin in his hand. Charles knew what it meant.

Please, Erik….

Shaw's fear became his own. "Now I'm going to count. One…" He was almost there, he could feel it. He could hear Erik's voice. Charles was so close. Shaw's terror sparked an adrenaline rush.

"Two…"

Charles soared over a couch to the inner chamber. There was Erik, a shiny helmet blinking mockingly at Charles, his back turned to him. Shaw standing just in front of Erik, frozen by Charles's power.

"Three…" The coin was touching Shaw's forehead. Charles stopped just inside the doorway, snatching it and hanging on for dear life. He had never run so hard in his life, and his legs did not appreciate the effort.

"Erik, wait!" The coin halted, shook with shock. Erik swiveled, his face the very mask of surprise when he saw who had called his name.

"Charles?" Erik narrowed his eyes. "Get out of here!" He ordered, for some odd reason thinking hat Charles would actually follow his command. Last time the telepath had checked, he was leader of this operation.

"Not until you come to your bloody senses, Erik," Charles cringed at the loudness. It took an enormous amount of concentration to control Shaw for this long. He could feel the man fighting against him.

"He deserves to die!"

"He deserves justice. What you're doing is cold, merciless murder," his control on Shaw was slipping and along with it his physical functions. If he tried to keep this up much longer, he would barely be able to stand, much less help Erik if it came to a fight between them and Shaw. Charles inhaled a deep breath. This was not the right moment for this conversation.

You can't save him, telepath, Shaw's voice muttered in his head. He's mine. He's always been mine. Charles gritted his teeth, a surge of raw determination filling his veins. You've done enough, Shaw. Charles had seen the destruction this maniac had wrought on an innocent boy. He had ruined Erik's life. If Charles had anything to say about it, he would not get his soul too.

"Please, Erik," he pleaded. "Think of Raven. Think of Hank, and Alex and Sean and what a difference you have made in their lives! Think about how they admire you and ask yourself," he inhaled a trembling breath. His head was splitting. "Do you want to tell them that you've murdered a man?"

Erik's eyes flickered with emotion. Through his harsh exterior, it was obvious to see that Erik cared about the children deeply. "I've murdered before," he pointed out.

"That was when you didn't know any better, when you thought you were alone," Charles slowly slid against the doorway. There were black dots swimming in front of his vision. He was so tired, but he had to save Erik.

"Charles?" And judging by the concern he saw in Erik's face, he was doing a good job so far. Erik took a step forward, but hesitated, as if trying to figure out which was more important, killing Shaw or helping Charles. The telepath's heart ached. This is what prejudice had done, it had not only taken the lives of thousands of innocent people, it had scarred the heart of a good man.

"You know better now, Erik. You aren't alone," you aren't alone. His own voice echoed in his head as he dizzily fell to his knees. Erik took a step forward, his brows creased in deep worry.

"Charles! Are you…?"

Shaw broke free with a shout of triumph. Charles cried out as his connection with the man snapped. He went limp against the doorway, energy spent. I'm sorry, Erik. His friend was on his own now. The thought terrified him.

That terror increased when through eyes blurry with weariness, he saw Shaw swipe at Erik with hands charged with unmated power. His friend was went flying across the room. He landed against the metal pole with a loud clang and crumpled to his knees, gasping. "Nice try, boys!" Shaw crowed. His eyes swept the room until they landed on Charles, weak and near unconsciousness on the ground. He nodded appreciatively.

"I have to say, well done, Charles! I very much wish I had had you on my side rather than Ms. Frost," Charles gave him a dry, heated look. He would rather die than join this monster in creating World War III. Shaw pretended not to notice his look of defiance, instead going on.

"Were you the mastermind of all this?" he inquired, gesturing to the destroyed submarine and beyond. "You're just a child!" Charles wanted to protest that his theories and lectures had been heard at some of the greatest institutes in England, he was one of the most powerful telepaths known to mutant-kind (he knew because Cerebro had shown him that there were only a few in existence, most of them ignorant of their powers) and besides, he had successfully hidden a blue girl for a majority of his life. He was no child. But opening his mouth was a great chore, and he was not all that sure he could say much anyway. He felt like he very much wanted to vomit instead.

"Stay away from him!" And there Erik went yelling again. His friend hurtled across the room towards his nemesis, eyes aflame. Charles groaned as the sound of manipulated metal assaulted his eardrums. Shaw turned in time to extend his hand. A blast of pure twisted in the air, spiraling towards Erik. The metal-bender ducked beneath the onslaught, firing back with small bolts and nails as he cautiously made his way towards Charles, surely meaning to protect him.

"Bloody idiot," Xavier muttered again, this being his general opinion of Erik that day. He had a chance to run, and he was worried about Charles? Was he insane?

Erik halted just in front of the doorway, positioning himself in front of Charles protectively. Shaw had one arm raised in defense, standing across from them. Charles saw him shift his eyes towards the radiation machine, contemplating, before he seemed to realize something.

"I'd like my helmet back now, Erik," Shaw said, cocking a finger to indicate 'give it here.' Charles found it slightly irritating that Shaw was staring at them both as if they were nothing more than disobedient and cranky children.

Erik growled low in his throat. His entire body was taut with readiness. Bits of metal swirled in the air around his head, waiting. "Over my dead body," he replied.

"Please don't talk about dead bodies," Charles begged him, because he was not sure how long his body was going to stay intact right then. Erik looked down at him, his eyes concerned, and in that moment, Shaw pulled his last trick.

A gun.

Normally, this would not have bothered Charles. He had seen Erik take guns apart like they were child's play without even touching them, but the gun in Shaw's hand was not metal. It was plastic, the bullets made out of diamond. Shaw pulled the safety off with a muted click. Erik swiveled on his heel, realization registering on his face when he saw the instrument aimed at his heart.

He had planned for this. He had made sure that Erik could not deflect him.

Shaw gave him one last charming grin. "Goodbye, my boy."

Boom.

"No!" Both men had forgotten one detail although. Charles was a telepath, which meant that he had heard Shaw's thought before it was even fully developed, and like a bullet, his own thoughts devoured him in a sudden flash of doubt mingled with stubbornness. Perhaps his dreams of saving mutant-kind and the world and making a difference had all merely been dreams. Perhaps Charles Xavier had finally been defeated. Fine, he thought defiantly, as he struggled to make his aching muscles move. So be it. But if there was one thing he did-could- not tolerate, it was surrender.

And he would not surrender Erik's life.

Charles was moving before Shaw could even pull the trigger, pushing himself agonizingly to his feet. He was too weak to do anything telepathically, he knew that, but beyond his mind he still had one last defense which he could use to save Erik's life. His body.

Quickly, Charles grabbed Erik by the shoulder, turning his back on Shaw in a human shield. No more than two seconds later, he felt a blossoming of intense pain in his shoulder blade. He gasped, shocked more than anything. The second bullet however, made him scream as his entire body was suddenly consumed in fire, beginning at his lower back and spreading until it was in every inch and centimeter of his pores.

His scream seemed to have alerted both Shaw and Erik that the bullets had hit him instead of their intended target. From far away, Charles heard Erik scream his name. He looked up into Erik's eyes and saw everything he himself was feeling: horror, confusion, desperation, admiration. And then he was falling, falling, into other places and other lifetimes….reliving his own nightmares and dreams…Seeing himself over again with the knowledge that it was probably the end.

"I hear voices in my head,"

"The world is on fire!"

"Devil!"

"You don't have to steal. In fact, you never have to steal again,"

"Cambridge it is then,"

"How's that for a magic trick?"

"Shaw has friends. You could do with some,"

"I call it Cerebro,"

"Remarkable!"

"I trust you,"

"Are you ready for this?"

"I'm sorry Charles. It's not that I don't trust you,"

"You aren't alone…"

He saw several faces flash before his sight.

Alex, grinning with relief and pride when he mastered his powers.

Sean, his arms outstretched into parasail's of freedom as he swooped and soared through the air, weightless and careless and letting out booming laughs of happiness.

Hank, hunched over in his lab with a microscope pressed to his eye as he studied their genes, one after another, and his smile of content to find that his genes were not the only ones of their kind on Earth.

Moira, her cheekbones stretched wide in an amused and impressed smile when he had read his thesis aloud one night excitedly.

Erik, his face red with fatigue and yet his entire face bright with a teary smile and near silent laughter when he discovered that place between rage and serenity.

Raven, her snarky half smile in place as she stood above four defeated opponents-including none other than Erik Lenshnerr- in the practice gym, blue form shining with exertion.

His friends. His students. His family.

Charles considered these faces for a fraction of a second, and decided that as long as they lived; then everything was alright. He had not failed after all. A deep sense of content temporarily blocked the pain, and for the first time in his life, Charles Xavier's mind was at peace.

Then it all went dark.

Charles had struck Erik as many different things. Naïve, trusting, intelligent, quirky, optimistic, but above all of these things, Erik had been struck by one thing emanating from Charles, something that the mutant was relatively sure his friend had no idea about.

Charles, from some distant lineage, was a King.

He would probably deny it, but Erik knew it was true. After all, Charles did not ask, he commanded the attention of everyone in the room. That was what made him such a good speaker and mentor. He did not instruct, he guided and to do that he had to be calm, composed, dignified and carry himself not only like a scholar but a Sovereign, and as a Sovereign, he had an innate strength about him. That strength reminded Erik so much of his mother that it had bade him to follow this man all around the world in their shared quest, to play multiple games of chess with him night after night. He had been attracted to that strength like a moth to a bright light, and eventually, he had come to need it.

He needed Charles, and that revelation came to him as the revelation that he needed his mother had come to him. Too late. He had not even fully registered that Shaw had shot at him before he felt Charles's hand grip his shoulder strongly, and the younger man literally threw himself upon him. Their eyes met; sapphire to opaque cerulean, their minds miles apart but for a second, their souls connected. Everything after that happened as if in slow motion.

Erik had watched, helpless, as one diamond bullet tore through Charles's right shoulder. True to the strength Erik had come to associate him with, Charles did not scream. He gasped and jolted, sapphire eyes wide with surprise, but no scream. It was the second shot where he screamed, and the noise cleaved through Erik like a sword. His heart ached in tandem with Charles's body, and he found himself screaming as well.

"CHARLES!" Said man stared at him, a small, reassuring smile on his face. Always reassuring, always comforting, always Charles, even now. He continued smiling and staring for as long as it took for Erik's heart to skip three beats before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

"No!" Erik scrambled to catch him, gently lowering the limp and lifeless body to the ground. Blood soaked through Charles's tight outfit, pooling on the ground beneath him and moistening Erik's hands.

"No," Erik gasped again, gut twisting at the sight of blood. It looked so unnatural on Charles. Charles and red did not go together, it just did not. Red was his color, the color of blood, the color of fire, the color of revenge.

The color of death.

"N-no," this time the word came out as a sob. Erik pressed a trembling finger to the pulse spot on Charles's neck. He exhaled a sigh of relief when he felt a sputtering beat against his fingertips. He didn't know what he would do if…

He heard the sound of slow clapping, and looked up to see Shaw grinning down at him. He was laughing. The crazy maniac was laughing at Charles. Erik saw red. "Of all the things… I have to say you do have a way with people Erik, my boy," Shaw cackled, letting his hands fall. "There aren't many a men on this planet who would give their lives for another. It seems you've found one," Shaw smirked.

"Too bad, really. Those people never last long," the smirk fell and a look of near remorse followed it. Shaw nodded towards Charles's bleeding body, sagely. "It is better this way," he told Erik knowingly, as if he had seen this scene a million times before. "He would have been a liability. People like him are no better than the humans," cold arrogance gleamed in Shaw's eyes. "Weak. Stupid. Inferior," he finished darkly.

"Weak. Stupid. Inferior," Erik did not register getting up. He knew that he set Charles down with all the gentleness of a brother, but beyond that any movement he made was shrouded in the fog of fury that had consumed him, a thousand times hotter and more deadly than the one he had felt when he saw his mother murdered in front of his eyes. One mantra played over and over in his mind, a mocking lullaby to any mercy left in his heart.

"Weak. Stupid. Inferior."

This man had murdered his family. He had tortured Erik. He had slaughtered hundreds of his people. He had killed Darwin. He had shot Charles, made him scream. And now… He had the audacity to call the man who had jumped into freezing waters to save Erik's life a weak, stupid, inferior human?

Erik roared in rage. The submarine shifted and shook in the sand, the only still part the placemat of metal holding Charles's bleeding body. Shaw looked up, eyes wide. "I'll shoot!" the gun was snatched from his grip by a metal cable swinging from the ceiling. He cried out as the cable whipped around his neck, squeezing.

Shaw dropped to his knees, desperately tugging at the cable around his throat. Metal poles sharpened and floated above his head like spears. Shaw's eyes went wide with fear as he stared at the man in front of him, and saw his creation for the very first time as he truly was.

Frankenstein's monster.

Erik could smell his fear. "You don't want to do this, Erik," Shaw choked as he came closer, stopping when his boots touched Shaw's knees. "I know you don't. I am your creator, I made you stronger," Erik smirked. He was begging for mercy, was he? As Erik had begged as a small boy for mercy?

As Charles had begged for him to live, only then to fall screaming?

Erik did what his creator would have done: he laughed and clapped his hands. "You did make me stronger," he agreed with some amusement as he called his coin back into his hand. "And I thank you for it, but if you wanted any mercy from me, creator, you should have done only one thing," Shaw let out a trembling breath. Erik let the coin hover over his head. "You shouldn't have shot Charles."

He pushed against the coin with his power and with some maniac glee, felt satisfaction on Charles's behalf for making Shaw scream.