AN: This is an alternative sequel to the ridiculously brilliant fic When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Optimist by ToriTC198 - so go read that! S/he's done her own sequel now, Undoing The Damage, which is way way better than mine, so yeah, go read that as well! And then, if you have the time or inclination, give this a go as well and tell me what you think :P

Erik watched Charles scowl at the chessboard as he realized that the metal bender had him stymied. Charles obviously thought that this was hardly fair, and it was a bit bizarre – Erik's mind had been elsewhere the entire game, and yet he had somehow serendipitously placed his pieces so as to utterly thwart his lover's carefully thought-out strategy. Charles sighed and knocked his king over.

"I yield. Now please take that distracted look off of your face; it's embarrassing to be beaten by someone who isn't even pretending to pay attention."

Erik shrugged, but couldn't deny that he was on edge. Just that morning, they had discovered an intruder in the mansion, looking for Charles' study. Carrying a gun. A lone nut, Charles had assured him, high on hate propaganda and mescaline – a little mental tweak or two, a long drive and drop-off in a different state, and hopefully the man was even now re-thinking his life, and re-discovering the love of cooking Charles had dug up from beneath the rubble of abuse and drug addiction that had warped his mind.

Erik had wanted to kill him. Nearly had. Still would, if he had the chance.

The threats and hate mail were constant anxieties, but this was the first time anyone with serious intent had got passed Charles' guard. Erik knew it wouldn't be the last. What if it had happened when they were all asleep? Or when Erik was away on a mission? Who would be there to protect Charles then?

Stop it. Charles' voice sounded gently in his head, projecting calm and comfort. I'm fine.

This time, Erik responded stubbornly. What will it take for you to admit we're under siege? The humans will never accept us…

The thought trailed off as Charles shook his head wearily. Erik didn't want to have the same old fight any more than he did, so let it lie for now. Charles looked tired, and whatever he said, Erik knew the attack had shaken him too. Erik was just about to suggest bed when a tiny crunch of gravel outside the window drew him sharply to his feet. Charles' fingers went instantly to his temple, scanning for the intruder's consciousness, but Erik was already out of the door, slinking through the grounds to the source of the sound, prepared to fight. He saw a shadowy figure standing next to the study window, outlined in the firelight spilling between the heavy curtains. Stealthily, Erik encouraged the wire frame away from the sagging wisteria it held to the mansion wall, wound it around the stranger's ankles, then pulled it tight. The woman – for it was a woman – cried out in alarm, fell to the ground, and skidded forwards at Erik's gesture. He stepped on one flailing, leather-clad arm and knelt on the other, seizing her by the throat –

Erik, STOP. She's one of us.

He released the girl's neck, looked into her frightened green eyes. She was young, perhaps not 20, with thick, dark, dirty hair and strong features. Where her top had rucked up in her slide across the gravel, he saw she was also heavily scarred.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, not releasing her arms. She gulped, but her gaze didn't falter.

"I'm looking for Charles Xavier. I need his help."

Erik escorted her to the study, still wary and suspicious. But Charles was waiting behind his desk with a welcoming smile for the stranger.

"Charles Xavier, pleasure to meet you. I'm so sorry about your reception – we've had a bit of a contretemps here today, so everyone's a little bit tense. Please do sit down."

The girl cast an apprehensive look at Erik and then sat gingerly in the Chesterfield chair Charles indicated, as if still deciding whether to stay or make a run for it. Charles nodded at her encouragingly, and slowly, she relaxed into her seat.

"I'm sorry if I alarmed anybody. I shouldn't have come so late, but I needed to travel by night, and then I got lost and-"

"Who are you hiding from?" asked Magneto– that was how Charles thought of him when he looked and sounded like this, as Magneto, hard, cold and hostile, not Erik, the gentle, passionate and tender man he could allow himself to be only in private, only with Charles. The girl flinched at his tone, but turned to answer him.

"At the moment? Pretty much everyone." She looked surprised when this elicited a nod of quiet approval from the metal bender. He stopped standing as if on guard next to the door, and sat down discretely in an armchair by the fire, picked up the whiskey he had been drinking before they were interrupted. Charles reclaimed her attention with a gentle cough.

"You've come to the right place then. We aim to make this school a sanctuary for any of our kind – for all mutants. That is why you're here, isn't it?" She nodded. "Good. Well let me assure you that you are safe here, and you can stay for as long as you want – and no longer. No-one will harm you, and none of us would ever betray you. We're a family here, and you're more than welcome to be part of it. However," Charles continued, "if we're to be family, we have to try and trust each other. And I have an obligation to protect my students. Now, you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to; but if you're in some kind of trouble, or if you have somebody after you, the more I know then the better I can keep them – and you – safe."

There was a moment of conflict and suspicion in her eyes.

"I heard that you can – read minds. That you can just look at someone and know everything about them." Charles chuckled modestly.

"Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but more or less correct. However, I don't consider it polite to do that without permission, so I only use that power when absolutely necessary. Usually people prefer to tell me what I need to know themselves." The girl looked relieved, but nervous.

"It's kind of an unbelievable story," she said, then smiled. "But I'm guessing you've heard quite a few of those."

"More than you can possibly imagine," Charles agreed. "As you say, I'm a man who reads minds. Mr Lensherr over there can manipulate metal." The girl rubbed her arm and looked balefully at Erik.

"Yeah, no kidding," she muttered. Charles smiled placatingly, and leaned forward.

"What I'm trying to say is, you're not the only one with special gifts. I promise, I'll believe what you tell me." He lifted a crystal brandy decanter from the desk and quirked an eyebrow. "Drink?" She hesitated a moment, and then seemed to reach a decision and nodded. He poured her a large glassful and one for himself, watched expectantly as she gulped it down, grimaced at the burn of the strong spirit, then began.

"I guess the story started before I was born – when my big sister Jessica got sick.

She had leukaemia, a really nasty kind, from when she was a baby. My parents were desperate to help her, but nothing worked. The doctors said that her best chance of survival was bone marrow transplant from a sibling, so they got to work on me."

The girl paused, a look of confusion crossing her face.

"I know they weren't bad people. They couldn't have been, because they loved her so, so much. They would have done anything to help her. They bankrupted themselves for years trying to get her treated. I hate to think the things they had to do." She looked down into her lap. "I think maybe they loved Jessie so much there wasn't any room left in their hearts; or maybe it was just that they never saw me as a child, not really. I was – I was supposed to be – a cure."

Here she seemed to run out of words; Charles reached across the desk and touched her hand, where it still rested on the brandy glass. She looked up at him, and he waggled his other hand by her temple and asked "may I?" She looked wary, but nodded her assent.

Charles reached out tentatively to her mind, and was immediately rocked by a wave of loneliness, grief, and neglect. He saw the dirty clothes, the unwashed hair, the unloved, unhugged, unnoticed little girl standing in the doorway of hospital room after hospital room while her parents crooned over her sick sister; the carefully controlled diet to keep her healthy, the regular weigh-ins, the angry scolding when she was too light, too heavy, when she got a cold. Tears started in his eyes, and he withdrew, keeping his hand on hers.

"You poor, poor girl. I'm so sorry. And your sister?" The girl looked up, her eyes brightening a little.

"You'd think she'd be a monster, wouldn't you? All that love for her and none for me. You'd think she would have treated me like they did. But she didn't; she loved me. We loved each other. She was the only thing-" but there she broke off. Charles understood. Although he had had everything he'd wanted materially, he had never been given any parental affection or attention either. If it hadn't been for Raven coming along when she did, he didn't like to think about what his life might have been.

"So you have to understand, I wanted to help her. I wasn't afraid of the surgery or anything like that. But the doctors said that I wasn't a close enough match. It had always been a long shot – 1 in 4 or something. They said that the chances of bone marrow rejection were too high, that the risk to me was too great to balance the possible benefit to Jessica. Anyway, by that time, the cancer was eating her up. It was in her kidneys, her lung, her liver. One transplant, maybe two, they might have considered, if I'd been a perfect match, but four? They told my parents they were very sorry, but that they should prepare themselves to lose their daughter.

"My mother was beside herself. I remember her picking me up and thrusting me at the doctors, screaming. 'Just take whatever she needs!' she yelled. 'It's all right here! It's what she's for!'" She paused, gulped. "I was five.

"But they wouldn't change their minds. Jessie got sicker and sicker. Now I was no use to them at all, my parents ignored me almost completely – I preferred it when they did. It was better than when they blamed me, said it was all my fault, that I should never have been born. I felt responsible."

Xavier shook his head. "Madeline, none of this is your fault." She looked up sharply.

"How did you know my-" she broke off. "Oh. Duh." A ghost of a smile.

"That's when they got the call from Dr Fiskel.

"He had worked for Trask Industries in biochemistry, before going into private practice as an oncologist. Somehow he had got hold of my medical records, blood tests, DNA. He had spotted something that my other doctors hadn't, because he knew where to look: he spotted the mutant x-gene.

"He promised to perform the surgery the hospital had forbidden – four simultaneous transplants, kidney, lung, liver, bone marrow – at his private facility in Omaha. He wouldn't even charge a penny. It all seemed too good to be true. He flew us out by private jet, hired a nurse for Jessica, the works. My mother was – so happy. I'd never seen her like that before; she even hugged me once, when my ears hurt on the plane and I couldn't stop crying. I remember thinking that maybe, if I could make Jessie well, she would always be like this. And it would all be worth it; we'd be a real family.

"I remember I got scared when the anaesthetist came in, with that black mask. I started crying. Dr Fiskel came over and looked down at me, and he said: 'Don't you want to help your sister?' and turned my face to look at her. She was unconscious, had been for several days. She had tubes in her everywhere, and she was so pale and thin and bald. I did want to help her, so I said yes, and let them put the mask over my face.

"When I woke up three days later, I felt – terrible. I never felt so sick in my whole life. Everything ached, I had tubes in my nose, my mouth, I couldn't move or talk. But Jessie was awake; she was sitting up in bed, brushing her dolly's hair. She looked so different. Her eyes were bright, she'd put on weight, she jumped down off the bed and ran to me like any normal six year old, and when she kissed me on the head, that sick smell she had always had was gone."

A smile broke out over Madeline's face, unforced but tinged with sadness. "I had finally fulfilled my purpose – I had saved my sister's life."

Xavier was frowning, perplexed. "Receiving four transplants is an incredibly gruelling experience. She shouldn't have been out of bed for months. How did she get better so quickly?"

Madeline nodded. "I know. This is where it starts getting unbelievable.

"Jessie had had my right kidney, part of my liver, a bit of lung, my bone marrow. Any one or all of those could have been rejected, or rejected her. But instead, they took immediately – and then the cells in them started attacking the leukaemia within an hour of surgery. It cured her cancer, healed all the damage it had done to her. It was impossible, but it happened. And that wasn't even the weirdest thing.

"I was very sick for a week. They didn't think I was going to make it. But then the organs they had cut out of me – grew back."

"Good lord."

She looked at the young professor's astonished expression and nodded sardonically. "I know, right? I'm a 'medical miracle'. Or, to put it more simply, I'm a mutant." A bitter cast came over her expression. "Which is, of course, why Fiskel wanted me.

"That was the kicker, the hidden cost of all his free help. After the surgery, he wanted me – or whatever was left of me – for his research. I don't think he'd expected me to live – or Jessie either, if I think about it. He was floored by the success of his experiment, the possibilities my mutation opened up. He even gave my parents some money – they needed it, after everything they had spent trying to keep Jessie alive all this time. I think he gave them five thousand dollars."

"And they left you with him." It wasn't a question. Madeline jumped. Charles hadn't noticed Erik's silent approach. His hands were now clamped on the back of the girl's chair, squeezing the chubby leather until it squeaked.

"Erik." It wasn't a warning, as such. But that one word, and the look of reproach from the telepath, sent him striding back to the fireplace, his face a mask of barely controlled fury. Charles squeezed her hand. "What happened, Madeline?"

"Jessie didn't make it easy for them. She had insisted on staying in the same room as me – she wanted to look after me, the way I had looked after her. So when our parents came to take her away but not me, she wanted to know why. They told her I was still sick, and would have to stay a little while longer.

"'How MUCH longer?' she whined. 'Why can't she come home with us, or why can't we stay here with her?' When they wouldn't answer her, she began to cry. I think we both knew something wasn't right – our parents should have been so happy, but they both looked scared. They had to drag us apart, carry Jess out of the room, still screaming. That was the last time I saw my sister. Or any of my family. After that, there was only Fiskel."

At some point, tears had started streaming down the girl's cheeks. She pushed them impatiently away. Charles winced, unable to block out the waves of pain.

"If you want to leave it there, we can carry this on another time. You must be tired-" she shook her head vehemently.

"I'd rather get it said and done, if you don't mind. I just haven't thought about that day in a long while. I didn't know it would still hurt this much. That was the worst. The rest is – not as bad." She took a deep, shuddering breath, then met his gaze unflinchingly and continued.

"Like I said, the success of his experiment gave Fiskel some ideas. The main reason he left Trask Industries is because of the organisation's fixation on killing mutants. Fiskel was an opportunist, not an ideologue. He thought there was more profit to be had by exploiting mutants rather than destroying them.

"He never did figure out how my blood could do what it can do, but he didn't need to in order to make money out of it. Because my organs regenerated so fast, he could perform transplants up to five times a month – that's five terminally ill, very rich patients desperate for a miracle. They didn't ask questions – just paid whatever price Fiskel demanded. Money, favours, assassinations. He saved a lot of rich men's lives, and became a rich and powerful man himself by selling me, though most people have never heard of him. And nobody has ever heard of me. I'm actually legally dead – I died aged five, on the operating table, according to the public record. Some days, in the last thirteen years, I've really wished I had."

She stood up, lifted her shirt, turned slowly round to display uncountable scars all over her torso, front and back. "He'd do all the operations himself - livers, lungs, kidneys, bone marrow – he even took a valve of my heart once; I was on bypass for three days while that grew back. All those donations kept me weak – I'd wake up with new scars and barely any blood, spend a few days recovering, and then another operation. I could barely get out of bed most of the time." She spread her hands out on the desk, and for the first time Charles noticed she was missing a little finger.

"Another little experiment of his. He wanted to see if that would grow back too. As you can see, it didn't. At least it's only my left hand." Charles shuddered, covered the maimed hand with his own again.

"How did you get away?" he queried softly. She sat back down and sighed.

"I guess he got greedy. It's funny, isn't it, how the more people have, the more they want? About six months ago, he tried to do two liver transplants back-to-back – didn't give me enough time between them to recover. I started to haemorrhage on the table, and he nearly lost me. I had to have a massive blood transfusion. But when I woke up, I felt – different. Stronger. Stronger than I'd felt in years. There was a night nurse theoretically standing guard over me, but I don't think anyone was expecting me to try and escape, not after all those years, not after such a major operation. They certainly weren't expecting me to fight." Charles absorbed the glimmer of savage satisfaction, and a sudden image of the back of the night nurse's peroxide perm, the scalpel descending.

"Since then, I've pretty much been on the move. I know he's been looking for me. I've had to run a couple of times. But mostly I've been hiding. There are so many homeless teenage girls out there – who'd notice one more? I thought about going to find my family – I went back to where we used to live - but I'm pretty sure they think I'm dead. My sister, Jessie-" her voice broke for a moment, then she smiled weakly. "She's still well, better than well. She swims for our state. They've got their eye on her for the Olympic team. I read an interview with her in the local paper, and she said that she owes everything to her little sister, who died from complications after donating her a kidney. I don't know if that's what my parents told her, or what Fiskel told them. But if they know where I am, I wouldn't put it past them to turn me over to him, and I don't know how to get in touch with Jessie without tipping them off. She's probably better off out of all this anyway. I saw her, from a distance, and she seems – happy." A longing, faraway look came over her, then she shook it off.

"So then I heard about this place. A school for people who are – different. I mean, I know I can't fly or read minds or bend metal or whatever, but I know that I have the same thing you all have, this mutant x-gene. Fiskel used to go on about it, how only he appreciated 'the beauty and the potentiality of the mutant x-gene.' He liked the sound of his own voice. Among other things." A shadow passed over her face and was gone. She shrugged. "So I figured, what have I got to lose? At least other freaks like me aren't going to throw me in the nut-house, which is sure as damnit what would happen if I went to the police." The way her manner kept changing was strange – it was as if she didn't quite know how to talk naturally, and so assumed a character depending on what she needed to say. Charles supposed that would be the result of spending most of your formative years with nothing but the TV for company. He could see her now struggling to slouch, to give the impression of the careless tough case. But then the pose fell away, and she leaned forward earnestly.

"Listen - I'm not a bad person, you know? Fiskel is a creep, but he was right about one thing – I know I have a special gift, and I do want to use it to help people. I just need a chance to figure out how to do that without becoming somebody's lab rat. Please, can you help me?"

Charles gave a heavy sigh, and leant across the desk to look into her eyes.

"You've been incredibly selfless, resourceful and brave. I am honoured that you chose to come to me, and I solemnly promise you, we can protect you." She looked doubtful.

"I don't want to put anyone else in danger, or bring any trouble down on you or your students. I told you, this guy has a lot of money, and powerful friends."

Charles smiled cockily. "Well, now, so do you my dear. Welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

Now, if you'll excuse me for saying so," Charles said, "you look done in. I'll ask someone to show you to a room – I'm sure you'd feel better for a bath and a good night's kip." Her face lit up.

"I've never had a bath before. I've seen them on the TV though – they look like fun." Charles' heart hurt a little when he thought how much of life this girl had missed out on, how unfairly, just because she had been born different. The clock said it was a little past three AM. He made a quick scan of the mansion and then called out mentally for Raven who was still awake, lifting weights down in the gym.

"My sister's coming to show you the way. While I've got you here, do you mind if I ask – is there anything else we ought to know about your abilities?" Her eyes took on that guarded look again, and he hastened to reassure her.

"I only ask because so many of our students have powers that are still developing, or that they aren't used to using around others – I just like to know what I'm dealing with, as a safety precaution. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, and I would never pry." She relaxed slightly.

"There's nothing else, really. I mean, I seem to have a photographic memory, and I've got a pretty wicked sense of smell – but that could just be normal, right? A lot of other people have those too." She surprised him then with an impish smile, reminding him how young she was. "Certainly nothing as weird as magic blood."

He laughed. "Certainly not. Ah, Raven!" He watched Madeline almost double-take as Raven walked into the room, naked but for a towel round her neck, blue as a harvest sky. Then the girl stood up, squared her shoulders, and offered her hand.

"Hi, you're the professor's sister, right? I'm Madeline. Good to meet you." Raven was now the one discomfited, so used to strangers being intimidated by her unusual appearance. She belatedly accepted the proffered hand. Charles did his best to hide his smile.

"Raven, Madeline will be staying with us for a while. Could you take her to one of the guest rooms please, and show her how to run the bath – you know what the plumbing in this old place is like." Raven nodded, still thrown, and indicated Madeline to follow her.

"This way."

At the door, Madeline stopped and turned back.

"I'm not very good at trusting people; but I really want to trust you. You seem like a good man. Thank you professor – thanks all of you – for taking me into your home."

"You're very welcome here, my dear. And please do call me Charles. Good night." As the door shut behind the two women, Charles finally turned to meet Erik's gaze. He'd been trying to ignore the tumult in the other man's emotions, trying to give Madeline's story the attention and respect that it deserved, but now he had to address it. "Alright Erik, alright, I know you're excited but please, calm your mind – I'm starting to get a headache." The German leapt to his feet, began striding back and forth across the carpet in front of the desk, trying and utterly failing to contain himself. The pacing itself showed how much he was forgetting himself in his eagerness. It was an old habit of nervous energy, one he had trained himself out of after Charles's injury, as it felt almost like taunting his lover with what he could no longer do.

"Charles, you must realise what this might mean for you!" Charles rolled his eyes.

"Well yes, not being utterly dense, of course I realise. And even if I hadn't, the fact your brain has been practically shouting it for the last half hour would make it pretty impossible to miss!" Erik ignored the peevish tone. He dropped down on his knees beside Charles's chair, and gave his lover a smacking, impulsive kiss on the forehead.

"We have to wake up Beast. We have to get some of her blood to him, get him to analyse it, see what it can do, what it could do for yo-" Charles put a gentle hand over his mouth, silencing him.

"My friend. Calm. Your mind. For one thing, we don't even know if it would work. For another, we are not going to talk to Hank. We're not going to tell anyone about Madeline's gift. Not yet." Erik's exuberance collapsed into confusion.

"But why?" Charles put a comforting hand on the side of Erik's neck, thumbed his earlobe fondly.

"That you of all men have to ask me that proves you're not thinking clearly, my love. I know this is an exciting development. Believe me, I'm very excited too. But you heard that girl. She's been used and taken advantage of her entire life. She's been a 'lab rat' these past thirteen years. She's desperate, and she's turned to us for help. How do you think she's going to feel if the first thing we want to do is use her blood? I'm not going to do that to her, Erik. She's been through quite enough." Erik's face crumpled in disappointment. His eyes dropped to the carpet.

"What if her blood's your only hope?" Charles rubbed his shoulder affectionately, and then tilted Erik's chin upwards so he could look into the older man's eyes.

"Well that's one hope more than I had this time this morning, isn't it? I'm not saying never. I'm just saying not now. Let her rest. Let her heal. Let her learn to trust again, to hope. In time, she may be ready to give of herself again, voluntarily. She's had so much taken away from her already. She deserves to have that time, that choice." Erik couldn't repress the thoughts that snapped back, born of his guilt and his fear.

What about everything that's been taken away from you? From us? What if she says no? What if she slips away from here tonight and we never see or hear from her again?

Charles sighed, and pulled his lover to him in a tight, awkward embrace.

"Then that is just what's meant to be. And if I never walk again, I'm still one of the luckiest men alive. After all, I've got you." He sought to convince himself of the truth of these words, to quell the unworthy feelings this maelstrom had woken in his heart, to believe that everything would happen for the best. To believe that whatever happened or didn't happen, Erik would stay by his side. Erik sighed against his shoulder, letting the moment go – for now.

Only one of the luckiest men? He thought at Charles, with a touch of strained levity in his tone. Charles chuckled, patting him on the back.

Well obviously not as lucky as you, my love. After all, you've got me! Erik snorted, sat back on his heels and smiled that wolfish smile than never failed to tug at Charles's heart.

"I do, don't I? Come on, professor – it's so late it's practically early, and you're exhausted. Let's go to bed."