How the conversation SHOULD have gone *bitter*

"It's good to see you, Raven," Charles's face broke into a wide smile, expression bright and hopeful. "Welcome home."

"This was your home," Raven said flatly. "I just lived here."

His obvious happiness dimmed. Charles looked at her. "You came to me," he said eventually, after a pause. "Do you remember?" Voice quiet, he continued, "You broke into my house, lived with me with two decades as my sister, yet you say this was never your home."

Raven snorted and drummed her fingers on the chair arms. "Charles, don't pick at my words. For all your powers, you don't understand me."

Charles rotated his wheelchair slightly to the side, to look out the window. "I suppose that's true. Though, I hope you'll admit, I haven't had the benefit of using my powers with you, having kept my promise to you these fifty years save once."

"You owe me that much," Raven told him. "I was your pet companion, someone you didn't find cute anymore after I realized how much more I could be than what you believed."

"Yes." The sound of the children playing outside drifted into the study. "I've held you back from being a hero. Building a school holds no charms for a warrior." He gestured at his useless legs. "I am of no value to you or your cause, not like Erik."

"That's why I'm here," Raven leaned forward, eager to move the bitter conversation to a new topic. "Erik's resurfaced."

"Has he?" Charles was silent for a moment. "Everyone will be looking for him."

"We have to find him before they do," Raven said, the stunning face of her favored blond form tensing in determination.

"Certainly." He did not move.

Impatiently, she stood. "Where's Cerebro?"

"You'll find it in the basement. Ask Hank. I'm sure he'll be delighted to assist you in using it as I return to my duties as headmaster and professor here."

Raven glared. "I'm not sorry, Charles, for becoming who I am today," she flatly. "And I don't plan to be like you—a daydreamer lost in the idylls of a past that didn't exist except in his imagination."

"You misunderstand. You don't know me, if you care to, if you think that's what I want from you. Well, anyway." Charles sighed and turned away from her to retrieve a book from the shelf behind him. "Often, it's not the place to apologize. And sometimes, it's too late."

"Charles, I'm not going to let you abandon Erik—" she stepped forward.

"There's something greater than you or Erik that I must attend to," he interrupted coolly. "An incredible power on earth that's woken after a thousand years." Placing the book in his lap, he rolled the wheelchair forward to the door. She stood behind him, frustrated. Charles glanced back. "Are you coming? If I had psychic abilities," here he smiled faintly, "I might say that one Erik Lensherr is most likely involved as well."

She couldn't help huffing a small laugh at this. As she came up beside him, she saw that the book on his lap was the Bible.