✘ | 027 | VIDEO

[wecanavenge]

[It's been two weeks since Raven left, a week since the network glitch, and Erik has done a lot of thinking. He never expected to confront another version of himself, despite hearing about him plenty. He wouldn't call it enlightening, but interesting - yes. Very interesting. Between him, and another Raven, another Moira - he's been very thoughtful as of late.

The video comes on, and Erik looks directly into the camera, though it's clear he's not quite seeing it. His gaze is moving inward.]

I've been thinking about the other Barge.

[He's steadfastly refused to talk about it, for the most part. About the man he was there, about what he did. About the people he tried to save. His gaze grows more unfocused, and he can remember the light, the pain and the comfort of it. Pain has always been a part of this life: it is fitting that it was a part of the end of that one.

If that even was an end.]

I've died here. Just once. [He doesn't rub his chest, but the muscles in his arm twitch and flex as a phantom ache rises.] I don't know if I died there. I didn't care. [His gaze sharpens again, his mouth twisting into a rueful smile.] I was more concerned with saving you all.

[And destroying the Barge. That had been just as strong a need as removing everyone back to their homes. He can still remember how the Barge trembled under his power. He can't do that, here, despite his mutation functioning as normal. The Admiral is too powerful for that here.] I don't know if I managed it. I doubt it, to be honest. If the Admiral ever really died, I don't doubt that he'd just come back, like a phoenix from his own ashes. [It would be poetic, if it weren't a touch bitter.]

I do remember some of it. I remember the pain, and the way I welcomed it. I remember becoming more.

[Becoming powerful. Untouchable. Enduring. Becoming nothing. Erik looks away, thumbs over the pages of a book out of sight. He doesn't know where he's going, but he can't quite stop.] I was so angry. I wanted to crush the ship between my hands. [He lifts those hands, fingers curling inward, palms angled toward each other, before they clench into fists so hard they tremble. He has long been capable of such anger, but there...

They unclench slowly, drop back to the desk in front of him.]

And then I didn't. And then - then, I--

[He stops, looking away sharply, and without another word, kills the feed.]

[Spam for Charles]

[And then he accepted it. The anger, the pain, the loss, he had accepted it there, accepted that despite his instinct for rage, there were other, better things that needed doing.

Shoving his chair back almost hard enough to knock it over, Erik clenches his hands again, half afraid they're shaking. He's out of his room and shoving open Charles' door a moment later, and he has no idea what state he must look, but he can't imagine it being anything short of frazzled.]

I need to talk. [He needs to talk through this, now, before he tries to push it away again, before he tries to bury it. And he's afraid - afraid of this change, afraid of not changing, afraid of being here forever and accomplishing none of the things he's meant to. His chest is tight.] I need to talk now.

[Private to Alex]

I need to talk to you.

[And he knows they have a terrible history of it, knows one of them always takes something wrong, and he should do this in person, he knows, but maybe if he gets it all out now they won't wind up with shoes between their teeth or the desire to shove fists in their place.

He thought, at some point, that this would be easy if he ever managed to graduate. That he would know what to say, that the words would just be there because graduation must make this easier. It doesn't, of course. It almost makes this harder, because his chest and throat still feel tight.]

I know I've apologized. And I know you've forgiven me, though you had every reason not to. But I still owe you an apology, because I've never been able to say what's right. I don't know what's right now, but I know I need to apologize. For Cuba. For leaving you and Sean and Hank alone when you needed someone. For all of it.

[His throat is too tight, and he has to pause to clear it.]

I'm sorry. [For not being there. For not being the person he is now.]

[Private to Anya]

[Anya is difficult. Anya is so much more difficult. Because he loves her as if he'd raised her himself, this is, he thinks, the hardest goodbye he will have to make. Part of him considers staying, almost entirely for her. But that is selfish. And maybe leaving is selfish, but it's to do so much more. So he grabs his communicator and records, though he does occasionally glance off screen, at the wall he shares with her.]

Anya.

[He wonders if his tone says everything, if it says anything at all. Everything sounds strange to him just now.] I graduated. [Finally. She was right; it hadn't been far off at all.]

And I'm going to be leaving. But I want to talk to you first. [Need. The word he meant to use was need.]

[Private to Jean]

[He's going to run out of steam at this rate. He's not shocked anymore, though the surprise lingers. When he contacts Jean, he's so much closer to feeling at peace with more than he ever thought possible. It's calming, this quiet acceptance, and it's that he holds onto when he talks to her.]

You don't need someone to stop you.

[He still remembers that conversation, remembers the D'Bari, remembers the six billion people and the fire in her hair. He couldn't forget it if he tried.]

You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. [He should tell her why he's saying this, he knows, but the why is less important than the what.]

[Private to Rogue]

[He's pondered this for a little while, but feelings are exhausting. By the time he sends this message, all he has left is bluntness. He has a feeling she'll understand.]

I've graduated.

I hope you'll understand that I'm not staying.

[Private to Kelsier]

Your deal. [He's seen enough panicked wardens on board to know that Kelsier's Item must no longer be responding to him. No reason to beat around the bush.] Was it for your wife?

[Private to David]

I really hated you, when we first met. [There's a little smile in the corner of his mouth, tired but genuine.] I'm glad I didn't try to dissemble you.

[It's a poor joke, but he's really good at those.]

I'm going home. If you do leave - I suppose I should say when - you have a place with us. If you want it.

[Public]

[A few hours after his initial post, Erik comes back on the network. He's calm again, sharp. There's even a little smile in the corner of his mouth. A real, very satisfied one, with no trace of bitterness. Not now.]

I'll be leaving tomorrow.

[He reaches off screen, and pulls one smiley faced cookie into view, courtesy of the Admiral. Graduation stopped being out of reach months ago, but he never quite accepted that it was this close. He breaks off a piece of the cookie and pops it into his mouth.]

Look after yourselves.

[Alles ist Gut. He can think it without cringing, now.]

Comments

spam

[wedonot]

[He'd been reading, but the spike of emotion from next door hadn't gone unnoticed. Charles had been planning on sending over a tendril of inquiry just as soon as he was finished with this paragraph, but apparently Erik had other ideas, and so he looks more concerned than startled when his friend bursts in the door.

He gets up and puts the book down, pushing it aside and staring at Erik.]

What's the matter? What's wrong? [He hasn't seen the post, doesn't really know what's going on, and he's not sure if he's feeling abruptly guilty for not paying better attention because Erik seems. Panicked.

What's going on, buddy? :c]

spam

[wecanavenge]

Nothing. Everything.

[So much feels like it's slipping out of his grip, like everything is spiraling away from him. But it isn't an ugly thing, it isn't like knowing the coin won't move, it isn't like the gunshot ringing in his ears. It's not his stomach dropping from him, not the world narrowing.

He's panicked because it's widening.]

I want to go home, Charles. I want to help those kids.

[The Alexes and the Hanks and the Darwins and the Seans, the Jeans and the Scotts and the Pyros, all the kids they know and don't, the ones who are going to need them to exist in a world that only knows how to hate them.

It's a big difference, from the man who was only interested in using them as an army.]

spam

[wedonot]

[The panic - although that doesn't feel like the right word at all, except it is, because there's an irrational part of him that's worried even though he can feel how much Erik means this that it's going to be ripped away from him, from them - is catching, and it's making his throat feel tight, almost swollen, like he's not sure if he's about to laugh or cry because please-

If Erik wasn't this emotional, if he'd just said it over breakfast that morning as a casual statement, Charles probably would have just smiled and said well obviously, that's always been the plan, they've agreed on that much at least, it's not like we're planning on staying here forever. But this is it, this is important, they're standing on the brink of something and he desperately hopes it is what he thinks it is.

He takes a breath, and his voice sounds steadier than he thought it was going to.]

You're serious?

private

[secretasshole]

[He isn't really sure what to say. He hated Erik too, but in all fairness, he hated pretty much everyone when he first got here, and he probably started to like the mutant before he started liking him.

The offer is... unexpected, and for a long moment, he's not sure what to do with it. He hasn't felt like he has anywhere to go after the Barge, if there even is an after for him, but now he's being offered it and it's just. Good. To know that for the first time, he actually has a concrete option to consider instead of just vague promises of having somewhere to go to when this was all over.]

What made you realize it was time?

private

[wecanavenge]

I don't know.

[A confluence of thoughts, converging on one bewildering moment. He shakes his head slightly.]

Maybe I finally wanted to leave enough. [Maybe that's not entirely true.] But serenity is much less exhausting than anger.

private

[tolaywaste]

[What's right. That's such a - weird way of putting it. Not bad. Just weird. Charles and Erik have, in the time he's known them, been such believers in absolutes. For a long time, Alex was too. Now he believes, yes, in right and wrong, but in a gray space in the middle as well. Where things make sense or don't, depending on what light you shine on them.]

[Erik is leaving. Alex knows that. His voice is thick and feels speckled with joy and sorrow, grief and pride, an impossible mixture of emotion than he wouldn't have any idea how to express even if he wanted to.]

[Instead of trying, he clears his throat and says something else impossible.]

I wouldn't have gone with Charles if it wasn't for you. I wouldn't have - trusted, without both of you. So I accept your apology, I do, but I don't need it. I understand.

[Not Erik's actions; he might never understand those. But Erik, he understands, in the crisp and jarring way he understands his own reflection.]

[They are too similar.]

private

[wecanavenge]

[Erik has been an absolute for as long as he can remember. They've both learned about gray spaces, about shades and how something that looks wrong can be right, and vice versa.

Killing thousands for actions done in fear was gray-black. He knows that, now.

He has to swallow again, thinking back on that small cell, on the hunch of Alex's shoulders and the started way he had looked up at them both. Charles' excitement and Alex's uncertainty and his own certainty in his cause. Alex was a soldier when Erik looked at him, then. He's more, now, and to know that then, even then, when he just barely felt more than a monster, that maybe he did say something right--

Erik nods. It's seeing one another, recognizing the sharp edges in them both, and finding ways to fit without them jarring.]

I'm not staying.

[He can't, won't. He would, if Alex asked. This is his way of asking Alex not to.] I hope you don't intend to stay forever.

[It's not home without all of them.]

[andyougoleft]

[This is... weird.

That still shows on his face when he clicks the feed on. He doesn't know Erik all that well, not really, and yet.

And yet, there are still memories of a brother, laughing and splashing together on the river they knew like their own hands, pushing each other overboard the boat they grew up together on, fierce and free and two sides of the same coin despite their differences.

Slevin clears his throat.]

You too.

[wecanavenge]

[Weird. There is - it's not apprehension on his face, not really. An unexpected sort of uncertainty, maybe. Breach memories fade, it's a natural way of the Barge, Erik knows that. But he still remembers his very first port, still remembers falling over. He has those brushes of memories, of a wife and daughter, and his memories of Oxford are so much stronger, still.

He didn't have a brother before meeting Charles. He didn't know what it was to grow up with one, to be poor but happy, to never be afraid, to be a boy not forced to grow up too fast.

He wouldn't trade his own memories for them, but he wouldn't forget being a Kelevra, either. And of course, there's no easy way to say any of that.]

Feel free not to give me any parting gifts. I don't need more itching powder.

Private

[onlysurvivor]

[The sudden disappearance on his item was troubling and he's more than a little relieved.]

I... Yes. It was.

Private

[wecanavenge]

[That certainly makes two of them.]

Then you should go and be with her. Whatever it takes.

[Private]

[la_belle_rogue]

[She understands. Extremely well. So what she gives him is a proud smile. ]

Erik, that's wonderful. Got time for a visit before ya head out?

[Private]

[wecanavenge]

I could spare a minute. [It's teasing, because that is easier than the stronger emotions that have wrung him out.]

[ Video ]

[warisart]

[Ben and Erik have never spoken. The X5 is aware of the mutant, on several levels, and they have interacted somehow without ever actually having a conversation.

They have run parallel and navigated the crossroads of their existence on the Barge without ever running afoul of one another until that other ship. It would be enough to keep Ben away now, too, but Lua left recently, and now Erik.

They are important to Anya. Anya is important to him. And so:]

Best of luck, sir.

[ Private Video ]

[wecanavenge]

[He doesn't respond immediately. Things blur, now, between here and there. He thought, on that ship, that he'd essentially been Charles, but he knows that isn't true now. He was himself, a better self, a self he could be. Not a forgiving man, but an accepting one.

There is a spike of anger when Ben speaks, and he can still see the younger man digging into Charles' spine, teeth bared, attention focused. But he can see Anya, too, making him promise not to hurt the boy she likes. So before he answers, he makes this private.]

You care for her.

spam I say

[fridgetothefire]

[She's been left by a lot of people. It's one of the costs of living here, one she is learning gradually to pay with more grace. She knew he'd go, when it happened, and she knew she'd miss him. But it strikes her all of a sudden how much, sitting in the living room where another him raised another her, and it feels like someone cored a hole right into her chest.

She meant it, with the stupid christmas mug, is the thing. She collects father figures like some people collect butterflies, but he's her favorite. He's her dad. She shoves her communicator under the couch cushions and cries for a few minutes, shoulders shaking, and she feels light, too, almost as much as she did after her own graduation. She feels so unbearably proud, she feels a little backwardly as though she is his parent for the moment, losing him to all the great things he's grown enough to go fight for in the wider world.

She wipes her tears away as she rises, dismissive and perfunctory; when she turns her attention to moving forward, they stop as quickly as they began. She climbs to her room, undoes the fiberglass security locks and shifts the plain cinderblock weights to get into the toolbox where she keeps the few metal items she can't do without when she isn't using them. One of those things - one of very few with no utilitarian purpose - is a vintage brass wings pin, one more bit of Bargewell ephemera that appeared along with the rest of her warden's cabin. She tucks it in the breast pocket of her jacket, over her heart, and then goes next door to knock.]

spam spam spam

[wecanavenge]

[Erik waves the door open without calling for whoever it is to come in. He can only imagine a few faces dropping by unannounced, now. He stands when he sees Anya, giving her a half smile. Pleased to leave, sad to go. If the Barge is anything, it's complicated.

The wings, hidden from sight, don't go unnoticed. Maybe it's silly, for him to only just now notice: she never wears metal around him. He's known, subconsciously perhaps, and he understands - but she wears it now. The smile widens.]

When you leave here, visit me. [No preamble, with them. It's not necessary.] Stay with me. It can be as much your home as it is mine.

[She's family. She has always been family.]

[fireincarnate]

[She's wearing her pendant. She alternates, between this and Anya's locket, seeping strength from them in different ways.

She touches it now, as she looks at him. A part of her wants to argue, but she remembers saying much the same thing to him, such a long time ago - and look at him now.

So she nods, slow and sure.]

I'm - beginning to realise that, I think. [She's still scared, so scared she wants to scream sometimes; she doesn't know if she'll ever trust herself again. But it's easier, now, to believe she can be more.

Then she smiles, as her shoulders slump.]

You're leaving, aren't you? [There's an ache, in the words, mingling with the pride. It's what she's wanted, desperately, almost since she came - but she'll never see him again.]

[wecanavenge]

[His eyes find the pendant, and he smiles to see here wear it. It fades a little, with her question, and he nods. He won't lie to her, won't dance around it.]

I am.

[He will meet another Jean Grey, he will do everything in his power to protect her from a fate similar to Phoenix's. He will talk to her about Annie, if the situation is the same. He will do all he can, in honor of this Jean.]

Don't be afraid. [He knows what fear looks like too well not to have seen it in her.] Because I certainly believe in you. You won't prove that a mistake.

[strangehistorian]

Congratulations.

[wecanavenge]

Thank you.

cuba take two!!

[wedonot]

They're just following orders!

[Charles blinks and takes a startled breath, disoriented. It feels like a rubber band snapping into place, something pulled taught for so long that when it's finally released, the force is violent, almost painful as it really starts to hit him that this is real, this is happening.

He's back. Back on the beach, and he can hear the words ringing in his head even if he doesn't feel like he said them, like he's just reacting to something someone else said a lifetime ago.

And it was a lifetime ago, because he knows how this is supposed to happen. He lived this already, he remembers what's about to be said, done, the months spent recovering from it, and he remembers the Barge.

But there's sun on his face, sweat at his hairline, and sand sticking to his boots and pant legs. There are ships in the water, a plane and submarine wrecked and still smoldering on the sand nearby. He can smell the wreckage burning, the brine from the ocean, and his head aches like he's had something shoved through both sides of his skull...

And Erik's standing fifteen feet down the beach from him, and there are missiles suspended in the air above them.

He can feel the buzz of fear radiating from the kids, from Shaw's people, from Moira, even the navies out in the ocean in the back of his skull and with his splintered defenses, it's hard to block them all out entirely. But Erik is silent for the first time in so long. The helmet gleams almost mockingly in the sunlight, and he can feel panic starting to rise in his chest.

What if Erik doesn't remember? What if this is just a dream? What if the Barge was, what if those years were some sort of hallucination, what if it just didn't work? What's that going to mean for everyone, because he knows he'll stop him, but he's not sure he can do this again, doesn't want to-

It's only been a few seconds at most since the transition happened. He'll know for certain soon.

He licks his lips, tries to push past the fear, tries to stop himself from projecting and alerting to everyone else that something might be wrong, something might be more wrong than they realize.]

Erik?

[Please remember. Please. Don't do this.]

[wecanavenge]

[He knows how this is supposed to play out. I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Sweat covers the back of his neck, creeps at his brow. His arm is outstretched above him, strong but tiring, and every single missile has turned, ready to slam back into the ships. He still feels the anger. The rage that they would turn on his kind, after they averted nuclear war. After they saved their sorry selves.

Never again, he's supposed to say. He's supposed to feel his forearm throb at his side. He's supposed to remember rain and mud and barking dogs, the smell of chocolate and blood and a metal coin magnetized to his palm.

Instead, he remembers a ship. A daughter and a son. A friend. A brother.

Slowly, he reaches up and pulls the helmet from his head. His hair sticks up here and there, but he doesn't notice it. He does toss the helmet aside with some disgust. That isn't his. Not anymore.

For a moment, he glances at Charles, face still hard, still pulled into angry lines - and as he curls his fingers in one by one, the missiles begin to explode mid air, and he smiles just as slowly.]

I know.

[I remember. He turns his attention upward again, and the rest of the missiles burst together as one, shrapnel falling harmlessly into the ocean. He drops his arm again and doesn't sway. This is not the moment Erik expected to be sent back to, this isn't the second chance he expected to have, but it's one he'll take with both hands. He lets out a laugh and feels a touch insane for it, but their stores are empty on those ships. They fired everything, and it wasn't enough. No one else needs to die tonight.]

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara just grins, for a moment - silent, jubilant congratulations.]

You, too. [And Charles, but she knows she doesn't need to say it.]

[wecanavenge]

[She doesn't. Erik isn't as jubilant, but then he's never been particularly forthright with his emotions. Still, he smiles, and nods.]

I intend to.