Archive of Our Own ^beta

You're like a mirror, reflecting me
Takes one to know one, so take it from me
You've been lonely
You've been lonely too long
We've been lonely
We've been lonely too long

“Good morning, everyone,” Charles greets his family. Hank stares at him like he's still trying to figure out what day it is, Raven only glances up a moment from her food, and Alex doesn't acknowledge him at all since stabbing at his cereal is evidently far more interesting. “Late night in the lab, again, Hank?”

“Yeah,” the kid says, looking like he's about to fall back asleep.

Nodding, Charles leaves him alone, getting some food together and joining them at the table. “Erik's going to be running a few errands this afternoon if any of you need anything.” Alex pauses in assaulting his food for a moment, but otherwise his comment gets no answer. Oh well. He gives up on trying to make the place less quiet and grabs the newspaper, busying himself with something.

“Alex, would you join me in my study later?” Charles asks as the teen gets up. He gets a grumbled reply but doesn't press it. Seventeen is a complicated age for any young man. Besides, a sudden thought distracts him from Alex's behaviour. “Where are Sean, Jean, and Angel?”

“I don't know about Jean, but Angel's sulking about Janos again,” Raven says. “Sean is probably sleeping in”

“Janos?” Hank asks.

“Her boyfriend,” she explains. “They had another fight last night.”

Charles makes a little humming noise, thinking about that. The two had had a lot of disagreements of late, many of them along the same line that he and Erik had had. How much was too much, when was it all right to move the line instead of cross it, and a million other questions in that vein. He just hoped Angel would ask someone for advice instead of acting rashly. She could get a little hot-headed at times...

Sean stumbled into the kitchen, squinting at the bay windows and all the light they were letting into the kitchen. “Alex is pissed about something again.” Their rooms are next to each other, and while Charles has offered to switch things around, both teenagers seem to prefer baiting each other. So far they've almost always settled things of their own accord, though at times Sean has to go to Charles or Erik to understand why Alex is mad about something. It's been unexpectedly helpful to have Erik around.

“I imagine so,” Charles says calmly, and continues reading. “Whatever he's done this time, I've already asked him to speak with me today, if you'd like me to bring it up.”

“Nah, he's just banging stuff around. I don't think he broke anything this time.” Sean grabs an apple and several cookies before wandering back out of the kitchen. For a Saturday morning, it's quiet, and Charles would bet the boy is off to find somewhere else to nap. It's a briefly attractive option, but he has responsibilities to deal with first.

Leaving his dishes in the sink for once, Charles goes upstairs and makes his way down the hallway to Alex's room. It's mostly quiet until a sudden crash, followed by swearing, that makes him run. “Alex, are you all right?” he demands, banging on the closed bedroom door.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on. I'll be right there.” Alex opens the door a moment later, just enough for him to glare at Charles. “What? I'm fine.”

“Your hand is bleeding,” Charles points out, and shoves the door open. The bookcase is overturned, an exposed nail on the bottom evidently responsible for Alex's wound. “Don't tell me you were trying to climb this, Erik will throw a fit if I make him anchor all the bookcases to the walls.” He smiles at the glare Alex gives him and helps him put the bookcase back upright. “So what were you doing?”

“I kicked something in that little gap between the bookcase and the wall. Didn't think I was gonna knock the thing over just by reaching behind it.” Alex shrugs and wipes his hand on his jeans. “I'm fine. Why are you here?”

“Alex, would it really kill you to be respectful to me for once? I don't ask anything unreasonable of you unless I've missed something. Not treating me like an enemy isn't hard. Have I done something to make you angry at me? This is a recent development and I honestly can't track down what started it. I told you that I wouldn't go into your mind without permission and I haven't, so I'm going to need you to speak up.”

“No, it's just... it's just me.” Alex turns away from him, shoves his backpack under his bed with his foot and stands staring out the window with his arms crossed.

“Come on, let's get your hand patched up before you get blood everywhere. And then can we talk?” He notices the way Alex's shoulders slump in resignation a second before he nods and turns to follow him. There's a first aid kit not far down the hall, and even though he isn't exactly a doctor, Charles has things taken care of in a few minutes. Since there's half a dozen people in the house at any given time, he leads the way outside for the sake of privacy, taking the path down toward the lake.

“So what do you want to talk about?” Alex asks as they stand on the grass, watching the swans.

“You're going to be eighteen in a few months. Are you interested in college?” He gets only a shrug, and a muttered, it doesn't matter since I won't be here long enough to care about it. “Alex, look at me for a moment, please.” While the boy turns toward him, he won't look Charles in the eyes until the older man puts his hands on his shoulders. “I have no intention of kicking you out of your home just because you turn eighteen. You are welcome in this household as long as you live.”

Alex's eyes widen in surprise. “I get to stay if I want to?” Charles wanting to keep him seemed to have genuinely not occurred to him. But the confirmation gets rid of a good amount of the tension in his body. “Thank you.”

Charles hugs him, smiling when he feels the boy return the gesture. He'd been aware of Alex Summers' reputation when he'd agreed to foster him, and had honestly not been sure if he'd be able to be of any help to the boy. But the change over the last two years had been amazing. While Alex could still snap into anger faster than anyone he'd seen besides Erik, he was no longer constantly volatile and violent, like he'd been at the start. It had been an easy decision to switch from fostering to adopting him, though Alex had greeted the idea with more passivity than approval. He'd never entirely accepted Charles as his father, but the telepath didn't mind.

“I thought you might be interested in college,” he suggests. “I don't know what you'd like to study, if anything, but there are some brochures in the study. Hank could probably help you figure it out. You can do anything you want, Alex. School isn't necessary. Likely your best option, I won't lie, but not your only one. Erik and I are behind whatever choice you make.”

“I was thinking about the military,” Alex says after a long pause. He watches the breeze ruffle the swans' feathers instead of looking at Charles. “They need people to help keep the world safe. And I can do that.”

“You could do very well in whatever you put your mind to,” Charles agrees. They talk about it a little more before they turn to go inside. Alex is noticeably less tense than he's been in several months, and Charles wonders how on earth he missed the building stress in the boy's life.

“I don't want to go to college,” Alex tells Erik that evening.

“Go on,” he says, voice possibly too calm. He's been trying to push Alex into higher education almost since the boy joined them. It's been the cause of many of their fights and has been mentioned in many more. Charles has given up on getting either of them to be an adult about the affair.

“I'm going to go into the military.”

Erik almost throws a tantrum when he hears that Alex wants to fight when he's of age. He swears in a mix of German and Polish, words that Charles can practically see Alex storing for future use. “It's more dangerous than you know,” he says in low, angry English. “You are a child with a child's idea of war, and you have no idea what it's really like.”

“Well, lucky for you, I'm not a child any more! You can't control me!” Alex is angry, the argument quickly escalating thanks to their shared ability to make anything a fight. He's always been quick to rebel against a heavy hand, which is honestly the main concern that Charles as about him being a soldier. Right now things are clearly on the quick track to another set of slammed doors.

“Alex, we just want you to be safe,” Charles cuts in, hoping to stop things before irrevocable words are spoken. He'd intended to just sit quietly through things, but he can feel Erik's terror, even stronger than his angry opinion that Alex wanted to throw his life away.

“You're no better than the goddamn Blandings if you only want me to do as I'm told!”

That accusation makes Erik stop short, face paling, and the teenager storms off in the interlude, cursing under his breath. Charles can feel his son's anger and his friend's fear, and makes them leave each other alone until the morning. He spends his night monitoring Alex's mind and slips in to smooth things when the heat gives way to vulnerability. They talk about it when they are calmer. Erik speaks as to what he saw of the second world war, dispels any notions he thinks Alex has about war being romantic or glorious. Alex listens and takes it all to heart but remains firm in his ideas. It irritates Erik, of course, that a boy is so willing to risk his life, but Charles looks into his mind and knows that Alex knows what he's possibly getting into.

“You're sure?” He can't help but check again, and Alex sighs like it's the biggest imposition to answer him but nods. “Then I do hope you know you're expected to write every week.” It makes both of them smile, partially because they know that Charles isn't joking in the slightest.

Of course, the entire family is present at Alex's eighteenth birthday party. Haley, the Blandings' daughter, is there as well, though neither of them say a word about her parents. Alex's issues had proven too much for parents that wanted an insertion to their family to perfectly take the place of their son. Since Haley had been the only one to see him as Alex Summers instead of her dead brother, despite occasional lapses in judgment, she was the only one he stayed in touch with after the Blandings shoved him back into the foster system. They still got along well and Charles always enjoyed having her around.

“I'm going to join the Army next week,” Alex tells her, as they're standing outside leaning against the railing of the balcony. She slaps him, hugs him, and tells him he better be careful or she'll come get him herself. They talk about both of their futures for several hours.

He repeats those words the next morning at breakfast. Raven tells him it's a bad idea and Jean simply quietly tells him that he shouldn't. Hank stares at him, unable to figure out how he feels about it, while Sean's and Angel's reactions fall cleanly into the 'worried about you' category. It's Jean's reaction that worries Charles.

Jean? he asks telepathically. What did you see about Alex?

Red light and death, she answers, and Charles' hands shake.

“Aw, c'mon, what's the worst that can happen?” Alex asks when later confronted with Charles' fears. “Jean can be wrong sometimes, Professor. I'll be all right.”

“How many boys have gone to war expecting to die, Alex?” Charles asks, more sharply than intended. The boy withdraws from him, physically and mentally. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...”

“I need to pack. I'll see you at dinner, yeah?”

Alex doesn't come down for dinner. He barely allows Charles and Erik to drive him to his base the next morning. The others only have the chance to say goodbye because Charles wakes them up and makes Erik delay things enough that Alex has to listen to their farewells. Charles' one consolation is that Alex allows himself to be hugged goodbye, and ever-so-quickly hugs him in return, before picking up his bag and not looking back.

“You're not going to cry, are you, Charles?” Erik asks.

“Shut up,” Charles mutters, and gets into the car. He isn't, but he more than half feels like it. Between his natural worry for sending Alex off to be a soldier, the teen's crankiness over the last few days, and Jean's warning... More than ever before, Charles is terrified he won't see a family member again.

“What's wrong?” Erik asks on their drive back to the mansion. Charles spills everything. All his fears and worries and insecurities. Erik listens to him with nearly unknown patience, until the telepath slumps against the window and stares out moodily. “Then why didn't you stop him from enlisting? You could have dealt with the paperwork, his officers, everything, with a thought. Right now, Alex could be madly obsessed with going to college and getting a degree for teaching kindergartners.”

“Because that's exactly what I shouldn't do. It's why I took Hank's serum this morning,” Charles adds guiltily. “I knew that if we got here I'd probably cave in. And he hates dealing with little kids anyway.”

“It's perfectly natural to form attachments with someone you've helped raise, Charles.” Erik is parroting the books that Charles had made him read and had read himself, about grieving old relationships and forming new ones while fighting your life under the bloody banner of post traumatic stress. While he and Charles understand each other on nearly every level, Erik still sometimes has difficulty in getting along with others. It's his quick temper and sharp wit, exacerbated by his past and, occasionally, the kids. There's no shortage of snark between him and Raven or Alex, and sometimes Hank. He tends to hide his worry behind aggression, and even Charles sometimes has a hard time keeping calm around him.

“I know that,” he grumbles. “But I'm still going to worry about him.”

“You're no different than any of the others having to live apart from their child for the first time. Just imagine how you'd be handling me if I had to send Anya off to her first day of college.”

“I can barely even imagine you letting her out of the house.”

Erik nods in acknowledgment of that and keeps driving. Charles doesn't speak the rest of the way home, just broods. When they get there, Erik stays in the garage, tinkering with an old Ford he'd gotten from god-knows-where that probably won't run until they're both grey. Rather than staying and making them both miserable, Charles wanders inside. He's greeted by Sean dramatically thumping his head on the table and swearing that calculus will be the death of him. It's enough to keep him distracted for a few hours.

And then he goes back to worrying. Jean sends Angel down to get her something for lunch, because she claims that Charles' brain is driving her nuts despite her being upstairs. Charles takes his own food out to the garage, where the only reason he doesn't annoy Erik to the point of murder is because the other man keeps half his body under a levitating car.

The only good thing about the first week Alex spends apart from them is that he calls home at the end of it. Charles is overjoyed to hear his voice, tries and fails to not be a pest, and only very reluctantly hands the phone over to the others. Erik laughs at him and draws him into the library to let the kids talk to their sibling in peace.

“Feel better now?” he asks, sitting down and making a move on the chessboard with a flick of his fingers.

“Somewhat. I still want him home and I still worry about what Jean said, but at least he's happy.” And exhausted, but they'd all known that would be a given for a long time. He sounded optimistic about the future, though, which gives Charles hope. The kids destroy their short interlude of peace and quiet by tumbling in like water over rocks, each of them talking over the other. Charles lets it all distract him and tamps down the continued worry for his son at the back of his brain.

Dinner is a lively affair. Everyone's spirits were lifted by hearing from Alex, even Erik's, though there's little love lost between them. Of course, Sean and Angel try to use the excitement to get out of doing their homework after dinner, but Hank shepherds them into his lab before they have a chance to run off. Charles has always been able to depend on him to be a substitute teacher and help things run smoothly.

Things go on as they ever had. Charles asks Sean to dust off Alex's room on Fridays, and trips out are quieter on Sunday afternoons. But otherwise there's little change, apart from a growing anxiety in his heart that Alex will, somehow, come to grief due to his desire to help. Raven and Hank are both older than the boy, the former having gotten into plenty of trouble and the second rarely leaving his lab and studies. But neither of them have ever gone to war in the way Alex desires, in the way he's preparing for. Raven had certainly been misguided in her actions at times, but never anything like that. Erik thinks his fears groundless, he knows, but that doesn't stop them.

Alex calls them every week, but there's little difference in what he says until he graduates boot camp. He's excited to have an immediate assignment, more than halfway to nineteen and with a stronger body and mind than he had when enlisting. The officers allow him to go home before deployment. Erik is quiet throughout the affair, clearly not entirely happy with seeing so young a boy in uniform. Charles and Jean share the same aged fear regarding the red light that brings death. The others are wholly excited to see such visible proof of Alex's achievements. During the week he has off, he more or less has the run of the house, and Charles is grateful that such unlimited power is only given to him after he's matured.

When he ships out, the entire family is there to see him off. Jean, Angel, and Raven are all sniffling, and Charles is barely any better off. Erik shows detached interest in it all, which is honestly a bit more respectful than Charles had anticipated. In any case, he's sure they make a scene, and Alex is slightly embarrassed by all the attention but also greatly relieved that he won't be leaving with any harsh words. His wheelchair gets a few looks, but all in all, it's a smooth parting.

They don't hear anything about Alex for two more months. And then they get a letter from the United States military, and Charles doesn't read much beyond the first few lines, which mention 'dishonourable discharge' and 'whereabouts unknown, presumed dead' before screaming for Erik. Of course, all the yelling attracts the kids as well, but Charles can't speak to them, can't speak at all. He just clings to his best friend and panics and wonders what happened to Alex.

He tries to find him with Cerebro but it doesn't work. Alex has either shielded himself or is being shielded by someone else, and he doesn't like either idea. Charles pushes into the other soldiers' minds, finds that at least Alex left under his own power. Seeing him only secondhand, distraught and shaking and lonely, breaks Charles' heart. Erik insists he stay out of Cerebro for the rest of the day and Charles is too upset to force otherwise. Instead he draws the curtains in his room, turns off the lights, and cries to himself.

On Alex's nineteenth birthday, they all gravitate to the kitchen. It's more silent than it's ever been, even when Charles lived here with only two other people. None of them speak, but all their thoughts are wild with grief. Erik's quietest, and Charles can feel his pain and guilt, his belief that he would have been able to keep this from happening if he'd only managed to persuade Alex that being a soldier wasn't what he really wanted to do.

You did all you could, Charles tells him, glancing at the others. They haven't picked up on their mental conversation, too preoccupied with their own thoughts to pay much attention to a silent exchange of words.

We both know the chances of your son being dead right now, Erik answers harshly, and Charles flinches back from the truth of his words. And I should have stopped it, Charles, I promised to protect your family.

You kept your promise by trying to save him, and I thank you for doing that.

Erik withdraws from the library, unease settling in his stomach. Charles stays with the kids, tries to nudge their minds towards sleep when they start getting tired naturally. They curl up together instead of going separately to their rooms, and he can't blame them a bit. Instead he manages to get himself onto the couch and falls asleep there himself.

An FBI agent knocks on the front door of the mansion mid-November. Charles gets the door open and moves his wheelchair back, asking Agent Duncan to invite himself in. He offers to speak with him in the kitchen or library, and Duncan politely agrees to the latter. As they're on their way there, Charles asks why the agent is at his home. He says something that rebuilds Charles' world and then destroys it – Alex is alive and arrested that morning for attempted murder.

Although he keeps speaking, Charles is blanking out on the details of his words. “I'm sorry,” he interrupts. He stops and makes himself take a deep breath, then another, as Duncan stares at him quizzically. “This is... this is the first I've heard anything of my son in six months. There was a letter in April saying he was presumed dead, so we didn't even know he was alive. You must understand. It's all very...”

“My apologies, Professor Xavier, I hadn't known. Would you like me to call for someone?”

“No, it's all right. Erik should be joining us shortly.” Charles sends a brief, scrambled plea for that exact thing to happen and hopes that his friend will come quickly. “The, ah, the library is, well, it's right this way.” He hasn't stumbled over his words like that in such a very long time, but Alex being alive has changed absolutely everything. Agent Duncan is polite enough to open the door for him, and Charles goes straight to the sideboard and the liquor there, pouring out a glass for both of them.

“Ah, Erik,” he says faintly a few moments later. The other man had run into the library, stopped short to glare rather suspiciously at the stranger in his home. “This is FBI Agent, erm, I believe it was Duncan?” He pauses for the polite confirmation, nods to himself, and continues. “Well, he's here about Alex. If you could repeat what you told me, Agent Duncan, I'd be most grateful.”

The agent does so, pausing around the time that Charles had interrupted him.”I understand if you need some time,” he says. “But you were listed as Alex's emergency contact when he went into the military. Unless you wish to revoke that listing, you'll be in charge of handling everything that Alex cannot do himself. Arranging for legal council, and the like. Otherwise, his case can be assigned to a court-appointed attorney and-”

“Most certainly not,” Charles says. “When can we speak with Alex? I want to talk with him as soon as possible. Today.”

Agent Duncan nods. “I'm afraid my car isn't equipped for a wheelchair, but if your friend would like to come with us to help you, I believe we can manage.”

“Fortunately unnecessary. Erik, if you could go get a dose of the serum for me?” Once Erik was gone, he turned to Agent Duncan to explain. “I am a mutant, and there is a treatment for my paralysis that comes at the cost of taking away my powers. Truthfully, I prefer having them over the ability to walk, but I think in present case, it would be better if I were standing. Now, if you could tell me what I'll need to have with me and what I'll have to do to make the visitation process go smoothly?” He takes mental notes as everything is explained, and really, it's common sense. Dress plainly and carry identification.

Noise precedes Erik's return. The kids burst into the library, all of them yelling at the top of their voice and trying to get most of Charles' attention. Finally Raven gets his attention by shouting to know if it's true. He holds out his hand for the syringe before answering her, rolling his eyes when Erik only gives him a look and sets about doing it himself. While he's generally not one for untimely lessons in patience, he waits until the needle is removed to speak.

“I have no idea what you've heard that you're wanting to know the truth of,” he says, nodding a thanks to Erik. “But this is FBI Agent Duncan, who has informed me that Alex is alive and in... I don't believe you said where, Agent.”

“New York City,” the agent answers. “We'll be able to get there in a few hours. I'm sorry if you didn't hear the first time. I was out this way already so they asked me to drop by instead of phoning you.”

“Well, things were rather jumbled, and for good reason,” Charles says. “But, yes, Alex is alive in New York and I'm going to meet with him. He's being held against charges of attempted murder, according to the authority of Agent Duncan.”

“My brother would never try to kill someone,” Sean yells at the agent. “You're lying.”

“Sean!” Charles reprimands him. “I don't want to believe it any more than you do, but let's face things. We've known nothing of Alex for a very long time and we have no idea what he's gone through or what he has or hasn't done. There is a chance, however slight, that he is guilty of the accusations placed against him. But whether he is or not, I intend to do everything I can to get him home as quickly as possible.” He stands up, grateful for Hank's closeness that allows him to take his first few steps.

“I'll get the car started,” Agent Duncan says, retreating to let the family work out the last few details.

From the moment he leaves, the library devolves into shouting chaos. Charles can't do anything to stop it, and he's just glad that he doesn't have to hear their thoughts as well. He lets them yell out all their questions and concerns, only glancing up at them once silence falls.

“I don't know anything,” Charles confesses. “But bringing Alex home is my only task. Keep your phones charged in case I need to call you. I'll probably have to stay a few nights.”

“Let me get your wallet and a vial of the serum,” Hank suggests.

“That would be a good idea. I hadn't even thought of that.” Charles waits, until Hank comes back with a leather satchel. He explains that it holds a week's worth of the serum pre-measured for daily injections, another week of multivitamins, a phone charger, several hundred dollars cash, and Charles' wallet. “Thank you very much, Hank. You and Erik will be in charge of things while I'm gone, all right? However this goes, I need things to be running smoothly here.”

“We'll behave,” Angel promises. Charles glances at her, surprised. While they're all very special to him, Angel is, undeniably, the one most likely to cause him grief, with her temper and disregard for authority. Those two things had first led her from her parents' home to the streets, and then from her bare survival there to a home at the school. He admires her courage and tenacity but has sometimes wished they were applied to things other than getting into trouble.

He's gone in the next five minutes, anxiously drumming his fingers on his thighs the whole ride to New York. Agent Duncan flips on the radio, tells him to set the channel to whatever he likes, and doesn't try to make him talk. Charles doesn't even know what would come out of his mouth right now anyway.

They finally arrive in the city, and Charles fidgets all through the process of signing into the jail. From there it's even more processing and more waiting, and it takes what feels like an eternity to get them both through security. And then they wait even longer, for Alex to be taken from his cell and brought to one of the rooms. Charles just barely manages to stay still, relieved that the scanner hadn't gone off accidentally and that they hadn't made an issue over Alex being a mutant and a hundred other things.

“Room seventeen,” the guard tells them, escorting them down the hallway. Both Charles and Agent Duncan had left all their belongings in the car, and he'd signed his gun and badge in at the security desk. While the agent sits down, Charles can't make himself do the same, instead pacing the small room as his anxiety heightens. The guard shuts the door behind them and leaves them alone. Rather than being here on visitation, as he'd assumed earlier, they're here as workers on the case, and a recording device is set into the table in a black box. The agent switches it on, states the time, date, and both their names.

“Professor Xavier, Alex wasn't told your name,” Agent Duncan tells him. “He was simply told that this was going to be council and pre-production regarding his case. You're here as an expert on his genetic profile, since this is a case involving a mutant, and to later testify as to his history and character.”

Charles is about to protest hiding the truth, on matter how briefly, when the prisoner side's door opens. He whirls, freezing in place when he sees who came through. “Alex,” he says softly, grateful the table is nearby so he can put a hand on it to steady himself.

Rather than replying, Alex seems shocked into silence. For a moment he just stands there, quite honestly looking like a fool, but Charles couldn't care less. He stumbles around the table and beckons for Alex to come to him. The moment he has his son in his arms again, Charles starts crying, sobs he can't hold back.

“You're alive,” he whispers in relief. “You're alive. Alex, what happened?” he asks, drawing back a little. He's still holding on to him, still reassuring himself that Alex is really there. But he has to know.

“It's a long story. But I guess... I guess you deserve to know.” Alex pulls back, crosses his arms across his chest. He's ashamed of himself, Charles knows that even without his telepathy. They both sit down, and Alex glances at the other man at the table. “Agent,” he says with a nod.

“You two know each other?” Charles asks.

“I was the agent who arrested Alex at the bank,” Agent Duncan explains. “And I've also been assigned to handle his case through sentencing. This session will be recorded as part of the pretrial proceedings, so it will be best if you both speak clearly into the microphone whenever possible. Now, Mr Summers, if you could identify this man and his relation to you, as well as briefly share your history as a minor?”

“Dr Charles Xavier,” Alex answers. “He's my adoptive father. My real parents died in a plane crash when I was ten. The first foster home seemed like it would be a permanent placement but they dumped me back in the system after almost two years. I bounced around a lot before Charles applied to take me. He runs a boarding school and foster home for mutants. He told me what I was and that he could help me when my mutation presented itself.”

“And how was Dr Xavier aware that you were a mutant?”

Alex hesitates and looks to Charles. “I...”

“I told Agent Duncan that I was a mutant back at the house, Alex. It's all right.”

“He's a telepath. I didn't want to say without his permission, 'cause it's kind of something you don't just blurt out. And there's tech at the house that amplifies his powers and allows him to tell the difference between human and mutant. There's a mental signature, stuff he can explain better than I can. But he'd found me with Cerebro, looking for preteens that didn't know they were mutants.”

“Why was that?” Duncan asks.

“To promote their safety,” Charles answers. “Most mutations develop in preteen and early teen years. If you don't know what you are, suddenly having powers can be unsettling, even dangerous. When I first started hearing peoples' thoughts, I believed I was going insane. A student of mine was unable to control her powers and nearly killed someone simply by touching them, not knowing that she was a danger. Unfortunately, there are more than a handful of 'parents' that would rather their mutant child out of their home or even dead. Once I had the school running, my two priorities were to help mutant children understand how to control their powers, and to give them a safe place to live in the event that their natural environment was no longer suitable.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Alex, please continue.”

“When Charles first spoke to me, I thought I was just going crazy. But he explained what we were and his abilities. He said that I should try to find a local mutant program, or something like that, I don't remember the words exactly. And I told him I couldn't, because I never lived somewhere long enough. I explained that I was in foster care and everything, and he said he ran a school for mutants and that he would apply to foster me if I wanted him to. I figured he couldn't be any worse than anywhere else I'd been placed so far, so I said yes.

“I moved to Westchester the next month, a few days before I turned twelve. He explained the whole mutant thing to me, introduced me to the other kids. I never manifested, but he said that every so often that happened, or that my mutation was just something that you wouldn't notice unless you really went out of your way to look for it. He mentioned a mutant that had a lethal allergy but also a really strong internal healing factor. Nobody knew she was allergic until it came back on some test results.”

“So mutants first showing their powers past the age of thirteen or so is uncommon?” Duncan asks.

“Fairly,” Charles answers. “Some are visible from birth, like my adopted sister Raven's. Mine showed up when I was about seven. Most are between the ages of eleven to thirteen, with the majority occurring in the later two years of that bracket. As the body starts to enter puberty, it triggers changes in the body, which commonly includes the mutant gene unless it had been present from a younger age or needed a different trigger. Some powers won't show up until the subject is in their late teens or even an adult, and only at times of extreme stress or danger.”

“Alex, when you didn't manifest a mutation, what then?”

“I was around fourteen and a half when Charles told me I wasn't likely to develop a mutation under normal circumstances. I panicked, thought he wouldn't keep me any more if I wasn't a mutant with powers. Not like he was running some kind of child army out of the school or anything. My other foster homes had never kept me as long as he had, and I was scared I was going to lose the first home I'd had since my parents died. But he said he wanted to keep me anyway, offered to adopt me to prove that he wanted me to stay. I didn't really care much either way, just wanted to make it harder for him to ditch me when the time came.

“But he never did. I got nervous again, when I was almost eighteen. Charles told me I would always be welcome and that he'd support whatever I wanted to do. He didn't like me wanting to risk my life in the army instead of going to college, but I figured it'd be smarter to wait and get veterans' benefits with schooling and everything. And I knew there was a risk that I'd get hurt or even killed, but honestly, I didn't think anything would happen. So he said that when I was old enough, he'd drive me out to boot camp, and made me promise to write him every weekend.”

“Thank you. Now, please relay the precise events that occurred since you turned eighteen.”

“Yeah,” Alex says quietly. “I can't tell you all the details. Some of the names, the places, I don't know if they're classified. But I'll tell you what I know I can. I enlisted a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday, wanted to help save the world. Went through boot camp and training, and then I got to go home for a little bit before I shipped out. My unit got an assignment really quickly.”

“Where was that assignment?” Duncan asks.

“Afghanistan. We weren't told exactly where we were going, or what we'd be doing, for security reasons. It wasn't until we landed on the other side of the ocean that our commanding officer filled in the details. Can't tell you where we were, but our job was pretty much the same as any soldier's. We were there to take out the bad guys and minimise the civilian casualties while doing it. Everything went pretty smoothly, we ran maybe half a dozen missions, lost some guys, got a couple new ones.

“We got a new assignment on the other side of the country. The current team had been almost halved by the enemy, but we'd almost driven them out. And we'd managed to pin them in a city that had been evacuated a while before, but if we pulled out to allow an air strike, they'd be able to scatter before the bombs hit. So we had to take them out on the ground. Officially we were there as backup, but they told us we'd be going in before the main troops this time, to sort of lay groundwork.”

“Why was that?” Charles interrupts.

“I don't know. They didn't tell us. But they said it'd be dangerous, so we figured we were gonna be cannon fodder, more or less. We knew that going in. The guys we were up against, though, they were way more experienced than we were. Our unit, it was our first battle in that area, we had no idea what to expect or who we're up against, and these guys are killing us as fast as we get our boots on the sand. One of the first officers they took out was the only one that knew the region, so we were pretty much going in blind, guided by the radio. It was an abandoned city, so we've got some cover, but they've got the numbers, the high ground, every advantage you can think of. All of us, we were, we were terrified. Guys were screaming for their moms, their girlfriends, their gods. None of us thought we were going to get out alive, you could fucking smell the terror on these guys. I can count the number of 'em older than me on one hand, too.” Alex shudders, rubbing his hands up and down his face.

“It's all right, Alex,” Charles says quietly. He reaches across the table to take his hand, rubbing his thumb over the younger man's knuckles. “You're home, now. You're safe.”

“Charles, I don't... I don't think you get it. You go through something like that, there isn't flipping a switch and suddenly being safe. There's just, just knowing that there's always something out there that's gonna latch onto you and keep you from ever being peaceful again. When you come home, you don't think, 'oh, hey, lock the doors and windows, and you can keep evil out'. Instead you know that safety is a fantasy and if something like that ever happens again, the only thing you're gonna be able to do is watch your family go down the way you watched your friends.”

“Alex, what you're feeling is normal,” Duncan says quietly, leaning back. “I understand that you don't want to talk about this. But you need to tell us everything that happened to you, and in your own words.”

“Who else's words am I going to use?” Alex asks, shrugging slightly. “Anyway, we go a few miles from the field base to the firefight, we're dying in our best friends' blood, and there's an explosion. They're not rare out in war zones, but this one, it was different. Our guys could tell, we all knew something was up. So did the enemy. For a second, we all stopped shooting, and this one kid pops his head up with this crazy grin, saying, 'Hey, I bet we get to go home now!'. I'm screaming at him to get down, thinking some guy on the other side is gonna shoot him to pieces. But nothing happens for a long couple minutes.

“Then it just... there's this sound, and when it's over... everybody's ears are bleeding, I can barely hear over the ringing in my ears, and I can see my buddies screaming but they're not making a sound. And the enemy, they figure we're just laying there doing nothing, and they charge us. We all panic, all of us, just flat out panic. Every single one of us toss down our guns and run for it. Somehow there's guys all around us, going hand to hand, we don't have a chance, and it feels like there's something burning in me. Like when you drink something too hot and you can feel it going all the way down your throat into your stomach, except it's coming up out of me instead.

“Some guy rushes me, covered in blood and screaming in a language I don't understand, but I know he's about to cut my throat with a knife. Then there's this red light, and everyone's dead. Everything, from maybe waist high up, was just destroyed. Stuff's burning and smoking, and it looks like someone just took some ray gun and zapped the whole place. There's only two guys left alive on our side. One of them was down wounded, the other guy was trying to cover him. It was the only way they survived. The hurt guy, oh my god, I think he was younger than I was. But the other one, he's, I don't know, maybe five or six years older. His name was Barton, dunno about the young one. The other guys, on both sides, they're down either wounded or dead.

“Barton, he helps me carry the hurt one out of the city. Both of them lost their rifles, hurt kid and me had lost our pistols. So me and Barton, we're staggering along in the sand trying to get back to our base camp so we can do anything to save this soldier bleeding out in the middle of some godforsaken country I don't ever even want to think about again. While we're walking, I'm trying to figure things out, and I realise that I'm the one that had to have caused that red light somehow. That hot feeling in my chest, it went away when the light destroyed everything, and I have the mutant gene, you know?

“Halfway back to base, I just have this breakdown. Cause I killed all these guys, killed all of my friends, and I'm begging Barton to kill me. He won't do it, I drop the hurt guy and I lunge at him trying to get his pistol. We fight over it, he decks me, and I go down, almost face to face with the kid we're trying to get out of there. He promises me he'll put me down as soon as we get back to base, but that he needs my help to save this guy. And I can't, I just can't, let him die because I've gotta be self-centered. So I let Barton take my rifle away from me, I help him pick the kid back up, and we get going again.

“We make it back to base, we radio our CO and we tell them just that we got the upper hand but things went real bad and we need out of there, now. So we got confirmation that we've got a chopper inbound to the nearest LZ and we need to get ready to evac.”

“Sorry, could you say that in layman's terms?” Duncan interrupts. “About the chopper?”

“They, uh, the Army sent a helicopter to get us out of the place. It's not safe to land aircraft anywhere when it's the middle of a firefight, so we'd have to make it from the camp to a place it's safe to put a plane or heli down. LZ is a landing zone, somewhere that's cleared for us to be able to board and get out. So when we get back to our field base, kind of like an outpost, they tell us that we're gonna be getting out of there as soon as they can pull it off, and we need to make a run for it and hunker down until the chopper gets there.

“And I figure that Barton doesn't need me any more. LZ's not more than half a mile off, he can carry a guy that far by himself, especially a real skinny one like that hurt kid. So I get in his face, I'm screaming 'you promised' over and over again. Cause I need him to put me down before I hurt anyone else. But he won't do it, and I'm getting mad as hell. I'm scared, too, because all I'm thinking is that if I get stuck on a chopper, there's no way for me to bolt before I risk hurting a lot more people.

“So I try to fight him over the gun again. Cause that worked so well the last time, you know? Barton, he just knocks me out cold with one punch. I'm out of it after that, and next thing I know, I wake up in a military hospital. They've got me drugged half outta my head, and I'm trying to get out of there because I need to escape before I kill someone. The hurt kid is in the bed next to me, looking like he's not going to make it.

“I managed to get out of bed, and they had my uniform folded up next to it. I got changed and managed to get back to my quarters and grab my duffle. I have no idea what I'm gonna do, just that I don't want to hurt anyone again. But something catches up to me, probably the drugs. They find me blacked out in the middle of the tent, cut on my head that's getting blood all over the place. Next time I wake up, they say I'm getting kicked out. Hurt guy and Barton gave statements, they said, and they're giving me a discharge instead of a death squad because I was some kind of model soldier for 'em till I went insane, and 'cause we were the only reason that the enemy died.

“Anyway, I make 'em promise not to tell anyone, even Charles. Cause I don't want him to find out that he took a chance on some system kid, adopted him for god's sake, just for me to turn into some murdering freak. They had papers ready for me, but I managed to get on board early. Everyone knew they were sending me home, knew what happened, and the officer checking papers didn't even look at me. I figured it was too late for anyone to try to say I deserted, and I didn't care any more anyway. Once I got back Stateside, I sold off as much of my stuff as I could. Felt wrong to sell off my uniform, kept the picture of my family, but the rest of it went. Took the name off the jacket and just tried to stay under the radar. Tried to survive.

“Did a good job, too. I never hurt anybody, never stole anything. Well, I found a wallet once and took the money out before I handed it in to a cop station. But I made it. Hungry and tired all the time, never had anywhere to sleep that wasn't a street, but I stayed on the right side of the law. I didn't have anything to my name worth having, but I kept doing the right thing.”

“You never thought about going back to Professor Xavier's home?” Unlike his professional demeanour before, Duncan seems personally sympathetic now.

“He took me in, rescued me from living with people that hated me. And he didn't want me joining the Army, wanted me to go to college. So I betray my dad, kill people, probably destroy the lives of the ones that didn't die. And I'm supposed to go back home to my family, with my head all screwed up, and ask them to pretend that everything's suddenly all right? Pretend that I can sleep at night, that I'm not scared of myself, that I don't think I could kill one of my little brothers or sisters and not even realise it until I wake up from being awake?” His voice and hands shake, and he drops his head, blinking back tears.

“Alex,” Charles whispers, tears streaking down his face. “I will always welcome you back home. How could I ever turn my back on you? You are my son.” Not blood family, but that hasn't mattered in years. Alex is his boy, and Charles can't imagine abandoning him.

“I'm so sorry.” Alex breaks down into sobs, fingers tugging at his hair. “Charles, I-I'm sorry. I just want to go home.”

“I'm going to take you home. I promise. Whatever your gift is, I'll help you find a way to control it. You won't have to worry about hurting us. Okay, Alex?”

“This isn't a gift, Charles, this is a disaster. How the hell are we gonna control this?” Alex demands. Charles can't answer him truthfully.

“Alex,” Agent Duncan says softly. “What happened after you sold your stuff and started living on the streets? I'm sorry to ask, but we need to get through this. The faster we do, the faster we can get the trial started, and the faster you get back home. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Yessir.” Alex takes a deep breath, tries to get his breathing down to manageable levels. “I ran out of money real fast. I didn't want to go to to a shelter or a VA or somewhere. They got people worse off than me, people that deserve what they can get.”

“So you think you don't deserve the same resources and benefits that others would get?”

“Not after... not after Afghanistan. That place just made me a monster. And I wanted to stay away from people so I wouldn't hurt them. So I stayed on the streets, did what I could. The easiest thing to do would have been to get in the crime scene, but I stayed out of that. Heard what was going on, though. Couple of guys were planning to rob a bank, didn't care if people got hurt. They didn't know I could hear them, but I wanted to stop them, and when one of them pointed a gun at me, things just got out of hand. I could feel that heat in my throat, and I realised I had to move or I was gonna blow this guy to bits. I tried to make a run for it, cause I didn't want to even hurt him, forget about killing him.

“There was that red light again, and next thing I know, the whole damn roof is missing. People are all screaming, and there's this kid crying loud enough that I can hear it over the fire alarm. Chunks of concrete everywhere, sprinkler pipes raining on everything, and I'm just standing there in the middle of it with my shirt burned off my chest. Of course, the bank guards picked up on me being trouble. And I was so scared that I was gonna kill someone again that I did everything they said. I don't know how to control what I can do. I don't even know what my powers are. I just know that I don't want to hurt anyone.

“Agent Duncan met them at the street, took me down to the closest station, booked me, found my record and all that. They said they had to call my emergency contact. I asked them not to, I begged them to keep Charles out of it. I didn't want him to see what I was. Nobody said anything, just told me to keep quiet. I figured they were just gonna set me up to see the inside of a hole for the rest of my life. They've had me in solitary so far, like I asked. And then you two showed up.”

“I want you to make me a promise. Promise me you'll call me the next time you get in trouble, no matter where you are, no matter what you've done. I need you to promise me that, right here, right now,” Charles insists.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, voice hoarse with talking and crying. “If there's a next time, I'll call you, dad, I swear.”

“I think that's enough for today,” Agent Duncan says. “Now, the New York legal system has certain steps it follows. We've gotten past the first one, which was Alex's arrest and booking. Next is the arraignment, which has to happen within thirty-six hours. Since Alex was arrested at around noon today, they'll have to do it by midnight the day after tomorrow. They've already named charges, but that will be when they're officially presented and the bail is set. Realistically, it'll be sometime tomorrow afternoon. If we're lucky, we'll have a lawyer by then, and we'll be able to get Alex out on bail.”

“No,” Alex protests. “I could be dangerous. What if I have a flashback or something?”

“That's why I'll be with you,” Charles says. “Look, Alex, if you genuinely want to stay in prison, then that's your choice. But I want to take you home and let you get some rest in your own room before we have to start all this.” Trials are lengthy affairs, and he doesn't want to have to leave Alex sitting in some cell throughout the whole thing when he can do something to prevent it. “I've kept Erik from hurting me many more times than I would have liked, due to the same reasons that have you afraid.”

“Well, there's not much we can do without a lawyer,” Duncan points out. “I suggest we adjourn, you and Alex talk a little about what you think you might want to do next, and then we get to work on finding a legal team. He'll have a court-appointed one otherwise, and that's far from his best shot with how touchy mutant issues are. Since it's New York, there's plenty of firms that handle superhuman clients. This is going to be a costly thing, Dr Xavier, in both time and money, I won't lie about that.”

“Doesn't matter,” Charles tells him. “I want my son home with me while we figure out how to prove he's innocent. Whatever that takes.”

“All right, then. That officially concludes our interview, I'll be leaving the recorder on until you and Mr Summers leave the room for legal purposes. Everything on these tapes is confidential to the justice and legal departments tasked with handling the case. Clear?” Upon getting affirmative answers from both men, he gives them as much privacy as he can, given that they're in an interrogation room.

Charles doesn't speak about anything regarding the case. He just talks about Erik's latest improvements with the Ford, Hank's new experiments, Sean's recent crush, Angel getting back together with Janos after breaking up with him, and Raven and Jean bonding over how annoying they found boys. All of it is meaningless in the long run, but Alex listens to everything with the expression of a starving man. Eventually Charles runs out of things to say, and they sit there in silence for a moment before he works up the courage to ask the question that's been on his mind since nearly the beginning.

“Alex, we looked for you. Physically, of course, and with Cerebro. We couldn't find you. Did you shield yourself from me on purpose?”

“I'm sorry,” Alex whispers.

“It's all right,” Charles tells him, though he's internally reeling from the news. He'd taught Alex how to keep him out of his thoughts early on, wanting to give him some privacy even though he was growing up around a telepath, but had never expected his teachings to be turned against him. “Was it something I'd done?”

“God, no. It was me. My instability, the danger I was to the school. Because I knew that if you showed up and wanted to take me back home, I wouldn't be able to tell you no. And if I ever hurt one of the kids in any way, I don't know what I'd do, but I don't think I could live with myself.”

“We'll figure something out to keep everyone safe. Hank could very likely amend the serum to help anything from being a problem until we get a start on figuring out what you can do.”

“Could you clarify that statement for the records, Dr Xavier?” Duncan asks.

“Hank McCoy is one of the students at my home. He's a brilliant geneticist and scientist. And the nature of his mutation was made worse by means of a wayward experiment. Rather than being able to control the times at which it emerged, he constantly lived in his mutated state. But he managed to find a serum that negates the effects of the mutant gene in one's blood for short periods of time. It works from a few hours to a day at a time. Of course, it has to be adjusted to fit an individual's genetic template, but he managed to tweak it to work for me, so I imagine it may turn out to be the best thing for Alex in the short term.

“It would, at the least, prevent the possibility of his powers destroying something while he has a nightmare or flashback. There's nothing to be ashamed of in using it for such a purpose, Alex. Erik still does, at times.”

“He does?” Alex asks, startled.

“Who's Erik?” Duncan asks.

“A very close friend of mine that helps me run the school. He was kidnapped by a Nazi cult when he was a boy, who killed his family and tortured him for several years. Before we figured it out, there were quite a few injuries between the two of us thanks to the nature of his mutation. When I expressed my interest in opening my home to foster children and students, he refused to stay with the occasional unpredictability of his powers. Much like you were saying earlier, Alex. I believe that, with its use, we'll be able to have your powers be far less of a danger in as little as a few months.”

“If you say so.”

Charles can't blame him for being unsure. But he hopes that they'll be able to work something out, that it will all come together sooner rather than later. “I think Agent Duncan and I will have to take our leave for now,” he says regretfully. “We'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a legal team. I'll be staying in the city, so if you need anything, I'll be here as soon as possible.”

“Sounds good,” Alex agrees, but Charles can already see fatigue in the slope of his shoulders and the shadows under his eyes.

They both stand up and Charles hugs him again, holding him tight as he whispers I love you. Alex doesn't speak, just clings to him, until the guard comes in and tells them that their time is up. He doesn't move until Alex is out of sight, and even then he's reluctant to leave. Making his son be alone anywhere is against his nature, especially somewhere where everyone believes he's a murderer. Realistically Charles knows he's overreacting, but this is the first he's seen Alex in so long, and to not be able to take him home immediately is hard.

“Do you think he has a chance?” Charles asks, following Agent Duncan out into the hallway.

“If everything he's saying is true, then yes. He had every reason to believe that his mutation was nothing more than having the x-gene present in his body and that he would be no danger to anyone. And he actively attempted to first save someone he'd possibly hurt, and then to avoid hurting a man who had a gun to him. If it weren't for his record as a foster kid, it would be open and shut with him going home tomorrow. But it's the fact that he was an accomplished little criminal as a teenager that'll make things hard.”

“His criminal record was empty since he moved to Westchester,” Charles points out. “And I believe a lot of that was due to issues with his brother.”

“He has a brother?”

“Used to. When Alex was ten years old, his parents died in a plane crash. He and his younger brother were hospitalised, but Scott had sustained a head injury that resulted in his death by the time Alex woke up. Their mother had pushed them out with the craft's one functional parachute, and they crash-landed. Alex was badly hurt himself, even took the brunt of the landing to try to save his brother, but Scott was only four years old. But for a long time, Alex was convinced that everyone was lying to him and that his brother had survived.”

“Guilt and denial. Seems to be a recurring theme with your kid,” Duncan says, not unkindly.

“Alex has always taken too much responsibility and blame. I'm just hoping he won't sabotage himself during the trial. He's... he's a spectacular young man, he just refuses to see that about himself.”

“Well, we'll see. I had a buddy collect the name of some local law firms that specialise in superhuman law. Unless you want to work on finding somewhere to stay, you're welcome to come to the office with me and we can start working through the list.”

“I think that would be the best course of action,” Charles agrees. He and Duncan leave the building, and he nourishes a silent hope that the next time he goes down those steps, Alex will be at his side.