the color of metal

chapter fifteen

x CHAPTER FIFTEEN x
a long over due chat

~<x>~

Josie had exited the bathroom without so much a glance anyones way. Logan, having dealt with Josie's overloads in the future, thought nothing of it while Erik sat in quiet contemplation. She could feel the curiosity radiating off of him and used it to fuel her reading. After an hour or so, the sun began to set and Josie decided to try and rest for a few hours.

Setting the book down, Josie rubbed at one of her eyes and started to curl up against the window. Her sun bleached blonde hair fell a bit in front of her eyes but she was too tired to swipe it away. This was the first thing that changed about her, her once light brown had lightened when she spent almost every moment she could in the sun. Eventually she took the step to have it dyed by one of her students who was an amateur stylist and had loved the look of it. Erik would be lying if he said he liked the way the blonde tendrils lightened up her eyes.

Erik watched her situate herself, thinking now was the time to approach her as she had finally put down the book, before he lost the nerve. He stood and made his way over to her, Logan glancing up at him before glancing down at Josie and turning away.

She felt him sit down across from her, his aura pushing into her like water to a cup. He was suffocating and Josie would be lying if she said it didn't irritate her how much she didn't mind being suffocated by him. He still felt the same way; intense and without remorse. Erik was confident in almost everything he did. Even now his confidence overcame the nerves bubbling under the surface. There was much he could hide behind a confident smile but Josie always saw right through it.

Before he could even utter a word she was speaking, reading him just as he had done to her in the short while they had known each other, "You're staring."

"I can't help it. You're being very intense." Erik said without so much as a twitch of his lips. It was teasing yet bitter as he recalled saying those very words to her all those years ago.

With her eyes still closed Josie scoffed, "You know you're a hypocrite. You claim Charles to be hiding, for me and Hank to have locked ourselves away but where were you?"

When there was no reply Josie opened her eyes and looked at him for the first time since they'd been with one another. He had gotten even more handsome if that was possible. His eyes were darker, tired from what he had suffered throughout these past eleven years. Another match of wills ensued between the pair, one laced with a decades worth of unsaid words, a longing that had fluctuated but never faltered. As much as she didn't want to admit it she had missed him, crimson aura and all.

Sitting up in her seat Josie narrowed her eyes and allowed her skin to ripple out the colors of her aura rather than keep them contained to her toes like she had been doing all day, "For a year I looked for you and Raven. I wrote letter after letter only to have them sent back but you read them, I know you did. There was too much emotion left behind for me not to. A part of me thought you were dead, that Raven and the others had gotten killed following after you. It took me a handful of years to realize you were hiding from me and Charles, that you didn't want to be found and that was why I couldn't reach you."

"You refused me," he said simply, "and I've been in the same place for years now."

Leaning back and looking away to the window, Josie couldn't suppress the laugh bubbling up in her and she bit the side of her bent pointer finger with a sick smile. She couldn't cry now. There was nothing to even cry from. Frustration? Ten years boiling down to three words? You refused me. Could his silent treatment really have been because she didn't want to die in his brotherhood, because she wanted to help rather than hurt?

"You wanted to see the world burn, for the humans to kneel before the superior species. All I wanted was to coexist and show others like us how to live among the humans peacefully. We had separate views, Erik. I wouldn't have survived in your brotherhood. There was a much better way to settle everything and you didn't want to see what I saw," a deep huff followed before she continued, "Regardless of your imprisonment you were afraid to face me. I felt it."

Erik was getting angry now as he leaned forward to sneer, "Were you not the one who told me to kill Shaw? To do what I felt was right?"

Josie couldn't hold it back any longer and shouted, "Yes but I never asked you to leave me on that beach and never look back. I didn't ask for eleven years of silence!"

Erik wasn't shocked by her out burst like Logan was. Just like Charles she had many things she needed to say and she had never been one to hide her frustration, at least when he had known her. There was a pause in her words as she closed her eyes to compose herself. Her skin went from a deeper red with a gray underlay to a light orange speckled with red and gray.

Calming down, Josie softly said, "I can understand the need for revenge, I have killed for less in the CIA. I never judged you the way Charles did for killing Shaw. My issue is how you handled everything after it was done. I, like the naive woman I was, believed you would end this all on the beach and break the vicious cycle of revenge and hate you cling to. I knew you were a good man even if you didn't see it. I know better now. You didn't give peace a chance, you never did and you never will. Logan believes otherwise however I've been inside every memory and every emotion you've ever felt. You forced me to endure all that you had in the past eleven years and I can say for certain that when it comes time to stop Raven you won't do so peacefully. All you know is how to end something before its had a chance to begin again."

There was silence after Josie finished. There was a part of her that tried to convince herself by those words, her aching heart forcing her mind to accept the words she had been saying since his disappearance.

The match of wills ended with Josie turning away from Erik. She stood and stretched muttering to Logan about wanting something to eat and asking if he was hungry before going off to the back as if she hadn't reached into Eriks chest and poked at his very soul. Guilt flashed through his aura, Josie could feel it from the back of the plane. Guilt for what she didn't care. He should feel bad for what he did, to her, to Charles. He had assumed she hated him for killing Shaw when it was quite the opposite.

For the first few years of their separation, Erik had dreaded seeing Josie again for fear of what she'd say to him or rather what she would convince him to give up. As the years wore on he began to miss her, so much so that he didn't care if she'd yell at him until she was blue in the face he only wished to have just one more easy conversation. It was always easy talking to Josie and Erik hoped it would be again. Once she had forgiven him and he had forgiven himself for hurting her.