Charlotte Xavier - A Thousand Years

Epologue: A Thousand Years

"And all along I believed I would find you.
Time has brought your heart to me.
I have loved you for a thousand years,
I'll love you for a thousand more..."

~ "A Thousand Years", Christina Perri

... ...

"Charlotte?" Erik asked.

Charlotte smiled gently. "Hello, Erik."

Erik stood faster than he thought possible and knelt beside Charlotte, pulling her into a tight hug—desperate to reassure himself that she was real. She was there, she was real, she was alive. So wonderfully, fantastically, amazingly alive. Before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled her in for a kiss.

It was intimate, it was desperate, and it was just what Erik had dreamed of for years. He cupped Charlotte's cheek, searching her blue eyes.

'Liebling.' Erik thought, unable to rein in his awe and joy. Charlotte didn't seem to mind. He felt her presence in the back of his head, wrapped around his mind like a blanket.

'My love.' Charlotte greeted softly and glimpsed into Erik's memories following her death, his grief, the fighting, losing his powers, his mourning ever since. She lingered on a few memories—him, reading her letter and trying to hold back a sob so he wasn't caught...the twins finding him anyways and their ensuing moment as an actual family...him, snarling at Pyro. "My single greatest regret is that she had to die."...him at her gravestone, mourning and weeping...

Charlotte shared with Erik a feeling of warmth and love, soothing the ragged edges of his wounded heart. 'I'm here, Erik. I'm not leaving again. I promise. Never again, never again. Never.'

"This has to be a dream." Erik whispered. "An amazing, heartbreaking dream."

Charlotte's smile was beautiful and exactly the same as it had been, years ago, when a compassionate woman pulled an angry, misguided man from the sea and rejoiced in their meeting. "It's not a dream, I promise. I'm real and I am here and I am never letting you leave ever again. Bullet or no bullets."

Erik brushed his thumb across Charlotte's cheek. "How?"

Charlotte caught Erik's hand in hers and motioned for him to return to his chair. Erik did and she explained, though Charlotte did not once release her hand from his. "Once again, my love, you forget." She said and touched her temple with her free hand.

The gesture was so familiar but so forgotten. Charlotte hadn't done it in years, decades even, but not often at all after Cuba. It was a mannerism Erik had gotten to know her as having and seeing it again left him with a feeling that maybe, just maybe, he had gotten a second chance after all.

"You recall the day we went to Jean's house that first time, some twenty years ago?" Charlotte continued. "I projected myself there."

Erik closed his eyes and nodded in dawning, amazed comprehension. "You did it again, didn't you?"

A smile touched Charlotte's lips. "Yes. I wasn't sure about it all. I knew I would go into that house to speak with Jean alone and knew the possible outcomes. So I decided a little psychic trickery was possible. I never taught Jean that skill," she added. "So she never learned to recognize it after so many years of my practice. That...paid off. It was a risk. But one I was willing to take. Had she caught me..." She trailed off with a shudder.

"What might she have done?" Erik asked, concerned.

"Made it impossible for my consciousness to return to my body, most likely. Possibly have just killed me all together. I'm unsure, but it would not have been pleasant." Charlotte wrinkled her nose. "It wasn't pleasant anyways."