CATACLYSM || X-Men

11| what becomes of the brokenhearted

Westchester, New York, 1962

Charles knew Rose couldn't sleep. Neither could he and Erik, which was how they ended up with a chessboard between the two, Rose sitting with her back to the fireplace, reading Wyndham's The Chrysalids. Charles had smiled when she did so, seeing what she had so far read through her thoughts when she invited them in.

    Halfway through the game, Charles started voicing his thoughts.

    "Cuba, Russia, America. Makes no difference. Shaw's declared war on mankind. On all of us. He has to be stopped," he spoke, feeling Erik's silent rage and Rose's silent frustration. They all knew it would come to this. They just didn't want to believe it.

    "I'm not gonna stop Shaw. I'm gonna kill him," Erik corrected, looking up from the chess board as Rose's eyes trailed over the top of her book at Charles also.

    "I hope you have it in you to allow that," she told him, the professor letting out a scoff in disappointment at them both, sitting up to make his move on the board.

    "You've known all along why I was here, Charles," Erik pointed out, Rose marking her page and closing her book.

    "We were doing well," she told him, his head immediately shaking in disageement.

    "But things have changed. What started as a covert mission— tomorrow mankind will know that mutants exist. Shaw, us, they won't differentiate. They'll fear us. And that fear will turn to hatred."

    Charles looked to Rose, who the words seemed to hit most. She knew full well what it would be like. She'd been on the receiving end of that fear, and she didn't wish it upon her friends.

    "Not if we stop a war. Not if we can prevent Shaw. Not if we risk our lives doing so," the professor argued, Rose resting her head back against the chair as she breathed out. She didn't sign up for this argument of morals.

    "Will they do the same for us?"

    "We have it in us to be the better men," Charles replied to Erik again, tensions rising between them. It was palpable.

    "We already are!" Erik forced. "We're the next stage of human evolution. You said it yourself."

    "No, no!" Charles stopped him.

    "Are you really so naive, as to think that they won't battle their own extinction? Or is it arrogance?" Erik wondered out loud.

    "I'm sorry?" Charles asked to clarify.

    "After tomorrow, they're going to turn on us. But you're blind to it, because you believe they're all like Moira," Rose spoke, swallowing her feelings at the realisation. Both of them turned to her, Charles sitting up in defiance, but she didn't let him get a word in. "Humans destroy what they fear, and if we're afraid of Shaw, how do you think they'll feel about us?"

    "You both think humans are just like Shaw," he returned.

    "I have first hand experience that they're capable of it," Rose's words shut him up. Seeing him at a loss for a rebuttal, she turned to Erik instead. "I know you want peace, less thoughts of that gunshot and your own disappointment with that coin, but killing Shaw will not bring you what you crave. It'll feel like relief, at first," she paused, making sure he was paying attention. "You'll feel lighter, and better, and you'll feel like you've done a good thing. But then it turns to poison, and you'll become numb. Don't lose yourself to that."

    "There was never a choice."

    The tension disappeared with Erik retiring to his room for the night, the game half finished, his drink forgotten on the side. Rose watched him leave with a heavy heart, unsure how she could talk him out of it.