"Trust your instinct in the end, though you can render no reason."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Elizabeth Grace's POV
I passed out shortly after Erik's feet left the ground. The serum had officially taken its effect. When I awoke, I was back at the mansion in my room, tucked nicely into my bed. Erik was nowhere to be found; however, his helmet was sitting on my dresser.
Dad and Hank arrived at the house several hours later. I thought dad was going to fall out of his wheelchair when I opened the door. He had panicked when he couldn't find out where Erik had taken me to. He had prayed he'd find me at the mansion. Clearly, the fatherly instincts that were turned off for so many years have a pretty effective on-switch.
The world knows about mutants now. Many are in fear because of Erik's actions. Others find hope in what Raven did. None of us are truly sure what their overall reaction will be. Right now, all we know is that the sentinel program has been eradicated. For that, we are most comforted.
Obviously, a large amount of politics will follow. Dad will likely be dragged into these political debates. Maybe the fact that I'm heading back to Oxford soon isn't so bad. I'm hoping this means that I will not have to be a part of this disaster.
Of course, I'm also a bit sad to be leaving home now that we will find a sense of normalcy under its roof. Dad and I will certainly have some issues to work through. However, right now, just having him back is enough.
Hank and I are currently in the lab to keep busy. We aren't exactly doing anything that is overly productive, but here we are. We started out actually attempting to do an experiment, but now it has just turned into planning. Dad has regained his motivation. He wants to reopen the school.
"You think we're gonna be able to pull this off?" Hank asks me.
"At this point," I begin. "I think I have to believe we can. Having the school here created a whole new world for so many mutants... including me. For once, they had a sanctuary—somewhere they could actually thrive rather than just survive. Now that the world knows about us, they're gonna need that."
"Yeah. I guess that's true... Could I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"What happened to you after D.C.?"
"Honest answer... I'm not sure. I passed out pretty soon after the fight. When I woke up, here I was."
"And Erik?"
"No idea. He wasn't here... All I found was his helmet."
"His helmet?"
"Yeah. It's still sitting on my dresser where he left it."
"Do you think that means something?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not sure yet."
"Are you gonna try to find him?"
"One day. For now, I'm going to leave him in peace. It's often easier if I let him come to me."
"You think he will?"
"I think he often does. We'll cross paths one way or another. That much, I know."
Dad rolls into the lab before Hank can respond. He's been at a meeting for several hours with a few government officials. Right now, he's the leading expert on mutants. They're looking to him for advice on how to handle the discovery of mutants.
"How did it go?" I inquire.
"Not as bad as expected," he explains.
"They're still afraid of us..."
"I hope that soon they will understand that their fear is misplaced."
"Any other news?"
"Only that, for now, we have no reason to fear any violent action against us."
"Well, that's a plus," Hank states.
"Yes. Yes, it is, Hank."
"Are we actually going to be able to make the school real this time?" I question.
"I know we will."
We all need it to be real this time. Hope is what we have to hang onto right now. The world just got a lot bigger, not to mention quite a bit more frightening. This school would mean as much to us as it would to these kids.
There aren't words to express what it used to mean to me. Without it, none of my friends would've met me. I would've been even more lost than I was at Oxford. In truth, it was the girl who eventually became my best friend, whom I had met in the early days of the school, who kept me alive and going.
I leave the lab and go back up to my room. The helmet stares back at me from the same spot where it's sat for almost two months. I walk over to the dresser and pick it up before sitting back down on my bed. The surface feels rough against my fingertips.
I run my fingers along the outside and inside of the helmet. Inside, my fingers brush against something. I pull it off to see that one of my sticky notes was stuck to the top of the inside of the helmet. Written on it are only two words, but truly, they say it all:
"I'm sorry."
Erik's POV
After over a month of fleeing from every authority under the sun, I finally landed somewhere I believed I could settle. I have found myself in Pruszkow, Poland for almost a month now. The first night I was here, I had no place to stay. I knocked on the door of a woman and asked if she knew where I might find lodging.
Seeing my deteriorated state, she brought me inside. The woman—who introduced herself as Magda—told me that though she had no spare bedroom, I was welcome to sleep on her couch. She showed me more kindness than I've experienced from most people I've met.
When she asked me my name, I introduced myself as Henryk Gurzsky. Magda is quite observant. She never believed that was actually my name. Of course, within a few hours, I admitted that I had lied to her. Her only question was who I was running from. I explained... I told her everything. It made no sense to tell her facts that were nothing short of incriminating, yet something inside me couldn't hold onto it any longer. Somehow, I chose to trust her.
The next move a person would expect her to make would be to throw me out on the spot and call the police... but for some reason, Magda didn't. She barely batted an eye at the things I told her I had done. She knew every horrible thing that had happened to me and every horrible thing I had done. Magda was the only person who knew this other than Elizabeth and Charles. I amazed myself at how much I'd told this woman who only a few hours prior had been a total stranger.
I've lived on her couch ever since. We've become... closer. Every night I've told her a new story of my life as she has told me stories about her own. She listens intently whenever I speak of Elizabeth.
"You speak about her as if she were your own child," Magda tells me after every story with a kind, soft smile across her face.
"Maybe..." I always reply. "That's because it's always felt like she is."
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Song: Public Enemy #1 by Motley Crue