Chapter Nine:
Sandy couldn't believe it. Tomorrow they were either going to stop Shaw, or die trying. But that would be better then this never ending wait. This was going through her head so much that she couldn't sleep. She got up to get another one of those delicious hot chocolates. She was wondering around in a simple nighty that went down to her knees. She also wore a cardigan to hide her scars. Having made her hot chocolate she was simply wondering around the mansion admiring it. It really was beautiful. So warm and safe, she's barely been there a week and it already felt like home. She passed by one of the doors only to hear Charles and Erik talking. As usual her heart accelerated at the thought of seeing Charles, so timidly she poked her head around the door.
"Shaw has declared war on mankind, on all of us." Erik remarked to Charles while moving a chess peice.
"He has to be stopped." Charles declared. He knew it was the only way to give Sandy peace, to stop the man that tormented her for her whole life. The man she lived in fear of, and yet couldn't escape from.
"I'm not going to stop Shaw, I'm going to kill him." Erik stated so surely that it made Sandy stop dead in her tracks. The surety in his voice scared her. "Do you have it in you to allow that?" Did Charles? "You've known all along why I was here, Charles." He...he knew? Sandy thought to herself.
"But things have changed. What started as a covert mission, tomorrow, mankind will know that mutants exist." That was the Charles she knew. Always believing in the best of humanity, even when they gave him no reason to.
"Shaw, us, they won't differentiate. They'll fear us. And that fear will turn to hatred." As much as she didn't want to agree with him, she did a little.
"Not if we stop a war. Not if we can prevent Shaw. Not if we risk our lives doing so." Yes, yes Charles, oh please be right, Sandy begged to herself.
"Would they do the same for us?" Erik asked, knowing the answer.
"We have it in us to be the better men."
"We already are. We're the next stage of human evolution. You said it yourself!" Erik was starting to get worked up now, trying to get his point across.
"No..." Charles whispered.
"Are you really so naive as to think that they won't battle their own extinction? Or is it arrogance?" Erik asked leaning towards Charles over the chess set that they were no longer paying any attention to.
"I'm sorry?" Charles asked, offence taking over his face.
"After tomorrow, they're going to turn on us. But you're blind to it, because you believe they're all like Moira." Erik practically spat at Charles.
"And you believe they're all like Shaw." Charles argued. His mind drifting to Sandy as it often did. "Listen to me very carefully, my friend. Killing Shaw will not bring you peace."
"Peace was never an option." Erik declared, thinking nothing of how horrid the statement was.
"And what would Sandy say to this?" Erik looked surprised at the mention of the mutant currently hovering by the door, now listening more attentively. "I am no fool. Since she showed you her scars you two have had something, a connection. A shared pain, a shared suffering. You may not have acted on it, but it's there. I don't need to be telepathic to notice. What do you think she would say?"
"With every thing that she went through at the hand of that man? She would obviously agree with me." Erik commented looking away from Charles, almost as if the answer was so obvious that Charles was a fool to ask the question.
"I hope you're wrong." Charles said. "That women's heart is to full of good to do something like that."
"But torture has a way of influencing people to do the most surprising things. Even when it is in the past." Erik was speaking from experience.
"But not me." Sandy commented, finally stepping forward. Both men tuned to look at her. "Because to wish death upon another, would make me something I never want to be, my farther's daughter. I will never be that, I will always be tainted by his blood, I will never be any more his then that. So no Erik I don't agree with you. I only hope that you come to the same conclusion before you go down a road that is to dark to find you way out from." Both men looked at her in shock. Sandy had never spoken out like this to either of them. Charles started to allow a small awed smile to appear across his lips, as Erik's face portrayed an expression that could slightly remind someone of a chastised child.
Sparing one last glance at Charles she left the room, swiftly closing the door behind her.
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"Until recently, I never had to use my power to know what you were thinking, Raven." Charles remarked in his kitchen later on in the evening to his adopted sister. He had been looking for Sandy but was unable to find her.
"Charles, I used to think it was going to be you and me against the world. But no matter how bad the world gets, you don't want to be against it, do you? You want to be a part of it." Raven stormed off leaving Charles to let out a sigh of exasperation before closing his eyes and rubbing his head. He allowed his head to rest on his hands before allowing his eyes to slip open and glance absentmindedly out the window and into the garden. Which is when he spotted something on the ground. He got up to get a closer look, it was Sandy. So that's where she was. She was simply lying on the ground outside, staring up at the sky. She looked... strangely peaceful. He tentatively reached his mind out to hers, and heard a beautiful tune being hummed. Before he knew it he found himself outside approaching her where she lay.
"My mother used to sing it to me." Sandy remarked, she had felt him in her mind, not as a horrible pressing sensation as one would have expected, but as a gentle cool caress creating relief, almost like he was taking some of the weight on to him. She knew he was behind her, she had heard him approach.
"At least I like to think she did, I don't remember her. I don't know for sure that's where I first heard it. I just like to think it was from her." She told him.
He smiled gently at her, before laying down next to her and resting his arms across his stomach. "Either way it's a beautiful tune." He remarked to her.
For a few moments they simply lay there, basking in the quiet and gentle silence that the beauty of the night produced.
"Am I damned?" Her voice cut through the silence. Charles looked at her in shock.
"What?" He whispered in shock. She didn't look at him, but he could see a single tear running down the side of her face and disappearing into her hair.
"Because I am his daughter, because I have his blood in my veins, am I dammed? Does that make me a bad person?" She asked.
"Look at me." She did, "What do you think?" He wanted her to come to the answer on her own.
"I don't... feel like a bad person." She whispered broke lay to him. Her eyes filled to the brim with tears just waiting to escape.
"Why would you think that in the first place? From the moment I first saw you, I couldn't look away. You, even in your chains and dirty, were the most enchanting creature I had ever seen." He turned his whole body to face hers. "You are the only one who can shock me. Wanting to spare the life of the man who you have every right to want dead."
Neither had realised that they had moved closer together, until Charles ever so slowly moved slightly closer still. Her tears were still falling but her eyes had this look of awe in them, and a shyness that was to be expected, she most likely had never been this close to a man in this sort of situation before. Ever so slowly he closed the gap bringing their lips together in the most pure and innocent kiss that had ever been. There was no movement, no changing of rhythm or pace, just the simplicity and beauty of a kiss so pure, that it brought a tear to Charles' eye which fell down his cheek gently trailing into the smallest gap between them. Gently Charles pulled away, but stayed with in breathing distance, looking into her eyes. They were filled with both joy and nervousness.
"Was that ok?" She whispered, for any sound louder then a whisper would break the silence.
He laughed in delight and incredulous at her question. "Let's put it this way, I would wait an eternity, just to spend one night with you, but then I would wait another, just to spend another hour with you in my arms. I have never met any one like you."
"Is this what love feels like?" The vulnerability in her eyes made Charles want to cry for her, it was clear that she had never felt love before, in any form.
As a reply he nodded and then pressed another kiss to her lips.
Eventually they retreated back to the house, and spent the remainder of the night curled up in front of the fire on blankets and cushions in Charles' room, quite content basking in the warmth of their affections, for what may have been their last night, to enjoy the other.
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Happy birthday James McAvoy