"I'm offering you a place in the Brotherhood of Mutants," Magneto continued.
The Logan within her mind raged, wanting to rip apart the man in front of her, while Rogue cringed, wanting to get as far away from Eric as possible. Carol wasn't sure what to think. "I've fought against the Brotherhood for years. Why do you want to recruit me now? How could you ever trust me?" Silently, she added, 'How could I ever trust you?'
"I'm approaching you now, because for the first time, you're out from under Charles' influence. You've finally seen the true colors of your compatriots and the darker side of their rose-colored world."
The man in front of her, a man she'd been taught was one of her worst enemies, was making surprising sense. Carol answered him quietly, "I could never fight my friends."
"Your 'friends' want to kill you. They want to rip your mind from the body you fought to keep alive after the accident; the body you struggled to rehabilitate; the body that is rightfully yours. They want to turn it back over to the weak girl that stole your life."
"How do you know that? There's no way you could know that unless..." As Carol looked in his eyes, she saw her suspicions confirmed. "You've got someone in the mansion."
Magneto smiled, and cryptically replied, "I like to stay informed."
"Who? How long?"
"Who is not important. As for how long, long enough to know that they've been taking advantage of your gifts. They've been using you, but they don't care about you. In the Brotherhood, you could be so much more, Carol. You at least need a place to stay, to sort out your thoughts, to become yourself again. I know that animal made you absorb his personality. We can give you a haven, and time for him to fade."
At Magneto's mention of him, Logan growled, a growl that came out on Carol's lips. The loss of control scared her.
"Sorry," she apologized, "you made him mad."
"I understand completely, my dear. The man is a cretin. Let me help you."
"What the hell," Carol said, rising from the booth and following Magneto out of the diner.
Charles Xavier tossed and turned for hours, but sleep eluded him. How could he have been so blind? How could he not see that Rogue had survived after the accident and had languished under Carol's control for years? He hadn't believed that Carol could take over if Rogue's core personality had been intact, and he had just relied on the assumption, never bothering to check its validity. He had maintained his moral superiority and allowed Carol's reticence to be mind-scanned dissuade him from trying.
On the other hand, Carol, like any other person, deserved a chance at life. She had spent years in Rogue's body, doing the physical therapy, getting back into peak shape, fighting to regain a normal life. Didn't that earn her a right to continue to live?
It was a staggering moral dilema. One he wouldn't solve tonight, that much was certain. He was concerned for Carol and Rogue, and he had to know where she (or was it 'they?') had gone after fleeing the mansion.
Making his way down to Cerebro in the pitch black of early morning, he affixed the helmet on his head and followed the hint of Carol's mental signature. She was in a run-down diner, the faded name, Mary's Diner, was too generic to tell him exactly where she was. She was getting up from a booth and walking towards the exit, following..."
Xavier ripped the helmet off his head, letting it fall on its stand. To the empty room, he whispered, "Eric."
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