Charles looked around at the remaining five people at the table—five people he considered family, and just for a moment his despair had him considering giving up. The knowledge he learned from Kitty’s finds were disturbing. Jubilee, Ororo, and Scott also had their share of disturbing qualities as of late but they were at least open with the professor about their shortcomings, it’s not like he could exclude himself from having disastrous shortcomings.
Charles guessed if he wanted to make excuses he could use Jean turning into the Phoenix as the stressor for his slow spiral into misery and defeat, but he decided to be honest with himself for a change it was after the alkali lake incident. Stryker and Magneto were able to trick him into almost committing mass genocide on an entire species, and that didn’t help mutant affair matters much. Ororo was in theory the sole reason we were able to get back somewhat into the good graces of the government, Scott was so consumed with grief that he spent most days shacked up in Jean and his old room, Logan was there to help also, but never seemed to really want to be there, and of course there was himself who was allowing his past to catch up to him and consume him whole life. He didn’t even have the decency to tell his team that Jean was alive, or that she might be a threat to them all.
So when Phoenix had his arms strung out wide and about a foot in the air, he was at peace with the knowledge that he could finally be free of the guilt and his feelings of failure. He remembered when Logan looked at him, and he smiled because this was his opportunity for liberation but as fate would have it only his physical body was pardoned of his unwanted burdens, his beautiful mind went unwillingly into the body of his catatonic twin brother.
//Waking up in a hospital room on the other side of the world was a disorienting and nonplusing experience. He was confused because the last thing he remembers was being atomized by Phoenix’s deadly mind. The first thing he remembered seeing was Moira standing next to him, it took him a few tries to breath out her name due to scarce use of the body’s vocal cords.
Turning his head to his left without removing the oxygen concentrator he spoke his first words to Moira.
“Hello Moira”
She stared at him in complete shock, probably because she was given word he was dead or that he was speaking from the body of a man that has been comatose for nearly 30 years.
“Charles,” she said a look of surprise and incredulity impressed her features.
He couldn’t help cracking a weak smile at her, he hadn’t seen Moira in person in years. She walked over toward the hospital bed and removed the oxygen mask from his face.
Staring at him a little longer she finally spoke to him. “Oh my God Charles! I thought you had died,” tears were starting to secrete in her eyes making the blue in her irises start to shine. She quickly made her way to the hospital bed, bending down she hugged his enfeebled body to hers.
Moira spent two months doing physical therapy helping him strengthen the muscles in his body. Recovery wasn’t easy but the five months after were bliss for him. He and Moira got to have the relationship that was pilfered away so many years ago.
Five months wasn’t enough time but that’s when Emma Frost accidently picked up his mutant signature on Cerebro. A week into February he got a call from Ororo describing the teams broken state and how she didn’t feel fit to run the school by herself. For weeks he refused to return to the mansion feeling matters would work themselves out and he wasn’t needed there anymore, the turning point was when Ororo called to say Rogue and another team member Gambit. The x-men were like his own children since he never had the chance to have any of his own and even though he was finally able to be with the love of his life he couldn’t leave the people he love to suffer. His return to the mansion brought back the insecure feelings of failure, and it didn’t help matters that it took him nearly a year to find Gambit and Rogue. The only blessing in disguise was along with finding Gambit and Rogue alive they were also able to find Scott alive, finding them though was far from the godsend they all thought it to be.
Scott’s abilities were enhanced to the point where he could not only control his optic blasts but was also able to tap into his latent telepathic abilities. Charles felt that Rogue and Gambit were Sinister’s main focus, and that Sinister’s planned involved creating a mutant or mutants of transcendent abilities.
Gambit and Rogue’s newly acquired abilities frightened him more than Jean’s, and again he had to make the decision to face the lesser of two evils and similar to Jean he put psychic blocks within Gambit and Rogues mind.//
Charles stared around the table at his family, regret settling in his gut as he realized the choices he was going to make would probably cause more animosity within his team and toward him, but this was something that needed to be done to protect not only their mission but each other.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
the professors pov and some of his backstory.
Chapter End Notes:
Please review : ). Part 2 should be up next week until then enjoy my pretties.