Aftermath (RP open to anyone at the X-mansion)
Post-Uncanny X-men 486
Charles Xavier showed up exactly long enough to knock Scott's entire life off of its foundation, and then took off again for points unknown. Unknown to Scott, anyway. He probably told Emma or Hank, maybe even Logan, and they would tell Scott when he needed to know.
But as it was, Scott couldn't bring himself to listen (how much of what the man said could he actually rely on?), or to care. All he could hear was the echo of his own words, asking -- almost begging -- his old mentor not to do this, not to take almost everyone who was left of the Summers family, and leave Earth on this dangerous mission. But Xavier had ignored him; Alex and Rachel had left as well.
And now Xavier was back; Scott's brother and daughter weren't. Alex had sent a message to say that they were well, that they were continuing the fight, Scott couldn't help thinking it was a fool's errand.
And then Xavier stood before him. . .
"Your father -- he was a very brave man."
"I don't need you to tell me that," Scott answered.
Christopher Summers, the Corsair. A man of courage and passion. A man of more impulse than judgment. A figure who had shaped Scott's life, a father he had hardly known at all. Scott hadn't spoken with him in over a year. Then, it had been a brief glitch-ridden transmission in which he had attempted to explain exactly who 'this Emma Frost person' was, and (in the edited version Scott had deemed parentally acceptable) what they were doing together. It was a conversation he had kept putting off, one he almost dreaded -- Chris had loved Jean, he had loved Madelyne -- but Scott had hardly started on his prepared speech when his father broke into a grin. "I figure you know what you're doing, son. You and your brother always do manage to find the smartest, bravest, prettiest girls around --" And Scott had decided to settle for that sympathetic if incomplete understanding.
"I don't need you to tell me what my father was," Scott repeated to Xavier. "That he was brave and impulsive and hardheaded, or that he died on some pointless mission that you convinced him was his own." He didn't want or need to hear any of this, no more than he needed the voice in the back of his mind, telling him that he should never have let them go without him.
This time, the Professor didn't ask for forgiveness. This time, he didn't pretend he could make things right. His psychic powers had been restored. He must have taken one last look into his former prize pupil's mind and, for once, recognized a futile mission when he saw one.
Scott wasn't sure exactly when Xavier left. Between the two of them, there weren't going to be anymore good-byes.
And the next day, there was work to be done. There was business as usual. And there was the next day, and the next day, and the next. . .
*
Scott sat at his desk, balancing his books, and desperately hoping that he could make it, for a while longer, without someone trying to get him to talk about his feelings.