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[markedformore]

Erik wakes to a world reborn and to a fate set in stone. He is unable to escape the memories of what has happened and whether real or not, they haunt him and will continue to do so. He lies in bed for some time, lets Charles have his turn, and then dresses in whatever strange clothes the island has set aside for him, walking until he realizes he is

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[inch_high_pi]

The walls of the flat are dense, heavy stone, as is the leaded glass of the windows, but somehow, she hears him. Hears her voice being called down on the street.

Levering herself up out of her chair, she threw on a coat, wrapped in layers of knitted shawls and stepping into her heavy boots before walking out into the cold. She'd been awake for hours, already had her initial spike of panic, her reunion with Annie and George, and since, she'd kept herself indoors. Exploring a new place, covered in snow, would have been much more enjoyable had she not been ready to pop.

On the steps of the brownstone building, she called out to him, her voice pinched with worry. "Erik? Erik, what are you doing?"

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Erik stalks forward, his face a tableaux of grief and distress and he wears his clothes with ill-ease, feeling them too heavy and rich for the experience that has just befallen him. He presses a hand to the stone of her curb and leans forward, a pained expression on his face mingling with one of sheer desperation. He knows what he wants to ask of her, but cannot bring himself to say it out loud. "Please," is all he manages, heavily accented.

[inch_high_pi]

"Bloody hell, Erik. What's happened?" she asked, going toward him, reaching out with one hand, her other arm held protectively across her middle.

His voice sounded different, the accent nearly unrecognizable. His expression one she'd never seen before. So much so that, for a moment, she wondered if he wasn't the person she knew.

[markedformore]

Erik steps forward to try and get himself out of the street of prying eyes. Though each person doesn't seem to care about him, Erik cannot bring himself to stop worrying that each of them judges him for each move he makes. He stops in front of her, unaware if he is permitted to ask for something as demanding as comfort. Does he not deserve it? Perhaps not. Monsters are not to be given kindness. Schmidt taught him that much. They serve their purpose and they meet -- they meet their end.

"Nina, es tut mir leid," comes rushing from him before he remembers that she won't understand. "I don't know what to do," he says haltingly, overwhelmed by too many things he cannot name.

[inch_high_pi]

Nina knows only a handful of German. Passable French, a bit of Spanish and Italian. George is the one with the ear for languages. But she doesn't need to know the words to understand the emotions behind them.

"Come inside. That's what we'll do, all right? You need to sit."

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Erik trudges after her slowly, mind rampant with a thousand and one thoughts he doesn't stop to think about. He feels heartsick and nauseous at once and though his hunger reminds him of the camps, he doesn't think that he can keep food down. "I did a terrible thing and it made me feel better," he confesses, words heavy and sounding distant and foreign. "And worse, at the same time."

[inch_high_pi]

"Come in to the kitchen. I'll make you some tea and you can start from the beginning."

Her tea might not have been as superb as Annie's, but it would do the trick.

[markedformore]

Erik feels as though his eyes are burning. Perhaps he can blame the cold or the bitterness of the chill in the air, but he fears that he cannot do anything but blame his own grief for why he can barely see through a din of moisture. "Thank you," he says roughly, Charles' accusations hot on his heels. He cannot forget anything, it seems, and it may all crush him before the day is out.

[inch_high_pi]

She hurried to put the kettle on, grabbing the teapot and a pair of cups, then she joined him at the small table in the corner, motioning for him to sit before taking a seat for herself.

"Now, tell me what's happened. What is it that you've done?"

[markedformore]

"I killed someone," Erik says quietly, but his tone doesn't waver with emotions. It stays steady and true, doesn't diminish due to grief or regret. He will never regret killing Shaw -- only that he didn't accomplish it sooner.

[inch_high_pi]

She felt her stomach drop, a chill settling over her. So much death. She'd never known how easy it was for a person to become a killer until she'd potentially become one herself.

Oddly, it didn't occur to her to be afraid of him. "What happened? Who was it?"

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"I killed the man who shot my mother in front of me," he says, voice catching in his throat as he says the words aloud and relief pulses through it so furiously and fast that he feels dizzy for a moment. "I killed Schmidt, I watched him die, I did it."

[inch_high_pi]

"He was here?" Nina said, horror creeping into her voice. She felt sick, but more for him. He'd been a child, from what she understood of it, a child who'd had everything taken from him, and while that might not have excused murder, it went a long way toward making her understand the impulse.

[markedformore]

"No. No, nothing like that. We were there," he corrects her, which makes it all the worse. Perhaps if only it had been Schmidt, Erik could have forged his way through, but to be brought back to that place of nightmares, he isn't sure how to bear this grief. "Back in the camp."

[inch_high_pi]

"Good God," Nina breathed, awash with grief at the very idea of it. She'd heard stories, of people waking up to find themselves someplace else, only to find out it was all a dream, but she'd never experienced it herself. Never heard a firsthand account so horrible.

"Were you a child?"

[markedformore]

"Yes." It feels like his words are weighted with two decades' worth of grief, but he still manages to get it out before he hangs his head and closes his eyes tightly. "I had my powers back and I was back in that horrible room where Schmidt created me. I turned the tables. I used them to kill him. I used what he spawned to end his life. And then, it didn't work, and so I used them to bring about my own end."