X-Men First Class / Doctor Who Xover fic: The Crack's the Thing part 1 (Charles/Erik, 10,000 words)
So this fic kind of ran away from me. Yet again, it's a 1stclass_kink prompt, a Doctor Who crossover, the point being to have Charles and Erik searching the universe for their kid Amy-and-Rory style. Which starts in the middle of the 11th Doctor's second series. Prompt is here
This part gets you half-way through his first series. Sorry, OP.
This will make zero sense if you haven't seen Doctor Who. Also, it's unbeta-ed, which I hear is a bad thing. I'm sorry! I'm new to this and I don't know where to look for someone kind enough to do such a thing. If anyone should stumble across this and read it, please point out the glaring errors.
Title: The Crack's the Thing (1/?)
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~10,000 (this part)
Spoilers: Doctor Who series 5 & 6.
Warnings: Language. General crack and bizarreness. Spelling errors almost certainly.
Summary: The Doctor gets sidetracked on his way to pick up little Amelia. He ends up in the Xavier mansion instead.
‘Amelia? Amelia pond?’ says the voice.
Charles sits up in bed. Someone is in his room. He fumbles out with his mind. But there’s nobody. He can’t feel anybody at all.
Just a dream, he thinks, settling back on his pillows. Not surprising, really, he's a bit on edge tonight.
Then something looms out of the darkness roughly a foot from his head. He gives an undignified yelp.
It’s a man, with a long, bony face and very odd hair.
‘Hello, who are you?’ he says. ‘I’m the Doctor. Not Doctor anything, just the Doctor. Have you seen Amelia Pond, little thing, about this big? Red hair, Scottish accent? No?’
‘No,’ says Charles blankly.
‘Oh.’ The Doctor looks disappointed. ‘Well, could you possibly tell me where I am?’
‘In my house,’ Charles says. ‘You’re in my house. What are you doing here?’
‘I was hoping for something a little more specific,’ the Doctor says sadly.
‘This is the Xavier mansion. I’m Charles Xavier, so this is my house.’
‘Is it in England? You sound English.’
‘No,’ Charles says firmly.
The Doctor examines Charles’s bedclothes. ‘Ah, cashmere blankets, I like those. We are on Earth, then?’
‘Yes of course we’re on Earth.’ Charles says, exasperated. ‘Westchester, New York State, the USA, Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way.’
‘What year?’ the Doctor asks.
This is going a little too far, but the strange face looks honestly inquisitive. ‘1963,’ Charles says. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I really would like to know why you’re in my house. And also,' he adds with more genuine interest, 'why I can’t feel you there. It’s not normal. Are you a mutant?’
‘Mutant? No, no, I’m an alien. A Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords, actually, long story, bad day.’ The Doctor gives him a long, hard look. ‘So you’re a mutant, then?’
Charles nods. ‘A telepath.’ He probably shouldn’t have said that, but it’s hard to keep your presence of mind when there’s an unexplained babbling lunatic in your bedroom.
‘Telepath?’ Of course you’re a telepath,’ the Doctor says. ‘It’s a long time since I met a telepath. Telepath on Earth in the 1960s, perfectly normal… except that it isn’t. Something’s not right here, Charles Xavier.’ He pauses thoughtfully. ‘You know what I think?’
‘What do you think?’ Charles asks, fascinated.
The doctor stabs a pen-shaped object emphatically in his direction. ‘I think… there’s a crack in your wall.’
Charles stares at him. ‘Why do you think there’s a crack in my wall?’
‘Because the crack’s the thing,’ the Doctor says. He flicks on the light and prowls around the room, peering at the plasterwork.
‘I don’t think there is one,’ Charles says, watching the survey with faint amusement. Then, as he cranes round, he suddenly notices that there’s a blue box in his room. A police call box, like they have in Oxford. In his room. Blocking his door. What the hell is going on?
The Doctor gets back to his starting point and briefly considers the ceiling. He appears puzzled. ‘No-o. As it turns out, there isn’t,’ he admits.’ No cracks, no cracks.’ He peers at Charles. ‘Are you sure you’re a telepath?’
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact,’ Charles says. ‘It would be rather difficult not to notice. Are you sure you’re an alien?’
The doctor doesn’t answer this. ‘By the way,’ he says. ‘The blue thing. She’s a time machine. In case you’re wondering. Went a bit off track this time, it seems, I was aiming for 1998.’
‘Really?’ says Charles, trying to sound polite as he looks at the police box. ‘If that were true it would be utterly wonderful, but I’m very much afraid that it isn’t.
The Doctor gives him a smug smile. ‘Would you like to see inside?’
He holds open the door, invitingly.
As it turns out, the inside is bigger than the outside.
It’s really rather astounding.
Charles whirls around the vast control room, prodding at sparkling lights and peering at screens, while the Doctor watches him with fatherly approval.
‘This is amazing!' Charles exclaims. 'Time travel! You can really go anywhere in the universe? Back in time? You could go back to the dawn of life on the planet? You could meet the first humans?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve met a fair few cavemen,’ the Doctor says. ‘A while back actually, with a lovely couple called Ian and Barbara. 1963 is about their era, they’re probably poddling around London somewhere as we speak. I should drop by. Except that they wouldn’t recognise me, partly because they haven’t met me yet and partly because… oh never mind, we can go through all that later. You keep being happy.’
Charles blinks. None of this makes any sense, but he really doesn’t care. ‘And you’re actually an alien?’ he asks eagerly. ‘A Time Lord, did you say? That’s fantastic, can I have a sample of your DNA? Do you have DNA?’
‘Certainly,’ the Doctor says. ‘Genetic material, anyway.’
‘Can I have some?’ Charles pleads. Oh, to study the DNA of an actual alien with an entirely different evolutionary history.
‘If you like.’ The doctor ambles over. Then he grabs Charles by the shirt front, pulls him in and kisses him.
It’s a very nice kiss. It goes on for a while.
Mmmm, Charles thinks, this is good. No, wait, not mmmm, weird men kissing you in time machines is not right! He backs away spluttering. ‘What was that?’
‘I think it’s called a kiss,’ the Doctor said. ‘My first kiss, actually. At least, my first in this body.’
‘Why did you kiss me? I didn’t ask for a kiss,’ Charles says, baffled.
‘You asked for genetic material,’ the Doctor says, slightly hurt.
‘That’s your idea of a genetic sample?’
‘The Doctor smiles. ‘Yes. Why, wasn’t it enough? Would you like another one?’
Charles shuts his mouth firmly. There is really no good answer to that.
They stare at one another for a while.
‘Beside,’ the Doctor says finally, ‘you seem like a curious person. You humans and your curiosity, hah! Why just ask for a kiss when there’s the whole of time and space out there waiting for you? I like you, Charles Xavier. You’re interesting. And interesting is good. Come with me. See the world. See the universe. I’ll pick up Pond later.’
Charles laughs. It’s the craziest offer he’s ever heard. ‘Look, I’d love to go and see the universe, you have no idea how much. But I really can’t. I have things to do here.’
The Doctor grins. ‘Ah, that’s the clever part. Time machine, see? No one will even notice you’re gone. I can bring you back to any time you like.’
Charles let his conscious trickle out of the time machine and through the mansion. He can feel all of their minds out there, his brave, frightened friends, some sleeping fitfully, some wakeful and wondering, Erik pacing, pacing, back and forth, his mind pulsing with eager violence. Because in the morning… in the morning they’re going to war.
And right now, the universe is waiting.
Charles looks into the Doctors enigmatic, old eyes. ‘Maybe just one trip,’ he says. ‘And I have to be back tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow, then,’ the Doctor says brightly. ‘Come along, Xavier!’
***
‘Charles? Charles Xavier?’
‘Oh my God,’ says the boy, skidding to a halt in front of Charles. ‘This is the first time, isn't it? Absolutely the first. Hi! This is so totally cool.’
The girl, coming up more slowly, sighs long-sufferingly. ‘Star struck,’ she complains. ‘What can you do? Oh well, it gets better, I should know.’
Charles is used to strange people by now. He's done a lot of running around with them. He's saved strange worlds from strange dangers. He's drunk strange drinks with strange aliens in strange bars. He hasn't met anyone who isn't strange for weeks, and it's been terribly enjoyable. He feels the he fits right in. But the people he meets don't usually greet him by name, and certainly not with this level of friendly enthusiasm.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Charles, ‘do I know you?’
The boy grins at him. ‘No, you really don’t. The Doctor does though, and you know the Doctor, which means we're all friends. Right?' he asks hopefully.
'Right,' agrees the girl. Charles wants to say that he's not entirely convinced by the logic of this, but the boy's already forging on with the conversation.
'Something dangerous today,’ he says confidentially, 'but don't worry about it.'
The girl nods. ‘It turns out ok.’ She smiles sweetly at Charles. ‘That’s all I’m telling, though. Spoilers!’
These supposed new friends are young, late teens, he guesses. The boy is fair, tall and still a little awkward, all disjointed limbs and shoulders that haven’t quite filled out. The girl is smaller, almost petite, with dark ringlets and an air of easy confidence.
Charles looks around the dusty rocky landscape, then back at the grinning pair. They seem harmless, but baffling. Charles has to admit he misses Erik in situations like this. Erik would probably be able to intimidate all the odd people Charles and the Doctor run into with a single suave, deadly glance, and would definitely have made these kids explain themselves. But Erik isn't here, and he’s supposed to be nice, polite and British, bugger it.
If he went home, Erik would be waiting for him there. He'll go soon. Just a few days more. A week, maybe.
‘Thank you for the reassurance,' he says politely. 'What are spoilers?’
The girl gives him a rather condescending look. ‘I forgot you’re so new at this. “Spoilers” means telling you about things that are going to happen.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s a time travel thing, you get used to it.’
Charles rubs at his head. ‘So you’re time travellers too,’ he says. ‘The Doctor said there weren’t any more.’
The two of them look at each other and burst out laughing. ‘No, not time travellers,’ the boy says. ‘Really, honestly not time travellers.’
Charles decides that these kids are having far too much fun being enigmatic. He's having a trying day, what with the Doctor wandering off babbling about living statues, and him getting a nasty flashback earlier to the horrible pain of the star whale and the desperation of the poor man created by the Daleks. All in all, he's ready for a bit of light relief. They seem to know about him, it's only fair he should know about them. Just a peek, so that the conversation will be on a fair footing.
Their minds are human, which is unusual. He reaches out towards them. Then he jerks back in utter astonishment, his ears ringing. He can’t get through, couldn’t even begin to try. He's run up against two rock-hard barriers like nothing he’s ever felt before.
‘Hey,’ says the boy. ‘Geez, I thought you didn’t do that.’
‘Manners, Charles,’ laughs the girl. ‘I’ll keep out of your head if you keep out of mine.’
‘Well if you’re not time travellers you’re certainly telepaths,’ says Charles weakly. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Pietro,’ the boy says eagerly.
‘You can call me Wanda,’ says the girl.
‘Hello, hello, hello,’ the Doctor says wandering up. ‘Stop chin-wagging, Xavier, we have work to do.’ Then he pulls up short and surveys the pair of kids. He gives a gentle little groan. ‘Oh, tell me it isn’t you two again. Trouble and Strife.’
‘Hello Doctor,’ they chorus.
‘They keep turning up,’ the Doctor tells Charles wearily, ‘and being smug. And oddly useful.’
‘It's nice to help people,’ says Wanda.
‘Glad to be of service,’ adds Pietro.
The Doctor glares at them. 'What do you want?'
'I have a hint for you,' Wanda says. She grins again, and Charles sees what the Doctor means by smug. 'It should save you a bit of trouble though I'm sure you'd have worked it out eventually. It's about the weeping angels.'
'Go on then, if you must.'
She looks around to check everyone's listening, and then puts on a somewhat teacher-ish voice. 'Weeping angels, you see, are dangerous creatures with a nice little quantum defence mechanism. When you look at them they're just statues, and they only come to life when you can't see them. Which is why you mustn't even blink. Is that right Doctor?'
'Yes, we know all this,' the Doctor says.
'I didn't,' says Charles.
'Me neither,' says Pietro.
'Look, I'm making a point here,' Wanda says patiently, 'and the point is that they come to life when you're not looking. And you know that. Except that the real point is that it's not true. What I just told you isn't true. That's not what happens.'
'Yes it is,' objects the Doctor.
Wanda ignores him. 'That's all I wanted to say,' she says. She looks at Pietro. 'Time to go.'
He pouts. 'It's only been a minute. I can't stay and talk to Charles?'
'Not this time.'
Despite his obvious disappointment Pietro gives Charles a blinding smile. 'It's so nice to see you. To meet you, I mean. You're just like I thought you'd be.'
Wanda smiles too, a gentler, fonder smile. 'Goodbye Charles. See you soon. Goodbye Doctor.'
They wave and slip away behind a pile of the yellow-grey, dusty rocks that seem to make up this planet. Charles starts forward to follow them, but the Doctor lays a hand on his arm.
'There's no point,' he says. 'They're long gone by now. They just hop away, like those things I'm thinking of, tip of my tongue, it'll come to me.'
Charles frowns. He isn't sure he's willing for this encounter to end with so little explanation, but the Doctor's hand on his arm is firm. He turns back. 'Are they time travellers? They said they weren't. What do you know about them?'
The Doctor nods tiredly. '"Really not time travellers,"' he imitates. 'They always say that. Did they giggle? I hate it when they giggle.'
He's avoiding the question. He actually avoids the majority of questions that have any real bearing on any given situation, though fortunately he's quite happy to expound about the local customs and the physiology of the alien life they encounter. The interesting stuff. Charles tries another tack. 'They seemed nice,' he says. 'They had a very unusual attitude towards me. Some of the things they said...'
The Doctor looks at him curiously. 'What did they say to you?'
'Oh, just that they weren't time travellers,' Charles says evasively. 'And you're right, they did giggle. I'm very curious about them.'
'No, really, what else did they say?'
Charles smiles. 'Who are they?' he asks. He finds he doesn’t want to tell the Doctor about the odd reassurance they gave him, as though it was somehow personal, a present. He also doesn't want to mention 'absolutely the first time', for no reason that he can name.
'Xavier, you're holding out on me,' the Doctor says knowingly. 'I know your sneaky ways. You should tell me things, I'm much older and wiser than you.'
'Being enigmatic is catching,' Charles says. After all, the Doctor might be a mysterious, powerful Time Lord but Charles is a telepath and a genius. 'I'll work it out for myself. I'm sure we'll run into them again.'
They exchange glances of friendly competition. It'll be fun to see who solves the mystery first.
'Now, tell me about these weeping angels. Is it true that they come to life when you're not looking?' Charles asks, a little nervously. They sound a bit too much like the monsters of childhood, those terrible things in the dark which, no matter how fast you spin round, are always behind you. He spent too many nights as a little boy huddling in bed with his back pressed as tight as possible to the wall, waiting for dawn.
The Doctor nods seriously. 'How's your blink reflex?' he enquires.
He's been guiding Charles gently along a rocky path and now they've arrived at some sort of military encampment. There's the buzz of fifty-or-so minds, ranging from brisk purposefulness to blinding terror.
One of the men strides over. 'Doctor?' he says, 'Glad you’re here, now we can get moving. We're pretty sure the thing's in the maze or in the ship, which is also in the maze since the crash. We'll have to go in and get it out.'
'Yes, that would seem to be the thing to do,' the Doctor says. 'Xavier, this is Father Octavian, Father Octavian, this is Xavier. Friend of mine.'
'Charles,' says Charles holding out his hand. Father Octavian takes it and shakes it, which makes a nice change from the blank looks Charles has been getting lately.
'Good to meet you Charles. God bless, and all that. Can you use a gun?'
Charles smiles. 'I'd rather not, but yes. Pretty well.' Things seem to be getting interesting again. He really does love the universe.
'Oh, he can do everything,' the Doctor says. 'Xavier, we're hunting a deadly weeping angel that turns into a statue through a maze of actual statues. We'll find it, contain it and keep looking at it until Father Octavian can get it somewhere safe.
‘Sounds lovely,' Charles says.
***
They've been walking through the creepy, statue-infested caves for about fifteen minutes. The Doctor has been expounding on the original inhabitants of the planet, an advanced, two-headed race that apparently had an architectural style borrowed from a horror film set. Charles has been chatting reassuringly to some of the more terrified militant clerics, who are really quite sweet. They're all beginning to relax slightly.
Then the Doctor pulls up short. Everyone bumps into everyone else.
'We're all in terrible danger,' he says. 'I'm so sorry, I can't believe I didn't notice, I'm really thick. Look at the statues. They've only got one head.'
Charles exchanges mystified glances with Father Octavian and the clerics.
'No, don't look at each other,' the Doctor says quietly. 'Look at the statues, I can't see them all at once.'
There's a hideous pause, then suddenly everyone is in a little huddle facing outwards, trying to see as much of the room as humanly possible.
'One head?' Father Octavian asks shakily.
'Yes, and the original occupants of this planet had two heads. If these were their statues...'
'They'd have two heads as well.' Father Octavian finishes. The clerics make horrified little noises.
'So they're all angels?' Charles says, looking at the statues. It should be terrifying, but it isn't. Don't worry about it, it turns out ok, the kids said. He has no reason to trust them but he does.
'Yes, yes, so keep them in sight, don't look away, don't even blink, because as soon as we stop looking at them...'
'Doctor, we passed hundreds of them,' Charles says. 'They're all behind us.'
'Yes, but that's because... oh. We did, didn't we' the Doctor says thoughtfully. 'We should be dead but we're not. We're not dead.' He stops and blinks. 'Wait, no, sorry, ignore that, we're all perfectly safe.' He thumps his fist against his forehead. 'Ohhh, I'm an idiot for the second time in under a minute, I think it's a new record. She couldn't just have said it?'
'Doctor, what's going on? Are they angels or aren't they?' Father Octavian says warily, still trying to keep all the statues in view.
'Angels, definitely,' the Doctor says.
'Then how exactly are we safe?'
The Doctor spins round. 'Because of course that's not how it works. That's not howyou work, Xavier. She said it and I didn't listen.'
'Said what?' Charles snaps.
'Said what she meant. She was right, it's not whether you see them or not,' the Doctor says. 'The quantum effect is about perception, not just vision. And you, you beautiful Xavier, you don't need to see them. Look at you, you're angel-proof. The moment they become real you'd be all over them like a telepathic slime mould. They can't do it. As long as you're here they're just statues.' He turns to Father Octavian, grinning widely. 'Got any sledgehammers?'
***
The clerics do, apparently, have sledgehammers. They are also rather muscular, and they like to take their shirts off when doing hard physical labour. Charles smashes a few ugly statues then sits around being angel-proof and enjoying the view.
Until one of the clerics disappears into thin air.
Charles looks around the cave. It's darkish, but he could swear he wasn't mistaken. One second five men, the next second four.
'Hey,' he says to one of the others, 'what happened to your friend over there?'
'What friend?' asks the man cheerfully. 'Do you mean Cleric Bob? Call of nature, he'll be back in a minute.'
'No, the one with the dark hair who was working just over there. Cleric Simon, I think you called him. He just disappeared.'
'There's no Cleric Simon in our unit.'
Charles frowns. He almost asks 'Are you sure?' but the man is sure. His mind is full of open honesty and mild surprise at the question.
Then he's gone too.
Charles steps back several paces, very quickly. 'What was that?' he says shakily.
'What was what?' says the next cleric along.
'Didn't you see him disappear?' Charles says. 'Didn't you? What's wrong with all of you?'
'Who disappeared?'
'The man I was talking to. The man who was standing right there fifteen seconds ago.' Charles gestures to the battered remains of an angel. 'The man who just smashed up that angel. Where did he go?'
'Are you feeling alright?' the cleric says solicitously.
'Yes I'm bloody well feeling alright. Sorry,' he says as the Cleric winces at the curse, 'but I'm a bit concerned. Listen, what's your name? What are their names?'
'I'm Cleric Matthew, that's Cleric Benedict and that's Cleric Sven.'
Cleric Mathew's mind is also bright and honest, and right now it's thinking comfortable thoughts about Cleric Sven, who is an old friend and prayer buddy... who is an old... who is... who?
Charles glances frantically around. Now there are only two clerics. 'Where's Cleric Sven?' he demands.
Cleric Mathew laughs. 'That's a funny name for a cleric.'
'He's your friend,' Charles says. 'Sven. You used to share chewing gum in morning prayers when you were children.'
'I don't think so,' Cleric Mathew says quietly. 'I didn't have any friends when I was a child.'
As Charles stares in bafflement something glows behind Matthew, a dark, ragged line with bright edges, and he's gone too. Charles looks hopelessly round for Benedict. No, there's nobody, he's all alone with a glowing line that eats people.
He turns back and sprints down the passage. 'Doctor!'
***
‘Erik? Erik Lehnsherr?’ says the voice.
Erik spins round. ‘Who’s there?’ He gropes for metal, finds a fire iron. The mansion, being a mansion, is well equipped with them.
‘Sorry, sorry, only me,’ says the voice.
Erik blinks. Silhouetted against the window he can see a tall, gangling figure. He pokes the poker at it, going for threatening, but not immediately lethal. It doesn't seem quite right. Every drop of the man’s body language radiates appeasement, like a dog cringing and wagging its tail.
He keeps the poker hovering at the ready and flicks the light switch with a spare part of his mind. The man raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness and then, after a second, turns the movement into a cheery wave.
‘Goodness,’ he says, ‘I like your poker.’
‘You’re an intruder,’ Erik says, glaring at him. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m the Doctor, by the way. Did I say? And you’re Erik, hello! Well, you shouldn’t kill me because I’ve got Xavier, you see.’
Erik feels his chest tighten. CIA? Shaw's people? Whoever has Charles is really going to regret it. He slams the poker across the room, wrapping it around the man’s chest and pinning him to the wall. ‘Where's Charles?' he snaps out. 'What have you done with him?’
‘That really sounded better in my head,’ the Doctor says apologetically.
Erik squeezes the metal. ‘Take me to Charles right now,’ he suggests, ‘or die.’
'I think that's a bit unnecessary,' says the Doctor. 'After all, when I say I've got him I don't mean I want to hurt him or ransom him or anything. I just mean I went into his bedroom at night and took him away in a box. Oh dear, that sounded better in my head too.'
Erik can feel himself losing his temper, and when he loses his temper other people suffer. He wraps the coal tongs round the man's legs and a couple of candlesticks for good measure and hangs him upside down near the high ceiling. 'You have ten seconds.'
'Keep your hair on,' the Doctor says. 'When he said you were touchy I didn't think he meant primed to explode. But there's no accounting for taste. Anyway, I just took him on a little holiday. He seemed tense, needed taking out of himself. Right now he's... well, I say right now but it's really not, I left him about seventy-five thousand years ago chatting to some Neanderthals. I thought it would cheer him up. He's been moping.'
Erik drops him, then snags him again when his hair is brushing the carpet. 'Try again,' he says.
'Would you put me down, please?' the Doctor asks. 'It's quite hard to think how to convince you from this position. Look, the point is that your Xavier is fine and I want to take you to see him. And you want to be taken to see him. We want the same thing. We're practically soul mates, so if you don't mind, you're cutting off the circulation to my legs.'
'Where is he?' Erik grinds out. He's terribly tempted to kill the man now for being generally infuriating, but he does have some morals buried deep down, or so Charles tells him. Also, if the man really does have Charles then it's important to keep him alive for now. And if he's hurt Charles at all Erik will kill him later. Slowly.
'I told you, he's... no, alright, the seventy-five thousand years thing was nonsense, he's in a little wooden box just outside the window, come on, let's go.'
***
'I don't care how big it is on the inside,' Erik says irritably. 'Is Charles in here or isn't he?'
'No,' says the Doctor. 'Yes. Not precisely. He's just outside. This is my time machine,' he says, 'so all we have to do is go back in time, open the door and hey presto, one Charles Xavier. Which I would already have done if I wasn't upside down.'
'Time machine?' says Erik. This is turning into one of those nights where he is very, very angry. 'Why the hell would you think I would believe that?'
'You can control metal and your friend's a telepath,' the Doctor says. 'I expected you to be more open minded.'
Erik pauses. The man has a point, and it's just possible, though very unlikely. There's no reason why a mutant couldn't be capable of time travel. 'What possible reason could you have for taking Charles back in time?' he demands.
'Because he wanted to go,' said the Doctor. 'We've been all over, the past few weeks. The past, the future, alien planets.'
Erik grits his teeth with the effort of supressing his extremely violent impulses. 'Charles has been here for the past month.'
'Time travel,' says the Doctor patiently. 'Don't worry, you get used to it. I picked him up at about, oh, 1 am today, and we've been having a nice little adventure. Whenever he wanted to go home I'd have brought him back to the same time. He said he had to be back for something.'
Erik shakes his head. He'd seen Charles just hours ago, and he was focused, determined, ready for action. He wouldn't leave.
Would he?
***
'I cannot believe you did this.'
They are standing on a wide open grassy plain thousands of years in the past. A tribe of Neanderthals have just done the smart thing and run a long way away. A time traveller is standing by his little blue box a few yards away. Erik cannot believe anything about this situation, but most of all he cannot believe Charles.
'You're angry,' says Charles placatingly, 'but believe me, I intended to come back.'
'Yes, Charles, I am angry. Well done.' Erik is more than angry, he is seething. He has a strong desire to hang Charles up like the Doctor and shake some sense in to him. 'You betrayed us,' he snaps.
Charles looks stricken. 'No, Erik, I...'
'You ran away.'
'I was coming back!' Charles protests.
'I don't care,' Erik says tightly. 'Read my mind and see how little that matters. You saw a way out and you took it. How long would you have stayed with him? Months? Years?'
'I had to,' Charles yells. 'Erik, I couldn't, I needed to think. I just needed time.'
Erik takes a deep breath. This is Charles, who shared his memories, who helped him do things he never knew were possible. Charles, who knew everything about him and who, it turns out, he didn't know at all. 'You'll come back with me now,' he says.
Charles looks at him, desperation melting into hopelessness, and Erik knows, with a sickening jolt through his stomach, exactly what the answer will be.
'No, my friend. I won't.'
Erik spins round and walks a few paces away, trying to control himself. He can feel Charles's presence, miserable but determined. It's on the edge of his consciousness, not prying but trying to console, convince.
'Get out of my head, Charles,' he says. 'And if you don't come with me, don't come at all. We won't be needing you.'
He strides back to the TARDIS where the Doctor is waiting, still pinned but no longer inverted.
'Take me back,' he says. 'You can keep him.'
Charles makes a miserable little sound, half protest, half sigh. Erik doesn't look round. He unwraps the poker, the coal tongs and the candlesticks and dumps them on the ground.
The Doctor stretches out his arms and legs and frowns. 'You didn't cheer him up. You were supposed to cheer him up. Isn't that what friends do?'
'We're not friends,' Erik says.
The Doctor gives him an unhappy look. 'I suppose if that's the way it is I'd better take you home. You're sure you won't give it another try? Take him for a beer, buy him flowers, give him a kiss? He's a good kisser.'
A good kisser? Erik tenses and then decides he really doesn't give a damn. Charles can do what the hell he likes. He opens the TARDIS door. The Doctor follows him meekly inside. Erik gestures meaningfully at the controls and the Doctor wanders over to them unwillingly.
'He's not happy, you know,' he says. 'That's why I brought you. I told you, he mopes. We had fun, but there was a crack in the universe and now he's moping. I took him skiing down the methane slopes on Ortega Five and d'you know what he said?'
He pauses hopefully. Erik chooses not to hazard a guess.
'He said it was a bit chilly,' says the Doctor. 'One of the wonders of the universe and he stares at nothing and says it's a bit chilly. Don't you think that's a man who has things on his mind? Because I do.'
'Take me back,' Erik repeats.
The Doctor huffs reproachfully and busies himself at the controls. 'It's hormones, isn't it. I've never understood hormones, don't have them myself. If you're really going to sulk about it, Westchester 1963 here we come.'
The machine makes its wild grinding noise and the Doctor spins things and twists thing and leaps about. Erik watches it all with disinterest. He wonders idly what he's going to tell the others in the morning. The truth, he supposes, that Charles has discarded his responsibilities. It might be good for them. Raven needs to learn that Charles is holding her back. The others need to come out from under the influence of his studied naiveté.
And Erik needs to be himself again, not this soft, conflicted creature he was becoming. He can go back to knowing what needs to be done. Back to the rage.
Bloody Charles.
The grinding noise stops. The Doctor frowns down at the controls. 'Hmm,' he says. 'That's unusual.'
'What is it?'
'Nothing, nothing.' He grins manically and leaps round to clap Erik on the shoulder and propel him towards the door. 'We're here. Destination achieved, come along, no waiting, places to go, worlds to save, you know how it is.' One hand flings the door open and the other gives Erik a hefty shove between the shoulder blades. The door slams behind him.
Erik gives one furious glance around. This is most certainly not Westchester.
He twists to hammer on the door and reaches for the lock with his mind but the grinding noise starts up again and there's nothing left to grasp. Fuck. What the hell is the man playing at, where is this, when is this?
It's a narrow cobbled street well coated with straw and what's hopefully horse shit. There's a certain stench over the place, of stagnant water and sewage. The buildings are greyish stone.
Erik strides to the end of the alley. The people thronging past seem to favour robes and tunics and have a generally too-small, too-sickly look. Erik approaches one and grabs him by the scruff of the neck. 'Where am I?' he growls.
'Help! Let go of me you ruffian,' the man screams in Italian. Very oddly accented Italian.
'Where am I,' Erik snaps again, switching languages.
'Guards! Murder!'
Abruptly the street is full of armoured men with spears. Erik eyes them with amusement. Really, they're making it too easy for him. The guards start forward.
Then suddenly they stop, turn to each other and start chatting unconcernedly.
The man in Erik's grip gives him a friendly nod, shakes his hand, gently disentangles his clothes and walks away.
Damn, damn, damn. He spins around, searching the crowd. There he is, of course, hurrying down the street with a smile of relief on his face.
'Erik,' Charles says, 'thank goodness. I've been wandering around for an hour.'
An hour? Of course, time travel.
'What are you doing here?' he says, exasperated. 'Come to that, what am I doing here? Why did your friend dump me in some medieval shit-hole?'
'It's not medieval, it's Renaissance. Also, it's us,' Charles corrects. 'He dumped us. After our little, er, chat he said we were going to the moon and then he shoved me out of the door here and left. I think it's his idea of locking us in a room until we sort things out.'
He passes a piece of paper to Erik. It's a page torn out of a notebook. In ballpoint ink it says: ''This is Venice, city of romance. Have fun!'
'Fucking lunatic,' Erik snarls.
Charles nods. 'Yes, I must admit he's-'
'Not him. You.'
'Oh.' Charles looks at his feet. Then he looks around and shrugs. 'Well, I've always wanted to see Venice. What shall we do first?'
Lunatic, Erik thinks. Total fucking lunatic.
***
Unsurprisingly, they end up in a bar.
'We can't pay for drinks,' Erik had pointed out.
'We're in Renaissance Italy with no money, the wrong clothes and no way home, Erik. I think we're justified in bending the rules.'
In the end they have no trouble getting drinks or generally managing to make themselves at home. Erik speaks fluent if anachronistic Italian. Charles can make everyone think he does, and is also astoundingly good at making friends. Somehow they draw quite a crowd of genial locals who cluster round in a laughing group. Charles does several very bad card tricks involving lots of cutting and shuffling. He seems to be playing it straight, and he certainly gets it wrong more often than he gets it right, to the amusement of his audience. Erik sits in the background and drinks steadily.
Two hours later they're huddled at a table on their own. Charles has got to the soggy and sentimental stage. 'Listen,' he's saying seriously, 'you're special, Erik. You have these amazing powers and you're a really, really wonderful person. You just have to learn to trust people.'
'Oh shut up, Charles. I trusted you, didn’t I?' Erik says, with the feeling of re-treading old ground.
'Yes, but now you've stopped. It's upsetting. You can still trust me, I wouldn't leave you. Erik, I really, truly, honestly wouldn't. I've missed you so much, you have no idea.'
I miss you now, Erik thinks. I miss the person I thought you were.
Charles looks up at him with such sadness that Erik knows he heard. 'I was never perfect,' he says.
The words hang in the air between them.
Then Charles sighs. 'I'm tired. Do you think they have rooms here?' He glances round, surveying the lamp-lit room. Then he stops, his mouth slightly open, staring over Erik's shoulder. 'Hey,' he says, 'I know that boy.'
'How could you possibly know anyone here?' Erik asks, craning to look.
Charles ignores him. 'Hey, Pietro!' With an alcohol-induced mood swing, he seems suddenly delighted. He stands up unsteadily and makes his way over to a table on the other side of the bar. The gangly youth sitting there looks up and smiles at him joyfully. Apparently Charles really does know him.
Erik feels his fists clench. Not only is Charles wandering the universe avoiding his problems, he's making friends who obviously, right now, like him much more than Erik does. Charles shouldn't be making new and better friends. Erik pushes himself to his feet, meaning to tell Charles to go to hell, that he's leaving and they can go their separate ways until the Doctor comes back for them. If he comes back.
Unfortunately things don't go entirely to plan. When he's three feet from the table something hits him hard in the chest and he suddenly has his arms full of teenager.
'Erik!' says the boy, flinging his arms round Erik's neck. He snuggles - actually snuggles - his face into Erik's shoulder.
'What the hell?' Erik says. 'Get off, who are you?'
'You don't know me yet but you'll like me, I promise,' says the boy.
God, is he a prostitute? Charles and a teenage prostitute? Really? But he's speaking English. Erik detaches him and holds his wrists in a firm grip with one hand. 'Charles,' he says silkily, 'won't you introduce me to your friend?'
Charles is looking a little miffed. 'Why didn't I get a hug?'
'I'm sorry, I would have,' the boy says, glowing with apologetic sincerity, ' but telepaths don't hug telepaths. Not when they're trying to keep secrets.'
Telepath? Ok, perhaps not a prostitute, but much more dangerous. 'Charles,' Erik says warningly.
Charles gives him a tipsy smile. 'Erik, this is my friend Pietro. I met him on an alien planet with some angels, and he was very helpful. Well, his friend was. Wanda.'
'I was helpful,' Pietro says petulantly.
Charles pats him on the shoulder. 'You don't need to be helpful. I like you anyway.'
'You're drunk,' Erik snaps. 'Who is he? Is he a mutant?'
Charles frowns. 'You know, I never asked. Pietro, are you and Wanda mutants?' He comes to peer into Pietro's face, which means stepping up close to Erik and pressing gently against his side. Charles likes to touch.
Pietro gives his bright smile again and shrugs as well as he can with both hands restrained. 'Everyone's a mutant. It's how evolution works.'
Charles beams delightedly. 'That's so true! You are very groovy. Erik, isn't he groovy?'
'No,' says 'Erik. He's crazy. Just like you.'
'Oh, you're fighting,' Pietro says.
Charles glares at Erik. 'He's fighting,' he says. 'It's most unreasonable.'
Erik glares back at Charles. He's better at it. 'I'm not fighting, I'm leaving.'
This actually seems to upset Charles but Pietro just shakes his head. 'No, we have something to do. We have to save the city from vampires.'
'What?' Charles says, intrigued.
'What?' Erik snaps.
This Pietro kid looks very young and very innocent in the flickering light, but he's here and he knows things so he cannot honestly be that stupid. He looks like a nice boy. There's an enthusiasm and cheerfulness about him that suggests his life has been really quite easy. And yet for some reason he's standing in a Venice tavern asking Erik to go vampire hunting.
'Are you sure?' Charles asks.
'Yes,' Pietro says with absolute certainty.
'Alright then.'
'No way,' says Erik, with the sinking sensation that this situation is only going to get worse. ‘You’re drunk, you’re not going anywhere. If there are vampires in Venice then Venice can deal with them itself.'
In the sudden silence that follows this, Erik feels the skin on the back of his neck begin to prickle. Charles turns, suddenly giving the false appearance of extreme sobriety. He reaches up and takes Erik's face in his hands. 'Erik,' he says softly, 'listen to me very carefully, my friend. I am going to do this. You will not understand why and neither do I. It doesn't matter. I'm going with Pietro. Help me. Please.'
Damn Charles and his damned intense meaningful moments.
Also, if he doesn't go Charles is going to wander off drunkenly with a crazy person and get eaten by vampires. Erik groans inwardly. All he wanted to do was hunt down Nazis and ensure the supremacy of mutants, and somehow it all spiralled out of control.
'I'll come to stop you from getting yourself killed,' Erik says, 'but I'm not going to help.'
***
The three of them squelch down a dripping passageway somewhere under the city. From what Pietro has explained, the vampires have a headquarters in a school of young ladies run by a sort of vampire queen. A girl on the inside, Pietro's friend, will let them in and then they just have to find out what's going on and make it stop.
Simple.
Erik walks sulkily at the back and tries to keep his eyes off Charles's ass.
Though he hates to admit it to himself he really did think that Charles was perfect. Fundamentally wrong, but also, oxymoronically, fundamentally perfect. It seems ridiculous now how high a pedestal he'd placed him on. It was as though the knowledge of other minds made Charles some kind of mystical figure, almost inhuman.
Which is why it hurts so much.
And which is also why Erik has never looked at his ass before now. You don't look at the ass of a mystical figure.
Turns out, it's pretty nice.
'This way,' Pietro calls, ducking down a side passage. Charles staggers after him, swaying slightly. At least the two of them aren't singing any more.
'Come on, Erik,' Charles calls as he rounds the corner. 'Vampires ahead!'
'Shh,' Pietro says, giggling. 'You're so funny drunk, I can't believe it. This is awesome.' He taps gently on the hatch above, which swings open.
'Wanda,' Charles says. 'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?' He clambers up the ladder with Pietro shoving gently from below. Erik follows, scrambling out into yet another passage and - Jesus Christ - finds himself being hugged again.
'Hello Erik,' says the slim, dark-haired girl.
He grits his teeth and makes to detach her, but she slips her wrists neatly out of his grasp and steps away.
'I really need more hugs,' Charles says sadly.
'No you don't,' Wanda tells him. 'Be patient. Right,' she grins at Pietro, 'time to go. These two can handle it from here.'
Erik fixes her with a glare. She cannot be serious. Charles seems to feel the same way. 'Hey,' he protests. 'You can't leave us here! Aren't you going to help with the vampire thing?'
'I got you in here. I did help,' Wanda says. She grabs Pietro's hand and the two of them whirl round a corner of the tunnel.
Erik darts after them, but they've vanished completely. There's nothing but stone walls and chunky pillars. 'Where the hell did they go?'
'They just hop away.' Charles leans against the wall. He's absolutely fucking plastered. 'Smug and helpful and hoppy.'
'This is precisely the opposite of helpful,' Erik says grimly. '
'I'm glad they're gone. Now it's just you and me,' Charles says, unpropping himself from the wall and draping himself warmly against Erik's side.
Erik looks down.
Charles looks up. He licks his lips.
Of course, this is when the vampires appear.
Erik has killed plenty of people and done plenty of unpleasant things. He's pretty much inured to the nastiness of the world. But this is really creepy. Hissing girls in long white dresses with teeth like ivory darning needles are floating down the passage and Charles is hugging at his arm and peering at them with dazed interest.
'Hey, alien vampires,' he says, pointing just in case Erik hadn't noticed.
'I think we should run,' Erik says, though he's not convinced that Charles can even walk at this stage. 'Can you control them?'
'Hmm.' Charles raises his hand to his temple. 'Ooh, fishy. Watery. Erik, you should see this.'
'Control!' Erik snaps, dragging Charles away down the passage.
He reaches for metal. There are a few bits of it around but, as it turns out, he is much drunker than he realised. The metal sconces rip themselves off the walls and clatter wildly around the passage, but he can't quite make them go where he wants them to go. A few bounce off the girls but they take absolutely no notice.
He keeps dragging Charles down passage after passage, but he has the nasty feeling they're being herded. This is confirmed when they burst out of the tunnels into a large room, brightly lit, where a woman in an astonishingly ugly dress is waiting for them.
There’s something deeply, deeply unpleasant about her. Part of it is the eyes, which are a little too dark and glitter with an insectile sheen. Part of it is the air of exultant menace emanating from her. And part of it is the slight flicker about her mouth that suggests she, too, has some serious teeth in there somewhere.
She turns to a simpering, foppish man standing next to her. ‘Ah, Francesco. It seems dinner is served. These, I think, are yours.’
‘Thank you mother,’ he says smirking. ‘I like them very much.’
Erik grabs for more metal. A candlestick. He hurls it at the woman, fast enough to smash bone, but she flicks out a hand and bats it away while it’s still several feet from her body.
‘Oh, how interesting,’ she says. ‘The little human has claws.’
‘I’m not a human,’ Erik snarls, fully aware by now that neither is she. He’s swaying a little too now, and Charles is mumbling against his neck. They’re both drunk and they’re totally screwed. Francesco steps forward and the vampire girls begin to circle, like sharks scenting blood.
And then someone shouts ‘Geronimooo!’
The Doctor swings wildly across the room on the end of a rope, knocking over vampires like ninepins. He executes a neat landing next to Erik, grabs his hand and Charles’s and yells, ‘Run!’
The woman howls with rage. Francesco makes a horrible hissing sound and starts towards them, but he’s impeded by flailing girls. Hands linked, the three of them career wildly across the room and lurch down another passage.
‘Can’t beat the classics,’ the Doctor burbles. ‘Swinging from a chandelier! It never gets old. Come on, time to regroup.’
‘You…’ Erik begins furiously.
‘Just saved your life, yes, you can thank me later. We need to get out of here and make plans, plans are good. The plans will involve finding out who that woman is and what she’s doing here. This will take some careful thinking.'
'Actually,' Charles interjects in a slurring mumble, ‘I know what she wants.’
The Doctor stops. ‘You do?’
Charles nods. 'She's going to sink Venice under the sea with earthquakes and turn all the people into fish things like her. She has an earthquake machine.' He looks blearily at the Doctor's startled face. 'It's in her head.'
'The earthquake machine?'
'No. Noooo. The everything. It's a fishy world but it's gone and she fell through the crack. Last one left. Very sad.'
Apparently this makes some kind of sense, because the Doctor is looking at Charles with a kind of fascination. ‘The last one left,' he says slowly. Then he bounces on his toes with a eureka face on. 'Of course! She’s from Saturnyne! And the crack again, the crack's the thing. The crack and the telepath. Xavier, I could kiss you.'
'Please do,' Charles says politely.
The Doctor pats him on the head. 'No, probably not a good idea. Funny things kisses. Unpredictable. Damp. Dangerous. A lot like our fishy friend.'
'No hugs. No kisses,' Charles complains.
‘No sanity,’ Erik mutters.
Then there’s a dreadful lurch and everything starts to shake. Charles collides with a wall and slides cheerfully down it. ‘See? Earthquake,’ he says.
The Doctor and Erik look at each other. Together they grab Charles and stumble along the shuddering tunnels, mortar and small stones bouncing around them. Finally they emerge into a courtyard alongside a canal and deposit Charles unceremoniously on the flagstones.
‘There!’ the Doctor says, pointing across the water to a fizzing piece of machinery stretching into the sky. ‘We need to get to that tower and turn off the machine. Unfortunately we're here and it's there and we have, oh, about a minute. Come on, come on.'
'I have had enough' Erik snarls. No more fucking around. He may still be too drunk for fine control but he's fired up with adrenaline and the irritation of a really long evening, and compared to the satellite dish this is child's play. He reaches out a hand, gathers himself together and wrenches.
'Clear your mind,' Charles says from his comfortable sprawl on the floor.
'Go to hell.'
The tower trembles and starts to collapse. The world gives one final jolt and shivers into stillness.
'I am loving it,' the Doctor crows. 'Really. Wow! You mutants have your uses, don't you? A few of you could rule the world.'
Erik smiles, taking vicious pleasure in crumpling every strut and tearing out every connection. 'I plan to.'
'No, Erik, be nice,' Charles says.
The Doctor eyes Erik disapprovingly. 'We need to have a talk,' he says. 'But in the meantime, let's go and sort out the fish-lady.'
***
Charles rolls over, trying to cling to sleep. Dear god, his head aches. He is never drinking in the Rose and Crown again. Please let him not have to give a lecture today. Or a tutorial. Or, actually, anything that involves moving or speaking.
He sticks one hand out from under the blankets and gropes for his alarm clock. There is no alarm clock. Instead there's something rough and bumpy. He unsticks his eyelids unwillingly and peers at it.
It's lamp that appears to be made out of a sea creature. It has tentacles. The walls come slowly into focus. They're covered in hexagonal, almost organic-looking plates. This is not his room in Oxford. This is the TARDIS, and he was really drunk last night.
A wisp of memory drifts back. Erik. Vampires. Venice. Pietro.
No, that has to be a dream. That cannot possibly be what happened.
He staggers to the bathroom, drinks about a gallon of water and falls back into bed again.
When he next wakes up he remembers everything, and really wishes he didn't.
***
'I am so, so sorry,' Charles moans. He's followed the mental trail to the TARDIS sitting room. 'Please don't shout at me, Erik, my head is going to fall off.'
Erik is lounging on the oddly alien sofa, looking sleek and pressed. He's not as angry as he might be. In fact, he's simmered down until he’s not much more than annoyed, and there's even a tinge of amusement to his thoughts as he takes in Charles's no doubt pathetic figure.
'Sit down before you fall down,' he advises.
Charles collapses gratefully onto the other end of the sofa and sags sideways until his head is in Erik's lap. 'The vampires,' he says. 'The excessive drinking. The singing. The getting you marooned in Venice. Really, I can't tell you how sorry I am.'
'We did save the world,' Erik says drily.
Charles nods his head against Erik's leg. 'Yes, but I think maybe I could have done it without embarrassing myself horribly.'
'I doubt it.'
Charles considers this. Erik probably has a point, he really doesn't go in for smooth and sophisticated. He prefers disastrous CIA meetings where he has to be saved by Raven, accidentally outing Hank and dropping Sean out of windows.
The Doctor sticks peers into the room. ‘Ah, this is where you lovebirds have been hiding. Xavier, tea?’
Charles sits up so fast his head spins. ‘Yes,’ he says emphatically, reaching out for the life-giving brew. The Doctor hands over a mug of tea and a coffee for Erik. ‘Jammy Dodger?’ he asks, producing the familiar packet. Erik looks mildly disgusted. Charles takes five, dunks the first and sucks at the soggy biscuit and sickly cream in a way that would have horrified his mother. No, he corrects himself, his mother wouldn’t have noticed. It would have horrified his mother’s butler.
The Doctor flops down on the opposite sofa. ‘I thought last night went rather well,’ he said. ‘Evil vanquished, friends reunited…’
‘It had its moments,’ Erik says unwillingly.
‘Yes. Interesting moments.’ the Doctor says. ‘Mutant moments.’
Charles looks at him curiously. He’s learned to be wary of the Doctor’s apparent non-sequiturs and wild segues into unrelated topics. They tend to come back with unexpected meaning and bite you in the ass when you’re least expecting it.
‘You’re not used to mutants,’ he says. ‘But you’ve been to the future… why don’t you know about us?’
‘You’ve been to the future,’ the Doctor counters. ‘Starship UK? The weeping angels? Notice anything? No?’
Charles suddenly feels a little sick. He runs through the adventures in his head. Starship UK, somewhere in the 29th Century. The angels, even further in the future. Alright, he hadn’t met that many people but… not even a glimmer? Not even a mention? ‘No mutants,’ he says slowly.
Beside him, Erik tenses. ‘None?’
The Doctor grins. ‘Got it in one. And it's made me think about something I've never thought of before. More importantly, it's made me wonder why I never thought of it before. Because I'm not usually stupid and this is a big one. It's been staring me in the face.'
He nudges Erik and points towards Charles with an elbow. 'He’s smart, your Xavier. He'll get it. He's going to love it. Watch this.'
'What will I get?' Charles asks warily.
'Here's the thing,' the Doctor says. 'In the whole of humanity’s future, there are no mutants.'
Charles feels Erik’s tension blossom into fury.
The Doctor smiles. 'That's got you thinking, hasn't it? Well don't explode yet, there's more. There never were any mutants. You two never existed. None of your mutant friends did. No human in all of history has ever been a telepath, or been able to move matter with their minds.'
Charles rubs at his aching head. 'But we're right here.'
'I know. It's fab. Now here's the good bit, Xavier, here's the bit you're going to love. I've been from here to the end of the universe and most places in between, and you know what I've found? Humans. All over the universe. For billions of years. Trillions. Humans. Homo sapiens sapiens. Just the same.'
Charles blinks at him. 'Trillions of years?'
'Maybe a hundred trillion,' the Doctor confirms gleefully.
'Are you saying that humans wipe us out?' Erik snarls. 'I'm not going to let that happen. Not in my future.
'No.' Charles lays a quelling hand on his knee. 'That's not what he's telling us at all.' The Doctor is telling them something much more unsettling, something Charles isn't at all sure he understands. It can’t be true. It doesn’t make sense.
He takes a deep breath and tries to get it straight. 'Trillions of years, all kinds of new environments, all kinds of evolutionary pressures. Trillions of years and we're still the same species, Homo sapiens sapiens. It's not possible. Over that kind of timeframe we could have gone from basic molecules to people millions of times over, but he’s saying we don't change at all.’
Erik rounds on him. ‘What does it matter? They kill us, Charles.’
Charles shakes his head. ‘Nobody kills anybody. We stopped evolving, Erik. Humanity stopped changing. It's not just our kind of mutation, it's every mutation.'
How can that be? The mutations happen, there's proof, he and Erik are the proof. But time is... well, not as straightforward as he'd previously thought. Apparently their existence doesn't mean much.
There was no mutant gene. Nobody else mutated. Ever.
The Doctor nods. 'And you're an inquisitive lot, you humans. You'd think you might have noticed, oh, that you work differently from every other race in the universe, but no! Something was stopping you seeing it. Something was stopping me seeing it too, and that,' he says ominously, 'makes me angry.'
This is really difficult to cope with on top of a hangover, Charles thinks. He looks at Erik who is now baffled as well as furious, then at the Doctor who is unusually intent. Here they are, sitting around with tea and biscuits, and he's being told that the whole of the human race is wrong.
'Why don't we evolve?' he says weakly.
'Why?' the Doctor says. 'Why is boring. Why is easy. That's not the question. The question is how, and who. The question is, what about the cracks? And the other question is you, Charles Francis Xavier. What have you got to do with it all? I don't know. Let's go to Wales. When in doubt, go to Wales.'
Erik is grinding his teeth and thinking homicidal thoughts. 'I'm not going to Wales,' he says. 'I'm going home.'
'No, you're not,' the Doctor tells him, 'because whatever problems you have are teeny little problems. Microscopic. This is your problem now. It might just be the biggest problem anyone's ever had, and it's yours. And also,' he adds, almost as an afterthought, 'because you don't have a home to go to any more.'
'What?'
'Doesn't exist, never did. Now, Wales!'
This part gets you half-way through his first series. Sorry, OP.
This will make zero sense if you haven't seen Doctor Who. Also, it's unbeta-ed, which I hear is a bad thing. I'm sorry! I'm new to this and I don't know where to look for someone kind enough to do such a thing. If anyone should stumble across this and read it, please point out the glaring errors.
Title: The Crack's the Thing (1/?)
Fandom: X-Men First Class
Pairing: Charles/Erik
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~10,000 (this part)
Spoilers: Doctor Who series 5 & 6.
Warnings: Language. General crack and bizarreness. Spelling errors almost certainly.
Summary: The Doctor gets sidetracked on his way to pick up little Amelia. He ends up in the Xavier mansion instead.
‘Amelia? Amelia pond?’ says the voice.
Charles sits up in bed. Someone is in his room. He fumbles out with his mind. But there’s nobody. He can’t feel anybody at all.
Just a dream, he thinks, settling back on his pillows. Not surprising, really, he's a bit on edge tonight.
Then something looms out of the darkness roughly a foot from his head. He gives an undignified yelp.
It’s a man, with a long, bony face and very odd hair.
‘Hello, who are you?’ he says. ‘I’m the Doctor. Not Doctor anything, just the Doctor. Have you seen Amelia Pond, little thing, about this big? Red hair, Scottish accent? No?’
‘No,’ says Charles blankly.
‘Oh.’ The Doctor looks disappointed. ‘Well, could you possibly tell me where I am?’
‘In my house,’ Charles says. ‘You’re in my house. What are you doing here?’
‘I was hoping for something a little more specific,’ the Doctor says sadly.
‘This is the Xavier mansion. I’m Charles Xavier, so this is my house.’
‘Is it in England? You sound English.’
‘No,’ Charles says firmly.
The Doctor examines Charles’s bedclothes. ‘Ah, cashmere blankets, I like those. We are on Earth, then?’
‘Yes of course we’re on Earth.’ Charles says, exasperated. ‘Westchester, New York State, the USA, Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way.’
‘What year?’ the Doctor asks.
This is going a little too far, but the strange face looks honestly inquisitive. ‘1963,’ Charles says. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I really would like to know why you’re in my house. And also,' he adds with more genuine interest, 'why I can’t feel you there. It’s not normal. Are you a mutant?’
‘Mutant? No, no, I’m an alien. A Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords, actually, long story, bad day.’ The Doctor gives him a long, hard look. ‘So you’re a mutant, then?’
Charles nods. ‘A telepath.’ He probably shouldn’t have said that, but it’s hard to keep your presence of mind when there’s an unexplained babbling lunatic in your bedroom.
‘Telepath?’ Of course you’re a telepath,’ the Doctor says. ‘It’s a long time since I met a telepath. Telepath on Earth in the 1960s, perfectly normal… except that it isn’t. Something’s not right here, Charles Xavier.’ He pauses thoughtfully. ‘You know what I think?’
‘What do you think?’ Charles asks, fascinated.
The doctor stabs a pen-shaped object emphatically in his direction. ‘I think… there’s a crack in your wall.’
Charles stares at him. ‘Why do you think there’s a crack in my wall?’
‘Because the crack’s the thing,’ the Doctor says. He flicks on the light and prowls around the room, peering at the plasterwork.
‘I don’t think there is one,’ Charles says, watching the survey with faint amusement. Then, as he cranes round, he suddenly notices that there’s a blue box in his room. A police call box, like they have in Oxford. In his room. Blocking his door. What the hell is going on?
The Doctor gets back to his starting point and briefly considers the ceiling. He appears puzzled. ‘No-o. As it turns out, there isn’t,’ he admits.’ No cracks, no cracks.’ He peers at Charles. ‘Are you sure you’re a telepath?’
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact,’ Charles says. ‘It would be rather difficult not to notice. Are you sure you’re an alien?’
The doctor doesn’t answer this. ‘By the way,’ he says. ‘The blue thing. She’s a time machine. In case you’re wondering. Went a bit off track this time, it seems, I was aiming for 1998.’
‘Really?’ says Charles, trying to sound polite as he looks at the police box. ‘If that were true it would be utterly wonderful, but I’m very much afraid that it isn’t.
The Doctor gives him a smug smile. ‘Would you like to see inside?’
He holds open the door, invitingly.
As it turns out, the inside is bigger than the outside.
It’s really rather astounding.
Charles whirls around the vast control room, prodding at sparkling lights and peering at screens, while the Doctor watches him with fatherly approval.
‘This is amazing!' Charles exclaims. 'Time travel! You can really go anywhere in the universe? Back in time? You could go back to the dawn of life on the planet? You could meet the first humans?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve met a fair few cavemen,’ the Doctor says. ‘A while back actually, with a lovely couple called Ian and Barbara. 1963 is about their era, they’re probably poddling around London somewhere as we speak. I should drop by. Except that they wouldn’t recognise me, partly because they haven’t met me yet and partly because… oh never mind, we can go through all that later. You keep being happy.’
Charles blinks. None of this makes any sense, but he really doesn’t care. ‘And you’re actually an alien?’ he asks eagerly. ‘A Time Lord, did you say? That’s fantastic, can I have a sample of your DNA? Do you have DNA?’
‘Certainly,’ the Doctor says. ‘Genetic material, anyway.’
‘Can I have some?’ Charles pleads. Oh, to study the DNA of an actual alien with an entirely different evolutionary history.
‘If you like.’ The doctor ambles over. Then he grabs Charles by the shirt front, pulls him in and kisses him.
It’s a very nice kiss. It goes on for a while.
Mmmm, Charles thinks, this is good. No, wait, not mmmm, weird men kissing you in time machines is not right! He backs away spluttering. ‘What was that?’
‘I think it’s called a kiss,’ the Doctor said. ‘My first kiss, actually. At least, my first in this body.’
‘Why did you kiss me? I didn’t ask for a kiss,’ Charles says, baffled.
‘You asked for genetic material,’ the Doctor says, slightly hurt.
‘That’s your idea of a genetic sample?’
‘The Doctor smiles. ‘Yes. Why, wasn’t it enough? Would you like another one?’
Charles shuts his mouth firmly. There is really no good answer to that.
They stare at one another for a while.
‘Beside,’ the Doctor says finally, ‘you seem like a curious person. You humans and your curiosity, hah! Why just ask for a kiss when there’s the whole of time and space out there waiting for you? I like you, Charles Xavier. You’re interesting. And interesting is good. Come with me. See the world. See the universe. I’ll pick up Pond later.’
Charles laughs. It’s the craziest offer he’s ever heard. ‘Look, I’d love to go and see the universe, you have no idea how much. But I really can’t. I have things to do here.’
The Doctor grins. ‘Ah, that’s the clever part. Time machine, see? No one will even notice you’re gone. I can bring you back to any time you like.’
Charles let his conscious trickle out of the time machine and through the mansion. He can feel all of their minds out there, his brave, frightened friends, some sleeping fitfully, some wakeful and wondering, Erik pacing, pacing, back and forth, his mind pulsing with eager violence. Because in the morning… in the morning they’re going to war.
And right now, the universe is waiting.
Charles looks into the Doctors enigmatic, old eyes. ‘Maybe just one trip,’ he says. ‘And I have to be back tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow, then,’ the Doctor says brightly. ‘Come along, Xavier!’
***
‘Charles? Charles Xavier?’
‘Oh my God,’ says the boy, skidding to a halt in front of Charles. ‘This is the first time, isn't it? Absolutely the first. Hi! This is so totally cool.’
The girl, coming up more slowly, sighs long-sufferingly. ‘Star struck,’ she complains. ‘What can you do? Oh well, it gets better, I should know.’
Charles is used to strange people by now. He's done a lot of running around with them. He's saved strange worlds from strange dangers. He's drunk strange drinks with strange aliens in strange bars. He hasn't met anyone who isn't strange for weeks, and it's been terribly enjoyable. He feels the he fits right in. But the people he meets don't usually greet him by name, and certainly not with this level of friendly enthusiasm.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Charles, ‘do I know you?’
The boy grins at him. ‘No, you really don’t. The Doctor does though, and you know the Doctor, which means we're all friends. Right?' he asks hopefully.
'Right,' agrees the girl. Charles wants to say that he's not entirely convinced by the logic of this, but the boy's already forging on with the conversation.
'Something dangerous today,’ he says confidentially, 'but don't worry about it.'
The girl nods. ‘It turns out ok.’ She smiles sweetly at Charles. ‘That’s all I’m telling, though. Spoilers!’
These supposed new friends are young, late teens, he guesses. The boy is fair, tall and still a little awkward, all disjointed limbs and shoulders that haven’t quite filled out. The girl is smaller, almost petite, with dark ringlets and an air of easy confidence.
Charles looks around the dusty rocky landscape, then back at the grinning pair. They seem harmless, but baffling. Charles has to admit he misses Erik in situations like this. Erik would probably be able to intimidate all the odd people Charles and the Doctor run into with a single suave, deadly glance, and would definitely have made these kids explain themselves. But Erik isn't here, and he’s supposed to be nice, polite and British, bugger it.
If he went home, Erik would be waiting for him there. He'll go soon. Just a few days more. A week, maybe.
‘Thank you for the reassurance,' he says politely. 'What are spoilers?’
The girl gives him a rather condescending look. ‘I forgot you’re so new at this. “Spoilers” means telling you about things that are going to happen.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s a time travel thing, you get used to it.’
Charles rubs at his head. ‘So you’re time travellers too,’ he says. ‘The Doctor said there weren’t any more.’
The two of them look at each other and burst out laughing. ‘No, not time travellers,’ the boy says. ‘Really, honestly not time travellers.’
Charles decides that these kids are having far too much fun being enigmatic. He's having a trying day, what with the Doctor wandering off babbling about living statues, and him getting a nasty flashback earlier to the horrible pain of the star whale and the desperation of the poor man created by the Daleks. All in all, he's ready for a bit of light relief. They seem to know about him, it's only fair he should know about them. Just a peek, so that the conversation will be on a fair footing.
Their minds are human, which is unusual. He reaches out towards them. Then he jerks back in utter astonishment, his ears ringing. He can’t get through, couldn’t even begin to try. He's run up against two rock-hard barriers like nothing he’s ever felt before.
‘Hey,’ says the boy. ‘Geez, I thought you didn’t do that.’
‘Manners, Charles,’ laughs the girl. ‘I’ll keep out of your head if you keep out of mine.’
‘Well if you’re not time travellers you’re certainly telepaths,’ says Charles weakly. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Pietro,’ the boy says eagerly.
‘You can call me Wanda,’ says the girl.
‘Hello, hello, hello,’ the Doctor says wandering up. ‘Stop chin-wagging, Xavier, we have work to do.’ Then he pulls up short and surveys the pair of kids. He gives a gentle little groan. ‘Oh, tell me it isn’t you two again. Trouble and Strife.’
‘Hello Doctor,’ they chorus.
‘They keep turning up,’ the Doctor tells Charles wearily, ‘and being smug. And oddly useful.’
‘It's nice to help people,’ says Wanda.
‘Glad to be of service,’ adds Pietro.
The Doctor glares at them. 'What do you want?'
'I have a hint for you,' Wanda says. She grins again, and Charles sees what the Doctor means by smug. 'It should save you a bit of trouble though I'm sure you'd have worked it out eventually. It's about the weeping angels.'
'Go on then, if you must.'
She looks around to check everyone's listening, and then puts on a somewhat teacher-ish voice. 'Weeping angels, you see, are dangerous creatures with a nice little quantum defence mechanism. When you look at them they're just statues, and they only come to life when you can't see them. Which is why you mustn't even blink. Is that right Doctor?'
'Yes, we know all this,' the Doctor says.
'I didn't,' says Charles.
'Me neither,' says Pietro.
'Look, I'm making a point here,' Wanda says patiently, 'and the point is that they come to life when you're not looking. And you know that. Except that the real point is that it's not true. What I just told you isn't true. That's not what happens.'
'Yes it is,' objects the Doctor.
Wanda ignores him. 'That's all I wanted to say,' she says. She looks at Pietro. 'Time to go.'
He pouts. 'It's only been a minute. I can't stay and talk to Charles?'
'Not this time.'
Despite his obvious disappointment Pietro gives Charles a blinding smile. 'It's so nice to see you. To meet you, I mean. You're just like I thought you'd be.'
Wanda smiles too, a gentler, fonder smile. 'Goodbye Charles. See you soon. Goodbye Doctor.'
They wave and slip away behind a pile of the yellow-grey, dusty rocks that seem to make up this planet. Charles starts forward to follow them, but the Doctor lays a hand on his arm.
'There's no point,' he says. 'They're long gone by now. They just hop away, like those things I'm thinking of, tip of my tongue, it'll come to me.'
Charles frowns. He isn't sure he's willing for this encounter to end with so little explanation, but the Doctor's hand on his arm is firm. He turns back. 'Are they time travellers? They said they weren't. What do you know about them?'
The Doctor nods tiredly. '"Really not time travellers,"' he imitates. 'They always say that. Did they giggle? I hate it when they giggle.'
He's avoiding the question. He actually avoids the majority of questions that have any real bearing on any given situation, though fortunately he's quite happy to expound about the local customs and the physiology of the alien life they encounter. The interesting stuff. Charles tries another tack. 'They seemed nice,' he says. 'They had a very unusual attitude towards me. Some of the things they said...'
The Doctor looks at him curiously. 'What did they say to you?'
'Oh, just that they weren't time travellers,' Charles says evasively. 'And you're right, they did giggle. I'm very curious about them.'
'No, really, what else did they say?'
Charles smiles. 'Who are they?' he asks. He finds he doesn’t want to tell the Doctor about the odd reassurance they gave him, as though it was somehow personal, a present. He also doesn't want to mention 'absolutely the first time', for no reason that he can name.
'Xavier, you're holding out on me,' the Doctor says knowingly. 'I know your sneaky ways. You should tell me things, I'm much older and wiser than you.'
'Being enigmatic is catching,' Charles says. After all, the Doctor might be a mysterious, powerful Time Lord but Charles is a telepath and a genius. 'I'll work it out for myself. I'm sure we'll run into them again.'
They exchange glances of friendly competition. It'll be fun to see who solves the mystery first.
'Now, tell me about these weeping angels. Is it true that they come to life when you're not looking?' Charles asks, a little nervously. They sound a bit too much like the monsters of childhood, those terrible things in the dark which, no matter how fast you spin round, are always behind you. He spent too many nights as a little boy huddling in bed with his back pressed as tight as possible to the wall, waiting for dawn.
The Doctor nods seriously. 'How's your blink reflex?' he enquires.
He's been guiding Charles gently along a rocky path and now they've arrived at some sort of military encampment. There's the buzz of fifty-or-so minds, ranging from brisk purposefulness to blinding terror.
One of the men strides over. 'Doctor?' he says, 'Glad you’re here, now we can get moving. We're pretty sure the thing's in the maze or in the ship, which is also in the maze since the crash. We'll have to go in and get it out.'
'Yes, that would seem to be the thing to do,' the Doctor says. 'Xavier, this is Father Octavian, Father Octavian, this is Xavier. Friend of mine.'
'Charles,' says Charles holding out his hand. Father Octavian takes it and shakes it, which makes a nice change from the blank looks Charles has been getting lately.
'Good to meet you Charles. God bless, and all that. Can you use a gun?'
Charles smiles. 'I'd rather not, but yes. Pretty well.' Things seem to be getting interesting again. He really does love the universe.
'Oh, he can do everything,' the Doctor says. 'Xavier, we're hunting a deadly weeping angel that turns into a statue through a maze of actual statues. We'll find it, contain it and keep looking at it until Father Octavian can get it somewhere safe.
‘Sounds lovely,' Charles says.
***
They've been walking through the creepy, statue-infested caves for about fifteen minutes. The Doctor has been expounding on the original inhabitants of the planet, an advanced, two-headed race that apparently had an architectural style borrowed from a horror film set. Charles has been chatting reassuringly to some of the more terrified militant clerics, who are really quite sweet. They're all beginning to relax slightly.
Then the Doctor pulls up short. Everyone bumps into everyone else.
'We're all in terrible danger,' he says. 'I'm so sorry, I can't believe I didn't notice, I'm really thick. Look at the statues. They've only got one head.'
Charles exchanges mystified glances with Father Octavian and the clerics.
'No, don't look at each other,' the Doctor says quietly. 'Look at the statues, I can't see them all at once.'
There's a hideous pause, then suddenly everyone is in a little huddle facing outwards, trying to see as much of the room as humanly possible.
'One head?' Father Octavian asks shakily.
'Yes, and the original occupants of this planet had two heads. If these were their statues...'
'They'd have two heads as well.' Father Octavian finishes. The clerics make horrified little noises.
'So they're all angels?' Charles says, looking at the statues. It should be terrifying, but it isn't. Don't worry about it, it turns out ok, the kids said. He has no reason to trust them but he does.
'Yes, yes, so keep them in sight, don't look away, don't even blink, because as soon as we stop looking at them...'
'Doctor, we passed hundreds of them,' Charles says. 'They're all behind us.'
'Yes, but that's because... oh. We did, didn't we' the Doctor says thoughtfully. 'We should be dead but we're not. We're not dead.' He stops and blinks. 'Wait, no, sorry, ignore that, we're all perfectly safe.' He thumps his fist against his forehead. 'Ohhh, I'm an idiot for the second time in under a minute, I think it's a new record. She couldn't just have said it?'
'Doctor, what's going on? Are they angels or aren't they?' Father Octavian says warily, still trying to keep all the statues in view.
'Angels, definitely,' the Doctor says.
'Then how exactly are we safe?'
The Doctor spins round. 'Because of course that's not how it works. That's not howyou work, Xavier. She said it and I didn't listen.'
'Said what?' Charles snaps.
'Said what she meant. She was right, it's not whether you see them or not,' the Doctor says. 'The quantum effect is about perception, not just vision. And you, you beautiful Xavier, you don't need to see them. Look at you, you're angel-proof. The moment they become real you'd be all over them like a telepathic slime mould. They can't do it. As long as you're here they're just statues.' He turns to Father Octavian, grinning widely. 'Got any sledgehammers?'
***
The clerics do, apparently, have sledgehammers. They are also rather muscular, and they like to take their shirts off when doing hard physical labour. Charles smashes a few ugly statues then sits around being angel-proof and enjoying the view.
Until one of the clerics disappears into thin air.
Charles looks around the cave. It's darkish, but he could swear he wasn't mistaken. One second five men, the next second four.
'Hey,' he says to one of the others, 'what happened to your friend over there?'
'What friend?' asks the man cheerfully. 'Do you mean Cleric Bob? Call of nature, he'll be back in a minute.'
'No, the one with the dark hair who was working just over there. Cleric Simon, I think you called him. He just disappeared.'
'There's no Cleric Simon in our unit.'
Charles frowns. He almost asks 'Are you sure?' but the man is sure. His mind is full of open honesty and mild surprise at the question.
Then he's gone too.
Charles steps back several paces, very quickly. 'What was that?' he says shakily.
'What was what?' says the next cleric along.
'Didn't you see him disappear?' Charles says. 'Didn't you? What's wrong with all of you?'
'Who disappeared?'
'The man I was talking to. The man who was standing right there fifteen seconds ago.' Charles gestures to the battered remains of an angel. 'The man who just smashed up that angel. Where did he go?'
'Are you feeling alright?' the cleric says solicitously.
'Yes I'm bloody well feeling alright. Sorry,' he says as the Cleric winces at the curse, 'but I'm a bit concerned. Listen, what's your name? What are their names?'
'I'm Cleric Matthew, that's Cleric Benedict and that's Cleric Sven.'
Cleric Mathew's mind is also bright and honest, and right now it's thinking comfortable thoughts about Cleric Sven, who is an old friend and prayer buddy... who is an old... who is... who?
Charles glances frantically around. Now there are only two clerics. 'Where's Cleric Sven?' he demands.
Cleric Mathew laughs. 'That's a funny name for a cleric.'
'He's your friend,' Charles says. 'Sven. You used to share chewing gum in morning prayers when you were children.'
'I don't think so,' Cleric Mathew says quietly. 'I didn't have any friends when I was a child.'
As Charles stares in bafflement something glows behind Matthew, a dark, ragged line with bright edges, and he's gone too. Charles looks hopelessly round for Benedict. No, there's nobody, he's all alone with a glowing line that eats people.
He turns back and sprints down the passage. 'Doctor!'
***
‘Erik? Erik Lehnsherr?’ says the voice.
Erik spins round. ‘Who’s there?’ He gropes for metal, finds a fire iron. The mansion, being a mansion, is well equipped with them.
‘Sorry, sorry, only me,’ says the voice.
Erik blinks. Silhouetted against the window he can see a tall, gangling figure. He pokes the poker at it, going for threatening, but not immediately lethal. It doesn't seem quite right. Every drop of the man’s body language radiates appeasement, like a dog cringing and wagging its tail.
He keeps the poker hovering at the ready and flicks the light switch with a spare part of his mind. The man raises his hand to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness and then, after a second, turns the movement into a cheery wave.
‘Goodness,’ he says, ‘I like your poker.’
‘You’re an intruder,’ Erik says, glaring at him. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m the Doctor, by the way. Did I say? And you’re Erik, hello! Well, you shouldn’t kill me because I’ve got Xavier, you see.’
Erik feels his chest tighten. CIA? Shaw's people? Whoever has Charles is really going to regret it. He slams the poker across the room, wrapping it around the man’s chest and pinning him to the wall. ‘Where's Charles?' he snaps out. 'What have you done with him?’
‘That really sounded better in my head,’ the Doctor says apologetically.
Erik squeezes the metal. ‘Take me to Charles right now,’ he suggests, ‘or die.’
'I think that's a bit unnecessary,' says the Doctor. 'After all, when I say I've got him I don't mean I want to hurt him or ransom him or anything. I just mean I went into his bedroom at night and took him away in a box. Oh dear, that sounded better in my head too.'
Erik can feel himself losing his temper, and when he loses his temper other people suffer. He wraps the coal tongs round the man's legs and a couple of candlesticks for good measure and hangs him upside down near the high ceiling. 'You have ten seconds.'
'Keep your hair on,' the Doctor says. 'When he said you were touchy I didn't think he meant primed to explode. But there's no accounting for taste. Anyway, I just took him on a little holiday. He seemed tense, needed taking out of himself. Right now he's... well, I say right now but it's really not, I left him about seventy-five thousand years ago chatting to some Neanderthals. I thought it would cheer him up. He's been moping.'
Erik drops him, then snags him again when his hair is brushing the carpet. 'Try again,' he says.
'Would you put me down, please?' the Doctor asks. 'It's quite hard to think how to convince you from this position. Look, the point is that your Xavier is fine and I want to take you to see him. And you want to be taken to see him. We want the same thing. We're practically soul mates, so if you don't mind, you're cutting off the circulation to my legs.'
'Where is he?' Erik grinds out. He's terribly tempted to kill the man now for being generally infuriating, but he does have some morals buried deep down, or so Charles tells him. Also, if the man really does have Charles then it's important to keep him alive for now. And if he's hurt Charles at all Erik will kill him later. Slowly.
'I told you, he's... no, alright, the seventy-five thousand years thing was nonsense, he's in a little wooden box just outside the window, come on, let's go.'
***
'I don't care how big it is on the inside,' Erik says irritably. 'Is Charles in here or isn't he?'
'No,' says the Doctor. 'Yes. Not precisely. He's just outside. This is my time machine,' he says, 'so all we have to do is go back in time, open the door and hey presto, one Charles Xavier. Which I would already have done if I wasn't upside down.'
'Time machine?' says Erik. This is turning into one of those nights where he is very, very angry. 'Why the hell would you think I would believe that?'
'You can control metal and your friend's a telepath,' the Doctor says. 'I expected you to be more open minded.'
Erik pauses. The man has a point, and it's just possible, though very unlikely. There's no reason why a mutant couldn't be capable of time travel. 'What possible reason could you have for taking Charles back in time?' he demands.
'Because he wanted to go,' said the Doctor. 'We've been all over, the past few weeks. The past, the future, alien planets.'
Erik grits his teeth with the effort of supressing his extremely violent impulses. 'Charles has been here for the past month.'
'Time travel,' says the Doctor patiently. 'Don't worry, you get used to it. I picked him up at about, oh, 1 am today, and we've been having a nice little adventure. Whenever he wanted to go home I'd have brought him back to the same time. He said he had to be back for something.'
Erik shakes his head. He'd seen Charles just hours ago, and he was focused, determined, ready for action. He wouldn't leave.
Would he?
***
'I cannot believe you did this.'
They are standing on a wide open grassy plain thousands of years in the past. A tribe of Neanderthals have just done the smart thing and run a long way away. A time traveller is standing by his little blue box a few yards away. Erik cannot believe anything about this situation, but most of all he cannot believe Charles.
'You're angry,' says Charles placatingly, 'but believe me, I intended to come back.'
'Yes, Charles, I am angry. Well done.' Erik is more than angry, he is seething. He has a strong desire to hang Charles up like the Doctor and shake some sense in to him. 'You betrayed us,' he snaps.
Charles looks stricken. 'No, Erik, I...'
'You ran away.'
'I was coming back!' Charles protests.
'I don't care,' Erik says tightly. 'Read my mind and see how little that matters. You saw a way out and you took it. How long would you have stayed with him? Months? Years?'
'I had to,' Charles yells. 'Erik, I couldn't, I needed to think. I just needed time.'
Erik takes a deep breath. This is Charles, who shared his memories, who helped him do things he never knew were possible. Charles, who knew everything about him and who, it turns out, he didn't know at all. 'You'll come back with me now,' he says.
Charles looks at him, desperation melting into hopelessness, and Erik knows, with a sickening jolt through his stomach, exactly what the answer will be.
'No, my friend. I won't.'
Erik spins round and walks a few paces away, trying to control himself. He can feel Charles's presence, miserable but determined. It's on the edge of his consciousness, not prying but trying to console, convince.
'Get out of my head, Charles,' he says. 'And if you don't come with me, don't come at all. We won't be needing you.'
He strides back to the TARDIS where the Doctor is waiting, still pinned but no longer inverted.
'Take me back,' he says. 'You can keep him.'
Charles makes a miserable little sound, half protest, half sigh. Erik doesn't look round. He unwraps the poker, the coal tongs and the candlesticks and dumps them on the ground.
The Doctor stretches out his arms and legs and frowns. 'You didn't cheer him up. You were supposed to cheer him up. Isn't that what friends do?'
'We're not friends,' Erik says.
The Doctor gives him an unhappy look. 'I suppose if that's the way it is I'd better take you home. You're sure you won't give it another try? Take him for a beer, buy him flowers, give him a kiss? He's a good kisser.'
A good kisser? Erik tenses and then decides he really doesn't give a damn. Charles can do what the hell he likes. He opens the TARDIS door. The Doctor follows him meekly inside. Erik gestures meaningfully at the controls and the Doctor wanders over to them unwillingly.
'He's not happy, you know,' he says. 'That's why I brought you. I told you, he mopes. We had fun, but there was a crack in the universe and now he's moping. I took him skiing down the methane slopes on Ortega Five and d'you know what he said?'
He pauses hopefully. Erik chooses not to hazard a guess.
'He said it was a bit chilly,' says the Doctor. 'One of the wonders of the universe and he stares at nothing and says it's a bit chilly. Don't you think that's a man who has things on his mind? Because I do.'
'Take me back,' Erik repeats.
The Doctor huffs reproachfully and busies himself at the controls. 'It's hormones, isn't it. I've never understood hormones, don't have them myself. If you're really going to sulk about it, Westchester 1963 here we come.'
The machine makes its wild grinding noise and the Doctor spins things and twists thing and leaps about. Erik watches it all with disinterest. He wonders idly what he's going to tell the others in the morning. The truth, he supposes, that Charles has discarded his responsibilities. It might be good for them. Raven needs to learn that Charles is holding her back. The others need to come out from under the influence of his studied naiveté.
And Erik needs to be himself again, not this soft, conflicted creature he was becoming. He can go back to knowing what needs to be done. Back to the rage.
Bloody Charles.
The grinding noise stops. The Doctor frowns down at the controls. 'Hmm,' he says. 'That's unusual.'
'What is it?'
'Nothing, nothing.' He grins manically and leaps round to clap Erik on the shoulder and propel him towards the door. 'We're here. Destination achieved, come along, no waiting, places to go, worlds to save, you know how it is.' One hand flings the door open and the other gives Erik a hefty shove between the shoulder blades. The door slams behind him.
Erik gives one furious glance around. This is most certainly not Westchester.
He twists to hammer on the door and reaches for the lock with his mind but the grinding noise starts up again and there's nothing left to grasp. Fuck. What the hell is the man playing at, where is this, when is this?
It's a narrow cobbled street well coated with straw and what's hopefully horse shit. There's a certain stench over the place, of stagnant water and sewage. The buildings are greyish stone.
Erik strides to the end of the alley. The people thronging past seem to favour robes and tunics and have a generally too-small, too-sickly look. Erik approaches one and grabs him by the scruff of the neck. 'Where am I?' he growls.
'Help! Let go of me you ruffian,' the man screams in Italian. Very oddly accented Italian.
'Where am I,' Erik snaps again, switching languages.
'Guards! Murder!'
Abruptly the street is full of armoured men with spears. Erik eyes them with amusement. Really, they're making it too easy for him. The guards start forward.
Then suddenly they stop, turn to each other and start chatting unconcernedly.
The man in Erik's grip gives him a friendly nod, shakes his hand, gently disentangles his clothes and walks away.
Damn, damn, damn. He spins around, searching the crowd. There he is, of course, hurrying down the street with a smile of relief on his face.
'Erik,' Charles says, 'thank goodness. I've been wandering around for an hour.'
An hour? Of course, time travel.
'What are you doing here?' he says, exasperated. 'Come to that, what am I doing here? Why did your friend dump me in some medieval shit-hole?'
'It's not medieval, it's Renaissance. Also, it's us,' Charles corrects. 'He dumped us. After our little, er, chat he said we were going to the moon and then he shoved me out of the door here and left. I think it's his idea of locking us in a room until we sort things out.'
He passes a piece of paper to Erik. It's a page torn out of a notebook. In ballpoint ink it says: ''This is Venice, city of romance. Have fun!'
'Fucking lunatic,' Erik snarls.
Charles nods. 'Yes, I must admit he's-'
'Not him. You.'
'Oh.' Charles looks at his feet. Then he looks around and shrugs. 'Well, I've always wanted to see Venice. What shall we do first?'
Lunatic, Erik thinks. Total fucking lunatic.
***
Unsurprisingly, they end up in a bar.
'We can't pay for drinks,' Erik had pointed out.
'We're in Renaissance Italy with no money, the wrong clothes and no way home, Erik. I think we're justified in bending the rules.'
In the end they have no trouble getting drinks or generally managing to make themselves at home. Erik speaks fluent if anachronistic Italian. Charles can make everyone think he does, and is also astoundingly good at making friends. Somehow they draw quite a crowd of genial locals who cluster round in a laughing group. Charles does several very bad card tricks involving lots of cutting and shuffling. He seems to be playing it straight, and he certainly gets it wrong more often than he gets it right, to the amusement of his audience. Erik sits in the background and drinks steadily.
Two hours later they're huddled at a table on their own. Charles has got to the soggy and sentimental stage. 'Listen,' he's saying seriously, 'you're special, Erik. You have these amazing powers and you're a really, really wonderful person. You just have to learn to trust people.'
'Oh shut up, Charles. I trusted you, didn’t I?' Erik says, with the feeling of re-treading old ground.
'Yes, but now you've stopped. It's upsetting. You can still trust me, I wouldn't leave you. Erik, I really, truly, honestly wouldn't. I've missed you so much, you have no idea.'
I miss you now, Erik thinks. I miss the person I thought you were.
Charles looks up at him with such sadness that Erik knows he heard. 'I was never perfect,' he says.
The words hang in the air between them.
Then Charles sighs. 'I'm tired. Do you think they have rooms here?' He glances round, surveying the lamp-lit room. Then he stops, his mouth slightly open, staring over Erik's shoulder. 'Hey,' he says, 'I know that boy.'
'How could you possibly know anyone here?' Erik asks, craning to look.
Charles ignores him. 'Hey, Pietro!' With an alcohol-induced mood swing, he seems suddenly delighted. He stands up unsteadily and makes his way over to a table on the other side of the bar. The gangly youth sitting there looks up and smiles at him joyfully. Apparently Charles really does know him.
Erik feels his fists clench. Not only is Charles wandering the universe avoiding his problems, he's making friends who obviously, right now, like him much more than Erik does. Charles shouldn't be making new and better friends. Erik pushes himself to his feet, meaning to tell Charles to go to hell, that he's leaving and they can go their separate ways until the Doctor comes back for them. If he comes back.
Unfortunately things don't go entirely to plan. When he's three feet from the table something hits him hard in the chest and he suddenly has his arms full of teenager.
'Erik!' says the boy, flinging his arms round Erik's neck. He snuggles - actually snuggles - his face into Erik's shoulder.
'What the hell?' Erik says. 'Get off, who are you?'
'You don't know me yet but you'll like me, I promise,' says the boy.
God, is he a prostitute? Charles and a teenage prostitute? Really? But he's speaking English. Erik detaches him and holds his wrists in a firm grip with one hand. 'Charles,' he says silkily, 'won't you introduce me to your friend?'
Charles is looking a little miffed. 'Why didn't I get a hug?'
'I'm sorry, I would have,' the boy says, glowing with apologetic sincerity, ' but telepaths don't hug telepaths. Not when they're trying to keep secrets.'
Telepath? Ok, perhaps not a prostitute, but much more dangerous. 'Charles,' Erik says warningly.
Charles gives him a tipsy smile. 'Erik, this is my friend Pietro. I met him on an alien planet with some angels, and he was very helpful. Well, his friend was. Wanda.'
'I was helpful,' Pietro says petulantly.
Charles pats him on the shoulder. 'You don't need to be helpful. I like you anyway.'
'You're drunk,' Erik snaps. 'Who is he? Is he a mutant?'
Charles frowns. 'You know, I never asked. Pietro, are you and Wanda mutants?' He comes to peer into Pietro's face, which means stepping up close to Erik and pressing gently against his side. Charles likes to touch.
Pietro gives his bright smile again and shrugs as well as he can with both hands restrained. 'Everyone's a mutant. It's how evolution works.'
Charles beams delightedly. 'That's so true! You are very groovy. Erik, isn't he groovy?'
'No,' says 'Erik. He's crazy. Just like you.'
'Oh, you're fighting,' Pietro says.
Charles glares at Erik. 'He's fighting,' he says. 'It's most unreasonable.'
Erik glares back at Charles. He's better at it. 'I'm not fighting, I'm leaving.'
This actually seems to upset Charles but Pietro just shakes his head. 'No, we have something to do. We have to save the city from vampires.'
'What?' Charles says, intrigued.
'What?' Erik snaps.
This Pietro kid looks very young and very innocent in the flickering light, but he's here and he knows things so he cannot honestly be that stupid. He looks like a nice boy. There's an enthusiasm and cheerfulness about him that suggests his life has been really quite easy. And yet for some reason he's standing in a Venice tavern asking Erik to go vampire hunting.
'Are you sure?' Charles asks.
'Yes,' Pietro says with absolute certainty.
'Alright then.'
'No way,' says Erik, with the sinking sensation that this situation is only going to get worse. ‘You’re drunk, you’re not going anywhere. If there are vampires in Venice then Venice can deal with them itself.'
In the sudden silence that follows this, Erik feels the skin on the back of his neck begin to prickle. Charles turns, suddenly giving the false appearance of extreme sobriety. He reaches up and takes Erik's face in his hands. 'Erik,' he says softly, 'listen to me very carefully, my friend. I am going to do this. You will not understand why and neither do I. It doesn't matter. I'm going with Pietro. Help me. Please.'
Damn Charles and his damned intense meaningful moments.
Also, if he doesn't go Charles is going to wander off drunkenly with a crazy person and get eaten by vampires. Erik groans inwardly. All he wanted to do was hunt down Nazis and ensure the supremacy of mutants, and somehow it all spiralled out of control.
'I'll come to stop you from getting yourself killed,' Erik says, 'but I'm not going to help.'
***
The three of them squelch down a dripping passageway somewhere under the city. From what Pietro has explained, the vampires have a headquarters in a school of young ladies run by a sort of vampire queen. A girl on the inside, Pietro's friend, will let them in and then they just have to find out what's going on and make it stop.
Simple.
Erik walks sulkily at the back and tries to keep his eyes off Charles's ass.
Though he hates to admit it to himself he really did think that Charles was perfect. Fundamentally wrong, but also, oxymoronically, fundamentally perfect. It seems ridiculous now how high a pedestal he'd placed him on. It was as though the knowledge of other minds made Charles some kind of mystical figure, almost inhuman.
Which is why it hurts so much.
And which is also why Erik has never looked at his ass before now. You don't look at the ass of a mystical figure.
Turns out, it's pretty nice.
'This way,' Pietro calls, ducking down a side passage. Charles staggers after him, swaying slightly. At least the two of them aren't singing any more.
'Come on, Erik,' Charles calls as he rounds the corner. 'Vampires ahead!'
'Shh,' Pietro says, giggling. 'You're so funny drunk, I can't believe it. This is awesome.' He taps gently on the hatch above, which swings open.
'Wanda,' Charles says. 'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?' He clambers up the ladder with Pietro shoving gently from below. Erik follows, scrambling out into yet another passage and - Jesus Christ - finds himself being hugged again.
'Hello Erik,' says the slim, dark-haired girl.
He grits his teeth and makes to detach her, but she slips her wrists neatly out of his grasp and steps away.
'I really need more hugs,' Charles says sadly.
'No you don't,' Wanda tells him. 'Be patient. Right,' she grins at Pietro, 'time to go. These two can handle it from here.'
Erik fixes her with a glare. She cannot be serious. Charles seems to feel the same way. 'Hey,' he protests. 'You can't leave us here! Aren't you going to help with the vampire thing?'
'I got you in here. I did help,' Wanda says. She grabs Pietro's hand and the two of them whirl round a corner of the tunnel.
Erik darts after them, but they've vanished completely. There's nothing but stone walls and chunky pillars. 'Where the hell did they go?'
'They just hop away.' Charles leans against the wall. He's absolutely fucking plastered. 'Smug and helpful and hoppy.'
'This is precisely the opposite of helpful,' Erik says grimly. '
'I'm glad they're gone. Now it's just you and me,' Charles says, unpropping himself from the wall and draping himself warmly against Erik's side.
Erik looks down.
Charles looks up. He licks his lips.
Of course, this is when the vampires appear.
Erik has killed plenty of people and done plenty of unpleasant things. He's pretty much inured to the nastiness of the world. But this is really creepy. Hissing girls in long white dresses with teeth like ivory darning needles are floating down the passage and Charles is hugging at his arm and peering at them with dazed interest.
'Hey, alien vampires,' he says, pointing just in case Erik hadn't noticed.
'I think we should run,' Erik says, though he's not convinced that Charles can even walk at this stage. 'Can you control them?'
'Hmm.' Charles raises his hand to his temple. 'Ooh, fishy. Watery. Erik, you should see this.'
'Control!' Erik snaps, dragging Charles away down the passage.
He reaches for metal. There are a few bits of it around but, as it turns out, he is much drunker than he realised. The metal sconces rip themselves off the walls and clatter wildly around the passage, but he can't quite make them go where he wants them to go. A few bounce off the girls but they take absolutely no notice.
He keeps dragging Charles down passage after passage, but he has the nasty feeling they're being herded. This is confirmed when they burst out of the tunnels into a large room, brightly lit, where a woman in an astonishingly ugly dress is waiting for them.
There’s something deeply, deeply unpleasant about her. Part of it is the eyes, which are a little too dark and glitter with an insectile sheen. Part of it is the air of exultant menace emanating from her. And part of it is the slight flicker about her mouth that suggests she, too, has some serious teeth in there somewhere.
She turns to a simpering, foppish man standing next to her. ‘Ah, Francesco. It seems dinner is served. These, I think, are yours.’
‘Thank you mother,’ he says smirking. ‘I like them very much.’
Erik grabs for more metal. A candlestick. He hurls it at the woman, fast enough to smash bone, but she flicks out a hand and bats it away while it’s still several feet from her body.
‘Oh, how interesting,’ she says. ‘The little human has claws.’
‘I’m not a human,’ Erik snarls, fully aware by now that neither is she. He’s swaying a little too now, and Charles is mumbling against his neck. They’re both drunk and they’re totally screwed. Francesco steps forward and the vampire girls begin to circle, like sharks scenting blood.
And then someone shouts ‘Geronimooo!’
The Doctor swings wildly across the room on the end of a rope, knocking over vampires like ninepins. He executes a neat landing next to Erik, grabs his hand and Charles’s and yells, ‘Run!’
The woman howls with rage. Francesco makes a horrible hissing sound and starts towards them, but he’s impeded by flailing girls. Hands linked, the three of them career wildly across the room and lurch down another passage.
‘Can’t beat the classics,’ the Doctor burbles. ‘Swinging from a chandelier! It never gets old. Come on, time to regroup.’
‘You…’ Erik begins furiously.
‘Just saved your life, yes, you can thank me later. We need to get out of here and make plans, plans are good. The plans will involve finding out who that woman is and what she’s doing here. This will take some careful thinking.'
'Actually,' Charles interjects in a slurring mumble, ‘I know what she wants.’
The Doctor stops. ‘You do?’
Charles nods. 'She's going to sink Venice under the sea with earthquakes and turn all the people into fish things like her. She has an earthquake machine.' He looks blearily at the Doctor's startled face. 'It's in her head.'
'The earthquake machine?'
'No. Noooo. The everything. It's a fishy world but it's gone and she fell through the crack. Last one left. Very sad.'
Apparently this makes some kind of sense, because the Doctor is looking at Charles with a kind of fascination. ‘The last one left,' he says slowly. Then he bounces on his toes with a eureka face on. 'Of course! She’s from Saturnyne! And the crack again, the crack's the thing. The crack and the telepath. Xavier, I could kiss you.'
'Please do,' Charles says politely.
The Doctor pats him on the head. 'No, probably not a good idea. Funny things kisses. Unpredictable. Damp. Dangerous. A lot like our fishy friend.'
'No hugs. No kisses,' Charles complains.
‘No sanity,’ Erik mutters.
Then there’s a dreadful lurch and everything starts to shake. Charles collides with a wall and slides cheerfully down it. ‘See? Earthquake,’ he says.
The Doctor and Erik look at each other. Together they grab Charles and stumble along the shuddering tunnels, mortar and small stones bouncing around them. Finally they emerge into a courtyard alongside a canal and deposit Charles unceremoniously on the flagstones.
‘There!’ the Doctor says, pointing across the water to a fizzing piece of machinery stretching into the sky. ‘We need to get to that tower and turn off the machine. Unfortunately we're here and it's there and we have, oh, about a minute. Come on, come on.'
'I have had enough' Erik snarls. No more fucking around. He may still be too drunk for fine control but he's fired up with adrenaline and the irritation of a really long evening, and compared to the satellite dish this is child's play. He reaches out a hand, gathers himself together and wrenches.
'Clear your mind,' Charles says from his comfortable sprawl on the floor.
'Go to hell.'
The tower trembles and starts to collapse. The world gives one final jolt and shivers into stillness.
'I am loving it,' the Doctor crows. 'Really. Wow! You mutants have your uses, don't you? A few of you could rule the world.'
Erik smiles, taking vicious pleasure in crumpling every strut and tearing out every connection. 'I plan to.'
'No, Erik, be nice,' Charles says.
The Doctor eyes Erik disapprovingly. 'We need to have a talk,' he says. 'But in the meantime, let's go and sort out the fish-lady.'
***
Charles rolls over, trying to cling to sleep. Dear god, his head aches. He is never drinking in the Rose and Crown again. Please let him not have to give a lecture today. Or a tutorial. Or, actually, anything that involves moving or speaking.
He sticks one hand out from under the blankets and gropes for his alarm clock. There is no alarm clock. Instead there's something rough and bumpy. He unsticks his eyelids unwillingly and peers at it.
It's lamp that appears to be made out of a sea creature. It has tentacles. The walls come slowly into focus. They're covered in hexagonal, almost organic-looking plates. This is not his room in Oxford. This is the TARDIS, and he was really drunk last night.
A wisp of memory drifts back. Erik. Vampires. Venice. Pietro.
No, that has to be a dream. That cannot possibly be what happened.
He staggers to the bathroom, drinks about a gallon of water and falls back into bed again.
When he next wakes up he remembers everything, and really wishes he didn't.
***
'I am so, so sorry,' Charles moans. He's followed the mental trail to the TARDIS sitting room. 'Please don't shout at me, Erik, my head is going to fall off.'
Erik is lounging on the oddly alien sofa, looking sleek and pressed. He's not as angry as he might be. In fact, he's simmered down until he’s not much more than annoyed, and there's even a tinge of amusement to his thoughts as he takes in Charles's no doubt pathetic figure.
'Sit down before you fall down,' he advises.
Charles collapses gratefully onto the other end of the sofa and sags sideways until his head is in Erik's lap. 'The vampires,' he says. 'The excessive drinking. The singing. The getting you marooned in Venice. Really, I can't tell you how sorry I am.'
'We did save the world,' Erik says drily.
Charles nods his head against Erik's leg. 'Yes, but I think maybe I could have done it without embarrassing myself horribly.'
'I doubt it.'
Charles considers this. Erik probably has a point, he really doesn't go in for smooth and sophisticated. He prefers disastrous CIA meetings where he has to be saved by Raven, accidentally outing Hank and dropping Sean out of windows.
The Doctor sticks peers into the room. ‘Ah, this is where you lovebirds have been hiding. Xavier, tea?’
Charles sits up so fast his head spins. ‘Yes,’ he says emphatically, reaching out for the life-giving brew. The Doctor hands over a mug of tea and a coffee for Erik. ‘Jammy Dodger?’ he asks, producing the familiar packet. Erik looks mildly disgusted. Charles takes five, dunks the first and sucks at the soggy biscuit and sickly cream in a way that would have horrified his mother. No, he corrects himself, his mother wouldn’t have noticed. It would have horrified his mother’s butler.
The Doctor flops down on the opposite sofa. ‘I thought last night went rather well,’ he said. ‘Evil vanquished, friends reunited…’
‘It had its moments,’ Erik says unwillingly.
‘Yes. Interesting moments.’ the Doctor says. ‘Mutant moments.’
Charles looks at him curiously. He’s learned to be wary of the Doctor’s apparent non-sequiturs and wild segues into unrelated topics. They tend to come back with unexpected meaning and bite you in the ass when you’re least expecting it.
‘You’re not used to mutants,’ he says. ‘But you’ve been to the future… why don’t you know about us?’
‘You’ve been to the future,’ the Doctor counters. ‘Starship UK? The weeping angels? Notice anything? No?’
Charles suddenly feels a little sick. He runs through the adventures in his head. Starship UK, somewhere in the 29th Century. The angels, even further in the future. Alright, he hadn’t met that many people but… not even a glimmer? Not even a mention? ‘No mutants,’ he says slowly.
Beside him, Erik tenses. ‘None?’
The Doctor grins. ‘Got it in one. And it's made me think about something I've never thought of before. More importantly, it's made me wonder why I never thought of it before. Because I'm not usually stupid and this is a big one. It's been staring me in the face.'
He nudges Erik and points towards Charles with an elbow. 'He’s smart, your Xavier. He'll get it. He's going to love it. Watch this.'
'What will I get?' Charles asks warily.
'Here's the thing,' the Doctor says. 'In the whole of humanity’s future, there are no mutants.'
Charles feels Erik’s tension blossom into fury.
The Doctor smiles. 'That's got you thinking, hasn't it? Well don't explode yet, there's more. There never were any mutants. You two never existed. None of your mutant friends did. No human in all of history has ever been a telepath, or been able to move matter with their minds.'
Charles rubs at his aching head. 'But we're right here.'
'I know. It's fab. Now here's the good bit, Xavier, here's the bit you're going to love. I've been from here to the end of the universe and most places in between, and you know what I've found? Humans. All over the universe. For billions of years. Trillions. Humans. Homo sapiens sapiens. Just the same.'
Charles blinks at him. 'Trillions of years?'
'Maybe a hundred trillion,' the Doctor confirms gleefully.
'Are you saying that humans wipe us out?' Erik snarls. 'I'm not going to let that happen. Not in my future.
'No.' Charles lays a quelling hand on his knee. 'That's not what he's telling us at all.' The Doctor is telling them something much more unsettling, something Charles isn't at all sure he understands. It can’t be true. It doesn’t make sense.
He takes a deep breath and tries to get it straight. 'Trillions of years, all kinds of new environments, all kinds of evolutionary pressures. Trillions of years and we're still the same species, Homo sapiens sapiens. It's not possible. Over that kind of timeframe we could have gone from basic molecules to people millions of times over, but he’s saying we don't change at all.’
Erik rounds on him. ‘What does it matter? They kill us, Charles.’
Charles shakes his head. ‘Nobody kills anybody. We stopped evolving, Erik. Humanity stopped changing. It's not just our kind of mutation, it's every mutation.'
How can that be? The mutations happen, there's proof, he and Erik are the proof. But time is... well, not as straightforward as he'd previously thought. Apparently their existence doesn't mean much.
There was no mutant gene. Nobody else mutated. Ever.
The Doctor nods. 'And you're an inquisitive lot, you humans. You'd think you might have noticed, oh, that you work differently from every other race in the universe, but no! Something was stopping you seeing it. Something was stopping me seeing it too, and that,' he says ominously, 'makes me angry.'
This is really difficult to cope with on top of a hangover, Charles thinks. He looks at Erik who is now baffled as well as furious, then at the Doctor who is unusually intent. Here they are, sitting around with tea and biscuits, and he's being told that the whole of the human race is wrong.
'Why don't we evolve?' he says weakly.
'Why?' the Doctor says. 'Why is boring. Why is easy. That's not the question. The question is how, and who. The question is, what about the cracks? And the other question is you, Charles Francis Xavier. What have you got to do with it all? I don't know. Let's go to Wales. When in doubt, go to Wales.'
Erik is grinding his teeth and thinking homicidal thoughts. 'I'm not going to Wales,' he says. 'I'm going home.'
'No, you're not,' the Doctor tells him, 'because whatever problems you have are teeny little problems. Microscopic. This is your problem now. It might just be the biggest problem anyone's ever had, and it's yours. And also,' he adds, almost as an afterthought, 'because you don't have a home to go to any more.'
'What?'
'Doesn't exist, never did. Now, Wales!'