Molotov Heart {Alex Summers | X-Men}

11. rückkehrunruhe.

swallow n o s t a l g i a, chase it with lime
better than d w e l l i n g and chasing time

Despite Aoibheal’s protests – and shaking hands at the mere mention – they end up in the nearest hospital. Charles waives them through to a private room but it’s Hank who actually takes care of them; for all the nurses know it’s just another empty room they feel compelled to avoid. With the proper equipment, Hank has her leg bandaged and Charles on painkillers so they decide to stay the night. After everything that’s happened, Aoibheal feels isolated in the bed by herself,  so she crawls in with Charles, which is difficult with both of them injured, but he moves to make room for her. With sleep only minutes away and her head on his chest, she can hear him murmuring about how brave she had been, but all she knows is that she feels as though she’s six years old again.

“Sean would have been so proud of you, Blue Blood.” Charles murmurs into her hair, still wide awake with thoughts from those around him, but as always Aoibheal’s were the loudest. Shock, confusion, then an overwhelming sadness as she was hit with a realisation is what floods through Charles and suddenly she’s crying, sobbing desperately and clinging to him.

“No he- I can’t be-“ The thought is almost deafeningly loud in her mind, and it seems she’s forgotten Charles’s telepathy for the moment, but he lets her work through it on her own. “I protected my brother’s- Sean’s-“ ‘Murderer’ is on the tip of her tongue, but it dissolves with another flood of tears and Charles holds tight enough to muffle her sobs. Her mind is screaming that she doesn’t want to be that person, her heart aching for all the friends and family she had lost over the years.

Charles knows so much more about her future than he could ever bare to tell her, all the mistakes he’s seen her make in another life, fears she’s clung to when everything else is ripped away from her, so Charles – this Charles in this life – holds her tight and doesn’t want to let go. He lets her weep against his chest until her gasping breathes begin to even out and she’s left sniffling, but her mind is calm.

“I feel like I’m... betraying him.” In the silence, her voice is a whisper, and Charles hums thoughtfully, the rumble of his chest comforting her.  Telling her that she saved the world, Charles eases her into a dreamless sleep. When she wakes, her mind is calm.

The mansion, when they arrive home, is in a state of disrepair, which – between Charles’s neglect, Hank’s hermit-like tendencies and Aoibheal’s general disregard – is frankly unsurprising. They give themselves a month to heal, to recover from everything that had happened and learn to live with purpose once more. It gets easier, day by day, week by week, to smile and laugh as she once had, honestly and without bitterness. Taking comfort in each other, there’s a new familiarity between the three of them now, an easiness in their banter that had been long dead in their collective depression. Her past may have died with her brother, but Charles and Hank are her future, and her family.

Gardeners are hired for the exterior of the house, Charles calls up electricians and contractors to bring the building up to code, and Hank spends his days upgrading Cerebro, so the interior falls on Aoibheal. Between she and the army of clones at her disposal, it’s an easy task to clean the mansion, and it distracts her from her fears of the future, so she lets herself enjoy it. Life breezes past her so suddenly that by the time they’re mere months from opening the school, she’s questioning this peaceful reality she’s found herself in.

On the night of her seventeenth birthday, Charles shows her what happened in Cuba. Neither of them speak, but Charles’s mind murmurs that Sean is a hero, replaying memories of how he soared about the ships and saved Alex’s life. Some small, selfish part of Charles thinks she might cry, that she might cling to that memory like she clings to all of the memories she has of her brother. He hates that part of his mind, hates what it implies about him and how needy it means he really is, so when she smiles wistfully, agreeing with a hum, he smiles back. They drink together, and it’s the last one Aoibheal has for a very long time.