FIC: Lightning in a Cloudless Sky - Charles/Erik, XMFC [COMPLETE]

[regann]

Title: Lightning in a Cloudless Sky
Author: Regann
Pairing: Charles/Erik (XMFC)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 40,000 words
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: The best way to describe the setting of this fic is that it's a Space AU heavily influenced by the worldbuilding of the TV show Andromeda, although many of the facts have been changed/altered to suit the XMFC crew. No prior knowledge of Andromeda is needed.

Summary: When Charles Xavier risks his ship and his crew to save a fellow mutant from enslavement at the hands of one of the most feared clans in the Tri-Galaxy, the last thing he's expecting is to find himself embroiled in one man's decades-long vendetta. But Erik Lehnsherr, displaced Brotherhood alpha, is nothing if not persuasive, especially when the fate of the known galaxies might rest on his plans. Space AU, Powers, Alpha/omega-style social dynamics. First fic in the "Engine of Creation" series.




Lightning in a Cloudless Sky

Thunder unseen that deafened all ears,
it burned through the heavens, stars burst in flame;
it was a story told in tragedy and tears,
a love they never dared to call by its name.

-- August Sol, Prologue, Last of the Valentines, C.Y. 8762.

**

If Charles had had a choice, they would've never stopped at Takilov Drift, but Sean had been quite adamant that their slipstream drive would not last long enough for them to put off repairs any longer, which was why, against his better judgment, they'd docked at the station earlier that day. He'd left Raven and Hank on board with Moira performing inventory while he had set off with Sean, Alex and Darwin to acquire the credits they'd need to purchase the parts for the slip drive that Sean swore were absolutely imperative for its continued functioning.

Being a telepath, Charles knew his engineer was only slightly exaggerating on the fact.

As he entered what passed for a pub on Takilov Drift, Charles was reminded of another reason he hated that particular station -- it was always crawling with mutant alphas spoiling for a fight, looking for the chance to exhibit their dominance and have someone – often Charles -- submit to it. There was something about the look of him or his bearing, he'd learned, that made alphas, and sometimes even betas, try their hand at dominating him whenever he came into contact with them, a constant reminder of why he remained on the fringes of Brotherhood society, as far away as he could get from the clans and their primitive, violent ideas about social -- and sexual -- hierarchy.

Charles was in no mood for the display he knew awaited him when the alphas in the pub finally noticed him, so he used the lightest of telepathic touches to deflect any interest that came his way, moving like a ghost through the dimly lit establishment until he reached the bar where he could order himself a proper drink. It had been months since he'd been anywhere that served real alcohol and it was hardly something he stocked in bulk on the ship, so it was the one indulgence Charles allowed himself whenever they docked. It was why he'd left the task of procuring spare parts in the mostly-capable hands of Sean and Alex -- and the purse strings in Darwin's -- and wandered off by himself, despite his general discomfort of being on a clan-run drift in clan-dominated space.

It didn't take the bartender but a moment to serve him his drink and Charles sipped at it slowly, savoring the burn as he tried to release some of the tension he still carried. Of course, he knew that he wouldn't be free of all of it until he and his crew were in more neutral territory, but they were close, just a jump or two from planets allied with the new Tri-Galaxy Commonwealth where they were less likely to run into trouble, even as a ship full of mutants in human-controlled space. Even though most humans didn't know or care about the difference between one mutant and the next, at least humans tended to give them a wide berth, unlike the clans that seemed intent on aggression no matter how peaceably Charles and his ship tried to go about their business.

Charles finished his first drink and was contemplating a second when a scream ripped through his mind so forcefully that his deflection shattered as he tried to regain his shields. At first, he'd thought that the cry must've come from one of his crew through the telepathic connection he shared with them because of the strength with which it had sounded in his head, but Charles quickly realized that they were all safe. The scream had come from somewhere outside of their small circle and Charles let his mind sweep out from his location in waves until he found the source of the psychic disturbance -- a man, struggling with two others, in an alley a few units away from the bar. Charles didn't pause to think before he was pushing himself out of the bar and onto the sparsely-populated side avenue of the drift, intent on finding whoever it was who had managed to reach out so strongly to his mind.

He hurried down the avenue, then turned a corner before he finally found his quarry and the scene he came upon was just as he'd seen in the bar and just as distressing. As he'd sensed, there were two men -- mutants, both bearing clan markers -- and they had a third on his knees between them, using their combined strength to subdue him. But even with two working against him, the third man was not so easily controlled, growling a little as he fought back, flailing fists and elbows against his captors with a savage desperation the likes of which Charles had not seen before. Even his mind, the mind that touched Charles's so, was a blanket of nothing but pain-anger-fight-kill-away-off-off-off, ruthlessly focused on escape.

Of it all, however, it was the null collar around the third man's neck that made a chill go up and down Charles's spine.

"Stop!" Charles said, an order with no force of his mind behind it. It was more instinct than tactic, but the two attackers did pause in their struggle with their prisoner, if only to glare at Charles for his presumption.

"This is none of your business, human," one of the men sneered, hand going to the pistol at his side. "Move along if you know what's good for you."

"Wrong on all accounts, I'm afraid," Charles returned coolly, lifting a hand toward the man. With a thought, he was unable to move, his mind howling in outrage as Charles easily forced him to remain motionless. The third man used the distraction Charles offered to finally land a blow against the second attacker, one that sent the man crashing into the pitted metal wall of one of the units. He recovered quickly, roaring in anger as he lunged at the collared mutant. It all happened so fast that Charles barely had time to react properly which was why his power-enforced "Stop!" was a second too late to stop the aggressor from crashing into his captive, both of the hitting around the ground. Still, with Charles's command, both thugs went unconscious, the first crumpling to the ground to join the second.

Charles hurried over to the collared man, pushing the second unconscious body off of him. "Are you all right?" he asked, frowning when he received no answer. He knelt at the man's side, reaching out with own his physical and psychic touch -- he was conscious but still shuttered in his anger and pain, pain that seemed to be coming from...

Charles realized with a start that the man was fighting against the null collar and it was the feedback loop, the dreadful electric shock it emitted that was meant to dissuade such action, which pained him so. He grabbed him by his shoulder and shook him. "Calm your mind," he told him, first aloud and then directly to the man's mind. It was the second that caught the mutant's attention and his pale eyes flew open for a second to lock with Charles's. But they shut again as he tried to use his power, whatever it may have been, jaw tightening as another shock of pain slammed through him. "You have to stop," Charles said, his other arm coming around the man to quiet the tremors the collar caused. "You're going to kill yourself like this -- you have to stop."

There was still nothing but blind rage coming off the man and Charles offered a silent apology as he reached out with gentle fingers. "Go to sleep," he commanded softly, fingers on the man's furrowed brow. Instantly, the body in his arms went loose and limp, leaving Charles kneeling in an alleyway with three unconscious mutants.

He knew there was a reason he hated Takilov Drift.

With a sigh, he let his telepathy reach out until he could sense Sean, Alex and Darwin, only a few blocks away as they left a salvage dealer, lighter on credits but heavier on repair necessities.

Darwin? Charles sent out. Has Sean concluded his shopping?

All but one piece, Darwin answered. Why? What's wrong?

Charles shifted under the weight of the man he still supported. I need you three to make a little detour. I'm in need of some assistance.

It was barely a few minutes later that his three young crew members appeared in the alley way, all looking around surprised at the scene that met them. Darwin whistled low and shook his head. "It doesn't look like you need that much assistance, after all." he said.

"I know the alphas can get a little handsy but damn," Sean said, also shaking his head. "You really weren't in the mood."

Charles rolled his eyes while Alex shot Sean a dark look. "That's not it at all," he said to Sean, then to Darwin, "I didn't need help with them. I need help with him." He lifted the man a little to emphasize his words. "We need to get him back to the ship."

Alex frowned down at him, clearly distrustful despite the fact the man was unconscious and collared. "Who is he?"

"I'm not quite sure at the moment," Charles admitted. "But he needs our help and I think we'd rather spare anyone the horror of being captured by the Hel, wouldn't we?" At the unanimous agreement he felt come his way, Charles nodded. "Well, then, come on. Alex, help me get him back to the ship while Sean and Darwin finish with the errands."

Alex reluctantly hauled the unconscious man up, looping an arm around him to keep him steady as Charles scrambled to his feet. "What about the other two?" Alex asked with a glance down at the other mutants.

Charles waved a dismissive hand. "Someone will find them eventually," he said, as he positioned the man's arm over his shoulders. "Or not."

Alex sighed. "You know what Raven's going to say when you drag him back to the ship, don't you?"

Charles grinned a little despite the situation. "I'm well aware. And I can handle my own sister. Let's go."

At the entrance to the alley, they parted ways as Darwin and Sean headed back to the shops while Charles and Alex dragged their burden toward the dock bay where their ship -- and one very opinioned shape shifter -- waited.

**

Just as Alex had intimated and Charles had expected, the first words from Raven's mouth were, "You have to stop this, Charles. You can't just collect people like puppies. That's not the way it works."

"Yes, thank you, Raven," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I would've never known that without your brilliant insight."

She crossed her scaly blue arms and pouted at him over the prone figure in the medical bed between them. "You know what I mean. How do you even know that this guy deserves our help? Maybe you took out the good guys and he's the bad guy."

"Those men were not 'good guys,' no matter how you define the term," Charles replied. "And I'm a telepath, remember? I'm rather good at knowing things." Of course, he actually had no idea why the man had been collared or why the other mutants had been after him but he did have a feeling in his gut that told him he'd done the right thing. Charles didn't much have to rely simply on his intuition but he had in this case, and he trusted both his intuition and the exhilaration that came from following its lead for once.

"They don't put those kind of collars on mild-mannered dock workers, Charles," she argued.

"The Hel are in the slave trade, Raven," Charles said. "I couldn't let him be dragged away by them, no matter the reason."

Raven narrowed her yellow eyes. "Just remember that whatever happens with him, it's your own fault."

Charles was spared from having to deal with more of Raven's attitude by the sounds of the medbay doors sliding open as Hank entered, clutching one of Sean's tools in his large, blue hand.

"So you found it," Charles noted.

Hank nodded, coming to stand on the other side of their patient as Raven slid out of his way, joining Charles where he stood across from the young scientist. "It would've been easier if Sean's work room wasn't a disaster area."

Charles focused on the thin tool in Hank's hand. "Do you think it will suffice in removing the null collar without damaging our guest?"

Hank frowned down at his hand, thinking. "I hope so," he said at last. "But it's hard to say. I've never seen a collar fused together like this at the latch."

"A special model?" Raven asked, shooting Charles a glance. "Maybe to be extra secure?"

"I don't think so," Hank admitted. "It's...fused from the inside. I can't see how they could've done that after they put it on him."

Charles ran a finger the edge of the collar where it still circled the man's throat, touching both skin and metal. "Do you think he did it himself? Perhaps some side effect of his power?"

Hank shrugged. "I can't be sure until he wakes up and I can examine him properly." He paused. "Is there a reason he hasn't woken up yet?"

"Because I haven't released him from the command," Charles revealed. "I didn't want to do that until we had the collar off. Once it's off, I'll allow him to wake."

"Don't you think it might be safer to do that the other way around?"

Charles turned to see Moira striding into the medbay, a dark look on her face. As always, she was dressed in her gray, form-fitting suit with a pistol strapped to her side. Even without looking at his sister, he could feel her smugness at Moira's entrance, an ally to her position that Charles was being naive and ridiculous.

"I don't want him to injure himself further," Charles said in reply to Moira. "If I wake him before we remove it, there's no telling how much more damage he'll inflict upon himself, especially if he remains as agitated as he was in that alleyway."

"And if his mutant power is like Alex's and he blasts the ship apart because he's still agitated?" Moira asked. "I think the first option is the better of the two choices."

"Aren't you supposed to be running systems checks with Sean?" Charles inquired mildly. "I believe that was the task I set for you, wasn't it?"

Moira rolled her eyes and crossed her slender arms over her chest. "I am more than capable of multi-tasking, Captain." Even though he could not sense her thoughts or emotions, Moira's face was evocative enough that her displeasure with him was plain. "You'd put us all in much less risk if you did this my way."

Charles thought about it, pondering both sides of the issues before him. As much as Raven and Moira's arguments made sense, Charles couldn't forget the visceral, overwhelming terror the collar had caused in the unconscious man. There was no way he could make himself inflict it on him again, not even for a moment. "How about a compromise?" he asked.

Moira raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

Charles held out his hand to the scientist. "Give me the cutter."

Hank's eyes widened. "What...?"

"Moira and I will remove the collar, then I will wake him up," he explained. "You and Raven will wait outside in the corridor. If we don't ask you back in within fifteen minutes, assume he's killed me, disabled Moira and take appropriate countermeasures." While Hank blanched, Charles glanced at Moira. "Acceptable?"

"It's probably the best I'll get, so yes," she said. She gestured at the door. "Hank, Raven."

Raven huffed and opened her mouth to protest but Charles silenced her with a look. She glared at him one more time for good more measure before she let Hank lead her out into the corridor. Once the doors slid shut behind them and Charles could hear Hank initiating quarantine procedures from the other side, Charles turned back to Moira. "Shall we?"

She took the cutter from his hand. "Let me," she said. "My fine motor control is better than yours."

Charles relinquished it with a laugh. "Love, your everything is better than mine."

Her no-nonsense expression wavered for a moment, replaced by a shy, pleased smile before she turned back to the man still lying motionless on the medical bed between them. "Here we go," she said, leaning over to cut away the null collar. The cutter did its job and the collar released from the man's throat despite the fused metal, although what Moira saw when she took it in her hands to pull it away from his neck made her frown.

"What is it?" Charles asked.

"The circuitry is fried," she said. "I've never seen anything it before. How could he do that?"

"You can ask him when once we've woken him up," Charles told her. "Ready?"

Moira dropped the now-useless pieces of collar on a nearby table. "When you are."

Again, Charles touched gentle fingers to the man's forehead, but this time with the whispered words, "Wake up now." Immediately, pale blue eyes met his and, for a brief second, the confusion in the man's mind left an opening for Charles's power to brush against it, collecting information from his least guarded thoughts.

"Please, calm yourself," Charles began, fingers still against the man's temple. "You're ---"

Before he had the chance to finish his sentence, Moira gasped out his name and Charles felt something collide with his back, with enough force to knock the breath out of him. He glanced over his shoulder to see that it was Moira, who was using her body to shield his from the impact of a metal stand that had flown toward them from across the medbay.

"Telekinetic?" Charles wondered aloud.

He could feel Moira shake her head where it was tucked against his neck. "I can feel everything vibrating," she said. "It's metal. He controls metal."

Charles glanced toward the man -- Erik, his thoughts had supplied, Erik Lehnsherr -- who was struggling to rise from the medical bed, the fingers of his outstretched hand spread wide. Moira stiffened behind him as every metal-based implement in the medbay began to rattle.

"Erik!" Charles said, reaching out without conscious thought to wrap his hands around Erik's wrists and bring the one hand down from its offensive position. "Calm your mind, Erik. You're among friends now. We mean you no harm."

The metal in the room stopped reacting and Moira was able to peel herself away from Charles's back, but Erik still glared out of his sharp face, a distrustful gleam in his eyes. "Who are you?"

Charles relaxed a little at the guarded question. "I'm Charles Xavier. This is Moira."

She nodded warily in greeting when Erik's gaze flicked in her direction but it quickly returned to Charles. Erik tugged his hands away from Charles's grip but he considered it a victory when he didn't raise them again to summon metal to his aid. Instead, Erik smoothly righted himself in the medbed, swinging his long legs over the edge. He brought fingers up to touch his neck where the collar had been, the skin mottled with bruises that made Charles wince with sympathy. "In the alley," Erik began, eyes again drifting to Charles. "I heard your voice in my head. You're a mutant?"

"Yes," Charles said. "As is most of my crew."

"Name?" Erik asked.

"I told you," Charles said. "Charles Xavier."

Erik rolled his eyes. "Your entire designation, I mean."

"Charles Francis Xavier," Charles answered.

Erik's suspicious gaze became a glare. "Clan?" he asked, with a hint of a growl.

"I'm a citizen of Vedera," Charles told him. "Further than that, I have no affiliations."

Erik's surprise was well-hidden on his face, but Charles caught the edges of it from his mind. "You lack a clan?"

"If you'd like to think of it that way, yes," Charles said. "But I don't consider it a lack myself."

"And I suppose you as well?" Erik asked Moira.

She watched him with hard, dark eyes. "I'm not mutant," she said.

"We're not allied with the Hel, if that concerns you," Charles told him, knowing it was one of the many concerns in the man's mind.

"Of course you're not," Erik said. "Because the Hel enslave any clan-less mutants they come across."

"Or try to bring them in to the clan," Moira said with a side glance at Charles.

Charles ignored her to focus on Erik. His mind was a jumble of observations and suspicions but it was much calmer than it was when he'd first come awake. "How are you feeling? Suffering any ill effects from the null collar?"

The metal around them rattled again. "My powers are fine," Erik said. "And that's all that matters."

Charles bit back the retort that there was a great deal more that mattered because he was sure it would fall on deaf ears. "Our medical officer would be glad to check you out, just to make sure."

It was as if Erik just noticed that his surroundings were unfamiliar. "Where am I?" he asked, immediately growing suspicious.

Charles sighed. "You're on my ship, the Eye of Wisdom," he explained. "I didn't have anywhere to take you for proper medical care after you almost killed yourself fighting that null collar."

"Takilov Drift has a public infirmary," Moira pointed out dryly, the echo of an argument they'd had an hour before.

"Where the Hel thugs would've been able to find him quite easily," Charles reminded her.

Erik slid from the bed, coming to his feet with a grace and ease that belied his condition from just a few hours before. Charles had to step back to keep himself from being pressed against the other man. "Thanks for the help," he said with little sincerity. "But I'd like to be on my way."

"I'm sorry but we're not docked at Takilov Drift any longer," Charles told him.

Erik's entire body went rigid and his mind went blank, an artificial whitening of his thoughts that told Charles he had some experience with telepaths. "You're in orbit around it?"

"Actually we're a slip jump away," Charles admitted, watching as Erik's expression darkened. "The Hel did not take kindly to my, ah, intervention into their business with you."

"So you've decided to kidnap me all on your own?" Erik asked dryly.

Charles narrowed his eyes and felt his mouth turn down. It was difficult not to react even when what he felt coming from Erik was even more accusatory than his words. "I had to protect you and my crew," he replied. "Which means I had to run since we are not equipped to take on three Hel cruisers in a heavily populated area."

"Then you'll have no objection to taking me back," Erik said.

"Of course not," Charles assured him. "As soon as my engineer has repaired our slip drive." At Erik's still-darkening look, he added, "It shan't be more than a few days, he assures me. Then I'll gladly return you to Takilov."

Erik watched him for a long moment before he released a breath, not quite a sigh. "A few days it is, then," he said. "Since I don't have much of a choice."

"We're really not as dreadful as all that," Charles promised with a smile. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay, no matter how temporary."

Erik's icy eyes held his, intense and unwavering. "I'm sure I'll find something to do with my time."

Something about the exchange left Charles discomfited in a way he rarely was. He cleared his throat and took another step back. "We have a very good collection of flexis," he said glibly. "Moira would be glad to show you it and to some guest quarters, wouldn't you, Moira?"

"It'll be my pleasure," she answered, no trace of sincerity in her flat tone.

"But after my medical officer examines you," Charles said, hurrying on when Erik looked like he wanted to protect. "No, I insist. He'll keep it to the bare minimum, I promise." He spoke mind-to-mind with Hank, letting him know what he'd learned of Erik and that it was safe to return. Charles signaled Moira with a glance. "I'll leave you to it then."

"We'll speak later?" Erik asked.

Charles nodded. "Most assuredly," he said. "For one, I'm very curious as to why the Hel were after you in the first place." He watched a wary expression flit over Erik's features and responded with a smile. "Until later then."

"Wait." At Erik's request, Charles did just that, especially when it was coupled with Erik's hand on his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"For the record," Erik began, shooting another glance at where Moira hovered protectively. "I'm Erik Lehnsherr, son of Edia and Magnus, of the Polaris clan." There was another unreadable expression on his face, a fact that fascinated Charles as a telepath who usually understood so much with a glance.

It wasn't anything that Charles hadn't gleaned from his mind, his full affiliation under Brotherhood tradition, but something about the way he said it sent a shiver down Charles's spine. "Duly noted," he said. "Until later, Erik Lehnsherr of the Polaris clan."

Without another glance in his direction, Charles left their guest to the tender mercies of Hank's medical examination and Raven's insatiable and suspicious interrogation.

**

As soon as Charles and Moira had left medbay, Erik was joined by a fearsome-looking mutant covered in blue fur with feral yellow eyes. At his side came another blue mutant, this one a female with scales who wore only the skimpiest of garments, also with great yellow eyes that she used to watch Erik with undisguised curiosity. Erik quickly learned that the furry mutant was the ship's medical officer and, despite his intimidating stature, was the furthest thing from an alpha Erik had encountered on the ship, a feat when he'd spent his first moments aboard with its captain. Even though he'd been there to witness it, Erik still found himself incredulous that the soft, smiling man who had greeted him upon waking had managed to deal with the Hel warriors so easily, mental powers or no.

As the captain had promised, the medical officer's examination was swift and unobtrusive, the scientist choosing to hide behind his instruments and avoid Erik's sharp gaze as much as he could. The female, who he learned was named Raven and who called herself the pilot of the Wisdom, had no such compunction and lingered near his cot, asking questions he refused to answer until she became more and more frustrated with his silence.

"Don't you think you owe us a little explanation, something?" she asked him as McCoy, the medical officer, pored over the readings the computer had given him about Erik's physical state. "We're stranded in the middle of nowhere because of you."

"Because of your captain," Erik spoke, correcting her. "I didn't ask for his help."

Raven snorted. "He can't help himself. He's never met a mutant in need he didn't like it. Or human, either, for that matter."

There was both an undercurrent of amusement and annoyance in the way Raven spoke of her captain, and Erik let his thoughts turn back to Charles Xavier for a moment. In all his travels, Erik had rarely met another mutant so quick and so bold to proclaim their clanlessness; most mutants he knew that didn't have a clan to call their own had been banished for some reason or another, and there was nothing they longed for more than to be welcomed back into one. However, Charles had not given Erik the impression of someone who would've been banished from any clan, if only on the strength of his mental powers, which were still rare enough among the Brotherhood of mutants that they were coveted and sought after in clan and blood alliances. But even more than that, there had been Charles's insistence on his allegiance to the planet Vedera, home world to the Tri-Galaxy Commonwealth and infested with humans. It was a strange connection for any mutant to claim, a fact that only complicated the strange things Erik knew about the man from their brief acquaintance.

"Is it true that he doesn't have a clan?" Erik asked her.

She blinked a few times, as if stunned that he'd chosen to address her. "It is," she said. "He doesn't believe in the clans."

Erik didn't know how accurate Raven's statement was, but if Charles truly believed as she said, then he was less intelligent than Erik had originally thought. Not believing in the clans was akin to stateing doubt over whether stars burned in space or if slipstream travel was possible. "And the rest of you?"

"We follow Charles," Raven said. "So we don't have a clan either."

Erik assumed she included the entire crew in her "we," which only made Erik even more curious about Charles and his ship, about what he and his crew did and why they'd chosen to separate themselves from the rest of mutant society. Erik knew from experience that as cruel as the clans of the Brotherhood could be to one another that humans were not the lesser of two evils.

"Uh, Erik?"

He turned away from Raven to face McCoy, the medical officer. Raven, he noticed, called him "Hank." McCoy cleared his throat with a rather impressive growl as he approached the medical bed, flexi clutched in his paw. "I can't find anything wrong with you," he said.

He nodded. "As I told your captain."

"Don't get me wrong," the doctor continued. "You do have some minor conditions like some mild dehydration and those bruises around your neck where the null collar was, but you don't have anything communicable or life-threatening so unless you want treatment, I'm going to pass on it."

"Very well," Erik said, secretly relieved that McCoy wasn't insisting on any more hands-on poking and prodding to fulfill his captain's request of a medical exam. "Does that mean I can leave the medbay?"

McCoy nodded. "I'll let Moira know you're ready to be escorted to your quarters."

As McCoy turned around, presumably to find his comm unit, Erik glanced to his left to see that Raven was still watching him. "Subtlety is obviously not a strong suit of this crew," he said aloud. "It's obvious it's been ordered to keep me under guard."

"Charles didn't ask me to stay with you. In fact, I'm probably supposed to be somewhere else," Raven said with a shrug. "But I was curious about what kind of lonely loser he'd dragged back to the ship this time." Raven sent a devilish grin his way before she started moving toward the medbay doors. "I guess I've got my answer."

Erik didn't give her the satisfaction of arguing the point and she left the medbay disappointed that her parting shot had not hit its target like she hoped. He enjoyed the quiet silence that blanketed him in the wake of Raven's departure, the only sounds the soft whirring of the consoles around him and the distant noise of McCoy busy elsewhere in the medical unit. Erik remained on the edge of his cot, waiting, until the doors hissed open to reveal Moira.

"You're done with him, Hank?" she asked, eyeing Erik with that same, wary look she'd had earlier.

McCoy looked up. "Yes, I am. He's all clear."

"No tracking contagions through the ship?"

McCoy grinned, showing great white fangs. "Not this time."

Moira looked like she wanted to smile a little at McCoy's reply but didn't when she remembered his presence. "Follow me," she said to Erik, not bothering to glance back to see if he followed. "I'll show you were you'll be staying."

Erik slid from the bed and followed her out into the corridor, remaining a step or two behind her by design as he watched her sleek dark hair bob in its severe ponytail. Ever since he'd woken up, he noticed that he got a strange vibe from the taciturn woman, a faint but insistent reverberation that he couldn't quite name. It left him more than a little uncomfortable in her presence, compounding the general disdain he felt for humans.

"Where is your captain?" Erik asked as they turned down a far corridor, mostly for want of anything else to say.

"He's attending to his duties," she answered. "Like I should be."

"I didn't ask for your assistance or your attention," he said in reply to the unspoken rebuke. "I just want to be on my way."

Moira paused in front of one of the doors that lined the corridor, spinning around to pin him with a distrustful look. "On that, then, we agree." Without another word, she turned away and touched a panel to make the door slide open. "Your guest quarters, Mr. Lehnsherr."

When she impatiently gestured for him to enter, Erik obeyed, taking in the space with a critical eye. It wasn't anything extravagant, a berth and a console, a locker for the personal items he didn't carry, a discreet door that he expected led to the wash facilities.

"I'll just leave you here to get acquainted with...everything," Moira said. "If you need anything, just use the comm unit to contact me. Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Wait." He didn't care what Moira had in mind, but Erik wasn't planning to spend the next few days staring at the blank walls of that room. "I'm restricted to this room then?" When she didn't say anything, he snorted. "So I am a prisoner then."

"We have security protocols to maintain," she said.

"Your captain said he wanted me to enjoy my stay with you," Erik reminded her. "This isn't the way to do it."

He could almost hear the scrape of Moira's teeth as her jaw tightened. "Is there something particular you want?"

Erik grinned and he knew it wasn't a pleasant sight. "Your captain mentioned something about a collection of flexis?"

The glare he earned for his trouble would've made Moira a contender for the most alpha member of the crew he'd met so far if she hadn't been human. "Fine," she said, sighing. "Follow me. Again."

They took a route through another set of corridors, along a different way than the one they'd taken to get to his quarters from the medbay. Right before they reached a lift, Erik watched as Moira paused in her step and tilted her head, as if listening to something that only she could hear.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Just getting some updates," she said vaguely. "Come on. Charles keeps his collection in here."

Erik's mention of the flexis had mostly been a way to rile Moira and to keep himself from being locked away in his cell-slash-accommodations but when they stepped through the sliding door into the area that Moira had indicated, Erik was truly impressed. He had expected that Charles's "collection" of flexis to be no more than a drawer or two of outdated reading material but what he was faced with was an actual library, a brightly lit room lined with drawers, each bursting full with flexis and data rods. There was a reader on the table that commanded the center of the room, along with bundles of what looked like actual paper.

"I see the Vederan influence," Erik observed. "It reminds me a little of the capital archive."

"Charles believes in the acquisition of knowledge," Moira said.

Erik stepped over to one of the drawers and pulled the topmost one open, eyes straying over the rows of flexis. He pulled one out at random, surprised to see that it wasn't written in Standard. "Are you sure your captain isn't a Collector?" he asked as he carefully replaced the flexi in its proper spot. "It's hard to believe he could gather all this otherwise."

Moira frowned, as if she took his accusation seriously. "Charles can be hard to dissuade if he puts his mind to it," she said. "He doesn't need the help of a secret society to get his hands on flexis."

Erik closed the drawer. "I'd like to stay a while," he said. "I'll even remain here until my next guard comes to fetch me."

She didn't look happy, but Moira nodded. "The catalogue is on the console," she said. "Look around all you want but don't bother re-shelving anything. Charles prefers to do that himself."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said as he wandered over to the console and started sorting through what the collection had to offer. It was as extensive as it looked if the topics it covered was anything to go by.

After a moment, Moira spoke again. "I guess I'll leave you to it," she said. "Like I said earlier, use the comm to reach me if you need anything." She didn't wait for a reply before she headed out, all but marching away from him.

Erik let himself idle over the catalog for a few minutes, silently admiring what Charles had accomplished. Although he'd never been one for book knowledge or collecting, he'd spent enough time working the black market for items to know how much some of the older tomes were worth to rich, idle collectors and he could appreciate the time and credits Charles must've spent to build it.

Once he was sure that Moira was not lurking outside to spy on him, Erik turned his attention to the catalog in earnest, researching a few bland topics that gave him a general idea of where his actual query might be located. After a few minutes, he was carding through drawer after drawer of flexis, then rods, and then a low shelf of archaically bound paper pages before he found what he was looking for. Erik set the book on the large table and flipped through a few of its early pages, just to make sure it was what he was looking for.

After one last check with his powers assured him there were no surveillance equipment he could sense, Erik worked a finger between the leather of the bracer he wore on his left wrist and his skin, fingers slowly tracing the line until they came into contact with a thin piece of plastic.

Carefully, Erik slid the small flexi out from beneath the leather and uncurled it, more gentle in his handling of it than he'd been with anything he'd ever handled in his life.

But that only made sense since the flexi -- and the information it held -- promised to give Erik the only thing he'd ever desired in all his years.

Revenge.

**

The fact that Sean still tried to lie to him after all these years was both endearing and annoying.

"Which is it, Sean?" Charles asked, looking around at the mess Sean's repairs had made of the slipstream core. "A few days or a little more than a week?"

Sean pulled his goggles from his eyes and looked up from the panel he'd been working on. "Both?" he said. When Charles shot him an impatient look, he hastily added, "It's a best-worst case scenario, Boss. At best, a few days. At worst, over a week. But no more than that. Probably."

"I really do need that fixed as quickly as possible," Charles told him, pointing at the dismantled core. "Because we have to double back to Takilov before we can head for Vederan space."

Sean gave a strange little wave he thought had some kind of military significance. "You mean your new buddy doesn't want to come with us on our jolly little adventures?"

"I didn't ask him," Charles said, crossing his arms. "But he did ask to be returned to Takilov as soon as we were able."

"If it hadn't been for him and those Hel goons, we wouldn't even be stranded out here," Sean pointed out. "So he just needs to embrace patience and learn a little of it."

Despite himself, Charles smiled. "You don't blame me for deciding to help him in the first place?"

Sean shrugged. "That would be like blaming a black hole for its gravitational pull." He ducked back down under the console to continue his repairs. "Can you hand me...?" Charles didn't wait for him to finish the sentence before he handed over the proper tool. "Thanks!"

Charles watched Sean work for a few minutes before he heard the comm in the workshop beep for his attention. It was a message from Moira for him, so Charles patched it through. "Yes, Moira?"

"Your guest has been shown to his quarters and settled to pass the time in the archives," Moira said. "Just thought I'd let you know."

"Thank you."

"I told him to stay there until someone came to get him. He guessed as much anyway."

"Are the security protocols in place?" Charles asked.

"He won't go anywhere without me knowing immediately," Moira assured him.

"Good enough," Charles said. "Why don't you come down here and help Sean if you can? Maybe that will the process along."

Sean popped out from beneath his console at that. "Everything goes better with your help, Moira."

Over the comm link, Moira snorted. "Maybe for you."

Charles grinned at the moonstruck look on Sean's face. "I'll leave you two to sort this out amongst yourselves," Charles told them. "But I'd like to hear about solid progress by the end of the day!"

He left Moira and Sean arguing about slipstream mechanics via comm and headed to the bridge where he briefed Darwin, Alex and Angel about the current situation. Even though Raven had chosen a relatively obscure slip point for their escape and none of the preliminary scans had shown much recent activity in the area, it never paid to let their guard down, especially since they'd fled to escape members of the Hel clan. The Hel were known for their ruthlessness and Charles had never endeared himself to them in the times he'd engaged them; from what he'd gleaned from Erik's mind, Erik was far from their favorite person either and for very good reasons on both sides.

Angel was on the long-range sensors when Charles entered the bridge, looking up with a smile as he passed her station. Darwin and Alex had a huge map of the system up on the triple-paneled view screen, in deep discussion over a cluster of bright dots not far from their location.

"Have you found a better hiding place for us?" Charles asked them.

Alex turned away from Darwin, nodding. "I think here," he said, pointing toward a habitable planet within easy impulse reach of their current location. "We can hide behind the moon by syncing up our orbits and the asteroid belt right here should camouflage our readings."

Charles glanced at Darwin. "Do you agree?"

"There are better places," Darwin said with a look at Alex. "But none as close."

Charles gleaned the details from a brief touch to both of their minds, then made his decision. "Let's go with Alex's choice for the moment," he said. "I don't want to get too far from the slip point. The last thing we need is to be cut off if we run into trouble."

Darwin nodded. "You got it, Captain."

"Let Moira know if any of you pick up anything out of the ordinary," he told them. Then, he tapped a finger against his temple. "If you need me, you know how to alert me."

With his most pressing business settled, Charles ended up in his office, going over the flexis stacked on his desk. Many of them were scientific reports that he owed the Vederan government, surveys of planets and celestial phenomena that interested the legislature but that fell too close to the nebulous lines of the Brotherhood territory for any human ship to be willing to risk their exploration on their own. The missions weren't usually very difficult or dangerous but they gave his crew a chance to hone their training and test their skills while earning a fair salary for their efforts. While Charles didn't really need the credits, he knew the kids appreciated a chance to pay their own way in the world whenever they could.

The rest of the flexis were ones he'd pulled but hadn't a chance to look over in detail, volumes of what passed as history missives on the Brotherhood of Mutants. They were fairly recent reports, those from the last 50 years, and his quick perusal had corroborated what he'd feared as soon as he'd heard the words from Erik's mouth: the tragic story of the clan Erik claimed as his own.

The ultimate fate of the Polaris clan was undisputed; by all accounts, they had been destroyed by the Hel clan in a short, brutal clash that had ended on the Polaris home world. The particulars, the why and the how, were less understood and less concrete. With few Polaris left to give their side of the story, the Hel had claimed to their allied clans that the Polaris had instigated the conflict over disputed territory, but it was a flimsy excuse, one that didn't support the level of violence the Hel had used against the Polaris. Charles had read numerous theories on the matter but none had ever been held as conclusive.

But now Charles had a member of the extinct clan on his ship, one he'd rescued from the clutches of the Hel. He couldn't pretend he wasn't curious.

Deciding that he'd given Erik enough solitude, Charles went in search of his guest, easily sensing the stranger's mind within the ship. He was still where Moira left him, in the archive room, and a light brush against his mind revealed a soothing litany of words passing through his consciousness that Charles had learned from experience meant Erik was reading.

When he reached the archive room, Erik was indeed reading, head bent over one of the ancient paper books that Charles had collected as a younger man. Charles watched him for a moment, taking in the look of him, the lean lines of his bowed back as he huddled over his reading.

"I wouldn't think ancient Vederan folklore was your cup of tea," Charles said to announce his presence, still loitering near the door.

Erik's head snapped up and his hands closed the book with a snap. "It seemed...interesting," he offered.

"It is, very much so," Charles said, coming to lean against the table where Erik sat. "It's just not something that most mutants I've met would consider worth their time."

"You obviously do," Erik said. "These aren't the kind of artifacts that people just stumble upon."

"I do," Charles agreed, picking up the book in his hand. The cover showed a great deal of the age it had weathered before it had been preserved, all cracked and discolored leather and faded gilt lettering. He let his fingers slide down the spine before he returned it to the table. When he looked up, Charles was surprised to find that Erik had come to his feet to stand beside him. "I thought you would like to know that my engineer said it shouldn't be more than a week before we can get you back to Takilov Drift."

Erik frowned at that news. "I don't suppose that could happen any faster?"

"If it could, it would," Charles told him. He couldn't fight the grin that crossed his face as he thought of Sean's earlier statement about Erik and patience. "Although it seems to me that it's a short wait given the alternative."

Erik looked at him for a long moment before he returned the grin, just a faint upward curve to his mouth but one that lessened its severity. "I never did thank you for that, did I?"

"Not with any sincerity," Charles told him. "And I'm still very interested in finding out why the Hel had captured you."

The faint grin faded. "Do they really need a reason to capture people for their slave trade?" he asked.

"Not really but I think we both know it was more than that," Charles said.

His frown deepened. "Stay out of my head."

"I didn't find out from your mind, although I could and easily," Charles revealed, even as he politely ignored the roiling of Erik's thoughts, so loud and chaotic that he had to shield himself from them. "You told me yourself when you gave me your name. Or did you think that I didn't know what had happened to the Polaris at the hands of the Hel?"

Erik took another step toward him, even when Charles hadn't thought he could get any closer. He had to tilt his head a little to meet Erik's eyes, before he followed their sudden glance downward to Erik's forearm. He was using one arm to work off the bracer he wore on both arms, that covered his skin from wrist to almost to elbow, until he bared a crude tattoo to Charles's gaze. It was the clan insignia of the Hel, enclosed in a circle -- a mark of ownership. "The Hel decided they wanted to rid the galaxy of Polaris," Erik said. "Those they didn't kill, they enslaved, planning to work us to death. They take it seriously when we don't die as expected."

As close as they were, Charles couldn't help but feel-sense-hear Erik's grief over the loss of his clan, gleam images from his memories of the death he'd witnessed, the years he'd toiled under their whips before he'd escaped. Even though Charles barely knew the man, he would've given anything to erase those scars on his soul, so deep that they had little chance of ever healing. "I'm sorry," he said softly. Without much thought, Charles touched his fingers to the tattoo with the same kind of gentleness he used when handling the ancient book.

It was the touch that made Erik pull away. "I don't need your pity," he said.

"Sympathy isn't the same as pity," Charles told him.

"I don't need that either."

"You need something," Charles told him. "Because your anger is killing you as surely as the Hel have tried."

Erik glared at him. "You're an expert on me, are you? We've known each other less than a day."

"I don't really need much more than that," Charles said. He tapped his forehead. "Telepath, remember? Not that it takes much skill to see the way you're being burned alive from the inside with it."

"You can keep your opinions to yourself," Erik told him, his back stiff with anger and wounded pride. "All I need from you is a ride back to Takilov Drift."

"You needed my help just yesterday," Charles reminded him. "Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to think about that a little more before you start rejecting everything out of hand."

When Erik refused to speak again, Charles decided the best course of action for the moment was to leave the man alone with his thoughts. Without another word, he slipped out of the archives, leaving Erik to wrestle with all the demons that still plagued him.

**

It took Erik several minutes to tamp down on his anger after Charles had left him alone, far longer than he cared to admit. Just thinking about the Hel, about what they'd done to his clan, to his family, to him...it made him burn much in the way that Charles had accused him of. The difference was that Erik could see that the fire of his anger wasn't killing him, it was the only thing that gave him the purpose to rise every morning of his life since he'd fried his first null collar and killed a dozen Hel who'd been left to guard over slaves on an inhospitable mining moon. Without his revenge, without that drive, Erik knew there would be nothing left inside of him to keep him going.

Erik carefully re-laced his bracer over the ugly brand that announced his past enslavement, then he found his small, curled flexi among the ones scattered in the Wisdom's archive, re-rolling it and tucking it back into its hiding place. While he did so, he let his mind wander back to the conversation he'd just had with Charles, recalling the painful expression of emotion in the other mutant's eyes, the soft touch of his fingers on Erik's skin. As he'd just told the man, Erik hadn't known Charles more than a handful of hours, but there was certainly something intriguing about him, something that made dark corners inside of Erik light up in ways they never had before. He was so obviously not an alpha, by any definition of the word, but he ran his ship with authority, at least from what he'd seen so far. And yet he could let himself sway under the power of someone else's emotions, allow his voice to tremor with an ache that he seemed to feel as strongly as if it had happened to him. Charles wasn't like anyone Erik had ever met, not among the humans or the mutants he'd known.

And then there was Raven's strange declaration that her captain didn't believe in the clans and Charles's own stubborn resistance to sharing his full designation under Brotherhood law. That, along with everything else, made Erik more interested than he should've been about his temporary host, an interest he hoped to assuage as long as they were all stranded out in space while they waited for the slip drive to be properly repaired. Between that and the unexpected boon of Charles's archives at his disposal, Erik was almost grateful for the Hel who had made his meeting with Charles possible. As long as he kept his head, his detour on the Wisdom could prove more beneficial than he had ever imagined.

He spent another hour combing through the resources Charles had gathered for whatever purpose, using the ancient charts and maps to make sense of the one he'd recently found, the one that would lead him to the prize that would make his revenge on the Hel all but assured. Erik was slowly making sense of the first quadrant of his old map when the doors to the archive slid open and Moira entered again.

"Everyone is about to eat," she announced. "Charles told me to see if you wanted to join them."

Erik deliberated for a moment before he nodded, mostly because his stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten in almost two days. "Sure."

Moira remained stiff-shouldered and visibly ill-at-ease with him as she led him through the corridors of the ship and down a level until they entered a room commanded by a long table, one already surrounded by young people talking over each other as they passed great bowls of food between them. Charles sat at the head, with a dark-skinned man at his right, and he looked up from his mostly empty plate when Erik and Moira entered. "So good of you to join us," Charles smiled, as if their heated conversation in the archives hadn't happened. He gestured to the empty place on his left. "Please, sit down and help yourself."

Hesitation must've shown on his face because Raven looked up and narrowed her eyes. "Don't wait too long," she warned. "Or else Sean will eat it all."

"Hey!" cried a tall, thin red-headed boy who Erik assumed was the Sean of which Raven spoke.

"Aren't you going to eat with everyone?" Erik asked Moira when he noticed that him taking the spot at Charles's left would fill the table to capacity.

"No," she said before she looked around him to catch Charles's eye. "I'll be on the bridge," she told him.

"Thank you, dear," Charles said with a wave before Moira turned on her heel and left the room she just entered. His eyes wandered to Erik, head tilted in invitation. "Please, sit down."

With no real reason to refuse, Erik took his seat and took advantage of the meal to learn more about Charles and his unusual crew. Other than Charles, Moira, and the dark-skinned man he learned was named Darwin, the rest of the personnel on the ship was young, none of them looking much older than Erik had been when he'd finally escaped the Hel. Aside from Raven and McCoy, who Erik had already met, there was Darwin, who was something of a second-in-command, and Alex, whose specialty seemed to be in navigation and weaponry. Sean, the red-head, was the engineer, and Angel made up the last of them, her duties falling to monitoring communications and environmental conditions as needed.

"We don't stand much on formality here," Darwin explained, which shouldn't have surprised Erik, considering their captain. "We do what we can and what we're good at, mostly. Sometimes that overlaps a little."

Since none of them had visible mutations outside of Raven and McCoy, Erik had little idea of anyone's abilities. Alex had the restrained energy about him of a young alpha, but it was clear that Darwin possessed more control and command of their little group. He wondered how they managed their disputes when it was obvious there was little order in a world under the dubious command of Captain Xavier.

"There are other ways to handle disagreements." Charles's words were soft, meant for Erik's ears only, the first he'd spoken since he'd made the initial introductions. "It doesn't always have to descend into posturing and theatrics, you know."

Erik didn't know and doubted that Charles's "other ways" settled anything. He merely raised an eyebrow in doubt, then went back to his meal. He had hoped that seeing the entire crew together would give him some clue as to how a group of mutants -- especially young ones, with a telepath -- had ended up living free of their clan affiliations, but no one talked about it or anything that offered any insight.

The meal was over when Raven and Sean started to clear away the dishes, bickering with Alex over whose turn it was to do so. When Angel stepped into the argument and Darwin rolled his eyes, Charles smiled and turned to Erik. "Would you like to join me for a turn on the observation deck?" he asked. "The view is lovely and the ambience is better than what we'll get here."

Erik nodded and followed Charles out of the dining area, the sounds of the others' playful argument fading as they crossed the ship and went up another level. Erik was grudgingly impressed with the size of the ship compared to the skeleton ranks of the crew that ran it.

His thought must've been too loud because Charles answered it. "Moira is really amazing," he explained. "She's able to do the work of a dozen drones at any given moment. Our situation was much more dire before she came along."

The view of the inky blackness of space was lovely from the observation deck, the area also being the most aesthetically arranged of the ship as he'd seen it so far, plants and cushions making the sterile lines of the starship more welcoming. Charles settled in front of large panelled wall that gave them their view of the stars, hands resting in his pockets as he contemplated the scattered expanse of space. Erik followed his lead, though his attention was more on Charles than on the stars outside.

After a moment of silence, Charles spoke. "I want to apologize for earlier," he said, offering further proof that he was far from the alpha Erik would expect from a starship captain, no matter how hodgepodge his crew. Erik had never meant someone so...accommodating when he didn't have to be. "I didn't mean to bring up such difficult memories for you when I asked about the Hel."

"It's fine," Erik said because there was nothing else to say. "But I would prefer it if you'd let the matter drop. It's none of your concern."

Charles's mouth turned upward a little at the corner but Erik couldn't call it a smile. "I guess I didn't make it clear enough earlier, did I?" He brushed a hand through his hair. "If there's some way we could help you..."

"I think you've done quite enough," Erik said.

Charles laughed. "Yes, I guess a rescue is less dashing when it ends with everyone being stranded at the dead end of a forgotten slip point."

Erik thought about how he'd felt with the null collar around his throat, the sick knowledge that they'd found one he couldn't dismantle from the inside, and that there had been nothing he could've done to escape them. "I do appreciate that," Erik asked. From the real smile that lit Charles's features, he guessed his sincerity had come through. "But I don't need help, anyone's help."

Charles shook his head. "Surely you have to see where you're wrong on that. Everyone needs some help."

"It seems a strange point to be arguing with you when, from what I've seen and heard, you don't even follow it yourself," Erik told him.

"This is about my lack of a clan affiliation," Charles said, frowning a little.

"Your pilot said you don't believe in them," Erik said. "And it's clear you and your crew avoid talking about them. For a man who wants to preach togetherness, you've chosen to a strange way to do it."

"What I'm talking about is different from a clan affiliation," Charles said.

"Obviously," Erik agreed. "But what does that mean? That you don't believe in the clans?"

"I believe they exist, if that's what you're asking," Charles said. "But do I believe they are necessary? Or even good for mutants? No, I don't."

"How can you say that? We are our clans," Erik argued. "Mutants have only found their place in this universe because of the Brotherhood."

"Maybe that was true once, but we've reached a point where they do more harm than good," Charles said. "Mutants are so bound up in the archaic and often barbaric ways of the past that they can't see we're better free of them altogether."

Erik reconsidered the man in front of him, still too stunned by his impassioned words to speak immediately. He'd heard radical ideas before but never had he heard a mutant speak so contemptuously of their entire culture. "And what would we do without it? Without the order it brings to our people? Would you rather see us turned loose without our ways to guide us? Where would we be without the laws that temper our natures?"

"We are not animals, no matter what we're been taught about our so-called natures," Charles said. "If we weren't taught to believe that we are either alpha or omega, that we need to express dominance over others, we'd have no need for the laws that govern it. Contrary to the opinion of the Brotherhood, alphaness or otherwise is not ingrained within us."

Of all the ridiculous things Charles had said, Erik found that to be worst, even as if confirmed what Erik had known all along. "You've never experienced it," he argued. "It's clear that you're not an alpha, so you can't understand what it feels like to be one. It's the only reason you can scoff at it."

"I am a telepath," Charles told him. "I can feel anything that anyone else can through my power. There is no true biological component to clan dynamics. It's a myth we tell ourselves to justify the social status quo."

Erik had denied a great deal of things in his life but never had he thought to deny his clan or the deep sense of awareness he had of his own alpha nature. It, as much as the pain he'd experienced, had shaped him into the man he'd become, and he knew it would continue to do so until the day he stopped breathing. It guided him even in that moment as he tried to make sense of the surprising ways he found himself reacting to Charles Xavier. Erik had met many combative mutants who made that something in him rise up and want to push them down, make them see that he was their superior in every way that mattered between mutants, but what he felt in the face of Charles's stubbornness was something different. Never before had Erik met someone he wanted to press against the nearest wall and leave marks on his throat until he whimpered for more, but that was how he felt, even as Charles watched him with his painfully expressive eyes.

Instead, Erik headed for the corridor that would lead him away from his confusing response to Charles's challenging words. "Your persuasion techniques leave something to be desired," he tossed back over his shoulder, leaving the captain alone with his strange ideas before Erik did just that.

**

After their strange conversation in the observation deck, Charles ended up in the archives, looking at the scattered remains of Erik's research, trying to find some common thread that unified the collection of books, rods and flexis Erik had pulled from the archive drawers. It was there that Moira eventually found him, still skimming through the book of Vederan folklore that had caught Erik's attention.

"What are you doing in here in the middle of the night?" she asked.

"Searching for understanding," he said. "What in a book of Vederan fairy tales could capture the attention of a man like Erik Lehnsherr?"

"Is that a trick question?" Moira deadpanned, bringing a smile to Charles's face.

"No," he said. "Just thinking out loud." He swept his eyes over the table, cluttered with discarded research. "But he seemed rather too intent on what he was doing for it to have been merely idle reading." Charles caught Moira's gaze. "He was trying to find something in particular."

"I don't doubt it," Moira said. "He doesn't exactly strike me as the straight and narrow type."

"It could be perfectly innocuous," Charles protested.

"But you don't believe that," Moira said, little doubt in her voice.

"I don't believe that," he agreed. He nodded toward the catalog console. "Be a love and see if you make anything out of his queries, would you?"

Even as she grumbled a little under her breath, she moved to comply. "I don't see why you don't just yank it from his head," she said. "It would be a lot easier than an investigation."

"And it would be a violation of the worst kind," he told her.

Moira paused, hand just above the console's touch interface. "And this isn't?" she asked.

"It's not the same," Charles told her. "I know you can't really understand it because it doesn't really affect you but there are a reason people fear telepaths. If I were to pry into his head, I would find much more than just what he's been researching here."

"You're right," she said, "I don't." Without further conversation, she laid her hand on the console and initiated the analysis.

Charles lapsed into silence as she worked, turning his own focus to the actual flexis scattered across the table. It looked as if Erik had followed Moira's request that he not re-shelve anything himself or else he'd just left a big mess in order to hide his true interests. With someone else, Charles might've considered the thought an exercise in paranoia on his part but having just barely touched the guarded edges of Erik's mind, he wouldn't have put it past him.

"So," Moira said a few minutes later, and Charles turned to see her watching him even as she stayed connected to the console to run her analysis. "I noticed you've spent a lot of time with our, ah, guest since he regained consciousness."

"Not that much," he said, still busy feeding the titles Erik had pulled out into the computer to add to Moira's analysis.

"Enough," Moira replied. "How has it been?"

Charles paused and looked up again. "It's been fine?" At her frustrated expression, he sighed. "What are you trying to ask exactly?"

Moira shrugged. "You and Brotherhood alphas usually don't...hit it off," she reminded him. "Or you hit if off a little too well."

"Yes, well, we haven't devolved into that just yet," Charles said. He thought about all of the other times he'd been forced into close quarters with Brotherhood alphas, adult mutants who defined themselves by their ability to overpower and intimidate others into accepting their dominance. Since Charles refused challenges, both physical and ability-based, but rarely buckled under the social cues the Brotherhood used to convey deference and respect to alpha superiority, those meetings rarely ended well. "If that's what you're asking."

"He's an alpha, though, isn't he?" asked Moira.

"Yes," Charles said, sure that Erik considered himself so. Even without a clan to orient himself within, Erik held fast to those things that would've marked him an alpha male among the Polaris -- his strength, his powers, the steely resolve to avenge his clan's destruction. "Definitely."

"So he hasn't even tried to make you, ah, submit?" she asked, heavy with emphasis on the last word. "Usually if they don't want to fight you, they want to..."

"Yes, yes, I know," Charles said, turning full around in his chair to glare at her. "And no, there's been none of that either." But even as he denied it, Charles remembered the frisson of something that had passed between them a moment before Erik had stormed away from the observation deck earlier that evening. He hadn't gotten a clear view of whatever had crossed Erik's mind but it had been white-hot and sharp, like a lightning bolt almost.

And it had definitely not been a precursor to a challenge.

"I've copied all the files Erik left out," he said instead, glad for the change of topic. "I'm sending them over to see if you can use them as data points along with his search queries."

"Integrating new data," Moira announced, eyes fluttering briefly as she kept her hand pressed against the console. After a moment of silence, her eyes flew open and met Charles's. "Star maps," she said.

"Star maps?" he repeated.

She nodded, pulling her hand from the console. "Ancient star maps," she explained. She took a few steps toward him until she stood by his side at the table. "All of these titles and the ones he looked up in the catalog have one theme in common - they all cover, in some way, ancient Vederan star maps or folklore about stars, their names, positions. That's the one connection."

Charles sat back in his seat, confused. "What in the heavens could he want with ancient Vederan star maps? They aren't good for much to most people, aside from being bedtime stories for Vederan children."

"But that's not why you have them," she reminded him.

"Not the only reason anyway," he said, picking up one of the old physical books. "But this was one of the few souvenirs I took from my mother's house when I left."

Moira's face softened a little. "I forget sometimes," she admitted. "About you, before Wisdom and the kids."

Charles smiled in response. "So do I," he told her. His gaze wandered back to the table. "There's no way to know what he was looking for from what we have, is there?"

Moira shook her head. "I could try to look for something more specific but it wouldn't be quick. There's a lot of overlap between them."

Charles tucked the book under his arm. "Do that and let me know if you figure anything out," he told her. "But I think we've done everything we can tonight."

"Let's hope we don't need to know more before the morning," Moira said before she swept out of the room.

"Good night, love," Charles murmured into the empty archive before he followed her out of the archive, ordering lights off as he left.

As tired as he was, sleep didn't come easily to Charles. Instead, he found himself skimming the pages of the ancient book he'd carried back to his quarters, mind still focused on what Erik had expected to learn from it. He knew it would be easier to, as Moira had put it, "yank it from his head," but she didn't understand what it meant to be a telepath or even a mutant, what it meant to have a code he followed.

In that way, Charles supposed he wasn't much different from Erik or any other Brotherhood mutant who followed the laws of the clans to bring order to their lives. Charles, however, only expected himself to follow the rules he'd laid out for proper telepathic conduct and nothing of what he believed meant imposing his will on others. In fact, not doing so was one of its founding principles.

So instead of relying on his powers, Charles tried to puzzle out Erik's interest in ancient star maps. Charles's Vederan book had been one of his favorites as a child and he knew almost all of the tales by heart, his mind quickly reminded of their place in his memory as he slowly turned back page. It started with the Vederan creation story, of how everything had started in a great, hot ball in the center of the universe and how the disagreements between the two great forces -- Chaos and Order -- had caused a great bang as the ball of everything had splintered apart into the galaxies that made up the universe, both known and unknown. From Chaos had come the Light Bringers, the stars, who wanted to keep everything in dizzying motion and, from Order, had come the agents of Gravity, focused on pulling everything together once again in a state of harmonious unity.

Between the two great races, the universe was made and re-made as part of their battle, so often that the Light Bringers created a great relic for the job, the Engine of Creation, which turned order into chaos and chaos into order as needed. From there, the stories moved to discuss other creations, how humans and other beings had come to live on their planets, how the stars had come to be fixed into their orbits by gravity – what most people thought of as mythological flair overlaid on scientific phenomena. There was even a story near the end of the book that told of how mutants came to be among the humans of Vedera, how they were made of stardust like the chaotic Light Bringers instead of the solid, still earth of a planet, the province of the agents of Gravity.

As a child, Charles had listened to the stories read to him by others, all the while hearing the whisper of their thoughts underneath, holding his tongue when they'd recited the last story with such disdain in their voices. His mother had been one of them, fearful and contemptuous of mutants even as her son was one, as if she'd turned her personal feelings against her disappointing mutant lover into a crusade against his people on the whole.

With one last look at the painted star maps that acted as a family tree of the clans of the Light Bringers whose actions made up much of the adventure in the Vederan tales, Charles laid the book aside and eased his thoughts away from those of his early life. He'd lived several lifetimes since then, years spent with his father and then with Raven, before they'd acquired their ship and then their small crew, other young mutants looking for a place in a galaxy that either wanted them to suffer either at the hands of humans or the Brotherhood. From the beginning, Charles had chosen neither, which was why he lived as he did, dealing with the humans who didn't mind him and avoiding the mutants who did.

Settling down to sleep, Charles had one final task to perform, one he did every night without fail. He let his powers wind out through the corridors of the ship, finding each of his crew and checking on their welfare. Alex, Darwin and Raven were sleeping, each quiet in their beds; Hank and Sean, on the other hand, were both ill-advisedly awake still, each with their heads buried in their current projects. Angel wasn't sleeping but she wasn't active, curled up in her quarters with a flexi, still not used to the luxury of her own space and her solitude after all the time she'd spent cramped together with others held in slavery by the Hel and clans like them that still practiced it. Over a year with them hadn't quite healed those wounds but Charles hoped one day, it would come.

Finally, his consciousness encountered Erik's who was asleep, though it wasn't a peaceful one. He tossed and turned in his bed, haunted, and the light brush of Charles's mind against his own left the ring of Erik's mental screams in Charles's head long after he'd wished they'd faded. It filled in the gaps that Erik's mind had hid from him after their initial meeting and it made Charles want to weep with him, feeling the totality of what Erik had suffered in his short life.

If Charles's mind lingered there with Erik, soothing over the terror and pain as best he could with a gentle mental touch, no one would ever know but him.

**

As was his habit, Erik woke up early the next morning, but he found himself surprisingly rested after just a few hours sleep. A night of peaceful sleep was rare enough for Erik but it was doubly surprising that it had happened while he was surrounded by strangers and in an unfamiliar location.

When no jailer appeared to restrict his movement, Erik slipped out of his quarters and headed down the corridor. He didn't retrace his steps from the day before and instead turned down paths he hadn't traveled, drawn by the feel of a concentration of metal humming deep within the ship. After a few turns, Erik was entering a wide-doored chamber that reminded him in size and scope of the medbay; but instead of medical equipment and medical cots, what he saw was a room full of long metal tables covered with metal bits that had probably once been the workings of something mechanical, with bigger pieces of half-gutted machinery sitting directly on the floor. In the middle of the chaos was the redhead Sean, wearing a pair of huge goggles to protect his eyes from the sparks flying from his torch as he worked on some huge twisted piece of metal in the middle of his workshop.

"I hope that's not the slip drive," Erik said aloud, watching with hidden amusement as Sean jumped, flailing a little to keep himself safe from the floor and his torch. He flipped off the torch's blue-hot tip before he dropped it onto a pile of tools to yank his goggles from his eyes.

"Oh, it's you," he said as he slid his goggles up on his forehead. "What did you ask me?"

"That." Erik pointed to the mess of parts Sean had been working on when he'd come in. "I hope that's not the slip drive."

"This?" Sean asked. "No, no, no. Well, it's part of it, but not the entire drive. Charles would kill me if I pulled the entire thing out of the engine room."

Erik eyed the hulk of metal with a sense of dread. "And you're really going to get it fixed in a week?"

"Or less," Sean reminded him. He followed the trail of Erik's eyes. "It looks much worse than it is. I'm really spending most of my time trying to get to the inside where the thing is that I need to fix actually is."

Erik studied the metal casing that Sean had been working to get through, noticing for the first time that it seemed fused together where it shouldn't have been. He took a deep breath and lifted his hand a little, focusing on the subtle differences between the different alloys that comprised the different pieces of the drive component. "May I?" he asked Sean.

The engineer shrugged, wiping his hands on his dirty shirt. "Knock yourself out."

After another moment of concentration, Erik raised his hand and pulled with his power until the casing broke apart along the fused seam, exposing a sophisticated interior that Erik couldn't begin to fathom.

"Damn!" Sean said, although it was an impressed exclamation. "Metal bending? Awesome. That would be so much more useful than my power, especially in my line of work."

Erik raised an eyebrow at the young mutant. "What can you do?"

"Oh." Sean brought his hand up and touched his neck. "It's sound, you know? Screaming. Like..." His words trailed off into a high-pitched scream that made everything vibrate and Erik feel like there was blood coming out of his ears.

"Sean!" Charles's voice from the doors was unexpected and it cut Sean's shriek off immediately, much to Erik's relief. They both turned to see the captain standing just inside the door, hands over his ears. When he realized Sean's scream had stopped, he lifted his head, hands dropping to his sides. "What have I told you about modulation?"

"Sorry, Charles," Sean said with a sheepish grin. Glancing back at Erik, he added, "So yeah, like that."

"Not bad."

Sean's grin widened. "You think?"

"Sean," Charles said, even though there was no real censure in the tone. "Shouldn't you be working on repairing the slip drive now that Erik's assistance has speeded things along?"

"Oh! Right!" Sean pulled his protective goggles down over his eyes. "Thanks again."

"I just want to be on our way as quickly as possible," Erik told him.

"Then I guess I can call on you when I need to close it up, right?"

Charles shook his head, clearly fond. "We'll leave you to it, then. Erik, if you'll come with me?"

Erik resisted for a moment, only to show that he could. "Of course," he finally said, following Charles out of the engineering workshop."

"Later, guys!"

Once they were alone, Charles turned to Erik with a smile. "Sean was right to be impressed, you know," he said. "Your power is extraordinary."

Erik flexed his fingers, thinking of how right he felt when his power flowed through him, free to bend the metal around him to his will. "High praise from a telepath," he returned dryly.

Charles's grin widened a little. "I'm sure your abilities make a much more dramatic display than anything I could do."

"Should I expect a lecture?" Erik asked as he followed Charles down the corridor. At the telepath's confused glance, he explained, "I did ignore your systems' officer rule about not wandering around alone."

"I'm not really in the lecturing mood," Charles said. "Would you settle for a breakfast invitation? I was about to have some in my private quarters, if you wouldn't mind joining me."

Charles was still smiling at him and it flowed through Erik, not unlike the way he felt his powers. "Fine."

Charles led him back to the personnel quarters, not far from where Erik's assigned room was. Charles's quarters, it turned out, was at the very end of the hall, offering a much larger two-room suite, although it was still rather utilitarian in look and design. The first room was set up as a sitting area, with a desk, along with chairs and a table where food already waited for them.

"Fresh fruit," Erik noted, taking a pear from the top of the bowl piled high with them. "You spend a great deal of money on supplies."

Charles shook his head as he settled into one of the chairs, motioning for Erik to do the same. "Raven actually runs a small hydroponics garden right off the medbay. She's very good at it and it stretches our supply credits immensely."

Erik took his seat and laid the pear beside the empty plate at his setting. "Is there no one on this crew who doesn't pull double duty?"

Charles shrugged. "That's the way of a small crew. Surely you understand that."

Like the evening before, the meal was simple but filling, still far better than what Erik usually encountered on spaceships. Unlike the night before, Charles spoke extensively, although he kept to light and frivolous topics at which he excelled. Erik used the chance to examine Charles's quarters, trying to glean details of the man from his surroundings. There was an ancient board game on a table in one corner, and the desk was covered in flexis. Erik also couldn't help but notice that one of the physical books he'd looked through the day before -- the one of Vederan fairy tales -- had somehow migrated from the archives to Charles's personal chambers. As soon as he noticed it, Erik tried to push away the suspicions that came to his mind for why Charles had it, and he largely succeeded at banishing them within seconds of them crossing his mind. He realized a moment later it was likely a wasted effort since his companion was a telepath.

Charles chose that moment to lay aside his eating utensil and smile at Erik, as if he'd heard his thoughts. He likely had, Erik couldn't help but conclude rather unkindly.

"You know, Alex has a gift with navigation," he told Erik. "It's how he ended up with us in the first place. It comes very naturally for him."

"That's very interesting," Erik said, his tone conveying that he found it anything but.

Charles snorted. "If you're interested in ancient star telemetry, that is," he explained, taking a sip from his drink.

Erik's utensil hit the plate with a clatter. "You've been checking up on me," he accused, a hint of a growl in his voice. It was a natural reaction, a defense against what he felt was an attack.

"Just re-shelving flexis, my friend," Charles disagreed, in no way moved by the anger in Erik's expression. That was one of the things that made Erik so intrigued by Charles; the telepath ignored every hint of aggression in Erik's demeanor but showed none of his own in return. It was very...flirtatious, the way he reacted to Erik.

Even as the thought floated through his mind, Erik scowled to cover up any trace of it there. "So you haven't been in my head?" he asked, clearly dubious.

Charles's expression sobered, becoming almost painful in its sincerity. "No, not the way you think," Charles assured him. "Your thoughts are your own. But if you want to share them, I'm willing to listen, Erik," he continued. "My offer of help still stands."

"You still haven't made it clear why you want to help me."

"Maybe I think I owe it to you for getting you stranded out here with us," Charles said.

Erik shook his head. "We've established that you saved me from a much worse fate than this," he argued. "So that doesn't answer my question."

"All right." Charles looked up from his plate, making sure their eyes met before he spoke again. "Even without any particular exercise of my powers, your determination is clear, Erik. That and your...well, desperation. Whatever it is you're doing, you think it's dreadfully important. And I can help you. I'd like to help you, if I can. If it's as important as you seem to think it is."

"Stay out of my head," he warned. "I mean it."

Charles was silent for a moment as he traced the edge of his glass with a fingertip. "You've encountered telepaths before," he observed, setting Erik's teeth on edge with the proof that Charles had read some of his thoughts, no matter how he chose to look at it. "So you know how easy it would be to just look myself and find whatever I want to know about you." Erik's panic over such a thing must've showed on his face because Charles quickly added, "I could but I won't. That's not the kind of man I am. I don't place much stock in compulsion of any kind."

"Then why don't you just leave it alone?" Erik wanted to know.

Charles shrugged. "Because I still think you need help, Erik. That hasn't changed since yesterday. If this whatever is as important as you think it is, it also might matter to others, like myself."

Erik thought about Shaw and the Hel, about the flexi still hidden in his bracer with the riddle of a map that he hadn't made sense of in the months he'd been trying to decipher it. He thought of the sudden increase in attempts on his life in the last few weeks, the rumors of what Shaw had been up to with the Hel's vast resources.

He looked up into Charles's kind, knowing blue eyes and thought about the spark between them that he hadn't felt for anyone else he'd met before.

Charles broke off the stare and rose to his feet. "Finish your meal," he said. "But there are things I need to attend to this morning." As he passed Erik, Charles touched him -- a simple, light touch of his hand to Erik's arm, but it was like a static discharge, the frisson it caused in him. "If you change your mind, all you have to do is let me know."

Then he was leaving, seemingly unconcerned about leaving Erik alone in his private quarters and Erik stared at the door for a few minutes after Charles had disappeared. As he chewed on the last of his fruit, noting none of its taste as he swallowed, Erik tried to remind himself that this was his mission alone and that he couldn't let the temptations Charles offered him distract him from that.

But the temptation was strong.

**

With the Wisdom stranded as it was using very little of its resources, the upside of their predicament was that it left those computer resources free to run the kind of detailed diagnostics that Moira so preferred and that Charles rarely permitted when they were on a mission. But with nothing better to do, Charles agreed to the diagnostics and so ended up on the bridge with Moira running them while everyone else was released from shift duty.

"4,000 sub-routines inspected," Moira announced, looking up from her console with a sour expression. "Only 1 million to go."

"Don't sound so impatient," Charles chided teasingly, watching the results from tests on the communications console fly across the screen. "We've got all the time in the world." He grimaced. "Unfortunately."

"I'm used to this being so much easier," she said with a sigh. "Before, it wouldn't have taken me half the time to do this."

Before was something so many of his crew spoke of, both fondly and with fear; Charles couldn't help his sad smile, knowing that Moira did so out of wistfulness even though he couldn't read it from her. "I'm sorry, love," he said. "But Wisdom will never be the Balance of Fate."

"But she's a good ship," Moira said with a fond tap of her hand against the edge of the console. She sighed again. "I guess I'm just on edge. I don't like sitting still in space. It's against the order of things, especially since there's no telling what trouble is lurking around the corner."

Charles didn't need his powers to know she was obliquely referencing Erik. "I assume you also think there was more to Erik's attack by the Hel than what he wants to let on."

"I think that it's obvious he's trouble," she said. She paused until he glanced up to see the pointed look she was sending in his direction. "The kind you're usually very eager to avoid."

"I try to help every mutant I can," Charles protested. "That's practically my mission in life."

He watched Moira roll her eyes before he turned back to his console. "Yes, but not after they've repeatedly ignored or turned down your offers to help," she said. "Not when they are so obviously mixed up in something dangerous of their own design. And definitely not when they are clearly ready to butt heads with you over your alphaness or perceived lack thereof."

"Erik hasn't done anything to contest my position here or to challenge me," Charles told her. "He's been...well as gentlemanly as an alpha can be under the circumstances, I suppose."

"Unless you count the way he looks at you," Moira countered. "Which isn't gentlemanly at all."

Charles was grateful that his back was to Moira so he could avoid her knowing eyes. It wasn't as if he was unaware of the way Erik reacted to him; even with some of the mental shielding Erik had learned in the past and Charles's judicious application of his own shields, the stray thought slipped through, the occasional spark that was somehow both mental and physical. It wasn't something Charles had encountered before, not with other alphas or with other humans who had found him attractive. He'd only felt something remotely similar once before and that had still been something different entirely. That difference intrigued almost as much as Erik himself did. Aloud, he settled on, "This isn't the first time I've dealt with that kind of thing when we've encountered mutants from the Brotherhood."

"But it's the first time I've seen you react," Moira said.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Just since Lehnsherr has come up in this conversation alone, your skin is flushed, your breathing pattern has changed and I'd bet my failsafe that your pupils are dilated," she told him. "Just because we're not all telepaths, Charles, doesn't mean we don't have our ways."

Charles paused the diagnostic program he was running before he stood up, turning to face Moira. As she looked up from her own console, Charles folded his arms and regarded her as he asked, "What exactly is it you're trying to say with all this, Moira?"

"I'm saying that perhaps you have reasons beyond your typical do-good nature for why you keep trying to help Lehnsherr when he's doing everything he can to turn you down," she replied. More softly, she added, "Reasons that you aren't examining closely enough when it comes to the kind of trouble it could cause the rest of us."

Charles opened his mouth to protest but it died in the face of Moira's expression. "I'm not saying you're right," he said. "But I also wouldn't say that you're wrong. There is something about Erik that I find interesting."

Moira's eyebrow rose. "Logan interesting?" she asked. "I can almost see the similarities."

Charles laughed at that. "No, it's not like with Logan," he said, unable to suppress a smile at the thought of his friend, another one of the renegade mutants he'd met who refused the yoke of Brotherhood society, even if he'd done so for different reasons and in very different ways. "It's actually quite unlike anything I've experienced before. That's what makes it...interesting."

Moira's expression in the face of his statement appeared so conflicted between humor and horror that Charles was actually concerned she was suffering from crossed circuitry. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she said, an obvious falsehood. At his disbelieving look, she hedged, adding, "It's just that that sounds suspiciously close to something that the databases on Brotherhood mating pairs might include on how those pairs take form. In case you weren't aware."

He glared at her, arms still folded. "I'm very aware of what Brotherhood courtship looks like," he informed her. "That's not what it is."

"Except that he finds you sexually attractive," Moira said. "And you find him sexually attractive in a way you've never found any of the mutants or humans you've engaged in sexual activity before now and one that doesn't seem to be rouse your usual caution when it comes to demonstrably aggressive mutant alphas. So, actually, I would say that this looks exactly like something that the database might file under the topic of alpha and omega bonding."

Charles's reply to that statement would've been swift and vehement if he hadn't become aware of two people standing just outside the bridge, the minds immediately apparent as Darwin and Erik now that he wasn't solely focused on Moira and his own introspection. "Darwin?" he called out. "Is something the matter?"

A few seconds later Darwin stepped onto the bridge with Erik in tow, neither looking very pleased. "I just found him skulking around in the corridor," Darwin explained. "I thought he was supposed to have an escort at all times?"

"The captain changed his mind on that," Moira said, exchanging a sympathetic look with Darwin. Charles politely ignored Darwin's inner commentary about his sanity as Moira continued. "Although that doesn't mean he has any business spying in restricted areas of the ship like the bridge."

Erik glared first at Darwin as he shook off his hold, then Moira before he looked toward Charles, something softening in his expression. "I wasn't spying. I was looking for you." He paused, taking a deep breath. "I was hoping we could talk."

The others might not have found Erik's neutral statement very convincing but Charles could feel the truth of it in the places where he lightly touched the metal bender's mind, the hesitance and ambivalence mixed with anticipation, the strange combination of feeling brought on by the idea of speaking to Charles about whatever topic he had in mind. Charles didn't let himself explore any further but he fervently hoped it meant that he was ready to confide in him about whatever desperate thing that so occupied his waking and dreaming thoughts.

"Darwin, it's fine," he finally said, which allowed his XO to relax, even if he still sent a guarded look Erik's way. "Can you take over for me here?"

"Sure," Darwin said, stepping up to the console where Charles had been working. "But I'll have to get Angel to finish this diagnostic."

Charles sent out a mental request for Angel to come to the bridge. "Done," he said. "Moira will continue to monitor her own tests so please leave her console as is." At Darwin's nod, Charles turned his attention to Erik. "I think we should retire somewhere more quiet for this, yes? Follow me, please."

Erik gave the mostly empty bridge a parting glance before he fell into step at Charles's side, Moira a few paces behind. They both followed him down the corridor to the ship's conference room, which was a little overlarge for the purposes of a discussion between three beings but that offered them much more privacy than the bridge. He motioned for Erik to step inside ahead of them and Moira brought up the rear, engaging the privacy lock once they were all inside.

"Does she have to be here?" Erik asked as he took a seat, cutting his eyes toward Moira where she stood near the door, spine straight as she settled into parade rest.

"There's nothing you can say to me that I won't share with Moira eventually," Charles told him. "Especially if you're about to agree to let us help you. Anything that involves the ship or the crew's safety is Moira's purview."

"Very well," Erik sighed, earning him an icy look from Moira. His pale eyes fixed on Charles. "You wanted to know why the Hel were after me."

"Yes," he said. "I doubt it's because you're Polaris clan."

"In a way, that's exactly why," he said. "How much do you know about what happened to my clan? About the attack on them by the Hel?"

Charles and Moira exchanged a confused look. "Only what was known of it on Vedera or by the other clans, really," Charles answered. "That there was some kind of dispute that led to the conflict, most people citing some kind of territorial issue, but I always thought those reasons seemed a little weak given that the Hel so thoroughly..."

"Destroyed my people?" Erik finished. His mouth was a tight, terse line. "Yes, it was something much more important than a few planets or mining asteroids."

"And this is why the Hel are still after you?" Moira asked. "For the same reason the Hel destroyed your clan in the first place?"

"Ultimately," Erik told her. "Do either of you know much about the lost Polaris homeworld?"

"Gravion?" Moira asked. "I know everything there is to know about it. You'll have to be more specific if you're trying to elicit something in particular from my knowledge base."

Erik barely acknowledged her, instead focusing on Charles. "What do you know about Gravion?"

Charles thought for a moment, trying to dredge up the knowledge from the depths of his mind. He used Erik's surface thoughts as a guide and, when he read an image of a vast room full of glass cases and glittering objects, he realized what Erik wanted him to know. "Gravion was said to have one of the largest museums of ancient relics in the Tri-Galaxy," Charles remembered. "Since few outside of the Brotherhood ever traveled there, no one was ever certain, but it was widely rumored, even on Vedera."

Erik's mouth turned up at the corner, almost a smile. The sight unexpectedly warmed Charles and he tried to ignore it as best he could. "One of my ancestors had been obsessed with the ancient myths -- Vederan, Brotherhood, Perseid. He'd put a great deal of energy into collecting artifacts he deemed worth his time. Things you probably wouldn't even imagine that one clan could collect by themselves, they were all there in his collection."

"And that's what the Hel wanted? The relics?" asked Moira.

"Only one interested him," Erik explained. "But he didn't want to leave anyone alive who knew what that one relic was. That's why he destroyed the clan the way he did, making sure to kill everyone who knew about it. He didn't want anyone to know what he was doing."

Charles could feel Erik's pain and anger crashing against his consciousness, bleeding from every psychic pore. Without thinking, Charles met that anger with calm, soothing over the wounds as best he could with a wave of peaceful sympathy. He watched Erik's eyelids flutter in reaction, one hand tightening where in lay on the conference table. When he finally seemed to relax, Charles asked, "What was this one relic, Erik?"

Erik's face was grim. "I assume you've heard of the Engine of Creation?"

**

Erik couldn't suppress a shudder as he spoke the name aloud for the first in what felt like years, a strange superstition he'd clung to since he'd watched his entire family killed by the Hel warriors who'd overrun the capital of Gravion. Even as he'd searched answers across the Tri-Galaxy, he'd rarely let its name cross his lips, like it would bring the cursed specters of his clan back to haunt him.

But here, he'd finally said it. The Engine of Creation.

From the way both Charles's and Moira's eyes widened at it, Erik was certain they were familiar with the stories surrounding it.

"The Engine of Creation?" Charles repeated, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard right. "That's...a myth."

"That's what Vederans have always believed," Erik said. "It's why it was so easy for my ancestor to find it. The signs were all there, written into your children's stories and fairy tales and none of the humans ever cared to look."

"So you're saying it's not a myth?" Moira asked, with a sidelong glance in Charles's direction.

Erik shook his head. "I touched it myself as a child. It was part of my clan's heritage and our pride -- until the Hel took it from us."

"That's amazing," Charles said, nothing but awe in his voice. All of his doubt from the moment before had evaporated which made Erik think that the telepath had gained reassurance from something he'd found in Erik's mind. Despite what he had said to Charles so often since they met, Erik couldn't bring himself to care about the casual mental contact Charles had initiated since the beginning of their conversation. The benefits outweighed even Erik's usual sense of independence that should've made him balk at such a connection. "I grew up on those tales. I never thought to ask if the Engine really existed."

"If it does," Moira interjected, "Why didn't the Polaris use it to defend themselves? If it didn't have the power to do so, I don't see why the Hel would be willing to risk civil war among the clans for the Engine in the first place."

"The power of the Engine is beyond imagination," Erik reminded her. "According to my people, its power was so much that it was split into five pieces and scattered across the galaxies to prevent that power from falling into the wrong hands. Ten generations ago, my clan found one piece of it and then 6 generations ago, another piece was found. That left the Engine incomplete by three parts. But then the Hel apparently found another piece and that's what instigated their attack on the Polaris to steal our parts of it."

"How do you know this?" Charles asked, not unkindly but curious.

"Those of us not killed by the Hel were taken captive," Erik reminded him. "I listened while I was in their service. I heard the whispers. Eventually, I heard enough to put the threads together."

"The Hel only has three parts of five," Charles said. "So they can't use it against anyone without the other two parts. Whatever it does, anyway."

"I have reason to believe that they've found another part recently," Erik said, breaking the news that had tipped his own hand. Charles had been right; if what he believed was true, then more was at stake than just his revenge against the Hel. "They need only one part to complete the Engine and wield its power."

"But what does it do?" Moira asked. "You haven't been clear on that and it's apparent we're operating at a loss here." She frowned at Charles. "We only have fairy tales to work from."

"The legends say that the Engine of Creation can remake the universe into the image of its wielder," Charles said. "The Light Bringers supposedly use it so that the universe continues to collapse and be reborn in the eternal cycle. Even if that's a hyper-exaggeration, the power this Engine might have is frightening, especially in the hands of brutes like the Hel clan."

"Exactly." Erik leaned in across the table, watching as Charles copied the motion until their elbows were almost touching. "Someone has to stop him. Them. From getting the last piece and putting the Engine back together."

Charles held Erik's gaze for a long moment before he sat back and sighed. "Agreed, but I'm not sure how."

The flexi felt scratchy under his bracer where it scraped against his skin. Erik knew it was in his head but it didn't make it less distracting. "I've been looking for the other pieces," he admitted. "It's why those Hel warriors were after me on Takilov Drift.

Charles's blue eyes were piercing and Erik couldn't look away when though he could hear the shift of Moira's body, could sense that strange reverberation he felt from her change its center. "You know where it is," Charles said slowly, wonderingly. "You know where to find the last piece of the Engine."

Erik nodded. "Ten years," he said, voice hushed. "I've spent ten years looking for them, trying to keep them out of his hands. I've been to every corner of the known Galaxies searching. And finally a few months ago, I found the way to the last piece."

"A map," Charles realized. "That's why you were looking through those old star maps."

Erik leaned back in his own chair and slowly began to unlace his bracer under which he hid the flexi. No one said a word as he focused on loosening it until he could slide his fingers underneath and pull out the flexi. He unrolled it and laid it on the table between him and Charles. "A map," he agreed. "For all the good it does me. I can't make heads or tails of it."

Moira slid into the chair next to Charles and peered down at the flexi. "It's old," she said. "Really old. The position of the planets don't look familiar offhand and they're labeled in a version of ancient Vederan that isn't exactly standard issue these days."

"Not even for you?" asked Charles.

"Not even for me," she agreed. "I'm sure I could decipher it, given time and your archaic data rods."

Charles grinned as if her derision for his collection was an old joke between them. "I have every faith in you," he said.

Moira looked hard at the flexi for another moment before she asked, "Can I go work on it now?"

"Yes, go," he said. As she stood to leave, he added, "But make sure you stop your diagnostics first. The last thing we need are overloaded processors. I don't think we have enough of that wretched cola on board to deal with Sean if that happens."

Moira almost smiled at Charles. "It was only once."

"Once was enough," he called after her, shaking his head fondly. She didn't say anything but gave a salute that would've looked like a proper Verderan one had it not been for her insubordinate expression in the face of Charles's chiding.

When the door slid closed in her wake, Charles turned his attention back to Erik and the flexi on the conference table between them. "Ten years?" he asked, voice soft. "I'd say you've been thinking about this for much longer, Erik."

"Ever since it happened," he agreed. "When I finally escaped, I found others from my clan who had escaped and I...tried. Tried to do what they did, work to rebuild what we'd lost but..." Erik shook his head as rage overwhelmed, closing his throat with its force. Then it was chased away by a soft, soothing presence, also in his head, something he knew was Charles's power, was Charles's way of offering comfort. He accepted it. "I couldn't forget it, couldn't ignore it like they had, so I..."

"...set off to avenge your entire clan on your own," Charles finished. His eyes, at that moment, reminded Erik of steel -- hard with its strength, but responsive, languid under Erik's attention. Another feeling chased itself up Erik's spine but it was nothing like rage even as it heated his skin. "Oh, Erik."

"There was no one I could trust with this," Erik said. "Until now." If asked, he still couldn't explain why he'd decided to trust Charles, not in any way wasn't more excuse than reason. But he could feel it, deep in his bones, the same way he could his connection to his clan or the burn of anger against the Hel, in the pit of his gut. That instinct, whatever one called it, was something he trusted more than logic, more than reasoning; it was the same well from which he drew to power his abilities when he needed it. It had saved his life so many times that Erik could not think to ignore it now just because it was leading him to Charles.

He wondered how much of that Charles gleaned from his mind because the telepath's expression softened even more and he didn't seem to hesitate as he reached over and touched his fingers to Erik's where they waited at the edge of the all-important flexi. Erik wasn't surprised that Charles's hands were petal-soft, nothing like the calluses that Erik had on his hands, first from years of labor and later from the weapons he handled so often. "I'm glad you decided you could confide in me," Charles said. "This is important -- to me, to you. Everyone. We can't let the Hel get closer to controlling the Engine of Creation. Their current leadership is much too power-hungry for it to bode well for anyone if it were to come to pass."

"You're worried about the humans," Erik said, unable to keep the disdain out of his voice.

"As a matter of fact, I am," he agreed. "The Hel already pick off human and other non-Brotherhood ships when they trespass into their territory, attack convoys on more isolated slip routes. If they could take the fight to the Commonwealth in a more direct manner, millions of lives would be forfeit."

"They would do the same or worse to your own people," Erik reminded him.

"The Vederans, the Commonwealth, they are my people," Charles told him. "I told you before that I am a citizen of Vedera."

"You have no clan," Erik remembered. "So what? You're the first mutant in your line? Any clan would welcome a telepath to join it."

"Yes, they would," Charles said with a strange intonation that told Erik there was a story behind his agreement. "And no, I'm not the first mutant in my line."

Erik could feel the tension in Charles's hand where it still brushed against his and he took hold of the other man's wrist, circling his fingers around the delicate bones of Charles's wrists. "You knew everything about me with a glance, didn't you?" he asked. "Surely a few questions about yourself won't hurt you."

"My mother is human," Charles said after a moment. The tension was still there in his muscles but he did nothing to escape Erik's hold. "But my father was a mutant as well. Brotherhood, even, before he cast out of his clan, despite his own abilities." His eyes trailed up from where he'd watched their clasped hands. "I was raised by humans, with them, on Vedera. I've never felt the need to change my affiliation."

"If you knew what it meant," Erik began. "A clan..."

Charles gently pulled away, standing as he reclaimed his wrist. "I'm well aware of what the clans are and how they function," he told him. "I prefer my situation to anything they have to offer."

Erik swallowed the sharp retort on his tongue about the choice Charles had in the matter. It must've been a loud thought, though, because Charles winced. "Moira should have some answers for us soon," Charles continued. "If not, we'll take your flexi up with Alex. As I said, he's rather gifted with navigation."

"Thank you," Erik heard himself say, even though he wasn't even sure if it meant it and, if he did, what he was thanking Charles for.

Charles's expression was soft and inviting as he turned around to face Erik again. "Perhaps, if you're still in a sharing mood later, we can talk about who he is."

Erik watched the captain leave in confusion until he recalled his words and realized the mistake he'd made more than once.

Him, not them.

Shaw, the monster of Erik's memories, the leader of the Hel clan and the man who had murdered Erik's mother right before his eyes.

Him.

**

Moira was very smug about the fact that it took her less than an hour to decipher the archaic language of Erik's star map, most of which she'd spent looking for a data rod that could act as a translation tool.

"Of course you have one," she told Charles a little while later, rolling her eyes. "Once I found it, I used it to create a translation program and here you are." She handed him a new flexi, with all the information downloaded onto it.

"Good work, as always," Charles said, smiling at her before he concentrated on the data she'd given him. Even with the text on the map translated, the map itself didn't make sense and most of the planets were ones Charles had never heard of. "I'm still rather clueless as to where we're supposed to be headed."

"Same here," Moira admitted. She glanced toward Charles's office door.

"Alex," he said. "And Raven, too, since she spends a great deal of time looking at star charts. I'll have them meet us on the bridge."

Moira could've used the ship comm to summon them but Charles found it easier and more comforting to reach out with his mind. He pulled Raven away from her plants and Alex away from an impromptu sparring match with Hank, but they were both glad to join him, Moira, Darwin and Angel on the bridge.

"What's up?" Alex asked, wiping the sweat from his face with the towel he'd thrown over his shoulders. Raven shot him a slightly disgusted look, as if they all hadn't become used to seeing each other in various states of disarray and disrobement since they'd come to live together on the Wisdom.

"Are we getting underway?" Raven asked, a hopeful note in her voice.

"Not yet, my darling blueberry," Sean said as he bounded onto the bridge, surprising everyone.

Even Charles hadn't unexpected him. "Aren't you supposed to be working on the slip drive so we can be?" he asked.

"Come on, Charles, you can't deny a man a break for some Cola," he said, waving the can around in one hand.

"That doesn't explain why you're on the bridge, Cassidy," Moira pointed out.

As always, he grinned at her in delight before shrugging. "According to the sensors, everyone else was heading this way, I figured something was up." He looked at Charles. "Something up?"

"Not precisely," he began. "Although I do have something of a riddle on my hands." He glanced first at Alex, then Raven. "It's one that I found a navigator and a pilot might have some insight on."

"What?" Raven asked, as Alex took a step forward, interest piqued.

"Put it up on the screen?" Charles said to Moira, who nodded and touched a nearby panel. The view of the space around them that Darwin had been studying disappeared to be replaced by Moira's facsimile of Erik's star map.

"Hey," Darwin said in protest as everyone moved to stand with him in front of the massive screen. "What am I looking at now?"

"I'm not sure myself," Charles admitted. "I was hoping the rest of you could help."

The screen showed a star system, a yellow star with several planets orbiting it. Only two of those planets were situated at the correct distance from the star to be inhabitable and both of those planets had several moons, one of which was highlighted with a certain metallic gleam that marked it as the destination Erik sought, the place where the last piece of the Engine of Creation rested. If they could find the star system, the moon itself would be easy enough to find, but it was the star system and its location that eluded them.

"This is a map we've recently acquired," he told them all. "Unfortunately, we can't find the system in the database and it's a very old map. The planets are labeled but even those have proven no help."

"If it's not in the computer, how are we supposed to know where it is?" Raven asked. "It's like I even have most of the slip routes in the Galaxy memorized."

"I know it's a long shot," Charles told her. "But I must try everything, yes?"

"Where did you get this?" Alex wanted to know. "Maybe there was some kind of mistake in the original or something."

"It's from Erik," Charles answered.

Alex grimaced. "Like I said."

"Alex," Charles said, a hint of warning in his voice.

"I think he has a point," Moira said. "We don't know what the origin of this map is or even if Lehnsherr really knows anything about what he's saying."

Charles shot her a dark look. "I am a telepath, Moira. I would know if he's lying to us."

"That doesn't mean he can't be wrong," she argued. "Just because he thinks he's telling the truth doesn't mean he is."

Charles understood the distinction Moira was trying to draw but he couldn't accept it, not when he'd felt Erik's certainty in his own bones. "That's not the case."

"How would you know?" Moira asked him. "He could be mistaken, he could be insane, he could just have the mind training to trick your telepathy -- there are a lot of scenarios that are immensely possible where this is all just a big waste of our time."

"Moira," Charles began, sharpness in his tone to match hers but he was cut off before he could say more by Sean waving his hands at them.

"Hey," Sean said to accompany the motion of his arms, still grasping the Cola can tightly. "Hey, guys? None of that, okay? We kids don't like it when Mom and Dad fight in front of us, especially when it's about our creepy uncle who just showed up for an unexpected visit." By the time he was finished, Darwin and Raven had joined Charles and Moira in staring at him. "What?" Sean asked.

"Really?" Darwin drawled.

"Seriously, have you looked into his eyes?" Sean demanded. "He has the eyes of a very crazy person."

"You do realize," Raven began, "that given your metaphor, your massive and embarrassing crush on Moira has taken on new and terrifying -- and dare I add, incestuous -- dimensions?"

Sean didn't have the shame to look distressed. "She can be the Jocasta to my Oedipus anytime."

"Ew!" Angel called from her console where she was still monitoring diagnostic reports. "Just, ew!"

"Yes, thank you, Sean, for that disturbing little detour," Charles said, resting a hand on Moira's arm to keep from her bodily harming the engineer. Not that she would ever, Charles knew, but he felt better for his precaution. "Now if we could all be so good to turn our attention back to the matter at hand? Star maps, if you'll recall."

Obligingly, everyone's eyes swung back to the screen -- except for Alex's, which hadn't left it to begin with. As if he'd been waiting for a lull in the conversation around him, he finally looked away, seeking Charles's attention. "Can I edit the map?"

It was Moira who answered, nodding toward the Nav console. "Go ahead."

They all watched the screen as Alex began to make changes, dragging the planets and moons out of their orbits and re-arranging them. "I do recognize this star system," he explained. "But it's not a real system. It looks like the Seefra system but not quite."

"Seefra?" asked Raven. "We've never been there."

"Right," Alex agreed, still re-arranging the planets on the screen. "The slip route to Seefra was lost, like, four hundred years ago."

"So if that's where we were going, we aren't getting there," Darwin said.

Charles watched in silence as Alex dragged the moon that the map had highlighted as their destination into an orbit between the two that had originally held planets. As the moon slotted into orbit, they all watched in astonishment as the image on the screen flashed white for a moment before it was replaced by another map of a different star system entirely but one planet still glowed softly, like a beacon.

It only took a second for Charles to figure out what they'd done. "It was a riddle," he said with a little laugh.

Alex grinned at all of them, clearly pleased with himself.

"And this is a system I know," Moira said. She pointed to the lit planet. "And that? It's called Shintaido."

"So we can go!" Raven said, her grin as wide as Alex's. "Although I have no idea why we'd want to, but now we can."

"Raven's right," Darwin said quietly. "Are we going there or were you just deciphering this as a favor for Erik? You weren't very specific earlier."

"I apologize for that," Charles said, still staring at the reconfigured map. "I'll explain more in detail later but...yes, we're going there. Erik has asked for our help on something and I've agreed to it."

"Of course you did," Raven said with a roll of her eyes.

Alex shrugged. "At least that means we don't have to stop at Takilov again."

"Care to tell us why we're going?" Darwin asked mildly.

"A briefing is forthcoming," Charles promised before shooting a glance toward Sean. "Although it won't do any of us any good until our slip drive is working again."

Sean sighed. "I can take a hint," he said, before downing the rest of his cola. "But for the record, I want to remind you that our slip drive would be fine if you hadn't decided to bail your new buddy out of trouble and we had to outrun freakin' Hel cruisers."

Charles made a face in response to the smug look Moira shot his way. "How could I forget?"

Instead of replying, Moira cleared her throat, a completely manufactured action. "Raven?" she said, moving toward the pilot's side. "According to the databases, it looks like the slip route to Shintaido is fairly complicated. You might need to look it over."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Oh, great," she said, moving to nudge Alex away from his Nav console. "Throw it up there for me, will you, Moira?"

With Alex, Moira, and Raven absorbed in their slip route maps and a heated discussion on quick jumps, Charles pointedly shooed Sean off back to his workshop. He could hear the young engineer's mental grumbling but it was mostly good-natured, especially since he'd made good progress that morning. If Sean's thoughts were to be believed, they could be on their way within two days.

"When are we going to get that briefing?" Darwin asked, voice low and pitched for Charles's ears only. "I'm not saying Moira is right that we can't trust Erik but I don't think it's a stretch that anything he needs help with wouldn't be easy. Or safe."

Charles nodded. "I won't take this crew anywhere without apprising them of the risks beforehand," he told him. "And it will be dangerous, you're right. But I think we'll all be in a great deal more trouble if we don't do something about it first."

"Fate of the Tri-Galaxy, huh?" Darwin sighed. "I always love those missions."

Charles grinned as he gave Darwin's shoulder a fond squeeze. "It's why I depend on you, Darwin," he told them young man seriously.

"Yeah, yeah," Darwin snorted before he wandered off to check on Angel and her diagnostics.

Charles left them all to their own devices, stepping out into the corridor and off the bridge. As he did so, he extended his power through the ship until he found Erik's mind among the walls of metal. He was back in his guest quarters, mind distracted from its racing thoughts by the tedium of some flexi he was reading.

Erik? Charles sent out, mind to mind.

Charles?

I just wanted you to know that we deciphered your map, Charles projected. As soon as the slip drive is operational, we're going after the Engine.

We?

We, Charles confirmed.

Thank you.

He wasn't quite sure if the warmth he felt originated in his mind or Erik's but it passed between them, a bright link that didn't fade even when Charles broke off the connection and headed off to attend his duties.

**

The next day Erik was subjected to a planning session with all of the members of Charles's crew, something he could've well done without, no matter how much he was silently grateful for the help Charles promised. He was also grateful for the fact that Charles kept his explanation of Erik's quest to the bare minimum, only revealing that Erik wished to stop the Hel from seizing the last piece of the Engine in order to stop the clan from using it for galaxy-shaking evil purposes. Erik's personal vendettas were kept out of it entirely.

It was plain that there was a great variation of opinion among the crew members, both about Erik and the mission he'd brought to them. Moira, of course, remained skeptical and hostile toward both, although Erik knew she was supportive of their involvement just in case Erik was proved right. McCoy, the medical officer, seemed content to follow whatever directive Charles stated and he displayed some interest in the idea that the Engine existed at all, an interest that made sense in a scientist.
Raven, on the other hand, fairly bounced in her chair as she talked about the tricky slip routes she'd have to guide them through to reach Shintaido and her yellow eyes lit up every time the Engine was mentioned; Erik had seen that look before, on the face of treasure hunters across the Tri-Galaxy. Darwin was cautious in his estimation of Erik and the Engine's proposed existence, but obviously had enough respect for Charles that he didn't question it openly. Alex was more openly dubious but excited by the idea of visiting a near-mythic planet, and Sean, too excitable by far, had a look similar to Raven's, although it was less about treasure and more about getting his hands on what was supposed to be the most advanced and yet the most ancient technology ever written of. Angel, like Darwin, was silent but suspicious.

As he watched Charles's interaction with his crew, Erik couldn't help but again think about the strange contradictions the captain displayed. There was no aggression in his approach, no dominance, but slowly Erik had come to see that he wielded a kind of gentle authority to which his crew responded. He would've made a good priest, Erik decided, or a scholar -- a teacher, certainly, or a healer. But he was still a far cry from what any group needed as a true leader and Erik wondered at how they'd lasted so long. Years were the impression he'd gotten and it seemed a miracle even as he watched them all in action.

Given the strange combination of Charles's obviously powerful and desirable mutant ability and his absolute lack of inclination to use it to assert his own dominance, Erik was left with only one conclusion to draw about him, one that made his blood heat in his veins. But Charles was strange and that left Erik uncertain about what to do with his conclusions, especially since they were ones that Charles could probably read out of his head with little trouble.

Still, Erik couldn't ignore the way the air seemed charged between them, electric and exciting in a way it hadn't been with the last two mates he'd tried to take. Susannah had been an omega, eager to please strong alpha mate, even one from another clan, but they had never had a chance. Magda, also of the Polaris, a survivor like himself of the Hel slave force, had been alpha and a better match for him but not even their nascent bonding had been enough to keep his mind off revenge. Given his abandonment of her, it wouldn't surprise him to find out that she'd found another in his place, although he hadn't bothered to inquire in the years since he'd left.

And now there was Charles.

According to the engineer, the slipstream drive would be working again by the next day and Erik was heartened to see that it seemed to be the case when Sean asked for his help in sealing up the drive's metallic walls once he'd made the repair. He also talked Erik into helping him move the repaired mass back to the engine room.

"It's not that I don't have anti-grav lifts and all," Sean said. "But I think it'll go faster with your help. So, will you?"

"Of course," Erik said, already reaching out with his power until it slid around the slipdrive tube and floated it above the workshop floor. "Lead the way."

Sean did, keeping up a constant stream of chatter while Erik and the drive part trailed behind him. It wasn't that Erik needed total concentration to use his powers in such a way but the engineer's babble was annoying; he tried to pretend, for this reason alone, he was glad to see Charles as they crossed paths at an intersection of corridors.

"Truly impressive," Charles said as he fell into step with Erik and their conversation led Sean to stop his outpouring of words. "Your power is extraordinary, Erik. And I can feel your potential for so much more."

Erik wasn't sure if he had the same belief that Charles did that Erik could harness more than he already did with his powers but it was flattering to hear Charles's praise, to have proof of Charles's obvious admiration in the man's voice, in his eyes. Like the moments they'd shared when they'd shared made quiet confessions about their pasts, it left Erik wanting more of that connection between them.

"Okay, okay, through here," Sean directed, waving his arms toward two massive doors that slid open at their approach. Instead of following Sean inside, Erik peered in through the door, the piece of machinery hovering behind him. "Where do you want it?"

"Over there!" Sean pointed and Erik obligingly dropped it where Sean motioned. It settled with a gentle thud and Sean flashed him a thumbs up. "That's great! Thanks!"

Sean was still talking, presumably to Erik, as he took the one step needed to take him out of the engine room, the doors sliding shut on Sean's excited babble.

Outside, leaning against the corridor wall, was Charles who laughed once the doors closed.

"What?" Erik asked in mock-ignorance, although he couldn't quite stop himself from smiling back at Charles's amusement.

"Nothing," Charles said, still grinning. "It's just that you have a rather unique way of interacting with my crew. Sean, in particular."

Erik shrugged. "He's...peculiar."

Charles snorted. "You don't know the half of it."

Even though he didn't really care about the half of it, Erik had to admit he would've been willing to listen if Charles had been inclined to share. Instead, he fell into step with the telepath as he headed away from the engine room, back toward the bridge.

"Do you really think he'll have the slipdrive working tomorrow?" Erik asked.

"If that's what he says he will," Charles said. "At least as long as our supply of Sparky Cola holds out."

Even as they did nothing more than share space in the corridor, Erik felt the pull Charles had over him, the faint stirring of Charles's mind against his, just reserved enough to be comforting instead of invasive. Erik knew enough of telepaths that if he spent too much time thinking about what he wanted to do, he might never have a chance to do it. So instead of giving it any more thought, he reached out and stopped Charles with a hand on his shoulder.

"Yes?" Charles asked, turning to face Erik. Erik took a step toward him and Charles instinctively stepped away, until his back was pressed against the cold metal of the wall. "Erik?"

"What clan was it?" Erik asked with one more step, until there was no space left between them and Charles had no real means of escape. "Your father's, I mean."

"Hardly relevant to...anything," Charles said in reply. He had to tilt his head back a little to maintain eye contact. "May I ask what you're doing exactly?"

Erik's eyebrow rose. "It's not obvious?" He rested one elbow against the wall next to Charles's head, almost trapping the other man in place with his body. The other came to rest on Charles's hip, further holding him exactly where Erik wanted him.

Charles sighed, but he still hadn't pulled away or used his power against Erik. Given the way Erik was pressed against him, it was practically an invitation to continue. "I thought we'd made it past the point where you tried to assert your dominance over me just because you think you need to. It's not necessary or useful."

"You really don't know anything about how proper mutants act, do you?" Erik tsked, although he couldn't stop himself from a full, toothy grin, probably predatory-looking from the other side.

The insinuation that he was ignorant was the first thing from the exchange that made Charles tense. "I am fully versed in Brotherhood culture."

Erik shifted a little, leaning down so that his next words were delivered against the shell of Charles's ear, erasing the scant space between them. Charles let out a fast, startled breath. "Then you should know what I'm actually doing," Erik admonished. "And it's not about dominating you." He let his teeth touch against the soft skin behind Charles's ear. "...exactly."

Charles's hand came between them, flat palm pushing against Erik's chest until he was forced to back off an inch or two. "I know exactly what you're thinking," he said with a smugness that Erik found more arousing than infuriating. "You can't tell me that what you have in mind doesn't involve some submission on my part."

An image flashed through Erik's mind of Charles on his knees, a tempting thought he'd entertained before. Charles tilted his head and raised an eyebrow as if he'd just had his point proved for him. "You'd enjoy it," Erik told him. He wrapped his long fingers around the wrist of the hand Charles had pressed to his chest, letting his thumb caress the soft skin on the inside of Charles's wrist, even as Erik tried to tug it away.

"There are a great many things that I'd enjoy that I still refuse to do," Charles replied. His attitude was still a strange combination of detachment and coyness, no overt signs of challenge that would suggest he was as disinterested as he claimed, but nor did he signal clear interest, either. Even his words skirted between the lines of outright dismissal or permission -- a neutrality that was more maddening than rejection would've been.

He took in Charles and laughed. "I hope you're not trying to suggest that you're a monk?"

Something flashed in Charles's eyes. "Not at all," he said, and Erik had to fight to ignore an irrational fission of jealousy at Charles's denial. It was so distracting that it took a second for him to realize that Charles had managed to push him away a little more, so that they were almost standing at a polite distance once again. "But my partners of choice are not Brotherhood."

Charles still hadn't pulled his hand away from Erik's grip, and his palm was still flat against Erik's chest, close to his beating heart. "Only humans then?" he asked, unable to keep the curl of disdain out of his voice, underlaid even a growling hint of disapproval.

"It's not mutants I avoid," Charles said, finally freeing his hand from Erik's, letting it drop back to his side.

"Just the alphas?" Erik finished. He couldn't stop himself from touching Charles's throat where his pulse beat under the skin. If Charles had been a regular mutant, not one with strange ideas about denying the order of things, Erik might've pressed his mouth there or bitten him, bringing blood to the surface with intent. Instead, he contented himself with the brush of his fingers there, the slight pressure of his touch meant to mimic a hint of teeth.

Charles shivered under his touch but his eyes remained solemn, expression serious. "I want to help you," Charles told him. "To stop the Hel, to find the Engine..." He gracefully slid around Erik, breaking for the freedom of the wide corridor. "...but everything else is off the table, I'm afraid."

His words might've been more effective, Erik decided, as he watched Charles walk away, head held high, if his own mind hadn't betrayed him; but Erik had felt it, the sinuous slide of Charles's consciousness against his, raising sparks where their minds touched. He'd never felt anything so incredible before and, he was fairly, certain neither had Charles.

Erik could give him time to get used to the idea.

**

True to his word, Sean finished the repairs to the slipdrive by the next day and the Wisdom was able to finally get underway, much to everyone's relief. And while the majority of the crew was anxious to head to the near-mythical Shintaido, they still had to make a stop at Vedera before they could begin their quest in search of its ancient secrets.

An imminent visit to Vedera meant that Charles would be expected to deliver months' worth of mission reports to the Senators who had contracted his services which meant that Charles had the perfect excuse to hide himself away in his office and avoid Erik for the few days the journey would take. Charles only hoped he'd have a better idea on how to handle the most recent turn their acquaintance had taken by the time he'd have to emerge from his safe haven.

Charles burying himself in work wasn't an unusual sight to most of the crew, so they stayed out of his way, each of them too wrapped up in their own excitement over their upcoming treasure hunt to give their eccentric captain much thought, which Charles knew because he felt the idle drift of their minds when they wandered past his office door. The only person who didn't come close enough for such casual inspection was Erik and Charles was annoyingly certain that it was because Erik knew exactly why Charles was closeted in his office. He was also annoyingly certain that Erik took it as some kind of victory that only made sense in the backwards logic used by alphas.

When two days passed in relative peace, Charles should've been suspicious but he wasn't, not until his door chimed and he looked up in surprise to see that Moira enter his chambers. Of everyone, she was the only one who could effectively ambush him and the only one brave enough to do so.

"Still hiding, I see," she said as she came over to lean against the edge of his desk.

"I'm working, it's completely different," he countered, not bothering to look up from his console as he put the finishing touches on yet another report. After a moment of feeling Moira's electric gaze on the exposed nape of his neck, he sighed and looked up. "Was there something you wanted?"

"I could ask you why you're so determined to stay in here until we reach Vedera but I already know the answer." She crossed her arms and smirked at him. "Lehnsherr."

"Why would I be avoiding Erik?" he asked. "I've just agreed to help him go half-way across the galaxy in search of something that most of the crew doesn't even thinks exist."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to try to pretend you're not?"

"Don't you have something useful to be doing?" he asked.

She tapped a finger against her temple. "I excel at multitasking," she reminded him. "So?"

Charles rolled his eyes. "Erik finally made certain intentions of his known, in that quaint way of clan alphas everywhere."

Moira only just managed not to laugh out loud. "I can't say I wasn't expecting that," she said. "And I'm assuming you told him you weren't interested in the slightest and gave him the same treatment you do every alpha that tries to drag you away by the hair."

"It wasn't quite as bad as all that," he told her. "But it was certainly...keeping in line with what I'd expect from a Brotherhood mutant."

"You didn't answer my question, Charles." Moira put the force of her glare behind her words. "You put an end to any further advances in no uncertain terms, right?"

"Yes," he finally said. "...and no."

It was Moira's turn to roll her eyes. "I'm amazed so many of the alphas we met have the wrong idea about you, Captain. You're so decisive."

"I told him no," Charles said, returning his attention to his console, intent on finishing the last batch of reports before he called it a day. "And I informed him that I do not involve myself with Brotherhood by design. He just didn't see very convinced by my words."

"Because actions speak louder with Brotherhood," Moira pointed out. "And we've already established that you haven't done a very good job with that because you actually do find him sexually attractive."

"Yes, I do," Charles said. "But it's more than that. I...like him. I enjoy his company and his mind...it's been a long time since that felt so right." He debated on whether to share his last thought or not, but decided it was unfair to keep it to himself. "Not since Lilandra, perhaps."

Moira's eyes widened with the mention of Lilandra, a tragic topic barely breached among any of them that knew the details. "This is worse than I thought."

Charles glared at her until she raised her hands in apology. "If you really like him, what's the problem? Do whatever you want and then put him on the first Brotherhood drift we come to after this Shintaido business -- which, might I add, I think will end up being a waste of fuel, time and energy. I know we've encountered some amazing things in this universe but this Engine just seems too far-fetched."

"You know why," he said. "There's a reason I stay away from the Brotherhood. They have all of this socialization, these traditional mores that they just can't separate out from sex. It's a Pandora's Box I don't want to open with anyone, even Erik. And asking him to ignore them in favor of what I believe is just as bad."

Moira sighed. "I think that's just an excuse," she told him. "I don't know why you're bothering with one because I can't read your mind, but mentioning Lilandra….we both know that your power means you'd be in complete control of anything that happens between you -- I'm sure even Erik is aware of that, given that he's Brotherhood and your telepathy is probably half of the reason he's after you in the first place. So if you want it, he wants it and you're not in danger...I'm not really parsing the reluctance on your part."

"I'm not really sure myself," he finally admitted.

Moira straightened up, spine ramrod straight as only she managed so late in the day. "Then it sounds like you've wasted two days of hiding because you're not any better off than you were two days ago. And you really can't hide in here anymore. Darwin's starting to worry and so's Raven."

"Should I expect an ambush, then?"

Moira shook her head. "I volunteered because I figure this little conversation would be better coming from you."

"Because you are the epitome of tact."

She grinned. "Actually, yes, just not the kind you're talking about. That kind doesn't win battles."

Charles knew he'd already surrendered. "If you leave now and let me finish this report, I'll come to dinner," he said. "But only on the promise that this topic of conversation is closed."

"Sure," she agreed, heading toward the door. "At least until we leave Vedera anyway."

He was lost his chance for a scathing reply when the door closed softly behind her.

Charles finished his report in time to join the crew for dinner, as promised, even though Moira wasn't even there to enjoy his capitulation, although he had some idea she was watching through the security feed somewhere else in the ship. Other than a few knowing glances from down the length of the table, Erik didn't engage much with Charles, not that he had the chance when Raven and Sean were intent to do it themselves or choke trying. It made Charles feel guilty that he'd hidden himself away out of his own problems, forgetting for a moment that while his crew was technically made up of adults, they were still young and needed attention, more like children in some ways despite the trauma they'd all survived.

Despite the silence between them at dinner, Charles found Erik waiting for him when he headed toward the observation deck as was his habit, having planned to enjoy the fruits of Raven's botanical labors as he watched the stars speed by. He sensed Erik as soon as he reached the corridor that led to the obvs deck, and he could've avoided him if he'd wanted but Charles decided that it was a coward's tactic and instead pressed on.

"Planning to join me for a turn about the garden?" Charles asked as Erik melted out of the shadows were he waited. "Such as it is, of course."

Erik didn't answer the question directly, but he fell in step with Charles as he found his way through Raven's makeshift garden, each potted plant lovingly transplanted from its native planet and cultivated on the ship. It was a skill Raven had to be proud of, a knack that few in the galaxy possessed the way she did.

"I haven't seen you the last few days," Erik said after watching Charles linger near a pot of Vederan orchids whose light floral scent reminded him of his childhood home.

"I've been finishing up my mission reports," he explained. "That's why we have to stop at Vedera. I owe the Senate some findings and they owe me a great deal of money."

"What exactly is it that you and your crew do for the Vederan government?" Erik asked.

"Eye of Wisdom is registered as a Class I exploratory science vessel," he said. "We do all sorts of run-of-the-mill missions for them, often dealing with mapping and interstellar cartography. Sometimes we confirm known slip routes or planetary locations outside of Vederan space."

Erik was smart; Charles could see that he was taking Charles's vague, safe answers and finding the truth behind them. "You're spies," Erik said once he'd come to the conclusion. "The Vederans send you in to spy on the Brotherhood because you're all mutants."

"Moira's not a mutant," he reminded him.

Erik waved away the exception. "You're still much more suited to the task than an entire ship full of humans. The Brotherhood won't destroy you on sight, for one."

Charles nodded. "It's not as if inter-clan conflict isn't a serious problem but, yes, a crew of mutants are less likely to die if they happen into Brotherhood space when on a science mission. With the right persuasion, they might even escape unscathed."

Erik was giving him a hard look, a flash of heat behind his pale irises. "With the right persuasion?" he repeated, a rumbling undercurrent to his words. Charles felt more than detected the flare of jealousy from him, even as he stepped closer, eradicating the polite distance they'd kept more most of the evening. "Exactly what kind of persuasion have you found is the right kind?"

"Whatever kind works," Charles told him, not breaking the lock of their gazes. "And I pride myself on my resourcefulness."

Erik took a minute step away and his shoulders relaxed a little. "I'm sure you do," he said. "But I don't know how you do it, how you can spy on your own kind for humans."

"Vederans aren't just human," Charles said. "Though they are the majority. We are humans as well."

"We are Brotherhood," Erik countered. "Superior."

"We are mutants," Charles corrected him. "Human ones. The original mutants were born completely of humans and more are born still from them."

"It's not the same," Erik said, shaking his head.

Charles mimicked the gesture. "I don't understand, Erik, even though I can feel your anger. Why do you hate humans so much? The violence that has been visited on your life has all come from the others in the Brotherhood, fellow mutants, and yet you insist on hating humans."

"I could ask you something similar," Erik said. "Why do you love them? They use you and your crew, ready to sacrifice you to their greatest enemy when it's convenient to them. I've seen the laws that your humans have tried to pass on Vedera, the ones they want to use to rule their supposedly egalitarian Commonwealth. They have no place for us in their new order, you know that as well as I do."

"That's a small minority of Vederan senators," Charles said, although the words stung, probably from a wound Erik couldn't even begin to know existed. "I can't judge everyone by them alone."

"You want to believe they're all like Moira," Erik said, and Charles could feel Erik's rage battering against his shields, uncontrolled and almost fathomless. "That'll be your doom, Charles."

It was the wrong thing to do, given his resolve from earlier that day, but Charles couldn't stop himself from reaching out, from trying to calm that storm with the touch of both his mind and his hands. "Oh, Erik," he said, fingers brushing lightly against Erik's jaw. "I wish you could see it the way I do."

"Never," Erik whispered. "I've never been that naive."

"It's not my naivety you lack," Charles told him sadly. He pulled away. "Good night, my friend."

Charles left Erik standing alone on the observation deck as he tried to control the raging waves of emotions that came from inside him.

**

When they reached Vedera, most of the crew headed for the transport once the Wisdom had docked at the planet's orbital docking station, each with their own agenda for the stayover. Erik declined Charles's invitation to join him and his companions planetside and instead found himself sharing the empty ship with Moira and McCoy.

Erik understood McCoy's reluctance to visit the capital city, teeming as it was with humans, but he was surprised that Moira did not journey to the planet to spend time with her own people when she spent her days surrounded by mutants.

"I thought you'd be the first ready to disembark," he told the human as they watched the bay doors close behind the departing crew members.

Moira sent a sharp glance his way. "Why? I joined Charles to get away from here. I don't want to go back."

"And how long have you been with Charles?" he asked.

She shrugged. "A long time. In the beginning, it was just Charles, Raven and Hank. Then me. Eventually everyone else can along. Angel's the last, she came along last year."

Erik nodded as another piece of the mystery slotted into place. "And if you dislike Vedera, how do you feel about spying for them, hmm?"

"It's not like I have a lot of love for the Brotherhood either," she said. "What do we do for the Commonwealth is about keeping people safe from the clans."

"You travel with mutants," Erik said. "Yet you hate the Brotherhood?"

Moira rolled her eyes. "Haven't you learned anything from Charles? Mutant doesn't equal Brotherhood, you know. This entire crew is proof of that." She waved a hand. "I have things to do. Try not to accidently trip any alarms when you start nosing around the ship, all right?"

As she started to walk toward the doors that led back to the ship's corridors, Erik called out to her. "You don't like me very much, do you, Moira?"

She stopped, sighed, then turned back to face him. "No, I don't," she said. "Does it matter?"

"Not really," he admitted, crossing his arms. "But I'm curious as to why."

"You're dangerous, arrogant, violent, and completely untrustworthy," she said. "How's that for a start?"

Erik lifted a hand to scratch idly at his jaw. "Are you sure it's not something else?" he asked. "Maybe the fact that Charles doesn't seem to mind that I'm any of those things?"

Moira's dark eyes narrowed. When she answered, it started with a bark of laughter. "You think I'm jealous of you and Charles? Is that really what you're implying?"

Erik thought of the way she shadowed her captain's steps, the way she'd clung to him in the chaos of their first meeting; he thought of the way she tried to run interference between them, how she only seemed to lose her taciturn demeanor when Charles was near. "Yes."

"Then I think we need to add completely blind to that list from before," she told him.

"You don't like me being around Charles," he said, which he knew was the absolute truth. His perception on that point wasn't wrong.

"I don't want you on my ship," she said. "Charles, on the other hand, is a big boy and he makes his own decisions." Her hands came to her hips. "If you're looking for someone to blame for whatever is not happening between you and Charles, don't look further than your reflection." She shook her head with an air of exasperation. "You know what? Re-organizing Sean's collection of soda cans is more important than this conversation. Goodbye."

Once Moira stalked off, Erik headed for the medbay to see what useful information he could glean from the ship's med officer. Erik hadn't spent much time with him and, in company, he tended to be quiet and timid. It was obvious he found Erik intimidating, a fact that Erik did little to change. Despite his uneasiness with Erik, however, McCoy remained surprisingly adamant on not discussing his fellow crewman with Erik, especially not Charles. McCoy did share, however, his own story on how he came to serve on the Wisdom after his experiments with mutant genetics had turned him from a mostly humanoid-looking mutant to the towering blue beast that stood before him.

In his boredom, Erik was tempted to do the exploration of the ship that Moira explicitly warned him against, but he had a feeling that she was probably watching him through the ship's surveillance systems and decided not to bother. Instead he passed his time in the empty hangar that McCoy informed him the crew used for physical activity, working his way through the impressive amount of equipment they stocked there. The physical exertion was a welcome change from the idleness of the last week spent waiting for the Wisdom's slipdrive repairs. It even mellowed his mood a little, so much so that he didn't automatically glare when he and Moira passed one another in the corridors.

Still, he was glad to see Charles and the rest of the crew return to the ship the next morning, leaving Vedera behind as they finally started on the tricky path to Shintaido.

The first several slipstream jumps weren't very difficult and Raven, in the pilot's seat, cleared them easily, with a smooth transition to normal space that Erik silently found impressive. It was the next jump that proved more difficult as they followed the plan mapped out by Erik's decoded flexi; the point they needed was deep in Brotherhood territory, in a sector that was part of an ongoing territorial dispute between several clans who claimed it as their own.

"We'll just have to hope luck is on our side," Charles said when Darwin reminded him of the situation. With a wince, he added, "And hope that our neutrality in all matters related to clan politics will be enough to earn us safe passage."

Moira glared at Erik behind Charles's back where they all gathered on the bridge. "The Polaris aren't part of the dispute, are they?"

"You mean what's left of them? No," Alex said. "It's the Sabra, the Firestar and the Caliban, if our recon is still good."

"Let's be on our way then," Charles said. "Alex, be ready on weapons but let's look as friendly as possible, all right?"

"That's not contradictory at all," Alex teased as he glanced down at his console, hands moving over it with quick efficiency. "Friendly defense in place, Charles."

He nodded. "Show's back in your hands, Raven," he told the blue-skinned pilot. "Let's get to that next slip point, hmm?"

Even with the time he'd spent with him -- over a week now, since Takilov, which felt more like a lifetime now -- Erik hadn't seen the crew in the midst of a mission before and he watched with fascination as they all slipped into their assigned roles with ease, everyone sure of their place and their purpose. Charles's method of leadership still looked more like tutelage than control to Erik, even in the way he gave orders as if he were making requests, but there was no hesitance to follow him in any of his crew, no sign of doubt as they did as he bid.

When Charles looked up and caught Erik's intent gaze, he moved over to where Erik leaned against one of the empty stations, staring hard at the map on the viewscreen when he wasn't watching Charles's every move. "Nothing like a nice stroll through enemy territory, is there?"

"I wouldn't know," Erik told him. "I try to avoid it."

Charles's eyebrow rose. "You forget who you're talking to, Erik," Charles said. "I know for a fact that you do not."

Erik's reply was cut off by the sound of Alex's voice. "Guys? I've got something on the long-range, moving directly toward us."

Charles straightened, moving toward Alex. "Angel," he called over his shoulder. "Can you confirm?"

"Not..." Angel trailed off before she hastily continued. "Actually, yes, I can, I've got chatter. I'm pretty sure it's Brotherhood."

"They're still closing and short-range confirms," Alex said. "Definitely Brotherhood. It's a small cruiser, probably a routine patrol vessel."

"Darwin, can we get this on-screen?" Charles asked and Darwin complied, the map disappearing to show a battered vessel moving toward them.

"I could probably outrun them, Charles," Raven offered even as she eased up on the controls, slowing their forward movement. "We're not that far from the jump point and I'd lose them in slipstream."

"Let's call that Plan B," Charles told her. "Moira?"

"Database says Sabra, basic design," she said immediately, now standing beside Charles where he stared up at the viewscreen. "Alex is right, it's probably just a patrol cruiser, but they've definitely seen us."

"And now they're asking for ship-to-ship," Angel informed them. "Do I give it to them?"

Charles rubbed a hand over his face before he answer. "Yes, let's get this over with. Give me ship-to-ship -- and visuals, Angel. Thank you."

Out of either habit or survival instinct, Erik hung back, letting the shadows of the bridge's design obscure him from the other's ship view of the crew as its bridge became visible on the Wisdom's viewscreen. A large, hulking mutant took up most of the screen, his bare arm showing his clan tattoo proudly. They were definitely Sabra, as Moira had said.

"Identify yourselves Vederan vessel," the mutant demanded.

"Captain Charles Xavier of the Eye of Wisdom," Charles said immediately. "Can I ask that you do the same?"

"Telemon, Sabra clan," he said in return. He cocked his head and looked at Charles more closely. "Xavier -- the mutant telepath?"

"Among other things," Charles replied and something about his tone set Erik on edge. It was entirely too inviting, in his opinion. "Is there a reason that you gentlemen have intercepted us?"

"You're trespassing in Sabra clan space," Telemon told them.

"And I thought this thoroughfare belonged to the Caliban clan," Charles said. "Excuse my confusion."

Telemon growled. "You thought wrong. It's been Sabra space for three generations, no matter what lies the Caliban spread."

"I would never doubt your word on that," Charles said with a smile. Erik could feel himself grinding his teeth as the captain continued. "I assume there's no problem if we're just on our way? We'll be out of your territory as quickly as we can be."

On the screen, Telemon tilted his head back, as if peering down at Charles in inspection. "We might be persuaded to let your ship pass -- with the right incentive."

"I can't even begin to imagine what that might be."

Telemon's answering grin was wide and toothy, almost a leer. "I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time you've paid your way with your -- skills. Being clanless and, well..."

Erik didn't even realize he'd stepped forward, fists clenched, until he felt Charles's calming mental touch on his mind. No need for such a display on my account, Charles told him. I've handled worse than Telemon and the Sabra.

Charles was still smiling his pleasant smile when he addressed Telemon out loud. "And I thought you were referring to our superior size, weaponry and maneuverability. Again, pardon my confusion."

Telemon's smug expression faltered a little. "You wouldn't..."

Before Telemon could finish, Alex released a few warning salvos off his bow. After the Sabra cruiser rocked on two different panels of their viewscreen, Telemon glared at them. Charles was still smiling. "I'm sure Alex would be happy to give you a more personal demonstration but I think we've made our point, yes? I thought so."

Without a word among anyone on the bridge, the viewscreen went dark and Raven slammed her controls forward until the entire ship lurched with the sudden forward movement. They easily glided around the Sabra cruiser, Raven whipping them toward the next slip point with all haste. It took a moment for Erik to realize that Charles must've been giving his crew orders telepathically, which was why both he and Telemon had been in the dark of his plan.

"Was that Plan B?" Darwin asked with a snort.

"More like Plan somewhere-between-A-and-B," Charles admitted. "The Sabra aren't usually so forward in their suggestions."

"Maybe he's been on patrol a little too long," Sean said.

"Yes, thank you for that, Sean."

The banter continued around them but Erik couldn't manage to concentrate on it, not when the blood was rushing in his ears, not when he couldn't erase the desire for violence he'd felt at Telemon's leering face and unsubtle suggestion; not when Charles apparently thought the way to handle errant alphas was with smiles and accommodating expressions, when the way he dealt with Erik oscillated between inviting warmth and careful distance. Erik needed to do something to exert his control over the situation -- and over Charles.

Charles must've sense what Erik was thinking because he broke off his conversation with Moira to glance his way in concern. "Erik?"

"I need to talk to you privately," Erik grit out, ignoring the look he knew Angel was giving him. "Now."

Charles was unmoved by the request, a fact that only heightened Erik's instincts. "I'm sure this can wait until..."

Erik didn't even think of the consequences before he strode across the bridge and grabbed Charles by the wrist. "Now," he repeated before heading for the bridge's exit with Charles in tow, completely unconcerned with the various levels of alarm the Wisdom's crew expressed as the doors to the corridor slid open, then closed.

**

Darwin, tell Moira she has the bridge, Charles sent out before he quickly pulled away from the light psychic connection he often initiated with his crew when they were in more perilous conditions. Those bonds had broken completely by the door to the bridge swept shut behind him as Erik tugged him along by the iron grip on his wrist.

"We're only about five minutes from the next jump, I'm not sure what couldn't have waited," he said as they came to a stop in the corridor, Erik's gaze like steel. Erik turned back toward him, still holding Charles's wrist tight between his fingers as he backed him up against a nearby wall. Instead of releasing Charles, Erik pinned his arm against the wall near his head. "In fact," Charles added. "I'm sure of it."

Erik seemed intent on using every inch of his height to glare down at Charles, a trick he'd had used against him by many other alphas but never had it been quite so effective. Charles didn't know if it was the intensity of his pale eyes, the heat of his body against his own or the electric brush of his mind, but Charles felt himself shiver in response.

"Is that what's this been?" Erik asked, his voice a menacing rumble. He ducked his head a little, bringing his face closer to Charles's without relieving the height difference at all. "Have you been trying to do to me what you just did with that Sabra?"

His mind was a haze of frustration and anger, a blindness to the emotions that Charles knew made Erik think they were instinctive. "What are you talking about?"

"Your..." His fingers tightened around Charles's wrist. "What, is it some technique you've developed that you use against alphas to confuse us, keep us in line?"

Behind Erik's anger Charles could feel genuine hurt and confusion, a small kernel of betrayal that surprised both of them. Suddenly, Charles knew exactly what he was asking. "Erik, no," he told him, making sure Erik didn't look away, didn't miss the sincerity in his eyes. "It's not like that at all. What we've...that's not a game."

The pressure on his wrist lessened but Erik still didn't let him go. "You don't make any sense," Erik told him. It was part complaint, part plea, matching the frustration that poured from him where Charles let their minds mingle.

"I mean it," Charles said, the fingers of his free hand clenching in Erik's shirt as if he needed to draw him closer, impossible as that would be. "I've been honest with you about everything, most of all myself. I..." He could hear his own words to Moira ringing through his head, the uncomfortable confession that he'd never felt such a powerful connection with another being, not since Lilandra and that had felt all-consuming. "It's real."

"Are you certain?" Erik asked. "You've been honest about what you feel, for me? About what you want?"

"I have my reasons," Charles said. It came out much more breathless and much less certain than he'd planned. "And they have nothing to do with you." His voice was even quieter when he added, "In fact..."

He let his eyes drift up over the sharp line of Erik's jaw, past his frowning mouth, until their eyes met and held. With Erik so close, his possessive desire so loud, Charles felt like he was drowning in it, both his and Erik's. He didn't know how long they stayed locked in that moment or even what Erik read from his own expression, but then Erik was kissing him, hard and demanding, everything he'd come to expect from an alpha seeking to dominate, except for the fact he couldn't bring himself to care. It would've been easy to push Erik away, to use his power to stop him; instead Charles returned the kiss, sliding his captured hand around until their fingers were tangled together where they rested against the wall.

Like the moment that had led to it, Charles had no perception of how long they kissed, one caress melting into another, their minds blurry, hot, entwined. It wasn't until they felt the jolt of the ship entering slipstream that they broke apart, holding fast as they weathered the spinning chaos of the stream as the ship careened through it.

There was another jolt as they re-entered normal space and it rocked the ship, unsteadying Charles and Erik on their feet. At almost the same moment, the doors to the bridge slid open and Charles risked a glance to see Moira glaring back at him, hands on her hips and disapproval clouding her features.

"We're on our way to the next point," she said. "If either of you are still interested in this mission we're on. The mission you brought to us and you accepted."

Charles gently disentangled his fingers from Erik's. "Yes, of course. ETA?"

"Three minutes and closing," she said. "But we're going to give Raven a little more time to rest before the next jump. Luckily, we're in an area of space that lacks any real threat."

Erik finally stepped back, arms immediately crossing over his chest. Charles turned a pleading look toward Moira but she ignored him in favor of glaring at his companion. Charles sighed. "We'll join everyone on the bridge by the time we reach the slip point," Charles told her. "But, if you don't mind, could you give us a moment to conclude our discussion."

That earned him Moira's cutting gaze. "Discussion, really? That's what you're going with?"

"Moira, if you'll excuse us..." he said, nodding toward the bridge doors.

"Fine," she said. "Hopefully you have remembered what is and is not appropriate behavior for the middle of a mission."

"That's quite enough," he said, even though he agreed. "Thank you for the update."

With one last glare in Erik's direction, Moira disappeared back onto the bridge, leaving them alone once more.

"She's right, you know," Charles said. "This...isn't something we can address at the moment. We have more important things to concern ourselves with."

Erik nodded, expression unreadable. It made Charles glad that he was a telepath so he was privy to the emotions Erik tried to keep so carefully hidden. "The Engine is our first priority at the moment."

"Right," Charles nodded. "Everything else can be tabled until later."

"Tabled?" Erik asked with an arching brow. "Or ignored?"

"Tabled," Charles answered, a promise. "But when the time is right..."

Finally Erik nodded, a slow and deliberate gesture. Then he cleared his throat, eyes wandering to the metal rivets above Charles's head. "I should probably -- I apologize. For my actions on the bridge."

"But not what came after?" Charles teased. His fingers stroked over Erik's bicep where his clan tattoos had once been. It was now an ugly scar from where the Hel had burned them away as another sign of his slavery.

There was a flash of heat in Erik's mind that his face only reflected in the fever brightness of his eyes. "No."

"We had better report to our stations," Charles said. "Moira won't hesitate to chastise us further."

When the two of them returned to the bridge, Charles immediately knew it was readily apparent what had happened because he could hear the excited chatter of his young crew's thoughts, each of the speculating about him and Erik. Instead of alerting Erik to their speculation, Charles floated a warning to each of them via his telepathy, watching in amusement as their reactions flickered across their faces. Once he had the rest of his crew back on task, Charles went to check on Raven who was still in the pilot's seat, eyes closed as she rested and Hank hovered protectively at her side.

"All right, love?" Charles asked her, taking a hold of one of her hands.

"I just need another minute or two," she said without opening her eyes. "Then we can do this."

"We can wait," he told her. "If you need more rest." Slipstream navigation was hard, multiple twisty jumps even more so. If Raven hadn't had the blessing of her mutation, she probably would've been out of commission before this last jump out of Sabra space.

She shook her head as she opened her eyes. "It's the last jump, Shintaido's on the other end. I'm not stopping now."

Convinced of her resolve, Charles accepted her decision with a nod. "Just let us know when you're ready and we'll be on our way."

Compared to the first several jumps Raven had made, the last one was simple and straightforward. Before they knew it, they were staring down at the blue-and-green swirl of a planet, where it orbited its yellow star. It didn't look like anything special or mysterious but the import of where they are finally hit them -- they had found Shintaido.

"Can you tell me anything?" Charles asked Darwin who was conducting the sensor sweeps of the planet.

"It appears uninhabited," he reported. "Not even any significant signs of construction, except for one building on its southern continent."

Charles examined the exception as Darwin pulled it up on the screen, a massive stone structure rising up from the middle of a lush, green jungle. There was little else he could discern of it from orbit.

"I bet it's hot," Raven said with palpable disdain. "There's probably bugs, too. I hate planets. Why doesn't everyone just stick to ships and drifts and space stations?"

"Because we're not all ridiculous," Alex answered, but Charles quieted the argument before it started with the wave of his hand.

"Bugs notwithstanding," he said. "That structure is probably where we should start looking for the missing piece of the Engine.We'll transport down as soon as we've prepared."

"Yes! Field trip," Sean said with glee.

"I'm afraid not," Charles told him. "We have no idea what's down there. We'll start with a team of three."

"I'm going," Erik said, the first words he'd spoken since they'd rejoined the crew. "You can't stop me."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Charles told him. "You can accompany me and Moira."

Moira? Erik asked and Charles was grateful he'd expressed his incredulity mentally. You're not serious.

Of course I am.

She's not a mutant.

I'm aware but she'll be three times as useful as anyone else on the crew if we run into trouble. This isn't a discussion, Erik.

Eirk sighed. "How soon can we be ready to leave?"

Charles thought for a moment. "It shouldn't take more than a few hours to get everything ready, yes? Hank, make sure our medpacks are stocked for the conditions we might face given the climate."

"Of course, Charles," Hank said.

"And you know what Moira needs, Sean," he said.

Sean answered with a jaunty little salute. "On it, boss," he promised. "Everything will be aces for my favorite doll."

"And Moira..." Charles waited until he caught her eye before he continued. "Can I trust you to make sure Erik is kitted out with the appropriate weaponry?"

She even looked less excited than she had in response to Sean's exuberance. "Of course, Captain," she said.

Charles promised to make it up to her somehow. "Alex, I need maps as detailed as you can get them given time and distance. Darwin, Angel -- the transport. All right?"

"What about me?" Raven asked.

"Rest," he told her firmly. "And if you can't obey my orders on your own, I'll have Hank drag you off to the medbay."

Raven frowned as she unclipped her safety harness. "No fun, Charles. No fun at all."

He settled for giving her a pat on the arm. "Everyone know what they're supposed to be doing? Good." He took in their expectant faces. "In a few hours, we'll head down and see if this Engine is as real as Erik seems to think it is."

**

Shintaido was as hot and uncomfortable as Raven had theorized, although Erik found its environment no great hardship. During his time of slavery at the hands of the Hel, he had worked in much worse conditions, on desert planets where they'd used his powers to help in their mining operations. He much preferred the rough terrain and sticky humidity of the jungle that he, Charles and Moira now travelled through to most of his past experiences on terra firma.

They had landed the small transport craft they'd brought down to the planet on a fairly even plateau that, unfortunately, was several miles from the temple they'd come to investigate. They had at least a day's hike through the dense vegetation before they would reach what Charles kept calling the "Temple of Souls," in reference to some Vederan fairy tale Erik had never bothered to learn.

The closer they drew to the temple, the closer they drew to Erik's realization of the next step in his plan to rid the Tri-Galaxy of Shaw and his Hel clan and the more Erik's mind focused on the tasks at hand, narrowing until only the objective filled his thoughts. He had thought it would've been more difficult to keep his mind from Charles but Erik had underestimated his own resolve. It wasn't that Charles wasn't a pleasant distraction where he trekked beside him, pale skin shiny with perspiration, but Erik found him a help instead of a hindrance. There was something motivating about working so well with someone and they had found such a stride between them.

Grudgingly, Erik found himself impressed with Moira's performance as well, although he'd never admit it. She had expertly piloted their transport craft to the planet and now showed little signs of exertion as they worked their way through the jungle. Her pack looked as heavy as Erik's and she wasn't even breathing heavily. Whatever kind of human she was, Erik was almost willing to concede that she was built of superior stuff. On the ship he might've worried that Charles would overhear his thoughts on the matter and share them with Moira out of his own perverse sense of humor, but they had made an unusual discovery earlier in their journey: the further they delved into dark recesses of trees that stood between them and the temple, Charles had found that his telepathy grew weaker and weaker.

"It's like there's....interference," Charles had said, tilting his head from side to side as if he were an animal shaking water from his ears. "There's just white noise, static." He'd looked at Erik who had been watching him in concern. "I can just make out the presence of your mind and you're standing within arm's length of me, but I can't really read anything from you." He'd sighed. "Let's hope we don't find some need where telepathy would've been useful."

"Without other people, it hardly seems to matter," Erik had pointed out.

Meanwhile, Moira had been occupied with the comm device she wore around her wrist. "Your telepathy isn't the only thing that's dealing with interference," she'd said. "I can't comm through to the ship through this, either."

Charles had sighed again. "Well, let's get this over with. The sooner we reach the temple and see if the engine piece is there, the sooner we can make it back to the transport."

Erik had been worried for a brief moment that his own powers might've been affected by whatever was weakening Charles's but he was relieved to find that his mastery of metal remained unaffected. He could easily feel the metallic minerals in the ground and in the rocks that occasionally blocked their path, obstructions he was able to dispatch quickly with the application of his powers. Still, the way was frustrating and it seemed like no matter how far they travelled, the temple still remained just over the horizon, its spiky spire a tempting mirage forever out of their reach.

They lost the light of Shintaido's sun much earlier than Erik had hoped, but he knew Moira was right when she declared that they needed to camp for the evening. Even with their powered torches, the lack of natural light left them far too vulnerable to whatever surprises the jungle might hold. Again Erik was impressed by how competently Charles and Moira set up their small camp. He knew it was a sign of bias on his part, but he hadn't expected either of them -- a human and a mutant who seemed to have lived such a pampered life -- to be so efficient. When he saw the sly smile Charles sent his way, he had to remind himself that Charles couldn't actually read his thoughts in that moment.

"We should definitely reach the temple within a few hours tomorrow," Charles said as the two of them sat around the warm glow of their fire. Moira was huddled off on her sleeping mat, fiddling with something in the kit she'd gotten from Sean. "And we'll see if your engine part is here."

"It is," he said. "I know it."

"It's good to see that you have faith in something, my friend," Charles teased.

Erik accepted the playful rebuke, although he didn't let it stir his somber mood. He'd spent so much time that day thinking of Shaw and Hel, thinking of his revenge, that he could not lighten his thoughts, not even for Charles. "It's only the first step, you know," he said. "Even if I keep him from getting the last piece of the engine, I won't be done. I have to stop him, Charles, him and the Hel. They have to pay for what they've done."

"Him again," Charles said. "You know, I agree with you that the Hel are a menace. Not only for other clans but to the entire idea of peace within the Commonwealth's reach. But what you're talking about is revenge, not justice."

"I hope you're not going to try and talk me out of it," Erik said, cutting off anything else Charles might've sad. "It would be a waste of your breath."

"I don't need my powers to know that your mind is made up," Charles admitted. "But my point still stands."

Erik felt a stab of sympathy for Charles at the reminder of loss of his telepathy. He remembered what it felt like to wear the null collar, to have his connection to metal severed so cruelly. He also could admit to himself that he missed the feeling of Charles in the back of his mind, the ebb and flow of warmth and humor and affection he'd gotten used to since he had awakened in the Wisdom's medbay. "Still blocked?"

Charles nodded. "It's...unsettling, to say the least." Then he looked up into the canopy of the trees, perhaps searching for a hint of the dark sky above it. "I'd feel better if we could contact the ship. I don't like to think of my crew up there, cut off from us."

"Tomorrow, we should be back at the transport," Erik said.

Charles glanced back his way. "Hopefully," he said. Erik felt the light touch of Charles's fingers on his shoulder as Charles rose to his feet. "Until then. Good night, Erik."

It was Moira who relieved Erik from the first shift of watch and it was Charles who woke up at the first sign of light the next morning. They quickly packed up their belongings and continued cutting a swath through the overgrown jungle that separated them from the destination. As Charles predicted, the sun had yet to reach its mid-point in the sky when the temple exploded into their sight, emerging from the jungle growth with such starkness that it still came as a surprise even though they'd been working toward it for hours. It was a magnificent structure, one made of stone and etched over with decoration and symbols left there by unknown hands so many hundreds of years ago. It was separated from the jungle by a huge gulf that circled it; the only way to reach the temple was by a bridge that stretched over it, one that Erik looked at with palpable suspicion. He would've felt more comfortable had it had metal in it but it was mostly wood and rope, but Moira and Charles scrambled across it without visible pause, so Erik followed cautiously.

The temple seemed even more ominous once they stood on the wide stone steps that led to its entrance, staring up at his impressive height. There was no door that blocked their path inside but it was a yawning, black cavern.

"There's no use staring at it," Charles said after a long moment's pause. "Let's see what lies inside."

Moira led the way, using the torch she carried to light the path as they stepped into a small, dark antechamber, while Erik brought up the rear with Charles in between. They passed through the antechamber into a dimly lit chamber that lived up to the majesty of the temple's exterior, with a high, rounded ceiling intercut with dozens of small windows that let in enough of the Shintaidoan sun that their lights were unnecessary. The walls were covered with the same kind of decoration they'd seen on the outside, but it was interspersed among what was recognizably the script of some language Erik didn't read, as well as murals that depicted stories Erik presumed had been important to whoever had left them behind. Other than the walls, the temple was empty except for a huge stone altar that stood in its center, its surface etched deep with similar carvings.

Erik tried to hide his disappointment as he watched Moira and Charles make turns about the room, Charles slowly running a finger along the raised surface of the carvings he saw there. Moira looked less entranced by the beauty of their surroundings, although she was intent on studying them.

"There's nothing here," Erik said.

"There's a great deal here," Charles replied, leaning in to look at something on the eastern wall. "Whether or not it's what we're looking for is another matter."

Moira stood in front of a wall covered with a block of script. "This is pretty close to the ancient Vederan from Erik's map." She glanced toward Charles. "I'll try to see if I can adjust the translation matrix and apply it."

"Please do," Charles said, eyes still glued to his own patch of wall before he glanced in Erik's direction. "Is there any metal you can sense? Anything that might mean a hidden passage or hiding place?"

Erik reached out with his powers, looking for metal. He sensed the metal in their clothes, in their equipment, but nothing beyond what he'd come to associated with his companions. He met Charles's gaze and shook his head. "Sorry."

He shrugged. "It was worth a shot," he said, eyes trailing back to the wall. "You never un...what's this?" Charles took a step closer, flashing his torch at it to get a better look at it. "Moira? Over here."

Even though he hadn't been invited, Erik was on Moira's heels as they both headed over to Charles to see what had piqued his interest. They joined him in staring at one of the many murals on the wall, this one of three stylized figures holding up their arms up toward a glowing artifact. Beneath the image, there were words Erik couldn't read, which Charles brought to Moira's attention. "Can you translate this?"

Erik expected Moira to pull out a handheld or at least whatever flexi she must've been consulting to translate his map but she did nothing of the kind; instead, she seemed to be squint at it with marked concentration before she snapped her eyes toward Charles. "I think it says...that...the Engine shall deliver itself onto the righteous."

Charles glanced up at Erik as he smiled. "So there might be something here, after all."

"But where?" Erik asked, waving an arm at the emptiness of the temple chamber. "There's nothing here."

"We're obviously missing it," Charles said, moving toward the center of the chamber. "Or someone got here before us, but I refuse to believe that just yet. There has to be something."

"I've got to say I agree with Lehnsherr on this one," Moira said. "I'm just not sensing anything around here that could be construed as a piece of the engine. Even if a piece of it was once here, for all we know this is one of the places that the Hel or the Polaris already hit."

Charles circled the altar instead of answering, then went to run his fingers of its raised surface, just like he had with some of the wall. The difference was, though, that he almost instantly jerked his fingers back, like it burned him.

"Charles?" Moira asked.

He turned back to face them both, looking a little paler. "When I touched it, I sensed...something."

"Like with your powers?" Erik asked.

He nodded.

"But you're a telepath," he said. "You sense minds."

"I haven't sense anything since we arrived," Charles reminded him. "But there's...something. Not a being, but a presence. An intelligence, perhaps is the right word. "It's almost like when I..." Erik waited for him to finish his sentence but he didn't, although he gave Moira a long, meaningful look. "It was like that."

"You don't think..?" Moira began.

"I don't know." Charles broke off his conversation with Moira to beckon Erik to join him. "Perhaps you'll be able to sense something if you touch it as well? It's worth a try."

Erik didn't think it was much of a try but he had to admit he was curious, if only because Charles had seemed so startled when he'd touched it. Erik stood next to Charles, who gently rested his hand on the altar once again. He flexed his fingers in the air before he copied the motion, laying his hand on the stone beside Charles's.

Suddenly, it was like his veins were trying to move lightning instead of blood through his system as his senses were filled with the awareness of metal, as if everything in the world had turned into it, singing with its connection to him. As much as it felt like a homecoming, there was also pain and Erik instinctively jerked his hand away, cutting the connection.

"Well?" Charles asked, although something about tone said he already knew the answer.

"I agree with you," he finally said. "It's certainly something."

**

With both of their hands on the altar for that brief second, Charles had been able to pick up on Erik's thoughts, as if it had created some kind of feedback loop between them. He'd felt everything Erik had when he touched the altar, the overwhelming feelings that had poured through the conduit of his powers. And even though it had only lasted a second, it had left Charles even more certain of what he himself had felt from the altar.

"I think it's in there," he said out loud. "The engine piece. I think that's what's causing the reaction when we touch the altar."

"You said you sense an intelligence," Erik reminded him. "You think the engine has some kind of intelligence to it?"

"It's a mythical object that can reorder the universe at the whim of its user," Charles said. "I don't see how it could not have some kind of something to it."

"No ever noted such an occurrence in the other pieces," Erik told him. "And I'm sure you're not the first telepath to come near one of them."

Charles shrugged. "Do you have any other explanation?"

It was Erik's turn to shrug.

Moira chose that moment to join them at the altar, though she was careful not to touch it herself. Charles didn't blame her. "So how are we supposed to get it out of here? We don't have the equipment to bust it open."

"Actually, we do," Charles said. They both gave him a confused look, so he explained. "Erik, when you touched the altar, you sensed metal, yes?"

"Yes," he said.

"I think the engine part is metal, although perhaps not a kind you've encountered before," Charles told him. "You should be able to use your power to pull it out of the altar."

"Through all the stone?" Moira asked. "Won't that damage it?"

"Mythical item, reorders the universe on a whim," Charles told her. "I don't think a bashing against stone will hurt it too much."

When Charles glanced back at Erik, he was staring down at the altar. "It would take a lot of power, a lot of control," he said. "Maybe more than I have."

Charles shook his head, allowing his fingers to rest lightly against Erik's wrist for a second. "I've felt your potential, remember? You can do this."

Erik nodded. "Might as well try."

Charles couldn't stop himself from smiling. "Exactly." He gestured for Moira to step back away from the altar and she did so, although concern was plain on her face. Charles ignored it in favor of soothing the same emotion from Erik. "I'll be with you the entire time," he said, laying his hand on the altar again. "I'm here, if you need me."

Erik flicked his eyes toward Charles for a split second before he touched the altar again, sucking in a deep breath as he braced himself for what he knew was coming. Once again Charles could feel everything that Erik was feeling, the connection to the metal but also the pain, the uncertainty Erik had toward what he was doing, the exhausted limits of his self-belief. Charles tried to send back every reassurance he could through the link they had created thanks to the altar's power and finally after what felt like an eternity, he felt its stone rumble and shudder beneath his touch.

You're doing it, Erik, keep going.

"Charles, he needs to focus more or he's going to rip my guts out!" Moira called from behind him.

Erik, did you hear her? You have to focus your power just at the altar or else you're liable to pull down every bit of metal within a mile.

He received no acknowledge, verbal or telepathic, but Charles could feel the shift in Erik's concentration, narrowing itself downward with all the force he had at his disposal. The rumbling of the stone intensified until Charles could feel it crumbling beneath his hands, bits of its crashing to the floor as it split apart, as if cleaved open by some unseen fist. Charles finally had to abandon his position at Erik's side, stumbling back away from the altar as it gave way under Erik's assault and the every line of the temple seem to groan as an explosion of rock and a blinding light marked Erik's triumph.

There, suspended in the air above what had once been the altar and held there by Erik's power was the source of the light, a glowing object that looked nothing like Charles had been expecting. It resembled a scepter more than it did any part of an engine, made up of a long, glowing column with some sort of cog-like object at one end. But it looked exactly like the drawing he'd found on the wall, leaving Charles with little doubt that they'd found what they'd come for.

"I can't believe it," Moira murmured, now standing at Charles's elbow. "We actually found it."

"Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" Charles said. "To know that the Engine of Creation is real."

As they spoke, the light completely faded from where it shone out of the engine part until it was left looking like something much more ordinary. Erik carefully floated it toward them as he moved in their direction. "It's still in one piece," he said, a little disbelieving.

"Of course it is," Charles said. "I told you you could do it."

The look Erik shot him sent a warm shiver down his spine, even without the help of his telepathy. He smiled back.

It was Moira who broke the moment. "All right, so we're done here?"

"Indeed," Charles nodded. "I guess we should head back to the transport and let everyone know that our mission has been successful."

Erik seemed a little too distracted by the sight of the engine part, finally in his hands, to pay much attention to their conversation but Charles didn't begrudge him his preoccupation. Once they realized that Erik's power seemed to be the only way to lift their bounty -- even Moira's strength was no match for carrying it the old-fashioned way -- the three of them began the long journey back to their transport craft, retracing the steps they had taken to reach the temple on their way back out of the jungle.

Charles knew that as difficult as finding the engine part had been that deciding what they'd do next would be more difficult still. Erik had his own ideas about what needed to be done and Charles wanted to help him, if not to exact the revenge he so craved, at least help him find some measure of peace. He realized it would be the harder battle and he knew his reasons weren't completely altruistic -- he didn't want to lose Erik to his vendetta, which he feared would the only outcome possible if Erik faced the Hel alone.

They decided against stopping as they'd done the day before and instead pressed on into the more familiar territory even as the light began to fade from the sky. It was with no little relief that they reached the clearing where they'd left the transport craft just as twilight took its hold.

"Any luck with the comm now?" Charles asked Moira as she paused outside of the craft. Erik, on the other hand, continued inside, presumably to secure their bounty before take-off.

Moira shook her head, pressing uselessly at the controls of the comm unit on her wrist. "How about you?"

Charles tried to access his powers for the first time since he'd realized they were working. "I can almost sense Erik," he said. "But there's still noise."

Moira sighed. "Let's just get back to the Wisdom," she said. "There's no point in trying to figure it out now."

Charles had turned to follow Erik into the open bay door of the transport craft when he felt the slightest pluck at the edge of his muted powers. He paused, nearly causing Moira to bump into him as he turned back around to scan the dark edge of the jungle with his eyes.

"What?" Moira asked. "What's wrong?"

Charles took another step away from the transport vessel, squinting against the failing light. "I'm not sure, I ---"

There was a reddish flash from somewhere along the tree line and then there was a searing pain in Charles's shoulder as he shuddered under the impact of a projectile. The force sent him reeling back into the transport, gritting his teeth to stop the muffled curse he wanted to let loose.

"Charles? Charles?" Moira didn't hesitate before she rushed to his side, turning her shoulder so that the next shot from their unseen attackers struck her shoulder instead of his. The smart bullet found its target but deflected off of her harmlessly.

"I'll be fine," he assured her, although he doubted he would be standing much longer, at least not under his own power. Another bullet bounced off Moira's back as he gave up and slid to the ground, back against their transport vessel.

"Who are they?" she asked, still huddled protectively over Charles's form as another spray of bullets sprang from behind the dark leaves. Again, the ones that found Moira bounced off of her. "Lehnsherr! We're under attack!"

Charles ignored the pain enough to reach down and pull the force lance from his holster. He leveled it above Moira's shoulder with his good arm and fired two wild plasma shots in the general direction of their attackers. He didn't hit them but the momentary flash of light over their location gave him a better glimpse at what they were facing.

"What's going on?" Erik's voice was quiet but demanding from where he remained just inside of the open the transport door.

"There's at least three of them," Charles told him, ignoring the waver pain brought to his words. "At least one of them is directly ahead of us, another is off to his left about five meters."

There was another volley of smart bullets, most of which bounced off Moira's back once more. When it quieted, Moira lifted her head enough to glare at Erik. "A little help here? You do control metal, don't you?"

Charles risked a glance up toward Erik and noticed his wide-eyed expression. But then it was gone, shuttered away, and Erik swung out into the open doorway long enough to make a grabbing motion with his hands, which brought a shower of weaponry sailing out of the bushes and into the clearing.

Moira relaxed a little, no longer hovering so protectively over him now that the hail of smart bullets had been stopped. "Right behind and five meters?" At Charles's nod, she stood and spun around, then leveled her own force lance before firing off too clean plasma shots in the direction Charles had indicated. From the groans of pain they heard, it was clear her aim had been true. She knelt down again and wrapped her arm around Charles's waist before she hauled him to his feet. Even though it wasn't necessary given Moira's strength, Erik grabbed Charles by his good arm and helped manhandle him into a sitting position in the cargo hold of the transport craft near the crate that held the engine part.

"Watch after him," Moira told Erik. "I'll get us to the ship."

"Wait." Erik grabbed her arm to stop her. "I need to go after them."

"Them? The attackers?" At Erik's nod, she frowned. "Why?"

"They're still out there and we don't know where they came from," Erik said. "I'll be back."

"What? Lehnsherr! No!" Even as Moira's angry cries rattled through the vessel, Erik was gone, disappearing into the jungle after whoever their mystery attackers had been. "I hate alphas."

Charles couldn't stop the small laugh that brought on, even when it hurt to do so. "My sentiments exactly."

Moira knelt at Charles's side. "I'm not waiting on him. We're leaving now."

Charles shook his head. "No, we're not."

"I'm not letting you bleed out because he's an idiot."

"It's just a shoulder wound," he told her. "I'll be fine."

"I'd rather hear that from Hank," she told him. "And it would serve him right if we did leave him."

"We can't leave him behind," Charles said. "That's an order from your captain. We wait."

Moira wasn't pleased with his decision but it was one he refused to change, so she busied herself with taking out one of the medkits Hank had packed to tend to Charles. The pain medication was very welcome and it helped the ministrations that followed as Moira tried to do what she could with a field kit. They passed the better part of a terse hour together before Erik re-appeared, breathing hard, soaked with sweat, blood drying into flakes on his hands.

"I guess you caught up with them?" Moira said, looking down at his hands. Her own were covered in blood as well, but it was Charles's from where she'd tried to staunch the bleeding.

Erik gave one tight nod. "We won't have to worry about them anymore." Then he did as Moira had done earlier and knelt at Charles's side. "Are you all right?"

"No thanks to you," Moira snapped.

Charles tried to smile reassuringly. "Nothing Hank won't be able to fix up straight away. Moira? I think we can leave now."

While Moira quickly got the vessel in the air, headed out of the atmosphere where the Wisdom waited in orbit, Erik settled at Charles's side. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I've had much worse than this," Charles assured him, eyes closed. "Moira's just a worrywart."

As the craft put more and more distance between them and the planet, Charles's power slowly came to clarity again, something he welcomed most heartily. He wrapped himself in the care and concern he could feel pouring off Erik and let himself drift toward oblivion for the rest of the trip.

**

Moira had commed the Wisdom as soon as she'd been able, so it didn't surprise Erik that McCoy, Darwin and Raven were anxiously waiting to board the transport craft as soon as they landed in the docking bay. McCoy was most interested in assessing Charles's injury and rushing his unconscious captain to medbay for medical attention. Raven was only there to hover protectively and demand answers to questions she couldn't quite ask with her lip quivering whenever her eyes trailed back over to Charles.

It felt wrong, somehow, to turn Charles over to McCoy and let the large, blue mutant carry him toward medbay without him, but Erik doubted he would be allowed or welcomed at Charles's bedside so he fought against the instinct to follow and instead turned his attention to Moira as she finished her whispered conversation with Darwin. When she stopped speaking, Darwin shot Erik a long, assessing look before he headed out of the docking bay, no doubt going back to the bridge as its current, de facto captain.

When his eyes moved back to Moira, she was already looking at him with a glare even fiercer than the ones he'd gained from her previously. "What?" he demanded.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut like she'd thought better of it. "Just...go get cleaned up," she said, looking down at her own bloody hands before she bustled past him, intent on exiting as the bay as quickly as possible.

"Wait," Erik said, a command.

Still he was surprised when she paused, although she didn't turn to look at him. "What, Lehnsherr?"

"An answer," he told her. "What are you?"

At that, she did turn around. "What?"

"I watched those bullets bounce off of you," he told her. "I saw it. You say you're not a mutant but you're obviously not a human."

"Nobody ever said I was a human," Moira told him. "I'm not."

"Which brings us back to my question."

"You don't know?" she asked. "You can't feel it?" She snorted, shaking her head. "What kind of metal bender are you? I'm made of it from head to toe, Lehnsherr."

Erik recalled the strange vibration he always felt from Moira, an uneasy connection he hadn't experienced before when dealing with other beings, but he'd chalked it up to some kind of idiosyncrasy that hadn't born further thought. Obviously, he'd been wrong. "You're an android, then."

"Took you long enough," she said. "I honestly didn't realize you didn't know. I've really been giving you too much credit."

Now that Erik knew what he was looking for, he could reach out with his powers and feel the metal contours of Moira's construction hidden as they were by the synthetic biologicals that made it impossible to look at her and know her true origin. He stretched his awareness until it felt like he held Moira's core in his hands; with nothing more than the idle twitch of his fingers he could've gutted her where she stood. He met her eyes, that thought foremost in his mind. "I could tear you apart with a thought," he said, taking in her angry, agitated posture. "And yet you're not afraid of me."

"I am afraid of you, but not for myself," she told him. "Charles has made one stupid decision after another because of you. He was willing to sit and bleed to death as long as we didn't leave you behind when you didn't have any problem leaving him. That's what scares me."

Erik tried to ignore the guilt that stabbed at him from Moira's words; it was there, gnawing at him every time he thought about how pale Charles had looked when he'd finally made it back to the transport, how quickly Charles had lost consciousness. But his guilt didn't change the fact that he still knew he'd been right to go after their attackers, to make sure they didn't live long enough to bother them again. "Anyone who knows what we did on that planet is a far greater danger to Charles than I am, Moira. I couldn't just let them escape."

Again Moira opened her mouth and shut it without speaking. Instead, she pointed a finger at him. "I'm not having this conversation right now," she said. "I'm going to clean up and then I'm going to check on Charles. I suggest you do something on the other side of the ship."

Erik waited until he could feel the distance between them as her metal faded from his awareness before he left the docking bay in search of his own cabin. He followed Moira's advice and took a shower, washing the blood and grime away that he'd accumulated during their two-day stay on the planet. While he didn't feel quite the same as Raven about being on a planet, he had few memories since his childhood that he could relate to earth; the new settlements of the surviving Polaris tended to be on smaller bodies, like moons or asteroids, or on space stations. Not one of them wanted a new home planet, even when Gravion had spent more than a decade in enemy hands.

Erik remained in his quarters an entire hour before he could no longer deny himself some information about Charles's condition. Unlike the captain's Operations officer, Erik trusted Charles's word when he'd said that he had survived worse, but that didn't mean Erik didn't have a jittery feeling down in his bones that told him to seek out McCoy and verify that fact. Which was why, despite Moira's subtle threat that he do the opposite, Erik found himself standing outside of the ship's medbay.

It wasn't all that surprising that Moira had beat him to his vigil.

"I thought I told you to make yourself scarce?" she asked, straightening a little from her slouch against the wall just outside of Medbay. It was amazing, now knowing what she was, how human-like she acted, down to the smallest mannerisms.

Erik ignored her statement in favor of glancing toward the medbay door. "I came to see about Charles."

"Hank said only medical personnel for the moment," she told him. "Something about making sure Charles actually rests."

"So you're just...waiting?" he asked. At her nod, he bit back a smirk. "So you're a robotic watchdog? That's why he has you?"

"I'm his Operations Officer, that's why I'm part of his crew," she said, that look of disgust back on her face. "For someone who rails against the injustice his own people have faced, you don't extend the courtesy."

Erik raised his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm a sentient being, Lehnsherr, just like you," Moira told him. "I'm not an object Charles owns."

"You're nothing but a machine, made of the same bits of metal and cogs that holds this ship together."

"And you're mostly water, and my synapses compute at light speed compared to yours," Moira replied.

"But some Vederan did build you," Erik reminded her. "Or was it Sean?"

"I've been operational longer than Sean's been alive," Moira said. "Not that it's any of your business but I came online at the Howl of Clarity shipyard."

Erik wouldn't have cared except he was familiar with the Howl of Clarity shipyard. "Vederan? Military? You're a battle drone?"

He was expecting more of her disgust or exasperation but instead a thin smile stretched across her face. Moira straightened even more, chin raised. "No, I'm not. I'm a warship. My full designation is Balance of Fate, GRA-XMFC 1200."

Erik felt another uneasy prickle of recognition. "The Balance of Fate was one of the Commonwealth ships lost at the first Battle of Witchhead, against the Hel when they launched their first offensive."

Moira crossed her arms over her chest. "I -- my ship -- was lost when we responded to a call for help from Polaris clan and tried to intercept the Hel. It was one of twenty destroyed in the battle. I wasn't on Fate when she was destroyed, so I was...reassigned when they decided against re-commission. That's how I met Charles."

"So now you have micromanage a science vessel full of mutant spies?" Erik couldn't help but ask.

"You're not the only organic that has a problem with AIs, you know," she told him. "It's something you have in common with a lot of Vederans. They had me running the Vederan drydock where they built the Wisdom. Charles recognized -- rightly -- that my skills were better put in use elsewhere."

Somehow it didn't surprise Erik that he wasn't the only one among their ranks who had been swept up by the force of Charles's personality. In fact, he would've wagered they all had a tale similar to his or Moira's. "So he stole you?"

"For the last time, I'm not a knickknack he picked up somewhere," Moira said, rolling her eyes. "But yes, when I said I would be willing to join his crew, he got me a transfer. I'm still technically a member of the Vederan naval fleet."

At that precise moment, the medbay doors slid open and they both turned to face a very annoyed-looking McCoy. It was the most irritated that Erik had ever seen him and the first time that he'd seen the gentle giant take advantage of how naturally intimidating his mutant form was. "I restricted visitors for Charles because I wanted him to rest without distraction," he told them. "But apparently he can hear you thinking anyway, so you might as well come in and see him."

They wasted no time heading into the medbay, even as McCoy called out to Erik. "Just a warning," he explained. "It doesn't apply to Moira but...the pain medication makes Charles's powers a little...slippery. He can't control them like he usually does."

"At least now he'll have an excuse," he said before he followed Moira to Charles's bedside. Erik had hoped Charles would look less ghostly after expert medical attention but he was still too pale and his eyes had a feverish look to them, probably from the pain medication. Still, he smiled when he saw Erik join Moira at his side.

"Ship's status?" he asked Moira, voice slurred just enough to be noticeable.

"Darwin is on the bridge," she reported promptly. "He's monitoring long and short range for any further signs of company but nothing so far. Until you're recovered, we'll stay in orbit above Shintaido since you've neglected to make anyone aware of our next move."

"That's because I haven't decided on it yet," he admitted. He glanced over at Erik. "And our attackers on the planet? Did you find anything out about them?"

"They were Hel warriors," he said. "I knew it right away from their clan tattoos."

"That's...rather more dire than I'd hoped," Charles said after a moment, letting his eyes slide shut before they fluttered open again. "It certainly complicates matters."

"What a surprise," Moira said, glaring at Erik out of the corner of her eye. Then she reached down and gently squeezed Charles's good arm. "It can wait until tomorrow, though. I had Alex and Angel secure the engine part in the vault and there's no way anyone will sneak past us on high alert. At least take a few hours to recuperate."

Erik was surprised by Moira's mention of the engine part because it was the first time in hours he'd even thought about it -- since the attack had begun and Charles had been injured. The relic he had spent years searching for had only crossed his mind tangentially since the first Hel warrior had fired on them.

Moira's concern earned her a wan smile. "I don't think I have much choice in the matter. Hank was very generous with the sedatives."

Erik wondered if it was because McCoy knew his captain wouldn't rest otherwise.

"That's exactly why," Charles said, answering Erik's thoughts out loud. "Very observant of you."

Moira just shook her head. "I'm going to check in with Darwin. I'll come by in the morning, just in time for you to browbeat Hank into releasing you."

"I look forward to it," Charles told her.

Erik knew that there was no good reason for him to stay behind as Moira left, not when it was obvious that Charles was on the cusp of sleep that his body probably needed. Still, it felt like he was fighting instinct to leave the medbay, to leave Charles to suffer in solitude when he was there, with nothing he'd rather be doing more than keeping him company.

Suddenly, Erik was swamped by a wave of affection-warmth-fondness the source of which he knew could only come from one place.

I can't promise I'll be very entertaining, Charles sent into his head, somehow sounding even more drowsy in his mind-voice. But you're more than welcome to stay.

It didn't take much deliberation for Erik to give in both to his own instinct and to Charles's invitation, settling down in the closest medical cot for a long, quiet night.

**

Charles awoke alone the next morning. Erik had disappeared sometime while he had slept but Charles had still managed to wake early enough that Hank had yet to return to the medbay. So instead of waiting on either Hank to argue with him or Moira to collaborate with him, Charles left the empty medbay and headed back to his quarters without the usual arguments and doctorly disapproval.

It was always much nicer to be in his own quarters and Charles felt the familiar surroundings relax him, even as the injury smarted under his activity; still, he needed a shower desperately and it gave him a little more time to gather his thoughts. He had just finished the shower and was slipping into clean clothes when the only person on the ship capable of overriding his privacy look did so and marched into his quarters.

"You could've at least waited for me," Moira complained as she entered.

Charles paused, shirt still in hand as he glanced at her over his shoulder. "I am very capable of walking down the halls, showering and even dressing without your assistance."

She rolled her eyes at his flippant response and he turned away to hide his grin. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she said, leaning forward a little to peer at his bare back. "Are you sure you're all right?"

He shrugged before pulling on his shirt, only wincing slightly in pain. "I'm well enough, marvels of modern medicine and all." He turned back to her as he finished with his buttons. "Certainly well enough to decide on what we need to do next when it's obvious staying here any longer than necessary isn't a good idea."

Moira nodded. "So we're briefing then?"

"I think so, yes," Charles said. "But right after breakfast, no need to wake everyone up early. I have to do some things to do anyway."

"Full complement or...?"

Charles thought for a moment. "Actually, no. Me, you, Darwin. And Erik, of course."

"Of course," Moira parroted.

Charles ignored her insubordinate tone, as he often did. "Did you have a chance to run any tests on the engine part once we had it on the ship?"

"No," Moira said. "We were all a little distracted by our captain almost dying."

"It wasn't a reprimand, it was just a question," he told her. "Do you think you can run some and have the results before our briefing?"

"Of course," Moira nodded. "Anything else?"

Charles gave her a quick smile and touched her arm. "Thank you for taking such good care of me on the planet. As usual, you exceeded all my expectations."

"I would've never forgiven you if you would've died waiting on Lehnsherr," she told him very seriously. "And I would've launched him out of one of the torpedo bays."

"And that's why you're such a valuable member of this crew," he told her, still smiling. "And yes, that's all."

Moira's face softened a little, the only indication that she was pleased by his words. It was one of the most interesting and sometimes frustrating aspects of their friendship, that her composition meant he was not privy to her thoughts as he was with other beings. Often it was a welcoming relief to have company but not have to guard himself but sometimes it made him worry that it left him at a disadvantage when all he has was his words to express himself to her. "I'll see you in a few hours."

After Moira left him, Charles settled as his console and tried to weigh everything in his mind, make sense of all the moving pieces of the situation. What had started out as a simple rescue on Takilov Drift when he'd gotten Erik away from the Hel warriors had quickly become something else entirely. Despite its mythical status, the Engine of Creation did seem to exist in such a way that mortals like themselves could feel it and touch it -- and maybe even use it. The threat that the Hel clan posed had risen immeasurably in Charles's estimation now that he'd been faced with that concrete proof. Even if the myths had exaggerated the extent of the Engine's powers, his own experiences with the piece they'd found told him it still housed incredible powers.

When Charles joined the rest of the crew for breakfast, they were very happy to see him, although Hank expressed his happiness through a long, tedious lecture about following medical advice. Erik somehow ended up on the other end of the long table at which they ate, so they didn't have a chance to talk, although Charles was aware both of Erik's eyes following him and of Erik's thoughts about him as they floated through the alpha's mind, a strange mix of concern, possessiveness and wariness. Erik was another complication Charles had to consider when he thought about what to do next. He had never had trouble in the past maintaining his resolve when it came to Brotherhood alphas, especially when it came to one as obvious in their interest in him. But Erik had been different from the start and Charles couldn't deny that he felt a connection to Erik, one he was both hesitant to explore or to lose. Charles wasn't used to ambivalence or indecision when it came to his own mind and it left him unsettled -- especially when he caught Erik's eye and knew that he wasn't alone in what he felt.

Moira met Erik, Charles and Darwin in the conference room a little while later, ready to present her preliminary findings from her examination of the engine piece they'd found on Shintaido.

They were as vexing as Charles had feared.

"According to the ship's computers, the engine piece isn't made of any metal as yet known to its database and its weight is equal to approximately that of three galaxies," Moira told them.

"Lovely," Charles said. "Another point in favor of its mystical origins, I suppose."

Darwin turned to Erik. "And the Hel have the other four parts?"

"At least three," Erik said. "I assume they found the fourth which is why they began to concentrate on finding out what I knew about this one."

"Well that means they are at least one piece short of the whole Engine, at least for the moment," Charles said. "That's the good news."

"But the bad news is how those Hel warriors ended up on Shintaido the same time as we did," Darwin said. "We never caught any evidence of a bigger vessel than a scout, so it looks like they came by themselves."

"Yes, the question is the how," Charles agreed. "Especially as we try to decide what to do next."

Erik leaned forward, pale eyes boring into Charles's. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked. "My plan was always to go after Shaw once I secured this part of the Engine. I had assumed when you agreed to help me that that would be our next step as well."

"It's not that simple, Erik," Charles said.

"I disagree," he replied. "You don't have any other option, Charles -- the presence of those Hel warriors changes everything. We don't know what the Hel knew before they got here or what they might've gotten back to the others before I took them out, so you have to assume the worst. And the worst is that the Hel suspect you have the Engine piece which means the entire clan and their allies will be after you and your crew. The only way to protect yourself is to take them out first."

"Which, as I'm sure you know, is no easy task," Charles said. "The Vederan military has been trying to neutralize the Hel for two decades with little success. I'm all for an offensive but I haven't heard a plan yet that's feasible when all I have is a skeleton crew of mutants and one clever android on a science vessel."

Erik grinned but it was a hard, cruel expression, one that came with a swell of bloodlust in Erik's mind. "That's because you haven't asked me."

"Of course, if we'd captured one of the warriors instead of someone slaughtering them, we'd have those answers now," Moira said with a glare toward Erik. "But I assume that never occurred to someone."

"Hel warriors are known for their resistance to torture," Erik said, as if he had thought of that himself but rejected it.

"And we have a telepath who's yet to meet a mind he can't extract information from when he needs to," Moira shot back. "But again, I think that fact went over your head."

Erik's eyes darted away from Moira's scowl until they met Charles's. "Sorry," he said after a long moment.

Charles shrugged. "What's done is done," he said. "We're left with the situation at hand, not an ideal one."

"So even if we decide on a plan for going after the Hel," Darwin began with a wave in Erik's direction, "The thing we can't do is just waltz into their territory with the thing they want most onboard, especially if they know we have it. It wouldn't matter what kind of plan we had, they'd be able to take us down and get the engine piece."

"Darwin's right," Moira said. "Going anywhere near the Hel with the engine piece still on the Wisdom is asking for a lot more than trouble."

"Keeping it is safer than stashing it somewhere," Erik said.

"No, it's not," Moira argued.

Erik looked unconvinced. "And you know someone who is well-defended enough that they can guard it in case of a Hel attack, but whose trustworthy enough that we don't have to fight them for it when we come back after it?"

It was obvious from Moira's expression that she couldn't think of anyone and Darwin's thoughts agreed with Erik. But Charles, his mind went somewhere else entirely as he thought back to what it was like to experience the telepathic connection he had with the engine part, how otherworldly it had been. It had reminded him of another connection he'd once had, one that still hummed ever so slightly at the back of his mind if he looked for it. If there was one being in existence, one this plane or any other, that Charles knew he could trust, it was her.

And, she, of everyone, would understand why he'd be willing to risk everything to come to her for help.

"I do," Charles said aloud as he came to his decision.

"You do what?" Erik asked.

"Know someone who has the means to protect the engine part and who can be trusted with it," Charles said. "In fact, there are a few old friends of mine I think might be able to help us."

"Who?" It was Darwin who asked; Moira and Erik were too busy looking at him like they might be able to decipher his meaning from the lines on his face.

Charles met Moira's eyes, hoping they could convey what he was unable to send to her telepathically. "Someone I knew long before you came aboard, Darwin. She's a very...old friend."

Moira's eyes widened a little. "You don't mean...?"

"Who else?" he told her before he addressed Darwin and Erik. "Darwin, please set in a course back to Vedera -- take the long way to stay as far away from Brotherhood space as possible, all right? And Erik...?" When Erik nodded in encouragement, Charles continued. "You owe me a plan of action against the Hel, yes?"

"I have several," Erik said promptly.

"Be prepared to discuss them in a few days," Charles said. "But they can wait. We have an interim goal in the meantime."

As he followed Darwin out of the conference a few minutes later, Erik seemed reluctant to leave but Charles was not ready for the questions he knew Erik would have for him, so he gestured for him to leave. From the scowl he sent Charles's way before the door closed behind him, Erik was not pleased with the dismissal.

"Are you sure about this?" Moira asked when they were alone.

"Do you have a better idea?" Charles wanted to know.

She shook her head. "No, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

"Any particular objection?"

"Other than the memory of what it did to you last time?"

Charles thought about the Hel clan and the engine piece locked away in the ship's vault. He thought about Erik, his pain and determination and his anger. "I think...this is important enough to risk it."

He just hoped he wasn't wrong.

**

Just as Charles had ordered, the Wisdom was soon on its way back to Vedera, leaving Shintaido far behind. The route that Alex had plotted and the captain had approved was circuitous, taking them far longer than necessary but keeping them well away from known Brotherhood areas. While Erik applauded the effort, to him it would just delay the inevitable confrontation coming between them and the Hel clan. It didn't matter what clever plans Charles thought he had in place, there was no other way it was going to end, at least not if Erik had anything to say about it.

Even as the ship's very efficient crew saw to their departure, its captain was nowhere to be found, at least not where Erik was concerned. He was already much too used to this particular tactic of Charles's, so he wasn't surprised when Charles found a variety of reasons to remain cloistered with Moira, not when it was obvious there were questions he didn't want to answer about their next destination after Vedera.

Erik, however, was not so easily deterred.

He finally found Charles late into the last shift of the ship's day, almost by accident. He'd come up to the Wisdom's observation deck which tended to be empty that late in the day when Raven had long since tended the plants that decorated it and everyone else had retired to their quarters. But when Erik arrived, he immediately saw that he wasn't the only one who had been lured there by the promise of its quiet atmosphere and the stunning view it offered of the passing stars.

"Charles."

"Erik," he said in reply, looking over at his shoulder at the sound of Erik's voice. "This is a surprise."

"One you've tried hard to avoid today," Erik said as he walked around the large pots of flora that made up Raven's makeshift garden to stand beside Charles.

"I have had a lot on my mind today," he said, not offering any other apology for his actions. "It doesn't leave me very fit for company, I'm afraid."

"You're not the only one with that problem," Erik said. "I find myself with questions, particularly about where we're going and what we're going to do when we get there."

Charles looked away, back out into the blackness of space. "I know. But I really can't answer them at the moment."

"Really?" Erik asked, eyebrow raised.

"Yes," he said. "You're not the only one with secrets, my friend. Let me keep mine a little longer, if I can."

Erik wanted to push, wanted to press, like he had so many times since he'd first met Charles, but he was beginning to realize -- really realize -- that it would never be as simple as that with Charles Xavier. For all that alpha nature told him to do so, told him to make Charles submit to his dominance, to his attention, he was more than aware that it would've been fruitless when it came to Charles. It was like Charles's being spoke a language that Erik didn't understand; it didn't stop him from trying to communicate, but it was mostly a series of misunderstandings.

But Erik was nothing if not persistent.

"There are other things we could discuss," Erik told him, making sure he had Charles's full attention before he added, "Things we decided to table earlier?"

He earned a hint of a smile with that, one that seemed to light in Charles's bright blue eyes as much as it lifted the corners of his mouth. With it came a creeping sense of warmth on the edge of Erik's consciousness, the one that he'd come to welcome as a sign of Charles tangling into his senses. "Do you really think this is really a good time to revisit that particular topic?"

Charles was so close that Erik could smell him -- warm cloth and medical tape, sweat and spice. "It's quiet."

"For the moment," Charles said. "We're very far away from the end of this path we're taking."

"We both know we might be too late if we wait until the very end," Erik told him bluntly. "You know why I'm here, Charles. That hasn't changed."

"I do know," he said, and Erik felt Charles's hands come to rest on his arms, pulling him ever so much closer. For all its subtlety, it was a clear sign that Erik wasn't the only one who searching for answers about what lay between them. "But I hope that there's a better way, for all of us."

"That's not what I want to talk about." Erik let his hand come up to rest against Charles's throat, against the sliver of skin exposed by the looser cut of the shirt he wore. It was one of those instinctive actions, a hint at all the things he felt just below the surface.

From the way Charles leaned into his touch, Erik knew he wasn't the only one. "I've gathered," Charles said. "And this is something I think we might need to wait on. Don't you?"

Erik didn't say anything, just continued to let his fingers trace over Charles's skin, idle patterns that meant nothing other than prolonged contact. He tried to decide what he could say or do to get his way but his past experiences were useless when it came to predicting what to say or do where Charles was concerned. "You say you know everything about me," he finally said, a complaint. "But I don't know anything about you."

"You know enough," Charles said. His eyes slid shut. "More than good's for me, probably."

"I don't even know your name," Erik argued softly. They were so close, almost without thought, like metal fillings and magnets, drawn together.

"I think we got around to introductions fairly early in our acquaintance," Charles said.

"Your full name," Erik explained. "Your clan name."

Charles's eyes met Erik's for a long time and the telepathic connection between them abuzz with a complicated twist of emotions from Charles. He brought his hand up to cover Erik's, pressing it against his skin before he wrapped his fingers around it. "In another life, if we'd met under different circumstances, I might've introduced myself as Charles Xavier, son of Sharona and Brian," he said softly. "Of Phoenix clan."

Erik didn't know how he knew exactly but he could feel how much it cost Charles to share himself in such a way, to accept even that small piece of his connections to the Brotherhood. "Phoenix," he said with an amused snort. "I should've known."

Charles pulled away, gently releasing Erik's hand. "Good night, Erik," he said before he slipped away, the tell-tale swish of the door opening and closing letting Erik know when he was truly alone on the deck.

It hadn't been what he'd wanted, but Erik knew Charles had given him something that night, something indefinable, something he hadn't given to many others.

Erik decided that, for the moment, it was enough.

**

(the end)