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How did you know the last ones were disappearances?

[ A valid question, even if the obvious answer in his own case is so much simpler than it would ever be for Erik. Still, the feeling and intuition nags. ]

I'm quite aware of his proclivities in that department, but this is too rash, even for him.

The note that was left, for one.

[ The one that left Logan and Erik in charge of the house and school. ]

It happened on the ship, too. People would be there one day and then gone. Sometimes coming back and not remembering anything.

Like me.

[ He remembers that too. The frustration (some of it still surfacing upon occasion) in his not knowing a great many things he ought. ]

No such thing, as far as I've been able to see.

[ And the concept of Erik leaving so quietly is precisely what makes him think something is wrong. Usually, this comes on the heels of something catastrophic. Something he needed to be talked down from and then given "space" to cope with later. He's no stranger to the idea of Erik leaving. But it's always pointed and pregnant with unresolved tension that only surfaces in the strained "goodbye." ]

It's too quiet to be anything else.

[ Jean can finally feel herself deflate and she falls sideways onto her bed and pulls her nest of blankets over her. Another member of their team, their family, gone. At least the Erik she had known from her time.

She sighs a few times before writing back: ]

I'm sorry.

Jean, I'm used to this.

[ There. Frank. Plain as day. No hint of dishonesty, no matter how frustrating the idea, or how much it rankles every time. By now, he thinks, it's destined to happen sooner or later with Erik. That's simply the way the man works. The way the world works.

He isn't worried for himself. ]

You shouldn't have to be.

And it doesn't get easier, I know.

[ Just more common. ]

No, but I am. It doesn't really stop hurting, even if you're used to it and I know he's your friend.

[ Just because this sort of thing has happened before, that doesn't mean it's any easier for her any time it happens. She still misses Peter at random intervals of the day. ]

[ Charles would say that missing Erik--or at least what they had once and only manage in quiet, unspoken, small moments--is something of a permanent state of being, but somehow he imagines that continuing to push on that point isn't going to help much. ]

He is, yes. But I'll be alright. I can't do anything to change it [ or him ] today. I'm more concerned for you, at present.

[ She sighs at that and responds in a way that's almost a reflex since she traveled through the Ingress and ended up on the Moira. ]

I'm fine.

[ He stares at that message for longer than he probably should. ~~Or into the camera like he's on the Office?~~ ]

Do you really expect me to believe that?

You can believe what you want.

I'm used to people leaving by now.

Jean.

[ #teenagers ]

While I am all for letting you process as you will, I think you know as well as I do that denial isn't going to help anything.

I accept he is gone. How is that denial?

[ She just doesn't want to talk about it. She's so tired of crying. ]

I am not about to insult your intelligence by pretending that you really don't know what I meant.

[ It's not Erik being gone. He knows that. Effectively, it could be any one of them. Kurt, Raven, Logan. The hurt is the same regardless, and the hurt is where he thinks the real denial is. ]

[ She can already feel the pressure in her eyes and she rolls them, making a frustrated noise under the blankets. Dammit, Dad. ]

It doesn't matter. It can't be changed.

[ And she hasn't found any way to stop it. ]

I beg to differ. Facts may not change, no. But we do. You matter. Your feelings on this very much so too.

[ He's definitely making his way upsties now as he sends this. It has gone beyond the purview of what he can send in text. It feels too distant when that distance isn't necessary. ]

Edited 2017-07-31 14:57 (UTC)

And if I don't want to talk about how I feel?

[ She just shoots it off because she's frustrated and sometimes continuing to dance around a subject is frustrating even for her. For an empath, keeping things bottled up is both necessary and suffocating. But it's what she's known for years now. ]

Then we won't talk.

[ But that does nothing to help with the weight of it. He looks at this as he pauses outside of her door for a moment.

He isn't prying, not exactly, when he can sense the upset. She may not be projecting much, not to someone who doesn't know what to look for, but he's had years to understand the nuances of her bottled emotions at this point.

And talking, or no, he is not leaving her alone to this. That isn't right. ]

But I am coming in.

[ She can feel him getting closer and actually pokes her head out of her nest when she can feel him just outside the door. She looks at the text and then huffs as she goes back down under the blankets.

She can hear the door open and his chair. Through the blankets, ]

You don't have to do this. I'm fine.

[ Says the girl sullenly buried under blankets. ]

[ He tsks at her, but doesn't initially argue the point. She knows she isn't as well as how plainly Charles can see it. Instead, he drags that silent response into a painfully long moment as he quietly closes the door behind him. He doesn't answer until he's wheeled his way over to the side of her bed. ]

Perhaps, I don't. [ He doesn't believe it, and the response doesn't sound as if he's booked real consideration. ] But someone should.

[ She's quiet under the blankets, knowing she's done this before when she was still struggling to control her powers and it was easier to hide away from everyone else. But this time, she's trying to hide away from everything. On top of feeling genuinely cold.

It's a longer moment still before she responds with, ]

He wasn't the Erik I knew.

[ He doesn't initially find that statement to be incorrect. He and Erik, or this "version" of him (does that ever get any less strange?), had come from incompatible times, though their incompatibility in other respects felt familiar enough.

But with Jean, it becomes a strange statement, slightly worrying. She's seen this before, it seems. Multiple visions and versions of the same person. Can he live up to that expectaton either? Can anyone?

He frowns slightly, and finally he reaches a hand to squeeze a shoulder through that soft fortress of blankets. ]

How do you mean?

[ She sighs and shakes her head to herself, ]

He just... he was from a different time when he came here. Didn't know me, didn't realize he still had a family in us. It made it hard to talk to him. Be around him. Feeling all that anger and pain.

[ Though she had tried to seek some solace when he was the only one left after Charles and Logan left. He had been more closed off than she would have liked. Especially when she knew he was capable of more. ]

[ Charles frowns intently. He doesn't say it, but that obatinate point made upon his arrival sticks out in his mind: he'd given control of the school--which always means the care of people in it--to a man who seemingly paid it no consideration? ]

Jean, I'm sorry.

[ He had no idea. Sincerely, none. Erik had made such a point of his previous trust (even if Charles still remembers none of it, no matter how he tries to pry backward). He'd questioned it, of course, but seemingly for the wrong reasons.

Why would Erik have said yes, if this was the result?

He sighs heavily, and pushes up from the chair to the edge of her bed. ]

He has, unfortunately, always been...touchy. [ Anything worse feels like speaking ill of the dead, even if...no, that isn't literal. ] Was he like this when I was here the last time too?

[ Softly, ]

You don't have to apologize for him. You didn't make him that way.

[ Jean knows it was Erik that chose to act the way he did. Just like all of them have a responsibility for acting how they do. Though his question makes her frown at the underside of her blankets. ]

He arrived here like that.

[ A pause. ]

He had blood on him. Other people's blood.

[ He can't help the tired sound that escapes at that. Of course. Of course it had been right then. Charles still feels for his family, the family that always seems to be in the line of fire when it comes to Erik, but he still finds it difficult to reconcile the events to what he'd seen of his behavior. Especially when he'd just come out of what he had thought--terribly--would be their final argument. ]

His family.

[It's a quiet admission, and it goes no further. It wouldn't even if he had the story. But all he remembers is Raven's arrival and Erik's anger upon questioning...and then every other time it had come up here too.]

Getting him to realize that he has people who care, unfortunately, has been a long journey, and no one is changing that overnight.

[ Nor over a matter of months, it seems. Erik never could tell him why he'd even stayed. He can't expect the same explanation he could have back home. ]

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giiiirl

get off her case dad!!!

NOPE SORRY he's coming upstairs w/ hugs just you wait

not the hugs!!

TOO LATE

HUFFS

X (

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sorry I got caught up

no worries!

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