Nathan, Charles - The Cassandra Complex, part three (Friday evening)

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After Nathan's final encounter with Askani, Charles enters his mind to assess what's happened. Nathan tells him about the Askani, and makes a decision about what direction his life is going to take now.



Charles waited at the borders of Nathan's mind, encompassing the turmoil of unconsciousness with his own mind easily, shielding the more sensitive members of the school from any accidental transmissions. He and Hank and Marie had managed to cut open the psi-dampening room using some tools from the Blackbird, while Lee had started on the process of ensuring that there was no serious damage to the house itself. They had moved Nathan to a bed in the medlab and Hank had banished Marie to her room with painkillers for her headache while Charles waited for Nathan to wake and for Moira to arrive.

Consciousness dawned slowly on the horizon of Nathan's mind and as the light rose, Charles found himself standing on the beach once more. The sky above was softer, luminous instead of scorched, and the winds that blew were mellow with hints of resolution. The portal, that angry rift into the future, was gone and the sea was tamed to gentle ripples. All around him hung mirrors, glittering with the lives within them. Charles stood just beyond the reach of the lapping waves and waited for Nathan to join him.

Kneeling on the sand, eyes closed as he tried to chart the boundaries of all these lives, all these years that had been added to his memories, Nathan sensed Charles' calm, undemanding presence. Waiting for him. He opened his eyes and rose to his feet, picking his way around the mirrors, barely noticing that they parted, just a little, to make it easier for him. He did feel them pull at him, just a little. Inviting his attention, instead of demanding it. It was a nice change.

Charles was standing by the water's edge, and Nathan hesitated for a moment before going down to join him. "Is everyone all right?" he asked, first of all. He remembered getting to the psi-shielded room in time, but when Askani had given him all of this, something had broken open in his mind and he was suddenly afraid of what Charles might tell him.

"Everyone is well," Charles said gently. "You did what needed to be done." He had felt the impact of Nathan's revelation, felt the constructs changing in the man's mind in the moment that he understood and acknowledged his connection to the Askani and accepted his role in history... or what would be history for a future that he hoped would unfold far differently from the one to which Nathan was witness. "The question now is, how are you?"

That sudden tension drained out of him, and Nathan smiled helplessly, half-turning to look at the beach full of mirrors. "Very different," he said softly. "Very different." Charles waited, obviously sensing that he was struggling with the words, and after a moment, Nathan went on. "I see it all, now. They're all here with me..." From a red-haired conscript girl who had escaped the Cannanite army and gone on to found a Clan of her own, to that last apocalyptic battle. Nathan took a deep, shaky breath, his eyes blurring with tears despite the smile that was still lingering on his lips. "It was meant to be," he said. "I was meant to see this."

"I don't usually admit to the evidence of Fate, but I concur in this case." Charles looked around him slowly, taking in the scene. "There's certainly the taste of predestination to this event. Your mind is your own again now, at least to some extent," he said, smiling as he gestured at the mirrors. "What will you do with it now?" The landscape was changing subtilely with the passing moments as it adjusted to reflect Nathan's new state of mind and the softer ambient light hinted at places that had been fully shrouded in darkness when Charles had visited in the past.

Nathan turned back to Charles, "Do you know what she told me?" he asked. Charles watched him, waiting. "Askani means 'outsider'. She chose the name because they still tell stories, two thousand years from now, about your X-Men. Askani was the closest she could come in her language." He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the memories that related wash over him like a gentle wave. "They're legends at that point, of course--all the details are different, but the name survived. The ideas survived." Opening his eyes again, he met Charles' gaze levelly, part of him amazed by how alert he felt. Even with all of this in his mind, he was still himself, maybe more himself than he had ever been.

"They lived in a caste system," he went on slowly, the details falling into places, like an illustrated history in his mind. "Different types of mutants, then 'flatscans'--humans. Then synthetics. You didn't cross those lines. But the Askani did." He glanced back at the mirror, smiling again. "They lived together, mutants and humans and synthetics... it was so right, Charles. So right."

Charles pondered this for a while, then nodded. He knew full well that truth was rewritten into history and history into myth and myth into truth again, often with terrible consequences -- and yet sometimes, the important fragments remained unchanged, mercifully preserved through the mutations of time. "Yes, it is right." That was his own dream, that they should all dwell together without regard for their differences. He would have to think for a long time on what Nathan had revealed before he could know his own feelings on it fully.

"What can I do for you now?" he asked.

Nathan laughed suddenly, gripped by that strange combination of joy and sadness. "Right now? Give me just one minute," he said and knelt down, laying a hand on the ground. The sand was different than it had been - softer, paler. So much here was different than it had been. "One last change," he murmured, and concentrated.

And the mirrors floated upwards, higher and higher into the sky, which changed, indeterminate light shifting to the blackness of night. The mirrors kept rising, until they had dwindled to pinpoints of light. Stars. Thousands and thousands of stars, each one a life, and he could still feel them, individually and together as the whole they were.

It was still full light on the beach itself, despite the starry sky above, and Nathan looked down to see that the sand had changed further. It was absolutely white, almost glittering, and he turned his head, smiling as he saw that the ocean had changed as well, from dark to a shimmering, brilliant blue.

He looked up at Charles, finally, feeling the first stirrings of exhaustion start to hit him. "Put me to work," he said simply. "I have spent most of a lifetime fighting battles that didn't matter and hating myself for it." Shaking his head slowly, he ran a hand through the sand, tracing lines, patterns. "She told me that there's plenty of time at this end of history, Charles. Time enough for us to make sure that when their time comes, it's different." Nathan looked up, taking a deep breath as he met Charles's eyes. "I couldn't ask for a clearer answer to the question of what to do with the rest of my life."

"She's right," Charles said quietly, nodding. "We have time. We have hope. We have everything we need." He looked around at the beautiful beach and the miraculous sky. Nathan's apocalyptic inner world had changed so much in such a short time, Charles was proud of and hopeful for the younger man. "I will put you to work, my friend, and I expect that you will be the conscience of the future for me, so that we can ensure that things really do change. However, they can change after you sleep. You've been too long without. I'll keep watch for you while you rest." His voice was firm, authoritative, giving Nathan permission to let go and slide into the deep, desperately needed sleep that was waiting for him.

"Thank you," Nathan murmured and closed his eyes. "For everything." And as he let go and let sleep claim him, it wasn't so much falling as soaring. The stars were all around him, murmuring quietly to him, and he drifted, listening as he rested.