oo8. sort of open.

[forgodssake]

CHARACTERS: Charles Xavier and Nuala; Emma Swan; Captain Hook (Killian Jones); Severus Snape; Ilde Knox; Cassandra Anderson; Alex Summers; William Tsang; Claire Bennet; Nuala; Erik Lehnsherr; the Winter Soldier; others as they happen.
LOCATION: Medical bay; science department; level 5, holodeck, passenger quarters; media library; laundry facilities; oxygen gardens; level 14; others as they happen.
WARNINGS: Descriptions of body horror.
SUMMARY: Jump cycle thirty-five happens, and Charles continues to exist. Basically.
NOTES: Monthly catch all! This is only partially open because I'm not providing a fixed narrative thing to reply to. Hence, please let me know if you'd like to do anything, and I'll be happy to set up a thread (unless you feel ambitious).

Comments

[uncurse]

“Before the sickness?” Her eyebrows arch slightly, and she nods. “I gathered.”

The last thing she wants to do is own up to the fact that after Charles had sent her after Raven, Emma had interrogated his sister about what had transpired between himself and Erik. With any luck, it’ll go unquestioned.

“How’s she handling it?”

That much hadn’t quite become clear, given the extent of her illness. Emma knows in the least that something terrible went down and drove a greater wedge between Charles and Erik. It must have had repercussions on Raven, as well.

[forgodssake]

Telepathy is never quite switched off or on, these days, but Charles can choose to either perceive inarticulate noise or specific thoughts, unless something sharp about the latter strikes through the former. Regardless, if what Emma doesn't say goes caught by Charles, he doesn't react to it, doesn't respond like he's privy to two conversations.

It serves him, for now, not to do so. "Fine," he says. He wants to imagine that the noncontact throughout the month, throughout the decade, meant fine. "It probably rated the least of her worries, given-- givens."

Space ship. Encroaching and eventual illness. Et cetera.

"Thank you, for checking in on her."

[uncurse]

Shaking her head, Emma raises a hand to dismiss the gratitude immediately. A better friend might have known to do it without prompting.

“She was onto me the minute she figured out who I was,” All things considered, Emma sounds lightly amused by the fact. “Asked if you sent me.” Which, of course, Emma answered honestly. She’s not one for deceit to make herself look better. It’s a self-image thing.

Of course, the question had really been a well-aimed probe into Charles and Emma’s relationship, but hell if she noticed.

[forgodssake]

His smile emerges and skews crooked, mirroring amusement, glossy over knowing better. "We can't begrudge a little cleverness, can we, although it says more about me than it does you. I'm certain you would have gone to see her regardless if you'd known, whereas I almost took off someone's head earlier today about keeping her monitored."

He put Emma in that position, fair and square. He probably wasn't that much graceful about things even ten years ago.

Mostly, now, Charles appears tired. The last month was draining in several new and exotic ways.

"You and yours? They're all right?"

He's not actually certain how many people from home she has, just that it numbers greater than the pirate. But also the pirate.

[uncurse]

Terming any of them ‘hers’ makes Emma balk slightly, looking vaguely uncomfortable. She’s not used to anyone being ‘hers,’ least of all Hook, Regina, and Gold. In some ways, they’re barely allies. In others, they’re family. The complications are plentiful, but none of them are what Charles really wants to know.

“Healing,” she agrees. “As far as I can tell.”

It occurs to her, then, that he hasn’t heard of the most recent one of ‘hers’ to arrive. Reaching up, Emma brushes her thumb against her bottom lip, a nervous gesture as she tries to figure out how to introduce the notion.

“My, uh.” Mother? It feels weird still. And yet, explaining Mary Margaret in any other way won’t hold the same meaning for Charles—a side effect of different home worlds. “My mother’s here.” She rushes it out suddenly, like it’s still as surprising to her as it was initially.

[forgodssake]

His eyebrows go up, and the mental image automatically summoned to mind is sharply different to the baby-faced pixie-cut swimming to the surface in Emma's fore thoughts. And there is no accompanying expectation of someone who was deceased, like Harry Potter's mother, nor someone who should be significantly older than she is. Just Mary Margaret.

Which is very weird, but Charles puts the brakes on mentally prying any further. Less because he doesn't want to know and more because he doesn't trust himself.

"That sounds stressful," he says, wry. "More so than the usual fare. Is she--"

How does one put this, when one doesn't actually have all the details?

"Like... Hook. From wherever he was from."

It's certainly not Emma's earth, of that much he's rather sure.

[uncurse]

“How’d you guess?” Her tone carries a certain unimpressed wryness, making it all too clear that she knows the answer is telepathy. In some ways, she’s glad for it: it means he’s using it again instead of limiting himself. It means he’s trying. This depression that he’s sunken into can only be beaten by reaching out of the hole he’s dug himself, and Emma wants nothing more than to help with that.

This, however, is something she’d really prefer to say. It’s important that she figure out how, and Charles is the only one she feels particularly compelled to tell.

Which says a lot for her personal growth, really.

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s … from the Enchanted Forest.” Even saying the name makes her grimace. Fairytale characters, far off worlds with magic, it all sounds insane. Abstract, detached from her own reality, her own experience, even if she’s travelled between them. Emma hesitates on the name, visibly on the verge of giving voice to the name. Finally, she grinds out. “But back there, they ... called her Snow White.”

[forgodssake]

There begins a half-smile in reflecting wryness at her tone, and the thoughts behind it, and it's good they're talking about something else, that they're talking about Emma, because Charles would rather not.

So she explains, and at Enchanted Forest, a question starts to shape, and that question might be 'Pardon?', but evidently he did not mishear her. "Snow White, of seven dwarves fame," he specifies, quite seriously. The corner of his mouth twitches, an unmistakable smile, being denied blooming to full. He clears his throat. "Would that make your biological father Prince Charming?"

It's not that he doesn't believe her, at least.

[uncurse]

She wears reproach like a glove, slipping into it easily and holding him at a distance with the look in her eyes. Daring him to say anything on the subject. Daring him to laugh.

“Yeah. It does.” For Emma, that’s nothing comical. In fact, her heritage generates more stress than humor. “Go ahead.” It’s precisely as ridiculous as it sounds. “I’m from a world full of fairytale characters. It’s hilarious,” Except she clearly doesn’t think so. Her eyebrows arch in an attempt to look unaffected, gesturing out widely with one hand as if to shrug it off.

[forgodssake]

A smile does creep into place, showing the whites of his teeth, but he stops short of doing what she's daring him to, hands coming to place on his hips in posturing back at her. It's hilarious, but she clearly doesn't think so, despite her best efforts to seem unaffected, even goading. Steely seriousness limns her thoughts, so Charles forces the beginnings of grin back down into more customary smirk.

"Severus Snape's from a world where a magical singing hat determines your academic future. I've heard funnier."

So there.

"So I won't brush up on my curtsy just yet. You didn't always know about fairytale characters, I take it."

[uncurse]

“They were cursed,” She explains with an accompanying, affirmative nod. A nonchalant gesture with her hand follows. “And I was in the system; I didn’t know who my parents were. Fairytale characters were my last guess.” The why’s and how’s of it all seem unimportant in that moment. Those were the facts. Emma was an orphan. Even her mother would deem as much true, now.

“I figured it out eventually,” and she doesn’t feel particularly in the mood to spin that tale. The point is that she figured it out, and her mother’s here now.

[forgodssake]

"It's not easy to talk about, is it?"

This is offered after a moment of reflection, rather than needling questions -- curious though he is. The last traces of mirth finally smooth back out, and if anyone can come across as insufferably smug as well as self-deprecating, it would be Charles Xavier. His focus is mild but constant. "The past, and what defines the present. Particularly when it sounds ridiculous."

It's code for comparison between them, like maybe he's making a point, but he does also sound sympathetic. And relenting. Alright, alright. Back to the matter at hand, as raised by Emma.

"How's she taking it?"

All this.

[uncurse]

Even if it didn’t sound ridiculous, Emma has never had an easy time confronting her past. Neverland had ripped it out of her like it was reopening an old wound, and that scar is still raw and healing even now. For the best, perhaps, that she had been forced to face her own hang-ups, but not without struggle.

Shrugging one shoulder, she raises her opposite hand to rub her mouth.

“Well, considering,” She acknowledges: then again, given that it’s Mary Margaret, Emma can’t be wholly surprised. “She’s pretty good at keeping her chin up.” Go figure. Snow White’s an optimist. Why wouldn’t she be?

[forgodssake]

"I can only imagine."

He might have to see this for himself. Although, Charles doesn't really have to -- the image and the feelings that resonate with it are easily heard and seen in Emma's mind, drifting passed what she has to say like an overlay of colour and sound. And he should stop, a slight shake of his head as if to clear it of thoughts that aren't his. (That's never worked before.)

There's a twitch of his head to tilt in gesture to her. "I ought to go see if there's any word on her progress." As if obsessively checking in on her vitals and slow healing while trapped in the one place might make up for his barely knowing of her whereabouts for the last decade.

(It will occur to him to stop, to add an apology, but only after getting dismissed.)

[uncurse]

A tight smile tugs at her lips and she offers him a nod, looking altogether sheepish. Where before she had felt herself a welcome presence, a sturdy shoulder to lean on, she now feels like an intruder on a family matter. Dismissed. Only the shake of Charles' head tips her off that he might be dismissing her for reasons other than his sentiments about Raven, and she tips her head in answer to it, studying him.

He's back.

Her lips part, ready to say something, but she stops herself. Leave it at that. Let the conversation close on his concern for his sister, rather than dig into the ethics of telepathic privacy. Slowly shutting her mouth, she watches him only a minute longer before turning to excuse herself.