video;

[lehnsherr]

[it's automatic now; to make a call out that's meant only for a certain telepaths mind. a yell of tell me you're back. tell me you can hear me. please, before it's gone completely. his mind wiping blank in a way that only a person who spent half their lives around telepaths would know how to do

now, he turns his attention to his network device. it's different to his last one, but similar enough that he has no trouble navigating his way through it. the draw of the ship is too strong for him to leave the area yet. so when the video cuts in, the metal hull, gleaming in the sun, is all too clear]

Glory. If this is your doing, congratulations. You got me.

[his face may look familiar, but there are differences there. his hair is slightly longer, styled differently. he seems more relaxed than his other self. even his voice differs slightly. the undercurrents of german are less pronounced. but it's still clear that he's spent a lot of time speaking another language entirely. (hebrew, to those who can tell).]

We've already discussed this, so if you wouldn't mind, I have work to do.

[he adds a ping here to the few people he cares about; to hope summers, snape, caffrey. even givens gets a message sent through. but they're all bouncing back, and that leaves him...confused. annoyed. angry]

Will someone tell me what's going on here? Is this the city playing tricks again, or...

[there's some muttering under his breath then; hebrew now. if anyone listens closely enough, they may register the word ha-satan amongst it all. yes, he's talking about that satan]

I want answers. Now.


ooc; to you pesky telepaths: you're welcome to pick up on that first message. he knows how to project his thoughts well enough to make it rise above the usual surface thoughts people have. he just can't direct it to one person :|b

Comments

[calmyourmind]

Erik?

[Charles sounds completely bewildered at either Erik's reappearance or his words. Likely both. But it's the telepathic thought that gets him the most.]

I'm here, Erik. Where are you? We thought you were...

[lehnsherr]

[it's easier to attach himself to the connection this time without fighting it. the feeling is too familiar to ignore, if a little off. but after the few mental conversations he had with the other charles in bete noire, it all falls in to place with ease.]

Charles. [a pause. those words sounded a little too much like the end of a bad story. there's an apology sent along the connection as he continues.] ...I'm not who you think I am.

[calmyourmind]

[There's a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This is another one of the times he is going to run into one of the alternate versions of himself or Erik. But it's not that that bothers him. It's the fact that this means the Erik he knows is still gone.]

I.. I see. I apologise for the confusion. [There's a long pause as he tries to reorganise his thoughts.

You may find that you are not where you think you should be. There are people who may be after you. Do not stay by the ship for too long. They have been quite a bit more aggressive of late and I fear they may come after you if they see you.

[lehnsherr]

[that tendril of apology is there for a few moments longer, before he cuts it off and focuses on the problem at hand. if there's a possible threat out there, he needs to reach the proverbial higher ground before it becomes his problem.

he made that promise, months ago.]

Pro-human groups, or something else?

[calmyourmind]

Something else. The people within the dome are powerful and dangerous beyond our current means. They do not tolerate any signs of rebellion or organisation from those of us outside the dome. Regardless of species or ability

[There's a tendril of growing concern attached to Charles' thoughts.]

I've been in the city, trying to offer my help. I can be at the ship to meet you and discuss it more in person, if you would like? So far the port town has been safer than the ship or the city. It's where we- where myself and a few others have made our home.

[He pulls away from the connection for a moment, reorganising his thoughts and pulling them back, to keep the various emotions out of the link when he offers his next suggestion.]

There's enough room there, if you would like. It's not much, but it is a roof, and there are not many of those still standing, these days,

[lehnsherr]

[the offer of somewhere to stay doesn't go by unnoticed. but with the other charles around too, he has no idea yet if it's even safe to consider approaching the subject of alternate realities yet. if this charles and jocelyn are taking care of one another, then maybe it's his job now to keep an eye on the newest xavier to arrive.]

There's another Charles Xavier here. One who seems to have difficulty differentiating fantasy from reality.

[and the unaired "i can't leave him alone here". it may not be his charles, but he can't abandon him.]

Staying with you may not be an option.

[calmyourmind]

We can make room for him, as well. I suppose it may be somewhat of a poor idea for me to meet him before we can determine if doing so would make things worse. There was another Charles here when I arrived, who had lived a very different life from my own. It came as something of a shock, initially.

[He didn't like the idea of Erik being somewhere else. But he had yet to meet this other version of himself. He searched for some familiarity of his twin's mind, but stopped after a moment. It was hard to say how he would react.]

At least get away from the ship... The other Erik stirred up quite a mess before they... before you showed up. It's likely they will not bother trying to distinguish, and that there may be some... animosity from the other people who suffered the aftermath of the attack.

[lehnsherr]

[he still has questions about just how safe it would be for him to stay with them too, considering he shares a name and face with a man supposedly responsible for causing an attack. but the mention of yet another charles; of entirely different lives...]

This...other Charles. How different were your lives? What- [there's a momentary slip. the feeling of loss, of sorrow, of longing. but he forces it back in to its box as quick as he can manage.]

What do you know about his life?

[calmyourmind]

[Charles catches a glimpse of those emotions before they are shoved away, and it's not too unreasonable to assume that if his world's Erik could show up, so could that Charles'. But how much could he reveal? Should he even go into a topic like that? There's a conflicting response from his on the edge ethics and his own sense of privacy. So he sticks to things Erik would have known, what little he had learned. And it was little. His time with the other version of himself had ben brief and limited.]

I know very little. We did not cross paths often while he was here. I do know that he had fought in wars, before. I know he spent a good deal of time in Israel.

[He remembered the shock of meeting Raven from that Charles' world and discovering that she had been the one to rescue Charles. That they had not grown up together. And how hard it was to see the confidence and comfort in her own skin she had never truly had when she lived with him. He also remembers the way that Charles had reacted to Erik.]

I'm afraid we were in slightly different circles while he was here.

[That had started to change with Erik's death, just marginally, but he could feel the insistences he had clung to slipping and cracking over the mix of grief and anger.]

[lehnsherr]

[there's no reply at first. no anything. the connection is slammed shut for a long while as he tries to process the information. to come to terms with the fact that, once again, he was too late. his charles was here, and now he's gone. so yet again, he's lost him.

while that connection may be shut off though, charles may still be able to feel the wash of emotion leaking through the cracks in the wall. he isn't a telepath, so all he knows about controlling a telepathic conversation come from lessons learned while sharing a mind with one. nowhere near enough to stop any of the telepaths he's met before from getting inside if they wanted.

eventually though, he does come back again through pure force of will. it'd be so easy to just leave their conversation there and go off to deal with his emotions alone. but instead, he needs to focus on the other man. on another charles, and someone else that he knows he can't turn his back on.]

Israel is a safe haven to all mutants. We...worked together to make sure of that.

[another moment, and an attempt at changing the topic entirely.]

You said you live in a port town.

[calmyourmind]

[The telepath's head is bowed, though Erik can not see it. He lets the brief glimpses into Erik's emotional response wash over him, resisting the urge to press deeper. To dig through thoughts and memories to the source, and trace it back through the connections.

He resists. Because right now, more than anything he needs Erik to trust him. This version of Erik he knows little about. Who knows even less, Charles assumes, about him.

So Charles does not fight the subject change. Merely listens and waits.]

Yes. So far it has proven a good deal safer than the City. That is not to say it will remain as such, but I hope to help insure that it might.

[He was still for the defensive plan, though now more than ever, the offensive seemed a daunting task. Erik...]

[lehnsherr]

How many of you are there?

[it's easier to focus on this. on the idea of keeping his fellow mutants safe, whatever the cost. it was his job back home, and he's ready to do the same here, despite already knowing he's using it all as a distraction. if he keeps himself busy, he doesn't need to think about what he's lost.]

Beyond Jocelyn. How many other mutants?

[calmyourmind]

just one young man we managed to have a word with, possibly another, if Fox is still willing, after...

[Erik's disappearance. It's then that Charles realizes he still has no idea where Fox is. If he's still here, or alive. He tries not to think about it right now.]

Hopefully more, before the week is out. Jocelyn has been speaking with another young mutant. Many people here are afraid. Reluctant to trust. And with, I suppose, rather valid reasoning. It does make things difficult to organize, however.

[Between Jocelyn and himself, he feels they could organize more efficiently. Get messages out to certain people. Without the risk of hacking. But still there was the concern for potential spies so many held, and the mistrust and discomfort of others around telepaths. There were many things stacked against them.]

We have lost a lot of people, these last couple of weeks.

[Erik included.]