Chapter Text
“Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits.”
The May plane arrived just at the heels of a storm, the day after the first real night with midnight sun. Summer was made to make up for all the time lost to winter’s darkness, so when the days became so long you couldn’t distinguish from what was night or not, Erik gave up on trying to be consistent with his day's’ rhythm. It was only when he was supposed to call Kitty, or present his data that it once again became relevant to keep his eye on. Otherwise, he followed whatever his body told him to do – eat only when hungry, sleep only when tired. Which was the reason he hadn’t even gone to sleep for the day before he’d ridden out to the village again, crate tied down at the back.
He was early, as he always had been, and he watched silently as the Norseman showed up on the horizon, its hulking weight drawing closer and closer, before it came to a roaring stop a hundred yards away. Erik drove his snowmobile closer, killing the engine just as Marie jumped out of the cockpit. With summer so near, the temperature had risen, pushing through all the way to the positive degrees, and loathing the cold as she did, Marie had taken every opportunity to dress lightly. She had tossed the overall and was only sporting a thick duffle and a scarf; the loose ends flowing gently in the light breeze.
Pushing the sunglasses out of his eyes, Erik went up to her. Marie sent him a lazy, one handed salute as she continued to stack her crates in their neat piles. On top of one of them, her agenda was open on an order list.
“Picking up old habits?” she said, making sure her stack was safe from toppling over. “Being early two pick-ups in a row now?”
“Only got myself nowadays. Only natural.” Erik replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he sent her a warning look. He still didn’t know how much she’d picked up the last time, but since Marie was Marie, it didn’t hurt to get things straight from the start.
But it was a look which she promptly ignored. “So he was holding you back,” she said, taking the recycle crate from his hands. “You were just too proud to admit it.”
Shaking his head, Erik bit his tongue against the things threatening to spill. “Not as much as he could’ve.”
“Certainly true.“ She plucked his new crate from the pile and propped it up on her hip. “I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a loss, though.”
She pursed her lips, and Erik huffed out a breath. “You got something else for me, other than that?” he asked her, pulling out the wrinkled bills from his pocket as he took the crate from her.
Marie grinned hugely at that, but she only said, “You know, you’ve been on the receiving end of a letter spree lately, Lehnsherr. It’s like you’re Harry Potter and it’s Sunday every time.”
“Have you got anything for me or not?” Erik snapped, eyeing her as he put the crate down on the edge of the snowmobile, latching it down tight.
“Alright, slow down! Indeed I do.” Her accent twanged as she reached inside her coat, fiddling with something in the breast pocket. “A whooping number of two letters, just for you,” Grinning, she handed him both of the envelopes with a flourish.
His heart in his throat, Erik looked at the addresses. One was, unsurprisingly, from the University, with its blue seal in the corner, the typewritten address and the heaviness that implicated an invitation card. The other letter, however, was also written on wealthy paper, heavy and the same quality of rough and smooth against his bare fingertips. But on this one, his name was handwritten out in small, blocky letters, correctly spelled, and in ink which shimmered lightly in blue when he held it up against the sun.
Holding his breath, he opened the second one as gently as he could – pulling the pages out and flattening out the creases as he read, eyes flying over the words.
Dear Erik,
I was surprised, but happy to receive your letter. You are very competent with your words, when you want to. I am glad you are well, considering everything, and I appreciated it immensely, darling
I have some news, as well. Upon arriving back home, I had a meeting with the faculty and my advisor regarding the data I had collected during my stay. While it is enough for me to finish my thesis, however, I am now convinced that the competence and knowledge within the field is miniscule at best, especially in relation to global warming. A long term study on the effects of CDOM in the Arctic archipelago is very much needed to widen that knowledge.
A long term study spanning over three years – or even further, if I wish to prolong it. As I am able to support the finance, the faculty seemed to agree this was something to pursue – my advisor, Dr. Frost, especially so, if her thoughts were anything to go by. So I am now only waiting for them to get back to me. If everything goes according to plan, I should be on my way back to you, where I belong, by next June.
Dr. Frost warned me before I came to live with you that once you have visited the Arctic, you will never want to leave. Polar sickness, they call it, that magnetic pull of the untouched nature. I did not believe her then – you remember I told you I was never good with the cold before – but I know that it is true.
Now, nature is not my only call. You know that better than anyone.
I miss you, Erik. Some days, so terribly, I can hardly stand it. All the sounds around here are grating on my skin, and I cannot believe how I managed to keep up these shields before. I miss how your warmth is constantly radiating from your skin. I miss how you kissed me as if I was the most precious thing you had ever seen, even if it was just one time (a time I replay in my head every night and it won’t ever lose its edge). I miss the northern lights (or more truthfully, I miss the way you watched me).
This will be a long year, but it is nothing compared to what waits on the end of it. You are resilient, and will hold on. I will do the same.
As a last note, I will be at the conference at Columbia University in June. I cannot wait to see you again there (although, I know you will be out of your water in those halls. Somehow, I know that you always are when you are not surrounded by snow, wearing that anorak; where you are so at ease, you are simply the most beautiful thing I have ever seen). Hopefully, I have gotten the reply from the faculty then.
Yours eternally,
Charles Xavier
Ps. I love you, too.
Somehow, something must have shown on his face – maybe as a smile, or just a open look that slipped through now that the scarf didn’t hide it, because when he looked up from the words, Marie gave him an odd look as she put the last crate on top of her pile.
“Good news, I take it?”
An unusually warm wind brushed through Erik’s hair as he tilted his head back. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the endless blueness of the sky. His eyes burned as he held them open, chest snared tight, but not in pain.
“Yes,” he said, breathing the air until he felt light enough to rise from the ground. “The best.”
~ The End ~