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“Death closes all, yet something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men who strove with gods.”
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Erik strides into the room, tall, strong, and commanding, like the warrior he has been for so much of his life. Then the door closes behind him and he drops heavily into a chair across from me, his face falling into his hands for a moment, two. He looks up at me, and the deep lines of weariness in his face almost break my heart.
I remember when I met him, all those years ago, how he screamed that I should have let him die sooner than keep him from his vengeance. He was blazing and broken and indomitable, his body as powerful as the crackling energy in his aura. Now all that remains are his unshakeable will and the still-intense glow of his mutant gift. He’s no longer angry, and his heart is whole, but the other changes are less salubrious. He’s wraith-slender, his once-brilliant blue eyes faded, his skin near-translucent. The mane of hair I’d once envied him is reduced to thin white spirals of curls.
He sees me looking at him, raises a brow. I shrug and silently pour him a cup of coffee, passing it across the table. He takes it up in both hands, giving it a long appreciative sniff before taking a swallow.
I could think my questions at him, and get my answers in the same way. But I know he prefers verbalizing, and he has earned whatever comfort I can give. “How bad was it this time?”
He swallows another mouthful. “No worse than usual. No better, either. We’re fighting off literal worlds, Charles.”
As we had been ever since these mysterious incursions had begun, with other, parallel, planets trying to claim the space our own currently occupies. We lost too many of my – our – X-Men at first, before we figured out how to fight these other worlds off; now our losses are less, but every fighter we lose is irreplaceable.
“It’s a battle for gods, not men,” he says, understating. “Still, we do what we can. Cyclops is extraordinary, utterly unstoppable. And Gambit still insists on assaulting us all with his execrable sense of humor even in the heat of battle.” Despite the words, his lips quirk upward slightly. “The others – they’re strong, Charles, so strong. You should be proud of them.”
“And you?” I can’t help asking.
“Me?” He snorts a bit. “I’m just a stubborn old man, Charles.”
We both are. Two men in our eighties, well past the peak of our strength, decades after the time in our lives when we should be going to battle.
But the battle is there, and we are not yet helpless. Should we sit quietly in our chairs and wait for age to claim us – or more likely, for one of these incursions to take our world and us with it?
I still wish I could spare him. He’s already fought so long, endured so much. He out of all of us should have the chance to rest, to claim a few years of peace. But peace is not an option. Besides, even at his present age he has more power than most ever acquire – and if that weren’t true, he would still have the will and the heart of the fighter he’s been all his life. I might as easily domesticate a tiger.
And if he will fight, I’ll do what I can with my own powers, to sustain him and the others who follow both of us.
Hank is researching tirelessly, desperate to find the cause of these incursions so that we can end them instead of fighting them off one-by-one. But I know that, in Hank’s own thoughts, he’s no closer now than when he began. And I think, not for the first time: this is the fight that will finish us. I'll see (feel) my remaining students die. I’ll see (feel) Erik die.
I think I’m shielding my mind, but that thought is so sharp and bitter that I can’t quite contain it. Erik’s head comes up and he looks at me, eyes bright and alert. “Don’t, old friend.”
But I do. “This is the way we’re going to die, isn’t it?” My voice is thick.
“Death comes for us all,” he says quietly. “That's all I know for sure.” I see in his own mind that he’s accepted it; that his only real regret is that, in dying, we’ll finally fail to save our world. “The question isn’t: are you prepared to die? The question is: who will you be when you close your eyes?”
In the space of a thought, he remembers, and shares, all the people he’s been in his long life: the victim, the warrior, the villain, the killer. And now, at this last, the hero, the one who uses his strength to help, to protect. Finally, he’s who he wanted to be, and he’s at peace with who and what he is.
In a way, he’s even happy, after all these years, to be at my side. As I always should have been.
I fight the tears, but a few escape anyway. He reaches across the table and clasps my wrist. I feel his exhaustion, but even more, I feel his strength.
And I know that, even if (when?) we fail, we will go down fighting. We may be overcome; we won’t yield. The two of us, and the others at our backs.“Together, Charles,” he says, voice and thoughts rich with affection.
I clasp back, letting him share my own feelings. “Together, Erik.” Together to the end.
We sit that way for a long time.
-END-