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[She's heard about Hank being asleep first from Winn, but it was a quick succession of the others after that, checking in on them only to realize they were too. It was a lot to process and all at once and she just didn't really. She knew it was probably bad and she delayed the worry instead of feeling it and dealing with it. So many people had been out recently and it felt like she used up all her angst on Winn when it was his turn earlier. Maybe that's the reason she didn't really feel relieved to hear they were awake when Winn told her. He's always quick with the news. It still felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of them being asleep was no shock. All four at approximately the same time? That was a plan. The Atroma were up to something. It only felt reinforced at Erik's message.

And yet, when Kitty arrives at her appointed time and looks around the library for him she is eager to see him. To make sure he's okay and really back. She hasn't spotted him yet so she calls out.]

Erik?

[He had been behind a stack when Kitty called. For a moment, he goes still, all thought washing out of his mind. Then the gears grind back up to speed and he walks out to meet her. Certain differences have made their mark on him physically, since she saw him last.

Gone is the clean-shaven look. Erik now looks slightly rumpled all over, his hair less tame and a light beard where before there was none. There are lines etched in his face that tiredness alone can't explain. Something has shifted in the way he holds himself as well, less formality than before. He watches Kitty with a strange expression, like he's committing something to memory.]

Kitty. Thank you for coming.

[There's surprise she can't hide when she sees him. He's changed in a way that a few nights of sleep couldn't explain. Not unless they came with time and memories. She'd never guess a decade, but it's easy to guess it's been at least a couple of years. She even sees a glint of grey in the scruff of his beard. Shades of things to come maybe.]

It's okay if you want to hug me. I'm guessing you feel like you haven't seen me in awhile. I'm pretty missable. [It's meant to come off like sass, but it falls a little short. Standing here looking back at him after he'd been asleep while she wasn't sure if he'd wake up or not...she wants to hug him.]

[Erik keeps his expression as neutral as he can, even though the remark makes him flinch inside. You don't want that, is what he thinks. She doesn't know yet. It's been so long since he's seen her, and yet... He reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. Two rings flash on his fingers; silver and gold, pointer and ring finger.]

You're not wrong. Ten years, in fact.

[She holds her place instead of initiating such things. She probably would have with anyone else she cares about as much, but even though she doesn't look at him exactly like her world's Magneto, there's still a respect and even a little intimidation there. And she wants to look strong and cool to his eyes, because part of her wants him to be proud of her.]

You look good for ten years older. [Just bad for five days of sleep older. But more seriously...]

That's a lot to adjust to. The others too? [Is that why the Atroma put them all out at the same time?]

[He hasn't given much thought to his appearance in years. Magda used to tease him about it, complaining that he was clearly pretending to be older to seem more world-wise. "Is it working?" he'd reply. It's a thought he can't afford to follow, right now.

Slipping his hands back into his pockets, he straightens his shoulders a bit, following the easy question Kitty has provided him.]

Yes, all of them. I'm not sure about MacTaggert, but it wouldn't surprise me. That's why I need to talk to you.

[Don't delay. Forge ahead.]

That warning you got from Leto... I'm afraid you were correct.

Edited 2016-09-04 06:46 (UTC)

[She realizes she hadn't even thought to check on Moira while the others slept. She'd seemed like a fine person, but her world's counterpart was on the human high council which didn't exactly see the X-Men as comrades most of the time. There were uneasy alliances at best. Kitty had fought off their sentinels a time or two since they weren't exactly programmed to avoid the X-Men or any other well-meaning mutants who might just be trying to survive in Apocalypse's America. But her thoughts on the woman are brief and derailed by his last words.

Her eyes open wider and she takes a step forward as if ready to comfort, but she stops herself again. Still, the compassion is there in her expression.]

I didn't want to be. How bad is it?

[He nearly balks as Kitty moves forward, and just restrains himself from stepping back in turn. His weakness is no use here. For this, he needs to be the harder one. His jaw tenses briefly before he forcibly relaxes.]

There was a lot of destruction-- [And death. His fault.] But he's gone. Dead.

[She notices even the small signs of him trying to seem relaxed and stays put. She knows physical closeness could be hard in her world. It was vital too, but it didn't mean it was easy to seek out. How many well-meaning hugs or shoulder pats had been met with her phased form? Too many. How bad did it get for how long?]

Dead? You're sure? [They were sure in her world and then... All of those things Kurt told her about Logan becoming Apocalypse. She still can't process it. The man who mentored her more than any other became their enemy and slayed the rest of the X-Men? Nothing in her wants to believe that, but it came from Kurt so she doesn't have much of a choice.]

[This, he thinks distantly, is why it was necessary for him to tell her. Kurt had told him about what their Apocalypse could do - how he was more a force than a mutant, could travel from person to person. An ugly chill goes down his spine because that is exactly what En Sabah Nur had done in their own world. Had nearly done to Charles.]

As sure as I can be. [Jean Grey's power had been so great, so furious, that he'd dissolved under its wrath. If that hadn't been enough to destroy him... he couldn't follow that thought. He certainly can't voice it to any of the others, Charles especially.] I saw it happen.

Good. [It's a small word carrying a lot of weight to it. She's glad for his death. Glad. It's not something she ever really feels for that. Killing can be necessary. Hard. Efficient. Messy. Painful. And she could get a thrill from battle, but from killing? No. It was never a thing to celebrate no matter how terrible the person. But there is a note of celebration in her voice even if he isn't her Apocalypse. She doesn't want Erik, Hank, Charles, or Raven subjected to him more than however they already have been.]

What happened? Was he in power?

No. Not in the way he was in your world. He began that process... it was only a few days, I think. [Time was incoherent for Erik, but he's sure En Sabah Nur had only risen a few days before he was taken out. A few days was all it had taken to shake the world to its foundations.]

[She nods along trying to focus on his situation and not think of how it was at home.]

Are you okay? ...Did you all make it? [Because it wouldn't matter here. He could be like her now for all she knows. Dead back home and alive only when the Atroma say he is.]

[He shuts his eyes briefly at the question, knowing where it comes from.] Yes. We're all right. [The only one lost to the fighting was Alex. There was Angel, the other Horseman, but Erik had barely noticed. He hadn't made friends there.]

[He takes a breath, preparing himself.] There's something else you need to know. Before anything else.

[The relief is short lived as she tries to figure out what he might need to say. Something she needs to know? Ten years, right? A version of her wouldn't have been there yet, right?] Sure. You can tell me anything.

Edited 2016-09-05 21:46 (UTC)

En Sabah Nur's followers... his four.

[In his mind, he holds a flaming match out above the bridge between them. She had been a good friend to him, ever since he'd been tossed into the Fleet. He regrets not telling her that before.

His expression closes off slightly. He drops the match.]

I was one of them.

Edited 2016-09-06 08:42 (UTC)

[She takes a reflexive step back. She's not even aware of the way she puts physical distance between them. She's just looking at him with wide, startled eyes, trying to find the explanation just by examining him—the sick joke, the plan to take him down from the inside, the brainwashing. Something she can hold on to when it feels like the bottom's dropping out on her.]

What? [No, she heard the words. Don't say them again.] Why? [It sounds pained. She's not ready to see him that way. Make it make sense.]

[He stays where he is - doesn't move. This had been inevitable since the moment he woke up, and he has to let Kitty escape if and when she wants it.]

Anything I can say would be an excuse. [The reasons why still torment him, and he chases them around in circles wondering if he could have resisted had he known better. If he was simply lost as soon as his family were killed, as soon as En Sabah Nur had touched his hand and flooded him with his own power. If Charles had managed to contact him earlier, gotten him help sooner.

It's pointless to wonder. The crime is his.]

Then make it! [Practically shouting out her feelings.] This doesn't make any sense. He's a monster.

[Her throat feels tight, and she knows there are tears fighting to get out but she is not letting them fall. Her hands tighten into fists as she fights back what feels like weakness. Anger is easier.] You... [She trusted you.]

You chose it? Are you still working for him? [Damaged trust. Splintered and waiting to fall or mend, hanging on his next words. Her question shows as much. She knows his Apocalypse is dead. He already said as much, but he could still be trying to carry out his will even now. Survival of the fittest. She feels sick to her stomach. Why didn't she meet him with Kurt?]

[So am I, is his first thought. He has to take a breath and stifle it, because he's not. He owes it to Charles, to Raven, to everyone who's tried to tell him as much over the years, not to fall back into that hole again. Giving in to his monstrosity was what let En Sabah Nur get a foothold in him. He may not believe much else about himself anymore, but this is one thing he holds on to, as hard as it may be.

He can see things starting to break in slow motion, and part of him says, let it. This is deserved. You mislead her, even if you didn't know back then that this would happen. He doesn't want to be forgiven. Yet Kitty is asking for his reasons. Much as he doesn't want to excuse himself, he owes her that much. He shakes his head, quick and sharp.]

No, I-- turned on him. When I finally understood. [It seems so horrific in retrospect how hard won that realisation was. While he was under the man's spell, nothing seemed to matter but the rage. He flexes his fingers, digging his nails into his palms, needing to move so he can keep talking.]

He came to me a few hours after... after my wife and daughter were killed. [He can't manage that without his voice cracking, but he pushes through it.] I was about to end everything. [The men in the factory, the ones he'd considered friends, who'd turned the authorities onto him. And himself. He'd had no intention of walking out of there alive.]

Edited 2016-09-07 12:31 (UTC)

[She wants to keep yelling. Challenging. Lashing out because there's too much confusion and pain inside.

What's to understand about Apocalypse? He wants death and destruction and for what? To remove the weak? It's sick. There's nothing good or right about that. Even the villainous versions of other Magnetos she heard about cared about other mutants even if they went about it in the wrong ways. There's nothing redeeming about Apocalypse's mission or his methods. Nothing!

And yet...

Hearing about his wife and daughter touches something in her and the result is visible. The fire in her eyes that was trying so hard to cover up the hurt and betrayal flickers low. She knows the pain of losing people all too well. She never had a child. Couldn't really. Not in the prison with it's rules. Not home where Piotr had become a prisoner in his own metal form. They weren't able to... It was different. But she had students and she was hard on them—even cruel to them—because she cared. Because she wanted them to survive a world that would be impossibly harsh. But they didn't. Every one of them died like her parents.

She looks thoughtful. Almost compassionate for a moment.]

...I've lost people too. [Her voice is almost calm. Even. Her eyes aren't on his, but they are a moment later as her voice and expression harden.]

And I never did that.

[His expression flickers slightly, pain and acknowledgement both.

There was a reason Erik came into this conversation believing he'd lose his ties to Kitty. What he had done was unforgivable enough on its own. When held up against the Magneto of her world, the sheer horrors he must have faced and stood tall against even then, he's nothing but a sick and twisted shadow. He wants to apologise for ever seeming like he could hold a candle to that. Because he couldn't.

His reasons aren't enough. He can't claim he never wanted it - he remembers wanting everything to burn, to be destroyed, taken from others the way it had been taken from him. It had only grown once En Sabah Nur touched him, sending lighting through his soul and scorching out everything that wasn't pain and rage. After that his memory falls apart, turns murky, and even the things he does remember seemed far away. It had taken Raven's plea and En Sabah Nur moving on Charles to finally break through to him, let him come back up for air. To know he had betrayed them, and himself.

He touches his thumb to the gold ring, to the silver. He returns his focus to seeing this through. It's the least he can do. His gaze doesn't waver.]

I know. It was wrong. [Maybe, if he'd been able to remember her warnings, he wouldn't have faltered. He'll never know.] I regret it. It changes nothing, but I regret it.

Good! [She shouts it back. And takes another step away.

Some part of her wants to forgive him. Comfort him even. The part of her that doesn't want to—can't—lose more people. And he is, or maybe was, one of her people. She'd been worried about him since he went into that coma. She didn't want to think about him going away. There was more to say and know and do. He wasn't her Magneto, but he was becoming her Erik. It made her feel better that he was here with her. With her and Kurt. Maybe he hadn't always done everything right, but who had? She could relate to that better. And he wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't the enemy of the X-Men or humanity. She believed it. She wanted to believe it.

And if she could just bridge this gap now she could have him back. She wouldn't have to be alone with her righteous indignation.

But she isn't ready for that. She has a storm of feelings inside her. Maybe later when the storm expends its energy. When it's nothing left but rain and clouds she'll be able to accept this. Accept the flawed man who was in pain—who had his own storm—and reached out for something, anything that would feel different. Accept that he saw that it was wrong and he came back from it. Maybe he even helped kill Apocalypse. And now he regrets it and he came to her to be honest and open even knowing how badly she would likely take it. He did it anyway. There's something to respect in that. Maybe not a leader, but a friend. He never asked to be more to her. Not this man.]

You're the one who shouldn't be able to sleep at night! [And given the look of him maybe he can't. The comment probably won't even make sense to him. She doesn't mean herself. She means Winn. He's been struggling ever since Sascha was changed by the Atroma for a time and attacked him. She's been trying to soothe that, but nothing ever gets healed, does it? Just more wounded and broken.]

Survival of the fittest is such a joke. Nothing survives. [She turns. She has nothing left to say right now.]

[He finally steps back himself. There's nothing else he can say. He doesn't want to soothe her, tell her that it's different now, because that's cheap and self-serving. Everything she's saying is true.

"Everything they've built will fall. And from the ashes of their world we shall build a better one!" It had been the siren song, something he understood. He had failed at everything else he tried to do: save Kennedy, get mutants to their rightful place in the world, lead a revolution. Protect his family. All he had ever been good at was killing people. It had been easy to turn back to that, when someone said he could do it. "Reach down into the earth," he had said, and Erik had done so.

He'd once told Shaw he was Erik's creator as a weapon. En Sabah Nur had been the one to wield him.

Erik doesn't move to stop Kitty from leaving, or try to say anything else. He still has one more attempt at this to go.]

[This time when Kurt meets him in the library he appears in a puff of brimstone, having made note of open areas the first time. A quip about Erik spending all his time reading dies on his tongue the second he gets a good look at the other man.

Both his eyebrows raise, and though his featureless eyes make it difficult to tell where he's looking, the muscles around them twitch in patterns implying a quick up and down movement.] Well. At least you're finally starting to look older than me.

[The sudden appearance makes Erik jerk slightly - not as much as he would have once, ten years ago. His eyes flick over Kurt, like he's seeing him for the first time, and yet not. He knows Kurt now - the one in his world, at least. That good-natured boy with the odd patterned scars. He can appreciate the difference, now, that a world can make on someone.

At the comment, though, Erik shuts his eyes and huffs. It's not quite amusement (he can't be amused, not knowing what he has to say), but his appearance has always been the last thing on his mind, and the first on everyone else's.]

Fifty-two. It's been ten years. [Some of it is carved into his face, his hair. More of it is sunk behind his eyes.]

[Kurt stands still while Erik looks him over; old habit, from the days when his world's Magneto would check them for wounds after every mission, just to know for himself that his X-Men were safe. The ones who came home, at least. His stance is different from that boy's; naturally more stooped, suggesting that he might drop to all fours when he so rarely does (and should more often.) More wary as a baseline, always ready to defend himself even among friends.

He still counts Erik as trustworthy, even when he doesn't know what to make of him.]

Don't worry, you don't look a day over forty. [Which is a concern, considering Kurt swore Erik looked younger than him before. He takes a step closer, features drawing taut with restrained worry. It brings out the lines in his own face.] A decade, hm? [Same for the rest of them? Because yes he did notice they all fell unconscious around the same time.]

[Erik holds himself in place, though he wants to step back himself. This is going to go the same way as Kitty - he knows it will. Erik's loathe to draw out any misconceptions longer than he has to. He can't just dump it on Kurt immediately, with no lead-in, but there's no amount of talking that will cushion the truth once it falls.

He folds his arms over his chest, tapping at his side with his fingers. Some rings flash briefly on his right hand.]

Yes. It's the same for the others. We woke up yesterday. ["Arrived back" is what it feels like, after so long.]

[Kurt stops after that single step, shifting his weight to one leg as though he's going to start circling Erik. He doesn't, his attention caught briefly by the rings glinting on the other man's hand. For a moment he wonders if Xavier--but that's ridiculous, what kind of world would tolerate something like that?

('Wrath's would,' his mind whispers before Kurt forces himself away from that quagmire of emotion.)] And how--are the others? ['Is my mother,' is what he wanted to ask, but she'll never be his mother and he's kept his distance for a reason.] Were the years kinder to them?

For the most part. The last couple of months have been-- ... they were all right. They're managing right now. [It's the most he can say for all of them. They all claim they're okay, but all know that's a soft lie.]

[After a silent moment, Erik says what he has to, knowing Kurt will understand the meaning behind it.] He rose.

[Erik's 'all right' weighs on him as though he were from Kurt's world, and a half-flippant 'who died' is on the tip of his tongue--and then those two words kill all levity from his mood and face.

His lips thin as they press together, and his tail curls up his spine, an aborted reflex to reach for swords he hasn't had for months.] How many died?

Edited (gdi autocorrect) 2016-09-13 18:40 (UTC)

Thousands. But so did he. [And that's the important part. That he's dead, or as dead as they can be certain of.]

It's over.

[In comparison to his world, that's an amazingly light death toll. The thought of that many deaths, thousands of graves and grieving families, still hangs like lead in his stomach.] Are you absolutely certain? We thought the first war was the end of it, too.

[Erik shuts his eyes, not expecting the question at first. It's hard to dredge up the memory of their conversation, now that it feels like it happened ten years ago. Sometimes it does, at least. His memory is a mess right now.]

As certain as I can be. [Which he knows is not very, given what Kurt explained before.] I believe he's destroyed.

[Kurt nods, drawing in a slow breath. It isn't a guarantee, but it's the closest either world managed. If things unfold as they did in his world, Apocalypse is dead; it's his creators that aren't. They'll need to discuss that, the sooner the better.

He's quiet for a moment, looking at the lines in Erik's face. He's older now, wrinkles and grey hair make sense even if the man still doesn't look his age (his Erik never did either.) To Kurt's eyes, he looks more worn down than older; too much like what he sees in a mirror. His voice is softer, when he speaks.] You lost someone in those thousands, didn't you?

[The comment hits home. Erik's expression flickers and he doesn't want to do this again, doesn't want to explain what happened to his family when ultimately it wasn't En Sabah Nur's doing. He hadn't wanted to tell Kitty, but she demanded explanations... ones he now has to give Kurt.]

They weren't part of it. [His voice only wavers a bit. It hardens again as he pushes on.] Kurt, before I go any further, there's something you need to know.

[Because it will change everything. He can't go through the details of what happened and still avoid it, collect sympathy that isn't his due. He doesn't want to.]

I was one of his followers.

[Every part of Kurt, from his featureless eyes to the expressive tip of his tail, freezes when Erik drops that bombshell. His chest doesn't even move for a few seconds, arrested in the middle of drawing a breath to attempt consoling Erik.

A muscle in his tail twitches, his chest slowly expands, and Kurt begins to slowly shake his head, like a statue creaking to life.] Nein. You're not funny, Erik! [Ill-hidden under the anger is the tension of a quiet plea; be lying. Please, please be making a horrible joke. Lie, just don't say it's true.]

[Strangely, this smooths the path for Erik. He can't deny what's been said. He can't soften this blow, or pretend it isn't the truth. It doesn't lessen the twist in his stomach when Kurt freezes or when he tries to find away around what Erik's revealed. It only strengthens that sober certainty that there's no going back from here.

He keeps his voice calm, though he can't strike the resignation from his face.]

I would never joke about this.

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