Charles had been somewhat ambivalent about taking Erik back.
More than somewhat, in all honesty. His knee-jerk response had been to say no. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances would he consider as much. He'd let Erik convalesce at his house, if necessary—provided he stayed in one of the empty wings of the house, out of the way for the duration of his stay. That was no more than he'd have done for any mutant, for any person who came to him seeking help.
But the last time Erik had arrived—not to convalesce—he'd barely had the grace to limp on his way in, for God's sake—he had moved into an empty bedroom just down the hall from Charles' own suite. Well, that was fine, Charles supposed. This wing of the house was barely populated, after all. Charles was the only one who slept there. It wasn't as if Erik would be bothering anyone else. Just as long as he didn't stay more than a few days.
After a few weeks, Charles had decided it was fine if Erik wanted to stay a little longer, provided he didn't show up in the cafeteria during lunch hour, or in the other common areas at any point during the day. After Erik had been eating lunch in the cafeteria with everyone else for a month or so, as well as wandering the house and the grounds at any hour he pleased, he'd decided that was fine, too, just so long as Erik didn't get it into his head that he wanted to teach.
Midway through Erik's first semester teaching literature, French, and Spanish, Charles decided that was all very well, but there was still no imaginable scenario under which they would be sleeping together again. Those days were gone. Erik had had his second chance, hadn't he, and he'd thrown it away.
After even that decision had fallen by the wayside—only because Charles had noticed the first streak of gray in Erik's hair, mind you; only because it had reminded him of how Erik had looked, standing regal and tall by Charles' side in a vision he'd once had of another life—Charles had given up on doing the math of 'this is fine, provided it doesn't become that.' Erik was here. Erik wanted to stay. In all honesty, the only reason Charles had stopped wishing for this, after Paris and DC, was that he'd realized he was never, ever going to get it. Now that he had it, he might as well accept it. One of these days, he might even learn to trust it enough to enjoy having it. If that could happen without the world having come to an end first, he thought that in particular would be lovely.
It never once occurred to him to decide that all of the above was completely fine, just so long as Erik didn't wind up pregnant.
But even if it had, it still wouldn't have mattered, since that went ahead and happened too.
***
At first, Charles had been convinced that it was food poisoning. It had been bound to happen sooner or later, he'd reasoned: after all, Erik would eat anything. Insisted on it, in fact. If there were leftovers in the fridge, he'd eat that instead of cooking up something new. If a block of cheese grew moldy, he'd cut off the parts that were green and eat the rest. The same went for any pieces of fruit past their prime. If Erik was going to eat food that had gone off, well, eventually he was going to face the consequences, and at least Charles could be relatively confident that it wasn't the flu.
A few days later, Charles thought there was a good chance it might be the flu after all. A few days after that, he stopped bracing himself for when he inevitably caught it as well, and started trying to broach the idea of a doctor's visit. While Erik had his own reasons to be wary, a week's worth of vomiting from early morning to mid-afternoon made him that much more open to the suggestion than he might otherwise have been, and he allowed Charles to make him an appointment for the very next day.
Even then, the diagnosis might have taken a while, if not for Charles' family doctor's fleeting thought, when the initial bloodwork results came back in: That these were the sort of numbers that he'd expect to see in a woman who was, well, expecting. Which wasn't even a thought Charles himself would have paid much attention to, except—stranger things had happened, hadn't they? And he and Hank had already theorized about secondary mutations, how common they might be, what forms they might take...male pregnancy was far from the most outlandish of the ideas they'd thrown out there, though it wasn't one they'd discussed in any detail until now.
***
Over the next few weeks, Erik's morning sickness abated, aided in large part by the anti-nausea medication he'd been prescribed. Over the next few months, other symptoms came and went, most of which were evident only if you happened to be paying extra attention to Erik, and knew what you were looking for, and were squinting. Over a period of three days, five months in, it suddenly became extremely obvious that something was going on with Erik, no matter how little attention you generally paid to his figure and regardless of whether or not you were aware that you were looking at an expectant man.
That winter's February was just as dismal as it usually was, with one addition: Erik, who had weathered the previous winter without complaint, had done nothing but complain since the first bite of this one. Oh, he didn't do it out loud—despite the reputation that preceded him, as the entire student body had somehow become aware that "Mr. Eisenhardt" was the same person as Magneto, and thus expected him to go off at the drop of a hat, despite the fact that he had yet to attempt to kill anyone on the grounds of the school, or even really bark at anyone more than once or twice a semester—but it was nonetheless a constant buzz, a nagging irritant in the back of Charles' mind that simply would not be blocked out, no matter how successfully he'd managed to block most of Erik's other thoughts.
Erik had been on edge for months, cabin fever spilling out onto everything else, so Charles shouldn't have been surprised when he came into the bedroom one Thursday evening to discover Erik stuffing handfuls of socks into an already full to bursting duffel bag.
Shouldn't have been surprised, wasn't, and yet it was a few seconds before he could say, his heart sinking even though he should have known this was coming, "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" Erik didn't even look over his shoulder as he shoved the last of the socks in, then zipped up the duffel bag. It went easily, which, considering that Erik's shirts had been sticking out several inches, made Charles suspect he was cheating. "I'm packing. You should get started, too."
Charles, who had intended to say, 'And where, exactly, are you planning on going?' was left with, "...Get started with what?"
"Packing," Erik said, as Charles' suitcase, which he hadn't made use of since his Oxford days, flew out of the closet and landed on his bed in a flurry of dust.
Charles hadn't expected to receive an invitation. Now that he'd received it, he wasn't so certain about accepting, but it had to be better sitting around here, hoping Erik planned to return before their child was ten years old. "...Where are we going?"
His response was an impatient look, as Erik stalked over to the long dresser against the wall, and began pulling out handfuls of Charles' underwear.
***
And so Charles packed. He took his time, ignoring Erik's annoyance even though it made his skull itch. It wasn't as if it was a new sensation, after all, and it would only be worse if they had to turn around in an hour or two when Charles abruptly remembered something important that he'd forgotten. Particularly any medical supplies that couldn't be picked up from the nearest drugstore without a prescription; Charles tried not to smooth such things over in public too often anymore, all too aware how such actions could backfire if the general public somehow got wind of it.
Several hours later, they were on their way, Erik's irritation beginning to even out the moment they passed the gate, and nearly gone by the time they'd been on the road for fifteen minutes. Charles had forgotten how driving calmed him. It had been one of the first thing he'd noticed about Erik when they'd gone on their recruitment trip for the CIA. He'd expected to spend the entire trip soothing Erik's prickliness and talking around his paranoia; instead, he'd then found that he was able to relax almost immediately, because Erik had.
The same was true now, and they hadn't been on the road for twenty minutes when Charles ventured to ask, as he wouldn't have even half an hour ago, "So what did Hank say to you this time, precisely?" When Erik glanced at him, with an expression he couldn't make out in the dark, but which made him want to scratch his scalp, Charles added, "You've been practically shouting it all night. Hank this, Hank that, what you were planning on doing to him if he came anywhere near you before we got out of there. It was rather hard to miss."
Erik had turned his attention back to the road, but Charles was paying close enough attention to think he could see a muscle twitching in Erik's jaw. "Beast can't seem to speak to me without mentioning my age."
"Ahh," Charles said, since he doubted 'Well, you are forty-eight, and my understanding is that that is generally considered concerning when it comes to childbearing...' would be a welcome response, no matter how much mellower Erik seemed at the moment. "I'm sorry."
"Or my hips," Erik continued. "If he tries to measure them one more time, he'll regret it."
"—I'll make certain to pass that along."
"Don't humor me."
"I'm not," Charles said, affecting the most innocent expression he could for when Erik glanced over at him again, though he doubted Erik could see much of it. "I completely agree that Hank is a terrible nursemaid." It was possible he oughtn't to have said that, since it would naturally bring up the question of when he would have experienced Hank in that function for himself, and that was one of the many things he and Erik didn't talk about, but it was too late now. "So, are you going to tell me where, exactly, it is we're going?"
"I have a safehouse several hours away. We can go there, unless you'd prefer something else."
"No." Charles had the distinct feeling that he'd better not prefer anything else. And really, he didn't have any other destination in mind anyway. Anywhere Erik wanted to go was fine, really.
***
Their destination turned out to be a small house, set well off a road that was itself out of the way of anything much. Gravel and snow crunched under the tires as they came up the long driveway, and, once they were nearly there, the front light came on in response to a flick of Erik's fingers.
As usual when headed someplace he hadn't been before, Charles had been somewhat worried about stairs, not particularly enamored of having to ask Erik's help. And stairs there were—but to his surprise, there was also a ramp at the front of the house, clearly much newer than the rest of the building.
Charles didn't know how to respond to that, so he chose not to respond at all except by using it. By the time he'd gotten to the door, Erik had already gone inside with his duffel bag held in one hand and Charles' suitcase following behind him, and had switched on several lamps.
The house—really more of a cabin—seemed much smaller on the inside than it had on the outside. By the time the door had swung closed behind Charles, he had started to wonder what the hell he was doing here. By the time Erik had started going through kitchen cabinets—the kitchen not actually being a separate space from the living room; in fact, the the toilet (there was no bathtub, or even a shower) and the bedroom also seemed to be all a part of the same room—and swearing under his breath, his former calm now gone in favor of muttering about how he knew he'd stocked up with more than green beans the last time he'd come down here, Charles had realized that this whole thing had been a mistake. What had he been thinking to agree to locking himself up with Erik into a space even smaller than his own bedroom suite? For God knew how long? This had been an awful idea.
For at least ten minutes, Charles sat just inside the door, watching Erik thump and bump around. It was clear he'd spent time here, because despite the crowdedness of the small space, he didn't bump into anything, and after the first few minutes, his grumbling didn't have the same edge to it that it had before. It had been smoothed out in a way even the drive up hadn't managed.
Erik was comfortable here, if Charles wasn't. He seemed more at ease here than he had in the last year and some he'd spent at the school. Now that Charles thought of it, he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Erik anywhere near this relaxed, even in his sleep. It was almost offensive. No, it was offensive. If Erik liked being alone in a cabin in the woods so much better than he liked living at the school, then what was he doing there in the first place? And what, in the name of all that was holy, was Charles doing here with him?
Ever since Erik had come back, Charles had found himself looking for reasons to be upset in the things Erik said and did. Now, he looked around and found himself becoming upset by the obviously hand-built shelf along the wall, the well-thumbed novel on the bedside table. There was a robe hanging on a hook, for God's sake, with a pair of well-worn slippers underneath.
There was Erik, standing in front of Charles' chair, offering him a chipped coffee cup. The contents smelled like tea rather than coffee, and when Charles took a sip, it turned out to be quite good tea at that.
What business did Erik have, making him tea?
"Thank you," Charles said after a long, awkward moment, far from the first long, awkward moment they'd shared since August. He couldn't very well throw a fit over something this minor, after all. Unlike Erik, he wouldn't even have hormones to use as an excuse. "Really, if either of us is making the other tea, I ought to be making it for you, don't you think?"
Erik responded to this in the same way he'd responded to every tentative gesture Charles had made over the last few months—he turned away, discomforted or annoyed or whatever else—whatever it was, it wasn't loud enough for Charles to hear it without actively listening, and he had a personal rule that he didn't put effort into reading Erik's mind above and beyond whatever Erik projected on his own—and busied himself doing something else, which in this case involved pouring himself a cup of hot water from the kettle, considering it, then leaving it on the counter in favor of sorting through his cupboards a bit more.
"Don't worry, I don't need a tour," Charles said, which he didn't. He could see it all from here. "If it's all the same to you, I'm tired, and I'm going to bed."
"Make yourself at home," Erik said, and there was absolutely no way to tell how sincerely he meant it.
***
When Charles woke up on Friday morning, the first thing he noticed was that he was warm, in a sharp contrast to climbing under the frigid covers the night before. The second thing he noticed was that he was so warm not only because the wood-burning stove had had time to, well, burn wood, but because Erik had, somehow, against all odds, managed to squeeze himself into the bed between Charles and the wall. This would have been quite the feat even if Erik had retained his old slimness; Charles couldn't imagine how he had managed it in his current state without pushing Charles off the bed, or at least jostling him enough to wake him up.
They'd slept on opposite sides of the same bed for the past year or so—Erik had moved into Charles' room without so much as a by-your-leave, and Charles had allowed it because it was that much less work than starting a fight about it, or letting Erik know the depth of his unease. But whether Erik had made it to bed by the time Charles fell asleep or not, by the time he got up in the morning, Erik's side of the bed had always long since gone cold. That had been true even recently, although Erik hadn't taught any classes since the end of the last semester—Charles had had Hank insist that he take the spring semester off, considering that the baby would be coming smack in the middle of it. If Charles had ever had the chance to watch Erik sleep, it must have been back in 1962, when they were different people altogether.
Now, he found himself more transfixed than he'd meant to be, when he hadn't meant to look at all. Erik looked so much more relaxed than he ever did when he was awake—the crows' feet smoothed out around his eyes, his brow barely furrowed at all, and if his mouth was gaping open while he drooled onto his pillow, well, he didn't seem self-conscious about it in the least.
It wasn't until his eyes dropped to Erik's midsection that Charles managed to wrench himself away, lest he catch himself doing something he shouldn't, or, worse, be caught doing it. As disgruntled as Erik could get over being manhandled by Hank while awake, Charles doubted he'd take kindly to being pawed while asleep, either.
By the time Charles was dressed, Erik had already begun to stir. By the time Charles had finished making breakfast—instant oatmeal, which claimed it could be achieved with the addition of either boiling milk or water, and was hopefully being truthful regarding the latter since there was no milk to be had—Erik was up, looking like his normal disgruntled self. If slightly less inclined to object to being told what to do than usual, because when Charles said, "Sit down and eat," Erik sat down and began doing just that, shoveling food into his mouth so mechanically it was difficult to say if he was actually enjoying the experience. But then again, that was the way Erik always ate, so perhaps Charles shouldn't have decided he'd use Erik's reaction to decide whether he ought to try any of it for himself.
After they'd both finished eating—the oatmeal turned out to be on the watery side, and bland, but at least it wasn't burnt—and cleaned up, Charles said, "What's the plan for today?"
If it had been a friendlier part of the year, or if Erik hadn't been as heavily pregnant as he was, Charles suspected he'd have been outside already, hiking or fiddling around in the square area in the backyard that must have been meant to be a garden, judging by all the tomato stakes standing up in the snow. Erik had never been one to be idle. Neither was Charles, for that matter; he'd packed his grading and several other projects, just to make sure he'd have something to do wherever he and Erik ended up.
Erik must have thought he was asking to be entertained, because he stepped over to the shelf along the wall, picked up a chess set, and, laying it down on the table, said, "We could always play a few games."
Over the last year, Erik had often suggested they play chess. Nearly as often, Charles had made an excuse to get himself out of it. He was too tired, or it was too late at night, or he didn't want to play for five minutes at a time in-between everything else he had to do. He was a very busy man, you know, but if Erik was intent on sharpening his skills, he might consider starting up a chess club for the students.
Now, though, none of that applied. Oh, Charles had packed some papers to grade, but he and Erik both knew that that particular task wouldn't take more than an hour or two. Erik had a few books, stacked here and there, and Charles had brought his knitting projects along as well, but if they were to stay here for longer than a day, Charles would eventually have to concede. He suspected Erik meant to stay for at least the weekend, which would be another three nights.
"—I suppose."
"Excellent," Erik said, and he knew precisely what he was doing. He never sounded that pleased with himself if he didn't. "Black or white?"
***
The problem with chess was—
The drive up had been one thing. Even back when they'd first met, they hadn't always talked in the car; if there had been any number of enlightening conversations as they drove, there had also been plenty of days, during those weeks of driving around the country, when they'd said hardly anything at all, content to sit together in companionable silence.
Chess, while companionable, had never been a silent activity. It had also never been about the game. Neither Charles nor Erik was any sort of chess master; the most either of them could say was that they had each learned the other's mentality well enough that their wins were evenly split. Sometimes they barely noticed who had won a particular game, because what mattered was the conversation.
Over a handful of weeks, fifteen years ago, they had learned each other over a chessboard. Night after night, they'd played, and they'd talked. Charles had learned a great deal about Erik from reading his mind; he'd learned as much or more about Erik through those quiet, unguarded hours at the end of every day. It had created an intimacy that Charles had never quite managed with anyone else, one he still flinched away from remembering. One he had not been interested in revisiting, but now he was cornered, wasn't he?
Charles knew he would speak. He knew it before he made his opening move, before Erik had made his. He meant to be careful, to think over whatever he said before he said it, to make sure he didn't give anything away that he didn't intend to. Yet, even though he'd thought the words over for a good five minutes before they emerged, somehow they didn't sound as casual as he meant them to when they came out: "So, this is where you head off to some weekends?"
Ever since his return, Erik had occasionally made himself scarce for a day or two, never with any warning. He did always left a note, and Charles had yet to decide if he appreciated or resented the gesture. Since he hadn't decided, he had up until now also never commented on Erik's disappearances, even the ones which had occurred since his pregnancy.
"Usually," Erik said. After Charles moved his bishop, he added, "I lived here for almost a year. Before I came to you."
Well, that explained the familiarity. It certainly explained the garden—nobody planted a garden in a place they only visited every other month. "I see."
***
Erik spent much of Friday after their game tidying up, to the extent that was possible when he couldn't open a window to air the place out, and had to sit down to rest every few minutes. Charles offered to help, but after being informed—rather snootily, he thought—that he'd just be in the way, he instead settled down with his grading, and then with a book. Erik's couch was no good, too lumpy in all the wrong places, so that Charles ended up with a backache after only five minutes and ended up moving over to the bed, which was an enormous improvement.
There was a part of Charles which had always enjoyed lying around without much to do, (for the same reasons that most human beings enjoy getting to do nothing every so often), though it wasn't a luxury he'd allowed himself much of since the days before D.C., which had been the opposite of enjoyable. It wasn't a sensation he was used to anymore, and so he was surprised to look up sometime after dinner to realize that, indeed, it had gotten quite late, and was about time he went to bed.
***
On Saturday, Erik moved the chess set back to its shelf in favor of bringing in a few pieces of wood which had been stored in the shed out back. They were clearly part of an already-begun project, cut into very particular shapes, and Charles probably should have realized what they were meant to make before Erik told him, which he did only after Charles had finally grown tired of wondering what he was doing enough to ask.
"It's a cradle," Erik said. "For the baby."
"Oh," Charles said. He didn't know what else to say, really; throughout Erik's pregnancy, the baby had been the leader of the elephants in the room. Of all the things they didn't talk about, they avoided this subject the most, Charles for a myriad of reasons he hadn't yet been willing to begin sifting through, and Erik because...well, for whatever reason Erik had. It wasn't as if he were particularly verbose anyway. "You're keeping it here?"
He didn't realize how pathetic that sounded until he'd said it. Not that he could have said anything else. It was his baby too, after all, and if Erik meant to keep the cradle here, didn't that suggest he meant to stay here with the baby?
Erik gave him a sharp look at this, but all he said was, "There are two."
And, now that Charles looked, he could see that there really were more pieces of wood than necessary for a single baby cradle. And they had been stained different colors, one set very dark and the other set much lighter.
Charles didn't know much about woodworking, but as he wheeled toward the table to get a better look (banging against his suitcase as he went; this place really was quite small, close to four corners of the same room than four rooms that just so happened not to have any dividing walls), he thought that it looked like very professional work indeed. He wondered if Erik had done it all himself. It seemed likely, just as it seemed likely that he'd built that ramp out front himself.
"This one is for here," Erik said, indicating the lighter-colored set, which was the one he was currently assembling. "The other is for home."
"I see." Charles didn't know what to make of that word, 'home,' any more than he knew what to do with the spark of hope it engendered. He tucked it away for later consideration.
***
"I bought some things for her," Charles said later that afternoon, when they were on opposite sides of the chess set once more. Erik had finished the cradles, which now sat by the front door, illuminated by the lamplight. Charles kept glancing at them without intending to, wondering. "I've been keeping them in one of the bedrooms down the hall. I can show them to you when we get back."
Every time Charles went out these days, he made Hank stop at any store which looked as if it might sell baby things. He hadn't come home empty-handed in the last few months, ever since Erik began to show. Why he hadn't shown Erik any of the bibs or footsie pajamas or boxes of diapers he'd bought in bulk, he didn't know. Erik probably thought he didn't care, and that couldn't be farther from the truth.
"I've seen them," Erik said, disproving this theory immediately.
"Of course you have," Charles said, and he might have been more disgruntled about it—Erik nosing through Charles' house, looking for God-knows-what; it was probably a good thing they'd moved the helmet out of the house a long time ago—but for some reason he wasn't, not at all. "Well, what did you think?"
"I can make you a better high chair," Erik said, and wondering and worrying what he'd meant by saying 'you' instead of 'us' occupied Charles so much that he ended up losing that particular game.
***
"I can rub your back, if you'd like," Charles said that night around bedtime. Erik had been steadily radiating more and more discomfort over the last few hours, and while this wasn't new—Erik had radiated discomfort in various places over the last seven months, even more so over the last several—it did seem like it was a little worse than usual. Or maybe it was just that they were stuck together here, so that Erik couldn't walk off the frustration that came with it the way he could by pacing the hallways at the school. Since it was happening here, Charles couldn't ignore it.
Erik, who had refused back rubs, foot rubs, shoulder massages, and everything else Charles had ever (awkwardly) offered him at home, now sat on the edge of the bed and grumbled something that sounded like, "Fine."
Charles pushed himself up so he'd be sitting a little higher against the headboard—briefly, he found himself wondering if Erik had made that, too; it was stained the same light color as the cradle he intended to keep here—and started with Erik's shoulders, which were so incredibly tense that it was initially like trying to knead a rock. Charles knew better than to comment on that, however; Erik seemed to be bristling enough under the surface, whether at accepting help or having needing it in the first place, that it seemed like the safer option. Instead, he kept at Erik's shoulders until he seemed slightly more relaxed, then moved on to that back rub, finding himself immensely pleased at Erik's reaction—a pleased sigh, which he cut off immediately, followed eventually by him lying down next to Charles and falling deeply asleep.
***
On Sunday morning, Charles woke up as startlingly warm as he had on Friday, but with one difference: Where it was warm and comfortable under the covers, he could see his own breath when he stuck his head out. The stove must have gone out sometime in the night. Well, he would have to wait for Erik to get up and deal with it, especially given that it was now Charles who was next to the wall. For now, he stuck his head back under, and went back to sleep.
A little later, he woke up, a little more aware this time—enough to realize that Erik was curled up next to him, or as curled up as a heavily pregnant person was going to get, with his head on Charles' shoulder and Charles' hand on his stomach. Charles wasn't at all sure when either of these migrations had occurred, and meant to move his hand to Erik's hip immediately, but didn't quite manage it before Erik himself snorted and came awake.
"Good morning," Charles said. "The stove went out."
"I'll fix it in a minute," Erik said, but made no move to get up, and it wasn't long before he seemed to have drifted back off to sleep, not having moved at all from the position Charles had found him in.
Several hours later, Erik finally bestirred himself, thumping out of bed with a barrage of muttered curses. It took him a few minutes to get the stove started, and once he had, he climbed back under the covers, bringing the chill with him. Instead of grumbling about this, which was his first instinct, Charles helped him get tucked into the blankets once more, in the interest of achieving similar body temperatures in a shorter period of time.
***
Eventually, the small space of the cabin had warmed enough to venture out of bed. By then, it was noon, far later than Charles had slept in for years. Not since it had been just he and Hank alone in his house, and that hadn't felt nearly as nice as this. Back then, he'd slept the days away to get them over with sooner; in this case, he found himself not wanting to get out of bed because he couldn't imagine anyplace he'd rather be.
Where the cabin had felt somewhat claustrophobic before, now it felt almost companionable. As if something had shifted, though Charles wasn't at all certain what—it wasn't as if he and Erik had had any particularly deep conversation. It wasn't as if they'd had it out, or lanced any boils. And yet Charles hadn't been this comfortable or at peace in Erik's presence since 1962. And if he wasn't quite as comfortable now as he had been then, the difference was at least informed by all that had gone between.
Shortly after they'd eaten breakfast—oatmeal again, and while it was much better when Erik made it, Charles suspected he was going to be sick of the stuff by the time they headed back to the mansion—Erik heated up a bath for himself, which involved filling the round metal tub by the toilet, then causing the metal to warm up the water within.
Charles had his doubts about Erik's ability to get in and out of that thing in his present condition, but left them unvoiced. After Erik had slipped in—(Charles averted his eyes as he undressed, even though he'd seen it all before)—he was glad he hadn't said anything, since the water soothed Erik's ever-present aches and pains to a greater extent than anything else had, including the back rub of the night before.
Another thing he kept to himself was how absurd Erik looked when he finally settled with his legs hanging over the edge and his belly poking up out of the water—it really was a very small tub. There was certainly no possibility that Charles would be able to use it himself. He'd have to stick with the sponge baths.
***
That evening, after Erik had spent approximately five hours getting wrinkled in hot water, it was Charles who suggested they begin a game of chess, and Erik who readily agreed.
"When did you want to go home?" Charles asked, because after all, Erik had chosen that word himself in their previous conversation.
"Not yet."
"Well, tomorrow is a school day," Charles pointed out, although they'd already missed Friday. He'd left a message with Hank to cover both their classes until they returned, which hopefully hadn't been too much of a hassle—they weren't remotely understaffed, but at the same time, none of the other teachers had a free enough schedule that taking on extra classes was nothing. Then again, he wasn't particularly keen on going anywhere either... "I suppose we could stay an extra day or two, if you wanted."
Erik was still a few weeks in advance of his due date, so far as anyone could tell, a fact that was based on his date of conception—which was one of the things they knew for sure, since they had managed penetration precisely once since his return. Maybe that was why it didn't occur to Charles that he didn't mind staying as long as Erik wanted, provided Erik didn't go into labor early.
***
The storm began on Monday morning. Charles wasn't concerned to look out the window to see snow. It was February, of course it was snowing. It wasn't worth the least bit of notice, or so he thought then.
No, what he was more concerned about, hours after he first noticed the snow coming down, was Erik's back pain, which had returned with a vengeance.
"Do you want to soak in the bath again?" Charles asked as he rubbed Erik's back, which didn't seem to be helping half as much as it had the other night. "Do you think that would help?"
"No, it wouldn't help," Erik snapped, in possibly the nastiest tone he'd ever used with Charles, including the time he'd accused him of being responsible for the deaths of some of their fellow mutants. He jumped up—if any motion which involved having to grab onto the headboard in order to stand qualified as jumping—and headed over to the window, where he pulled the curtain aside in order to look out.
What had started as a non-alarming amount of snow was now coming down horizontally, and so densely that they couldn't see anything beyond it, not even the car in the driveway.
"Can you drive?" Erik asked, as brusquely as before, though at least less accusingly.
"In that? I'd rather not." Besides, Erik hadn't taken the car with Charles' hand driving controls installed, meaning that even if Charles was in the driver's seat, he'd need Erik's abilities to actually go anywhere. "If you want to make a supply run, you really ought to wait until this passes."
If Erik had been going to head to the nearest grocery store, he should have done it on their way up, so they wouldn't have to eat so much oatmeal. In fact, Charles was surprised he hadn't, since Erik had had some strange cravings earlier on in his pregnancy. (At least, Charles assumed that was why Erik had eaten some of the strange combinations Charles had made an effort not to comment on.) Well, never mind. No harm done.
Erik stayed at the window for a few minutes longer, glaring at the snow as if he, like young Ororo back at the school, could banish it altogether if he concentrated hard enough. Then he let the curtain fall back into place, and went and sat on the couch. After less than a minute, he jumped back up again, and stalked into the kitchen, sifting through all the cupboards once more before returning to sit next to Charles. There he stayed and submitted to another back rub for a good five minutes before getting up again and opening the front door. Evidently this was no more encouraging than looking out the window had been, because he immediately slammed it closed.
***
It took an embarrassingly long time for Charles to catch on to what was going on with Erik. Two hours later, Erik hadn't stopped fidgeting, and all Charles could think was that he had chosen the most inconvenient time imaginable to develop cabin fever.
"Would you mind sitting down?" he asked, somewhat more sharply than he intended, after Erik's eightieth or so round of the cabin. "You're driving me out of my mind."
"You try doing this," Erik snapped back.
"Doing what?"
Charles had been doing his best to block out Erik's rising irritation. The last thing he needed was to catch Erik's mood. He'd like to survive the rest of this trip, thank you, and he could only do that if he and Erik didn't kill one another.
Now, he lowered his shields enough to pick up whatever it was that Erik was talking about—and found that he'd missed something else in the meantime.
"My God. Please tell me you're not in labor."
"Tell yourself. It'll be more convincing."
"My God," Charles said again. He transferred to his chair from the bed and went to look out the window for himself. The situation was even more dire as it had seemed when Erik had looked earlier—the snow coming down just as heavily, with just as much interference from the wind (not that Charles had expected otherwise, since he hadn't exactly missed the howling from outside, so much louder here than it would have seemed at home). He let the curtain go, then looked back at Erik. "Are you sure?"
Erik's flat look made it clear: Yes, he was sure. And, yes, Charles was an idiot, although he hadn't asked about that.
"Well. Ah." Charles looked out the window again. Alas, the blizzard had not dissipated in the last ten seconds. "How far along do you think you are in the, erm, process?"
From what little he knew, labor could take a while. It had been hours already, after all, and Erik didn't look like he was in imminent danger of delivering. Surely this storm would be short, and Erik's labor long, so they'd have time enough to get him to the hospital before anything actually happened. Charles would be perfectly happy to make the staff believe Erik was a woman, having a baby the normal way. Never mind the danger of increased public scrutiny. He didn't care. Just so long as Erik didn't insist on having their baby here, everything would be just fine.
"It'll be fine," Charles repeated out loud, and headed over to the stove. He picked up the tea kettle and began to fill it from the tap.
"I don't want tea," Erik said, or, well, snapped. He didn't seem to have a non-snapping mode at the moment, but that was understandable.
"I'm not making tea. I'm just boiling water."
"Why?"
"Well, I—don't know," Charles admitted, but continued filling the kettle for lack of a better plan of action (and on the off chance he would come up with a good reason later). "They always seem to do it in books." Erik read quite a bit for someone who'd never completed a formal education; surely he'd noticed this, too. "Anytime someone sends for the doctor, he tells them to boil water the moment he gets in the door."
Erik was now looking at Charles as if he were the stupidest person imaginable. Charles, for his part, couldn't quite manage to disagree.
***
By that evening, it had become apparent that no matter what either of them might have wished for, the storm wasn't interested in passing, and the baby wasn't interested in staying put. Erik's contractions had grown closer and closer together, to Erik's ever-increasing irritation—which now seemed to actually be more anxiety than anything else, despite his snappish commentary every time Charles said anything or asked him anything. Erik, for all that he had this cabin hidden out in the woods, a place where he could escape from Charles any time he wanted, apparently had no desire whatsoever to actually give birth out here.
"I'm going to see if there's a doctor nearby," Charles said, bringing his hand to his temple. "Give me a minute."
If Erik said anything in return, Charles missed it, already intent on a telepathic sweep of the surrounding area. In the nearest town, he found an obstetrician; in the town next to it, several midwives.
If there had been any chance at all that any of them could have made it to the cabin, he wouldn't have hesitated to make them try, Charles realized. It was a terrible thing to realize about himself, that he'd force strangers to risk their lives for the sake of someone he loved as much as he loved Erik. (The love he felt despite himself, perhaps, but there was little denying it now, the source of the panic he felt concerning the fact that ordinary childbirth was not safe, and Erik's wouldn't have been ordinary even if he'd been twenty years younger than he was). Later, that realization would bother him, probably a lot. It would eat at him to have to acknowledge that the lines he drew, what he would and wouldn't do, were in fact so much more flexible when it came to the wellbeing of his loved ones. For now, the knowledge that no one would be able to get here in these conditions was all that stayed his hand.
Instead, Charles tried something he never had before, one of those things he had long suspected he could do, but had never planned to try. He reached into the doctor's mind, into the midwives', and he took every bit of knowledge he could find about childbirth and labor. He'd looked for information he'd needed before, but never like this, never taking everything someone knew about a subject and absorbing it all, seeding their knowledge and experience into his own mind as if it had always been there.
When he had finished, he turned back to Erik, and said, "All right. I know what to do now."
***
Delivering their baby was an experience like no other, even while it was an experience Charles now remembered having had hundreds of times before. There was more blood than Charles would have expected prior to his new knowledge, but now he knew that it wasn't too much. And if Erik's anatomy was different than anything in those borrowed memories, Charles at least knew enough to be able to extrapolate.
In the end, Erik strained, as he had been for some time now, and Charles caught their daughter in his own hands. She was pink, and flailing, and within moments had opened her mouth and begun to scream. Charles would have supposed, from all those memories, that babies cried because they were distressed, but this one, their daughter, she was screaming because she was angry. She'd been perfectly happy where she was, and was not at all pleased to have been squeezed and pushed and finally thrust out into the cold brightness of life.
Despite having come a week or two early, she seemed perfectly healthy for a newborn, thank God, and Charles handed her to Erik at once, then went to fetch the hot water. (As it turned out, this had been useful for washing his hands ahead of time, and now would be useful to clean them again, along with Erik and the baby.) He had also found some clean rags under the sink, which he had placed nearby and now was able to fetch.
For the next little while, Charles focused on the clean up, and on making sure Erik delivered the placenta correctly, and didn't bleed more than was normal after a birth. Erik, for his part, was silent now, the snappishness as well as the harsh grunting of the last hour or so both having been banished.
When he'd finished cleaning up, (at least as much as was possible given the supplies they had available—the whole experience had been so much messier than Charles had imagined, and he had no doubt Erik would have to sleep on the couch tonight if he didn't have the energy to at least flip the mattress over. Where Charles would sleep in that case, he had no idea, but he supposed sleeping sitting up was a skill he might as well learn), Charles turned back to Erik and the baby, seeing the two of them together for the first time through eyes that weren't also someone else's. He thought he had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life than this one.
"Well," he said, "she's not going to be able to wear that hat for a while."
Erik, too tired (and perhaps too distracted) to be snappish at this juncture, said, "What hat?" in a tone much milder than he'd been using up until half an hour ago.
"I made her a hat, a while back," Charles said. "I knitted it. It's twice the size of her head. And it's pink."
This last was perhaps the main deal-breaker as far as the hat went, for now that the baby's sparse hair had mostly dried, it had become apparent that it was also a startling shade of green.
"I didn't know you knitted," Erik said.
"Well, I do." Charles considered the two of them for another long minute before saying, "I'd like to hold her properly now, if you don't mind."
She'd been wrapped in one of Erik's old shirts, for lack of a blanket. There were apparently some baby supplies out in the car, packed on the off chance something like this happened—apparently, Erik had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for the past week; apparently that was what Hank had really been nagging him about, and Charles fully intended to shout at him about it at a later date—but they were unreachable for the moment, other than the baby formula Erik intended to fetch with his gift any minute now. Charles was just grateful there was baby formula to be had, since Erik seemed to have little intention of lactating.
It was clear from Erik's expression that he did mind letting anyone else hold her, but after a moment's hesitation, he handed her over anyway.
"Hello," Charles said. He wasn't sure she had been quite real to him until this moment, despite all the months he'd known she was on her way.
***
In all honesty, Charles had been ambivalent about becoming a father. His reluctance had had very little to do with the baby, and everything to do with Erik, who already had such power to hurt him, and now would be able to hurt him even more, if he ever were to leave again and take their daughter with him.
Even though the circumstances of her birth had left Charles more certain that Erik didn't intend to do any such thing—that Erik's plan, going forward, involved nothing worse than occasionally spiriting the three of them away to the woods for a weekend—being completely certain of it all was going to take some conversations he and Erik had yet to have, and some time.
Thankfully, it appeared there would be plenty of that.
The four-wheel drive came by on Wednesday morning, after the snow had finally stopped. All still seemed to be going well, but Charles wanted both Erik and the baby (still unnamed, as naming her had not been a priority in the last day of sleeping in shifts as they figured out what to do with a newborn) checked out by people who had actual medical equipment at their disposal. Although the phone lines were out, Charles had nevertheless made a 'call' and gotten them to the top of the list of transports.
He'd never been quite so relieved to leave a place, but at the same time, he was quite certain they'd be going back.