A flash of blue skin, yellow eyes. The slip couldn't have lasted for more than a second, but that was long enough. The damage had been done.
Raven, pink again a moment later, ran home as quickly as she could, her mind filled with a terror that couldn't be soothed or reasoned with. Charles had always had some difficulty figuring out just what she was thinking in moments of panic like these, but he could make out enough now to know she wasn't in the schoolyard in the light of day, not anymore. Wherever Raven was now, there was a dark figure holding a rifle, and the baying of dogs. It was colder there, snow crunching underneath her feet and her breath visible in the air, and she was hungry. If it was possible to reach her there, to bring her back early, Charles hadn't yet figured out how.
Charles stayed behind just long enough to make sure the damage had been undone, then raced along after. He had no chance of catching her on the way, of course; Raven was smaller than him, but he'd never been able to keep up with her except when she let him.
By the time he made it to the house, red-faced and gasping, Raven had already made it up to the second floor library. He could see her in the window, watching him.
Are you all right? Charles asked.
Raven didn't answer, but that wasn't all that surprising; she blew hot and cold toward his telepathy depending on her mood. Charles could tell she'd come back to herself, though, and that was good.
"I'm never going back there," Raven said when Charles made it upstairs and sat down next to her on the window seat. She wasn't looking at him, but rather out the window. She had been hugging her knees before he found her, but when she heard him coming had crossed her arms instead.
"All right," Charles said, though he'd meant to say they would talk about it later. Raven should have an education. And she definitely shouldn't be alone in the house with Kurt and Cain when Charles was at school, even if she was better at dodging them than Charles had ever been. But this was the fourth time this had happened, now, and more people had seen her than ever had before. Next time, Charles might not be there, or might not be able to contain the damage even if he was.
"You can't make me."
Charles very well could, but now was perhaps not the best time to point it out. (There probably was no good time to point it out.) Raven's entire mind was bristling, ready for a fight. If she couldn't have it out with those others, she'd have it out with him if he pushed her. "I wouldn't try." He didn't know if he would try. He had no idea what he was going to do, or how to keep her safe. "Do you want a hot chocolate? I could make you one."
It had begun as a joke several years before, Charles offering to make Raven a hot chocolate after the very first fight they'd ever had. Since then, it had become something more, a peace offering and a panacea, comforting to the both of them no matter who was making or accepting it. If Charles hadn't been in such a hurry to make sure Raven was all right, he'd have made some and brought it up here with him.
"Maybe later," Raven said. "Not right now."
"All right."
A minute later, Charles put his arm around her, hoping it was the right thing to do. (Sometimes Raven didn't like it, even if she had thought she did a moment before. She could be confusing like that.) Thankfully, that wasn't the case this time, and she leaned against him and allowed him to read to her for awhile.
He kept reading even after she had fallen asleep, but at some point he must have fallen asleep as well, for the next thing he knew, it was dark outside, with just the one lamp on in here to see by, and Raven was shaking him awake, saying, "Charles, wake up. I want a hot chocolate now."
"Ugh. What?" Charles said, still half-asleep. "Why can't you make your own?"
"Because you said you would make it for me," she said.
It was amazing how she always remembered everything he said he would do, but never remembered anything she had said she would do unless she felt like it at the precise moment she was meant to do it. Rather than saying this, though, Charles said, "All right, all right. I'm up."
Five minutes later, he really was up, and they headed to the kitchen to whip up two hot chocolates.