Je vois la vie en rose, Chapter 7: Satellite (X-Men First Class, Erika/Charlotte, R)

[lilacsigil]

Raven was pleased to see Erika and Charlotte at the breakfast table in the morning, especially as they'd made pancakes for everyone. Yesterday Raven had been in charge of meals while Erika and Charlotte were hidden away in Charlotte's room. He was bored of everyone's complaints already, even if he knew that the real problem was that everyone was upset by the loss of Darwin and Angelo and the acquisition of Emory Frost.

"Cerebro indicated two more mutants near here, close together." Charlotte announced at the breakfast table. "We should go to find them."

*Not if you're leaving me on my own with them!* Raven thought at Charlotte, glaring.

Charlotte caught his eye and went on. "Harriet and Erika have built a shield against teleportation, but we can't test it, of course. I think it would be best if we stayed together as a group as much as possible."

"Is Shaw coming back?" Alex asked, bluntly.

Erika poured some more coffee. "Frost was valuable, but Shaw's plans are coming to fruition soon. She might not have time to risk a fight, guessing that Frost has told us everything and we'll meet her in Cuba anyway."

"You could call me Emory," Emory suggested, but Erika ignored him.

"What we need to do now is to train our powers so that we are ready to face Shaw and the other mutants in Cuba. She'll be doing everything she can to make the Americans and Russians fire on each other and so destroy the world."

Alex scoffed. "Does she really think mutants can survive a nuclear war?"

"Darwin probably could, and Shaw. Maybe even you, depending on how your energy blasts are generated. She does have some reason to assume it's possible."

"Unfortunately," Charlotte interrupted, "Her scientific skills are completely in service to her ideology. Wishing it so doesn't make the evidence appear."

"I wish!" Harriet laughed. No-one but Charlotte laughed with her, and she shut up.

"Charlotte can make a pilot take us to Cuba, so we don't need to worry about that yet," Erika said in the silence. "Our first priorities should be controlling Alex's power."

"And fixing Emory," Harriet added, at which Erika frowned.

Raven could see another big argument on its way, so he stood up and noisily pushed his chair away from the table. "Right then, so Charlotte and I will find these last two mutants, Harriet and Emory can work on his diamond skin, and Erika can re-wire that chest plate so Alex doesn't overload it in five seconds. It was starting to work yesterday, but couldn't channel enough force."

Erika looked sideways at Raven, but everyone else seemed enthusiastic at their new directions.

"Come on, Raven, be a girl today," Charlotte called out, "We can take the convertible and wear scarves! The weather's perfect."

Raven shrugged, then rippled into his familiar female body, tall and curvy, with a floral scarf covering her hair. "The Xavier sisters ride again?" He didn't look at Harriet while he spoke, but when he sneaked a glance, Harriet was talking to Emory and not paying Raven's choice of sex any attention at all.

Out in the car with Charlotte, the breeze blowing over them, Raven felt much less put-upon. Raven was driving as usual - Charlotte could drive, but was easily distracted and preferred being the passenger - and they flew along the familiar roads south to White Plains. Raven had taught himself to drive early, bumping an older car around the lawn, and would happily shape-shift into an adult to drive Charlotte around in their early teens, before they went to school in England to avoid Kurt and Kaye.

"Hey, Charlotte, remember when I shifted into Mrs Parkes to get us into the drive-in, then she and her husband pulled up in the next car?"

"I remember wiping her mind so quickly that she fell asleep for the whole movie and drooled on Mr Parkes' shoulder!" Charlotte threw Raven the image and they both laughed giddily, the wind whipping away their voices. "Isn't it weird being here, and it's not for a funeral? I feel like I'm fifteen again."

"You were still dating boys when you were fifteen."

"Well, you hadn't hit puberty yet and you thought all dating was disgusting."

"I didn't hit puberty until I was twenty, be fair! Harriet said my cells are different, and that's why I age so slowly."

"Is everything okay with Harriet?" Charlotte tied her scarf more firmly and tucked the ends under to stop them flicking her in the face.

Raven frowned. "Harriet wants someone to approve of her. A guy. It's not even romantic. I don't know. Erika goes on about being proud of who you are, but that's scary to Harriet."

"To everyone! Erika doesn't give a lot of leeway. She's been through a lot."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's your responsibility to fix her, Charlotte."

Charlotte flickered anger in Raven's direction, but Raven was well-practiced at picking up on Charlotte's emotional states, and could tell the anger wasn't directed at him.

"She's…I love her, but she scares me, Raven. Not because she would hurt me, don't worry, but because she's letting me inside that big scary shell, a little bit, and it's so easy to hurt her."

Raven put a hand on Charlotte's. "Charlotte, if anyone can make her feel safe and loved, it's you. I know that."

Charlotte held his hand, quietly, until Raven needed to change gears again, then said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, don't run off to spend all day in bed with her while I have to babysit everyone else, okay?"

The two remaining mutants were close together, in an Irish Catholic area of White Plains. Once they got close to the area where Cerebro had spotted them, Charlotte had no trouble picking up the first of them.

"I think we're going to bring another one home, Raven. Shannon Cassidy is a very worried girl."

"Give me directions, Charlotte! You're waving your hands around and that's not helping."

"Oh, sorry. Take the next left and we'll end up outside a girls' high school."

"She's in high school? Are you sure we should tell her?"

"She's seventeen, like Angelo. And before you say anything, at least we know how to protect girls."

"I wasn't saying anything. I was right there, Charlotte, and I didn't help him."

They drove around the corner and up a block in silence, to Maria Regina High School: a very new-looking school in low brick buildings with big windows, quite unlike any of the schools Charlotte or Raven had attended, though they had mostly received private tuition while in America. Charlotte sent a telepathic tendril out to speak to Shannon, linking Raven in, too.

*Hello, Shannon. My name's Charlotte and I have special powers, too. That's how I'm speaking to you. No-one else can hear us.*

Raven felt Shannon startle, then slide down in her desk, for which she was far too tall.

*I'm Raven, I'm here with Charlotte. She's letting me speak to you, too. If you want to talk to us, just think the words.*

After the initial shock, Shannon rallied quickly. *Wow, that's groovy! I thought we were just freaks!*

*Who is 'we', Shannon? Do you know the other mutant? A mutant is the word for what we are.* Charlotte looked terribly excited.

*Uh, yeah, it's my little cousin, Tommie. She talks to trees, and we all thought she was a bit damaged, but she can make wood move like clay in art class, you know? Make shapes and stuff, and it doesn't hurt the tree.*

"Two related mutants!" Charlotte said to Raven, thrilled. *Does anyone know about you or Tommie?*

*Well, everyone knows Tommie talks to trees, I guess, but no-one knows about me except Father Delaney.* With that, Shannon burst into tears and there was a whirl of activity on the other end of the connection while she got permission to go to the bathroom and ran down the hall, sobbing.

*Shannon? If you want to talk in person, we're in a car out by the south fence.*

*Okay, I'm coming.*

A tall, skinny girl ran out of the building and towards them. She had bright red hair, was covered in freckles and wore a school uniform with a skirt that had to be shorter than regulations allowed. Raven had once been given two hundred lines for a too-short skirt that was at least two inches closer to his knees than Shannon's.

Shannon leaned on the door, her face still tear-streaked but with a bright smile. "Hi! I'm Shannon! Oh, you know that already because you can read my mind! Can you read anyone's mind?"

"Yes, I can. Some people are easier to read than others, though. You're nice and clear, like good TV reception."

"Thanks! So, if someone was, you know, in the family way, could you tell?"

Charlotte stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Shannon, you can't be having a baby. You've never had sex!"

Shannon blushed bright red, brighter than Charlotte had ever managed, and Raven stared in fascination at her colouring. That was one he really wanted to learn.

"I have! I told Father Delaney why I couldn't be in choir anymore and he said he'd tell my mother about it unless I did it with him!"

"So what did you do?" Charlotte had stopped laughing now, and was staring at her closely.

Shannon blushed even harder. "I, um, put his thing in my mouth. And a girl in eleventh grade, that's how she got in trouble!"

"I promise that's not true," Raven told her. "People probably told you that because they don't know, either."

"You don't want to be here, do you?" Charlotte asked.

"He's always watching me, Father Delaney, I mean. And I didn't even want to be at school this year. I had a job lined up at the aquarium and everything, but my mom said the uniform made me look like a slut."

"Would you be interested in coming to stay with us and some other mutants? I can't promise you that it's safe - we're fighting with another mutant who wants to hurt people, but there's no guarantee she won't come looking for you anyway."

Shannon looked thrilled. "Can you convince my mom? The only reason I didn't tell her was because Father Delaney made it sound like what I did was bad. But if he's just a sketchy old guy with a thing for high-school girls, I don't even care."

"With telepathy, I can convince anyone of anything. As for your cousin, she's probably too young to pull away from her family, but we can certainly make sure she's safe and has our number to call if anyone threatens her."

Shannon opened the door and jumped in beside Charlotte. "Done! And don't worry about me fighting anyone. Last year, Mary Beth Kiernan picked on Tommie, so I beat her up, and she's twice as big as me."

Raven pulled out from the kerb. "Well, with mutant powers it's not always about who's the biggest, but that's a good attitude!"

Shannon's mother was busy enough to be easily persuaded that her daughter had got a job with board in an old lady's house upstate in Salem Centre, and she was pleased enough with the news that she helped Shannon pack, and sent her off with five dollars to spend on new clothes.

They took another spin past the high school and the nearby middle school before they left, dropping Charlotte's phone number into Tommie's head as she sat under a tree in the playground, gently patting the trunk.

*She's dealing with her powers well,* Charlotte told Raven, *But if there was no immediate danger from Shaw, do you think it would be a good idea to invite children like her to the house? We could set it up like a school, so children could stay there if they're in trouble, and visit if they're not, and they won't have to grow up by themselves. They'll have us!*

*Charlotte, that is a brilliant idea! We can teach them about their powers, and let them stay if they're blue or have wings or otherwise look weird.*

*And once Cerebro is finished, we can find them anywhere!*

*I hope so.*

"Are you talking to each other in your heads?" Shannon asked, looking thrilled at the possibility.

*Yes, we are,* Charlotte replied, making her grin. *And I can tell you that Father Delaney won't be bothering any more girls. Or boys. He'll just be getting an intense urge to pray, instead.*

"Ha! Man, I wish I was a telepath!" Shannon groaned, but looked delighted. "I'd fix everything! That guy was a creep and he smelled."

"It's not really that easy, most of the time, but when it is, I have to admit it's pretty good," Charlotte smiled. "So, what do you do, Shannon?"

"I can't show you here, but I can, um, you know how I said I had to quit choir? It's because when I sing, it breaks things, and makes people fall over. I'll be just singing along normally, then all of a sudden I hit a note, not even one particular note, and the windows shatter!"

"We have lots of windows which you are very welcome to break," Raven promised, to a punch in the thigh from Charlotte.

"Ignore him, and try not to break all the windows. If you break one by accident, though, don't worry about it."

"Him?" Shannon looked utterly confused.

"Too long to explain, just watch." Raven shifted into his blonde male form, then into Shannon, then Charlotte, then to his female form again.

"Whoa! Cool! Is that what I look like? Weird!"

Raven laughed. *Okay, Charlotte, you totally win. It's fun to be with other mutants!*


---

Erika greatly admired the chest plate that Harriet had constructed for Alex. It was a magnificent piece of ad hoc engineering, channelling the energy that Alex's body created and focusing it into a single beam. Unfortunately, the electronic components that Harriet had on hand were meant for finer work with Cerebro, not the heavy loads needed here.

"We'll need more wire," Erika told Alex. "Not all of the outbuildings are connected to the main house these days, but I could see where they used to have power. We should be able to rip out some of the old wiring there."

"Cool. Let's go vandalise the place."

They went out to the old stables. When she'd been making herself familiar with this new territory, Erika had spotted a distributor with no feeder cable. The stables were neatly kept, but obviously hadn't been used for a long time, and all the light bulbs had been removed. Whoever had installed the lights, though, had run the cables along the exposed beams rather than inside the walls, and that made things easy for Erika.

"I'll pull out the metal loops holding the wires to the wall, you pull the wires free where they cross over the beams."

Alex looked dubious. "You're sure there's no power? I don't want to get zapped."

"My ability lets me see electrical currents and the only current here is in our bodies." Erika started pulling out the wire staples, and Alex picked up the insulated cord with only minor hesitation.

"Can you knock people out by zapping their brains? That would be cool."

Erika paused. "Honestly, I've never tried. That's a good idea. It's something I could practice on animals, too. Though it's easier for me to increase electromagnetic activity than reduce it."

"So increase it, give them a fit. There was this kid at the Girls' Home where I lived, and she had epilepsy. They said it was too much activity in her brain, so she wasn't even allowed to watch TV."

"Too much activity and they're incapacitated. It's a good idea."

Alex climbed up on top of a stall to free some tangled wire. "This is stuck around a nail, can you get it?"

Erika floated it free. "You've had a lot more experience defending yourself than the others."

"I guess so."

"Will you help me train them so they don't get killed by Shaw's people? Mutant powers are all very well, but without practising, they're just as likely to freeze up."

Alex grimaced. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't want to use my powers on someone and kill them, but if I get mad enough, they start up on their own. So I learned to put people down fast."

"Yes, my powers tend to do the same." They brought down more wire: Alex climbed up to the beams to free snags and Erika lifted the copper free of the staples and coiling it neatly on the floor.

Erika looked at their collection of wire. "I'm not an engineer, but I think Harriet should be able to step down your power by running it through extra coils - the more resistance there is, the less your output will be."

"Sounds pretty engineer-like to me! And yeah, I'll help you with some training. Harriet freezes up if you even look at her funny - we can't put her up against Shaw's people."

"Agreed."

It took most of the morning to reassemble Harriet's device in more durable form. The wire parts of the construction were simple, but the array of transistors was precisely calibrated to Alex's power and Erika didn't have a lot of experience working with this new technology. She and Alex companionably discussed possible training techniques until they were done: Alex had never had formal training, but had lifted weights in prison and had a lot more hand-to-hand unarmed combat experience than Erika; Erika was more comfortable around knives and guns, but had also had formal training from the Mossad.

"There," Erika said, wrapping the last piece of wire into place and holding the circular device out to Alex. "I've tested the connections, but we need Harriet to review it before we use it with your power."

"Hell, yeah. It would suck if it controlled my power by zapping it backwards or something."

Erika shrugged. "Would it even hurt you?"

Alex pointed to one of the scars on Erika's arm. "Metal can hurt you. I know it's not the same, but I don't want to mess around."

"Fair enough."

They headed upstairs to find Harriet and Emory, who were in the room with the billiards table. Emory was lying on it, in diamond form, while Harriet leaned over him with a pair of tweezers.

"What are you doing?" Erika snapped, immediately angry at herself for leaving impressionable Harriet alone with Emory Frost.

The look Harriet turned on Erika was far closer to scorn than wide-eyed enthusiasm. "You two did a lot of damage to Emory's diamond form. I'm mending it with Super Glue, but I have to get the crystals in the right place." She turned back to Emory and gently twisted a shard of diamond around until it lay flat again.

"Isn't the glue going to mess him up when he changes back?" Alex leaned over the table, checking out the damage to his neck and shoulder.

"Now you're concerned?" Emory asked, with an arch of one diamond eyebrow. "Harriet told me that you can use this glue in surgery, so it should be fine. At least the broken diamonds didn't turn necrotic."

Harriet's usual expression of immense curiosity returned instantly. "I know! It makes me wonder what happened to the diamond shards that were removed completely. I'm growing more in the second storey bathroom - don't worry, there's a sign on the door - so I just pinched one off to use as a starter."

"How long will it take to grow more?" Erika was fascinated despite herself. Emory's changed form was so far beyond human.

Harriet shook her head and manoeuvred another tiny piece into place. "Give me 24 hours or so and I should be able to measure the growth rate. There's at least eight cubic centimetres missing from Emory's shoulder joint, though, so it might not be fast."

"And we don't know yet if they'll be the right shape," Emory added. "Apparently, joints are complicated. Just go for a gut shot next time, okay?"

"Deal," Alex replied, though Erika said nothing.

"Oh, I think that's Charlotte's car!" Harriet said, tilting her head slightly. Erika couldn't hear anything, but reached out with her metal sense and indeed, the gates were open and the car had returned.

*Charlotte?* she projected as hard as she could.

*Hello, darling! You're shouting!*

*Relieved to see you. Did you find the other mutants?* It was true: Erika was ridiculously relieved to know Charlotte was back safely. It wasn't even for a logical reasonbut simply that her heart hurt that Charlotte wasn't there. It was foolish, considering that soon they would be fighting and Charlotte would have to look after herself, but Erika couldn't stop the unfamiliar feeling from welling up within her.

*Oh, the feeling is entirely mutual, Erika! Yes, we have another mutant here and she's very eager to meet everyone. Come down!*

Erika felt the car pull in to the garage. "Come on," she said to the others, "Charlotte and Raven have brought another mutant."

The mutant, it turned out, was a knobbly-kneed high school girl named Shannon Cassidy, who was entirely eager to demonstrate what she could do. They all shuffled out onto the manicured lawn behind the house, though Raven ducked into the kitchen and picked up some wine glasses first. He balanced them on top of a stone seat, then ran back behind Shannon with the others. Shannon screwed up her face in concentration.

"She breaks wine glasses?" Erika asked Charlotte, who had linked her arm with Erika's. "Shaw will be terrified."

"Oh, no, Erika, wine glasses are just the start."

Shannon gave a brief, ear-splitting shriek, and the glasses exploded. Everyone doubled over, wincing and covering their ears.

Shannon turned back to the group. "And that's why I left choir!" Her huge grin suddenly faded. "Oh, man, sorry, I broke some of your windows just like I said I would. Is it really okay?"

Everyone turned to look, and indeed, the four closest windows on the ground floor had smashed and fallen into the house. Charlotte dashed over to Shannon, her smile as wide as Shannon's had been. "Of course it's okay! Your power is amazing! I bet we can break all kinds of things!"

"Yeah!" Shannon punched the air, and Harriet and Alex approached, too, though Emory hung back and Erika stayed there too, keeping an eye on him.

"Nice work," Alex said, punching her arm. "I'm Alex, this is Harriet, and that's Erika and Emory over there, sulking."

"What an amazing power! I'm sure we'll be able to adapt it now that you have somewhere to practise," Harriet babbled before Erika could protest about being called a sulk. "If the sound waves are powerful enough, you might even be able to fly!"

"No way!" Shannon was all but jumping up and down in excitement. "I could fly? Wow!"

Raven had disappeared inside the house and now returned. "Lunch is ready, everyone, come inside."

Erika nodded to him and followed Emory into the house. She was starting to think that they might, after all, have some chance against Shaw's people, if not Shaw herself. And Shaw herself was Erika's job.

---

Charlotte was thrilled with the way training was going. In one afternoon, Alex had learned to use Harriet's device to focus her power into a single blast, even if she couldn't really direct it yet. Shannon had managed to use her power on Erika to knock her backwards: Erika had worn protective earplugs, but she'd still hit the ground hard. To Charlotte's surprise, though, instead of being angry or concerned at her defeat, Erika had been excited, clapping Shannon on the back and congratulating her on her focus. Raven had started weight-lifting, at Alex's urging, to develop his physical strength - which was good compared only to Charlotte's puny arms - though Raven had taken to it much more easily than Charlotte had. Emory and Charlotte had practised telepathic blocking on each other, at which they found that Charlotte could power through Emory's shields, but Emory couldn't get through Charlotte's. Emory made up for this, though, by being able to hold a completely separate verbal conversation at the same time, and thus distracting Charlotte into letting her shields weaken.

Erika and Harriet were working on the connecting cable to hook Cerebro up to the weather radar dish and thought it would only be a few days before it was ready to go. Charlotte couldn't wait. The current machine was working in the meantime, and it was amazing to switch it on and find the mutants within the current radius. She loved soaring through space as if there was nothing in the way, no distance and no time. Feeling that there were more mutants just out of reach was frustrating, though, and Charlotte decided to wait for the radar dish hook-up rather than taking more of Harriet and Erika's time.
The radio was telling them all kinds of alarming things about the prospect of nuclear war - that the Soviets were planning to put missiles in Cuba, that this would mean instant destruction, that America might launch a pre-emptive strike - and it sent dread through Charlotte's heart. Shaw might be influencing people to her own advantage, but she wasn't influencing many: human beings were contemplating annihilating their own planet all on their own. Every time Charlotte heard someone make a speech about the "evil" of the other side, she wanted to jump in the car with Erika, drive to their home, and fix their brain. She had no illusions that this would work, though. It was far easier for Shaw to tilt the odds towards destruction than it would be to tilt the odds towards restraint.
At night, she wrapped herself in Erika's long limbs and felt safe, although she knew perfectly well that even Erika couldn't stop nuclear missiles and radiation.

"Why are you so hostile to Emory?" Charlotte asked, idly, stroking her fingers through Erika's hair. She slicked it down so ruthlessly, but it had a lovely wave to it by the end of the day.

"I don't trust him."

"Even after I've read him? He let me, you know."

Erika rolled onto her back, her arm comfortably trapped under Charlotte's body. "No, it's not that. I don't think he's coming here with a big plan to spy on us. He's relieved to be away from Shaw."

"Then what?" Charlotte turned to gentle kisses of Erika's shoulder instead. "And will I get muscly like this if I lift enough weights?"

"Do you want to be? You're beautiful as you are, but a bit more force behind your punches wouldn't hurt." Charlotte poked Erika in the belly with her knuckles, and Erika laughed. "See what I mean? No, the reason I can't trust Emory is because he was with Shaw so recently. It took me a very long time to stop wanting to please her. Years. She's very clever: she isolates you, saves your life, makes you grateful, makes you terrified to do anything wrong. It's confusing to be alone, having to make all your own decisions."

"I'm sorry," Charlotte stroked Erika's belly where she'd poked it. "I hadn't thought of it that way. So you think he might not be able to confront Shaw?"

"I wouldn't have been able to. I don't know if it's better or worse that Emory wasn't in a life-or-death situation as I was: at least I can tell myself I had to do what she said to survive."

"But Emory will have an easier recovery, with food and a safe place to live and people protecting him. Someone to look after his injuries."

Erika shrugged. "Yeah. Emory will be probably all right in the end, but not yet. And don't you think that's enough talk about Emory?"

"Definitely," Charlotte laughed, and pulled Erika back towards her so she could kiss her properly. "I feel like a school matron or something, looking after all these people."

Erika's hand slid between Charlotte's legs. "As long as the matron at your school was as pretty as the one at mine, I'm good with that."

Charlotte wriggled against Erika's hand. "And you said you weren't attracted to other women! You great big lying dyke."

"Well, now that I've had good reason to be thinking about it…"

---

Early the next morning, Charlotte woke up with a start. "Erika! Someone's coming in the gates."

Emory contacted her a moment later. *Charlotte, there's someone here.*

Erika was out of bed and dressed in seconds, at the window and peering out a gap in the curtains before Charlotte had even sat up. She sent Charlotte an image of the man emerging from his parked car and walking up the drive.

"Oh, it's Agent MacTaggert!"

"Didn't Shaw have her hooks in him?"

"Through Emory, but I have no idea what could still be there." Charlotte pulled on her nightgown, the old-fashioned one that Erika liked for some reason, and looked out the window, too. She put her fingers to her temple and stopped MacTaggert in his tracks.

*Everyone, Agent MacTaggert has shown up. Emory and Raven, would you come down to the front steps with me? The rest of you, please get dressed and stay alert, but don't let MacTaggert see you. We don't know if Shaw is still influencing him. If you see anything odd happening, think my name really loudly, or call Erika.*

*I'm fairly sure I was Shaw's only telepath,* Emory offered.

Charlotte grabbed her dressing gown and pulled it on over her nightgown. *'Fairly sure' is not a guarantee.*

"Do you have to go down alone?" Erika complained. "A sniper could shoot you from the tree line before you had a chance to stop them."

Charlotte stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Erika's mouth. "Shh. You stay right here where you can see everything and stop the bullets. Okay?"

Erika didn't reply, but she didn't stop Charlotte leaving.

MacTaggert stood frozen like one of the statues on the grounds, though with less moss.

"If we left him there long enough would he grow some moss?" Raven asked Charlotte. He'd changed into his blonde female form, the one that MacTaggert had seen him wear.

"His body isn't really frozen - his mind only thinks it is. He'd die of thirst in a few days."

"Gruesome!"

Charlotte and Emory walked around MacTaggert, probing his mind. The traces of Emory's influence were visible, though fading, and Charlotte's influence was almost entirely gone by now. No-one else had touched his mind as far as Charlotte could tell. She thought it might be difficult to come to that conclusion, but the remnants of Emory's touches were quite clear, and there was nothing similar there at all.

*Have you ever met another telepath, Emory?*

*Yes, my eldest brother Adrian. I doubt he'd have anything to do with Shaw, though, or with anything else that didn't immediately make him money or bring him influence. I think it might have been through him that Shaw learned about me.*

*Would your brother would want to come here?*

Emory laughed out loud. *He's thirty-two years old and the CEO of a major financial firm. I'm sorry, but you don't have a lot to offer him. But I don't think he's in danger, either.*

*I suppose that's good? I actually meant to ask in case you had any specific knowledge about detecting traces of other telepaths.*

*It's never been difficult to see someone that Adrian has influenced, and I can see your marks here, faintly. I can't find where anyone else has touched MacTaggert telepathically.*

*Good.* Charlotte gently pushed Emory out and dove into MacTaggert's more recent thoughts. Since the failed raid on the Caspartina, MacTaggert was having trouble getting anyone other than Agent Duncan to listen to his theories about mutants; Harriet's apparent kidnapping along with Cerebro certainly shored up Duncan's willingness to pay attention. Harriet herself was under suspicion of being a spy who had returned to her handlers, though no-one seriously believed it: it was just that they couldn't think of a better theory. MacTaggert's network continued to feed him information about Shaw, and he had worked out that Shaw was trying to bring about nuclear destruction, though he had no idea why. He considered that the CIA was woefully underprepared to deal with mutants, but he knew some mutants, and perhaps they could help.

*He's clean - he's come to ask us to help stop Shaw,* Charlotte projected to everyone. *I'm going to release him, now.*

*Disarm him first!* Erika interjected. *He's got a gun at his hip and a pocketknife in his right hip pocket.*

Raven and Emory did so, and Charlotte released MacTaggert. He leapt backwards in shock at having them, from his perspective, suddenly appear in front of him, and his hand went to his gun out of instinct.

"Don't worry, Agent." Charlotte used her best hostess smile. Her mother would have been proud that all those etiquette and deportment classes paid off. "We froze you in place for a moment so that we could make sure you weren't here to harm us."

MacTaggert looked around him. "Nice place you've got here."

"It is indeed. Would you care for some coffee? I'm afraid I don't want people wandering around here with guns, but I'll be happy to return it to you when you leave."

"That's fine," MacTaggert said politely. "I can see you've got quite a few more people around the place." He gestured to the twitching curtain. "And I'm glad to see Harriet McCoy here - we were concerned about her welfare."

Charlotte led him inside and Emory handed back MacTaggert's knife, though Raven was quick to take the gun to the safe. By this time, everyone had gathered in the kitchen to see who the new person was, and Charlotte could see no reason to send them away.

"Everyone, this is Agent Marcus MacTaggert of the CIA. He's here to help us take down Shaw."

"Well, good," Alex muttered, though she didn't seem particularly pleased.

Charlotte made introductions, not omitting Erika, though Erika was lurking just outside the doorway as if she wanted to be omitted, and Harriet started the coffee.

"Let me update you on what we know," Charlotte told Marcus, and dumped the information straight into his head. If he wanted to work with mutants, he'd better get comfortable with it.

He blinked, slowly, and only recovered when a mug of coffee was in front of him. "So, two of yours defected to Shaw, and one of Shaw's defected to you. Shaw must know that you're aware of her plans."

"I agree." Erika spoke for the first time. "It's going to be difficult for anyone to stop her, though, and I'm sure she knows that. And she always has a back-up plan."

Both MacTaggert and Emory nodded at that.

"Any ideas?" Charlotte asked. The idea of fighting Shaw was suddenly becoming rather more concrete.

MacTaggert glanced up at Erika. "We traced the submarine, and it's nuclear. If we and the Russians manage not to start World War Three, I suspect she'll just detonate the sub's reactor and start it anyway. You should make it top priority to get her people out of there so they can't set it off."

"They've got a teleporter," Alex said, suddenly. "We're going to have to knock her out or tie her up or something."

"Azazel teleports whatever she's touching. She can't teleport out of handcuffs - the cuffs go with her." Emory sipped his coffee. "So if you tie her up, she'll still be tied up when she appears in the submarine."

"Or we could shoot her," Erika added, rather unhelpfully, in Charlotte's opinion.

"No. I don't think we should be planning to kill anyone, apart from Shaw, if we can help it. On a practical level, there's just not enough mutants in the world for us to go around eliminating them. On a moral level, we don't know what Shaw has done to them to gain their co-operation, and we must not kill someone who has been terrorised and tortured into doing wrong."

MacTaggert and Erika looked deeply dubious, but everyone else seemed to relax a little at Charlotte's declaration.

Shannon still looked worried. "Are you really going to kill this Shaw woman? Like, with murder?"

"Yes, with murder." Erika smiled slightly. "There are people in the world who are beyond any other kind of justice and Shaw is one of them."

"Not many people," Charlotte interjected, hopefully, but everyone bar Harriet seemed quite convinced by that idea. Harriet just stirred her coffee intently, her hand shaking slightly and rattling the cup.

Erika seemed to have taken to MacTaggert surprisingly well. She turned to him, gesturing with an oddly bent spoon that was floating near her hand. MacTaggert made a distinct effort to look at her rather than the spoon.

"Agent MacTaggert, how long do you estimate we have until the missile situation reaches crisis point? We may have another way of finding Shaw, but it's not reliable, yet."

"The Soviet Union has been installing missile bases and missiles in Cuba for months now. The confrontation will mostly be behind closed doors, between politicians. No-one wants all-out nuclear war, and they'll do everything possible to avoid it."

"Where does that leave Shaw?" Charlotte couldn't believe that someone like Shaw wouldn't be personally pulling strings to assure her plan's success.

"The problem is that, while negotiations happen, everyone will be very tense, and the whole area will be covered in warships and spy planes and probably half-a-dozen submarines. I suspect Shaw will plan to be in that area to cause an international incident. But you've got two telepaths here - you should be able to work out which submarines are meant to be there, and which aren't. Shaw's going to be looking for nuclear-armed ships or planes to aggravate, so that's where you should focus your efforts."

"Raven, would you get the atlas?" Charlotte asked, and Raven dashed off with the right book in mind.

Erika smoothed the spoon into its former shape. "No-one at the CIA has any idea about Shaw and her people, do they?"

MacTaggert shook his head. "And this is important. I need your help."

Raven hurried back in, lugging an enormous atlas of the Americas. "Here you go! That's my weight-lifting for today!"

He dropped it on the table, and Charlotte flipped through the vibrant, detailed pages until she reached the map of Cuba.

"That map's from 1895," MacTaggert protested. "Cuba is still a Spanish colony!"

Erika leaned over Charlotte's shoulder. "I doubt the actual topography has changed a great deal. Where are the missile sites?"

"Around here, in western Cuba." MacTaggert pointed to the end of the island closest to the US, furthest from the Atlantic. "But if they start a blockade, it's going to be out in the Atlantic, somewhere around here."

"There, we've already narrowed it down to two possibilities." The planning seemed to be energising Erika: she was tapping the coffee spoon on the table and rocking forward on the balls of her feet to look at the map. Charlotte took her hand to still the tapping.

Harriet pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose and peered at the map. "Ships carrying nuclear weapons tend to be on the larger side, yes?"

MacTaggert nodded. "Shaw's submarine just has a nuclear reactor, not weapons, which is why it can be so small."

"Look at the ocean here, near the missile site. It's very shallow. Whether or not they start a blockade, the big ships are going to have to be out here, in the Atlantic. I presume the submarines will be near there in order to attack them if needed. Without a telepath who can control several people at once, she won't be able to set off the missiles at the base - I've studied the electronic safeguards - but she could incite something between ships."

"McCoy, you're a genius," MacTaggert grinned, and Harriet blushed to the roots of her hair.

"Good." Erika was still tapping one finger beneath Charlotte's quelling hand. "But Shaw can't act until tensions are higher - there's too great a chance of successful negotiation. Until then, we need to train."

"How can I help?" MacTaggert asked, and Erika stared at him as if she'd forgotten he existed.

Charlotte took Erika's hand more firmly. "Harriet and I will keep working on Cerebro in the hope we can find Shaw's people before it gets to an armed confrontation. The rest of you can train with Erika and Agent MacTaggert."

"And Alex," Erika added, with a nod at the girl in question.

"Call me Marcus, and it's a deal," MacTaggert agreed. "I'm guessing Alex and Erika are the two with some combat experience?"

"You could say that," Alex replied, cracking her knuckles, much to Shannon's fascination.

---

It took nearly a month before further action was taken. MacTaggert monitored the situation constantly, reporting on the build-up of ships and planes around Cuba, but Shaw made no further moves. MacTaggert had confessed to Charlotte that Agent Duncan had sent him to cultivate her as a contact, which Erika had taken remarkably well, commenting that at least he was direct about it. Charlotte couldn't work out why Erika wasn't angry about MacTaggert's presence in their house, being that he was both baseline human and a CIA agent, until one night when they were busy hooking up their cabling to the satellite dish.

"MacTaggert isn't a direct threat," Erika said, concentrating hard as she connected according to Harriet's diagram. "All of us can defend ourselves against him, now; he wants to take out Shaw and is risking his career to do it; and he's useful."

"You get along with him better than you do with Emory," Charlotte muttered, settling the sole security guard down for a long nap alongside the duty meteorologist.

"Of course I do. Emory is inherently flawed now that Shaw's had her hands on him. MacTaggert isn't one of us and never will be, but at least we know it."

Charlotte frowned at her. "Erika, you're being unfair. Emory has been nothing but helpful, and it's the same for MacTaggert."

"You're still monitoring them both. Your powers give you the chance to be more trusting, simply because you can verify your trust."

"Is that so bad?"

Erika broke out in a broad smile as she spliced cables into place. "No, I think that's a perfect use of your powers. It makes me feel safer."

Charlotte smiled up at her. Erika threaded the cables back into place behind a panel, a fine use of her power that she had got better and better at controlling over the last month of training. "Oh, you're saying that what I'm doing with my powers, you're doing with your naturally suspicious personality."

"Exactly." She closed the panel and jumped down from the chair she'd been standing on. "It's why I've stopped feeling like I'm a danger to you: you can look into my mind and stop me even before I have a bad thought."

"Erika, I don't change people's minds around unnecessarily. The last time I did large-scale meddling was when Raven was brought into the family, and that took a lot of fixing."

Erika waved her hand. "I trust you, that's the thing. If you are wiping thoughts from my brain, I'm not going to know about it. I don't want you to, as a general rule, but if it kept you safe? Of course. Do it."

Recoiling slightly, Charlotte sent a message out to Harriet, up at the house, so she could start testing the connection, which hopefully wouldn't burn out like the last three. "You really think I'd do that?"

"I really think you should." That weird, blank look was creeping back on her face, and that was an expression that Charlotte hadn't seen so much recently.

Charlotte shook her head. "I'm such an idiot. You tolerate MacTaggert because he's making me safer; you hate Emory because you think he might hurt me. That's what's going on, isn't it?"

Erika said nothing, but held out her hands, monitoring the current coming through from the house to the dish.

Charlotte walked up behind her, making sure that her footsteps were loud and clear, and hugged Erika, her arms around her waist and her face resting against Erika's back. "I love you, you know that. But you're narrowing this mission down to just two objectives: 'kill Shaw' and 'protect Charlotte'."

"What's wrong with that? I have no intention of letting the others be hurt or Shaw start her apocalypse; it's just that there's two things I've prioritised."

Charlotte kept her arms around Erika's tense body. Erika had done so much, getting them to work as a team, to be ready for violence and aggression, to help Harriet realise her inventions, that it felt quite sad to Charlotte that Erika could close off so much of herself. Even after a month, Erika was such a stranger to Charlotte in some ways: she'd seem pleased, or angry or determined but sometimes there was just nothing there, like she was going through the motions of life. It confused and hurt Charlotte, especially as Erika claimed to have no idea about it. Erika seemed especially capable at shutting out things that had been important or enjoyable to her the day before - sleeping late, mock-fighting with Alex, reading about warships - and pretending that she'd never attached any value to those things whatsoever. Well, Charlotte shouldn't say "pretending": Erika really could detach herself from things, good or bad, and Charlotte could never work out when or what.

"The cable's holding," Erika said, still tense, though not moving away from Charlotte's embrace. "We should go back to the house and try it."

"I've got a better idea. Come on." Charlotte took Erika's hand and walked out of the weather station, towards the house. She'd rather got out of the habit of wearing heels, since Erika, Alex or MacTaggert were likely to launch surprise attack drills at any moment that required an inordinate amount of running. The night was barely cooler than the day - weird and dry weather for mid-October - but even so, Charlotte shivered slightly in her light summery dress. Erika put an arm around her and they headed back up the hill, across the vast lawn.

As they reached the gravel path around the house, Charlotte stopped and turned them both around. The dish was off in the distance, spotlit. "See the satellite dish, Erika? I want you to move it."

Erika laughed, then realised Charlotte was serious. "It's too big. I could barely slow Shaw's submarine. There's no way I can move it."

"I've seen you checking out the tonnage of the ships and planes MacTaggert says are likely to be there. What are you planning to do, if not move them?"

"Rip holes in them," Erika said, but she was still staring at the dish, fascinated. "Maybe shove a few of the planes around."

"Okay. So let's practice on something lighter than a destroyer."

Erika spread out her hands as if she was going to try, then stopped. "I can't. I've never moved anything as big as the submarine before. My power is a lot stronger when I'm angry or hurt. You know that."

"I know that's a serious limitation." Charlotte stayed close, though not touching.

"Yes, you're right. I'll try." Erika stretched out her hands - she didn't need to, but it helped her focus, she'd told Charlotte - and got a feel for the mechanisms of the dish, finding the pivot points, feeling the bearings in their grooves. She focused, with a faint groan, but the dish didn't move.

Charlotte pocketed her watch, as the clasp had popped open with Erika's effort. She didn't say anything, though, because Erika was still concentrating. Her breathing was short as she worked up her strength, her face flushing with anger and determination. She jabbed her hands towards the dish again and there was a faint groaning noise, but no movement.

"It's no good. Too big."

Charlotte stepped forward and placed her hand flat on Erika's sternum, just above her bust. "Shaw taught you to use your power that way. I doubt it's the only way to use it."

"What's your opinion then? Anger's got me through very well, thank you."

"No, it hasn't. You have to close off so much of yourself to be able to use it, and you can never forgive or let go because it's all fuel to the fire."

Erika glared at Charlotte, but didn't step away from her. "I don't want to forgive or let go."

"I'm not saying you should. I'm saying there's more than one kind of fire. Not everything about a person, not even you, is mechanical like that. We're the sum of our memories, not the slaves of them."

"Charlotte, I'm not following you."

Charlotte moved her hand up to Erika's temple, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she wanted. Erika didn't move, simply closing her eyes and waiting.

Charlotte had been in Erika's mind many times before, and it was an amazing place, memories and observations connected by strong and deliberate ties, the mind of someone who had worked very hard to train herself to survive anything. There was, though, an entire substructure of memories and experiences that were not so clearly sorted. In most people's minds, this would be a big confusing jumble of good and bad, connections running between the most apparently random things in ways that Charlotte wouldn't be able to work out if she examined their minds for a hundred years. In Erika's case, those few bright memories not connected to something she considered useful - enjoying a new city, stabbing a Nazi - were kept away from her conscious mind as if she'd painted over pages of a photo album with ash.

Carefully, Charlotte reached for one of those isolated bright spots, making sure that it wasn't something deliberately repressed - she'd learned her lesson years ago trying to drag memories of her father from her mother's mind - and brushed it off, letting it rise into Erika's consciousness.

It is crowded and dark with four families in one tiny apartment in Warsaw, but Samuel Prydeman had somehow managed to use scavenged candlewax to make eight beautiful candles that looked like new - plus a rather lumpy shamash candle to light them - even nicer than the Shabbat candles he'd produced since they'd all been forced to live here together. Erika's father had wired two more branches onto a cheap iron candelabra that Erika and her uncle had scavenged in the ruins of a bar a few months prior. That made it into a makeshift Hanukiah, even if the extra branches were a bit wobbly, and they were having a Hanukah celebration for the children. Even Erika's big sister Ruthie had made it downstairs tonight, though she was huddled in a blanket and muffling her cough. Erika - and there was that other name again, hiding underneath "Erika" - of course considered herself an adult at eleven, so stood with her mother listening to the blessing. They light the shamash together and carry it along the row from the first to the eighth candle, smiling at each other in the glow of the golden light as the children on the floor call out for treats on this last night of celebration. It is a peaceful memory, a precious space in her childhood where she felt perfectly safe and well-fed as well as loved; the last occasion she can remember her family all together and happy.

"Oh." Charlotte wiped a tear from her face. "Erika? That was a very beautiful memory."

"I thought, I thought I had lost that." Tears were on Erika's face, too, though she seemed to be unaware of them. Charlotte had never seen her cry.

"Try again, with the satellite dish. There's so much more to you than violence and anger."

Erika held her hands out, took a surprised moment to wipe her eyes when she couldn't see the dish clearly, then tried again. There was little strain as she gestured, and the satellite dish groaned once, then smoothly turned on its base. Erika laughed and laughed, bright and open, as the dish rotated at her command, back and forwards along its huge bearings.

"I can do it! Schmidt was wrong! She was wrong!" Erika let the dish go and threw her arms around Charlotte. "Thank you, thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Charlotte smiled into Erika's collarbone, feeling rather squished but delighted at Erika's clear and unrestrained joy. She tilted her face up, put her arms around Erika's neck and kissed her, their bodies pressed as close as they could be without climbing inside each other, which sounded rather nice to Charlotte right now.

"Charlotte! Erika!" It was Harriet, yelling out the ballroom window. "We have to test Cerebro before the meteorologists come in tomorrow!"

"Of course!" Charlotte called back, then kissed Erika again for good measure. "Come on, let's go expand my mind as well as yours."

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