A bit of a fixer-upper to First Class. I admit I like various "Cherik" stories available, but a decent Moira/Charles story is not that easy to find. So this idea was nagging me ever since I re-watched FC in preparation for the new movie.

Now, disclaimers: I own nobody, I own nothing, I'm not following "canon" however widely canon can be defined in Marvel. I just had an idea and went with it.

Story is planned out until the end, half written, updates will be week-ish-ly.

Let me know when you have any concrit. I really like concrit.

Regaining Herself: Pictures in the Wind

Moira, Memories

Moira MacTaggert sat in front of an enormous sheet of paper and tried to catch the memory that was floating, teasingly, just on the outskirts of her brain.
Moira MacTaggert was quite ready to choke Charles Xavier to death with her bare hands. Or kiss him and then kill him. Or just...
She inhaled carefully.
Her head throbbed, threats of later sickness quite clear. The picture slowly regained focus.
It was a beach. She was sitting on the sand, looking up at someone in a weirdly shaped helmet. He was talking, but she didn't hear the words. There was the feeling of someone else being asked for reaction.
She grabbed a pencil and quickly drafted the picture, before it disappeared from her mind.

Whatever else Charles Xavier - damn him to eternal pain - had done, he apparently must have triggered some until now unused part of her brain, resulting in a handy new talent of Moira's. Drawing was really useful when your memories came and went in waves, mostly static pictures of people, places and objects.

She rose and surveyed the paper nailed to her bedroom wall carefully.
Beach. That means probably Cuba, so it goes together with missiles and broken radio.
She pinned the newest picture next to one she called 'sky of weapons' and short description of the feeling of dread she had coming whenever she thought of a radio failing.
The sheet was covered with time markings, main milestones and arrows linking elements together. It was her memory. External one. The memory which Charles Xavier - she was quite sure it had been him, insufferable man - had taken away from her.

Just thinking about it gave her headache, but she decided to sit down and wait it out today instead of escaping into morphine she had quietly stored for such occasions. She hoped, deep down, that whenever she hurts, he does, too. Even deeper down she actually didn't wish it. She wished to snog his stupid round face so soundly he would be left speechless.
These wishes were dangerous. They made her lose her control and balance.
This time, however, Moira dived into it, revelled in the fleeting sensation of his lips on hers, the slight, unnatural movement of his body on... on a wheelchair?!
Her eyes snapped open.
He was on a wheelchair. It all suddenly made sense. The sitting in the sand - she must have been holding him, lying down. Hurt? Wounded? Him being much shorter than he was supposed to be. He must have been sitting in the wheelchair in most of these scenes.
Slowly she drew a wheelchair and a man's figure in it, slightly slouching. With careful strokes she gave him the right profile, the nose, slightly longish hair, round eyes. She bit her lip and drew herself at the handles.
Pinning the picture at the end of her timeline she surveyed the whole. It wasn't everything, it wasn't even half. But it was enough to track all that happened in the "white period" of her memory. She knew what happened around the beach from recordings the navy made. She could extrapolate and patch together what wasn't in the recordings - exact dealings between people.
Erik, Raven, Angel. The red-skinned teleporter. The tornado one.
Charles, Hank, Banshee, Havok. She wasn't exactly sure which were names and which were nicknames, but she would finally get it, or she wasn't Moira MacTaggert.