It had started on the night after the day that had changed everything, the first one Charles had spent in the intensive care wing of the hospital. Although Moira had wanted to stay, he had lied and told her visitors weren't allowed overnight. In truth, he just wanted to be alone. Had wanted to truly feel the loss of his ability to walk, the loss of so much of how he defined himself before the healing process began. Moira sitting by his bed telling him that everything would be all right and mentally giving off guilt in waves would have been more than he could take.

But as the hours wore on, and he watched the sun set and the stars rise through the blurred pane of the little hospital window, Charles realized with growing anguish that he didn't actually want to be alone. He wanted someone to rail to about the cruelty of life. He wanted someone to look at him and say with total honesty that he was still loved, that he was not alone. He wanted Erik.

The thought of Erik, his Erik, so lost and so far away, and the realization that the first night they had spent apart since their first one together had to be this one was too much to bear, and he finally released the tears that had been threatening to escape since the beach. He wept, for himself, for Erik, for what would never be. He rocked back and forth, weeping and wanting Erik so badly it was causing a constricting feeling in his chest.

That was when he first heard the voice.

Erik slammed the door to the master bedroom and pushed over a small end table in frustration. When making his grand exit on the beach, he had not counted on having to be the sole guardian of four unruly mutants who were barely more than children. Ever since reaching the abandoned house he had chosen as a temporary base, they had not stopped bickering with one another over who got which room, whose power was best, what their team should be called.

Although he had gotten all four to retreat sulkily to separate rooms by screaming at them, Erik knew that anger and intimidation would not work as long-term leadership tactics. He was unused to giving the gentle encouragement these kids needed; at the school, Charles had always taken care of any interpersonal problems in his typically kind and patient way, and in turn the students loved and respected him.

Charles. Here, in the protection of his own room, he allowed himself to think the name for the first time since the beach. Though the helmet had protected him from the thoughts of others, it could do nothing to shield against his own, the deluges of guilt, regret, and longing that had been pouring over him in a constant stream since he had permanently crippled his partner. His lover. His best friend.

He was filled with a sudden hatred of the helmet, fashioned by his worst enemy, that forced him to erect a barrier between himself and the one person in the world who truly cared for him, and he flung it from his head and across the room with vigorous force. The second it was removed, Erik was filled with a despair so intense it brought him to his knees, and it took him a few minutes to realize that it was not his own.

A single tear dripped down his face as he realized it was Charles, needing him so badly that he was inadvertently broadcasting his pain across the space between them and into Erik's mind. It took every ounce of the steely strength he had built up over the years not to run to Azazel and demand to be taken back to New York, to run into Charles's hospital room and hold him and not leave until the pain that Erik was feeling from him had completely healed.

But he knew this could not be. No matter how much he loved Charles, and how much Charles loved him, they both had a mission. But perhaps, he thought as he rose from the floor and moved to lie on his shabby double bed, there was something he could do.

Charles?

The voice was so soft and hesitant at first that Charles questioned whether he'd heard it at all. He was just beginning to wonder whether he'd sustained some sort of head injury as well when the voice came again.

Charles? Can you hear me, Charles?

Recognizing the speaker immediately this time, Charles was filled for the first time since the beach with something akin to hope as he closed his eyes, concentrated, and directed his thoughts.

Erik?

Oh Charles, I'm so sorry.

The joy Charles felt at hearing Erik's voice again, at being able to touch his mind again, lifted his spirits to the point that he actually laughed out loud.

I know, Erik.

If I could switch our places...

I know that, too.

A thought struck him suddenly, and though he thought it slightly risky to question something which felt like a miracle, he nevertheless sent it to Erik.

How is this possible?

I don't know, Charles. I took off the helmet, and suddenly your thoughts were as present in my head as my own were.

Before being forced to accelerate their plans to stop Shaw, the two of them had been experimenting with communicating entirely via telepathy over long distances. Although they had managed to exchange a few words from a couple blocks apart, it was nothing compared to this.

You took off the helmet?

Only for the evening. I need to investigate what kind of long term effects it might cause.

You aren't you in that helmet, my friend.

I'm not here for a lecture, Charles.

That doesn't mean you don't need one. What were you thinking today? What on earth are you planning to do?

There was only silence on the other end, and Charles began to panic. He couldn't lose Erik now, not when he was the only thing keeping the grief away. He frantically resumed broadcasting.

I'm sorry, Erik, don't go. Please, Erik, I can't lose you twice today.

There was only a brief pause before the reply came.

I am here, Charles. I am always here.

I'll make you a deal, my friend. No talk of politics or agendas here. In here, we aren't Magneto and Professor Xavier, only Erik and Charles.

That would be...perfection.

As he took a moment to absorb the warmth he was feeling, Charles suddenly had an idea.

Erik, what exactly are you getting from me right now?

There was a pause as if he was contemplating before he replied.

A stream of words, like you're here talking to me, and beneath that...it's hard to describe.

A tangle of various emotions, constantly changing and evolving?

Yes...yes, exactly like that.

Any sensation?

Another pause.

I think I can almost feel something if I work at it, but I can't be sure.

Erik, I want you to concentrate, really concentrate on touching my hand. Summon up the memories from when you've done it before and send your mind there now. I shall do the same.

All right, Charles, I will try.

Remember, my friend, the point between rage and serenity.

Charles did not wait for a reply, but instead focused all of his considerable mental energies on creating a physical connection. He did not know if it was even possible - it was far more advanced and complicated than anything they had tried previously - but if there was one chance in a thousand that he could feel Erik's touch on his skin again, especially tonight, he knew he would try anything.

Closing his eyes and extending his hand, he directed his mind toward recalling everything he could about Erik's hands. He was always amazed at how they managed to be both incredibly strong yet also graceful, beautifully so. Rough hands, he thought, that told the story of the hardships Erik had suffered: the small scar above his left knuckle from a barbed wire fence he had climbed as a boy in an attempt to escape the concentration camp; the way his right pinkie still leaned a little to the right from being broken multiple times in a bar fight with a German national from whom he needed information; a small burn mark on his left palm from a practice session with a gun before he was quite fast enough to stop bullets properly. The weight of one of them in Charles's own -

Charles let out a little gasp, but kept his eyes closed and his concentration up when he realized that he was not remembering the weight of Erik's hand, but actually feeling it. Yes, in some strange meeting place between mind and body, Erik's hand rested in his, his thumb gently stroking soothing little circles over Charles's wrist. Charles tried to squeeze Erik's in return, and was overjoyed to find his fingers pressing ever so gently onto Erik's skin and the framework of small bones lying just beneath.

For two beautiful minutes, they existed like that, neither moving mind nor body except to explore further the connection between them. Eventually, though, Charles was saddened to feel Erik's touch fade away, but relieved when his voice returned.

Charles?

I'm still here, Erik.

Was that...?

It was as real as anything, my friend.

Charles had to pause to collect himself and wipe away the tears now streaming down his face. The scientist in him thought briefly about comparing sensations and doing a proper test, but the man in him, feeling so broken tonight, won out.

I miss you so much, Erik.

Another pause.

And I you, my dearest friend.

Charles sensed in Erik's thoughts a shaky sadness, suggesting that he, too, had been crying.

I'm so tired of fighting.

I know, Charles. I know.

Will you...? Could we...?

Go to sleep, now, Charles. I'll be there.

And tomorrow night?

I told you, Charles, as long as you want me, I am always here.

Reassured, Charles rolled over and finally gave in to the exhaustion that had been weighing on him all day. As his own natural tiredness and the pain medications he had been given drew a cloud of darkness over him, he felt a firm hand begin to stroke his hair ever so lightly. Drifting off to sleep, he wept a little again, but this time from happiness and relief. It would be all right. He was not alone. Erik was here.