"and boy, you know the less you learn

~

January 27, 1973

Dear Alex,

I'm on an airplane to Paris! I'm also realize I'm writing a bunch of letters to you today, but it's mostly because I have no one else to talk to about all the crazy stuff that is happening. Charles is sulking by a window, Hank is flying the plane, Logan is not really that friendly, and Erik keeps looking at me weird. Maybe if Peter was here I'd talk to him, but he and Riv are both back at the Maximoffs.

I really wish you were here. We could maybe sightsee around the romantic city together before actually like trying to find Mystique, you know? I don't really know though. Just an idea.

Anyways, I don't have much to say. I think we're almost at Paris. Hank's a pretty good pilot. It reminds me of when we went on missions on the Blackbird. I miss those times.

Sorry this letter was short. Not that you'd read this. I hope. Some of these letters are embarrassing (like the first one I wrote...)

Love, Neva Liu

PS: I hope you come home soon. But I guess I always say that.

~

"How did you lose them?" Erik asked to his old friend, breaking the thick silence. Logan looked up with a raised eyebrow. Neva had been trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Instead, she was now reading a book whilst being under a blanket she found packed away. She and Logan exchanged glances.

Charles didn't look up.

"The treatment for my spine affects my DNA," he said curtly.

"You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?!" Erik scoffed.

"I sacrificed my powers so I could sleep!" Charles shouted. Neva felt guilt stir in her stomach. She had never thought about the fact that Charles could hear all of the voices in the mansion. Especially after Alex and Sean left, he must have been cracking under the thoughts of herself and Hank. She couldn't possibly imagine the stress and sadness Charles had to endure, even without the two saying a single word. "What would you know about it?" he spat at the other man.

"I've lost my fair share," said Erik simply from his seat. Charles laughed coldly.

"Dry your eyes, Erik," he said angrily. Neva could also see tears threaten to spill. "It doesn't justify what you've done."

"You have no idea what I've done," Erik replied.

"I know you took the things that meant the most to me," Charles said, breathing heavily.

"Then maybe you should have fought harder for them," Erik said. Charles stood up, furious.

"If you want a fight, Erik, I'll give you a fight!" he shouted.

"Sit down!" Logan said, looking alarmed.

"Let him come," Erik said softly. Charles went nearer to the man. He pushed him roughly, and Neva prepared herself in case something happened. The Brit grabbed Erik by his shirt.

"You abandoned me!" he yelled. "You took her away, and you abandoned her!" His voice cracked. Neva wondered if Hank could hear everything that was happening.

"Angel," Erik said. Neva had flashbacks from Alex's memories: a dark skinned and smart eyed eyed girl with fluttery wings and the ability to spit fire. They were in a room with a large glass window, laughing and drinking. Mystique was there. And Sean and Hank. And another dark skinned man. They were all having so much fun.

Neva clutched her head, shaking it.

"Not now, not now," she whispered to herself. Erik continued to recite names.

"Azazel." Neva saw a red man with a devilish tail teleporting around a beach in Cuba. "Emma." The vision of a blonde haired wonder turning into pure diamond flashed past her eyes. "Banshee." The name triggered an overflow of memories and emotions from Alex's memories and Neva's own memories: Sean in the mansion laughing his head off, Sean in the garden splashing her with water while she tried to write, Sean in Cuba flying around, Sean sliding down the banister and falling into Charles' wheelchair, Sean screaming in excitement when he found out they had been dating. Neva felt a tear roll down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

"Stop it, stop it," she whispered more. Logan looked at her in confusion.

"Mutant brothers and sisters!" Erik's voice got louder. Suddenly, Neva heard a crunch and she looked up with wide eyes. The ceiling of the plane was falling into itself. Charles walked backwards as the plane started going down, and Logan and Neva held onto their seats. "Countless others! Experimented on! Butchered!" Neva squeezed her eyes shut. Plates and cups started crashing to the ground and slidin towards the cockpit.

"Erik," Hank said from the front of the plane. Neva imagined that he was frantically trying to regain control of the plane. Charles fell into his seat again. Erik stayed standing, fists turning white in anger.

"Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to protect them!" he said in an accusatory tone. "Where were you when you own people needed you? Hiding! You and Hank and Ms. Liu, who," he guestured to Neva, "who I bet got the golden and blind treatment that we all did! You probably told her nothing of us! Nothing of the originals and of the way mutants were treated before! Nothing of how Darwin died! Nothing of the reality of Cuba! Nothing!" The plane tilted more. Charles averted his eyes from the Asian girl in the corner. "You went into hiding! Pretending to be something you're not! You abandoned us all!"

"Erik!" Hank yelled. Erik looked up and loosened his fists. The plane's top leveled out, and Neva heard Hank sigh with relief from the controls.

"You abandoned us all," Erik said at Charles. The brunette just glared at him and then stumbled into the cockpit. Neva let out a breath.

"So you were always an asshole," Logan said. He lit a cigar. Erik scoffed.

"I bet we're best buddies in the future," he said. Logan smiled.

"I spent a lot of years trying to bring you down, bub," he responded. Neva wondered what the future was like. She wiggled her fingers in her gloves and pulled the blanket off.

"And how did that work out for you?" asked Erik, amused. Logan gave a short laugh.

"You're just like me," he said. "You're survivor." Neva timidly got up and walked past the two men. As a habit, she started picking up the silverware from the floor as quietly as she could. She felt the two stare at her. Logan motioned towards Erik. "Do you wanna help her pick all that shit up?"

"I got it," Neva mumbled.

"It's fine," Erik said. He knelt down and began to help her.

Almost thirty tense minutes later, Charles was back in his seat by the window with a drink, still gazing out of it into the blue sky. Neva was in her seat again with the blanket and a journal for writing. She wanted to record all of what had happened in case Alex ever wanted to find out. Logan still was smoking his cigar, and Hank was still in the front.

Charles, Logan, and Neva all looked up to see Erik carefully holding out a chessboard towards Charles.

"Fancy a game?" Erik asked. "It's been awhile." Charles looked at him for a moment then looked away.

"I'm not in the mood for games, thank you." Erik sighed a bit, put down the board, and poured himself a drink. He observed the amber liquid through the glass.

"I haven't had a real sip in years," he said. He drank for a minute then paused. "I didn't kill the president." Charles laughed in disbelief. Even Neva raised an eyebrow.

"The bullet curved, Erik," Charles said.

"Because I was trying to save him," Erik replied with a set face. "They took me out before I could."

"Why would you try and save him?" Charles scoffed.

"Because he was one of us." Neva widened her eyes again. JFK had been a mutant?!

"You must think me so foolish," muttered Charles. There was a silence. "We always said they would come after us," he said, referring to the future Logan had told them both about.

"I never imagined they'd use Raven's DNA to do it," Erik said softly.

"When did you last see her?" asked Charles, a bit hesitantly.

"The day I left Dallas," Erik said. He sat in the seat across from Charles.

"And how was she?"

"Strong, driven. Loyal." Both the men had reminiscent looks on their faces. Neva wondered how Mystique would react to both of them being there at the same time.

"How...how was she?" Charles repeated. Erik sighed.

"She was...we were..." He took a pause. "I could see why she meant so much to you. You should be proud of her, Charles. She's out there fighting for our cause." Charles shook his head.

"Your cause," he said. "The girl I raised was not capable of killing."

"You didn't raise her. You grew up with her. She couldn't stay that little girl forever; that's why she left." Neva could feel another debate rising. She readied herself for an emergency again.

"She left because you got inside her head," Charles said bitterly.

"That's not my power," said Erik. "She made a choice."

"But now we know where that choice leads, don't we?" Charles said. "She's going to murder Trask, they're going to capture her, and then they're going to wipe us out." Logan nodded even though no one was paying that much attention to him.

"Not if we get to her first. Not if we change history tomorrow," Erik said. He looked up. "I'm sorry, Charles. For what happened, I truly am." Neva watched as tears welled up in Charles eyes for a second. He quickly blinked them away, gulped down the rest of his drink, and then put his cup on the table, observing the chessboard the way he always did before a chess game. Neva smiled.

"It's been awhile since I've played," he said. Erik smiled too.

"I'll go easy on you. Might finally be a fair fight." Charles raised his eyebrow with a hint of laughter.

"You have first move," he said. Neva got up, walked past as Erik moved a pawn with his magnetic powers, and went to join Hank in the front.

"Hey," she said. He looked at her and smiled. She sat down in the co-pilot's seat.

"Hey. How are you?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Not the best, but it's fine. You?" she asked back. He nodded.

"The same as you." There was a pause, and they heard Charles loudly object to something. "Wow what's all the buzz over there?" Neva laughed.

"I think they're playing chess."

"Really?" Hank looked surprised, and she nodded. He looked back out into the bright sky. "That hasn't happened for a long time."

"Yeah."

"Charles almost always beat Erik because he claimed he was the best at chess." Hank laughed quietly. "All of us think it's the mind reading thing, but he denies it."

"Yeah, I got that from Alex's memories," Neva smiled. There was another pause. "Hey, is all of what Erik said...true? That you guys kind of didn't tell me the whole story of everything in Cuba? I mean, I kind of saw through Alex's memories but I can't see everything. Some of it's more blurry." Hank sighed.

"I mean...it was pretty...it...D-Darwin was...a-and Shaw and...I don't know," he finally said. Neva bit her lip and nodded.

"Ok. I get it."

"Sorry."

"It's ok."

"I think it's because Cuba just really shook us all," Hank said after a moment. "It was our first mission, and-and we didn't know what we were doing. You know?" Neva nodded. "We had a friend. A guy named Darwin. Real nice guy." Hank's voice started cracking. "He sacrificed himself for us."

"Oh," Neva whispered. She didn't know what to say. She vaguely knew about the man but had never talked fully about him before.

"A-and that was before Cuba," Hank continued with a few tears. "Then Angel left us for Shaw and I became the ugly blue me and-and Charles lost his legs..."

"Hey," Neva said softly. "It's not your fault."

"I encouraged the government to get more mutants to fight against Shaw," Hank whispered. "It was my fault."

"It's not," Neva said. "It's not." The two stayed like that, Neva hugging her knees in the co-pilot's seat and Hank thinking about the original X-Men.

"I miss Alex," Neva said softly. "And Sean."

"Me too," Hank agreed, his voice just as soft as hers.

"You think Alex'll come back soon?" she said. Hank smiled.

"Yeah. I'm sure he will."

"He'll give us all giant hugs," Neva laughed. She brushed a tear away. Hank laughed too.

"Then he'll kiss you." She scrunched up her face.

"Ew."

"He's your boyfriend, oh my god."

"Yeah yeah I know." She laughed again.

"Then we'll have a cake or something. Something really sweet. Maybe ice cream."

"Oh, River would love an ice cream cake!" Neva said, grinning. They heard Erik groaning and Charles whooping in victory. Logan was also heard laughing a little. "Maybe we'll all be happy." She looked up at Hank. He smiled at her. She hadn't seem him smile that much in a long time.

"I know we will."

~

Alex Summers walked across the airport, a small green duffel bag in his hand. The silver dog tag hung around his neck, and it jingled a little whenever he took a step.

"Hey, man," the soldier next to him said. It was a mutant with deformed skin, large goggles, and a big face. The soldiers called him Toad. "You going back to your lady?" Alex nodded.

"Yeah. She's in New York," Alex said. Toad whistled.

"Long way aways, huh?" Alex nodded again.

"Where are you going?"

"Same as you: the Big Apple," Toad grinned. "Gonna get a job or somethin' and maybe make enough bucks to get a place."

"Sounds nice," Alex cracked a smile.

"So ya gonna get married?" Toad grinned more. Alex rolled his eyes.

"Of course he's getting married," another soldier said with a bored voice. His name was Ink, another mutant. He didn't like people that much and had tattoos that gave him powers. "Summers has been talking about it for forever."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Alex muttered.

"Ink's always like that," Toad said with a frown. Ink nodded and picked at his uniform. Alex rolled his eyes and continued to walk. "Where you going, Inkie?"

"Hometown in Connecticut," Ink said simply. Toad nodded in approval.

"I can't believe we got out of there," Daniels said. His spiky hair shone in the sun. Daniels was a dark skinned man with the ability to turn people unconscious without even touching them.

"It was 'cause of that mutant lady," Toad said, licking his lips. They sat down in a waiting area, holding tickets from the army. Some people gave them glares. Alex ignored them and rubbed a picture he had in his pocket. Over the three years, he had kept a picture of him and Neva from '62 in his pocket, rubbing it whenever he was stressed or worried or bored.

"Her name's Mystique," Ink said.

"You called her Raven," Toad turned to Alex. The blonde shrugged.

"So?"

"You knew her, man?" Daniels asked, suspiciously.

"Maybe." Alex kept rubbing the picture.

"Didya ever kiss her?" Toad grinned. Alex made a face. "I'll take that as a no."

"He has that girl, remember?" Daniels said, facepalming. Toad nodded.

"Right right."

There was a loud announcement over the PA: the flight to New York City was boarding. Alex, Toad, and Ink all got up. Daniels gave them a small salute, and they did the same to him.

"See you later, crazy man," Toad said. Daniels shook his head but grinned.

"See you guys."

The three walked towards the plane, and Alex grinned to himself.

He was going to see Neva soon. He started rubbing a little ring he also had inside his pocket.

Alex couldn't wait to see her.

AFTERWORD: guys this book is veeeery close to being done (i've "planned" for around ten more chapters)...is anyone else sad...BECAUSE I AM