T/W: offensive language

━━ IF WE HAD TIME

"WHAT?!" BOTH CHARLES AND I ask at the same time. My eyebrows knit together and Hank and I share a look. I cross my arms tighter around my waist, my long, pink scar suddenly aching, and turn my attention back to the man in front of me. He glances in my direction, then back to Charles.

"About 50 years from now." he continues on. A small smile plays on his lips as he takes in our surprised and shocked expressions. My insides squirm. I'm almost tempted to look inside his head, hoping to see if he's telling the truth, but then I remember the pain I felt in his head, the feeling of being ripped apart. I shudder, never wanting to feel something like that again. It's too familiar. I'm reminded of when Shaw would spread the kinetic energy through my body, and a shiver, full of emotions I don't want, comes rolling up my spine.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"50 years from now?" Charles interjects, a smirk on his lips as he fiddles with his hands. I purse my lips as astonishment, so intense and real, hits my stomach like a punch to the gut. I stagger back a step, closing my eyes for a second. Whispers, incandescent and like wisps of silvery smoke, make their way through my head. I rub my temples as Charles continues to speak. I rack my brain for when I took the last dose of Hank's serum. It must be wearing off.

I bite the inside of my cheek.

"Like in the future, 50 years from now?" Charles continues.

"Yeah," the man answers.

"It's not possible." I argue. The man raises an eyebrow at me. Hank, who is still in his blue form, shakes his head disbelievingly. Anger bounces around inside my head, shadows revealing themselves from the corner of my mind. I narrow my eyes and hiss a breath.

Charles says. "Piss off." The man doesn't waver. I frown, partly agreeing with Charles' sentiment. This man is clearly out of his mind, talking about time travel and an older Charles sending him back here. Maybe ten years ago, I would have believed that Charles Xavier would do something like this if it meant saving lives. But not now. The man Charles Xavier has become would never do such a thing. He only cares about himself, now that everyone he loved has gone.

"If you had your powers," the man says. "You'd know I was telling the truth." My head shoots up, and I take a step closer to Charles, who's eyes blaze with a new found fire.

"Get out." I warn the man.

"How do you know I don't have my..." Charles cuts off, and I pull my arms away from my stomach, letting them rest to the side. Energy tingles in my palms. The man takes a slight step back at my abrupt change in stature, but I don't care. If he's come to hurt Charles, to hurt any of us, I won't hesitate to try and take him down. These people are all I have left, and I'll protect them with my life.

"Leena." Charles says softly. "Can you see if he's telling the truth?" I freeze. The man looks at me coolly, and the urge to scowl at him pushes up against my mouth, but I stop myself. I turn slowly to Charles, and shake my head. He blows out a long, frustrated breath, and I look down at my shoes. Doom, doom, doom. I scrunch my eyes close, willing the pain and whispers away. Doom, doom, doom. I need to take another dose, soon, or else I don't know if the voices will ever go away completely.

"Who are you?" Charles asks the man.

"I told you," he replies.

Charles doesn't seem to hear him. "Are you CIA?" I grimace. Ever since Charles had to wipe the memory of Moira McTaggert, the CIA agent who helped us defeat Shaw, even one mention of the organization sends him on a downward spiral. Leaving Moira was the first thing to crack him, and it only got worse from there. After a couple years, I came to realize that Charles loved Moira. The kind of aching love that whenever her name was mentioned, longing, powerful enough to knock me over, would hit me straight in the chest.

"No." the man replies.

"You been watching me?" Charles demands. I gulp.

"Charles," I warn.

"Leena, stay out of this." Charles says, his words like a biting cold ripping through my flesh. His words always seem to do that now. It feels as if a knife is cutting through my skin, trying to bury itself in my heart. My body is made of glass, and I'm close to shattering completely.

"I know you, Charles." the man says, and he begins to walk closer. "We've been friends for years." My frown deepens, mouth opening slightly, but I can't find the words to speak. My mind has gone completely blank, confusion erupting through my senses. Who is this man? He walks around the table and comes up in front of us. His gaze doesn't waver from Charles' face, whose hands now shake slightly, his mouth thinned into an imperceptible line.

"I know your powers came when you were nine." the man continues. "I know you thought you were going crazy when it started," tears spring to my eyes as I remember the night when Charles, drunk, had barged into my room as I was about to go to bed, sat me down, and told me this story through slurred words and bloodshot eyes. "All the... voices in your head." I curl my hands into fists. The man points to his head. As if on cue, more whispers of emotions collide with my skull, agony blossoming along my forehead.

"And it wasn't until you were 12 that you realized," the man won't stop talking. "All the voices were in everyone else's head." I glare into the side of the man's skull. "Do you want me to go on?"

There is a moment of silence. Charles seems to be looking at nothing, his eyes glazed over and his face contorting with confusion and pain. I don't pull my gaze away from him. Finally, Charles shakes his head slightly.

"I never told anyone that." he says. I close my eyes for a moment, partly relieved that he doesn't remember. He was so frail that night, so utterly defeated that not even the alcohol could save him. I'm not surprised he can't remember, he was so drunk, and the next day could barely function. I thought I was mad Leena, he had told me, I thought I was going to die if they didn't stop. I'd only held his hand and tried to calm him down. On the inside, I'd been screaming, because I knew what he had felt. I knew exactly what it was like to want to die because of the voices, because of the way you were living. I didn't tell him any of it, but it still lurked at the back of my head.

"Not yet, no, but..." the man says, pulling me out of thoughts. "You will."

Charles pauses for a moment, keeping his gaze firmly somewhere above the man's shoulder, then finally speaks. "All right, you've piqued my interest," he says carefully. "What do you want?" Hank and I look towards him, the same interest reflected in both our eyes.

His next words make my blood run cold. "We have to stop Raven." Hank stiffens and Charles looks at him blankly. "I need your help." Charles' lips quiver, and I hold back tears as he shifts from where he sits on the staircase. Loss blossoms in my heart, like a shadowy knife ready to break through the white sheen of life.

"We need your help." the man finishes. He leaves silence in his wake. I take an unsteady breath, trying to calm the racing of my heart, and turn to Charles. He gives a small, disbelieving smile. I know that smile. It's a mask, a front for what really is going on behind Charles' eyes. I don't need to feel his emotions to know that even the mention of Raven's name has left him scrambling to gain footing once more.

Hank looks even worse.

"I think I'd like to wake up now." Charles says softly, getting up to stand. He claps me on the back before retreating into the study, his legs wobbly and his robe flying behind him. Hank, the man, and I all stand in the foyer, looking after him. The man grimaces and looks at me, but I cast my eyes downwards.

Hank's blue form retreats back, and he says. "What does she have to do with this?" the man sighs, and I can still feel his eyes on me as I follow Charles into the other room, hands around my waist once more, loosening curls falling over my eyes. Charles is at the back of the room, and I move over to stand near the door frame. Hank walks in and sits in one of the lounge chairs. The man comes after him, and I notice his slightly shaking hands as he sits in the other chair.

Charles turns back around. "So what? What happens?"

The man takes a deep breath and tells his story. With each word, with each explanation into Bolivar Trask, into Raven's attempt to kill him, my breath becomes more shallow. The man speaks fluidly, and at some point he tells us his name: Logan Howlett. He tells us about the experiments they performed on Raven, about what it brought for the future. As he speaks, a feeling of unease creeps into my heart. I look at him sharply, and every so often, in between breaths, his eyes dart towards me. There's something he's not telling us. Something, I begin to realize, that has to do with me.

When Logan finishes speaking, the room is silent for a moment. The only sounds that can be heard are Charles busily making a drink in front of us. His back is turned and hunched, but dark shadows flit off him, like butterflies soaring in the wind.

"So, you're saying that they took Raven's power and what..." Charles begins, then turns around and looks at Logan through the shaded lamp that sits on the cluttered table. "They weaponized it?"

Logan nods and says. "Yep." I purse my lips, the unease of knowing that Logan is not telling us something has my head spinning, and I'm only half listening to the conversation.

"She is unique." Hank says, his voice solemn.

Charles looks at him. "Yeah, she is, Hank." The pain in his voice makes me want to rip my hair out. Charles moves away and waltzes over to the other couch a little farther off, facing the three of us by the desk. I lean against the wooden pillar, biting my lip.

"Look, in the beginning, the Sentinels were just targeting mutants." Logan says. "Then they began to identify the genetics in non-mutants, who would eventually have mutant children and grandchildren." His voice grows quieter. "Many of the humans tried to help us. It was a slaughter. Leaving only the worst of humanity in charge."

A man with a sickly sweet smile and honey tinted words enters my mind. I push the memory of him, blood pouring from his head onto the glass-paned floor, out of my mind. Even now, ten years later, the death of Sebastian Shaw still haunts me.

"I've been in a lot of wars." Logan continues. "I'd never seen anything like this." he looks down at his hands. "And it all starts with her." Pain. It shoots up my spine, shadows gripping the edge of my vision. I look quickly towards Charles, but realize that it's not coming from him, it's coming from Logan. My eyes narrow.

"Well, let's just say that for the sake of..." Charles pauses and rubs the bridge of his nose, his arms spread out on the couch. "The sake that I-I choose to believe you, that I choose to help you," he begins to chuckle. "Raven won't listen to me." He smiles, but it is a pained and broken expression. "No, her heart and soul belong to someone else now." they belong to Erik. I close my eyes, trying to get the image of an umber haired man with sculpted cheekbones and rage-filled eyes out of my head. Ever since the assassination, Erik has been in the same place for all these years, both literally and mentally. He won't leave my head.

"I know." Logan says, getting up from his spot, walking over to lean on the other side of the pillar beside me. My eyes meet his, and something flashes across his pupils. I look away.

"That's why we're gonna need Magneto, too." Logan finishes. My knees almost buckle from underneath me. I brace myself against as the wood as Logan pushes away to stand in the middle of the room. Both Hank and Charles glance over to me, and Charles gives a barking laugh that shakes me to my core.

"Erik..." he says, and even the name forces me to look away, out the window and into the courtyard. The once luscious green gardens and trees I used to climb are gone. All that remains is overgrown vines and bramble bushes. Decrepit, unkempt. A remnant of the past.

"You do know where he is?" Hank asks Logan, turning around in his seat. Charles is still laughing. It takes everything in me to keep the shadows at bay. They want nothing more than to launch themselves at Charles.

Flashes of the day on the beach swim through my mind.

White, glistening sands. Panicked eyes. Someone shouting my name. Strong hands lifting me from the ground. A man close to breaking as he leaves a little girl on the beach. Blood seeping from a thin wound. A bloodied coin lying on the ground, coated with sticky, dark ruby coloured liquid.

My nails bite into the palms of my hands as Charles continues to laugh, getting up from his spot, walking towards Logan.

"He's where he belongs." Charles spits out. I push myself off the pillar and march towards him, placing my hands on either of his shoulders. Charles looks down at me, confused, but the fire in his eyes doesn't die down.

"Charles." I say his name swiftly, my voice dangerously low. "Don't."

"You know it, Leena." Charles tells me. "Don't even try to pretend." I take a shocked step back, my hands falling back to my side. "Erik doesn't deserve your sympathy." The last words feel like a truck has slammed into me, and I stagger back, accidentally bumping into Logan, who holds me steady. I don't even try to move. Charles doesn't look at me again, and simply walks out into the foyer.

"That's it?" Logan calls from behind me. "You're just gonna walk out?"

Charles spins on his heels. "Oh, top marks— like I said, you are perceptive." sarcasm drips off his tongue. Logan moves away from me and takes a step towards Charles.

"The Professor I know would never turn his back on someone who lost their path." Logan says. His words drop like stones, changing the course of the river. Everything around us goes silent. Charles stops walking and takes a sip of his drink. I peer at him through squinted eyes. "Especially someone he loved." Charles backs away and spins around to face us once more.

He points at Logan. "You know..." he steps closer, and I can see anger flashing across his eyes. "I think I do remember you now." Logan stiffens. "Yeah. We came to you a long time ago seeking your help." I frown, looking between the two as Charles comes closer. I step in front of Logan, putting a hand on Charles' shoulder. He ignores me, just like he always does when he's angry.

"And I'm going to say to you what you said to us then..." Charles says darkly, then spits out. "Fuck off." I gasp and drop my hand. Logan glares and pushes me aside, grabbing onto the front of Charles' robes, pulling him closer. I stagger back, eyes widening at the two men.

"Stop!" I yell, but once again, I'm ignored.

"Listen to me, you little shit." Logan curses, and I close my eyes for a second, hating where this is going. "I've come a long way, and I've watched a lot of people die. Good people. Friends. And there are some already dead in the future that you won't be able to change when you get there." I frown, wondering what that means. "If you're gonna wallow in self-pity and do nothing, then you're gonna watch the same thing, you understand?" This entire time, Charles has just been smiling lazily, and for a moment, I want to blast him with dark energy up against the wall, just to knock some sense into him. But the anger which hounds my head is too much for me to take, and I crumple against the wall.

Logan lets go of Charles and steps back.

Charles just watches Logan for a moment, then says. "We all have to die sometime." A tear slips down my cheek as Charles backs away and walks towards the staircase. I pick myself up from the wall and watch Charles down the last of his glass. I follow him carefully into the foyer as he walks up the staircase.

He turns around at the last moment. "Leena," I perk up at my name. "The medicine?" My bottom lip shakes as he stares at me blankly, his hurtful words swimming around my mind, sticking to the edges as if covered in sticky tar. Erik doesn't deserve your sympathy.

"In the bathroom." I manage to croak, my voice hoarse, as if my throat has been wrapped in sandpaper. Charles nods and disappears around the corner, and I'm left alone in the foyer, Hank and Logan still in the study. I take a deep breath, wiping away the tears with my sleeve and turn around.

"Told you there was no Professor here." Hank says. I grimace and look down at my feet, biting the inside of my cheek. I close my eyes for a second, but Charles' pain still follows me. I look back up to see Logan, this strange man from the future, watching me with saddened eyes. Pity is held firmly in his gaze. I find myself glaring back.

I take a couple steps farther into the foyer, and Hank walks towards me, but I hold up a hand. "I'm fine." I manage to say, "I just..." I turn to the door. "I need some air." With that, I turn and walk over to the door leading down to the courtyard. Hank and Logan don't even try to stop me, and once I reach the first exit, I pause. I turn back to see Logan talking with Hank now, their voices ringing out into the foyer, where I stand, frozen and listening.

"What the hell happened to him?" Logan asks, and I can hear the anger in his voice. I can't see them anymore, and turn back to the door. My lungs seem to collapse inside my body, and I take slow, steadying breaths.

"He lost everything." Hank says. "You know, Erik, Raven... His legs." I close my eyes tight at the mention of my friend's name, with her luscious golden locks and perfect smile. Then to Erik, with his smoldering looks and protective stance. I loved them. I still love them. It's not just Charles who lost everything, I start to realize, but the thought feels selfish, ungrateful, and I tuck it away before it overtakes me.

"We built the school, the labs, this..." Hank continues. "This whole place, then..." I know what he's going to say next, and it almost makes me leave the house, just so I won't have to hear it, but I stand my ground and continue listening. "Just after the first semester, the war in Vietnam got worse. Many of the teachers and older students were drafted." I hear a glass clink on a wooden surface.

Hank continues. "I mean, it broke him." and there the words are again. That horrible, sickening word that defines our lives here now. Broken. We are broken people, once heroes, now forever lost because we couldn't agree with each other, because we had different ideas of peace. From us stopping one war, another emerged, and there was nothing we could do about it.

"He retreated into himself." Hank says. "Leena and I, we wanted to help do something, so..." I still remember our conversation that night. "I designed a serum to treat his spine— you know, derived from the same formula that helps me and Leena control our mutations." My knuckles turn white as I hold the door frame.

"We take it just enough to keep ourselves balanced," Hank continues. "But... he takes too much." My eyes close softly, lids knitting together as tears, hot and salty, begin frying on my cheek. "We tried easing him back, but... he just couldn't bear the pain, the voices." doom, doom, doom. " The treatment gives him his legs, but... It's not enough." There is silence for a moment, and my breath leaves my body in ragged pants.

Then Hank finishes with a line that makes me whimper softly. "He's— he's just lost too much." Everything seems to stop after that. I don't hear Logan move, nor Hank. I'm frozen in place near the door, whispers taunting me as shadows curl up my arms, worming their way through the crevices of my fingers, pulling my nails away from where they bite into my flesh. I open up my hand, and they seep back in, a flash of fire onto my pale, cold skin.

"What about her?" Logan's gruff voice pierces my thoughts, and my head jolts back up.

There's silence for a moment, then Hank says. "Leena... she had nothing for a long time." A sickly sweet smile. "Then Erik and Charles saved her, and she got us. We were her family. She was ours." a deck of playing cards sitting on a table, gleamed with golden sunlight. "Then, we broke apart. Erik left her with us, and I don't think she ever recovered. Leena saw him as a father, and he abandoned her." a hand held out to me, a promise, yet I don't reach out. I can't. "She tries to hide it, but... I think she's been hurt the most."

That's it. I can't take it anymore. Not caring if they hear me, I walk out into the courtyard, slamming the door behind me. A chill breeze sweeps through the abandoned gravel yard, blowing my cardigan this way and that. I hug it closer to me and walk towards the molding, moss-covered fountain in the center. Parked in front is the car that Logan came in, and I kick the front tire before going closer to the fountain.

There's no more water left in it, and at the bottom I can see several glints of old coins thrown in by students long ago. They would file in from outside, covered in mud or passing a ball around, throwing it to each other lazily. Girls would come up and throw pennies in, making wishes. The boys would sneer and try and get them to play. Some of the girls would, stepping up to the challenge of beating the boys. They sometimes did, using their incredible mutations to throw the ball around quickly, with expert precision. Some of the girls would just stick close to each other, whispering into each other's ears or reading books.

One time, I came out during the recess, and all of the girls and boys swarmed around me, having gotten into an argument about whether they should be able to use their abilities when playing games. They'd laughed and pulled me this way and that, asking me to play or read or show off my own mutation. They always took me to the fountain, where I would sit on the edge, a small little girl in my lap, and make the shadows dance for them.

Their smiles were brighter than the sun.

"Needed air, huh?" a gruff voice calls from behind me. I whirl around, quickly running a sleeve under both my eyes as Logan stands in front of me, his hands in the pocket of his jeans, brown leather jacket fit snugly over his shoulders. A concerned smirk plays on his face. I give a sad smile.

"Yeah." I answer. Logan nods and comes up to me. He stands beside me, and together we both look at the broken fountain. There's silence for a long while. Just the two of us, with birds tweeting up in the trees, whose branches sway in the biting wind.

Finally I turn to him. "There's something you haven't told us." I don't pose it as a question, but instead a statement. Logan looks at me in surprise, but he doesn't deny it. Instead, he gives a small nod. "What is it?"

He sighs, then looks down to his feet. I hug my arms closer around me.

Finally, he speaks. "Raven wasn't the only one they caught after she killed Trask." I frown. "There was another girl they captured." My eyes widen.

"What do you mean?" I ask, breathless.

Logan grimaces. "Several days before the Paris Accords... you left the manor." I take a step back, my feet threatening to give way beneath me. "You found Raven, and together you went to stop Trask."

"Wha-how?" I ask. "I wouldn't do that! I wouldn't leave Charles and Hank!"

"But you did." Logan answers. "Leena, you went with Raven. You didn't kill Trask, you backed out right before, but they still caught you." I gasp, and suddenly I'm falling to my knees. Logan takes a step forward, but doesn't touch me. Instead, he kneels down to be eye level with me as I look down at my shaking hands.

"What happened?" I ask. "After they got me?" pain, excruciating pain bursts in my skull, and I wince, putting a hand to my head.

Logan's face fell. "You died." I close my eyes, releasing a long, unsteady breath. Dead. Even the word brings a fresh round of tears to my eyes. It's funny, I think, how for so long, when I was with Shaw, death seemed like a luxury. Death was something I wanted, something I craved, something to get me away from him and his prison.

Now death scares me. It scares me so much.

I don't want to die.

"Leena." Logan's soft voice forces me to look up at him. He places a hand on my shoulder, and my face contorts. Despite knowing for only about an hour, I feel like I can trust him. Maybe it's all the horrors in his head. Maybe it's the fact that he seems to know Charles like I do. Maybe it's that he's just told me that where he comes from, I no longer exist, and that suddenly makes this all very real. Somehow, it makes everything more personal.

"What?" I gasp out, my breath still not returning fully. Shadows curl up my hands and tug the edges of my vision, but I keep them at bay. Logan's eyes widen when he sees my power, then looks into my tear-stained eyes.

"When I was sent here, I was given a very specific mission." he tells me, and I stay silent. "To convince you."

I breathe heavily as I look into Logan's eyes, which seem to hold a thousand lifetimes in those wide orbs. "Me?"

Logan nods, and a smile, small and delicate, finds it's way onto his face. "I was sent here to convince you to help me."

"Why?" I ask. "Sent by who?"

"By Erik." My breath catches in my throat. "And Charles." I raise my eyebrows, mouth puckering. "They sent me to convince you, because you are the only thing that will stop all this."

"How?" I ask, voice hoarse. "I... I'm not who I was. I don't have enough of my ability, I don't want it! I take the serum to stop the voices, to stop the whispers! I take care of Charles, I help Hank, but that's it!" I suddenly find the strength to stand. "I can't help you. I can't. It will... It will only make everything worse, and I can't lose anything else."

I turn away, and begin to walk back up the house, when Logan calls out again. "If you turn your back on this, Leena, you'll lose everything." I stop in my tracks, but don't turn to face him. "You'll lose Charles. You'll lose Hank. You'll lose your own life."

I turn slowly to face Logan, where he stands beside the car, and he spreads his hands out to his side. "If you help me, you'll be able to make things better, Leena." I shake my head, but something in me fights back. "You'll be able to get everything back." I look up from my shoes into his eyes, and he looks at me sincerely.

My lip quivers. "How do you know this will make things right?" I ask.

Logan sighs and walks up to stand in front of me. I look up at him, not moving back. "I don't." I close my eyes slowly. "But I'm still gonna try." that makes my lids open back up again, and I take a step back. Logan doesn't move, only peers at me with a small smile.

After a moment, I grimace, and rub the back of my neck. "Alright." I say, a finality in my voice which puts an end to the conversation. Logan grins and nods his head.

I don't smile, but I find that the whispers are gone, and I set my shoulders. Together, Logan and I walk back through the entrance and make our way into the foyer. My head swims, but a new found purpose brings adrenaline running along my veins, something I haven't felt in a very, very long time.

We stop when we enter the wide hall. Charles stands off to the side, Hank entering from the study. The telepath leans heavily on one leg and watches us. His eyes widen when he sees Logan and I come back from outside. I know that I can't tell them what Logan told me, about me and Raven killing Trask together. Somehow, I can tell that Logan kept it a secret for a reason, even if I don't know why quite yet.

We wait for Charles to speak, and I give him a faint, encouraging nod. Charles sighs and looks between us all.

Finally he speaks up. "I'll help you get her," he says calmly.

AUTHOR'S NOTE...

wowowowow guys here it is! the fourth chapter of act two, and things are really picking up! Leena agreed to help Logan, who told her about her future (yikes!) and Charles has also agreed. This chapter took a long time to write but I'm really proud of it, especially the final conversation between Logan and Leena. GAH, I can't wait for more Uncle Logan moments, those are going to be so fun!

ANYWAYS, what did you think of this chapter? I always love hearing your thought, theories, opinions and more! FINALLY, I am so excited for the third act, centered around Leena in Apocalypse! I literally had a story epiphany a couple days ago for what's going to happen and it has not left my head since. GET READY GUYS IT'S GOING TO BE EPIC! (hint: it features a to-die-for love story!)

Love you, Mal