"What happened the last time you went to Paris?" Charles asked, Liesel was sitting in the chair opposite to him, her legs were stretched out on the chair by her side, her back against the wall and her arms loosely crossed over her stomach. Hearing him speak caused her eyes to slowly open and look at him. Charles and herself had been sitting in silence for about half an hour, Logan had passed a comment to Erik when he eventually came back through, but neither of them paid any mind to what words were spoken, nor to him.

Liesel shut her eyes again and hunkered more down in the chair. "Shaw hunting, bank robbing, the usual." Thinking back to that time had Liesel frowning gently. Times seemed oddly simple, there was a goal, and a means to reach it. It was just her and Erik, and everything seemed so normal. Look how life turned out for that goal being achieved.

"Who was the informant you previously mentioned?" Charles asked curiously, she had mentioned the man, the dead man, but wondered what else there was to that story.

"You're curious all of a sudden," Liesel opened her eyes again and looked to him. Charles was leaning against his hand, but now he pushed away and shrugged simply. "His name was Maurice Durand, he had information which proved to be hugely useful, he followed me, intended to shoot me, and I led him to a park where I was to meet Erik. He in turn cracked some sarcastic comment, and stole Maurice's gun while I shocked the man and left him in a puddle of his own piss, still shaking and convulsing. He died a few years back, totally unrelated to me, I had no part in it I swear." Liesel said as bluntly and factually as she could. She didn't totally care for the man, she only met him once years ago after all. "Why do you want to know about him?"

"I just wondered what business took you to Paris. I was sitting here thinking if this business was anything like the last time, as I can tell; no, no it's not." Charles said with a small sigh.

Liesel's eyes slid back to look at the empty seats opposite to her across the aisle. Slowly she shut her eyes and returned to sitting in silence. "It's still the same." She said after a moment of thinking. "Same city, different man, still hunting." Liesel shrugged and cracked a small smile. "After this is done, I might become a Private Investigator...I think I'd be good at it."

Charles smiled at the suggestion, though he could see she wasn't being serious. "You're halfway there."

"I am, aren't I?" Liesel laughed and glanced at him quickly before returning back to her close eyed position.

Charles returned to silence too, yet he looked at Liesel, quite content that her searching him out meant he didn't have to purposely get in the way of Erik's attempts at talking to her. He was somewhat determined to try and keep the two apart, he was going to try, for Gretchen's sanity, and his, and even Liesel's. This was all well and good though, but it sort of went out of the airlock as soon as Erik appeared in the aisle beside them. He looked somewhat scornfully down at Liesel's legs, she wasn't asleep, no one could get to sleep in the space it took from their conversation ending to her returning to silent contemplation. With her not being asleep, it meant that she was purposely keeping her legs in his way, and sitting next to Charles was a no go.

So, Erik reached down and picked her legs up before sitting down and resting them on his lap. Liesel frowned and even opened her eyes to glare his way, yet she made no real effort to move, admittedly she was actually pretty comfortable. She looked curiously at the chess board that he had bought with him though. Charles looked away bitterly, "I don't want to play."

Erik slowly turned and looked at Liesel, "You can teach me, again." She offered pathetically.

He slowly frowned, "I did try, and you had a tantrum because you couldn't understand why the knight was allowed to move like it did. If I remember rightly, you ended up throwing the board to one side and stropping off." Erik paused, Liesel frowned and fidgeted uncomfortably from that little snippet of childhood. "Maybe you've become more patient?" He questioned to no one in particular, Liesel was always quite quick to act.

"Maybe you've become a better teacher?" Liesel rather quickly responded, Charles hid his smirk behind his hand as he looked out of the window. He wasn't even going to lie, Erik being shot down amused him.

"We shall see." Erik said in a clipped tone, Liesel wasn't actually the best student when it came to the game of patience. But considering her apparent new occupation on the information gathering front, patience was something which she needed hugely. He wasn't having this, he personally saw himself as quite a good teacher, after all, as soon as her powers did fully kick in when she was a teenager, he was the one who basically helped her out. She was just impatient.

Pulling her legs out of his lap, Liesel tucked them under herself and turned slightly in her seat to get a better view and access to the board. Erik explained the rules really briefly, not that Liesel thought chess had any rules, but hey ho, apparently so. "I've come to the decision I don't quite like this game." Liesel said after several moments of silent playing. "It's really boring."

Erik raised an eyebrow, "What would you rather?"

"I was always good at hockey, but considering we're on a plane; that's a no go."

"I think this plane has been through enough already."

"Yeah thanks to you."

"And you, I'm not the one at total fault."

"I made a few lights blink, you nearly crushed us all!"

"You made some minor controls go on the fritz, you did more than make a few lights blink. And I did not, you're being dramatic; a few dents here and there is hardly classed as crushed, or crushing."

"I did not know that."

"Well now you do."

"Hank! I'm sorry for my earlier interference!"

"It's fine, just please don't do it again." Hank's voice came from the cockpit firmly.

Liesel smiled and rubbed her hands together seemingly content with the forgiveness before picking up the piece that she had quite forgotten the name of and plonked it down in a white square. Erik shook his head, Liesel's smile slipped and she looked from the board to him and then back again. He clearly saw something she didn't, which caused her to frown unhappily. "Impulsive." He simply commented while moving one of his pieces and putting down. "Checkmate."

"Oh come on!" Liesel exclaimed annoyed, not only had Erik had the last word in their previous, yet slightly, childish argument, but he had now beaten her here. She was foolish enough to believe that beginners luck would do the trick and she'd win, no, evidently not going to happen, not against Erik.

"Liesel!" Erik said shortly while she flicked some of the pieces over with a rather childish expression. "Still such a sore loser."

"I'll give you sore loser," she said dangerously while clicking her fingers and creating a small spark between her finger and thumb.

"Now you're just being petty."

"Why you-"

"Can you two stop your little lover's tiff? It's really boring to listen to." Logan said irritated by having to listen to them go on from the back of the cabin. He had no idea how Charles was managing to cope with them bickering away right in front of him.

Liesel inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled. Taking to sitting cross legged she held a hand up, she could see Erik was about to say something. "I'm trying to find inner peace, something you don't understand; please don't disturb me." Liesel shot him a look from the corner of her eyes before sliding them shut and levelling her breathing out. She tuned out of the sudden quiet conversation which was happening now between Charles and Erik. It seemed one of them was resetting the chess board, Liesel hadn't opened her eyes to see which one it was. But her eyes did open when she heard something of great interest. "The President was a mutant?!"

Erik smirked at her, "That little piece of information escaped your web, didn't it?" Liesel straightened her legs out and crossed her arms, ignoring his gloating all too well. "But yes, he was, and despite you thinking otherwise, I was trying to save him, not kill him. Do you honestly think I would go ahead and kill one of our own; even more so if he was in a seat of power?"

"I don't know what you do anymore, and really I don't care to know." Liesel said dryly while shutting her eyes and leaning her head back against the chair.

"Says the woman with a three inch thick file on me." Erik said smugly. She cared, denial or not, she did. Why else would she have bothered?

"Liesel!" Hank's voice exclaimed from the cockpit when she reached up to hit Erik on the shoulder, only this resulted with flashing and dimming lights and him suddenly tensing from the shock.

"Sorry, sorry! But I can't help it...he's being all self-assured and annoying!"

"Violence doesn't solve everything, Liesel."

"Coming from the most violent person I sadly know?" Liesel shot right back up at Erik, he held his hands up in defeat, "Did they ever find the shooter?"

"No."

"Inside job," Liesel mused while looking up at the ceiling and yawning quietly behind her hand.

"I thought so too." Erik looked at her curiously. "Think you could find anything?"

Liesel shut her eyes and huddled into the chair with a small smile. "What's the point? So you can go hunt them down, kill them slowly for a death that happened a while ago? No. I'm not even going to think of doing that. We've got other things to concentrate on, like the here and now, not the past. There's a reason why it's called the past." Liesel said, her voice getting quieter as she went on, it was clear she was slowly drifting off to sleep, it just so happened though that with her drifting off and relaxing; her head slowly lulled to the side and came to rest against Erik's shoulder. He frowned and even looked slightly amused by this, he was certain if she knew what she was doing, she'd move far away from him. Yet she was by now fast asleep, which left Erik sitting looking at Charles with a raised eyebrow and a small smile, while Charles looked disdainfully back out of the window.

----

Paris, a hub of constant activity, traffic blurred past on the roads, and people bustled about on the streets; it hadn't seemed to have changed, or if it had Liesel hadn't openly noticed any obvious change. She loved this city, she had always wanted to come here, and she had only for a bit before going elsewhere. She wasn't kidding herself, she knew her time back in the city would be fleeting. There was no chance that she was going to be able to stay for a lengthy time and just relax, look around, play the part of tourist. Not that she wanted to typically do that. Tourists sort of annoyed her.

"Why so sad looking?" Liesel blinked slowly and looked away from the street to Hank. He was the first to speak up since leaving the airstrip, no one else seemed to be in a talkative mood. Not that that surprised Liesel considering the eventful flight over.

"I'm just begrudging not being able to do any shopping." Liesel smirked and adjusted her bag strap with a nod. Hank frowned, he didn't like the thought of going shopping. Out of all things to do, that wasn't on the list.

"You'd have a hard time doing shopping at night." Charles stepped away from Logan and Erik and walked on Liesel's other side. She smiled and nodded agreeing with him. By the time they had landed, it was early evening; nowhere was open, or rather those which were still open were now in the process of shutting. Their main agendas were landing, finding somewhere to stay, then come tomorrow travel out to this meeting. From there on they didn't have much of a plan. See how it went was perhaps the makings of a plan. But details were certainly loose.

Liesel hung her head and looked sadly at the ground again. "Can we not just go somewhere nice for once and not have an agenda? I like travelling, I like going places, but agendas are so...time consuming, yes? I much prefer going along at my own pace. Like a snail...or something..."

"You just called yourself a snail."

"I am aware to that, Hank." Liesel said with a smile. Though really being a snail wasn't a good thing. They were horribly slimy and gross looking really. But she was more hinting at their meandering pace. Though she guessed they didn't have a choice seems evolution made them that way. "Could evolution make a fast snail?"

Charles raised an eyebrow. "Theoretically, I guess. But physically, no."

Liesel pouted and looked at the sky with a smile. "The thought is entertaining, is it not?"

"Your humour has seriously decreased."

"Your opinion is irrelevant." Liesel retorted to Erik easily by sending a glare over her shoulder. Truth be told from waking up basically leaning against him, and truthfully his head resting on top of hers, had done something mighty silly to her on the inside. Like, she hated to admit it, but there was definitely a warm happy feeling appearing from the closeness. Had she missed being close to him? Possibly. Even if he had turned his back on her and he annoyed her to no end. Just thinking over those two points just reaffirmed for Liesel why she didn't really want anything to do with Erik.

"Suggestions then," Charles looked at Liesel. He decided to get the conversation onto other matters.

She picked out a notebook from her bag and flipped through the scrawled pages. Over the course of the flight Charles had asked her for any intel on any cheap and rather unsuspicious places to stay. She'd done her best with what she had with her, and that's how they ended up walking through the door of a hotel which looked like even the most desperate of people wouldn't venture in. Liesel shrugged, okay so maybe it wasn't that bad. A faulty light, a rather creepily grinning man from behind the register, and cracked tiles on the floor did not make it a last stop resort for desperate people. No, instead she decided to single desperate cockroaches out. Which to be honest, she wouldn't be surprised if there were some present.

"We're so going to be mugged in our sleep." Hank said while turning his room key over in his hands.

Liesel looked at him with a smirk. "Ja, who'd be idiotic enough to try? What, we've got a cryptozoological marvel in disguise, one hell of a telepath, you...I'm sorry, Logan, I don't know what you do, a walking magnet, and an electrical conductor, I don't think any robbers are going to have much luck, are they? Oh well, night guys!" Liesel beamed and opened her door and slid in. Only to open the door and peek around with a smile. "Also, I'm the only one with a bag. So if anyone's getting mugged; it'll most likely be me. If you hear blood curdling screams in the night, I would appreciate being rescued. Sweet dreams, see you all bright and early!" And with that she disappeared and left them all standing bemused in the corridor.

"Slightly morbid, ain't she?" Logan asked while moving past Hank and Charles to go off in search of his room.

"Always has been." Was Erik's lone remark as he turned the other way and backtracked along the corridor. He had spied his room a while back, but decided to stay and see where everyone else was situated.

Liesel's room was mid-corridor, Logan was at the end, Hank and Charles were both further down from Liesel, and Erik was up the other end. Either way as much as he didn't want to admit it, strategically they had a good vantage point; not that he was expecting robbers in the night, but he wasn't totally trusting of what sort of clientele this place had. If it was anything like the man on the front desk, then confrontational and dubious was putting it lightly.

Erik hadn't been in his room long before he heard quiet whistling go past his door. He was still standing close observing the small, dingy space that hearing the tune was easily picked up on. "Where are you going?" He questioned, Liesel stopped and turned and looked at him. She looked incredibly put out that she'd been caught sneaking off.

"None of your business." Liesel said while turning and walking off again.

Erik frowned and rolled his eyes, her attitude problems were becoming increasingly annoying. Stepping out of the room, he shut the door quietly and looked back up the corridor. Neither of the others seemed to have registered her leaving, but then she wouldn't have had to walk past their rooms. Being the first to enter hers, she never saw where Erik's room was. Even though he was certain that even if she knew he was back near the stairs, she'd still leave. Evidently his input was useless, she wouldn't listen to him; that much was really clear as she continued down the stairs ignoring him following after her.

Honestly, he did think she would comment something, but it was obvious that she'd ignore him, he'd ignore her. They didn't seem to have dropped those two traits. Or rather, Liesel had suddenly got this trait from somewhere. She always used to be quite good at listening.

Shooting a look to the strange man at the front desk, Liesel pushed the door open and stepped onto the street. She glanced up at Erik as he stopped by her side. "You don't have to follow me around. I am capable of looking after myself, you know?"

"I know."

"Then go away," Liesel stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets and walked off and away from him.

Erik inhaled and pulled the collar of his coat up against the sudden cold breeze as he slowly sighed. "Knowing you, you'd get lost." He said, the slight breeze of the evening catching the tails of his long, dark blue trench coat as he too put his hands in his pockets.

"My sense of direction is good, thanks." Liesel quipped back with a frown. They walked along the street in silence, Liesel was enjoying the night life, she eyed up everything with a curious look and a small smile. She had it in mind to escape her room once everyone else was settled. She just wanted to be outside, enjoy what little time she had in the city while she could. Shame it came with company. To be honest, half the reason she wanted out was so she could go and think about said company. She did find herself feeling rather confused on the topic of Erik. Not that that was totally new, she'd always found him a little confusing. "Why are you following me? It certainly isn't to keep an eye on me, to make sure I don't get lost. So why? Why couldn't you have just stayed in your room?"

Erik smirked, "Stay in my room? I can hardly call that box a room."

"Charles wanted off the grid. I supplied that, don't complain. What else were you expecting? Four poster bed, en suite and breakfast in the morning? We'll be lucky to get decent coffee." Liesel explained with a bored tone. Erik thought over her earlier question as she prattled on about the state of the hotel. Looking to the side at a nearby park, he reached out and grasped onto her arm and tugged her over to it. The trees were lit with rows of small fairy lights, though there were street lamps situated here and there to really light the space properly. "Erik!" Liesel whined and pulled her arm free of his hand. She was quite content in just ambling along, she did not want to get pulled to one side. Least of all towards an eerie quiet park.

"I get it, believe me, I do, you along with everyone else really can't stand to be around me. But don't be an idiot, Liesel. There is a man present in the city with the means to detect mutants. What if on a whim he decides to make sure it works? What if he is nearby and you come up on the radar? What would you propose to do? You've spent years gathering information on this guy and all he does, what would you do if you were suddenly confronted with trouble?"

"That's a lot of what ifs, Erik. Don't be so misguided. You are certainly not hanging around me to make sure I don't get captured. Pretty sure we both know that."

"Fine," Erik said shortly while she looked at him briefly before going over to a bench and sitting down. She turned and nodded at him, walking over he sat down by her side slowly. "Believe it or not, the last thing I'd want is to witness you get arrested and captured. You may not believe that, but it's true. When...what happened, happened, I walked away because if we fought it would end in either of us killing each other, or me killing you. I had to suffer a lot of cowardice jibes because of it, but then again I wasn't the collective which got beat by one person, well, suppose two if you include Darwin, not that he really did much."

"He saved my life." Liesel said, wide eyed and sounding incredulous that Erik wouldn't even deem that action worthy of remembering.

Erik shrugged, he leaned his forearms against his knees and looked back at her. "I suppose he did, didn't he?" He said shortly, Liesel rolled her eyes, she didn't have time for his childish jealousy. "My point is, Liesel, that if it took such a little thing to turn everyone on each other, then you were ultimately right: we were doomed to fail. And we were, we didn't last too much longer after you left, but you wouldn't know that. This happened way before your information gathering days." Erik said while casting her a quick glance before looking up at the lit trees. "Captured and killed, apart from Raven and myself. She went off to do whatever, and you know how life went for me." Erik looked down at her as she frowned thoughtfully over his words. "You're loyal to a fault, Liesel. You always have been, and I think you always will be. It's a good strength, but one hell of a weakness. If you stayed, you would have followed me and you would've ended up in a cell made especially for you; much like my own, though it wasn't made for me, it was opportunistically used to imprison me."

"So...you're trying to say that by letting everyone beat me up, you didn't intervene or help, or even put a stop to it; because it was somehow your way of letting me go and live a life I never really had? In a way, you were doing a good deed, rather than being seen as a betrayer? Wow, so really I guess I owe you a thanks, huh? Yeah right," Liesel shot up and pulled her coat around herself. "You're deluded." She turned and walked down the path. She honestly couldn't stand to be near him right now after all of that. 

That was the biggest load of hypocritical rubbish she had ever heard. If Erik was telling himself that every day since letting her go, then he was more delusional than she originally thought. She guessed a lie was easier to live with than the truth? He could've stopped them, and he could've let her go. He opted not too. He allowed all of that to happen, he watched with indifference and turned away. He didn't do anything to let her apparently go free, he did everything to make himself not look weak in front of the work force.

"Do you honestly think I'd want to freely fight you?" The sound of his voice caused her to stop, she turned and looked back at him. Erik hadn't moved, he was still sitting on the bench, forearms against his knees, hands clasped together and his gaze looking in her direction. "We...we've got so much history, and perhaps it's too much for us to ever move past; but I would never want to fight you."

"Because you'd win." Liesel commented with a hollow laugh.

Erik pressed his lips into a thin line and looked away from her. With a sigh he patted his knees and stood up slowly. Moving down the path he stopped in front of her. "As much as you may disagree, I never wanted to see you hurt; nor would I want to be the one doing the hurting."

"Bit late," Liesel ran a hand through her hair and shook her head sadly. She had been hurt the moment he turned his back on her. Everything which followed after just layered onto the already existing pain.

"I know."

"Feel better for your little confessional moment?"

"Mildly."

Liesel gave a slow nod and turned to stand by his side. With a small sigh she commenced walking again, and he easily fell into step beside her. "I loved you, you know?"

"I know."

"You broke my heart." Liesel said quietly, Erik looked down at the ground with a frown. "What did you do in your little cell for all those years?" Enough of feelings, and heartbreak, she was curious. He spent a long time down in that basement cell, what could he have wasted those years doing?

He smirked, he could sense when she wanted to move on from this slightly painful topic and onto another. "Would you believe meditating?"

Liesel laughed, "How'd that go for you?"

"It wasn't as successful as I thought it would be. I don't know how you manage to do it."

"Truthfully? Once I did it and actually fell asleep. If it wasn't for Newt waking me, I would've just stayed sitting in a corner."

"How'd you meet him?"

"A group of people were beating on him in an alley. He had somehow escaped capture, and was already hurt. He was trying to find somewhere safe, and that happened."

"What did you do?"

Liesel smiled, "The only thing I could've: I fought back for him."

"What did you do once you left?"

"I spent some time with Charles, I had quite a bit of healing to do. He found Gretchen, and then helped me get to her. She was in Washington all along, like...I can't believe it. I still can't, but oh well."

"How did you get into the information gathering?"

"I was curious really, I kept seeing articles involving mutant related things. I wanted to see if some had any truths, or if some where lies for the sake of getting people to hate us. It started with that...and sort of ended with people watching..."

"It hasn't ended though has it?" Erik pointed out, Liesel looked a little ashamed at that. "Because you're still going." She shrugged simply, it was what she did, she couldn't exactly stop. "I'm sorry, Liesel."

"For what? For letting me have a life with my sister that I would never have got otherwise? You shouldn't apologise for that, I do actually agree, in a warped way you not helping actually proved useful. I found my sister, I had many peaceful happy years with her. Life was good. Boring at times, yes, but it was good. Though, I did always want to end up having that sort of life with you."

"I know," Erik frowned, it seemed these were the only two words he could say in retort. "But you knew it would never happen."

"I know. Now who's the deluded one?"

"Optimistic," Erik stopped at the end of the path and looked down at her. "Unsuccessfully optimistic."

Liesel laughed and ran a hand down her face. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed and looked up at him with crossed arms. "Do you ever find yourself wishing that things ended differently?"

"No. Because that'd mean I failed in looking out for you, and you'd be imprisoned somewhere too."

"Or dead."

"Or dead, which is something I think we both want to avoid."

Liesel scrunched her nose up. "Wonder how I die in the future?"

"The specifics don't matter, because it isn't going to happen."

"You're going to stop my possible death if we fail at this?"

"Yes." Erik said looking at her firmly. "I will. And you're not going to give up so easily if this time comes. You're a fighter, Liesel, so fight when you need to. Come on, we should head back before it gets too late." Erik nodded backwards and turned to start walking away. He looked down when he heard pattering footsteps running to catch up with him. Liesel appeared by his side with her hands in her pockets and a small smile on her face.

----

Edited: 13/June/2019

Reedited: 25/August/2021