JUST PRETEND ↠ ALEX SUMMERS ✔️ [EDITING]

Chapter 11

"She's been missing since Friday, and you're not worried?" Alex spat out harshly as he paced Charles' office. Hank was sitting in one of the chairs while Charles was looking at the prototype helmet.

"Just relax, Alex. She's missing, not dead. We should have some faith in her," Charles tried to tell him.

"How can I relax when one of the last things she said to me was that she might not be coming back?"

"She said that?" Hank looked back at Alex.

"Yeah, I assumed you both told her that it was dangerous." He crossed his arms as he stopped pacing.

"We didn't tell her that." Hank shook his head.

"Then why did she tell me that?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to come back," Charles spoke quietly.

"Excuse me?" Alex glared at him, his old recruitment behaviour resurfacing. "Why would you say that?" The doors opened and Erik walked in, Alex looked back at him before looking at Charles.

"Say what?" Erik asked.

"She's still missing, and Charles said she doesn't want to come back," Alex growled out.

"I didn't say it like that, Alex." Charles sighed.

"How long has it been?" Erik leaned against the wall.

"Almost a week," Charles replied.

"Do you have the last known location?"

"Yeah?" Hank turned around in his chair to look at him.

"I'll find her and bring her home," Erik concluded as he left the room leaving the others to stare at the door slightly shocked.

"Who was that?" Hank questioned as he looked back to Charles.

"I believe Erik does have a heart." He looked over to Alex.

"I miss her so damn much, and it's killing me that she's gone." Alex crouched down to the floor with his head in his hands. "I just want my best friend back." Hank got up and patted Alex's back. "What if you're right?" He glanced to Charles with red puffy eyes. "What if she doesn't want to come back?"

"She will." Charles smiled reassuringly, not just for Alex's sake.

"How do you know?"

"I could hear her thoughts." He shrugged.

"What did she think about?"

"You."

-

The old building where Devin found the mutant was covered in pools of blood and rubble. She was holding onto the body of the mutant she was meant to bring back safe and alive. But she couldn't even do that. His body had already run cold even with the heat in the air, she didn't care about the blood staining her clothes anymore.

It was already nightfall, Devin couldn't remember how long she had been there, holding onto his lifeless body, but his eyes were dull and the trail of blood from his mouth had dried up. Devin kept whispering how sorry she was, that it should have been her, that she wished she had done a better job.

Devin could still hear his screams of pain and terror as he was shot down. What hurt her the most was only being able to take his pain away, but not healing him. If she had only got to him one second faster, it would have been her bleeding out, he would have been safe. She would have known she'd heal, but of course, that didn't happen. She couldn't heal him, it was pathetic.

To think, she called herself an X-Men. She was nothing more than a murderer, she was nothing more than those men who killed the boy in her arms. Devin wasn't a hero, she were barely a mutant. She were nothing.

"There you are." Devin turned her head quickly to see Erik hoping over one of the pieces of concrete and towards her. "I'm bringing you back home because, obviously, you can't do it your-" Erik looked up from dusting his hands, seeing the body in her arms.

"I'm so sorry." Devin shook her head, tears rolling down her face. "I should have tried harder, this should have been me, this is all my fault. I can't go back, I can't go back there." Erik walked over slowly and knelt next to her, he placed his hand on the boy's head and closed his lifeless eyes. The dull dried eyes no longer looking at her.

"Don't do this to yourself," Erik told her, taking his body from her arms. "It's time to come home." Devin stood up slowly, she hissed when she saw a metal rod sticking in her leg. "You didn't notice that?"

Devin just shook her head. "Why are you being nice to me all of the sudden?" She pulled the rod out and her body began to heal itself.

"You're only a child." He smiled lightly at her.

"Am I hallucinating or did you really just smile?" He rolled his eyes. "No, seriously, have I entered an alternative universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?" Erik ignored her and guided her back to the plane. "How did you get here?" Devin looked around but didn't see another plane.

"That doesn't matter right now." Erik placed the boy down on one of the chairs and strapped him in.

"Isn't that a bit weird?" Devin asked him as she watched.

"Do you want his dead body moving all over the place?" Erik looked back at her, pausing his actions, she looked away and to the floor gulping. Erik sighed to himself and finished up before gently pushing her to one of the chairs at the front. He strapped her in when he noticed that she wasn't going to do it herself before he started the plane.

-

When they got back Erik got the boy out of the seat, but Devin automatically took him from Erik's arms and carried him back into the mansion herself. Hank guided her to one of the labs so he wouldn't be spotted by the other students and Devin placed him down gently onto the bed.

"It's all my fault," she spoke quietly as she tried to brush some of the rubble dust from his face.

"It's all your fault." Erik nodded.

"Erik!"

"What Charles? Do you want me to lie and say it wasn't? I can't do that if it's her fault, she's the one who got him into this mess. If she actually kept an eye out then maybe she would have noticed people following her into the building," Erik told him before leaving the room.

"What happened doesn't change anything," Charles told her after a minute of silence. Devin shook her head and stared at the boy.

"He wanted me to make him a future." Devin choked on her tears. "I couldn't even do that for him." Hank pulled her into a hug, glancing back at Charles who simply nodded and left her alone in the room. It was going to be a while before she finally stopped blaming herself. He didn't have anyone else, so she made sure that she were there for him.