Flickers (Charles Xavier)

Chapter 11

The dim lights of the hospital corridor flickered above Iris as she walked quickly beside Charles' moving hospital bed.

"We need to remove the bullet," One doctor murmured to the other, and Iris found herself speaking.

"The bullet's already been removed."

"You removed it with no medical equipment?" One of them asked, their eyes narrowing.

"No," Iris shook her head, "Someone else removed it without our control. We did everything we could for him."

A nurse reached out for Iris' wrist gently, "Are you aware that you're bleeding yourself? Perhaps you need to sit down while we stitch that up for you. Are you in shock?"

Iris glanced at the nurse, "I don't want to leave him. Not like this."

"He's in good hands, Miss. Miracle," One of the doctors murmured quietly, "I'll alert you as soon as there's any progress."

The nurse finally grabbed onto Iris' wrist and stopped her from walking. She watched as the bed was wheeled through the double doors into the operating theatre and out of sight.

"Miss. Miracle?" The nurse asked quietly, "I need to know if you're in shock. Do you know how you got here?"

Iris tried to think, but everything in her mind was a blur. She shook her head slowly as she tried to recall vague memories of escaping the beach on Cuba.

"I think you need to come and lie down over here," The nurse murmured, "So I can clean that cut up for you."

Slowly, Iris raised her fingers to her head and felt the warm sticky liquid on her skin. She suddenly remembered banging her head when the plane had crashed on the beach.

That had been before she'd seen Shaw. Before she'd seen everything.

"Oh my god," She suddenly whispered as her head cleared and she felt bile rise in her throat.

"Miss. Miracle?" The nurse asked, holding her hands out just in time as Iris' eyes slid shut and she fell away into darkness.

*

The steady beep of the machine, which had initially irritated Charles, had become a comfort to him. He had drifted in and out of consciousness for the first day, and as he woke up now he remembered everything that happened on the beach. He felt it all rush back into his head, and he closed his eyes quickly.

He became aware of the warm hand clasped around his own, and his eyes shot open again and he glanced over at Iris sitting on the chair beside his bed. She was asleep with her head leaning forwards, and Charles observed the small crease between her eyebrows.

He pushed himself up as best as he could, studying her carefully. She looked deep in thought, and as he leant forwards she let out a quiet whimper.

A moment later, the hospital room disappeared as Iris projected an image across it. Charles recognised the image instantly- it was the room in which her parents had died in, and she seemed to be replaying the memory as she dreamt about it.

Charles was frozen in place, unsure of what to do as he watched the bullets hit her parents and heard the screams of Iris as a child.

The image fell away and was replaced by Shaw and Erik standing opposite each other while Iris was trapped in the corner, unable to stop Erik from making his first kill. Charles had witnessed the murder from Shaw's head, had felt the pain of it all, but seeing it from this point of view intensified the experience. Iris' shouts and screams were difficult to ignore, and Charles found himself closing his eyes for a brief moment to steady himself.