Charlotte Xavier - A Thousand Years

Recovering Again

"Sorrow they put me on the pill
It's in my honey, it's in my milk."

~ "Sorrow", The National

... ...

Later, Charlotte remembered very little after arriving at the hospital and being wheeled into a room.

There were flashes of pain, brief recollections of receiving injections, glimpses of grim doctors and nurses, the overwhelming disinfectant smell everywhere, a glimpse of blood, a half-formed memory of blood and pain—

And pain, pain, pain—not Charlotte's own, but from a mind that she knew well enough that it may as well have been. Even in her unconsciousness, Charlotte felt her tiny unborn child's terror and overwhelming pain before—

Gone. Snuffed out like a candle. Fizzled out like a spark.

A flame smothered in pain and fear, deprived of oxygen, until it was extinguished.

Charlotte felt the little life die and it hurt a thousand times more than feeling Shaw's death.

Charlotte stopped fighting the anesthetic and allowed herself to be pulled under the blanket of sleep, wishing it were the cloak of death.

...

Charlotte was back in the Westchester mansion in a week, still under heavy painkillers and narcotics. She slept. She had no energy for anything else. The doctors, the nurses, Hank, Alex, Sean—they had all watched her with pitying, sad eyes. She couldn't bring herself to care.

A day after being taken into the hospital, Charlotte was woken gently from the anesthetics so the doctor could tell her.

"Placental abruption." They called it—the reason her little baby had died. The placenta pulled away from the uterus wall too much. She had died while Charlotte was slipping to unconsciousness because of the sedatives. The doctor had asked if she wanted to hold her. Charlotte said. "Yes"—Her first word since waking up.

Charlotte cradled the swaddled bundle to her bosom. The infant's skin was cold and mottled red. Her face was calm, her eyes closed. There was a small tuft of dark auburn hair on her head and her face was slimmer than most plump baby faces. Charlotte counted each hand and foot: ten fingers and ten toes. Perfect.

But Charlotte would never know what color her daughter's eyes were or what mutation she had or if she would have taken after Charlotte or Erik.

Charlotte would never know her daughter at all.

...

They buried the infant in Charlotte's favorite gardens with a small, smooth stone marker for the grave. If Charlotte'd had the energy, she might have thought, sadly, that it wasn't far from their daughter's grave that the spot where Charlotte had helped Erik find the place between rage and serenity, had unearthed that hidden memory.

As it was, Charlotte was numb to the entire thing, staring in shock as the tiny coffin was lowered into the ground.

Once they returned to the mansion, Charlotte made only one stop to leave a photo in her office before going to bed and locked herself in.

Only then did Charlotte succumb to her sorrow and the pent-up tears pour down her face.

...

Five days later brought unexpected and unwelcome guests.

Hank saw them approach and stood on the steps at the front of the mansion. "You are not welcome here." He said lowly.

But Magneto and Mystique—frazzled, frantic, worried—were more stubborn than that.