The Blood Phoenix: An X-Men: First Class Fanfiction

Chapter 13: Together Again

I awoke in a hospital, with a heart monitor beeping steadily beside me. Hearing a female anchorwoman talk above me. I looked up and saw a few images plastered across the screen of us, the X-Men, in Cuba. I didn't know how long I had been asleep. Looking around the hospital room, I eyed the scene. Soon enough, I heard a voice. 

'Hello, Adelaide.' I looked to my left and Charles was there. Only he wasn't sitting on the bed, nor standing. He was in a wheelchair. 

'Charles, you're in a-'

'Wheelchair, yes. Spinal injury. I'm paralysed from the waist down.' 

'Oh,' I said sadly. He smiled at me. 

'Don't look at me like that.'

'I know. It's just... that you're... that it's...'

'Different?' he finished for me. 

'Yes! Different.' I laughed until my still-healing stomach ached. I groaned in pain as he let me rest a little bit. Surveying the room, I spoke again. 'Where's Erik?'

'Gone. Remember? He left with Raven, Azazel, Riptide and Angel. Just last week he broke Emma Frost out of CIA custody. He saw you once, while you were sleeping. He left me this for you to read once you woke up.' He handed me a letter and I opened it. It contained two pages of his handwriting. The only letter he had ever written to me. Propping myself up in bed and scanning for the top of the first page, I read the letter aloud. 

To my dear daughter,

                I'm terribly sorry that this letter is long overdue. I'm also sorry that I never got enough time with you to tell you how I really felt about things between us. There was so much that we never managed to tell each other. Like the numbers on my wrist, or my scars. Or yours, let alone our mental scars, our personal vendettas against Shaw and humans alike. But we did it, though. You and me, taking down Shaw together. I felt united in that moment, like nothing could stop us. I wanted so desperately to tell you the truth of the fact that I wanted you to be more, like I wanted Raven to be more. And she is more. More than what Charles trained her to be. She speaks of you, how you told her that normal is overrated and that she didn't have to hide anymore than I told her she didn't have to hide. She's proud of you. I hope that one day you don't have to hide either. I may not be Charles, but I saw that you were hiding. Realise your full potential, Adelaide. And if not for me, then do it for yourself. Be more for you. 

The truth is, I wanted you to be a weapon. Every word of what Shaw said to us on that day in Cuba, I believed every word of it. Every single word. We can be the future. We are the future of humanity. I believed in that moment that you could be more than what Charles wanted you to be. I wanted you to be stronger, to use your powers like never before. I loved you. I always have. I never wanted to hurt you. Everything I did, I did for you. I did out of love and complete sacrifice. I admit that I have never been there for you, truly. I admit that I haven't been what you wanted me to be. I admit that I am not the best role model for you. Please, follow your heart and your gut instinct. If you want something out of life, please don't trust me. Trust yourself, or better yet, trust Charles. He knew and knows better than I do. He loves you wholeheartedly and I approve of whatever you and him have in store. He did want to ask you something, I believe. Something that will change the course of your future together. Tell him again, I'm terribly sorry for causing this rift, that I hurt him. That I am so very sorry and was responsible for our breakdown in our relationship. Tell him to look after my little girl, to treat her right, to be the man that I never was. Better than me. I want him to be good for my girl, to carry her into the future, to love her today and forever, through better and worse. I love you, my daughter. You've left a gap in my life, and undoubtedly so has Charles. If you wish to see me again, perhaps to join me, then the door to the Brotherhood of Mutants is always open.

From your father,

Erik

I smiled and put the letter down. I could see Charles looking at me. He had a box sitting in his lap. It was small and red. Wheeling up to me, Charles put his hand on mine and looked deeply into my eyes with those ocean-blue eyes that I so seemed to love looking at. Then, clearing his throat, he spoke. 

'Adelaide Ruby Lehnsherr, ever since I met you, you've been a constant in my life. I've come to love you and respect you in ways that you will never know and I will continue to cherish you forever, even if you never say yes to me. I have hope that you will. I feel now more than ever that I should ask you this and I've been waiting to get up the nerve to do it ever since you passed out on that beach in Cuba. I thought that if we were going to get out of this, I would pop the question. And I had it on good authority that you would say yes. I just wasn't sure how I was going to go about it. When I was on that beach, I was thinking of you. About how much you cared to stay by my side in the face of your father. I love you, from now until the end of time and...' He carefully opened the box to reveal a diamond ring. 'Adelaide Lehnsherr, will you marry me? And make me the happiest man in the world?' Tears sprung to my eyes. 

'Yes! Yes, Charles, yes.' Leaning forward, I hugged him and kissed him. Then, releasing, he slipped the ring onto my finger. Laughing, the two of us, we kissed again.