Well I wrote this awhile ago and never meant to post it but here it is anyway. :) hopefully I haven't butchered the characters to much. Leaving Charles Xavier breathed out softly and watched the wind blow through the trees outside. He knew that the time for him to die had come and he welcomed it. He was tired, after all didn't he have a right to be after so many years of living. Charles lay back against the pillows in the hospital bed and felt the minds of those around him. Whatever else may have failed over the years his mind had remained the same. As had his mutant powers. Which was just as well considering that his students hadn't given up searching for him all this time. It had been a hard decision to make, keeping himself hidden from them. He had realised that they had to make their own dreams though, had to survive without him. His dream he had realised was an illusion, a naive idealism in a world that was too cynical to bear it. It was hard to let a dream die especially one that you had fought for all your life but finally he had. He'd found a small place in some forgotten backwater and disappeared from history. He had heard about he's students exploits on the news and how they continued to follow the dream he had set them. Had wondered if it was out of duty or because they actually believed. He was so tired now, he's old bones sang to him with a variety of creeks as he turned over, seeking a more comfortable position. Soon death would come to take him and he could not say he was sad to see the end of this world. Life had asked too much of him, asked him to sacrifice too much in the name of a dream. He knew that he had been arrogant, Onslaught had taught him all about he's dark side. Knew that in the end he'd let his own vanity cloud his judgement, he had failed those that had most needed him to succeed. He wondered if they would feel him pass from the world or if they'd even care. Perhaps them searching for him had merely been out of a sense of misplaced duty to find their wayward mentor. He wondered if he had ever touched anyone's life enough for him or her to mourn his passing. Indeed he knew that many would welcome his death if not glory in his fall. It had been a good dream though; he remembered that, the brightness of it in those early days. The thought that mutant and human could live together in peace had been a noble idea. No one could take the glory of those first days from his mind, the work he'd done to try and accomplish it. He had done some good things; perhaps in the end they would outweigh the damage his arrogance had caused. He felt a touch on his mind suddenly and wondered who it was, it was familiar he was sure. He thought about blocking it for a second but in a few minutes it wouldn't matter anyway. He so wanted to see them again, now that he thought about it, wanted to explain so much before he died. *Professor? * 'Jean?' he wondered 'No, someone younger, someone only beginning to come into her full powers'. *Jubilation * *Charles, Thank god I found you. * He felt the relief in her voice but also noticed the tiredness and pain there. Something he had never thought he would feel in the young teenager he had come to know. A portal formed in front of his bed and people came through it. They were older then they had been, were those winkles around Jean's eyes. Wolverine looked the same as ever and beside him was little Jubilation, not so little now. Everett stood beside her and closed the portal as he concentrated on the power he had synched from Blink. Jean and Scott rushed to the professor's side and they each took one of his hands. He had missed them so, his children, for in a way they were all the children he'd never been able to have. "Why Charles? Why did you hide for so long?" Jean asked tears in her eyes. Charles looked up at her and raised a hand that felt like lead to wipe away the tear sliding down her cheek. "Because you needed to find your own way, I was arrogant to believe you should follow my way only. You needed to decide for yourselves if the dream was worth fighting for. I would have hampered that decision had I been there." Scott looked down at Charles in understanding he knew that the decision the Professor had made was the right one. Every leader knew that sometimes you had to let people make their own decisions or else you ran the risk of becoming a dictator. The shadow of Onslaught crossed over his mind and he realised that the Professor very nearly had. Jubilee looked over at the old man in the hospital bed, she knew the mind was that of the man she had known. The figure though was that of a frail dying old man for some reason she couldn't equate the physical with what she could sense from the mental. *Professor? * She asked not sure that this was truly him. Charles looked over to her and smiled, lighting up his blue eyes *Look I so old to young eyes? * He sent mirth in his voice. *Only to those who don't know you old man. * She sent back smiling now that she was sure it was him. She knew the he was dying could feel his mind getting ready for that last journey and a part of her felt sad. She knew the others would mourn for him although she herself would not. She did not mourn those who had led a full life, she knew that so many didn't. She saved her own grief for those that were lost to her on the battlefield. *Be well Prof, you've earned the rest. * She took Everett's hand and led him out of the room knowing that this was a time for the others to be alone. This man had been everything to them for a long time and when they had lost him, first to Onslaught and then to Bastion it had hurt them deeply. They needed to this time to come to terms with the fact that they would soon lose him again and this time forever. THE END ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com