All or Nothing
by
Zerelda X



X-men belong to Marvel. Charlotte belongs to me. No profit, don't sue. Entertainment only.




"Look at that view," Charlotte pressed her nose to the glass, looking down on the mountains, the low clouds playing hide and seek with the peaks. She tucked the blanket around her more securely. It was cold up here.

Scott looked briefly, then returned his attention to the controls. "This bird is handling beautifully," he admitted grudgingly.

"Thank you again for flying me down here," she told him, ignoring the surly mood he'd been in since they left the mansion.

A recent contact informed Charlotte about a piece of property in South Carolina that was coming up for sale. The land held a rundown plantation house that Charlotte recalled living at for a time during the War between the States. Scott couldn't understand why she'd want the place, but it was her money and time. He was getting to fly this incredible piece of historical aircraft.

This was all Jean's idea, or fault, depending on who was telling the story. She thought this little trip would promote good relations between Scott and Charlotte. The professor was trying to make Charlotte's entry into the team as easy as possible. Scott's reluctance to accept her puzzled Xavier, but was no secret to his wife. The tall, handsome leader of the X-Men was jealous.

After discovering Charlotte had ownership of a 1941 Piper J-3 Cub plane kept at a storage facility outside of New York City, similar to one Scott had been drooling over in a pilot magazine, Jean slyly suggested that perhaps Charlotte wouldn't mind if he offered to fly her down in it. After all, if you're going to catch an X-Man, your bait had better be damn good.

Scott fell for it hook, line and sinker. Sometimes he was too easy. She'd been hoping she could offer her body as additional enticement, but it wasn't necessary this time.

Charlotte didn't care one way or the other. Scott's continued antagonism towards her puzzled her at first, but she tended to ignore it. There were other, more interesting, problems to solve than the dislike of one man. He had a long line to join if he wanted to hate her and have her take serious notice.

"Where did you get this plane," he asked, attempting to make conversation, hearing Jean's voice in his head to be nice and get along.

"I don't remember. It was a thank you gift from a friend," she said offhandedly, still entranced by the view. "It was a long time ago." Right after the war started, she mused. So long ago, she really didn't remember who gave it to her.

"Wonder if it was Orville or Wilbur," he muttered snidely, not realizing she heard that statement.

After that, conversation definitely lagged, not that either one missed it. They managed not to fall into conversation, even during a stopover in Maryland to refuel.

After another hour, Scott noticed the engine sounded different. He listened carefully. Damn, he swore to himself. He didn't like it. He brought the craft down closer to Earth and began to look for a place to land.

Charlotte noticed the plane begin to lose altitude. "Problem?"

"I don't know, something isn't right. Hang on, I'm going to have to force land."

She looked down. All she saw were tree tops. Suddenly this didn't seem like such a great idea.

The engine cut out and a strange silence settled over the occupants as Scott worked the rudders hard to force the plane into a controlled free fall. A terrible grinding noise shuddered its way through them as the underbelly made ripping contact with the trees. The plane lurched drunkenly, rolling onto its side and losing the wings as it continued its way through the forest. There was a gurgling, followed by an ear shattering noise as the plane slammed into a clump of trees. Something struck her, cutting off any sound she might have made.

The last thing that passed through Charlotte's mind was "I'll never get there in time to buy that place."

~*~*~*~*~


Her first coherent thought was "I'm not dead?"

She raised herself up and looked around, spitting out dirt, brushing torn leaves and branches off her. She been thrown clear of the wreckage. She could feel a good size lump on her forehead and wondered inanely about a concussion.

"Charlotte?" Scott's moaning got her attention.

"Scott, I'm right here." She finally located him off to the left of her, still belted into his seat, the metal body of the plane crimped around his seat and legs by the giant tree the plane rested again, his hands clutched over his eyes. She made her way to him. "What's wrong, what hurts?"

"My glasses, I can't find them." Without those glasses he'd be burning down the trees around them with his optic blasts. She looked around. There they were, all three pieces.

"They're broken. Have you got a spare pair on you?"

He shook his head. "Can you find something I can use?"

Charlotte thought for a moment, then started ripping a wide strip of cotton off her shirt tail. "Keep your eyes closed. I'm going to tie something around your head."

"My leg hurts, I think it's broken."

She looked down inside the metal cover. His left leg was bent at a strange angle. A break would be a fair judge of the situation.

She ripped the strip off and tied it around his eyes, freeing his hands. The blood on his face felt warm and sticky; the knocking around inside the crashing plane cutting his face and neck. He had grazes that looked ripe for bruising later.

"I'm going to have to get you out of here, and it's going to hurt," she told him. "I can't take care of your leg inside this thing."

"Do what you have to," he told her.

"I'd like to put you to sleep before I try," she said. "You'll be dead weight, but you won't feel the pain."

"Let's try it without that first. I might be able to help."

She moved behind him and unbuckled the safety belt. "Take a deep breath and count to three for me, okay?" She wound her arms under his and over his chest. If she could just get him out of the seat and free of the plane she could get him away.

"One, two , three," he chanted, "AAAAHHHH!"

She lifted him up, and twisted him out of the seat. His body stiffened in response to the pain, then slumped forward in a dead faint. She got him out and used her limited TK to help carry him 20 yards away into the forest to a spot under a sheltering tree, then returned for their coats and bags, and the first aid kit. Once that was done, she looked for branches suitable for splinting his leg.

"Hold on, Cyke. The hard part's still to come," she told him when he came to a few minutes later. He paled even further. "I'm going to have to splint your leg." She set to tearing one of his shirts into strips. "It could be painful. Let me put you out for this." He agreed.

He regained consciousness as she finished tying his leg to the stout branches bracketing his injury. He said not one word other than a few hissed curses, his face pale and strained.

She stood up and dusted herself off. "I'm going to look around, see where we are. I think we might be out here for a while." She helped him sit up against the tree trunk.

"Wait! Ah, don't go too far," he said, haltingly.

"I won't." she told him. Then it dawned on her. He was blind. She rested one hand on his forehead. His head tilted up at her touch.

~Hear me?~ She linked up with him, the psi bond causing him to wince at her power level. She smoothed the hair from his face absently, toning down the volume.

~Yes.~ His relief was almost palpable.

~All right. I'm just taking a quick look around, no more than thirty yards away.~ She squeezed his shoulder and moved away.

~I'm sorry,~ he offered.

~About what?~

~The plane.~

~You have nothing to be sorry for, it wasn't your fault. These things happen.~

~But it was such a nice craft. A real collector's item.~

~Easy come, easy go. We're alive, that's all that counts. What is that duck says on that Disney cartoon, 'any crash you can walk away from is a good landing?' For the record, I never met the Wright Brothers. Just because I've lived a long time doesn't mean I know all the interesting historical figures. Just a few of them.~

His embarrassment flowed over the link. ~That was rude of me.~

~I don't mind the comments, Scott, I've learned to let them roll off. If I hadn't, I'd have left a pretty big trail of bodies over the centuries. All that's out here are trees and more trees.~ She whistled the theme to Disney's Ducktails tunelessly on her way back, not wanting Scott to know things weren't as wonderful as they could have been.

She cleared an area and dug a shallow pit near Scott, and hunted around for dead wood. "We're going to need a fire by nightfall," she told him. "You ever been camping?"

"Not lately, and not with a broken leg," he responded. "We have matches?"

"Yeah, but we don't need 'em." She got a stack of wood ready and more waiting to be burned. She returned to his side. "You're with a shaman's woman, remember? The day I need matches to start a fire is the day I hang up my feathered headband. It won't be the Holiday Inn, but we've got water and some candy bars I swiped from Bobby's stash. They'll come to get us."

He said nothing.

"You've got some cuts and scraps that need attention. I'm going to put disinfectant on them," she told him, opening the emergency kit. She was being kind. The gashes would need stitches, but the best she could do right now was to burn the hell out of him.

"What about you? Are you injured?"

"Nah, just a bump on the head. I'm going feel it in the morning for sure." Her body armor kept her from serious injury once again. She cleaned his wounds as best she could. His jaw clenched from the pain, but not a sound escaped him. "You're going going to feel these for a few mornings to come."

A wave of resentment flooded the link, with strange undertones of sadness. "You want to tell me why?" she asked.

"Why what?"

"Why you've decided you don't like me much. It can't be anything personal, we hardly know each other."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. You've been irritable and resentful almost from the day we met, and it's gotten worse since I moved in. I first thought that was just the way you were, but that can't be true. You couldn't lead this team as effectively as you do behaving like that on a daily basis. We've got hours until someone finds us, so you might as well tell me now." She finished up, then helped him slip on his jacket and made him more comfortable. "Okay, spill."

"We're just two different people," he hedged.

"You sound like you're trying to break up with me." The attempt at humor fell flat. "No, we're not that different. I've just lived longer, learned a few more things."

"The professor believes you're important to the X-Men," he said, bitterness creeping into his voice and over the link.

"You think I want to take over the X-Men?" she asked, surprised. "It's not like the team will cease to exist if I leave tomorrow, is it? The team doesn't need me."

"I don't know what the professor thinks."

"Scott, you are the most qualified person to lead the X-Men. You're steady and straight forward, you weigh all your options before you act, and you are completely devoted to the team. Charles is lucky to have you and he knows it." Even to her own ears it sounded like she was bragging about the family dog.

He was mollified, somewhat. He 'felt' her belief in the words she spoke over the link. "He's been making long range plans into the next century. You're the most likely one to be here to carry on the work."

"He's certainly taking a lot for granted." Charlotte said wryly.

"And then there's Bishop."

"Bishop?" This was a surprise.

"Do you realize you are the only one he actually answers questions for? He'll take your suggestions, too. He respects you, when it's clear he's just putting up with the rest of us."

"Bishop says I'm still alive in his future. He's accustomed to me. The rest of the X-Men don't even exist in his world, they're just urban legends."

"That's not the point. What about Nathan?"

"That is the point. I can't explain Nathan, when he won't explain it to anyone else. Do you think I'm to blame for them?"

"No," he said. "I don't think you're to blame. I don't know what I think." He was tired, exhausted from the pain. "You're just so damn perfect all the time, nothing ever bothers you. We crashed a plane, you act like we're on vacation camping."

"So you're angry I don't let things bother me? Oh, please. Plenty of things bother me, I just can't let them get control. In fact, just about every member of your damn team irritates the hell out of me one way or another. What would you like me to do about it? Start fights? Leave bodies lying around? Oh, I know, maybe I'll just sit on my feelings until I'm ready to explode. Should be quite a show, want me to save you a front row seat?"

The venom in her voice took him back.

"You have nothing to worry about from me, Scott. I've been in your position. I failed, horribly. I don't ever want to do that again."

"What?" He tilted his head in her direction.

"Do you really think no one knows what you go through each time someone goes out on a mission? Think you're so damn special no one can begin to understand your responsibilities? Well, I do. I know it so well I have nightmares about it." Her voice was low, angry.

The silence after her outburst lengthened. She started the fire, sparks from the old magic Raven taught her igniting small twigs. Soon a respectable campfire was going. The sun was setting.

Charlotte sat back down next to him. Pulling a bottle of water from her bag, she uncapped it and placed it in his hands.

"It was in 1942. I led a 5 man infiltration team in Europe. We would go in and steal secrets from the Germans. We were good. George and Frank were the muscle and weapons, Kyle was our pyro man, Don planned the missions and arranged the safe houses. I was B & E. I would go in, disable whatever security was there, take whatever we were after, get out. I was the only mutant on the team. I never told them, but I'm sure they knew. We were all close, too close."

Scott handed her back the bottle, listening to her story. He was getting glimpses of her memories over the psi link, feeling twinges of her emotions. It was frightening. His link to Jean never felt like this.

"We were good and we got cocky. Bad combination. There was nothing we couldn't get into and take, like we were thumbing our noses at Hitler himself. We even had a standing joke. After every job we'd say we were ready to sneak in and castrate Ole Adolf. We were on a dangerous high and we couldn't come down. We didn't want to."

"Don got word of a major move of documents to an isolated location in the Austrian Alps. Easy in, easy out. We should have known it was a trap, but we went for it."

"The security was ridiculously easy to get into; few guards, no dogs. I slipped right in and found the safe. When I got it open, it was stuffed with paper. I spent precious minutes pawing through it before I heard the first screams."

"By the time I got out of the building my teammates were slaughtered, their bodies torn apart. The ground was actually awashed in blood. I had never understood that phrase before, 'awashed in blood.' I know it now, I see it in my dreams. Arms, legs and heads were hacked off. The enemy had mutants on their side, genetically altered mutants that made Creed seem like a teddy bear. There were two of them, and they made me believe Dr. Moreau worked for the Nazis."

"Oh my God," Scott whispered, horrified. Frightening memories flashed over the link.

"I was able to hide and get away because I am a mutant. I felt like the world's biggest coward. I abandoned them. I was afraid to die, afraid to be one of those mutilated bodies."

"It took me three weeks, but I tracked those mutants down and killed them. I never regretted that decision, sometimes it was the only thing that kept me going. Afterwards, I was ready to take my own life, trying in a twisted way to do penance for allowing the others to be slaughtered. I was so full of death I had no room for life inside me. That's when Logan found me, and in his own unique way he gave me a reason to keep on living, if only just to see how it's all going to turn out."

A memory of a younger Logan sitting by a fire flashed over the link.

"I thought that what I was, what I carried inside me, was too important to risk sharing with anyone else, especially when you're dealing with government war machines like we were. I gambled four lives against my own secrets, and I won. I was safe, they were dead. If I had just protected them they would have lived through it." How, she didn't know, but she could've done something, should've be able to.....

"So, if you're worried I'll try to take the team from you, don't give it a thought. I don't want the responsibility. It doesn't matter that these are mutants and can presumably take care of themselves. You're welcome to the pressure and I am perfectly content to take reasonable orders from you. I never, ever, want to be the only one to walk away again."

"I'm sorry." He was feeling more than sorry, but couldn't find a more adequate way of expressing his feelings.

Charlotte reached over and squeezed his arm, acknowledging his attempt.

"Why did you come to the X-Men?"

"That's a hard one. Aside from the fact Logan's here, I couldn't tell you. I don't think I was joining the X-Men so much as exorcising my demons. I don't know that I believe in Xavier's dream, or if I'm fated to be here at this time. I just know that I'm not leaving anyone behind ever again."

"You love Logan?" It was a very personal question, but this entire situation seemed unreal.

"Yes." The tone of her voice was warm. "He has been very good to me."

"He used to be in love with Jean."

"I know."

"I hated him for that." It felt good to say it out loud.

"Of course you did. And you came out the better man in that instance. Jean adores you with all her heart. If the two of you were any sweeter, we'd all get fat."

He smiled at her slight joke. "How do you know he loves you?" He was pressing his luck, but he had to ask.

"How does anyone know? Sure, I could scan his mind, but that shows a lack of trust. You take a lot on faith, which I am reminded of every so often." Charlotte shivered slightly as full night descended, bring a chill to the air.

"We should get some sleep," she said, putting extra wood on the fire and pulling her jacket out of her bag to slip it on. She helped him settle back as comfortably as possible, covering him with the old blanket from the plane and resting her head on the bag near him. "If they don't find us by morning, we'll work our way to civilization."

"If we lie closer together and share body heat, we'll stand a better chance of staying warm."

"Why, Mr. Summers, I think you're flirting with me," she teased, trying again to lighten the mood and succeeding a little better this time. Sliding under the blanket, she snuggled up against his long length on the unbroken side of his body and put one arm around his shoulders. "Get some sleep."

"I don't know if I can. I really hurt."

She stroked his forehead. ~Sleep.~ she suggested. He dropped off almost immediately. Soon her eyes drooped shut.

~*~*~*~*~


"Well, now, ain't this sweet?"

When that didn't get a response, Logan prodded Charlotte's shoulder with the toe of his boot, one eye on the knife in her hand, ready to leap back if she swung out. "Darlin', time to wake up." He'd expected to find bodies, not two people cuddled together.

She moved her head from where it rested against Scott's. "Logan?" she asked sleepily. The pre-dawn was just light enough to see his face. She smiled. "I knew you'd come."

She untangled herself from Scott - somehow he'd wrapped his arms around her while they slept - and sat up, fighting the swirls she could feel just beyond the darkness, the lump on her head thudding with the pain. Scott still slept under the suggestion she gave him.

"Did you bring a stretcher? He's broken his leg and can't walk." She struggled to her feet, Logan helping her make it all the way up. He held her against his chest for a squeeze that made her wince, but she didn't protest.

Logan looked her up and down, noting the black and blue lump on her forehead and the stiff way she moved. "Yeah." He called over to Hank and Sam to bring it, scooping her up carefully in his arms. They shortly had both lost lambs aboard the Blackbird and heading home.

"How did you find us?" she asked Storm, who was examining her for signs of concussion, a blanket wrapped around her. Logan hovered over her, hardly giving her space to breath, rubbing her arms and legs to generate some warmth. She didn't mind. He needed to reassure himself she was okay. She had the suspicion that he'd have her stripped naked to check for bruises and cuts if there weren't so many people around.

"When you didn't call, Jean contacted the field where you were to land. They had not seen you, but knew the route you should have taken from your flight plan. We've been searching along it for the last 10 hours from Westchester to the airport. We had no idea where you might have gone down until Jean finally felt a glimmer over this area."

Jean turned from Scott on the other side of the small area where Hank was looking at Scott's injuries. "I've brought him out of the hypnotic suggestion and severed the mind link." She didn't like the idea of him having such intimate contact with another woman, despite the fact it had been necessary and never mind she'd had mind links with all the X-Men at one time or another. It interfered with her own connection to her husband. They would have found them sooner without it, Charlotte's close range power signature overwhelmed their bond.

"After he broke his glasses, he was apprehensive about the loss of sight and having problems dealing with the pain. A link helped with that." She gave Jean a disgruntled look. "Your plan worked, I think we've managed to call a truce. Just tell me that crash wasn't part of it."

Jean smiled ruefully. "It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. You were only twenty miles from a small town. You could have walked to a phone."

Scott's eyes were covered by a spare visor kept on the Blackbird. His face was turned towards Charlotte, and she knew he was awake.

"I never leave a friend behind." She winked at Scott. "It's all or nothing for us X-Men. Besides, we had faith you'd come to get us."

He smiled at her. All or nothing.



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