X-Writers is a non-profit fan-fiction group using characters copyright to Marvel Entertainments. Please don't sue us. Pretty please. Professor X The Bottom of the Barrel by Starkalien Edited by Marysia Charles Xavier, founder of the famous (or in some peoples eyes infamous) X-Men, leader of the anti-anti-mutant movement worldwide, spokesman for mutant kind and peaceful co-habitation between mutant and humankind, sits in his repulsor-chair, a nearly empty glass of Southern Comfort in his hand and the nearly empty bottle (recently appropriated from atop the dresser in Gambit's room) sitting on the windowsill in front of which he placed his chair. A gentle rain falls on the world outside his window and Charles can't decide whether it's the rain or the liquor that blurs his view of the world outside. A world that is slowly crumbling and slipping through his fingers. He drains his glass of the sickly sweet liquor and refills his glass, emptying the bottle in the process. He tries to set the bottle back on the windowsill, but misjudges and the bottle tumbles to the floor. He tries to lean over and pick up the bottle but the repulsor chair hovers at such a height that his fingers are an inch or two short and he remains slumped to the side, his arm dangling in resignation. "Jusss out of reash," he slurs. "Jus like everything elsh in my life." The raindrops run down the window in silvery rivulets, reflecting broken images of his tattered and broken visage. The father of the X-Men stares at this disfigured reflection and thinks that it is an appropriate view of a man such as he. ********** Charles sat in his ever-present chair next to the bed of Jean Grey. He had awakened in front of the window in his office a while ago and feeling ashamed of himself for drinking himself into a stupor he had come to the medical facilities within the mansion to see if he could help the nurse with anything. She had assured him that there was nothing he could do, and after an attempt to contact Jean psionically he had to agree that she was correct. He sat staring at the beautiful young redhead that had been more his daughter than his own child Legion had been his son as far as his interpersonal relationships were concerned. There was nothing there when he probed her. Nothing at all. What used to be a mind filled with vitality and hope and love was now simply gone. He could not help but think that he was directly responsible for this seemingly-irreversible tragedy. What would she be if he had never brought her into his world? If he had never promised her that they could change the world into a place of his dreams? Had he doomed her the day he invited her to come to his school for gifted youngsters? What would she have become if he had not interfered in her life? Would she have gone to college and had a career and a husband and children? Would she be a successful businesswoman? Would she have come to her own decision to save the world from the injustices that prevailed in todays dangerous times? A tear ran down his cheek and he was surprised that his hand found a rather full beard when he went to wipe it away. Jean would have reproved him rather soundly for letting himself get in such a condition. She had always taken it upon herself to mother himself and the other residents of the mansion. She had never had the chance to mother a child of her own and even now with a child growing within her womb she would not have that chance. Yet another life that he could hold himself responsible for destroying..... even before it begins. How could the dream have gone so wrong? All he ever wanted to do was to make life better for everyone in the world. How, why could things have gone so horribly wrong? How many lives could he hold himself responsible for? Jean was one in a long list of deaths that would never have occurred had he not dragged so many young lives into his quest for the dream he created. Many of those lives had not yet reached 20 years of age. Children. CHILDREN! Was Scott right, had he held on too long? Lost touch with reality? He slumped in his chair and placed his bald head on Jeans lifeless hand, the tears flowing rapidly, wetting the hand that had so many times held his and brought comfort to others. "Jean, what have I done? How did it come to this?" he wept to one that would never again be able to answer him. ********** Charles chair hovered over the walkway that led to the front doors of his impressive mansion. It was on this very spot that Jubilation Lee had taught him how to roller blade when he had had a brief respite from the loss of his legs. He thought himself unworthy of the joy he had felt in those brief moments. He hoped that Sean and Emma would do better for Jubilee and the other young mutants they had taken charge of than he had done by his wards. The rain had stopped but the grass still gleamed as he looked out across the grounds. Over there was where Jean and Scott had been married, a marriage that ended with one young life in a coma and the other bitter and resentful of his lot in life. Over there he could see the playing field upon which far to few games of football and baseball had been played. All to brief were the joyous shouts and happiness that had filled that field. Far too little of childrens joy had filled the grounds of a school that had been filled with children. He glided his chair down to the edge of the house and looked around the back at the lake. It looked like a wonderful place for children to explore and find happiness. Seeing it now he cursed himself for not letting the youngsters in his charge have real childhoods. He had asked them to be adults in an adult world and face realities that most adults on the planet could not understand, much less deal with, and as children they had fulfilled his request to be adults. How could he have expected such young people to make such an adult decision? He glided slowly down to the lake's edge and stopped there, looking out across the lake as the sun reflected its rays from the waves in glints and flashes. He remembered all the young lives that had come through his home and been put directly or indirectly under his care. The ones that were left living were at best separated from society by their notoriety and in the worst cases outlaws in the eyes of much of the world he had asked them to protect. The ones that had died, from Warpath to Illyana to Jean, had all died for nothing. His dream was even further from being a reality than when he had first decided to change the world. How many of the horrible atrocities that had been committed in recent years were due to his formation of the X-Men? How many people, mutants and humans alike, had died as a result of his dream? Could he be held responsible for the unspeakable acts that many of the criminals pitted against his X-Men comitted? Would Stryfe ever have created his cursed Legacy Virus if there had never been X-Men to fight him? He shuddered as he contemplated the implications of such an idea. He looked out across the lake and wondered if he should glide his chair out to the center of the lake and simply turn it off. Let the lake claim his life in an utterly insufficient attempt to repay his tradgedies. But it wouldn't be an attempt at reparation. No. It would be an attempt to end the pain he suffered for the atrocities he had comitted. Nothing could ever make up for the loss of lives and the pain inflicted upon others by his hand and he deserved to live to suffer for the losses he had caused. He turned his chair and headed back to the mansion. As he neared the house he vowed to himself to try harder to make up for the crimes he considered himself as having committed. He would stop drinking so much. He would devote his every effort to helping Hank to solve the mystery of the Legacy Virus. He would do whatever it was that he could do to help his former students and friends to solve the problems that they were now faced with. But wasn't that what he'd always done, or tried to do? What if all he could do was to make things worse. He could devote every last moment of his waking hours to making up for the lives destroyed by his attempt at being the world's savior and still fail. He stopped at the front door and turned to look once more across the grounds and watched as sunset fell across the grounds of his failure. -- Starkalien is the creation | email starkalien at: of William R. Hirons. Any | starkalien@acun.com and all resemblances to | Starkalien's Web Sites: persons living, superliving, |http://www.acun.com/~starkalien or beyond living are purely | http://www.deninc.acun.com unintentional but incredibly | amusing so please email me | This document is copyrighted about them. | 1996 by William R. Hirons