CHAPTER SEVENTEEN —
( 50 years from now. )

────────────────

Being woken up early on a tuesday morning brought back memories of her schooling years for Lydia. The sound of someone continuously knocking on the front door with no response from Hank made her to sit up in her bed. Lydia groaned as she rubbed her head, slightly hungover from the previous day. She could hear Hank talking to someone downstairs, probably trying to get them to go away.

Reaching over to the bedside table, Lydia picked up a glass of water as well as her tablets and popped them into her mouth before using the water to swallow them. She then waved her hand and telepathically got her bottle of alcohol to fly over from her desk towards her.

The sound of Hank growling and someone screaming brought Lydia to a stand, although quite wonkily, and she hurried towards the entrance of the house, only stumbling slightly at her doorway. Lydia walked towards the top of the stairs and saw Hank hanging from the chandelier with a man lying on the table underneath him.

"Hank, what the hell is going on? And why are you swinging from the chandelier?" Lydia asked him. The two males looked up at her as she began to walk down the stairs.

"Lydia?" The man on the table asked.

"What?" Lydia sniffed as she rubbed her nose and then stopped in front of the two.

"You know this guy?" Hank asked her.

Lydia shrugged. "He seems a bit familiar."

The man smirked. "The name's Logan, and the pictures I've seen of you don't do you justice at all."

Lydia scrunched up her nose. "You're like, what, fifty?"

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Is that how you're gonna do this?"

Lydia rose her eyebrows up in a teasing manner, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. "Bite me."

A thud of feet were sounded coming closer, and Lydia turned around to see Charles walking down the stairs. "Lydia, stop flirting with the guests," Charles said. "It's makes both Hank and I very uncomfortable."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Yes sir," she sarcastically said.

"Professor?" Logan asked.

"Please don't call me that," Charles said.

"You can walk," Logan blatantly pointed out.

"You're a perceptive one," Charles rolled his eyes.

"I thought Erik...."

"Which makes it slightly perplexing that you managed to miss our sign on the way in, and this is private property my friend. I'm gonna have to ask him to ask you to leave," Charles sat down on the step as Lydia got off of the stairs and leant on the railings.

Logan got off of the table. "Well, I'm afraid I can't do that because I was sent here for the both of you," he said as he looked between Charles and Lydia.

"Well, tell whoever it was that sent you that I'm busy," Charles told him.

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Because we do so much with our lives," she sarcastically said.

"So you've always been like this," Logan commented as he chuckled at Lydia. "But this is gonna be a little tricky because the person who sent me....was the two of you."

"What?" Charles and Lydia asked simultaneously.

"About 50 years from now," Logan said.

"50 years from now like in the future 50 years from now?" Charles asked with a laugh. "We sent you from the future."

"Yeah."

"Piss off!"

Lydia narrowed her eyes at Logan. "Time travel is actually a thing? Like it's not just a made up thing people have come up with?

"Well, I haven't actually physically gone back in time, but it's all a long story," Logan told her.

Lydia frowned. "Huh?" Both her and Charles asked.

"Time travel isn't a thing, Lydia," Charles told her. "This lunatic is just making that bullshit up."

"We all have strange mutant abilities, Charlie. Anything's possible," Lydia commented.

"If you had your powers, Charles, and if you had control over your telepathic abilities, Lydia, you would both know that I was telling the truth," Logan said.

Lydia rose her eyebrows. Only Charles and Hank knew she didn't use her telepathic abilities anymore.

"How do you know I don't have my...." Charles' head tilted. "Who are you?"

"I told you," Logan said.

Charles' face darkened. "Are you CIA? You've been watching us."

"No. I know you, Charles," Logan began to walk around the table to stand in front of Charles and Lydia. "We've been friends for years. I know your powers came to you when you were nine. I know you thought you were going crazy when it started, all the voices in your head. And it wasn't until you were 12 that you realised that all the voices were in everyone else's head. Do you want me to go on?"

"Only Lydia knows about that," Charles glanced at said woman. "I haven't told anyone else."

"Not yet, no, but you will," Logan smirked before looking at Lydia. "And at the age of fifteen, you had your first kiss in the garden outside of the mansion as you ditched one of your lessons."

Lydia's face tinged pink as Charles looked at her in surprise. "Really, Lydia?"

Lydia shrugged. "Thought you wouldn't care."

"Of course I care!" He said. "Who was it with?" Lydia gave Charles a guilty smile before looking down. "You kissed Marcus?!

She shrugged in response. "He was cute. Thought I liked him. Clearly learnt my lesson," Lydia said. "Now can we move on?"

"Okay," Charles sighed before looking back at Logan. "You've piqued my interest, what do you want?"

"We have to stop Raven, and I need your help. We need your help."

Lydia frowned. "Who's 'we'?"

"The mutants of the future," Logan replied. "Humans kidnapped Raven and experimented on her. They used her abilities to create Sentinel's. In the beginning, the Sentinel's were just targeting mutants. Then they began to identify the genetics in non-mutants who'd eventually have mutant children or grandchildren. Many of the human's tried to help us, it was a slaughter. Leaving only the worst of humanity in charge." He sighed. "I've been in a lot of wars. I've never seen anything like this. And it all starts with her."

Charles looked down in thought and Lydia looked over at him, watching his face as he thought over what to think about the situation. She could tell that he didn't want to believe Logan, but at the same time if he did, he would be forced to leave the comfort of his mansion and track down a woman he hadn't seen in ten years.

Charles eventually sighed and stood up. "I'd like to wake up now." He walked into the living room and immediately opened up a bottle of liquor.

"I'll help," Lydia suddenly said, locking eyes with Logan. "I don't know if it's my hangover talking or whether I'm way too naive to believe a stranger about this whole situation, but I don't want my future to be fucked because I was too lazy to do something to help it. So I'm on your side."

Logan smiled lightly and nodded. "Thank you." Lydia smiled back, then the two of them and Hank followed Charles into the living room and sat down on the couches.

Charles cleared his throat after taking a sip of his alcohol. "Let's just say that for the sake of....the sake that I choose to believe you, that I choose to help you....Raven won't listen to me or Lydia." He shook his head. "No, her heart and soul belongs to someone else now."

"I know. That's why we're gonna need Magneto too," Logan stated.

Lydia snorted and Charles laughed. "Erik?"

The Erik Lydia knew was gone as soon as she heard that he was imprisoned for assassinating JFK. A bullet doesn't just curve in mid air and hit someone. It was blatantly obvious who could manipulate metal like that.

"You do know where he is, right?" Hank asked.

"Yeah," Logan nodded.

Charles cackled as he stood up and began to walk out of the room. "He's where he belongs."

"So that's it? You're just gonna walk out?" Logan asked.

"Ooh top marks. Like I said, you are perceptive," Charles began to walk up the stairs.

"The Professor I know would never turn his back on someone who lost their path, especially someone he loved," Logan said quietly.

Charles paused at the bottom of the stairs before walking back up to Logan. "You know, I think I do remember you now." He grinned. "Yeah, we came to you a long time ago seeking your help. And I'm gonna say to you what you said to us then. Fuck off!"

"Charles!" Lydia snapped.

In a burst of anger, Logan grabbed onto Charles' collar and shook him. "Listen to me you little shit! I've come a long way and I've watched a lot of people die, good people, friends. If you're gonna wallow in self-pity and do nothing then you're gonna watch the same thing, you understand?"

Logan let go of Charles, who didn't seem shaken up by Logan's outburst. "We all have to die some time," he shrugged and then proceeded to walk back up the stairs and into his room.

"Told you there was no Professor here," Hank told Logan.

"What the hell happened to him?" Logan asked.

"He lost everything," Lydia looked down at the bottle of alcohol in her hands before taking a sip.

"Erik, Raven, his legs," Hank sighed. "We built the school, the labs, this whole place. Then just after the first semester, the war in Vietnam got worse. Many of the teachers and all the students were drafted. It really broke him," he looked down at Lydia. "It really broke them.

"Lydia and him began to retreat into themselves. I wanted to help do something. So I designed a serum to treat Charles' spine derived from the same formula that helps me control my mutation. I take just enough to keep myself balanced but he takes too much. I tried easing him back but he just couldn't bear the pain."

"It's the voices," Lydia continued. "The treatment gives Charles the ability to move his legs again, but it's not enough. He's-" she cleared her throat. "He's just lost too much. And as I aged and my abilities began to heighten and mature, my telepathic abilities began to get harder to control. I began hurting people instead of reading their thoughts, and Charles no longer had the power to help me, so I just retreated to my room and away from human contact for the sake of them." She shrugged, her eyes tearing up a bit as she forced a smiled onto her face. "I just don't want to hurt anyone."

"And you won't. You never will," Logan strongly told her. "I've known you for as long as I can remember, and you've only ever helped people, mutants and non-mutants alike. You just need to trust yourself and learn to control your emotions, as what you've told me in the past."

Lydia chuckled lightly. "I must turn out pretty smart in the future."

Logan grinned. "You do."

Hank shrugged. "Well, you're pretty smart now. You're just too drunk most of the time to use your brain."

Lydia glared at him. "Watch yourself, Beast, or I'll make you believe that you're a five year old girl."

Charles suddenly came bounding down the stairs, standing next to where Lydia had stood just before. "I'll help you get her. I'll be there to help look out for Lydia. Not for any of your future nonsense, but for them."

Lydia smiled up at him. "Fair enough," Logan nodded.

"I'll tell you this. You don't know Erik. That man is a monster, a murderer," Charles shook his head. "You think you can convince Raven to change, to come home? That's splendid! But what makes you think you can change him?"

Logan smirked. "Because you, Lydia and Erik sent me back here together."

────────────────

Hank brought in a blueprint of the Pentagon's building and what exactly was in each room. "The room they're holding him in was built during the 2nd World War when there was a shortage of steel. So the foundation is pure concrete and sand, no metal."

"He's being held a hundred floors beneath the most heavily guarded building on the planet," Charles laughed.

"Why is he in there?" Logan asked.

Both Charles and Lydia let out a laugh. "What, he forgot to mention?" Charles laughed.

Lydia snickered as she looked at Logan. "Remember JFK?" She asked.

"He killed..."

"What else would explain the bullet miraculously curving through the air. Erik's always had a way with guns," Charles laughed. "You sure you want to carry on with this?"

"Well, this is your plan, not mine," Logan held his hands up in surrender.

Lydia sighed lightly and bit her lip in thought. "The main problem is that we don't have any way to get in or out of that building without being seen, especially when we reach Erik."

"It's just me, Lyds and Hank," Charles said.

"I know a guy," Logan nodded and glanced at Lydia. "Yeah, he'd be a young man now. Grew up outside of DC. He could get into anywhere."

"Teleportation?" Lydia questioned.

"Super-speed," he answered. "Just don't know how the hell we're gonna find him."

"With Cerebro out of the question," Hank whispered, then shrugged. "We have a phone book."

"That's good enough," Logan nodded. Hank quickly scurried out of the room and Lydia looked up only to catch Logan's gaze, who was smiling lightly at her.

She rose an eyebrow. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Logan smirked lightly as he looked down. "Oh, it's nothing."

Lydia hummed, not thinking much of it before her and Charles walked up the stairs and towards their rooms to get changed.