“I see.” That was all he could manage to get out at first. It was hardly telling of the layer upon layer of anguish that seemed to plow into him all at once as he listened to Emma speak. The muscles in his arm constricted as he balled his hands into fists, nails biting into his palm as Charles attempted to make sense of everything he was hearing. He couldn’t look at her then, his gaze focused on the wall of the boxcar, pinpointed onto a loosened screw. All of the anger in his heart over the choices Scott Summers had made was quickly dimmed — not quite extinguished, it was too soon for that, but lessened enough. For all of the fallout and distance that had been put between himself and Scott the news of his death, the circumstances of it was difficult to stomach.
Emma was right. Scott had deserved a far better fate than he had gotten. But Charles believed that for all of his children. The world was not becoming what he had strived for it to be; his dream of better, of a peaceful coexistence seemed as foolhardy as any fairy tale he had been doling out to Laura and Kobik. But now was not the time to focus on that particular failure. The anger over Scott killing him would no doubt return to the surface, though tempered a bit with the knowledge of the man’s death. Hadn’t he learned long ago that it was possible to have a mixture of feelings for one person?
“There was nothing that could be done to save him?” Frustration seemed to bubble up from within him. Why hadn’t Hank come up with a cure? Why had Scott come into contact with the mists in the first place? He finally looked back at Emma. “They know the truth now though or I wouldn’t have been told as I was initially. What happened to bring him around the Terrigen mists in the first place?”