xp_journal | In the interest of hope and healing . . .

Over the past days, we have all been forced to make difficult choices, and although some of those choices have ended well, I think it is important to make the distinction between good ends and good means, and to emphasize that all actions have their price—-and, indeed, often their cost as well, a distinction I hope you all have learned, or will learn, to appreciate.

That Betsy Braddock is alive, and that the damage to her mind has been repaired, cannot be considered anything but a good end, and I believe now that no other man on this earth but Nathaniel Essex could have performed the deed. However, in order to bring about this happy event, he persuaded four students to do a very great wrong—-to betray the trust I place in each one of you, my students, that trust which embodies my hope for the future.

The end was a good one, and proved true. The means, however—-deceit, trickery-—were not. I am grieved more than I can say that the students involved felt they could not trust me to know what I was doing, or that I would be open-minded enough to recognize when I was wrong. I do not expect that anyone follow me blindly, or even at all; blind trust in anyone is dangerous. Dr. Essex, gifted though he unquestionably is, did not have the right to decide Betsy's course of treatment any more than I did. That choice was Betsy's, and after her incapacitation, her twin brother Brian's. By spiriting her out of this facility, Dr. Essex denied that choice; by agreeing to assist him, whatever they felt Betsy's decision would have been, the students involved also denied that choice; and they had no right to do so, whatever the outcome.

Henry McCoy and I spoke with Brian Braddock at great length before he left for Europe, in order to make certain that his choice was as informed as it could be. We outlined the situation as comprehensively as we could; we informed him of Dr. Essex's opinion that Betsy would die without surgery, and offered him the chance to speak to the doctor himself. I also expressed my own belief that, given time, and despite the damage to her mind, I could awaken Betsy at least long enough for her to make her own free choice. The mind of a telepath is perhaps stronger than Dr. Essex, or indeed any nontelepath, quite realizes, and is capable of great things even when the brain itself may fail; and I have practiced my gift longer than the doctor has his. Whether Brian spoke with Dr. Essex, I do not know; the fact of the matter is, he chose to place his sister in Dr. McCoy's hands and mine, and Betsy is the only one who can say whether that was the wrong choice.

The first betrayal, however, which splintered the trust I thought I had earned from my students, was mine. When Dr. Essex was here, working with the students, helping them in ways I can only be grateful for despite our later differences, I . . . was not. I have been little more than a wraith at this school for much of this year, my absences unexplained. I have been inexcusably lax in my conduct toward our newer arrivals, neglecting to get to know them well, as was my custom in earlier days. I have committed several great lies of omission, which allowed doubt to grow in the spaces they left. While Dr. Essex was building trust, I was tearing it down; and while I am saddened and shamed, I am not surprised that his proved the stronger when put to this test.

The fault in all of us lies in miscommunication, and in mistrust; had we trusted each other better, and talked to each other more, we might have resolved this matter much more swiftly, and much less painfully.

I would like to ask of all of you that we recognize this fault within ourselves, and learn to amend it. In that spirit, I am going to tell you all why I have been a nonentity in the life of this school over the past months, and ask your forgiveness, if you are willing to give it, and give you my promise that I will strive to do better.

Those of you who were here before the fateful day of May fifteenth will remember, and those who were not will likely have been told, that the school had been invaded by a man named William Stryker, a general in the United States Army, and his subordinates. Stryker's objectives were threefold: first, to capture as many mutants as possible, for later study; second, to gain access to Cerebro, and its design schematics, so that he could build a duplicate machine; and third, to capture me, specifically, which he succeeded in doing while I was visiting Magneto in his prison cell.

Before the X-Men rescued the captured students and myself, Stryker succeeded in his further objective. Using a combination of drugs, psychic inhibitors, and a brainwashed telepath of his own, Stryker broke me to his will, and forced me to use Cerebro in an attempt to destroy every mutant on Earth. Before this attempt succeeded, however, Magneto broke into the duplicate Cerebro-—and in a betrayal of our former friendship that sickens me to this day, simply reversed the machine's detection settings, so that rather than destroy all the mutants, I would destroy every non-mutant human being on this planet.

Each of you, I am sure, remembers where you were when that paralyzing headache washed across the Earth. It is to my eternal shame that I was the cause.

When I returned to the mansion, I vowed to redesign Cerebro so that such genocide would no longer be possible. Though it took me the vast majority of my waking hours over a period of months, I succeeded; and to the best of my knowledge, no copies remain of the original plans.

But in my shame and my desire for penance, I made a grave mistake: I did not trust you with this knowledge. Better that it be kept private, I thought; better that my failures remain hidden. It is with the most bitter irony that I admit I thought you might trust me better, not knowing I was capable of such horror. Yet the failure was great enough that even hidden, it had a shape, and that shape has distorted my relationships with you, my students and my friends, and for that I am sorry. In the days to come, I will be resuming my active presence in this school, and I hope I will prove worthy of your trust once again.

When I began this rather lengthy message, I spoke of the difference between good ends and good means, and that there is a price and a cost for every action. Betsy's recovery is the best of ends, but it was achieved by unethical means; the success of those means does not mitigate their use. Kitty, Jamie, Sarah, Marie-Ange: you knew, I think, the price that you would pay, in the coin of trust, for your actions, and were willing to pay it, and that knowledge is a mark of maturity. The cost for your own lack of trust, however, is the unnecessary pain you caused yourselves and others; I hope that you will think twice before inflicting such pain again, but it is my responsibility as your teacher to ensure that you learn, and therefore some further consequence is required.

Until Betsy has completely recovered, you will all assist with her care. Dr. McCoy will have lists of your specific duties when you report to him, which you should do at your earliest opportunity; you may also consider yourselves on twenty-four-hour call, should she require anything. In token of that, you are all restricted to campus until Dr. McCoy declares her fit.

It is my hope that we will be able to move past this incident, and grow stronger with the lessons we have learned, and therefore I would like to declare an end to pointing the finger of blame at each other; we are none of us qualified to throw the first stone. If any of the residents of this house, student or staff, give the four of you any further trouble about your parts in this affair, please direct them to me, and I will settle the matter.

This Thursday, I plan to give thanks for Betsy's awakening, and pray for her swift recovery. I hope that you will all join me in this, and at dinner, which I am told will be superb.

Charles Xavier