There's a moment where Charles' laughter is startled, a fleeting but musical sound that gets lost in the scrape of his chair pulling back as he sits. He doesn't speak, mostly because he's afraid if he tries he might ask questions, might be unable to stop himself from attempting to draw Erik out. It would be remarkably unfair to do that to his friend, not with the tightness in his shoulders barely loosening even with the echo of his thoughts. So he sits and eats, slow and his own thoughts turning to his sister. When Charles was twelve he developed an aversion to asparagus and that's all he can think about now, expression thoughtful. Raven used to distract his mother on the rare occasion she had been there while he filled napkins with the food. They'd then feed them to the wild rabbits on the grounds as though trading sodden vegetables would have won them over a pet.

He thinks about telling Erik this - that his propensity for luring strays started at an early age. Instead he lifts his chin to look at him properly and sighs.

"Do you really think I run a school in the future?"

There's a curious tilt to his voice. To run a school seems like an awful lot of responsibility, he doesn't mind lecturing - why else would he be a professor? But a school means more than that, means not specializing like he does, means children and taking care of more than he is now. He doesn't feel like he's done a very good job of it so far but ... well, she had said Erik was a doctor there, that had to be something, didn't it?