2013.06.04 - The deluge

Life is pretty busy at the Xavier Institute and so it has been a few days before Scott has been able to discuss a pressing matter with Jean regarding the recent trip to space. He'd left her a message that he'd want to talk to her as soon as she was able, and has been hoping to get together sooner rather than later.

Currently he's in his office, leaning back in his large chair with one leg draped over the other in his charcoal grey pants. A tight, neat, black polo shirt is worn over his top and his arm is bent to prop up his head as he's turned halfway and looking up at the wall. He's watching news reports that he's DVR'd and going through all of the important news stories from the day.

Jean's not exactly keen on having a chat with Scott she's almost certain is going to devolve into something less than an argument, but more than a discussion. To say she's been putting off isn't exactly true. She has, in fact, been extremely busy. But, as with all things, she knows damned well the longer this festers, the worse it'll be. Thus, like any good physician, she knows it's better to lance the infection before it spreads. So, she makes her way up from Medlab to see the X-Men team leader. There are a handful of reports in her hand, most nothing more than the usual administrivia.

She knocks lightly on his door, awaiting response, rather than just walking right in.

Scott looks over at the door and says, "Come on in." He reaches up to his desk and fishes the remote from its wood top and depresses the pause button to bring the news to a close. He swivels in his chair to face the door, thinking it may in fact be Jean, but the time where he could just sort of tell when she was around seems like a long time ago now.

Probably because it was a long time ago. That, and Jean's gotten very good over the last few weeks at keeping her shields up tighter than she has in the past. There's so much anxiety floating about this place, it's a matter of self-preservation.

At his beckon, she pushes the door open and gives him a tight smile, placing the reports on the edge of his desk. "The latest," she says, without much preamble. "Not a whole lot here, but I figured you'd want them, nonetheless."

"Thanks," Scott says almost cheerfully. He's been in a much better mood since last week. Finding your father to be alive can do that to a guy. Though he's thought about some tough questions regarding the matter, those have been outweighed by his happiness at the reunion. "I appreciate it. I'll go over them tonight. How are you? Can I get you a bottle of water? A fresca?"

Jean chuckles softly and shakes her head. "No. I'm good, thanks." She pushes the door to, with a slide of her foot, and comes to lean against a chair with a hip. "What's up?"

"I know how busy you are, and I respect your time, so I'll make this short. I wanted to discuss with you what happened before we went into the mission last week." Scott grabs a bottle of water for himself and leans back in his chair, opening it with a snap.

Jean's smile remains on her face, remarkably enough. And if it pulls a little wry, well, that's rather been its normal fashion of late. "By all means," she says, gesturing lightly with one hand. "Fire away."

Scott nods, "Well, I wanted to get your side of the story before I point out what I felt went wrong. I have no desire to jump down your throat, especially after all of the tension that's been between us for almost a year now. I'm not sure if what happened was just an honest overstep, if you even feel that it was an overstep, or if it's rooted in something that's residual between us."

Jean arches a brow at that. Her wry smile stays in place and she cants her head. "I didn't override you," she says simply. "I'm sorry if you felt like I did, but I didn't. Nor did I intend to do so, at all. At any point prior to the time Deathbird killed the Starjammer's engines, you could have put your foot down and said, 'No, we're going to do it this way,' but you didn't. Yes, you expressed some apprehension, but it didn't sound to any of us like you were vetoing the discussion. And, as far as I knew, we were still in the discussion phase, when I said what I did. So, I'm sorry if I was mistaken. But, I wasn't trying to undermine you."

"You didn't give much chance. And, by your words, it seems that you've either discussed this with others, read their minds, or just assumed. Nevertheless, I'm a bit dismayed that rather than analyze your position, you immediately go on the defensive. Either way, this cannot happen in the future." Scott sets the bottle cap on top of the table and leans back into his seat. "I'm assuming then, by your silence, this has nothing to do with what happened between us."

"Excuse me?" Yeah, Jean is feeling a little defensive. She holds up her hands lightly in surrender, looking down at the chair for a moment. "As far as I'm concerned, last weekend and last year are two completely separate things. And the fact is, I can only speak with confidence about one of them." She meets his gaze steadily, then, her hands falling. "Scott, the first thing you did when we bamfed into engineering was snark at me. And, you wonder why I'm being defensive?" She lets out a soft sigh. "In point of fact, no. You're right. I didn't read the others' minds before we entered the dreadnought. Not before I established the telepathic link we needed. I'm basing my assumption, yes, on their words. They expressed their opinions; I expressed mine. But, I'm the only one being called up on the carpet for it. What do you want me to say? I've said I'm sorry. What more do you want? A promise it won't happen again? Fine. I can give you that, too."

"Well, that's not the only reason I've asked you here. I've asked you here to see if you had any ideas on how to help. Because the reason I sniped at you is because I'm still not over things. And I'm concerned that things are going to continue coming out like they have because we've really never talked about it. I don't mean to pretend that everything was your fault. It wasn't." Scott sighs, "But before we got together, the great thing about our friendship is that I always knew you had my back. I expect Piotr to attempt to flaunt control. I know him, he likes to feel in charge. That didn't bother me. You doing it bothered me because I felt as though you of all people would never do such a thing."

Jean scrubs her face, now, and comes to sit down. She leans forward, her elbows on her knees, though her hands no longer cup her face. "Scott, seriously." She sighs. "I honestly thought we were still in the discussion phase. If I had understood that your apprehension was actually a counter-order, I would have had your back. But, that's really not what I heard, because, no. I'm not reading your mind. I'm trying not to read anyone's mind, these days."

Her hands take the place of her elbows as she pushes herself up and looks away again. When she looks back, however, her green gaze is sad. "Because it's rude. And all it does is remind me that I don't really know anyone here, any more. Not the way I used to. You've all grown and changed in the past year. You've had experiences that, I'm sorry, I don't remember." Then again, maybe she's not entirely sorry -- because some of those experiences seem pretty damned crappy.

"Frankly, these days, I think I have more in common with Nate or Hope or Nocturne, than I do with any of the actual X-Men." Scott included. "I get what being displaced in time feels like. Because, for all practical purposes, I am. So, unfortunately, I'm making mistakes. And, if that makes me a liability, then so be it. Sideline me, if you need to. I've got research I can do. There are other ways I can make myself useful."

Scott shakes his head, "I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm saying it's mine. I've been the one unable to move past things. While the particular action isn't something I can condone, it's really not the end of the world. The troubling thing was my reaction to it."

Jean cants her head at that and leans back in her chair. "What do you mean?" She smiles again, that same wry half-smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. "The fact that you sniped at me? I admit, that's not quite what I expected..." But, she's not really sure what she did expect, so...

"I mean, I'm having trouble getting over us. And I thought I could handle it, but I haven't been able to. And it's now officially a problem. And it needs sorting out for the betterment of the team. Before someone gets killed." Scott takes a calm swig from his bottle. Being matter of fact is not difficult for him. Talking about this sort of thing is.

The expression on Jean's face is chagrinned for a moment; she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Scott..." she says, her voice tight as her forces her emotions and her expression into some semblance of control. "I don't know what to tell you about that." She's not sure what to say, because anything she wants to say sounds wrong and anything she might say instead sounds empty. When she does finally speak -- after several long, potentially awkward moemnts -- the words are soft, almost hard to hear, but, in fact, still clearly audible. "I wasn't the one that broke up with you." And those words don't, in fact, reflect the blame back onto him, either.

"Well, no. Of course not. There was never any official 'breaking up' but the rides on the backseat of Logan made things pretty clear to me." Scott sighs and gives a forlorn sort of grin. "I mean, it is what it is," he says, obviously not getting it. "I just don't want my feelings to continue to get in the way."

On the back of Logan's...?

Now, actually, Jean looks confused for a moment. But, it clears quickly, and that wry smile turns into something of a wry grimace that's halfway between a self-mocking grin and a painfilled wince. "Oh, God..." she whispers, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I think I'm beginning to understand."

She's not quite sure what to do about it, however. A thoughtful frown settles on her lips, delicate brows beetling together. Finally, she looks up at him again, a pensive expression replacing all the others. "Scott," she says to him now, taking a deep breath. "Do you still trust me?"

Scott's face goes as blank as the lenses of his glasses. "If I can't trust you, I'm not sure there's anyone I can trust."

That's actually an ambivalent answer, Jean knows. Because, it could just as well mean that he doesn't trust anyone, as it could mean that he does still trust her. She decides, however, to err on the positive.

She straightens, inhaling deeply through her nose before releasing it between tight lips. "Okay. I need you trust me," she says now. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the edge of the desk, holding her hands open for his, palms up. "There's something I want to show you... because I don't think I know how to tell you." A beat. "But, I think I'm beginning to understand where our disconnect is."

Slowly, Scott puts the bottle down. His hands approach hers warily, as if he's not really certain this is a good idea given how much pain things have caused him in the past. Scott's not really a touchy feely sort of guy. Nevertheless, he nods, says okay, and then lays his hands on hers.

Jean's telepathy surges as he places his hands on hers. Her thumbs wrap over the tops of his knuckles, and she holds his hands loosely. She adjusts her shields, not to probe his mind -- though there's doubtlessly some mutual sharing, whether she wills or no, just because of the intimacy of the act -- but rather to let him into hers. She pulls him back into her own memories, back to a moment in a cockpit of a space shuttle when she knew the radiation was going to overwhelm her telekinetic shields, the same moment she knew that she would willing give up her life for her friends.

It's perhaps an odd sensation, since in this mental landscape, she stands outside of her memory, beside Scott, whose single hand she continues to hold lightly.

~ I don't know how well you remember this, ~ she tells him. ~ But it's the last conscious thought I have before... Well. ~ She gestures to her free hand, letting her memories play through, albeit in a dreamlike fashion.

In the dream, Scott stands by Jean's side and looks over the image in front of him. "Before what?" His eyebrows come together in confusion as he looks at her, apparently still completely confused. From his perspective, Jean Grey was had returned to earth last summer in a brilliant meteor storm that almost destroyed the mansion. Without the help of the X-men, it would have.

~ Just watch, ~ Jean smiles wryly. She gives his hand a light squeeze.

The shuttle, her memories reveal, had been docked at the International space station. When the crazed Hulk (or Hulk clone, or whatever it was) launched her orbit-ward, she should have died -- and would have if not for her abilities. She survived long enough to be retrieved by the astronauts. (That was telepathic feat all its own.)

Then the meteor shower hit. The shuttle was shattered, its shielding blown off by a cascade of space rocks, and she was the only one of the few aboard who could 'safely' (to a point) bring the machine down without additional loss of life.

Only the radiation overwhelmed even her formidable power. And, as the shuttle crashed down into the bay, she hardly had enough strength to cry out telepathically for help.

But, what came to help was not what she expected. It was a cosmic entity of a power so very akin to her own, and yet so very much more. It wrapped her into a healing cocoon, cloned her body and her memories, and replaced her seemlessly among her friends and family, leaving her to recover at the bottom of 50 tons of water while it went off to stop an asteroid from destroying Westchester county... and beyond.

Scott stands motionless and in complete shock. "What are you saying? That this entire time...it wasn't you? I sat by your bed for days. I saw you become the Phoenix and saw it ripped from you." This is all a lot for Scott to take. His first instinct is to pull his hand away, but he doesn't. For as much as things hurt when she left, that means that their entire relationship was a fake, too.

Jean wry expression remains, her tone try and rueful. ~ Like I said. I think I understand the reason for our disconnect... ~ She was there for the beginning of the relationship, its budding. But not for any of the depth or pain that came afterward.

The memories are spotty from the point of the cocoon forward -- because all she got was psychic echoes from the Entity that cloned her. They drift on to only a few weeks ago -- sometime after the liberation of the Ukrainians, to a time when many of the team were off fighting other threats and she was inexplicably left behind. Her body healed enough that the cocoon released her. The clone, even bereft of its cosmic powers, was the one that pulled her out... and it disintegrated shortly thereafter, its memories absorbed into her own, but very imperfectly. So, the conflicting emotions and responses? Yeah. That's why.

She lets the memories fade as he recoils in shock, and releases his hands. Her expression is bleak when she looks at him across the desk. "That's why I feel like I've got more in common with the folks that have appeared her from other times and other realities. Because, none of this feels like the place I left. I didn't do those things to you, Scott. But, I don't know how to make it right, either. So, I need you to tell me what you want me to do."

Scott sits back in his chair slowly and remains quiet for a long time. Eventually he reaches for his bottle of water and brings it to his lips as he considers. There's a lot swimming through his brain right now, and he's not sure about any of it. "I don't really know."

Jean leans back, now, and gives him an oblique nod, unsurprised. "Well, we need to be able to work together," she says after a moment or two. "Because, if we can't... then, you're right. Someone's going to wind up dead."

She considers her next words carefully. "Look," she says, finally, "If it comes right down to it, if this is going to be a problem, I can leave. I don't want to, but as nearly as I can tell, the Phoenix Entity was a class A bitch. She's managed to alienate a remarkable number of my friends from me, and I don't have a clue how to make that right. I've tried apologizing, but we both know 'I'm sorry' only goes so far. So, maybe it's easier if I just go."

Scott shakes his head, "You're idea has been listened to, duly noted, and denied. You're not leaving. I'm sorry. We just got you back. You're not leaving us again. You're not leaving me again." Jean, if anyone, always sees through Scott's declarations of finality, but he doesn't seem really interested in budging this time around.

Actually, that's something of a relief. Jean wasn't really sure where she'd go. So, she smiles a little less tightly now than she has over the last few days. "Okay, then I guess that's settled." As far as it goes, anyway.

"As far as that goes, anyways," Scott says. It's unclear if there's an echo in here. "I,...I don't know how to respond. 10 years is a long time to pine for someone. Then to get them, to lose them, and to find out that things aren't what you thought and how you thought." Scott just shakes his head.

Jean's lips pull wryly to one side again. "Yeah, tell me about it," she says dryly. "Try pulling a Rip van Winkle, and waking up to find out you somehow screwed over half your closest friends... and that no one even noticed you were gone."

She leans forward, wanting to take hold of his hand. "Scott, I don't know what to say to you. I don't know how to make sense of this. I do know, though, that if we want to... we have a chance to start over. I'm not promising everything's going to work out, or even work at all. But, I'm also not going to tell you it can't. Because I don't know. All I do know is that the Phoenix entity can't handle emotion and I think that's why she went off the rails. But, I'm not her. And I'm getting really tired of having to sort out her messes. I just want to start something fresh and not have something I can't control hanging over my head any more."

Scott lets out a long, long exhale. After righting himself for a second, "Jean, you know how I feel about you and have always felt about you. I don't know what that means, or where things go, but that's not going to change. What needs to change is how we interact on the team."

"Scott, my feelings haven't changed." Jean sits back again and rubs her hands on her thighs. "I feel like I've wakened up from a bad dream only to find out I wasn't dreaming." She shakes her head. "Look. You tell me how you want to play it, and that's fine." Frankly, she has no idea what to do about it, any more. "It's your call."

"How I want to play it?" Scott asks, actually laughing slightly. "How exactly do you mean?"

Jean arches a brow. "Well, I've already apologized, and I've said it won't happen again. So, the way I see it, it's up to you how we move forward. You said you don't want your feelings to get in the way. I don't know how to fix that for you. I mean, I could. We both know I have the power to make you forget, or at least deaden the pain. But, I don't think that's the solution. In fact, I think it's a cheat. So, it's really all about what you want to do about it. Are we both adult enough to control our tempers? Or do you want to reorganize the squads?"

"Well, we know the last idea isn't going to fly, so it has to be the former," Scott says. "I guess we'll have to deal."

Jean nods to that. She pushes to her feet. "Then, I think we're done. It's business as usual going forward." There isn't really a lot more to say.

Well, actually, there's still probably a lot left unsaid, but now simply isn't the time.

Scott nods a bit wearily, not sure where it goes from here. "Right. Thanks for stopping by, Jean." It seems like the most ridiculous thing to say, but what else would he say? He grabs his bottle for another drink and sits there, thinking.

Jean can't help him with his thoughts. He needs to sort them himself. And how it works itself out? Well, she's not even going to hazard a guess. In the end, though, she's not sure, herself, what they accomplished here, tonight.

She turns, nonetheless, and heads for the door. "Have a good night, Scott," she tells him. Though, somehow, she doubts either of them will sleep, tonight.