Scott and Jean, Monday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott and Jean have one of those awkward talks. It ends better than it begins.


This was shameless misuse of the medlab facilities, Scott thought privately, sitting on the examining table and waiting for Jean to appear. But it was quiet down here - Moira was in her lab, he thought, but Maddie and Hank were nowhere in evidence, and the same went for the helpers - and it was her territory, in a sense. Maybe that was only fair.

"Heya," Jean said, coming into the room, white coat fitted comfortably around her, his file in one hand. He hadn't said what he needed the check-up for, and he wasn't due for a regular physical for another couple of months... "What's up? Is you knee giving you trouble?"

"No, I think I just need my head examined. Can you do that?" Scott asked half-whimsically. "See if anything's missing..."

"Not so easily as I could before," she said, setting the file down on the table and flipping it open before coming to stand by him. "What brings this about?"

The examination table was high enough that they were at eye level with each other. Scott reached out in a hesitant caress, his hand shaking a little as he brushed the hair that had escaped her ponytail back away from her face. "Are you ever going to be able to forgive me?" he asked very quietly. "I've been wondering about that lately, and I think I need an answer more than I thought I did."

"Forgive you for what?" Jean asked, puzzlement crossing her features. The only thing she could think that he had done that she wasn't happy about was the affair with Betsy, and she didn't exactly blame him for that.

Scott heard that, down the link, and let his hand fall back to the table. "That," he said quietly, staring down at the floor. "Precisely that, actually. And before we get into comparative... anythings, it's a different situation. You're both here, for one. This is your home, and thanks to me it's not..." He stopped, shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "For the position that I've put both of you in. It's not fair, and I don't know how to fix it."

"Scott," she sighed, "it's not for you to fix. Elisabeth," Jean did not quite manage to quash the mental agitation that attached to the other woman's name, nor her frustration that she should even come up in a conversation with Scott, "and I will have to find a balance for ourselves." Which 'balance', currently, involved avoidance and verbal sniping.

Scott shook his head, looking away. For a moment he didn't know what to say, what wouldn't come out as an apology for having brought the subject up in the first place. But he was so tired of dancing around it, just exhausted by the knowledge that every time they crossed swords it was because of the mess he'd made. Another one of his unsolveable scenarios, only there was no hope of ever unknotting this one.

"I feel," he said, his voice more even than it had any right to be, "like shit. Like roughly the lowest form of life on the planet, and I don't know why I think I have any right to try and help things when I caused the problem in the first place." And she hadn't answered his question, either. He supposed that was really all the answer that he needed. "I'm sorry," he said, and only the fact that he was not going to be a coward and walk away from this kept him sitting on the table rather than heading for the door.

It was, really, the fact that she could feel the complete and utter dichotomy between how he felt he should be treated and how she wanted to treat him, that was currently driving her up the wall. "Stop apologizing for this, Scott. I don't know how many different ways I can say this, but it's Not. Your. Fault. I was Dead! Ok, yes, I was still breathing, but given that neither of us knew that, you can not be blamed for having moved on. Yes, it is very unfortunate that now we all have to find some way to deal with each other, but the other option is to start feeling that it's unfortunate that I'm back and..." And right there the rant ended, because if that was where this was going it would be... upsetting.

"You know that I don't, right?" He managed to meet her eyes again. "The link's open again. You know that I feel just the opposite, right? How easy it would be for me to pretend that the last two years hadn't happened... how much I want to do that..." And how wrong he knew it would be. For everyone.

"I do know," she said, reaching out to press her hand to his cheek, the physical contact reinforcing the link. "I can't help it being my nightmare, but I do know."

"I love you."

It wasn't at all difficult to say. Even in the midst of all of this. Maybe that told him more than he was really processing, right now. "Just... knowing that you're here," he went on, stumbling a little, "just being able to see you, and talk to you... it makes me so happy, Jean. I don't know how I'm not walking around grinning the whole time... except I do."

"I love you, too, and hearing you say that, God, still makes me feel like happiest woman in existence. I know it doesn't make any of the problems go away, or even any easier. Except, it does. With you I always felt I could take on the world."

"Is this where we remember that your fundamental optimism always balanced out my fundamental pessimism?" Scott mustered a slightly unsteady smile.

"Something like that, yes," Jean said. "It's not easy, and it's not going to be easy, I know that. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting, though. I love you, Scott, and I still want to be with you, more than anything. But only if that's what you want, too."

"What I want..." Scott's smile steadied, even as he shook his head, and his voice was calmer as he went on. "I want to be what you need me to be, Jean. You always made me want to be a better person."

"And I always just needed you to be just you. And somehow it worked." She reached down to take his hand, lacing her fingers through his. "And somehow we can make sure it still works."

"I love you," he repeated quietly, squeezing her hand. "I just have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees these days."

"I've been getting that feeling," she admitted. "I wish there was something I could do to help. I mean, besides making you come out of hiding and eat and so on." This was said with a wry smile.

"Just don't give up on me?" Scott returned her wry smile.

"That I can definitely do, if you'll do the same."

Scott, a little hesitantly, leaned towards her and kissed her. "Never," he said softly when he leaned back. Never again.

Jean rested her forehead against his, managing to neither laugh nor cry. "Still not blaming you for that. So you know."

"I don't deserve you. Just so you know."

"Too bad. Stuck with me anyway."