Jean and Scott

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

After the flashback and hysteria echoing down the link, Jean goes to get (and give) comfort.



Work. Nice, normal, paper-shuffling works. Scott liked paperwork. It stayed put. The thought almost made him laugh, but he was still a little shaken up by what had come down the link, despite Charles' reassurances, and Jean's. Between the two of them, he had a fairly good idea of what precisely had just gone on with Jean and Alison, and hey, good thing, seriously good, but it had provoked some thoughts he was really not wanting to deal with just now. Hence, paperwork. Scott sighed and continued to work methodically through the stack of things-that-needed-signing. School paperwork, rather than team paperwork. Refreshing.

Normally, after being tossed in the lake, you would think you'd have damp clothes and need to change. Not Jean though. Nope. She had slightly crisp clothes the crinkled as she walked and smelled slightly of ash. And focusing on that was a easier than focusing on the agreement she'd just made with Alison. Already she could see all the reasons why this was a good thing, but that still left her with the terrifying thought that now she had to, well, swim the lake. That, and reassure herself and Scott that she was still alive. Which, on the whole, was the less scary thought.

Foregoing a physical knock for a quiet mental one, she opened his office door just wide enough to slip inside and shut it firmly behind her, leaning against it. Jean gave the desk and the paperwork a slightly baleful look, although she was aware that they were not really the only thing keeping her from just going to him and curling up in his arms. "Hi," she said.

Scott looked up at her with a wry smile. "You're more dry-looking than I expected." He rose, coming around the desk. "Do you ever wonder about Charles and his odd approaches to therapy?"

"Well, you know, boiling off a couple dozen gallons of lake water is apparently almost better than an hour in a clothes dryer. Minus, of course, the bit where my hems are looking kind of singed. And if Charles expected that he and I are going to have a little talk." Not that she really thought Charles had planned this aspect of their mutual therapy. He was just glad they were taking advantage of their traumas to help each other. Right.

Scott looked down at the aforesaid hems. "Huh," he said softly. "Loss of control means that you burn stuff, while Nate turns stuff into glass. I'm not sure which is more alarming." He looked up at her and then sighed, wrapping his arms around her carefully. "You okay?"

Jean all but melted into his arms, not quite clinging to him but not far from it either. The small, periodic tremors she'd been working to hide were apparent to him now, but that was ok. "Um," she said. "In the long run, yes. Right now... working on it."

He drew her over to the small couch and down beside him, not letting go of her. "I understand the point probably needed to be made," he said softly, "for both of you, but I can't say it was a whole lot of fun to feel you feeling like that."

Couch was good. Couch meant she didn't have to spend quite so much thought on not falling down, and also made it easier to curl into him. "No, didn't think it would have been. Wasn't that fun on my end, either, at that. And it definitely needed to be made." Which was probably why there wasn't more hysteria about the whole thing.

Scott rubbed her back soothingly. "It did," he said almost inaudibly. "It's a fear you have to master before you can make it back to where you want to be." He just wished he wasn't a total hypocrite when he said something like that.

"So we work on conquering our fears together." Jean wasn't even sure if she mean her and Alison, or her and Scott. Probably both.

"If there's anything I can do to help..." Focusing on her was actually better than focusing on the paperwork. "You remember when we used to take the rowboat out at weird hours of the night?" he said a bit wistfully. "Maybe that would help. Being around the water, doing something that used to be... safe, without actually being in the water."

"It's... strange. I remember, and I wasn't afraid. I remember not being afraid. And now... Now there's this terror inside me." She frowned. "It's time to stop being afraid."

Scott said nothing. Just sat there and held her, concentrating on projecting support and confidence through the link. She could do it. He knew that. This aside, she was the least fearful woman he had never known, and that was one of the reasons he loved her...

"I'd like to go boating," she said. "But, um... not today." Probably not for a while, she admitted to herself, as even the soft lapping of the waves at the edge of the lake still put her on edge. Refocus. "Late at night always was the best time to get some peace and quiet to be together."

"Whenever you want," Scott said softly. Whatever you need. It went without saying, but he said it anyway. This was another part of her recovery, and he was going to be there every step of the way.

Which was recovery for him, too, in a way. #Thank you. I love you.# "After all, it's not every man who would put up with their girlfreind being hysterical in their own mind."

"Do you get the same reaction to the pool?" Scott asked after a long few minutes of peaceable silence. There he went, he thought wryly, being Problem-Solving Guy again. Sometimes he was a little bit too much of an engineer.

A bit too much, but it was endearing. "Yes, but not as much." Even before today Jean had been able to bring herself to approach the pool, even sunbathe beside it (with the inevitable amusement at the boys' reactions) rather than give it the wide berth the lake recieved.

"Maybe that's the place to start, then. The pool, rather than the lake. Work up to it gradually." He ought to read up on phobias, Scott thought distantly. He didn't really know enough about the subject to be as helpful as he wanted to be.

Jean pillowed her head on his shoulder. "Gradual is good. I think, after today, we should avoid anything sudden. Cain would probably be upset if I flashboiled the pool."

"Talk to Nate about the burning things, too?" Scott suggested, kissing the top of her head. "He set Haroun on fire once."

"On purpose?" Amusement at the image was a good sign. She certainly felt stabler. "I'll talk to him when he's up for a distraction. Could be a useful skill, eventually."

She was starting to relax, he could feel it. That was good. "Later," Scott agreed. "Right now, let's just..." Sit. Sitting was good.

"Sitting works for me," she muttered, the line between their expressed and unexpressed thoughts blurring as the tension drained out of her, leaving a sort of listlessness behind as well as faint traces of what was bound to develope into a killer headache.

Scott just held onto her, sending soothing thoughts down the link. There were better places to be sitting than his office, he supposed, but on the other hand, this had always been one of his safe retreats. If she picked up on some of that, so much the better.