Scott and Jean

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

After sending out this email, Jean takes her frustrations back to the suite to get some work done, and Scott comes to find her there.



Jean was upset with herself. Terry and Bobby were both upset, and it was her fault, and now two of the students who should never have had to come in contact with the doctors' newest patient not only knew he was down there, but also knew who he was, and Jean was not a believer in shock therapy. Leaving the door open had just been sloppy. She glared at the work in front of her, pencil tapping agitatedly at the desk as she completely failed to get anything done.

The door opened to admit Scott, who paused, giving Jean a long, measuring look before he closed it behind him. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Two of our students have to face their traumas again and the fact that their teachers and doctors and guardians are taking care of 'the enemy'. Oh, and I've compromised our new patient's confidentiality because now some of the kids know more about his condition than he does, but I'm fine." She dropped the pencil onto the table, thumping back into the couch. "On the positive side, now we at least know who the kid is."

"I saw the email." And felt Jean's reaction across the link, which was why he'd finished up what he was doing and headed upstairs. Scott came over and sat down, not reaching out to her just yet. "An accident," he said steadily, eyes locked on her face. "Not negligence on your part, just one of those things that happened around here. Charles will talk to Terry and Bobby."

"They were both..." she trailed off, eyes closing as she remembered. "Terry's mind was in such turmoil. And Bobby... He's gotten so good at shielding his thoughts, trying to keep me from having to deal with his memories..." And wanting to protect the children and destroy anyone who hurt them didn't work so well when she was an agent of the pain.

"Look at me, Jean." He waited until she did. "This wasn't pleasant for any of you, but the kids are going to be fine. We'll make sure of that. And you don't get to beat yourself up over this."

Given how often she told him not to beat himself up, it would be hypocritical to protest. That did not stop the protest forming in her mind, but she only got as far as, "I just..." before cutting herself off with a sigh. "Right. Stopping with the 'but, Scott's now."

Hearing that, he reached out and took her hands. "It's not a good situation any way you look at it," he said very quietly. "It's going to be less so when... if this kid wakes up."

Jean nodded. "A mutant Friend of Humanity... I know Madelyn is going to look into who they are but... Scott, I just can't believe that his family is going to take him in, accept him. Not when there hasn't been any fuss about a missing child or anything." And that would probably leave him with nowhere to go but Xavier's and, while she told herself she would never turn any child away from their school, the idea of letting this boy anywhere near her students was repugnant.

"It's strange, isn't it?" Scott asked with a faint, humorless smile, not letting go of her hands. "Almost enough to make you believe in cosmic justice. I talked to Nathan, by the way."

"Oh? And what does he think?" With all the time she'd been spending in the medlab, Jean had hardly had time for official visits and meetings with students, let alone to go find someone and just talk.

"This kid was there at the fair. He wasn't the one who attacked Terry, at least..." Scott shook his head. "I think there's quite a bit he's not saying." The cold almost-amusement he'd seen in Nathan's expression, just for a moment, had been a little unsettling.

"Oh lovely..." Jean said, her eyes flashing darkly. "One more thing. I didn't put this in the email but young Mr. Jones is apparently also Terry's ex-boyfriend." Which, if he'd been at the fair... Hypocratic oath, Jean.

"Damn," Scott murmured, shaking his head. "What a mess. I wonder if Sean knows... he talked to her after the fair incident, I know."

"I don't know. I think she's still very uncertain about where her father fits in her life, and where he should. From her perspective. I know there are... things... she would rather he not know. Feels that he has no place in."

"I'm fond of both of them," Scott said with a quick, helpless smile and a little shrug. "I just wish things were easier between them. Not that I have much standard for comparison, given that I barely remember my parents... but even so."

Jean managed a wry smile. "I don't know, I think you've got plenty to compare it with. After all, all of the kids here seem to rebel against you in one way or another, den-dad."

Scott blinked. "That's a very disturbing image," he said, and poked her in the shoulder. "Don't give me bad mental images. Gah." He gave her a narrow-eyed look. "Not all of them," he said more meekly. "Just some."

"Hey, some of them just have weird ways of rebelling," Jean said, defending her theory. She'd caught a wayward thought earlier in the week about a lost bet and owing Kitty...

"So long as they all grow up into functional adults they can rebel against me all they want." Scott snorted softly, remembering just how much the 'Captain Fuckwad' stuff had bothered him a year ago. "But this kid, Tommy... I worry."

"Which is why you're good at being den-dad," Jean told him, meaning both his worry over Tommy and his acknowledgment that the functional adult end point as the important one.

"If he recovers, and the situation's as it appears with his family and the police... I doubt he's going anywhere, Jean," Scott said quietly, if candidly.

"I know," she said. "I don't even want to think what the kids are going to say. At that, I don't want to think what he is going to say. I think 'unhappy' isn't even going to cover his opinion of being a mutant. If he wakes up," she added after a second. Because it was still a very real worry.

"Honestly?" Scott said, and knew she'd know the coldness in his voice wasn't directed at her. "I'm thinking 'problem' on the level of Manuel, if not worse. And with much less of an excuse, quite honestly." He sighed, leaning back into the couch. "I do hope he wakes up. I do."

"I... honestly don't know what I hope," Jean admitted. "And maybe that's better. What I want isn't the important thing, and I have to do my job."

Scott gazed out the window for a long moment, thinking. "I want to see him wake up," he finally said, "because if he doesn't, they win. One of their own turned out to be a filthy mutant, and they dealt with him in a suitably fucking barbaric and melodramatic fashion." Scott shrugged a little, a very faint smile tugging at his lips. "I don't want them to be able to count one more obscenity as a victory. For me, right now, wanting him to wake up has very little to do with the kid himself. That probably sounds cold."

Jean turned, curling up against Scott's shoulder. "No," she said. "Right now, that sounds about right. He's become a symbol, a faceless symbol of hatred and prejudice on both sides of the coin, for all that he's just downstairs. And I'm just thankful that the rest of the kids don't know he's there."

Scott made a noise that might have been a chuckle if there'd been any humor in it. "I think we're definitely in agreement on that." He kissed the top of her head, sliding both arms around her. "We'll deal with it as it comes," he said softly. "The job is the job, for both of us. Whether there's anything more to it than that... well, it's entirely up to this kid when he wakes up."

"You're being rational and stopping me from beating up on myself for making the world a terrible place. Have we entered some sort of mirror dimension or something?"

"Apparently. Come on, I can't be masochistic all the time... that would be boring!"

"And, really, I think we can only handle one of us doing it at a time. Otherwise it would just get to be too much, and there's already enough stress in our lives."

Scott rubbed her back gently, all too aware of the lingering tension she couldn't quite shake. "I wasn't all masochistic," he murmured. "Or at least not as much as I am now. I think it was the absence of you that exacerbated the preexisting tendency, if you'll pardon the Hankisms."

"Tendencies," Jean said. His self-flagellation was not the only habit which had worsened while she was gone. She sighed, "Don't mind me. I'm... still upset. Clearly."

Scott leaned his head against hers and thought for a moment. Then, carefully, he pulled up the memory of the hike they'd taken in the mountains during the days in Alaska back in June. "Take yourself out of the moment for a while," he murmured, extending it to her on the link. It was a game they'd played from time to time back when the link had first developed. See how vivid the memory could be, how clearly recalled.

For the first time that evening a real, if small, smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Hmmm..." she said, recalling the sound of the wind through the trees and the complete lack of man-made noise. For a second, she almost thought she could hear the birds again.

Scott thought about scents. The clear, fresh tang of the air. Earth and trees and wind. Woodsmoke, from somewhere close by.

The rasp of the rough bark when they'd stopped to sit under the trees and the feel of the sun warming skin, and it was impossible to tell if the soft breeze was only a memory or if Jean had tapped into her telekinesis to recreate it.

"You're still very good at this," Scott murmured, his eyes closed. "Of course, you're supposed to be... I'm the amateur."

Relaxing against him, letting the last of her tension drain away, at least for now, Jean said, "Yes, but a very talented amateur. You picked it up fast when we started this game."

"I had a very persistent teacher. Who gave me ample incentive for doing it right."

"Teaching is so often about finding the right incentive. Which was a decidedly different thing when I started learning this skill..."

"Well, yes," Scott said with a grin he couldn't quite manage to suppress. "I would hope so." He drew back a little, giving her an assessing look. "Did you eat?"

"Um... no. Not eat as such," she said, sounding slightly bashful. "I got a little distracted."

"Of course you did." Scott kissed her again, then got up. "We have some kind of leftovers in this fridge, I'm almost positive," he said, going over to rummage.

The couch became much less warm and comfortable when he moved away, but now that he'd brought it up Jean's stomach informed her that, actually, it would rather like food very much please. Standing she went to peer over his shoulder. "Cold Chinese actually sounds really good," she said, tugging out the little carton of noodles. "Not that there's much left."

"There was something else... ah-hah, half a sandwich. You want it or the noodles?" he asked innocently, looking back over his shoulder at her.

"Half a sandwich or the meager remains of a container of cold Chinese. No question." She paused or a second. "I'll take both."