Jean and Haroun

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Jean gives Haroun a check-up of a different sort.



Haroun didn't want to be a bother, so he scheduled his next psych eval _out_ of Medlab. Someplace calm, relaxing. The Sunroom would do well, he thought. It was a popular spot to sit and meditate, or just to soak up some sun in relative peace. Haroun had turned into something of a solar junkie since his month in Medlab - something about feeling warm and clean in a sunbeam appealed to him fundamentally. He set the appointment for just after afternoon prayers - enough time for him to crawl his way back into the wheelchair and make himself presentable for Jean.

Jean was waiting in the sunroom when he came in, staring out the window with a sort of longing on her face. She'd almost stopped even needing to say that she needed a vacation and simply gave in to the weariness which resulted in everybody else telling her she needed one.

Haroun wheeled himself in and parked in a sunbeam near to Jean. "Nice day out. Cold, but nice." he said conversationally. Figure once we get everyone checked out of the Hotel With Machines That Go Ping, you'll take a little downtime." he said. "So - how do you want to do this?"

Jean turned to Haroun, smiling. "Well, if you're ready, we can just start." She reached out to his mind, curious to see what shape his mindscape was in these days.

Haroun closed his eyes - as a non-psi he still needed the mental crutch to focus his concentration. His mindscape still looked like the city of Marrakech, but instead of the burning and the grey drizzling debris the streets were clean. The greasy smell of smoke still hung in the air, and a good number of the houses and streets showed signs of fire damage. But in this representation, there were signs of healing - some of the burned building were showing signs of new construction, repairing the damage done by the fires. But as before an entire section of the city was walled-off, sealed by a wrought-iron fence that went up past the sky and locked by a thick, sturdy padlock.

It was very reassuring. Walking down the streets of the city with Haroun Jean gazed around. "It's looking better," she said. "How do you feel about all of this?"

Haroun shrugged. Even in his mindscape, he was still in the wheelchair. "You're the shrink. I feel better most of the time. Memory's not quite so badly Swiss cheesed." he said with a small embarrassed laugh.

Jean smiled. "No, Charles is the shrink. I simply moonlight from time to time. But that's progress. How much are you remembering?"

Haroun waved that off. "Psis." he said, with a heavy sigh. "And to answer your question - I remember more. Still have annoying blank spots, or stuff that's hazy, but I'm not forgetting where I put my wallet anymore." Boy, _that_ was embarrassing. He had no intention of going through -that- again. "Progress on the walking-under-my-own-power front is frustratingly slow. Maddy can give you the gory details if you really want them."

"I've been following the saga, don't worry," Jean said. "But you know it's going to take time, don't you?"

"And you do know that not being able to move almost got me killed last week, right?" he answered rhetorically. "And one of our own has gone rogue, and I'm sitting here like a lump on a log. Completely useless."

"And it's frustrating, yes. But how are you dealing with it?"

"Badly." he admitted. Overhead, thunder rumbled ominously, and the gate's bars seem to glow tauntingly. "I don't like being useless."

"But," Jean countered, "you were supervising Jubilee's training exercise. There are still things you can do, even while you recover."

Haroun nodded in acknowledgement of her point. "I'm a physical kind of guy. I don't like just sitting on the sidelines." he admitted. "I train as much as you'll let me - more, actually - but it's not enough. I get ... stir-crazy, in a way. And ... no, nevermind." he said with a shake of his head.

Jean arched an eyebrow. "You know 'nevermind' isn't going to cut it..."

Haroun looked up at Jean. "It's stupid. Forget it." he said dismissively.

"Give it a shot," she said. "This is your mind. In here, it's all about you, and therefor it can't be stupid."

"You'd be surprised." he muttered, and then sighed. "I have this song stuck in my head. And I can't get it out. And what's really weird is that I don't recognize it."

"Interesting," Jean said, noncommittally. "Could you hum a few bars?"

Haroun looked at Jean askance. "I'm as musically talented as you are talented with airplanes. Which is to say not at all. You're in my mind, just scan for the damned thing."

The line about planes got him a wry look, although it was hard to tell if it was just his natural arrogance showing or if he simply couldn't remember. Jean was hardly a natural grease monkey, but she and Ororo had both had to learn about care and maintenance of the Blackbird years ago. But a moment's searching found the song in his mind, and it echoed faintly through the mindscape.

Haroun heard it as well. "That's the one. It's not a bad tune..." all crunchy guitar and slamming drums and pounding bass "... but it just _sticks around_. I can't get it out of my head."

"It's not bad," Jean agreed, "but I'm afraid I don't recognize it either. Not my style. Alison could probably tell you who it's by, though, if just not knowing is getting frustrating."

"It's nothing." he said with a shrug. "If that's the worst thing I have to worry about I'll happily accept that." he said. He then jerked a thumb at the walled-off section and the lock. "That's got to be the MMI." he said. "Not having any luck getting over that wall with any sort of regularity. Sometimes I come close, but I can't get all the way over."

"It will come," she promised, "in time. How does it feel? The getting close, I mean?"

"Frustrating." he said. "It makes me angry, that I can't beat this last block. It's also ... cold. Alien. Different." he said with a shudder, as the bars of the gate flexed in time with his shudders. "I can always tell it's there. Watching."

"Different, yes, but it can't hurt you," Jean said. "Or, at least, it shouldn't be able to."

Haroun nodded. "I know that, I'm just ... it's eerie. I'm still getting used to it." He rolled himself down the street a little, looking at the houses and the burn damage. "I had to work very hard last time to get some control. I don't like surrendering it once I've got it."

"That I can understand," Jean said. "It's frustrating, and the progress never comes as fast as you would like. But it does come."

"So you say." he grumbled. "So - anything else you'd like to poke at while you're here?"

The grumble got a smile. "Come, Haroun, you know better than that. This is psych eval. I get to ask you all sorts of awkward questions about how you feel, and how you feel about how you feel. And how you feel about. So, is there anything you would like to talk about?"

Haroun nodded. "Actually, there is. I was wondering how Medical is set up, equipment-wise, for a genetic therapy regimen." he asked calmly.

Jean's eyebrows made a very good attempt at joining her hairline. "Er, well," she said eventually, "it's not something we've been expecting to do, so we would have to acquire some of the proper equipment, and you'd be better off discussing this with Moira or Hank, but... What brings this on?"

Haroun leaned back in his wheelchair. "I am broken, power-wise. My body can't withstand the kind of stresses my power puts on it. If it could, I'd still have my legs and this whole thing would be a moot point. I've given it a lot of thought, and I think I've gone as far as I can go with just training and will. I need to change the way it works at a fundamental level."

"All right," Jean said slowly, "we can discuss it. As far as I know, there's nothing which makes it an automatic non-option for you, but we'd have to do a lot of tests. Genetic-therapy for mutation is still a very experimental field."

Haroun nodded. "I'm not asking for overnight success, I just want to do -something-. And yes, I'll talk to Moira. Figure things should be a lot easier as we have a template for a fully-functional variant on my mutation within easy reach." he said.

"Sam?" Jean asked, nodding slightly. "Yes, perhaps. There are some very significant differences between your powers, but we will see."

"He's got the blast field, but hey, if you want to graft that one too I won't complain." he said with a laugh. "So I take it now is when we do the memory tests? Charles likes those."

She smiled. "Yes, let's."