xp_logs | Monday morning, Iso room

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When Lorna wakes up and isn't alone in her head, it's up to Jean to talk the other into giving up. Unfortunately, Malice is stubborn and has no intention of being the one to die.

She woke up screaming and choking, hands ripping at the collar on her neck, convinced she was suffocating. After a moment, she stopped and collapsed back on the hospital bed, trembling, staring around her. Carefully, she pushed herself up and sat, one hand still covering the collar. The air felt sterile and empty, without any of the richness she was used to. The EM fields were gone.

They had known Lorna would wake up soon, but timing it precisely was impossible, so Jean had simply been waiting. The scream would have served nicely to let her know the other woman was awake, even if the mental snap between sleep and consciousness hadn't been. Steeling herself, Jean keyed in her code to the isolation room door and slipped inside.

The green haired woman flung herself at the doctor as she came in and promptly collapsed, dizzy and weak. She swore steadily, coughing and tried to think. She had to get out of here. Had to get back...had to get the collar off...no! "Jean..." it was barely a whimper.

Jean's heart broke again at that. "I'm here," she said, crossing to stand by the bed. Even if the younger woman managed to work up the energy to actually strike at her, Jean's TK would be more than enough to stop her. "We're going to help you."

She hissed, "I don't need your help. You're everything that is wrong with mutants. You'll let them control us and kill us and never strike back." Her voice wavered in intensity, like she didn't even agree with herself at times.

"Believe me, I've heard that one before." And damn Eric for this. Damn him to all of the hells he hadn't be damned to before, and further yet. Reaching out, she stroked back the vibrant green hair. #And now it is time to let the anger go,# she sent, dropping into the confusion which was the tangle of Lorna and Malice's minds.

#Get out of my head or I'll kill her.# Malice snarled, unsure even to her own mind if they were one or two. She struck out at Jean, sparring matches with Sabertooth teaching her to be direct and vicious instinctively.

#It's not your head,# Jean answered, catching her arm in a telekinetic grip. #And no, I won't. Not until you do.# She wanted to seek out Lorna, hidden under Malice's anger, but
it wouldn't be safe to divert that much attention from her physical body. Not yet.

"Jean, no." Lorna whimpered, "Let her." She jerked hard against the hold on her arm and kicked at Jean. #I'm not worth fighting to save.#

#I beg to differ, and I am not the only one.# She physically dodged the kick, stepping back out of range of the bed for a second.

#You know what I did to Remy.# Malice practically purred it, #To those precious children. To Alison's father.# Lorna wrested control back with a strangled noise. "I shouldn't live."

It took a second for that to register. Alison's father... Oh, God... Her tk control slipped, Lorna's arm falling free. "Lorna, that wasn't your fault," she managed, still slightly in shock.

That was all it took, Malice lashing out again at Jean then screaming. "Stop, Jean! Please!"

The sharp pain in her arm from Malice's blow brought Jean out of her shock quiet efficiently, and this time Jean simply pinned the other woman to her bed. #No, I won't,# she sent, reaching deeper into the Malice/Lorna mind. #We're not giving up on you.#

--------

In the end, they'd had to tie Lorna down. It wasn't that surprising, really, since Jean needed too much focus to constantly be worrying about taking a fist to the nose. It would have been easier, far easier, if Charles could have done this, but Malice was a product of Eric's training and there was no telling what she would do if Charles stepped in.

So now Jean found herself in what was clearly a gym, underneath the mess and destruction. And the blood. There was actually something... unsettlingly familiar about it. It reminded her of Scott's nightmares of Ryker, now that she thought about it. And God did she wish she hadn't just thought about it.

Looking at Lorna, Jean had to remind herself that this was a mindscape, and that the hole in her chest was only a figurative representation of a psychic wound, and not a physical one. Not that that helped.

It was even more obvious now that there was increasingly less distinction between Malice and Lorna. They spoke exclusive as 'I' even when arguing with each other, which they did. But Lorna spoke less and less as time went on. She was giving up by inches. Malice stalked around Jean in an ever-tightening circle with a predatory, slinking motion that had to have been learned from Sabertooth.

"I'm not going to leave you alone. Not now, not ever. Not until we have our Lorna back," Jean said, refusing to flinch away. She was more afraid for Lorna than herself, although the danger she was in, here in a mindscape Malice controlled, was very real.

"You can't have Lorna back. I'm dead. I killed me." Her hand went to her chest and came away, dripping blood, "I had my heart ripped out. This is all that's left. No one you know, no one you want."

"No. I don't accept that." Jean shook her head. "For one thing, you're not even the first of us who's had to come back from the dead."

"Poor little martyr." Malice sneered and flinched. "It's not the same thing. You deserved to live."

"And so do you."

Lorna closed her eyes, "That's not going to happen." Malice opened them, "I'm trying to live. You're trying to kill me again. I've died. I'm going to die again if you don't leave me alone."

It was so hard to sort out which of them was talking. They'd become so tangled together... The best Jean could do was answer them both, honestly and truthfully, and hope. "Can you blame me for not leaving you alone?" she asked. "I want my student, my teammate, my friend back. I want her to have all the chances that were taken away. I never even got to tell you I'm engaged again..."

"Congratulations. Oh God, Alex..." Lorna looked shaken and broke away. Even in the mindscape, the collar still gleamed around her neck. Malice had a tendency to stroke it like a cat. "I don't want to die again."

"I don't want that, either," Jean said. "I want to help you. I want to bring you home."

"Then stop trying to kill me!" she shouted and the room shook with her rage and fear. The floor heaved beneath their feet though Malice didn't seem to notice.

"Then tell me how to help!" Jean cried, staggering back. "It's your mind, Lorna. Take control. Fight her!"

"It's my mind. My body and I'll kill it before I let you take it away." The room twisted again. Malice twisted with it almost more a piece of the mindscape than a separate persona. "Get out of my head!"

But Jean was a stronger telepath than Malice, and she had had just about enough. The mindscape stopped shifting and simply dissolved into the pure whiteness of the astral plane and then the quiet woods of the Summers' home in Alaska formed around them. "It is not yours," she said. "She is not yours."

Malice screamed disconsolately. "No...take me back. Take me back." She turned and ran, as though it was possible to break Jean's hold just by getting far enough away.

In the distance behind Jean, the home could be seen, but the forest through which Malice ran continued, seemingly forever. "Give. Me. Lorna. Back."

She didn't get a response. There was no conflict at all in her mind as she ran. Getting away from Jean was something they both agreed on, though the reasons differed. Trees continued to race by, faster than she was able to run but not fast enough for her liking. She had to get away.

--------

There was no sound but the ragged exhale of her own breath, a sick whistling sound thanks to the still gaping hole in her chest. This tiny silent corner had swirled around her like a gift and part of her mind had recognised the structure with ironic despair. Malice curled into it, almost invisible so perfectly did it fit in. She wasn't fighting anymore. Everything seemed so peaceful. Perhaps it had worked and she would be allowed to live.

The parallel between Lorna's posture and Paige's when she'd tried to hide herself away in the iso-room was inescapable, and Jean let it guide her as she approached, slowly and non-threateningly. She made no effort to hide her presence, but she also didn't push herself at the other woman, simply waited.

It took a while to register the new presence and when she did, she simply groaned with frustration and pushed herself up, ready to fight back again. As she settled into a defensive posture, she felt the difference in her body, the way it responded perfectly without protest. "I'm the only one here. There's no way to make me leave without killing this body."

"That's probably true," Jean said quietly. It wasn't absolute, she was sure, but the chance that they could force Malice to leave without doing some permanent damage to Lorna was vanishingly small. "I don't think I can make you leave."

"Then what are you doing here? I've told you I don't want to die." As long as Jean stayed back, she was content to conserve her energy and just wait for an attack rather than forcing one.

"I'm looking for another option. I refuse to accept that the only two options are that I kill Lorna or I let her go."

"I am Lorna. As much as there is." Malice said it with conviction but it felt wrong anyway. She touched the collar to reassure herself.

Jean's eyes narrowed sharply at the motion, although she didn't move. "Then," she said slowly, watching the other woman's reaction closely, "take the collar off. It doesn't really match the outfit, you know..."

Malice flinched, a full-body motion that almost looked like she'd been punched in the stomach. "I told you that I won't let you kill me. Stop asking."

"Ah, but if you're all that's left of Lorna, then taking the collar off shouldn't do a damned thing. Besides, it's tacky."

"If I take it off, this mind dies and this body dies." It mattered little whether or not she was telling the truth. If the collar came off, she would make sure that there was nothing left to save.

"Well, you can't be very sure of yourself and your control over Lorna if a piece of scrap metal is all that's keeping you going." There had to be an answer. Had to be some way. Time in a mindscape was confusing at best, but Jean felt as though they had been at this for hours and she was no closer to freeing Lorna.

"You think you're very clever. You can't appeal to my pride, I don't care what you think. You don't want me to be your Lorna but there isn't any other way to explain it is there? How could a silly piece of scrap metal do all this?"

"I'm not talking about pride," Jean snapped. "I'm talking about Lorna, who would never wear something so tacky. I'm talking about the classically trained chef with a love of geophysics and a penchant for ethics. You're Lorna, right? You're the one dating my fiancee's little brother, who used to sit in on my English classes if you didn't have class of your own and was supposed to argue with me when you found out you don't get to cater my wedding. Cause you're Lorna. Right?"

Malice's expression twisted. "Am I in love with Alex? Yes. Can I still cook? Yes. Am I everything you just asked? Yes. But I'm not your Lorna anymore. I've learned better. I've felt what it's like to die. Real death, not the kind that means temporary amnesia and a love of hockey."

"So you're all of that, and that's all you are? You didn't have a life before that death you're so fond of flaunting at me? Nothing that happened before you were Lorna matters?" There was a part of Jean which was crowing at her for the admission which went along with the questions, that perhaps her own life while she was 'dead' had mattered, too, but now was not the time and she did what she was getting so very good at and locked the voice away.

The tiny room suddenly seemed even smaller as a huge form filled it. The look on her face as she gazed at Sabertooth was not all that unusual. Lorna often looked that way when she was watching Alex. Just as quickly as he'd appeared, he vanished and Malice scowled, "You don't need to know anything about that life."

Jean felt like she was going to be physically sick. "Oh, then it doesn't matter?" she managed to ask. "None of that matters now that you're Lorna?"

Malice stared at her then grudgingly replied, "I can't help him like I could before. But it's better than not having any way to help at all."

"But I thought," Jean said slowly, suspecting she was treading on dangerous ground, "that you were in love with Alex."

"I can't make that stop. I tried." Malice looked horrified as soon as she'd spoken, clearly that had not been something she wanted to admit. She continued to explain, as though compelled. "The feelings stayed. I have to feel like she felt before me. But I can keep some things."

At least the woman was admitting to a difference between herself and Lorna. Jean almost sobbed in relief at the use of the third person pronoun. "She felt like this before you, and you felt... differently. Still feel a little differently."

"No." Malice protested. "I'm not different. Not anymore. I'm not leaving him again." This time it was her form that flickered, momentarily smaller, blonder. A frail creature with a heart-shaped face dominated by huge brown eyes. Then she was gone. "I'm all that there is."

"But Lorna wants to be with Alex..." The younger Summers appeared in the room, standing behind Jean, for just a second.

Malice closed her eyes. "He won't want me. Not after everything."

"He does," Jean's voice was gentle. "He loves you, Lorna."

"Then he's an idiot." The blonde woman said firmly. She had no injuries unlike Lorna. "He'll learn that it's not wise to love someone who will only hurt you."

"Since when are people wise about who they fall in love with?" Personally, Jean couldn't think of anything less wise than falling in love with Sabertooth.

"Never. I'm just trying to spare him the pain. Eventually he'll learn." Suddenly she stalked forward. "Why are you still here? You can't think that there's still something left for you to save, can you?"

"Lorna's my friend," Jean said. "Possibly my sister-in-law some day. If you're Lorna now," she managed not to heavily stress the 'if', "then couldn't I just want to get to know you?"

"You could be," conceded the tiny blonde, "You're pathetic enough to do just that. But you're not because you're also stubborn and you don't want me to be Lorna. So you'll argue with me until I give in or die. And for some reason you don't believe that I'm not lying to you about being unwilling to give in."

Jean smiled slowly, and flickers of heat and light seemed to surround her for a second. "It's the redheaded temper. Doesn't always have to be flashes of fire. Sometimes a slow burn works just fine."

"I just want to live. Is that so wrong? I want what was taken too soon." Malice grimaced and her hair rippled gold to green to gold.

Come on, Lorna... Fight... "And is it wrong for Lorna to want to live? To not want to have her life stolen from her?"

"I'm still living her life! I love as she loved. Value as she valued. Her powers, her passions. I even talk like her. She's still me. I'm still her. It's me who is dying not her!" Her eyes flashed green and she whimpered, doubling over against the pain in her chest, like someone was ripping out her heart.

"You've got her memories," Jean almost snarled. "Her ethics and philosophy, and you can still say that? I think, therefore I am, dammit. You don't get to think her into being."

Malice screamed and fell to her knees, green hair spilled around her face. "What do you want me to do?" she choked without looking up. "I should die for her? What life will she have left? She won't be able to live with what she's done."

"How about you let her make that decision, you twisted bitch? You value as she valued but you'd be just fine with it?"

Malice only made a wet choking sound, shaking her head. Finally Lorna spoke softly, standing quietly behind the blonde woman huddled on the floor in pain. "Because she believes that Magneto is right. And she knows that I can't forgive myself for what I did."

--------

The featureless room was gone, but nothing had come to replace it. Instead, the unending white of the astral plane extended forever in all directions, not limiting the infinite possibilities the mind could come up with, but not providing them either. Jean, at least, was comfortable with the surroundings - to her it suggested... potential.

Malice still remained on her knees, bent and choking with Lorna watching her solemnly. No one had spoken for a long time and the silence seemed long even in the timelessness of the mind. Finally Lorna's gaze shifted, "Hello, Jean."

"Hello, Lorna. It's good to see you." Lorna's last words echoed in Jean's mind, the quiet despair tugging at her heart and leaving her feeling oddly powerless.

Lorna inclined her head, "How is Alex?" She continued to watch Jean steadily, as though there was no woman at her feet, slowly choking.

"He's doing... comparatively well. There's apparently been some trouble sleeping, and I know Scott's worried about him, but he's holding up." She almost added 'He misses you,' but wasn't sure what reaction that would cause.

"Is anyone taking care of him? He has nightmares when he sleeps alone." There was guilt in her tone but no more so than had every time she spoke.

"He's requested sleeping pills, and I know Shiro's offered him the spare bed in his room."

Lorna lips twisted into a semblance of a smile, "I'm sure Shiro will take excellent care of him. He has every other time I broke Alex's heart." She took a deep breath and continued her mental checklist. "Did anyone find Remy? She thought that he was going to die... Did I kill him?"

That was a very complicated question to answer. "He's alive," Jean said, somewhat slowly. "A... miracle was managed."

Alive was good enough for her so she just nodded and didn't press. Instead she dropped to one knee beside Malice and touched her back. It was strangely gentle, considering the relationship. Malice coughed wetly and straightened, taking up the thread of questioning without missing a beat. "Forge?" she gasped out.

That was... worrying. "He's all right, or he will be. They... We are all worried about you, though."

Malice smiled poisonously, "That's very nice of them...you. What will you tell them? How will you explain to them that you forced me to die because you wouldn't understand that you're never getting back the Lorna you lost.?"

"That I'm not nearly as worried about. We would like Lorna back, not some bad carbon-copy." Jean was actually far more worried that the blonde was right, that even if... when she got Malice to let go, Lorna would be too broken to recover.

She jerked her head to indicate the young woman beside her, "You heard her. She doesn't want to come back. She's willing to let me be Lorna and let her be the fading copy."

"Lorna said she's not willing to forgive herself, not that she's not willing to let us forgive her. You..." Jean paused for a second. "What's your name?"

The blonde looked confused. "Malice."

Jean waved that away. "She is Lorna," she said, gesturing to Lorna, "I'm Jean. My ex-kinetics teacher's name is Erik, no matter what he calls himself when he wears that stupid hat. What's your name?"

Silence reigned while Malice looked upset. Lorna rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. "She doesn't know. That part wasn't considered important enough to save before she died."

"Oh," Jean said, softly, and the quiet returned for a few moments. "I'm sorry," she added at last. And it was true. Perhaps it was more pity than sympathy, but Jean had enough natural empathy to feel, even for this... wretch. "How did she die?"

Lorna shrugged, "I don't know. Malice?"

"It doesn't matter," grated out the blonde. "I don't want to talk about it. You're just wasting time."

"Wasting time until what?" Jean asked. And, in truth, the astral plane had even less connection with the time that was passing outside of their minds than the other mindscapes had had. "I've nowhere better to be. I know you don't. How did you die?"

"It doesn't matter. It happened and I'm not going to do it again." Malice's temper flared, "Get out of my head. This has gone on too long. I swear I'll kill you all if you keep pestering me."

"That," Jean said simply, "will kill you too." She let the implied threat hang in the air before continuing. "I thought you said you weren't going to do that again."

"I don’t want to die." Malice complained bitterly. "It's not right. She should have been broken the way the rest are. It worked well enough for Madrox."

Jean's eyes narrowed sharply. "Discussing Magneto's penchant for torturing children and suggesting it's a good thing is really not going to get you any sympathy."

Malice glared, "It's preferable to being dead. I'd think that you would be the first to agree."

"You know, I don't think I would," Jean said, consideringly. "Being tortured and turned into a lapdog doesn't really appeal. At least dying is clean."

"I suppose drowning would be clean, yeah." Malice stood slowly. "But death is ugly and it's all that there is. It's better to live." Lorna looked up at her and Malice amended her statement with a smirk, "I suppose that some cases might be different though."

"Can't have it both ways," Jean said, scowling. "But if drowning is clean and death isn't, how did you die?" There was something about Malice's refusal to talk about it which piqued Jean's curiosity.

"It doesn't matter. It didn't take. I'm not dead now and I won't die. They gave me her so I wouldn't die." The rage in her voice was palpable though she didn't raise it at all. Her hand stroked at the collar nervously, reassuring herself. Lorna looked up at her again with a faintly troubled expression.

"But I thought we'd decided that what came before did matter," Jean argued, refusing to backdown. "Why won't you tell me?"

"Because I don't like you. Is that so hard to believe? Or was everyone supposed to be so happy that you were back that it didn't matter how many problems it caused?"

"No, I have no problem believing you don't like me. I'm not sure why you think I should care, but, given I despise you for what you've done to Lorna, I'm not at all surprised to hear you don't like me."

Malice rolled her eyes, "You asked why I wouldn't tell you. That's my answer. Because I don't like you. Because it's not something you have any right to know."

"All right," Jean said, tilting her head to consider the girl. "But, of course, you also feel like Lorna, right? And she does like me. Can't imagine that's fun for you..."

Malice smirked, "I can't feel differently than she does. She doesn't like you either. Because Alex hates you."

"Somehow, I don't believe you," Jean said. "If Lorna says it, it'd be different, but you? Somehow, you lack veracity."

Malice shoved Lorna, "Tell her!"

The green haired woman widened her eyes. "You don't want me to do that," she said quietly, very matter-of-fact.

"I would like to hear... whatever you would say," Jean said, her voice gentle when she spoke to Lorna. "I miss talking with you."

Lorna shook her head. "No, it's not a good idea. I shouldn't tell you." She looked pleadingly at Malice, "Please don't make me tell her." Malice just glared steadily and Lorna flinched like she'd been hit then looked carefully at Jean. "She's right. She can't feel anything I don't. She's just a program." Malice shrieked and moved as if to stop her but Lorna froze her in place with a lifted hand, "Malice died and they put her in the collar. She's just metal and memory. She can't do anything I wouldn't."

The implicit admission hurt. A lot. And it took Jean a few seconds to find the hole in the logic. "If she can't do or feel anything you don't, how do you explain this?" And for just an instant, Sabertooth was there.

Lorna shrugged, "Some things last. She loved him enough to die for him and enough to love him even after they put her in the collar."

"But that there says that she can feel things you don't. Think things you don't. Decide and do things you wouldn't. She's not you, Lorna."

Malice was pale, stricken almost and she struggled against Lorna's placid control. Lorna looked at her, ignoring Jean entirely. "I told you that you didn't want me to tell her. Programs aren't alive."

It was progress. Jean had to remind herself that this was progress. They could only fight one fight at a time, and first they had to get rid of Malice before they would be able to help Lorna cope with what she'd done.

"I'm here. I'm not giving up and I'm not dying. You don't want this back anyway. You can't face it." Malice was begging now though Lorna didn't seem any more inclined to fight her for control than she had before.

"She's stronger than you think," Jean said, softly. "She's stronger than she thinks."

"If I had been, I wouldn't have hurt so many people." Lorna said quietly and lowered her hand, letting Malice move again. "It doesn't matter if she leaves or not. I still can't stay. Not after everything. She wants to live. I want to die. It seems like an easy choice to me."

"So don't take the easy way out." It slipped out before Jean quite realized she was saying it. The problem of a mode of communication that went fast as a thought.

Lorna reached out and touched the collar on Malice's neck. "I don't want to kill anyone else. Even one that isn't really alive."

"I am alive!" Malice protested batting Lorna's hand away.

Jean ignored the blonde. "I can understand that but, Lorna, what will she do if you let her go? How many more people will she hurt?"

Lorna pressed her lips together. Considered the question carefully and thought about what Malice had meant. "If she'd been alive, Sabertooth wouldn't have taken Alison."

Jean frowned. "Even if that's true, and I have my doubts, it's not much of a mitigating circumstance."

Lorna shrugged, having given up long ago. 'It doesn't matter what I think. She's the one who you have to convince. It's her existence that you're trying to end. And she's the one who will kill us both in the end."

--------

With an exhausted sigh, Jean sagged down in the chair. She had no idea what time it is, or how long she'd been in Lorna's mind. All she knew was that it was over. Pushing herself she reached towards the girl on the bed, but stopped. No. She'd done the hard part, but now? Jean didn't think she could be the one to pull the plug. Instead, she turned and left the room, leaving the door open. "It's done," she said, not even coherent enough to know who was out in the main room. "You can take the collar off."

Note: Jean leaves the room at about 6 pm.