Jean gets cleared for duty, Sunday afternoon

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Nathan runs Jean through her paces, as only another telepath/telekinetic can.



"You did fine," Nathan said firmly to Jean as the Danger Room doors whisked shut behind them. It was cooler out here in the hall, and he unzipped his jacket, wincing a little. His ribs were still throbbing from time to time, even nearly two months later. Not happy with that... "Seriously. Yes, you wound up on your ass a few times but look at how much your stamina's improved with your TK."

"I'm getting used to ending up on my ass," Jean said, rubbing at her shoulder. "Might not even have bruised this time. But you're right," she agreed. "I am doing better. It's strange, really, when I think about the difference before and now. And not just the pure power difference."

"Not to mention that your multitasking is much better." Even at Mistra, he'd never stinted praise when praise was due. "You were handling those turret guns with no trouble, even when I was knocking you on your ass."

"With no trouble may be an overstatement. Without a mind behind them, they're harder to keep track of." But Jean smiled, pleased with the praise.

"You're managing the sonar field pretty effectively these days," Nathan said, then grinned at her as they turned towards the locker rooms. "Soon, you'll have all my tricks mastered, and then where will I be?"

Jean laughed. "On that day the student will have become the master, and we'll have to face off, possibly with lightsabers. But I think I would have to have fallen to the dark side to really pull it off, and we've had enough teachers turning evil. Maybe you should just come up with some new tricks to put that day off."

"Lightsabers," Nathan said, as if musing over the concept, then grinned. "Nah. I prefer my psimitar, thank you," he said, swinging the psimitar in question in a lazy arc. "In any case," he said as they reached the door of the men's locker room, the woman's being several steps further down the hall, "I think you are past the point of needing to be run through TK tests."

"And a very shiny psimitar it is, too. I might even have stick envy." Reaching behind to pull her hair out of the lose ponytail, Jean nodded. "Yeah? Does this mean we move onto the tp ones?" Jean was much more confident of her telepathic abilities.

"Yes indeed. Take a shower and meet me upstairs in the sunroom," Nathan said, vanishing into the locker room.

---

Keeping track, actually keeping track of this many people was hard. She knew them all well enough that finding or contacting them individually was not a problem, but keeping them all in her head, all the time, without losing one or getting distracted? Well, at the very minimum, it left little space in her head for her own thoughts.

Letting the web collapse, Jean sagged back against the wall, taking a deep breath. "Ow," it was just a little whimper.

"You should have seen me trying to get this down," Nathan said, not unsympathetically. "I used to totter off to my suite after every session looking for the aspirin. Not the easiest thing in the world, is it?"

"Not as such, no," Jean agreed. "There are harder things, but few of them last so long..." Or involve quite so many people thinking at her.

"Crowds make it harder," Nathan said, thinking of Budapest. "You almost have to be on the fringes of things to make it work properly, it takes so much concentration... yet it's so responsive."

Jean nodded. "At least we do practice. It's always been easier to find and hold onto a mind I'm familiar with. Making a net with Scott and Hank and 'Ro, even Al and Piotr and the others who were here before I left, even if they weren't X-men, is still easier."

"You need to spend more time with some of the less familiar minds to you," Nathan advised. "That's what Charles had me do when I had that trouble. Just... an extra hour or two in their company. Usually in training sessions, that sort of thing... made it easier."

Jean considered it. "Shouldn't be that hard. I think, actually, the trainees are the ones I'm least familiar with, in some ways. I'll work it out, no worries."

"Make sure you think of it like frequencies," Nathan said, unfolding himself from his cross-legged position on the sunroom floor and wincing as he stretched out his sore log. "Each voice, each mind. They have a different depth, a different tone. That's what helps you distinguish one from the other."

"Different frequencies?" Jean asked. "Yes, that could work, too, I guess. Everyone just... feels different to me, anyway, so telling them apart is not the problem. Or hasn't been. But I think I tend to focus too much, and it becomes too easy to drop one while I concentrate on the other."

"I put the problem to Alison once, and she actually came up with the music metaphor, about tones." Nathan leaned back a little, letting his head sag backwards as he yawned. "Okay," he said crisply, "so we've established you can still make a pretty good stab at a telepathic switchboard even after a workout in the Danger Room. I'd say that's it."

Damned contagious yawns, and it made her head hurt... "I still tend to think people have flavors to them," she said. "But however you think about it, they are distinctive. And that's it, then?"

"That's it, as in that's all I was required to do with you test-wise," Nathan said, then gave her a lopsided grin. "Charles has been watching, but I need to give Scott a report, too."

"Scott has been not-watching," she told Nate, her smile moving into that affectionate 'my fiancee's a doof, but I love him for it' range. "Sort of the mental equivelent of hovering at just out of view on the other side of the room so you don't actually get in the way, but you're still hovering."

Nathan chuckled. "Typical. Well, I'll still dot the i's and cross the t's and give him a written report. Which is probably going to consist of 'stop messing around and give your fiancee her leathers back'."

Jean's headache was forgotten for the moment and it's possible she bounced in place just a little bit, although she would deny she'd done any such thing. "I am highly tempted to go 'wheee' at the idea," she told Nate.

This time, the chuckle was a laugh. "Maybe later, when I haven't just worn you out. I gather you've had your marathon tea session... pardon me, psych evaluation already?"

"I am an expert in the tea. Little old Japanese men marvel at my tea mastery. If I had gills I could even breathe darjeeling, let alone earl grey." Jean paused. "Which is to say, yes, I've done my psych eval."

"Excellent." Nathan's eyes unfocused a little, and he shook his head briskly. "Okay, so I've worn me out, too." He got to his feet, offering Jean a hand up. "Food is probably in order, given the energy we've been expending. Feel like a kitchen-raiding run?"

"Wouldn't object, no," Jean said, taking his hand and letting him haul her up. "If I remember correctly, somebody was making pie the other day. There may still be leftovers, and right now I could use some spare sugars."