Not So Plain Jane - Not-so-little Lies

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

While Scott searches DC, he gets found. Questions are asked, answers are given, lies are told.



This was not helping. In fact, it was only making him more and more frustrated and confused, Scott thought bleakly as he left the NGO's offices. Corinne Dalby was one of Jean's contacts in Washington, a long-time acquaintance. He'd known that Jean had been planning to see her - Jean hadn't hesitated to share her plans for the weekend in detail, of course - and he'd hoped that she would know something. Anything, that might explain what had happened.

But apparently they'd had a perfectly lovely chat over coffee, entirely about work, and Corinne hadn't noticed anything odd about Jean's behavior at all. "She was frustrated about this latest bill," the middle-aged woman had told him, "but then, we all were." Then Scott had been forced to explain why he was asking, at which point the conversation had gotten very awkward. Corinne had very clearly not wanted to get involved in any kind of marital spat.

Is that what this is? Scott paused for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the air in his lungs out on a sigh, ignoring a fellow pedestrian who bumped him thanks to his unexpected stop. You need to eat something, Summers. His composure was getting a little frayed, even by the standards of the week. Scott opened his eyes and looked around for a coffeeshop, somewhere he could grab something quickly.

It hadn't taken long at all for Jane to hear that someone was poking around about her and, as she leaned against the building across the road, she had to admit she wasn't at all surprised to find out who it was. Not surprised, and not displeased. The question was, wait until he saw her, or make the first move. No, approaching him would seem like she cared, that she wanted to talk to him. Seeing him glance about, Jane smirked. Perfect.

As he peered down the road to the left, she chose her destination (a small bookshop) on his other side and set off across the road, blithely ignoring the man. It wouldn't be long before he spotted his beloved Jean's oh-so-pretty red hair.

There, at the corner. Scott started in that direction - and froze, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. No, not in a city the size of Washington DC, coincidences like this didn't happen... but the oddly dampened link was brighter, suddenly, and as the redhead turned to walk into the bookstore, he saw that it was a small world after all.

Scott didn't move for a moment. He took a deep breath, then another, composing himself. Remembering, oddly, that conversation with Betsy the Christmas before last, after she'd woken from her coma. The dismissive, mildly contemptuous look she'd given him when he'd been unable to keep his shocked reaction to how she was behaving in check.

He pushed the memory away hard and followed her into the bookstore. She had stopped at the fiction section, and was leafing idly through a book by an unfamiliar author. "Jean?" he asked, glad to see that the store was largely empty. No scenes.

Jane looked up as though she was startled, eyes widening as she looked at Scott. "Oh, my." She carefully kept her voice down, and contemplated making herself blush but, really, it'd be going to far. "Well, this is awkward. Hello, Scott."

Scott took another deep breath and then let it out. "You didn't really think I wasn't going to come looking for you," he said quietly, in a tone that would have been conversational if it hadn't been so subdued. "After that email."

"Think it? Believe it? No, not really, but a girl can hope, can't she?" Her tone was chilly at best.

"I'm not here to cause a scene." How was he managing to sound this calm? "But I would like to talk. I'm having some doubts as to whether or not... let me be blunt... you're you. Given that you went from planning our honeymoon to telling me to feel free to sleep around."

"And because our relationship will always be tinged by the color purple?" Jane scowled. "Well let me perfectly clear here, Scott. There's no alien telepath attempting to take over my brain. I'm not about to develop supernatual skills with a katana. My mind is my own."

"You just somehow managed to do an emotional 360 in the course of a weekend, then." He looked straight into her green eyes. There was nothing but anger on the link, a constant, burning heat. She was dampening it somehow, so that he couldn't hear thoughts, and he wasn't about to go poking. "What happened to what you used to tell me, about not being able to lie mind to mind? Was that the lie, all along?"

"It'd be easier, wouldn't it?" Jane asked, ignoring the question. "Easier to say, 'Oh, it's not my fault, she's not in her right mind, she's possessed, she doesn't mean it.' But, hell, Scott, you're such a martyr, why on earth would you be looking for a way out of blaming yourself?"

"You avoided my question," Scott said, his tone and expression not altering. "But yeah, you're right, it would be easier. Very tempting, since it's been all of two months since you made certain promises that I didn't ever think you'd break."

"Do you realize how tedious you are?" she asked, closing the book with a snap. "You're like a little puppy with a bone. You get some new idea and you worry at it and you obsess and go over and over and over it until my head feels like it's going to explode. And you do it with everything."

"You've known I was obsessive-compulsive for the last ten years," Scott said brusquely. "Why did you put up with it for that long if it was unbearable?"

Turning and putting the book back on the shelf, she shrugged. "Because I was an idiot."

Scott's jaw tightened, but it was his only outward reaction. "So, what?" he asked. "You've spent the last year pretending you wanted something you didn't, or just trying to convince yourself?"

"A fair amount of both, I think. But it's time for me to be honest, because I don't want it. I don't want the school and I don't want that life and I don't want you."

"And what brought you to the time for honesty?" This was not going to hurt. He was not going to let it hurt. Not right now, at least. "Why the sudden urge for truth, when you've been lying so convincingly?" The stabbing pain in his chest could go away anytime now. Really.

Oh, no, the stabbing pain in his chest was not allowed to go anywhere. He was going to hurt and he was going to hurt and then he was going to hurt some more. Jane's eyes lit up as she said, "Well, you see, I found someone better." She smiled sweetly and added, "Less broken than you."

Scott's calm facade broke, if only for an instant before his expression went blank again. He couldn't seem to quite breathe properly, though. No matter how hard he tried. "This is sudden. Or is it?" He wasn't going to respond to the addendum. He wasn't. It was taking every bit of self-control he had to silence the part of him that was taking it to heart, the part that had always been afraid of being weak, of being a failure, not enough for the people he loved.

Internally, Jane exulted at that momentary break, echoed deep behind the walls in her mind. "Oh, really, say what you mean, why don't you? If you asking was I sleeping around on you, out with it."

"I don't believe you were." And strangely, he didn't. He didn't know why, just that he didn't. "I suppose I just want to know how long I've been suffering by comparison." How long he'd missed it, because he hadn't expected this. Hadn't - and should have? Breathe. He would handle this. He would. No more breaking down.

"Does it really matter, Scott? Is it going to be better to hear that I finally really fell in love just this weekend and I've never known what love was before this? Or do you actually want to know that I've known since Seattle and just couldn't work up the courage? Or that I pitied you too much to leave?" The Seattle thing was a nice touch, Jane decided. Being specific gave the lies just that much more weight, and there were probably dozens of activists who'd been both in Seattle and DC she could be talking about.

Scott looked away, rubbing at the scars on the side of his face in an unconscious, agitated gesture. "I suppose I should thank you," he said, his voice hollow-sounding for a moment. "That you did stay until I was back on my feet."

"Mmm, if you like," Jane said, moving past him down the aisle and towards the door. "I don't particularly want your thanks. I don't want anything from you." Her hand on the door, she paused and looked back at him, smiling. "Although really, Scott, after all of this, can you even say that this entire conversation hasn't just been one lie after another?" And before he could answer she was out the door and heading down the road.