Not So Plain Jane - A Mystery Wrapped up in an Enigma, Baked in a Flaky Pastry Crust

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Out and about in the city, Jane decides to have a little fun and Jamie is the closest target. How well this one goes for either of them would be hard to judge.



Approaching the Madrox boy was of questionable wisdom. For one thing, he was such an easy target, with his stupid quantities of jobs taking him in and out of the city. But, on the other hand, he was hard to get a mental fix on, with all those strange doubles, and it was difficult to be sure that she'd be safe approaching him. She'd only have a moment's notice at best if he decided to use a dupe to inform someone at the mansion of where she was.

And yet, he was such a temptingly easy target.

She couldn't quite resist, but Jane decided that a certain amount of caution was probably called for. Her outfit was low key, almost down to Jean's standards of dowdiness, and she was prepared to cut and run if things got too tense. Hell, she was even willing to be nice to the boy, at least at the beginning.

Waiting until after the boy had gotten back from his latest delivery, Jane entered Roth's Bakery, browsing idly through the breads on display.

Jamie mostly only pulled shifts at the counter when Ruthie and Rachel were off on their lunch breaks, but he liked getting to know the customers and had even started picking up a little Yiddish in self-defense. Not that that was much of a help when he looked up at the sound of the door chime to see a familiar head of red hair. "Dr. Grey?" he blurted. "Geez, where've you been, everybody's been wondering what happened. Can I get you anything?"

Jane looked up as though startled. "Oh, God, Jamie. You work here? I didn't know. Hell. Sorry, no, I don't need anything." She turned quickly back to the door she'd let close, fully expecting the boy to stop her from leaving, to at least say something. It would be better if he was the one pushing this encounter.

"No, no, hey, c'mon." Jamie hurried around the counter. "Seriously, since when do you have to avoid me? I'm harmless, ask anybody." He grabbed a sweet roll out of one of the decorative baskets and offered it to her. "Here, on the house. What's going on?"

"Oh, of course you're harmless," Jane said, turning back but not taking the roll, "but you shouldn't have to deal with any of this. Particularly not on a random chance like me walking into your shop."

"Well, you shouldn't get gypped out of the best pastries in the city just because I happen to work here, either." Jamie grinned. "C'mon, you came in here looking for something, let's pretend you're a customer and I'm a guy selling bread."

"I was more looking at than for, but..." Jane stepped away from the door, more firmly back into the shop. Eyes fixed firmly on the pastries she asked, "How are things? How is everyone? How's Kitty? Is she even bothering to pretend to be coping?"

"Well, she's been better, I'll say that much. You kinda blindsided everybody disappearing like that." Jamie frowned. "I mean, was that the whole point of the conference, an excuse to go someplace you could ditch us easier?"

"Mmmm, no," Jane said slowly. "It just worked out that way. Lucky chance sort of thing."

Jamie's eyes widened as this registered. "Wait, you mean you really were looking for an excuse to ditch us? What was all that on the journals before the conference, then? Because it sounded to me like you actually wanted to take us."

Jane widened her eyes, breathing in sharply in faux-shock. "What? Jamie, no! No, how could you think something like that?" she asked, sounding wounded by the very thought. "That's not what I meant!"

Jamie threw up his hands. "Well, why don't you explain it to me, then? Kitty's doing not such a hotshot job of not wondering who the next person to abandon her's going to be, Mr. Summers is wandering around looking like he got kicked in the soul, and you're saying it was a 'lucky chance.' So what am I supposed to think, here?"

"I mean just what I said - I wasn't planning on ditching you, an opportunity just came up. My lucky chance. And I took it. But you know what, it doesn't matter. Think what you will. Everyone's been making assumptions about my life, presuming they knew what I wanted, what I thought, ever since I came back and I just don't care anymore. I'm not going to let your assumptions rule my life."

"Yeah, well, maybe." Jamie tilted his head, giving her a measuring look. "I'll be the first one to say I don't really know you all that well. And God knows I'm no stranger to the idea of death changing people. But if that's what happened, well, it's too bad, because I admired Jean Grey a lot, and it's a pity she doesn't seem to be around anymore."

"And if I'm happier? That's the bit that everybody seems to miss, Jamie. What if I'm happier this way. No matter how much you all admire Jean Grey, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if I hate her."

"Then it's still a damn shame," Jamie replied, almost challengingly. "Because 'happier' is a pretty far cry from 'happy,' especially when you hate yourself."

"Well that, at least, you would be qualified to talk about, I guess," Jane said. "But I've got to say, I'm feeling much better about myself these days."

Jamie raised an eyebrow with a half-incredulous, half-bewildered grin. "What was that, was that a shot? I guess you don't know me very well either." He shook his head. "So what exactly are you doing that's so much better than the school?"

"I know you, Jamie, I know your history. I know you ended up with Skippy in your head, and that you do know what it's like to hate yourself. And how much better it is to not. And if life at the school was making me hate myself, then everything else is automatically better."

"Only it isn't. Automatic, I mean. Running away doesn't solve anything, it just puts off dealing with it until something breaks, and then it's all worse." Jamie set his jaw stubbornly. "And a lot of the time, running away hurts people."

"Yeah, well, once you stop caring about that last bit, it gets a lot easier." What was it with these people and their holier-than-thou love everybody schtick. Didn't they ever get tired of being self-righteous?

"So that's it, huh? You just woke up one day and boom, you didn't care about anybody anymore, none of the promises you made meant anything, it was just time to look out for number one? And what, you're trying to convince me that's a good thing?" Jamie snorted. "That's such a load of crap I'm surprised you can keep a straight face."

"I love how everybody seems to think I owe them a personal explanation for my own decisions about my own life. And the bit where, because they thought it looked like a nice life I couldn't possibly have been unhappy with it. Be surprised all you like, Jamie, I don't give a damn." Once more, she turned to leave the shop.

"Oh, you don't owe me a thing," Jamie replied flatly, stepping back behind the counter. "But where I come from, wedding vows mean something, and I don't care what happened after, if you loved Mr. Summers enough to marry him he deserved better from you than taking a crap on his heart."

"Hope you still feel like that when you and Kitty finally break down," she said, filling her voice with bitterness before stepping out the door.