Not So Plain Jane - Endsong

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Tuxedos can be camouflage too. Logan and Scott wait in the foyer for the rest of the team. Logan wants to run over the Plan once more. Scott's possibly a little overly tense.



Logan adjusted the collar of his tuxedo for the fifteenth time and tried to remember that he was getting enough air and that popping a claw to relieve the pressure on his neck was a bad idea. But oh, how it tempted him .... He dragged himself out of fantasyland just in time to catch Scott's inquisitive look. "Go over it again?" he asked, resolving to pay attention this time. "And for the record? I hate these things."

"You didn't listen the first time in the Situation Room?" Scott asked flatly. They were both in tuxedos, standing alone in the front foyer of the mansion and waiting for the others to join them. Scott had been waiting for the last twenty minutes, actually, and had been somewhat surprised when Logan had been the first one to show up. He'd figured that getting into a tuxedo would have been more of a hassle for him.

"The monkeysuit cuts off valuable oxygen to the brain. You put one on and get stupid. We've got time, just run over the highlights." he said irritably. Oh yes, it was going to be a grand evening tonight. He could tell already.

"We have invitations," Scott said, biting off the end of each word. "We walk through the front door, mingle for twenty minutes, then regroup at the west stairs and head up into the Club's living quarters. We see Jean, Charles does what's necessary, Kurt then teleports Jean to the car and we follow. And possibly grab an hors d'oeuvre or two on the way out."

"And it goes sour?" he asked. "Say we get made, someone pulls a fast one, we get ambushed. What's the fallback?" he asked curtly, itching to cut something. Either the collar of his starched shirt or some Hellfire Care Bear who made the wrong decision to get in his way.

"We don't have one," Scott said flatly, noticing the slight twitch of Logan's hands. "And if you can't keep yourself under control and play this subtle, like I said, you're staying home." That wasn't negotiable. And the first sign he got of Logan losing it, he was getting an optic blast to the head and a quick teleport out, courtesy of Kurt.

Logan sighed. "I don't like it. You're the big one for plans, and we're just hoping that everything goes our way?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Well, there's a negative way to put it." It wasn't a joke, or said wryly - not even a little. Scott was in no mood. "We have five X-Men and the world's most powerful telepath riding along in my head. You don't think we have reason to think that we might manage this?"

"I like to be prepared." he said with as much of a shrug as he could manage in his suit. "The Other Guys got a vested interest in making sure we crash and burn hard, remember? There's no love there, or was I reading the wrong set of mission logs with explanation last night?" he asked archly.

For fuck's sake. "The Other Guys have given us engraved invitations and Shaw gave me a personal invitation to rid him of Jean's company. I know I covered that in the briefing."

"So now we're doing the Bad Guys favors?" Logan said, and then sighed. "You're right. The op is tight," he said, taking as deep a breath as he could manage and then letting it go. "Still hate the suit."

"We are not doing the bad guys favors." Starting off the night by testing Logan's healing factor would not be productive. Scott closed his eye until the itching subsided. "We are bringing Jean home. There is a difference."

"Sure there is." he said, and then left it at that. There was something really fascinating about the relativity of time right about then. It seemed like he'd been in this conversation for, oh, about fifty years, and standing in the monkeysuit for a century or so.

Scott very nearly growled right back at him, but he kept his eye closed and breathed deeply until he could relax his hands out of fists. Calm. The others would be down shortly and then they could go.

--



At the Hellfire Club, the team mingles a little, as the plan requires, before making their move.



Scott wasn't sure what or who this function was supposed to be honoring. He supposed that it could just as easily be your average Saturday night at the Hellfire Club. It wasn't as if he'd know. Everything he knew about the Club related to their business interests and key players, not their social activities.

Having to make like a guest, even for the ten minutes or so that it was taking him to move through the public areas of the Club towards the stairs that led up into the living quarters was driving him insane. He'd promised Shaw as much discretion as possible. The man was upholding his end of the bargain thus far; he'd even brushed past Scott earlier, murmuring precise directions to Jean's suite to him. Apparently Jean had decided to make a grand entrance later in the evening.

It would work. It would work just fine, so long as they... Scott stopped as a waiter interposed himself and his tray of champagne glasses in front of him. Scott forced a tight smile, shook his head, and moved on. He knew he wasn't pretending well. Not like the others; Ororo was over there in a rather short dress gliding through the crowd, and he'd seen Kurt and Sam being thoroughly charming, yet also managing to keep moving. Logan was... ghosting around the edges of the room, being surprisingly indirect.

Too close. They were just too close, he didn't have any patience left anymore. Charles murmured something in the back of his mind, and Scott's jaw clenched as he sent back an affirmative.

The stairs. Were right there. Scott glanced at his watch, and stopped, waiting for the others to catch up. This wasn't a race, he told himself harshly. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing deeply, running through one of the mental exercises that would leave him as open as possible to Charles, so that Charles could do what he needed to do.

He had his part. They all had their part. They'd do their parts, and it would be over soon.

#Have faith, Scott.#

Scott bit his lip, hard. Now was not the time for hysterical laughter.

--



The team makes a quiet entry into the living quarters - and a less quiet entry into Jean's suite. Ororo and Logan distract flunkies while Scott goes for the bedroom. The flunky-distraction gets a little messy.


No one had troubled them on the way upstairs. The halls had been empty, and they'd reached Jean's door without having to make any awkward explanations about what precisely they were doing on a private floor.

The door had been locked. Scott hadn't even hesitated, just kicked it down. He was in and past the two startled people in the living room of the suite and into the bedroom before either of them could react. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Ororo and Logan facing equal odds. The woman glowered at Ororo and started towards her, electricity crackling between her fingertips, while the man turned to Logan with an odd little smile.

Ororo took several steps back, glad not for the first time that night she had decided to wear a shorter skirt, one that would leave her unhindered in case of... well, something like this. She eyed the other woman warily, hoping that she could get through this without destroying too much of the suite. They were here as guests, after all.

The woman glanced back over her shoulder, frowning at the closed bedroom door before she glared back at Ororo. "Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here like this?"

"I am sorry we have arrived so abruptly... we will not stay too long," Ororo replied almost politely, though her defensive stance showed that she wasn't quite ready to be shown the door.

Logan looked at the man who was staring him down with a very amused look. Finally, he was going to have a little fun on this trip. Their luck had been too good so far - he was reassured by the idea that things were starting to go pear-shaped. Instead of dropping into a guard or leaping to the attack, he just waited to see what the man would do. His patience was rewarded as the man raised both hands, clouds of energy gathering around them and taking the oddly substantial-looking shapes of creatures that looked like they were claws and teeth and not much else.

"I hope you're invulnerable," the man said, sounding entertained. "Otherwise this is going to be awfully painful..." The two creatures leapt at Logan, one latching onto his arm with teeth that were both solid and very sharp, the other going for his neck.

Logan popped out his claws, the hot familiar pain of the blades ripping their way out of his skin a welcome sensation by now. He grabbed for the energy-constructs with his bare hands, saving the claws for gutting the guy himself. He managed to grab both of them, but what he wasn't counting on was not being able to get a grip. The pain that hit him when the things began tearing at his flesh was possibly one of the five worst things Logan could ever remember feeling.

Glancing sideways, Ororo's eyes widened in horror as she took in the sight of the two energy-constructs attached to Logan, apparently eating away at his flesh. She made to turn away towards him, looking around for anything that could be used to lever the things away from his skin.

The woman shook her head. "I don't think you understand. You're not welcome here," she said, and sent what could have been a miniature bolt of lightning straight at Ororo.

Turned sideways as she was, the bolt caught 'Ro right in the side, instantly frying a hole in the fabric of her dress. Ororo bent over momentarily, though a second later she straightened, apparently unfazed. "That was very rude," she muttered, brows furrowed.

"... the hell?" The woman's eyes widened slightly and she raised both hands, balls of electrical fire swelling to the size of basketballs before she threw them at Ororo.

'Ro wasn't very keen on having any more of her dress fried, so she twisted out of the way of one ball successfully while catching the brunt of the other with one arm. It fizzled out, almost seeming to leech into her before disappearing. The ball knocked her back a few steps, though she didn't react at all to its seemingly electric nature. I could continue to do this for as long as it takes... but Logan needs my help. A sudden gust of wind in the room pushed against the electrokinetic as Ororo's eyes began to cloud over.

Logan's opponent just smiled at his struggles. "Apparently not invulnerable," he quipped, frowning a bit at the wind that whipped up suddenly in the suite. "Tell me," he said to Logan, letting his companion handle Ororo by herself, "what do you think about-" He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the bedroom door, frowning more deeply at the unmistakable sound of a body slamming into a wall.

The constructs were chewing away at Logan's muscles, but the one in his arm got a very rude surprise when it tried to go for the bone. It stopped chewing, puzzled about what the unexpected solidity against its mandibles was. The one on his upper chest was the one to watch out for - depending on which way it chewed it could go for lungs, vital arteries and veins, or potentially, his heart. Logan, heedless of the pain or the blood streaming down from the bite-wound, dug a claw-tip into the construct and pressed.

It sank into something. The man grunted and stumbled, clutching at his temples, and gave Logan an angry look. Immediately, the one attached to Logan's arm scuttled upwards, going for his neck as well.

Now that was interesting. The one at his neck had stopped chewing, which was good, but seeing as how the constructs and the guy seemed to be linked, and he wasn't having much luck stopping the constructs ... Logan stopped farting around with the constructs and stepped forward to slash at the man with his claws. Or, at least, that was the idea, but loss of blood and destroyed muscle tissue that hadn't healed yet were sapping his strength and the strikes were ragged.

The wind wasn't quite reaching the two men, but the electrokinetic was stumbling backwards. "That's why," she breathed, clearly understanding who and what she was facing now. "I know you..."

"Then you know this is futile. Stop fighting, and tell your friend to as well," Ororo said, her voice eerily distorted by the wind around her. "We do not wish to harm you, but if you continue to push us we will defend ourselves." Please do not kill him, Logan.

As Logan took another swipe at him, the man swore and staggered sideways - not just away from Logan, but coincidentally, away from the bedroom door as well. Grimacing, he waved a hand almost ineffectually at Logan, and the 'wound' on the stabbed construct disappeared. It started chewing again, more determinedly.

Logan kept the pressure on and attacked again. Seems the guy didn't like it much, and it really messed with his concentration. When the guy's concentration got messed with, Logan stopped getting chewed on. He was heartily in favor of that plan, as being chewed on hurt. His nice tuxedo was now a jarring combination of black, white, and blood-red and his right sock had completely waterlogged with blood.

The woman's eyes went to her friend, then back to Ororo. "You broke in here and now there's someone in there attacking the Bl-Ms. Grey. I don't think you're in any position to be telling me not to defend myself." She aimed at the floor this time, charring the carpet at Ororo's feet.

'Ro winced inwardly; not because it hurt in any way, but because those shoes were now ruined. Summoning another gust of wind, she sent it towards the other woman, knowing it would probably be a lost cause to try and fight fire with fire - or in this case, lightning with lightning.

The woman cried out as she was blown right off her feet. She toppled over, smacking her head on the coffee table and going limp. Energy crackled around her for a moment, almost spasmodically, and then died.

Her friend wasn't doing much better. "Gah!" The man stumbled backwards, bleeding from wounds on his arm, and one of the constructs vanished in a flash.

Logan grinned and poked his claws into the other. It was time to quit playing around and just end this.

A quick glance at Logan assured Ororo that he was handling things well enough, and so she stooped down next to the woman, fingers going to the pulse at her neck as her eyes cleared to normal.

There was screaming, from the bedroom. A man's voice - not Scott's - and what had to be Jean's. The silence when they stopped was almost worse.

--



Elsewhere on the floor, Sam watches the elevator via which reinforcements would arrive. They do, and he takes care of them quite handily.



Leaning against a wall, Sam whistled a snatch of a tune as he kept both eyes on the elevator. Sooner or later, someone was going to figure out what was going on, and they certainly weren't going to be disturbing the party. Which meant they'd be coming up through the back halls, and that meant they'd be coming out of the elevator Sam was watching like a hawk. He crossed his arms over his chest and rested the tip of one of his daddy's old cowboy boots, shined up especially for the occasion, on the floor as he continued to wait patiently.

The elevator slid open and three very large suited men - large in the way gorillas were large, and looking rather out of place in their suits - emerged. The one in the lead blinked at Sam. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, making as if to move right past him. "We'll have to ask you to go back down to the party. We have a minor situation that needs attendance on this floor."

Putting his best 'dumb country hick' face on, Sam smiled broadly at the flunkies. The longer he kept them talking, the more time he bought for the rest of the team to accomplish the mission. Though from the hulking builds of the guards, he rather suspected this was going to end in violence. Which was fine by him. Shoving himself off from the wall, he moved to the center of the hallway, slowly taking his tuxedo jacket off and hanging it over a decorative chair. Loosening his collar slightly, he sized up the three men. All very muscular, indicating a lot of time in the weight room, but none of them looked to be mutants, at least at first glance. "Ah'm sorry, gents, but Ah'm afraid that won't be happenin'," he drawled cheerfully. "Ya'll just purely did not get the memo, did ya?"

"... sir?" It was actually possible to chart the very large man's realization of What This Meant as understanding slowly dawned on his face. "I see," he said, almost dourly, and then nodded to his two companions. They rushed Sam, as if they'd just been waiting for a cue.

Unlike Logan, or even Scott, whose fighting styles could be fairly easily traced to Eastern martial arts, Sam's fighting style was probably best described as 'down-home barroom brawl'. Hence why he'd worn the boots. The tuxedo had been necessary to get in the door, but one could hardly expect to get a good brawl going in dress shoes. Stepping in as the first guard threw a haymaker, Sam blocked it and returned a punch to the solar plexus that had him whooping for breath. Continuing the motion, Sam brought his knee up to meet the flunky's nose, and the snap of broken cartilage could be heard throughout the hallway. As the second guard slowed his advance to a more cautious pace, Sam shrugged goodnaturedly. "Would it help if Ah told ya'll that Ah got an invitation from Mr. Shaw?" he asked rhetorically. Seeing no reaction, he smiled. "Didn't think so."

As his first opponent staggered back, attempting to stanch the flow of blood from his broken nose, the second guard came in with his arms spread, looking to establish a grapple. Given how much the other man outmassed him by, Sam didn't think that was a wise idea. Circling to keep all the guards in his field of vision, Sam was content to wait, continually buying more time.

Suddenly, the grappler roared and rushed Sam, trying to take the lanky Southerner by surprise. Except that Sam was no longer in the same place. He sidestepped neatly, and kicked sharply at the back of the man's knee, sending him directly at a small table with an undoubtedly priceless vase on it. Sam winced at the sharp smashing noise of the vase. "That's comin' out of ya'll's paychecks," he quipped.

At this point, the guard with the broken nose had staggered back to his feet, doing his best to ignore the blood trickling onto his suit. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a very distinctive-looking piece of metal and fitted it onto his hand, clenching his fist and grinning wickedly at Sam.

Sam merely quirked an eyebrow. "Brass knucks?" he asked. "Now that just ain't sportsmanlike at all..." And then, as the guard came charging in, with no windup at all, Sam sent the steel-reinforced toes of his daddy's boots into the man's groin. 'Always try to keep the fight fair,' his daddy had taught him, 'but if the other guy wants to cheat, you cheat harder.'

"Sir," the third guard said ominously, finally moving in as the second crumpled with a girlish scream, "I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to leave entirely."

The third guard had some actual fighting skill, but in the end, after a bit of crashing about and beating on each other, he was deposited neatly in a stack with the other two guards. As Sam dusted himself off, one of the serving girls came around the corner with an empty tray. Her eyes widened at the scene in front of her. Seeing her, Sam smiled. "Ah don't suppose ya could get me some of those tasty finger sandwich things they had downstairs?" he asked hopefully. With a short scream, the girl dropped her tray with a clang and ran off. Tucking his thumbs behind his belt loops, Sam sighed. "Shucks."

--



Kurt, standing guard at the top of the stairs, is very disturbed by all the noise, but stays at his post. He finds himself dealing with a determined young woman with a very familiar mutation.



There was a great deal of banging and crashing going on behind Kurt as he stood sentinel at the top of the stairs that led back down into the public area of the Club. Apparently, the subtle approach had very rapidly gone out the window.

He was paying more attention to the stairs behind him than in front, really, though he was still doing his duty as a sentinel. It was just the noise was very distracting, and more than a little worrying.,

A young woman appeared at the bottom of the stairs, frowning up at him. She was dark-haired and buxom, wearing a very expensive-looking wine-colored dress slit to the thigh. "What's going on up there?" she asked sharply, peering up at him.

"Nothing", he answered with a charming smile. "I believe someone was taken unwell. They do not wish to be disturbed." It was the best lie he could come up with on short notice.

She frowned as the unmistakable noise of someone making rapid and uncomfortable contact with a wall echoed down the stairwell. "I believe I'll take a look for myself, thank you very much," she said - and disappeared in a flash of light.

She reappeared several feet down the hall behind Kurt.

Kurt blinked after her, then sighed. "I think my colleagues would really rather you did not do that." And he teleported in turn, to a point beyond her.

Her blue eyes widened, then narrowed. "I don't believe you belong here," she said, almost in a growl.

"I have an invitation. Would you like to see it?"

Another crash. This time it sounded like glass breaking. "This is not reassuring. I believe I'll render you unconscious and inform security," the young woman said, as if she wasn't wearing an evening gown and high heels.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, already moving. "I believe I would like to see you try."

She quirked an eyebrow and came at him. She'd clearly had training, and good training, to judge by her grace even in her current garb. More to the point, she had also incorporated her teleportation into her fighting style. A couple of well-timed flickers brought her inside Kurt's guard almost instantly.

Her training was good, but his just about matched it. He'd learned long ago not just to rely on his mutation to get him out of trouble, and when she was inside his guard, it was just so much easier to get under hers.

"Definitely not someone who should be here," she said icily and slammed an elbow into his ribs before flickering back out of reach - and then to behind him.

He spun, gracefully, not letting her out of his sight as far as he could, trying to get his breath back. "I told you, I have an invitation." Someone screamed from behind him. The woman stopped dead, her eyes widening, and then whirled back in the direction of the stairs.

Kurt's expression was probably similar, really. But he had been given his duties, and he would do them. "I cannot allow you to do that. Really." He teleported to a point just in front of her and reached to seize her arm, hoping physical contact would prevent her from getting away.

"Let go!" She flickered out of his grasp, but only to a point a couple of feet away. "I don't recognize you and while that sort of thing might be going on at certain times, it wouldn't be happening in the middle of a major function!"

"No?" Kurt asked quizzically. "Even if that might be the best time to disguise its happening?" He tried to block her again.

She looked enraged. "I don't buy any of this. Get out of my way!" She came right at him this time, flickering to stagger her approach.

"I cannot do that", he repeated stubbornly, turning her own move against her and using the choking clouds to his advantage as well.

She seemed to only be a short-range teleporter, or surely, she would have teleported straight downstairs at this point. Coughing, she lashed out at him with a well-placed kick and then blinked to a point past him and stumbled towards the stairs.

Limping from the kick, he went after her again, 'porting close enough to her for a knockout hit to the back of the head. Being Kurt, he caught her as she fell, and glanced around for any conveniently open room to put her in.

--



What happened when the bedroom door closed? Matthews gets a well-deserved punch in the face, and Scott and Jean get a little violent.



Whether Jane or Jean felt it first would be impossible to tell, but one second her mind was safely her own and the next second the link with Scott wasn't being blocked anymore and Jean was once more paying perfect attention to what was going on, no longer huddled up in the corner of her cage. Jane's head whipped around, ignoring whatever Matthews had been saying as she slammed her shields as high as they would go. Not that it would help.

"Jane?" She looked like she was in pain - yet grim, too. Matthews frowned and looked at the bedroom door. Noise outside. "What the hell-" He got up and went over to open the door, wondering precisely what Shaw would have to say about someone making that much of a racket in the private living quarters...

... the door flew open, and Parker Matthews blinked at the man who stalked through. "I beg your-" Recognition hit at the same moment that Scott Summers's fist made contact with his jaw.

Jane was on her feet the second the door opened, backing away, and there was a TK shield around her as she stared at Scott. "Go. Away. Leave me alone!" His reaction to Matthews didn't even register.

Scott could feel Charles reaching through him, out to Jean. He had to buy time. Keep her from knocking him out or anything like that. His jaw clenched, he blasted her shield.

She caught a sense of another mind pushing at her, but she didn't have time to react before Scott was shooting at her, and while Charles was the greater threat in the long run, in the short run she needed to be alive to do anything, and deflecting Scott's optic blast took all her focus

They'd done this before. Just the thought was enough to make him falter momentarily, and the optic blast abruptly stopped, responding to the shift in his emotional state in a predictable, if unfortunate way.

There was an opening and Jane took it with a vengeance, slamming Scott back into the wall, too flustered for anything with any real finesse. Out. She had to get out of here.

Scott hit the wall hard, crumpling, but the darkness that crept in at the edges of his vision was momentary, driven back by a rush of panic as he saw her moving towards the door. He forced himself back to his feet and tackled her. No TK shield in the way, not this time.

"Fuck!" Once more she shoved out, trying to flip him off of her as she went down, but he was too fast and it took only a moment of skin contact for Charles to get the hold he needed.

#Scott.#

Scott, lying where she'd thrown him, closed his eyes and let Charles carry him along, into Jean's mind.

--



Contact, and Scott finds himself in his wife's mind, faced with no clear path and a very dangerous decision. In the end, however, Jean's decision is the important one.



Hiding was no longer an option; the X-Men were here, were coming for her, and Jane would be damned if she'd just lie down and give up without a fight. The breaking of the block on the link hadn't been a surprise, exactly, but it had fucking hurt, fighting to keep them out. But now they were here, inside her mind, and she couldn't just hide but hell did she want to.

The mindscape was dark, shadows wrapping around everything, covering over the pitfalls and traps that were hidden about - representations of a last ditch attempt to keep them, keep him out.

And the crying, so subdued and stifled these last weeks, had restarted in earnest as Jean grabbed hold of the first glimmer of hope she'd had in months. Throughout the darkness her voice echoed, directionless and lost but no longer hopeless. "Please, Scott! Charles! Please! Help me!"

"They can't," Jane's voice hissed from the shadows, "they mustn't."

"Like hell we 'musn't'."

It was a growl that would have done Logan proud. Except that it came from Scott Summers, or rather, the astral form of Scott Summers as he strode into his wife's mind, carried and supported by the mind of the man who had been a father to them both, in so many of the ways that counted.

Scott stopped, looking around. So many shadows. Charles was here, but not quite here. His attention was split too many ways. This part was up to him.

"Jean," he said - quietly, but his voice echoed through the darkness like a trumpet call. "Jean. Where are you?"

"Scott! I don't know. There's no here, here. I'm in the cage. Please, Scott, please!" Her voice trailed off, replaced by quiet sobs which echoed maddeningly about.

"You can't help me, Scott." It was Jane this time, her voice similar but so slightly different. "You can't do this. I earned this, Scott. She earned this."

"That's a load of self-destructive bullshit," Scott said steadily, "but color me unsurprised. That's more or less what this is about, isn't it?" He started forward more cautiously, in the direction where Jean's voice had first come from.

"Not just self." There was a definite threat to Jane's tone and she stepped out of the darkness behind Scott, hands held losely at her sides.

Scott turned and faced the spectre of the woman who was his wife and wasn't. Who loved and hated him, and if that wasn't a weird sort of cosmic justice, he didn't know what was. "You won't," he said. "You can't. As much as you want to, you can't." He reached out and grabbed her wrists, not surprised when it felt as real as if they were standing in the world doing this. "I should have known. Right from the start. But I let my own fears and insecurities get in the way, and maybe you'll never forgive me for that, but at least you'll get the chance to find out one way or the other."

For once, Jane didn't pull away from the contact. Instead, her free hand flew out, slapping Scott, hard. "Don't tell me what I can and can't do, and don't pretend you want me to forgive you. You don't care. You never did."

"I will never," Scott said, although the whole mindscape seemed to spin around him at the slap, "believe a telepath again when she tells me she can't lie mind to mind. You know the sad thing, Jean?" Not Jane. There was no Jane. He knew that now. Just Jean. Pieces of Jean. "You know that's a lie. You know that if it comes right down to it, I would do anything for you."

He didn't know where the words were coming from, now. "I would fight. I would not fight. I would leave, I would stay, I would bring you the fucking moon on a silver plate or kill myself trying. I would throw everything away and never regret it, if you were still there."

"I'm not Jean," Jane cried, a hysterical edge to her tone. "I'm not. You'd give the world to her, but I'm not her. I won't be." And now she did wrench her hand away, stepping back from him.

"It's too late. You are." Scott took a step closer, knowing he was pushing it. Not caring. "You've always been her," he said, almost gently, although it hurt, all of this hurt, but he couldn't think about that, not now... "You shouldn't be separate. You know that. It's why you're so angry."

"I'm angry because she stole my life. Locked me up in my own mind. Fed me on her darkest fears and hatreds. I'm angry because that's all I have. And it's. Her. Fault." She stepped back again, her face going cold. "And she knows it."

"It's a fiction, Jean. It's a convenient fiction, and you damned well know that." He turned his back on her. "Maybe when the two of you are face to face, like you should be, you'll stop lying to yourself."

Jane snarled at his back. "That's right, I'm a fucking fiction. My existence doesn't matter, never mattered. None of my thoughts or feelings or experiences are worth a damn. Fine." And she stepped back, vanishing into the darkness again. "That's what started this to begin with," she continued, her voice suddenly coming from all directions and none again. "Canada didn't matter. Anger and guilt and fear don't matter. Anything that comes between Jean and perfection doesn't matter. Great coping methods she's got, huh?"

Scott stopped, the words echoing around him like a cold wind. "I love you," he said, his voice more strained now. "I love all of you. And I never stopped, for an instant. All of you. All the broken pieces and the parts you don't want to show the world. Because you do the same for me."

"Don't. I don't want you to love me." How could it be both the blackest lie and the absolute truth at once? Jane didn't know what she wanted. "You shouldn't love me. I shouldn't love you. I'm not her, I don't want to be. All I am is hate. Why do I have to be her hate?" She sounded lost and, reflecting that, the mindscape was slowly desolving into confusion - there was no sense of direction, of place, although the shadows remained everywhere. But now it seemed they covered over abscences, places things ought to be that Jane simply didn't have.

Scott stared out into the darkness, and then closed his eyes.

And let go of the link with Charles, the supporting tether meant to show him the way back out. He had the sudden, dizzying sense of falling, even though the mindscape didn't alter around him and he stayed precisely where he was.

This hadn't been in the plan. This wasn't safe, not in the slightest. But he couldn't stand with one foot in the world out there and hope to reach her.

Couldn't hide behind walls and hope to reach her. Scott let go of the rest of it, of the defenses that after ten years of training were the next thing to second nature, and had the strangest sense of deja vu as he felt the ways of confusion and uncertainty and anger battering at him from every direction.

Except he'd... pushed, the last time, hadn't he? Not this time. No pushing. He was just going to find her, and Scott opened his eyes and started to walk, every step an impossible effort. He felt weak, thin and stretched like an old shadow. The headblind in the realm of the psis. He didn't even know what was holding him together.

Or maybe he did. "I love you," he repeated, almost in a whisper. "I'm not leaving without you. I'm sorry." I'm so sorry.

If the world could be said to hold its breath, it did as Scott released the link with Charles and began to walk forward. Jane knew that it didn't matter which way he went, as long as he kept going. The truth, no matter how she might try to deny it, was that this was Jean's mind and she was at its center - all roads led to her, and the cage, and Jane's death.

But for the moment she didn't rage, did nothing except watch, and even the crying had stopped.

It should have been more of a struggle. More of a fight. Had she been waiting for him all along? He had two eyes, here, and they were both blurring with tears as he walked. "What sort of a fairy tale is this?" he asked, his voice more and more hollow as he walked through the shadows and they stole away more and more of his substance. "Who am I, who are you, how does it end... Is it my fault, for seeing you on a pedestal for all those years? Making you feel like you needed to be perfect, just because I couldn't dream of anyone I could love more than I love you..."

"Fault, guilt, blame, anger, hatred, fear, frustration." The words echoed around, seemingly unconnected to anything but all clearly having been sparked by what he said as he moved further into her mind, away from that which is rational and sensible and into something closer to pure thought, instinct and reaction.

The world seemed to shiver for a second and then stablize. Jane said, "I can't answer. I can't say anything that doesn't hurt someone -that's all that I am. And if I start... You shouldn't have let go of Charles, Scott. It's not safe in here. Not for you. Not for anyone."

"I don't care." It wasn't defiant. Wasn't much of anything but a barely audible statement of the obvious. "If this is all I can do, then I'll do it. If you're nothing but anger, what do you think I am underneath it all?" Did he even know the answer to that question, anymore...

One food in front of the other. There was no path. Nothing but shadows, and Scott clung to his awareness of where he was, of why he was there. If he focused, if he found her, maybe that would be enough. If he didn't leave her. He never should have left her. "Not in the water, not in the dark..."

"Of course not." Her voice was dull, colorless. "Nobody cares, not about me. You want your beloved Jean back, everybody loves sweet, kind, lovely Jean. I don't understand it. Why? Why is she worth all this when I'm not? I'm nothing. I'm just plain Jane. There are holes in me - I've no past, less than two years total, and now you want to steal my future." She didn't seem to know what she was saying, or maybe she did and didn't know what she wanted to say.

Scott stumbled and fell, and couldn't get up. The ground was soft, the shadows shifting over him, cold and insubstantial and pressing him deeper and deeper into cobwebs. Sinking into bleakness that wasn't his, and a mixture of rage and panic flooded through Scott as he fought the downwards pull, ruby light erupting from his eyes, blasting the shadows away.

He was on his hands and knees, fragments of shadows spinning away from him lazily. "For fuck's sake, make up your mind," Scott rasped. "Fight me or give up. Don't try and kill me with guilt."

"Fine." Suddenly Jane was there, a nimbus of fire wreathing her that seemed to catch on the shadows and spread until the two of them stood inside an inferno. "You don't want to talk, we won't talk. You say I'm part of her, and you're here to make us face each other, but you don't want to actually deal with all this shit that you're going to force on her. If you succeed, what do you think it's going to do to her? Anger and guilt and fear and that's all I am, and you want to give it back to her. Well guess what, Scott. She doesn't want it. Why do you think I exist to begin with?"

"You don't think I want to deal with it? What do I have to do?" Scott hauled himself back to his feet and walked forward into the flames. It hurt. They didn't part for him, only grew hotter and brighter as a matter of fact, and he glanced down at himself, at his astral form, only once before he looked back up and met her eyes. No visible burns, but it was like there was a light shining from just under his skin and he wasn't sure what that meant, but it hurt... "For better or for worse," he gritted out, "for richer or for poorer... in batshit insanity and in health... lay it on me, Jean. Jane. Both of you! Why do you think I'm here?"

"Then deal with it," she spat back. "Deal with me killing you with guilt, deal with the anger that burns like fire, and the fear and the pain. You want to get to her, you can't just get past me, you have to go through me, and this is all I am - how many times do I have to tell you?"

He raised his hands, staring at them, white and incandescent in the flames. "Deal with you. Go through you. Tell me what you want."

"What do you think a mind is, Scott? This is me, every inch of it. You've come into my mind, and let go of your guide, your intermidiary. Now it doesn't matter which way you go, because everywhere is here is nowhere. Batshit insanity it is." And, because anger is passion, she stepped closer and kissed him, a kiss that was literally searing in its heat, and then she was gone once again and the world echoed with the sound of rain and the hiss of fires being extinguished.

Scott was on his knees again and not sure why. He looked up at the sky that wasn't there, closing his eyes at the rain. The rain in Spain fell mainly on the plain, but what did it mean when it fell in someone's mind? He shivered in the cold, but pulled himself back to his feet and kept moving onwards. Down what could have been a spiral staircase, deeper and deeper, until there was no sense of anything but her.

"I don't know what to do." His voice sounded hollow again. "I'm just... going to keep walking, all right? If you need to stop me, stop me. If you need to talk, talk. I don't know what else to do except keep going. I can't turn back."

"No, you can't." Jane's voice was once again without direction, but this time it seemed to carry a feeling that it was as lost as he was, without direction, without a home, nothing but an undefinable sadness to mark it. And still the cold, quiet rain fell.

"Maybe I can be your ghost. Haunt you, down here in the dark..." Definitely a spiral staircase. Would there be a bottom, somewhere? Or would he just keep walking...

"Join all my other ghosts?" And as she said it, a low whispering began, filling the area with voices just too low to hear, although they seemed to lack substance. It wasn't until several steps later that the other sound that the voices had been covering became clear -rain falling into standing water.

Scott stood on the shore of the ghostly, black and white image of Alkali Lake, and shook his head. "I can swim, you know," he murmured, and kept walking forward, into the water. "I chased you here in my dreams for months. This isn't anything new."

"No, don't! Stay out of the water!" But it was too late and there was a shriek of terror as what had been a calm lake was suddenly frothing madly, rearing up in swells that seemed to tower miles above Scott's head all out of proportion to any apparent cause.

"I'm not," Scott murmured, closing his eyes, "afraid." And he kept walking, listening to the roar of the water, tensing in anticipation of the impact - but not stopping.

The sound of the water crashing about him was unmistakable, and the screaming didn't stop, but there was no crush of water pushing him down. Instead, there was the far less physical but unmistakable sense of being watched, closely examined and studied, all but pried into.

He didn't stop, and Alkali Lake slowly, slowly melted away as he moved onwards, cautiously opening his eyes in time to see the monochrome image fade to an afterimage, and then away entirely.

The world was dark and featureless for the next few steps, and then all of a sudden there was a blindingly bright light in the distance in front of Scott, stabbing into his eyes, seeming to stab into him everywhere.

Scott raised a hand as if to shield his eyes, but it didn't help. "Jean?" he asked faintly. "Jane..."

Another few steps forward and the brilliant white muted into a dull, golden shine reflecting off the bars of what for all the world looked like a bird cage. And huddled into the far corner, face buried in her knees, was Jean.

And Jane was standing behind Scott now, hands clasped behind her back in a remarkably defenseless posture, watching him intently. Somehow, she managed to be standing in shadow even in front of this glowing cage.

Scott reached out hesitantly, touching the bars - and immediately withdrew his hands with a gasp. Cold. Colder than ice, colder than anything he'd ever felt, so cold it burned.

"I don't know what to do." It came out sounding desperate, lost, as if all the determination that had gotten him to this point was just gone. What Jane had said was lingering in his mind, or what he thought was his mind - was he Scott, or just an echo of Scott, at this point?

"Do you not want to come out?" he asked hoarsely, his eyes locked on the woman in the cage. "Really?"

"I... I don't know how." Jean's voice was small and sounded so very lost. "I don't know how to face... everything. Everything I've done."

"You don't. Not by yourself. We do it together." His voice broke. "If you want... only if you want." Scott reached up and folded his hands around the golden bars again. "I'm not leaving," he whispered, shaking as the cold seared through him. "No matter what you decide."

There were a few moments of silence before Jean finally looked up, shaking slightly, tear stains evident on her cheeks and a hopeless look in her eyes. But it was Jane who spoke.

"Why don't you hate me?"

"Because..." It wasn't an answer. Scott slid towards the ground, not letting go of the bars, not letting go of the pain. Her pain. She didn't get to keep it to herself anymore. He'd promised.

He'd promised.

"Because I've seen hate, and ugliness," he muttered, what little was left of his conscious thought splintering. Astral death, he thought suddenly. He knew the theory. "I've... seen it in the world, and I've seen it in me. And now I see it in you. But that doesn't mean... the beauty's not there. That... the hope, isn't there."

Jane stepped forward, the shadows still surrounding her even as she stepped closer to the light of the cage. "Break the lock, Scott," she said softly, before Jean had a chance to respond. "She doesn't get to choose this, and she doesn't get to deny me it. One actual choice of my own. There are too many holes in me, and she's hidden from her pain too long."

Break the lock. Open his eyes. See. Just see, finally, see all of it...

Ruby light flashed outwards and disintegrated the lock, and the door to the cage swung open, even as the golden bars themselves started to melt away, vanishing. Scott's grip vanished and he fell.

The cage gone, Jean was free, and though she didn't move, not yet, between one instant and the next she did what Jane hadn't, what Jane couldn't because she didn't understand her own powers, and Scott's astral self was shielded, separated from the overwhelming psychic pressure of being fully inside another mind.

The mindscape shifted wildly as Jean once more took control, and still she didn't stand, simply eyed Jane warily as the shadows that surrounded her deepened, almost hiding her from sight. "Do I want... Do you...?"

"Doesn't matter," Jane said, stepping closer. "This ends now."

"Yes, you're right." And then there was only Jean, screaming as she collapsed onto the floor of her room in the Club, fully aware again of the chaos around her for the first time since Scott had entered her mind.

There was someone else screaming. Parker Matthews was on his hands and knees, not far from where Scott had fallen to the floor. He was clutching his skull, pain and shock written all over his features as his powers boomeranged back on him for the first time in his life.

"J-Jane," he stammered.

"No," Jean gasped, "not Jane. Not anymore. Never again." She looked up at him, eyes blazing with emotion as she repeated it. "Never. Again." And then she was reaching out with her powers, shredding the parts of his mind that controlled his powers so completely that even Charles would never be able to repair it. She wasn't aware of his screams doubling in intensity, or of suddenly ceasing as he lost consciousness, wasn't aware that she'd pushed herself back to her feet and was standing over him, or of the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Never again." It was the barest of whispers this time.

...not Jane ... never again... On the floor, Scott stirred, pushing himself up to his hands and knees, coughing at the taste of blood in his mouth. Not understanding why he felt so detached and strange. Why his mind was so quiet.

Because Jean was standing right there. "Jean...?" he whispered, blinking to try and bring her into focus with his eye. Crying, she was crying. "Jean... don't cry, it's okay..." He hauled himself to his feet, staggering like a drunken sailor and nearly going back down again.

"It isn't," she whispered back, sounding hopeless. "It won't be, ever again. How can it." She was shaking like a leaf, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

"We've... got to go," Scott said, trying to concentrate, to listen to the coms. Tottering a little, he went over to her, sliding an arm around her waist. "Come on," he said raggedly, pulling her towards the door. "Home. We have to go home."

"I can't. I can't." She was shaking her head as she said it, but she didn't resist his pull, clinging to him like a lost child. "Oh God, Scott, what have I done?"