Log: Jean and Jamie

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

After Haller leaves, Jean gets another visitor who can emphasize just a tad too well.



He was going to have buttons made, Jamie thought as he walked down the hall. Or maybe T-shirts. And maybe it was about time decoder rings made a comeback. Or maybe he'd just start watching everybody for signs that they might be developing a split personality, and lock them in the Professor's office if they did. That might work.

Instead, he stopped in front of Jean's door, took a minute to clear his head (or at least dump the less-helpfully confused bits in one of his other ones) and knocked.

Haller had been a good start. If it hadn't been David behind the door the first time, Jean really wasn't sure she could continue opening the door. But it had been, and she could. Really she could.

"Jamie, hi." Her voice was somewhat subdued, but she didn't look that badly. Somewhat pale, maybe - she hadn't actually been out of the suite in almost two weeks - but not bad.

"Hey," Jamie replied a little lamely. "Just wanted to come by before, y'know . . . the crowd. I mean, going by experience, you're probably gonna run into about even numbers of people who're gonna try to tell you it wasn't your fault, and people who're gonna try to kick your ass for self-pity on the theory that you need a short sharp shock, and people who are just gonna forgive you full stop and it doesn't matter if you nuked a whole planet, and they're all really hard to deal with. I guess I just wanted to say, you're not the only one had to reintegrate a crazy split personality on the fly after crazy-fragment-you already hurt a whole lot of people you care about, so if you want somebody who's been there to talk to, or not talk to, or whatever, I'm volunteering." He snorted wryly. "Though if Haller was just coming from here, you probably heard all that already, and I'm really gonna have to sit that guy down and have a talk about this whole accidental doubleteaming thing we seem to have going on."

Ok, bursting into tears in front of a student was a bad idea, even if he wasn't a student anymore and hadn't ever been her student and thinking about it really wasn't as effective as she'd hoped at stopping the tears which were welling up in her eyes. Jean swallowed tightly and managed to say, "Wow, cut straight to the heart of it there, didn't you. Looks like we've got another fun thing in common, hey?" The tears weren't falling. That was good. "Come on in."

Jamie ducked his head in embarrassment as he entered the room. "Sorry. I wished sometimes, when it was me, that everybody would just quit talking around the issue and treating me like they were afraid I would break, when that was the whole point, I had, and I was still walking around, and there wasn't much of anything left that would be worse than what I'd already survived." He snorted again. "But yeah, I am kinda wondering if I can start charging royalties for my trauma."

Jean shook her head. "No, it's ok. I... There's something refreshing about the shock. At least it's something else to think about it. And hey, patent the recovery method and you could make a mint, at least around here."

"Hah. I don't think my method would be very popular. Somewhere between the nightmares and the hallucinations and the passing out and the conversation with the piece of me I'd murdered it just kinda stopped being fun." Jamie shrugged. "And now I guess I'm not all that sure what to say. Only, well, here I am, I've been sort of where you are, I'm not there now . . ." He scratched his jaw sheepishly. "I guess, maybe is there anything about it that's really giving you hell, maybe I can offer some perspective?"

There really wasn't any nice way of saying this, Jean decided. And maybe that meant she shouldn't say it at all. But... Jean turned and walked over to the window, staring out at the grounds as she answered. "I read the mission reports, Jamie, and the journals. Magneto created Skippy. He was forced on you. Nathan was brainwashed. Malice and Kwanon were external personalities. I created Jane. It's not that she's a new thing I have to deal with. She didn't become me. She started as me. Where's the persepctive in that?" She swallowed again, then turned back. "Although, as an aside, you're right, we need t-shirts."

"The mission reports and the journals don't have all the details," Jamie said shortly. "To start with. And to go on with . . . one of the things my reintegration process forced me to recognize was how much of Skippy wasn't made by the torture. How much was already there, buried and waiting for an outlet." He took a deep breath. "And the perspective is . . . eventually you remember that there's other parts of you too. That the parts you show are just as important as the parts you don't." He grinned wryly. "I sometimes wonder if maybe you psis forget that easier than the rest of us--too used to looking past what people say and assuming that what they're thinking is the real truth."

"I'm sorry." It was automatic, more a response to his tone than his words. But the words were getting in, slowly. "I... I don't really know how to cope," Jean found herself saying, although the immediate follow-up, You shouldn't have to deal with this, was quashed. Jamie was here by choice. He didn't have to, he was offering. "I don't know if I know how to chose what to show and what not to anymore. I'm... confused doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Well, it's kind of an unbalancing thing to have happen. Y'know, just a little bit." Jamie tilted his head back, thinking. "It helps to just take the time and take stock of yourself. That's hard, though, when you don't think you'll like what you find . . . it's easy to just coast along, one day after another. You have to work at it. Figure out who that person is in the mirror and what you actually like about them." He snorted. "Sounds easier than it is."

"Which is alarming, because right now it sounds impossible." Liking herself was... It wasn't that she didn't think she would like herself, it was that she didn't. But that was the coward's answer. And maybe she was a coward. It didn't help that she was arguing with herself, either. Jean sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have posted on the journals yet," she said, half idly. "I still don't know... anything. Still having these..." psychotic mood swings... "Still confused," she amended.

"Heh, you're doing better than I did. The day Skippy attacked the mansion I got into an argument with Shiro about whether or not killing dupes counted as murder." Jamie shook his head. "And the mood swings are the worst. I dunno how Kitty put up with me, honestly. It takes time, and you might not see it yet, but trust me, that is not an oncoming train at the other end of the tunnel. Really."

Jean smiled at that, although it was a small smile. "Ah, but I had Lorna's fine example to guide me, and the knowledge that, while I may want to be crucified, it's not that likely. Although at least I never had to deal with Manuel."

Jamie chuckled. "Okay, that I envy you. Granted, I didn't get the high-flying moral outrage out of him, but I did get a snit about proper gratitude. He always was his own special little snowflake, emphasis on flake." With a half-shrug, he added "Also, martyrdom? Definitely overrated. Not, I guess, that I should really have to tell you that."

"Oh, yes, has it's drawbacks. Although there were good things about being dead. I only thought I was crazy when I was dead, instead of actually being crazy." And it was talk like that, denying what had happened, surely that was how this started? But she didn't have the energy to go around being serious about it all the time, couldn't she make a joke. Where was the line. What was the difference between being silly about it and trivializing it? And what happened if she did? Hell.

"Yeah, it's really easy to underestimate the value of a nice solid lack of confirmation. Or maybe that should be a nice spongy? I can never tell." Jamie grinned, then cocked his head, pointing a finger at her. ". . . But damn, I wonder if I'm this good at faces on people who I don't have trauma in common with? You are totally second-guessing the one-liner there. And, okay, maybe the biggest piece of advice I can give you? All the second-guessing, constantly watching yourself to see if you're backsliding, over-thinking everything that comes out of your mouth or crosses your mind . . . you can really toast your brain with that. The best way to figure out who you are is just . . . stop asking yourself who you are. Just be you, and, like, reserve fifteen minutes at the end of the day to do the taking stock, but don't worry about it until then. The grin came back. "And while you're working on that, be glad you're not me. I actually caught myself stalking myself one time, making sure I wasn't doing anything hinky. Boy, was that embarrassing."

Jean snorted, amused. "Ah, but in theory I can watch what everybody else thinks to see them going 'is she doing that because of Jane?' Loads of fun." And now she was just being self-pitying, and doing it theoretically at that, since she still wasn't willing to lower her shields.

Jamie snorted. "You don't need the telepathy for that, believe me. I was so thankful for Lorna--she never met Skippy, didn't have a point of comparison--and Kitty, who just didn't compare us. But I found, after a while--and I dunno, maybe it's different for you--that other people second-guessing me was just really, really irritating. It was when I was doing it to myself that was the real killer."

"Maybe," Jean said, shrugging slightly. "Maybe it will change. Right now... Right now it still feels like I have to, that if I don't watch everything then... then it will happen again."

"Aah," Jamie replied in enlightened tones. "Early days yet. Don't suppose it'd help if I said I don't think it will?"

Jean arched an eyebrow. "Would it have helped you?" she asked wryly.

"Not the first time. Or the second. Or, really, any time but the last." Jamie gave her a thoughtful look. "I had to tell myself, before I believed it. But after that, it helped that other people didn't think so either. So, y'know, save it for later."

"Well, tell you what, then. When I get there, I'll come look you up and you can say it again." She smiled, and it was a real smile, although there were hints of sadness in her eyes.

Jamie nodded firmly. "I'll hold you to that." He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging look. "It doesn't always hurt this bad. Someday you'll look back and . . . well, not laugh. But not break either."

"Not breaking would be a nice change, I admit."