Broken Stone (Scott, Charles, Jean), 2/2

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After arriving back at the mansion, Scott goes to see Charles to report on what happened with the girl in New York. The conversation turns unexpectedly difficult, and some things are said that have needed to be said for quite a while now. Afterwards, Scott goes upstairs to Jean, still wrestling with some very uncomfortable realizations.


Scott wasn't entirely sure why he was making his report in person. Would have been just as easy to file it in the database, let Charles read it at his leisure. Easier, maybe. Almost certainly the better idea on a lot of levels, but that knot in his chest was getting tighter and tighter, and had been ever since he and Terry had gotten in the car to head back to the mansion. He had to get this done, get the report made and get it over with, so that he could walk away from the situation and get his head back together, get on with the thousand and one other things that needed to be done.

He just wished he knew what he was going to say. He stopped in front of the door to Charles's office, knocking.

"Scott, please, come in," came the call through the door. As Scott entered, Charles favored him with a puzzled smile and a look that, after this long, didn't need the slightest hint of telepathy. "You haven't presented your reports in person for some time now," he observed. "What happened?"

Scott opened his mouth - and then closed it again abruptly, his jaw clenching and his expression going flat. He went over and sat down on the opposite side of Charles' desk before he answered. "The girl," he said, "is in the hospital. We got there just as the ambulance was pulling away. She tried to kill herself. Pills," he said, the words clipped. "Apparently she heard her parents talking and thought they were sending her away because she was a freak."

Charles sagged in his chair, looking suddenly tired and old. "I'm . ..very sorry to hear that," he said simply, and sighed. "Do you know .. .is she expected to recover?"

The reaction should have made Scott pause, realize that he wasn't the only one who was shaken by the incident, that Charles had seen this sort of thing far, far more than he had... but it didn't. Perspective just wasn't coming. "They got to her in time," he said, the tightness in his chest growing. "Pumped her stomach. They were sleeping pills, so there might be complications, but the doctor was hopeful."

"Thank goodness," Charles breathed, a few of the lines in his face easing. "I'll telephone her parents tonight to express my best wishes for a speedy and full recovery." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again the concern in them was focused only on Scott. "How are you holding up, in all this? We've been lucky, these past few years. I dared to hope this kind of problem was a thing of the past."

"How am I holding up..." Scott shook his head once, pushing the question away. "Terry talked to Miriam's little brother at the hospital," he said brusquely. "The parents were busy having hysterics, and there the kid was, wondering if when he hit puberty his eyelids were going to fuse together and he'd start to hear everything in a three-block radius."

"That's seldom an easy conversation even in the best of circumstances. I'll be interested to hear from her later. But Scott . . ." Charles' gaze managed to become more penetrating without becoming sharper. "I can--and will--ask Terry about Terry. For now, I'm asking about you."

"Why?" It came out sounding more like an accusation rather than the rhetorical question he'd intended it to be. He'd intended it to be a rhetorical question, hadn't he? Struggling to keep his voice level, he went on. "There wasn't anything anyone could have done." Except gotten there sooner. Left an hour earlier, and what had he been doing during that hour, anyway, the hour that would have made the difference? Paperwork? Something pointless like that... "I'm sorry it happened, of course. I hope she'll be all right."

"But you wish you could have arrived sooner," Charles said softly. "And no matter how many times you tell yourself that you did all that you could, it still tastes like a lie in your mouth. I . . . I'm sorry, Scott. If I knew the answer to that guilt, I might sleep better myself."

"Right," Scott said, and his voice sounding flat and odd even to his own ears. "And no matter how many times this happens, we still soldier on and go looking for the next. Because that's what we do." Why was he even... feeling anything about this? Indulgence. Absolute self-indulgence, and he should know better than that by now. "The parents are feeling a little guilty at the moment," he said, deliberately changing the subject again. "Her mother doesn't think they ever should have called us in the first place. Not a unqiue reaction, I suppose."

"No. I hope to be able to reassure her, at least somewhat, when I call." Charles paused for a moment, the age creeping back into his face. "I have to believe we do more good than harm, even on days like this. That the children we do save justify making the attempt, even knowing we will not always succeed." He gave Scott a wan smile. "Though such platitudes ring more than a little hollow, just now, I know."

And there it was. Charles and his ability to face things like those hollow, useless platitudes and yet still keep going, still want to believe that they did more good than harm. Scott shook his head, more in agitation than in denial, and reminded himself that he was supposed to be giving his report and leaving. Getting back to the paperwork. Or something. Anything.

"That was about it." His voice was not steady this time, not at all. "I managed to give the doctor our card, so that he could get in touch with Moira or Amelia if there were any odd medical issues, due to her mutation. He seemed receptive."

"Everything taken care of, as always." Charles smiled sadly. "Scott, I--I know that I ask much of you, rely on you, in so many ways. If I ask too much . . . if I have pushed you too far, too fast, after everything that's happened . . ." He trailed off. "I suppose I'm not used to the feeling that you'd rather be doing anything other than talking to me."

"Don't," Scott forced out, paling, his posture in the chair suddenly rigid with tension. "Don't... you make this about me," he went on, irrational anger stirring at the sad concern with which Charles was regarding him. "I am doing my job, and I'm doing it properly." Angry. Angry and terrified, suddenly. If Charles was calling him on it, he might decide... no, there weren't going to be any forced vacations. There weren't. "I do what I can for these kids, all of them. Whether they're trying to kill themselves or I'm sending them in to fight by themselves... I make the decisions that need to be made, even when it means saving bigots and leaving fellow mutants to d-die--" Wait, what the hell was he saying? "I have been handling 'everything that's happened'," Scott went on with a sudden rush of bitterness, his hands shaking. "You don't get to question that."

Charles shook his head. "I am not questioning your ability to do your job, Scott. I know that you will always . . . do what needs to be done." He paused for a moment, then continued softly. "And perhaps that is where I've failed you. You give of yourself to help others, and I have always been proud of you for it--but you do not count the cost to yourself, Scott. I've often thought that perhaps if I'd . . . tried differently, known more about what I was doing . . . perhaps I could have taught you not to use yourself up." He dropped his eyes. "Not that I'm a particularly shining example myself, when it comes to that distinction."

Scott's breath caught in his chest and for a minute, he couldn't answer. He finally pushed himself up out of the chair and went over to the window. Anything to buy himself a little distance. He folded his arms to hide the unsteadiness of his hands, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest. "Don't. Please." His voice sounded a little strangled. Where had all the anger gone? The tension was still there, though, and even worse. "I don't... that's not important." He didn't deserve that level of consideration, not when what he 'gave' was so insufficient, so much of the time. "I'm fine. It was just... upsetting, the girl. I didn't know she was blind because of her mutation when I went in, and it hit too close to home."

"It is important," Charles insisted. "You don't have to efface yourself to do your job. You are allowed to be upset. You are allowed to have issues that hit too close to home. You are even," he added, sighing, "allowed to be angry with me, if you need to be, for sending you into that situation when a few minutes' more research might have told me how hard this would be for you. Cyclops does not come first for me, Scott. Nor Headmaster Summers. Scott does. And there are days I wish to God he did for you as well."

First Cain, now Charles... saying the same thing. The irony of that should be funnier, it really should. But it wasn't. "I don't have to efface myself to do my job," Scott repeated, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. "Right. Sure. Because I do such a damned good job at being Cyclops and Headmaster Summers even when I do efface myself! I really need to be screwing up on a more regular basis, and that's precisely what I'd do if I stopped to think about how I feel about any of these goddamned miserable situations!"

He took a deep, shuddering breath, telling himself to calm down, get control back, but the repeating mantra wasn't working. "I'm always not seeing," he said raggedly. "Not seeing, not getting there in time, not understanding what's going on underneath my nose... how many things have I missed right here at the school? How many times have our kids landed in the infirmary, or wound up dealing with the aftermath of one horrible trauma or another? How many times have the people I care most about suffered because I didn't do enough, because I didn't pay close enough attention to what was going on right in front of me?" He laughed, and it was a strained, strange-sounding laugh, edged more than a little by hysteria. "I have this list, you know? I go over and over it in my head, and it keeps growing, no matter what I do."

"How much pain might have been averted," Charles continued, hands fisted on his useless knees, "if I could have just moved faster. . ." He shook his head. "I'm . . . passingly familiar with the argument. It can't be answered by trying to do more, be more, work harder. You can only break your heart, trying."

"And what the hell does it matter if I do?" Oh. There was the anger, a distant part of him registered. "Is anyone going to notice?" he demanded, turning on Charles, his own hands clenching into fists at his side. The anger would have been close to volcanic if it hadn't been so bitter. "I'm supposed to be the strong one - you should know that, you put me there! They expect me to be able to put what I'm feeling aside. And when I start showing the strain, people start giving my coffee thoughtful looks and every time I turn around I expect to wake up in the fucking infirmary again because someone's decided I need a time-out!"

He wasn't shouting, not quite, but his voice was wild as he went on. "And you have the gall to sit there and tell me I should put myself first... what happens if I do, Charles? I either do a worse job than I'm doing now, or I leave Ororo to do it by herself, and you made damned sure I'd never be able to live with either, didn't you? You put me in this spot, and I've done everything I can, but it doesn't work! It never works! It's never enough, and either I break my heart trying or I hold back and hate myself for it, and there's nowhere that's safe, there's no place I can stop for a minute and rest..."

He sounded irrational. He sounded irrational, and on the heels of that realization came a second. He was shouting at Charles. He was blaming Charles, lashing out at the only father he remembered, and it was so unfair. The last piece of proof that he wasn't coping, and Scott staggered back against the wall, sliding down to the floor.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking as he let his head fall forward, resting on his knees. His real eye stung, and he squeezed it shut. "I'm so sorry... that's so unfair, I don't know what's wrong with me..." The self-loathing was so strong suddenly he nearly choked on it, but a sob wrenched itself loose, and more words came on its heel. "I hate this... I can't stand it, Charles, I'm so afraid all the time and I try not to hate myself for everything I can't do, but it all builds up and there's no place safe to feel it... everything I should do is always there, everyone who needs me..." Watching. All the time. And wasn't it fair, that they expected him to fail, when he'd done it so often?

Charles was out from behind his desk and at Scott's side as quickly as the chair would let him, reaching out to lay a trembling hand on the other man's shoulder. "Scott . . . son . . . there's nothing I would like more than to help you through this, help you find a way back to yourself. But I . . ." He bowed his head, voice throbbing with pain. "I can't, this time. There are . . . there are many excellent reasons why members of my profession don't treat the people we care for. I've bent that rule in the past, when there was need, but now .. . I might do worse than fail to help. I might only hurt you more, Scott, and I couldn't bear that."

Scott rubbed at his eye, trying to breathe past the impossible tightness in his chest and not quite managing it. "I've got to... " His voice cracked and he tried again, forcing the words out. "I've got to f-find someone who can. I can't do this, Charles." Tears were escaping as he admitted it, but for some reason he didn't feel the slightest bit of shame, either for that or for the admission. Just desperation, and if it was selfish, then it was selfish. "I can't go on like this. The school, the team... I don't want to stop, but I can't keep going, not like this. I'm going to w-wake up one morning and there's not going to be anything left of me."

"It's not too late," Charles replied, his hand tightening on Scott's shoulder. "We can get you the help you need--I can make you a referral, at least, in good conscience. Several of them, if necessary, until you find the right person--or if you'd prefer to look on your own, I have a few excellent directories. Whatever you need, Scott, that's in my power to provide; I wish it were more."

Scott gave a shuddering sigh, wiping at his eye. "Just... promise me you won't give up on me," he said, his voice breaking. "I can do this. I want to do this." He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead for a moment, fighting for control as a wave of something alarmingly close to grief swept over him. "I remember what it was like, having faith that I could make a difference. I want to feel that again. So badly." It had made all of it worth it, all of the stress and work, for so many years. Where had it gone? Why had it gone, when the X-Men were doing so much good?

It didn't make any sense. His life had stopped making sense, and pretending otherwise wasn't going to work anymore. Hadn't ever worked in the first place.

"Of course I promise, Scott," Charles said firmly. "I will always believe in you. And I know that you can learn to believe in yourself again, with time and help. You will."

--

Scott was out on a pickup and Jean had been spending most of the day in the suite. The kitchen could not actually get any cleaner, but she had tried. It was getting late, though, and he still hadn't come back, and even though nothing could have gone wrong, it was just a pickup, perfectly ordinary... she was starting to get antsy.

Before she could contemplate re-scrubbing the inside of the microwave or anything similarly redundant, the door to the suite opened and Scott walked in. His usual brisk stride had turned into a weary near-shuffle, and his shoulders were slumped. His real eye was reddened, and he raised a hand to rub at it as he closed the door behind him. "Hey," he said, his voice low and hoarse and broken. "I'm sorry I'm so late..."

The sound of the door opening had her turning with a smile, but the smile vanished as she took him in. "Scott," she said, starting towards him. "What's wrong?" Jean didn't even try to fight her first impulse to wrap her arms around him and hug him tight.

"Oh, God, where would I start?" he said with a shaky laugh, holding onto her and blinking rapidly as his eye blurred with tears. "The girl I was supposed to pick up tried to kill herself an hour before we got there."

"Oh, Scott..." Closing her eyes, Jean held him tighter, rubbing his back.

"She's going to be all right. They think. I went in thinking her mutation was enhanced hearing, and it was, but her eyelids grew together, Jean. She got the super-hearing, and lost her sight, and I just..." Scott squeezed his eyes shut, shaking. "I'm having a failure of coping skills here," he breathed raggedly. "Really am. I shouted at Charles. I..." He stopped himself, biting his lip. "I want to sit down," he said somewhat distractedly, but didn't let go of her, drawing her over to the couch with him instead. He really didn't want to let go of her.

Jean was more than willing to be clung to and she curled up next to him on the couch, keeping as close as she could without actually sitting on him. "It'll be okay, love," she said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I talked. To Charles." He shifted on the couch, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. "That's not a no. I just... I don't know if I have any words left." Tears were sliding silently down his cheek, and he leaned his head against hers for a moment, trying to slow his breathing down. "I'm not coping, Jean. I told him that. Said I needed help."

"All right," she said, reaching up to carefully brush some of the tears off his cheek. "We'll get you that. We'll get you whatever you need."

"I'm so sorry." His voice cracked again. "I tell myself I should have it more together... that I want to have it more together, for you. But I think..." He swallowed again. "I think this isn't... recent, all of this." It was as close as he could come to telling her outright that her problems weren't the issue here. "I don't look at the world right," he said more softly as he shifted again, as if trying to get as much of his body in direct contact with her as possible. "Have to work on that..."

Jean turned and pressed a kiss to his temple. "It's all right," she said again, "you don't have to worry about me, not now."

"I love you." His voice cracked again. "I was trying to think on the way up here, to remember the things that make sense... the things I don't doubt." Scott gave a sad little laugh. "It's a very short list." His expression broke with pain for a moment, but he leaned his head against hers again and just concentrated on breathing for a moment.

"Shhh, shhh." Jean ran her hand up and down his arm. "I love you too, so very much."

"Do you remember... that week we spent in Costa Rica? What's that.. four years ago, now?" Scott asked a bit disjointedly. It had been the fall before Alkali Lake. Four years, more or less. "We stayed in that little lodge, in Arenal. Remember, you could see the volcano from the bedroom window." He smiled a bit shakily, squeezing his eyes shut. "And you kept poking me in the ribs all night because I wouldn't go to sleep, because the volcano kept rumbling in the background..." And then she'd decided that she needed to wear him out, so that he would sleep.

It struck him that he was rambling, and she probably had no idea why he was bringing up a vacation from four years ago, right now of all times. "I just... I want to remember these things," he said a bit brokenly. "I knew how to stop and smell the roses once upon a time. I don't know when I forgot."

"I don't know either," she said, holding him close. He'd always worked hard, sometimes too hard, and had to be encouraged to take breaks, but they'd been real breaks, times when he wouldn't think about work or worry about everything. "Maybe we can work on that? Practice rose sniffing?"

"I think that'd be good." He sounded like he was on the verge of tears again. Maybe he was. Was that a bad thing? "I remember you laughing at the monkeys in the rainforest that week when they stole your hat..." The memory was as clear as crystal in his mind - Jean laughing, her uncovered hair damp with sweat and her smile huge as she shook a finger at the monkeys screeching at her from a nearby tree with their prize. "I'd like to see you laugh again like that, you know..."

Jean closed her eyes for a moment, trapping the impending tears behind her eyelids. He sounded so lost it tore at her heart. "I'd like that, too," she whispered. "We could go back," she suggested. "Or somewhere else. You never did see how brilliant green the forest was..."

"We never did have our honeymoon, you know." As soon as the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back, afraid of how she'd interpret them. But instead of pulling away, preemptively giving her space he didn't know if she wanted, he clung to her more doggedly, shaking. "I'm sorry," he said wildly, "I didn't mean... not throwing that in your face, I'm not, it's just... we deserve that, don't we? Just... time to be Jean and Scott."

"I know. Shhh, it's okay." Her arms tightened around him. "I know. We... We definitely deserve that. I think we kind of need it."

"Ecuador." Scott was feeling dizzy and exhausted, and the only thing that seemed solid was her. Probably not healthy. Did he care? No. "Remember, looking at those brochures when we were... when we were planning. Because it was mountains and forest, and not ridiculous amounts of water..." And it was hard to plan a vacation when Jean, when they both liked warmer climates, but Jean didn't like water.

Jean nodded. "I do. It looked beautiful."

"The idea," Scott said hoarsely, "of going away with you... it feels so right, you know? Not the leaving. Just... being with you." The tears were getting the better of him again, but it was so important that he said this. "We're still them. The Scott and Jean that did things like that. Whatever's happened, we're still them." It didn't make any sense, or maybe it made all the sense in the world, he wasn't sure.

"We are. Always. No matter what." She moved one arm just far enough to reach up and turn his head to kiss him.

He kissed her back eagerly, almost desperately, but the tears were still coming when they came up for air. They were, he thought somewhat hazily, almost tears of relief more than anything else. It was like the conversation with Charles had shattered all of his defenses and all the tension, all the poison that had been simmering away beneath the surface, was flowing away. He felt light-headed, scared but not in that horrible tense, inwardly-directed way. More like he was standing on the edge and so unsteady that a breeze could tip him over.

"I need to make a list," Scott whispered, still holding onto her. "A different list. All the things I've forgotten to do, that I've missed... I need to remember who I am." Or find out, he thought, remembering what Cain had said. But he'd had answers to those questions once upon a time, hadn't he? "Do you remember my sax?" He started to laugh suddenly, softly but wildly, and the tears coursed freely down his face. "I want to find out where I put my sax. It's the stupidest thing, it really is..."

Jean blinked at that, startled, thinking back. "God, yes, I do. You were terrible when you started, you really were. Quite good by the end, though. And we can find it, I'm sure. Or get you a new one, if you want. Although, hell, I bet it's somewhere in the mansion. And who knows what we'll turn up if we go looking..."

"Might be interesting. Scavenger hunt. We could find all kinds of things we'd forgotten." He couldn't stop shaking. Her arms were steady, grounding, but he felt like he was collapsing inside, like there just wasn't enough to hold him up anymore. "I'm so tired," he said, barely audible. And he was. It was like all the fatigue he had been pretending he wasn't feeling for months had caught up to him all at once, and there was no more putting it off. "Come to bed? Please? I just... I want to hold onto you and not think so much. Just for a while."

Jean pressed her lips together, nodding. "Of course. Bed it is. Come on." She seriously considered just lifting the both of them into the bedroom, but she really didn't think she had the control just now - a little too shaken up by everything.

He needed her help to get up, but once up was steadier on his feet than he'd expected. "I remember when I loved all the parts of my life," Scott muttered as she steered him towards the bedroom. His throat closed again, but he forced the words out. "I'm so tired of looking at all these things I used to believe in like they're... chores, or a prison sentence." He raised a hand and wiped at his eye. "Duty's not faith," he said, and it sounded nonsensical, but it wasn't.

But Jean did understand and she gently squeezed his hand. After all the things Jane had said and thought about Charles and the dream, she more than understood.

The parallel struck Scott an instant after the words were out of his mouth, and absurdly, he smiled. "Isn't that funny," he said with an exhausted, hurt-sounding little laugh. "Not funny hah-hah... you know what I mean..." And she did, he thought. She really did. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh, rubbing at the scars on the side of his face for a moment. Parallels. Maybe that wasn't so funny after all. Maybe it was only to be expected. They'd both been doing the job, chasing a dream, for so long.

Scott wiped away a few more stray tears as he looked up at Jean, and then smiled again. It was a warm, slightly wry, understanding, tender smile, and for the first time in too long, the love in his expression didn't have the slightest edge of hopelessness to it.

Jean smiled back, thrilled to see it but saddened by all that they'd had to go through to get to this point, then leaned over to kiss him softly. "Come on, love," she said. "Let's get you out of the trousers, then you can sleep."