Log: Jean and Lorna, backdated

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Lorna makes her threatened promised visit. And, in the way of these things, there's tea.



The little silver tray was set with a polished til gleaming tea set and bone china so thin it was nearly translucent. A little basket sat covered by a cloth napkin and other covered plate rested next to that. Lorna balanced the whole set on one hand as she rapped sharply on the door to the Summers-Grey suite. "Open up, Jean. Room service."

Jean looked over at the door. Part of her really, really wanted to pretend she wasn't there, despite the obvious stupidity of such a suggestion. Maybe it was all the people yesterday, maybe it was just one of those days. Maybe it was that it was Lorna. Somehow she didn't feel up to this. Sighing, though, she stood and headed over to open the door. "Afternoon, Lorna."

"Good afternoon, Jean." The name just barely escaped being a question. Lorna smiled and lifted the tray, "I brought scones and tea. It's peach gold blend or some such nonsense. Smells wonderful." Lorna stepped forward like she didn't doubt for a moment that Jean would invite her in.

And, indeed, Jean stepped out of the way, gesturing the other woman inside and waving her towards the coffee table and couch. "By all means, take a seat. Do you need anything from me? Spoons, sugar, the like?"

"It's all on my tray of wonders." Lorna set said tray on the coffee table then sat down, crossing her legs. "You don't have to play hostess. Come and sit and have some tea. We can chat a bit about things."

Jean's look was flat as she took a seat across from Lorna, leaning back in her chair. "Sounds lovely."

"Oh, you flatterer. Cream? Sugar?" Lorna poured Jean a cup of tea, "Really, you should be looking forward to this. I mean, how many other people in the mansion actually know what you're going through right now?"

"Both, please. And five. Well, Betsy's not actually here at the moment, but she's already offered a listening, potentially compassionate ear. Six if we include Pete, although I don't think he counts, and, again, he's not actually here." Huh, so this was the perverse streak Jane had been tapping into.

"Five? Wow, I guess I hadn't realized we'd gotten up to that number. We're a basketball team. With subs even." She added cream and sugar to the tea and handed it over then started to arrange a plate of scones taken from the basket and still warm from the oven, adding a dollop of cream. "So there you go, we're an elite bunch the seven of us. Would you prefer cranberry or chocolate?"

"Hey, we've got Jamie, we could easily field a baseball team. And chocolate, by all means. You're right, the tea smells fabulous."

"Good point." The plate was handed over as well before Lorna fixed her own tea--very little sugar, no cream--and plate of scones--two, cranberry, also no cream. "Of course, you and Jamie, it's a bit different. You met Malice, we weren't the same person. Even if she did bring out the worst parts of me."

Jean nodded. "True. Jamie also had some significant help - as Malice said, Magneto considered Skippy a success."

"He considered Malice a success too. I was the failure." Lorna sat back and sipped her tea. "So how much are you crucifying yourself right now? I'm guessing from the post that it's quite a bit. I remember I was pretty convinced of my unworthiness when I made my post like that."

"And that's because he's a megalomaniac psychopath, but we digress. The short answer is, of course, lots and lots. The depressed answer is 'lots and lots and I deserve it'. Or is that the emo answer? Both, maybe. I can also give you the denial if you like, 'I'm not crucifying myself' or the denial special 'I'm not crucifying myself and I don't understand why no one else will'." And she really needed to stop with the humor-as-a-cover because it didn't work and it was edging rather too close to the truth. "And, clearly, we also have the trying-to-distract you answer."

Lorna's smile seemed to indicate she knew just how close the truth was, just a bit understanding, just a bit bitter and just a bit amused. "Good thing I'm not going to be distracted. Obviously, I'm also not here to tell you how abused and used and wronged you were." She sipped her tea. "When I got back, there were...a great many people who told me that's what I was. Abused, wronged, victimized. Except for Manuel who told me I was a murderer and a sadist. I sort of appreciated it."

"I remember," Jean said, finally sipping at her own tea. "Makes me glad once again that, for the most part I stayed out of that. Perspective being a bitch and all. But I, for good or for ill, have no Manuel. Hell, even Betsy's being sympathetic, which, while it makes sense, is still... vaguely odd. Although I'm glad Manuel never met Jane. I don't know what would have happened. He'd probably have tried to sleep with her. He'd probably have succeeded." And did Lorna know about Bobby? Jean really didn't know who had seen that damned tape, or who had been told what. Which was disturbing.

"Proving that we all have incredible lapses in taste at times." Lorna shuddered any way, more than a little grossed out by the thought. Malice, for all her faults, was at least fanatically loyal to Sabretooth. "I don't know. Maybe it's too recent for me to really have a great deal of sympathy. Like I said, I'm still kind of miffed that I didn't hit you when I had the chance."

"I know," Jean said, "and, for all that it's not worth much, I'm sorry about what I said. Feel free to hit me anyway. "

"Oh hell no. I'd feel too guilty if I did. And then Scott would pound me to dust which would not do anything for my ability to fit into the dress I found for prom." Lorna nibbled on a scone and appeared to be pondering something, "Of course, he didn't pound Bobby so maybe I'd be allowed to live." Unsubtle as a brick but, honestly, they were sitting sipping tea. Subtlety was already dead.

Jean sighed deeply, sounding almost relieved, although whether or not it was because Bobby hadn't been hurt or because she know knew that at least Lorna knew, even she wasn't sure. "I'm glad to hear that," she said, looking away. "It wasn't Bobby's fault, although I know he's not going to think that."

"Oh, I don't know. I think it's a little bit his responsibility. Not that I don't think it was mostly Jane's fault. Mitigating circumstances for him and all that but really, he did have a choice even if it wasn't much of one." Lorna shrugged, "See, I have this theory. We don't like to assign people the responsibility they have in any given situation because we're afraid that blame is finite. Except that it's totally not. You can be 100% at fault and he can still have a share." She'd been thinking about this for a couple years now but that didn't seem pertinent.

"But if it wouldn't have gone any other way, regardless, does he really have a choice?" It was, Jean admitted, a fairly academic question. She shrugged. "And I can't say no one can blame him - I certainly can't say he can't blame himself. Just that I don't."

"If it had gone any other way, probably not. I didn't say that his choices didn't suck all around. Just that he clearly had a mental lapse." She sipped her tea, "Everyone has choices. Scott could have killed Bobby instead of killing his room. That would have been the wrong choice. Bobby sleeping with you? Definitely the wrong choice. Me not slugging you when I had the chance...well, jury's out on that one."

Jean shrugged. "As you will, then."

Lorna took another sip of her tea then set it down, "Tea is gross. Why do people drink it?" She frowned at Jean, "So I've done 90% of the talking here. Your turn."

"Because we're not all coffee addicts? Because it can be soothing? Why do people do anything, really?" She looked back at Lorna, her gaze level. "And what shall I talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know. Something that you don't want to talk about. Something that you don't want to admit." Lorna nibbled at her scone instead of going back to the tea. Coffee was so much better.

"I don't much want to talk about anything, so that doesn't really narrow it down. Not really used to company yet. As for things I don't want to admit..." She trailed off, considering the middle distance. "Well, why? What do you want to hear? Are you looking for an excuse to hit me anyway?"

Lorna thought about it. "Maybe a little," she answered honestly. "But really it's because admitting it...you really hear the truth of them once they're spoken. Sometimes they're worse than you feared but most of the time, they aren't."

Jean was silent for a good while, thinking. Finally she said, "Thing is, it's not really... For the most part, I didn't do things that I need to purge my soul of, or whatever. I... I think... It's just..." She stopped and scowled. "I don't have the words for this. Jane didn't do things. She broke every heart she came across anyway she could, but while I was working with some real shits in Hellfire, I wasn't involved with any of their serious work. Shaw didn't trust me. And broken hearts... it's personal. I can't talk to you about what I said to Moira or David or anyone except you. Because it's personal."

"So tell me about what you said to me then." Lorna twirled a lock of hair in her fingers, looking younger than her years. "What did Jane think that she didn't say?"

Again, Jean paused before answering - it wasn't just the slight vulnerability to Lorna's look that stopped her, although it may have influenced the direction her thoughts ended up going in, and she didn't answer Lorna's question straight away. "I saw Jamie yesterday," she said instead. "Getting the whole round of people who can empathize, it seems. Said that the things we show are as important as the things we don't. Seems the inverse is true - the choosing not to say or do things is pretty damn important. I would nev..." She stopped herself, then went on. "I wouldn't have thought I would ever do or say something to hurt any of you. Turns out I was wrong. So now I don't know. But... do you really want to know what she thought?"

"There were a lot of things I though I wasn't capable of, before Malice. Killing someone in cold blood, for example." She dropped the lock of hair and shrugged. "Yes, I want to know. Even if it hurts--hell, maybe especially if it does."

Jean took a deep breath, then nodded. "Pushy bitch is the obvious one," she said rather bluntly. "And that you were overconfident for someone who's broken so often, has so many buttons to push."

Lorna's lips quirked, "Well, you've gotta have a gimmick."

Jean almost smiled at that before going on. "You're also too easy to read," she said, "both psychically and not. Especially given how much you dislike psis. I'm afraid I know rather more than either of us really wants about your problems with Alex and Remy."

"Aw, and Jane passed up the opportunity to hit those buttons. Gee, Jean, you really do love me." Lorna reminded herself that she'd asked for this. Also that she needed to go back and work on her shields. "Actually, I kinda consider myself too easy a target. It's no fun for people to tear me back down. It's like kicking the fat kid's sandcastle over at the beach. No challenge in it."

Jean looked away at that. "I can't argue about it not being terribly challenging," she said. "Probably wouldn't have even sought you out but you found me and insisted."

"Well, I insisted. Finding you was an accident." Lorna's lips quirked, "I was updating my will, actually. Needed to make sure someone was in charge of Lili." She looked down at her hands, "What's it like? Having that piece of you fractured off?"

"I... kind of didn't notice," Jean admitted. "Part of the problem. I wasn't willing to acknowledge all of this... all of this nasty shit that was just building up. I'd hide it away, pretend I couldn't feel it, until I was pretending so well that I wasn't feeling it. But that didn't mean it had gone away. And... having all of it back, I can't understand how I didn't notice it was gone."

Lorna keep her gaze firmly on her hands and her mind firmly blank, speaking without dwelling, "I guess there's a certain amount of mental discipline in it. Repressing until the repression becomes more true than the things repressed. Do you...do you think that it was made worse by the expectations here? Because people had made you sainted while you were gone?"

"Maybe, but... I wanted to live up to them," Jean said. "I wanted to... to not have lost two years, to not have missed everything. To not have let everyone down."

"Well, obviously. That's just the way things are, you want to make people love you." Lorna flipped one hand then rested her chin on it. "I just wonder...the thing with Malice--we were only sort of separate. She wasn't whole on her own, I'm sure you remember. But there were things that were her and not me. But the parts that she was leaning on...I don't really like those. And they don't seem to have really gone away." She smirked, "As Jane noticed."

"Mmmm," Jean said, nodding slightly, wondering where Lorna was going with this.

Lorna wasn't sure herself. Just thinking out loud really. "The same isn't really true for Jamie. He had problems with Skippy but...that was different. If you re-integrate with Jane...what happens? Are you like me, harder, bitchier and brittle or are you Jamie?"

"I don't know," Jean admitted, "but it's too late for 'if'. Now I just have to... find out. Figure out who I am."

Lorna nodded. "Yeah. If you figure out how to do that, share with the rest of the class, okay?"

"It's a deal," Jean said.