Scott, Terry and Jean, Saturday

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Terry's strategy lesson with Scott gets off track when Terry brings up their respective spouses and the issue of forgiveness. Afterwards, Scott goes back to the suite and he and Jean talk.


"...around to the backside of the target instead of a frontal assault. Blocks the avenue of escape and puts our best tracker closest to the target's blind side. Gets him in further." Terry glanced up at Scott as she finished explaining her set up in the virtual landscape. Her calm, authoritative tone broke then into the more unsure voice of inexperience, "Right?"

Scott tilted his head. "That's assuming that escape's what the target has in mind," he said after a moment. "We don't know how he'll react to being cornered, and that's pretty tight quarters in there. We could potentially suffer some casualties."

"That's the other reason to have Wolverine in closest. He and Rogue can take the most damage without being stopped." Terry tried to sound confident despite the fact that she was positioning her teammates in a way that could get them very hurt. "He's more of a flight risk with the information. If he fights back, at least he's not escaping with the files."

Scott shook his head very slightly, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "That's a very... hardcore, take no prisoners approach, Terry."

Terry nodded. "Aye," she agreed and hesitated. "It's the most efficient though. Finishes everything quickly, subdues the target with the least threat to bystanders and gets the information back. He's got a psi-blocker, you said, aye?"

Scott nodded, but went on. "Take what you just said apart for a minute, Terry. You've made three statements about the situation -established three priorities. Only two of them are real priorities, however."

She frowned down at her simulation, "Time isn't a priority?"

"Sometimes. Not always. Here, it's the retrieval of the information with as little collateral damage as possible." He glanced down at her. "So, if I tell you to take your time... how do you adapt?"

She was silent for a long time then reached down and drew a new plan into the scene. "Herd him. Spook him this way and draw him away from the inhabited areas, run him til he's ragged. We've got the superior manpower, it's easy enough to get him away from the point where he's a threat and just wait for him to drop. It'll take a long time though."

"Which we have. Friendly country, remember, and we're there with the approval of the local government. If that was different, time would become a pressure, though." Scott sighed a bit. "Rushing always gets people hurt," he said after a moment's pause.

"Mr Summers..." Terry started then stopped, not sure what she'd been about to say. "You didn't give me a full roster to run the team. You left off a lot of members."

Scott snorted softly. "Terry, we have a lot of members who aren't available for active duty. The team is understrength -it is entirely possible that if something happened tomorrow, we'd have to go into a situation without sufficient manpower."

"You left off Phoenix." Which was what she hadn't said in the first place.

Scott stared at Terry's scenario for a moment, then went on evenly. "Yes, I did. She's not been back for all that long - I assume that she'll be back on active duty soon, but she isn't yet."

"With her back, it changes things." There was tension in Terry's voice, beyond even her usual iron control. She reached down, plucked a couple of markers out of the scenario. "You put her in here and you don't need Cable. And you can leave Iceman out too."

"One telekinetic is good. Two are better - we have twice the protective power for bystanders, with two people who can shield." He replaced Nathan's marker, then picked up Bobby's. "And perhaps you'd like to explain to me," he said quietly, "why we should leave out Iceman?"

Her blue eyes were suspiciously bright as she looked back at him, chin raised a little defiantly. "Because this is my mission to staff. You said so."

"That's not what I asked you." His voice was still soft, but harder than iron. "I asked you why we should leave out another X-Men with the ability to strike nonlethally from a distance."

"He's not needed with her there and we've already established that they've got the power without him," she responded flatly, her arms crossed, hands gripping her elbows. "And I don't want him near her."

Scott leaned back in his chair, his jaw very slightly tight but his gaze level. "And that matters... why?"

Terry took a deep breath. "You said... You told me that part of building a good team is considering all the aspects. Not just powers and how they interact but the personalities too. The histories. Don't pair Polaris with a telepath. Rogue and Wolverine make a good team... Iceman shouldn't be working with Phoenix. It weakens the team."

"We don't pair Polaris with a telepath because she has a good reason to be uncomfortable with telepathy," Scott said impassively, "and don't think I haven't regretted the fact that that gets in the way of her and Cable working together like they used to. Recognizing strengths, like Rogue and Wolverine, or Juggernaut and Cable, is a good idea. Pandering," he said, a bit of a bite in his voice, "to your husband's guilt is not."

A shiver ran down Terry's spine, not out of fear but out of anger, "It's not Bobby's guilt I'm concerned about," she replied, managing to keep her voice level only because she had phenomenal control over it. "I don't want her around him. It's distracting and upsetting and...and it's not him I'm worried about."

"Explain to me why, then," Scott said. "Who you're worried about. Why something that was done when my wife was out of her mind and your husband was an idiot should have any impact whatsoever on how we deploy a team on a mission. The team," Scott said, "and the mission come ahead of what petty personal crap any individual member might be cherishing. You'll notice I still go on missions with Logan."

"You still blame him. For all I know she still blames him." Terry was rapidly losing her cool. That was the downside of having a quick Irish temper. "And it was her fault. Mr. Haller doesn't try to claim that he isn't responsible when his alters do things so why isn't Jean? She's the one who seduced him. And putting them together means that he's got to deal with the double burden of his commander hating him and facing the woman who didn't take no as an answer!"

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'it takes two to tango'? I realize that the incident may have been a little too awkward for you two to talk about-" However much good it would have done you before you went ahead and got married. "-but I think you need to accept that Bobby was as responsible for what happened as Jean. She did not force him to do anything. And if I can command him in the field and be objective about it," Scott pointed out, "he can damned well put aside his personal feelings as well. Also, Terry?" There was a trace of anger in his voice as he went on. "You're not a mindreader. Don't presume to know what Jean or I feel about the situation."

"We've talked about it. I wanted to know." She bit off the words sharply. "Tell me that you weren't punishing us, that first session. Tell me that you don't avoid him whenever you can. Tell me that putting them on a team together won't twist you up just as much as it would me!"

"I was proving a point to you, that first session," Scott said, biting off the end of each word. "The two of you blew me off when I asked you if you'd given sufficient thought to what it would be like, serving together on the team. You needed to think harder about it."

She could feel herself shaking and tightened her grip on her arms. "But I'm right about the others. You blame him and you don't like him." Her voice broke and turned anguished, "He's been your student just as long as I have and he looks up to you every bit as much as I did and you can't get over the fact that he made a mistake and let your wife talk him into something that he didn't want to do."

"What do you want from me, Terry?" Scott asked. Instead of the half-dozen other, more hurtful things that he could have said.

She looked down and bit her lips against a gasping sob, squeezing her eyes closed to quell the tears. "I want you not to hate him," she said quietly in an effort to hide the way tears thickened her words, "You're important to us both and this is killing him. If you can forgive her, why can't you forgive him?"

'It's a guy thing' is not an appropriate answer, Summers. "Answer your own question, Terry," he said, more quietly than before. "Turn that very logical mind of yours to the problem. Jean may have taken full responsibility for everything she did while she was... away, but she was attacked by a psi, which brought out the alternate personality and left it in control. What reason did Bobby have to do what he did? You know he had a choice, whether you want to admit it or not."

She still didn't look up, focusing on the controls for the table, blurred though they were. "I broke up with him. Because of the baby. He was a wreck and...he wanted someone. Anyone for some comfort. And...she's a telepath. One who didn't care about the ethics of reaching into someone's head and pushing all the right buttons." Terry glanced up quickly, "He said no. He swore to me that he'd told her no. I'm not saying she forced him. But he wasn't there because he wanted to sleep with her."

"Then tell me something. What, precisely, is the difference between me still being angry with him, and you being angry with her?"

Terry's head whipped up, tears tracking down her flushed cheeks, "Everyone protected her!" she said forcefully, just shy of a shout, "'Poor Jean! Out of her mind! It's so awful how Bobby took advantage of her!'"

"Terry... very few people know what happened," Scott said levelly. "I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that Bobby's been broadly painted as the villain of the piece."

"It doesn't matter! You think it! Don't you get it? That's what matters to him. Everyone else could absolve him and it wouldn't matter. You still hate him." Sniffling, Terry fisted away tears and turned away. "I hate seeing him hurt."

"Of course you do. You love him." Scott looked back at the carefully constructed scenario. "I do wish you well, Terry. However I reacted, when I found out... I want you to be happy."

"I can't," she said without looking at him. "Not if he's not. I can't make his brother be a less bigoted asshole. And I can't make you forgive him. And those things are both hurting him and I can't make it better."

Scott flushed and looked right at her. "So I'm supposed to forgive him so that he can feel better about himself. That's what you're telling me."

She shook her head, red curls spilling over her shoulders as she did so. "I'm just trying to keep him from getting hurt even more. I can't make you stop hating him. I can keep him away from her. That's...that's all I can do. Just try to protect him."

"If I can look him in the eye, treat him as a teammate, if Jean can do the same, and I think she can... why should he get away with less?" Scott asked tightly. "Do you know one of the reasons I was so angry at him, Terry? Because I had to put aside my own feelings to try and... to give him some measure of..." He was stumbling over the words now, his hands shaking as he drew them back from the table. "I've forgiven him as much as I can," he said, rising. "I treat him as a teammate, I respect him as a teammate, and a fellow member of the staff..."

"But not as your friend. Even though you've known him for seven years," Terry finished and sighed, wiping her eyes. "I need to go, Mr Summers. I have a test to study for. Finals. I'll finish up my analysis for this and put it in your box."

"Some things do not get wiped away simply because it's convenient and the people who did them would like to move on," Scott said heatedly, although the anger in his voice was at odds with the hurt in his real eye as he turned for the door. "And damn you for trying to make me feel guilty about being angry about this. You could have saved yourself an awful lot of words here, Terry, and just told me you felt it was time that I sucked it up."

"I WANT YOU TO STOP HATING MY HUSBAND!" Power shivered at the frayed edges of her shout but no more. She slumped against the table, "He loves you. You're...your good opinion means everything to him. And you can't forgive him this so he can't either. And I don't have anyone to blame for that but you and her. And...so I do. I'd rather have you hate me than him."

"So now we come right down to it," Scott said bitterly, turning back. "If I don't forgive Bobby for sleeping with my wife, you can't forgive me. That's very honest of you, Terry, thank you. He is your husband after all. For better or for worse, forsaking all others... his needs should come first." He leaned forward slightly, so that they were at least a little closer to eye-level. "And being able to suck it up and move on is what you expect from me - logically so, because you're used to me putting everyone else's needs ahead of my own. I can't even really blame you for that. It's not like I haven't been doing it for as long as you've known me."

"I'm not asking you to forgive him. That's just what I want." Terry tilted her head back so she could meet his gaze squarely, "And I want to not have to avoid his name around you. And I won't have to take off my wedding ring when I come to training sessions with you." She jerked her left hand up between them in illustration, her fingers naked though a pale band of skin encircled her ring finger, "I want there to be a way that I don't have to pretend that I don't know that the reason Bobby won't pick a third groomsman is because he wants it to be you. That's all. It's just what I want."

"You don't have to avoid his name around me," Scott said. "And I never asked you to take off your ring around me. The two of you are what you are, and I will repeat," he said harshly, "that I would be perfectly happy to see you two live happily ever after." As unlikely as he thought that was. "Contrary to what you seem to believe, I don't actually want you to be unhappy, Terry. I'm not punishing you. Or him."

There wasn't much he could say to the third thing, there. Except... "And maybe if he'd talked to me the way you're talking to me, he wouldn't be looking at a wedding day where he feels like he's missing something. But he didn't. He never has. He'd prefer to avoid it, leave the responsibility all on my shoulders. He wanted that right after it happened, and as far as I can see, he wants the same thing now."

"Mr Summers..." Terry sighed and bit her lip, "Bobby's not like me and you. He doesn't like to make trouble. He won't confront you about it. He'll just stay out of your way. When I tell him about this, he's going to be mad at me. You know what he's like. Stupid honest and no good at defending himself. So he's trying to hide the way this makes him feel. Even from me."

"You keep fighting his battles for him, and yours is not going to be a happy marriage," Scott said bleakly. "Take that as advice given in good faith, Terry."

Terry looked down, tucked her hair behind her ears. Her voice was soft, barely audible really, "I...I just don't know what else to do. How can I just stand by and let it happen? When I know that it's only going to get worse?"

"... Terry, I can't speak for whatever else you're worried about, but I don't hate him. I'm not going to start hating him. And what you can do," Scott said, "is remember that you married a man. Not a boy. And a man is responsible for dealing with the effects of his actions on others." He smiled a bit faintly. "In other words, you're his wife, not his mother. His equal and partner, not his protector."

She nodded and sniffled again. Her hand dug into her pocket, fingers wrapping around the band of silver. "I'm sorry for shouting at you, Mr Summers. I shouldn't have done that."

Marriage advice from me. What is the world coming to. "Apology accepted," Scott said more quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder for a moment. A year ago, he would have brushed off the need for an apology. Funny that this was progress. "Just... maybe give Bobby a little credit, for being able to sort these things out himself." Maybe. Sometime. "Maybe it'll inspire him to do that."

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just about to get in trouble for meddling." Terry gave him a half-smile. "Guess I'd better go face my husband. I'll put my analysis in your box. I think the first plan is still better. Time might not be a priority but the sooner the information gets back the better the case can be built against them later."

"Sometimes time simplifies things. Makes them easier." He wasn't talking about the analysis. "I should go, too. Have a Danger Room scenario to supervise." He headed towards the door again, then paused briefly. "You can't always fix things for them," he said more softly. "Try and learn that a little earlier than I did, all right? Much easier that way."

--

When he got back to the suite, Jean was sitting at the kitchen table, leafing through a few very glossy and obviously new science textbooks. "Hey," Scott said shortly and went over to the couch and sat down, wincing as his muscles protested. Des appeared out of the bedroom and jumped to the back of the couch, settling down beside his head and purring loudly. Scott ignored her (well aware he was liable to get a swipe upside the head for that) and stared pensively at Jean.

"Hi," Jean said, glancing up with a smile but not really taking her mind out of the book to which her gaze quickly returned. Well, at least this new text wasn't complete rubbish, which was an improvement over the last bio text she'd had to use. Jean had felt the need to start that term with the disclaimer 'This is your textbook. It's an outline. Everything we'll be studying does come from the book, and we'll be using it for problems, mainly. Trust me, don't go there for explanations of the material. If you have questions, come talk to me personally.' It hadn't been a good year.

But, a few minutes later, the knowledge that Scott was sitting there, staring at her, and that that was not a happy mindset he was trying not to let her notice percolated through her brain and she looked up to meet possibly one of the most woeful gazes he'd ever turned on her. And that was saying a lot. Closing the text she cocked her head at him. "What's wrong?"

"I just had... quite the conversation with Terry," he said after a moment. "I-" He flushed suddenly, folding his arms across his chest and looking away for a moment. "Well, there was yelling. From her, mostly."

"Which, when it's her, can be a baaad thing." And, then, if yelling was involved it probably wasn't really what could be termed a 'conversation'. Proping her chin on her hand, Jean asked, "But what were you arguing about?"

"Her poor hard-done-by husband." Scott smiled a bit thinly. "I may have forgotten to mention that she and Bobby got married accidentally in Vegas a while back."

"Oh holy God..." The urge to bury her head in her hands and laugh hysterically was, Jean suspected, actually a hysterical reaction. She could feel herself mentally back-pedalling from this conversation. Scott. Arguing with Terry. About Bobby. Husband and wife. Yes, there was nothing there that could possibly make this a fun conversation. "Accidentally? How do those two get accidentally married? I mean, he certainly wouldn't have been drunk..." And Terry had gotten much better about that.

"I gather it's a long and amusing story." Scott shook his head slightly. "That wasn't really what we were arguing about," he said more quietly. "Apparently I'm a bad person for not being ready to clasp Bobby to my metaphorical bosom and tell him bygones can be bygones. Terry actually informed me that the reason he won't pick a third groomsman - they're having a 'real' wedding at some point fairly soon - is because he wants me to be it, and can't bring himself to ask, because apparently he knows I hate him." It was as close to a deadpan summary as he could manage.

Oh yeah, definitely a winner on the painful conversation scale. She got as far as, "Ah," before words failed her. Jean managed to keep her eyes on Scott and her breathing steady, insted of, for example, fleeing the country, which was progress. Definitely progress.

He looked up at her, his jaw tight but his gaze level. "I think I talked her around - a little, at least," he said. "Pointed out that she needed to let him fight his own battles. That's something she needs to learn, and not just in this situation. I reminded her that she's his wife, not his mother."

"An important thing to remember, yes," Jean said slowly. "Although I can definitely understand the... urge to protect against all comers." She paused. "And what started the conversation?"

"We were doing a tactical review. She informed me that putting you and Bobby on a team together would be destructive to morale." Scott paused, staring at her for a long moment. "Would it?"

For a brief moment her eyes were filled with pain, but then she closed them, breathing in deeply as she reached for and found the deep calm of the monastery and her gaze was level again when she opened them to meet his eyes. Another breath and then Jean said, "I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to forgive myself for what I did to you, or him, but I've managed to make peace with that pain. The past becomes the present, and what happened is part of who I am now - I can either accept that, or make myself crazier. And I've had enough of crazy." She nodded slightly. "I can't speak for him, or Terry, or you, but I can and will work with, or around, or through the... the pain or whatever," each addition seemed to fracture her calm a little more and she stopped, then started again, steel in her voice. "I'll work with it, because I don't accept the alternatives."

Scott swallowed past the tightness in his throat. "I can work with it," he said hoarsely. "I told her that. I don't... want to dwell on it. I haven't been." There had been so much more that needed attention, these last few months. "I'm angry at her, if this makes sense, because she dragged it all back up again. She and Bobby are starting this new life. You're back, and I want us... to do the same," he persisted, forcing the words out. "We deserve it as much as they do. Our life got... interrupted." His eye was stinging, but he went on doggedly. "Maybe I'm not as big a person as I should be here. I don't know, and right this second, I don't really care."

"I really don't think there's a 'should' here. Honestly? I think expecting you to be... that this should be in any way easy for any of us is stupid beyond measure and for her to want you to just put it behind you or whatever... Fine. She can want that. Doesn't mean it's going to happen simply because she wants it."

"I've put it as behind me as it's going to get. I love you," Scott said, "and I don't want to live in the past. But I'm also not deluding myself into thinking that we can all go back a year." You'd think Terry and Bobby wouldn't want to do that. "I thought you should have a heads-up, that she was thinking that way," he said tiredly. "So you know what you need to work through, or around..." He went to push himself up off the couch and stiffened, leaning back into the cushions.

Jean was about to reply when she noticed the arrested motion and caught a brief, very quickly covered flash of... something. "Scott..." she said slowly, eyes narrowing as she focused exclusively on him, "what's wrong?"

"Apart from the whole conversation?" he asked wearily. Bizarrely, it didn't cross his mind that he was blowing off the question. The muscle pain had become almost like white noise in the background, almost always there to at least some extent.

"Yes, apart from that." The almost buzz she'd been picking up from him ever since she got back was suddenly seeming clearer as the strange physical reaction clicked in place with her medically trained telepathic sense. "Why are you in pain?"

Scott turned an interesting shade of red as he realized what she'd picked up. Oh, shit. He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. "Okay, there's a question without a good answer... I just am, Jean. Amelia's run all kinds of tests. It's psychosomatic. Apparently it's not uncommon for torture victims-" He barely stumbled over the words. "-to have this sort of chronic pain."

"Ah. Yes. That explains... some things." Not why he hadn't mentioned it, of course, although Jean could understand why, possibly. But that would be why she couldn't find a source for the pain.

"It's not a big deal most of the time. Just soreness." He rubbed at his shoulder. "Gets worse when I get tense, and at nights... I feel like an old man when I get up in the morning these days."

Which she'd missed since, through a combination of time zone confusion and monastery habit, she'd been waking up before him for the first time in the entire time they'd known each other. Getting up, Jean crossed the room to stand behind him, hands on his shoulders in a tacit offer of a shoulder rub, which she waited until he nodded at her to start. "Okay. I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner." She paused, then mentally shrugged to herself. "What are you doing about it?"

"Not much these days. Frequent hot showers and lots of exercise," he said with a sigh. They'd just gloss over his little flirtation with painkiller addiction. She really didn't need to know that. "Amelia tried to talk me into massage therapy, but when I nearly took the poor man's head off I sort of decided that wasn't a fruitful avenue to follow."

Jean arched an eyebrow at that, but he couldn't see it. "Well," she said, "that you and I could do, if you wanted and would be comfortable with it. I'd need to do some research, but I know a couple of people I could talk to..."

Scott couldn't help a smile, what felt like his first one that day. "Encourage you to put your hands all over me? Oh God, no. What a horrific thought." He looked back over his shoulder at her, the sparkle of mischief in his eye turning into something more serious and somewhat awkward as he met her eyes. "I have pretty much gotten over most of my weird reactions to things. I don't stare at the shower anymore like it's going to eat me. But I think that was just pushing it a little too far, with a stranger."

Pausing in the massage, Jean leaned down and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him from behind. "Hey," she said, "you don't need to explain, especially not to me. We'll go with what you're comfortable with."

"Thanks," Scott said softly, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing out, trying to let some of the tension go with it. "I do love you, you know. Despite everything... sometimes because of everything..."

"I know," Jean said, just as softly. Turning slightly she pressed a kiss to his temple. "I love you, too. We'll be okay. It may take a bit, but we will."

I believe that. I actually, really believe that. Looking around at her, Scott just smiled. "I distracted you from the textbooks," he said. Not at all repentantly.

"You did." She matched his smile. "I think I'm probably supposed to scold you about that, but I'm far more tempted to thank you. Says something, doesn't it."

"I'm more fun than textbooks?" Scott laughed suddenly and shifted around, sliding his arms around her. "There was a time you wouldn't have said that, Ms. Bookworm."

"Yes, well, I was young and foolish. Besides, those were my textbooks. These are just the textbooks I force on poor, unsuspecting adolescents."

"I have great admiration for your priorities these days." It was said jokingly, but... well, there was a certain amount of truth in it, too.