Shadow King: West End Girls

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Jeannie's just hanging out, and at least this time when Terry comes across her insane ex-teacher she doesn't get her heart broken.



Jeannie had been seriously weirded out by the 'diskman' one of the girls had lent her, and it had taken quite a while for her to figure out how to work it, although it was way cool to be able to just skip around instead of fast forwarding and rewinding all the time, but, after hunting down some real music, now she was perfectly content. Sitting sideways, legs thrown over one arm of the chair and her head tilted back over the other, she jiggled her feet in their neon striped socks in time to the music. "Hey Mickey, you're so fine... you're so fine you blow my mind... Hey Mickey, dun dun, hey Mickey..."

The singing and the music out of the headphones was loud enough that it caught Terry's attention in the hallway and she wandered into the rec room to find the source. It would have been impossible to miss anyway what with the eye-searing day-glo of the singers attire. Terry wished for sunglasses briefly. Or maybe a blindfold. Or a camera for later blackmail. "Doct....er, Jean?" She didn't really actually need to ask what the hell was wrong with her.

If Jeannie hadn't been hanging over the side of the chair, with the corresponding view of the doorway, she probably would never have known someone had come in - if she'd been rocking out with her eyes closed it would have been even more embarrassing, but as it was she blushed bright red when the girl came into the room and sat bolt up in the chair, pulling off her headphones. "Um... hi. Sorry."

Terry waved back with a sort of baffled amazement. "Where did you find such an outfit?" she asked without thinking. Why would they even make leggings in that color? Did they hate the world?

That got a grin. "I know, mega cool, right? I found a whole bunch of boxes in the attic with all these kicking clothes." Most of the boxes had actually had her name on them, too, which had caused a minor freak out, but at least she didn't have to wear anything lame. And, of course, a lot of the clothes had been way small, but not all of it. Plus, lycra was nothing if not stretchy.

"Totally rad," Terry agreed weakly. There was resentment clawing around in her stomach and she folded her arms over it, reminding herself sternly that in fact, it was not Jean's fault that she was like this and that she couldn't remember who Terry was. That this was not Jean getting out of having to take responsibility for what she said or did again. "How are you settling in?"

Jeannie, of course, was completely oblivious. She shrugged, and said, "Ok, I guess. I mean, if you put aside how I've woken up Queen of the Freaks. Also, MTV sucks now."

Terry frowned, "Aye, done that for years now. It's not so bad back home as here. Occasionally they'll play music." She stepped a little closer, not really sure what to say. "It all gets worse from what you remember though, I guess. I wasn't even alive then."

It was probably just the casual, offhand way that she could say something like that that did it - Jeannie was maybe, sort of capable of realizing it wasn't 1986, when she thought about it. But it was just perfectly natural to this girl, who was older than Jeannie herself. Her open and expressive face closed off as though someone had drawn a blind and she glanced away. "No," she said quietly, "course you weren't."

Was she supposed to apologize for that? For existing? Like she didn't have that problem enough anyway. "There's other bits that are better though. Technology advances, iPods and the like." She slid her own slim red Nano out of her pocket as a demonstration.

It was a little red plastic thing, and Jeannie was thoroughly unimpressed. "Yeah, sure, a pocket calculator's really going to make up for the end of the Fraggles."

"They're out on DVD at least." She tucked the Nano away again, "And it's not like culture stopped after the New Kids on the Block broke up."

Jean was about to ask what the hell a DVD was when Terry's next statement floored her. "They broke up? No way! They just released their first album this year!"

Terry shrugged, "That's the life cycle of a boy band. Actually, I heard they were considering a reunion. Boyz II Men did it, so I guess it's not out of the question." This was bizarrely fun. "Debbie Gibson's on Broadway these days. And you should see what happened to Michael Jackson. So scary."

"MJ? Scary? Get out of here. Thriller was weird, maybe, but not scary." Really, the only thing protecting Jeannie's sanity at this point was that Terry didn't have a very good grasp of the timeline of 80s popular media, since she kept picking late 80s bands to talk about.

"Thiller," Terry said slowly, mentally placing that video. "Oh right, back when he was black and almost had a nose. That wasn't scary. That was awesome. Naming his kid Blanket is scary."

"Blanket? For real? Yeah, I guess that's maybe scary. Weird, at least."

"Blanket might be a nickname, I'm not sure. The kid's real name is...um, Prince Michael Jackson Two, I think. I don't pay much attention to him. No one does." Terry shrugged. "So are they just letting you wander around until they figure out what's going on?"

"Yeah, kinda," Jeannie said, slouching down into the chair again. "I gotta get a check-up, like, practically every hour, it seems, and my mom and I were talking about whether or not I should go to classes. Can't exactly get real far in the world if you drop out after the sixth grade..."

"Never did some of the men I knew growing up any harm," Terry muttered and fiddled with a stray lock of hair. "Besides, it won't matter once they put your brain back the way it should be."

"If they can... Rather they put my body back." She still only had their word that she was supposed to be 30, that all of this was real, and even if it was, why would she want to be old like that?

"Yeah, that seems to be a common theme with you, not wanting to be who you were." Oh, there was a faint trace of bitterness in Terry's lilting tone. "So what do you remember anyway? It's all before you manifested right?"

There was clearly something going on with the girl but Jean, with the self obsession of the young, completely failed to notice. "Wait, you knew me before? Would you tell me? Nobody tells me anything, except I was a doctor and a freak."

That's pretty accurate. But Terry couldn't say that. Instead she shrugged a little uncomfortably and moved to take another chair. "Uh, sure, I guess. I mean, I've known you since I was eleven when I first got here. There aren't really a lot of people who've known you longer that are still around. Just Mr. Summers and Ms. Munroe and the Professor, I think."

There was something unimaginably depressing that this lady said she'd known Jean since she was the age that Jean was. It just... it didn't work. The world didn't work like that. "Yeah, I've met them but they're not talking. Mr. Summers didn't even tell me he was married to me until some senior slipped and said something." She sighed. "I wish you were eleven now... maybe then I'd have some friends here. I don't even know your name but you know me."

"Ah, Theresa. Terry. I'm 19." Terry fidgeted a little, trying to figure out what she should tell Jean and what was just going to be overwhelming. "Mr Summers probably didn't want to scare you, that's why he didn't tell you. I don't...what do you want to know? You teach here. And you used to be really politically active, testified in front of Congress and such."

"Me?" Jeannie practically squeaked. "Congress? No way."

"There's news footage to prove it. Back when they were lobbying for mutant registration." Terry made a face at that. She hadn't understood the issue at the time. Now she thought about the government knowing about each and every one of them, what they could do. It would be Mistra all over again, in the end.

"Wow... how weird."

Terry shook her head, "Nah, that's not weird. We've got higher standards than that for weird. The time that a bunch of people disappeared to another dimension, that was weird."

"Get real," Jeannie said, clearly disbelieving and tensing slightly at the idea that Terry was messing with her.

"As real as they come, I promise. It happened. Lots of strange things happen around here, that's the price you pay for being different. Flying makes up for a lot of it though."

Jeannie shrugged. "I've never even been on a plane," she said. We always road trip on vacations."

Terry grinned suddenly, "Who said anything about a plane?"

"You can fly? Huh..." Being able to fly didn't sound like a total freak-o-rama... Actually, it sounded cool.

"You can too. Or, will be able to or...something." Terry frowned, trying to sort out the proper terminology here. This was easier with Mr. Haller. "Did they tell you if this is because you're crazy or because you've literally reverted back to eleven?"

She could fly? She knew about the whole brain power thing, cause that was why she'd been attacked, according to the docs, but flying? Ok, so maybe being a freak wasn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe. Jeannie was so busy boggling at the idea that it took her a second for Terry's question to register. "What? Oh, um... I dunno. The red-haired Scottish doctor was talking about, like, trauma and these big words or whatever. I didn't really follow, but it sounded like she didn't know, either, so whatever."

"Dr. MacTaggart will figure it out. She's one of the world's foremost experts on mutation." The other one was lying in a coma in the medlab. "We'll just go with crazy. It would be like you. You've gone crazy a couple times before."

"Really?" The hesitation and uncertainty was back, as she considered Terry - she said that like it was not even a thing, but going crazy certainly wasn't any fun right now, it seemed... "That sounds... like majorly lame, actually."

"That's an understatement." Terry sounded underwhelmed but only because it was better than letting Jeannie hear the resentment and hurt. Or giving the impression that she enjoyed telling an eleven year old that she made a habit of going dangerously insane. Faking disinterest was safer all around. "You're a good teacher. A good doctor. And you used to be a very good friend of mine. Things have changed."

Right now, Jeannie could use all the friends she could get, and she couldn't imagine that ever not being the case. Maybe if Terry had seemed more upset she wouldn't have been able to do this, but as it was she just turned serious green eyes on the girl, chewing on the underside of her lip and asked, "What happened?"

Terry's conscious got the better of her and she winced, shaking her head. "Bad things. I'm not going to tell you the details, so don't bother asking. It's just... You broke the trust of a lot of people. Hurt a lot of people. And because you were crazy at the time, no one blames you for it. But I can't forgive it." She wouldn't look at the redhead in the other chair, focusing on hem of her skirt over her knee.

"Oh," Jeannie's face fell and she looked away. "I'm sorry. I guess... I would have liked to have you as a friend, but I understand if you don't wanna, like, be around me or whatever."

Terry's head snapped up, eyes widening, "I didn't... damn it. I'm sorry, Jean. I shouldn't be so...you're not her. Not yet anyway and this isn't fair. Look, we can do something fun, if you want. I think...it would be nice to be your friend again, at least for a little while."

Jeannie smiled, shyly tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'd like that, if you want."

"Great." Terry smiled back and got to her feet, holding out her hand. "Come on. I have an idea."

Jeannie practically hoped to her feet, taking the offered hand and grinned. "Sure, let's go!"