xp_logs | Julian, Jean & Nathan: Revelation of Truth

Julian goes to the medlab to get his hand checked out and ends up discovering what really happened on prom night.

The pain in his hand could no longer be ignored, especially not after his conversation with Angel- Julian Keller found himself in front of the doors to medlab. With a sigh, he shuffled through the door. "Doctor Grey-Summers? Are you in here?"

"Julian?" Jean asked, looking up a little startled; clearly her mind had been elsewhere as she hadn't noticed him coming down the hall, unusual, given that pain normally stood out to her. "Yes, I'm in here," she said, stepping out of one of the storage cabinets where she'd been going over the inventory. "What can I do for you?"

It was getting easier to be around her now, "I may have, accidentally, hurt my hand. Um, do you think you could take a look at it?"

"Sure. Come on into one of the back rooms and hop up on the exam table," Jean said, opening the door to one of the rooms in question and following Julian inside. "What did you do?"

"Unfortunately there was no lying to a telepath. "Angelica and I were locked in the dark room yesterday and I got a little frustrated and slammed my hand down" Julian followed her into the back room and tenderly pushed himself up onto a table.

"Slammed it into... what?" Jean asked, arching an eyebrow. "Something like a particularly solid wall?" she added, examining the bruises covering Julian's knuckles.

With the way gossip spread around the mansion, Keller was surprised she hadn't already heard the details of prom night and beyond. Sheepishly he replied, "The floor."

"That doesn't exactly sound accidental to me," Jean said. "I think you'd better start from the beginning." It hadn't been the most relaxing of months and Jean would be the first to admit she was a bit behind the times with the kids, but she'd clearly missed something big if it had the normally fairly levelheaded Julian slamming his hand into walls...

Another long sigh cut the still air as Julian cast his gaze down. "Long story short, I took Esme to prom as a favor to Angel who was doing a favor for Mister De La Rocha. I kissed Esme, I guess, and Angel sort of walked in and ran off. I chased after her, but when I finally caught up she stomped on my foot and flew off. We haven't really spoken too much since then, but we got stuck in the darkroom earlier and kind of went at it. I lost my temper and, well..." He nodded at his hand.

It was never that hard to remember that, for all their combined destructive power, they were still teenagers. Sometimes that thought worried Jean more than others, but right now all she said was, "I think I'd heard something about you and Angel not planning on going together, but I can't imagine kissing your alternative dates was part of the original plan. Gotta say, I can see where she's coming from, although I don't approve of her attempting to break your foot in retaliation, and I'd have hopped you at least knew how solid the construction in this building was. Your hand didn't have a chance."

"Oh, I definitely had it coming," Julian shook his head and looked down. Even now he was still feeling the sting of that night- those who'd he'd once counted as friends had now turned their backs. "Never thought I'd miss the apple ninja so much," he mumbled.

Jean carefully lifted Julian's hand, pressing as gently as she could as she felt around the bruise and flexed it back and forth, making sure he'd not done any damage to his wrist.

"Well, I'm sorry you're having a rough time of it, but you can't have expect them to take it well when you did it. Or were you just not thinking when you decided to kiss her?"

"Actually, that's something I've been trying to figure out." His eyes met hers, the pain evident behind them to have to rehash the moment. "The whole thing is kind of fuzzy-ow." Julain's gaze fell to his hand as he twitched away from her.

"Sorry," Jean said immediately, making note of where he'd yelped. "You're trying to figure out why you kissed her? Doesn't the fuzzy explain it? I mean, moonlit night, pretty girl, etc..."

"Yeah, not so much," his brow furrowed in contemplation. "See, I remember telling her no, but then...we were kissing." It still didn't make any sense, "So, yeah...roamantic moment, but I...well, I didn't want to hurt, Angel." That little pang in the back of his head flared up, reminding him that he'd actually wanted to kiss her, but he pushed it back down by reminding himself that it was only a crush.

Jean's pen froze over her notes and she looked up very slowly, catching Julian's gaze - there was something in her eyes, something that promised death, or at least a years worth of detentions for someone as she repeated, "You said no... to the telepathic girl... and then somehow you were kissing anyway." The look was definitely edging closer towards death, which impression was reinforced when Jean said, "I'm going to kill that girl."

A quirked eyebrow was his only response for a moment. Then it expanded to, "Wait, you're going to kill Angelica? That doesn't exactly seem fair."

Jean took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment and getting her frustration with her 'scary little blonde girls' back under control. "No, not Angel. Esme and I will be having a talk, and then she'll be having a talk with the Professor. And if she's very contrite he might make her only have tea."

"Wait...I'm confused. Why would Esme be getting in trouble? You shoulda seen how upset she was when I asked her to help me track down Angel- hell, I hurt both of em really."

Another deep, calming breath, and Jean reminded herself not to jump to conclusions. "Julian," she said, sitting back on her seat and letting go of his foot. "I need to see what really happened that night, from the inside, because I suspect Esme did something she shouldn't, and knows that she shouldn't. Do you mind if I look at your memory?"

Julian shifted slightly- there were things he didn't want others knowing about, but the doctor had always been good to him. "Okay," he said, still obviously uncomfortable.

Jean smiled gently and told Julian, "Focus on that night, remember the moment and everything about it." Then she slipped carefully into the memory, letting it wash over her. And, indeed, Esme's mental push was unmistakable; the fact that Julian had been so definite in turning her down made it even more inexcusable to Jean, but she made sure to keep that anger out of her expression and her voice this time when she said, "Thank you, Julian. Yes, Esme is going to be in quite a bit of trouble. She made you kiss her. It wasn't your choice."

If this was true...then all the pain and anguish that he'd been directing inward. Julian turned a lovely shade of white as he processed the information. "How sure are you...I mean...should I get a second opinion or something?"

Jean winced slightly, mentally decrying the inevitable instilling of telepath-fear in yet another fellow mutant, but aloud she simply sighed and said, "Her... mental footprints, if you will, are fairly obvious. The girls are strong, but they haven't applied themselves to their studies much and lack subtlety. In other words, I'm sure. Which is not to say I don't think you shouldn't talk to someone else. The Professor would be happy to sit with you."

Unfortunately, Julian didn't know the professor too well and had only met him on a couple occasions. If he was going to get a second opinion, "What about Nathan? Could he double check...it's not that I don't trust you...." He shrugged, "There's going to be some interesting fallout from this if what you're saying is right."

"Certainly, if you'd be more comfortable talking to Nathan," Jean said. "If nothing else, I promise you she's going to be in detention and extra ethics lessons for the rest of the year at this rate."

****20 Minutes Later****

Julian sat alone in the exam room as Nathan and Jean talked in muffled tones on the other side of the door. He could make out their silhouettes through the fogged glass, a mixture of subtle and wild gestures as Jean brought Nathan up on what she'd discovered. Suddenly, the door opened and his mentor stepped over the threshold, looking none-to-pleased.

Nathan was still far paler than he should be, and almost more worn-looking than Julian had ever seen his mentor. He looked, and was angry - not at Julian, per se, but at Esme and the whole situation. He had other places he needed to be.

"I hope this whole situation has taught you something about taking strange telepathic girls to prom," he said.

A wave of guilt washed over him. Not wanting to meet Nathan's eyes as he looked down at the floor, "Yeah...um...I was hoping you could," he shrugged. "I dont know, take a look around to see if Doctor Grey-Summers is right."

"This is not your fault," Nathan said, not quite harshly. "In fact, it sounds to me like it's just about the opposite of your fault," He sat down on the exam table beside Julian, moving stiffly.

Noting the difficulty that Nathan seemed to be having, Julian looked to the only actual doctor in the room with a puzzled look. Then, continuing his confusion, Keller returned his look to his mentor. "Are you alright, Nathan?"

Nathan sighed, and ignored the question. Cluttering the situation with extraneous concerns wasn't going to resolve it. "Just relax," he said, and tapped lightly on Julian's mind. "This is no different than training." Except that he was liable to wind up with a headache - he hadn't been sleeping enough to heal up properly. But it should only take a minute, to verify what Jean had seen...

With a nod, Julian cleared his mind for a brief moment before focusing in on the balcony on that night. The smell of the new growth on the air and the perfume that Esme began to slowly overtake the sterile smell of the med lab. He replayed the moment several times, each time becoming less and less comfortable with taking part in this examination. The kiss spun his mind into a fuzz each time, making him feel giddy, high and depressed all at once.

Then it was gone, his mind still buzzing from the exertion. "D-did you see...?" the words came with some difficulty.

Nathan nodded, taking a deep breath and letting it out on another sigh. "Jean's right," he said quietly. He'd known she would be, but he understood why Julian had wanted confirmation. "Look," he said after a moment, ignoring the part of his mind that was laughing bleakly,pointing out that this appeared to be the season of Telepaths Behaving Badly. "You're entitled to be angry and upset. No one's going to dispute that. But I'd hate to see this make you wary of telepaths in general." His smile was strained, somewhat awkward. "It would make our training sessions awfully difficult, for one. For two, we're not all like Esme, even outside Xavier's."

"I know that, but...you're absolutely certain? That she did this I mean- isn't possible that I just want it to be her fault so much that...I'm making it up or something?" Julian shut his eyes and rubbed his temple- a slight headache forming behind his forehead.

"Honestly, no, Julian," Jean spoke up from where she'd been waiting by the doorway. "That is, if it hadn't happened, it's entirely possible you might be able to convince yourself that it had, but any trained telepath would be able to see the.. call it the lack of psychic footprints. Conversely, Esme is, thankfully, not nearly well trained enough to hide the psychic footprints that are there."

It was all her fault then. Angel had broken up with him. He'd been beating himself up for weeks because...because...some little blond ho had given him a psychic whammy. Anger started to build, rolling off Julian without any barrier. "Well...I...fu-um...damn."

"Calmly," Nathan said. "You're justified in being angry, but that's not going to help things. A mess like this requires one to be calm while disentangling it."

Julian tried to force himself to calm down, but wasn't having much luck. "So...I shouldn't head up to her suite and blow the door open then?"

"No, you shouldn't," Jean said firmly. "Trust us, she will be punished appropriately, but for all that you've been wounded, it's not an excuse to strike back. I've no interest in having to punish you as well for using your powers against another student." There wasn't any anger in her voice but the warning was clear.

Looking down to the floor, Julian let out a sigh. After a moment he added a slight nod, "Okay, I'll let it be..." 'for now,' was tacked on silently. Then Keller recalled he was in the presence of two powerful telepaths. Shifting slightly he slid off the table, "I mean...I'm going to..." he started toward the doorway, "yeah."