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TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions Miscarriage

After three weeks with no change, Xavier and Haller go into Jean's mind.

The heart monitor kept perfect rhythm in the room. It had become a regular place for the two of them, the same four walls and the bed in the middle. Had it not been for the tubes, the wires, the tape, the machines, the things needed to keep Jean functioning, she would've simply looked like she were sleeping.

She appeared small and frail somehow, buried somewhere in there, cloaked in a white hospital gown and sheets. It had been years earlier when Charles Xavier had run into her under similar circumstances: A small red haired girl, whose world had shattered when she had felt her best friend get killed by a car; a girl destitute and lost in her own mind, in a hospital room much like this.

The Professor's face was tired and drawn; there had been far too many hours spent awake, soothing, rebuilding, searching. Doing what he had failed to do before, helping his children recover from the trauma that had been inflicted. Doing what needed to be done. And now, here he was, by the bedside of his first student, the first of the broken children he had taken under his wing. Reaching out, his hand trembling a little from fatigue, he brushed his hand across Jean's cheek. ~Jean?~ The mental touch, as all others before, fell on deaf ears.

Jim exhaled slowly, the sound resigned but not surprised. In a way, he suspected he had anticipated this more than Charles. The man was no stranger to psychic shock, but Charles knew how to recover. Jim only knew what it was like to be the one in the bed.

"Her shields have stabilized," said the younger man after a long moment, "but I think this is about as relaxed as they're going to get." Calling them "relaxed" was an overstatement, and both men knew it. Jean's defenses were heightened; whatever had happened with Matthews, her mind had decided it wanted no more intruders. Though no longer barbed, her shields were abnormally thickened: her mind's way of expressing a total rejection of the outside world. Probing her now was like brushing fingers against a mass of scar tissue.

"I had hoped that she would come back of her own accord, but the trauma was too great - she's retreated too far." Charles moved to take Jean's limp hand. "You're right. Now is as good a time as any." He looked up at his son. "It will not be easy, Jim. I suspect Jean's mind will see us as intruders, at least at first, and attempt to remove us."

"Well, at least we have experience with that." Jim smiled faintly, the twist of his mouth sad. "From both sides."

There might have been the faintest hint of embarrassment from the older man. "Of course." He held out his free hand for his son to take. "Shall we?"

Jim nodded. The past was the past; now it was time for business. "Let's go," he agreed, and took the professor's hand.

~***~

Once inside they make two discoveries.

The whispering came first, indistinguishable in what was said. Women's voices, men's voices, children. The air was dank, bitter cold, and wet. It smelled of moss and blood. It was dark at first, then a crack resounded, like the crumbling of stone, and a flash of light lit up the landscape.

It was a city, or at least, the outline of one. The buildings were warped, disjointed and were rapidly deteriorating, covered in moss and rust. The sky was covered in black clouds, and there was barely enough light to see. A foot of water covered the ground, with no dry patches in sight.

Water splashed under Charles' feet as he entered the mindscape. He looked around - the place was familiar yet twisted out of shape, a kind of dark echo of itself. Whispers sounded on the wind, incomprehensible and taunting.

~Jean?~ he called and in response there was another crack of thunder.

The younger telepath scanned their surroundings, saying nothing. True, they were in the outer reaches of Jean's mind, but from the defenses she'd erected he had expected . . . something. Opposition, or at least further barriers to impede their way. Instead there seemed to be nothing but dead space.

Frowning, Jim probed forward with one foot. His boot struck something solid under the dark water. Carefully, the telepath traced the shape. Stone or concrete, maybe. It felt regular enough to have been constructed, but there were chunks missing. The top was irregular, as if anything higher had been torn away.

"Professor, I think we have a problem." Jim withdrew his foot and glanced at his father. "I'm not sure the flood is just set-dressing. I think I can feel where the natural structure should be . . . but it's torn down to almost nothing."

"It's all that's left," Charles looked around, seeing the vaguely familiar shapes of Times Square under the damage. "We will have to help her repair her mind as well as seek her out." He shook his head. "But where to start? We need to find out how much of her mind has been damaged, if there is anything at all left intact. That will be where we will find Jean."

The thunder rumbled again, and a flash of lightning momentarily lit up the surroundings. A silhouette stood at the end of the street, the light giving no help as to who it was.

Jim squinted at the figure, then realized there were more in the distance. They seemed to take no notice of the two intruders; they drifted through the dark water as if sleepwalking.

"Not defenders," he muttered. "Then what?"

"Echoes," Charles said, stepping forward. "Psychic debris from her contact with other minds. It..." His foot came down on something sharp beneath the water and he flinched back with a cry, but the pain wasn't physical. It stemmed from the images released by the contact.

A series of flashes enveloped his senses with rapid succession so quickly they almost bled into one another: The deafening roar of a crowd, the smell of sweat and mud, a frenzied man lashing out with a kick, pain, a bathroom, Jean sitting on the side of the tub still in uniform clutching her stomach, a doctor's office, the doctor walking in the room with solemn look, one of the long hallways of Alkali Lake partially submerged with water, A teddy bear floating on dark murky water, a child crying, Garrison opening a door to reveal a flooded nursery, faded yellow wallpaper, a crib, books, toys. Along with the images were disjointed voices, loud and also whispered.

"Oh Doc. I'm so sorry." "Jean, is this true. Did---" "Tsk tsk, Jeannie. All those fantasies, all that mental betrayals, and now you can't even give him the family that he yearns for and you pretend to want. It's.... delicious in its tragedy, don't you think?"

"Oh, Jean." Charles' voice was raw with pain, his astral form flickering with it. "My poor girl, my poor daughter. I am so sorry. So sorry for everything."

"Professor?" Jim had caught the older man by the shoulders as he stumbled back, but he could tell Charles was somewhere else. "What happened?"

"A... memory. Jean." Charles looked at his son with anguish. "She lost a child. During a mission. She was pregnant and someone kicked her. And all this time, she kept it to herself."

Jim began to speak, then stopped. He remembered standing by the lake with her on the anniversary of her death. The image that had passed between them, her tears hot on his shirt. His eyes widened. Is that what she . . ?

Caught in the memory he took a step back, and something jagged caught him in the back of the ankle.

A barrage of images assaulted him: Jean, in a hospital room, standing beside Matthews laying in bed, the astral wires coming out of him being snapped like cables, the pain of ripped flesh, of fire, of death before the last connection was severed. Matthews being alone in the hospital room, a body frozen, unable to move, screaming inside his own head.

Around them the crack of thunder was heard again before rain started to fall, however the rain was not like normal rain but the cut of glass. The buildings shook and parts of them started to crumble.

Jim fell backwards with a cry. As his hand plunged in the water he felt something jagged snag his sleeve -- he had narrowly avoided another psychic assault. He sat there for a moment, heart pounding and breathing hard, being careful not to move. "She sealed him in his own head," he said, the words strangled. "She ripped out every hook he put in her and locked him away with all the pain he caused."

Charles frowned, his lips thinning. It wasn't the first time Jean had done such a thing, not even the first time she had done it to Matthews, but he could feel the weight of it pressing down around them. Actions and consequences. He offered his hand to Jim to help him back up. "They are her defenses," he said slowly, looking out across the water. "Buried traumas, broken memories. We need to get above this water if we're to find her before our own minds break under the stress of them."

Jim allowed himself to be helped from the water, echoing his father's frown. "Is it safe to introduce more foreign structures with her mind this fragile?" From what he'd just felt, removing Matthews must have been like tearing an ingrown vine from an old brick wall: the parasite was gone, but the host had been severely weakened. Still, there was no doubt Charles was right. Even if they survived the razorwire memories, by the time they found Jean it was doubtful either would be in any shape to help her.

"Not if we use the fragments that are already here," Charles replied. "If we're careful, we can use the structures Jean herself has provided." He gestured at the ruins around them. "Perhaps we might even be able to shore things up a little, strengthen her mind somewhat."

Jim hesitated, then gave a nod. "Okay. I'll follow your lead. I'm guessing she'll be less likely to reject the person who helped her build defenses in the first place."

"One hopes, any way." It was said with a trace of humor, reflected in a brief glimmer of sunlight on the water that disappeared again almost immediately. He turned his attention to the ruins and, with a gesture disturbingly familiar, he stretched out his hand, focusing on raising a block of concrete and floating it across the water to where they stood.

As the block settled under their feet and raised them on solid ground, tendrils of cables and girders seemed to follow suit as if following a blueprint of what the structure was supposed to be.

The cables and girders floated out of the water, twisting, turning, cross-crossing, creating a small section of bridge as wide as the concrete block they stood on. Underneath the block the water drifted away, revealing the cracked ground below, snaked with barbed wire and broken stone.

The younger man watched in fascination. He could feel the mindscape shifting beneath them, pushing the ruined foundations upwards to join Charles' efforts. His relief was strong enough to send ripples through the receding water. The mind had been damaged, but it could sense order -- and rise to meet it.

It was a step, but they were still a long way from their destination. Jim closed his eyes and felt for another piece. He cupped his hands, and when he raised them the block rose with them. Wires and scaffolding snaked out to meet it, linking it to the main platform. As with Charles' attempt, the mindscape accepted the act without complaint. Opening his eyes, the telepath turned to Charles. "Looks like it works," he said with a smile. He turned to the horizon where figures still milled, totally unaware. "That way?"

"It appears to be the best option - it is where the most activity is, after all." Charles sounded more confident, reassured by Jean's mind's reaction to their bridge-building.

As the sections of the bridge were built and became more stable, the rumbling started up again, this time as the disjointed parts of the building along the newly formed bridge began to slide back into place like a Rubik's Cube. Though they were still water-logged, they now resembled actual buildings rather than something out of a Picasso painting.

A couple of feet away, at a part of the street that had not been rebuilt, a man stood in the water, close enough to touch. He wore a business suit that had seen better days, and appeared to be some sort of politician judging by the button he wore on his lapel. His head was warped, showing a face on the front and back, a bright fake smile on one side and a dark sneer on the other. The whispers were louder, talk of meetings and fund raising, of wining and dining and TV cameras and the news.

At his feet something moved, a blur of motion along the water. Upon closer inspection it was a scene, like something on a television screen. The politician walked in the middle of Congress brandishing a shotgun, then opened fire.

Ahead of him more figures shuffled about, ordinary people with double faces, and darkness below the waves. But there was also something else, not standing, but floating by on the water: bodies. The body of a teenage boy, his skin bloated and blue, his throat cut open. Charlie Plunder. The body of a woman with blonde hair cut in a bob wearing a hospital gown, her once blue eyes clouded over. Tara Trask. More bodies. The bodies of those dead and gone, loved and hated.

From the safety of the bridge, Jim looked down at the water. The two-faced man was not alone; the figures were growing more numerous, each with their own horrific reflection. To the left a woman slapping a child, to the right a man plunging a knife into another's eye . . . and worse. And against it all that endless, unintelligible sussurration of voices.

Charles had called the shades psychic debris, imprints of minds she'd touched. They bothered Jim more than the corpses. Vile and violent thoughts occurred to everyone. They were only a partial representation of the individual, and telepaths were privy to the whole. Yet no matter where he looked, Jean's mind reflected only darkness.

The darkness did not go unnoticed by Charles, either. It was something every telepath dealt with, the darkness in the human soul, the reverse mirror. "Parker's doing," he said grimly. "Bringing the dark side of her to the surface, just as he did with Jane." He continued to walk, slow and steady. Up ahead, the street forked, a high road and a low road. "Hmm."

Jim thought back to the day by the lake and wondered if it really was only Matthews' influence that was responsible. Unfortunately, Jean wasn't in any state to address it.

With a shake of his head Jim returned his attention to the road. Neither fork looked substantially more intimidating than the other, though more bodies drifted beneath either path.

"Divide and conquer doesn't seem like Jean's style," he remarked, glancing at Charles.

"Duality does, though." Charles nodded at the two-faced shapes clustering around them. "We might be able to cover more ground if we do split up." He didn't particularly like the idea, but when you were in someone else's mind, sometimes they had to call the shots.

"And our relationships are different." Jim followed Charles' gaze to a male figure standing in the water, his innermost thoughts revealing himself an elderly, bed-bound man with a pillow. Somehow, Jim knew it was patricide. He said, "Different people see different sides."

"Very well." Charles nodded at the right-hand path, the one that led up. "That one for me, the other for you." It wasn't a question - they both knew each path spoke to each of them specifically. In the distance, Charles could see mountains, the road leading upwards into them. "If you need me, just call."

"I will." Jim started to turn, then hesitated. "And -- same to you." He met his father's eyes, his own left eye momentarily showing the same serious blue as his right. "Be careful. Please. You taught us everything we know, but . . ." This isn't a stranger's mind, it's Jean. And you are so much closer to this than me.

If he caught the thought, there was no indication, except, perhaps, a softening of his gaze. "I will, son."

~***~

They split up, and Haller finds something reflected in a mirror.

Jim walked in silence. At some point buildings had begun to appear, for now he to be walking through a city -- New York, he supposed, but it wasn't recognizable as any area in particular. The buildings were oddly fractured, like images on a broken plate that hadn't been precisely re-aligned. Under the sound of water pouring from the newly-raised bridge he could still hear whispers from the figures wandering in the water, unmindful of his presence. Though the water level drained the shades were never any more, or any less, than knee-deep in water. Jim ignored them and kept walking, his damp shoes leaving four sets of differently-sized footprints in his wake.

He paid no particular attention to his direction, focused instead on feeling for old foundations upon which to build. The point was not to impose his own sense of order; rather, to trust Jean's mind to take him where he needed to go. And, gradually, the area became recognizable: District X.

There were bits of rubble under the water and cracks in the pavement, making the ground uneven. Some windows were shattered, and those that remained were cracked like a spider's web.

Up ahead in the distance, three blond heads of hair stood neatly in a row, all wearing the same clothes, their heads lifted toward the sky, which continued to rumble. The darkened clouds made the world grey.

Jim paused, but he already knew who they must be: the Stepfords. Celeste, Phoebe, Esme.

But not Sophie.

Taking a deep breath, the telepath resumed his course. The water-level was still sinking, revealing a dark, slime-like algae coating the buildings. He realized dimly that though this was technically District X, it appeared to be as it had been before its reclamation by the mutant community. Right now it was merely another section of Manhattan decimated by Apocalypse and his Horsemen.

He stopped beside the sisters. They continued to stare at the sky, water lapping against their legs unnoticed. Watching from the meager elevation of the bridge, he saw a bloated corpse bump against one of the girls' knees. None of them reacted.

The body was identical to the sisters in every way except her eyes were frozen in horror, clouded over by death, her mouth agape, cyanotic skin mottled with tinges of purple.

"You shouldn't be here," a voice said. It was distant and resonant.

"You're alive."

Jim looked around for the source of the voice, but saw no one. "That's half true," he replied, wary but not yet alarmed. "Not everyone can live through dying. Jean?"

"Partially," she replied. He'd catch a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, coming off the glint of a nearby building window.

"She doesn't want you here. You're alive. Only the dead live here."

"Tell her we claim dual citizenship." He glanced toward the movement, but still saw no one. "Maybe that's why she lead me here instead of the professor."

She fell silent for a moment. A crash resounded up above. It sounded like the splitting of stone.

"All roads lead to one place."

Red tinged the water near his feet. It created a thin trail back toward the streets around him. Towards a window. The flash of crimson became solid and stationary. It belonged to a dress, to the woman who wore it, the hair on her head, and cuts on her flesh.

Large and small deep, jagged cuts seemed to mark every part of her body. Her legs, arms, face, and chest were covered in them. Some showed the hint of white bone underneath. Blood poured down her face from the wounds, and she stared at Haller with narrowed eyes.

"Where's your white horse and armor? It's not going to work. She wants to stay."

Jim turned to speak to the apparition, but the words never came. In order to face her, he brought himself in line with the window -- and what it reflected.

Faint against the bleeding woman in crimson, the image of a patchwork man stared back at him. He traced his eyes down the irregular seam that bisected the face, cutting across the nose and lip to create a sharp delineation of features and skintone. The jawline was asymmetrical, narrow on the right, squared on the left. Its posture was canted, indicating distortion of limbs hidden by the clothing. One arm was noticeably shorter than the other.

It was him. The real him, not the astral mask of David he donned as automatically as a coat. And, long as it had been since he'd intentionally exposed it to another person, it had been even longer since he'd seen it himself.

She drew her finger along lines of his reflection, where the scar ran down, differentiating one from one. He would be able to feel it, and see the marks of red she left behind on his own skin.

"It's difficult to hide here. We've tried."

Jim shivered involuntarily as the touch registered like a tongue of flame, but he was already regaining his balance. If the apparition was what he thought it was, the last thing he could afford to do was blink.

"Point taken," he said, and let the mask fall away. The act left him feeling irrationally exposed despite the fact the mask clearly did no good; he'd always known it would never stand up to concentrated attention from another psi. The telepath sighed and raised his left hand, noticeably smaller and darker than his right, and flexed his fingers. "All right, you got us. It's hard to size armor for two different sets of proportions." He let his hand drop and looked back at the wounded image, his eyes of two colors and two different shapes unblinking. "You're lucky in that respect, Jane. At least you and Jean are the same person."

"You are who you are, no matter what you call yourself. All of you are you," Jane said as her image disappeared the moment she walked away from a reflective surface but her voice remained.

"Go home, Jim."

Jim regarded the window where she had been steadily. "I could tell you to do the same," he said to the emptiness. "You should be with her. That's really why you exist, isn't it? To protect Jean."

Jane fell silent for a few moments as the water began to churn near the girls. The body was suddenly snatched below the waves, which made the girls' attention snap down to where she'd been. Their faces twisted to a silent scream of agony, hands collectively reaching out all at once toward the water in perfect unison.

"I am protecting her," Jane said.

"From this. From him."

Jim watched impassively as Sophie disappeared beneath the fetid water. It was hard to watch -- and utterly unreal. He had to remember that; Jean, he feared, might not.

The telepath cast about the windows, looking for Jane. "Matthews is gone. All you're doing right now is trapping her in here with the ghosts." He gestured to the girls in the water, the floating bodies, the two-faced figures whispering around them. "Keeping her away from this won't help her. All it does is give it a chance to fester."

"She doesn't see them, not anymore. I make sure of it," Jane said, her face peering out from the window of what used to be a toy store.

"She's safe. You would rather have her see this? To hear their despair...their thoughts...mourning the deaths she caused....the terror they had to endure...I'm stronger. I can protect her. I can take it."

The waters rippled again. Another girl was pulled beneath the waves.

"And you're wrong," Jane said solemnly.

"He's still here."

"He's still here," Jim thought. He was starting to get an idea of what she might be talking about.

The telepath rolled his shoulders, and when he straightened out again his astral representation was broader, older -- and no longer Jim.

"I tried to keep the kid safe like this once," said Jack. The telepath's voice was still audible, but now nothing but an undercurrent. "No one in, no one out. Seemed the best policy."

The alter glanced back to the water; the current was taking a second Cuckoo, leaving the remaining girl grasping at the waves. Her mouth stretched with noiseless sobs. He turned back to the window of the toy store.

"Blocking something don't make it disappear," he continued, grey eyes fixed on the bleeding woman. "Didn't make you go away, did it? Matter of fact, I understand it right, it just made you stronger."

Jane said nothing, no ready response, leaving only silence, filled in by the rumbling of the storm. The silence that came with contemplation and recognition, realization of truth, but refusal to acknowledge it.

The telekinetic pointed to the lone Cuckoo. "I don't normally go in for metaphor, but I think this's more than just another guilty set-dressing. Those four girls made one whole, and now we've got parts dropping away." The man shifted, and the astral form melted back into Jim. "Jean's no different. Keeping yourself out here separate isn't protecting her. You're isolating her from a source of strength."

Jane stared at him for a few moments, for the first time showing the pain behind her eyes, as well as the wariness and fatigue. She eventually looked away, further down the street.

"You should keep moving."

Not asking him to go, but to keep going.

Jim gave the reflection a small, crooked smile. "I will. I'll see you at the end of the road."

He set out again, leaving the empty water behind him.

~***~

Xavier, meanwhile, finds another part of Jean among the wreckage.

The streets were different, the further the two of them separated from one another. These streets were suddenly less urban and held more of a main street feel. The buildings weren't any taller than four stories, twisted as they might have been. But they were familiar, not as New York but of somewhere else.

There were people here too, the two faced, the blind, standing in the shallow water. Partially submerged cars dotted the landscape, corroded with rust. And occasionally, as the thunder and lightning lit the blackened sky, the hint of mountains loomed.

Charles continued to walk through the blighted landscape, drawn on by a sense that someone was waiting for him. When the water was too deep, he raised pieces of rubble to the surface, making makeshift bridges of the pieces of Jean's mind.

Another flash of light revealed a trail of red running through the water, billowing outward, leading toward a figure crouched down in the distance. Upon closer view she had her back to him. A girl.

Her dress had been at one time pink, as evidenced by the patches of the color that remained, but it was now stained red in many places. Deep gaping wounds and shallower cuts lined her arms and peeked out from behind the long, wild red hair that trailed down her back.

The body of someone lay in front of her, its legs bobbing up and down with the current. It had red hair like her, and swayed gently back and forth in the waves. Amelia. Her eyes were open and clouded, frozen in her last moments. Her skin was waxen and pale, bloated.

The girl, carrying a basket of flowers, gently placed the flowers around the body. White roses and lilies floated along the water.

Charles' throat constricted at the sight of Amelia - this might be a mindscape, but that death was actual, not figurative. But his task was not to bury the dead, that would come later. First he had to aid the living.

He approached the girl, gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "Jean?"

The girl looked up at him. She was all but 14 or 15, but very much Jean. More cuts were there, gashes along her forehead, her cheeks, her chest, her arms, her stomach. They turned her skin and the water red.

Pausing a moment, she looked back down. "I'm paying my respects," she said, slowly standing.

"You killed them." a voice whispered, her own, adult, far far away. To which another voice replied, dark, laced with madness.

"Technically, you killed them. I wasn't your enemy until you tried to rip my mind away."

"Jean, do you know who I am?" he asked, gently, taking her hand in his own. Under his touch, the skin healed, only to to gape open again a moment later.

Jean didn't seem to notice his touch, too focused on the body. She set her basket down and it floated away on the water, the flowers dispersing. She watched them.

"Professor Xavier," she said absently, then glanced up in realization.

"Is it time for my lesson with Mr. Lehnsherr? I think he's still mad I broke his lamp."

"No, Jean. It's been many years since you were at school," he told her. "Do you remember?"

Jean stared at him for a few moments, contemplating this, then looked away, staring back down at the body. "She was important to you."

"Yes, she was. A very old friend." Charles' astral form dimmed a little as he looked down at Amelia. "You didn't kill her, Jean. Nor are you responsible for the actions of a madman."

With a shudder, Jean pulled away from him, trudging through the water. She shook her head.

"I'm going to be late for class. I need to go to class. He doesn't like it when I'm late. Gives me that look...you know...the hairy eyebrow look...are you sure he isn't telepathic too? Because he always knows why I'm late. Though sometimes I think he moves the clock hands around..."

Jean took a few more steps forward, her eyes darting back and forth with confusion and widening eyes.

"I don't...I don't know where I'm going..." she said.

A sharp crack was heard as a shockwave radiated from where they were, shattering windows and making part of a wall collapse and pitch forward into the water. The sound resulted in the flash of a memory: Garrison and Vanessa on the ground, covered in blood, seen at an angle, from her point of view.

"They're dead, Jean. You're dead. Just accept it. If you're good and convince me, I might even make this quick and painless," the harsh voice whispered.

Jean covered her face, smearing blood across her cheek.

"No no no no..."

"They're not dead, Jean. Garrison and Vanessa are alive. You saved them." Charles reached for her hands again, pulling them gently away from her face. "I need you to stop hiding, Jean. It's safe now. It's time to come back to us."

Jean flinched at Charles's touch. She blinked up at him, rapidly shaking her head.

"What? No...It's not safe," she said.

"I'm here. I need to stay here. I need to hide."

"The time for hiding is over," Charles repeated, looking into her eyes. "I need you to trust me, Jean. I need you to be brave and come back. The nightmare is over."

The sheer calmness and he exuded and absolute assurance seemed to give her pause. She wrapped her arms across her stomach.

"Home?" she whispered softly, glancing out over the landscape. "I don't know where it is. I've been looking. Can you help me find it?"

"Of course," he said, holding out his hand for her to take. "I've been looking for you to do just that, help you find your way home. Shall we look together?" There was the faintest flicker of memory, a girl in a white nightgown, but he pushed it away. Whatever the similarities to other events, Jean was his primary concern.

Jean stared at him for moment or two at the distant look in his eyes before nodded she grabbed his hand. Her skin burned to the touch, warmer than fever, hot as a flame. If she was aware of the heat she didn't seem to show it, not even in her thoughts.

She started to move forward, before the rippling of water made her quickly turn her head as Amelia was yanked below the water behind them, leaving only the flowers in her wake.

"He's still here," she said softly.

"Then we will face him together," Charles replied, his eyes growing dark for a moment. If he was indeed still in Jean's mind, Parker Matthews would not take another of his children, would pay for the damage he had caused. "Jim and I will help you through this, Jean." He could feel his son's presence, warm against the chill of the flooded mindscape, against the burning of Jean's skin against his own. "I think he is that way."

Jean seemed hesitant at first, but she eventually started walking, trudging through the water. The ground became more and more craggy the more they walked and the mountains, once far away, seemed to become more and more visible around them.

As they crossed over a hill they came upon another street, but there was only one side to the street. The other side seemed to have dropped off into a deep gorge, with long cables and girders keeping things stable on the side that had fallen. Water continuously poured off the street down into the gorge.

The smell of decaying bodies became prevalent, though they weren't readily visible.

His hand tightened on hers as they continued on, the road narrowing until it was more a path than anything, one side a sheer drop. From the chasm the smell of death and decay grew stronger, until it was almost a visible miasma, catching in Charles' throat and making him gag. "Jean?" he asked, for the first time sounding uncertain. "What...?"

Jean didn't seem to be paying attention, staring over the edge as the outlines of bodies formed out of the haze. She tilted her head to the side, then looked up to him.

"These aren't mine," she said. "They're yours."

She squeezed his hand back, a certain calmness passing over her for the first time, with a focus she had been unable to grasp before: to get through, to be brave.

"We need to get to the other side," she said.

"Mine?" he asked, then flinched as memory struck like a physical blow. Cerebro. Stryker's manipulation. He looked down at the girl holding his hand and for a moment he almost pulled back as a pair of large, mis-matched eyes stared back at him.

Is it time to find our friends? All of them?

"I am so sorry," he managed to choke out, seeing in the ghostly shapes the minds he had extinguished, mutant and human. It hadn't been his fault, he had been tricked into it, but still those deaths were on his conscience. So many deaths...

His legs crumpled under him, the astral form reflecting the reality as pain lanced through his body. The climb, the fall. "Jean, I can't..."

The young woman crouched down beside Xavier, looking up at him with concern. She reached out to gently put her hand on his cheek. Her skin seemed to be less scalding, but still warm.

"Charles," she said, for a moment her voice carrying with it her familiar nurturing strength. "You'll be lost too."

"You have to get up."

He gasped at the touch, the warmth cutting through the deathly chill that had crept through him. The deaths were on his conscience, that was true, and he would pay that penance for the rest of his life, but now was not the time. Slowly he climbed to his feet, the death-mist reluctantly letting him go, traces clinging to his clothes.

"Thank you, Jean," he managed with a small smile. Out of the mist, across the chasm, a bridge was forming. The George Washington Bridge, the bridge that had been destroyed during Day Zero. The shock of those deaths was still raw. "Jean, I think I will need your help still. This will be a difficult crossing. Are you with me?"

Jean looked down at her hands, the wounds still there along her arms, crisscrossing her flesh. She fell silent for a few moments, staring at the cuts. The moment of clarity was starting to fade.

"Jean," he said again. "We need to cross the bridge. Come with me." He pulled himself up fully, drawing on his need to help her, to help all of his children, to sustain him. "It'll be all right, Jean."

Jean slowly looked up at the Professor as he struggled to stand, the innate memory still there that this was something important to do. Closing her eyes a moment to try not to look at the blood, Finally, she drew in a breath and tried to help him all the way up, awkwardly propping him up as best she could. She was smaller now than before, and though she was a tall teenager, she was still fairly thin and gangly.

She didn't like the look of the bridge. She remembered the bridge itself, but something about it now seemed to carry a sense of dread from what the Professor said.

"It's like a training session," she said, partially to herself, partially to him, to try to keep her heart from leaping out of her chest.

"It's not real."

He tried not to lean too heavily on her, concentrating on setting one foot in front of the other. Beneath their feet, rough dirt path became paved road, metal girders crossing the sky above them. Around them drifted the ghosts, bodies broken, faces bloated. The air echoed with screams, buffeting them with icy winds.

Jean wrapped her arms around the professor to help keep him standing, shivering uncontrollably at the cold as she helped pull him along, through it became fairly clear that they both needed the other one to keep going. Her eyes blurred, both from the wind and from the sight of the bodies. She tried not to close her eyes.

Her legs felt like weights, and she wanted to go back, to run, to hide. But she'd ceased remembering where safe was except for around him. It was a feeling that brought with it some comfort but also a little uncertainty, for reasons she didn't understand. He was safe. The professor was always safe.

"It's not real," she repeated, as the ghosts screamed in her ears. "It's not real."

"It was real," Charles amended. "But now, it's just a memory. Like the others."

Almost as if they had heard him, the disquieted shades descended on them, but they seemed to be losing their power. The icy cold was becoming more of a chill, shivers down their spines as an insubstantial hand touched face or hand. And the end of the bridge was visible, a patch of sunlight at the end of the mist.

Jean jerked away from the touch of the dead. Moments felt like hours. Time seemed to stand still. As they neared the end of the bridge, the sunlight was warm against their skin, but the water once again began to lap at their feet. Twin gates flanked either side, wrapped in vines and moss. At the end of what should've been the driveway but was now more of a lake lay the mansion, or at least, what it used to be. For now it was hardly recognizable.The windows were broken and the stone walls cracked and decrepit. It appeared to be in danger of collapsing in on itself, and was as twisted as the storefronts had been. Jean stared at the mansion, shaking her head as she started to back up but remembered she was still trying to keep the Professor from falling over. "This is wrong."

He tightened her grip on his shoulder, as much as to keep her from fleeing as to keep himself upright. Away from the bridge and the cliff, his strength was returning.

"Yes, it is wrong," he agreed. "And I need your help to make it right, Jean. I know it is hard, but you have done so very well so far. Will you come with me, just a little further?"

Jean's breathing quickened, so much so that it was readily apparent she was about to start hyperventilating. Overhead, the sky started to rumble, and the whispers around them became almost deafening. "I don't...know if...I can."

"I do." The words were simple, but heavy with his faith in her, his belief in her strength. "I know you can do this, Jean. I'll be right here with you. I'm not going anywhere."

Jean shook her head, her vision blurred with tears. She brushed the tears away but new ones quickly sprang up to take their place. "How...do you...always know...when I don't...even know myself?"

"Because I know you, Jean. Ever since that first day, I've known you are an extraordinary young woman." His expression was fond and he reached over to brush a tear from the tip of her nose. "You are bright and brave and true and I will always believe in you." He squeezed her shoulders. "We can do this. Together."

Jean closed her eyes again, silent for a few moments. Her breathing eventually started to slow until it sounded more normal.

"Together," she repeated. "Okay."

She finally opened her eyes, letting out a breath as she stared up at the mansion, clenching her fists. She glanced over. "If this doesn't work I get to borrow Let it Bleed for a whole month. Just so you know," she said, a hint of a teenage wild streak in her eyes that might've actually been just regular Jean.

"Then it had better work, hadn't it?" Charles replied in the same vein. "Since that is my favourite album." He patted her shoulder and then took the first step towards the gates and the ruined mansion.