Scott and Jean: And the Cracks Begin to Show (Backdated)

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Jean tells Scott why she had the panic attack in the park.

TRIGGER WARNING


Jean entered the suite, guided by the light of the moon through the windows rather than remembering to turn on the light. She sat in a chair, staring out the window and the way the light cast shadows across the ground.

Scott followed Jean into the apartment, watching as she made her way to a chair in the dark. Switching on the lights, he shut the door and made his way to the kitchenette. He poured some water into a pair of cups and made his way over to where Jean sat. Handing her one of the cups, Scott took a sip of water letting the silence stretch just a moment longer before he broke it, "Are you alright?" Scott asked gently.

It seemed like such a simple question, when it was anything but simple.

"No," she said softly. Jean stared down into the cup. The water made tiny ripples with every motion. The knowledge of revelation lingered in the back of her mind like a wall holding back a tidal wave.

Scott leaned forward in his chair, "You can talk to me. What happened back there?" He reached out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, his hand cupping her cheek until she turned to look at him. "Please Jean, let me in" he asked quietly.

His words hung in the air. The silence that followed was not what Jean had intended but the look in his eyes had stolen her resolve. She stared at him for a long awhile until her image of him had become blurred by tears.

"I've been trying to figure out how to tell you for awhile now..." Jean said, looking away.

"But the more time passed...the harder it got...but it also became easier to hide it. I told myself if I didn't tell you you'd be happy. You'd never be sad and never have to worry and I couldn't see you look at me like that...." Her voice cracked and she wiped her tears away with an absent swipe.

"Like you're looking me now."

Scott's eyes widened in alarm at Jean's statement, he couldn't think what she could have done... what could bring her to this.

"Jean..." his voice trailed off as he was overcome with sudden apprehension. Concern, sadness and anxiety all mixed in his eyes as he gazed at Jean. "I don't understand....Jean what are you trying to say? What happened?"

Jean let out a breath as she pulled away from him, then got up and walked over toward the window. She fought the urge to start pacing and tried to placate herself by folding her arms and tapping her fingers against her arm. Finally her hands grew still as she focused on what she needed to say.

"Back in California...I started feeling sick. Nauseated. My whole body ached. I thought it was stress. But when I became late...I took a pregnancy test. And it was positive," Jean said. Her voice was soft, quiet.

"I didn't tell you...because...I wasn't sure how I felt about it myself....bringing a child into a world that...more than likely would've been a mutant....would've been hated and feared..."

She looked up. A slow smile formed on her face. "But then I started getting used to the idea. I grew to love the tiny little heart beat inside me...I was getting ready to tell you. I had reservations at that place we liked in San Diego..." she said. Her head suddenly dipped down as the smile evaporated.

"But then I had the idea to take some of the team to a concert. The one where there was that fight..." She swallowed, the tears starting up again.

"When I told you one of the men had kicked me...I didn't just break a rib...." she said faintly.

She couldn't bring herself to say the rest.

Scott's mind went blank as he struggled to wrestle with Jean's revelation. "I... you.. .you were pregnant?" he managed to stammer out. He didn't want to think about the end of her confession. Didn't want to think about what it meant.

The background noise seemed to fade, all Scott could here were Jean's last words. She had been pregnant...she hadn't just broken a rib. He couldn't hide from it. His vision blurred with tears as he bowed his head, looking at his hands clenched in his lap.

"Why?" he asked softly, his voice cracking in anguish. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jean stared down at her hands, silent for the longest time before she finally spoke.

"If I told you. It...it meant...." She closed her eyes. "It meant she was real...a--and I didn't just make her up in my head and she was ours...and...something we made and she was gone because, because I was reckless and I should've told someone when I first found out and... let them handle it but I thought I could handle it..."

Jean was losing what little composure she had left, her hands trembling, rapidly spilling out the words like a flood.

"Oh...God...Scott...." she covered her mouth with her hand, trying to choke back the sob that welled up and threatened to steal her breath but failing. Her heart felt heavy and pounded against her chest.

"Oh God..."

"She... A daughter" All the energy seemed to flow out of Scott, "I had a daughter" he repeated quietly. Scott heard Jean crying by the window, each sob felt like a nail was being driven through his heart. He didn't know how much more he could take, he wanted nothing more than to reach over and hug her; but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to look at her as the magnitude of the loss sank in. Torn between his warring emotions Scott felt like he was going to explode and collapse in on himself at the same time ... but all he could do was sit their while his heart was shattered. He couldn't even raise a hand to wipe away the tears which coursed down his cheek.

"It was too early to know the sex but..I...always imagined she was a girl," Jean said faintly. She could picture her with Scott's strong, unwavering gaze and she dreamed up scenarios where she'd put flowers in her hair, red, like hers, and she'd show her all the secret places she knew of in the forest behind Xaviers that she went to as a child.

"Does anyone else know?" he asked. He was trying to remain calm, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone at the mansion must have known, or picked up on some signs.

Jean looked up, blinking out of a reverie. She met his gaze a moment, frozen, before tearing her gaze away.

"Adrienne and Warren I told myself," she said. She gripped the hem of her muddied shirt tightly.

"The rest found out as a result of Matthews. I didn't tell them but he revealed it to Vanessa and Garrison to hurt me. Charles and Haller found out when they pieced me back together and saw the riot through my memories."

Scott felt his hard won calm slipping away and stood up and began to pace the room.

He turned to face Jean, "You thought Adrienne and Warren deserved to know before me? Before your husband?" he asked with deceptive calm.

Jean blinked at Scott, shaking her head. "It's not a matter of who deserved anything. The hardest person to tell was you because it affected you...us...the most. It didn't affect them as much as it would've you," she said.

"I didn't do this to hurt you. There wasn't any rationale to it...I wanted to tell you so many times but the longer things went the harder it got. And I was afraid the longer it went on the worse it would be."

She looked him over. The look on his face was a look she'd seen before.

"Apparently I was right."

Scott dashed a hand across his eye and turned away from Jean. "You were" he agreed.

"What did you think would happen when I found out you'd hidden this from me?" he asked. "I trusted you Jean, with everything. You were ...are my best friend and wife, I told you everything. And you hid this from me. Because it was too hard?"

Were. It was funny how a simple word could cut. And when she was hurt it set off her own defenses.

"Yes. It was hard," Jean said. She found herself subconsciously clenching her fists.

"What do you want me to tell you, Scott? You don't think I don't feel horrible? And the only time you ever tell me anything is when I have to coax it out of you to keep it from eating you alive, figuratively and literally."

"At least I never hid anything like this," Scott countered. "I never hid anything from you on purpose." He spun to face her, "I keep things bottled up sure, but I never lied to you."

Jean narrowed her eyes, cocking her head to the side. She was suddenly very stiff. "If you're going to yell at me get it right. I didn't lie to you," she said.

"I just never told you."

She held back from pacing the room. Every hair was on edge.

"A lie of omission then," Scott replied coolly. He took a deep breath, and tried to check his rampant emotions, with only moderate success.

Jean laughed bitterly, an incredulous look in her eyes. She was doing everything she could not to let the hurt get to her. Yeah...it wasn't going very well for her either.

"Fine. Believe whatever you want," she said. She gave up on holding back and started to pace back and forth.

"I'm a lying, conniving bitch who's main concern is to hurt you because it brings me great joy. What happened in the park? I had a panic attack for fun, just to make you worry. I did it just to ruin your life."

"You've obviously had your mind made up that your take on things is the correct way to see it and nothing I can say or do will that change that."

She unclenched her fists, as they had started to bite too hard into the skin, spun on her heel and walked out, the door slamming so hard it rattled.

Scott watched her leave, he knew that he should go after her and try to patch things up. But at the moment all he could feel was the anger and pain which threatened to consume him.

He turned at the sound of the slamming door, his eye catching sight of a picture frame on a table. He bent and picked it up, tracing a thumb across the smiling faces. He stood there, tears dripping down onto the glass unnoticed.