Wanda and Jean (Backdated)

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

Wanda swings by the mansion to convince Jean to come out with her but the night doesn't get started the way either of them thinks it will. That's okay, Wanda forces her to come out anyway.




"Why am I not surprised to find you working?" Wanda appeared in the doorway to Jean's office and leaned against the door frame. This was her first time at the mansion since even well before Genosha and it had taken her several days to work up the energy to make it out from the city. But she had friends to see and to check up on, so she'd dragged herself away from the nest of a bed she'd made, downed several mugs of coffee and had set off on a mission.

Jean had her reading glasses on as she typed away at mission reports. She wanted them done for two reasons: 1.) more details could be recalled, and 2.) she could put it out of her mind for awhile. She stuck to her medlab office for the time being, as if subconsciously being prepared for anything should it come up.

She glanced up.

"The medlab is not a good place to do macrame?" she said, then smiled, slipping off her glasses.

"Haven't seen you in these parts in awhile. Do I want to know why?"

Wanda held up both hands and gave a wry smile. "Not for any official purpose, I promise. I have managed to mostly stay out of trouble since we have returned. I suppose it has been a while, though." She suffocated the stab of guilt by pushing herself out of the door and into the office proper, stopping next to Jean's desk. "No, I have no need of your skills. Just you."

Jean put her hand to her chest. "Well. It's about time someone appreciated me for more than my brain. Is it the legs? I've been told I have fabulous legs," she said, lifting a foot and wiggling her toes to punctuate. It was easy to joke around Wanda, something she sorely missed lately.

"Darling, it's always been the legs," she responded with a fairly good leer as she eyed Jean's legs for a moment. Oh yes, she'd missed this. She'd missed her friend. "Which means you should use those legs to follow me - I think it'll do you some good to get out of the mansion. It's supposed to be a gorgeous night."

Jean glanced behind her to the Medlab at large. It beckoned to her, and not in a good way. Her doubts whispered to her, promising calamity if she left. She glanced back up.

"You may have to drag me out. Though I promise I will only struggle a little."

She knew she was right. It would do her good, it was just getting her to step foot outside that was the issue.

She laughed, she couldn't help it even if she could hazard a guess at why Jean was having issues leaving. "Did a telekinetic just tell me to try and drag them out of here? Well, I am always up for a challenge." Wanda wandered around the other side of the desk and it put her almost immediately behind Jean where she promptly grabbed the back of the wheeled chair and gave it a light push. "We'll be fine until we hit the stairs, I suppose."

Jean blinked, letting out a surprised laugh as her arms flailed a bit. "Okay, I did mean figuratively," she said.

"What? I'm sorry, I cannot hear you over the sound of my being awesome!" Maneuvering a wheeled computer chair with someone on it was not as easy as it looked, especially as Wanda kept bumping Jean against the corners of the desk. It wasn't a long distance to the door but they were hampered by trying to get around the desk without someone losing a limb in the process. The semi-hysterical giggling didn't exactly help, either.

As it turned out, though, it was all fun and games until they all forgot the doorway had a slight lip to it.

The chair pitched forward and Jean reflexively used her telekinesis to keep from completely falling on her face.

"Agh!"

The downside was, however, was the giant firebird that erupted from her body as she paused, suspended in midair for a couple of moments.

"Fuck!!"

Wanda's scramble backwards was completely out of reflex and shock as the entire room and hallway were suddenly lit up. She would have shielded her eyes but she was too busy suddenly falling on her ass as she tripped over her own feet.

Jean unceremoniously hit the ground, distracted by Wanda's exclamation. The moment her concentration was broken the firebird disappeared.

Glancing up, Jean brushed her hair out of her eyes, rubbing her thigh. Ow. That was going to leave a bruise.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry...that was..." Ugh. "Long story...."

She blinked up at the ceiling for a moment before she rolled slightly to the right to peer around the base of the computer chair. "This must be one hell of a long story," she said, voice still slightly shocked. "It's a good thing I have a rented car outside with a picnic basket filled mostly of wine. I think I might need a glass. Or three."

Covering her face with her hands a moment, Jean eventually sat up. "Can I have wine too?" she said.

"The story may be funnier with more Merlot."

"Thank god I come prepared then," Wanda said, shoving herself up to her feet with a groan. She held out a hand to Jean and grinned. "Come on, fire britches, let's go have ourselves a boozy picnic."

Jean quirked a brow at her. "Fire britches?" she said with a straight face that rapidly collapsed into a fit of laughter. "God, this is going to be a permanent nickname, isn't it?"

Wanda pretended to think about it as she hauled the laughing Jean up to her feet. "I'd say no but I'd be lying through my teeth!"

*

Winchester County in June, especially at night, was gorgeous. The heat and humidity of the area hadn't invaded yet and the temperatures dropped just enough to be slightly chilly, which suited Wanda appreciated. She'd had the rented driver take them to a nearby park where she'd discovered a tall hill that overlooked a number of different neighborhoods. They had quite the view as she leaned over to refill Jean's glass. "When was the last time either of us just ... took the night off?"

"Thanks," Jean said as she took a long, slow drink, savoring the tartness of the wine then peered at Wanda at confusion.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by this 'night off?' This phrase is odd to me."

"You know, a night where you ignore the rest of the world except for a handful of honored friends -" Wanda sketched a half-bow in Jean's direction. "Drink copious amounts of whatever your poison is, talk all night and then stagger home when the sun comes up. The last time I had anything of the like was before Genosha. Stephen and I passed out on the couch together while attempting to pour over some information."

"Hmm..." Jean said, squinting. "It all sounds vaguely familiar. It's possible I've done these things but my recollection is hazy."

She peered into her glass. "I may need more wine. Now...is this supposed to make your remember or forget?"

Wanda took a long sip of hers before stretching out on her side; the glass she rested against her stomach as she propped up her head on one hand. "It depends on what you need to remember or forget," she responded. "However, in this case we're assuaging my curiosity about what happened earlier. Do you burst into telekinetic flames for everyone or am I just that special?"

Jean grunted. "Just the latest chapter in my apparent non-ending escapades," she said, lifting her glass before draining a good half of the wine.

"I'm broken. Or at least, my powers are. During the battle in Genosha a lot of the psionics got together to try to take down a part of Moreau psychically. Doug had some sort of traumatic episode and the others went to fix him while Layla,one of the students, and I tried to take down Moreau on our own while I shielded them from Doug's emotional backlash---Layla has some sort of powers of determination...only the only work some of the time and they backfired. Zigged when I should've zagged. Moreau tried to drown me in the ocean on Astral Plane..."she said, then got quieter.

"And my powers somehow reacted like what happened at Alkali Lake. Only...I can't turn them off now whenever I use telekinesis. Even just a little."

Whatever Wanda had been expecting, that certainly hadn't been it. Any teasing humor that she'd had at the start of Jean talking had faded completely by the time she was ended. Sitting back up, she shook her head as she tried to absorb it all. "Jean - fuck, I'm sorry. You really cannot catch a break can you?" It was obvious to her that this new ... kink in Jean's powers had probably saved her life in the fight against Moreau but that didn't mean it was a good thing. Her own powers had been slow to return in response to the strain she'd put herself through in Genosha but it was nothing like this. Nothing at all.

"Is it a strain?"

Jean stared out over the hill, watching the lights glimmer. The question gave her pause. She let out a breath. "My abilities have been such a part of me for so long...I'd gotten used to using them without thought, like they were an arm or leg. And now I have to be so careful not to...I guess in a way I can't tell if there is one because I haven't tried," she said, brushing hair behind her ears.

"Since it happened in the Astral Plane I'm hesitant to even try telepathy. I don't know what it means...why the phoenix shows up....I just know I don't want to hurt anyone as a result of it."

Her eyes flickered down. "I'm planning to take myself off active duty," she said, then shook her head with a rueful smirk.

"I guess this is my body's way of giving myself a self-imposed break."

A blown out breath blew hair out Wanda's face as she looked closely at Jean. "Changes to ones powers are difficult to comprehend, let alone deal with at first," she said slowly, remembering her own bouts with power changes and tweaks. She'd seen her fair change of power fluctuations since her arrival at the mansion though not anything with that kind of ... flash. "Perhaps it is just a matter of resting your body and mind. You put it under such stress in Genosha that things might become normal again with time. But if things do not, God only knows you are in the best place to tackle powers issue."

She tilted her head in thought. "I am no telepath, Jean, not even close. But if you get to the point where you wish to try, I could be of service. There's nothing quite like stopping a telepath in my head than turning my powers on. Consider it an emergency off switch if something were to go wrong. Of course, I have no idea if that would help or hinder but the offer is there."

Jean laughed. "Not sure either. It'll either stop me or make the Astral Plane implode. Kind of both intrigued and scared to find out," she mused with a faint smile. She shook her head, the smile faded.

"Sometimes I thought about what it'd be like to leave...the X-Men, the mansion...just...start over, like Jane did. But...now that I want to be here..."

She rubbed her forehead.

"I don't know what I would do if I wasn't able to be an X-Man anymore, or use my powers. Every time they get scrambled...when my telepathy goes out...it feels like being deafened. You get so used to living your life in this multidimensional world, to help people...to lose it..." She looked down. "It's disquieting," she said softly.

Shifting, Wanda lead until her shoulder bumped Jean's. "With our without your powers, you're still you," she said. "But I know how it is when your powers are either gone or so close to it that you cannot use them. You got me through that period, short as it was, and know that I'll be here for you during this. I know how hard it is to talk about but have you talked to Ororo? If anyone knows what it's like to have your powers flip you off, it would be her."

Jean smiled a bit at Wanda's apt description of one's abilities flipping someone off. She shrugged.

"It's been awhile since we've caught up, really. She's wrapped up in X-Force...me in the X-men...It would be nice to see her again," she said.

She let out a breath. "Strangely, with all the people finding ways to neutralize my powers I'm getting used to it...which is why I tried implementing more hand to hand exercises in the Danger Room for the X-Men in case we found ourselves without our abilities. The foundations are there but...more reinforcement would be best."

And now she was talking shop.

"God knows it happens more often than we would like," Wanda agreed, thinking about all those who'd been in Genosha who'd suffer that, amongst other things. They were slipping down a slope, though, that she didn't think either of them wanted to go down. She'd come out to pull Jean out for the night but they were both still so fresh from that hell that it was hard not to go back to it. She tossed back the rest of her wine and poured them both more.

"I'll just say this. You're one of the smartest people I know, Jean, and one of the most tenacious. If anyone can figure this thing out and stomp it back into place, it'll be you."

Jean held up her glass in gratitude, partially for more wine, partially for the sentiment. She took another sip.

"Which means I'll have to get the proper footwear," she mused, then rested her chin in her hand, staring back out at the stars.

"I thought it'd feel good to be home. Now I just worry about everyone else while I'm...strangely fine, all things considered." If you didn't count the obvious. She stared into her wine glass again.

"I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Jean, I think you would spend the rest of your life worrying about the welfare of others if you could," Wanda commented with a laugh. Careful to not knock any of the food stuffs over or her wine, Wanda slowly laid back until she was flat on the blanket she'd brought with them. The night sky filled her vision and she thought of the nights of her childhood that had been filled with visions like these. She'd been thinking of the caravan more and more lately - it was becoming clear to her that, eventually, she was going to need to visit.

"If you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, you'll spend your days stuck in your own head and worrying about things you cannot effect. It is hard to force ourselves to actually step back and enjoy the places and people around us but we have to try. If only because you'll be sitting in a rocking chair at the age of eighty on Xavier's porch still waiting for that other shoe."

Falling silent at the sentiment, Jean leaned back to join her, studying the constellations. She knew many of them and used to make up stories about the creatures that lived up there, Orion chasing the dogs while Andromeda watched, the twins courting Cassiopeia.

"I worry because I hear them...I see some of them wandering around, trying to pretend things are all right...some not pretending at all...I try to shut it out but their nightmares bleed into mine sometimes...Genosha affected all of us....and I can't do anything but watch. I can only heal the body, not the mind..." she said softly, then let out a breath. With her powers on the fritz she couldn't even try to heal them mentally.

"It'll take time, for everyone to heal. I know it. I know I have to try to let them heal on their own but...I feel helpless sometimes.'

"Genosha robbed us of so many things and it seems that one of the things they left us with is the helplessness portion. I wish I had answers for you, for any of us. And so many went through the same hell and came out differently, so there is no 'this is what we must do', no certainties." She turned her head to look at Jean. "But there is one thing that Genosha didn't take from us."

Most of them, anyway.

"The knowledge, even if some refuse to acknowledge it, that we are all in this together. That our doors are open for those who need a shoulder or a sounding board."

Jean glanced over at Wanda, studying her for a moment or two, then smiled softly. "You make it sound so simple," she mused, nudging her with her shoulder.

"If only we could get some of the more stubborn parties to realize that. But I guess that's like trying to change the stars."

Wanda snorted in the most unlady like way possible. "I think I forgot what the word 'simple' meant after all these years." Picking up her glass of wine, she carefully held up above her towards the stars. "Here's to us, Jean, watchers of stars and guardians to those beneath them. Or if you'd like a more 'simple' toast - to the pretty ones, may we always remain so."

Letting out a laugh, Jean lifted up her glass as well. It was precarious but they made it work.

"To the pretty ones..que sera sera...." she mused, trying to say that with a straight face that quickly dissolved into a giggle that she covered with her hand.

"Let's drink it before we spill it, hmm?"

"Wiser words were never spoken."