Jean and Scott: Heavy in Your Arms

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Scott comes to check on Jean following a discussion he overheard about her. The two get into an argument then finally come to an overdue resolution.

Trigger Warning: Discussion of Loss of a Child




Scott knocked on the door to Jean's office before pushing open the door at her answer and walking inside. He waving the bag of coffee in his hand at his wife as she sat at her desk, "You know, having a coffee machine in your office makes it kinda hard to come and surprise you with a cup of coffee and convince you to take a break," he told her with a laugh as he closed the door behind him.

Peering up from behind her glasses, Jean smiled and tucked her pen behind her ear.

"When Hank's coffeemaker achieves sentience and tries to kill us all with 14 kinds of scalding hot coffee don't blame me. I tried to warn you," she said.

She leaned back in her chair, slipping off her glasses to rub her eyes. "You're worried," she said. Nothing new there.

"What's on your mind?" It was hard to surprise a telepath, though it could be done.

Scott grimaced, "That's the kind of thing you shouldn't even joke about," he told Jean with a smile, "Can you imagine what would happen to the mansion if we ran out of coffee? It'd make magneto look like a pleasant dream."

"An army of caffeine-deprived mutants? You're right. That could be dangerous," Jean mused. But the look on his face suggested he wasn't just there for pleasantries.

Dropping the coffee bag near the machine Scott sank into a chair and ran his hands through his hair and sighed, "I'm that obvious huh?" He'd been hoping to approach the topic obliquely but Jean had seen right through him as usual. "I walked in on Adrienne and Haller discussing a run in you had with one of the students." The dislike in Scott's voice was palpable when he mentioned the school's psychologist. "Miss Abbott. Apparently you ran into her while she was ghosting out in the hallway?" he prompted gently.

The smile on Jean's face quickly died away for a moment before it was replaced with something unreadable as she stood and went to a nearby window.

"She surprised me," she said.

She wasn't going to try to lie about it. She wanted to work on their relationship. They'd been doing better the last few months after Genosha. "She reminds of..." She lowered her gaze.

Scott fell silent as he stood up and went to stand by Jean at the window looking out at it's view over the grounds. He'd been hoping this hadn't been the reason behind Jean's reaction to Hope, but he had known better.

"Me too," he admitted in a whisper, "The first time I saw her name on the paperwork I couldn't believe it. it was like I'd gotten all the air knocked out of me. coming on top of everything else she was Miss Abbott to me for weeks if not months."

Jean rubbed her arms, though she wasn't cold. "I'd been avoiding her for awhile...I couldn't...She looked so much like what I imagined. So when I saw her...I wasn't expecting it," she said, then let out a breath.

"I didn't horribly traumatize her, did I?"

"I don't think so," Scott replied after a moment's thought, "from what I heard she was more confused than anything. Perhaps a little shocked or hurt by your reaction. You'll have to talk to her the figure out what's really going on in her head, she's a pretty tightly wound kid." Scott shot Jean a side-long glance, "You are going to have to talk to her you know. It's not fair on either of you if things go on like this." The last thing Scott wanted was for anything about this situation to hurt Jean anymore than it already had, a fact he let flow along their psychic bond along with all the comfort and support he could.

The link seemed to cut off abruptly as Jean held up her hands and slipped past him. She spun around.

"So am I one of the children now? Do I get in trouble if I don't? Do I get detention? Stop coddling me and giving me orders like I'm an invalid. I'm not going to magically be healed over night like you...You're so goddamn calm and rationale... like a robot. How do you do that? Why are you always so unaffected? Why can't you be mad like me? I'm mad at the damn world for so many messed up things that's happened..."

"You think it doesn't get to me?" Scott asked his voice barely more than a whisper, "Do you really think that I don't want to yell at the world sometimes?" He turned to face her, cracks appearing in the mask he used to hide his emotions. "Between everything, with us, Charles and Haller I just want to scream at the world. To run away and just leave the mansion behind, all it seems to do is take and take." He gestured at Jean, "It took the best thing about my life and..."Scott's voice trailed off, "You think I'm a machine? I don't know what else to do Jean. There's no-one left I can go to with this, I can't let anyone see."

"Why?" Jean shouted back, her voice catching as she dug her nails into her hands.

"Why can't you go to me? I'm your wife! I love you! We used to be so--" She swallowed.

"I feel like we've been pretending for so long and I just want you. I want you to talk to me. I want to feel like I can talk to you. Like equals. Like I can tell you anything. But you keep pushing me away and I keep pushing you away and it just makes me so angry. We don't talk. We pretend like everything's okay and shove it down. We can't pretend anymore, Scott. We can't. Not with each other. Because I don't know to do either."

"Then what do we do?" Scott shot back, "We both fill up every waking moment with busy work just so we can pretend that it's all ok and we don't have to think about how bad things have gotten. You down here and me up there, just hiding from everything we feel. It's so easy and it never stops, we never get a chance to catch our breath, this whole place just lumbers from one disaster to the other. We all end up at war with a crazy country and when we get back there's another mission to go to. We fly all the way to South America to rescue one of the kids who gets kidnapped and then they all get kidnapped right in our backyard. And I can't stop and catch my breath because it all hurts too much. If I stop for a moment I'm afraid I won't be able to start moving again; and I can't let that happen, I can't let everyone down, not again!"

The air was heavy, yet still. Jean could hear Scott breathing, labored with anger and frustration, his muscles taut like a coiled spring under his shirt. His posture was straight and rigid, and his eyebrows were furrowed, weighed down with the weight of the world.

"I felt the same way when we lost her. Days...weeks...Sometimes...I still feel it. Like the universe is punishing us for trying to make a difference," she said quietly.

"I don't what changed. Maybe....seeing Jenny and Phillip....how they'd managed to find love amidst all that pain. To show that...." Letting out a breath, she reached over and put her hand on his cheek.

"Maybe it's growing pains. And its going to be hard before it gets easy. Because its worth doing."

Scott closed his eyes and leaned against Jean's hand, "What if we can't?" he whispered as he opened his eyes and looked at Jean, "Everything we touch falls apart," Scott admitted as his mask crumbled entirely revealing his fears to Jean. "I'm terrified of that happening to us. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you like that." He laughed bitterly, "So instead I froze you out so it was like we weren't even together. Talk about irony."

Scott seemed to stand a little straighter as he reached up to rest his hand against Jean's. "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but then that's never stopped us before."

"We both have a little bit of experience in rebuilding things when they break. The doctor and the mechanic. Perhaps that's our purpose....to mend the pieces," Jean said. She closed the distance, then shut her eyes, pressing her forehead against his.

"I don't want to lose you either, Scott. I love you. So much."

Otherwise she wouldn't have held on this long.

"I love you too, Jean." Scott replied, his arms dropping down to hold her and his eye tracking over Jean's face trying to etch this moment into his memory; it felt a lot like the first time she'd said she loved him. After all this time and everything they'd been through, that was a feeling Scott didn't want to lose.

Seconds passed in silence, through it was never really silent at all to Jean. Finally she opened her eyes.

"I'll talk to her," she said softly, in contemplation. It wasn't the girl's fault she reminded her of a ghost.

Perhaps talking to her would help her to finally try to move on. She was very good at confronting everyone else but herself.