Fury said to a mouse: Scott and Jean an aside.

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott and Jean snatch a moment of solitude together before the fight with the Fury.

Trusting his teammates to stick to the plan, Scott edged along the wall gingerly feeling his way towards the spot where he had heard Jean settle down earlier. Negotiating his way around a particularly large rock, Scott felt his hand brush against her leg before searching just a little higher to find her hand. "Hey," he whispered giving his wife's had a squeeze, "How're you doing?"

Jean's attention shifted back and forth between all of the teammates she could possibly keep in sight. It was an unconscious action, like a bear keeping track of her cubs. She knew she shouldn't think that way, that they could take care of themselves, but she couldn't help it. It happened every time.

All around her thoughts whispered, and chanted, and screamed: reassuring words, curse words, feelings of disgust, nausea, fear and anger, fleeting, longing memories of happier times that were snatched away and traded for flashbacks of the field of body parts and blood. She had taken to meditation techniques to try to dull the sensations, counting down, focusing on small details, repeating her time-tested mantras. Perhaps another visit to Tibet was in order.

She didn't hear Scott at first, so when he grabbed her hand she tensed like a coiled spring, then relaxed, but barely, and nodded.

"Under the circumstances...I'm okay. Better than some," she said. She had taken a small dose of morphine to help with the pain so she could have better focus. It was staring to wear off, but there were those who needed it more.

She dropped her head. "I feel like I'm 13 again," then added with a quiet note of helplessness that she kept for only him to hear. There was nothing to shut those thoughts off, no Professor to swoop in and figure everything out, but unlike before at least she had the experience of what it felt like to be bombarded.

Searching his face, where both his eyes used to be, Jean reached out to touch his cheek, then decided against it, stopping halfway. She didn't want to startle him. She tried not to tear up, drawing in a ragged breath that she used to find a much-needed stronger voice.

"How are you?"

"I'm..." Scott half-turned instinctively before he caught himself, "Not so good," he admitted. "I keep expecting this to be a bad dream, to wake up and it not to have happened or to take off the gauze and still be able to see. I..." Scott's voice caught in his throat. "I'm blind. I...when my powers first came though, I didn't want to see, to open my eyes. But then Charles showed up with the ruby glasses and I thought I was safe. Now I'd give anything to be able to open my eyes and look at you again. Funny how things go around full circle."

He gave Jean's hand another squeeze and settled down next to her. "I don't think many of us are walking out of this in one piece." he noted sadly. "But we're still here fighting, I'm sorry for this, making you coordinate everyone while your shields are down."

Jean immediately shook her head. "If it means keeping everyone alive I would do it a thousand times," she said firmly, glancing over her teammates, wishing she could just fix things like setting a bone or putting in stitches. They were her family, and to see them beaten and worn and broken was something she never wanted for them. When she looked at some of of them she still remembered them as teenagers, fresh faced, fumbling their way through their classes and powers training. And now they were fighting for their lives.

"I just..." She swallowed. "Hope I can keep it up." Her spirit was more than willing, but she wasn't sure about her body. It often had a 'mind,' to turn a phrase, of its own.

"You can, you will," Scott assured her, trying to push the the overwhelming despair which he was mired in to fill his voice with confidence, "You've never let anyone down before, no matter what the odds," unlike him, who couldn't help but keep letting the team down. "Today, this is nothing compared to some of the things we've been through. We can't let a little thing like a biological superweapon stop us, we'd never be able to live it down," he offered as a lame joke, hoping to buoy Jean's spirits.

Glancing around to stare at the devastation, Jean's eyes were distant. "Being ripped to pieces means we won't have to worry about it," she said impassively, the joke not helping much.

"Hey," Scott slipped an arm around Jean's shoulders, "We're going to beat it. Then we're going to go home, all of us." He really hoped that this was true, there was nothing Scott wanted more than to be away from here. Not to forget about it, that was never going to happen he thought bitterly, just to he was no longer in a situation where he kept running into the fact that he was useless to the team he'd dedicated his whole life to, but all he could do now, make a plan and hope.

"I know," Jean said, leaning her head back. "It's just been...I don't know how long since we've been beaten this badly."

"Never," Scott's voice was filled with a mixture of seething anger and regret, "Even when I screwed up in Genosha things never got this bad."

Jean closed her eyes, the thoughts of her teammates billowing up again. She listened, even if she tried not to. It was, in a weird way, comforting despite the constant wave of imagery. It meant they were still alive. But it didn't stop the pain, and the exhaustion, and the barrage of emotions that pulled her every which direction like a rag doll in a washing machine.

She didn't know what to say, and put her head into her hands.

Scott's brow furrowed in surprise when he felt Jean slump forward, his hand gingerly making his way up Jean's back until he realized she'd slumped forward with her head in her hands. His surprise pierced the fog of depression which he had been struggling to prevent clouding his thoughts. They'd been talking, but about nothing which would have elicited this kind of reaction. The X-Man replayed the conversation in his head: Genosha, communications and...feeling like a 13 year old again. The comment hadn't even registered with Scott when she'd said it earlier, he was so wrapped up wallowing in his own misery.

"Oh god, Jean," the X-Man scrambled around to kneel in front of her, not caring about the debris lying on the ground that dug into his kneecaps. "Your shields..." Scott clenched his fists, feeling utterly useless. He'd never hated anything more than he had right now. The Fury had permanently blinded him and torn Jean's shields to pieces. She was slowly falling apart in front of him and he was powerless to do anything, to stop the Fury or to help Jean. He was stuck on the sidelines, he thought sourly, so none of his years of training or toughening his mental shields was any use.

"You can use my shields," he realized, "Use me as a filter for everyone's thoughts, that way you can coordinate without getting overwhelmed."

Lifting her head, Jean was momentarily startled as she was used to seeing him as he normally looked but instead found hollowed out, bloody eyes. For a moment she had forgotten too. Her face crumpled, and she shook her head as a tear streamed down her face.

"I can't ask you to do that, Scott. You've already been through enough."

"I've got to do something," Scott replied brokenly, dropping his head. "I've made a plan and I'm telling everyone to go out there to risk their lives but I can't go with them. I can't help anybody like this. If I tried I'd just get in the way and get someone killee," the brown haired man gave a bitter laugh, "Now I understand what Charles must have been going through all these years, sending us out to fight while he has to stay safe at the mansion." He shook his head, still facing down at the ground, "I can't do it. I can't just sit back and do nothing."

Scott fell silent, struggling with his pride and trying to find a way to describe the desperation he felt. "Please, I need to...I need to be part of this. I need to help, even if I can only do it for a few minutes. That buys you, buys everyone more time." He swallowed, "It could help. Maybe those few minutes of extra coordination are what it would take to beat the Fury. Maybe I can help stop someone else from getting crippled. Please Jean. It's the last thing I'll ever be able to do in the field...The last thing I can do to help the team." The team leader folded in on himself, "The only thing I can do for you," he admitted in a small voice.

Jean sat back like a weight had just been hurled onto her chest, staring at her husband despondently. He was right. He was blind now. He'd never be able to see her, or anything else ever again with his own eyes, forever shrouded in darkness.

What had they done to deserve this?

Her gaze trailed down to the spot where he wore his wedding ring underneath his gloves. She noticed him twist it around his finger sometimes. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health. There was no question she would be there for him, but she needed to be there for the others too right now. They had to make it through this. And he was right, this might have been the only way. Reaching out, she took his hands in hers.

"I love you, Scott Summers. I love you so much," she whispered, gently resting her forehead against his as she closed her eyes.

"Okay....I'll do it." She still didn't like the idea, though.

Scott threaded his fingers through Jean's, "I love you too..." he began as he felt her reach out to touch his mind through the psychic link, just like so many times before, but this time was decidedly different. In the wake of Jean's touch came...others, all the others. They washed over Scott in a wave: their thoughts, their emotions, their fears and hopes all washed over and through him. Scott drew a gasp as he bowed under the pressure. There was so much he couldn't focus and collect himself.

As wave after wave assaulted him, Scott felt Jean's hand give his a squeeze, the touch an anchor he eagerly seized like a drowning man holding onto a lifeline. Slowly, in what seemed like hours or days to the X-Man but couldn't be more than a few seconds, he clawed himself above the waves of emotion, shoring up his already formidable psychic defenses until they were no more than a whisper, a pressure constantly tickling at the back of his mind.

"Is this what it's like all the time?" he gasped out. He felt exhausted and he was only holding back a handful of people. He couldn't even imagine what it would take for someone to block out the thoughts of an entire city.

"Everyday," Jean said faintly, her eyes still closed as she stroked his hand.

Scott shuddered and sucked in a deep breath before he pulled himself to his feet and nodded in the direction of the rest of the team.

"Shall we?"