Jean and Rogue: Boxed in (Backdated)

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Rogue visits Jean in the Box after the Fury mission and they talk about the mission and Rogue's return.



Over the years Jean had come to know the Box very well, so much so that there was a time when she practically lived there until she had been coaxed out. After the Fury she had the need to go there again. Her psychic walls had been shredded like tissue paper by the creature, forcing her to have to work with the Professor to build them back up again from scratch.

But that was only part of the losses. In the scuffle she had shattered her pelvis. Marius, using a temporary fleshcrafting ability gleaned from the deceased Lionel Jefferies, had managed to heal her to the point where surgery to repair the damaged bones and organs was no longer necessary. But she still had quite a bit of healing to do.

She'd brought her laptop to keep her company, and had taken to watching old movies while Scott was off taking care of some business elsewhere. He had gotten his eyes back, both of them, after losing them. She wasn't going to lie, it was a miracle they had all survived, and that he'd ever be able to see again.

There was something so peculiar about being left behind. It had happened so rarely for Rogue that she'd forgotten the sense of panic, anxiety and terror that it could lead to.

Case in point.

She'd been avoiding Jean since she'd come back, more out of residual shame than anything else. Here was someo‎ne who she knew would forgive her for not staying in touch but still, she couldn't help it. Then she'd heard about the incident with the Fury and now she couldn't wait to see Jean.

Armed with some coloured pencils and a notepad, she made her way down to the Box. Knocking on the door softly, she peeked inside and saw Jean was awake. Walking in slowly, she gave a small smile. "Hey there, Jeannie," she said. "Glad you didn't go and do something foolish like killing yourself before I could say hi. Sure do appreciate that."

Of all the people to walk through the door, Jean hadn't expected to see Marie. She, like some of her other teammates from the mission, had been keeping to herself the past few days, and that meant not logging onto the journals that much. So when she saw her, catching the white streak amongst the brown first, a broad grin blossomed across her face.

"I'd hug you but that'd require hobbling across the room like an old woman and it looks rather silly. But I'm hoping you might still oblige," she said, closing the laptop and opening her arms. The grin lingered, the sight of her a bright spot of happiness she desperately needed.

"Hey stranger. How've you been?

Rationally, she knew she had missed the older woman desperately, but she didn't realize how much until that moment. The hug was the first human contact she'd willingly had in....well, years. living with non-mutants meant being extra careful of her skin. ‎She couldn't risk absorbing anyone, but here, here she was accepted unconditionally.

"I'm good," she said softly, reluctantly breaking the hug. "My room is just the same, only I can't get rid of the smell of lavender out of my room. Can't figure out why Moira had so much of it, but not much I can do about it now".

She pulled up a chair next to her bed, and pulled her legs up. "I brought you some sketch books. I figure you're probably limited and all, since you can't move. If you don't like them, that's okay, it's just that I'm an art therapist now and -- not that you need therapy or anything -- I thought it might help." Dear Lord, she was rambling like a minister at a sermon. "Anyways."

Yeah.

"Thank you," Jean said, setting the gift in her lap. She didn't draw much but perhaps she should start. She hadn't done it for pleasure since she was a child and it would be a nice change. In a weird way, rebuilding Fred's face had also suddenly given her an interest in ceramics.

The comment about being an art therapist though made her curious. "So when did you decide to stop pursing the lead on who killed the members of Alpha Flight?" It seemed like it would take some time to develop a career like that, and Marie seemed, at the time, very intent on finding the murderers.

Marie visibly winced. ‎No one else had come right out and asked her about that. She could see people thinking it, but leave it to Jean to ask.

"I found nothing," she said abruptly. "All leads dried up." ‎What else could she say? Sorry Jean, I couldn't take it anymore, all the sadness, all the disappointment, and I decided to pass myself off as a non-mutant and did really well? "Fell in love with Montreal, and decided to stay there. It was easy to get my credits transferred so that's that."

Cue a big, fake smile. ‎

It didn't take a telepath to tell when someone was lying. Sometimes it was all about the look on their face. It usually betrayed you if you weren't careful, reacting on instinct, showing subtle cues. Jean could tell there was more to it, but decided to leave it to her to come out and talk about it when she was ready. She had just gotten back and she didn't want to push too hard.

She nodded. "Well, we're glad to have you home. Is it just a visit or are you going to be here for awhile?"

The mansion was often transitory for some people and Jean had understood that. She sometimes wondered if it would just be her and Charles, alone in an empty mansion someday.

Now that was the million dollar question. "I don't know ", she said truthfully. "I didn't realize how much I missed this place until I got here. You know when I saw Garrison at the airport,it almost felt like I hadn't left at all really." A pause. "You think that it's possible to just come home? " ‎

"I'd like to think so," Jean said with a thoughtful smile. "I think most of us here have done it...left and come back...at one time or another."

She had heard the phrase 'you can't go home again,' but she didn't believe that. It was the concept of home, a place where people loved and cared for you, that she believed in.

"Do you not think you can?" she added after a moment, glancing her over.

Marie looked down at her toes, painted pink, and thought for a moment. She didn't quite know how she felt about that, which was part of her reluctance to ‎open up and make the Mansion home again.

"It's hard," she started, choosing her ‎words carefully. "I mean, things are close enough that it's easy to think I never left but at the same time, I'm not that person anymore.". She gazed up and caught Jean's eyes. "Maybe this is the same existential crisis all adult children have upon returning home again, hey?"

She gave a small smile and shook her head. "Anyways,enough about me. How's you? I missed you so much. Keeping Scooter in line?"

Jean leaned her head back against the wall. "I think it happens to all of us at one point or another, wanting to try something new. It's human nature to become a different person than who you were when you began. I think that's the point," she said with a smile.

"You learn, you grow. You become wiser with experience. It's what you do with that experience next that counts."

‎ Lowering her gaze, Marie's question made her fall silent for a few moments. Her warm smile faded, as it brimmed with some of that experience she'd been talking about. ‎

"We're okay. Getting better. That last mission was....really rough."

Marie nodded sympathetically. She could remember the bad missions -- those always stood more than the good ones. Maybe because they were fewer and far between.

"Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want to be distracted?"

Glancing down, red-tinged memories flashed across Jean's mind. She rubbed her face, suddenly looking as if hours of sleep had been stolen from her.

"We looked into something for Heather Hudson...they'd lost contact with Madison's brother...there was something about an industrial accident. We went to investigate where Lionel had been last...and something had massacred the entire town. Even animals. There was nothing left." She closed her eyes.

"We discovered it was some sort of project he had been working on, a techno-organic being. It's programming was to eradicate threats. At the time it had gone dormant but...when we went to try to figure out what it was...I woke it up," she said, then let out a shaky breath.

"It nearly killed us all. Fred he was..." she said, shaking her head repeatedly. She opened her mouth to go on but found she couldn't, her eyes fluttering with a distant look.

"I'm sorry...I...I can't talk about this anymore."

Marie shook her head, reaching out for Jean's hand with her own gloved hand. "No, I shouldn't have said anything. You don't need to apologize at all.‎ You'll be ready in your own time, I just hope that when you are, you'll talk to someone."

She looked up and tried to catch Jean's gaze. "You were always that person for me, you know. The one I could talk to about anything. It might take some time, but I hope we can get to that place again... and that maybe you can rely on me like you used to too. "

Closing her hand in Rogue's, Jean started to stare down when she found Marie's eyes on her. The woman had grown up so much from those ten years ago. She nodded.

"I'd like that," she said, then smiled softly. "For you too."

She smiled. "Good. When you get out of here, I'm going to cook you dinner and before you complain," she added quickly, "I'll have you know that I've gotten better. Haven't poisoned anyone in ages."

Marie squeezed Jean's hand again, and ‎then stood to get up. "And I'm no doctor, but I think you need some rest. I'll see you later, okay?"

Jean found her smile widening, and it was a good thing, because it was needed. "I'll hold you to that," she said. The laptop closed and Jean slipped off the reading glasses she had been using to watch her computer earlier.

"Good night."

It was good to have her back.