The Trial of Jean Grey - Log 10

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Clarice teleports Jean out with Adrienne so she can work on the surpressor with Paige back at the Blackbird.



Clarice never missed when she teleported. She might get shunted a couple feet at most to bypass a wall (thank goodness her portals had THAT handy feature or she would be dead a million times over by now), but she didn't miss this much. Her portal shot them out a good 50 meters from the Blackbird instead of right beside it. "The fuck?" she asked, annoyed and more than a little shaken. She didn't miss! "What the fuck just happened?" she glared at Jean, though with the suppressor on, it was unlikely that she was the culprit.

Adrienne saw the look Clarice gave Jean and put up her hands defensively. "I didn't do it! I don't even know what you're upset about! What's wrong?"

"We should be over there," she pointed to the Blackbird as they began walking towards it. Clarice didn't want to risk porting right now, "Something messed with my teleportation. You know how many times that's happened since I got to Xavier's? None. Not once. I fucking teleported from outerspace down to Earth! It took a couple jumps, but I landed up reasonably safe and sound! From orbit! Whatever is doing this I am going to destroy. And then whomever did this? I'm going to kill," given everything that had already happened, yes, she was choosing to obsess and focus on this. It was better than thinking about their dead.

"Okay, well... not me," Adrienne added once again. "Unless I give off some kind of power disrupting vibe," she suggested, only half joking. "My powers never work right. Maybe I'm contagious." If Clarice wanted to be pissed off at someone, she could be pissed off at Adrienne. Adrienne didn't mind. "But if I had to guess, I'd put my money on the shocky, kinky dog collar. I saw in my Reading that it was designed to suppress powers. Maybe it's contagious?" Though that wouldn't explain why her own powers had worked when she'd Read it. "Let's get Jean back to Guthrie to take it off and maybe she can go all science-nerd on it and tell us if it's the culprit. You up for a little hike, Doc?"


Leaning heavily against Adrienne, it took everything Jean had to remain standing. It was hard enough to keep her concentration. With every lapse in silence her mind wandered. She was barely paying attention, no matter how hard she tried. It was all in the suppressor's design. Focus could bring the potential to use her powers. The question brought her back to the present, and she could only nod.

"The Indians have....have shielding on the...facility. To keep teleporters from..." She tried to remember the next part, but failed as she saw the blackbird. The surroundings changed as a memory bled in, trading one shore for another. Kyle and Dori dragged Logan, thick pools of blood and chunks of meat staining the grass in his wake. Bodies littered the ground, one headless, one's skin as red as the blood that so many of those bodies left. A small red girl. She didn't move. Smoke. Smoke poured from her eyes.

Smoke poured from his eyes too in the end. Ashes. Ashes.

You. Killed. Him.

We all fall down.

Why?

Jean let out a strangled cry, ripping herself away from Adrienne just before the feedback measures turned back on. She hit her knees, convulsing again for a few long moments until it finally stopped.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."

"Okay, yeah, none of that, Doc," Clarice grunted, shifting so that she could help hold Jean better. "You want me to carry you?" she asked, "'Cause we've got a job to do and collapsing in an exhausted, grieving, regretful heap doesn't come until later. After we get the suppressor off you, for one," she wasn't having any of this. Blame could be laid later. She'd declared too many dead to stop now and let it be even more in vain than it already was.

The shock had considerably drained what strength Jean had left to walk, and she was mostly dead weight when Clarice tried to pick her up, unable to move. She took in a shaky breath, then slowly nodded again, trying not to dwell on that statement. She didn't know what job was left for her. Everything had changed.

And she had a feeling something even worse was about to happen, like the feeling she had just before Alkali Lake.

"Can you manage her?" Adrienne asked Clarice, sounding vaguely annoyed by Jean's falling apart. "Or did you want to go halfsies? I can take her feet if you want."

"I got her," Clarice replied, shifting things for a moment and then hauling Jean into a fireman's carry. Both Adrienne and Jean were taller than her, but she had practice with this sort of thing. Adjusting Jean unceremoniously, the purple woman grunted. "Alright then. Let's go."

Looking up from her tablet, Paige gave the new arrivals a smile. "Oh good, no search party required."

Scott pushed himself to his feet, mindless of his injuries as his eyes remained locked on his wife's face. "Jean..." The X-man took a tentative step towards the door, his eyes not moving from the person draped over Clarice's shoulders. "What happened out there?" he asked his teammates.

"Fucking tech interfered with my portals," Clarice explained, bending and depositing Jean on the floor without ceremony. "And sit your ass back down, you're injured," she would see to him again in a minute. Water first.

"Hey, Dollface," Adrienne beckoned to Paige, pulling her aside. "In the cell I Read the kinky dog collar thing Jean's got on. It's a little fucked up. I trusted myself to disable the remote detonation feature, but I heard a lot of talk during its history about it having a 'feedback system' and a 'suppressor.' I didn't want to poke around with that shit and risk hurting Jean. I figure it's going to take a professional's touch to disable it or keep it from shocking her like it's been doing. Do you know where we can find a professional?" she teased.

"Professional what? Because I think at this point I'm getting my business cards to just read Paige Guthrie, Professional Badass. Would that do?" Paige replied in kind, obviously appreciating the lighter tone. "Come on down."


The Blackbird had been fitted long ago with a convertible medical "bay" in case of emergencies. Some of the seats in the back would roll down and a bed would be made from them that allowed a doctor to work on their patient if necessary while headed back to their intended destination.

Two makeshift beds had been made: one for Scott ( Who was currently not using it) and one for Jean, who was dumped on there while Paige got ready to work. The sound of Scott's voice gave Jean a huge sense of relief, and she let out a huge breath.

"Oh, thank God," she said. He was alive. She had worried, since she had cut off her link to him to keep him from getting her feedback. It worked both ways, so she wasn't sure if he'd made it off Muir.

She wanted to move, to get up, to hug him tightly and never let go. But her body, and the suppressor around her neck betrayed her, keeping her from doing it.

"You...you're real, right?" she said faintly.

It would be a cruel joke if she had been only imagining things. But perhaps that was her punishment.

Scott's eyes were wet with unshed tears as he staggered over to Jean, wrapping his arms around her, "I'm real," he assured her softly, his voice catching in the back of his throat. He'd never seen her looking so vulnerable and hurt before. "See, just a few bumps and bruises but in one piece." He pulled back and looked her in the eyes, "What about you? Are you...?"

Jean clutched at Scott, burying her head against his shoulder like he were an anchor until he finally pulled away. She tried to keep from trembling, but it was all she could do to try to concentrate on the fact that he was here. She needed to be here with him and not let her mind take her places she didn't want to go.

She didn't speak at first, leaving the question hanging in the air. It was one she didn't know how to answer. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him she would be fine. It would all be fine. But she knew it wasn't. Things would never be the same. And she knew he knew it too.

"I...." Her eyes welled up with tears as she struggled to keep things together. She knew if she let herself go the collar would shock her again.

"I don't know," she admitted. She stared at the women as they worked. They were broken, bewildered, beaten. She could feel it in the way they spoke to her, like she were a different person. Perhaps she was.

"I can feel it...inside. Something...something stirring. Something...I don't know if I can control." She stared up at him despondently.

"Something I need to fight."

Scott leaned forward and rested his head against Jean's. "You can do it. If anyone can control this it's you. But Jean, you don't have to do this alone, you've got us...me. Look at everything we've been through, you've beaten all of that, this is nothing." Scott tried his level best to keep his voice steady around the white lie. This was like nothing they'd ever faced, but if there was one thing Scott believed in, more than Charles' dream or anything else it was his wife.

He twined his hands with Jean's. "I know you can beat this, whatever it is that's going on. We'll fight it together."

Jean closed her eyes. It was cold outside but she was still so very warm, as if she had a fever.

"I killed him, Scott," she whispered. "He begged for his life and I killed him. The Brotherhood too. I didn't care. I thought he deserved it. I couldn't...stop myself. I tried to seal myself away...I wish they would've left me there."

If whatever was inside of her caused anymore deaths then she would never forgive herself. But she was coming to realize that she knew what it was. She'd known all along.

Perhaps she just wasn't ready to accept it yet.

The pain in Jean's voice broke Scott's heart to hear at the same time as her words sent a shiver down his spine, "I..." he didn't know what to say, killing Magneto and the brotherhood like that wasn't something he'd ever thought Jean, or any of the X-men, could do and to hear her admit it really brought it home to him. "Don't say that. We...I...we were so worried. You just vanished and we had no idea what was happening." Scott held Jean tighter, "You said you couldn't control yourself...Do you think maybe it was something else, someone manipulating you or all our emotions feeding into you?"

"I don't know," Jean admitted. "I just...I feel...different. Sometimes I'd catch echoes...in Genosha...or with the demon in DC...or...or when I died...Like...I was...more." She shook her head. She didn't know how to explain it properly.
"It scares me sometimes," she said, burying her face against his shoulder again. And sometimes...it didn't. Sometimes she wanted to give into that.
But the idea of doing it scared her even more.
His reassurances did nothing. She wanted to be comforted, she wanted to believe him. To think that everything was going to be okay and their lives were going to go right back to normal after this. But she knew that wasn't true.
You can't resurrect the dead.

Scott let his arms wrap around Jean, his anguish written on his face. There was nothing he could say, could do, that could fix things. As desperate as he was to make everything better, to make it as if the last week hadn't happened, he couldn't. It was a jarring realization for Scott, in the past there had always been something he could think of, a plan to handle events, but now he felt like events were spinning away and just carrying him with them. Scott tightened his arms wrapped around Jean as if he could protect her from everything just by the physical presence of holding her, and rested his head against hers. At least for now they were ahead of events and safe.

Another tear slipped down Jean's cheek, and she leaned in to kiss him, her hand slipping down to grip his. Under the antiseptic, dirt, and sweat, she could still smell a hint of the cologne she'd brought him for Christmas. It was a reminder of another life.
"I love you, Scott Summers."

This moment would not last, but she was going to take advantage of it as much as she could.
"I love you too Jean," Scott replied leaning in to return a kiss before closing his eyes and leaning his head against hers, taking a deep breath and tightening his grip on her hand. "I love you so so much."

"If you guys are done being super awkward and making us all feel reeeeeally embarrassed," Adrienne muttered, fighting the temptation to roll her eyes at all the public displays of affection that were going on, "can we maybe get down to the kind-of-important task of taking the kinky dog collar off the Doc here?"

"Jeez, way to remind the lady with the recently dead brothers she's still single, too," Paige followed up, stilling her hands as the room turned to stare at her. "Too soon. Got it. Guthrie and Frost, ruining moments," she sang, off key. "Let's get this thing gone."