xp_logs | Jean and Haller:

xp_phoenix posting in

Haller tells Jean about what happened to Jessica. Jean does not take it very well.

TW: Mentions of sexual abuse, mental manipulation, sexual assault.

Jim withdrew his hand from Jessica's wrist and leaned back in his chair. A dull, throbbing headache was already starting. The telepath pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and simply held the posture for a few breaths. He felt scoured.

Without looking he said, "How long was I in there for?"

"Too long," Jean said quietly, staring at Jessica for a moment with a disquieted look before glancing back to Jim.

"About 11 hours. I brought you some food," she added, offering him a plate with a sandwich, some chips, and a bottle of water.

Jim nodded vaguely. "Thanks. I should probably-"

The nausea hit him like a tidal wave. He barely made it to the en suite bathroom before he threw up. Somewhere from the left of his own body he watched himself vomit bile into the toilet and thought, Oh. It was really bad.

Jean darkened the doorway, hovering carefully.

"Are you okay?" It seemed like an ignorant question, given that he was vomiting, but she was trying to determine if he needed to be examined. Eleven hours without moving or eating was bad enough, but he had a slight pallor to his face.

Jim spat the last of the bile into the bowl and flushed. "Yeah. It just hit me all of a sudden, that's all." Shakily, the telepath levered himself to his feet and turned on the tap to rinse the taste of vomit from his mouth. He spat a few more times, then wiped his mouth. The headache had intensified with the strain of vomiting. He straightened up and finally turned to face Jean.

"It was worse than I thought. Nine years. Someone had her under telepathic influence for nine years." He was speaking in that too-level tone that sometimes happened when he wasn't really allowing himself to process the emotion behind his words, but that felt like a safer place to be right now.

Jean blinked. "But...she was at the mansion during some of that time," she said. She was understandably concerned about Jessica herself, but she was also focused on the fact that she had been there.

"Yeah. She was." Jim nodded to Jean as he moved past her and back into Jessica's room. "He installed some sort of shell personality to keep anyone from getting suspicious. There was a fairly competent facade built up around the perimeter to satisfy cursory telepathic sweeps, too. Every few weeks he'd have her come back to him so he could renew his influence. He's kept it up all this time. It was just scar tissue on top of scar tissue in there."

Slowly sitting down, Jean let out a breath as everything sunk in. "That amount of...mental..." she put her hand to her forehead. She couldn't even imagine the toll it would take on a mind. She had never heard of anything like it.

"Who is he? Why did he even send her here?"

Jim drifted back to Jessica's bedside. Outside of her mind she looked young and frail. "To see if we knew about him," he replied. "He wasn't interested in confronting us. He doesn't have high ideals or grand ambitions. If he wanted to, he could probably get his hooks into the whole Senate -- but he doesn't have any ambition in that direction. All he cares about is his own comfort. He only collects people to use them as tools. And, if they're really unlucky, toys." He stared down at the woman's mottled face. "Jessica was unlucky."

The thought made Jean shudder, and she turned away. "Doing what?" She could barely bring herself to say it but she wanted to know.

The woman that had been at the mansion before...she was complicated. She was the one that had broken her and Warren up by sleeping with him. But it wasn't really her fault, since it took two to tango. Still, it was a reminder. How much influence did he have on her? Where did she end and he begin?

"He liked her strength. Making her hurt people seemed to get him off. She doesn't like it." He shook his head. "Her time in the mansion is pretty fragmented, since she wasn't really herself for it, but it was . . . probably the closest thing she had to a respite. It was early on, and he didn't have access to many mutants. After he called her back he started keeping her close."

For a moment he ran out of words. But Jean wasn't just Jessica's doctor, she was a telepath. He wasn't sure how Jessica's mind would respond to repairs, but it was entirely possible it would result in flashes Jean would be able to sense. She deserved to be warned.

With a slow exhale, the counselor drew his attention away from Jessica and turned it to his teammate. "He used his power to assault her. That was part of it, too, although not the main part. It was all of a piece."

It felt like all the air had gotten sucked out of the room. Jean hadn't realized she was looking at Jessica during that moment and she quickly looked down.

"I need some air," she said, jumping up out of the seat and walking out of the room.

"Jean." Everything seemed to be happening miles away, but even so the telepath realized he needed to engage. He rolled his hands into fists and breathed around the bite of nails into his palms. The effort brought him more in sync with his body again, more present. He moved to follow.

Jim quickened his pace until he caught up to his teammate. Tension sang through the stiff line of her back.

"I'm here," he said. "Tell me what I can do."

Jean had made it to the danger room door. It was unoccupied, so she stumbled her way in, trying to teach her breath. She couldn't breathe.

"Computer...load...forest scenario..." she mumbled. An overgrown forest loaded in around them. It was sunset, and light shone through the trees. The sounds of a stream trickled in the distance.

Her knees hit the ground, and she closed her eyes, trying to calm herself.

Jim was right behind her. Shaking a little from fatigue, he took a seat beside her in the grass. For a few minutes he just let her be, breathing. Existing. When he did speak his voice was low and calm.

"Talk me through it," Jim said. "Tell me what you're feeling."

Jean had always had a fantastic imagination. The trouble with imagination when mixed with empathy was that it had the potential to create a powder keg when that imagination still fully hadn't coped with what happened to her. It was a numbers game. Nine years of torture. Eleven hours of mental surgery. Five months in hell. Twelve hours of surgery. 57 minutes. Two years, five days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, 20 seconds....

There were monsters outside of hell. Not demons. Just regular men. Regular men. Who got off on controlling women. On raping women. Monsters. She knew they existed. But staring straight in the knowledge of it, the aftermath, wound to bloody wound...

When Jim asked her what she was feeling, someone screamed in reply. It was almost unearthly, a shriek of pent up rage. A rumble followed, spreading outward and levelling the forest around them. Smoke billowed from Jean's eyes, and mouth and she breathed in through her teeth, wiping away the remnant of a tear. There was no amount of words that she could find to tell him what she was feeling.

Jim, safe with her in the epicenter, said nothing. He gave her space while she hunched there, panting from the catharsis of the destruction. It wasn't until the last wisp of smoke dissipated that he reached for her.

Gently, Jim took Jean's hand in his own like a man picking up an injured bird. Lacing his fingers through hers, he squeezed, and with that contact came a pulse of emotion: understanding, and sadness, and the low burn of an answering rage. All shared in the space of a heartbeat.

Jean finally met Jim's eyes after finally falling out of the moment. She looked around, a deep, dark weariness settling over her. Nodding, she stared back out at the devastated forest, not sure what to say, except:

"Computer, end scenario."