Jean and Haller: Wash and Fold

[xp_phoenix]

Haller finds out what happened in New Orleans.


The shrill sound of an alarm filled the smaller laundry room as Jean opened one of the dryers. Pausing a moment, she let out an annoyed sigh before grabbing the laundry basket on the table to pull the clothes out and into.

This was so much easier with powers.

"Everything okay?"

Unnoticed, Jim had shouldered his way into the laundry room. Now he stood in the doorway watching her, basket braced against one hip and wearing a slightly puzzled expression.

When Jim spoke up, Jean let out a small yelp, nearly dropping the towel in her hands.

"Gah! Don't sneak up on me like that." She let the towel drop on its own into the basket, then glanced over to notice the look on his face and returned it with a scowl.

"Is it that obvious?"

"I'm . . . not sure. You just look . . ."

The taller man frowned as he set down the basket. He hadn't seen her since she'd left for New Orleans, and now something was off. She seemed frazzled, maybe a little less put together than usual, but nothing was obviously wrong; certainly no injuries. But . . .

There was something else. Jim wasn't a keen telepath, but he'd known Jean for a long time. He was used to the sensation of her power resonating with what little sensitivity he had. He realized that being in proximity with her was like drawing closer to a bonfire -- a kind of suffusing warmth. Usually, anyway.

The obvious dawned on him.

"I can't usually sneak up on you."

Jean nodded, putting her basket on the nearby counter. She started to pull out clothes to fold.

"Unfortunately, you can now."

The crease between Jim's eyebrows deepened into a crevasse. "Your telepathy . . . . it's gone?"

Someone else saying it hit Jean a little harder than she had anticipated, making it more real. She froze for a couple of seconds, swallowing, before resuming her work.

"Telekinesis too." She dropped a shirt into the basket.

"Garrison says I can still help...but I know it won't be as an X-Man for awhile."

"Garrison's right. Losing his powers didn't keep him from helping the team, either." Jim watched her profile as she folded.  

"What happened?"

"He also did it secretly. It's a little harder to hide the fact that I can't even move a rock or hear what's going on in someone's head." She shrugged.

"Not that I was planning on hiding it. I just...If something goes down what am I going to do? Throw a stethoscope at it? I have to step down."

Jim shook his head. "I'm only a reserve member, and since coming back I've spent more time off the team than on. It happens. If you don't want to talk about it . . ."

"No, it's fine," Jean said. She started to intently fold another shirt.

"Garrison died in my arms. Marie-Ange and I took him to Amanda's...person Tante, who is apparently very magical. So magical she ripped the Phoenix out of my body and used it to resurrect not just Garrison, but Adam Destine. But not this world's Adam Destine. It's complicated. And then we went to fight Selene, who...don't get me started on that one. The Phoenix helped take her down. Then Garrison and I went back to recuperate and I woke up the next morning and...I'm folding laundry by hand."

There was a pause. Jim didn't recognize half the names, and if Jean asserted the sequence of events was "complicated" that was absolutely something he could wait to read in the inevitable debrief. Instead he focused on the relevant details: a death, an extraction, a fight, and then . . . nothing.

"That's . . . a lot," he said at last. "It could be a consequence of the power you expended, like burnout, or it could be a delayed side effect of shock. Losing someone . . . that's not nothing. Not even if they got better. Not even if--"

He stopped himself before he could add "you were expecting it."

Jean stopped folding and sat down in a nearby chair. "It wasn't from the curse...Selene wanted us to give up Amanda. If we didn't, she'd kill Garrison. We all knew what the outcome would be if she got Amanda. But I kept hoping someone would come for us." She looked down, feeling her voice catch as she wiped a tear away.

"No one did. Selene's henchman beat him to death. Well...not before Garrison killed him first. Garrison died in the car."

She let out a ragged breath. "He thinks it might be burnout. But...maybe you're right. Or maybe it's both. Either way...not my favorite vacation."

Laundry entirely forgotten now, Jim took the chair beside her and touched her gently on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. All of that."

Jean was silent for a few moments, attention 1,340 miles away before she nodded. "Thanks," she said, not sure how else to respond. The entire situation was mad in and of itself, much less having to relay it to someone else. She paused.

"Also the wolf is telepathic. I think."

Jim's brain, currently set to trauma response mode, ground painfully at the abrupt shift of gears.

"The wolf is telepathic," he repeated, attempting to see if it made any more sense coming from his own mouth.

"Possibly," Jean said, nodding in agreement with the stunned look on his face.

"He told Garrison his name was Gord. I...don't know if there was anything other than that." She rested her head against the wall, looking blankly out over the laundry room.

"It's been a long few days."

"The wolf says his name is Gord. I . . . okay." Far be it for him to argue with an apex predator, but he hoped the eventual debrief was going to have footnotes. Jim cleared his throat.

"Back to your problem," he said, seeking familiar ground, "would you like me to take a look? I'm not sure I'll be able to find the cause, but it could give us an idea of what we're working with."

Grateful for the change in topic, Jean nodded. "I'll take it," she said. There were few that could potentially help her in this situation. She didn't feel like turning to magic either. The mind was their realm.

"Okay. This shouldn't take long." With the other telepath unable to meet him in the middle, physical contact would act as the easiest bridge. Jim placed his fingertips to Jean's temple and closed his eyes.

There were different ways of seeing, especially on the astral plane. An individual's self-image was deeply personal; it said as much about who they felt themselves to be as who they were. Normally Jean appeared in her mind as she appeared in reality: a little brighter, perhaps, more vibrant, but firmly connected to who she was on the outside.

The Jean he saw now was not. Soot smudged her skin and darkened her hair. Her clothing was dirty with ash and dried blood, although it did not seem to be from any wound of her own. Her neck was ringed with bruises in the shape of a clutching hand. Her body was next to him, but her mind was still processing what had happened in New Orleans.

Like a man unfocusing his eyes to view the image hidden in a stereogram, Jim exhaled and moved now to a different view. He sought to perceive not how Jean saw herself, but her connection to her powers and how they rested within her.

Jim had seen Jean in action on the astral plane before. In that state her power pulsed beneath her skin like living flame. Now, though, he sat beside a woman of char and ash. A shell, blackened and cold, like a burned-out fire.

Empty.

Jim pulled his hand away.

Jean studied him carefully. The heartache of it was that she didn't feel a thing when he was in her mind. Normally she could sense it, a tremor, a ripple, something out of place. But now...nothing. Had he not asked she would have never known. She felt vulnerable.

"Well? What did you see?"

"An absence." Jim paused, trying to put his interpretation into words. "I didn't detect a mental block. I did sense . . . fatigue. That points towards burnout. But with magic involved it's hard to tell if it was a natural consequence of using so much power, or some kind of price. I don't know much about magic, but I do know it doesn't give you something for nothing. Either way, for the moment it seems like your powers are gone. Or" he added thoughtfully, "recovering."

Letting out a breath, Jean rubbed her forehead. "Let's hope for the latter," she said before folding her arms awkwardly.

"You know when you're in a conversation with a bunch of people at a party and at one point everyone goes quiet at the same time? It's like that right now. It's...unnerving."

The corner of Jim's mouth raised in a small, sad smile. "I do know what that's like. Most of my life has been a cycle of gaining and losing access to my powers, to varying degrees. It's . . . well, not really something you get used to, but something you learn to live with. When you have to." He sat back in the chair, crossing his arms across his chest. "Yours seem to work a little differently. Not because you don't have DID, I mean, but the power you use . . . the source seems to be more than just internal. Sometimes I wonder if there's an element of psionic energy absorption. Either way, if that's the case it could be that you simply overloaded yourself. Processed more power than you usually handle. If that's the case, I'm hopeful. You just need rest, and time."

"I blame the magic swamp lady," Jean said. She shook her head. "Not that I'd do anything differently if it was the only way to bring Garrison back. It just would've been nice to have been asked."

Jim remembered the bruise marks around the neck of Jean's astral form. He hoped they had been metaphorical, not physical, but decided not to pursue it. Instead he just nodded and said, "He's okay now, then?"

Managing a small, relieved smile, Jean nodded. "Seems to be good as new. Like the curse never happened." There was that one small benefit.

The counselor's eyebrows shot up. "So he's not dead, <I>and</I> better?" he asked, briefly flashing back to Garrison's insistence that things would work themselves out. The fact they apparently had was somehow both a relief and deeply aggravating. However, he couldn't argue that one teammate no longer looking at a slow demise and another no longer watching him do so was anything other than a net good. The incredulous snort he gave was genuine, but he smiled. "Okay, well, I guess the vacation wasn't completely wasted."

Jean arched an eyebrow, obviously missing something. "In the simplest terms, yes, I suppose," she said.

"One less thing to worry about is always good." Jim stood, and offered Jean his hand to follow.

"In the meantime . . . do you want some help folding?"