Disclaimer: Not mine. *sigh*
"Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance,
For a break that would make it okay.
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day…"
SARAH MCLACHLAN
There were moments when Jean Grey felt hopelessly, utterly lost. It was amazing how one's mind could exaggerate the simplest of events, convolute and complicate that which really wasn't that intricate. Being one in a position of such profound responsibility, she didn't allow herself the quiet time necessary for her to work herself into such a funk, but sometimes, circumstances brought about that which would ordinarily not surface. A seed of thought would be planted, with heightened emotions and stress, germinate, and a vicious cycle would take root…Why bother with control, when it seems that the world controls you? Why institute protocol, when so often, exceptions begged innovation? Why fight for a world that would never have you?
It could go on indefinitely. Rarely did she allow it to fester long. Her cure? Hope. Love. Faith. Friendship. All around her were constant reminders of her reasons for pushing on, for moving forward, for not looking back. Her teammates would probably never know how much she depended on their strength. Her life had become so intertwined with theirs, some more than others, of course, but, all the same, she needed them. She needed them to be strong, to be unified, to be justified. To never be satisfied with something less than what they all deserved: hope, love, faith, and friendship.
But sometimes, those constant reminders were harder to see.
Jean winced as she lifted the modified helmet above her head; her eyes squeezed shut against the pounding white light that accompanied the throbbing in her skull. So many things between then and tomorrow morning would happen, events that would once again document the X-men's interloping upon a potentially cataclysmic circumstance. So much experience with the extraordinary, and yet, she knew it would never get any easier. Everyday, she stood a chance of losing someone. Everyday, she stood the chance of losing herself.
"Cerebro, standby." Her voice was raspy, strangled with worry and suppressed emotion. Her teams, divided, each with its own goal, each preparing to meet its own particular brand of danger. And she, alone in a huge, silent compound, with a machine as her only companion. Able only to stand by and watch, having silently slipped into the position that the Professor for so many years had occupied. Charles Xavier had possessed his own kind of strength, strength she could only hope to attain.
She prayed she wouldn't have to. While the others fought enemies around the globe, she remained on the home front, in body only. Existing only to find what had been lost. To bring the Professor back home. Her body tired faster than her will, exhaustion now forcing her to pause in her endeavors. She was hungry, but too weary to eat; sleepy, but too troubled to slumber for any substantial length of time. Gravity seemed to be too much a hurdle to overcome, as she slowly sank further into the chair in which she'd been seated for so long, heavy lids closing, the muscles in her face relaxing, though the pain of her headache remained. Tears came before sleep would, gliding silently down pale sunken cheeks. Tomorrow, Jean. Tomorrow, your friends will return to sustain you. Just one more day.
One more day.
~~~~~
"It seems so weird."
Sage cocked a brow at Rogue's reflection in the rear view mirror. Those had been the first words spoken by the woman since their arrival to the States. Rogue's lengthy silence hadn't bothered her in the least; a lot had happened in the past twenty-four hours, The Destiny Diaries now reduced to ash and vapor, Storm and Thunderbird returning to Australia with Lifeguard and Slip, and Gambit and Bishop separating to join their respective teams. Sage was surprised that the lot of them weren't suffering from shock. So much sacrifice, only to see the objects of their quest destroyed in one breath taking instant. In the end, all had agreed it was probably for the best. Who was to say who had the right to know the future? To Sage, such knowledge belonged in the hands of a god, not a mutant, or a human.
To Rogue, however, she sensed the loss of the diaries was somewhat more devastating.
"Weird?" she prompted, returning her focuses to the winding road ahead. Only an hour more, and they would be in Westchester County.
She heard a long, low sigh. "Coming home. I just…I though it would be different, that's all."
Sage debated whether she should press. Rogue's condition hadn't fared any better in her time away from the X-men. She was afraid, but refused to confide in any of those who had shared the mission to find the Diaries. Her disappointment was obvious; she had so hoped for the answers she sought to be in Irene's journals. Had hoped to find a cure that the Professor had yet to produce. And here she was again. Fruitless. On even worse footing than she'd been when she first came to Xavier's school. In spite of the team's failure to retrieve the journals, Rogue appeared to be handling her circumstances well. She wondered, however, how much longer Rogue could hold out. If something weren't done to gain control of Rogue's power, her mind would be swallowed by the presence of the legion inside of her head. She would be lost to all of them, with little chance of ever coming back.
Sage knew there was still a chance. She had known, in some respects, for as long as she'd known Rogue. It was dangerous. It would come with tremendous sacrifice. It could make her worse, could perhaps kill her. For these reasons, she had been unwilling to come forth with her option. She chanced another look in the rear view, her placid countenance never once betraying her inner turmoil at the sight of Rogue sitting in the back seat, her head resting against the window, sad eyes unseeing as the world outside flew by. It seemed, in lieu of recent events, that the consequences of helping Rogue weren't so ominous relative to her current state. Soon, she would have to tell her. She might, after all, think it worth the risk.
She was sure she would.