Bobby and the rest of his fellow classmates in 3rd period Calculus stared at the broken man standing at the front of the classroom. Everything since that day at Alkalai Lake looked different, even if nothing had happened. It was as if their own eyes had been changed, which in a way they had.
They were seeing the real world for the first time, not filtered through their teachers and parents, the authority figures in their lives. They were suddenly the authority figures.
They were adults.
When Bobby looked at the man at the front of the classroom, the sight made him sick. It made his stomach twist in knots, his chest constrict, his lungs heavy.
Scott Summers had been his idol, almost like a big brother to him. Cyclops to his X-men, and Mr. Summers in the classroom, Scott had been a strong man, to say the least. He was always full of life and energy, the kind that had nothing to do with his powers. He had looked much younger than his thirty years, closer physically to twenty-five without the glasses on.
He had carried a lot of burden, but he always carried it well and with a smile for each of the younger kids. Scott had always looked well put together. An ideal role model for the other mutant men in the room, though he would always caution them against it. "Be your own person," he would say. "It's not worth losing yourself for."
Now, his smiles, which before had made girls like Kitty and Jubilee blush, were now grimaces so full of pain you found yourself privately wishing that he hadn't even tried. His shoulders and back sagged underneath the weight of the burden that had finally caught up with him and was crushing whatever life was left right out of him. He looked like he had gained twenty years in the past three months, his temples even graying at the roots. He hadn't shaved in several days, giving the impression that he didn't remember what day it was, and his clothes were wrinkled and faded.
The only thing Bobby could be grateful for was that Scott's mutation made it impossible to see into his eyes. He couldn't imagine what the man looked like now. Those who were to meet Scott now never believed the stories of who he used to be, and old friends hardly recognized him when they came for Jean's funeral.
Jean. Dr. Jean E. Grey. The cause for his suffering, though Bobby knew she didn't mean it that way.
The selflessness she had lived by had followed her right until her death, as had the love she'd had for most living persons. Especially those who lived at Xavier's.
Bobby had been scared when the jet wouldn't lift. He would admit it, but he had trusted in Scott and Ororo so fully that he had barely thought that they wouldn't be able to lift it.
Jean had.
Jean realized that no amount of flying skill was going to get that plane off the muddy ground. Bobby couldn't imagine what must have run though that poor woman's head when she recognized what was happening, that everyone she cared about was going to be crushed by thousands of pounds of rushing water. That love for everyone else, not for herself, is what carried her on a bum leg out of the jet as fast as she could. That love is what kept her from crumbling to bits under the sheer power of her mutation and the weight of the water she was holding back.
When Logan first raised the question of where Jean had gone off too, everyone was confused, not thinking that she could have done what he did, but Scott knew. He knew as surely as he knew two plus two equals four. He jumped out of his seat so quickly it startled Marie. She'd squeaked softly and grabbed Bobby's hand in her gloved one, but Bobby had barely noticed. All he had seen was the look on Scott's face, a look he would bring to his grave, a look that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Pure panic.
In his lifetime, Bobby had seen people panic before, both in real life and in movies, but nothing could compare to what he saw that day. What he saw on Scott's face made every other incarnation he had ever seen look vile.
What he saw on Scott's face was the knowledge that he would be going home without the sole thing he loved more than anything else. Scott saw the single thing he treasured above all others, his highest priority, throwing herself to her death. Consequences meant nothing, and her reasoning less. All he had been thinking about was her.
When she finally died, it was as if he could feel it. Hell, Bobby wouldn't doubt that he did. It was the only time Bobby had seen any sort of a crack in Scott's armor, and he fell completely apart. It was as if he went through all five stages of grief at the same time and he went through it so fast that all that was left was this shell, this thing that looked sort of like Scott, but wasn't.
Everyone who had known her was hurt by the news she was gone. The people on the plane who were left wondering if there was anything they could have done differently. But it was Scott who lost the most.
The students could claim they were hurt, but they would get over it as surely as they would get over the death of a parent. Jean's own family could say they were hurting, but Bobby knew it was a filthy lie. Logan could say all he wanted that he had loved her the most, but it was visible to everyone that it wasn't true.
It was Scott. Scott was the one who had lost everything when the water fell on her.
Scott still breathed, ate, slept, and walked. He still taught and answered questions. He was like a machine.
He hadn't talked to anyone when he wasn't asked a question in months, and even then he was direct and to the point, as if he doesn't really hear himself. He hadn't laughed since four days before Jean died when Jubilee made a bad math joke. Since the last time he had been back at the mansion, safe and sound, with the world still turning.
Scott was alive, but he was no longer living.
And as Bobby watched Scott walk down the hallway to his bedroom, with students running around his sulking form, laughing and cheering about something that would be forgotten the next day, the contrast made him wish Scott had been killed with her, if only to free him from the physical shell keeping him from her.