Infinity

The end comes when comprehension is gone, when she only knows everything and feels nothing but regret for the methods, but not the end result.

For Jean Grey, life is one long stream of consciousness now, pieces of history and future rippling together, eddies of pain and love in a multi-dimensional plane, made of stars and bodies and D.N.A..

At Alkali Lake, Jean knew her brain was failing her. Or, she knew it had become something other than what she thought was herself. She saw herself descending into madness, and now, she thinks, that was truly what it was. She sacrificed herself to prevent herself from doing things she dreamed about, horrible things.

And for a while, she dreamt of water, waves of un-breathable oxygen, that beat her farther and farther down, hurt her and as she screamed she found herself again, and never wanted to come back.

Jean realizes now that nothing was in her control for those last weeks. Parts of her wanted things no conscious pieces of her mind wanted.

Then there was Scott. She didn't realize she'd been calling to him, and when she saw him all she wanted to say, was Scott, I'm not myself, get away, please, Scott, get away!

But secretly, a part of her was pleased, pleased to make the light in his eyes vanish, pleased to kiss him and make him disappear in the happiest moment of confusion Scott had ever experienced.

To the time on Alcatraz, she can still not remember what happened to Scott. In some respect, Jean knows he is gone, knows it is her fault, but cannot find the reason. All of her killings had some reason, yet she does not remember Scott's, or how it disappeared. He only is. And she is so sorry.

From there, her memory is fragmented, events and emotions and thoughts blended until they are only one. And she is everyone, everything, every thought. She is the murderer, the friend, the villain, the lover. She is the most powerful, but she is so weak.

In this swirl of images, things are clear, and sometimes she sees that she is a threat to everything her waking mind once loved, she sees that her anger and frustration is lesser than all of this if everything is just her, after all. And so, in a breathless instant, after bruised skin and frantic kisses she fights to the surface and realizes what she used to be, sobbing and screaming as loud as she can, "Please, kill me…!"

But it is only a whisper, and Logan is in love with the whisper of a self that still remains. He doesn't understand that there aren't two hers, one who could repent and one trapped silently behind the force. There is one, one who was only lost and missing a part, missing a time, missing a life. Jean is whole again.

Jean is not ignorant enough to believe she has no control, because she can feel power and satisfaction as the universe flows through her fingers, and she is in control of the world. She is in control of the world, how can she not control herself?

So she sends the professor to another life, and does not tell herself. She is a vicious circle, round and round, looping backwards, infinitely into oblivion, where her mind waits and rests and hopes for a second chance.

Flesh ripping off bone and thought, sometimes, she thinks she is setting souls free, because the universe in infinite and they will go on forever this way. At least they will not be fighting each other; she is breaking bodies to mend the peace, to mend an ideal. Everyone will go on forever if they die at her hand.

Magneto cannot cage her, the Professor thought he could, she wishes he was right. Scott worshipped her, and Logan tried to love her.

At the end, Jean can no longer think, barely speak, everything is too much to comprehend or not.

It is abrupt, and climactic, and she meant it this way. She can't hear what she's saying and only can feel the overwhelming sadness from a part of herself she once knew, the part that cannot stand the murder and methods to achieve what she wants. At the end, Jean is only sad that she can't finish what she started, sad that she started at all.

And in the end, as reality returns to the ground with the feeling of adamantium ripping through her, tears at her throat, and the hushed, "I love you," she thinks, maybe, that was what she was trying to say all along.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men.

A/N: First X-Men fic. I finished X3 with an overall feeling of dissapointment. Jean Grey is my favorite character, and I wish she could have been explored further.

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