Title: "Never Be Ready"
Author: Kat Lee
Rating: G/K
Summary: She'll never be ready.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
She tries not to think of the past as she watches her husband and best friend talking with her oldest friend, the one man in all the world who is closer to her and knows her better than even her own father. There are too many jumbled emotions, too many questions, and too many reasons for her heart to break again. She tries not to think of the future as she watches Scott and Ororo pleading with Charles to stay for she can not bare the thought of what the bigoted, frightened humans and the bloodthirsty government will do to the one person she holds dearest above all others, and yet she's scared of what will happen, both to Charles and the others she loves and even herself, if he stays.
She knows she needs help, but the government won't provide the help he needs. He needs to go somewhere else, turn to some one else, but who? Reed Richards or Doctor Strange? The former is dead, because of the normally benevolent teacher she loves with all her heart, and the latter has disappeared. Who, then, does that leave to help the adopted father she loves? Who can even begin to understand the horrors he has endured? Who can look pass the horrors he has caused just to try to understand the horrors he's known? She tries not to contemplate those questions, and all the others, for which she has no answers.
She tries, too, not to hear their thoughts, the questions, doubts, and fears running rampant through the minds of all her friends and family, all of which reflect her own far too aptly. She tries not to wonder what will become of the dream that has brought them all together, the dream that has filled every moment of her life since she was a child on the cusp of adolescence, for she knows she can not bare it if the dream should end but also believes that it can not live without the man who even now is preparing to leave them all behind.
She tries not to let her hands shake as they brush moisture away from her face for she doesn't want her sadness to add to the others'. She tries most of all not to let herself cry again for she's so weary of tears, having cried more since her father figure transformed into the greatest, most powerful, and deadliest enemy their world or, she suspects, any other has ever known. She feels like she can not take even one more tear drop without going insane, and yet her tears still won't stop.
She senses the approach of the man behind her but doesn't move her eyes away from Charles even as Logan stands directly beside her. She knows what he's thinking, what they're all thinking, but none of them can bare to say it aloud any more than she can. Charles' departure from their lives, for now, is for the best, the only answer, really, but she's not ready to let go. She still feels like the clingy, little girl she was when Charles first made his mutant presence known to her. She needs him, and she'll never be ready to let him go. Jean bows her head, as Logan takes her into his arms, and cries.
The End