THIS FIC IS NOT MINE. THIS MAGNIFICENT PIECE OF WORK WAS WRITTEN BY LEXUS GREY. I DO NOT WANT ANY CREDITS FOR THIS, MY ONLY INTENTION IS TO SHARE HIS/HER STORY.
The cold, hard steel of the inhibitor collar did not sit well around Emma's neck. Though it was a thin piece of metal, it was still uncomfortable and in addition to its physical drawbacks, the one that bothered her most was the collar's function: inhibiting her mutant powers. She glanced across the cell at Jean, who looked about as pleased as she felt. They had been in this cell for two days together, excepting any time they were allowed out of it, and they hadn't spoken a single word to each other.
"Stop looking at me," Jean said flatly without turning her face from the window. She didn't need her telepathy to feel eyes boring into the side of her head.
"Fuck off," came the tart reply, and Emma leaned back against one of the side walls of the cell. She had taken the bottom bunk because she was afraid of heights, but naturally her excuse was that she couldn't be expected to climb a ladder to get into bed at night.
Jean hadn't cared either way... she was numb. Sleeping on the top or bottom bunk in prison was a choice she didn't see necessary to argue over. What meant something to her right here, right now, was the fact that Scott was murdered, and she and Emma were behind bars for a crime neither of them committed. No time to grieve over someone she once loved... and on top of that, she was stuck in a cell with his former Mistress. She had been trying to just ignore everything around her, and it had been working, but Emma's response was too much. The blonde was lucky they were fitted with inhibitors or she would have been scorched where she sat. As it was, she lunged at Emma too quickly for any evasive maneuvers, and slapped her face hard enough to draw blood from the corner of the White Queen's mouth.
Emma, shocked, put her fingers to her lips, and when they came away with a bit of smeared blood, her blue eyes went wide and she lashed out in return, dragging her fingernails across Jean's cheek and pushing forward, tackling her to the floor. "You bitch!" she hissed, a closed fist connecting solidly with the side of Jean's jaw.
Jean spit blood and growled, bringing a knee up sharply between Emma's legs and somehow managing to roll out from under her, toppling the blonde to the floor instead. She was on her feet, ready to pounce when she was pulled backwards out of the cell by a handful of guards.
"That's enough, ladies," one of them said, stepping between Jean and Emma, while another guard helped the prone woman off of the floor.
Emma tried to break free of the hold and go after Jean again, but yet another guard rushed forward to help restrain her. "Do we need to cuff you and send you to solitary?" the senior guard asked, looking at each of the two women in turn.
Both inmates tried to get their breathing under control, as well as their tempers. Jean stared a hole through Emma's cold blue eyes and snarled. "If I didn't have this collar on, you'd be wishing for death, Frost."
"As if I don't already, Grey," Emma shot back. "But it has nothing to do with you. Your worst couldn't even bring me to my knees. No wonder Scott had an affair."
Something broke in Jean, and all she saw was red, before everything went black.
When she came to, the redhead found herself in solitary. At least, she assumed that's where she was, because it was pitch black and she was laying on a cold stone floor in complete silence. She could hear nothing, see nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing. The only sense with any luck was taste, and it was the irony, metallic taste of blood. Not exactly encouraging. When she tried to move, a splitting pain assaulted her temples and she additionally found that her hands were cuffed behind her back. She painstakingly managed to get herself sitting up against the wall. What the hell had she done to Emma?
Emma groaned when she came to... she couldn't open her left eye and there was a sharp, yet throbbing ache in her chest. She very slowly opened her right eye, and shut it again when the bright fluorescent glow of the overhead lights made her head hurt more than it already did.
"You're awake," came a gentle voice from beside her, and Emma didn't recognize it.
"Where am I?" she asked, her voice coming out raspy and choked.
"The infirmary," the woman replied. "You're lucky to be alive. It took six guards to pull your cellmate off you."
"And as it is?" Emma managed to ask dryly.
"Two broken ribs, a concussion, stitches in your bottom lip and, obviously, your left eye is swollen shut."
"Bloody fabulous," the blonde muttered. "I didn't know she could wax Phoenix with that collar on."
"She didn't," the nurse said with a grin. "You must have just really made her crazy."
"Sleeping with one's husband tends to do that."
"You're extremely lucky to be alive," the nurse amended her earlier statement.
"Pardon me if I don't share your sentiment."
Jean didn't know how long she sat there in the dark, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, she heard the sound of keys jingling in the lock and the door opened, letting in a flood of light. Natalya, one of the nicer guards, stood with a frown on her face. "Have you calmed down?" she asked in her light Russian accent.
"Yes," Jean answered. "How bad was it? I don't remember anything."
Natalya's frown deepened. "Ms. Frost is in the hospital wing with some broken ribs and a few other problems," she informed Jean. "It took six of us to pull you away."
"Oh God," Jean said, wishing she could bury her face in her hands, but obviously that wasn't possible at the moment. "I- I just lost it. She knows how to push my buttons, and- oh God," she just repeated, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes. Not that Emma didn't deserve a good ass-kicking, but Jean just wasn't like that. It wasn't what she was about, and she was quite fractured that she'd lost control like that and ended up hurting the blonde so badly.
"She had an affair with your husband, no?" Natalya inquired carefully, and Jean nodded so she continued. "Then try not to feel so very bad? She does not seem to hold any regrets..."
"No," Jean admitted. "She doesn't. But I don't like violence, and I just... I just became someone I don't like," she whispered softly.
"You did not do any such a thing," the Russian said adamantly, shaking her head. "Everyone of us makes mistakes. Each mistake does not have to change who we are. It is what we do about them that is the real matter. Matter? Is that how you say?"
Jean managed a small smile. "We say 'what is really important'," she answered. "But 'the real matter' sounds good, too, as long as it means I'm off my conscience's hook."
"You are not yet," Natalya said, returning the smile. "You have yet to make a choice regarding your actions earlier. What will you do?"
Jean let out a slow breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and shook her head. "I really don't know."
"We've got to get them out of there! At least Jean!" Ororo said, throwing her arms in the air and pacing back and forth in front of an agitated Sage.
"Stop. That helps nothing," Tessa ordered, unable to stand the nervous pacing. "Stand still and you have a better chance of staying focused. We need a plan. I can get schematics of the prison layout, you can create cover with the weather and knock out the power. But we need something better than that. We cannot risk being seen, or we'll be slapped with inhibitors. So we need to think. Can you do that, Ororo?"
Storm stopped pacing and abruptly sat down in the first chair she saw, resting her head in her hands. "Yeah," she answered wearily, and then more confidently, "yes."