Like an Unnatural Dam

Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!—Menenius

Charles Xavier had a theory that the mind was fluid like a river, and the flow and ebb of thoughts and powers contained therein could be controlled in much the same way water yields to a dam.

Erik had told him many times this was foolish. "Dams break, Charles. Nature will find an out."

Charles had acknowledged this with a slight nod. "Sometimes, yes. But most of the time they don't, Erik."

This would ever be the difference between them, it seemed. Charles believed in surety, in the steadfast concrete being able to withstand the press of thousands upon thousands of tons of water. Erik thought that, in the end, there was no barrier strong enough to stop the eventual tide.

Sometimes in the nights after Alkali, when he saw the churning fury of water un-dammed, Charles wondered if Erik had been right after all.

When she first came to live with them, Charles knew that Jean was completely unaware of the potential for power contained within her bright, inquisitive mind. Charles murmured quiet words of comfort as he settled her on the sofa in his office—a cliché, but comfortable all the same—examining the raw, untapped power lurking just below the surface.

He saw a vastness there that frightened him, if he were honest, and Charles Xavier prided himself on his honesty. Jean had the potential to become one of—if not the—most powerful mutant on the planet, and he wasn't sure when this power would manifest completely or what it would do to her when it did.

Part of Charles wanted to let nature take its course, as Erik advised him when they spoke of it, because did Charles not believe that mutation was natural? Were they not creatures of their choices rather than their genetics? Then Charles remembered Jean playing outside, smiling in the warm summer sun or diving into the crystal clear pool. He thought of her as a normal girl with extraordinary abilities, and wondered if he could in good conscience take the chance that he might be wrong.

So he made his decision. It formed another crack in the already weakening relationship between him and Erik, both professional and personal, and they fought bitterly about it until Erik threw his hands up in the air in defeat. "I can see you're not willing to entertain the thought that you're wrong, so I'm not going to keep arguing about it. But I want my opinion on this matter to be clear. If you keep that girl's powers locked away, one day they will escape. Pray to God you're not there when they do."

"I must do what is best for Jean," Charles said firmly, torn between wry amusement and dread at Erik's rather theatrical warning. "She means more to me than her potential."

"And you think I don't want what is best for her? Charles, how do you know that allowing her powers full manifestation isn't it?"

Charles didn't answer, but that night he spoke quietly into the tense stillness that remained between them. "It is easy for you to have such a strong opinion that you're right, Erik. You're not the one who has to make the decision."

Erik didn't answer. Charles didn't expect that he would.

Charles decided the best way to keep Jean safe from that fearsome power was by isolating all the ways in which power could corrupt. Therefore, he would have to separate her psyche into the Jean he knew and the Jean he feared she could become; a being driven purely by instinct and want with no thought to consequence.

Phoenix, as she liked to call herself, wanted instant gratification for whatever particular need the body she inhabited happened to have. If Jean was thirsty, the Phoenix wanted something to quench it, and she wanted it now. At thirteen, she was most insistent for candy or sweets, or any number of things that Jean always took in properly rationed portions.

"But I want it," she said, and there was a terrible shadow on her face and in her eyes. Charles calmly explained that no, one could not have as many cupcakes as one wished, because it was detrimental to overload the body with so many sweets before dinner.

"You must think about the future," he admonished her.

"I don't care about the future," Phoenix said, a smile on her face that Jean was far too young to wear. "I only care about now." She half-rose from her seat on the couch, poised like some predator about to pounce on its intended prey.

In order to push away that destructive force, Charles had to release it enough to be able to control it. On those moments when it reminded him of a willful child, he wondered if all this was actually necessary. Petulance was something with which he had expected to deal, accepting adolescents into the school.

Then she would sit back, and her eyes would lock onto his, and there would be fire burning like a brazier in their depths, swimming and dark. She would speak of how she encouraged Jean to take what she wanted with no thought to the feelings of others; enticing her to play with Scott's powers, or have Ororo manipulate the weather to her satisfaction. Then Charles would remember his convictions, and push his doubts away. She was not the only student in the Institute.

Their sessions became easier to deal with as time went on, and Charles began to relax under the apparent success of his plan. He never spoke of it to Erik, however, and left his lover to the myriad issues with Cerebro and teaching physics to their assembled students, most of whom would rather play baseball than learn about magnetism.

When Jean was sixteen, Charles had begun to think this lengthy process of mental separation was nearly at an end. The Phoenix struggled against his implacable demand that it yield and retreat, but every day, he could see Jean emerging victorious from Phoenix's terrible, yearning grasp.

In the end, it would be worth it. She would live a life unencumbered by the knowledge that her baser instincts could control her completely if she weren't always on guard. She would have a life filled with love, with compassion. With understanding and clarity. There would be no Phoenix lurking in the shadows to confuse and constrain.

Charles saw it no differently than the visor Erik was designing for Scott. This device would keep Scott's optic beams in check, and Charles' series of mental blocks would do the same to Jean's powers. They would have control.

Then the thing happened for which Charles was admittedly unprepared. The Phoenix awoke and she smiled at him, and her voice thrummed with untold power as she spoke, and the curves of her body were displayed in a way that made him suddenly nervous.

"Tell me about sex, Charles Xavier. Show me pleasure. This girl yearns for touch at night. I want touch. I want it now."

What did a man say to that? Charles took a deep breath, and focused on Jean's red hair and emerging beauty; yes, focus on Jean, not Phoenix. "It is something you will experience later in life. When the time is right. Now is not the right time." He made his voice firm.

"She knows a little," Phoenix said, her mouth curved upward in a sly smile. "At night when it's dark, she likes to—"

"That's quite enough," Charles stopped her, because even though Jean wouldn't remember saying it, he was quite uncomfortable hearing her confess such a thing to him. "Jean is young and should…what she's doing is natural." His cheeks flushed. Phoenix noticed.

"It makes you embarrassed. Why? You know of this, don't you? At night you touch a man and know what it's like. What is it like, Charles? Pleasure?"

Was there any way under heaven to answer this question? "I'm much older than Jean," he said cautiously, forcing his gaze to remain even.

"But you haven't touched him in a long time," she said, and despite her almost impish tone there was something mean in her gaze. Charles felt the first stirrings of anger. He would not be bested by this creature of the Id.

"That, Phoenix, is none of your business, I'm afraid. It is neither the point for our conversation, nor it is appropriate information for me to share. Shall we go over what constitutes appropriate information?"

The physical features of Jean's of which Charles was so familiar were beginning to wash off her face like water sluicing from a stone. Her eyes were shining with something purely malevolent. "No. Show me what's inappropriate. I want that." She rose from the chair and came towards him, like a bird in flight drifting on air currents toward some intended goal.

Charles used all of his not-inconsiderable powers to halt her forward progress. She was still hovering before him with her burning eyes and that terrible smile, all awful promise contained in her small body. She looked alien and strange to him, nothing like the girl he knew her to be.

Jean. A daughter. Our daughter. With Erik's pragmatism and my powers. She could be the best of us all. I cannot fail her.

"You must stop this," Charles said carefully, slowly. "Or I will put you so far away, you will never be able to escape. I will place you somewhere from which only death will release you. Tell me you understand."

She cocked her head, and her red hair flowed like lava over pale skin. "You could do that? To me?"

"I could. I would. I will."

There was a moment where they studied each other, man and this force of undeniable power, and Charles saw in his mind an enticing array of things which Phoenix thought he might want.

Only show me this pleasure as I ask, and I'll give them all to you. Her voice sounded like timbers breaking beneath flames.

Charles closed his eyes and thought about water. "Enough. If you ever want to speak to me again, you will stop this and retreat." He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to see the girl in front of him, more Phoenix than Jean, alight with that madness and enticing power that he could feel wrap, tendril-like, around his entire body.

"But you will not do this thing unless I misbehave?"

It was like dealing with a petulant child; all rules must be clarified and presented without hesitation. "Yes." He opened his eyes.

Phoenix nodded, and slowly moved back to the couch. Jean's features emerged like a sculpture on the block underneath the sculptor's fingers. He watched her eyes fade from yellow to soft green, but her voice was still Phoenix's when she spoke.

"Very well, Charles."

He wondered if he'd just made a mistake, if he'd promised something he would never be able to deliver. He wondered why she hadn't killed him outright for denying her. Perhaps it was because his mental powers were more refined and she was still young, but perhaps that wasn't it at all.

Jean turned seventeen and received a splendid party to mark the occasion. Erik, though lost more often than not to his melancholy and fits of unhappiness, was on his best behavior. Of course, Erik loved Jean, too. Erik was proud of her aptitude for the sciences. Erik wanted to be there when she received her medical degree.

Hank and Ororo were standing by the cake, talking in low voices. They were likely planning something for later, the kind of "something" of which Charles would wish to remain oblivious. Mr. and Mrs. Grey, so pleased and thankful for all that the Xavier Institute had done for their daughter, were embracing her and telling her how tall she'd grown. Scott was holding Jean's cup of punch while she hugged her parents, his own forgotten on the table, standing quiet and unobtrusively off to the side.

Charles smiled briefly. How very like Scott. Standing sentinel-like, on guard, his own needs forgotten in the wake of another's. No, not just another's. Jean's. Charles fancied he could see the two of them standing there on some spring day a few years down the road, Jean dressed in white and Scott waiting for her in some austere, simple dark suit and tie. It made him smile to think of it.

As far as parties went, it was entertaining and taxing at the same time. Even on his best behavior, Erik was often unpredictable and moody. Hank and Ororo may or may not have tried to spike Scott's punch with a flask of unknown liquor. The Greys were happy parents, yes, but they were still parents—they fussed over Jean, who thought herself too adult for that type of fussing. All of the emotions of the day pressed in on Charles' head, until he excused himself and went to stand by the pool, staring down into the gently moving water.

"Thank you so much, Professor, for the gift," Jean said shyly, coming to join him. "It was so nice of you and Mr. Lehnsherr. My mother says I should refuse it."

Charles and Erik had given Jean one of the cars to drive—a red convertible—and he smiled briefly. "Is that what she really thinks?"

"Professor," Jean said, eyes innocently wide. "I'm not supposed to use my telepathy without permission, remember?"

He gazed at her steadily.

"No, she's really just relieved she doesn't have to buy me a car. That's why I didn't think she really meant it about not taking it. I promised to take her and Dad for a ride. Then Scott. Is that okay?" She chewed her lip. "I mean, that I know that. And about the ride."

Charles felt a surge of affection for her, and more than ever was convinced his decision had been the right one. "Of course, regarding the ride. And the other is a thin moral line, but I trust you to walk it as you see fit." He reached out and ruffled her hair. "You're welcome for the car. I know you will be responsible enough not to make me regret my decision?"

"So it was your idea," she mused, then laughed. "I think Mr. Lehnsherr wanted to give me something else. I heard him mutter that it was a death trap if he wasn't in it with me."

"He would like to give you Cerebro," Charles joked, but there was a forced tone of joviality behind it. Erik thought Jean was ready to begin using the machine, to begin honing her powers. Until the Phoenix was locked away entirely, Charles refused to entertain the notion.

"No offense, since I know you both worked on Cerebro really hard, but I'd rather have the car," Jean said, then laughed. "I don't know what I'd do, feeling all those people in my head." She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. "You're the best. Thank you. For the party, too. And, um…you know. For letting me live here. I'll make you and Mr. Lehnsherr proud of me."

She looked so serious there, as the day gave way to dusk and the sun turned the sky red behind her. He smiled at her. "I know you will, Jean."

Charles would never know what awoke him that night.

The moonlight was silver-bright as he tossed the covers back, noting with some sadness that Erik's side of the bed was empty. Erik was likely tinkering with Cerebro, as he often did when he couldn't sleep. It was probably the party. Things of a sentimental nature often made Erik restless. Charles had long given up trying to completely understand why.

Some things were better left just accepted than explained.

There was an odd glowing light seeping under the heavy oak door, a sickly yellow edged with burnished orange. Fire, he thought, springing upright, wondering if he should contact Erik as he cautiously approached the door.

It wasn't fire. There was no heat; there was nothing but that same eerie light. There was someone standing on the other side of the door, someone familiar and yet not entirely welcome.

Jean.

No. Not Jean. The voice was unlike anything he'd ever heard; it sounded like the earth had opened, a gaping chasm of molten fire swirling and waiting. It gave him chills to hear it.

He took a deep breath and opened the door, and beheld her there in all her dreadful glory. Her hair was tinted with a red so deep it looked like blood, and her face was ravaged with veins. Her eyes were glowing, bottomless pools of liquid white. She seemed at once surrounded by flame and made of it, and her arms were raised at each side, like some gruesome approximation of the crucifixion.

Behind her, he could see wings cutting through the darkness, raised and poised to take flight.

Phoenix.

"What is it you think you are doing?" Charles asked conversationally, as if this were an every day occurrence to find such a being in his hallway at three in the morning. "It's very late."

"I don't care," the being said, and he tried not to shudder at her—its—voice. It resonated like thunder, and he could not understand how it did not wake up the entire household.

"Well, then. Perhaps you'd be so good as to tell me why you've woken me up?" Charles was wearing pinstriped pajamas, and his feet were bare, but he endeavored to sound like the stern headmaster regardless of the fact his heart was racing and she was levitating just slightly above the floor.

"She was so happy today," the being breathed, and oven-hot air brushed his skin and stirred the hair on his neck. "So very happy."

"How did you get out? Did we not have an agreement? I'm very disappointed in you." Charles had always been able to reprimand Jean with that statement, but the Phoenix brushed it aside with obvious ease.

"She drank something from a small silver bottle. It was burning—how I liked it!—and then it made her feel…not herself. She wanted things, lots of things. She thinks she wants the one with the eyes that can kill. But that's not who made her so happy. So I had to come out, to tell her. What she wanted. Not him. You."

The mystery of her sudden appearance was solved. Jean had gotten drunk, and was around Scott, and her inhibitions were lowered. The Phoenix was roused and Jean, mentally impaired by the alcohol, was unable to stop it. Phoenix had taken over, and all of Charles' mental blocks he'd constructed thus far had done nothing to stop her emergence.

"It does not matter. You have broken our agreement. I did not call you forth. You know what this means."

"You may try to do that thing if you wish," Phoenix said, sounding bored. "I am strong now. I have all of her, because she is asleep now and cannot force me out. You have taught her to ignore me, so she can't fight me."

It was true. God help him, but it was true. This had gone on long enough. Without expression, he shoved his mind brutally into that of the Phoenix, giving no warning that it was going to happen, nor any preparation for himself to get ready for such a thing. It felt like nothing he'd ever seen. All that power and potential he'd sensed within was rising like an inferno.

You cannot fight me. Why won't you just take me? Lust nearly drove him to his knees. I can be what you want. Erik's face in his mind; beautiful and cold and disinterested these last few months in anything but perfunctory and hurried caresses in the dark.

No, Charles said, and he ignored the image of himself on the bed, her body draped across his and her fingers trailing flames on his chest. I would never…Jean is like a daughter to me.

I am not your daughter, Charles. I can show you pleasure you've never known. Her smile burned in his mind. He could feel her hands on his body, between his legs. Flowing over him, all warm power. It was enticing. It was wrong. He would not allow this thing to touch him, ever.

No.

There was a tremor that raced through his mental landscape, as if she'd stomped her foot. Yes. Yes! Why can't you just say yes! I'll go back, let you have her again. Just this once, give me what I want and don't say no…

The tinge of whining strengthened his resolve. Nothing you can say will convince me.

Are you so sure, Charles Xavier? The images changed. It was no longer his body beneath Jean's, but Erik's. He likes women, more than you do. He would take this power that I am offering you. He wants Jean to be more than some lobotomized lapdog.

Is that what he thinks I'm doing to her?

A mistake, to think that, to share private concerns, because she (it) immediately began to exploit them with ruthless intent. Charles continued his progress, pushing past the Phoenix's beguiling words and disturbing images, finding the mental blocks he'd placed in Jean's mind and beginning to move them around, like pieces to a puzzle that had to be solved.

He loves her more than you, now, Phoenix said cruelly, and Charles faltered for a moment before continuing.

I know. There was no sense in denying it.

He would be so angry if he knew the power she possessed, that you were hiding from him.

That is not going to make me stop. If anything, it is yet another reason to put you away where you will never escape. He worked implacably, and her voice in his mind was beginning to sound like a shriek.

Stop this! I won't do it again. I'll leave him alone. I'll go and take Scott, that's the one you said I could have, right?

Wheedling again, like a child. It made it so much easier. You can't have anything, ever again. You can't have me. You can't have Erik. And you most certainly can't have Scott. It was almost finished.

Charles opened his eyes. The glow was bright but not as burning. He thought he saw Jean somewhere, trapped in the Phoenix's features, and made out the material of her clothing where before it had seemed made of living fire. The image of wings was still there, but fainter now, like shadows. "No. You will trouble her no further."

She glided towards him, and he was trembling and covered in sweat, and he could feel another awareness just on the edge of his consciousness—someone else was standing in the hallway—but he could not give effort to find out who it was. Phoenix was weakening, dying. Falling into ashes.

"I'll return, Charles. I will. I will rise. You'll see. I'll kill you. I'll kill Scott. I'll kill you all. I'll make you pay. For this. For everything." She leaned forward, and touched lips to his skin. "Everything." Her voice was fading, drifting off like the chime of a bell once rung echoing in the hallway.

He expected flames when he felt her mouth on his forehead. Instead, all he felt was cold, like ice. "I'm afraid you won't. Not while she lives."

The flames faded now to a soft glow, white like stars. She smiled at him and her eyes began to close. "Then beyond..." With that, Jean collapsed on the floor at his feet. Her hair was red but no longer the color of spilled blood. Charles staggered and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. There was relief beneath the exhaustion. It was finally done.

"What have you done?"

He looked up, and saw Erik standing, awestruck, in the hallway at the top of the stairs. "What I must, Erik. For her."

Erik rushed forward and placed his hand on Jean's forehead. "She needs a doctor. She has a fever—she's burning up!"

Charles sent his mind into Jean's. She was drowsy and asleep, and dreaming about Scott and her car; normal things, worldly things. "No. No, she's not."

Jean stirred, looking confused, and stopped whatever it was Erik was going to say. "Wha—oh, my gosh, how did I get here?" She sat up, blinking at Erik. "Mr. Lehnsherr…Professor? What? Why am I in the hallway?"

"You must have walked in your sleep," Charles said, telling Erik with his eyes not to interfere. "It's all right. Erik thought perhaps you were sick."

"No, I—" Jean blushed. "Maybe I shouldn't have…I'll be okay. In the morning." She looked ashamed. She thought it was because he knew she had been drinking. He was relieved that was what she thought. Erik helped her stand, and after a hurried and mumbled apology to the both of them, she took herself off to bed.

"She doesn't remember," Charles said, seeing the look on Erik's face.

"She will," Erik said, and his voice was very quiet. "One day. God help you, Charles, when she does." He turned on his heel and walked away, back down the stairs, back to the metal chamber of Cerebro and things that he thought made sense.

Charles watched him go.

He remembered the incident off and on throughout the years, but never did it come back to haunt him as strongly as it did following Alkali. His immediate concerns had been fixing the things that were broken in the school—things not made of wood and glass—and it wasn't until later that he'd remembered a promise made years ago.

Not while she lives.

Then beyond…

Scott left for Alkali Lake, mired in grief, and Charles knew somewhere deep inside that Scott should not go, but there was nothing Charles could reasonably say to keep him from doing so. The nagging feeling of wrongness was pervasive, and it wouldn't leave him alone no matter how much he tried to rationalize away the worry.

Charles was in his office, reading Hank's report about the cure, when he felt a tingle of awareness ran down his spine. He felt something on his forehead that reminded him of that kiss bestowed upon him by the Phoenix, and it chilled him to the bone.

I will rise.

He saw it all unfold like a dream; Jean, standing whole and proud on the shore, facing Scott with a smile Scott was too shocked to recognize wasn't hers.

No. Charles couldn't draw breath to scream, couldn't warn Scott not to touch her. That thing on the shore was not Jean Grey, no matter how badly either of them might wish that it were.

Her hair was the color of blood, and eyes glowed like sunlight. What was left of Jean was too mired in emotion to stop the thing she never knew she'd possessed from overtaking her completely.

When Scott died, Phoenix laughed. Charles heard her voice for the first time in years, blazing in its intensity and stronger than he ever would have thought possible.

I told you…I've had him now. Just like I said I would. You, too. I'll have you. All of you.

Charles remembered Erik's words, spoken so long ago. "Dams break, Charles. Nature will find an out."

The dam had broken. The Phoenix had risen. And Charles Xavier was left in his office, a thousand scenarios playing out in his mind of the destruction of which this being was capable.

Charles blinked and forced himself to breathe, thinking clearly through the problem that presented itself and how it was to be handled. Jean was a woman full grown, now. He needed to find her, to reach inside and coax Jean out from where she lay hidden beneath the Phoenix. Then Jean could finish this once and for all. He could help her do that.

He had to believe that it was possible, that Jean wasn't to be lost forever beneath that destructive and awesome entity that he'd unwittingly created. If she was, then it had all been for nothing, and he wasn't sure he could live with himself if that were true.

He looked down at his broken body and smiled. You are not the only one who can rise, Phoenix.

Somewhere in his mind he thought he heard her; taunting laughter edged with darkness. He closed his eyes and saw light spark beneath his lids, red tinged with white, in the shape of wings.