Chapter 6
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Jean was just ahead of him, standing at the edge of the cliff. He knew this place; he used to take her here for picnic dates and to watch the sunset. It was a little round lookout point beside the Hudson, just off of a short street that no one ever entered. There was one bench and the rest of the small area was open grass. The view was incredible at sunset, with the sinking sun turning the sky peach and orange and the water into dark glass. He hadn't been here since she'd died.
But she'd brought him here tonight. Scott stood behind the bench and watched her. He couldn't tell what she was looking at—the river? The sky? The houses that peppered the opposite shore?
"Jean." She either ignored him or didn't hear, and just kept staring out towards the horizon. Suddenly she took a step forward, and then another, until her toes peeped over the cliff's edge. Scott began to sweat with nervousness. "Jean, be careful, please! You could fall." He wanted to go to her but the bench kept him back; no matter where he moved, left or right, it stayed in front of him. "Jean!" He couldn't reach her.
"No!" Scott cried out in horror as Jean raised her arms until she formed a cross, closed her eyes, and fell forward. She disappeared.
The last thing he heard before waking up was the distant call of her voice from the river. "Help me!"
He awoke sitting straight up, gasping for breath. It was a dream. Yet another dream.
For the past two weeks he'd watched Jean die every night, and it was driving him crazy.
"If I'm not crazy already," he muttered to himself, taking off his mirrored sleeping mask and rubbing his eyes. Keeping his eyes shut he fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses and put them on.
He wanted to talk to the professor about these dreams, which had come out of nowhere. But the professor was already worried about him. He wanted to pull Scott off the X-Men missions, and Scott couldn't let that happen. He simply had to pull it together so he could pull his weight.
Scott got dressed and futilely tried to block the images of Jean dying from replaying in his head. Falling off a cliff, exploding into pieces, decapitated, buried alive, shot, and over and over again, drowning. Those were the worst because he always saw her struggling in the water but could never save her.
And always, just after she died, she called out to him—"Help me!"
"Scott?" He looked up from tying his shoes and his eyes widened. Jean stood in front of him.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" he asked inanely, and then laughed at himself. "What am I talking about? I'm hallucinating. Hi, Jean." He waved cheerfully.
Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and Scott dropped his hand.
"I'm really here, Scott. And I need your help."
"This isn't real. You're dead." And although she looked insubstantial, and he could see the wood paneling of the wall through her body, Jean marched forward and slapped him in the face. "Ow!"
"I don't have much time. She'll notice I'm gone if I stay too long. I need your help. You need to come get me."
"Then… you're alive?"
"I never died. I've just changed. But I'll be gone forever and she'll be free to destroy the world if that happens."
"She who? Who are you-?"
"Me, Scott. You need to come get me. You'll find me there." She backed away from him and her body rippled, fading slowly.
"Wait! Find you where?"
"By the river—"and she was gone. Scott couldn't move; he felt his heart pounding in his chest and tried to recover from his shock. What the hell just happened?
Still dazed, he held a hand to his cheek. He could feel the sting of where she'd slapped him, and in the mirror above his dresser he could see a red mark on his cheek. This time it hadn't been a dream. Jean was alive, and she'd been sending him messages for weeks. Longer, maybe. How could he have been so dense?
He forgot all about Xavier's meeting. Scott put on his visor, clipped on a weapon belt, and grabbed his car keys, then hurried to the garage. Luckily no one saw him, because this couldn't be a team effort. For one, no one would believe him. But more importantly, Jean had called out to him. If she'd wanted the X-Men, she would have contacted Professor Xavier.
Scott sped towards the highway in his Maserati, and made it to his and Jean's old picnic spot faster than ever. He pulled over on the short back road before reaching the lookout, wanting to arrive quietly on foot. When he reached the circle, however, she wasn't there. He looked around, back at the line of trees beyond the road, and he even looked over the cliff's edge down to the water, but Jean wasn't there. Frustrated and confused, Scott sat down on the bench and dropped his head into his hands.
Had he hallucinated after all? He didn't think so. He didn't think he was that far gone. Jean had been in his room, she had touched him—hit him—and she wanted him to find her here, where they had come for sunset picnics.
Scott sat up straight, realizing his mistake. Sunset! She would be here at sunset. And he would wait for her. He settled in and prepared for several hours of waiting.
The sun was brushing the horizon, and Jean still hadn't shown. Scott stood up from his seat to stretch his legs for the hundredth time that day. He strolled up to the cliff's edge, turned around and strolled around the grass. He was standing behind the bench when he felt her.
Heat. The heat built up slowly until Scott started to sweat, and that's when he saw the fire. Not a fire, he realized—it was a great, flaming bird rising up slowly over the cliff, casting an unearthly orange glow on everything in sight. Scott backed up, horrified, but he knew without a doubt that it was Jean. He could see her, after all—she was there in the body of the bird, her arms extending into wings and her face turned upward.
"Jean!" He screamed. He wanted to move forward but the force of the fire kept him back. He raised a hand to protect his face and crouched as he moved forward. "Jean! Can you hear me? I'm here!" The woman inside the bird turned her head and she looked down towards Scott.
A second later, the bird and the fire had disappeared, and a naked woman with long, neon red hair crouched on the ground in front of him. Scott leaped over the bench and ran over to her, putting his arms around her.
"Jean, are you alright? It's Scott. I'm here." She looked up at him and he nearly jumped in surprise. Her eyes seemed unstable somehow and he realized her eye color was changing rapidly between her normal brown and a deep, endless black that seeped past her irises.
"Scott?" she said faintly. He wasn't sure if she could see him; her eyes weren't focused on anything and she was shaking as if weak, or terrified. He looked closely at her face and saw that her skin was straining, her veins popping as if she was struggling desperately to keep something in. "Scott, you have to kill me."
"What?"
"Scott, I can't control it. My power. She has control and she is so angry…she just wants to hurt everyone."
"Who? Who is controlling you, Jean?"
"The Phoenix. She's inside me, and she's taking over. If you don't kill me now then she won't ever stop—auuugghhhh!" She screamed as her eyes turned black again and with unimaginable force she shoved Scott back, sending him flying into the bench and breaking it to pieces. Her skin began to glow and her rose as if pulled by electricity, but within a few seconds she had controlled the reaction and she looked human again. Scott hurried back over to her, but this time stood back.
"Jean, tell me how to help you." She leapt up and threw her arms around his body, sliding to her knees and pressing her face against his stomach.
"Please, please. Kill me. It's the only way—hurry! Oh god, hurry, she's coming back!" She looked up at him then, her brown eyes starting to waver, and Scott knew he couldn't deny her.
But he couldn't hurt her, either.
He got to his knees and pulled her closer into an affectionate embrace.
"I love you," he whispered into the wild, over-long hair that was starting to rise again. Holding her head to his chest, Scott pulled a needle out of his weapons belt and stabbed her in the side with it. She reared back in fury, the black eyes instantly taking over and her whole body starting to change. But the sedative was too much for her— he had given her several doses, a nearly lethal amount. She screamed her rage at Scott with the voice of a hundred murdered souls, and then she collapsed.
