Very long chapter, so very long A/N, I'm afraid, but it's okay, you can skip ahead!(:
Whither hath fled the Je/Lo? How did that huge angsty!Scott section slip in? Guess it was inspired by James Marsden's lovely face and tragic demeanor. And where did all this Rogue/Bobby come in anyway?
Written half a sentence at a time in between whacking things on AdventureQuest! Jean eating ice-cream has become a convention somehow, but I thought it was kind of cute to see Scott eating ice-cream (until the angst invaded). Suddenly I want everyone to be eating ice-cream. (Can't you see Logan working behind the counter at Coldstone?)
Scott's role seems to be confined to being the really depressed guy in the corner. Umm... If you want Scott to get a piece of the action, send in ideas:D
I got excited typing Hank's dialogue (hopefully my not-so-scientific reasoning made sense), thinking maybe the sour taste of lemons is some important form of adaptation… I think lemons just taste sour because they're acidic. If that happens to be an adaptation (does it stop animals from eating it? Etc), that's, um, foreshadowing! Hooray! I like how my bacteria analogy syncs with the idea of a cure. This nicely reasserts my later chapters as a kind of X3 x-tension! (omg these x-puns are x-orbitantly infectious!)
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It was almost the same as that other memory, Marie thought. A beautiful morning guaranteed to lift your spirits and make you smile. Birds singing, deep, lush green leaves on the trees rustling gently. Sprinklers and water hoses gurgling. Flowers. Neat rows of houses and a straight line of mailboxes like soldiers standing to attention.
"Annie! Over here!"
Laughter. I'm holding a red rubber ball. What was strange about this other memory suddenly hit her. In this memory, she was actually seeing Jean. She was about to throw the ball. She was Annie, whoever Annie was…
And why did Jean have one of Annie's memories?
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"Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet…"
Hank hummed to himself as he cleaned up workspace in the laboratory, singing where he remembered the words.
"…but the fruit of the poor lemon is im-poss-ible to eat…"
Someone coughed politely. Hank looked up and saw Marie standing in the doorway. Oh dear. Left to his own devices, he still hadn't gotten round to replacing the door of the lab. Hank had considered asking Jean if she had any preferences for the new decorating, but in the end he came to the conclusion that perhaps it wasn't the most tactful of questions. Eventually, he'd forgotten all about it.
"Hey… Professor? Is this a good time?" Marie asked. Her voice sounded a little hoarse.
"Hello, Marie," Hank greeted her. He gestured to his workbench. "I'm just about done for tonight. As you can see, I still have some of my apparatus to put away. Why don't you have a seat?"
Marie lowered herself self-consciously into a chair, looking at the floor. Hank noticed her eyes were rimmed red. He stripped off his gloves – that made her look up – and sat down across her.
"Is there something you've come to talk about, Marie?" he asked gently.
To his surprise, Marie chuckled – albeit a little shakily. "Nothing like that, Professor McCoy. I wanted to ask you… about science."
Hank brightened. This was his field. In fact, this was a dream come true! "Ask anything you'd like, and I'll do my best to answer you."
"Well… we went on a field trip to the Science museum last year, and it said there that mutations were random changes in an organism's DNA."
"That's right."
"Most of the time a mutation has no effect because it's such a small change in the huge genetic structure, but sometimes you get… mutants." Marie shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Am I right?"
"As right as anyone else I can think of. So little is known of mutants still."
"So it's a nearly insignificant, sporadic change in our DNA that makes us mutants? That's all?"
"Excellent thinking, but I'll have to disagree with you there, I'm afraid." Hank took off his glasses and polished them on his handkerchief. "Firstly, the change is far from insignificant. Every mutation builds on the mutations of the generations before it, if any. Mutation often doesn't show until the deviation has become great enough, though sometimes a high degree of stress or trauma is involved in triggering it off. Then you suddenly get a girl who can absorb someone's life force just by touching them… or you get a man with blue fur."
The last remark made Marie smile, but again, nervously. Something was definitely on her mind. Hank frowned but continued. "Secondly, the word sporadic. In science, that implies that a condition is not hereditary. On the contrary, nature shows that adaptations or mutations conducive to survival are passed down to future generations. Let me give you an example.
"Suppose you get sick and I give you antibiotics. What happens if you don't finish the course?"
"Some of the bacteria might develop a resistance to it and multiply, so if I fall sick again, the same antibiotics won't work?"
"Correct. A batch of the bacteria adapts or mutates against the antibiotics, and because the mutation is beneficial, this new strain survives. If the bacteria fails to mutate, or do not produce a mutation that enables them to resist the antibiotics, they die off instead."
"So does that make the bacteria that mutated superior to the bacteria that didn't?"
"I see. You're thinking about the term homo superior, aren't you?"
"Homo what?"
"Some scientists have classified as an entirely new species called homo superior, to distinguish it from the humans known as homo sapiens. I don't use the term myself; its roots are not scientific. How can you sort anything – or anyone – so broadly? Just look at you and I. We do have plenty in common, yet at the same time, not that much. Homo superior… I know Jean and I run into plenty of problems in the Senate with demagogues who either use or condemn such language. Where did you hear the term?"
"I didn't," Marie said, sounding almost guilty. "I've never heard it before. I was just… wondering about mutation."
"Well, to answer your question, if a genetic mutation enables a strain of bacteria to survive where others can't, you could say it's superior, I guess. But the next time it makes you sick, you might chase down a stronger form of antibiotics, and then it'd have to start from square one all over again. Does that answer your question?"
"So when the species' highest goal is survival… I see." Marie looked down at the floor again.
"Actually, this is right up Dr. Grey's alley," Hank added. "You should try asking Jean. Surely she would be better informed?"
Marie nodded quickly, almost imperceptibly. As she got up and pushed her chair back, Hank almost missed hearing her mumble, "That's what I'm afraid of."
Vexed, Hank decided to keep his mouth shut. He began straightening his instruments again. Suddenly he remembered something. "Marie?"
She half-turned, almost out of the room already. "Yes?"
"Again, about the word sporadic…"
Marie smiled faintly. "It's bad enough you have to correct my Biology, but now my English too?"
"Perhaps not just your English, but also your philosophy. I know that the textbook and museum exhibits will tell you that mutations are random. But I also know that things don't happen by chance. It wasn't just hiccoughs in your genetic structure that brought you about, just like how it wasn't random that your parents met. I believe that everything happens for a purpose, for a reason, even if we can't see it yet. None of us was created in any way by accident.
"And that," he concluded, "is enough heavy talk for tonight. You look like you could do with some sleep. Goodnight, Marie."
"Goodnight, professor," Marie echoed. "And… thank you." She turned and walked away from the lab.
Marie wasn't sure where she was heading to. She just kept automatically placing one foot in front of the other while her mind tried to iron things out. Maybe she was just tired, or out of sorts, but whatever her affliction, her thoughts were hopelessly tangled up. Illogical! Everything seemed illogical, even the tidiest and driest facts. Yet one, vaguely whimsical idea stood out among the jumble:
If we're all just an infection, what could possibly be the cure?
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Marie had considered going right back to bed, she really had. On the other hand, she felt completely awake, and she wasn't keen to mull her thoughts over all night, staring at the ceiling.
Some company would be nice, she thought. Bobby wouldn't mind if I woke him, but… Marie hesitated. Telling Bobby her own secrets was one thing, but letting him into Jean's mind…
But we wouldn't have to talk. We could just… A light drizzle was falling outside. Last week, hand-in-hand with Bobby, she'd stood under the porch just keeping dry, and he'd showed her how to freeze raindrops in mid-air…
A light was on in the kitchen. Bobby? Eagerly Marie rounded the corner, but instead found Scott sitting by himself at the kitchen table. The long handle of a silver spoon was sticking out of his mouth.
"Hey."
Scott barely looked up, and then acknowledged Marie's presence with only the slightest suggestion of a nod, apparently lost in his study of the pint of ice-cream before him.
"D'you mind...?"
Almost imperceptably, Scott shook his head. Marie rummaged through the cupboards and found a new roll of Oreos. Pouring herself a glass of milk, she sat down at the table opposite Scott, who had both elbows on the table as he just sat there, still staring into the carton. His mood settled heavily about the room.
Not exactly the kind of company I was thinking of. Wait a minute...
"Scott? I mean, Professor Summers?"
He sighed. "You're not in class. Scott is fine."
"Okay. Scott, you attended this school yourself, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
Marie tried to phrase her next question as delicately as she could. "Around the same time as Dr. Grey?"
Scott looked resigned, as if he'd known this question was coming. "Jean? Yeah."
"Did... did you know anyone called Annie?"
"No."
That was it. No suspicion, no puzzlement, no reaction at all, just a flat-out no.
That ends that trail, then.
Silence reigned. Marie crunched her Oreos noisily, trying to start polite conversation. She looked over Ben & Jerry's Scott was nursing. Chocolate Therapy. That was a good flavor. She smiled faintly. "Isn't that Jean's ice-cream?"
Scott glanced down at the carton, as though checking to see if it were still there. "Yeah," he said, without inflection.
"Guess I caught you, then. Needed a little chocolate therapy too, huh?"
Scott pressed his lips together into a tight line.
Marie tried one last time. "So… what're you doing with it?"
Scott sighed. Behind his glasses, his eyes were unreadable. He's too somber for teasing, Marie thought. She was about to say something else, when Scott abruptly said, "I buy it for her."
"You... oh."
That was right. There was always ice-cream in the fridge, stocked and stacked surreptitiously with the labels of the cartons turned uniformly frontwards as only Scott could do, even during all those months when Jean had been presumed dead…
Abruptly, Scott burst out, "I know it sounds funny, but I see her every day and still… I miss her more than ever."
He finally looked up, and it struck Marie how haggard his face had become. He seemed to look straight into her eyes.
"You know what it's like, Rogue... to love someone, and not be able to…"
If he cried… but he didn't. He just sat there, slowly melting the pint of ice-cream he held in his hands. Marie felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of her neck. He shouldn't be telling me all this. If I could just...
She jumped when Scott suddenly stood up. "I know you've been talking with Jean and the professor." His lower lip trembled. "Tell me something, please, Rogue, anything."
Marie stared down at the floor, blinking rapidly.
Scott caught her by the shoulder. His expression was pleading. "You must know something!"
Somehow, Marie found her voice. "She does love you." Marie swallowed. "She- she still loves you."
It might have been the worst thing to say. Marie didn't know. She'd fled from the room.
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Please review: as always, it makes for happier, fasterwriting! I'd love to hear anything you have to say!
