It would be…
When she was eighteen, the professor let Jean use Cerebro for the first time.
He was letting her use it because it seemed to them both that her power was strong enough, and that she was controlled enough to manage.
She was, and they knew it at the time.
But when she was in the machine, something strange happened.
The professor told her to look for mutants, they were so rare at the time that he didn't think she would find any.
But she did.
She found me.
And she saw me, and sensed me, and read me, and then she lost it. She fainted, and then got sick, and in the end, she lost most of her power, and all of her control.
After they brought me in, Jean and I fell in love, and the professor formed a theory as to how it had all happened. Some gobbledygook about the emotional bond between us being so strong, even then, before we knew each other, that her powers just went haywire, and she lost it.
She didn't blame me. She rarely mentioned Cerebro, knowing that that part of her power was out of her range now that what had happened had happened.
And her other powers had grown beyond what they had ever been before. Before the incident she could make things tremble, little things like forks and dice, when they were still resting on something. Now she could make things float.
And I thought it made her happy. I thought she was happy, because she never seemed unhappy. She would always smile, and talk to me about it, how she had felt when it had happened...sometimes she would tell people that that was how we met.
She would always tell people about the one time she had used Cerebro, if they asked.
But one day she didn't.
One day, I remember all too well.
"Have you ever…" He said, the man who I was already regretting saving.
"…used Cerebro?" She paused, looking at me. Had I looked deep enough into her eyes, I probably would have seen the rejection. The ultimate 'good bye.' "No."
I'd known it had been coming, almost from the moment I set eyes on him. But it still hurt. She was denying the beginning of what we had had, the one influence I'd ever had on her. In essence, she was denying everything that had ever been between her and I. And I was suddenly alone.
"For someone like me, it would be…"
"Dangerous." I said, my voice silkily threatening both of them. And at the end, there was a thread of sadness, pulling it taut, and curling me into depression. Telling her that it was over between us. The denial of what we'd had, it had been the end. Even if she'd only said "Yes." I could have stayed. But when she said "No." It ended.
Suddenly I was glad that no one could see my eyes, because I couldn't blink back the tears anymore. And as the two of them stood, silently looking at each other, I turned on my heel and walked away.
T.B.C. (But it might be a while, I've got three other fics going right now.)
