Yay! I'm wanted! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews, I hope these final chapters live up to them. Please tell me what you think, I'd be really grateful!

Disclaimer: This isn't mine, I'm just using the characters/setting for enjoyment, you know the deal. See chap one for a more detailed disclaimer

NOTE: Just in case I have problems, it is worth knowing that one of the sequences here is all in italics, which signifies  it as a memory. If it doesn't show up as being italics then it is not my fault, it is just some crazy FFN setting.

Part 4

_...dreaming I'm a man?_­

She sat in front of Xavier, he shuffled paper, sorting out note taking equipment. Then he asked his first question.

'Who are the X-men? What is their goal? What is their mission?'

She replied, smoothly, easily, the words gushing out of her mouth like a cleansing steam.

'Who are their enemies? What are their abilities? What do they represent that makes you hate them so much?'

Again she answered giving as much detail as she could, the Jugganaught, Sabertooth, Magneto, the Brotherhood, each were laid out bare before Xavier, available for his deconstruction.

'And what of yourselves, what are your exact powers? Your strengths, your weaknesses?'

She spoke of Kurt's teleportation, and the vast amounts of food he needed to keep up is energy. She told of Scott's eye blasts, and how uncontrolled they were. She explained Spyke's bone growths, and the calcium needed to replete them. All these she described, and more besides, until her throat was raw and her head once again began to ache.

'What of the mansion? What makes it so… so strong that your enemies cannot enter it? What are it's defences?'

Margaret found herself frowning at this point, 'why do you want to know that?' she asked, trying to push past the layer of drowsy, fatigue induced fluff that had gathered in her mind.

Xavier seemed to pause for thought before answering, 'I believe the mansion is a… metaphor for your mind. By understanding and deconstructing its defences I can metaphorically discover the defences in the other students' minds which is preventing me from bringing them back to reality. The mansion represents their make-believe world of super heroes and villains, by entering and sabotaging it I can draw them back into the real world.'

Something about that explanation was… wrong, for some reason she couldn't buy it.

Probably paranoia induced by weariness, probably her over active imagination, probably just a bit of the Jean personality hanging on. Probably.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I… I'm very tired, can we continue the questioning tomorrow?'

Xavier nodded reluctantly, and waved a hand, signalling that she could leave. She was about to, when a thought occurred to her.

'Can I see your notes?' she asked, 'I'd like to check what you've written? Perhaps I can correct it, add more details that way?'

The Doctor shrugged, and passed her the reams of paper he had scrawled on. She flicked through them idly looking for… she didn't know what… until it caught her eye.

"-main enemy seems to be Erik Lehnsherr, AKA Magneto, maybe symbolises opposite to X-men. Not tolerant. Symbolises?-"

'His name…' she murmured.

'What?'

'Erik Lehnsherr, Magneto, you spelt his name right. With a K, not a C, most people spell Erik with a C, but you didn't.'

'So, I hardly think it matters.'

'But… that's the correct way of writing it, I remember seeing it in the… in the Professor's files. How did you know it was spelt with a K?'

'I… one of the students told me.'

'Really, just by the by? You said none of them had talked to you yet? I mean properly talked. How did you know the spelling?'

'I guessed it, um, several of the other adults, such as myself, seem to share names and appearances with those in your fantasy. One of the… one of the maintenance workers here is called Erik, with a K, and he-'

'You're changing your story, you're grabbing at straws. You're lying!'

Venom was pored into that word, and the bitter truth filled Jean's mind.

'You're playing with me. I was right the first time. Oh god! I AM Jean Grey! I AM JEAN GREY!'

'Please, Margaret,' begged Dr Xavier, 'calm down! I'll call for assistance, you can't let the persona overtake your-'

'No! NO, NO, NO! I won't listen to you! I don't know what's happening but this is a lie! It's all lies!'

The world seemed to fracture for her then. Jean/Margaret's mind, it spun and cracked and fell apart. She was Jean and she was Margaret! Yet she was neither, and yet she was one. What was she? This world… it was false, unreal, a haze of lies and deceptions, this she now knew. It had nipped at the edges of her mind for days now, but surety had washed into her mind with a simple spelling mistake, or spelling correction.

Yet the other world, the world of super powers and villains, or mutants and demons, of everything bizarre and weird and freakish, that also seemed so absurd, so unreal. She couldn't accept that? Could she?

She had to escape, had to think on her own, without anyone screaming in her ear, telling her what was right and wrong, making her choose realities.

No, no there was no escape, no time alone, she was trapped, trapped forever.

Anger, frustration, fatigue, hopelessness, it all tumbled down upon her, blinding her, invigorating her, sending her truly mad.

HE was the source of it all, Doctor Xavier was the puppet that pulled the strings, the head torturer, the mad man who ran the asylum. The world turned red.

Barely conscious of her own movements, Jean/Margaret leapt at him, her hands wrapped round his throat, he struggled, called out.

Logan entered. Grabbed her. Struggling to hold onto HIS neck, couldn't. Hands pried away by Logan's large, powerful arms. Kicking. Screaming. Swearing.

'She must calm down,' Xavier said.

She was pulled away. Back through twisted corridors. No pattern, no sense. They came to another door, large, cold, mettle. She was pushed inside. No pain. The floor and walls were soft. White, blinding white room.

The door slammed behind her.

The red haze in front of her eyes receded somewhat, and Jean/Margaret saw that she was in the White Room

She leaped towards the closed door, scraping her hands along it, trying to pry it open, She did not, of course, succeed. The anger was not gone, the fear was not gone, and the uncertainty grew ever stronger. She slammed against the padded walls, kicking, screaming, sobbing.

Eventually, bruised in body, torn in mind, wretched in soul, she fell to the floor. Her screams became intelligible, as she rocked herself back and forth, sobbing, trying to find answers.

'Who am I?' she cried softly, despair finally claiming her, 'who am I?'

'You're Jean Grey of course.'

The answer was unexpected, to say the least, and she turned to see the girl. Her dress, unblemished snow, her eyes black jet, her skin touched with coral pink.

'Not that you'll remember who I am, you never do! All this time, all this closeness and you don't even know who I am anymore. It's not fair!'

Tears drying on her cheek, Jean slowly crawled towards the girl, careful not to let her eyes wander, lest the girl disappear again.

'Please,' she whispered, 'tell me… who are you?'

The girl pouted even more, looking close to tears herself, now.

'See,' she wined, 'if you don't know who I am, how are you to know who you are?'

'I… I don't understand, please… I just want some answers; I just want to be normal.'

The girl's look was now pitying 'that's your problem, Jeanie, that's why you're still here. You're not normal, no one is. Not all answers come in straight lines. You have all the answers already, you just won't accept them, just like the way you won't accept me.'

Sobs wrecked Jean's body; tears once again flowed freely from her eyes, 'please… please… I just want to know who… who I am… who you are… please… please!'

'Jeanie, you already know, just let yourself remember, Jean, remember…'

'But…'

'Remember!'

_She was running after Annie, the sun was bright, the street busy, spring, the time of rebirth, had come. Chase was a grand came, even if the grown-ups didn't like them playing it in the street, but what did they know? They were coming to a busy road now, should stop, mommy says cars are dangerous. But Annie's looking back, to see if I'm catching up, she doest realize that she's run out into the road, doesn't see the car. NO! The car hits her, sends her flying into the air, her white dress floats about he fragile form, like wings, blood scatters, shining rubies in the bright sun. She lands not half as gracefully as she flies, her dress smeared in blood. I reach her first; of course, I hold her, her eyes are dimming. Why? Why? She looks into my eyes, 'I'm scared Jean,' she whispers, she's alone, she doesn't want to die, but she feels no pain. I know. I feel her. I feel all of her emotions. This is good, she can't be alone now. The rush of memories, the thrill of emotions, it's wonderful, scary, fantastic. The light leaves her dark eyes, she dies in my arms. I feel it. I feel her die.

I feel her die!

I

Feel

Her

Die!

The world explodes before my eyes. I know nothing will ever be the same again._

New tears dripped from Jean's eyes, she remembered. God, she'd forgotten how much that hurt, she'd forgotten most of it, really.

'I'm sorry,' she murmured to Annie, who still stood before her, smiling a little now.

Other memories assaulted Jean; these hadn't been buried so deep, but were still mental sores that she never allowed herself to linger on.

After the accident she couldn't turn her power off, wrecked with guilt, fear, confusion, and the dreadful pain of her best friends death, she retreated into herself. Depression was the order of the day, and when her telekinetic skills came into fruitarian, it seemed like the entire world was going crazy. Her parents feared for her sanity, there were even thoughts about sending her to a mental home, which only fuelled the fear, confusion, and negativity which assaulted Jean every day, from within and without. Perhaps she would have gone mad, had it not been for the Professor. He came one day, with soft words and gentle explanations; he seemed to make sense of so much. He helped her create barriers in her mind, to control her telepathy. He taught her to control her abilities, took her out of a mad spiral of despair, and led her into the fields of normality once again.

And from there to the X-men where, despite it all, she struggled to maintain that normality, to remain sane, to be the steady rock in the churning ocean.

There had been a price, the memories, the pain, it had been too much. She had used her powers to block them, to hold them back. She couldn't face such death, such confusion, such madness. She just wanted to be normal. She WAS normal, she WAS well adjusted, and so away the memories went, packed into a shadowy corner of her mind, scabbed over cuts that should not be touched.

'Annie…' she whispered 'I thought you were dead.'

'I am,' replied the little girl casually, 'or rather Annie is dead. Most of her, at any rate. It's difficult to understand. When she died… part of her mind remained with you. That's part of what I'm made up of.'

'Part?'

'Yeah, I think bits of you also made me, by making yourself, forget Annie, by trying so hard to be normal and denying who you are, I think you created me. Weird, huh?'

'But why am I here?' asked Jean, 'why am I in this nut house? What's happening?'

Another mysterious smile from Annie, 'like I said, you know already. If you're willing to accept the answers.'

Jean frowned, and set her mind back, reaching out, trying to remember…

Yes, there had been the kidnapping, Magneto, Mastermind, attacking them after school, they hadn't stood a chance. They had taken them to a… to a base. Yes, and then… and then…

Jean growled in frustration, it was all a blank, she could remember nothing after the attack. She looked imploringly at Annie.

'He wants information out of you,' replied Annie, 'Magneto wants to learn the secrets of the X-men. So he built a special machine and employed Mastermind to create this.'

She gestured to the surrounding area, 'it's all in your mind,' she continued 'he created this mental image, created false characters, false memories, but made sure not to erase the existing ones, so that you'd remember both, to some extent or another. This place is a nightmare of your own creation, designed to inspire doubt and confusion and eventually even madness. As the 'Xavier' of this world asks you question as you talk, to each other and the creations of this world, you give away your secrets. Eventually he will know everything about the X-men.'

'Subtle,' murmured Jean, 'but what about our powers? They shouldn't work at all, but they do even if the world rearranges itself to pretend they don't. That's what happening, right?'

'Nearly, the reason why you 'see' your powers working is because this… fantasy doesn't affect all of your mental functions. When you use your powers you believe you use your powers, so you visualise using your powers, and then Magneto rearranges the world to change so that it seems you do not. It's probably another trick to make you doubt your own sanity. And doubt is your greatest enemy.'

'What do you mean?'

'The more your doubt your powers, the less they work. The more you doubt your own existence, your real existence, the more real this one, the false one, becomes. You begin to think that you really are insane, so you go to Xavier to talk about your problems, so Magneto gets more information.'

'Damn, it's a vicious circle,' murmured Jean, 'the more we doubt our selves, the more entrenched in this world we become, the more entrenched we become, the more we doubt ourselves. And god knows what damage I've done to the others. That's probably why I could split Kurt's hands like that, he was doubting himself so much that he even perceived them as splitting! Damn! How do we get out of this? If we still have our powers, even though we don't believe we can use them, then I still have my telepathy. But that's seemed so… so weak… and it's not something Magneto can alter, because it's not of this world.'

Jean was pacing now, her mind working though the problem, 'I suppose this explains why I had a fuller false past than anyone else, I'm more of a threat to this make-believe world, and I'm the only one who can break out of it. But how? And why didn't I use my telepathic abilities before? Was it because of doubt? I've doubted who… what I am for all my life. I've tried so hard to be normal, I've never fully accepted my powers, I've always doubted who and what I am. If this place feeds of doubt then that's why my powers don't seem to work. I doubt that I can, so I can't. If I accept my telepath, if I let myself use it, then I CAN use it. All I have to do is believe I'm a telepath and-'

'And you can break out of here,' finished Annie 'yeah, that's all you need to do. And you can do it now. You can push past Mastermind and Magneto's illusions and mind play, and you can be free. Then you can forget about me again and… just carry on as normal.'

Tears sprang into being at the corners of Annie's eyes as she said this; she lowered her head, her fists clenched at her sides.

'You never play with me,' she continued, in a choked voice which almost broke Jean's heart, 'I… Annie died so that you might have this power, this amazing power, and you ignore it. Yeah, you use it when you have to, but you don't accept it. You don't play with it or enjoy it the way the others do, you're so concerned with being accepted by other, 'normal' people that you forget who you are. You forget about me.'

Jean bend down, sitting herself so that she was on the same level as Annie.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, 'I was just so scared, I… I didn't want my life to change that way. I was wrong to ignore you, and my powers, but I won't do it again. You're my best friend, Annie, I'm not afraid while you're about. And I won't be afraid of my powers either, not while I remember what you did to give them to me.'

The little girl drew a hand up to her face, wiping away her tears, then she gave a gap-toothed smile, and Jean knew everything was going to be OK.

Annie stuck out a small, pale hand, 'wanna come play, Jeanie?' she asked.

'Any time, Annie,' replied Jean, taking her hand, 'any time.'

Annie laughed, and her white dress glowed so bright that it filled Jean's sight. The laugher rang out loud until it filled her ears, she pushed out with her telepathy and for the second time in her life, her world exploded.

The steady hum of machinery filled replaced the lingering reverberations of Annie's laugher and even with her eyes closed, Jean detected that the room was full of a bright, white light.

Reaching out with her mind, Jean detected seven other people in the room, five belonged to the other X-men, one she detected as Mastermind, the other… the other was hidden, barely detectable, but she recognised it none the less. It was Magneto.

Surprise was her only advantage, and she must use that advantage well.

They seemed to have detected that something was wrong, urgency filled their thoughts, she heard control buttons beep, felt the tendrils of telepathic power once again tingle on the edges of her thoughts.

They were distracted, now was her chance.

Rising up, she called up her telekinesis, a lose piece of machinery slammed into Mastermind, knocking him unconscious. Straining her abilities, she also picked up Magneto, slamming him against the wall, hoping to knock him out too, or at least stun him.

She succeeded in the latter option, which gave her time to telekinetically snap the wires and cables attached to herself and the other X-men. The machinery which had kept them in that crazy fantasy world was gone, they awoke, each in different states of awareness and shock.

Kurt curled up into a fatal ball almost immediately, but Scott came to his senses instantaneously.

With amazing swiftness and presents of mind, he sent an optic blast flying towards the now recovering Magneto. The master of magnetism managed to put up a magnetic shield around himself, saving himself from injury. But he was unprepared, slightly confused and bewildered, he was facing six, angry X-men, with one henchman already down. He did the smartest thing to do at the time, and retreated.

'Hurry,' gasped Jean to the assembled X-men, 'it's only a temporary retreat, once he's gathered his forces together he'll be back, and we all know that we can't defeat him, even together.'

The X-men did as they were told, working on automatic instinct more than anything, they were still confused by their interchange from one reality to another.

Luck must have been smiling upon them, though, for they soon found an exit to the base. Kitty phased them all through it, and from there they rushed into a near by wood.

They lay in hiding there for many hours, and might have had to remain there for longer had Jean not been able to contact the professor. Soon Logan and the X-jet arrived, and took them back home.

Their real home.