Notes: My initial intention was to just do a couple of scenes about Jess getting to grips with his new powers, but it kind of got away from me and turned into this. And though I intended to call a halt here, at the end of Past As Prologue, Chya (oh, and the boy now she's mentioned it!! *glower*) seems to think there's more to be dealt with. So I'm probably going to be adding to it in the coming days.
The most enormous thanks to Chya for letting me share her views on how phasing certain things might differ, and everything else that we've chatted about and analysed and enjoyed together. And for encouraging me to do something that I really don't normally do...
Spoilers: Huge Spoilers for A Breed Apart and Past As Prologue, but will probably add Power Play, Time Squared, Future Revealed, No Man Left Behind and Signs From Above – and maybe more episodes as they air. Hope this is OK...
Disclaimers: Sadly, none of the Mutant X team belong to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners, Marvel Studios, Tribune Entertainment Company, Canwest Entertainment and Fireworks Entertainment, and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost, particularly in Jesse's case!) as I found them. No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...
****
ANOTHER PHASE
By JillyW
I never thought I'd see this book again – never thought I'd need it, not once I'd become comfortable with myself and my abilities, found a place to belong, people to be with who just wanted me to be me. But after all this time, it seems that I'm right back where I started...
Damn, but I hate writing - always seems such hard work when there's a perfectly good keyboard to hand. But one of the many shrinks my folks used to ship me off to, in their attempts to work out who and what I was so they could try and make me into what they wanted me to be, once told me that putting things down on paper gave them more meaning than typing them onto a screen. No backspace or delete keys, you see? No way of simply erasing the words as if they'd never been. I did a lot of that back then. As if expunging them from the computer's memory could somehow help me deny they'd ever existed, that the reasons for writing them had never happened. Only it never really seemed to work out that way.
And then, back when I was struggling with my powers and getting so frustrated by the way they were controlling me and not the other way round, Adam suggested that keeping a record of what was happening would help me see that I was in fact making progress, even when it seemed I was taking two steps back for every hard-won step forward. I was sceptical, but he persisted – even gave me this book and a pen so I wouldn't have any excuses. And it did kind of work, at least enough that I couldn't really find a good enough reason to stop.
Looking back now over some of those earlier pages I can see that he was right. I came a long way – a lot further than I maybe realised. A lot further than he maybe gives me credit for.
Which is why I'm sitting here with pen in hand, staring at a blank sheet of paper, trying to remember how I ever made myself write all that stuff before. Because what happened today has me as rattled as anything that's gone before and I need something, some way of working through it that won't involve any of the others. They have their own issues to resolve right now too, and I need to prove to myself – and, if I'm honest, to them as well, particularly Adam – that I can deal with this on my own. I just wish it wasn't all so daunting...
So... where to start...? How about:
WEDNESDAY
Today I dumped Brennan on his butt – and I didn't even have to lay a finger on him to do it! It should have been funny, but in the circumstances I was too busy worrying about Emma's sudden propensity for firing off emotional bomb-blasts to do much laughing. That and wondering what the hell was happening to me...
A New Mutant growth spurt, Adam calls it. Well, I've already been through puberty once, and I have no desire to do it again, thanks all the same. But it seems that, not content with making me everyone else's personal bulletproof vest and pet last resort 'breaker-and-enterer' when the breaking bit would be a bad idea, my mutation now wants to turn me into public enemy number one every time I phase.
I had no control over it – it just happened. And for a moment there I had no idea how to stop it. It scared me how much effort it took to get everything – the stairs *and* me - back to normal, and I was so wiped by it that I actually had to take an afternoon nap! Haven't done that since I was a kid... And it hurt... Well, it would, wouldn't it? Phasing always hurts, but I've kind of grown accustomed to it. But this was a different pain, deeper somehow, more far reaching. I don't even want to think about how it's going to feel when I start actually trying to contain the molecular shift, making it work for me instead of running rampant.
I guess Adam was trying to be encouraging when he told me that I needed to see this new thing as an asset rather than a liability, that once I'd got a grip on it things would all seem different. Easy for him to say, though – he's not the one having to deal with it. And I could have done without the ban on practicing here in Sanctuary – or the reminder that, the way I am at the moment, I'm potentially lethal. That didn't do a whole lot for my already dented self-esteem. I don't enjoy embarrassing myself like I did this morning, and even though Brennan didn't really fall far enough to bruise anything more than his pride, I know it could have been a lot worse. He seemed OK about it after the initial shock, but I still felt like some dumb klutz for letting it happen, for not realising what was going on and stopping it.
Adam's bombshell about this Gabriel Ashlocke, this super-mutant he's so scared of, and the fact that it was Adam himself who actually invented the sub-dermal governor and the pods was just the icing on the cake of a really bad day. I know Adam's no saint, even though I used to think he could walk on water when I was younger, and I also know it's his self-imposed need for atonement that drives him now. But I guess it never really occurred to me before just how far-reaching some of the things he did back then might become for us in the future – or how little I really know about him.
But the bottom line is, unless I can find a way to understand how this thing works, and fast, I'm going to be no good to anyone. And since I can't bear the thought of being left behind while the others go take care of business, I have to believe that it's not going to be as hard as it feels right now.
Tomorrow, first thing, I'm going to start finding out...
*
The most enormous thanks to Chya for letting me share her views on how phasing certain things might differ, and everything else that we've chatted about and analysed and enjoyed together. And for encouraging me to do something that I really don't normally do...
Spoilers: Huge Spoilers for A Breed Apart and Past As Prologue, but will probably add Power Play, Time Squared, Future Revealed, No Man Left Behind and Signs From Above – and maybe more episodes as they air. Hope this is OK...
Disclaimers: Sadly, none of the Mutant X team belong to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners, Marvel Studios, Tribune Entertainment Company, Canwest Entertainment and Fireworks Entertainment, and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost, particularly in Jesse's case!) as I found them. No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...
****
ANOTHER PHASE
By JillyW
I never thought I'd see this book again – never thought I'd need it, not once I'd become comfortable with myself and my abilities, found a place to belong, people to be with who just wanted me to be me. But after all this time, it seems that I'm right back where I started...
Damn, but I hate writing - always seems such hard work when there's a perfectly good keyboard to hand. But one of the many shrinks my folks used to ship me off to, in their attempts to work out who and what I was so they could try and make me into what they wanted me to be, once told me that putting things down on paper gave them more meaning than typing them onto a screen. No backspace or delete keys, you see? No way of simply erasing the words as if they'd never been. I did a lot of that back then. As if expunging them from the computer's memory could somehow help me deny they'd ever existed, that the reasons for writing them had never happened. Only it never really seemed to work out that way.
And then, back when I was struggling with my powers and getting so frustrated by the way they were controlling me and not the other way round, Adam suggested that keeping a record of what was happening would help me see that I was in fact making progress, even when it seemed I was taking two steps back for every hard-won step forward. I was sceptical, but he persisted – even gave me this book and a pen so I wouldn't have any excuses. And it did kind of work, at least enough that I couldn't really find a good enough reason to stop.
Looking back now over some of those earlier pages I can see that he was right. I came a long way – a lot further than I maybe realised. A lot further than he maybe gives me credit for.
Which is why I'm sitting here with pen in hand, staring at a blank sheet of paper, trying to remember how I ever made myself write all that stuff before. Because what happened today has me as rattled as anything that's gone before and I need something, some way of working through it that won't involve any of the others. They have their own issues to resolve right now too, and I need to prove to myself – and, if I'm honest, to them as well, particularly Adam – that I can deal with this on my own. I just wish it wasn't all so daunting...
So... where to start...? How about:
WEDNESDAY
Today I dumped Brennan on his butt – and I didn't even have to lay a finger on him to do it! It should have been funny, but in the circumstances I was too busy worrying about Emma's sudden propensity for firing off emotional bomb-blasts to do much laughing. That and wondering what the hell was happening to me...
A New Mutant growth spurt, Adam calls it. Well, I've already been through puberty once, and I have no desire to do it again, thanks all the same. But it seems that, not content with making me everyone else's personal bulletproof vest and pet last resort 'breaker-and-enterer' when the breaking bit would be a bad idea, my mutation now wants to turn me into public enemy number one every time I phase.
I had no control over it – it just happened. And for a moment there I had no idea how to stop it. It scared me how much effort it took to get everything – the stairs *and* me - back to normal, and I was so wiped by it that I actually had to take an afternoon nap! Haven't done that since I was a kid... And it hurt... Well, it would, wouldn't it? Phasing always hurts, but I've kind of grown accustomed to it. But this was a different pain, deeper somehow, more far reaching. I don't even want to think about how it's going to feel when I start actually trying to contain the molecular shift, making it work for me instead of running rampant.
I guess Adam was trying to be encouraging when he told me that I needed to see this new thing as an asset rather than a liability, that once I'd got a grip on it things would all seem different. Easy for him to say, though – he's not the one having to deal with it. And I could have done without the ban on practicing here in Sanctuary – or the reminder that, the way I am at the moment, I'm potentially lethal. That didn't do a whole lot for my already dented self-esteem. I don't enjoy embarrassing myself like I did this morning, and even though Brennan didn't really fall far enough to bruise anything more than his pride, I know it could have been a lot worse. He seemed OK about it after the initial shock, but I still felt like some dumb klutz for letting it happen, for not realising what was going on and stopping it.
Adam's bombshell about this Gabriel Ashlocke, this super-mutant he's so scared of, and the fact that it was Adam himself who actually invented the sub-dermal governor and the pods was just the icing on the cake of a really bad day. I know Adam's no saint, even though I used to think he could walk on water when I was younger, and I also know it's his self-imposed need for atonement that drives him now. But I guess it never really occurred to me before just how far-reaching some of the things he did back then might become for us in the future – or how little I really know about him.
But the bottom line is, unless I can find a way to understand how this thing works, and fast, I'm going to be no good to anyone. And since I can't bear the thought of being left behind while the others go take care of business, I have to believe that it's not going to be as hard as it feels right now.
Tomorrow, first thing, I'm going to start finding out...
*