Ma Soleil
Chapter Twenty: Even Aliens Make Mistakes
Disclaimer: All Marvel Characters are the property of Marvel. This is a work of fanfiction, not an attempt to infringe on Stan Lee's personal arsenal of hotties. I can wish all I like, but Sabes is never gonna show up to collect me, and that's that. Oh, yeah, I'm making zero profit off this and if you want Beck, just ask.
As always, the lifeblood of the fanfiction author is reviews. I will respect constructive criticism, but flames are sincerely unappreciated. My e-mail address is seraph_taurus@thekeyz.com. Thanks for your time and God bless.
A/N: I'm sorry if Chapter Nineteen was a little confusing, but I'll give a basic recap of it here, in case you didn't understand. Rebecca and Scott's conversation was mainly small-talk and bonding, and she put telekinetic shields over his eyes so he no longer needed the glasses.
Warden and Jean-Paul hooked up at Harry's and had a one-nighter. Warden has always had feelings for Jean-Paul, rather as he might idolize a film star. Jean-Paul is simply lonely. Their relationship is inconclusive, as Warden is already in a relationship with a man named Richard.
Jubilee and Jono were in a romantic relationship for a six month period about five months before the story starts, and Jono is just realizing he can't let her go, and wants to start things up again, while she isn't so sure about it, even though she still loves him.
There. . .I hope that does it, and if you have anymore questions, just e- mail me.
XXX
Jean sighed and pressed her nose against the window of the Shi'ar Spacecraft. It's good to be home, she thought fleetingly, as she watched the ground come up beneath them. The landing was fairly gentle, compared to when they had entered the atmosphere, due to the safety of the practically foolproof alien vessel, but what would happen when she saw her husband again for the first time in three months? She closed her eyes momentarily, and sighed quietly.
"Jean?" the Professor strode up behind her, his footsteps deadened by the thick felt soles of his boots. "Is there something wrong?" she turned, and winced, as she always did, at the sight of the scar that ran behind his skull from ear to ear.
"No, Professor. It's nothing."
"I may no longer be telepathic, but I know you too well to believe that dismissive, melancholy tone of yours." She blushed furiously as he came to stand beside her and slid a paternal arm around her shoulders. "What are you worried about?"
"When Scott finds out about Quinn."
The snort of surprise from Xavier startled Jean. "Well, that's hardly something a marriage like yours and Scott's won't stand up to."
"Don't be sarcastic." She rolled her eyes, nearly batted at him before she remembered herself. The spacecraft lurched to a stop, and her stomach rolled over. "Where is she, anyhow?"
"In her incubator. She was being fussy."
"So you took the easy way out."
"Now what else did you expect me to do?" his innocuous smile turned radiant when Lilandra entered the room.
"The luggage will be taken to your rooms by my personal attaché of servants. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, we are."
"As soon as I get Quinn."
"Of course," the Majestrix of the Shi'ar Empire smiled beatifically. "Scott will be very pleased to meet his daughter."
"And perhaps not so pleased when he finds that I named her without telling him." Jean smiled wryly.
"Is THAT what you're worrying about?" Xavier laughed. "I thought it was that she is such an ornery child."
Jean smiled. "Thanks for trying to help me feel better, Professor." She turned and headed for the makeshift nursery Lilandra had so benevolently provided on their return to Earth. Quinndaera Summers' incubator was at the centre of the room, as most Shi'ar beds were. Jean leant down and pulled back with her sleeping daughter in her arms. The girl's eyes were closed, but Jean knew that they were the wide, wondering slate blue of newborns. The child's pale gold hair, sparse as it was, lay against her temples, glued there by fragrant baby sweat. Jean rested Quinn against her shoulder and headed for the docking bay, where the Professor, Lilandra, and one or two of the Imperial Bodyguard stood behind them casually, yet prepared to protect should the need arise.
The first person Jean saw as she bundled into the subterranean X-Men hangar was Hank McCoy. She broke into a smile as his eyes went wide at the sight of Quinn. Close behind him was Scott, who seemed to be in a somewhat irritated conversation with Jubilee, who kept tugging on his shirt. Their gazes met over Quinndaera, and his jaw dropped as he rushed toward her. Before he said a word, his lips were on hers, squelching any fears she might have had. "What did you call her?" he asked quietly, voice tremulous with emotion.
"Quinndaera Merritt Summers."
"Fifth child who deserves fortune," he murmured, his linguistic skills quickly decrypting his daughter's name. His face creased into a smile. "I have a little surprise of my own for you." He touched her face gently, and turned toward a statuesque blonde woman some paces behind him and nodded. Scott reached up for his visor and Jean started, but within moments he had yanked it off, before the Phoenix could even throw up a psi-shield, and she was looking up into his burning red eyes, unhampered by the heavy ruby-quartz eyewear he was required to sport every hour of every day.
"Scott. . ." she breathed, nearly speechless, and pulled him back in for another kiss, then pushed him back a little. "Why don't you hold her?" she held Quinn out, and Scott took the delicate bundle into his arms.
Quinn was a deep sleeper, and as the exchange was made, she merely turned and attempted to put one mittened hand into her mouth. "She's so beautiful." He fingered her platinum curls. "She's a blondie."
"The Shi'ar physicians tell me her hair will darken as she grows. It'll be something like your colour. And her eyes will be blue." She smiled gently. "You look so much alike." She turned as the Professor laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Shall we retire to the kitchen?" she smiled meekly at her tutor, and Scott slipped his arm around her shoulders.
"Yes, let's." he said quickly. The moment the X-Men were assembled in the kitchen, all hell broke loose. People swamped round the refrigerator, calling dibs on various desserts or leftovers and squabbling for seats nearest to the newcomers. As for the Professor, he slipped quietly out to his office. He was so preoccupied that he didn't hear the soft footsteps following him.
Xavier sighed as he sank into the wing-backed Victorian chair behind his expansive oak desk. "Would you rather be alone with your thoughts?" the low feminine voice startled him enough that he started. "I'm sorry. I should have let you know I was following you."
"Soleil Étoile." He shook his head and stood up, enveloping her in a warm hug. "You look lovely. I apologize that I wasn't able to greet you personally when I arrived."
"Shut up, Charles." She shrugged. "It's been a while."
"Eight months?"
"More like ten."
"Really?" he smiled, feigning surprise. "We've both gone through considerable changes."
"Jubilee told me." She touched the scar on his skull tenderly. He laughed.
"I can't feel it. The incision, I mean. " he chuckled.
"Don't laugh, Charles." Her brow knit. "I can't even begin to imagine how terrible it must be."
"Not so bad," he covered her hand in his, and brought it to his lips. "Being bereft of comfort and that sixth sense we've gone through life depending on and reveling in and despising isn't quite as terrible as I imagined it."
"But?" she brought her other hand up to his shoulder into a ballroom pose.
"But I'm no longer useful to the X-Men. I'm here for moral support."
"That's ridiculous. You're a brilliant strategist and politician. The X-Men NEED you. You're their leader. You've not been in action for years. Your telepathy isn't what was useful to your team, to your FAMILY. It was YOU. If you're going to go through a poor-me routine, trust me, I WON'T be amused."
"Then nothing will convince you to stay with us-with me?"
"I thought they planted a neural inhibitor in your brain." She turned her face up to his, her smile widening.
"Well, I suppose my innate perceptivity hasn't dimmed a shade." He shrugged, and she laid her head gently between his shoulder and neck. "I'm sorry you won't give this offer more thought."
"I've given it lots of thought, Charles, but no amount of anguishing will change the fact that I have a partner. A non-mutant, non-pacifistic partner."
"Christopher Warden."
"Yeah. Him."
"Are you two in a relationship?"
"Yeah, a professional one." She grinned. "Warden and I aren't attracted to one another that way. It's better." There was a tangible, deafening silence.
"I'm glad you were here when I arrived." Xavier finally said. He felt her smile into his shoulder, and murmured, "Shall we have some music?"
"I'll do it." She telekinetically turned on the record player and selected a 13" disc. As she nestled the needle into place, the gentle hum of Mozart's Concerto for the French Horn wafted over them, its aggrandized notes settling an odd peace into place. Rebecca inhaled deeply, identifying his scent and picking apart the reasons it comforted her so. There was always that faint hint of aftershave, which humanized the near-saint he was, and peppermint oil, then the earthy tones of newsprint that always clung to him, overlaid with strong, soothing male. Charles Xavier wasn't the paragon on masculinity to look at, but there was that power in his voice, in his hands, in his eyes, in his scent that permeated your being and made one feel secure. "Charles?"
"Yes."
"I want to help."
"You are a help. You've given us numerous decisive information bulletins over the past years."
"I mean with you. Just because there's the possibility that Onslaught might re-manifest doesn't mean you should hide your candle under a bushel, so to speak. I'm powerful enough to help you, perhaps more than powerful enough! This shouldn't be the end of your telepathy. This is simply a bend in the road."
"I can't chance it, Rebecca."
"You HAVE to." Her eyes, deep and blue and earnest, pierced up into his, and he stared back, just as gravely. "I hate that I feel so helpless. You're too damned stubborn."
"Be that as it may, Rebecca."
"Natty could help."
"Sinister?" Xavier actually laughed in her face. "Ridiculous!"
"I'm serious. Under my supervision, and with your permission, I'm sure he could come up with something to help you."
"This isn't a sickness to cure, Rebecca. I'm getting old, and losing control of my powers. I'm not overly modest or deceived, and if I lost control, I'd probably wipe out half the country. . .or worse, target the people I love the most."
"You're afraid of harming the X-Men again. Your powers are prodigious, but Jean's have grown, as well."
"If you stayed with us, I might consider. . .but no. I couldn't ask you to do that. Not after what Victor and Monet put you through, and you have Warden to consider."
"I could talk with him. If my remaining with the X-Men might persuade you to work on regulating your powers, as opposed to giving them up entirely, I'm certain he'd understand. We could board at the mansion, or perhaps rent an acre or two to build on, and go from there. I could regulate your psionisis easily, at the same time maintaining my position in the mercenary community. Warden would adore living here; it's a school, and he loves to learn!"
"Rebecca," Xavier took a backward step and held the woman at arm's length. "A plan like this is something to reflect on, to deliberate over, not to spring upon by accident some evening listening to. . .to Mozart!"
"Tell me you deliberated over the decision to inhibit your powers, and I'll take the same measures."
"It was considered at length by a board of the Shi'ar Empire's most astute physicians. They weighed my age, my physical condition, my race, and the comparison of all these to the power I was so quickly losing control of, and I was found lacking."
"Your power conspires not against you. It is a part of you-inborn, destined! You can't lose it. Not now, not ever; the minute to begin to believe you don't need your telepathy is the minute you tear yourself in two and leave one-half of your soul floating aimlessly on the astral plane, and the other stranded helplessly with both feet planted firmly in reality. I don't know which half is the more unfortunate." Her voice rose with her temper, and a shiver went down Xavier's spine-the same shiver he'd experienced the moment the Phoenix sacrificed herself.
"Perhaps you're right."
"I AM right and you know it!" she fairly hissed, sitting stiffly on a footstool. "I only want what's right for you, and I feel that this neural inhibitor isn't going to facilitate your condition, it'll only inflame it. It's like cauterizing a wound. Perhaps it closes it and delays the loss of blood, but the wound festers for years beneath the seared skin, and never properly heals."
"I see what you mean. I'll speak with Henry and Lilandra about it." He scratched his chin, looked hesitantly back up at her. "Are you happy now?"
"The world's most powerful telepath acceding defeat to a lab-project gone wrong? How can I fail to be delighted?" she pulled him back into a waltzing position and took a turn round the office. "It's lovely to have you home."
There was a long silence following her statement, and the concerto finally wound down. "They said you had something to discuss with me. . ." Xavier said suddenly, as though grasping at straws with which to build conversation. "Something about your powers?"
"Oh, that. No, it's all better now. Natty fixed it for me."
"Fixed it?"
"Yes. I promise, it's fine." She grinned perkily. "Come on, now, let's go back to the crowd. Your students will think I've ravished you." Xavier laughed.
"So you have, my dear." He leant in and kissed her forehead gently. "So you have."
XXX
Chapter Twenty: Even Aliens Make Mistakes
Disclaimer: All Marvel Characters are the property of Marvel. This is a work of fanfiction, not an attempt to infringe on Stan Lee's personal arsenal of hotties. I can wish all I like, but Sabes is never gonna show up to collect me, and that's that. Oh, yeah, I'm making zero profit off this and if you want Beck, just ask.
As always, the lifeblood of the fanfiction author is reviews. I will respect constructive criticism, but flames are sincerely unappreciated. My e-mail address is seraph_taurus@thekeyz.com. Thanks for your time and God bless.
A/N: I'm sorry if Chapter Nineteen was a little confusing, but I'll give a basic recap of it here, in case you didn't understand. Rebecca and Scott's conversation was mainly small-talk and bonding, and she put telekinetic shields over his eyes so he no longer needed the glasses.
Warden and Jean-Paul hooked up at Harry's and had a one-nighter. Warden has always had feelings for Jean-Paul, rather as he might idolize a film star. Jean-Paul is simply lonely. Their relationship is inconclusive, as Warden is already in a relationship with a man named Richard.
Jubilee and Jono were in a romantic relationship for a six month period about five months before the story starts, and Jono is just realizing he can't let her go, and wants to start things up again, while she isn't so sure about it, even though she still loves him.
There. . .I hope that does it, and if you have anymore questions, just e- mail me.
XXX
Jean sighed and pressed her nose against the window of the Shi'ar Spacecraft. It's good to be home, she thought fleetingly, as she watched the ground come up beneath them. The landing was fairly gentle, compared to when they had entered the atmosphere, due to the safety of the practically foolproof alien vessel, but what would happen when she saw her husband again for the first time in three months? She closed her eyes momentarily, and sighed quietly.
"Jean?" the Professor strode up behind her, his footsteps deadened by the thick felt soles of his boots. "Is there something wrong?" she turned, and winced, as she always did, at the sight of the scar that ran behind his skull from ear to ear.
"No, Professor. It's nothing."
"I may no longer be telepathic, but I know you too well to believe that dismissive, melancholy tone of yours." She blushed furiously as he came to stand beside her and slid a paternal arm around her shoulders. "What are you worried about?"
"When Scott finds out about Quinn."
The snort of surprise from Xavier startled Jean. "Well, that's hardly something a marriage like yours and Scott's won't stand up to."
"Don't be sarcastic." She rolled her eyes, nearly batted at him before she remembered herself. The spacecraft lurched to a stop, and her stomach rolled over. "Where is she, anyhow?"
"In her incubator. She was being fussy."
"So you took the easy way out."
"Now what else did you expect me to do?" his innocuous smile turned radiant when Lilandra entered the room.
"The luggage will be taken to your rooms by my personal attaché of servants. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, we are."
"As soon as I get Quinn."
"Of course," the Majestrix of the Shi'ar Empire smiled beatifically. "Scott will be very pleased to meet his daughter."
"And perhaps not so pleased when he finds that I named her without telling him." Jean smiled wryly.
"Is THAT what you're worrying about?" Xavier laughed. "I thought it was that she is such an ornery child."
Jean smiled. "Thanks for trying to help me feel better, Professor." She turned and headed for the makeshift nursery Lilandra had so benevolently provided on their return to Earth. Quinndaera Summers' incubator was at the centre of the room, as most Shi'ar beds were. Jean leant down and pulled back with her sleeping daughter in her arms. The girl's eyes were closed, but Jean knew that they were the wide, wondering slate blue of newborns. The child's pale gold hair, sparse as it was, lay against her temples, glued there by fragrant baby sweat. Jean rested Quinn against her shoulder and headed for the docking bay, where the Professor, Lilandra, and one or two of the Imperial Bodyguard stood behind them casually, yet prepared to protect should the need arise.
The first person Jean saw as she bundled into the subterranean X-Men hangar was Hank McCoy. She broke into a smile as his eyes went wide at the sight of Quinn. Close behind him was Scott, who seemed to be in a somewhat irritated conversation with Jubilee, who kept tugging on his shirt. Their gazes met over Quinndaera, and his jaw dropped as he rushed toward her. Before he said a word, his lips were on hers, squelching any fears she might have had. "What did you call her?" he asked quietly, voice tremulous with emotion.
"Quinndaera Merritt Summers."
"Fifth child who deserves fortune," he murmured, his linguistic skills quickly decrypting his daughter's name. His face creased into a smile. "I have a little surprise of my own for you." He touched her face gently, and turned toward a statuesque blonde woman some paces behind him and nodded. Scott reached up for his visor and Jean started, but within moments he had yanked it off, before the Phoenix could even throw up a psi-shield, and she was looking up into his burning red eyes, unhampered by the heavy ruby-quartz eyewear he was required to sport every hour of every day.
"Scott. . ." she breathed, nearly speechless, and pulled him back in for another kiss, then pushed him back a little. "Why don't you hold her?" she held Quinn out, and Scott took the delicate bundle into his arms.
Quinn was a deep sleeper, and as the exchange was made, she merely turned and attempted to put one mittened hand into her mouth. "She's so beautiful." He fingered her platinum curls. "She's a blondie."
"The Shi'ar physicians tell me her hair will darken as she grows. It'll be something like your colour. And her eyes will be blue." She smiled gently. "You look so much alike." She turned as the Professor laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Shall we retire to the kitchen?" she smiled meekly at her tutor, and Scott slipped his arm around her shoulders.
"Yes, let's." he said quickly. The moment the X-Men were assembled in the kitchen, all hell broke loose. People swamped round the refrigerator, calling dibs on various desserts or leftovers and squabbling for seats nearest to the newcomers. As for the Professor, he slipped quietly out to his office. He was so preoccupied that he didn't hear the soft footsteps following him.
Xavier sighed as he sank into the wing-backed Victorian chair behind his expansive oak desk. "Would you rather be alone with your thoughts?" the low feminine voice startled him enough that he started. "I'm sorry. I should have let you know I was following you."
"Soleil Étoile." He shook his head and stood up, enveloping her in a warm hug. "You look lovely. I apologize that I wasn't able to greet you personally when I arrived."
"Shut up, Charles." She shrugged. "It's been a while."
"Eight months?"
"More like ten."
"Really?" he smiled, feigning surprise. "We've both gone through considerable changes."
"Jubilee told me." She touched the scar on his skull tenderly. He laughed.
"I can't feel it. The incision, I mean. " he chuckled.
"Don't laugh, Charles." Her brow knit. "I can't even begin to imagine how terrible it must be."
"Not so bad," he covered her hand in his, and brought it to his lips. "Being bereft of comfort and that sixth sense we've gone through life depending on and reveling in and despising isn't quite as terrible as I imagined it."
"But?" she brought her other hand up to his shoulder into a ballroom pose.
"But I'm no longer useful to the X-Men. I'm here for moral support."
"That's ridiculous. You're a brilliant strategist and politician. The X-Men NEED you. You're their leader. You've not been in action for years. Your telepathy isn't what was useful to your team, to your FAMILY. It was YOU. If you're going to go through a poor-me routine, trust me, I WON'T be amused."
"Then nothing will convince you to stay with us-with me?"
"I thought they planted a neural inhibitor in your brain." She turned her face up to his, her smile widening.
"Well, I suppose my innate perceptivity hasn't dimmed a shade." He shrugged, and she laid her head gently between his shoulder and neck. "I'm sorry you won't give this offer more thought."
"I've given it lots of thought, Charles, but no amount of anguishing will change the fact that I have a partner. A non-mutant, non-pacifistic partner."
"Christopher Warden."
"Yeah. Him."
"Are you two in a relationship?"
"Yeah, a professional one." She grinned. "Warden and I aren't attracted to one another that way. It's better." There was a tangible, deafening silence.
"I'm glad you were here when I arrived." Xavier finally said. He felt her smile into his shoulder, and murmured, "Shall we have some music?"
"I'll do it." She telekinetically turned on the record player and selected a 13" disc. As she nestled the needle into place, the gentle hum of Mozart's Concerto for the French Horn wafted over them, its aggrandized notes settling an odd peace into place. Rebecca inhaled deeply, identifying his scent and picking apart the reasons it comforted her so. There was always that faint hint of aftershave, which humanized the near-saint he was, and peppermint oil, then the earthy tones of newsprint that always clung to him, overlaid with strong, soothing male. Charles Xavier wasn't the paragon on masculinity to look at, but there was that power in his voice, in his hands, in his eyes, in his scent that permeated your being and made one feel secure. "Charles?"
"Yes."
"I want to help."
"You are a help. You've given us numerous decisive information bulletins over the past years."
"I mean with you. Just because there's the possibility that Onslaught might re-manifest doesn't mean you should hide your candle under a bushel, so to speak. I'm powerful enough to help you, perhaps more than powerful enough! This shouldn't be the end of your telepathy. This is simply a bend in the road."
"I can't chance it, Rebecca."
"You HAVE to." Her eyes, deep and blue and earnest, pierced up into his, and he stared back, just as gravely. "I hate that I feel so helpless. You're too damned stubborn."
"Be that as it may, Rebecca."
"Natty could help."
"Sinister?" Xavier actually laughed in her face. "Ridiculous!"
"I'm serious. Under my supervision, and with your permission, I'm sure he could come up with something to help you."
"This isn't a sickness to cure, Rebecca. I'm getting old, and losing control of my powers. I'm not overly modest or deceived, and if I lost control, I'd probably wipe out half the country. . .or worse, target the people I love the most."
"You're afraid of harming the X-Men again. Your powers are prodigious, but Jean's have grown, as well."
"If you stayed with us, I might consider. . .but no. I couldn't ask you to do that. Not after what Victor and Monet put you through, and you have Warden to consider."
"I could talk with him. If my remaining with the X-Men might persuade you to work on regulating your powers, as opposed to giving them up entirely, I'm certain he'd understand. We could board at the mansion, or perhaps rent an acre or two to build on, and go from there. I could regulate your psionisis easily, at the same time maintaining my position in the mercenary community. Warden would adore living here; it's a school, and he loves to learn!"
"Rebecca," Xavier took a backward step and held the woman at arm's length. "A plan like this is something to reflect on, to deliberate over, not to spring upon by accident some evening listening to. . .to Mozart!"
"Tell me you deliberated over the decision to inhibit your powers, and I'll take the same measures."
"It was considered at length by a board of the Shi'ar Empire's most astute physicians. They weighed my age, my physical condition, my race, and the comparison of all these to the power I was so quickly losing control of, and I was found lacking."
"Your power conspires not against you. It is a part of you-inborn, destined! You can't lose it. Not now, not ever; the minute to begin to believe you don't need your telepathy is the minute you tear yourself in two and leave one-half of your soul floating aimlessly on the astral plane, and the other stranded helplessly with both feet planted firmly in reality. I don't know which half is the more unfortunate." Her voice rose with her temper, and a shiver went down Xavier's spine-the same shiver he'd experienced the moment the Phoenix sacrificed herself.
"Perhaps you're right."
"I AM right and you know it!" she fairly hissed, sitting stiffly on a footstool. "I only want what's right for you, and I feel that this neural inhibitor isn't going to facilitate your condition, it'll only inflame it. It's like cauterizing a wound. Perhaps it closes it and delays the loss of blood, but the wound festers for years beneath the seared skin, and never properly heals."
"I see what you mean. I'll speak with Henry and Lilandra about it." He scratched his chin, looked hesitantly back up at her. "Are you happy now?"
"The world's most powerful telepath acceding defeat to a lab-project gone wrong? How can I fail to be delighted?" she pulled him back into a waltzing position and took a turn round the office. "It's lovely to have you home."
There was a long silence following her statement, and the concerto finally wound down. "They said you had something to discuss with me. . ." Xavier said suddenly, as though grasping at straws with which to build conversation. "Something about your powers?"
"Oh, that. No, it's all better now. Natty fixed it for me."
"Fixed it?"
"Yes. I promise, it's fine." She grinned perkily. "Come on, now, let's go back to the crowd. Your students will think I've ravished you." Xavier laughed.
"So you have, my dear." He leant in and kissed her forehead gently. "So you have."
XXX