Disclaimer: I own nothing sobs

Chapter 5

Down in the hospital wing the x-men surrounded the sedated body of Jean.

"What happened to her Professor?" Logan crossed the room to hold Jean's limp hand, worry spreading through every line in his face.

"She's had a panic attack, she became so wound up that her head forgot to tell her body to cool down. So her body did the only thing it could, it shut down." Professor tried to keep his voice calm and reassuring, if not for the other x-men, then for himself.

"But what brought on this panic attack? I know she had had a bad dream but when I saw her last she was calm." The Professor looked at Storm questioningly but Storm shook her head, indicating she would tell the Professor when they were alone.

"I think Scott has the answer to that" the Professor and the rest of the room turned towards Scott who had been unusually quiet.

"I don't know, I just stopped her in the hall, I was worried about her and was asking if she was ok. And she just stood there staring at my hand on her arm and freaking out. I tried to calm her down but I don't think she heard me." Seeing Scott's guilty face, Storm decided to put an end to this and tell them.

"I think I know what has been bothering Jean these past few weeks." Everyone turned to her with the same expression on their faces, confusion. She would have found it funny had it not been such a depressing subject she was going to broach.

"I think Jean may have been raped. She has been acting funny ever since she came back from buying snacks from the shop 2 weeks ago." Storm felt a strange sense of relief now that it came to telling everyone.

"But how can you know?" Logan asked.

"Because I can recognise the face of a broken woman, it was a face that I wore sometime ago." She waited for her words to sink in, with her eyes downcast on to the figure on the bed. Finally looking up she saw on the faces of her closet friends her worst nightmare. Pity was mirrored on every one of those faces.

"Storm..." Scott took a step towards her, but Storm backed away.

"No" She said firmly.

"I don't want your pity. It happened, I dealt with it. End of story. We need to concentrate on helping Jean now." She looked again at the figure on the bed.

"I think we should keep this to our selves, the last thing she needs is for us to be butting in, she needs to work this out for herself" Storm held her breath praying that these, often stubborn, men would bend to her experience. Fortunately they were either still in shock over her announcement, or seeing sense because they all nodded mutely.

Jean's sedation began to wear off and she began to mumble in her sleep, Storm hurried to wake her up before she got herself into another fit. Jean sat up quickly, gasping and promptly fainted. Groaning her eyes fluttered open a minute later. Storm's face hovered over her.

"Jean? Jean, listen to me, breath... ok? Just breath" When Jean's eyes fixed on hers and she saw Jean was breathing steadily along with her, she said gently,

"Right I want you to sit up very, very slowly ok? Because you fainted last time because you sat up too quickly" Slowly Jean nodded, still breathing deeply. Very slowly, with the help of Storm, she sat up swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"Urgh I feel horrible, what happened?" Jean looked up groggily, slowly remembering what had happened, her eyes went wide.

"You gave Scott quite a scare, what made you freak so much?" Storm threw in one last attempt at getting Jean to tell her. But jean just looked down and changed the subject

"Where is Scott I need to apologise for startling him" she looked vaguely round the room.

"I sent the men away, they were all very worried. But I thought you might feel better I there were fewer people around." Jean nodded slowly waiting for her brain to understand the words. At least she was saved from having questions thrown at her when her barriers were so far down.

"I think the Professor wanted you to stay in the hospital wing until your temperature settles down again. Do you want me to give you a sedative to help you sleep better?"

Jean nodded and lay back down thinking at least she could organise her thoughts before she saw everyone again, and it would be nice to actually sleep for once. Then she thought no more as the black engulfed her.

Fin

A/N Sorry its only a short chapter, and its not a particularly well written cos I'm doing other stuff at the same time as writing, apologises profusely, but the next chap will be better! I promise! As always please review!