She was in danger.
She didn't know how or why but Jean felt it like she felt the soft cushion underneath her head. It was that impending danger that hangs upon you like a shadow. The kind that strong men loose sleep over; the danger of the unknown. So she sat up.
She was in a decorative room with furnishings all over the walls and desks. There was a fireplace in the corner where a violet flame danced. She gazed at it in wonder before turning to her side. Just as she did, the figure next to her sat up as well.
He stared at her in the same amazement in which she stared at him. They were both silent for a moment as they looked at each other. They were complete strangers yet…
Yet…something about him was familiar to Jean. He seemed older than her, maybe even twice her age. But the aura she got off of him was young and strong though wrought with trauma. Jean could almost see him thinking similar things about her as she looked into his blue eyes. Why did she have the feeling she knew those eyes…
The man broke the stillness as he extended a shaking hand to place it gently on her face. He gently stroked her cheekbone with his thumb repeatedly as if wiping away imaginary tears. He looked just about ready to cry as he spoke one single word:
"Kate?"
She didn't know why she did what she did next except maybe she felt that she needed to comfort him, but she leaned in slowly and kissed him. It felt…right somehow. Like they fit. He cupped the back of her head and moved his lips against hers. She felt his tears on her own cheeks.
She wanted to tell him it was OK. That nothing was wrong even thought in the back of her mind she knew that would be a lie. She couldn't stand the broken look on his face: a face she knew very well. Jean fought through her memories to think of where she had seen this man.
She moved back a little bit to break their kiss and opened her mouth to say something. But before she could respond, however, she felt agonizing pain surge through her chest. She looked and saw blood on her pajama top. She looked at the man again: her eyes begging him for an answer. He stared at her in shocked silence. In addition to the tears, she could also see the absolute terror in his eyes.
"Kate! No!"
Just then, out of nowhere, she was thrown on the ground by an invisible force and her pajamas and bra were torn open. He hands were pinned above her head and her invisible attacker hit her across the face a few times. She struggled but to no avail. Then she felt someone forcefully enter her and she screamed.
And that's how she woke up: screaming almost at the top of her lungs.
"Jean!" Scott exclaimed, running through the door. He stopped just short of her bed and held her by her shoulders. "Jean! What's wrong?"
"Scott!" she gasped as the tears forced themselves from her eyes. "I—Oh, God, it was awful, I—"
"Shhh" he whispered, quickly sitting down next to her and embracing her. He pressed her against his chest and placed her face in the nook of his neck. "It was just a nightmare" he whispered soothingly. "Shhh…"
Jean returned the embrace eagerly, wrapping her arms around him and accepting the warmth her offered her. She cried on his shoulder, sobbing until her teammates burst into the room.
"Oh my God! Like, what happened?" Kitty asked as she ran phasing through the door into Jean's room.
"Jean had a pretty bad nightmare" Scott explained to Kitty just as Kurt BAMFed in a second later. Soon enough, all the X-Men and the Professor were gathered in Jean's room as she continued to cry on Scott.
"Jean?" the professor stepped foreword. "Are you all right?"
Jean took in a big shuddering breath and nodded her head, still buried in Scott's shoulder.
"All right then. With the exception of Jean, the rest of you may go back to sleep" he stated as Kitty and Ororo got up from their places seated next to Jean on the bed.
Scott gently tried to move but Jean clung to him tighter. "Stay" she whispered in a begging, small, voice. "I'll stay" he responded lovingly.
The X-Men left and the three were alone.
"Now, Jean, tell me what happened" the Professor said wheeling himself closer to her bed.
Jean wiped her eyes and untangled herself from Scott. She sat next to him and he threw an arm around her, bringing her in to lean against him. He took her other hand in his free one. She looked down and couldn't help getting a few butterflies. She had only just discovered this side of Scott since their mission two weeks ago in Mexico. Scott felt her butterflies through their newly established link and hugged her a little tighter.
"Jean?"
"Sorry" she apologized. "I was in this strange room. Stranger than I've ever seen. It had a purple fire and weird markings everywhere. Sort of like hieroglyphics"
"Go on" Scott urged.
"And I was in bed with a man. He looked older than me but you know, not that old. He looked like he'd seen a ghost when he saw me" Jean dropped her voice to a whisper. "He called me Kate"
"Kate?" Scott asked bewildered. "That was my mother's name"
Jean stared at him as she finally realized where she knew the man from. The eyes, the motions, everything. "Scott, I think I was with your father"
Scott was at a loss for words. "Then—then why were you screaming?"
Jean cast her eyes down. "Someone raped me. But it wasn't your father. I couldn't see who it was"
There was silence for a moment between the three of them but the Professor broke it. "Well then" he said, "my concern that it could have been another involuntary distress signal is dismissed. You must have probably picked up one of Scott's memories by accident and your mind converted it into a nightmare through your dreams"
Neither Scott nor Jean had any idea how such a process could work but they nodded their heads.
"Scott, why don't you stay the night?" the professor suggested. Scott nodded and went to his room to go get his sleeping bag which left Jean and the professor alone.
"It's all right now, Jean. Just try to get some sleep; you have school tomorrow." Jean nodded and settled back down to sleep as the professor left and Scott came in. He set up his sleeping bag next to Jean's bed at a distance so that they could see each other.
"Sorry" Jean said after Scott had turned off the lights and gotten into his sleeping bag.
"For what?" he asked her through the darkness.
"For bringing back all those memories for you" she whispered sadly.
Scott, despite already being tucked in and comfortable, got up and went to her bed. She sat up as she saw him moving. He rested his hand on her cheek like his father had in her dream and she shivered, knowing what was coming next. Scott leaned his head in and gently kissed her lips. The kiss was their first. She moved her lips against his as he cupped the back of her head. Jean smiled at how similar he was to his father without even knowing it. Scott broke the kiss.
"That is one hell of a good-night kiss you got there, Slim" Jean said breathlessly and playfully. Scott laughed and responded, "You should see my good-morning kisses"
He pulled away from her and got back in bed. "Good-night, Red"
Jean brought her sheets up around her. "Good-night"
Unknown to any one on earth, millions and millions of light-years away on an alien ship known as the Starjammer, Christopher "Corsair" Summers shot up in his bed with a single cry: "NO!"
He was panting, crying, and gasping for breath as he re-assessed his surroundings and found himself in his bed, on his ship. He wiped the tears off of his face and the sweat off his brow, let alone his comrades see him in such a state. He sat on his bed and tried to recall his dream.
He had been in D'Ken throne room and was in bed with a woman he didn't know. She had red hair and green eyes and looked at least 18. He remembered staring at her in confusion and then something had happened…
For a brief moment, her image had flicked into that of his wife, Katherine Anne. He had wondered what it had meant. Had the girl been some sort of reincarnation of his Kate?
'D'Ken had apparently thought so' he thought to himself bitterly as he remembered the second part of his dream. He hated having to watch the rape and murder of his wife in regular dream let alone in odd ones with other people. And there was something odd about the dream. It had felt so…real to him. Realer than any other dream he had ever had.
Before he could follow up on his thought, his team burst through his door.
"Corsair! What happened?" a feline-like alien exclaimed jogging to his bedside, gun in hand while two others stayed at the door.
"Nothing, Hepzibah" he responded. "Just a nightmare"
"Are you sure?" asked the bigger green alien, Ch'od as he lowered his own gun.
"Yes, yes" he said with a hint of impatience. "Just a very realistic dream of…well, something I'd rather forget"
"A psychic I knew said something to me once about nightmares" said the third extra-terrestrial, Raza, as he took a step foreword from the doorway. "She said that sometimes, when the mind is distraught, it reaches out unconsciously for another mind, similar to its own, and seeks comfort with it. This puts both dreamers on the astral plane and makes them both have the same dream. It's uncommon that they see each other in it though. Maybe the girl you shared with was a telepath or something of the like."
"Um, thank you, Raza" said Corsair, "but human doctors say the cause of nightmares is something quite different" Raza shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just repeating what she said"
"Even so" added Hepzibah, "what could you possibly have in common with the girl in your dreams?"
"Exactly" stated Corsair. "All is well here. You can all return to your quarters now"
"Alright, boss-man" Ch'od said with a playful grin, knowing how Corsair hated the name. "Sleep well"
"You too" he responded dryly as they left. He gently rested his head again and attempted to go back to sleep at the same time, on the other side of the universe, Jean Grey did the exact same thing.
The last time that Jean and Corsair had met unknowingly on the astral plane, it had taken its appearance from one of the worst memories of Corsair. Now, on their second visit, it pulled its appearance from Jean's memory. A pleasant memory from a summer Jean had forgotten.
It had become a fashionably small beach house. This time, the mood was not threatening at all as the two of them sat shoulder to shoulder on a large hammock-seat on the porch. The house appeared to be the only one on the large empty beach (contrary to how it was in the real world: crowded and popular). The two sat in silence for several moments: Jean thinking that Corsair was only a memory of Scott's and Corsair thinking Jean was just a figure of his imagination.
This was not what they were currently thinking of, however. It was merely a fact that had been accepted at the back of their astral form's minds. Now they both looked on into the sunset.
"It's beautiful" Jean said. She was trying to play along with what she thought was a memory. It worked in a way because Corsair threw an arm around her and pulled her close to him, trying to enjoy the moment with what he believed to be the incarnation of his wife. "Yeah, it is"
The comfortable silence resumed as the sun continued setting. Jean slid down and laid her head on his lap.
"I love this" Corsair whispered. "Just being here. No responsibilities, no worries, no cares"
"Yeah" Jean responded. 'Exactly like Scott' she thought.
And just as those exact thoughts ran through her mind, she glanced at Corsair and he changed before her eyes. His hair grew shorter and his body grew leaner. His face turned younger but his eyes remained the same. And when he turned to look at her because he had noticed that she was staring, Jean's breath caught in her throat because he was a spitting image of Scott. Except the glasses, of course.
In Corsair's eyes, Jean changed too. She grew older and wiser. Her features advanced to his age and he couldn't help but smile. When she would grow old, she wouldn't look like his Kate. He believed it was her spirit that he had recognized earlier. 'Maybe Raza was right' he thought. 'Maybe this girl really is here'
After a couple more minutes, Jean turned her eyes back to the sunset. "I wish Scott could see this" she whispered, forgetting herself for a moment. Corsair didn't mind. He was thinking along the same lines as well.
"Yeah" he said sadly. "He would've been20 next week"
Jean froze. Scott lost his parents when he was 8. Was this a memory at all?
Jean jumped apart from Corsair, completely startling him in the process. "What?" she asked him, eyes wide.
Corsair stared at her blankly. "I said Scott would've been20 next week"
Jean stood up and pressed her palm against her forehead, still in shock. Thinking of something quickly, she threw her hands up in the air. The beach, the house, and everything else burned to white. Corsair recognized the place where they were from descriptions of people. They were on the astral plane. The girl was real. Which meant…
"What did you say about my son?" he asked her suddenly, urgently. She spun around on him. But before either could say anything else, they opened their eyes in their own beds just as they had shut them.
"He's alive?" they both whispered into the darkness simultaneously.
Silence.
"Oh, shit"
I know I've been out of the loop for a while. Sorry! Life's been crazy.I hope you enjoyed this!