4
They never search for a body.
"Considering the force of the water," Xavier says quietly, "the effect would be analogous to an explosion. What they might find –"
"No." Scott is looking out of the window of the Professor's office, hands jammed in his pockets.
"Burial at sea," says Logan.
Scott's head jerks to look at him. Storm braces for another confrontation, but Scott just nods. She realizes that he is not, for once, angry at Logan's presumption, but surprised that they are thinking on the same lines. "Indeed," answers Xavier, "that does seem quite fitting." And now the three are in accord.
'Burial at sea' isn't an intuitive comparison, for Storm, but maybe it all makes sense because they are men, or because they are the kind of men who loved Jean. She does remember Jean saying once -- in the lazy and purely theoretical mode of teenagers who assume they will live forever, on an afternoon where they were all high, even Scott -- that she would want her ashes scattered from the Blackbird. That seems close enough to what occurred for Storm to believe that Jean chose her end, in more ways than one.
"I'll start making calls, then," says Storm.
Xavier nods, and she moves to go. The other three don't follow, as though they have things to say, not in front of her. Men bound, in spite of differences, in a brotherhood of grief.
Truthfully, Storm is happy to leave.
5
The mansion is, as Scott observed the first night, an incredible mess.
There is no question, he is grateful. It is something to clean, something to fix, and it is not at all personal. He wasn't there; neither was Jean. Evidence of invasion is disturbing, of course, but Stryker is dead. The President is embarrassed and has even offered guardsmen to help with the recovery process.
The Professor, understandably, has refused.
Now Scott is supervising the cleanup, with Colossus and a disconcertingly helpful Logan to aid in the heavy lifting. (After the first day, even Scott has stopped asking why Logan is still here).
Rogue and Bobby work with little Jones, putting together a video from old film club footage of Jean. (No one mentions that John took most of it; no one mentions John at all.) Storm asks for a student to find appropriate readings for the memorial service, and Kitty offers; honestly, Storm had hoped for Rogue – who, when privately forced to admit to the preferences teachers weren't supposed to have, Jean would name as a special favorite. But the girl seems shy and shattered enough and Kitty – Storm's own secret pet – clearly needs to keep as busy as she can. Storm can understand that.
The phone calls, then, are left to Ms. Ororo Munroe – the name she gives to dozens of secretaries and answering services before ten AM. (She works through the files alphabetically; wonders whether a man like Stryker knew how many of Xavier's alumni were out there, fully integrated, successful). If she gets someone directly on the line, she says, "It's Storm. I have some news."
Xavier's alumni are integrated, successful, and still heavily networked – before she gets through the B's, the calls are coming in instead of going out; someone got a call from someone else, but everyone needs to hear it for themselves. From Storm. By lunchtime, she can't count the number of times she has said it. "Jean Grey is dead."
Storm knows she ought to eat, but she feels like a full-body workout first – lats, quads, delts, pecs, abs, the numbing rhythm of repetition. She decides to head for the weight room, half-certain she'll run into Scott. Endorphins are his drug of choice, too. They've always had that in common.
Before she can get out the door, though, the phone rings and she takes it by instinct.
It's Silas McGill -- Bluenote to his friends from the school, maybe something to Storm that she hasn't felt like thinking about. "Sweetheart?" says Silas. "I just heard it from Dazzler. Why didn't you call me?"
"You're in the M's," she answers, flatly and, knowing she'll have to do better that, "You're touring. I didn't know where to find you." Then, directly, contradicting herself, she asks, "Won't you be in Sydney next Thursday?" She knows he will -- playing the opera house with B. B. King and half the lineup of U2.
"Fuck that," he says, "I'll reschedule."
"Don't!" she says, more sharply than she intends, then gently. "You don't need to. You shouldn't. Your profile's so high, it'll be all over the news –"
"Well, shouldn't it be?" he retorts. "The government is kidnapping mutants – children! -- trying to paint us as terrorists –"
"Where'd you here that?" she demands.
" -- a good woman ends up dead, and we're not supposed to talk about it?"
"Silas, you can't go around saying –"
"We're damn lucky it was just one of us. Next time –"
"It's not that simple!" Storm snaps -- doubly angry because he's saying what she has wanted to, but held back. "Our priority has to be the safety of these students."
There is silence at the other end, and then a low angry laugh that sounds like a string bass. When Silas gets worked up, his voice can start to come out as music. "So that's how it works. Charles Xavier decides what our priorities are, and if I disagree, it means I'm against the children."
"Don't be a shit. You know that's not what I'm saying. But I don't want Jean's death to turn into some kind of political event. And I don't want her memorial to be a media circus."
"So you're telling me not to come to my friend's funeral."
Storm breathes deeply. "No. I'm not. If the reason you really need to be here is because of Jean? Don't let any power in the universe stop you. But if this is about politics. . . or if, God help us, you think I need some kind of shoulder to cry on –"
"No." He laughs again, and this time, he sounds like an oboe, jaunty and ironic. "No, Rory, I almost forgot. You never need anything."
6
Storm has never seen so many pies in her life.
Jean's mother comes in with a trayload of them, and, just when Storm is wondering where the hell they are going to put more food, her father and brother follow with trays of their own.
She thanks them – glad the mindreading doesn't run in the family – and lets Elaine pull her into a hug.
"It's so good to see you, dear." Storm tries to smile. John nods at the Storm, glances at the pies, and shrugs. Danny, immaculate in his black dress uniform, offers her a gloved hand.
"Hey, Flyboy. Look who's all grown up."
Scott steps through the doorway, and Jean's brother abandons his dignified reserve to clasp him tightly. They pound each other's backs – as though the violence of the contact makes up for the display of naked emotion – and then Scott moves to hug each of Jean's parents in turn.
"Scotty, Scotty," Elaine murmurs.
Storm can see him clench his jaw, but he lets her hold him until she's ready to let go.
"So, are we ready to do this?" he asks. For that instant, he's very much 'Cyclops,' in spite of his most conservative shades, and the dark coat and tie. He lets the Greys walk ahead, hanging back a little to whisper to Storm. "After this is over, we better get to work on freezing this shit, and we can give out prize pastries for the next two years."
In spite of everything, she smiles. "Are you ready?"
He squeezes the rolled-up paper in his right hand. "I better be. I spent two hours in the Danger Room this morning, and I'm pretty sure I blasted my tear ducts dry." Stepping forward, Scott Summers gives his best Cyclops smile. "Here's hoping it worked."
7
Storm hardly has to do anything during the ceremony. She walks to the podium, looks over the garden, and welcomes the assembled crowd. It is, indeed, a crowd, but they all expected no less for Jean. The sun is setting over the treetops, and there's a pinch of autumn in the air, but they could never get all these people inside.
Xavier speaks first. He talks about King Arthur, knights and quests. His voice, as always, is mesmerizing, allowing Storm's mind to skim over the top of his meaning. Whatever reservations Scott has about crying in front of this throng, Xavier has none, and his tears flow freely.
Next, Storm introduces Bobby and Jones, who run the film of Jean (Rogue stays in her seat, three rows back, between Bobby's empty chair and Logan); it's nicely done and, to Storm's relief, it isn't soundtracked with some ill-advised pop song. Instead, the speakers play instrumental jazz, which -- she quickly realizes – comes from the famous recording of Silas's performance at Newport in 1997. Wynton Marsalis was on the trumpet, with Silas on the piano, that time. Silas could play everything, and he didn't even strictly need an instrument, but Jean had been fondest of his piano.
Many of the crowd assembled here had been at the show that night. Jean had just finished her residency and agreed to come back to Xavier's fulltime, to move in with Scott – again and for good. For that entire night – in spite of the crowd, of Storm, of Scott's usual reserve – they hardly took their hands off each other. Storm remembers wriggling with happiness for Silas, turning to mouth "That's my guy!" and watching Jean lean back against Scott's chest as his arms joins around her waist. She remembers their distant, indulgent smiles, ready to accept her happiness, but not really to believe in it, or in anything besides the two of them, because there was nothing else that they could possibly need.
Bobby and Rogue can't have known the record's history. She wonders if someone told them – Scott, or Hank, or Silas himself, getting ready to mount his stage on the other side of the world, sneaking his presence in, by a phone call and some pointed hints. Storm can't exactly blame him. She should have thought of it herself.
The film ends, and Kitty rises next, to read the poem she has chosen, and signal the service was almost over. Storm briefly contemplated opening the microphone to anyone who wants to speak, but considering the size of the crowd, she decided to wait until the less formal reception. People can eat and drink, and be more comfortable, anyway. Kitty smiles politely, smoothes down her wind-rumpled hair and begins.
"Try to praise the mutilated world –" she reads. It's a contemporary poem, the last one on the last page of the students' new textbook. Probably not what the Professor would have chosen, but Storm sees him nodding along. Kitty was in the mansion on the night of the attack; she managed to run away, but she had nowhere to go, hiding up the street the train station, and sneaking back, once the mansion was empty. Finally, she had gotten in touch with Hank McCoy by phone, but by then it was too late. I should have let them take me, she has said, a dozen times in Storm's presence. Once we got inside, I could have helped. We all think we could have done more, /i> Storm answered. And then they both went back to work.
Kitty finishes her reading. ". . . the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns." She coughs, mumbles, "Thanks," and, although she's supposed to wait for Storm to announce it, "now I think Mr. Summers. . ."
All heads turn to Scott, who rises slowly to his feet. He passes Kitty, on her way down, pats her shoulder, and looks vaguely surprised when her flesh stays solid. He gets to the microphone, and says, "Thanks, Kitty." Then he opens the paper he's been clutching in one hand, tries to smooth it down, gives up, and looks at the audience. "Wow. Some of you I haven't seen in –" He makes one last attempt to straighten the paper, then lets it crumble. "Well, if you haven't been here in a while, you probably don't know our Shadowcat. That is, Kitty. Katherine Pryde. She's one of our star pupils. Really, just – an amazing mind, one of the many reasons that I feel privileged to be affiliated –"
Scott stops, bites his lip, and looks above them all, to the edge of the surrounding trees. Storm wonders, for an instant, whether he's trying to gauge the range of a possible blast. "Oh, hell," he says softly. When he looks down again, his voice is steady and confident, as though he is picking up in the middle of a different speech. "Little-known fact. Kitty Pryde is not only at the top of her class in history, philosophy, and advanced math. She is the only student here who has been accused, from the floor of the U.S. Senate, of planning to rob banks."
"Go, Cat!" whoops one of the boys. Storm is about to turn around and fix him with an appropriate glare, except that Scott half-laughs himself.
"Seriously, you all should get to know this kid," Scott goes on, then leans closer to the microphone and lowers his voice into what they all used to call his "hall monitor" tone. "Not you, Le Beau."
A Cajun-inflected voice from the crowd protests, "Hell did I do?"
"I saw that look," Scott volleys back. "Seriously, man, she's sixteen."
"And a half!" pipes a girl's voice; Jubilee, Storm suspects – some people laugh along -- but now that Scott is smiling, she doesn't care.
He steps back, raises a hand to his forehead, and mumbles, "Damn. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't make people laugh, at least – not on purpose." This, of course, gets more laughs. "All right, all right." Scott clears his throat and glances down at the rumpled paper. "I wanted to end here with a poem. Like Kitty. Part of a poem. It's by Tennyson and – well, those of us with the benefit of a Charles Xavier education know a little bit about Tennyson –"
He looks back toward the professor, who smiles. "Indeed."
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield?thinks Storm, instinctively. She's more at home with Rimbaud, or with Langston Hughes.
"Anyway, I was thinking about this because Jean liked it." Well, Storm thinks, one lie per eulogy; there's probably a quota. She glances at Hank, who meets her eyes and nods, because he knows better too. Scott opens his mouth, then looks around the crowd, and shakes his head. "Oh, hell. Jean didn' t like it. In fact – I'm sorry to tell you this, Professor. Jean rather famously – I guess the word might be 'notoriously' – during spring reading days in junior year – she stood up –" Scott backs away from the microphone and spreads his hands as though blocking the scene " – on her desk. And she said – direct quote – 'I will cut off my right arm if we never have to read any more blank blank Victorians.'" Laughter and several whoops rise from the crowd. "Am I right?"
"Left!" calls Hank.
"Left?" Scott repeats.
Storm joins several others in crying "Left!"
"Oh. Sorry." Scott turns to the microphone and corrects, "She threatened to cut off her left arm. Over Tennyson." He coughs. "Professor, I'm not sure if you realized –"
"I had no idea," Xavier answers, grave but smiling.
"Now think about that," Scott addresses the crowd. "Greatest telepathic mind of our time, and he never realized –" His voice catches, and he enunciates the next three words clearly. "That's -- my -- girl. And yet we trust --" Scott looks down and when he starts to speak again, it takes a moment to realize that he has gone straight into his recitation. "—that somehow good will be the final goal of ill. . .That not a worm is cloven in vain. That not a moth with vain desire –" His words gather strength and speed as he speaks "—is shriveled in a fruitless fire, or but – " He chokes a little but, by now ,everyone is completely still, and quiet, until he picks up "— or but subserves another's gain. I can but trust that good shall fall. At last. Far off. At last. To all. And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream." He looks up at the trees again and only the buzz of crickets breaks the silence, until he continues. "So runs my dream, but what am I? An infant crying in the night. An infant crying for the light. And with no language -- with no language but the cry." Scott turns his back on the podium, bends down, and crushes the paper in his hand.
He hasn't looked at it once.
"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski
A very small bit from 'In Memoriam AHH' – some misquotes and omissions are deliberate -- on my part and probably on Scott's