Part One: A New Assignment

Her homecoming was greeted with little fanfare, which suited Jean just fine. Logan had left for parts unknown several weeks before, and Scott had not yet returned from the weeklong Outdoor Ed trip he was leading. A somewhat muted Bobby arrived at the door to help her with her bags and put the car in the garage, while the Professor waited to escort her to her room. While he was as happy to see her as usual, something was clearly on his mind and he was having trouble verbalizing it. Jean didn't push, knowing eventually he'd come out with it. Finally, he broke the stiff silence. "I'm very glad you're back. We missed you around here. You enjoyed yourself, did you?"

"Yes, I did." Jean replied honestly. "My trip was refreshing… and enlightening, to say the least."

They continued a few more feet along the hallway before the Professor finally broached his concerns: "Jean, I need you to help me. I've got a feeling we have a complicated mess to deal with, and I'm afraid I've only managed to make things worse."

Now Jean was intrigued. Rarely, if ever, had Charles Xavier made a problem worse. "Of course, Professor. Anything. What happened?"

"I assume you noticed that Bobby isn't himself?" He waited for her nod. "He came to me a few days ago on some ridiculous pretext or another, but really, he came to discuss Rogue. He'd become concerned about her. We all know that understandably she's never been one to mix freely with the other students, but lately, she's been increasingly withdrawn. He said something about her disappearing for hours to "blow off steam," and then submersing herself in her studies."

Now Jean began to understand his concern. Rogue was always focused, some might even have said intense, but this was extreme even for her. Jean wondered why he was discussing this with her specifically, though, when troubles with students were normally a staff-wide concern, discussed in meetings. "I'm certainly worried by this too, Professor," she replied. "But why are you coming to me with this now, and how did you possibly manage to stuff this up?"

Xavier looked at her uncomfortably for a moment before continuing. "After speaking with Bobby, I naturally began to look in on Marie, to see what was going on. It was uncommonly hard to do. I believe that she's put up mental barriers subconsciously as a means of protecting herself. They are of a strength that I've never seen before in someone untrained and, as far as we know, not telepathic. I believe that this is why none of us caught on to her distress sooner. Marie is, quite simply, a mental and emotional Fort Knox. When I did manage to track her down, I discovered that she's taken to going on long runs, or holing up in one of the empty labs near the infirmary to study. According to Scott she was a little off the last time the X-men were training and…"

"Let me guess, you called her in prematurely to find out what was wrong and it set her off?" Jean interrupted.

"Exactly so," he replied shamefacedly. "That was five days ago, and since then, no one but her roommates have seen her outside of class and mealtimes, and she has nearly doubled the total number of martial arts and weapons training simulations that have been run in the Danger Room this past month. I'm going to brief the entire staff on the situation at the next meeting."

Slightly overwhelmed, Jean pressed for the answer to her second question. "You still haven't told me what you want my role to be in this, or why you're telling me this now."

"I'm telling you all this, Jean, because I think you're the only one here who can really help her."

"But why me?" Jean asked him in astonishment.

"Well, you are a telepath and an empath, both of which I think you'll need. You're also her teacher, a woman, and probably the only person of importance in her life that she feels she hasn't let down recently, if only by virtue of the fact that you haven't been here. But most of all…" he paused here for a moment, "because I just know that you can get her through this; that you need to help her through this. Call it an instinct."

Jean couldn't do anything but nod in the affirmative, a weight settling on her as her heart began to break just a little bit for Marie. Why am I reacting like this? So strongly? she wondered to herself.

Seeing her nod, the Professor relaxed a little and, leaving her at her door, told her, "Good. For the next while, I take my cues from you where Rogue is concerned. You tell me what needs to happen and the rest of the staff and I will make it so." With that said, Jean let herself into the room she shared with Scott.

As she unpacked her things absently, Jean tried to come up with some sort of a game plan, and was surprised at how little desire she had to mentor Rogue. She wanted to help her, yes, desperately, but not in the way she would any other student. Instinctively, Jean knew that there was more than that on the line here, for both of them. She also had no idea where to begin. Exhausted, Jean decided to call it an early night, and went to bed, thinking about Marie and praying that she'd find something to go on.