Harmony
"You know that this is getting ridiculous, right?" Rogue asked, storming into the lab one afternoon. Though Jean didn't tutor Rogue, they still considered each other friends.
"And 'this' is…?"
"The coldness with you, Ororo and Mr Summers," Rogue fired back promptly. "Even Professor Xavier's friend could feel it." The friend Rogue was referring to was Dr Henry McCoy, a researcher and diplomat that had visited a few weeks prior.
"I know," Jean said.
"You have to admit , Dr Grey, that it seems pretty insane for this to keep happening…" Rogue continued.
"I know, Rogue," Jean tried again.
"How are we supposed to fight like a unit if the role models aren't getting along?"
"Rogue," Jean exclaimed with a laugh, "I understand." Rogue stopped.
"Oh."
"However, its difficult when you don't know exactly why they're not talking to you," the elder pointed out.
"Its also difficult when you don't talk to them," Rogue answered. Jean smiled tiredly.
"I hear Ororo's coming around." Jean's eyes shot open wide.
"Pardon?"
"She asks about you, like she wants to make an effort."
"Rogue…"
"I'm not lying, Dr Grey. You can even ask Logan." Sometimes it was funny for Jean to see the students freak out on her when they got defensive.
"I never believed you were," she replied. "But, though I appreciate you looking out for me, I think it's about time you practiced being a teenager and stopped being such an adult." Rogue blushed and Jean smiled.
"I'm…" Rogue gestured vaguely towards the door before following and leaving.
Jean found the dark-skinned woman cleaning up after one of her classes. She knocked softly on the door.
"Storm?" Part of her didn't feel comfortable referring to her as her given name, if only because Jean wasn't exactly sure where they stood.
"Jean." The other woman looked slightly surprised, but thankfully not afraid.
"Can I speak with you?"
"Sure." Jean closed the door behind her.
"Ororo… what happened?" The darker woman looked confused.
"I beg your pardon?"
"What happened to the X-men? I certainly wasn't the glue that held us together, so what made everything go so haywire?"
"This is haywire?"
"Ororo, I'm tired of walking on eggshells. I knew things would be different, but…" Jean shrugged helplessly, unsure of how to finish her sentence.
"A lot happened, Jean," Ororo said slowly, finally. "Xavier, Logan, Bobby, Kurt, Scott… we had a lot to deal with."
"And you all dealt differently, but it's been fourteen months that I've been here and your treatment of me is still chilly at best." She winced when she finished, realizing her tone had sounded much harsher than she's meant and much more accusatory. Ororo sat carefully in her chair behind the desk.
"I don't want something eloquent. I want to know what's going on and how to fix it," Jean said, cutting off the other woman's thoughts. Ororo didn't say anything still, and Jean's patience was wearing thin.
"You guys don't trust me, you don't believe me, you pretty much think I'm a spy and I shouldn't be interacting with anyone! I'm sick of being treated like a leper!" Ororo was shocked at the outburst, even if her face didn't give it away.
"I…" Ororo started, then stopped and sighed.
"Look, Ororo… at this point…"
"No," Ororo interrupted. "Stop." Jean's mouth snapped shut, unprepared for the words.
"You don't need to explain," she sighed. "I'm sorry Jean, I'm done making excuses for myself about the way I treated you. It was wrong." Jean hadn't thought it would be that easy. Apparently Rogue was very right.
"I guess… I guess I just figured that after a year, it was easier to continue believing you were dead than worry about where you'd been," Ororo tried to explain. Jean gently reached out with her mind and found genuine regret and strong truth.
"Too much change," the redhead agreed. "That's how I tried to explain it to Logan once." Jean sensed the shift in Ororo to what she'd always affectionately called 'gossip-mode' and braced herself.
"And how is that going?"
"'Ro, he was the first person to accept me for who I was, can't that be enough?" It surprised Jean how easily they slipped into the roles and relationship they'd developed long before the tension of the last two years. For the moment, she didn't question it. It was enough that Ororo had apologized, Jean was too excited to have another woman her own age to speak with.
"Of course not!" Ororo exclaimed.
"That's it," Jean insisted. "Leave it at that."
"Jean!" But Jean was already half way out the door.
She knew she still had to talk to Scott, a conversation she was not looking forward to, and one that she was hoping she could still put off. She managed to stall further when she found Logan looking out over the still snow-covered grounds.
"Hey," she said softly, sitting on the arm of his chair. He glanced up briefly before focusing again on the stark white landscape.
"Hey." She looked at him carefully, already sensing the sadness and dark emotions. The role reversal felt foreign to her, especially between them, but she didn't really mind.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice still soft. He grunted.
"Hey…" Her hand settled on his shoulder, hoping it was in comfort. His gaze continued to wander, not necessarily focusing on any one particular thing.
"Trust words both ways, Logan," she pointed out. He sighed.
"It's nothin' Jeannie," he said finally. She groaned loudly and turned away, standing from her seat to move away from him.
"Fine." She knew she sounded childish, but it was endlessly frustrating and slightly hypocritical of him.
"Jean…." She managed to keep herself facing away. She took a deep breath.
"It's been a bad day, that's all," he tried to explain.
"We all have bad days. Talk to me," she begged. She held off on facing him, knowing it would be difficult for her to stay mad at him when she looked at him.
"Its about many different things, darlin' and you're…"
"Stop trying to protect me! Goddamn it Logan!" she yelled, facing him, her hair whipping around with her head and body. "I almost have my life back." He gripped her shoulders.
"The last things I want to do is keep things from you, babe, especially in gettin' your life back, but this had nothin' to do with going back to the way things were."
"I want you to trust me," she whispered. His hands cupped her face delicately, making sure her eyes met and held his.
"I trust you, Jean. With so much more than you know." He left, not giving her time to answer. Jean dropped to the chair Logan had previously occupied. Sometimes she didn't even understand why she bothered.
"Jean?" She jolted and winced. She still had to discuss tings with Scott, but didn't want to do it now. Instead, she took a deep breath.
"What's up?"
"Professor Xavier wants to talk to us," he responded vaguely. She wondered why the professor hadn't contacted her directly until she realized her mental shields were up and fortified. At least, that was the best explanation she could come up with at this point.
"Okay."
The professor wanted one of them dead. It was the only currently logical explanation as to why he'd decided to put her and Scott on the same mission without a neutral third party. She was so upset, she slammed her bedroom door with enough force to shake her belongings around the room.
The bear calmed her.
Scooter told me the two of you were off to save the world. Harmony's supposed to teach how to overcome differences and get along. Maybe this is better suited to him, but you're the one with the increasing collection.
I'll talk to you when you get home
-- Logan
"We're going to have to talk at some point," Jean said irritably towards the end of their plane trip. It was amazing how foreign it felt to pilot the plane with him. In fact, now that she looked back, he just felt foreign. He didn't reply.
"This is stupid," she breathed, turning her full attention back to the plane.
"What is there to say?" His ignorance full out pissed her off, but with control she'd mastered from too much practice, she ruthlessly stomped it down.
"I'm not a contagious disease," she pointed out. "And quite frankly, I'm sick of being treated like one."
"That's not fair."
"That's not fair?" Jean retorted coolly, realizing he was so lucky she was busy piloting the plane, else she would have wrung his neck by this point. "How you've treated me over the last year isn't fair.
"You died." She growled under her breath.
"As in past tense."
"How do we know?"
"I'm sitting here talking to you aren't I? What the hell has gotten into you? Haven't you heart of trust, faith?" Her tightly controlled anger was slipping through her fingers at his self-righteousness.
"These days you're never sure who to trust."
"It's me, Scott. The same Jean." He shook his head
"How do we know?"
"There isn't a test," she ground out, hoping her control could hold out for at least the twenty more minutes it was going to take before they landed.
She needed to talk to Logan.
The thought raced through her head before she could stop it. Sure, they'd had a quasi-fight before she left, but he was really the only person who she'd be able to talk this through with. Scott was being an asshole and she knew it. Logan had an uncanny way of calming her down anyway and with prickles creeping up the back of her neck, she worried about her control.
"Don't you think if I was going to kill someone or ruin something I would have done it by now? You knew my powers were developing before Alkali Lake. You know it wouldn't have been difficult for me to actually go through with a sinister plot." The sole thought of ever harming or attacking any of those at the Xavier Institute home caused goose bumps on her skin in fear and disgust. The idea that Scott thought she could do such a thing made her shiver.
"Did you believe everything would be the same when you came back?" She could hear the condescension in his voice.
"I didn't expect to be ignored, and no, before you say it, I didn't expect hero-worship either. I knew it would take some adjusting." Scott nodded.
"Consider this adjusting."
The phone number she dialled later that night, having taken a long bath in the hotel and allowing for the water to dissolve the Scott-induced tension, she hadn't dialled in too long. The student who answered thankfully didn't ask any questions.
"Logan."
"I want to come home." She hadn't even said 'hello', something that tipped Logan to her tortured state of mind.
"You want to come home?" he repeated.
"I didn't think it would be as bad as it was," she protested, furiously wiping at her teary eyes. She'd promised herself she wouldn't cry on the phone.
"Why?" She knew he wanted her to talk it out, but part of her was still angry with him. Instead, she sighed.
"I'm sorry I called," she decided.
"Jean, don't do this," he said gruffly. "Don't let your anger get its claws in you." If there was one thing Logan remembered, it was the way Jean controlled her anger and frustration. She never yelled, never once spoke much louder than her regular speaking voice unless she absolutely had to. As someone who'd lived with anger his whole life, Logan knew the repercussions of its hold and the necessity of dealing with the emotions. He'd done it through Jean for years, until she'd gone.
She knew exactly what he meant. She was angry with him. He knew it. The anger, the overwhelming feeling to rip something to shreds was new in her and it scared her. She wasn't used to the need to be violent, the need to destroy. Her outburst at the mansion, she'd discovered, had shaken belongings throughout the entire hall and the floor above and below her. With a deep breath, she managed to push her anger back again.
"I'm scared," she whispered into the receiver.
"Yeah," he answered. "It's not easy." She smiled slightly into the phone. Sometimes she found herself wondering exactly which one of them was the telepath. His mind, she found, was churning just as violently as hers, though she couldn't get a clear read as to why.
"I had a lot of things to think through," he said finally. "I'm not trying to protect you, Jean. I'm well aware you can take care of yourself. I do trust you."
"Then share," Jean pushed.
"I will," he promised.
"Just not now?"
"Just not now."
"He ignored me for the better part of three hours before essentially picking a fight with me."
"I'm sorry," he responded, more for lack of a response than anything else.
"I shouldn't have come. I'm not ready to do this yet."
"You don't need reassurance," Logan said. "You know you're ready. And plus, Chuck must've needed you on this one."
"He's finding another mutant! Ororo could handle it!"
"Chuck knows more than you think."
"He's telepathic," she retorted, her anger starting to chew at the base of her skull again.
"Not the point, Jean," he groused.
"What does he want me to do?" she asked rhetorically. "Figure Scott out? I can't make this work on my own."
"You'll be home before you know it." Jean sighed.
"Thanks Logan.
"Goodnight Red."
Okay, if you all couldn't tell I totally used this chapter to set up what's going to happen in the next few. Don't worry about the Jean/Logan interaction, it's still coming and totally and completely, but there's going to be a few things that have only been touched on by some other stories.
NOTE:
There will be mini-X-3 spoilers, HOWEVER, if you're already familiar with the comics, the spoilers really won't affect you. And plus, these you could probably get from the summarization of the movie anyway.
Thanks!
