Sorry this chapter took so long to get put on the site. The past month has been really crazed. I had to move out of my apartment because of a leak in my bedroom, and then I got sick for a week. This IS NOT the last chapter, and I'm sorry it's so short. I hope to write more soon.
Don't lose faith in me folks!
As always, thanks to reading... and enjoy!
--P.
Eric looks out over the island as the fog descends. Magneto disappears. Pyro stops launching fireballs and engages a mutant that Eric himself doesn't recognize. In a moment they're lost in the fog as well, only Pyro's glow visible in the mist.
Eric doesn't know what to do.
Minutes earlier he'd been on the opposite end of the bridge, standing in complete shock at the massive amount of destruction he'd just caused. Now he's on the lip of the island end of the bridge wondering desperately where Sarah has gone to. She's the only reason he's still around, and when he finds her they're leaving the island together. That's that.
A small bit of movement in the corner of Eric's vision causes him to turn his head. A few feet away, a mysterious woman in red stands like a scarecrow on a high outcropping of bridge debris. Eric recognizes her as the woman who arrived with Magneto a few days before the attack on San Francisco, however, it occurs to him that this is the first time he's ever truly looked at the woman. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn't even know her name.
She's looking directly at Eric, eyes vast but certainly not vacant. Her expression is unreadable.
"She's down there, two yards from the wall of the building." The woman says, her voice almost lost in the sound of the wind.
"What?"
"Your friend. She's down there."
"How do you know?"
The woman's lips almost move; almost smile. The expression is wholly Jean and devoid completely of the destructive emotion of the Phoenix inside her.
The boy doesn't know her; doesn't know her power. He's scared, but not of her. To him, she's not a weapon or something that needs to be controlled. She's not a fiancé, an object of love, of sexual desire… she's not a friend, not a foe. She's not Phoenix; She's not Jean. She's a random, almost total, stranger on a bridge in the middle of terrible conflict.
To Jean it's a comforting thought.
She's read his mind--his entire life history, every emotion he's ever felt--in the span of a millisecond and he doesn't even know. He's just a boy, a scared, confused, and fundamentally lost boy.
Jean Grey smiles. "You've come a long way, haven't you?"
Eric doesn't know how to respond. Silence passes between the two on the bridge.
Jean continues. "You've come a long way, met a lot of people, seen a lot of things. It's all so… big."
Eric nods.
"And now this." She looks out over the battlefield. "You're scared?"
"No."
Jean cocks her head, returning her eyes to the boy. The tilt of her head causes the current of her fluttering red hair to shift slightly, like a river of blood. "You are." Something inside her makes her add. "It's ok to be scared. Sometimes I'm scared."
"What's going to happen?" Eric doesn't know why he asks.
"I don't know." Jean lies.
"Magneto is wrong. The humans are wrong. Everyone is wrong. I don't care anymore. I don't care about fighting, I don't care about being normal or different… I just want to go home."
"You don't have a home."
Eric looks down. "I know."
Jean harnesses the psychic maelstrom raging just beneath the surface of her mind long enough to impart a suggestion to him: a single vision of children, students; a man in a wheelchair behind a desk teaching a class on British literature; a school; a home.
Eric's eyes tear up. He starts to cry openly as the residual bits of emotion--of love--in Jean's memories flood over him. He doesn't know the people in the; he doesn't recognize the faces. However, Eric instantly loves them. He instantly wants to be with them.
Jean smiles completely. "Home."
"Where?"
"You'll know." She says.
"Who are you?" Eric asks. He's still crying; he can't stop. He doesn't want to stop. Years and years of tears unshed are coming out now and he doesn't know what to do.
"I'm everything." Jean says. "And nothing."
There's more silence between the two. Jean breaks it.
"Go to her."
"Come with us." Eric offers, taking a step toward her. He manages to staunch his tears for now. "You don't have to stay here and fight with them."
"I know." Jean says. Her vast eyes move over Eric meaningfully for a moment before going vague, as if looking past him. She cocks her head again.
Jean can feel in the distance the flickering sensation of a hundred tiny minds; soldiers. They'll be here in moments.
The boy reaches out, puts a hand on the woman's shoulder, bringing her back from distraction. Beneath his fingers he feels cloth, and beneath that, her flesh and bone. He has a sense that, beyond the space of her skin, Jean goes on forever. He has a feeling that if he were to fall into her, he'd never touch bottom again "Come with me."
"I can't." Jean says sadly. Eric doesn't argue.
He removes his hand from the woman's shoulder. There's a brief sensation of warmth, a tingling, left on his skin. It dissipates quickly. "Will you be ok?"
"I will."
The boy takes a step away from her and towards the fog. Somewhere out in gray Magneto makes a pained noise. There's sounds of a struggle. "Where did you say she was?"
"Towards the wall, you'll find her." Jean will guide him if he gets lost.
Eric looks back over his shoulder. On the high mound of debris, the woman in red looks almost serene. "Thank you." He tells her.
Jean nods once.
Eric moves into the fog.