Bleeding Hearts

The Sequel to Weeping Willow

An X3 Fanfiction by Carrie

Chapter Four

It was amazing and utterly unbelievable. Jean Grey was back, alive but still unconscious, salvaged from Alkali Lake only a day ago. And it chilled Jackie to the bone.

"People don't come back from that," she said with a shake of her head the night after they'd discovered her. It was three in the morning and they were sitting on Willow's bed. Crowded in the room were Kitty, Peter and Bobby. "People don't just survive that sort of thing. I mean, if you think about it, thousands of pounds of water came down on her. She should be battered, bruised, hurt in some way."

"I dunno, maybe she blocked it all with her telekinesis," Willow said with a lame little shrug. She didn't believe a word that had just slipped past her own lips.

"Then she would have come back on her own!" Jackie said. "It's been months. You don't just chill at the bottom of a lake for months and then just mysteriously come back to life. It's fundamentally wrong."

"I want to argue with you, man, I really do. 'Cause it's Jean, you know? But I can't. And you wanna hear something really weird?" Willow said, remembering Susan's remark. "You guys know Susan St. Brown?"

"The little red head?" Jackie said.

"Yeah. Well, she's getting more and more telepathic everyday, and yesterday, right after the Professor had his little freak out, she asked where Scott was, out of the blue," Willow said. "Now Jean turns up, they find Scott's bike out in the woods near the lake, but no sign of him. So where the hell is he?"

"That's creepy," Jackie said with an involuntary shiver. "Oh, man, I don't even want to think about what that could mean. No way."

"What're you saying?" Kitty asked, her face blanching.

"I'm saying he could be hurt somewhere," Willow said. "Or worse."

"Something's not right around here," Peter grunted through a Russian accent. "You don't have to be psychic to know that."

"And whatever it is, it's disturbing," Jackie said.

"Has anyone gone in to see her?" Bobby asked.

"Storm has invited me to go for a visit down in the infirmary a couple times, but I dunno if I wanna do it," Willow said nervously.

"Don't," Jackie said with a shake of her head. "I'm not going anywhere near her. I have a really bad feeling about all of this. If you have questions, I say go to the Professor."

"If he'll even tell me anything," Willow muttered.

"Better that than being filled in once shit starts hitting the fan," Jackie said.

"I could go down and take a look…," Kitty started to say.

"Don't be stupid," Jackie snapped.

"Don't worry about it," said Willow. "I'll ask tomorrow."


Willow waited patiently outside Professor Xavier's office. She could still hear the muffled drone of his Ethics lecture coming to a close. As soon as he let his class out, he greeted Willow with a tired smile.

"Shut the door," he said simply. Willow followed his instructions and sat down.

"How is she?" Willow asked.

"I'm not sure," Professor X admitted. "Honestly, I'm a little surprised that you haven't come down to visit her."

"It's not that I don't care," Willow said quickly. "The whole situation just…scares me."

"It probably should," Xavier said.

"Professor," Willow said, unnerved by his last remark, "what's going on? What happened to her?" Xavier let out a long sigh.

"Willow, it's so complicated," he said, his voice weary. "When I first met Jean, when she was very young, I could tell that her powers were…virtually limitless. I had hoped in the beginning that by separating her unconscious mind, where her powers were boundless and unchecked, and her conscious mind, where she could control them with relative ease, that we could one day merge the two safely."

"How would you go about separating off someone's mind?" Willow asked, still very confused.

"I used a series of psychic barriers," he explained. "I had no idea that in doing so, she would end up with a split personality."

"Wait…," Willow said, shaking her head. "So Jean's had two personalities this whole time?"

"Since she was young, yes," Xavier replied.

"And does she know about this?" Willow asked.

"Honestly, I'm not sure how much she knows," he said. "The pressing problem is that the Jean we know is the conscious Jean who has control of her powers. The other half, the unconscious half that has been controlled by the barriers, is loose in her mind. In my sessions with this half, it came to call itself The Phoenix."

"So…now that the Phoenix is loose…what'll happen?" Willow asked slowly.

"I can't say that I know," Xavier said. "It is a being of purely primal instincts: joy, desire and sometimes, undiluted rage. I fear that because Jean was preserved at the bottom of Alkali Lake in a sort of…psychic cocoon that could only have been created by the Phoenix, that it is in control, rather than the Jean we all know and love."

"So what happens if it's Phoenix, not Jean?" Willow asked.

"We have to wait until she wakes up to find out," said the Professor. "In the meantime, I've been trying my best to fix the barriers that were broken in her mind."

"Will she ever be how she was? If you're able to restore the blocks?" Willow asked, a note of sadness in her voice.

"I don't think she'll ever be the same, no," Xavier said in a melancholy tone. "Please tell only who you must, Willow. The last thing we need is panic here at the school."

"I understand, sir," Willow muttered. She turned to leave, feeling as if someone had just sucker punched her in the gut.

"Willow?" Xavier called after her.

"Yeah?" she answered.

"Should the time come, will you be able to fight again?" he asked. Willow knew what he meant. The last time she had overexerted herself in battle, she'd almost died from it.

"Yes," she answered with certainty.

"Good," he said with a fond little smile. "Then our hours of practice have paid off."

"Whatever needs to be done, I'll make sure to help it happen," Willow assured him.

"You've grown so much," he said. "You came to us a frightened child and, over the course of a year, have become a capable, strong young woman. I want you to know how proud I am of you." Willow was unsure what to say.

"I…Thank you, Professor," she said. "I couldn't have done any of it without you."

"Give yourself a little more credit," he said with a warm smile. "It was you who had the determination to master your powers. Tell me, does it hurt as bad anymore when your plants are killed? I know that it has been a major concern of yours over the past couple months."

"It's getting better all the time," Willow said truthfully. "The Danger Room sessions have helped me disconnect more from the things I create, so when they're destroyed, I don't feel as much physical pain."

"Good, good," he said with a smile. "I had always hoped that you would be able to overcome that side of your mutation."

"Jackie seems to be doing better, too," Willow said.

"Yes, she has made drastic improvement," he said. "I'm so pleased that she had the courage to master her skills. She is a very powerful mutant for her age, possibly a class 3."

"Wow," Willow said.

"She knew that she was starting to become a danger to others and herself and took the responsibility to learn to control herself," Xavier said. "That is one of the lessons I try my best to teach here, and both of you have learned it."

"Well, you're a good teacher," Willow said with a shrug. A strange look came over Professor Xavier's face for a split second.

"I'm sorry, Willow, but I'm going to have to cut our talk a little short," he said vaguely as he rolled out from behind his desk.

"What's wrong?" she asked. His expression was becoming more grave and fearful by the second. "Professor!"

"Where's Ororo?" he asked.

"I don't know," Willow said in earnest.

"Come with me," he said. It wasn't a request, it was an order. Willow's heart was gripped with an overwhelming sense of urgency as she heard, or rather felt, the Professor call out, Ororo! with his mind. She opened the door for the two of them and took off after the Professor's speeding wheelchair at a jog.

"Professor?" Storm's voice issued from the stairwell they had just passed.

"Come on!" Willow said, beckoning to her. Storm caught up with them.

"What's wrong?" she asked, looking concerned. Xavier didn't answer. Frustration and alarm coursed through Ororo like fire the more he ignored her prompting. They took the cylindrical elevator to the underground complex. Once free of its enclosed space, The Professor sped down the hallway towards the infirmary.

"Professor, talk to me! What is it?" Storm asked, her voice almost angry now.

"Something's happened," he muttered "As I feared."

"What? What aren't you telling me?" she demanded.

"Oh no…," Willow said, aghast. The infirmary door had been blown completely off its hinges and was laying in a broken mess against the opposite wall. They approached the gaping doorway only to find that the infirmary was in shambles. Sparks flew out of damaged monitors and debris was strewn everywhere.

"Why didn't the alarms…?" Storm began to say.

"For the same reason that none of us were aware that anything was amiss until it was too late," the Professor said. A groan redirected their attention to the wall beside the door. There lay Logan, slumped against the wall looking battered. He slowly rose to his feet, swaying a little. His clothes were tattered and he was wincing; apearently he was in worse shape than he looked. There was no sign of anyone else in the vicinity. Storm hurried to Logan's side to steady him.

"Logan, who did this?" she asked him, but Willow already knew the answer.

"Jean," he replied. "She's not herself. And I think she…" he stopped and swallowed. Willow dreaded what he might say next. "She killed Scott."

"No!" Storm said, shaking her head. "That's impossible." Xavier said nothing to the contrary, and Willow knew that it all added up: Scott's absence from the mansion and also at Alkali Lake, Susan's remark the other day, Jean's blatantly destructive alter-ego.

"Don't look so surprised," Logan barked at her.

"I warned you about her," Xavier said, his words dripping with sorrow. "I told you what she was capable of."

"What does that mean?" Storm asked indignantly.

"Ask him," Logan said, pointing at the Professor. Willow watched this exchange, but didn't respond. Scott's dead, she repeated to herself, over and over. The more she thought it, the more ridiculous it came to sound. Scott couldn't be dead because…he just couldn't. He was the one who came to her rescue on the streets of New York and brought her back to the mansion. It was Scott that sparred with her for hours, helping her develop her agility and speed.

But at the same time, as she looked around the chaos that had once been the infirmary, she knew that it was true. The fact that Scott Summers was gone paled in comparison to the notion that Jean had killed him. The sheer, unnerving thought of it made Willow feel faint.

"She's left the mansion," Xavier said. "She's blocking my thoughts." Everyone present watched Xavier struggle to reach Jean. On top of everything, Willow grappled with the idea that the Professor had to struggle at all. He was the most powerful mutant she had ever encountered. The fact that he was struggling against one of his own pupils was inconceivable. "She is very strong….I hope we're not too late."

"What about Cerebro?" Logan suggested. Xavier shook his head.

"She's keyed into it, just as I am. Given her current state, she could easily wrest control of it and remotely use it to amplify her own abilities beyond comprehension. Believe me, that is a scenario you do not wish to behold. I'm afraid…I must do this on my own…" Willow was disturbed to the core to see beads of perspiration begin to accumulate on his forehead.

"The two of you, come with me," he said, meaning Wolverine and Storm. "Willow, I want you to gather the others, make sure that the children are safe while we're gone." Willow had heard this but was still in a state of shock. Scott's dead. Jean killed him. "Willow!"

"Yes, sir," she said suddenly.

"I'm counting on you," he said. She nodded a little as she followed them out of the infirmary.


"Oh my God," Jackie muttered when she heard the news. "Oh my God! I mean, I had a feeling, but I'd been hoping it wasn't true…"

"It is," Willow said gravely. "The Professor's gone after her. To try and stop her."

"What do we do?" Kitty wondered, feeling lost for words.

"We sit tight," Willow said, sounding like more of a leader by the minute. "We protect the mansion."

"Should we suit up?" Bobby wondered. Willow considered this. She didn't want to cause an overall state of alarm and confusion amongst the students, which could be catalyzed by the fact that the team would be sitting around in uniform.

"No," Willow said, decidedly. "No, we're gonna play it cool. What the kids don't know won't hurt them. It might be too much for the younger ones. We'll take it in turns guarding the inside and outside, but try to act casual. There's six of us, including Rogue, so two in front, two in back, two inside."

"Sounds like a plan," Bobby said. "Who're we paired off with?"

"Iceman and Shadowcat," she said, using their code names. "Colossus and Rogue, me and Blackout. We'll rotate every four hours. At night, the ones inside can sleep for a bit. If something goes wrong, give the other groups a sign. I don't know if anything's going to actually happen around here, but I don't want to take chances."

Willow and Jackie sat nonchalantly on the grass just behind the gate that blocked the driveway from the rest of New York. It was about 6:00pm, and neither of them had said anything for the past two hours. The expression on each of their faces looked stony and weary.

The silence was broken by a sudden screech of tires. Willow and Jackie were both on their feet in an instant. Jackie's hair stood up on end as her body tingled with static.

"It might be nothing," Willow muttered as she heard a car door open and shut.

"It could be something," Jackie countered. They could hear footsteps getting closer to the gate. When finally the owner of the footfalls came into view, Jackie's heart skipped a beat. St. John Allerdyce was standing coolly in front of her, only the wrought iron fence separating them.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Willow demanded, her eyes glowing green.

"I came for a visit," he said with a shrug. "To talk to Jackie." Jackie blanched and the static electricity she'd been generating died down.

"Well, I got news for you, pal…," Willow started to say, but Jackie interrupted her.

"I got this, Will," she said under her breath.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she said with a confident nod. Jackie approached the gate and climbed over the top of it.

"Don't trust me?" Pyro asked with a smirk as Jackie dropped back down to the ground.

"I'm not stupid, John," Jackie said sarcastically. "Speak."

"So hostile," he said as he cocked his head to the side, his eyes roving over her frame. Willow stood on the other side of the fence, her blood boiling. "How 'bout some privacy?" he said, glancing over at Willow.

"It's okay, dude," Jackie assured her.

"Let me know," Willow said curtly as she walked out of earshot.

"Enough with the banter," Jackie growled. "Whaddyou want? And where's your nanny?" she asked, referring to Mystique. An unreadable look passed over Pyro's face.

"She got cured," he said.

"What?" Jackie asked, shocked.

"Yeah, turns out the humans are using the cure as a weapon, in darts," he said. "Shooting it out of guns. She was no good to us anymore."

"So you just…left her?" Jackie sputtered in disbelief. Mystique had never been one of Jackie's favorite people, but the idea of leaving behind a teammate was alien to her.

"Had to," Pyro said with a shrug.

"That's sick," Jackie spat. "Why'd you come?"

"I miss you," he said. In the past, Jackie would have been head over heels at this remark. Now, though, the sound of his voice disgusted her. "I want you to come with me." Jackie paused, shaking her head slightly. If he thought he was going to recruit her, he was sorely mistaken.

"No," she said defiantly. This was definitely not the answer Pyro had been expecting.

"Why not? You could be free, with us. You could leave all this shit behind. You could be Blackout. People would respect you, you've got just as much power as I do," he said.

"Did you just call my home and my family 'shit'?" she asked angrily, her hair standing on end again. "What the hell is the matter with you, John?"

"Call me Pyro," he insisted.

"Whatever," she growled. "You think I'm gonna leave this place, where people love me and care about me? You think I'm gonna betray the people who took me in, gave me a home? Sheltered me from a world that hates me?"

"I did," he said casually.

"Well I'm not like you," she said, glaring at him. "I know where I'm wanted."

"Don't you get it? We can get back at the people who hate us!" he said with a manic grin. "Together. You and me, all the way."

"I don't want to get back at them," she said. "Two wrongs don't make a right; they teach you that in grade school."

"Xavier's got you trained," he said. "Like a dog on a leash. He's controlling you."

"No he isn't," Jackie said.

"Magneto doesn't control people, Jackie."

"Call me Blackout," she sneered. "Magneto's a manipulative bastard. You think he'll go out of his way to protect you? You think he won't leave you stranded and alone like he did Mystique?"

"I'm different," Pyro said, but his confident expression faltered ever so slightly.

"No you're not," she said. "You're nothing special, Pyro. You're just another one of his little chess pieces. You ever play chess?" Pyro shook his head. "The king sits in the back while the other pieces sacrifice themselves for him and at the very end, right before checkmate, he runs himself into a corner."

"Magneto's untouchable!" John spat.

"You think I'm brainwashed? Listen to yourself!" she cried. "He's got you trained." Pryo triggered the compact flamethrower attached to his wrist and held a fireball in his hand.

"Last chance," he said angrily, holding the fireball in front of him threateningly. "We can be friends or enemies. You're call." Jackie held out her thumb and index finger in the shape of a gun before firing a low voltage bolt straight through his fireball, hitting him square in the chest. Pyro flew backwards into the hood of his car and toppled onto the asphalt.

"Enemies," Jackie said. "Go home, Pyro, if you have one." He picked himself off the ground. "And for the record, I have more power than you and I had the balls to gain control over it!" John took one last look at Jackie, his face a mixture of anger and embarrassment, knowing that he'd lost. Without so much as a goodbye, he piled himself in his car and sped away with a loud screech.

Jackie climbed back over the fence and smiled triumphantly at her best friend. They exchanged an enthusiastic high five and a little nervous laughter.

"That'll learn him," Jackie said with a grin.


An hour and a half later, the pairs rotated positions. Jackie and Willow ended up inside, relinquishing their spot behind the gate to Rogue and Colossus. They sat in the living room just outside the kitchen in silence. The T.V. screen's surface was a dark void in front of them. Jackie reached over and turned on the lamp next to her. It wasn't quite dark out yet, but it would be soon.

"I'm scared, Will," Jackie muttered, the silence around them shattered. "This isn't like the Danger Room. I've never…you know, fought in a real battle before."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," Willow said.

"Yeah, but what if she comes back?"

"Jean?"

"Yeah," she said with a little nod. "What could we do to stop her?"

"I wish I had an answer," Willow said softly.

"Come on, man, you're like the substitute leader," Jackie said with half a grin.

"No pressure, though…," Willow muttered wryly. "Seriously, I have no idea what we'd do. Just try to protect the kids from getting hurt, I guess. What else could we do?"

"I dunno," Jackie sighed.

Out of no where, Willow felt as if she were hit in the back of the head with a sack of bricks. She wavered a little on the couch before tears sprung from her eyes. As suddenly as it began, it stopped. A warm feeling of security and happiness washed over her mind and was gone like a passing breeze only a moment later. She felt like a part of her soul had just disappeared into thin air.

Willow sat in utter confusion as she caught her breath. She reached up and touched her face, which was streaked with tears. She looked over at Jackie and discovered she was sobbing.

"He's gone!" Jackie moaned. "Xavier's gone!"