Chapter 23: Almost there

JEAN'S determination to help Billy was unwavering.

The four of them; Jean, Max, Mike and Eleven, were all frozen in the dark carpark, but as Billy began staggering towards them away from his car, his gait of limping in nature but still menacing, they started to move again.

After taking a few steps back, Jean halted and brought her hands up to unwrap Eleven's arm from her shoulder. "Take El." She indicated to a surprised Mike before walking away from them, walking towards the angry beast of a boy.

Eleven's eyes went wide. "What are you doing?" Max asked with panic, watching her friend moving away from them.

"Jean, come on!" The Wheeler boy bellowed, his body he was in overdrive, overrun by the adrenaline and he was prepared to run with his girlfriend any moment now.

The teenage telepath shook her head, she wasn't moving forwards anymore but she stood her ground on steady feet. "Go." She told them, not looking back.

"Jean," El breathed out, her brown eyes darting between Jean and Billy who was slowly approaching them. She knew what she was trying to do. The redhead almost flinched when she heard her friend.

"Please." There was a frightful pleading in El's voice, one that shook the redhead to the core. She knew that this was Eleven's way of protecting Jean. She always held an urge to protect her and now she wanted to do it from a boy who was lost in a raging ocean of darkness.

Jean looked back, her green eyes flashing with determination. She smiled confidently at Eleven, nodding her chin at her. "It's okay. Go ahead."

I want to help him like you helped me, Jean thought to herself, referring to Eleven. Not long ago, Jean herself had been stripped of all her memories, just like Billy. She was a shadow of her former self. Confused and helpless. It was El who provided her with a family and friends. And Jean wanted to do the same for Billy.

The three preteens hesitantly began walking away, but as their movements alarmed Billy, they rushed back inside the mall.

Jean looked at him, gathering all of her strength to face him head on as he slowly made his way towards her. "Billy, Billy, it's me Jean."

Billy maintained a stoic expression. He wasn't recognizing her face or her name. Although it was familiar, the rage coiled within his blackening blood and he saw her nothing but an obstacle.

She looked up at him, desperate but still not trying to get away, and gasps out, "Billy."

She quickly raised her right hand and placed it against her corresponding temple. She breathed in sharply upon the painful entry into his mind. Jean could feel her mind throbbing as she accessed his chaotic one, but she ignored the feeling and headed straight into the motor area -the area responsible for movements- of his brain.

And she attempted to paralyze his movements.

Jean's heartbeat spiked with each one of Billy's footsteps and grunts. He jolted and Jean didn't think she could hold Billy, it didn't seem to be working. But the teenage boy was slowing down, eyes soaking in Jean's form in the dark parking lot.

"I know you, Billy, this isn't you." She telepathically communicated with him, her voice echoed in his foggy mind as she still tried to freeze his body.

Her eyes were searching his face, looking at him, looking through him. She knew that the grudge he held wasn't from him. She saw him stopping; she was looking for the parts of Billy that were poking through. She knew he was in there somewhere.

The Flayed boy was surprised to hear her inside his confused mind, but then again, those weren't the only voices that invaded his brain.

"What do you know about me?" Billy asked. His inquiry held a genuine curiosity that Jean didn't miss. He, himself didn't know who he was anymore, so he wondered how she so confidently stated that she knew him.

"Everything." Said Jean and gave him regretful smile. Her answer succeeded in surprising him long enough for her to break through.

Her control over him skyrocketed and her paralytic hold overtook, all the while Billy's breathing became jagged, more urgent and more desperate as he struggled to break free of the invisible binds his own mind constrained him with. His skin that was painted with black vines clammed up, redness coloring the glorious bronze it once held.

He panted, his limbs weren't complying to the movement he wanted to make, turning his fury up to a dangerous level.

"Then you should know to stay out of my head!" He roared out, and although he wasn't able to move, he was still intimidating.

"I'm so sorry, I've seen what it did to you. I felt your agony." Jean told Billy calmly, trying to soothe the boiling vat of anger she could feel within him. Billy was pouring out his rage and confusion like a leaky faucet; much more of it and she'd get an explosive headache.

She had no clue what it was like. Being consumed whole, bit by bit, memory by memory. Being forced to do things beyond his will. She didn't know what it was like.

That's what he thought.

"How do you know how I feel?!" Billy screamed, his question rhetorical but Jean was quick to answer.

"I know what everybody feels." She mumbled, her face sullen. Jean approached him to a dangerous proximity, but she didn't care. She tentatively reached her hand up, slowly, letting him know what she was going to do before she did it, and he still didn't move because he was unable to. She rested her hand on his cheek, gently, softly. And he shuddered at the action.

Jean closed her eyes as the possessed boy glared at her, waiting to see what she would do to him. She scrunched her eyebrows upon further entry into his mind. It was messy. Confused. And raging with pain and suffrage. Her breathing picked up as she navigated through his memories, they were covered by a jet black mist that prevented her to see. It dangerously pulsated in reaction to her attempts to break through, fighting her, pushing her away.

But Jean calmed her breathing, and her face relaxed, mustering all the focus she had. And she broke through the barrier.

She saw a flicker of the memory she needed so she pulled it forwards to her and Billy, projecting it to both of them so they could both relive it.

"How come you're always wearing that necklace, mom?" A young, blonde boy asked, his ocean blue eyes shining in curiosity.He was looking up at someone.

Jean could see the moment the memory flashed in his mind and so she opened her eyes and let go a fraction of her paralytic hold on him. He unfroze, trembling a little, eyes wide in disbelief. He stared down and then back up, looking at her whilst not looking at her, his eyes were unfocused like he was miles away.

A beautiful older woman with golden hair and an enthralling smile was looking back at the boy, at Billy. Her hand instinctively reached for the pendant that hung loosely around her neck. Her slender fingers tracing the Virgin Mary drawing engraved on it. "Your Grammy gave me it to me before she died." She held a nostalgic smile, its warmth spreading and enveloping her baby boy.

The blonde tilted his head away from Jean in confusion and what might be disbelief, his hazy blue eyes widening for a second, and he was almost there. Billy was almost free. He moved his head back down towards her and went static again, waiting. It was a more natural stillness this time.

The older woman looked between the heirloom and his wide doe eyes, and she lifted both her arms to remove it from her neck. "Here."

Billy looked down for a moment, and as his body swayed a little. Jean saw that the black veins on his face were slowly receding. He looked back up at her confused and a little pained, and she knew he was trying.

Now Jean knew why Billy always wore that pendant.

She knew, so she took a deep breath and got ready to finish this, to show him what she was sure will reach Billy in whatever corner of his mind he was trapped in.

"This way I can always be watching over you. A part of me will always be with you." The woman, his mother, grinned brightly, assuringly, wrapping the golden necklace around his neck.

Billy's face relaxed and he closed his eyes, relishing in seeing his mother so clearly. He looked almost peaceful. His body may be frozen outside the Starcourt mall, and his mind may not fully be his again yet, but the parts that were, they're in that place again. Billy was basking in the warmth of that memory.

The younger, innocent, pain-free Billy looked down as it hung from his neck and held it in his hand, his eyes sparkled in joy. "Promise?"

Jean nodded and cried, feeling everything in his mind, how Billy had felt. The warmth in the memory, the love for his mother, the aching longing for a real family.

He nodded back at her, eyes full of tears, his face tight in order to stop them from falling, and more of the black veins were dissipating. More of Billy was coming back to the surface. He was so close.

His mother brought her hand up to place atop his head, her fingers interlacing in his golden locks and comforting the boy like she always could. "Promise. I love you, Billy."

A happy and genuinely beaming smile lifted his lips that his cheeks notched upwards. "I love you, too, mom."

Tears were collecting on his lower lashes looking ready to spill at any moment, and the black veins on his face were long gone. He was standing there for a beat, cheek in the palm of her hand; not quite leaning into it but not pushing it away. Then Billy opened his eyes.

And just like that, Billy, the boy she knew, resurfaced from the abyss that the Mind Flayer had imprisoned him in.

Jean smiled brightly at the victory.

He stared at the girl before him. She had her hand rested on his cheek, to ground him, to help him set himself free. He closed his eyes and cried.

He hasn't been held like this in as long as he could remember.

"What.. Did you just do to me?" Hesitantly and curiously, Billy asked.

Jean smiled at him, as benevolently as his mother did at him. "I accessed the brightest corner of your memory system. It was a very beautiful memory. Thank you, Billy."

Billy shook his head in disbelief. He thought that everything regarding his past, present and future was gone. That he was not a human being any longer, that he was only a cog in that monster's machine. "I didn't know I still had that."

"I can help you, if you let me." Jean said.

He knew she was telling the truth, this girl who somehow managed to dig through his entire life, his entire mind, and found the one happy memory he had. This girl who brought his mother back to him, even if only for a moment.

This girl...

All of his memories came to him slowly and then all at once, like puncturing a tiny hole in a balloon only for it to explode a moment later.

"Jean." He breathed out her name, his voice trembling.

He remembered her now. The girl who was as warm as the California sun. The one who always seemed to be trying to reach out to him. The girl he was so utterly excited to meet up with on that fateful night. He just didn't know how she was able to do the things that she just did, but he didn't give it much thought at the moment.

The redhead pursed her lips and nodded slowly, happy that he was finally able to recognize her.

Billy inhaled sharply, basking in the warmth her hand provided on his cheek. He wondered if he deserved it after everything that has happened.

Oh, the horrors he'd witnessed and committed.

Jean saw how his eyes went wide all of a sudden as his body trembled again.

"I've done things, Jean." He confessed, crying.

Billy's mind whimpered as pain drove through his head. Every thought he had became confused, the guilt manifested itself into physical pain that filled his body. As sobs began to to escape his lips, the boy found himself weeping at his own suffering.

He could hear people, people he hurt around him screaming and whimpering. Anger and pain swiped through at this chaos, it was something that he wanted to end badly. But he couldn't stop it.

His screams were rather painful than angry this time. Then they turned to sobs, desperate sobs. He was wishing for the unbearable feeling of guilt to go away.

Jean's heart was bleeding as she gazed at him, he was rocking himself back and forth, tears stealing down his flushed cheeks. Her mind ached as she felt his immense guilt.

"It's okay, Billy. It's okay." She soothed, tracing her fingers on his ice cold cheeks and neck. She tried to hide her distress. Whatever he was feeling was triggering her, tearing down walls in her head and unlocking feelings much similar to his.

Tears streamed down his face and he looked so small and afraid. "No, no, it's not okay. This is who I am now." He whimpered.

"No, that's no true." Jean's eyes were drowning, she wanted to help more, but she was at a loss. Her heart was crackling, with his pain or hers, she didn't know.

He sniffled out, moving away from her and pressing his sore body against the wall. His skin was burning and his blood was boiling.

"Get away from me. He wants me to hurt you, Jean, I don't wanna hurt you." He cried, eyes wide and alert, but the shadow was creeping up and taking back control over him with its poisoned blood, stripping Jean's influence from him.

Jean shook her head, her lower lip trembling. "See? You're fighting it. I know you can."

Billy looked up at her, and she was alarmed at what she saw.

The overhead fluorescent lights shuddered and jerked, a buzzing sound streaking through the air. Jean's eyes weren't watching the flickering lights but Billy as he got back up, his body convulsing as blackness once again snaked up his flesh like dark lightning. He screamed in pain as something attacked him from inside out. It was evident that he was losing the battle that raged within his mind, as the darkness swam under his skin like a shadow, growing and squelching.

"Billy, no, Billy, listen to me. You can fight it, you can do it Billy." Her whole body trembled as she tried to encourage him to take back control of his body, but she wasn't even sure if her voice could reach him.

He roared, but the sound that ripped deep inside his chest wasn't from him, the evil that broke his flesh and bones wasn't his.

Jean's blood went cold when thundering footsteps echoed throughout the quiet area. A loud screeching boomed and painfully pulsated into her ears.

It was coming back, Jean realized with eyes wide in panic.

The lights flickered even more chaotically, and Billy's growling only grew stronger.

Jean jumped back in fright as she watched the boy she once knew transform back into a devilish monster.

Billy's body grew menacingly still. He clenched his teeth so hard the strain of his jaw muscles became prominent, his eyes burnt with a loathing fury.

"You shouldn't have done that." His voice was thunderous and Jean scattered backwards.

"You're next." The blonde's words were venomous and brutal. Jean's face twisted with fear and grief. She had no time to react when Billy propelled himself forward, faster and stronger than before.

There was a moment, for a fraction of a second, when his shadowed blue eyes met hers, she thought he would break through the sheer violence but then he locked his hand around her throat, almost lifting her off the ground. She choked, the air in her lungs drying up. "You don't have to do this." She begged, her voice tore through her throat like sandpaper.

Billy scrunched his features, his facial expression showcasing the internal struggle and chaos that was as bad as a furious storm brewing inside.

"Billy, please." Tears dotting her vision, Jean hoped he would come to his senses, that he would drop his hold on her and return to how he was just now. That was until he brought his other hand up, gripped at the roots of her hair and pushed her to the floor, slamming her head against the concrete floor.

And she was out.

~~~

Her skull was throbbing, her body was shaking, fingernails digging into her clenched fists.

Jean's vision was slowly coming back to her, color filling the darkness.

She'd failed in reaching out to Billy.

Pushing herself off the floor, her muscles didn't protest like she thought they would. As she stood on her feet, her body felt oddly light, almost as if she was floating above the ground.

Looking to her surroundings, in front of her stood the long corridor of the overly familiar house she'd seen in her dream. Jean realized that she was definitely not in the Starcourt carpark anymore. Well, her physical form was still there. However, she awoke inside the astral plane of her own mind once again.

Jean gulped nervously, recalling her traumatic venture down memory lane last time. Her mind terrified her, as did her memories. She needed to get out before it was too late, but her curiosity was eating away at her.

Jean started walking along the corridor, her feet lightly tapping against the hardwood floor of the large mansion. It was empty, unlike the last time where El was there with her. It seemed to be an endless walk at first, but as she walked and walked, hands shaking, Jean found an end to the hallway. The redhead released a shaky breath when she found that at the other end of it, there was a bright glow of orange-reddish energy. It was calling out to her, the same as that overwhelming crimson cloud that invaded her body last time.

With a shake of her head, Jean moved forward. She had no time to think, she needed to get back into the physical world to help her friends. To save El from that approaching monster.

In a matter of seconds, Jean found herself hovering over the source of light. She scanned it, taking notice of its bird like structure. And she wondered if the orange energy emitting around it really were flames. Something about the creature called to her, the call felt familiar. So she instinctively reached out to it.

And then it hit her.

Jean Grey remembered everything.

A/N:-

Hey guys! How are you all doing? I hope you're all safe and homebound with the Coronavirus madness.

So how was the chapter? I hope you all enjoyed it. We're finally at the end point of the season and I'm excited to delve into the pre-season 4 storyline

Please tell me what you think so far!