Do you guys want to hear a story? So, I keep my laptop on top of the piano in my living room, next to the chair I sit in when I'm on it. The cord that charges the battery got caught under one of the metal runners, though, and got cut up pretty bad, so when I tried to upload the chapter on Friday, a whole bunch of silver sparks shot out of it, and scared the living daylights out of me. So, now I have to order a new cord for 70 bucks.

Grr.

So, now I'm trying to run the battery down to nothing so the next cord can power my computer back up all the way.

Just another week, and another chapter, eh?

- - - - -

Chapter 3

"The sheer mass of water that collapsed on top of Jean should have obliterated her completely," Professor Xavier was saying. "The only explanation of Jean's survival is that her powers wrapped her in a cocoon of telekinetic energy." Logan took a few steps forward to stand beside Jean's shoulder and the professor, who was bent over her, hands to either side of her head.

He and Storm had found her unconscious at Alkali Lake after the professor had sent the two of them there, seeming to sense Jean's mind that morning. They had also found Scott's glasses, which had been the first sign of him since two days ago.

Jean was under a blue quilted blanket, and she had three wires attached to her head; one to her forehead and one to either temple. "Is she gonna be OK?" Logan asked.

"Jean Grey is one of only two Class 5 mutants I have ever encountered, her potential practically limitless," the professor replied. "Her mutation is seated in the unconscious part of her mind, and therein lay the danger. When she was a girl, I created a series of psychic barriers to isolate her powers from her conscious mind." Logan stared down at Jean, absorbing what Xavier was saying. "And, as a result, Jean developed a dual personality," Xavier went on.

His eyes flicked up and over to him. "What?" he asked.

"The conscious Jean," the professor started, in what he must have believed was an explanation, "whose powers were always in her control, and the dormant side, a personality that, in our sessions, came to call itself the Phoenix, a purely instinctual creature, all desire and joy… and rage."

Logan was slowly beginning to anger. He was a big one for mutant rights, to give his opinions a general term, especially considering his background. "She knew all this?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"It's unclear how much she knew," the professor replied calmly. "Far more critical is whether the woman in front of us is the Jean Grey we know… or the Phoenix, furiously struggling to be free."

Logan walked around the bottom of the table to Jean's other side. "She looks pretty peaceful to me," he observed somewhat heatedly.

"Because I'm keeping her that way," the professor explained. "I'm trying to restore the psychic blocks and cage the beast again." Logan surveyed Jean's body.

"What have you done to her?" he asked disbelievingly.

Logan, you have to understand-" the professor started.

"You're talkin' about a person's mind here, about Jean!" he interrupted.

"She has to be controlled!" the professor countered.

"Control?" he asked angrily. "You know, sometimes when you cage the beast, the beast gets angry."

The professor stared at him condescendingly, as if knowing he wasn't competent enough to understand what he was trying to say. "You have no idea. You have no idea of what's she's capable," he said.

Logan shook his head slightly. "No, Professor. I had no idea what you were capable of!" he said.

"I had a terrible choice to make. I chose the lesser of two evils," he said, voice growing in emotion.

"Well, it sounds to me like Jean had no choice at all," Logan replied in an angry tone. He came to a sudden realization. "You said two Class 5 mutants." He knew who the other had to be, and it made him angrier. "The other one… Lexiss?"

The professor didn't reply. In fact, he avoided looking at Logan altogether. "Did you do this to her, too?" he demanded loudly and furiously.

The professor looked away. "I don't have to explain myself, least of all to you," he finally said, bending back down over Jean.

Looking back at Jean one last time, Logan left the room with one last remark. "You know, I think you're just afraid of someone being more powerful than you."

- - - - -

With a sigh, Lexiss opened her eyes, stretching luxuriously in the midday sun spilling into her room. She paused; midday?

Then, with a start, just like everyday when she first awoke, everything that had happened in the past few months came crashing down around her. The events from the night before especially made her not want to get out of bed, even though her nightstand clock read close to one. She rolled over, intending to press her face into one of her other pillows, and was surprised to see Annabeth, the 12-year old girl she mentored, laying there. She had been watching her back intently. Lexiss rolled completely over to look levelly at her.

"Are you OK?" Annabeth finally asked after the two of them had been watching each other for about a minute and a half. Lexiss blinked, and so did Annabeth, although it was a little more disconcerting with her strange eyes.

"What do you mean?"

Lexiss hadn't necessarily lied to Annabeth in the past months. She just didn't know much about what was going on. She was on the brink of becoming a teenager, it was a monumental age for her; who was Lexiss to ruin it for her with her own problems? Annabeth was beginning to get into boys as well. She was actually quite the little flirt…

"You've been acting weird ever since John left. I know you two were boyfriend and girlfriend, but break-ups happen, and he was bound to need to get away. You're a very pretty girl," Annabeth said seriously. "You twist the thoughts of boys and make them all… fuzzy. Just ask Damien."

Lexiss arched an eyebrow. "Still?" She nodded with a grin. "You're a very perceptive kid," Lexiss sighed.

Annabeth winked. "I make boys' thoughts fuzzy too," she said. She tapped her ears. "These help."

Despite herself, Lexiss barked a short laugh, snuggling deeper into her crispy white sheets and crunchy cream-colored comforter. Annabeth grinned, but then her face got serious again.

"But… John didn't leave because the two of you broke up, did he?" she asked.

Lexiss sighed. Annabeth was like family to her, and that earned her the whole truth, not just what she figured out on her own. "No, he didn't," she replied heavily. Annabeth waited. "He joined Magneto," she said quietly.

Annabeth frowned, and her eyes became stormy. "I never liked him," she said darkly. Lexiss smiled slightly, and rubbed the younger girl's hair.

The door opened. Rogue and Bobby were behind it. Lexiss looked back to Annabeth. "Can you excuse us, please?"

Annabeth's frown deepened. "Why can't I stay?" she said.

"Um, Annabeth?" Bobby said. She looked over her shoulder at him. "Colin, Dan, Jessi, and Dylan are looking for you downstairs." He ticked the names off on his fingers.

Annabeth looked back at Lexiss. "Gotta go." As Lexiss' jaw dropped, Annabeth slid off her bed and bounced out of the room.

Lexiss sat up, running her hands through her hair, and Rogue and Bobby closed the door. Rogue sat next to her on the bed after she had scooted over some, and Bobby sat cross-legged at the bottom of her bed. Rogue looked over at her.

"Are you OK?" she asked. Lexiss slid down in her sheets a little. "I wish people would stop asking me that," she said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself.

"You're acting a little… reckless… lately," Bobby said carefully.

There was silence for a moment or two, and then Rogue softly asked, "Did you see John last night?"

Lexiss turned her face away from Rogue to look at her nightstand, where she picked up her picture of John. She studied every inch of it, as if to etch it permanently into her memory.

"We miss him too, Lexiss. You don't have to go through this alone," Bobby said.

Lexiss sniffed, and wiped her eyes. At some point, she had started to cry. Maybe because Rogue was tearing up as well. During this whole time, she had never thought Rogue and Bobby would be going through sadness at his abrupt departure either. She just always assumed they were angry with him for changing sides.

Lexiss wiped her eyes again, and turned to hug Rogue. It was safe to do so because today she was wearing a black turtleneck sweater. "I'm really sorry, you guys," she sobbed as Rogue wrapped her arms around her and began to cry as well. "I didn't… I didn't realize-" She hiccoughed, and Bobby moved closer to the two of them, resting a hand on Lexiss' shoulder and rubbing Rogue's back.

The girls sat there and cried for close to five minutes, with Bobby being the male presence to comfort them. John would've laughed at that two months ago.

Once Lexiss and Rogue managed to calm themselves, Lexiss slid out from beneath her covers, and Rogue turned into Bobby's chest. Lexiss wiped her face, and put the picture back on the night stand.

"Yea. Yea, I did see John last night. I didn't talk to him, and I don't think he knew who I was when he came after me, but…" She sighed shakily. "He… he was with Magneto. They were recruiting mutants for a… a Brotherhood of Mutants, I think."

Bobby looked at her. "So he's-"

"He's not coming back, Bobby."

Rogue wiped some mascara that was starting to run from underneath one eye. "You should probably tell somebody about Magneto," she said. Lexiss climbed off the bed.

"Not yet," she said. "There's something that needs to get done, and I think we should all do it together." She started opening her dresser drawers, looking for clothes to wear that day.

"What?" Bobby and Rogue asked in unison. Lexiss looked over at them.

"We need to pack up John's room."

- - - - -

Lexiss, Rogue, and Bobby spent two depression-filled hours putting everything of John's into cardboard boxes and plastic storage totes. While the three of them had come to the point of being able to pack away his things, Rogue and especially Lexiss weren't ready to throw anything away yet. Bobby, on the other hand… Well, perhaps Lexiss wasn't as mistaken in her original 'anger' assessment as she had thought.

As Lexiss was stripping the sheets off of John's bed, a cold voice spoke from the doorway. "Lexiss," Storm said. "We need to talk." Beckoning Lexiss with a crook of her finger, she turned in the direction of her room.

"Don't forget about Magneto," Rogue whispered as Lexiss passed her. She nodded slightly, and followed Storm down the hall into her bedroom. Storm closed the door behind her.

"Where were you last night?" she asked coolly, crossing her arms. Lexiss sat on her bed. She was still incredibly angry with her. She had had no right to throw an extra loop into the emotional rollercoaster she was already experiencing already. That was just cruel.

"Since when do you care what happens to me?" she replied in a voice just as cool. Storm pointed a finger.

"Lexiss, that is not fair-"

"Oh, you're going to preach to me about fairness, now?" she shouted. "Was it fair for a fake John to attack me in the Danger Room? Was that fair?"

Storm tried to get in a word edgewise. "You're right, and I'm sorry, but-" Lexiss stood up, not done with her speech yet.

"You want to know where I was last night? I was out looking for John, since no one else seems to care where he is or if he's hurt, or anything! And do you know what I found out? Magneto's building an army of mutants for his cause against the cure." Lexiss stood up and started for the door, at the last second twisting her neck to look over her shoulder.

"You know, ever since Jean died, you've seriously gone off the deep end." She turned back, and, with hand on the doorknob, Storm spoke.

"Jean's alive." Lexiss froze.

"What?" she said quietly.

"While you were asleep this morning, the professor sensed Jean's mind at Alkali Lake. Logan and I flew up there in the jet, and found her. Scott's missing, now, as well."

Without replying, Lexiss bolted out of Storm's bedroom, leaving the door to swing slowly behind her.

- - - - -

Lexiss tapped her foot impatiently in the elevator. Now that she thought about it, she could suddenly sense Jean's thoughts again too. They were buzzing and erratic, but that was to be expected, she assumed, reawakening after an experience that should have killed her.

The elevator was moving too slowly, for Lexiss' liking, so she commenced to repeatedly tapping the button for the basement on the panel mounted to the wall.

Finally, with a thud and a ding, the elevator reached the basement, and the doors slid open. Without hesitation, Lexiss started at a run down the hall. Rounding a corner, she ended up face to face with the very woman she was seeking.

"Jean!" she exhaled happily, throwing her arms around her neck. Jean's survival, against all odds, was a good omen. If Jean could survive all of Alkali Lake crashing on top of her, then maybe John would decide to come back, and everything would go back to the way it used to be.

"Lexiss," she said in a soft, surprised tone, putting her arms about her shoulders and stroking her hair.

"It's so good to see you," Lexiss said, relieved of all her pressures. Everything really was going to be alright, almost like a fairytale.

"It's good to see you, too, Lexiss," Jean said in the same soft tone. "Here, let me look at you." She stepped back, smiling. Jean laid a hand against her cheek. "He did it to you, too, didn't he?" she said, seemingly more to herself than Lexiss.

Lexiss' smile faltered. "What?"

Jean smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll fix it," she said. Lexiss' smile dropped a little more. "Jean, are you al-"

Her hand tightened against Lexiss' face, and a burning pain shot through her skull. She might've screamed; she wasn't sure. Lexiss did know that she collapsed, however.

And that was the last time she ever spoke to Jean Grey.

- - - - -

With a groan, Lexiss awoke, sharply pulling her head off the cool metal floor, and regretting the move instantly as the pain behind her eyes swelled into her entire forehead.

Jean was gone, she noticed, as she slowly got to her feet. She didn't know for how long she had been unconscious. She stumbled sideways into the wall, and used it as a crutch to make her way down the hall towards the infirmary, hand to her forehead.

As her vision became clear and headache started to slowly fade to a dull throb, she saw the infirmary doors torn apart, seemingly smashed against the opposite wall. Straightening, she quickened her pace.

"Jean?" she called as loudly as her head allowed. She turned into the infirmary, and saw Logan facedown on the floor. "Logan!" she exclaimed, moving quickly to kneel beside him. His jerked his head up suddenly, clearly confused.

"Jean? Jean!" he said as he sat up quickly and turned into Lexiss.

"I think she's gone," she said, looking behind her as she heard more footsteps approaching. "She did something funny to my head, I think…" she continued. Logan looked at her, but before he could reply, Storm and the professor came in.

"What happened?" Storm asked.

"Uh… Jean woke up…" Lexiss said distractedly. She wasn't really sure what had transpired, only that her head was throbbing murderously.

"What have you done?" Xavier said stonily to Logan. Lexiss looked carefully between the two. Logan was breathing heavily.

"I think she killed Scott," he said after a moment. Lexiss' head whipped around to face him completely.

"What?" Storm asked, her tone surprised, to say the least.

"She would… She would never!" Lexiss said incredulously, wondering how Logan could even consider the possibility.

"That's not possible…" Storm added.

"I warned you," the professor cut through. Lexiss looked at him. He lifted his head, and closed his eyes. She could sense he was trying to figure out where Jean was. His eyebrows scrunched then, as if he were having difficulty doing so. But… that was impossible, unless…

"She's left the mansion, but she's trying to block my thoughts. She's so strong." Clearly there was a piece of the puzzle Lexiss needed to complete the whole picture. The professor lowered his head, and opened his eyes. "It may be too late," he said. "We need to get her, and bring her home. I think I know where she might be."

Suddenly, there were two Professor Xaviers. Blinking rapidly and shaking her head clear, she stood up, supporting herself on the nearby hospital table. "I want to go with," she said, rubbing her temple. Lexiss had to go with. Her whole future hinged on Jean.

The professor looked at her, and then seemed to see her for the first time. "Lexiss, did you speak with Jean?"

Lexiss nodded. "Yea, she-"

"Not now! We have to go get Jean before she hurts someone else!" Logan shouted.

Storm nodded. "He's right." The professor's eyes bored into Lexiss.

"You can't come. I need to speak with you when I return, and can't risk that by anything that might happen. Please wait in my office." Then he turned away from her, and she knew she had been dismissed. She made a sort of strangled noise, a compilation of bitter disappointment that she would not be able to accompany them and great anticipation of Jean's return.

Hand to her head, she walked slowly out of the infirmary, intending to get a bottle of aspirin, some soda, and then to wait obediently in the professor's office for the triumphant return of her life to normalcy. Nothing could mess this up for her now. Not a thing.

- - - - -

Three hours later, the professor's door opened, and Lexiss turned away from his bookcase with an expectant look. Logan entered first, looking sweaty and dirty. She saw Storm second, possibly looking worse than Logan.

"Where's the…" The question died on her lips as she saw the empty wheelchair Storm was pushing in. Now the lines of 'clean' skin on Storm's cheeks made sense. Lexiss raised a trembling hand to her face in horror.

"Oh God… Oh God, no, no, that's no possible… That's not possible!" she gasped, body heaving as so tried to breathe deeply. "That's… that's not possible!"

Logan wrapped her in a hug. "It's not pos… What about Jean?" Lexiss managed to choke out. She felt Logan shake his head.

"It was her," Storm said haltingly, wiping her face. Lexiss pulled away from Logan.

"It's not right… It's just not right!" she said thickly, wiping her eyes. She brushed past Logan and Storm to leave the room. She needed to find Bobby and Rogue.

- - - - -

The funeral service was held the next day, under a bright sun and a clear blue sky. A monumental gravestone with the professor's likeness mounted on the front in a silvery-bronze metal was made by the students and set in the largest garden of the estate, just in view of the castle-like top of the mansion Professor Xavier had built for the young mutant population with no where left to go. While the mansion was his legacy, his headstone, Lexiss knew, would be a place of solace for years to come. A small pyre was burning at the foot of the headstone, and Storm was speaking, eyes full of tears, to a congregation garbed entirely in black.

"We live in an age of darkness…" she was saying. "A world full of fear, hate, and intolerance." Lexiss was sitting beside Rogue, holding her hand. Her other hand was in Bobby's, as was to be expected. "But in every age, there are those who fight against it," she continued. "Charles Xavier was born into a world divided; a world he tried to heal… a mission he never saw accomplished." Her voice wavered a little. "It seems the destiny of great men to see their goals unfulfilled."

Logan appeared at a balcony to Lexiss' left, she noticed, thanks to a nudge from Rogue. "Charles was more than a leader, more than a teacher. He was a friend. When we were afraid, he gave us strength. And when we were alone, he gave us a family." Lexiss turned back to face Storm, whose voice was growing shakier by the second. This must be extra hard on her, Lexiss dimly realized through her cocoon of numbness. Storm had been one of the professor's very first students.

"He may be gone," she said, "but his teachings live on through us, his students." There was slight movement to her right, and Lexiss noticed Bobby take the hand of a silently crying Kitty. "Wherever we many go, we must carry on his vision," Storm said in a quieter tone. "And that's a vision of a world united."

Logan went back into the mansion as everyone stood. Rogue pulled Lexiss along with her as she started forward. She fell in step behind her with her own white rose to lay on the professor's tombstone.

- - - - -

That night, Lexiss disobeyed Storm's request that everyone remain in their rooms. She needed to get out of the mansion, away from… just all of it. John's boxed and empty bedroom, her heated arguments with Storm, the growing divergence between Bobby and Rogue she knew was arising about Kitty, Jean's sudden destructive and evil second personality, and, to top it all off, Xavier's death. Her life was so out of control she wasn't even hanging on by her fingernails anymore. What surprised her most, though, was how calm she was.

Logan passed, heading inward from the front door, and ruffled her hair, interrupting her thoughts for just a moment. Maybe too many things had happened for her to react at all anymore. She wasn't at all shocked to see Rogue had had the same idea as her. Great minds do think alike. She was just standing in the entrance hall.

"Hey," Lexiss said, waving with her keys.

"Hey," she said faintly.

"I'm going out," Lexiss said. "Need a lift?"

Rogue laughed softly. "Logan just asked me the same thing…" She suddenly got serious. "I think you should know, Lex…" Lexiss tilted her head slightly, waiting. "I'm… I'm getting the cure."

Lexiss could feel her face harden. "Why?" was all she asked. Rogue opened her mouth, but Lexiss raised a hand, stopping her. "Nevermind; I think I can guess. But Rogue… if you're doing this for Bobby, I swear I'll-"

"No!" she exclaimed. "No, it's not for Bobby. I'm doing this because I want to," she said.

Lexiss nodded hesitantly. "Alright. I'm the best friend, I'm driving." Rogue didn't argue, just lifted her bag higher.

"OK," she said.

- - - - -

Now, the day after the professor was laid to rest, there was a decision to be made. Would Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters remain open… or, as Mr. McCoy suggested, "Perhaps it's best that it end with him. We'll have to tell the students they're going home."

Lexiss sat up on the cushion next to him. "Mr. McCoy, I don't mean to offend, but you haven't attended this school for a long time." The blue politician bowed his head in respect to what she was saying.

"And besides," Bobby piped up from across the room, "most of us don't have anywhere to go." That reduced the room to silence. "I can't believe this," Bobby went on. "I can't believe we're not gonna fight for this school." Lexiss shot a look at Bobby. "Most of us aren't going to fight…" he corrected.

Suddenly, a tall man appeared in the doorway of the professor's study. He had bright blonde hair, and was dressed in very nice clothes. In his right hand he carried a bulging duffel bag. Lexiss glanced at Storm, and then back at the man.

"I'm sorry, I know this is a bad time," he said. At least he wasn't totally rude, Lexiss decided. "I was told that this was a safe place for mutants." She looked back at Mr. McCoy, eyebrow arched.

"It was, son," he said.

"How can you say that?" Lexiss fairly shouted. The man in the doorway looked close to broken, as if the school had been his last hope. It probably was.

"And it still is," Storm suddenly said. Lexiss looked at her. "We'll find you a room," she added. Bobby's head whipped around at her, and Lexiss swallowed.

"There's only one that's ready," she said robotically. Storm looked at her with such sympathy.

"Hank," she said, not averting her gaze, "tell the students the school stays open." Finally breaking her gaze with Lexiss, she looked to the man. "I can show you the roo-"

"No," Lexiss interrupted, watching the man look back and forth between her and Storm as if watching a tennis match. "I'll do it," she said.

"Lex," Bobby tried to interject.

"No, Bobby," she said, loudly and more forcefully than before. "I have to do this."

Storm nodded after a moment. "Alright."

- - - - -

Lexiss closed the study door firmly behind her, and started leading the man up the stairs. He didn't look that much older than her, perhaps by a few years.

"The room," she began, "is on the third floor, by the teachers and the rest of the faculty. I hope you don't mind." The man was a few steps behind her.

"No, it's fine," he replied. "My name's Warren, by the way," he added. "And you're… Lex?" He was trying to be friendly.

"Lexiss," she corrected. Warren nodded, and then fell silent.

When they got to John's room, she rested a hand on the door handle for just a second before twisting it and pushing into the room.

She stopped, just five steps into the room. Stacked up against the closed closet doors were the three boxes and two Rubbermaid totes she, Rogue, and Bobby had packed. She had thought they had been moved out, put somewhere, but clearly she was wrong.

Warren had set his bag on the bed, and was now carefully watching her. She ran her hand through her hair and started forward. "Um, I'm really sorry about this, I didn't know they were still here," she said quickly, starting forward and grabbing a box off the top.

"Do you want some help?" Warren asked, stepping hesitantly forward.

"No," she replied immediately, using her powers to levitate the other two cardboard boxes. The stab of her headache returning stronger than ever caused her to wince, and made Warren's facial expression change to one of concern.

"Are you su-"

"I'm fine," she replied a little testily. She turned toward the door. "Just… unpack, and welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." Her greeting ended with a strangled, emotional sound.

- - - - -

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The cord thing shouldn't interfere with me putting the chapter up next week, because I ordered it for two-day delivery. So, I'll see you all next week. Until then, please review!