(A/N) okay guys I'm sorta filching on my 5 review rule…but just this once! Since technically I've only received 4 reviews for this chapter, I also received a pm so I'm counting it as a review. But, come on guy's just one word would do it, really! Although if you want to do a full out, blow by blow review I cheer you on!
(Disclaimer) Really? You really think I own any of this?
Chapter 8
"Jean Grey was the only Class Five mutant I've ever encountered," Xavier told the trio a day later, back in the mansion's infirmary. "Her potential was practically limitless."
She lay on the examining table. Her body was dotted all over with direct sensors, surrounded by the information panels of their remote scanning counterparts. They projected on a phalanx of nearby flat-panel displays. Her vitals were totally nominal, and had been since they found her, wholly consistent with her last physical, not long before her death.
Scott could be seen through a two-way mirror on the opposite side of the room. The decision had been made to separate them in the hopes that the distance would perhaps loosen Jeans hold on Scott's mind. After half a day in isolation, he was still in a coma.
"Her mutation was seated in her limbic system," Xavier continued, taking refuge from his own deep feelings by adopting his most professorial tone, "the unconscious part of her mind. And therein lay the danger."
Logan snorted, gaining him a sharp look from both Xavier, seated in his wheelchair at Jean's head, and Ororo, flanking him opposite Logan. Kai didn't respond, she just stared at Jean from her seat on the desk next to Logan.
Logan didn't bother explaining aloud; it wasn't his way. He was still trying to figure things out himself. Out loud, he said: "I thought you were treating her," and got another warning glare from Ororo about his tone. He didn't much care.
"I tried…"
An unbidden image came to Logan's mind mixing moments from the mission that led to Jean's death – Magneto's quiet, constant jibes about Xavier's failure to treat the mutant son of William Stryker, Xavier's own very real regret, and worst of all, the very real consequences that arose from that failure. Jason had been made by his father into a weapon; their attempt to stop the use of that weapon had lead to Jean's death.
If Xavier sensed Logan's thoughts this time, he gave no sign as he laid his hands gently on Jean's head and closed his eyes. The monitors flickered; charting his progress ad he resumed treating her.
Logan paid him no attention. His concentration was locked on Jean's face, as if his own senses could tell him what Xavier's telepathy and devices could not.
"I created a series of psychic barriers, many years ago," Xavier said, "to separate her powers from her conscious mind, until such time as she could integrate the two properly and safely. However, in doing so, she developed a split personality . . ."
This was news to Logan and, by the look on her face, to Ororo, too. Logan glanced over at the unknown woman beside him to try and glimpse her reaction, but all he could see was her long hair winging her face as she fiddled with one of her throwing knives. He had a hunch that she had known about Jean for a while. After all, how else could she have known what Jean was capable of doing to her own fiancée? For Ororo and Logan, though, neither of them took in this new information well.
Logan spoke for them both. "What?" he demanded.
"The conscious Jean, whose powers were always under control, and that dormant side, a personality that, in our sessions, came to call itself The Phoenix. A purely instinctual creature, all desire, and joy and . . . rage."
He checked the monitors, made some notes.
Logan had grown ominously still and quiet, in a way that would clear even the most roughhouse saloons the world over.
Then, "Jean knew about this?"
xXx
Kai watched Xavier shake his head, so engrossed in his work that he missed the cues and warnings this feral was radiating. Even she, who had just met the man, could pick up on his cues. She shifted her stance just a little. But knew her options were limited. This part of the infirmary was already much too crowded with the four mutants and the unconscious Jean, and she didn't want to be the reason The Phoenix awoke if someone jarred her. She quickly calculated that the only way to get him down and to stay down would be to either punch a few quick jabs to some of his pressure points or to psychic blast him like she did Jean, but she didn't know if she could do the last one because of the power she expended into the blasts she hit Jean with.
Shit
Ororo could sense the tension coming off of Logan from a mile away. It was like the surge of electricity that charged the air right before a massive thunder storm. She knew that Logan was a creature of primal passions who fought to keep them in check with his own rigorous code of honor. Now, with Jean, both elements were in play – his feelings for Jean combined with the growing outrage at Xavier's revelations. It was a deadly mix, more volatile that matches and gasoline.
"It's unclear precisely how much she remembered," Charles told them. "The more pressing issue is that I'm not sure whether the woman we see in front of us is the Jean Grey we know, or the phoenix, violently struggling to be free."
Logan took a step closer, and Kai tensed.
"She looks pretty peaceful to me Chuck."
"That is because, I, with the help of Kai, am keeping her that way," Xavier replied with a nod to the woman across from him, not rising to the bait. Kai just kept her face to the ground, her body tense to strike if the circumstances allowed. Though, for all the attention he paid them, despite their ongoing conversation, it was as if Logan, Ororo and Kai weren't even there. "I'm trying to restore those psychic blacks and reenergize them, and cage the beast again."
Logan's nostrils flared, and this time Xavier seemed to react to the sub vocalized grown that issued from deep in the other man's throat.
"What did you just say?" Logan demanded.
"Logan, try to understand – "
"We're talking about a person's mind here, Charles, about Jean! We could be talking about her goddamn soul! How could you do this to her?"
She has to be controlled. She isn't safe."
"'Controlled,' Professor, controlled?! You know, sometimes, when you 'cage the beast' the beast gets angry."
"You have no idea what she's capable of."
"No, Professor, "Logan spat with finality, and he made Xavier's title sound like the most profane of epithets. "I had no idea what you were capable of."
After this last comment, Logan knew that, had Xavier still possessed the use of his legs, the professor would be right up in his face, probably challenging him to do his worst. Logan never denied the man had balls, but this was the first he'd ever considered that Charles Xavier might be lacking something essential in the way of a heart.
Damn it, Logan," Xavier flared, "I want her back as much as you do!?
Logan shook his head: "Not even close."
xXx
Xavier couldn't stand Logan's glare for more than a few seconds. It wasn't that he lacked the strength, but – being a more intensely private man than even Logan – Charles couldn't bear to reveal to them the depths of his own pain. Or the concern that walked with it hand in hand, growing with each and every step into a very real and present fear. The only person he could even remotely open up to was the woman sitting cross-legged on the desk across from him. And as he looked at her, she raised her head and molten copper eyes flickered to his cobalt blues with a modicum of understanding. For, she too knew what the Phoenix was capable of. After all she had seen the creature in front of her kill them all.
xXx
Xavier turned his back on the trio and motored his chair towards the door, pausing at last to tell them, "I had a terrible choice to make, Logan. I chose the lesser of two evils."
And as Charles and Ororo left the infirmary, Charles knew Logan wouldn't – couldn't– let him go without saying something. "Sounds to me like Jean had no choice at all."
Logan looked away from the departing form of Xavier, briefly to Ororo, and then once more rested his eyes on Jean. He had a hunter's patience. He'd wait as long as he had to.
And after that . . .
. . . after that . . .
More gently than Xavier's touch, he stroked his rough palm from the crown of Jean's head back across her hair, and breathed in the scent of her. Not a lot of great things happened in his life, but he knew with certainty, this woman was one of them. Likely the best of them.
He repeated to himself what he's sworn the moment they met, what he'd failed to do at Alkali Lake.
I'll save you, Jean, he promised silently. Whatever the cost.
He looked up to meet Kai's gaze, still sitting on the desk, and a look of wrenching sadness and understanding crossed over her face. She understood what it was like to lose someone you loved. Then suddenly her look changed to one of steely eyed determination right before Logan's eyes. She briefly nodded to Logan as if agreeing with his sentiments to save Jean whatever the cost, before jumping off the desk and following the Professor down the hall.
I'll save you!
xXx
Kai couldn't stand to be in the room anymore. Out of all the places in the entire institute, that room was the place with the best and the worst memories. Sighing she took her leave of Logan and an unconscious Jean and walked the opposite way of the professor and Storm. Walking past the cold steel walls aimlessly, Kai couldn't help but relieve some of the memories of this place that she hadn't stepped foot in, in over seven years. Tears springing to her eyes, she remembered the first time she'd even been to the infirmary; the first time she'd met him.
Flashback 16 years ago…
In an angry huff, an eleven year old Kai burst out of the Headmaster's office. Roughly, she brushed past student left and right, sparking many exclamations and retorts.
Who does he think he is telling me what I can and can't do?! I have freakin' free will damn it! I can shift whenever and wherever I want! She thought angrily to herself.
Hell! That's why I was sent here in the first place!
The shifter had been here for about a month when one of her teachers had noticed that every new day she came to class she would have a new scratch or two marring her tan skin. Worried that she might be harming herself the teacher had told the Professor. Of course with just one look into her mind the telepath had seen that she was just getting the scratches from running in the forests surrounding the school. However he also saw that she had been skipping classes to do the shift, spending more and more time to roam the grounds in one of her animal forms, be it wolf or falcon or any number that she could think of. She had even tried fish form for a day, just to see if she could. She'd never tried being an amphibian before, and she found it very liberating. But, even so, the professor demanded that she layoff the shifting for the time being, to get 'adjusted' to this new life.
"Bullshit" she muttered angrily to herself.
The angry shifter got about three steps past the elevator to the lower levels before she got her brilliant idea. A small smirk crossed her face: the infirmary was always overstocked, she had seen that when she was down there for her physical. So, she could easily sneak down there and filch some supplies. That way she could treat her scrapes and no one would be the wiser.
Still smirking at her brilliant plan she pressed the 'down' button for the elevator and quickly swerved away to look somewhere else so as not to attract attention. Students weren't supposed to go down to the basement without a note from Xavier or one of the teachers and the young doctor Moira MacTaggart had a habit of catching students who were wandering, probably with a little help from a psychic 'birdie'.
The dark oak doors pinged open as the elevator arrived. Calmly looking left and right down the semi-deserted hallway, most of the students she saw were already in their next class waiting for their teachers to start of their lessons. Satisfied that no one was paying attention to her silent rebellion, she slipped into the elevator before it pinged closed.
xXx
The basement of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters was a far cry from any basement Kai could ever say she'd seen. Once the elevator doors opened, she stepped out of the world of mahogany and oak and into a world of technology and chrome. Pleased with herself for getting this far in the house of a psychic, Kai walked briskly down the hallway to the one unlocked room of this maze. With a quick turn of the knob, she opened the door at the end of the hall. Using her enhanced hearing, she'd surmised when she got off the elevator that Dr. MacTaggart was somewhere else on the grounds at the moment, thankfully. Emboldened by her daring she thrust the glass double doors wide open and walked into the infirmary as if she'd owned the place. Humming slightly she leisurely perused the glass cabinets lining the walls.
So absorbed in her search, she didn't even hear the footsteps behind her. She did, however, feel the hand that grasped her right shoulder. Purely out of animal instinct she grabbed the hand with her own and with her other she grabbed the mysterious upper arm and using her assailant's weight against him, she flipped him over causing him to crash into the three trash bins that lined the wall. And it was indeed a 'him', she had seen that when she flipped him.
"Oh my god, I am so sorry" she said in a rush. Kneeling down next to the boy she helped him to sit up. He looked to be about her age with dark brown hair and slightly foreign looking features. When he opened his eyes to meet hers she saw that they were a very light color blue. Rubbing his head he looked he looked incredulously at her,
"Jeez, what'd I ever do to you?" he asked in a slight Scottish accent.
Kai shook her head, not knowing what to say, "I'm so sorry. When you grabbed me. . . I just moved." His incredulous look slowly turned to one of amazement as he fully realized that he had just been flying through the air.
Well, whatever you did. . . It was bloody brilliant! Can you teach me?!"
Kai stared hard at him for a second, as if contemplating his sanity before cracking a grin and nodding her assent. Both laughing, they got up and brushed themselves off. The boy stuck out his hand to shake,
"Daniel."
And Kai took it,
"Kai."
xXx
Back in the present, Kai smiled to herself, remembering these things. They had gone on to talk about themselves, their pasts, their abilities' . . . everything, for hours holed up in one of the many rooms of the basement. Over the next few weeks Daniel and Kai quickly became best friends and years later, lovers.
Her hands slightly skimming the walls as she moved by, they hadn't been this high tech sixteen years ago. A technopath she and Daniel had gone to school with, by the name of Forge, redid the entire underground years ago, right before she left. There hadn't been a cerebro or Danger Room or any of the high tech things down there then. Passing by said Danger Room, Kai stopped. A small mischievous grin alighted to her face. Calmly she looked to left and right of the doorway, then walked through as they opened with a whoosh
(A/N) okay guys, sorry that I added more to this chapter a little late. I also changed some info in chapter 8. Before, I had it that Kai's clothes shifted along with her body but the more I thought of it the more ridiculous it sounded. So, she be goin' nakey!!
Besides that'll add to the sexual tension later on. Hee hee hee.
Also! I already have the next chapter typed up so if I get 5 reviews I will post it be it today tomorrow or in a month. I just want five freakin' reviews. Also I'm changing the rating to M for mature language and scenes coming up (not sex). Sorry, no sex scenes as of yet, they'll come in the sequel. And yes, there is a sequel. And no don't ask me about it, we're still in the beginning of X3 here, we've got a ways to go!
-R
