Chapter 37
On the second day of testimony, the prosecution changed tactics a bit. Rather than calling yet another soldier with yet another plausible, consistent story of legal arrest, maliciously planned ambush, and dead comrades, they brought up a gray-haired woman in a neat skirt and blouse who identified herself as Colleen Maher, who until her retirement three years ago was a children's advocate for the foster system of the state of Pennsylvania.
At her name, Scott recoiled visibly and tossed his head as if he were rolling his eyes under the clean off-white blindfold. Betsy snorted a bit in response. I believe he just said 'Oh, you're kidding me!', she relayed to Kurt.
"Please describe your relationship to the defendant," Prosecutor Braddock requested.
"I was Scott's case worker when he was a ward of the state."
"Objection!" interjected Royal. "My client has not been a ward of the state for over ten years. This witness's testimony can have no bearing on this case."
"Establishing character, your honor. As nearly every one of the defendant's associates is in hiding, we've had to go back a little farther than we would have liked to."
"Overruled. Continue, Mrs. Braddock."
"Mrs. Maher, can you tell us your impression of the defendant from when you were working with him?"
"Scott was . . . quite the puzzle. Of course, the tragic deaths of his parents would have shaken any child, especially one so young. Scott seemed to be handling it remarkably well. He was anxious to be placed in long-term foster care, and he seemed to be such a polite, well-behaved kid that it was easy enough to find him a place. He seemed to be thriving with his first set of foster parents . . . for six months, we heard only good reports from them. Then I got a call one morning. It seemed he'd smashed a hole in the ceiling of his bedroom. He was panicked and confused, and his foster parents were absolutely at a loss to explain why he'd done it or even how he'd managed it. Six weeks later, he destroyed a cabinet in his school classroom. Four weeks after that, it was the family's car. He kept claiming that he hadn't done anything, and he was so panicked and upset that it was hard not to believe him. Eventually, his foster parents asked that he be placed in a different home. He was rejected from another four foster homes over the next six months. The destructive episodes became increasingly frequent. Finally, he refused to open his eyes at all and was referred to a clinical psychologist, who diagnosed him with a dissociative disorder."
"Could you clarify for the court what you mean when you say 'dissociative disorder'?"
"Of course. I mean that the trauma of losing his parents forced his mind to create a coping mechanism in which he would periodically disassociate from himself, express his subconscious anger in random destruction, and then not be able to remember anything that he'd done."
"And does that diagnosis remain on record?"
"It does. Persons with dissociative disorder can be episode-free for years at a time, but it's extremely problematic to pronounce such a disorder 'cured.' The mind's much too complex for that."
"What sorts of things would trigger these episodes?"
"They're generally set off by some kind of unusual stress."
"Such as being arrested by an armed task force?"
"Certainly."
"Mr. Royal, your witness."
Kurt hissed his displeasure. "Scott's not crazy!"
I KNOW. Now for the last time, will you kindly keep your indignant commentary to yourself? Betsy snapped at him.
Royal stood up, leaning on the table for a moment as though he needed a few breaths to think of what he was going to say. Then he headed out to the open floor in front of the witness box, paced a lap with his hands in his pockets, and asked, "Mrs. Maher, when was the last time you spoke with my client?"
"I believe he was about thirteen."
"How was he doing then?"
"He seemed to be doing much better. By that point he'd been placed in the custody of Charles Xavier."
"How long had it been since he'd experienced one of these 'dissociative episodes,' as you call them?"
"As far as he or his guardian ever told me, the episodes stopped once he moved to Bayville."
"At the time you were working with Scott, were you aware of the existence of an X-gene, or the possibility that genetically advanced persons might possess superhuman abilities?"
"I thought such things were purely science fiction."
"So you didn't consider the possibility that these episodes might have been happening because Scott's eyes had involuntarily decided to fire a destructive energy beam out of his face."
"How could I have considered any such thing?"
"Well, the possibility was out there. Both Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggart had already published papers on the topic of superhuman abilities through genetic mutation."
"I'm a social worker, not a geneticist. I had no reason to know about any such research."
"And so lacking any X-gene-related explanation for the destructive episodes that kept happening around this little boy, you concluded that he must be acting out violently and forgetting about it?"
"That was the only reasonable conclusion to draw."
"Mrs. Maher, has Scott ever been re-evaluated since his move to the Xavier Institute?"
"Not by our department."
"In light of the now-established fact that my client is X-gene positive, and the nature of his powers, is it possible that he was misdiagnosed?"
"I really couldn't say. It would take a clinical psychologist to make that kind of call."
"Would the knowledge of my client's genetic powers have made a difference in how you handled his case?"
"Objection! Asking for speculation on the part of the witness."
"Sustained."
"Beg your pardon, Your Honor. Let me rephrase. Mrs. Maher, if you were now to receive into your custody a child in a similar situation to Scott's . . . who seemed to be inflicting damage without motivation or memory, beyond what a normal child should have been able to accomplish empty-handed . . . what course of action would you recommend, in your professional opinion?"
"It's hard to make such a call from hypotheticals."
"Give us your best educated guess."
"Well, courses of action could range from therapy to medications to institutionalization, but if the behavior were characterized by evidence of something beyond a normal child's ability, the best choice would probably be to send the child to the Xavier Institute. Scott seems to have done well there, as have a number of other children who've been referred there by various states."
"I see. Thank you very much. No further questions, Your Honor."
"That was low," Scott observed when he heard Royal sit down next to him.
"Can't blame them. You're on the books as a nut job. Hard to pass up that kind of opportunity. Hopefully I undercut that, but it's hard to tell." He felt Royal's hand squeeze his shoulder reassuringly. "Hang in there. We'll get our turn."
Life on Avalon had been branching out into all the comfortable facets of normalness. Evenings had found some people curled up with books in the public room that had been labeled 'Library: Sit Down and Shut Up,' while on the floor below the more rambunctious mutants assembled around the game console that one enterprising soul had thought to bring with her and indulged in tournaments. The gym alternated between 'Basketball night' and 'Soccer night.' A few people of varying ages had started a chess club; another group were putting together a (for lack of a better term) 'garage' band. One kid was even offering nightly lessons on, of all peculiar skills, contact juggling (telekinetics only allowed if they promised not to cheat).
Scott's trial brought nearly all of it to a screeching halt.
Instead of books or games, sports or hobbies, everyone found floor space in the largest of the conference rooms and watched the news projected on the wall.
"Shocking developments today in the trial of Scott Summers. Colleen Maher, former children's advocate for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Summers was diagnosed with dissociative disorder when he was eleven years old."
Gambit was sitting in the corridor outside, listening to the broadcast through the open door and shuffling and re-shuffling his cards. It was a fresh deck; he'd 'picked up' a few new packs on the most recent supply run (the wholesale burglary of a Wal-Mart distribution warehouse in San Francisco). Fifty-two explosives tucked into one little pocket. The better to blow into little shreds the silver-tongued liars claiming that Scott Summers was a nutcase. Honestly. Scott was so sane it was downright annoying.
Brrrrrrrrrrrt, went the cards as they flickered through his fingers. It was a purring, self-satisfied sound. Brrrrrrrrt. Like they knew all the destruction they could cause. Like they were impatient to get out there and make some trouble.
He sorted through the cards, pulled out the queen of hearts and the ace of spades, spun them through his fingers, shuffled them back in. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrt. Like a dangerous animal growling in its sleep.
Rogue was afraid of him.
"The prosecutor is grasping at straws here," said a voice on the news that Gambit had already come to recognize as the head of Scott's defense team. "This was a misdiagnosis of Mr. Summers that was made long before anyone involved had any idea of the existence of the X-gene or what it could do. No one who sits down and talks to this young man can have any doubts that he is as sane as the rest of us."
Another day of waiting come and gone. He still didn't know what he was going to do.
The only English news channel that the hotel got was the BBC. Logan, Jean, and Laura all sat in the girls' room to watch the broadcast.
"In the United States, the trial of American mutant Scott Summers is complicated by testimony alleging that he has been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, causing periods of destructive behavior followed by memory loss. They allege that a dissociative episode may account for his attacking members of the New York National Guard and US Marines that were sent to arrest him earlier this month for failure to register his abilities. Defense counsel insists that this is a misdiagnosis, made before the X-gene and its implications were properly understood."
"Explain 'dissociative disorder'," Laura ordered the room in general, not removing her eyes from the screen.
"You ever go berserk when you were cornered?" Logan asked.
"Yes," said Laura, as though this were completely normal.
"That, plus blackouts."
"Convenient."
"Yeah, no kidding. Load of crap, though. Scott barely even knows how to lose his temper."
Jean watched the recycled news footage of the man who was technically still her boyfriend being led out of the courtroom by his lawyer's hand on his shoulder. The neat white blindfold across his eyes gave him a tragic, almost prophetic look, but he stood up straight and walked confidently, despite not being able to see where he was going.
Be brave, Scott. Not for me. Just be brave because you are a brave man, and because lots of good people are counting on you. I know you can do that.
The coverage of Scott's case only lasted a couple of minutes, but they kept watching anyway, all too lost in their own thoughts to bother changing the channel. When the news ended, and an old episode of Blackadder came on, Jean turned to Laura and found her asleep on the coverlet.
"She's out already?" Logan asked, incredulous. "It's not even nine."
"I'm glad," said Jean. "Sleep does a lot for healing, both physically and psychologically. If she's sleeping more, it's a sign that her energy is being used for something."
"Let's hope." Logan leaned over and touched Laura's shoulder. When he got no response, he eased one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Get the blanket, would ya?"
Jean, still wary of getting too close to Laura while she was asleep, pulled back the blankets telekinetically and let Logan pull them back into place once he'd set Laura down with her head on a pillow.
"Come on," he told her, smiling a bit. "Let's take a walk."
The hotel was in the middle of a shopping district that was almost like a kind of outdoor mall. The streets were wide and paved with pretty, slightly irregular rockwork, and planters filled with yet more decorative cabbages divided the lanes of foot traffic. Though it was already quite dark and undeniably chilly, the stores and streets were brightly lit, and a vibrant but not too dense crowd of Korean students and young adults wandered freely, chattering in their lilting, bubbling language. Incomprehensible pop music spilled out of various stores, and girls in parkas and extremely tall platform boots danced casually to it while handing out coupons or samples of expensive lotion. Since they'd landed in Seoul, Jean hadn't even bothered to leave the hotel, and the color and noise out here were a bright, delightful contrast to the demure professionalism inside.
She hadn't even bothered to leave the hotel. She was in Seoul, in Asia, on the other side of the world from everything she'd ever known, and she hadn't even troubled herself to go outside. How ridiculous. But when was the last time she'd troubled herself to explore outside of Bayville, either?
Logan wrapped his hand around hers and let his thumb brush across her knuckles, enjoying the contrast of his skin's roughness against her smoothness. She grinned, and let her head loll gently onto his shoulder. Though they were surrounded by people, no one was bothering much about them beyond an occasional admiring glance at Jean's exotic red hair. There was a sense of privacy between the two of them, hiding in the anonymous crowd.
"You know you're giving all this up," Logan told her.
She lifted her head to look at him. "Giving up all what? Walking?"
"All this." He indicated the seemingly endless array of stores hawking clothing, cosmetics, music, and fast food. "Middle-class respectability."
Jean considered. "So you're worried that, even though I've decided to give up my home, my family, my best friend, and my job . . . for lack of a better word for what we do . . . I might decide that loving you is not as important to me as a new pair of designer jeans?" She eyed a pair of jeans a mannequin was displaying. "Particularly jeans six inches too short for me?"
He chuckled. "Just sayin'. When I'm not at the house, my life gets pretty rough-and-tumble. You're used to havin' a warm bed every night, and money to spend, but that ain't always how it is out there. Just ask Rogue."
"I don't want to ask Rogue," said Jean. "I want Rogue to have to ask me." The fierceness in her voice surprised even her. Evidently that streak of jealousy over Logan and Rogue's bond was still there.
Logan heard it, and squeezed her hand, discreetly reassuring her. "I just want you to know you can still back out, if you want."
"And you'd be fine with that."
"Well, I didn't say 'fine'."
She laughed, and was delighted to see that subtle, in-joke smile tease across his face.
"If I go with you, will I get to use my powers to help people?" Jean asked, though she already knew the answer.
"You'd do that anyway. The trick's getting you to stop."
"Will I be learning?"
He didn't bother to answer that one; he just chuckled, seeing where she was going with this.
"Will I be with someone who loves me?"
"You know the answer to that."
She stopped walking, pulling him to as stop, too. "Then why in the world would I want to go back to the Institute? Everything I really care about is here."
His deep brown eyes searched hers, looking for hesitation or uncertainty, but finding none. "Yeah," he said at last. "I know what you mean."
She let her attention wander back to the shop window. "And you know," she added conversationally, "if ever I get this horrible craving where I just have to have a new pair of jeans right now, I can always call Gambit. I'd bet he'd be up for treating me to a late-night mall crawl."
Logan laughed, and pulled her off-balance just for the fun of it, and hand in hand they wandered through the streets of Seoul.
He kissed her that night, after the streets were dark and quiet, and Jean had started yawning. In the shadow of their hotel, away from the glaring lights of the lobby doors, he kissed her, able to wait but not wanting to . . . not when she was glowing with laughter and hope and excitement, not when the whole world lay in front of them.
Some part of him, the part that still remembered all too vividly the little girl in ponytails that she used to be, was afraid of frightening her by moving too fast. That part of him was astonished at the ardor with which she kissed him back. This was no little girl, no teenager—she was an adult woman, every inch, and her mouth and her scent told him that frightening her was now something he'd find very difficult to do. Hell, in another second she was going to start scaring him.
For nearly a year he'd been driving himself half crazy with the desire to touch her like this. Worth every second.
They stopped by silent mutual consent when they were both out of breath. They wouldn't go any farther . . . not now, when everything was so uncertain, when Scott still didn't know. It was all right. They had all the time in the world.
He was happy. He knew he shouldn't be. Unqualified happiness made him nervous; it brought with it the looming dread that there would be a bitter price to pay for it later on. But it was so hard to think about consequences with Jean Gray in his arms, laughing a little with every breath. Consequences could be tomorrow's problem. So could worry. So could guilt.
"I love you," he admitted, and just like the first time he'd said it, the words hurt . . . only then it had been the pain of loss, and now it was something else entirely. A good hurt.
"Tell me that every day."
"You got it, darlin'."