A/N: This is an M-rated chapter and probably the most violent piece I've ever written, so consider yourself alerted.

Again, sorry for the delay. There's one last chapter to go after this, and I'll try to post it in the next two weeks.

Reviews are appreciated!

Chapter 9.

"Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am fire, and life incarnate! Now and forever, I am Phoenix!"

"Jean!"

"I-I… My mind… burning. So many memories… sensations… pain! Inside… tearing me apart! What's… happening to me? What have I done? Scott!"

"Jean! Take it easy, hon. I've got you. You're safe now. The flight's over, we're all back on Earth and you're going to be all right."

"Ughh."

'She's lying so still… barely breathing… almost no pulse! No! Stop thinking like that, mister! Jean will pull through. She's got to!'

Scott felt the pain in his wife's thoughts for just a split second, but it was enough to make him freeze on his spot. 'Jean? Jean, honey, are you alright? Jean? Answer me! Jean? Answer me, damnit!'

His telepathic plea was met with silence. He could no longer sense her mind linked to his and that couldn't be good. Around him, the X-Men were still busy fighting the Marauders' clones and one remaining Sinister. They would need to wrap up the combat without him.

"Rogue, take me to Jean, quickly!" he yelled to his teammate.

The southern belle flew to her field leader and grabbed him by the arms, rapidly bringing him to the next room. They halted before the automatic elevator doors, but Cyclops knew there was no time to wait for the car. Hence, he activated his visor and let one of his optic beams rip the outer doors apart. They could see the car stationed on the underground level just below them, so he turned his power downward and blasted a huge hole onto its roof. Rogue swiftly flew them into the elevator; as they landed on the cabin's floor, a furious snarl came from behind the inner doors, prompting the woman to shudder. If the mutant responsible for that nasty sound was who she thought it was, maybe it was too late for Jean.

Cyclops' hand was already on the side of his visor when Anna Marie stopped him.

"Wait, Cyke! Ya' blast these doors, and they maght hit Jean. Lemme."

Realizing she was right, Scott nodded. "Go," he commanded, his voice urgent.

Rogue shoved her fingers into the small crack where the two metal doors met and pushed them apart. Peeking inside the lab, her eyes were immediately drawn to the bloodied redhead laying half-naked on the floor. Sabretooth was on top of her, claws pulled out.

"Nooo!"

-Sixty seconds before

For all the psychic power Jean possessed, she hadn't seen the blow coming. She had been downloading Sinister's files while telepathically checking on Scott when someone had backhanded her from behind. She had hit her head on the floor, hard, and had momentarily lost her concentration; but she was sure she had been watching Sabretooth closely before all that happened. So how…?

Before the woman could regain her focus and retaliate, her body was yanked upwards; the hairs on the back of her head stood up as a vicious voice whispered next to her ear.

"Who's the fuckin' atom bomb now, frail?"

Creed. It was Creed.

But how?

His right hand encircled her neck from behind and he easily lifted her up in a choke hold, sharp claws deliberately scraping the delicate skin underneath. Jean tried not to panic as she gasped for air. He turned her around, her feet barely reaching the ground, and now that she had a wider view of the room she could finally understand her mistake.

There were two of him. Two Sabretooths, alone in that lab with her. Shit.

The one currently squeezing her was not the same she had been fighting earlier – that one was still recovering, only now being able to stand on his two feet after she had broken so many of his bones. Good. But the new one… the new one still had to be dealt with.

So, even though Jean was dizzy, breathless, and in pain, she tried.

Creed felt a funny sensation in his skull, as if ten thousand ants were biting at his brain at the same time. For a moment, his eyes lost their usual bloodthirst trait, and he couldn't think straight; the grip on the redhead's neck loosened a little, allowing her to finally inhale some oxygen again.

Jean used the opportunity to focus on her telekinesis, forcing Sabretooth's hand open. As soon as he dropped her to the floor, she coughed for air and used whatever mental strength she had left to hurl the feral against the wall in the opposite side of the room, not missing how he growled in pain as his spine cracked. Feeling sore and drained, the telepath knew she had to get back to her team quickly; but first, she needed to assure that her son remained safe.

Standing on shaky legs, Jean staggered towards the computer. Seeing that the archives containing Essex's plans for Nathan had been fully downloaded, she swiftly removed her drive.

"Where d'ya think ya're goin?"

She spun around to see Creed -the first Creed she had fought- lunging claws-first at her with a terrifying roar. Cornered between the feral and the wall, Jean threw in a last minute tk shield. Unfortunately, she was too weak to resist Sabretooth's fierce attacks, and soon enough he managed to tear through her defenses.

With his left hand, he grabbed Jean by the neck again and brought her face to face with him. "Ya and me are gonna have some fun now, bitch," he said. Using the claws on his other hand, he tore the top of her uniform with one move, scratching her flesh and drawing blood on the way. The woman hissed in pain.

Creed stared at her breasts under what was left of her sports bra and licked his canines appreciatively. Suddenly panicked, Jean tried to kick him in the groins, but her movements ended up being clumsy and predictable – she didn't even get close to reach him. He sneered sadistically.

"Ya're such a wildcat, Red… Let's see how good ya fight after this."

He clutched her rib cage just under her left breast, letting his five claws slide into her skin and chest muscles until he felt them piercing her lung. Jean let out a sharp cry of pain, and her eyes welled up with involuntary tears. Still holding her by the neck, Sabretooth removed his fingers from her chest and licked off the blood of each one of his claws, staring her in the eyes while at it. "Ya taste like fear, Red… my favorite flavor."

With a vicious grin, the Marauder threw her across the lab. Jean yelped as her head and back hit the floor. Everything hurt, and it was becoming harder to breathe now. Ignoring the ache coming from her multiple wounds, she turned on her left side and gasped for air… She couldn't think straight anymore, the lack of oxygen rendering her too dizzy. Yet, for a moment, she thought she'd heard Cyclops' eye beams nearby; thus, she made sure to keep her palm closed over the pen drive and dared to hope. But then Creed was on top of her, his claws pulled out.

That was the last thing she saw.

"Nooo!"

Cyclops hadn't even completely stepped out of the elevator when his concussive beam stroke Sabretooth on the chest. The impact pushed the feral off Jean's body and sent him flying across the lab. Rogue went after the Marauder and punched him several times on the face, her fists guaranteeing that he wouldn't be up so soon.

From afar, it seemed that Jean wasn't breathing. Without wasting another second, Scott dashed to his wife, crouching by her side, and quickly checked her vitals. Despite all the blood that she had obviously lost, there was still a steady pulse, thank God for that; but she seemed to be unconscious, and her respiration didn't look right. Her upper body was nearly naked, her pale skin covered in gashes and trails of blood, and there was one particular puncture under her left breast that was bleeding heavily. His own breath caught in his throat as he realized that her lung was damaged.

"Jean!" Cyclops cupped her face and tried to wake her. The woman groaned but didn't open her eyes. He then tried to contact her telepathically but couldn't even sense her psyche. What the hell had that fucker done to his wife?

He pressed the communicator on his belt. "Beast, bring the jet immediately! Jean's hurt!" Then he turned to Rogue. "Take Jean and wait for Hank outside the complex. Tell him that her left lung is punctured, and that I think she has a concussion."

"Shit. Okay," she carefully picked the bloodied redhead in her arms. Both Sabretooths were standing up now, growling menacingly at them while simultaneously cracking their necks. Anna glanced at her field leader with worry. "What about ya', Cyke?"

"I still got business here," Cyclops answered without losing the two ferals from sight. He stood on his feet to face them, jaw clenched and fists balled beside him.

"Where d'ya think ya're takin' her? We ain't done with Red yet," the clone that had been over Jean spoke and licked his lips.

"But I'm done with you, Creed!" Cyclops yelled and fired. One millisecond before, both villains had leaped at him, but the full intensity of the X-Man's optic beam met them mid-air. Scott didn't usually unleash all of his power, but he decided that Sabretooth deserved his wrath. His blast sent them through the wall and into the storage room located contiguously to the lab; as a result, the whole building trembled. Unafraid and unsatisfied, Scott followed them inside.

In the meantime, the rest of the X-Men had arrived in the lab, having defeated their opponents on the ground level. Emma and Gambit were horrified at the sight of Jean and stepped aside to allow Rogue to enter the elevator – or what was left of it. Detecting Sabretooth's scent all over the redhead, Wolverine roared in fury and ran after his nemesis.

However, when Logan passed through the hole in the wall to access the storage room, little had been left of Victor Creed's clones. Cyclops had practically disintegrated all the flesh from their bodies with his concussive beams, his work almost surgical. Wolverine watched as Scott picked an axe from the corner of the room and went for one of the Sabretooths on the floor.

"You… don't get to mess… with my wife… you son of a bitch!" Cyclops said as he chopped off Creed's head. Then he moved to the other copy and did likewise. By the time he was finished, he was covered in blood from head to toe.

Wolverine was impressed, to say the least. In all the years they had worked together, he had never seen Summers acting so savagely. Some part of Apocalypse still lingered in the guy, no doubt about it.

"Ya're good?" Logan queried.

"Fabulous." Scott wiped the sweat off his forehead with his forearm and threw the axe away. "Jean needs help. Let's go."

The rest of the team was already inside the Blackbird by the time they arrived outside. McCoy had rapidly connected Jean to a monitor and a nasal oxygen catheter and was now administering saline and opioids through a vein. Her heart rate was fast, her blood pressure low, and he couldn't auscultate any vesicular murmur coming from her left lung. Plus, there were five claw-size punctures in her chest – one in the front, four in the back. All worrisomely deep.

"How is she?" Cyclops asked as soon as he'd climbed up the hatch. Emma and Logan sat on the cockpit and rapidly started the jet.

"Not well," Beast responded, too busy to glance in his direction. He retrieved a thick needle from the first-aid cabinet, uncapped it, and perforated Jean's upper left thorax. Scott almost jumped on him.

"Are you nuts? What are you doing?"

Hank placed his ear near the needle and listened to the air leaving her thorax. "Saving your wife's life," the doctor replied, seeming relieved. "Jean was suffering from a life-threatening condition known as tension pneumothorax; the treatment to that is to relieve the pleural cavity of the accumulated air. Unfortunately, her pleurae are also filled with blood. She needs a chest drain, not to mention a blood transfusion," he explained. "She's not yet free of-" Hank paused as he glimpsed at his friend and took in his appearance. "That blood…?"

"It's Creed's. He's dead," Cyclops answered without a hint of regret in his voice.

McCoy's eyes widened for a brief second, then he recomposed himself. "Of course, he is." He checked Jean's vital signs again – the breathing and blood pressure seemed to have improved a little. He sighed in relief. Jean was strong. She was going to pull it off.

Meanwhile, Scott was gazing at his wife's bruised body again, and Hank took a moment to watch him. The man was silent now, obviously concerned; nonetheless, his face remained stoic, not letting on how devastated he truly was that the woman he loved was once again at death's door. But Beast and Cyclops had known each other -had been good friends- for a long time; the furry doctor knew that under the cold leader's façade there was a desperate man feeling powerless.

"I could use some help tending to Jean's wounds, Scott."

Cyclops glanced at his blue face, voice steady. "Tell me what to do."

In the cockpit, Wolverine was pushing the Bird as fast as he could and trying to ignore Frost's comments about how a mission lead by Jean Grey couldn't end up well. Rogue stood behind him, having just brought news from the rear of the jet that the redhead was more stable now. She noticed Logan's posture relaxing a little and squeezed his right shoulder to reassure him.

In the meantime, Gambit was talking to Iceman on the phone. Slym didn't want Nathan to see Redd in that state, so he was asking Warren and Bobby to take his son to Angel's mountain chateau in the Rocky Mountains for a few days.

After he was done treating her wounds, Scott covered Jean with a blanket and sat beside her on a bench. He took her right hand in his to let her know that he was there for her; to his surprise, she was gripping something in her palm. He carefully opened her fingers and found out what she had been holding all this time.

It was a pen drive. A fucking pen drive! Oh, Jean!

During the battle against the Sabretooths, Cyclops hadn't even cogitated to search the lab for intel on Sinister's plans for Nate. But Jean had, undoubtedly, and had made sure to secure the info the best she could, with her life if needed. 'Jesus, Jean,' he thought. She was Nathan's mother, in all the aspects that mattered. At that moment, Scott would have fallen for her all over again if she wasn't already the owner of his heart and soul.

After a two-hour flight, Wolverine landed the jet in the School's hangar. Beast and Cyclops quickly transferred the redhead to the infirmary, where Hank could finally provide all the treatment she needed.

Fourteen hours later, Jean began to stir in bed. Her body hurt like hell – all of it, but her chest in special. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

She was surprised to find herself in the mansion's infirmary with a bunch of vials connected to her body, and even more surprised to see that her husband was sitting on a chair next to her, his head resting on his arms on the bed, one of his hands holding hers. He was sleeping, his face turned in her direction.

"Scott," she tried once, her voice weak and throat too dry. He did not wake, so she sought a different approach. 'Scott,' she sent across their psychic rapport.

This time he woke up. 'Jean?' he asked drowsily. Then he came to his senses. 'Jean!' He straightened up on the chair, adjusting his visor. 'How're you feeling, honey?'

She attempted a small smile, but the muscles in her face hurt. 'Honestly? Like I was ran over by a truck.'

'No, not a truck. Sabretooth,' he remembered her.

'Oh. Right,' she replied telepathically, trying to push the bad memories off her mind.

But Scott had sensed her fear. He squeezed her hand. 'Don't worry, Red, he won't come back. I took care of him for good. Both of him.'

'You… killed them?'

He noted the reprobation in her tone. 'They deserved it. Besides, I'm pretty sure they were clones… like Sinister.'

She hesitated. 'Still…'

'Jean, that son of a bitch almost killed you, twice. Plus, Sinister and him would have taken Nathan if they had the chance.'

That reminded her. 'Where's Nate?'

'With Warren and Bobby in the Rocky Mountains. He's safe.'

'Thank God. I don't want him to see me like this,' she sent to her husband. 'By the way, did you get the pen drive?'

Cyclops smiled. 'Yes. Thanks to you.'

'Good. I was afraid I was going to drop it.'

That made Scott let go of her hand and stand up. "Do your lips hurt?" he asked verbally this time.

"No," her voice sounded a bit stronger now. "Why?"

He answered by softly brushing his lips on hers. "I love you, Jean. I mean it."

"I love you too, hon," she smiled despite the pain. "So, what did Sinister want with Nate?"

Cyclops' jaw tensed. "According to the files, Sinister intended to create his own army of next-generation mutants by cloning young Nathan – he figured our son is naïve enough at his current age to be molded according to his will. But before that, Essex planned to get rid of the techno-organic virus in him. Can you imagine how powerful Cable would be if he didn't have to constantly use half of his power to keep the infection at bay?"

"He would be unbeatable," Jean concluded. "Does that mean that Sinister has found a way to cure Nathan?"

"I guess – but the files weren't clear on how. Still, as harsh as it sounds, we shouldn't even contemplate that idea. Cable became the man he is today in part because of the techno-organic virus… because he could never defeat it. We shouldn't meddle with the past, Jean… or the future, in his case. It's not safe."

The redhead skimmed across her husband's thoughts. "You fear that Nate may turn into Stryfer if we do."

Cyclops sighed. "Maybe… I don't know. But I won't risk it. In the future, Redd will teach Nate how to telekinetically control the infection, and we have enough evidence that he will learn to control it. He won't be killed by the virus."

"But it pains him, Scott. His struggle is constant and will be so for the rest of his life. I've seen it closely in his adult self during the time we worked together after Apocalypse took you."

"I know, honey. And I also know that, given the chance, Cable wouldn't want to change his past – not if it meant risking becoming the enemy."

"We could ask him…" the woman suggested but soon reconsidered. "But you're probably right… Nathan won't accept it. Where his well-being is concerned, he's just as stubborn as his dad. Martyrdom seems to run in the Summers' genes."

At her attempt of joke, Cyclops' shoulders tensed up and his face turned angry. "You're one to talk, Jean! I know what you did in New Mexico and I didn't like it one bit. You lied to me about not sensing Sabretooth in the lab, and there were two of them in the end! That recklessly almost cost your life, damnit!"

Startled, Jean studied the change in her husband's demeanor for a moment. He had turned from caring and logical to furious and bossy in a matter of minutes. She recognized, however, that his current outburst was only because he had felt impotent as he feared for her life, and not because Apocalypse's shadow hung deep in his soul… at least not this time.

Going into that lab to face Creed alone had seemed like the best course of action at the time; but now, the redhead felt guilty. She hadn't wanted to make Scott suffer.

"I could only sense one of him, Scott, and I had him on my sight the whole time. I swear," she tried to explain her actions. "We needed to get those files, and you know that your optic beams are one of the few things that can hurt Essex. We couldn't afford to have you facing Sabretooth while there were so many Sinister's clones to defeat."

"That was not the plan we had agreed upon, Jean. Do not disobey me again or…"

Cyclops' voice cracked and he looked away. The redhead could bet that, behind the tinted visor, his eyes were moist. Through their rapport, she could sense all the dread he had felt at seeing her bloodied, moribund frame under Creed's body, and also the relief he was experiencing now that she was finally awake.

She squeezed his hand. "I won't. Not in the field. I promise."

"Good." He sat beside her again and brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. "I'm so glad you're alive, love."

Jean understood him. Unlike past occasions, there wouldn't have been any cosmic entities to resurrect her this time if Sabretooth had killed her.

"Me too, Scott. Me too."