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Memories yet to be; Jean and young Scott
Topic Started: Apr 24 2015, 11:37 PM (175 Views)
Jean
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
March 14, at night

So, to sum up, in the past two days, Scott had traveled forward in time, fought with his adult self, learned he had become something he didn't currently believe possible, met his adult brother and his baby nephew, learned he would have a daughter... and most importantly, learned that somehow, some way... he had won Jean's heart... that she not only decided that she felt the same way about him that he had since the minute he saw her, but that she felt it enough to actually agree... to actually want to marry him.

That was an awful lot for a seventeen year old boy to learn in around 48 hours, give or take. So, he did, what he didn't know that many would do after him, he sought out some quiet time in the one place in the school where there wouldn't be a ton of people. The roof. Climbing out through the attic window, the way he and Warren had done so many times before, he sat on the roof, pointy knees draw up to skinny chest, so he could rest his chin on them, and star out at the red tinted quiet. He could hear talking and laughing coming from the windows beneath his perch, and he could see a pair of figures jogging along the gently lit path that cut across the grounds, though they were people he didn't know.

It was calm, and it was... peaceful.

“Quiet is one word to describe it,” Jean agreed. “But your thoughts aren’t quiet; I heard them buzzing all the way through the building.” She’d flown up from the other side of the building and hovered soundlessly a little behind young Scott, her legs folded in a lotus position. “For obvious reasons your and my Scott’s thoughts are hard to tell apart at first glance. But of course,” she continued settling down beside him, “I cause easily tell that your older self wasn’t up here trying to hide from everything. So, you got me there, I snooped a bit. But after listening to your thoughts, I just couldn’t let you brood up here on your own.”

“So, what’s sent you all the way up here? Uhmm.”

The voice behind him made Scott unfold like a jumping jack. He recognized the voice, of course, even with the slightly lower register that marked which Jean was speaking to him. He pressed his hand to the side of his head, careful, as always not to dislodge his glasses, and he said, "I’m... I'm sorry. I don't know how to think quieter."

He risked a glance at the beautiful woman beside him, seeking the girl inside her. If there were subtle lines of age, or a little thickening of the features, he didn't see any of it. He saw... the woman the girl would grow up to be, and his heart beat quicker just knowing that Jean was going to be ok, that she was going to survive, and that she was going to find what she had always wanted. Control. Peace. Happiness.

"I guess the kids don't come up here much anymore," Scott said, "Let me guess. My adult self making it a forbidden zone? He seems to like rules even more than me... than when he was me."

Jean chuckled low in her throat at the young man’s comparison to his older self. “Yes, he does frown on the kids coming up here. Don’t be too hard on him, what people forget about the guy in charge,” she said, leaning back crossing her arms behind her head, “is that he feels everything is on his shoulders, when something goes wrong, when someone gets hurt by… oh… accidentally falling off the roof, he feels responsible that he didn’t prevent it. Someone getting hurt on his watch is something he takes personally. Rules are there to keep people safe, not to them in line,” she said, hoping young Scott grasped the difference. “That’s something that people who don’t sit in the Big Chair forget.”

Scott smiled, slightly, and said, "Yeah, ok, I get that. I mean, that's kind of why the Professor put me in charge of the field team in the first place right? Because of how... responsible, I am..." He shrugged, "It's just not... it's not a lot of fun, and I guess I sort of hoped that when I got old things would be better, so that I could have fun again. I mean, I don't know what he's told you about everything, I guess you know like every bit of his... my... our life, but I didn't used to be like this, you know. When I was a kid, before everything... I was... better. Happy. I guess, right now, at this age, I sort of thought I would have grown out of being... 'Sourpuss Slim' like Jonny calls me sometimes."

He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed and said, "He still call me that? I haven't seen him yet."

“Only as a joke,” Jean replied with a chuckle and poked Scott’s side, right where he was the most ticklish. “You do have a happy life. You didn’t have an easy time back then because you didn’t know who you were, you were still settling into your skin and you weren’t confident yet. That’s the key. Confidence. Not just in your abilities, to aim your blasts at all the targets or being able to make your opponents hit the dirt, but confidence in yourself… as a worthwhile person. That’s what you gained in those years.”

"Is that why..." Flinching away from the poke with a slight smile, Scott began, and the question he was going to ask was all too obvious, but then he stopped and was quiet for a moment. "No," he said, "no, I'm not going to ask you what happened to make us... what I did to get you to... I don't want to know because I'm... " His stammering words stuttered to a halt and the warmth of his cheeks told him he was probably as red as his powers right now. "If I know how he made you love him, even if the Professor wipes our minds, I might, in some deep down part, remember and try so hard to recreate it that I would drive you... her... away..."

“Hmm… we did say no divulging secrets, didn’t we?” Jean pondered, one who secretly always looked for ways to bend the rules. She looked up at the sky night, remembering an night, years ago, under the night’s sky when she and Scott were surrounded by dinosaurs and thought they would never see Earth or their friends again, and Scott finally spilled the secret he’d held close in his chest for so long. “But I really don’t think you have much to worry about because what you did to win me over was… be yourself. And that’s pretty much inevitable, don’t you think?”

"I don't know, actually," Scott smiled, a little, and he wondered briefly why he could smile so much easier with the adult version of the girl he loved so much than he could with the teenage version. "It seems to me that the guy I grow up to be is sooooo far from who I thought I was that maybe being myself is the wrong tactic. I mean, I am myself and sixteen year old you doesn't look twice at me... in fact, I think I pretty much annoy the shi... heck out of her."

Jean laughed and sat up to look Scott in the eyes, or close to it. She leaned toward Scott. “She… I … liked Warren because he talked and had a certain teenage suave charm.” She propped her chin in the palm of her hand and regarded Scott. “Has that ever occurred to you as somewhat shallow? I can say it because I’m me… her; sixteen year old me is just that, Scott, sixteen and pretty shallow, drawn to shallow fun and music… parties… dancing, Scott, not able to look past the surface to something better underneath, a buried treasure. Luckily for me, you forgave the blind stupidity of my youth.”

She leaned towards him as if confiding a secret and Scott closed his eyes behind his glasses, reflexively. He wasn't use to such close scrutiny, and he wasn't comfortable with her being so close because of the uncontrolled nature of his powers. She made him so nervous, being pretty, and just... wow... and he was absolutely terrified that he would do or say something stupid, and his glasses would fall off or he would knock them of or... or.. God, something was going to go wrong, wasn't it?

He opened his eyes, and leaned away, just a little bit, looking back over the yard, trying to seem like it was just a casual thing. "You saying that it's lucky for you to have me just sounds... so unbelievable." He sat in silence for a moment, gazing at the school grounds. The jogging couple was gone now, and the unmistakable sounds of a video game contest came from the rooms below them.

"When I first was... found by the Professor, I thought that for sure none of this was going to last," Scott admitted, "Not just my time at the school, though I was pretty surprised he didn't kick me out when he realized how much of a pain I am. I mean the school itself. It seemed so... impossible to think that there would be a safe place for us. I'm not stupid though... something pretty bad happened here, maybe more than one time. There's scars on the tree trunks where they were broken, and the school looks almost like the one I remember, but it was clearly rebuilt a couple years ago. Nothing in here has more than two years of wear or so. So, I am pretty sure a big thing happened."

He looked back at her and said, "And, it was a bad thing, wasn't it? Because if it was a good thing, you all would have said, 'we rebuilt because we got so full of students, yay us,' instead of making sure we only saw the stuff that would make us happy. The hangar, Cerebro... the medlab..."

“You’re right,” she agreed, “It hasn’t been all rainbows and puppies. People have come. People have gone. People have died here. But all in all, the good has vastly outweighed the bad. The people who destroyed this place years ago wanted to kill us all and wipe us off the map. But we came back stronger, we rebuilt, we buried the bad past and remember the good. Over there, on that part of the lawn,” Jean pointed to direct his attention, “is where we set up the tents and chairs and we got married. No matter what anyone does to that part of the lawn, that memory will always be there too.”

Scott looked to where she pointed and tried to imagine it, himself in a tux, Jean in a wedding dress. Warren was probably his best man. The Professor was probably the one who escorted her down the aisle. He nodded, "I understand. It's just... I've only had bad memories for so long that I still sort of expect them to outweigh the good ones." He stretched out his long legs, and said, "At least tell me I earned that limp of his in battle and I didn't do something stupid like trip over one of Jonny's skateboards."
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Jean
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
Scott looked to where she pointed and tried to imagine it, himself in a tux, Jean in a wedding dress. Warren was probably his best man. The Professor was probably the one who escorted her down the aisle. He nodded, "I understand. It's just... I've only had bad memories for so long that I still sort of expect them to outweigh the good ones." He stretched out his long legs, and said, "At least tell me I earned that limp of his in battle and I didn't do something stupid like trip over one of Jonny's skateboards."

Jean chuckled in her throat at the idea but the memory was a bitter one. “You know I can’t tell you details. Even if the professor wipes your memory, there’s a chance a ghost of a memory might surface, but you don’t really believe that you got that hurt doing anything less than something very heroic and very stupid… do you?” She went on without waiting for an answer.

“Scott, I know it’s difficult for you, but you need to start living in the now, not your past. The plane crash happened. The coma happened. Jack happened. And yes, they’re bad things that prey on your confidence and weigh you down. Making you feel like someone … unworthy, that’s why you were always so withdrawn around me back then. It never occurred to you that instead of being ashamed of your less than perfect history, you deserve to hold your head high – you survived it and didn’t let it twist you. A lot of people, a history like,” Jean’s thoughts went to Ruby, the Scott who had let that history consume him, “would turn them bitter and jaded and want to punch the world in the throat and feel the world deserved it; but my Scott didn’t do that, you didn’t do that.”

He looked at her for a moment and said, "Why did it take him so long to tell you he loved you? You know he knew it the minute he saw you, the minute you stepped out of that car in the driveway, and he... I should've said it sooner." His cheeks were red in the pale moonlight and the boy looked away again, "Why can I talk to you and I can't talk to her? I mean, everything is so hard, and it shouldn't be. We deserve things not to be hard, right? After all we've been through, after all we're going to go through, seems like we should get a break now and then."

“I know, she does too; telepath, remember,” she reminded him. “Did you… do you really think I/she didn’t? You loved me, but didn’t trust me enough to tell me. You didn’t commit to trusting me enough to open your heart to me for years and years, and you know why, don’t you? As well as he does.”

"Because everyone I loved was taken away," Scott said, quietly, "Even Jack... I hated him... but he saved my life. He wasn't all bad, right? He couldn't have been 100% bad to save my life... even he was taken away. I think I'm scared that if I tell her... she'll be taken away too... Is that... is that it? Is that why?"

He looked away from her and she saw him moving back into his protective shell, away from the hurt of the world. But Jean wasn’t going to let him slip away so easily; she leaned against him and put an arm around her future husband’s slim shoulders. “Oh, Scott, I wish so many bad things hadn’t happened to you. I wish you hadn’t been so hurt as a child. I wish all that could be wiped away and you could’ve found yourself and your confidence sooner. But I can’t. None of us can, we take our lives as they are and make the best of them. And you, Scott, have made a great life for yourself. One that makes you happy, and proud.”

She hugged him and promised him that he would be happy and proud... That's really all he wanted. To be happy, and the pride, well, he was hoping that pride did not go before a fall. Nice thoughts though, and she was warm, and smelled nice, and, well... for a little while, it was just nice to know that sometime there would be someone who loved him.

"Thanks," he said, softly, "Thanks, Jean."

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Lost in thought, young Jean roamed the walls, trying to avoid everyone. She looked at the pictures on the walls, mostly trying to find herself; it wasn’t hard, she was always at Scott’s side. Warren… sometimes he was there and sometimes he wasn’t. What was up with that? The answer was obvious; he wasn’t the sort of guy who stuck around. The thought, right or wrong, gave her a sour feeling in her stomach. Eyes burning and options limited, Jean sought out the one person, besides her older self, whom she couldn’t go near, who might have the answers.

Their room wasn’t hard to find but the very idea of it was strange. Her and Scott, living together… sharing a bed… and everything. “Scott, I need to talk to you,” she said, folding her arms against a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

Jean had told him she was going to take some air, and Scott suspected it had something to do with the fact that his teenage self was moping on the roof. He'd seen the boy while out on his evening jog and part of him had been annoyed by it. It wasn't safe, nor was it proper when he had chased so many young people off the roof in his day, but... well, maybe it was necessary.

So, he'd let it go, and let Jean handle it, while he stayed in their room grading some math tests. He'd answered the knock on his door, absentmindedly, assuming it was one of his students, turning in a late assignment, or maybe Warren or Hank come to talk about how strange this whole thing was. But what he didn't expect was teenage Jeannie standing there, huddled in on herself, looking lost and scared and... just miserable.

"Come in," Scott said, standing up, politely, indicating the couch or one of the chairs in their living area. Unlike the dorm rooms, the husband and wife shared a small apartment, one of the family suites that the larger rooms had been transformed into. "Are you all right? Jean's stepped out, so you don't have to worry about any chronolical distress."

Young Jean nodded absentmindedly as she entered, the worry of crossing paths with her older self wasn’t high on her list, as strange as that was to realize. “Good, I’m glad she’s out; she’s… kind of scary,” Jean admitted as she semi-collapsed onto the couch.
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Cyclops
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Punches from the Punch Dimension
Young Jean flopped on the couch in that graceless way of shameless teenagers. As a woman, gawky jointlessness would become a loose elegance, Jean finally comfortable in her own body and own mind. One of many reasons Scott loved her. His lips quirked up in amusement at her younger counterpart's dramatics and he said, gently, "Oh, she's not so bad once you get to know her." He perched on the arm of a chair, and said, "So, what's up? Eveything ok?"


“Hm,” Jean snorted a laugh in spite of her teenage drama antics. “Very funny.” She looked up at him as he perched on the chair arm and could see the ghost of the boy he was in his strong features. Funny, dependable Scott was a late-bloomer. “How could any of this be okay, Scott?” she replied with a teenage sigh. “Okay, more specific,” she chided herself and looked up at Scott with big, soulful eyes. “I don’t understand what went wrong between me and Warren. And then, I look around,” she said jumping to her feet and starting to pace back and forth, “and … and I see all this stuff about you and me, and it makes me feel guilty that I have feelings for Warren and not…” she paused, letting the sentence because finishing it just felt mean.


"Ah," Scott said, and he nodded, "Yeah, well, believe it or not, it's actually going to be more than ok." Standing up, he waved a hand around the living room and he said, "This is ok, because you and I... it's not really as complicated as it seems. You're sixteen, and you like what sixteen year olds like. When you're a grown woman, you like something different, that's all. Nothing goes wrong between you and Warren. It just changes, that's all."

He smiled at her, and he reached out to catch her arm as she paced beside him. "Hey, there's nothing to be guilty about. Seventeen year old me wasn't... isn't a catch. Took me a while but I finally accept I'm not a dreamboat."


She opened her mouth to start to protest but shut it again when she realized that she couldn’t. “But I feel like the bad guy here. You say there’s nothing to feel guilty about, but you don’t feel you right beside me, looking … abandoned. Feeling abandoned too. I feel it and try not to but it doesn’t always work. And… I don’t think I believe you about Warren; if there was no fight or huge break-up, then does that mean it wasn’t real? How can feelings… love… just dry up like it was never there? I talked to him, after the meeting, and he just… just pulled away from me… me. Why would he do that?” She said, spitting out questions without waiting for answers, just venting toxic, confusing thoughts.


"No, I don't feel it, Jeannie, but I did live it," Scott said, patiently, "And, you don't have to believe me about Warren," He let go of her arm, "but the truth is that love dries up all the time. I'm sorry to say it, but if it didn't why would there be divorces or break ups or ugly partings. What happens with you and Warren is not love drying up though, it's just an...evolution. You and he still love each other, very much, just no longer in a romantic way."

She talked about Warren pulling away, and Scott smiled, slightly, "Honey, you're a kid, and we have to handle you with kid gloves. We're not really certain what we should and shouldn't tell you, and it's very... inappropriate that grown men be alone with you. I've already notified your adult self through our rapport that you're here, so we can keep some propriety here."


“I just,” she sighed and her lower lip trembled, “feel so alone here. Everything has turned upside down,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle and turning her head to gaze out into the night. “Sorry to jeopardize propriety,” she said numbly and turned to go.


"Jean," Scott said, wondering why even when she was just a girl he had no power against her, "None of that now. Come back, and sit down. Look, I can't tell you why you and Warren don't work out. I never really understood it myself, and have always counted myself very lucky that Warren was so foolish that he let your go. But what I can tell you is why I was willing to wait so long for you to love me back. If you're interested in hearing it."


Looking miserable, Jean hesitated only a moment before turning back to Scott. “Why, Scott? I’m kind of a mess,” she admitted, taking a seat on the couch again.


"We all are," Scott said, gently, as she sat down. He did not sit next to her though she looked like she desperately needed a hug. It wasn't who he was, it wasn't how he comforted. He was a man of deep rooted emotions, shielded with efficiency and control. The calm he exuded was studied and practiced to give reassurance not warmth. But he did reach over and take her hand in his. It was only a little smaller, a little softer than her adult self, Jean had aged very well.

"Honey, seventeen year old Scott loved you for very shallow reasons, because you're pretty and sweet and kind and smart, and because you knitted him a scarf that I still wear today," Scott nodded to where the worn and battered article in question hung on a peg by the door. "Adult Scott has much more important reasons for loving you though. You grown into a strong, controlled, gentle lady who would sacrifice herself to save those who can't survive what the world throws at them, not just humans but other mutants either. She sees the good in people, but she doesn't forgive trespasses lightly, and she is fiercely protective of those she loves. But what I love most of all is that she mourned me when I died, and when I was reborn, and I needed to learn how to be me again, she was there, every moment, and she never let me give in to despair or self hatred. I am a better man because Jean never demanded I be one, she just showed me I could be. Do you understand?"


Young Jean had been on the verge of tears when she arrived at their door but now she did cry, but for a completely different reason. She sniffled and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “That was beautiful, Scott. I knew you liked me, like you said, but didn’t know you would love me like that. I’m… I will be… very lucky.” She looked down at their linked hands. Scott wasn’t a hugger, but she was and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. “You’ll just have to cope with it, Scotty,” she sniffled in a small voice.


He sighed, pretending to be annoyed by the affection, and he handed her a box of kleenex, wiping at the tears on her cheeks, "Well, a good part of it was definitely me wearing you down. I proposed after a fight, so I was pretty beat up. Between you and me, I think she just felt sorry for me."

She leaned against him and told him to suck it up, "I suppose you wear me down too, Jeannie." He smiled, a little, "I suppose you do."
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