Conversations with Lady Lazarus
This was my assigned story for xmmficathon. The concept of the Sylvia Plath poem and Phoenix had been tied together in my head since I first read the poem and the comic around the same time, back in high school, 1992, so it was quite a relief to finally sort it all out in a story. Even if it did make me cry hysterically.
Title: Conversations with Lady Lazarus
Recipient: Kira (crimson_keys)
Rating: PG for character death (in canon)
Characters: Charles, Jean, Erik, Scott, Ororo
Character/pairing request: Charles
Specific request: knowing he was about to die and
failing in his attempt to save Jean (during the events
of the third movie)
Quotations are from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
1.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
Jean's knee-socks had stayed up for the entire trip to Westchester, and showed no signs of becoming grubby or wrinkled. Her tartan skirt was crisply pleated, and her hair didn't stray from its Alice band. She sat opposite Charles, her posture neat and her expression grim, and Charles, for the first time, wondered why on earth he had persuaded Erik that this was a good idea.
"Welcome to my home, Jean. I hope that, in time, you might also think of it as your home."
She looked at her surroundings with a critical eye, her gaze moving from the heavy wood panelling to the antique rug and the shelves of leather-bound books. Two of the pens on Charles' desk rolled towards Jean, then froze in place and rolled back to their original position.
"I don't like it here. I don't like the bedroom you're going to put me in. It's miles away."
Charles refrained from asking how she had decided so quickly, because Jean's picture of the room would certainly be accurate. Erik's shields were extremely strong for a non-telepath - Charles' own were not always as complete as they should be, thanks mostly to his insatiable curiosity - but Jean had no trouble finding what she wanted in either of their minds. Old enough to be able to search through an adult mind, but young enough to be ruthless and rude, her developing power was more dangerous than she realised.
"I'm not dangerous, just young. I'm not a freak. Mr Lehnsherr said so," Jean snapped.
"Mr Lehnsherr is entirely correct. Your powers are strong, though, and you do need to practise with and understand your special abilities."
"Can't I do that at home?"
"There's no-one there who can teach you, Jean." Charles sighed, and smiled, conciliatory. "If you don't like that bedroom, would you like to choose another? There's plenty of rooms, and only the three of us here."
Jean tilted her head and considered for a moment, then stood up and, unexpectedly, took Charles' hand. "All right, Professor. I'd like to look at the room with the green curtains, with the window that looks out over the front lawn."
Charles stood with her, and escorted her into the hallway, her small, warm hand still in his. The bedroom was just around corner from the room that Charles and Erik shared - something that they had not discussed with Jean, as much for fear of defining something that thrived undefined as for fear of embarrassment - but Jean seemed pleased to be choosing her own room, and Charles didn't want to retract his offer.
Jean opened the door, turning the handle with her hand and pushing the heavy door with her telekinesis - her fine control left much to be desired - and smiled.
"Yes, I like this one." She slipped her hand from Charles' and dashed over to the window, kneeling on the broad windowseat and pushing back the dusty curtains. "I can see all the way to the gates!" She turned back to Charles, finally smiling, the sunset flaring red behind her. "It's good to know what's coming."
2.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
Jean had been screaming for three days before anyone heard her.
The only time that her screams stopped was during training: she ground her teeth together with eagerness as they set up and stretched their limbs, waiting for the moment when the Professor let them loose. Then her power and light streamed forth from her cage; then everything was one and she could feel the fire and life dancing in every atom of the universe.
Scott was thrilled by her new abilities, and he spent long evenings making elaborate battle plans, which took longer to explain than perform. Today's plan, however, was fairly simple, inspired by a situation he'd seen in a movie the night before.
"Jean, we know your shields hold up to optic blasts, now, but what happens if you have to split your focus?"
"I like to focus on one thing." Jean stretched her arms above her head, aware that Scott was deliberately not looking at her warm up. Ororo was watching, though, wary of anything new that Jean might try with her extended powers.
"Yes, but in the movie there were two cops trying to get into the building, from different doors."
"I could tell which door to go in and where the hostages were, Scott."
Scott sighed. "Not if there was shielding, or interference. Or a bank vault. The point of the exercise is to be able to protect two people at once. Okay. Your two people are that rosebush, the one with the pink and white flowers, and the statue at the bottom of the steps."
Jean sized up her targets. They were about seventy feet apart, just outside the range she could cover with a single shield. Scott kept up with her power's advances as well as she did, which was a good thing, considering that the Professor and Mr Lehnsherr, were so involved in building their detection machine all the time. In fact, today was the first day in over a month that the Professor had come to watch training.
"Good thing you don't have Jean shielding us," Ororo muttered to Scott. "Her powers are different every day, and one day she's going to rip someone's leg off."
"If I did," Jean said to her, scornfully, "I'd only do it on purpose. And then I'd put it back on just as easily. Molecules listen to me, now."
Ororo opened her mouth to retort, but Jean rose smoothly into the air - a trick Ororo certainly hadn't managed yet - and concentrated on the locations of the rosebush and the statue that she was protecting. Scott and Ororo ran off to take firing positions: Scott in the trees, Ororo by the driveway so that she could whip up a cloud of gravel to shoot at Jean. Jean held her arms out, feeling her power spread like wings, covering first the rosebush, then, with a little stretch, the statue as well. She laughed: all the screaming in her head had stopped, and in the furnace of her powers, she was whole.
It was in these moments of miraculous unity, she later realised, that she was at her most vulnerable: there was no back-up, no redundancy, and her attention was too easily drawn to the brightest thing in the room. Scott was the bait, though he knew nothing of it as he fired bolts of energy at her shields, and she pushed them back at him. She stared entranced at his shining self, at the power fit to boil his eyes away, and the Professor struck her down. Suddenly paralysed, feeling that familiar grip on her mind, Jean struck out with her telekinesis, flailing randomly and throwing Scott halfway across the lawn. The disorientation spun her around, and she felt her body hit the ground, and Ororo's hands gentle on her face. She could feel the Professor's hand moving inside her brain, his fingers searching for some way to hold the last part of her still, but without her telepathy, she couldn't locate him, couldn't beat him away. Then she was utterly frozen, senseless and helpless.
"Jean," called a voice in the darkness, the Professor's voice.
"I'm here."
"I could hear a noise, a telepathic noise, but it took me until this morning to realise it was you, calling for help. I'm sorry, Jean, I'm sorry I took so long."
"But you're here."
"Yes. Jean, your powers are hurting you. They're changing you."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"You're sounding like Erik, now. Yes, in your case, this is a bad thing. Your powers are developing faster than your brain and body can handle. They're burning you up."
"It's like I'm watching myself. Inside, I'm cold, but outside, where I'm walking and talking, my body is on fire. I can see…energy. Everything is energy."
"Jean, I'm going to help you be yourself again. It's not the power itself that is causing the problem: it's the level of power running through you. If I reduce that power to a trickle, you'll be able to cope with it."
"You can do that?"
"With a telepathic power like yours, yes. It's all right, Jean, we can release the power later. Slowly, so that you can deal with it."
"Professor… I don't want to be cold. And I don't want to be small." She tried to reach out, to hold him back, but could find nothing.
"I'll look after you, Jean. I won't let you be hurt. Especially not by something that comes from within yourself."
When she woke up, it felt as though her eyes were closed.
3.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable
"Hank's name is awful. I don’t think you should encourage him to think about himself like that. He's not an animal."
"Jean, he's chosen an alias. It's not a reflection on his identity," Charles said, in his most soothing tones.
Jean's summer vacation with the team was not going well: unlike Hank, who had also been at college, Jean's abilities did not lend themselves to everyday use, and her telekinesis was clumsily unfocused after such a long break. The extra practise sessions on top of regular training and her summer study load were taking their toll on her temper, and the idea of codenames was the last straw.
"It's ridiculous! I'm not shouting 'Beast!' in the middle of a fight with some idiot mutant-bashers. It's just what they want."
"Why don't you try asking Hank, rather than railing at me?"
"Fine! I will!" She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her; at the last moment, she caught it telekinetically and closed it with sarcastic softness.
Charles mentally followed her progress down the stairs: Jean was sharing her anger as loudly as possible, bringing her foot down hard on every step and enjoying the physical sensation, something Charles could not longer do. She didn't turn left, to Henry's study, as he expected, though. Instead, she galloped down the last flight and out the front door, to where Erik was smoking a cigarette by the front steps. He looked up as she jumped down the last two steps to stand next to him, but didn't seem surprised by her sudden appearance.
"I thought you hated it when I smoked, my dear."
"I do hate it, but right now I'm coming to join you in exile."
Erik laughed, and Charles clenched his fists in a spasm of helplessness: the students certainly knew about the arguments he and Erik had been having, but there was no need for Erik to take sides with Jean. He had explained to Erik, again and again, that the students needed to see mature resolution of disputes, a model for their own burgeoning relationships, but Erik wouldn't reply. He would only smirk, and walk down those damn stairs for another cigarette.
"Exile, is it? Not an escape?"
"Definitely not. You know I'll have to go back in some time, and so will you."
"Perhaps."
Jean scowled, and kicked at the step with her expensive shoe. She hated it when Erik feigned a lofty attitude, pretended to be uninvolved. Charles hated it, too, especially when Erik would start an argument then back away, leaving Charles stuck fuming in his chair, feeling ridiculous.
"Mr Lehnsherr, what do you think about the code names? I mean, I can see why using our real names could be dangerous, but we could just call ourselves by numbers or something."
"A name is more than something to shout out at opportune moments, don’t you think? It's more of a title, a summary of what you represent."
"'Henry McCoy' or 'Scott Summers' isn't much of a summary."
"Ah, but you would expect that there would be time to get to know Henry McCoy or Scott Summers. An introduction, a handshake, even a conversation. If you happen to encounter Beast or Cyclops, however, they may very well be in a great hurry to save your life, and a momentary impression is all that you will receive. Even if the media happens to put many of these moments together, it will still be a series of brief encounters: the knowledge cannot go deep, so it must be sharp."
Jean frowned. "Doesn't that mean that we're putting on a false identity? I don't want Hank to be known as Beast. That's more than just a mask."
Erik stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into the garden bed with all the others. "It's not a mask, Jean. We're not the same as them, and one day very soon, we'll have to stop pretending. Your parents named you Jean Grey, before they knew anything of you. You know who you are and what you want to be. Choose your real name."
Jean's breath was rough in her throat and the crushed cigarette butt in the garden flared briefly into life, flipping out of the dirt and onto the grass.
"I won't!" she shouted, right into Erik's face. "I won't join in your game of divide and conquer, I won't be part of your stupid war games! I'm a real person, a whole person!"
"Jean-" Erik was quickly cut off.
"There's no way I'm choosing a code name if that's what you think it is. I am my real self, all of me, my body and mind and powers and knowledge, and I won't divide it for you or for anyone."
Charles leaned back in his chair, deeply disturbed. Three storeys below, Jean tore Erik's cigarettes out of his pocket and crushed them to powder in midair, though he managed to save his lighter.
"And damn well quit smoking before there's nothing left of you to name!"
Jean dashed back into the house, fighting angry tears, but Erik stood there for some time, quite aware of Charles' steady gaze on him.
"You can't keep her still forever," Erik murmured, "She will always become what she is meant to be."
"Yes," Charles replied, in Erik's mind, with a conviction that sat well in his mind, but he did not trust to his voice, "She will, and that person is Jean Grey."
4.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This time, Magneto was ready for them. He had ripped the enormous steel safe right off the back of the armoured van and thrown it on the back of a flatbed truck to take it back to wherever his secret base was now. Cyclops and Jean dashed in at ground level and Storm stayed back, whipping up a sharp and unpleasant wind to encourage civilians to hurry out of the way. Cyclops punctured the tyres with two pinpoint blasts and Jean grabbed a heavy block of concrete from the adjoining building site and dropped it in front of the truck. Magneto stopped the truck instantly, before it was further damaged, and leapt from the driver's seat to confront them.
"I have had enough of this interference!" he bellowed, raising a hand and sending a rain of shrapnel - coins, nails, bolts and struts from the truck - swarming at them. Jean raised her hand to deflect the worst of it, and ducked behind a car with Cyclops.
"Shield me like we practised, and I can get a shot at the truck."
Jean jumped to her feet, concentrating as hard as she could to deflect the barrage away from Scott without interfering with his aim.
"Leave the safe and get out of here!" Storm yelled at Magneto, calling hail down on him, and completely ruining his aim. Storm's effect was carefully localised - impairing Magneto's vision, but no-one else's. Cyclops fired and blasted the safe clear of the truck, sending it skidding into the construction site and out of the way. Magneto, obviously unwilling to give up his funds just yet, wrenched the door from a car and kept it hovering over his head as protection from Storm's onslaught, and dashed behind the truck, heading for the safe. Storm cursed, but quickly changed position to try to get a better angle - it wasn't as if they hadn't seen the umbrella trick before.
"Storm, cut him off!" Cyclops yelled. It would be disastrous if Magneto actually made it into the construction site: he would have all of the advantages there. Storm turned the hail into a violent, pounding rain; it would keep Magneto off balance and his visibility low, whereas the team had Jean to keep them informed of everyone's location. Indeed, before Cyclops had made it around the truck to cut him off, Magneto had missed the gate and ended up by the chain link fence instead. With a shout of frustration, he ripped the fence from the ground and hurled it in the general direction of his antagonists.
The fence flew more upwards than outwards, caught by the ferocious wind, and straight into the power lines above their heads. With great effort, Jean stretched out her shield to cover Cyclops and herself, hoping that Storm was far enough away not to be hit if the lines came down. Jean's caution was well-advised, as the force of the flying fence had been more than enough to sever the wires: one of the poles was also falling.
"I've got it!" she called to Cyclops, and slowly lowered the pole to the ground. The snaking black power lines, however, flicked and sparked, and one slipped beneath Jean's shield, showering her with sparks for a moment, then contacting her leg and convulsing through her body like the final beat of a huge heart.
"Jean!" Cyclops yelled, but she had already fallen. She was not unconscious, though, and could hear everyone around her - Magneto shouted something, and suddenly she had control of her limbs again. That and more: everything slowed around her, and suddenly she could feel everything around, as an extension of her own body. Magneto, who had stopped the current that was killing her, now using the distraction to load the damaged safe onto a random pick-up truck and escape. Cyclops and Storm, running over to her now that they would not be electrocuted themselves, anger overlying fear and determination. She reached out, wider, past the cops hiding around the corner, waiting for the muties to stop fighting, past the ambulances treating the armoured van's driver and guard, out into the jagged flow of the city and all its little lives.
Jean laughed as she flew out and out, her mind expanding with ease and grace. There was the river, and there was the house and the Professor; without contradiction, she could also be - feel - people shopping in Long Island and a barking dog in Connecticut, both the fisherman on the sea and the fish beneath it. It was a thousand times better than her few limited experiences with Cerebro, like something from a dream: she felt like she was inside everyone, her hot blood pumping through their hearts.
"Jean!" The Professor's voice was far louder than everything else, and it reverberated through her body and all the lives that she was living.
She turned back, with a smile. "Shh, Professor. Don't scare us."
"Jean, what you are doing is wrong. Stop, now. Go back to yourself."
"All of this is me. I'm all of it."
"No, you are not. You are draining the life from others to enhance your own."
Jean stared at all the beings in her sphere of life. They didn't seem to be troubled in the slightest: they continued to drive, talk, bark, eat, work and fly just as they had done before she incorporated them. She could change their course at a touch, but without the desire to do so, she could see no harm.
"I will not stop. We are united in beauty and light. I can protect them, should they need it, and we can both see perfectly clearly that I'm not draining anyone's life."
"Not at the moment, because you are not doing anything that required their energy. You are just lying in your body, watching."
"Are Scott and Ororo all right?"
"Yes, they're bringing you home as we speak. Jean, what if they weren't all right? What if you needed to save them?"
"Then I could!" Jean shouted, infuriated at this ridiculous conversation.
"How would you do that? From where would this energy come?"
"You're scared of me! You're terrified that I'm stronger than you!"
"You are stronger than me. And yet the exercise of my will harms no-one."
Jean reached out an experimental thought, to a young man playing tennis in Connecticut. He seemed strong and healthy, she thought, and indeed he was: a flicker of power raced back to Jean, making the face of her thoughtform flush and her body, in the back of Scott's car, her head on his lap, hot with joy. The tennis player himself collapsed to the court, shivering.
"Your power is too great, Jean. I cannot permit it to stay."
"And who are you to permit or deny me anything? Who are you to bind me with chains and my own good will?"
"I am your teacher, and I love you dearly."
"I know! You are part of me! I know so much, I know you: how can you say this is wrong? You know me, equally, and you know I would not hurt people without need." Jean began to move outwards again, drawing more lives into herself, relentless and in her conviction.
"Whose need?"
"I will protect them!"
"Their life or death - it is not your decision to make, Jean. We are not gods."
"And what are gods? If we refuse to take the powers we are given, what does that make us? It surely doesn't make us like them. Leave me alone, Professor. If you will not take up the mantle, perhaps I should."
"Oh, Jean, I'm sorry. I hoped it would not come to this."
Something in his voice, sincere and disappointed, alerted her, and she wrapped an unbreakable cocoon of flame around herself. It was too late: his mind was inside hers like a chick in the egg.
"Sphere. Automatism. Eloquence. Phoenix."
Each syllable pushed a little further into her mind, tumblers falling at the intrusion of the key. Jean screamed, loudly at first, then in a diminishing whimper, falling into herself, down and down and onto the back seat of Scott's car, locked in her body, alone. She sat up, abruptly, shoving Scott's hands away, and opened her mouth to scream again.
Instead, the Professor's mind was around hers, quieting her and muffling the pain.
"Shh, Jean," he said, his voice a balm on her raw soul, "It will be all right."
5.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
All the barriers and safeguards that Charles had so carefully placed in Jean's mind had been washed away in the great torrent of Alkali Lake. He had restored weakening barriers before, but this time, they were utterly gone, probably because Jean's body, too, had been destroyed. All that remained was an idea of power and a deathless conduit through which that power could flow.
Her memories were scattered and flawed, her mind grasping for the few remnants of the familiar and strong - first Scott, then Logan, and now her childhood home. Charles had no doubt that she had called Scott to her. Ororo had described the eerie scene at Alkali Lake, stones and water suspended in an unnatural orbit, the area empty of birdsong. Charles knew that she had been drawing power from everything that she could find in that devastated ecosystem, but it wouldn't have been enough without the tremendous reservoir of energy that Scott carried behind his eyes. The strength of their bond had called Scott to her, to resurrect what he might have thought was Jean. It was only a memory, an emotion, that thought it was real.
Charles laughed, then, even as his body disintegrated around him. Would he have called her Jean if she had managed to save her body, as damaged as her mind was? Would he have embraced her, even as he locked her away from her only means of survival? He could only hope so: the memory of Jean was trying to build itself a perfect simulacrum, and the power she needed to do that was extraordinary. Scott was gone, and soon he would be, too, but there would be no end to her need. Eventually, she would take Logan, and Erik, Ororo and Henry, then the children, until all her attachments were gone and the power ran unchecked and alone. Jean had told him, once, that she didn't want to be cold, but this remnant of her was frozen to the core, living only on the emotional energies stolen from her most precious memories.
Erik was nearby, somewhere, always determined that Jean should come into her power, but unaware what that truly meant: Erik could not see mutant abilities as a neutral force, their good or harm determined by the wielder. He could only see that mutants were like him, and therefore assumed that their interests and intentions were allied. This part of Jean was indeed similar to Erik, and, Charles could finally admit, himself. The remnant of Jean, like her teachers, thought that its own interest was good, that its power gave it wisdom, that the simple fact that it could choose meant that it would choose well. He tried to push this thought out to Erik, but even his mind was paralysed as life was drained from him. He would be, for once, alone.
"Jean," he whispered, addressing her by the name she wanted, sure that she would hear him, though neither his voice nor his telepathy remained.
"I'm here," she replied, her voice eager and soothing. "It will be all right."
"How will this end?"
"There is no end. I - I will be whole. I am fire. Fire and life."
"Then you are equally ashes and death. Oh, my dear one. Don't let it control you."
Heedless of her scream and Erik's cry, Charles finally let himself release the habit of - literally - a lifetime, and the husk of his body was shed. If he could not be here, perhaps he could do good elsewhere. He laughed again: he was already assuming that choice itself was a guarantee of good. His action was different to that remnant of Jean only in that he would not hurt anyone. He knew, though, that this was the real definition of power: not the choosing of his own life or death, but deciding to make that choice for others. Charles had to believe that there was enough of an echo of Jean to achieve what her teachers had so often failed to do: resist power.
His faith in that echo was strong, and Charles let go, with love.
Title: Conversations with Lady Lazarus
Recipient: Kira (crimson_keys)
Rating: PG for character death (in canon)
Characters: Charles, Jean, Erik, Scott, Ororo
Character/pairing request: Charles
Specific request: knowing he was about to die and
failing in his attempt to save Jean (during the events
of the third movie)
Quotations are from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
1.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
Jean's knee-socks had stayed up for the entire trip to Westchester, and showed no signs of becoming grubby or wrinkled. Her tartan skirt was crisply pleated, and her hair didn't stray from its Alice band. She sat opposite Charles, her posture neat and her expression grim, and Charles, for the first time, wondered why on earth he had persuaded Erik that this was a good idea.
"Welcome to my home, Jean. I hope that, in time, you might also think of it as your home."
She looked at her surroundings with a critical eye, her gaze moving from the heavy wood panelling to the antique rug and the shelves of leather-bound books. Two of the pens on Charles' desk rolled towards Jean, then froze in place and rolled back to their original position.
"I don't like it here. I don't like the bedroom you're going to put me in. It's miles away."
Charles refrained from asking how she had decided so quickly, because Jean's picture of the room would certainly be accurate. Erik's shields were extremely strong for a non-telepath - Charles' own were not always as complete as they should be, thanks mostly to his insatiable curiosity - but Jean had no trouble finding what she wanted in either of their minds. Old enough to be able to search through an adult mind, but young enough to be ruthless and rude, her developing power was more dangerous than she realised.
"I'm not dangerous, just young. I'm not a freak. Mr Lehnsherr said so," Jean snapped.
"Mr Lehnsherr is entirely correct. Your powers are strong, though, and you do need to practise with and understand your special abilities."
"Can't I do that at home?"
"There's no-one there who can teach you, Jean." Charles sighed, and smiled, conciliatory. "If you don't like that bedroom, would you like to choose another? There's plenty of rooms, and only the three of us here."
Jean tilted her head and considered for a moment, then stood up and, unexpectedly, took Charles' hand. "All right, Professor. I'd like to look at the room with the green curtains, with the window that looks out over the front lawn."
Charles stood with her, and escorted her into the hallway, her small, warm hand still in his. The bedroom was just around corner from the room that Charles and Erik shared - something that they had not discussed with Jean, as much for fear of defining something that thrived undefined as for fear of embarrassment - but Jean seemed pleased to be choosing her own room, and Charles didn't want to retract his offer.
Jean opened the door, turning the handle with her hand and pushing the heavy door with her telekinesis - her fine control left much to be desired - and smiled.
"Yes, I like this one." She slipped her hand from Charles' and dashed over to the window, kneeling on the broad windowseat and pushing back the dusty curtains. "I can see all the way to the gates!" She turned back to Charles, finally smiling, the sunset flaring red behind her. "It's good to know what's coming."
2.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
Jean had been screaming for three days before anyone heard her.
The only time that her screams stopped was during training: she ground her teeth together with eagerness as they set up and stretched their limbs, waiting for the moment when the Professor let them loose. Then her power and light streamed forth from her cage; then everything was one and she could feel the fire and life dancing in every atom of the universe.
Scott was thrilled by her new abilities, and he spent long evenings making elaborate battle plans, which took longer to explain than perform. Today's plan, however, was fairly simple, inspired by a situation he'd seen in a movie the night before.
"Jean, we know your shields hold up to optic blasts, now, but what happens if you have to split your focus?"
"I like to focus on one thing." Jean stretched her arms above her head, aware that Scott was deliberately not looking at her warm up. Ororo was watching, though, wary of anything new that Jean might try with her extended powers.
"Yes, but in the movie there were two cops trying to get into the building, from different doors."
"I could tell which door to go in and where the hostages were, Scott."
Scott sighed. "Not if there was shielding, or interference. Or a bank vault. The point of the exercise is to be able to protect two people at once. Okay. Your two people are that rosebush, the one with the pink and white flowers, and the statue at the bottom of the steps."
Jean sized up her targets. They were about seventy feet apart, just outside the range she could cover with a single shield. Scott kept up with her power's advances as well as she did, which was a good thing, considering that the Professor and Mr Lehnsherr, were so involved in building their detection machine all the time. In fact, today was the first day in over a month that the Professor had come to watch training.
"Good thing you don't have Jean shielding us," Ororo muttered to Scott. "Her powers are different every day, and one day she's going to rip someone's leg off."
"If I did," Jean said to her, scornfully, "I'd only do it on purpose. And then I'd put it back on just as easily. Molecules listen to me, now."
Ororo opened her mouth to retort, but Jean rose smoothly into the air - a trick Ororo certainly hadn't managed yet - and concentrated on the locations of the rosebush and the statue that she was protecting. Scott and Ororo ran off to take firing positions: Scott in the trees, Ororo by the driveway so that she could whip up a cloud of gravel to shoot at Jean. Jean held her arms out, feeling her power spread like wings, covering first the rosebush, then, with a little stretch, the statue as well. She laughed: all the screaming in her head had stopped, and in the furnace of her powers, she was whole.
It was in these moments of miraculous unity, she later realised, that she was at her most vulnerable: there was no back-up, no redundancy, and her attention was too easily drawn to the brightest thing in the room. Scott was the bait, though he knew nothing of it as he fired bolts of energy at her shields, and she pushed them back at him. She stared entranced at his shining self, at the power fit to boil his eyes away, and the Professor struck her down. Suddenly paralysed, feeling that familiar grip on her mind, Jean struck out with her telekinesis, flailing randomly and throwing Scott halfway across the lawn. The disorientation spun her around, and she felt her body hit the ground, and Ororo's hands gentle on her face. She could feel the Professor's hand moving inside her brain, his fingers searching for some way to hold the last part of her still, but without her telepathy, she couldn't locate him, couldn't beat him away. Then she was utterly frozen, senseless and helpless.
"Jean," called a voice in the darkness, the Professor's voice.
"I'm here."
"I could hear a noise, a telepathic noise, but it took me until this morning to realise it was you, calling for help. I'm sorry, Jean, I'm sorry I took so long."
"But you're here."
"Yes. Jean, your powers are hurting you. They're changing you."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"You're sounding like Erik, now. Yes, in your case, this is a bad thing. Your powers are developing faster than your brain and body can handle. They're burning you up."
"It's like I'm watching myself. Inside, I'm cold, but outside, where I'm walking and talking, my body is on fire. I can see…energy. Everything is energy."
"Jean, I'm going to help you be yourself again. It's not the power itself that is causing the problem: it's the level of power running through you. If I reduce that power to a trickle, you'll be able to cope with it."
"You can do that?"
"With a telepathic power like yours, yes. It's all right, Jean, we can release the power later. Slowly, so that you can deal with it."
"Professor… I don't want to be cold. And I don't want to be small." She tried to reach out, to hold him back, but could find nothing.
"I'll look after you, Jean. I won't let you be hurt. Especially not by something that comes from within yourself."
When she woke up, it felt as though her eyes were closed.
3.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable
"Hank's name is awful. I don’t think you should encourage him to think about himself like that. He's not an animal."
"Jean, he's chosen an alias. It's not a reflection on his identity," Charles said, in his most soothing tones.
Jean's summer vacation with the team was not going well: unlike Hank, who had also been at college, Jean's abilities did not lend themselves to everyday use, and her telekinesis was clumsily unfocused after such a long break. The extra practise sessions on top of regular training and her summer study load were taking their toll on her temper, and the idea of codenames was the last straw.
"It's ridiculous! I'm not shouting 'Beast!' in the middle of a fight with some idiot mutant-bashers. It's just what they want."
"Why don't you try asking Hank, rather than railing at me?"
"Fine! I will!" She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her; at the last moment, she caught it telekinetically and closed it with sarcastic softness.
Charles mentally followed her progress down the stairs: Jean was sharing her anger as loudly as possible, bringing her foot down hard on every step and enjoying the physical sensation, something Charles could not longer do. She didn't turn left, to Henry's study, as he expected, though. Instead, she galloped down the last flight and out the front door, to where Erik was smoking a cigarette by the front steps. He looked up as she jumped down the last two steps to stand next to him, but didn't seem surprised by her sudden appearance.
"I thought you hated it when I smoked, my dear."
"I do hate it, but right now I'm coming to join you in exile."
Erik laughed, and Charles clenched his fists in a spasm of helplessness: the students certainly knew about the arguments he and Erik had been having, but there was no need for Erik to take sides with Jean. He had explained to Erik, again and again, that the students needed to see mature resolution of disputes, a model for their own burgeoning relationships, but Erik wouldn't reply. He would only smirk, and walk down those damn stairs for another cigarette.
"Exile, is it? Not an escape?"
"Definitely not. You know I'll have to go back in some time, and so will you."
"Perhaps."
Jean scowled, and kicked at the step with her expensive shoe. She hated it when Erik feigned a lofty attitude, pretended to be uninvolved. Charles hated it, too, especially when Erik would start an argument then back away, leaving Charles stuck fuming in his chair, feeling ridiculous.
"Mr Lehnsherr, what do you think about the code names? I mean, I can see why using our real names could be dangerous, but we could just call ourselves by numbers or something."
"A name is more than something to shout out at opportune moments, don’t you think? It's more of a title, a summary of what you represent."
"'Henry McCoy' or 'Scott Summers' isn't much of a summary."
"Ah, but you would expect that there would be time to get to know Henry McCoy or Scott Summers. An introduction, a handshake, even a conversation. If you happen to encounter Beast or Cyclops, however, they may very well be in a great hurry to save your life, and a momentary impression is all that you will receive. Even if the media happens to put many of these moments together, it will still be a series of brief encounters: the knowledge cannot go deep, so it must be sharp."
Jean frowned. "Doesn't that mean that we're putting on a false identity? I don't want Hank to be known as Beast. That's more than just a mask."
Erik stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into the garden bed with all the others. "It's not a mask, Jean. We're not the same as them, and one day very soon, we'll have to stop pretending. Your parents named you Jean Grey, before they knew anything of you. You know who you are and what you want to be. Choose your real name."
Jean's breath was rough in her throat and the crushed cigarette butt in the garden flared briefly into life, flipping out of the dirt and onto the grass.
"I won't!" she shouted, right into Erik's face. "I won't join in your game of divide and conquer, I won't be part of your stupid war games! I'm a real person, a whole person!"
"Jean-" Erik was quickly cut off.
"There's no way I'm choosing a code name if that's what you think it is. I am my real self, all of me, my body and mind and powers and knowledge, and I won't divide it for you or for anyone."
Charles leaned back in his chair, deeply disturbed. Three storeys below, Jean tore Erik's cigarettes out of his pocket and crushed them to powder in midair, though he managed to save his lighter.
"And damn well quit smoking before there's nothing left of you to name!"
Jean dashed back into the house, fighting angry tears, but Erik stood there for some time, quite aware of Charles' steady gaze on him.
"You can't keep her still forever," Erik murmured, "She will always become what she is meant to be."
"Yes," Charles replied, in Erik's mind, with a conviction that sat well in his mind, but he did not trust to his voice, "She will, and that person is Jean Grey."
4.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This time, Magneto was ready for them. He had ripped the enormous steel safe right off the back of the armoured van and thrown it on the back of a flatbed truck to take it back to wherever his secret base was now. Cyclops and Jean dashed in at ground level and Storm stayed back, whipping up a sharp and unpleasant wind to encourage civilians to hurry out of the way. Cyclops punctured the tyres with two pinpoint blasts and Jean grabbed a heavy block of concrete from the adjoining building site and dropped it in front of the truck. Magneto stopped the truck instantly, before it was further damaged, and leapt from the driver's seat to confront them.
"I have had enough of this interference!" he bellowed, raising a hand and sending a rain of shrapnel - coins, nails, bolts and struts from the truck - swarming at them. Jean raised her hand to deflect the worst of it, and ducked behind a car with Cyclops.
"Shield me like we practised, and I can get a shot at the truck."
Jean jumped to her feet, concentrating as hard as she could to deflect the barrage away from Scott without interfering with his aim.
"Leave the safe and get out of here!" Storm yelled at Magneto, calling hail down on him, and completely ruining his aim. Storm's effect was carefully localised - impairing Magneto's vision, but no-one else's. Cyclops fired and blasted the safe clear of the truck, sending it skidding into the construction site and out of the way. Magneto, obviously unwilling to give up his funds just yet, wrenched the door from a car and kept it hovering over his head as protection from Storm's onslaught, and dashed behind the truck, heading for the safe. Storm cursed, but quickly changed position to try to get a better angle - it wasn't as if they hadn't seen the umbrella trick before.
"Storm, cut him off!" Cyclops yelled. It would be disastrous if Magneto actually made it into the construction site: he would have all of the advantages there. Storm turned the hail into a violent, pounding rain; it would keep Magneto off balance and his visibility low, whereas the team had Jean to keep them informed of everyone's location. Indeed, before Cyclops had made it around the truck to cut him off, Magneto had missed the gate and ended up by the chain link fence instead. With a shout of frustration, he ripped the fence from the ground and hurled it in the general direction of his antagonists.
The fence flew more upwards than outwards, caught by the ferocious wind, and straight into the power lines above their heads. With great effort, Jean stretched out her shield to cover Cyclops and herself, hoping that Storm was far enough away not to be hit if the lines came down. Jean's caution was well-advised, as the force of the flying fence had been more than enough to sever the wires: one of the poles was also falling.
"I've got it!" she called to Cyclops, and slowly lowered the pole to the ground. The snaking black power lines, however, flicked and sparked, and one slipped beneath Jean's shield, showering her with sparks for a moment, then contacting her leg and convulsing through her body like the final beat of a huge heart.
"Jean!" Cyclops yelled, but she had already fallen. She was not unconscious, though, and could hear everyone around her - Magneto shouted something, and suddenly she had control of her limbs again. That and more: everything slowed around her, and suddenly she could feel everything around, as an extension of her own body. Magneto, who had stopped the current that was killing her, now using the distraction to load the damaged safe onto a random pick-up truck and escape. Cyclops and Storm, running over to her now that they would not be electrocuted themselves, anger overlying fear and determination. She reached out, wider, past the cops hiding around the corner, waiting for the muties to stop fighting, past the ambulances treating the armoured van's driver and guard, out into the jagged flow of the city and all its little lives.
Jean laughed as she flew out and out, her mind expanding with ease and grace. There was the river, and there was the house and the Professor; without contradiction, she could also be - feel - people shopping in Long Island and a barking dog in Connecticut, both the fisherman on the sea and the fish beneath it. It was a thousand times better than her few limited experiences with Cerebro, like something from a dream: she felt like she was inside everyone, her hot blood pumping through their hearts.
"Jean!" The Professor's voice was far louder than everything else, and it reverberated through her body and all the lives that she was living.
She turned back, with a smile. "Shh, Professor. Don't scare us."
"Jean, what you are doing is wrong. Stop, now. Go back to yourself."
"All of this is me. I'm all of it."
"No, you are not. You are draining the life from others to enhance your own."
Jean stared at all the beings in her sphere of life. They didn't seem to be troubled in the slightest: they continued to drive, talk, bark, eat, work and fly just as they had done before she incorporated them. She could change their course at a touch, but without the desire to do so, she could see no harm.
"I will not stop. We are united in beauty and light. I can protect them, should they need it, and we can both see perfectly clearly that I'm not draining anyone's life."
"Not at the moment, because you are not doing anything that required their energy. You are just lying in your body, watching."
"Are Scott and Ororo all right?"
"Yes, they're bringing you home as we speak. Jean, what if they weren't all right? What if you needed to save them?"
"Then I could!" Jean shouted, infuriated at this ridiculous conversation.
"How would you do that? From where would this energy come?"
"You're scared of me! You're terrified that I'm stronger than you!"
"You are stronger than me. And yet the exercise of my will harms no-one."
Jean reached out an experimental thought, to a young man playing tennis in Connecticut. He seemed strong and healthy, she thought, and indeed he was: a flicker of power raced back to Jean, making the face of her thoughtform flush and her body, in the back of Scott's car, her head on his lap, hot with joy. The tennis player himself collapsed to the court, shivering.
"Your power is too great, Jean. I cannot permit it to stay."
"And who are you to permit or deny me anything? Who are you to bind me with chains and my own good will?"
"I am your teacher, and I love you dearly."
"I know! You are part of me! I know so much, I know you: how can you say this is wrong? You know me, equally, and you know I would not hurt people without need." Jean began to move outwards again, drawing more lives into herself, relentless and in her conviction.
"Whose need?"
"I will protect them!"
"Their life or death - it is not your decision to make, Jean. We are not gods."
"And what are gods? If we refuse to take the powers we are given, what does that make us? It surely doesn't make us like them. Leave me alone, Professor. If you will not take up the mantle, perhaps I should."
"Oh, Jean, I'm sorry. I hoped it would not come to this."
Something in his voice, sincere and disappointed, alerted her, and she wrapped an unbreakable cocoon of flame around herself. It was too late: his mind was inside hers like a chick in the egg.
"Sphere. Automatism. Eloquence. Phoenix."
Each syllable pushed a little further into her mind, tumblers falling at the intrusion of the key. Jean screamed, loudly at first, then in a diminishing whimper, falling into herself, down and down and onto the back seat of Scott's car, locked in her body, alone. She sat up, abruptly, shoving Scott's hands away, and opened her mouth to scream again.
Instead, the Professor's mind was around hers, quieting her and muffling the pain.
"Shh, Jean," he said, his voice a balm on her raw soul, "It will be all right."
5.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
All the barriers and safeguards that Charles had so carefully placed in Jean's mind had been washed away in the great torrent of Alkali Lake. He had restored weakening barriers before, but this time, they were utterly gone, probably because Jean's body, too, had been destroyed. All that remained was an idea of power and a deathless conduit through which that power could flow.
Her memories were scattered and flawed, her mind grasping for the few remnants of the familiar and strong - first Scott, then Logan, and now her childhood home. Charles had no doubt that she had called Scott to her. Ororo had described the eerie scene at Alkali Lake, stones and water suspended in an unnatural orbit, the area empty of birdsong. Charles knew that she had been drawing power from everything that she could find in that devastated ecosystem, but it wouldn't have been enough without the tremendous reservoir of energy that Scott carried behind his eyes. The strength of their bond had called Scott to her, to resurrect what he might have thought was Jean. It was only a memory, an emotion, that thought it was real.
Charles laughed, then, even as his body disintegrated around him. Would he have called her Jean if she had managed to save her body, as damaged as her mind was? Would he have embraced her, even as he locked her away from her only means of survival? He could only hope so: the memory of Jean was trying to build itself a perfect simulacrum, and the power she needed to do that was extraordinary. Scott was gone, and soon he would be, too, but there would be no end to her need. Eventually, she would take Logan, and Erik, Ororo and Henry, then the children, until all her attachments were gone and the power ran unchecked and alone. Jean had told him, once, that she didn't want to be cold, but this remnant of her was frozen to the core, living only on the emotional energies stolen from her most precious memories.
Erik was nearby, somewhere, always determined that Jean should come into her power, but unaware what that truly meant: Erik could not see mutant abilities as a neutral force, their good or harm determined by the wielder. He could only see that mutants were like him, and therefore assumed that their interests and intentions were allied. This part of Jean was indeed similar to Erik, and, Charles could finally admit, himself. The remnant of Jean, like her teachers, thought that its own interest was good, that its power gave it wisdom, that the simple fact that it could choose meant that it would choose well. He tried to push this thought out to Erik, but even his mind was paralysed as life was drained from him. He would be, for once, alone.
"Jean," he whispered, addressing her by the name she wanted, sure that she would hear him, though neither his voice nor his telepathy remained.
"I'm here," she replied, her voice eager and soothing. "It will be all right."
"How will this end?"
"There is no end. I - I will be whole. I am fire. Fire and life."
"Then you are equally ashes and death. Oh, my dear one. Don't let it control you."
Heedless of her scream and Erik's cry, Charles finally let himself release the habit of - literally - a lifetime, and the husk of his body was shed. If he could not be here, perhaps he could do good elsewhere. He laughed again: he was already assuming that choice itself was a guarantee of good. His action was different to that remnant of Jean only in that he would not hurt anyone. He knew, though, that this was the real definition of power: not the choosing of his own life or death, but deciding to make that choice for others. Charles had to believe that there was enough of an echo of Jean to achieve what her teachers had so often failed to do: resist power.
His faith in that echo was strong, and Charles let go, with love.