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Firebird Rising	By : Jenskott Category: X-men Comics > Het - Male/Female > Scott/Jean Views: 3256 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men comics, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
<><><><>

Firebird Rising

Author: Jenskott
Summary: Jean Grey is dead. Will Phoenix be able to rise
from the ashes again? What will happen if she does it? My own
version of the new 'Phoenix Endsong' series.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns the books. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are their
true parents.
Feedback: To jorgisimox@hotmail.com. Please, I need reviews! English
isn't my primary language, so I need much advice.

<><><><>

Part Nine. Welcomes and Departures-

Shaky hands fastened hastily the seatbelt, clasping it with a hissing
click, and clung to the seat with nervousness. The fingers gripped the cushion
tightly, nearly shredding the brown upholstery.

"You haven't to be so frightened, you know."

"Yes, I have. You're driving."

Her look swiveled from the road to him. His heart got stuck in his
throat.

"Scott Summers. If I hear another
tale about 'Jean, the Terrible Driver'..."

"You aren't a terrible driver, Jean. You're a psychopath."

"Am I a psychopath? Who does turn upside down the Blackbird only
for hearing his teammates' screams? Who does grin sadistically when he listens
to Logan mumbling 'I want to go to my
home'?"

"He's a wimp. If I crash the plane, he'll survive." Her
husband huffed.

Jean sighed ruefully and looked back forward, feeling gloominess
dissolving her indignation. "I want to do ANYTHING resembles normality for
once, Slim. Is it too much to ask for?"

Scott gazed at her forlornly. Bandages covered still areas of her face
and body, hiding hideous patches of blisters not fully healed. Her flaming hair
had been cropped short and would take some time to grow back.

"Of course not, Jean. Of course not." He muttered quietly.

His hand drifted towards her hip to stroking it. Then it stopped. He
couldn't comfort her. If he touched her wounded skin, he'd hurt her.

How ironic.

<><><><>

A violent slam shook the hall's walls.

Robert Drake jerked his head upwards, startled by the sudden and loud
noise, but barely he saw a white blur storming past him and disappearing
hurriedly around the nearest corner.

He turned wonderingly to the door. Henry McCoy was in the threshold,
shaking his head as he peered glumly at the corridor. Iceman was about of
speaking when his piercing eyes stared seriously at him.

"I must announce, Robert, our esteemed headmistress has
relinquished and passed down to me her headmaster's title before declaring her
firm intention of leaving the school right away."

Sheer, shocked disbelief froze Iceman's expression for a second. Then it
darkened. "What? Why?"

"That's what I told." Henry lowered his head. "I should
talk her. I think she's committing a mistake. Transcendental decisions
shouldn't be determined in an abrupt fit of irrational temper-"

Bobby shrugged. "Good riddance of that nuisance."

"Robert!"

"What? You know as well as me she overstayed her welcome. Have you
forgotten, Blue Toes, the Fourth Rule of X-Men's Code? Hurt one of the Original
Five and you will be hurt. She hurt TWO! And I'm not counting the time she
helped Mastermind to mind-rape Jean... or the time she switched bodies with Ororo to destroy the team... or the time she kidnapped and
enslaved the New Mutants... or the time she stole my body..."

"But-"

"But I don't want you're worried about it, so I'll talk to
her."

Bobby dashed off, leaving Beast alone.

Hank McCoy stayed, motionless and speechless, in the hall, trying
comprehending what had just happened.

<><><><>

The blue car navigated slowly among the neighborhood's houses, swerving
carefully around every bend as its driver studied the low houses looming around
the roadway, the little gardens, the people walking. An unfathomable fear and
angst and old pain, deeply etched in her psyche, widened her green eyes as she
stared at the asphalt.

She was frightened of seeing a figure lying on the bloodstained
concrete. A brunette child. With her body mangled and
broken, her dress soiled with dirt and grease, her face swollen with bruises,
her eyes staring vacantly at the redhead child who held her lifeless body. And
the redhead child shivered with a deadly dread what was clutching her and
suffocating her and killing her as darkness exploded in her mind and devoured
her like a massive black beast-

A hand squeezed her shoulder, and she winced. It was hurtful. But also warmth and reassuring.

"Annie isn't here, Jean. She isn't here. Calm down."

Scott's soothing voice drew her back to reality, and Jean wheezed in and
out deeply. Her agitation had nearly disappeared when she parked the car in
front of an ice cream parlor.

Her husband read worriedly her face. "Are you sure of you can do
this?"

She bit her lip. "No. But I must."

Without further word she got out of the car and observed the store.

Memories overflowed her and she shut her eyes. That store was her
favorite place when she was a child. She walked in with her friends to eat ice
cream and gossip and laugh when classes were over, and it was her shelter when
she needed getting away from her parents or hiding from her sister. Annie and
she could chat for endless hours about nothing, simply glad of each other's
company.

But it'd happened in other lifetime; times of childhood, times of
childish innocence. Before the accident...

Scott's arm circled her back and squeezed her left shoulder. "Calm
down, Jean. You're strong. There's nothing you can't do. You've saved the
universe, you've fought demons, you've defeated Death.
You can do this. Trust me. "

She whirled around and hugged him tightly, burying her face on his
chest, entangling her arms around his torso, leaning her weight on him. His
body felt hot, so hot, and soft, and still he was firm and hard. Like a rock.
He was her rock, her anchor, her firm ground where she could step and feel safe
when the turmoil of her life threatened to drag her sanity.

Without him, she would be lost.

Without him, she was lost.

Jean lingered a time in that posture, basking in that warm closure,
absorbing he courage he transmitted, the strength he gave. Reluctantly she
stepped back and locked stares with him.

"Let's go". She whispered. Scott nodded and both walked in the
shop.

They saw them in one of the tables. Two young red-haired kids, a boy and
a girl, ate silently. The boy suddenly spotted them and waved his hand.

Scott Summers and Jean Grey exchanged an anxious glance and headed
towards theirs nephew and niece.

<><><><>

Billows of wind raced along the deep blue sky, blowing and swirling and
dragging vaporous clouds, as the burning sun heated air and ground. Warmed by
the intangible sunrays, Warren Worthington darted swiftly between shreds of
clouds and glided peacefully amidst the currents of hot and cold air whipped
his face and ruffled his feathers.

He was about of heading upwards when his keen eyesight spotted a lonely
person on the ground below, contemplating his flight. He flinched. He'd dodged
her since his awakening, unprepared to talk her, but he couldn't postpone
forever the confrontation.

Not matter how appealing the thought was.

Folding completely his wings he dived downwards. His body plummeted down
as a stone, but right before crashing into the floor,
his wings spread fully and halted dead his fall with a simple, vigorous swing. His
feet made no noise when they touched softly the soil.

"Warren."

He straightened up. "Betsy."

Both of them kept quiet. Waiting. Stalling.

Elisabeth observed Warren, for first time
seeing him free from Apocalypse's taint. And she tried very hard not ogling to
his bare and muscled torso rising with each inspiration, his silky skin
gleaming with sweat, his taut muscles throbbing underneath it.

And feeling her heart racing inside her chest she averted her stare,
trying not remembering how his sultry smile took her breathing away, how his
laughter gave her butterflies, how his gentle touch inflamed her.

"You're pink now." She muttered, paradoxically using her
aspect to steer her attention away it.

"Yes, I... it turns out I have a healing factor. Perhaps for that
my true wings grew back a while ago. I'd bet Apocalypse know it and for that he
grafted those damned steel wings to my back so quickly."

"That power saved you when the Crimson Dawn sucked your blood. Right?"

"Yes." He stated nonchalantly.

"You might have died."

He shrugged. "You're alive and fine. That's all matters."

The pale-skinned woman regarded him for a long moment as a soft breeze
fluttered her violet strands. "Why did you break up with me, Warren?"

Warren's noncommittal
expression faded, hardened by gloom seriousness. "Things... were getting
complicated between us. And then you started getting along with Thunderbird. When
you were together, when you laughed, when you talked... You acted how you used
to do with me. I saw you eyes every time you were looking to him, and I
couldn't recall the last time you looked to me with that... roguish joy. Then I
knew you didn't love me anymore. I had no choice. I had to end it."

She gaped, aghast, and hugged herself, feeling an icy chill blowing over
her skin, a stark contrast with the heated emotion she felt inwardly. "Me?
God, Warren, I didn't love Neal! He was only a good friend! I fooled around
with him just because you were losing interest in me! I wanted you paid me attention!"

"I wasn't losing interest in you!"

"Then why were you locked down in your office the whole time?"

"Because we were drifting apart and I couldn't deal with it!"

Silence settled around them.

"So..." Psylocke muttered
hesitantly. "In a nutshell, you were avoiding me because you were afraid,
I thought you were falling out love with me and flirted with Neal to get you
jealousy, you got too jealousy, and broke up with me because you thought I
didn't love you anymore."

He nodded dumbly. "It seems. Are you feeling as fool as me right
now?"

Betsy brushed briefly his mind's surface. "Yes." Then she let
out a bitter, humorless laugh and covered her face with her hands, nearly
sobbing. "How could we be so stupid? How could we waste our time so
foolishly? And how could we get more people entangled in this pitiful
mess?"

"Right." Worthington whispered faintly
as a blonde, youthful face floated in his mind. Though her expression drifted
between smiling and pained, between innocent and scarred.

"You... are dating Sam's little sister." Betsy muttered,
intending very strongly not sound judgmental at all.

Warren stared at her
sharply, but her eyes were bleakly. He hadn't taken offense. "Yes. I was,
at least. Several days ago we had a great fight and I haven't talked her since
then. I'm frightened of it goes utterly awry. I don't want hurting her, but... I
fear pain will be the outcome, not matter what I do. We get along well, but we
haven't the kind of bond I had with..."

He trailed off.

Betsy didn't need hearing the rest. "Me."

He kept quiet. Fearful, Elisabeth bit her lower lip. "Do you love
me yet?"

He opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. Finally he uttered
something, but his faint words were muffled by the sound of boots sliding over
muddy ground.

Both spun at once towards the noise's source. Warren let out a
strangled exclamation and Betsy gasped, widening her eyes. How could she have
missed her? What kind of shielding Emma had taught her?

Paige Guthrie was striding towards them, a silky sundress clinging
loosely to her slender figure, her arms falling limply for her sides, her long
golden hair strands scattered over her back and shoulders and framing an
alarmingly pale face with an unreadable expression.

She stopped in front of Warren. Two sets of aqua
eyes met. "You do it, right? Love her, I mean."

He said nothing. Nevertheless, his silence, his lips tightening, his
pupils drifting away were enough answer.

"I guessed so. No, Warren, don't tell anything. You and I knew deep
down we were liable to screwing up it sooner or later. Did you think we were 'For better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health, till
death do us part'? No, right? Neither I did it, even though I didn't want to accept it." She
kept talking relentlessly, trying covering with her voice the crack of her
heart shattering. "Thanks, Warren. I never thought
a handsome rich man would notice a farm girl like me. But you always told I was
beautiful and smart and I could manage anything and I shouldn't permit anyone
call me worthless. But I can't go on trying it when I know that you heart
belongs to someone else. I... Goodbye, Warren."

Abruptly she stood on her tiptoes, leaned forward, draped her lean arms
around his neck and kissed his lips with hardness born of grief. She lingered
on that kiss before breaking it as abruptly as she had started it. In a fluid
movement she spun around and walked away Warren, not wanting
seeing his expression -of stunning, of regret, of caring even, but not of love-
breaking her heart.

Like if it wasn't already broken.

She approached Betsy, who was staring at her with a mixture of
astonishment and silent sorrow, and grasped her right hand. "If you love
him, take care of him, please."

And then she ran out. Only running away them, never looking back. She
sprinted harder, as her cold tears flooded her eyes and blurred the rows of
trees around her.

Angel and Psylocke stared wordlessly at her
figure running for a long and silent moment.

"Perhaps I should talk her."

Betsy shook her head. "Right now it'd be a very bad idea."

He lowered his eyes and sighed heavily. "I never wanted hurting
her."

"I know."

He perused her face. Her pale-hued skin. Her soft cheeks. Her narrow and sparkling
eyes. Her perky lips. Her indigo hair,
including the annoying bangs fell stubbornly over her temples. She didn't look
different at all, but he knew the signs. Her smile was bittersweet, her eyes
dulled. Inwardly she wasn't the same woman. "What we do now?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, Warren. Do you want we get back together?"

Angel flinched noticeably and aimed a look skywards. Betsy couldn't
decide if he looked for clarity, wisdom or a quick escape route. Then he spoke.
"I'm frightened of shoving my foot into my mouth now I've opened it. Part
of my... hoped it, sort of, but I didn't dare to wish it. It'd be unfair to you
and to Paige. And we aren't the same people dated together. Things have changed
so much..."

"Things are always changing, Warren!" Betsy cut
in brusquely. Then her eyes widened, like if she had reached a sudden
revelation. "Things are always changing. I was a butterfly but my eyes
were blinded, my wings tattered. You were an angel but your wings were clipped,
your soul sullied. We aren't the same persons broke up theirs relationship, but
we aren't the same persons who fell in love either."

Sudden resolution inspiring her, she approached him and held
determinedly, gently his hand. "We're perpetually changing. That's what
mutation is, after all. We weren't Elisabeth Braddock and Warren Worthington
when we started dating back then; we were two persons
twisted and turned into razor weapons by the enemy, and perhaps it was what
drew us at each other. Neither we were a ninja assassin and
the Archangel of Death when we split up, because we'd lived through more
changes. And neither we are those two persons
nowadays. The past is gone, its last page written; it's time for starting
another book. We can't make choices based upon the lives we led, upon our past
successes and failures."

"So I suppose we have to follow our feelings and seeing where the
road ends." Warren mumbled
wishfully. "One step each day, walking slowly without getting worried
about the bumps or forks we can find ahead, finding out by ourselves where we
want arriving."

"Exactly." A perky smile
curved the woman's lips. "Who cares for the past or the future? Let's live
now. We shall define whatever our relationship is later."

Warren frowned
thoughtfully. "But something hasn't changed in spite of everything, Betsy.
Do you remember what I told you after our first date?"

Betsy nodded. He had repeated it time and again. When
she was nearly disemboweled by Sabertooth, when she
was possessed by the Crimson Dawn, when she was stripped from her telepathy
because of Shadow King. "If you have lost your wings, I'll give you
my own. I give you my wings. I give you the sky."

He nodded firmly. "Yes. It was true back then, it's true now and
it'll be true always, not matter what." His arms circled her thin waist
and drew her to him. Betsy whispered his name but he ignored her as he scooped
her body up on his arms and clutched it against his chest. His snow-white,
sailing wings unfolded around them and flapped furiously.

Betsy felt a rush of wind and speed blowing roughly her smooth face and
shut her eyes.

And of sudden she was flying enveloped in bright blueness, the
wonderful, wide and blue sky surrounding her everywhere. Wind stroked them and
they rode on its wings, skimming over the clouds and beholding the sun, rapidly
streaking across the free sky, miles above the gloom Earth.

She shouted in release, in fun, in rapture. Delight bubbled within her,
the greatest joy she had felt in a long time. Her arms wrapped around his neck
and she leaned her head on his chest. She could feel the taut muscles, the
heart beating violently and pumping blood beneath them, the powerful lungs
swelling and deflating quickly.

Despite the frosty wind blowing around, the day seemed warmer.

<><><><>

"... And while we lay in the infirmary, SHIELD passed by, fetched
the Inner Lords and dumped them in the Vault." Jean Grey concluded,
staring fixedly at her nephew and niece. She exhaled a gust of hot breath in
relief. Narrate the story had been tough, but she got it at last off her chest.
And God, she felt eased.

Her sister's children remained very quiet, though. Joseph gazed back
quietly, barely displaying anything more than deep sorrow in his eyes. Her
sister fiddled unceasingly with her half-eaten and half-thawed ice cream, her
head lowered and her red curls darkening her emotionless face.

Jean felt anxiety, dread, ache clutching her heart. A gentle hand
clasped hers, and she felt Scott lending her strength. She inspired deeply.

"Kids? Tell something...
Please."

Joe looked away. "I don't know what telling... or thinking... or
believing, Aunt Jean."

Jean nodded sadly and turned to her niece. "Gail?"

The redhead girl paused poking her food with the spoon. But she didn't
look up. "Please, Aunt."

"Come on, Gail. If you feel some weight oppressing your chest, you
shan't feel free until you get it off you."

Gail squeezed suddenly her spoon until her whitened knuckles twisted the
metal, and she rose her head. Tears brimmed on her
corners' eyes before sliding down her cheeks, and hurt ravaged her face. Jean
gasped, having seen those features stricken by grief and rage countless times
in a mirror and in the face of another young redhead.

"Why? Why does mom keep dead but you come back? You ALWAYS come
back. Joe and me will never see again dad and mom, but
you're always leaving us and after returning. Why?"

Jean shut firmly her eyes and wheezed in roughly. It hurt, but she
expected that rejection. "I don't know, Gailyn.
Don't you believe I've asked myself that question, night after night as
darkness surrounded me? Why did my sister get killed before we could make up? Why
did Annie, my best friend, pass away? Why did Scott's parents leave your uncle
and his brother alone? Why are dead Changeling or
Thunderbird or poor Dough Ramsey? Why does everyone remain dead, as I live
again? Am I doomed to live and die endlessly as my loved ones and family and
friends and every people I've ever known perish, in an infinite cycle until the
end of the days when eternity begins again?"

"Like a matter of fact, no." Scott interrupted, deeply
disturbed by her speech. "Your powers are cut down. You're still one of
the more powerful psychics in the planet and probably you retain your
potential, but I doubt you can use your full power again. Besides, you came
back always for me. If I'm not alive-"

"Scott, please." She muttered with wariness. "The point
is, children, I've seen dying too many people who deserved living and I've seen
living too many people who deserved dying. Why? I don't know. I haven't got the
answers. But I didn't want to talk you about this..."

Phoenix trailed uneasily.
Joe frowned, feeling sudden, unexplainable apprehension. "What,
then?"

Jean drummed warily her fingers on the board. "I hardly remember
anything... from the another side. But someone gave me
a message." She winced, watching sheer horror
dripping from theirs faces and wondered how she could tell it. Sudden
resolution settled on her, and Jean decided being blunt. "Sarah told me
she and Paul love you. And they hope you grow happy."

Tense, terrifying silence ensued. Then Gail burst out in sudden tears.
Her shuddering weeping resounded through the whole store. Joe embraced her,
trying being supportive even though grief was choking him too.

Scott and Jean contemplated them with quiet sorrow, holding hands in
silence as they sobbed.

<><><><>

Expensive dresses fell in rapid succession on the quilt, covering the
ones lay in disorder on the bed.

Emma wrenched theirs clothes violently from theirs racks and extricated
them furiously from the drawers before tossing them over the sheets. Next she
opened a suitcase and began to stuff hastily clothes in it, wrinkling them like
dirty rags.

"So... you're running away."

She didn't bother in turning around to glare at her unwelcome visitor.
"No."

"You told Hank you're quitting and leaving right away, and now
you're packing your stuff. Of course you aren't running away." His voice
ringed terribly ironical and amused, but she detected a hint of seriousness...
and of concern. It was puzzling. "Why are you leaving?"

"What? Do you think Jean Grey and me can coexist civilly in the
same state henceforth?"

"No. I think you don't care for Jeannie. Scratch that, I KNOW you don't
care for her or her feelings. You've proved that point. Now tell me the real
reason."

Emma grimaced and whirled around angrily. Robert Drake was in threshold,
leaned leisurely on one of the jambs, utterly nonchalant to her display of
rage.

"Why do you CARE?" She shouted, frustrated.

"Why do you care telling me or not?" He rebuked
instantly, and Emma observed his demeanor. Grim. Angry. Controlled.

She recalled the adjectives she used to describe him. Pathetic
little loser. Fool. Ineffectual clown. He
didn't seem right now anything of it.

When Dark Phoenix blocked his power, she gave him back -subconsciously
or not- his capability to control it. Flesh formed again his body, not solid
bluish ice. But the time he had remained fully frozen had twisted him, like if
his self had hardened as well, but it hadn't thawed. And now his behavior was
cold and razor like a blade's edge. Like a jagged ice shard.

And Emma felt, to her shock, she didn't like the change. She missed the
old Drake.

"Look, Drake, I don't wish staying here any longer. I can't bear
seeing the X-Men's sidelong glances, wondering if I'm going to betray them
again. I can't bear seeing the frightened faces of the children, knowing my
actions put them in danger again. And above all I can't stand seeing... him
ignoring my existence as Jean Grey hugs him delightfully!"

Bobby arched his eyebrows. "I thought you seduced Scott because
Mastermind manipulated you."

"It isn't so simple, Robert. And you wouldn't understand it. You
aren't a telepath, or a woman." She sighed, sitting down. Perhaps she
really needed vent. "Scott draws female telepaths like a flame lures moths
because we see what truly lies past that mask of coldness he uses to keep
people away. He's a FLAME, you understand, a pure and soothing light, full with
warm and purity."

She couldn't explain him what was Scott's mind like. It glowed in the
Astral Plane like a torch, a blaze made from the brightest and purest light, a
sun burnt passionately and shone gently at once. And in the core throbbed a
blistering fire forged with unyielding bravery and untamable willpower. He kept
his innocence, his principles sheathed in that core of strength, and he
wouldn't allow anything or anybody bends it.

It was a challenge. And she loved a good challenge. She wanted that
unblemished innocence. She craved for it. She wanted touching it and basking in
it and marring it and making it hers.

"And you loved the challenge of corrupting that purity,
didn't you?" Robert blurted brusquely, how if he was reading her mind, the
hard planes of his face frowning as he glared mercilessly at her.

She glowered. "Do you want answers or not? It wasn't so simple. The
thought of bringing him down delighted me, but... He lured me. I felt his
righteousness could fill the emptiness I've felt my entire life. However I
wouldn't have done anything beyond flirting for the joy of annoying Jean Grey
if Jason..."

"Wasn't he supposed to be dead, anyway?"

"Oh, don't be stupid, Drake! It was another goddamned illusion! He
isn't a real man but an illusion! A lie, a ghost, a blurry shade in the mist!
He played with my mind without I noticed ever! He didn't force me to seduce
Scott, simply used my lust for him and my resentment for Grey to remove my
inhibitions and goad me to make what I really wanted. What he really wanted.
That vermin didn't need much effort." She spat bitterly.

Bobby glared sharply, torn between pity and disgust. "What is your
trouble anyway? Why do you hate Jean so badly?"

"Other that she's more powerful than me? Other that she's
defeated me? Repeatedly and easily? Other
that she has all what I yearn for, -respect, love, family- without struggling
for it? Choose one." She rose angrily and headed towards the
window, her skin shimmering and hardening as she walked. A
cold armor to shield her emotions, to conceal her weakness. When she
talked, her words were chilling like gusts of arctic frostbite. "Hence I
don't intend to stay here to watch her reclaiming her prize."

A shiver coursed through her body and she was grateful for her blocked
empathy. How could she explain her hurt seeing Scott and _her_ look at each
other like if nobody else existed in the world? Watching them kissing,
embracing, holding hands like if nothing had happened? Sensing Scott's brain
fully impervious to her? Knowing she had no prayer of tempting him now his mind
was free? Realizing he'd grease the X-jet before he'd glance at her direction?

She hadn't talked to him since the battle. She had barely seen him since
the battle. And when she found him, Jean Grey was entangled around him like a
leech. And always he looked away and Grey shot her a leer capable to melt adamantium. Now they were back together, he wouldn't let
anything came between them again. He wouldn't talk her, he wouldn't remain next
to her, he wouldn't even ask if she was fine. He
ignored her altogether. And she intuited he probably hoped she spite him. He
preferred her loath to her love.

It hurt. It was a hurt ached. An ache burnt.

Just like Jean Grey had promised.

If she wished revenge, she had it in spades.

Iceman scrutinized her in thoughtful silence. Inwardly he was pondering
his choices. Finally he made up his mind, and with a resigned expression, gave
one step forward. "I'll be tagging along."

Emma stiffened and turned sideways. Bobby could see she was dumbfounded.
"Beg your pardon? Why do you want to accompany me? And why would I wish
your company?"

Iceman shrugged uncaringly. "I don't know. Maybe it's because you
seem very depressed right now. Vulnerable, even. It's
almost endearing." An obnoxious smile split his lips. Emma repressed an
unmistakable urge for punching it. "And I have a knack for helping
desperate women. They look to my face, think theirs lives aren't so pathetic after
all, and then they leave me to find some funnier game than my feelings."

He sounded so bitter, she thought. And yet...
"You only want one chance to fuck me."

"NO. Personally I'm sick enough from women, thanks you very
much."

Liar, she thought. And yet...

Emotions were leaking from him, blending in a blurry jumble, and Emma
tried sorting them out. She could feel calm rage and cold disdain. But also compassion. And repressed desire.
He loathed her, but he wanted her as well. Nonetheless he wouldn't acknowledge
consciously that lust. He didn't want feeling he was betraying Jean. He needed
finding some excuse to love her without betraying his friend. In fact he willed
blaming Mastermind for her actions.

She didn't want his company. She didn't want anybody's company. She
didn't want taking off her mask and exhibiting her vulnerability, her weakness,
her misery to someone. Including, especially, Robert Drake.

And yet...

And yet he wasn't worse than the average male. He was kind and nice, and
his mind was transparent like glass. His face didn't resemble a house with the
shutters raised and ugly darkness lurking beneath them. Or a
light taken by someone else. Someone petty and
revengeful and temperamental.

Yes, she could see definite advantages in being around a single man.

"Do like you wish, Robert. Nothing matters me much more."

She resumed her packing. Peacefully, this time.

<><><><>

"Do you know what has happened them?"

Jean blinked. "What?"

Gail rubbed her temples tiredly. She felt exhaust but calm. Inwardly she
felt thousand different emotions swirling, colliding and dueling angrily, but
she was enough serene to control it. And to assuage one
doubt.

"Grandad and grandmom. They're amnesic."

Jean gasped. Then she sat up brusquely, so brusquely the motion knocked
down her chair. "What?"

"They've forgotten you are... were dead." Joseph muttered. His
voice was neutral, artificially neutral, but there was a repressed emotion
underlying. Doubt. A treacherous doubt he didn't dare
to express. "It's like if someone had erased the last months and written another stuff. We realized one week ago, when they started
to behave... normally."

"One week ago. We fought Hellfire Club then." Scott muttered,
frowning. "You can't possibly think Jean-"

His wife didn't let him finish. "I don't know what has happened,
but I'm going to find out NOW!"

She stood the chair up and plopped down onto it, simultaneously using a
tendril of telepathic suggestion to erase her outburst from the patrons' minds.
Then she focused.

Her mind left her body and soared like an invisible bird towards her
former home, sensing her parents within. She skimmed briefly over their minds,
careful of not harming them and found the alterations. A
skillful construct of phony memories replacing the reality. The culprit
had erased his tracks with thorough carefulness, but she recognized the psychic
print. And the handicraft.

She had seen enough. Her soul filtered back in her flesh and she was
again in the parlor. Trying masking her feelings of betrayal, she stared at her
family.

"You were right, kids. Someone has altered theirs memories. And I
know who has been. And when I catch him..."

<><><><>

Genosha
Island.

He smirked broadly. His ambush was set. His troops perfectly aligned in
the battlefield. His foe was circled and would have no choice but surrender and
accept his defeat. At last he had triumphed over...

The White Knight leapt three squares and tipped over the Black King.
"Checkmate."

His smile froze and vanished. "Why you..."

Walls shook frightfully. Cracks fractured the plaster and dirt spilled
from the ceiling. His despicable nemesis raised an eyebrow. "If you wrench
the rafts from theirs moorings, the entire structure will collapse over our
heads and our position will become quite unpleasant."

Erik Magnus Lensherr calmed down and sat back
on the chair. "You aren't cheating telepathically, are you?"

Charles Xavier smiled. "It'd be downright immoral, don't you think?
Seriously, Magnus. Doesn't take a
telepath to defeat me in this game. Kitty has proved it. If you can't
outplay me in chess, spare me from childish excuses. You know perfectly well I
wouldn't use my telepathy to get an unjust advantage-"

"Indeed. You wouldn't use your telepathy to,
I don't know, pass tests or win sport competitions..."

The Professor X blushed, chagrined. "It happened long ago. I was
merely a child then."

"Talking about children... When do you estimate your prized
disciple will request an audience with you?"

The Professor looked up, towards the roof, thoughtfully. "Three...
Two... One."

CHARLES! WE HAVE TO TALK! NOW!

"Zero." He winced, reeling from the
deafening mental shout. "I'll be back."

He shut his eyes and found himself into his own mind. The mindscape
writhed and shook, flooded by a crimson light of anger, burning and bright and
bristling. The light swirled and condensed in the center, shaping a flower-like
pyre. And in its flames burnt a stormy, darkened figure.
Jean.

"How. You.
DARED." She spelled slowly and carefully every
word as her bright eyes glowered furiously.

The Professor shook his head ruefully. "It was necessary, Jean.
You... don't know what your death had done to your parents. They were broken
after your demise. A new shock had unbalanced theirs mind fully. They could
have gone crazy. They could have lost theirs capability to distinguish reality
from fiction. They could have refused recognizing you. Don't you prefer sparing
them from that pain?"

Perhaps he thought it'd calm her down. But a menacing bright golden
filled her eyes, replacing the sparkling green, and the flames dousing her
crackled angrily.

"Damn it, Professor, don't give me that fucking bullshit! No longer
I am the child who never questioned your actions, eager for doing what you
believed good, right or necessary! You can't expect now I accept without
questioning your speeches about immoral use of powers when you're always
stomping your own limits! Do you think I've forgotten how you erased the
memories from a whole town to make them forgetting about the Sentinels? Or how
you changed Warren's parents'
memories so they forgot Magneto?"

"Don't you want ending the hurt, Jean? The
suffering? Your parents aren't mourning you. The reason of their grief
doesn't exist now. Why forcing them to remember it? It'd be unnecessary and
cruel. They can live happy, without remembering that pain."

"But you remember it. You live with the remembrance and the
knowledge of your actions. And me too."

Feeling abashed, the woman lowered her head. The Professor floated
towards her, stretching one hand to reassure her, but she stepped back.

"Don't. Touch. Me! Christ, have you some idea of how hard is to
love you? Do you remember the days my father drove me to the school when I was
thirteen?"

The flames danced and swirled abruptly, changing colors and drawing
shapes. Trees grew around them, forming a thick grove slashed by a meandering
path. A rumbling noise echoed in the silent wood, and a car appeared, navigating
along the road. The vehicle left behind the wood, crossed a lavish lawn and
stopped in front of a large mansion. The car's door opened, and a young redhead
kid leapt hurriedly out of the automobile. She hugged the man in wheelchair was
waiting her, and both walked into the mansion. The kid spent the next hours
learning how building mindshields and handling
telepathy, trying levitating or moving objects without touching them, and
studying in the library. Later the kid and the man sat together in the
kitchen's table, he drinking tea and she munching greedily chocolate cookies or
one orange, and both talked happily until her father returned.

Mentor and student
watched the flow of images, feeling terrible homesickness.

"Do you remember?" She whispered. Grief-stricken, the
Professor nodded.

"Well! Because remembrances are everything we have been left of a
past will never return! If that memory was a framed picture, the glass would be
shattered and the photo tattered and stained!" She shouted. True to her
word, the image stood frozen and flames engulfed it. "I... idolized you in
my mind. I suppose I was being stupid and unfair, worshipping you like a God
incapable of committing wrong and placing upon you impossible expectations,
but... I loved you so much like my own parents. However you've disappointed or
betrayed so many times!"

She stopped, feeling grief strangling her throat, cracking her voice and
moistening her eyes. Upset and shaken, she dried her tears. "I can't
forget how you left me alone, with my uncontrollable power burning within me,
when we believed Scott and the other X-Men were dead. I was hurt and
inconsolable, and you left Earth with Lillandra."

"Please, Jean, be fair. I left because I was just so upset, hurt
and torn like you. You left first without telling me one word, without letting
me knowing what you needed me badly. You left me and I couldn't bear the
loneliness..."

"I can't forget that Onslaught told me." She went on,
relentless. The Professor looked away swiftly. "I felt horrified and
cheated. I couldn't believe you felt like that. I never knew you felt like
that. I remembered the confidences you trusted me with, how uncomfortable I
felt keeping them from my friends despite my pride in being trustworthy, and I
wondered how many other secrets you had kept from me. Sincerely, I didn't know
back then if I could trust you."

The Professor lowered his head and cursed Onslaught.

"I can't forget Scott didn't want participating in The Gathering of
the Twelve but returning to Alaska with me, but he
yielded because you asked him... I can't forget the outcome of that
decision..."

"Jean, if I'd got only a glimpse of that mess, I-"

"Had you left us alone?" She whipped her head upwards, her
eyes flashing, furious. "You know perfectly well how his responsibility
pushes Scott! I'm sick from seeing him killing himself to take care of your
team, win your war and live up to your expectations! And I'm sick from seeing
our teammates making fun from him- and me! Neither of them understands the
burden we bear, neither of them sees the sacrifices we make,
neither of them knows the responsibilities we take!"

"Jean" The Professor let out a weary sigh. "I assure you
I understand it. And I regret having placed upon you that burden since yours
childhood. But you have always been my best students. Nobody could have worked
better or harder than you did. I couldn't rely on someone else."

"Yes? Perhaps it's past time Scott and me
ponder over what WE wish for once. Perhaps it's past
time we reevaluate our priorities and decide what comes first: the school, the
dream or our marriage!"

"What are you planning?"

Jean's image flickered weakly. But before fading in the flames, her last
words floated in Xavier's mind.

"And Professor... I've forgiven you the times you hurt me. But I
haven't forgiven the times you hurt Scott. And I don't know if I can forgive
you for my parents' sake."

An unnatural, chilling breeze snuffed out the fire, leaving Xavier
enveloped in darkness. Abashed. Alone.

<><><><>

Sun was sinking beyond the western treeline as
the sky, dyed with the flares of a red dusk, darkened.

In the mansion's front door, Rachel Summers was draping her arms around
her brother's neck, hugging his broad body.

"Do you really have to go?"

He shook his head. "I don't like the mansion. I don't like the
X-Men. And Slymm is fine now, so there's no reason to
me remaining. Other than jamming my psimitar down
that sanctimonious runt's butt-"

Rachel stifled one giggle. "But dad and mom can need you again. You
whined back then about having not been here to control the damage-"

His burly hands clasped lightly her shoulders. "For that I'm
leaving you in charge. Watch them over. If you need my help, call me. If you
believe you can need my help, call me. If you aren't sure... call me
anyway."

Rachel raised one red brow. "Oh, so you want talking to me only if
there's some trouble?"

Her brother stuttered. "I'm sorry. I don't want to imply..."

"I'm joking, dim-wit. I know you didn't mean it." She laughed
mirthfully, before pecking softly his cheek. "Summers use to put both feet
in our mouths during conversations. Especially the male
side."

He laughed. "G'journey,
sister."

"G'journey, Nathan."

His shape dissolved in golden and shimmering light, mingling with the
sunset's glow. When the luminescence died away, Nathan had vanished.

<><><><>

-References: Emma helped Mastermind to enslave Jean in Dark Phoenix Saga
(Uncanny X-Men 129-137), swapped bodies with Storm in UXM 151, kidnapped the
New Mutants in UXM 180 -she kidnapped Kitty and Dough in that issue, but I
didn't buy The New Mutants so I can't give another reference- and possessed
Bobby's body in UXM 314; Emma used those insults with Bobby in UXM 318; I don't
remember when the Professor wiped the minds of a whole town during a bout with
the Sentinels -and I'm too lazy to check my issues- but I suppose it happened
in UXM 14-16; Xavier erased Angel's parents' minds in UXM 18; Onslaught
revealed Jean the Professor loved her like a woman in XM 53; 'G'journey' is the traditional farewell in Askani idiom.

-As far as I know, Warren's sentence is my
invention. But it was a nice touch, wasn't it? ^_^.

-I hope not having written Bobby out of character, but I've heard he's
lost his prankster attitude -shame. SHAME!- and he's
quite foul-tempered now.

-Jean's attitude during her chat with the Professor is due to my view of
their relationship. I think she loves him like a daughter, but she's felt let
down many times for him (you can consult X-Factor 29, X-Men 53 and 54, and
Uncanny X-Men 378 to understand where I'm coming from). And given her flaring
temper, she's liable to explode some time.

-Professor�s actions can seem OOC, but how I�ve said, I have a precedent
�Warren�s parents-. He�s
a very straightforward and moral man, but he shows little compunction if he
needs protecting his students. For example, he shut down Magneto's mind when he
nearly killed Wolverine. Besides, I needed making that to tie a loose end
�Jean�s family and theirs reactions-. I�m sorry it�s very forceful or little
believable.

-In the next chapter I tie a final loose end. Remain in tune for the
LAST part of Firebird Rising.

To be continued...
- 8
- 9
- 10
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Firebird Rising