Dying is unacceptable.
Who: Jean and Emma What: Emma gets shattered, and Jean uses her powers to bring her back. When: morning 6/18 Where: Emma's place Status: complete Rating: PG-13 note: I'm foreshadowing for bigger, redeemy type stuff eventually so anyone with telepathy or precog or sensitive to that kind of thing can, if muns wish to, have felt something. Bonus points for visions of fiery birds!
Awake, Jean still didn’t know what to make of what had happened with Scott and Emma. She blamed all three of them. Hell, she’d kissed Logan and he’d been the one to push her away. Everything after Apocalypse (and before, if she was honest with herself) had shown her marriage slowly falling apart, and her relationship with Scott gradually fraying. Maybe it was doomed, but that didn’t mean she had to just accept what they’d done.
But they had to live in peace. In the dreams, Jean was torn between anger and acceptance.
And tolerance, at least, had won out when Emma had been shattered. She woke up, and reached out for Emma’s mind. Are you awake?
The dreams were, largely in most cases, a hindrance. Emma was learning her telepathy slowly, not nearly as brilliant in life as she had come to be in the dreams, however with her secondary ability manifesting along with these it was a little daunting to learn. Still, the more she did dream, the more she gained a better control.
Although the complications with her integration with the main X-Men team and her subsequent affair with Scott was further hindering things, the breakdown in her relationship with the Cuckoo’s following Sophie’s noble use of the Kick drug and her heroism removing her from her sister’s connection, Emma would’ve said they were healing.
At least until Esme fired a diamond bullet at her and shattered her to pieces without a thought.
There was certainly a part of Emma’s psyche lingering, her connection to Jean not completely torn apart. It was less of a presence and more of an echo, something that was rattling around, not just dissipating yet. But the shards of perfect diamond that made up Emma’s form were littering the bed in the master bedroom of her home, her fragmented mind unable to reach back to touch Jean’s.
“Emma?” Jean said that out loud, though it really wouldn’t have mattered either way. Pulling on a robe, she left her room. She knocked on Emma’s door, then let herself in. She stopped in the threshold, staring at the sparkling debris. “Oh no. No no.”
She didn’t know what to do, or if she even had the power to fix this like she had in the dreams. She could sense that Emma was...there. Kind of. It was enough to hold onto. She looked at her hands, then at the diamond shards. She was so sick of this. “Come back to me and I really will forgive you.” Not that she hadn’t, but there’d been some residual anger.
Oh, and wasn’t that just such an alluring deal? Emma was aware that there was yet more grovelling to be done in regards to the psychic affair her other self had started up with Scott, strictly with the intention of screwing with Jean. Her jealousy manifested in such strange ways. But, she had to admit, for all the things she’d done that Jean held against her, seducing Scott seemed to be the worst one of all.
Even if the perfect pair were having a less than perfect time.
But it was enough to have Emma trying harder, she might not have a body right that second -oh, goodness, let Jean find some of the Phoenix bitch in her to reconstruct things, Emma would loathe to have to put her psyche in another body, but she could push as much of her energy towards Jean’s connection as possible.
If she had to abide just one thing that cosmic clusterfuck did, it would be this. So just this once, Emma would hope for the Phoenix.
Fire flared in Jean’s eyes. “I’m ready. Just give me something. Give me enough for this and I’ll let you in. Help me save her.” That was what the Phoenix wanted, wasn’t it? To cross time and space and dimensional barriers to be reunited with her? Jean could bargain.
She held her arms out as she lifted into the air. The fire spread until she was engulfed in it, burning wings behind her. The diamond started to pull together, spinning around in a fiery vortex as Jean psychically latched onto Emma’s very essence. Emma came back together, molded once more into that near perfect human sculpture, and Jean attached her consciousness to the body.
It didn’t take an overly long moment from her diamond shards fusing together with the heat and power of the Phoenix, Emma’s psyche settled firmly back in it’s place as the diamond form faded and Emma returned to her human body, slightly overheated and breathing a little taxed in the outcome.
At least this time she didn’t have the trauma of one of her protege’s being her attempted murderer. Although Emma understood Esme’s anger and feelings, she wouldn’t have expected the girl to turn assassin. Never mind how the youngster got a hold of a diamond bullet to do it.
“Jesus,” she was wide-eyed and awed. The fact that it worked, that she’d been reformed, and partly because of the image Jean made, engulfed in flame with the Phoenix flooding in.
Jean was breathing heavily too, surging with power, liking the power and...she tried to rein control in, worried more about herself burning out than anything else. The flames died down, until only a flicker remained in her eyes and then even that was extinguished. She dropped to the ground, legs and body weak, but stumbled to Emma to check on her with the strength she had left. “Are you all right?”
Pulling the sheet around herself, mostly just for the tiny degree of modesty, although she was overheated as it was. “I’m fine,” a bit of an exaggeration, she was exhausted and confused and felt fragmented still. But she was more concerned with the sense of other radiating with Jean. Yes, the Phoenix was always a possibility, but Jesus, Emma wasn’t sure she was prepared to deal with that just yet.
Perching by the edge of the bed, not trusting her legs just yet, Emma was attempting to check on Jean just as much as the redhead seemed to wish to check on her. “Sit down, darling, you look positively wiped.” Maybe that happened when cosmic entities formed with you. “Do you need anything? Are you--- Are you okay?”
Jean nodded once, and sat down on the bed. She remained out of breath, and both her head and her heart was pounding. But there was a profound sense of emptiness inside of her as the fire - both literal and metaphysical - went out inside her. She leaned against Emma. “You scared the hell out of me.”
It was better to focus on that then on what all of this meant.
Shifting to nestle Jean’s head against her shoulder, her own cheek pressed to the top of Jean’s head, Emma tried to remain relatively calm, placing all her mindscape back together from where it’d practically collapsed amongst the shards. “Well, it wasn’t really a walk in the park for me either.” Besides Esme’s betrayal and the shock of splitting into a million pieces, the fact that Jean had to use the Phoenix to fuse her together was not lost on Emma at all.
“I have to say, the bleed over of effects are decidedly irritating.” She’d probably be calling in today, she doubted she’d have the mental stability to make her way through the work day right now. And she’d much rather not have to worry about putting on airs and graces right then. “You did spectacularly, though. As usual.”
“You could have died.” It was frightening. If she hadn’t been able to call on the power, or any power. And what could it mean if something happened again. Jean died. Frequently. What if she died here? What if Emma died in a way she couldn’t fix? Or Kitty, or Rogue? Any of them. Could she call on the Phoenix again? Hold a body together? She’d have to find a way to practice in secret. “Dying is unacceptable.”
“Dying is inevitable, dear.” It wasn’t fun and it likely would not be something any of them took likely, but it wasn’t something they’d be able to avoid indefinitely. If not for Jean, Emma knew that would’ve been it for her. Who else would’ve known to piece her together after all? “I don’t plan on doing it, but … eventually it happens to us all. You more often than most.” And yes, Emma would move heaven and hell to make sure that never crossed over in a permanent way, but she did know there were risks.
“I’m sorry, dearest. That was hardly an ideal thing to waken to.”
“We need to see what you look like as one of those elegant old dames, “ Jean said. She lifted a hand to Emma’s face, smoothing a non-existent line then brushing hair out of the way. The feelings that gripped her were impossible to hide. She had fallen hard for the woman who was practically a sword enemy in her dreams. And she was almost willing to use that word.
“Flawless, darling. Of course.” Emma doubted she would get to that at all -not hardly because they lived terribly dangerous lives, but it didn’t seem like longevity was an aspect of X-Men lives. Unless you were Logan, and even then, he’d told her that he’d died later as well. Elegant old dame probably wasn’t a factor.
Emma raised her own hand to draw Jean’s down her cheek, pressing a kiss to the heel of Jean’s hand. “I’m fine, dearest. I’m more worried about how much you exerted yourself.” Because Emma was aware here that Jean did not have an insurmountable level of power.
“I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine. Just a little tired.” She closed her eyes, wanting Emma to draw strength from her rather than the other way around. She certainly hadn’t mean to steal her traumatic thunder at any rate. “It’s easy to forget how real these dreams are until something like this happens.”
The psychic connection was well on it’s way to being repaired, Emma’s mindscape all in one piece again, along with the haunting image of Angel Salvadore, a girl Emma had never met in the waking world, pointing a gun at her while she felt Esme’s presence in the other girl. “I think today is the perfect day to do nothing but relax.” She really wasn’t up for dealing with people today, her mind was too raw and she wasn’t too sure just how it would sort itself from this. “I have some spring cleaning to do in my head it seems,” organising everything, putting her memories back in order, locking up the ones she wasn’t really looking to deal with all over again. Maintaining the soft stroking through Jean’s hair, Emma weighed up her next offer carefully before figuring out how to word it, “Would you be able to stay today? Or does work beckon?”
Jean looked at the clock. “I think we can arrange a substitute today.” Her hands were still shaking just thinking about what had happened. She knew she’d be unable to give her students the focus they needed. “I’m allowed a personal emergency once in awhile, and this certainly qualifies.” Emma needed to be doted on, and maybe doting on Emma would calm Jean’s own nerves.
Emma’s relief was probably obvious, she hated being ridiculous enough that she needed Jean to stay home for the day, but she really just didn’t think the day would go well on her own either. At least this way she could take a mental-health day and keep an eye on Jean for any resurgence of the cosmic bird bitch. Grateful as she was to be in one piece again, she wasn’t sure Orange County was ready for the Phoenix Force just yet.
“A snow day, in California. That’s exactly what we need.”