The X-Project

Scott is wibbly about his eyes. Jean tells him not to be. Then he gets distracted by a pair of very green eyes.



He opened his good eye when he woke up, without really thinking. Scott found himself fighting panic as he blinked up at the ceiling, his brain sluggishly processing the fact that he wasn't wearing his sleep goggles. But there was no blast, no new hole in the ceiling - the previous one had been patched - and he relaxed slowly, staring up at the blank whiteness.

He'd fought back the panic on his own, which was progress, but Jean still finished her conversation with his doctor rather abruptly to go check on him. Luckily, Dr. McDonnell had grown used to her breaking off conversations without a word to rush off, and at least this time she'd bothered with an, "Excuse me."

"Scott," Jean said softly as she entered his room. "How are you doing?"

Calm. He had to stay calm. "I'm... okay. I think." He breathed, deep and slow, waiting for that burning sensation behind his eyes. Nothing. Well, plenty of pain on the one side, but that just meant he needed to hit That Damned Button, that was all. "It's not... it's doing it again."

Jean carefully stayed out of the line of his vision, not wanting to panic him. Or lose her head if she did. "Your power?" she asked. "Yes, it is. Moira and I have a theory, did she tell you?"

"She said she thought... that she was thinking about something. Not what." Scott swallowed, his hand twitching restlessly towards the morphine button, but then hesitated. "Hurts today..."

"We think that the reason your power came on suddenly when you saw Helga was your own conviction that it would," she said slowly, moving to stand beside his bed. "That something about the explosion, or the loss of your eye has given you back the off switch that the plane crash took away."

"So if... I didn't think it would, it might not?" Scott thought very hard about his power not coming on. No more holes in the ceiling.

"That's the theory, yes. Or, well, since when you first opened your eyes it didn't come on, it may be more that unless you think it will, it won't, but... Well, it's something we're going to have to look into, both from medical aspects and from powers training ones."

"... oh." He hadn't even thought about that. It had been hard to think clearly about any of this just yet, but the implications, as he finally considered them... "Huh. Whoa?" For fuck's sake, he sounded like Keanu Reeves.

Jean smiled faintly. "Yes, I think 'whoa' pretty much covers it. This is still pretty much theory, and we don't understand why it happened yet..."

"But to be safe... shouldn't I... something?" Half-glasses? Why did he keep thinking about wearing half his glasses? Shameful lack of imagination there.

Jean considered him closely, reaching down to squeeze his hand. "We may be able to come up with something if you feel like you need it." And it did seem it would be more about what he felt he needed than anything else, as the persistent lack of any new holes in the ceiling attested. "But, Scott, with the bandages, right now there's no way we'd be able to secure it."

"I'm scared." It slipped out before he could stop it. "What if it comes back on, and someone's in the way... if we don't know when it's going to happen, I'd never be able to tell when I have to have my eyes closed..."

"I know, love." It was, after all, far more his worry than hers that was the reason she was staying back out of his line of sight. Tilting her head, she sorted through the chaotic memories he'd given her of the accident. "There was... You felt something?" she asked vaguely. "A burning in your eyes, yes?" She couldn't pin down if it had happened before the blast or after, though, the memory too tied up with the panic.

"Yeah. Behind my eyes... eye. It's not... there right now," Scott said tentatively. He didn't want to depend on that, though. Not when they didn't really know what was going on. This was not something that you took stupid chances with.

"I understand," Jean said, answering the thought and not the words. "We... The doctors... We all think it's best for your good eye to remain unbandaged, and Moira and I aren't worried, but if you want we can discuss it again."

"Was afraid you were going to say that..." What if he slipped? What if it happened again, and he hurt someone... the thoughts chased each other around his mind in endless circles, however hard he tried to look at it logically, to tell himself that Jean and Moira could be trusted to make the right decision here, of course they could...

"Hey, hey." Jean frowned slightly. "All the doctors and nurses are aware now, even That... Helga. They'll know to be careful. It will be ok."

"I just don't want to hurt anyone." No one. Not even Helga.

"You won't, love. It will be all right." Jean reached up to cradle his cheek, stroking it with her thumb but also applying a little pressure, turning his head slightly towards her. It would be up to him if he would actually look at her, but she wanted him to know that she wasn't afraid of him. Not now, not ever.

Scott felt the slight pressure. Part of him wanted to resist it, to close his eye, but her touch was deliberately, undeniably soothing, and the perfect, steady trust coming down the link never wavered.

Then he remembered that she had stopped his optic blasts once, and with that thought, he looked at her.

And looked.

And looked.

Brown. His eyes were brown. Jean couldn't help the brilliant smile that lit her face anymore than she could stop the tears that welled up in her eyes as she looked him in the eye for the first time. "Hi there."

Her eyes were green. A clear, luminous green. Pale skin and green eyes and burnished deep red hair, and she was so beautiful. Scott tried to answer and couldn't. His voice just wouldn't work.

An absurd part of her wanted to ask if he liked what he saw. Silly, really, when she could sense it in his mind. But already she could feel a blush forming in response to his steady regard and if she didn't do something it felt like her heart would burst.

"I think I'm dreaming..." Scott finally murmured, staring up at her.

"Not going to pinch you to prove that your not," Jean said, reaching up to tuck her hair behind an ear and then leaning close to him. "Kiss you instead." A soft, fleeting kiss that actually completely failed to break the dreamlike quality of the moment.

"You're... you're so beautiful," he whispered as she leaned back. He should be able to say something more articulate than that, but this, all of this had just been too much, and all he could do was stare at her.

And he wasn't afraid that he'd hurt her. She trusted him, and that had always helped him trust himself. Always.

"I love you so much, Scott," Jean said. "Sometimes I just can't think because all there is is you. But it's all going to be all right. It is."

"... I believe you." Jean didn't say things like that if they were platitudes. She never had. Her honesty was one of the things he had fallen in love with.