The X-Project

Jennie visits the Snow Valley Memorial Center for Mutant Affairs after the hoopla at the mansion to see Wanda. It seems she hasn't been attending powers class like she should. On the way up, she runs into Amanda. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe it.






Amanda was on her way back to the office from buying cigarettes when she noticed the dark-haired girl talking to the desk guy. Raising her eyebrows, she pushed the glass-fronted doors open and made her way over to the pair. "'S all right, mate, I'll take her where she needs to go," she told the security guard, before turning to Jennie. "Who're you after? Wanda?" she asked, her tone friendly and casual, the same one she used with the students on the bus trips.

Jennie nodded, at once relieved and freaked out to see Amanda. Hadn't the last time she'd seen the older girl she'd started a fight? And hadn't she been indirectly responsible for her ex-boyfriend's traumatic brain injury? Hello, awkward. "Thanks, yeah. Wanda needs to see me. It's a..." she eyed the security guard, "school thing?"

"Private tutoring, yeah?" Tipping the guard a jaunty half-salute, Amanda jerked her head in the direction of the elevator. "C'mon, I'll take you there. She should be there if she's expecting you, yeah?"

"Hope so," said Jennie. "I'm a little early. I gauged the transportation time wrong. Lucky me," she frowned at the unintended pun. The two girls entered the elevator car and made their way up in a very pregnant silence. "So..." Jennie said after a moment, "you been okay?"

"Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing." Amanda couldn't help laughing a little, despite the tension. "I'm... all right. You?"

"Oh, you know. Fabulous." Jennie shrugged. The silence passed again, and Jennie sighed. It was going to kill her to ask this, but she had to know. Might as well get it out before she lost the nerve. "So, you went to Muir, right?"

"Yeah, I did." They reached the correct floor and Amanda paused on the landing, leaning back against the wall. For a moment she looked incredibly tired, the artificial lighting emphasizing the paleness of her face. "I had to... well, see for myself, I suppose. He asked after you. Well, sort of. He wasn't making a lot of sense, said something that sounded like your name, before he went back under again."

"He woke up? He's, I mean... that's good. Very good. I'm glad that he's alive." She shivered slightly, remembering the way he looked before she blacked out. "I mean, he asked after you too. A lot, before." Jennie gestured awkwardly.

"Only for a little while. Moira said he's out again, should be for a good while. There was too much damage." She looked down, biting her lip for a minute, before looking up. "I wanted to... thank you, I suppose. For being his friend. For sticking by him. Poor bastard had no-one but you and Marius after I left." She wanted desperately to ask what he'd said about her, but she was terrified of the answer.

That got a short bark of laughter. "Oh yeah, some friends we were," Jennie said bitterly. "Empathically controlling him and hitting him with a truck," the younger girl stuck her hands in her pockets. "He talked about you almost non-stop too. Sometimes how happy he was with you, others about how you broke his heart, but-" she sighed. "You were always very much on his mind."

A tremor went through Amanda at that and she took a deep breath. "He didn't know me, at Muir. Was rambling, like I said." Then she looked Jennie square in the face. "But you're wrong, you know, about being bad friends. You were there for him even before Marius left the school and it all went to hell." She smiled a little, rueful. "I seem to remember someone tearing me to shreds on his account."

The dark-haired girl shook her head. "It sucks, doesn't it? All he was trying to do was help us." Jennie scuffed the ground with her shoe. "I guess I should apologize for getting on you like that, that was unfair. I didn't even really know you," she bit her lip, "I was just worried about something else and I took it out on you. I'm sorry." she met Amanda's eyes.

"I'm glad you did - I needed a kick in the arse and you were the one to do it." Amanda shrugged a little. She smiled faintly at the other girl, though. "Look, I dunno if it's overstepping the bounds at all, but... if you need a friendly ear, someone who knows what it's like to get into a mess, 'specially with empathy involved..." She let it hang, leaving it up to Jennie to accept or not, in her own time.

"Thanks, I'll think about it," Jennie said noncommittally. Right now, she had all the supportive ears she could handle. Including one who was probably going to bite her head off very shortly. "I gotta see Wanda today. Powers fun. I apologize beforehand if anything in your office gets broken."

"No worries." Amanda had guessed that would be the reaction, but at least she'd put it out there. "Come on, I'll show you which office is hers. Just don't wreck the books, yeah? Strange'll kill me if anything happens to them."

"I will try my best. Sometimes I have no say in the matter, though. Stuff will break if that's how the lines go. I still haven't made a duck fly into a helicopter blade, but I can always dream." Jennie privately hoped that nothing would get broken. Control was still a little slippery if she was upset.

Amanda snorted a little as she led the way down the hall giving Mark a wave as they passed reception. "I know how that goes. Sometimes I think the magic's got a sense of humour all of its own, the things that happen. Still, Wanda'll help you sort it out. She's good for that."

"Yeah," Jennie said dryly. "Or she'll just hang me out the window and shake me a bit." Jennie wasn't going to tell Amanda that the whole reason she was here was because she was in trouble for refusing to attend powers classes. Jennie could be lectured up and down by the Xavier's staff and not bat an eyelash, but Wanda was an entirely different story.

"That could work too," Amanda said, vaguely amused. "Well, here we are," she announced, stopping at Wanda's office. "Have fun." She paused before leaving, though. "And, um, thanks. For talking to me about Manuel. Not many will and... I needed to know. That he... well, any way." She shoved her hands in her pockets, feeling as awkward as hell. "Take care, yeah?"

"You too," Jennie said. And then opened Wanda's office door, stepping in.


Jennie gets a lecture about responsible usage of her powers. And makes a confession while's at it.








Jennie had been lectured before. Usually she was able to tune most of it out, nodding in the right places, making the appropriate noises to say; ‘yes, I am sorry you got offended by what I did. Please accept my most sincere and heartfelt apology.' Before turning around and resuming whatever it was she had been doing.

Lectures were way worse when you actually respected the person yelling at you, she discovered. Jennie sat upright, hands clasped in her lap. Her ears getting redder by the minute.

Pausing, Wanda pinched the bridge of her nose tightly. She was angry and upset, not just at Jennie--because her actions were understandable to a degree--but also at herself. Somewhere along the lines, maybe she'd not done enough in the way of powers training for the younger woman.

"I know it might be difficult," she said quietly, as she had been the entire time. She had no intention of raising her voice, preferring to use the tone more than the volume to get her point across. "But the powers class is something that...is needed."

"I can't Wanda," Jennie protested, albeit somewhat feebly. "Not after what happened. This power is no good. It hurts people more than anything else. That wave happened because I used it. The more I use it, the worse it gets. So it's better if I just stop using it. I hardly ever do anything by accident anymore, anyway."

"No, the wave happened because you were in an empathic loop and your subconscious was pushing you towards using too much of one side of your power," Wanda came back. "Nothing was your fault but I know too well that you will have to be the one to figure that out. And there might be a chance that simply not using your power will not do any good."

"So what will be good about my stupid power? Some times all it's ever good for is breaking stuff." Before, Jennie's powers had at worst, been an annoyance. She always felt she was too low-powered to real be any trouble. Until she destroyed two city blocks. "I hurt more than I help, Wanda!"

"Do you remember one of our training sessions, the one in which I had you counter acting what my powers attempted to do? You stopped a jug of water from breaking, prevented it from shattering glass and water onto the floor." Looking at her sharply, Wanda continued, "Imagine being able to do that while someone is standing on a sheet of ice, stopping them from falling into the freezing water. Can you hurt and create havoc with your power? Very easily. Can you do good with it? Just as easily."

The younger girl put her head in her hands and exhaled loudly. "I can't do it Wanda. I can't use it. I'm...I'm too....I'm too scared, all right? I don't want to do what I did to Manuel again."

The chair squeaked slightly as Wanda got up, coming around to crouch down in front of Jennie. "Jennie, look at me," she said softly. "You cannot simply hide what you are, not from yourself and not for long if you try. You have a great deal of potential. But I know how scary it can get, remember that I did not always have the control that I do now." She smiled a little bit. "And my powers do not have that flip side so there was always an opportunity for a mischance whenever I lost control. What can I do to help?"

"Turn them off? Make them go away?" Jennie said dryly. "Unless you know of a way I can use them without snapping back, because I sure as hell don't" Jennie literally had the potential to manipulate reality, but what was the point of having such a power if it bit you every time you overdid it?

Rubbing the back of her neck, Wanda sighed and thought. If anything, Jennie did have it harder than she ever had when she manifested. For one, while there had been long stretches of time where they were in the middle of nowhere, safe for massive tampering with her powers. For another, even though she did have the good luck side to things, she was tapping directly into the chaos currents while the 'strings' that Wanda saw and manipulated acted as insulation between her and the raw current. Her hex bolts were the only things that weren't like that.

"You need to keep working on your powers," she said, not unkindly, but firm. "That is the only way you can gain full control over your powers." Pausing, she shook her head. "Do you remember what it was like when you first manifested? Didn't you do something to a microwave?"

How could Jennie forget? The heated argument with her mother, the world suddenly going red and a feeling a 'pop' followed by a loud bang as the microwave ceased to be. She had been thirteen.

"I remember. The lights at the edges of my vision. Bad stuff happening when I was pissed off or upset."

"One of the reasons that I really should introduce you more fully into my meditation routine," Wanda replied. "But the reason I brought it was this: when you manifest, sometimes power tends to build up and then it is released. It happened to me, it happened to you and we are certainly not alone. But there is always the chance that...disuse may also cause the power to build up over time. If you use it regularly, you can bleed off that energy."

Jennie swallowed. At that rate, instead of doing minor property damage, she could really hurt someone if she was upset or PMSing. She visibly slumped in her chair. Damned if you do... She thought to herself wryly.

"My power? Sucks so much ass," she sighed.

At that, Wanda chuckled a little bit as she reached out to squeeze Jennie's shoulder. "Powers class will help," she said, "and I can promise you that I can swing by once a week to help you fine tune your powers. How does that sound?"

The dark-haired girl put her head on her knees with a whimper. "I'm not getting out of this, am I?" Inwardly, she was pleased that Wanda was coming to help. While she liked the other teachers well enough, she didn't feel they were capable of training her properly.

Cheerfully, she replied, "Not a chance, really. I tend to be quite stubborn about these things, as you should know. Feeling any better?"

"Depends on what we're talking about," Jennie said softly. "One hand, I'm still scared shitless about my power. But knowing you'll help me makes me feel a little better. On the other hand..." the girl sighed again.

"You've been through one hell of a rollercoaster ride?" Wanda supplied. "Give it time, love, things will start to look better, I promise. Right now, taking one day at a time is a good first start."

"It's so hard," Jennie confessed. "I feel like there's no one I'm really close to there now. I mean, Forge is all busy and awkward what with the dumping me. Or, I guess he dumped me. It's confusing. There's all these new kids, and normally I'd have no problems meeting anyone. But it's different now. I guess."

"I'm not going to have to dangle Forge out over the lake by his good leg, am I?" Wanda joked. She could do it, too, though there was always the chance that Forge would tazer her with some machine or another in his arm. "It will be hard, we both know that, but it will get easier. Some things will never be the same but others will. Try talking to Forge, catch him at a time when he might not be so busy...bring him food and making him eat is always a good time. Sometimes it takes time to reconnect. My suggestion would be to spend as much time out of your room as you can. Let the new students come to you instead of seeking them out, it will be easier on you."

"Well, some of the new girls seem nice. And Crystal's great and all, if having her own problems.” Though throwing Logan through the gym doors was one way of handling it.

“It's just hard, wandering around, trying to meet everyone because.." Jennie trailed off, unable to believe she was about to admit this. "I'm afraid of running into him."

There it was. "I know, sweetie. The only good thing is that right now, he's probably afraid of running into you as well." And considering Marius' powers, that meant it was unlikely for them to have an accidental meeting.

Jennie snorted softly. "I'm not afraid of a fight, I'm the one that picks the fights. Or I was. Dammit. I keep talking about him in the present tense," she tugged irritably on a lock of hair. "And sometimes I forget myself, like I was showing one of the new girls pictures of when we dressed the boys up in lingerie, and I wanted to go gloat at Marius too, but then I remembered that I don't really like him very much now. It's confusing. And annoying."

Getting out of the crouch, Wanda leaned against her desk, pushing aside some books. "You two have quite the history and most of it was good," she reminded her. "And right now you're understandably upset and mad but it's hard to let go of those good memories."

"Yeah," Jennie said, shifting uncomfortably. Going back now, that friendship seemed superficial, even shallow, now. Refusing to let him know if she was upset, and vice versa. All on the surface, happy, okay. Even if they hadn't been caught in an empathic loop, something had changed. And now Jennie would never be sure if they had actually formed a real friendship.

Jennie sighed and twisted one of her rings. "I guess. I'm sorry you had to yell at me."

At that, a small smirk showed. "It happens," Wanda laughed. "One of these days, I might introduce you to someone who helped me when I was younger..." She glanced around quickly as if half expecting someone to randomly show up on her doorstep. "But it seems everything has been put on the right path again."

"I hope so," Jennie said sincerely, "In spite of that truly spectacular derailment." She was getting better, bit by bit. That was all Jennie could ever ask for. "I must meet this person, anybody who can intimidate you must be a sight to behold."

"Scariest woman on the planet." And she was dead serious about it, too. She shuddered. "Now that I have creeped myself out, I do believe it's time for food. What have Lorna and the doctors upgraded you to in terms of eating?"

"Real food, now. Lots of veggies, protein, fruits and stuff. They want me to stay away from the sugars, but I think Lorna is against that in general." Jennie made a face. "I am so sick to death of hard-boiled eggs."

"I know this fantastic little place right down the street," Wanda said, rubbing her hands together. "I believe Doug has named it the Meat on a Stick place. They walk around with various types of meat on skewers and you eat as much as you want to. They also have things like salads but we tend to focus on the meat products."

"Well," Jennie said, grin starting to form. "I am supposed to have lots of protein."

"Meat on a stick...it's filling and a stress reliever all in one."


On her way out to spend the night with her father, Jennie finds Marie Ange in the office. And Marie-Ange sees Jennie and then has a Moment.







For the first time in a long time, Jennie felt pleasantly full. She practically skipped down the stairs out of Wanda's office to the ground floor. Today, in spite of all of it's potential, did not actually suck. Which was a good thing. She always liked Friday the 13th for a reason.

Marie-Ange was in the midst of trying to figure out just exactly where the good coffee had been hidden, with little to no luck. She was now sorting through one of the filing cabinets behind Mark's desk at the front. She'd had a headache all day that had just refused to go away, no matter how much aspirin she took or tea she drank, and no amount of card readings or meditation was helping.

Just in case, she had the cards in the pocket of her slacks, and had warned Remy that it might just be that she needed to go take a 'sick' day, lie down in a dark room and try to figure out what was eating at her precognition. Technically it was part of her job, though it would do nothing to put a dent in the paperwork she needed to finish.

Jennie pushed open the door, and frowned. Was this the way she came in? She'd been too busy having an awkward conversation with Amanda to really pay much attention to her surroundings. But she did notice a familiar redhead near the front. "Marie-Ange? Is that you?"

"I hope so, because if I am not me, then someone has stolen my good coffee." Marie-Ange said, finally finding the bag of unground beans behind a pile of books on top of one of the filing cabinets. "And possessed me. Which would be unfortunate." Oh, she was definitely having one of those days, where sense had stayed in bed, Marie-Ange thought.

Jennie opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. She took a cautious step forward. "You're just kidding about the possession thing, right?"

"Generally, yes." Marie-Ange said. "I would hope I would know if I was possessed. Although I suppose not, if I was possessed by something that thought it was me." She thought about that for a moment, winced, and shook her head. "If I keep on this line of thought, I will talk myself into a sick headache, and not manage to have any of the coffee before I lose it again." She looked at Jennie, not quite making eye contact. "Am I making any sense at all? And do you want any coffee?"

"None whatsoever." Jennie said cheerily. "And pass on the coffee. I don't want to vibrate when I go to meet my Dad later. I'm trying for 'stable and not liable to take off on another thrilling adventure fraught with property damage and woe.' He's just a little worried." The younger girl cocked her head at the redhead. "Hey, you okay? You seem all pale."

"Tired. And I have had a headache all day." Marie-Ange said, frowning a little. She looked over at Jennie, and did a quick double take. "You.. were not wearing a red jacket a moment ago, were you?" She asked, sounding worried, and just a touch irritated.

Jennie made an exaggerated show of looking down at herself, black and white striped sweater, black skirt, tights and boots. She then peered at the black jacket she had draped over one arm. "Noooooo, no red jacket. Are you sure you're okay?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Marie-Ange sat down, somewhat abruptly at the chair behind the front desk. "If I am seeing things that are not there, I am most likely not okay..." she said quietly. "But not okay in a way I am used to."

Looking around for something to fidget with, to try to take some of the edge off the annoyance in her tone, she finally pulled the deck of tarot cards from her pocket and idly shuffled them, face-up. "I thought, for a moment, you had a red jacket, with a hood on."

"What? Like little red riding hood? And yet, I lack both picnic basket and the aforementioned garment." She patted her pockets. "Although, I am technically going to see my Grandma. Well, step-Grandma. She insists I call her 'Grandmama'. Right after she's had about 6 glasses of sherry." The babbling was covering up Jennie's uncomfortableness. She knew Marie-Ange was a precog, and the cards were not a good sign.

Marie-Ange winced at the mention, her imagination already supplying her with a unpleasant mental image of Jennie being attacked by wolves. Or a pack of wolves. "I am not certain.." she said carefully. "I wish that my power had come with a helpful guide to what all the visions meant. I still do not always understand them." She ran a thumb along the deck of cards.

"Perhaps you will need to save her? Or be saved by a handy woodcutter." Woodcutter. The word stuck in her head for a moment, a lingering thought that it might be important. "Someone... perhaps someone that can cut wood?"

"Are you having a vision? Now?" Jennie looked around herself, they were alone in the office. "Should...should I get somebody? Or a pad of paper...or something?"

"The cameras will catch it.." Marie-Ange said. "I hope. If Doug has them on." She wasn't entirely sure if he did or not, all of the time. "I think.. " she started, shaking her head. "The story is all mixed up. The girl in red ... is the woodcutter? And the wolf needs saving, or else he'll get eaten? No, that cannot be right." She idly turned the cards over, one at a time. "The Hermit? Judgment? That does not have anything to do with wolves, or red riding hood at all."

Jennie's hands clenched into fists and uncurled reflexively. "This...this isn't about me, is it?" she asked uncertainly. "This is totally about someone else, right?"

Marie-Ange shook her head, blinking rapidly. "It could be you. It could be someone else. You.. and Wanda, also, and Domino, Nathan's friend? I have problems with anything related to any of you. It never quite makes sense or turns out like I think." She frowned. "I wish that my predictions came with Shakespearean timing. Then I could just say 'Beware the Kalends of November" and everyone would know when they needed to worry."

"So, something to do with little red riding hood? You know, Freud calls that an allegory for sexual awakening." Jennie blinked at that, looking slightly disturbed. "I really hope it doesn't mean that. That is just seven kinds of unsettling." The vagueness and the fact that her powers mucked with Marie-Ange's visions helped somewhat. It might not even be about her...

Marie-Ange thought for a moment, still playing with the deck of cards. "Perhaps it relates to Rahne? She is the girl, with red hair, and also a wolf?" That didn't seem quite right to her though. And her first guess was so rarely correct. "Freud also seems to think that we are all attracted to people who resemble our parents, and I can assure you, none of the men I have been attracted to resemble my father at all." She spoke more clearly now, though still slightly distracted sounding.

There was small but very distinct sigh of relief. "Good. I have no desire to meet my end at the hands of a wolf. Although, if you switched out Patience and a wolf, I don't think anyone would notice. In fact, I'm sure people would comment on her suddenly pleasant demeanor. Anything else I should tell Rahne? Or some other girl I see in a red jacket?" She really didn't mean to be so flippant, but she had just been sort of creeped out.

"Or any girl with red hair, I suppose. Perhaps I should avoid woods and wolves for a while. Or Crystal's sister should, or Terry?" Marie-Ange picked up her deck of cards and put the loose cards back into the stack, sliding them in seemingly randomly after looking at them. "All cups.. " she said quietly. "All the other cards were cups. Perhaps whatever happens will be in the kitchen? Or at a restaurant or bar?"

"So, all redheads should avoid the kitchen, lest they be set upon by wolves. Gotcha." Jennie stood and checked her watch. "I should call my Dad, tell him I'm ready to be picked up. He's a mite bit paranoid with me wandering off by myself now. What with the whole last two months and everything."

"Or possessed wine glasses." Marie-Ange added. "It has not happened yet, but it was on the list of things we were just simply waiting to happen. We already had the dragon, after all." She pointed at the phone, which had altogether too many buttons. "It looks -far- more complicated than it is, if you need to use the phone here. As long as you do not hit the intercom, you should just need to dial a nine first. If you hit the intercom, then Remy gets to hear your call, and make fun of you. Well, the making fun -is- supposed to be optional."

"Ta-- Thanks." One day, she would get rid of all the Aussie slang. "That would just be funny. 'Jennie, why is there a man that sounds like a muppet in the background?' "Nobody, Dad, it's just the super sekrit spy guy. Like James Bond, only muppetier.'" She flashed Marie-Ange a grin and began to dial.