The X-Project

While up late, Jean runs into Bobby Drake down in the kitchen. Old scars are reopened but finally start to heal.



Bobby Drake nearly had to drag himself down the stairs. With his continued search for the missing student still showing no leads combined with his constant waking up at the crack of dawn to be able to speak with his wife across the seas, his time spent sleeping had become more and more sparse. Throw that on top of the fact that tonight he couldn't fall asleep to save his life, and it was a miracle that Bobby didn't collapse on his way down the steps to the kitchen. As he closed the door to the cabinet, his hand was tightly grasping onto the soda bottle on his hand, no need for refrigeration, the bottle was already frosted over as he kicked his leg over the stool at the center of the kitchen. As he settled in, his eyes staring straight ahead, the bottle found its way to his lips, almost in a zombie-like trance.

Since her return, Jean had been somewhat distracted by the reality of that return. She had to get resettled, both with people and back to the former routine of her life. Xavier's was not the WCA, and vice versa. Despite living and teaching at the school, as well as her time in the X-Men, to call things "routine" was a general, generous, and extremely broad term however. Things were constantly changing, for better or worse. Controlled chaos was a good way to put it.

Jean made her way downstairs. She was having similar sleep issues, or lack of them, still trying to combat the jet lag. It usually stabilized itself after a couple of days but her thoughts on the current state of affairs did not help much. Concerned more with what the e-mail she was composing to Scott with an update on the school, her mind and eyes did not sense or see Bobby until she stepped foot in the kitchen.

At this point it was difficult to pretend he wasn't seen and just creep back upstairs. Given the past...the awkward feeling Jean had was akin to a fog rising up and swallowing the room. They had never really addressed the past. It was simply glossed over by years of varnish, a wordless agreement by both parties, unreconciled but an eager desire to forget. Jean certainly wanted to forget.

"Hello, Bobby."

Bobby nearly swallowed an entire lung full of soda. That was a voice he hadn't expected to hear. Beating his chest, he instinctively answered "Jean?" But as he looked to the side, it still didn't register in his mind that she'd actually be there. Maybe the lack of sleep was playing tricks with his mind, and he was hearing things. Stranger things had happened to him in the past. But as his eyes locked onto the first few locks of red hair.

Quickly he looked for alternatives. Maybe it was one of the shape shifters player a cruel joke on him, or even Mystique playing with the Mansions security. Quickly he began to weigh the pros and cons of the last options.

But as he saw Jean standing there, he knew that this could be no illusion. Oh Crap! was the first thing that sprung into his head, but he quickly tried to push it out. But the paranoia began running rampant, and he knew that he couldn't hide his thoughts from the telepath.

Pushing himself up from the chair, he stumbled backwards. "How are things?" His foot catching on the bottom rung of the stool, he fell back against the cabinets, his head sailing towards a new bump on the head. Real smooth Drake...


Near drowning by soda, beady eyes, small freak out, followed by a quick flail and tumble....to the outside observer Bobby's reaction might've been comical. But Jean found things less than amusing, and watched Bobby in calm assessment, cocking her head to the side as he went into blaring panic mode, both in mind and body.

When he tripped over the rug and he started to fall backwards, Jean reflexively caught him telekinetically just before his head struck the cabinet, causing him to hover in a slightly awkward position much like a twisted marionette doll for a brief moment.

She rose one of her eyebrows, then moved him a tiny bit farther away from the cabinets and quickly released her telekinetic hold.

"I'm...well," she said. A moment passed.

"How are you?"

In reality, Jean was actually of two figurative, not literal, minds about the notion when it came to Bobby and the...incident. Part of her wanted to confront it, accept it, and move on. She was tired of the tip toeing and glares, the uncertain staring.

The other part wanted to forget it, shove it away in a box, and move on. But trying to forget it was not the same as actually forgetting it and making it a true part of her past, not the potential for the occasional whip, dog-collar and thigh high boot tinged road flare of a reminder like now.

Repressing her feelings was what caused the problem in the first place then so it was probably a bad idea now. Damn. She hated logic sometimes.

Bobby twisted a bit. He was always uncomfortable around those gifted with mental powers. Couple that with the fact that he had been away from the mansion for an extended period, and the person that had caught him, and it was amazing that he didn't curl up into the fetal position right there. Instead, he forced the most awkward smile in the world, as he scratched the back of his head tentatively.

"Oh you know..." He searched his mind for any one word adjective, but it just wasn't coming. Instead he tried to search for a change of subject. "The wife, she's..." Nope another dead end. Of all the people he wanted to discuss his marital problems with and the fact that he missed his wife, Jean was probably near the bottom.

Instead he let loose another half smirk. "How's Scott, is he here too?" His face almost instantly went blank. No matter what the answer was going to be, it was sure to lead to only more awkwardness. You're battin' a 1.000 Bobby...

Jean studied Bobby again as he writhed in helplessness, fumbling around for some sort of common ground even as the look on his face told her he'd probably rather let Amelia stick him with a few needles rather than continue with the conversation. His blaring feelings and thoughts that she tried to muffle from hearing made it like stereo. She was silent for a long time before speaking.

"Bobby," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "I..." Just rip the bandaid off.

She sighed. "Look...I think this is about three years overdue. And it's my fault for not acknowledging it sooner," she said. She folded her arms, eyes trailing past him as she focused intensely on the bright moon in the window as if it were the only thing in the world.

"I'm sorry for what happened, and I'm sorry it took me so long to say it. I think I never did because...it frightened me at what I had become, what I had done. And no one really came out and...demanded that apology, not really, because they knew it was something I couldn't control. They took pity because they thought they should've seen the signs so they excused it. And I let them do it because I was...horrified," she said with a whisper. It was one of the few times where the adult was gone and the child, quivering in a corner, wanting to be cradled, remained.

"If no one said anything. If everyone ignored it, it would go away. I could cover it up. Forget. But in the end Jane was still me, that dark, primal, angry part of me I let get too far and I hurt you gravely in the process. I used you, I destroyed you, and I'm...I'm sorry," she said softly. She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them.

"I know this will never make up for what I did, and I know you may not trust me. I am aware this may become a problem should the need for us to directly work together arise with the X-Men or the faculty. I will make the proper arrangements to avoid that potential conflict if need be," she said with a nod of assurance.

Swallowing hard, Drake tried to take everything in that was just said. To be honest, he still was considering a quick run for the door. Maybe he could convince someone to try to get Angelo or someone to convince her this was all just a crazy dream. Hell, maybe he could get someone else to convince him that this was all just some kind of crazy dream. But as he let his eyes close, he remembered his last run-in with John. It wasn't his intention to have two awkward connections on the same side. So with a long sigh, he forced his eyes open, ready to confront the situation he had avoided overseas, and for the past three years.

"I can't say that 'Jane' didn't throw me for a loop. In fact, part of me is still recovering from that night..." He trailed off. Dangerous ground! Walk away. With a loud cough he started again.

"But to be honest, I was nearly as much at fault as you were. I gave into my darker side as well. But in the end, I think we both ended up alright, ya know? Both of us are still married. Both are saving the world, and what's the worst that came out of it. My team leader gave me a few dirty looks every now and then? He's done a lot worse to Logan over the years."

After the words spilled out of Jean's lips, a dead silence filled the room for a brief moment. She was surprised at how everything came out, how easily, but nevertheless painful to be opening up the scars to old wounds. She really didn't know why it hadn't come sooner. Perhaps she just hadn't been ready.

Her eyes trailed back toward the window as Bobby spoke, flickering down briefly, lips set in a thin line as he mentioned that he was still recovering.

After he finished, she nodded slightly with the hint of a smile.

"Yes, we did turn out alright."

For all life threw at all of them, the most important was that they still lived to see another day, still smiled and laughed, loved, hated, joked. It was more than some might say.

Bobby raised an eyebrow as he tried to look more comfortable in his seat, although to be honest, the butterflies in his stomach were still turning over and over again. "So does this mean that I can offer to make you ice cream like I do for the students when they can't sleep?"

Jean could sense Bobby's nervousness in the form of incessant buzzing. She thickened her mental walls a little more and went with simply his body language as an indicator. Though the way he fidgeted was still equally telling.

She smiled again, still soft, careful. "Sure, why not?" she said.

Bobby tried to force a smile. At least he was forcing this into his realm for a little while. As he kicked his legs up off of the floor, he hurriedly grabbed one of the bowls from the top cabinet. "So what is it you want me to make. I've done everything from Wasabi to several pounds of candy, so anything you want to throw at me, I'm sure I can dream up."

Jean kept her distance for his comfort and her own, walking over to behind the counter to take a seat on the stool, watching him with her chin in her hand.

"Wasabi?" she echoed with a smirk. "A bit too adventurous for my blood. Who picked that one?"

"How about a banana split?" she said. She didn't know what they kept on hand anymore. But generally the assortment was wide and varied.


"It's hard to remember at this point. There's a lot of sleepless nights in the mansion." Pulling at the handle Bobby quickly found the chocolate syrup and a banana in one of the cabinets, hinting that he'd been one of the people most often suffering from those sleepless nights. "But one thing I've learned..." he added as he kicked the fridge closed, a carton of strawberries in his hand. "Is that ice cream always helps." With a smile on his face he squirted the syrup on top of the banana and strawberry on his hands. A few seconds later they were both frosted over as he slowly moved towards Jean. "One banana split..."

A small grin pulled at his cheeks again. "But I guess I should have gotten the bowl out first, huh?"

Jean likened the owner of the wasabi-flavored sundae to one of the more exuberant denizens of the mansion, though there were some that could surprise her. As Bobby made his concoction, then presented her with the finished product...literally in hand, Jean's eyebrows raised with a light smile.

"Yeah, that would probably have been better," she said, studying him carefully as he came toward her. It was hard to forget he had been a prankster, but the years apart had given her the distance to let her grow complacent in her underestimation of those amusement-driven skills.

A smile wiped across Bobby's face. Quickly in his mind he made a decisions that some may consider rash. But at this point, he quickly figured that things couldn't really get any more awkward between the two of them, and that he might as well go for the Hail Mary. "Well, I guess there's only one thing left to do." Hoping that Jean's mental shields were up high enough to block his incoming idea, he quickly reached forward with his left hand, flipping Jean's. The other quickly came down, the ice cream aimed directly at her palm.

"One scoop of ice cream... in hand."

Jean's shields were up, so no, she did not catch Bobby's thought, but she did anticipate what was coming. When he reached for her hand to flip it over, she already had some inkling of what he might do next.

But instead of freezing the ice cream just before it went into her palm, she let him do it. Her eyes flickered upward as silence fell for a moment or two, her features impassive and unreadable. Vanilla ice cream dripped onto the floor.

His smile pulling at the corners of his dimples, Bobby turned towards the door of the kitchen. "Yeah, I think both of us are going to be just fine Jeanie..."

As Bobby turned his back, the glob of vanilla ice cream once in the palm of her hand collided with the back of his head. Jean folded her arms, smiling with just a hint of deviousness.

"Yes. I believe we are."