The X-Project

The day after Jean wakes up from her coma, Warren comes to visit her. The two discuss what happened.

(TRIGGER WARNING)




Since he'd returned from Hampton Beach, Warren had stuck close to the mansion, worried about Jean. He trusted that Charles and Haller knew what they were doing and would bring her out of it, but he still worried. He'd happened to find himself wandering by her room a couple of times a day to see how she was, and had a couple of times pulled Scott from his bedside vigil to make sure the man got fresh air and food and coffee.

Jean had finally come out of her coma yesterday. Warren had been more than relieved to hear the news, but he hadn't wanted to crowd her, what with people checking her out and her husband needing to fuss. But now he was down here - after debating back and forth whether he should bring something with him, flowers or balloons or something equally as cheesy, he'd ended up just bringing himself and a promise.

After Scott excused himself, Warren moved to take his seat by Jean's bed, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

"Hey you."

The TV, inlaid in the wall, was on for background noise because Jean wanted some glimpses of the real outside world. Or at least the real outside world according to network television. Being late morning it was turned to the Price is Right. Jean stared in the direction of the TV but wasn't really focusing on what was going on.

The feeling of someone touching her hand drew her attention and she glanced down, finding Warren. She looked at him strangely for a moment before she remembered that Scott had left the room while she was looking at the TV.

Charles and Haller had gotten together most of the important pieces but she still had a lot of mending to do on her own.

"Hi," she said. She fell silent a few moments.

"Did you have a mojito?"

"More than my fair share," he replied with a ghost of his usual charming smile, trying not to let his concern for her flicker over his face. She definitely wasn't her usual self - which was to be expected, but still hard to see.

"Not my best drink mixing effort though, I have to say. I think I'll have to keep practicing. And find some willing victims to help me with them."

The word 'victims' made Jean recoil and she reflexively clenched her eyes shut. She knew what he meant, what was meant, and tried to distance herself from what she instinctively thought it to be. Drawing in a breath, she tried to compose herself.

"Sorry..." she said. Opening her eyes, she weakly turned her hand around in a half circle. "Still...rebooting."

Warren winced a little at her response, mentally kicking himself for not thinking. He squeezed her hand gently, trying to be reassuring.

"It's okay," he said softly. He could have followed it up with a stupid platitude, but he knew how useless they could be. "When you're up for it, I'll take you out for a proper one. There's this great little bar in Manhattan that makes the best mojitos I've ever had."

Jean studied the folds the blanket made around her legs. The idea of Manhattan, still alive and vibrant instead of what she saw in her dreams gave her some comfort. She glanced up, managing the best smile she could. It was soft and small, but genuine.

"If a bartender says it...it must be true."

"Of course," Warren said with a smile. His thumb ran over her hand, slow reassuring strokes as he held it a little tighter than before. "It's a well known fact I was the only honest lawyer in California."

"The only one?" Jean said, the humor making her feel more at ease. Her smile opened up a bit more, like a flower to the dawn's light.

"The other lawyers must've had a bounty on your head. No wonder you left."

The eruption of applause on the screen made Jean glance over and the TV clicked off. Too much noise. Her attention trailed down to his hand on his.

"Scott's been giving me the play by play...or at least, in small digestible bits. I know he's trying to help by making it easier."

In a way she wanted to know it all, to know what to expect, to know what they thought. She had been keeping all their thoughts out from the moment she awakened. It was her fault this had been brought before them, no matter what Charles had said. It was her blind rage that made Nightmare the man he was. She was the catalyst.

"Are they all...okay?"

Warren was pretty sure that Jean would have been told about the Stepford that died, and Amelia, so he squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"You know the people around here. They're pretty resilient. People were shaken up, and I think Kyle spent half a week up in a tree, but they're moving through it. Everyone's been pretty worried about you."

"Resilient by necessity," Jean said, ignoring the last part regarding their worry about her. They didn't need to worry about her. It was her fault. She was supposed to worry about them.

It was always something. This time it was right at home. It was supposed to be a sanctuary and Matthews ruined that because she had ruined him. She was only glad most of the students had gone to Hampton Beach. But Meggan...what Kyle did to her under Matthews' influence...

She looked away as the memory of the mental image she had conjured up of her at the flooded mansion reaching for her just before her 'death' flashed across her mind.

"And Meggan's wounds? Kurt's? Hank keeps insisting I'm a patient right now and not a doctor but its very difficult to turn it off. I'm about to go through his files. Is Kyle still showing any lingering effects? Other than hiding in a tree..."

Jean nodded decisively. "I should talk to him..."

"Meggan and Kurt are fine," Warren replied reassuringly. "Kyle is especially fine. He's on a road trip to New Orleans with some of his friends. He's been making jokes about crawdad head puppets." Which, from what he could tell, was normal behavior for Kyle.

He used a foot to tug his chair in closer, so he could be a little closer to her. "You can't lie here and blame yourself for what happened, Jean. You know that."

Jean shook her head. "I didn't pull the trigger but I gave him the gun and the ammunition," she said. The despondent look in her eyes seemed to burn away into something else as she gripped the blanket tightly, narrowing her eyes.

"If I hadn't let my rage blind me the first time...If I hadn't..." she swallowed. "I made him. It was my actions that twisted him into that...thing."

She fell silent a moment. "It needs to change. I need to change. I can't let myself be ruled by anger."

"No. Nor by guilt. He wasn't an innocent victim, some bystander caught up in your fury." Warren's voice was firm, and quiet. "It was his actions that started the chain of events, not yours. He chose to attempt to manipulate you, and he paid a terribly high price for it. That did not give him the right to do what he did here, to you or to anyone else." He drew her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss against the back of it.

"You don't need to change, my dear. Doctor Jean Grey-Summers is the most remarkable woman I've ever known. Always has been."

Jean laughed softly in surprise. The laugh seemed to break through the grey and lit up her face, making her eyes glisten for a moment.

"I'm humbled," she said. Her smile lingered, gentle against her lips as she glanced up toward the ceiling sheepishly.

"I feel like I need a cape and tights or something."

Pleased by the sound of Jean's laugh, Warren smiled back at her. He knew his words were only the start of bringing Jean back from feeling so guilty, but he hoped it wasn't a false start.

"Leather uniform's always been good enough for me. Though I'm sure 'Ro's cape will still be around here somewhere if you really feel the need for one."

"I don't know...do you think silver will go with my hair? I'm more of a gold person," Jean said, squinting thoughtfully before she glanced down with a smile.

"Thanks, though...I...don't really think I'm much to sneeze at but it makes me feel good."

"We'll just dye it gold then," he replied cheerfully, not letting logic or sense get in the way of a perfectly ridiculous plan. Clearly Vanessa had been rubbing off on him.

"And of course you are. What did we just say about me and always being honest? It's such a curse."

"Right..." Jean said, squeezing Warren's hand almost subconsciously. "The only honest lawyer in California...I keep forgetting."

She smiled a bit more, staring at him for a moment or two before looking away and the smile faded.

"Warren...did Vanessa tell you about what happened in the nightmare?"

It was hard for Warren to see Jean so clearly not quite with it, but he just squeezed her hand back in return with a smile. "No, she didn't." Vanessa hadn't talked about it, and he hadn't pushed. They'd both been so worried about Jean, and then she'd had to head out of town. There hadn't been a good opportunity to discuss it.

Jean nodded once. She wasn't terribly surprised, perhaps because of what she learned and what had happened in the dream. Vanessa was usually a pretty private person. At times she and Jean shared similar qualities when it came to dealing with things by keeping it to themselves.

"Matthews put us at Alkali Lake...He thought it was pretty appropriate for bringing out the most fear," she said, shrugging a little as she studied Warren's hand in hers. You could learn a lot about a person through their hands.

"When I retaliated after he messed with my mind before he somehow developed a connection to me. So when....something happened in California and I came back he knew what I'd been hiding. And he thought it'd be fun to tell my friends in his own twisted way."

She had time to think, to try to come to grip with everything that had happened. And while she would never want to relive the experience again, it had forced her to confront herself, and the secrets she kept. For the most part, anyway.

As the Professor said, she didn't have to do it alone. And Warren was one of the people she wanted to know, to be able to tell instead of finding out second hand. But she still found herself struggling to say it, because she really hadn't said the words before willingly. Before, she had been cornered into it. Now, she was free to speak and stumbled over the words.

Warren didn't say anything right away, his gaze not wavering from Jean as she spoke, and then struggled to continue. He didn't want to push her to speak before she was ready, so he just squeezed her hand, brushing his thumb over the back reassuringly.

"Take your time, sweetheart."

Letting out a breath, Jean looked up, staring at the lights overhead.

"I had a miscarriage," she said.

She said it, the words left floating in the air, hanging like a cloud. The harshness of the word left a bitter taste in her mouth. It didn't make her feel better, but it didn't make her feel as worse as she had been. She supposed that was a good thing.

"I'd been keeping it to myself ...I don't know why. I guess I thought if I said it aloud, if someone else knew, then it'd mean it was real. And she was really gone. I didn't just make her up."

She'd spent over a year grieving privately and now telling someone, of her own accord, she felt numb. In a way she welcomed it.

"I'm so sorry, beautiful." This time he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss on the knuckles. Not anything more than comfort, as best a gesture he could. It was not a secret he was expecting to hear, not ever imagining that she and Scott would be thinking about things like building a family, having children. But then he couldn't imagine them being anything less than fantastic parents. So in a sense, it made sense.

"Thanks," Jean said softly.

"I thought you should know. I haven't really told anyone else, other than those who wound up finding out the hard way," she said. Vanessa, Garrison, Charles, Haller.

"And I still...haven't told Scott yet. I don't know how. Matthews created a representation of him....I thought it was him, and I told him but...knowing now he wasn't real makes it harder...because I have to tell him twice...."

They had done the up and down spiral, she and Scott, alternating between who wanted kids and who didn't depending on what was happening at the time, both knowing the world would be a harsh place no matter what. Some days they were hopeful they could weather the storm, some days they weren't.

Perhaps it was a hurricane day that kept her from telling him, and still not telling him, amidst her own personal feelings about the subject. "I don't know what he'll say, if he'll be angry, or sad, or stunned, and that scares the hell out of me."

Warren hadn't even imagined she hadn't told Scott - everyone else, that made sense. But she'd been carrying this burden all by herself, and he couldn't imagine how difficult that must have been for her.

"He'll probably be a lot of things," he said honestly. "But you'll probably have to drag it out of him to get him to share any of it with you." The corners of his lips turned up in the ghost of a smile. "But we'll all be here for him, and for you, and you don't have to keep bearing it all yourself." He squeezed her hand again. "You never have to do that. Ever. Anytime you need me, I'm here, you know that."

Jean nodded, staring down at his hand on hers.

"I do," she said. She still couldn't quite smile but the appreciation was evident in her voice.

"Thanks."