The X-Project

After studying the plans Alison posted for the team, Lorna goes to see Scott for clarification on a couple of points. For some reason, she decides that it’s So Not Helping Day and badgers him about (not) dealing with Jean. Scott, remarkably, doesn’t throw her out of his office.



Lorna tugged on her blouse, knowing she was perfectly presentable but still worried that she had plaster in her hair or something. Scott made her nervous, had since September when she’d lost his respect. And given how stressed Alex was, dealing with a tetchy team leader was not something she wanted to do without being ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Fairly certain that she wasn’t about to come off as an unprofessional slacker, she rapped sharply on the door to Scott’s office and nudged it open. “Hey, you got a minute?”

"Hey, Lorna. Come in," Scott said distractedly, his hands moving so fast over the keyboard of his laptop that they were almost blurring. "Sit down," he said without looking up at her. "What can I do for you?"

She crossed to the desk and took a chair, raising an eyebrow. “It’s about the plans for the Mistra op.” It was nice to see him busy with work instead of creating busy work, a fine distinction she appreciated. “Not that strategy is my strong point but isn’t there a giant hole in our offensive?”

"Yeah," Scott said with a rueful smile, finally pausing in his typing. He'd been running a computer simulation, and it really hadn't been going all that well anyway. "That would be because MacInnis and the government are still hammering out details. If they can settle things, we'll be going in with special ops teams, too. So not just us and MacInnis' ex-Mistra types."

“What do we know so far?” she asked, all business now, even her slight casualness from before gone. She sat forward slightly, face intent. “Are we really planning to join forces with the feds on this one?”

"Absolutely. It's MacInnis holding up the works on that, not us." He shook his head, leaning back a little in his chair. "His people plus us - it's just not enough manpower, Lorna. You've seen the files. We're looking at close to sixty-five alpha-class military-trained mutants, and that's not even taking Mistra's own security forces into account."

Lorna nodded though she didn’t like the idea of trusting the government to tell the difference between good mutant and bad. “What about deployments of our people? The plans weren’t clear on who was where though I have a few guesses.”

"Ororo and Alison and I are still working on that. To a large extent it'll depend on just who we're going in with." He smiled a little. "There's liable to be a little heavy lifting involved on your part," he said, the closest he'd come to a real joke in a couple of days now.

“I’m shocked,” she replied deadpan. “So long as no one calls on me to lift an entire plane, I’m good.” The words had no sooner left her mouth than she realized the utter tactlessness of that statement given recent returned persons. She winced.

Scott blinked at her, taken aback, then mustered a slightly weak smile. "Possibly disabling a couple, but not lifting them, no."

“That’s easier to do. Metal responds well to being told to fall apart.” She breathed a little sigh of relief, glad he hadn’t taken offense. Of course, now that she was thinking about it she couldn’t help asking. “Alex has been really worried. How are you doing?”

Scott's turn to wince. "He saw me in the worst of it, on Saturday night," he said heavily. "I wouldn't have done that to him if I'd been thinking clearly, but I wasn't."

“He was still upset Sunday night.” She shrugged apologetically. “We had sort of a fight about it.” Admitting that she was fighting with Alex probably wasn’t the best thing to say to his protective older brother but it was for illustrative purposes.

Reason number fifty-two on the long list of why he needed to pull himself together, apparently. "I'm sorry," he said a bit restlessly, looking away. "I'll talk to him. I've got to talk to him anyway, about Jean..."

“Given that he has an irrational hatred for a woman he’s never met? Yeah, probably. And he’s not listening to me.” Lorna paused then decided she’d already been this invasive why stop there? “Not that we expect you to just be okay with this or anything. I know I wouldn’t be. From experience.”

He realized that his fingers were tapping out an agitated rhythm on the edge of the desk and forced himself to stop. "I'll talk to him," he repeated. "I think he'll be... calmer, when he sees that I am." He shrugged a little, smiling uneasily. "And I'll be fine with it. Just the shock."

Lorna shook her head, “Not to disagree, fearless leader but…liar. There’s a difference between shocked which we all were and not dealing which you were.” Oh she was on quite the roll, wasn’t she? Hopefully he wouldn’t actually throw her out on her ear.

He raised an eyebrow. "Think I had an excuse, maybe, not to be dealing?" he asked, only the slightest trace of an edge to his voice. "I was after all pretty convinced she was dead. Our link exploded in my head and all..." He trailed off, still troubled by that despite the conversation with Manuel. "It's back. Did Alex tell you that? When I saw her, when her memories came back... all of a sudden, it's there again."

“I’m not saying you didn’t. In fact, you totally do. Loved ones appearing out of nowhere warrant non-dealing. Possibly even temporary descents into destructive impulses, self or otherwise.” She shook her head, “He didn’t mention it. He didn’t say much of anything actually. How does it feel?”

"Charles has it shielded," Scott said, then gave her another faint smile. "I'm not handling that part very well. Or at all, just yet." He shook his head again, slouching in his chair. "I was having so much trouble accepting that it was real," he murmured. "I dreamed about things like this for so long."

She nodded, “Have you talked to her at all? Not to make this at all the same situation but back when Alex came back last year, the hardest part wasn’t that he didn’t want to see me. It was that I didn’t want to see him.”

"Not yet," Scott said, trying not to sound defensive. "It wouldn't have done her any good, the state I was in on the weekend... and then all of this has blown up since."

Lorna nodded, “Makes perfect sense to me. But while I’m busy overstepping my bounds here, can I just suggest you try before we go off to right wrongs and triumph over evil? Not that I anticipate any of us coming back on our shields but irony is an evil bitch, you know?” Okay, this time he really was going to throw her out.

"Don't let Nathan hear you make the 'on our shields' joke," Scott said almost absently. "He's a little tightly wound this week and he's liable to take your head off." It struck him that he hadn't really responded to her suggestion yet, and he sighed. "I know you've got a point, but I don't know if I can." There. He'd said it.

Lorna shrugged, still rather amazed that he wasn’t telling her to mind her own business. “Who was joking?” she muttered. “Maybe you can’t. That’s the way it works. But at least try, Scott. We’ve had too many regrets here to give them a leg up ever.”

"I can't afford to fall apart again." He swallowed. "And if I see her, I'm afraid that I would."

“You can’t afford to not try. We need you in top form, Scott. And you’re not going to be as long as part of your mind is engaged in avoiding Jean thoughts.” The appeal to his duties was automatic. “And more than that, you have to deal. Because she’s not going away again and she is back, all back. Besides,” Lorna smiled wryly, “who else is going to understand what you’re going through like she will?”

"Lorna, damn it..." The protest was weak, almost cursory as Scott looked away. "I know I'm being a coward, all right?"

“And as a fellow coward, yeah, it’s scary as hell.” Lorna shrugged, “So?”

He stared at her, a bit blankly. "You know, I love the fact that everyone seems perfectly convinced that this is actually nothing out of the ordinary."

She rolled her eyes, “Scott, everything around here is out of the ordinary. A woman we all thought was dead just walked back in the door totally by accident. It’s freaking mind-blowing. At some point those of us not directly in the line of woe are going to start acting blasé about it. Of course, we don’t think this is normal or simple or easy. But coming up with complicated coping strategies like blocking off bits of your mind doesn’t make them less confusing or painful.”

Maybe he was going to physically throw her out of his office after all. Line of woe. Yeah. "You know, when you or my brother turns into a telepath, then you can have an opinion on whether shielding this link is an overly complicated coping strategy," he said, and the words came out surprisingly calm. "I spent two years with a hole in my mind, Lorna. I was absolutely positive that I felt her die, only I was wrong, and apparently subconsciously I knew that, to judge by the nightmares and the migraines over the last several months. Part of me wants Charles to take the shield down and hold onto this forever, part of me wants him to rip it out by the roots and never let a telepath in my head again."

“And how are you ever going to solve that by avoiding her?” Lorna sighed and got up, “Look, I know I don’t have any place giving you advice. I know that there isn’t anything that I’ve been through that’s like what you’re going through. But I also know that not talking never solves anything. It just delays the inevitable. And maybe what you need is more time and that’s perfectly understandable.” She shook her head, not sure how to say what she wanted to. “I’m not asking you to get over it just like that. Only to not bottle this up inside you.”

An edgy laugh slipped out before Scott could help himself. "Lorna, I know perfectly well I can't avoid her for--well, for very much longer at all. But I can do one thing or the other this week. I can try and deal with all the ways I've fucked up over the last two years and what that means given that Jean's not dead, or I can get this mission put together. I don't have the energy for both." He wasn't sure he had the energy for one. "And personal crap is going to have to take a back seat until after the weekend."

Lorna mentally threw up her hands. “You’re the boss, fearless leader. I’ll just be a good soldier and take your word that you can concentrate on the mission to the exclusion of everything else.” She shrugged, “Anyway, I have to go. Good night, Scott.”

"Keep an eye on your inbox, Lorna," Scott said, almost absently, as he turned his attention back to the computer. "Stuff'll be flying fast and furious over the next couple of days."

“Aye aye, Captain,” she muttered and let herself out.