The next day.... Holo* comes upon Jean and Scott in the hallway just as Jean is about to head elsewhere.
*An 11-year-old student whose mutation grants her the ability to project her imaginings -often unintentionally! ~character-refresher Tra
"Oh! Hi, you guys!"
Jean: "Hi, Holo."
"Where are you going?" she asks with polite interest, turning as Jean passes her.
Jean pauses, turning back to Holo. "You remember when Professor Xavier explained why Magneto would be here?"
Holo nods. "He's working with Professor Monroe on something that will hopefully bring...better..uniformity?"
Jean smiles: "Unity. Yes. It may take them to other countries. There's a lot of potential there I'm interested in; seeing how mutants are responded to in different places -I was just going to talk with Storm about it."
Holo takes that in. "So you and she are both going to kind of do the same thing. Only she can come ba --well..anyway..."
Jean smiles understandingly. "Anyway. I'll see you later down in the lab." She leaves with a wave.
"Ok." Holo stays thoughtful, in a moment voicing to Scott: "Maybe Jean would like to be doing something else now, other than teaching me genetic stuff."
"She enjoys teaching you. She'd change the plan if she wanted."
Holo seems pleased by that, except: "Still, maybe you two would like the time together."
"We have our time, don't worry about that."
Holo had still been looking in the direction Jean had gone. She now turns to Scott, admitting shyly: "Just..I noticed..you've looked kind of down."
Scott considers a moment before smiling at her concern: "I just have a lot on my mind."
"It's hard adjusting back to normal sometimes," she adds both conversationally and empathically. Or 'new normal' - Scott doesn't say it, though seems just about to say something when Holo speaks first: "I could imagine something to take your mind off it?" sporting an inviting little smile.
Another reciprocal smile: "Thanks. I going for a ride to clear it."
"Oh, ok. Have a good one, then." Like Jean, she waves as she departs.
Scott watches her go a moment before he heads for the garage.
In the attic, which Storm has long since made her greenspace with a variety of potted plants, she and Jean enjoy tea from one such plant while they chat.
Storm: "It will be good to revisit my homeland."
"So that will be your first destination?"
Storm: "Yes. Admittedly I've thought of going before, and should have. You touched on* a sound truth that we could be more active than reactive. I have been neither, perhaps given how my story ended there. But time has a way of changing old fears."
*In Issue #0! ~Tra
"I'm glad if I had any influence. I wish you the best."
Storm smiles: "Of course I won't be going yet. Magneto and the Professor will finish their adjustments to Cerebro first. But I do have a related errand to run in the meantime. Why don't you join me?"
"Thanks. There's a lot I'd still like to do here." She smiles, "but let's set up another time for this when you get back," she indicates the tea; implied, the time they're sharing.
"Consider it done."
Later, when Scott returns from his ride...
He sees Holo on the grounds speaking to Jean, who turns and smiles at him -Holo turning as well, with something keen to her own smile.
Scott reciprocates, though his soon fades as Jean herself does.
Holo comes over: "Wasn't that likeness great? I think I've really got my Jean imagining down! Even her voice. Now when Jean goes away, if we want to talk to her, we still kind of can."
Scott's reaction is anything than what Holo imagined; admonishing: "You shouldn't do that, Holo."
Holo's smile is replaced by a furrowed brow. "Why not? I do it when Jaclyn can't be here. She knows. It's just a way to help think something through or self-sooth," she says this like she might be repeating her sister's own words.
"Fine. But when someone's gone they shouldn't be kept here that way."
Holo remains confused: "It's just a kind of recording. When someone goes, people don't get rid of their pictures or home videos of them."
"No, but they also don't watch those videos in public."
"Ok...I won't."
Scott turns to leave. "And you should find someone else to follow, Holo."
Holo is left to work out what just went wrong.
Inside, Scott is paused by Beast's voice as he passes by one of the studies: "Ah! Scott! The other in our midst who is feeling displaced, if my observational skills haven't deceived me."
Warren is there, too. "Hey, Scott. Care to join the club?"
Beast offers up a glass of the club soda.
"Thanks, but I'm looking for Storm."
Beast: "Ah. Though your search will prove fruitless, unless you intend to follow her far afield."
Angel: "In other words, she's carrying out a task relating to her undertaking with Magneto. "Still on home soil though, so you could catch up with her. Or wait?"
Beast holds a fresh bottle of soda, gently swaying it in a further gesture of invitation.
"Maybe next time." He leaves, but not back to the garage.
Angel and Beast shrug, the latter speaking again: "His decline is our benefit," as he opens the bottle and dispenses more soda between them.
Later, down in the lab...
Jean finishes explaining something to Holo who, though attentive, is less actively interested than usual.
Jean misinterprets the reason: "Sometimes, Holo, things that are hard to face we can never turn away from. Though other times, it's better to face them in their moment, and not worry about them otherwise. I'm still here for now."
"It's not that. I think.." she pauses, knowing full well: "I upset Professor Summers."
Jean is surprised: "How?"
"Well, I was showing him how good I've gotten my projection of you. I thought it might help when you go...It helps me to imagine Jaclyn when she's away. But, Professor Summers didn't seem to like me doing it with you, and now he wants me to leave him alone..."
Chin in her hand, Holo exhales softly. Yet, interestingly, less from hurt feelings and more from thought; her brow furrowing deeper: "I think, he thinks, I might make it harder since you're kind of one of our mutual things...But I wouldn't bring you up all the time. I only wanted him to know."
She continues with a quiet reminiscence: "when Professor Summers' brother was here*, he asked me what my powers were. I showed him by making up a little-" she does air quotes "-'Holo Home Video' of when they were kids, doing something he told me about."
*Vol.#1.
"After," Holo speaks the word with due significance, "Professor Summers asked me to play that for him again."
Jean reflects on this a moment before answering: "A lot's happened in a short time. Scott just needs some space."
Holo nods like she understands, and shifts at least some of her attention to the telescope in front of them.
That night, while Jean and Scott are getting ready for bed.
Scott: "That isn't it, and I didn't mean it that way. I don't know why Holo latched onto me." He's not bothered; just stating.
Jean reasons: "We don't get to choose our admirers."
Scott's eyes are carefully closed as he switches his glasses for his modified, ruby quartz sleep mask.
"So if it's not Holo, what is bothering you?"
Scott stands quietly a moment. "Somehow I didn't anticipate readjusting to everything.." he turns from the nightstand to her, "I'd thought I'd just be falling back into routine."
Jean brings her hand up to stroke his neck.
"Now it feels like every surface I'm standing on is flipping over all at once," he folds his hand over hers.
The following morning, Scott pauses Holo after breakfast.
"Hi, Professor Summers," she greets in a more subdued way than usual.
"We had a misunderstanding yesterday I'd like to clear up."
Holo wasn't expecting this.
"About you following other people. When Jean first...well when she died*. I fixated on that. I couldn't see anything in front of me except for what wasn't."
*X2: X-Men United,
"rising" in X3: Unwritten.
She folds her hands behind her back, listening intently.
"Anything can happen, Holo. It'll be hard for you if you get too familiar with things being one way."
Holo nods like she understands this only so far. "So, you won't always be here, too."
"It's just good to be prepared for anything."
And speaking of preparation, we next return to the Danger Room for the training session of the X-Men. Participating members: Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Rogue, Beast.
They're joined by Angel, with Jean in the Control Room working the sim.
We come in at its conclusion, where Cyclops' "prepare yourself for anything" approach doesn't seem to extend to the "anything" brand of certain "teammates" -leastwise he doesn't appreciate it. Rogue: "Uh-oh."
Iceman: "Cyclops looks mad."
Rogue: "You wan'uh stay to see what happens or go?"
Cyclops rounds on Wolverine and Nightcrawler: "What was that?!"
Wolverine: "You tell me."
"Not one of your training sessions. That at the end? It wasn't cleared." His attention shifts to Nightcrawler, "I saw you act off a signal from him," points to Wolverine, "he's not your leader."
Where Nightcrawler has grown uncomfortable,
Wolverine seems mildly amused: "Well if the leader knows everything that's gonna' happen, how are you exercising those expect the unexpected skills?"
"As if you don't know the way this works by now-"
"-You're getting more worked up than any of the students do. Doesn't a good leader take whatever anyone else has to?"
"-I didn't clear those sessions either!"
"Look, we have scenarios like this. That's 'the way it works'."
"Don't be smart. It doesn't work like this!
Nightcrawler looks from Cyclops back to Wolverine, interested in this volley he's been relegated to the side of. "Not for you, clearly. -Face it, you're just upset because you looked bad your first sim back!"
Iceman: "I think we should go."
Rogue: "Yeah."
Beast: "I believe I shall follow the example of youth."
The three exit just as Jean comes in.
Cyclops points again at Wolverine: "Fall back in line or-"
Wolverine extends his middle claw, using the back of it to push away Cyclops' hand: "-point that finger at me one more time-"
Jean (irritated): "Settle it with cooler heads, boys."
Nightcrawler: "Ja. Is all of this vorth the animosity?"
Angel: "Better yet, why don't you run another sim just for the two of you?"
Jean eyes him like she isn't sure "better" describes that scenario.
Wolverine raises his brows at Cyclops like he'd go for it if he will.
Certainly glaring despite the inability to see his eyes, Cyclops instead steps away.
"Here I was thinkin' he'd be less uptight after the break he's had," though he's speaking -facetiously- to Jean -who remains unimpressed- Wolverine makes no effort to lower his voice.
All at once-
-VZHOOM!
Wolverine howls in pain as an optic blast obliterates his hand almost down to the adamantium skeleton--
"Mein Gott!"
--"You want something clean off--!?" Wolverine lunges with the claws of that hand bared--
--Just as immediately his actions are arrested, as are any further ones Cyclops may attempt. It's Jean's telekinesis. "Enough! Kurt, Hank should just be in the Lab. Take Logan to Medical and let him know what's happened. I'll meet you there."
Wolverine (threatening): "I'll take someone else with me!"
Cyclops' mouth goes up in an uncharacteristically cruel smile.
Jean (to Logan; gentler though still firm): "Enough."
He relents, allowing Nightcrawler to BAMF him away.
Angel: "What was that, Scott?"
Cyclops' expression shifts oddly - as though he's suddenly reacting to his own behaviour.
Jean (controlled upset): "You went too far."
Cyclops doesn't answer right away. "Not too far for Logan's healing factor." He then exits, to Jean and Angel's further surprise.
They exchange a look ahead of Jean following. Aware that she is, Cyclops adds: "I bet his hand will be all regrown by the time you join him." Yet there's a note of conflict in his voice, as though what he's saying isn't aligned with what he's feeling.
"I've never known you to be so callous about hurting someone."
Now Cyclops pauses, admitting: "I don't know what came over me."
Jean steps forward to look him head on: "Maybe you should figure that out instead of trying to justify it," her eyes lingering on "his" briefly, before she walks away from him.