capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

WHO:

temporaltossed Rachel Grey and Jean Grey

wasalways
WHERE: Rachel's place!
WHEN: On the Night of Mother's Day. Late late late.
WARNINGS: SAP? FAMILIAL BONDING? THAT KIND OF DISGUSTING VILE STUFF.
SUMMARY: Jean left Rachel on Mother's Day for a quick talk with Scott at the Institute, under the promise of returning soon. WELL IT IS VERY LATE AND SHE HAS RETURNED AND IS NOT HAPPY.
FORMAT: Idk! I'll start off with quickpara but I am a lover of rambly paragraphs too. And bracket thingies.

People responded to surprising news of grief and trauma, sometimes, in the strangest ways. For example, after Jean Grey had managed to fight off her crying spell since finding out about the fate of her family, she suddenly wanted to watch a romance film. It was an inexplicable urge, one she couldn't understand, and she didn't have any particular classic in mind. She was used to escaping. Maybe it was the thought of something being presented to her and doing all of the escaping for her that was appealing -- no mental work involved.

A few knocks on the door, which Jean knew she didn't need to do. But still. She was too tired to do things the easy way, if that had made any sense.

She waited for her daughter to answer, an exhausted look etched on her countenance, a mixture of a grimace and pure apathy.

{Rachel...?} Her mind reached out tiredly.

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The locks on the door click and it swings open, unsurprisingly, Rachel was nowhere near it. She was in the kitchen, putting together some late-night snacks and putting the flowers she purchased in a vase. They weren't anything special, just whatever was left at the corner market after every other last-minute Mother's Day shopper was through. Daisies, tulips and some assorted greenery.

But she almost dropped it when she sensed Jean's exhaustion.

{Jean? What's wrong?}

She set it down and quickly headed out to the living room.

Jean was resting her back against the door when Rachel crossed the threshold into the living room. She opened her mental rapport with Rachel up, even more, slumping further down until she was sitting on the floor, her hands rubbing her temples as she shook her head.

"I'm so glad you lived, Rachel."

Rachel stood, stock-still feeling Jean's pain wash over her. "He didn't... he... he..."

She started shaking, familiar and terrible anger welling up. Before she knew it, the vase she'd carefully set down careened across the room into a wall as she let out string of curses. Her hands balled into fists and she closed her eyes, unable to stop the awful memories from running through her mind.

If Jean was watching, she'd get an eyeful.

"He did it so no one else would have to, I'm sure." Jean reassured her daughter, about to start on more words of comfort, before the images and perhaps, more importantly, the words are shared between them like a river. She puts her hand up, erecting a psionic wall in her mind to stop any more from coming after a particular memory about Elaine showed up.

At least her Father had a nice moment with Rachel before -- at least it was quick.

"Rachel, Rachel, I'm so sorry you had ... to go through all of that." {Because of me.}

Rachel's hands came up to cover her face, unable to stop the tears as she tried to lock down the memories. Jean didn't need to see it, she didn't need to feel Rachel re-live it.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." {No, it was me, I was there and I couldn't stop it. I should have been able to save someone...}

"Why couldn't he wait one day!?"

"Don't blame ... yourself. Please." She steadied her voice into a firm tone, though those tears she had worked hard to get rid of were once again threatening to fall.

"As your Mother, I ask you to know that it wasn't your fault."

What had really gotten to Jean was that due to the nature of the Phoenix -- due to her nature, and where she tended to go after death... another plane of existence, a different one than the deceased, did this mean she wouldn't ever be able to see her family again?

She tried not to dwell too much on it. It wasn't good to think of possibilities of bringing the dead back to life. Instead, she worked on control, and focused on her daughter.

You can't hide these things from a telepath.

Rachel had felt their deaths.

Every one. But she'd also seen Jean appear to pass them through to... wherever. A final goodbye for her family, a familiar face to send them home.

"I'm stronger than they are and I couldn't stop them."

She wasn't sure how, but she managed to get to the couch and pull her legs up under her chin.

"But I will. Back home, I will. They'll never get to Nathan, never come after me again."

"Ugh, God," Jean wiped at her eye, feeling incredibly torn apart by the images she saw. They just brought back visions of a past massacre she had been involved in, and suddenly she wondered if her birth had caused much more mayhem and suffering than it ever had brought joy and well-being.

But she didn't want that downward spiral. Not when she had Rachel here, suffering.

"That was -- I don't think I'll feel comfortable at the Institute for a while," the mother said in a resigned voice. "I owe your Father an apology."

Rachel looked up confused. "Why do you owe him an apology?"

He was the one who gave her the lovely Mother's Day gift, a nice massacre message.

Jean got up from her position on the floor, dragging herself over to the couch where Rachel had been on, and plopped down beside her with a sigh.

"I kind of ... I think I took some stuff out on him. Maybe some things that were left a bit unresolved."

She scoffed a bit. "He's the one that decided to drop this on you the day you arrived."

And unresolved was probably the understatement of the century.