A Crucible of Fire
Posted on Thu Feb 13th, 2025 @ 9:22pm by Jean Grey & Scott Summers
5,638 words; about a 28 minute read
Mission:
Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Location: Baxter Building
Timeline: December 6, 1990
The walls of Sinister’s subterranean lab pulsed faintly with a sickly, organic glow. Each surface seemed alive, veins of bioluminescent energy running through the architecture. Jean sat strapped to a cold metallic chair at the center of the room, her head restrained, arms secured. Her glassy green eyes fluttered open, focusing on the double doors ahead.
A rumble through the floor and walls preceded the doors hissing open. Sinister strode in first, a regal silhouette framed by his black cape. The crimson diamond on his forehead glinted under the eerie light. His presence alone suffused the room with tension, but it was the figure following him that carried a numbing psychic aura.
The middle-aged man in wire-framed glasses wore a white lab coat pristine as though untouched by the grime of Krakoa. A clipboard clutched in his hand, he adjusted his glasses, his clinical detachment in stark contrast to Sinister’s theatrical presence.
“Ah, Dr. Moreau,” Sinister intoned, his voice like velvet dipped in poison. He gestured grandly toward Jean. “Our guest of honor, I present to you a bonafide Grey. I trust you understand the delicacy of this situation.”
“I understand the task,” Moreau replied, his tone flat, businesslike. “Your reputation for theatrics precedes you, Essex. Spare me the fanfare. Let me work.”
Sinister chuckled, unbothered by the rebuff. “Very well, doctor. The specimen awaits.”
Jean tried to blink and shake away the fog that filled her mind, her mutant abilities suppressed to nothing; she was left with a skull splitting headache and a terrible haze that came from being sedated. “Where?” she mumbled as her memories came back to her, Jean had been in Krakoa when she collapsed from the exertion of creating fire. She noticed the strange glow to the room, it was like no other place on earth… she was still on Krakoa.
“How long?” Jean asked to the men who ignored her. She was unsure how long she had been unconscious, the darkness she had awoken from was chemically induced and could have lasted days. Remembering her limbs, Jean began to fight against the restraints that held her and panic began to sink in. Lifting her heavy head upwards to the two men staring at her a touch of her fiery temper appeared. “You’ll regret this!” she snapped at them.
Sinister smirked, his diamond insignia catching the dim, organic light of the room. "You will come to learn in time, Miss Grey, one thing above all else." His smirk split into a diabolical grin. “I regret nothing.”
Utterly unperturbed, Moreau stepped forward with his hands already pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. He didn’t so much as glance at Jean, addressing Sinister instead with professional detachment. "The subject must be kept perfectly still. Any involuntary movements will compromise the sample, the subject, or both."
Sinister waved a dismissive hand, his tone dripping with mockery. "She’s feisty. That’s why I summoned you, Doctor. Your exquisite device was made for just such delicate situations, was it not?"
Moreau gave Sinister a withering glance before focusing on unpacking a sleek metallic case. "It is proprietary technology," he said evenly, retrieving a device that resembled a syringe mated with a high-tech scanning arm. A faint hum emanated from its monofilament needle, which shimmered like a wisp of smoke under the light. "Minimally invasive. Allows for cellular-level sampling without damage to the subject, provided she remains perfectly immobilized."
“Don’t touch me!” Jean snarled and she tugged as struggling against her restraints until she felt her skin redden and bruised from the confined thrashing.
With a flick of his wrist, the air around Jean seemed to constrict, an invisible force pressing her back into the chair with bone-crushing stillness. Her muscles seized, her body rendered completely motionless, save for the panicked rise and fall of her chest. Whatever passionate fight she had once possessed was now stifled into forced submission.
"Better?" Sinister drawled, glancing at Moreau. "Or must I breathe for her as well?"
"Acceptable," Moreau replied curtly, his eyes already scanning Jean with a detached gaze. "Where is the recent brain mapping? I’ll need it to align the needle’s trajectory with the basolateral nucleus. A miscalculation would result in suboptimal data—or worse, render her… damaged."
Sinister tapped his temple, then held out his hand. Before Moreau could respond, a glowing 3D projection of Jean’s brain hovered in the air, the amygdala clearly outlined. Sinister said, his tone mocking, "A marvel of my own design."
Moreau exhaled through his nose, unimpressed. "I need it in digital form for the computer-assisted stereotaxic delivery system." He held out his free hand expectantly, his other carefully adjusting the monofilament needle.
Sinister’s smile tightened, but he obliged, conjuring a small data chip from thin air. He handed it to Moreau, who inserted it into a port on the needle’s base. A faint beep signaled synchronization, and the device began to emit a soft, rhythmic pulse.
Moreau ignored Jean entirely, moving with measured precision as he placed the eye speculum against her lids, forcing the eye open. The cold instrument felt invasive and unnatural against her eye resulting in a faint flutter of a blink in a sad attempt to ease the pain and discomfort. "The sedatives may not have fully worn off," he murmured, his fingers adjusting the needle’s angle. "This could affect the sample quality. However, the range is acceptable enough for an initial attempt."
Sinister loomed closer, peering down at Jean as though she were a particularly intriguing insect pinned beneath glass. "Doctor," he said, his voice deceptively smooth, "I did not hire you to make acceptable attempts. Precision is the foundation of our art. And besides..." He leaned down, his lips curling into a cruel grin. "It isn’t as though she has anywhere to go, now is it?"
Jean wanted to scream and to claw, to fight her way out of this room and away from this godforsaken island. She begged her body to move as she attempted to call on her telepathy and telekinesis but nothing happened and Jean remained silent and trapped in her own body.
The needle’s tip glimmered faintly as Moreau aligned it with Jean’s eye, the whir of the device rising in pitch. "Hold still, Miss Grey," he said, addressing Jean for the first time, his tone devoid of malice but equally devoid of empathy. "This will only take a moment."
Blood curdling horror filled Jean as the needle aligned with her eye and she remained frozen and complacent. She was awake and aware as the needle bore its way through the empty space next to her eye, honing in on the tissue of her brain.
Sinister’s chuckle echoed through the room as the needle pressed past Jean’s eye, its monofilament tip slipping beneath with an almost imperceptible puncture. Jean’s muffled gasp was the only sound as her body trembled against the restraints, the fiery defiance in her eyes dimming into something darker—resignation, or perhaps a seething rage she could no longer express.
The device emitted a final beep, and Moreau withdrew the needle, holding up the minuscule vial containing the glowing sample with the reverence of a jeweler appraising a rare gem. "The sample is viable," he said, more to himself than to Sinister.
"Of course it is," Sinister purred, his eyes gleaming with triumph as he reached for the vial. “Perfection.” Turning around, his hands nearly reverent as if holding the Holy Grail itself, Sinister approached the nanosequencer which was ready and waiting for the microscopic biopsy sample. “And now we wait.”
Horrible, unfathomable pain flooded Jean’s head as her vision in the afflicted eye went blurry. It was a degree of agony she had never experienced before and Jean began to beg for the sedative that had made her blackout just so she could escape the crippling pain that burned and crawled inside of her. Darkness crept at the edges of her blurry vision as the pain took hold and her body blessed her with a lack of consciousness. She could still hear the jumbled conversation of Sinister and Dr. Moreau. Their voices began to sound as if they were underwater.
The hum of the nanosequencer filled the air, a faint, rhythmic pulse that seemed to vibrate through the walls of the lab. Sinister stood by the display, his red eyes glowing faintly as the data scrolled across the screen. Moreau, seated at a nearby console, tapped his fingers against the surface with a mixture of impatience and precision.
“Fascinating,” Sinister murmured, his tone dripping with condescension, though his fascination was genuine. “The amygdala shows evidence of exquisite trauma. Fear of death etched into her neural pathways. Hope of life, clinging to the ruins like vines over a charred cathedral.”
Moreau adjusted his glasses and glanced at the data without enthusiasm. “Consistent with Phoenix Force contact,” he agreed, his voice clinical, devoid of awe. “But this… atypical healing.” He tapped a key, zooming in on the digital render of Jean’s basolateral nucleus. “This is not the regenerative pattern we see in most cases of psychic trauma. It’s something else entirely.”
Sinister tilted his head, the faintest smile curling his lips. “Indeed. A scar where there should have been ashes. Survival where annihilation was all but certain.” He leaned closer to the display, his crimson diamond gleaming as the light shifted. “She is not a host now… but she was. At last, I’ve found one—a survivor of the Phoenix Force.”
Moreau exhaled sharply through his nose, clearly unimpressed by the revelation. “So she survived a cosmic entity. Fascinating, I’m sure.” His tone made it clear he found the entire situation irrelevant to either of their goals. “But the Force isn’t with her now. Whatever residual connection she might have had is gone. You’re wasting your time if you think this will lead to—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Sinister interrupted, turning to Moreau with a sharp grin. “I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Moreau.” He gestured toward Jean, who remained restrained and barely conscious, her head lolling slightly against the vice-like clamp. “The key, dear doctor, is not in what she is. It is in what she has been. That connection, however severed, is a thread. A tether. A path to follow.”
Moreau shrugged and began shutting down his console, his movements brisk and mechanical as he removed the speculum from Jean’s eye and began to clean up. “If you say so. I’ve extracted the data you requested, Essex. The conclusions are clear. Now, if we’re finished here—”
“We are far from finished,” Sinister snapped, his voice silken but barbed. “She is the nexus, the linchpin, the mapmaker’s compass. And she will help me unlock the key to everything.”
Jean’s body twitched as Sinister raised his hand, a wave of his psychic power crashing into her like a tidal wave. Her eyes snapped open, a gasp escaping her lips as her mind was forcibly brought back to the forefront of her consciousness. Pain and disorientation collided with her lingering rage and defiance as a few emotionally charged tears streamed down her face.
“Ah, there you are,” Sinister purred, his smile widening as he moved closer, his shadow falling over her. “I trust the sedation wore off... unpleasantly?”
“You can’t take something that isn’t there.” Jean gasped and sobbed, the pain was too much for her to mask and hide. While the medical procedure and the confines of her capture were brutal she had managed to keep enough composure to listen to their conversation. “This Phoenix Force, as you call it, it’s not there. You can’t pluck it from me or coax it out…”
Jean paused, while there was a quagmire of confusion and questions surrounding this moment, but she knew exactly what it was the Essex wanted to claim. That ancient and mighty presence that called to her and beckoned her to join it in moments of pure distress. On the rare occasion that she answered, the results had been a connection to devastating power.
“It only appears when it wants to, on its terms and even then… the power it provides is so intense and mighty. My body cannot control it.” Jean doubted her confession would dissuade him but she hoped her honesty would at least discourage some of his plans. “You cannot take it, you cannot master it.”
Sinister's lips curled into a slow, predatory smile as he leaned closer to Jean, his shadow towering over her weakened form. His eyes gleamed with something almost predatory, yet oddly transcendent, as though he were savoring her struggle. He had no pity for her—only the cold thrill of control and the tantalizing anticipation of what was yet to come.
“Ah, but I can,” Sinister said, his voice growing even more condescending, each syllable dripping with venom. “You are so precious in your ignorance. But you see, Jean, I have studied the Phoenix Force—long before you were born, in fact. I know how and why it is drawn to certain individuals, the delicate balance it seeks between life and death. How it is summoned, how it awakens.”
Sinister’s grin widened, a cruel glint dancing in his eyes as he towered over her, the air seeming to grow heavier with his every word. “I do not need to control the Phoenix Force directly, not when I can control you, Jean. And that, in the end, will be enough. You will break. You will be tested in ways that will make you wish you had never felt its presence at all. When you are crushed, the Phoenix will rise. And then the doorway to my Dominion will be made open.”
And then Sinister’s laughter punctuated his arrogant boasting, rich with a cruel amusement, and it seemed to echo in the sterile confines of the room, reverberating in Jean’s aching mind.
For his part, Moreau had remained mostly silent. He gave a barely audible sigh as he packed his device away, his skeptical glance flicking over Jean’s battered form. “Whatever gets you up in the morning, Essex.”
“Your house is so fragile, Dr. Moreau, that glass would be an improvement. Mind your stones.” Sinister flicked his wrist in the air without turning around. The doctor, on the other hand, pivoted on his heels as if yanked into the air. An invisible hand dragged him to Sinister by the neck. Only when Moreau clutched at his throat for air did Sinister turn around. “You have been rewarded with your own private playground…” Sinister faced him, speaking in a crisp drawl, each syllable drawn out with enunciated contempt. “Do not make me regret my charity.”
Moreau nodded, his eyes red and bulging. Whatever words he might have said came out as a gurgle.
His point made, Sinister released him, allowing Moreau to scurry away like a cockroach. “Begone, Doctor. And do be as respectful in your future dealings as you are discreet.”
Turning back to Jean, the Lord Sinister continued his arrogant polemic. “Do you see now, Jean? There is no denying my will, for I am power incarnate. My charity for you this day is the assurance that your suffering will not be for naught. Your many, many cycles of death and rebirth will be added to a grand design that most minds are too feeble to even consider. Consider yourself blessed in knowing that.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Jean choked out the words as she mustered what little strength she had left. She thought back to those harrowing moments before the Phoenix Force last appeared and the sacrifices that has been made “Scott got away, I made sure of that. He’ll be back for me and this place will be destroyed.”
At Jean’s defiant words, Sinister’s eyes widened with incredulous delight. Then, to her astonishment, he burst into laughter—a rich, unrestrained sound that echoed through the chamber like a perverse symphony. He clutched his chest as if the sheer force of his amusement might split him apart.
“Oh, Jean!” he gasped between fits of mirth, wiping a mock tear from the corner of his eye. “You truly are magnificent. A dying ember, clinging to the hope that your gallant lover will return, his chiseled jaw set with resolve, his crimson gaze blazing with righteous fury.” He exhaled, composing himself, though his lips still twitched with mirth. “What a tragic little farce.”
His tone darkened, the amusement giving way to something far more sinister, a predator’s glee gleaming in his eyes. “You speak of Scott as if he were your salvation. As if his heroics could undo the intricate web I have spun. But let me enlighten you, my dear vessel.” Sinister stepped closer, his presence looming like a shadow of doom. “Scott Summers will take action, oh yes. But not to save you. No, he will rush headlong into the trap I have so splendidly prepared—a trap baited with such elegant cunning that even his courage and desperation which you vaunt so highly will become the very nails in his own coffin.”
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, though it dripped with venom. “The bait, you see, is irresistible. It calls to his very essence as a leader, a lover, a martyr. He will not even hesitate running to his doom, heedless of the inevitability of his failure.” Sinister straightened, his smile a mask of cold satisfaction. “And if, by some divine cruelty, the Phoenix allows you to witness his fate, you will find him unrecognizable. The man you love will be a hollow shell, his spirit crushed and his identity obliterated into that of a pathetic wretch. In the end, he will not be Scott Summers, Jean. He will be… mine.”
“Lies.” Jean barked as she tugged at her restraints. Her head was screaming in pain, her vision blurry and yet she still persisted and fought against Sinister. She gazed up at him with watery and weary eyes but Sinister saw it, that spark of light and flicker of destruction. In Jean’s eyes Sinister did not see verdant green or the sparkle of joy, he saw the promise of cosmic fire and power. “If you ever touch him, I’ll kill you.”
“That’s the spirit.” Sinister mocked her with relentless joy mixed into his cruelty. “Harness the rage, it pairs so well with the delicious fear that is dripping off of you. They will mix together into despair soon enough, and then the fun begins.” The man rose up to his full height and swept his cape around him, preparing to leave Jean to sulk in her doom. “Your unbelief is understandable, but lies are counterproductive when the truth is far too glorious to obscure. I can promise you, my little chalice, that I will never need lay a hand on your dear Scott. No, that part is already tasked to another.” Another chilling laugh erupted from him, fraught with wicked glee over his devious plotting, that was too satisfying to hold back. He clicked his heel on the ground in a crisp about-face and sent himself back through the door that Moreau had already existed. “Until tomorrow, then.”
As Sinister departed the overhead lights darkened, leaving Jean alone in a room that was only faintly lit by the odd and eerie bioluminescent moss that filled the cracks and crevices of Krakoa. While fear and pain had consumed her, this was the first time that she felt alone.
Since she was a girl she had experienced the whispers and chatters of other people’s minds. It had taken years of training and awareness to keep them out so she might have a moment of peace. But here, collared and shackled without the presence of another, Jean felt helplessly isolated. Something snapped inside of her and Jean began to uncontrollably sob. Hard and heavy wails that made her whole body jerk and jolt against her restraints. For the first time in her life, Jean felt hopeless.
Jean woke from the nightmare of a memory with her gasping sobs continuing. Sitting up in bed she gasped and clutched at the bed sheets and ultimately for Scott by her side. Panic and fear flooded her senses and bled through their psychic bond and for a moment in time they were transported back to those early dark days on Muir when her time in Krakoa haunted Jean almost every night.
Even without words from Jean to explain her terror, Scott awakened with a familiar call to action. He knew her feelings like a pianist knew keys on a grand piano. When one he’d felt a hundred times brushed his senses, he knew it without being told.
“Hey…” he said, his voice groggy but his mind already clearing. Feeling her hands grasping at him, Scott slid his arm beneath Jean and pulled her close to his side where his other arm came around to rub reassuring circles on her shoulder blades. “Another one?”
Jean crumbled in his embrace as she buried herself in his chest like a frightened child. His presence alone helped to remind her that the memory delivered in a nightmare was over. Scott had in fact found her and brought her home. But it was the return to that place of isolation and abuse that rattled her, it had been the start of it all.
She had been worn down and brutally tortured until Jean had wanted to actually die. Those early days where she had fought so hard made the contrast even sharper. Sinister had tried to take her apart until she was nothing more than a device for him to control. The full extent of her time with Sinister was still clouded, her mind's feeble attempts to spare her from all the terrible things that had happened. But as time passed and their story unfolded more and more of those forgotten memories returned to Jean. This one had been exceptionally hard.
“But you did come back…” Jean sniffled and cried, her voice sounding so small as she recalled the part of her nightmare that had hurt the most.
“Yes,” Scott said, his voice a reassuring whisper. “I’ll always come for you. There was nothing in this world that could stop me.”
He knew better than trying to push her terrors away. They would subside when Jean was good and ready to dismiss them. Weathering the storm was the best course of action, one that didn’t require anything other than being present. As a man of action, Scott would have preferred a more head-on approach, but this was Jean’s battle to fight. All he could do was support her.
“Was this one different?” It was a question he always asked. Sometimes new details emerged, though they often didn’t. Either way, talking through it seemed to help Jean regulate herself and eventually fall back asleep.
She nodded her head in agreement as Jean reached out and held onto him. The feel of his body, the sound of his voice, the psychic bond between them all helped to dash those horrible feelings her memories had created. Jean repeated the mantra she had developed in her darker days, a reminder that she was here and alive.
“He spoke to me in this memory and there was another man with him…” Jean softly whimpered as she shared the dream with him, the horrible procedure and the conversation that followed.
But it wasn’t the pain or the information that Jean had found to be so upsetting, it was the psychological break that had occurred in that moment. Sinister would keep her forever and Scott would never come for her, statements that she knew to be untrue but in that moment doubt had started to form.
“You held on,” Scott said, reflecting on what she had shown him. “We all had moments of weakness, some more than others. But you held on, Jean. You showed me how to find you. That's the takeaway. Everything else is just a footnote.” He gave her shoulder a loving squeeze before rubbing her back again. “You know, that other guy? Something about him seems familiar…”
“No.” Jean said with a shuttered sigh, her tears had stopped but Scott could still feel how rattled she was. “As of right now, I don’t know who he is outside of this moment and that test... a Doctor Moreau.” She reimagined the needle advancing on her eye and how it had been impossible to avoid. Jean winced and hid her face in Scott’s neck once more. “I don’t want to remember him, I’m sorry I remember this much. The more I see, the more I understand why my subconscious would hide these memories from me, all of them are terrible.”
“Yes,” Scott agreed. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the other man’s face before, but a bell was ringing in his mind anyway. Whatever the case, now was not the time to unravel any hidden meaning. “There’s no reason to dwell on the past. You’re safe now, with me, and that’s all that matters.”
Scott gave her another reaffirming squeeze, holding her tightly in his embrace. “There’s one thing that we can take from it, though, this new dream of yours. This Sinister guy is scared of us together. He went through great lengths to keep us apart, and once we came back together, he hasn’t taken any direct action to separate us again.” That thought even perked Scott up a little bit. “He didn’t show his ugly zombie face until we were separated. Even he knows we’re stronger together.”
“I don’t want you to leave my side, not now or ever.” Scott felt that gentle caress of her telepathic presence move through his mind. Like the entwining of fingers, she held onto his psyche, a different type of comforting touch and closeness. Jean’s body began to relax against Scott’s as their psychic rapport was strengthened.
“I can’t help but think that something terrible is going to happen. With Aurora running off with him…" That piece of information taken from Muir's security cameras had been the most damning and upsetting revelation. Jean had shown Aurora what Essex had done to her, she had seen a moment of invasive, exploitative torture, combined with Aurora's mother's fear of the man. Those where two massive warnings to stay away from him and yet, when meeting the man face to face, she willingly left with him. Scott and Jean had been left devastated by the event, now fearful for the unborn child Aurora had taken to horrors unknown.
"...Why would my mind want to show me that right now?” Jean sighed heavily and Scott felt the warmth of her breath against his bare skin. “It can’t be just the stress all of this.”
Pained as he was to admit it, Scott had been worrying about the same thing. “Well… the obvious answer is the baby. For Aurora to go with him willingly, he must have made some hell of a promise. I can’t even imagine what would possess her to willingly go with him.”
And she had to have gone willingly. Even if Aurora’s telepathy was somehow overcome by a stronger telepath, the video footage didn’t lie. They walked out hand in hand after blowing the administration center halfway to hell.
“We’ll put Cerebra to the test just as soon as all the kinks are worked out,” Scott suggested. “Not long now until it’s ready, right?”
“Hopefully, Hank has been working on it with Reed but it’s no small feat.” The sister version of Cerebro had been discussed as a way for Jean to reach out and use her telepathy in a similar manner but the machine was incredibly complicated. “But we haven’t been able to find Sinister with Cerebro.” She shook her head in doubt but her optimism continued. “Even still, I will always try because that’s all I can do.”
Scott wasn’t ready to give up hope just yet. “Sure… but you felt Christopher, right? I know it was only in utero. We’ll just have to hope that’s enough… especially if…”
It was too terrible to speak out loud. ~If Sinister does any experiments with him~
“With Krakoa gone and unaccounted for, hopefully he’s running out of places to hide.” That was just like Scott, ready and willing to plunge into the heart of darkness in order to save another. Anything was possible with the right planning and dedication. “I won’t abandon Christopher to him. I won’t.”
“No. Never.” Jean replied with the same degree of dedication. “We’ll find him, no matter what.” She titled his head down for a kiss, a gesture that turned her words into a promise. They would never stop looking. Not now, not ever.
It was a heartbreaking curse for Scott, to have the people he loved ripped from him over and over again. Jean wished she could give them all back to him but she only had herself to offer. “I’ll ask them to move as quickly as possible with Cerebra, see if I can get Reed to prioritize it.”
As complicated as things were with Aurora, with the regret that laced his every interaction with her, Scott couldn’t help feeling torn over these new developments.
Scott held Jean tightly, his face buried against her shoulder, his tears hot against her skin. The floodgates of grief and anger he had so carefully held shut for so long now gave way, leaving him exposed and raw. His body trembled as he clung to her, the weight of loss and fear pressing down like a suffocating shroud.
“He stole him, Jean,” Scott whispered hoarsely, his voice cracking under the strain of his emotions. “That monster took my son… and Aurora just…just went along for the ride!” He sniffled a few times before he continued. “I can’t let Christopher grow up the way I did,” he choked out, his words barely above a whisper. “Not alone. Not abandoned. I can’t let him think… that I didn’t fight for him.” His voice faltered. “He’s innocent. He’s just a baby. He doesn’t deserve any of this. None of it.”
“I know.” Jean rubbed his back as she attempted to soothe his worry and heartache. It was a shared pain, even though she was not Christopher’s mother she had found and exercised a lot of forgiveness and was now excited to know him and to help raise him. His arrival had become a bright spot in what would have been a very dark memory. “We still have some time, Moira said he wasn’t due until the end of January, maybe early February. With a bit of luck we can find Aurora before then or soon after.” The dates reminded them of how time sensitive all of this was, it exaggerated the loss they both felt.
“I’m so sorry, Scott.” Jean kissed the top of his head and held him close, his grief stung. “I know you wanted to be a father to him and we will do everything in our power to get him back, all of us will. We’re better together.”
Scott’s sorrow subsided with Jean’s encouragement. “Thank you. And I know you’re right.” He sobbed a few more times before he got his breathing under control. “I don’t deserve you but I’m glad you’re mine. Somehow you always know what to say.” He nodded in emphasis, swallowing the last of his sobs. “I look at you, and no matter how much I’ve lost, I realize how much I still have. You, us—what we’re building together. That’s worth fighting for too.” His lips quirked into a faint, wistful smile. “I don’t say it enough, but I need you, Jean. More than I ever knew.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Jean softly cooed as she kissed him, that affirmation calmed her own intrusive thoughts along with his. “Not now or ever.” She nuzzled noses with him before kissing him once more, Jean’s affection was always a balm on his soul. “We need each other right now, I couldn’t face any of this on my own either. So we’ll hold onto one another, okay?”
“Okay.” What a night. They went from a horrible and traumatic nightmare to baring their waking terrors and grief to one another, perhaps the only other soul in the world with whom they could face such things. Scott held onto her all the tighter until his arms began to ache. Rolling onto his back, he pulled Jean along with him and enjoyed the rise and fall of her body in rhythm with his breathing. As far as creature comforts went, there were none better.
They remained in one another's embrace as they continue to weather the storm of their mental anguish. Those dark and painful thoughts howled and bashed against them until they died down to a wind and then a breeze. It was with each other that they found their peace and their solace, Scott and Jean managed to fall back to sleep in each other's arms before the sun rose again.
Whatever horrors they were destined to face, at least they would do it together.
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