12/20 - GHOST Jean
12/20/2008
11:44 AM
Logfile from Titania.
=XS= Jean's Room - Staff Wing - Lv 3
Large and airy this end of the hall room; the door from the hallway bisects one wall. To the right, an office area complete with overstuffed bookshelves and a desk with computer, docking stations for peripherals, and piles of papers both research and student. To the left, privacy screens in black lacquered wood and white rice paper enclose a sleeping area containing a bedside table and lamp, and a double futon with many pillows and an addictively comfortable duvet. The outer wall features two bay windows with cushioned window seats on either side of a small fieldstone fireplace. An oriental rug stands in front of the hearth, with a small cream coloured sofa perfectly placed for a quiet evening in. There are two additional rugs in the sleeping and office areas, otherwise the parquet floor is bare. Walls hung with gray-blue wallpaper and with acccents in black and white, the simple empty space allows for both visual and mental tranquility, aided and abetted by candles scattered about on black worked-metal stands. A door on the left wall leads to a fairly nice bathroom, and a matching one on the right opens into a large walk-in closet.
One passes many people in the naked City, and Jean Grey has spent more than her fair share of hours there, in recent weeks. A chance and unawares encounter on a subway car with Heather, as she's gone and ridden in polite defiance of the polite requests to keep mutants off them, and she's been thoughtful all the way back home. Now, settled before her fireplace with a cat and a book fighting for space on her lap, and both equally unread, she stares into the flames in lieu of watching out a darkened window at the scudding snow clouds billowing up outside.
Heather's powers creep unnoticed into Jean's mind, gathering colors and motion from the fire to coalesce into something familiar and close to mind lately. Jubilee steps from the fireplace with a brilliant smile and drops into a crouch in the space between it and Jean, her entire frame alive with suppressed energy and merriment. Her oversized t-shirt bunches in her lap, overhanging her short-shorts and brushing the heels of her bear claw slippers from behind. "Dude, you know when you've put /yourself/ to sleep, your lesson is BUH. /OR/. ING.”
Sitting as she is, there's no real way for Jean to grow more still at the voice and the bounce and the vibrancy, but her breath catches in her throat, and there's a low murmur of complaint from a cat that's gotten very squished all of a sudden. Her eyes close, she opens them, and still Jubilee remains. "You can't be real," she murmurs, a catch in her throat and a flash of pain squeezing her eyes shut again, but not ahead of a suspicious standing water in them.
Jubilee tilts her head and grins, then rolls her eyes and falls back to sit on the floor and catch at the claws on her slippers with her hands. "Geez, Jeannie-kins. How predictable. 'You can't be real,'" Jubilee intones with mocking solemnity. "I woulda thought /you/ could have come up with something better. Like, I dunno... 'Jubilee! The Zombie master got to you, oh no!"
"It would have to be aliens," Jean offers, with a watery attempt at a smile peeking out bravely beneath hands lifted to shield her eyes. (The cat takes the opportunity to bolt away. The human is being dangerously odd.) "Aliens, or far-future time travellers, with the kind of medical technology that could--" The smile attempt abruptly drowns, pulled beneath a riptide of well-buried despair. "I'm so sorry."
Jubilee nods approval and crabwalks closer to Jean. "That's better. Aliens are good. Long as they're hot ones." She settles back into a cross-legged position at Jean's feet and looks up, blue eyes bright and wide. "For what? If this is gonna be one of those angsty 'I'm soooooo sorry you're dead' things, don't bother."
"Why shouldn't I?" Jean wonders back, with a black chuff of a laugh, and an intense study of Jubilee's... slippers. "You sacrificed yourself to save the world, and I can't even seem to make enough of your legacy to keep people from trying to ban mutants from the subways."
The claws wiggle at her. Hi, Jean! "I didn't do it for a 'legacy.' I didn't even do it for mutants, Jean," Jubilee says, blinking up into Jean's face and generally trying to prevent her from not looking at her.
"You deserve one anyways." Cautiously, Jean reaches out a sock-clad toe to poke at the wiggling apparition, half-expecting it to fall through, half hoping it won't. "It's about the only thing I can give you now."
It doesn't. The slippers are spongey and furry under her toe. "You can give me your memories. What good is a /legacy/ if people jus' remember the one stupid thing?" Jubilee squirms around and up to her knees, planting firm hands on Jean's knees to brace herself. Her hair swings forward as she ducks her head to continue to look at Jean's face. "I was a lot more than just a shuttle ride."
"I want to give you a world you could feel proud of saving. One you'd have wanted to be living in." Jean's toe pokes at the slipper again, searching for some odd reassurance, even as her arms remain folded over her chest protectively, having dropped away from eyes that are openly red and tear streaked. "I don't want to look back on my memories of you and be glad you're spared seeing things."
"Instead, I'm spared being remembered for the things I /was/?" Jubilee snorts ruefully and shakes her head. She sits back on her heels, hands laying on her thighs. "Jean. I saved the world for /you/. For you and the Professor, and Storm, and Ro, and Kitty, and Wolvie, and Scooter, and Jerms, and everyone else here. Everyone I loved. You want to know what my legacy is? It's this place, and these people."
"It just..." Jean's voice catches again, and she looks away, drawing arms and legs around herself in a huddled ball on the couch. "You deserve more than that."
Jubilee grins and lifts her hands, palms up. "So give me what I deserve. To be a legend!"
A laugh escapes Jean, uneven and with a bit of a gurgle as something unpleasant is sniffed back and away. (Unlike the spectre before her, Dr. Grey does not inflict snot on others.) "I've been trying. I don't think I've got your talents in legend-building."
(You have to start developing your talents somewhere). Jubilee laughs, throwing her head back and lifting her shoulders up to her ears. "All you have to do is tell people 'bout me. Not the brave little mutant who could, but /me/. Jeannie-kins, what do /you/ remember about me?"
"Many things," Jean assures, one hand lifting from its wrap around herself to swipe gently at a tear streak. "I remember talking you out of a treehouse."
Jubilee rolls her eyes and wrinkles her nose. "Ok, maybe you could keep /some/ things to yourself." She walks forward again on her knees and leans over the edge of the couch, cupping her chin in her hands. "Thank you, by the way."
"And then there was the constantly bursting in on me if I wasn't alone in bed. And the leaving snot on my shirt if you'd been crying--" Jean's tone is uneven, but the attempt at teasing is clear, even if the usual twinkle to her eye appears to have gotten lost in shipping. But the gratitude stops her, leaving her to wonder a simple "What for?"
"For makin' this place a home," Jubilee says simply and puts her hands on the couch cushion.
Jean uncoils as Jubilee edges closer, and it's with a wordless sigh and a few tears that she reaches out to try and draw her into a hug. "You were a good kid, Jubilation Lee."
"Are you kidding? I was /fabulous/," Jubilee chirps as she settles into the hug, burrowing close and smelling like bubble gum and chocolate. "And so were you," she adds, the words muffled against whatever part of Jean's anatomy is appropriate.
Shoulder, as it turns out. "Are you making rounds?" Jean wonders with another sniffle, and a fine attempt at ignoring the fact that she's crying. "If you are, you should go see Logan."
Jubilee pulls back and crinkles her nose at Jean. "He can find me if he wants to," she replies, taking Jean's face between her hands to hold it still. "Love you, Jeannie. You did good." She stretches up to kiss a wet cheek, then smoothly rocks back to her heels, and then stands.
"I don't know if he wants to, but I think he might need to." But Jean doesn't force the issue beyond that, instead re-curling in on herself, and swiping at her cheeks with one sleeve. Trying for composed, she gives Jubilee a little nod, just a touch wobbly, and watches her as she stands. "Remember that it's considered poor taste to prank Archangels."
"Been there, done that, and I didn't even have to wait till I got ta heaven," Jubilee says with wink as she turns around and heads back into the flames.
Jean watches still, but this time there's the faintest ghost of a chuckle. "That you did," she murmurs, before picking up her book once more, this time to crack open to the first page and read, aloud, just in case. "One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing..."
Jean gets a Christmas Ghost. Funny, Dickens' ghosts weren't ever asian.