The Light Home

by Shadowcat Rules!

Jean

I dream of rain I dream of gardens in the desert sand I wake in pain I dream of love as time runs through my hand

"I need you." A hand reaches up and cups my face, pain, agony, reaching through my shields to rip my heart to shreds. "I love you. Please, hold on for me. I need you to be strong." I raise my hand and cover the hand that is against my face, smelling the familiar scent I know so well, and feeling tears run down my face, and I look up into a pair of deep fox colored eyes.

"I will try. I promise." My voice is merely a whisper, but seems to echo in the grey limbo in which we are surrounded. It seems intimate as I add, "Please, for me, hang on too." I feel the darkness rising in him and feel my anger and my powers raise to try and combat it back for a few more precious minutes, "PROMISE ME!" I don't know where it comes from but the desperation in my tone had to have gotten through to him because he turns to me again, this time with a blue and a brown eye looking down at me.

"I promise." The assurance I've become used to is in his tone along with the pain of struggle, and I feel him losing to the demon taking him away from me again. And I know that being as far apart as we are there is nothing I can do about it.

************

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The dream again. I awake, my heart in my throat, as I sit up in the bed my husband and I used to share. It's been months, and yet I still dream. I realize I'm in a cold sweat and I reach up with a shaking hand to cover my eyes where tears had flowed unbidden down my face. Charles left us so I can't even talk the reoccuring dreams I've been having. Of the desert and a lonley man, like Scott, but unlike him, that needs me desperately. A darkness is in him, a darkness he fears, and he doesn't know what to do about it. The stupid dreams have been getting so realistic lately that I'm worrying if I'm going insane or about what is real and what is dream sometimes. And part of me, a part I don't want to contemplate, doesn't really care.

His pain and his fear. I understand them so well. I went through that fear, that pain, myself. As those around me grew to fear me as I slid down a winding road of destruction that ended in me ending everything to save what little humanity I had left. Oh Scott, I wonder with that part of myself I can't control, what are you going through now? Is it you calling out to me or some other mutant that desperately needs help in a desert somewhere out there? Part of me so prays it is you. That you haven't given up on hope...on us...on what our love could do to vanquish Apocalypse...if given the chance. But it's been over six months now. Six months of never ending searching for me. I've been plugged into Cerebro so much that Kitty even commented that we didn't know the effects of long term exposure to the instrument and she'd not like to see me as the first mutant to develop brain cancer. Betsy has helped, which I could not appreciate more considering cerebro has more background noise for her so it's like plugging her brain into a sound like a jet engine for hours.

Yet, with all of this searching, we haven't found you. I want to fight, Scott. I want to have you where I can reach out my hand and touch you and smile into your eyes and just kick the ass of whatever darkness you're trying to face alone. Because if I know one thing about you, my love, it is that you always have a plan and when you threw yourself into that beam it wasn't just a spur of the moment heroic action. It was more. You always have plans inside of plans. I know that there is more to this than you would tell me in that one instant of time before you through yourself into that beam to save Nate. And I know that you planned on this fight to be on your own. You feel too responsible NOT to feel that way and to plan that way. Well, sweetie, I hate to break it to you, but when we said "I do" we're in all of this together. Even if it takes me blowing my mind on Cerebro and looking through each swamp and little lead that might be out there. Kitty has even copped an attitude with everyone, keeping her walls up as high as she can so that we won't know. But I do, more than anyone, know what she's doing. And I love her for it. I'm too close to Rae's telepathic frequency not to be able to sneak in behind her defenses, and behind those defenses she's the same old Kitty. But, she's acting the way she is so that she can take off at a moment's notice to follow leads. Any lead. To find you. And no one will think twice about her taking off.

She's doing that for you, Scott. Because she knows how important you are to Rae, to me, to all of us. We need you, I whisper telepathically as hard as I can, please Scott...come back to us. Hold on my love, and come home.

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Scott I dream of fire These dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire And in the flames Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire

This desert rose Each of her veils a secret promise This desert flower No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

She's beautiful. Unlike any other. Fire reflects in her hair as she smiles with pure joy at just being alive and with me. It's an intoxication that would ensnare any man in her fire and he'd smile in pure undiluted joy as he burned. Her love is a pure force that would keep any man happy and enthralled for all eternity. And that love is mine.

She turns and offers her hand to me, pain and joy reflecting in her eyes as she sees what I have become. And smiling back, realizing all that I will gain when I touch that soft flesh again, I reach for her hand. To unite us and be with her as her partener and lover once again.

And that is when I wake up.

The dreams have gotten worse the last couple of months. Dreams of blood, of fire, of destruction and evil. And in the middle of all of those dreams, always, is her. She's like a shining light guiding me through the darkness or a sweet breeze blowing through a field of death smelling of purity and goodness from no where. Dreams of her have tormented me, perhaps even more, than the ones I have been having of evil.

Why do you torment me dream lover? What do you hope to acomplish by walking through my dreams and igniting my desire? I know you can not be real or I would not be here. I would be with you. Your light would guide me home. As is I have no home. Do you not realize, my beautiful temptress, I ask myself, that you are driving me insane? That I have a darkness in me that would most likely destroy you should you come to close to it? I would not deserve one such as you even if I could find you.

I would gladly take that darkness in you, my love, and vanquish it with fire. Do not underestimate our love.

The thought comes unbidden as I stare down at the moonlight floating and bobbing on the midnight sea. I look up. Her voice seems so close sometimes, yet I know it's not real. I have known for months that I was going insane, but this torment was going to drive me over the edge faster. I run a hand over my face in frustration, wanting rest. Just simply wanting rest. For all of this insane madness to simply stop.

A smell comes into the air suddenly, a scent so familiar to me that I know that I should recognize it immediately, but just as soon as it touches me it is gone. I groan in near frustration as I pound the rail beneath my hand. That has happened many times over the last couple of months.

"When will she give up?"

The thought comes from a part of me that speaks to me once in a while, but I do not understand the source of it anymore than anything else I hear or see now a days. "I do not understand." I seem to be having many conversations like this with myself now a days, and for once I do not even think twice about it. I learned not to talk aloud when these episodes hit me. Being part of a superstitious grew I'm always worried about them kicking me off thinking that I'm possessed. No matter how close that assumption might be, I figure, I still need to eat and have somewhere to sleep.

And to hide, a slight voice whispers through me, but I ignore it, as I listen to what the other part of me will say.

"She always was stubborn you know. It's part of what made you fall in love with her."

I blink as I grip the railing tighter. Memories slide out of my reach, so close, yet the harder I try to reach for them they slip from my fingers. The darkness is sleeping in me now, I can not feel it's prescence, so I try harder to reach for the memories I want, focusing all of my stubborn will on the task. Praying that in those memories, somewhere, is the answer to the secret that I seek. And a reason to hold on.

****************

And as she turns This way she moves in hte logic of all my dreams This fire burns I realize that nothing's as it seems.

I dream of rain I dream of gardens in the desert sand I wake in pain I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I feel as reality slips away and I let it. I in fact dive into my mind like a man possessed, trying to grab a hold of a memory, any memory, that will give me a clue. Anything that will show me how to get back to her or at least show me who she is. I want her to be a dream lover no more. I, instead, want to know her and be with her. I realize that I'm acting obsessive to the point that I'd scare most people, but I am so desperate for a sign of her that I simply don't care.

I've done this before, so above anything I know that I will probably find nothing like so many times before, but I don't care. I call on the voice that speaks to me in my voice, but not like me to show me the way to her. To guide me home.

And for a change, there is an answer. A memory comes into my mind's eye and I try not to grasp it tighter in fear that it will escape like it has so many times before.

"Jean, it's not your fault."

I am suddenly in a room that is not familiar to me, but is familiar to me, as I stare at the couple in front of me. One is a boy with red glasses covering every inch of his eyes and he was kneeling by a young woman. A woman with hair the color of flame. She looks a lot like the woman that has tormented my dreams, but different. Younger. Compelled, I step closer, curious despite myself as to what was going on.

"Oh come on Scott. The whole high school is going to be talking about it. I...I feel responsible."

The young man looked thoughtful as he knelt beside the red haired woman in a very nice looking dress, "Well...think of it this way Red. I'm the one who lost my job and lost my temper and decked the jerk later, so maybe his jaw will be broken so he can't say anything."

I expect, almost, for the young woman to break into tears she looks so upset. I kneel on the other side of the woman, reaching out a hand despite myself to give her comfort. It was almost a compulsion. I just do not like the thought of this woman hurting at all and the thought of her crying is almost unbearable. I notice that the young man is having the same problem I am, although he's acting a bit more reserved and shy almost as he kneels on the other side of her, his hand hovering over her if she needed him. The comfort we both compulsively offer, however, seems to be a bit unnecessary.

I at least hear a slight giggle before the woman burst into laughter, the sound of which was so intoxicating I drink it in like the first drink of water to a man who had been dying of thirst. She laughed again and covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes watering, not with sadness, but with mischievious mirth, "Good point Slim. I mean did you SEE the look on that guy's face when you, of all people, just reached across the fast food counter and decked him flat? It was priceless." Suddenly her face lost some of it's mirth and she looked irritated, "I STILL can NOT believe that he followed me there. And after I told him to go straight to Hell."

She got up then and started to pace, I, not being able to help myself, keeping pace with her. Not wanting to miss a moment of this intoxicating ball of passion and life infuse the world around her. She waved dramatically and turned back to the young man, "Can you HONESTLY believe that moron?!? He thought I, Jean Grey, just because HE was a football player, would simply jump into bed with him. Or should I say jump into the back of his caddie with him anyway. And when I had to FIGHT him off and walked THREE miles to where you worked for a ride home, he follows me and decides to give me, ME another chance!!!" She suddenly stopped and even though I'm not IN the scene with the two people I stop despite myself so that I wouldn't run her down had I been there.

She put her finger under her finger under her chin in a thoughtful look and then dropping it, looked the boy she called "Slim" straight in the glasses and said, "I'm glad you decked him. Between us I pretty much made sure he'd never have children and you wrecked his profile so he won't be so pretty anymore...yeah I'm glad you decked him. Thank you." She then walked up to the other man and put her arms around him, he not knowing what to do, finally embraced her back and she muttered into his shoulder, "I just wish that the entire school didn't have to know and get spread lies."

The young man just smiled slightly as he rubbed a hand up and down her back, "Well Red, at least you won't get dates based merely on your looks anymore. You've got four boys, one of which, namely me I hate to say, has a reputation with the locals because I'm sentenced here. If they do go out with you for that reason...cut off their breathing and beat the crap out of them. Put them in traction. I'm willing to take the hit in my reputation...just say I corrupted you if they ask. I'll in the meantime study some law books around here in the event I'll ever have to use the knowledge. And I always keep bail money in case we need it, so I think you're covered." I hear her laughter once again at what the man has said right before he pulls back from her a bit and looks down into her eyes with a slight grin, "I'm not kidding." And she hugged him again just for being serious.

I am suddenly back in my own body again, the darkness starting to rise as I tire from standing in one place for much too long. The dawn is swiftly approaching I can feel it. I'm almost like a vampire that way. And knowing that the sun will rejuvinate me and make me less tired I lean against the wall behind me and wait for the approach of the light that will drive back the dreams of darkness for a little bit more. Concentrating on her name, her laughter, her eyes. Her name is Jean. I finally have a name. That is all I need to know to hold on for one more day.

***************

I dream of rain I lift my gaze to empty skys above I close my eyes, this rare perfume Is the sweet intoxication of her love

I dream of rain I dream of gardens in the desert sand I wake in pain I dream of love as time runs through my hand

It's been a week since the memory of her surfaced. I lost three of those days to what the crew calls my "own little brand of dementia". From the way they describe it I run a fever and just babble in unknown languages as some "demon fit" seems to take me over. All I know is that when that happens the darkness won for a while and it continues to terrify me when I wake up from those fits. It seems that hunger and other human needs drives the darkness from me for a while and I am allowed back into my own body. In those three days I was tormented with nightmares of blood and bringing evil into people's lives. Snuffing out the fires of life everywhere like measily candle flames and enjoying every minute of it. And the torment returned when that spell left. I'm constantly fighting every minute of every day for my very soul and I am starting to think that I am losing. I look down at the waters bobbing the ship around and contemplate why I don't merely throw myself into their depths and end this. If I could successfully drown myself it would all be over. I would never have to wake from a three day fit and not recall those three days. The amnesia scares me most of all because it shows how little control I really do have. I just want this to be over, I rail silently at the sea, and perhaps I should just end it here and not worry about doing harm to my friends and others should I lose this battle.

"You won't do that Slim, because that's not part of the plan."

I blink into the straight line of the sun, probably frying out my corneas, and ask myself what plan? I don't have a plan. I'm living from day to day and trying to hold on for another few precious hours.

"Of course you have a plan. You ALWAYS have a plan. This one is just going to take longer than most for her and Nathan to work out. Don't worry, she won't let you down." The calm self assurance in the voice of light, as I've come to call it, seems so sure that I want to rail at it about my depleting strength. I need rest. I need this fight to stop. I need...I...need...her.

"Then go to her for a few precious hours. You know you have the strength to hold him off long enough to call her to you and rebuild the links weakened. You've done it many times before even if he makes you forget them, or tries to. Go to her and let her once again guide you toward home."

I tell my friend that I am going below deck to rest since the fever knocked me out more than usual and he encourages me to rest. He's worried about me I can tell, but I can not find the energy to reassure him. Instead I focus on her name, her scent, and feel reality start to slip away once again, "Jean."

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Sweet desert rose Each of her veils, a secret promise This desert flower, No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this Sweet desert rose This memory of Eden haunts us all This desert flower, this rare perfume Is the sweet intoxication of the fall

Jean

I have felt my strength deplete on me every once in a while these last six months, but figuring it has something to do with the whole mess with powers and things I ignore it and do like I always do. Carry on. But, tonight I feel extra especially weary, and I know as I turn to look at Logan, know that I'm going to turn in early. "Logan, I'm going to stopo our training session a bit early. I think I'm just going to go to bed. Maybe I'm coming down with a cold or something." Logan looks at me calmly as he gives the command to stop the program to stop the session we'd been in. The new danger room, while not what Forge created for us, OZT took that and so much else, was still pretty well done. Moira had done us a great boon by creating it with Kurt before he and Kitty left Muir for America once again. Logan looks at me and I can feel his concern radiating from him as he reaches out gently and cups the back of my head in his hand, "You've been looking tired since Slim disappeared Red, but lately...lately ou've looked downright exhausted. What's up?" I grin a little bit. This man before me knows me so well sometimes, but never as well as Scott did. I feel a flash of familiar pain at my inability to find him as I lean back into the comfort of Logan's hand.

"Honestly?" As if there could ever be anything but honesty between us, I reflect, "I really don't know, Logan. I think I might be going insane." I close my eyes as I bring to mind the dreams I've had and really don't know how to describe it, "There is something...someone...out there Logan. It might be Scott or it might be someone else but I don't know. I always wake up before I can find a location and the pain." Despite myself I raise a hand and press two fingers to my temple as if that will increase my ability to understand, "The pain is horrible Logan. He's in such torment and is fighting so hard. It hurts to know he's in such pain and I don't know why. I can never remember his face, only his eyes, as I look into them and even then that blurs after a few moments." I, in a moment of weakness, throw my arms around Logan, for a moment searching for a comfort that I know is outside of my reach, but wanting some anyway, "I'm so confused Logan. Am I going over the edge from losing Scott? I always knew that we'd be able to live without one another. It'd just hurt. A lot for a long time. But these dreams..." I finish lamely, not being able to think of anything other than them now adays, "these DREAMS!"

I feel his scent envelop me. Not the scent I want to smell, but still pleasant and feel his strong arms wrap around me, his hand running through my hair, "I don't know what to tell you Red, other than you're still as sane now as you were before Scotty die...disappeared." Logan was still getting used to the fact that Hank and I had never ending hope that Scott would be found in one piece. Our adamantium clawed cynic would never admit it, but even he deep down wanted to hope. Logan pulls back from me a bit and cups my cheek, "All I can say is that you don't smell insane, but Jeanie lately you've smelled different. I've managed to catch you a couple of times after those dreams of yours wake you up before you hit the shower. And Red...you got some other smell on you. It almost smells like a desert garden or somethin' with a mix of sea salt. That ain't you losin' your mind that's something else. And I don't know if it's dangerous or not." I chew on my bottom lip a bit in preoccupation and then ask, "Should I be worried about the Shadow King?"

Logan scowls a bit in reaction to my statement but considering it for a moment said, "No I don't think so. It don't smell like that. Just whoever this guy is, Scott or not, be careful in that dream world or whatever it is alright? We don't need to be losing you too. We've lost one and am hoping to find him, we don't need to be losing you right along after him. We've lost enough lately."

I grin a bit as I step out of his arms and run a hand down his bristly cheek, "I will be Logan. I promise. Maybe, just maybe, I can help this man find what he's looking for. And maybe in the process...just maybe I can help myself as well to find the strength I'm going to need to continue this search."

*****************

I'm so exhausted I don't even remember getting to bed. But I remember a lot else...memories of Scott and our brief time together as I fall into slumber. I'm hoping to dream of those memories, but as I look around the grey limbo in which I seem to find myself more and more lately, I can't help hoping this time things will be different and it will just go away. It doesn't. And he is already there. I can feel him. Calling out to me in need.

I am not tired anymore as I simply use my will to find him, following a slim silver cord attached from me to him in this world. And suddenly I am before him as he falls to his knees saying, "I was hoping you'd be here Red, because I need you so desperately now."

I kneel by him, my dream hand touching his shoulder lightly as I say, "I'm sorry I'm later than you expected. I had to talk to someone." His eyes swing up in time to see my tired grin, and suddenly I am enveloped in his arms as he hugs me tight, almost like he's trying to draw me into himself. When I draw in a slight dream breath to show that he's holding me a bit too tightly he releases me a bit and then murmurs, "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I didn't mean to. But the fight...the fight has been hard lately. Desperately so. I needed to see you, to feel you and just be with you. I need your light."

As I look up into his eyes a memory surfaces and I gasp as I finally recognize who I am speaking to, praying that this time when I wake up I will remember. My heart and mind cry out his name, but I do not speak it out loud for fear he will disappear, "Do you know who I am Slim?" I pray that he's not too far gone to recognize me or all these dreams and all of his battles might be for naught.

"Your name...is Jean isn't it?" He looks down at me, passion and something much deeper in his eyes and I realize that while he might not know where I am or who I am really, part of him remembered and that's all I need to find the energy to continue this fight to find him.

"Yes, my name is Jean." I smile up at him, absorbing his looks into my memory by force of will, adding astreal projection techniques to it. I know that I will not remember all of this dream when I awake, but I'll be damned if I lose him this time. I am determined that when I see his form from across a room I will know every knew scare, the new haircut...everything. I'll be damned if the darkness is going to win with us. EVER again. I hold his face in my hands as he loosens his grip on me, "What do you need from me love? What do you need to hold on? I'll do anything to help to bring you back to me." I say it with all the stubborn determination in my soul. It's one of the reasons that Scott fell in love with me, that aspect of myself that refused to give up even when the odds were stacked a million to one...because when the odds were a million to one there was still a chance. I use a quip that I always teased him with in private, "What's the plan?" I don't expect him to take it seriously but he replies, "I really don't know. I can't remember. I...I'm going to need your help to hold on until I do remember."

And that is part of the plan, I think to myself. It had the ring of Scott to it. The faith in me, the knowledge that I would not let him down. And he would not let me down. I know that on every level of being I possess as I answer, "I can do that. Can you do something for me though love?" He nods immediately, so like Scott, and I smile, "I need you to hold on for me. I don't wnat you contemplating throwing yourself into anymore oceans until I can join you and kick your ass for the thought." He blinks at me, amazed that I knew that, but accepting of it.

He locks eyes with me and says the words I want to hear, "Very well Flame. I will do as you ask and hold on with everything I have. For you and for me. For us." He suddenly looks very distracted and he murmurs to me, "I must go. The darkness is coming." I hold him to me by force of will, forcing the darkness back with my powers and my will entwined with his and it backs up. He looks amazed that I'm able to do it, that we're able to do it, and I murmur to him, "Do not underestimate us my love. We'll win this." I then reach up and run my lips softly across his, infusing love and everything pure into that one kiss to help sustain him until the next time we could meet. And then I let him go.

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Scott

I find myself back on the deck of the ship and lean against the mast as I watch the ocean ahead of us and all of the distance separating us from land. In that moment I want to be on land very desperately. I don't know why, but I feel as if something is waiting for me there. Something important. Perhaps my salvation. And I wonder, fleetingly, if I'll be able to hold on that long. Long enough to find that important something that I need.

"She'll be with you every step of the way. And she'll be waiting for there for you to guide you home. Isn't that all you need to know?"

The voice speaks simply through every fiber of my being, and I realize for the first time something very important. The voice was right. And SHE WOULD be waiting there for me when the time came. And her light would guide me back. And that, I reflect as I watch the birds now circling over the boat, is all anyone would ever need. She would light my darkness and drive it back to help me become who I need to be. And that is all I will ever need. "I'm coming, Red", I think to myself, "I'm coming home".

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