Nightmares
Part 1/?

Disclaimer: I do not belong the characters or anything else you recognize in this fic. X-Men: Evolution belongs to Marvel, WB and some other people that are not me.

Posted: Friday, April 25, 2003

Summary: Jean and Scott are having nightmares. A pre-series look into the beginning of their friendship.

This has not been beta'ed. I would not even know where to begin to look for a beta in this fandom. If you happen to be reading this and take pity on me, e-mail me at [email protected] or leave your e-mail in a review with an offer.

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The first nightmare was Jean's. She had only been at the Institute for about two months and it was far from her first nightmare since arriving at the school. But always before the Professor had been there, helping reinforce the psi-shields around her room. Tonight he was in Washington on business and while the shields were still up, they weren't nearly as strong as they were when he was in the mansion.

It started with Annie. It always did. They were playing, laughing, then she was on the ground, broken and bleeding. Then the voices started. She covered her ears, huddled in the corner, but if anything, the voices only got louder.

"Jean."

"Stop it! Stop it!"

The voices grew louder. They were mocking, said nasty things about her.

"Jean!"

She just wanted them to stop. They wouldn't.

They -

"Jean!"

It wasn't the person calling her name that woke her up finally, but the sudden weight on her. Panicking, she tried to shove the mass off her. It turned its head and Jean recognized the shape as Scott. Even the in dismal light, he looked paler than usual.

"Don't move," he ordered. But he shifted his weight so that she was no longer pinned down and the second she was freed, Jean backed up against the headboard, tucking her knees under her chin. As she was doing so, she placed her hand on something sharp and cried out.

"I said don't move," Scott said. "Are you okay?" He took her hand into his. It was bleeding. So was his arm.

"What happened?" Jean asked. She was finally calming down. The last vestiges of her nightmare were being chased away by consciousness and for once, the voices were quiet. But then, now that she was awake, she was starting to remember that it had been like that for awhile now. Between Scott's mental shields and her own - although neither were anywhere near proficient at constructing them yet - Jean was able to block out his thoughts now that she was awake. The only other person within miles was Ororo Munroe, who had even better mental shields than either of the young teens, even while presumably sound asleep.

She was able to concentrate on other things now - for instance, the fact that her bed was covered in what looked like little shards of glass. It must have been on one of these that Jean had cut her hand and Scott his arm.

"You had a nightmare," Scott explained. "I'm sorry about your mirror. We should get your hand fixed up."

Jean nodded wordlessly. She was starting to get up when Scott caught her arm. "Be careful," he warned. "There are bits of mirror everywhere. Do don't want to step on one."

"Did I do this?" Jean asked, finding her voice again even if it did sound small and scared.

"The mirror? No. Well, sort of. But it's my fault." Scott carefully pulled back the blankets so that most of the bed was clear, not allowing any of the shards to fall on the floor. "I saw the mirror coming at us and I panicked and shot it. I'm sorry."

"It would've shattered anyway when it hit something," Jean told him. She was carefully testing the ground beside her bed, wishing there was some light to see the bits of mirror. Unfortunately, she had wrecked her lamp the last time she'd had a nightmare.

"Watch out!" Apparently Scott's night vision was much better than her own, and Jean stopped in mid-step, shaking slightly while trying to regain balance. She had been just about to put her foot down on top of a medium size piece. Jean extended her foot a little further and made it the rest of the way out of the room without incident.

Once outside under the light of the hall, Jean began to feel better, except for her hand, which was stinging even more now. "Should we go get Ms. Munroe?" she asked.

"Don't need to wake her," Scott said, leading the way. "I know where all the first-aid stuff is."

So did Jean for that matter, but that hadn't been the reason she had suggested going to their teacher. Getting grown-up help seemed like the thing to do. In the past when she had nightmares, one of the adults always came to her room to help, especially those times when, like tonight, her subconscious had telekinetically flung around the furniture in her room. Usually, though, the adult in question was the professor and the one time he hadn't been there when she had first awoken, he had already been on his way.

Still, if Scott didn't want to, she wasn't going to insist on waking Ms. Munroe.

"What were you doing in my room anyway?" Jean asked when they had reached the infirmary. She was sitting on top of the patient bed while Scott rummaged through the medical cabinet for iodine and bandages.

He poured a liberal amount of the former over her cut as he answered: "You were having a nightmare. I was trying to wake you up."

Jean probably would have flushed in a mixture of embarrassment and self-anger if the iodine didn't sting so much. As it was, she settled on flinching and having Scott hold onto her hand more tightly as she tried to jerk it away. "Oww."

"Hold still," he said, showing no sympathy. "You don't want it to get infected."

"I know why you're doing it, but it still hurts," said Jean, a little testily.

"Stop being such a baby," Scott ordered.

This time Jean did flush, although her ire was aimed at the boy opposite her this time instead of herself. Scott, however, did not notice because he was too busy wrapping up her hand.

"There," he said when he was satisfied that the bandage would stay on.

His own injury was a little better than hers. He had more scratches running up his right arm, but none as deep or wide as the gash across Jean's palm. Taking a closer look at it, however, Jean noticed something for the first time.

"There's still glass in your arm!"

Scott looked down, taking note of the three shards of glass for the first time, too. "Damn it. Do you know if there are any tweezers down here?"

"It's okay. I've got it." Jean got off the bed and stood beside him. Holding his arm steady at the wrist with her left hand, she raised her right to her temple. She took a deep breath and tried to swallow the lump that had appeared in her throat. For possibly the first time since she had arrived, Jean felt glad that she couldn't see the other boy's eyes; she didn't need to see the look of terror he was bound to have at what she was about to do. Her own apprehension was bad enough.

But Scott didn't pull away. His trust was enough to make Jean close her eyes and concentrate.

It was painstakingly slow work, but Jean was able to dislodge first one, then the second piece of glass from his arm with such finesse that Scott felt no additional pain and his arm suffered no more damage. She knew this, could feel his wonder, and watched the third and final piece start to lift in a strangely red world -

Twin cries echoed through the infirmary as the last shard zipped across the room, thankfully away from either of the inhabitants, and embedded in the wall. Jean backed up against the wall and started to repeat, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again.

Scott, who had gone another shade paler and was holding onto his wrist, which Jean had grabbed a little too forcefully in the last few seconds of contact, lied through his teeth when he said, "I'm okay." Although they had both reinforced their shields, Jean could still feel enough of his emotions to know that he was trying to reassure and calm her, but was still being sincere.

"We shouldn't have tried using our powers without the professor here," he continued.

"I didn't mean to . . . I hurt you. I'm sorry." She didn't move away from the wall.

"I didn't mean to make your mirror explode, either," Scott said. "Let's call it even."

Jean knew that didn't make it even. He wouldn't have had to blast the mirror if she hadn't made it soar towards their heads in her sleep. Everything that had gone wrong that night could be linked back to her. However, she was tired and hurt and scared and, above all, grateful for Scott being here with her and helping her. If Scott was going to pretend that they were both at fault, then she wasn't going to argue with him. At least not tonight.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking at her feet instead of his eyes . . . or rather glasses. "We should look at your arm now." Would he even want her near him again, after what had happened? " I mean, the glass is out now, right? And you can't bandage up your own arm, at least not very easily." She probably would have continued on with her babble if Scott hadn't cut her off.

"If you don't mind."

"No. I don't. Of course not." And although Scott looked like he wanted to bolt, he didn't move a muscle. Despite both their misgivings, Jean was able to clean and bandage his arm without further incident.

"So," Jean said, falling back when she was done, "I guess we should get back to bed now." Truthfully, that was the last thing that she wanted. Since coming to the Institute, her nightmares occurred less frequently, but that was only because Professor Xavier was always there to help her afterwards. Before that, however, a nightmare usually meant the end of sleep for the night, because more than half of the time - if she actually was able to get back to sleep - they returned.

Scott shrugged. "If you want. I'm not tired."

"Me neither," Jean lied. She managed to stifle the yawn that followed right after the statement, but not without garnering a suspicious look from Scott. He didn't comment on it, however, probably due to the fact that he, too, looked ready to drop from exhaustion at any minute.

"Wanna watch a movie?" Scott suggested.

"Sure." Jean gave him a hesitant smile. "Better than hanging out in the infirmary all night."

Scott didn't smile back at her not-quite-joke, but nodded, so Jean didn't feel too stupid about what she had said. They decided to watch Indiana Jones because it had to go back to the video store in the morning. After putting in the tape and cuing it to the start, Scott settled onto the couch beside Jean. Even though they were both using the movie as an excuse to keep from going back to sleep (although why Scott was avoiding his bed, Jean couldn't figure out), it became apparent that neither of them were following the adventures of the archeologist/adventurer.

It was Jean who drifted off to sleep first. Although she did wake up some indeterminable time later, it was only long enough to take note of three things. One, the movie had stopped and they were now facing a blank screen even though the television was still on. Two, Scott had covered them both up with blanket was currently curled up beside her, dead to the world.

And three, her nightmare hadn't come back.

Her last thought was that she should probably get up and go back to her own room. She didn't recognize the humour in the fact that, as she thought that, she stole more than her share of the blanket from Scott and closed her eyes again. She was asleep again within seconds.

That was how Ororo found them the next morning.

End Part One