So that would make us...? (Cable)

[jean]

The revelation of Rachel being her and Scott's daughter had been difficult but not impossible to take in. The fact that she was from another reality, a different time line had actually eased that a bit, oddly enough. It wasn't that she was entirely opposed to children, quite the opposite in fact, but bringing a child into their lives now would cause complications that were just too immense to even discuss. Every child should be born to two people who were happy together and who loved each other unconditionally. Jean couldn't claim that about Scott.

Oh, she loved him, always had and no matter what happened to them, she always would. However, there were other things that were lying below the surface, waiting for her to let her guard down and strike at the redhead. Her recent behavior being one of the biggest things that was bothering her about their relationship. If she did indeed love him as a woman should love her husband, why had she tried to kill him? Every time she remembered what had happened, she died a little more inside. Had things been going bad for so long by that point that it was inevitable?

There was Logan. He was a temptation that she knew she had best stay away from but short of leaving the mansion for good, she didn't see herself being able to. She wasn't exactly proud of what had transpired between them but he had the ability to make her blind when it came to what was right or wrong. She'd rejected him for a long time before giving in to the first kiss. After that, it had all spiraled so out of control.

She had ventured out into the gardens to clear her head, the temperature being muted against the harsh elements of the winter that was upon them. She knew 'Ro had something to do with that and she smiled softly. Jean had always been close to Ororo and she was one of the few who had welcomed her back with open arms and an open heart. But 'Ro was a rare woman indeed. She forgave so much easily then anyone else Jean had ever met.

As she sat there, her eyes closed and her head leaned back against one of the trees, her mind drifted to the newest complication in their life. Nathan. Unlike Rachel, he wasn't from an alternate time line, he was from their own, their future. Scott's and some unnamed woman's future, at least. A stab of jealousy, completely unwanted, raced through her. Who was this woman? Scott didn't want to talk about it, in fact, he was having issues even accepting what Cable had said to be true although the Professor had confirmed it. She couldn't really blame him, it was what had happened to her when she'd found out about Rachel.

Who wanted to know their future, whether their successes or failures? There was so much to think about and all of it gave her such a feeling of dread that she tried to avoid it all together. But when one lived in a house full of mutants, mutants who liked to talk and gossip, it was impossible.

[cable]

Cable floated in the air upside down his mind was only half in his body. He had a lot to do, the world was changing and not for the better he listened to every ones minds and what they wanted and what they truly needed. He wondered if he had done the right thing The Mother was the only one who knew and he trusted her with all his soul.

What had he expected his father just to let him in to his life? Was he wanting a family again. No that part of him had died with his wife and child he was a soldier he was trained for this he knew the risks before he had traveled in time. He was happy people left him alone he was a big scary person and he was happy with that.

[jean]

There were many things that Jean felt toward Nathan Summers but fear was not one of them. Was he a large man? Yes. Did he represent a future that was darker then any of them could imagine? Yes. Did he make her question her relationship with Scott even more? Yes. Was he man for her to fear? Absolutely not.

She'd come across him a few times since the mission to rescue the “kidnapped” Charles but never had Jean been alone with the man. She wasn't seeking him out. She had questions, of course, but wasn't in a huge hurry to get them answered. As it was, she had come to the gardens for the peace and tranquility that they represented, not for any other reason.

Ever since her usage of Cerebro to assist the team on his island, she'd been having power surges again. Peaks in her abilities where her shields failed and she exhibited the sort of power she wielded as the split personality of Phoenix. They'd been worrying her but she'd not wanted to bother anyone over them. As it was, she was trying to push Scott away again, afraid of what could happen the next time she lost control.

It scared her more then she wanted to admit. So when she felt something within her stir as a growingly familiar presence entered the gardens, Jean opened her eyes and saw her husband's son. Not hers and his. Just his. “Hello Nathan,” she said to him.

[cable]

" You know i don't know how to address you. technicality you are my step mum." he slowly turned around and unfolded his legs. Jean grey some had said she was his fathers soul mate and they would last even after death and to a point it was true she would shape him in to the man he could be but some one else would take him there.

"I do hope my arrival here has not caused problems with you and my Father." it was not a question as such as he knew the answer. His feet touched the ground. His size and mass was scary but when you added in the metallic arm and the glowing eye he was an intimating force on his own. He was glad that some of them were not afraid of him.

[jean]

“For the last quarter of a century, I have gone by Jean. I do not see why you would need to address me as anything else,” she told him.

Jean didn't want to contemplate the term “step-mum” and what it meant. That wasn't why she was here. She would like answers but she wasn't sure she really wanted them. There was a reason she'd not approached him before now and why she felt like turning on her heel and leaving him there even now.

He uncurled his body and stood, claiming that he hoped his presence didn't make things difficult for her and Scott. In all reality, if things had been good beforehand, then maybe Scott would be taking this better. The truth was they weren't good at all but it had nothing to do with the man before her. It had everything to do with her inability to control the growing presence in her mind.

“My relationship with Scott isn't a secret. There were problems long before you arrived and while you do not help much, you are not going to exasperate the situation any more then it has already been,” she told him.

“Have you spoken with him much since your arrival?” she asked. They hadn't discussed Nathan much, he more or less refused to talk to her regarding this man who claimed to be his future son.

[cable]

"Not much no and i am not really hoping for a father son fishing trip. I am here to do a job more than anything else. So tell me how is your powers?" he smiled he knew the storys they had shaped history and he just wondered. "You have many Questions most people do and i am more than willing to answer most of them all you have to do is ask."

he smiled this was so strange she looked so much like his mother it was scary she was running around in this time. He had been tempted to hunt her down and then what? what if she was with child and it was him or what if he was born it was so many questions. Thats why he had deiced not to do anything about that there was only the mission.

[jean]

“Then why did you tell him at all?” she asked when he answered that he'd not really expected anything from Scott.

He claimed to be there for a job, nothing more. While Jean didn't believe that one little bit, if he really was in the mindset that anything else wasn't necessary, he shouldn't have just come into their lives and announced that he was the son of Scott and some unnamed woman. Unless he was trying to find a way to break the two of them up for good, which was possible. What kid, no matter how old they were, didn't want his parents together? Jean was simply in the way if that was the case.

When he asked about her powers, she momentarily narrowed her eyes at him. “If you are from the future like you claim, you should know the answer to that,” she told him a bit coldly.

She hadn't even talked to Scott about what she was going through and if Charles had picked up on it, he wasn't saying anything either. She didn't want to talk about it because then she would have to acknowledge that she thought she was going crazy. Again. Maybe this time, if she did give in to that alternate personality, they would just kill her for good. That would definitely pave the way for Scott to be with whomever Nathan's mother was.

“As for you, yes, I have questions but I don't really want to know the answers. I have this thing about knowing the future. I didn't want to hear Rachel's version and really, I don't want to hear yours either. Let me make my own mistakes and not second guess every move I make,” she told him honestly.

[cable]

"why did i tell him? simple he had a right to know. I know how important he is to this world and i hope to make positive he become the man he is meant to be. I was meant to come back a few weeks after he sent me to the future but i think some thing went wrong. I promised The mother that i would tell him i was his son. Yes i could tell you but would you want to know? Time changes when ever some one travels back for all i know my world is gone for ever i knew it was a one way trip. I will answer what ever you want and i will not tell you to much."

He smiled she acted like her too only a lot less crazy. "My mother in a way is you but its not. Now this is the strange bit even stranger than time travel. My mother is your evil clone some one claimed your DNA he was obsessed with making the most powerful mutant and he believed that you and Scot would make the ultimate mutant. so he cloned you and arranged a meet between the two during one of your deaths."

[jean]

As he spoke about why he'd informed Scott about who he really was, Jean's hand reached up and massaged her forehead. Her eyes had closed and she had a small grimace on her face. The pain she'd been dealing with lately was getting worse with each passing day. Not so long ago, she could hide the pain, could dull the receptors that allowed the brain to register such pain but not any longer. The more she tried to dull the pain, the worse it became. She hadn't experienced such headaches since she was ten years old and her telepathy was trying to make it's appearance.

However, she could no longer turn to the Professor and allow him to erect shields around her powers to keep them from manifesting at such a young and tender age. They had been held at bay for a few years before her own growth into puberty had naturally taken down the barriers. By then, she'd been fairly adept at using her telekinesis and the telepathy had been an extension of that ability.

“The Mother? Who is that?” she asked, trying to wrap her aching mind around his story. Not much of what he was saying made much sense to her.

When he informed her that his mother was her, in a way, green eyes flew open and she looked up at him. What the hell did that mean? Evil clone? Meeting during one of her deaths? Just how many times was she supposed to die?

Jean shook her head, again trying to figure everything out. “Your powers,” she finally said, almost in a whisper. “That is why you have my powers. But who would do something so horrible? Why? And why would my...my...my clone be evil?” God, she could barely spit that word out. There was, or will be, a clone of her? It was the most insane thing she'd ever heard but her own mutant powers were screaming that he was telling her the truth.

[cable]

" I don't know karma and balance. Yes my powers are similar to yours i am also a potential host to the Phoenix force. My powers are help back by my Cancer i have to use so much of it to keep my self from dieing. I have some of my father powers as well. i cant shoot energy blast from my eye but i have his Primary mutation. No its not they eye, have you ever noticed that he has a plan for every thing and tactics that would stun a general.

In my time the summers book of tactics is considered standard reading for all military commanders. The mother is the woman who lead us in the war the founder of the Ashkin Faith. She trained us to fight Apocalypse."

[jean]

If karma or balance were the reason that her clone was evil then whomever had created those terms would be rolling over in their grave. She was far from good, had done her own fair share of evil not too long ago. So who was to say that the other her wasn't as evil as he made it sound? He still didn't answer her question of who, though. Who would do this to her, to Scott? To use him to get the most powerful mutant in the world?

“Wait,” she said to him and held up a hand to indicate she wanted him to pause right there. “Host for the Phoenix force? Nathan, the Phoenix is a split personality. I can't control it when it emerges. While your abilities are held back by the cancer you have, it is taking all my powers to make sure what happened before doesn't happen again.”

That was more then she'd told anyone since waking up weeks ago. She knew that Scott would fret and the others would get even more scared of her then they already were but he was wrong about the Phoenix. It wasn't something she could control and it was embedded within her. That was why she had needed Logan to try and kill her.

His description of Scott's abilities was accurate but why had the Professor never said anything to them about that. Surely if that was a mutation, they would have known about it. Scott's tactics and strategies were infamous within the X-Men. They always had been.

She still wasn't sure who this Mother person was but if she was helpful to him in the future he'd grown up in, she was grateful to the woman. Why she even cared was beyond her. Jean had been planning on keeping him where she was keeping everyone lately: at arms length away.

[cable]

Maybe this is the best place to have this talk he sent the thought to her and only her Your half right its a living creature and you are its current host Look on the net and you will find out about it. The key is balance don't try and fight it it feeds on conflict. If this makes you feel any better if you go like that i will kill you. He hoped that it would make her feel better. He did not know how much he should tell her. All people with there power could talk like this but not many could hide as much as both of them could. It was polite not to look but cables defense were natural high and so were jeans.

Balance is the key jean do not let it gain control but use it find a way to live with it. Its easyer than fighting agenst some thing that has lived longer than anything in history.

[jean]

When she began to ask questions, he immediately switched to telepathic communication. For her, it was as easy as opening her mouth to speak but not everyone felt that way. It had long been assumed that just because she was speaking telepathically to someone, that she was automatically reading their minds. It was two very different things but it was so hard to explain that to a non-telepath.

What Nathan was telling her was mind boggling, to say the least. For so long, she'd believed that this alternate personality of hers was just that, an extension of her own self that her mind had created to deal with the sort of power she had. Never once did it cross her mind that it could have been a sentient being who'd taken up residence inside her head.

But why? she asked, obviously still confused. Why did it choose me? And when I die, will it choose someone else? Is that why you said you were a potential host? What about Rachel? Do genetics have something to do with it?

Yes, there were a lot of questions but she wanted them answered. She had to know, to know what she was dealing with here, especially if she was supposed to live with it. And let it help her? If it truly fed on conflict, then it was no wonder she'd done so much damage before. In a way, she'd been fighting it for far longer then when she'd died at Alkali Lake. It had been a part of her for the last few years but she had tried to keep it contained, to keep it bottled up inside her mind. When she'd died, all those barriers had fallen and it had been free to do with her what it had wanted.

She had one more question for the man. Is it possible for you to kill me? she asked him. If so, then he may be her only hope if it ever took her over again.

[cable]

I Think it has to it always picks strong telepathic people and the grey family has always had that. Yes ray is a host more than me. My Techno Organic virus is an inhibitor and stops some of my powers. As for why i don't know i wish i do."

It must of been hard for her having people come back in from the future and mess with there life he did feel sorry. The world had become so large for Jean over the last few years. she asked the question the one question he did know the answer to. he hated the idea of telling her but he knew he must. yes i can and will kill you if i have to. I have the ability and the skills to go toe to toe with you in both the mind and physical word. If it makes yoy feel any better you will probably be back alive in a few mouth or years the Phonex love to bring its host back from the dead.

[jean]

Her family had a history of producing powerful telepaths? That was news to Jean. As far as she had always known, she was the only mutant in the Grey family. Sara didn't have the mutant gene, her parents were most definitely human. Who could have been the previous host? It was almost too much for her to take in.

It wasn't surprising that any offspring of hers and Scott's would be mutants, though. Not with both of them being mutants but that didn't mean it had to happen. Apparently, someone had felt that they were capable of producing someone very powerful because he or she had used their genes to create Nathan. The thought made her a bit queasy.

Then she asked the one question that had been plaguing her ever since she had woken up weeks ago. Could she die? She'd died twice so far and both times had been for naught, although Logan's claws had broken her free of the Phoenix's complete control.

Yes, please. If it does happen again, I want you to kill me. I don't want to do what I did before, she told him. He had absolutely no idea how much that relieved her, to know that someone could, and would, do it.

Unfortunately, his words after that didn't make her feel good at all. It was just so unnatural. To know that she might never be able to go on to the next life. Or whatever waited beyond death. So many people would have welcomed the news that in a way, until they were old and frail, they would be safe from death. Not her. It just didn't feel right.