Heyoka: Chapter 5
by Minisinoo
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Notes: They're Marvel's (mostly), not mine. According to the comics, Cyclops' mutant ability was damaged due to a head injury, so his optic beams are 'stuck' in the on position. Neither the movie nor book suggested that twist, but I decided to keep it. See Part I for other disclaimers.
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Scott Summer's Sunday began on a bad foot and got progressively worse. It all started when he had to haul out Bobby Drake and Jubilee from chapel by the ears, literally. They'd been passing notes and giggling for almost half an hour before he simply lost his temper altogether, walked up behind them, got Bobby by one ear, Jubilee by the other, and said, "You're coming with me. Now." Then he set them to cleaning the dorm bathrooms. Not together.
He didn't really like being the heavy, but someone had to do it. The kids knew they could charm Ororo into a simple rebuke (which did no good), Jean was too sympathetic, Valeria too focused on her private devotions, and the professor led chapel. Hank was still on sabatical. That left him.
Chapel wasn't meant to be stuffy. It was a-religious, in fact. Most of the kids had come from protestant religious backgrounds, or none, and the professor had absolutely no intention of forcing a particular faith down anyone's throat. Summers himself would have rebelled if that were the case. His own personal beliefs amounted to an apathetic agnosticism. Nonetheless, the professor believed that a little quiet time at least once a week was good for the soul. So he ran chapel based on his own long-ago Quaker background: an hour of quiet, with opportunity to stand up and say something at the end if anyone desired. Students could do whatever they liked during that time ruminate, pray, pick their toenails, it didn't matter. But they had to be there unless they were sick and cleared by Jean, and be there without walkmans, gameboys, books, cell-phones, palmpilots, or food. Most of the kids put up with it. A few actually seemed to like it. Scott adored it. He would lean back, close his eyes, cross his arms and ankles, listen to nothing, and think. If he'd been raised a Quaker instead of a Catholic, he might still be a religious man.
That Sunday, Jubilee and Bobby were up to no good. Drake was a clown a clever clown and so was frequently up to something. Frankly, he reminded Summers of himself in school, so Scott was always one step ahead of him. Jubilee was just trouble. She grated on Summers the same way Logan had, and she knew it, did her best to rub it in. Now, he stood over her, watching her clean. Drake would mop the floor because Summers had told him to. Jubilee would try to weasel her way out of it.
"This is, like, so completely unfair," she muttered now. "I didn't do anything!"
Summers raised his hand, one of her notes to Bobby caught between his fingers. "Right."
She glared at him a moment, then flung her hair blue this week and returned to using Fantastic on the sinks. "But chapel is so boring. There's absolutely nothing to do!"
"You might try using your imagination for an hour, instead of distracting it with brain candy."
She scrubbed harder. "You never pick on Kitty or Rogue."
"Kitty and Rogue don't usually give me reason to. And I'm not picking on you, Jubilation. I'm punishing you. There's a difference. Now cut the crap. Whining doesn't become you."
No audible reply to that but he could almost see the mental finger she flipped him, and thought he overheard her whisper, "You are such a tightass." He chose to ignore it. As much as she annoyed him, he had to agree with the professor that she had potential. She just needed to learn to obey and work as part of a group, not constantly seek to disrupt it. There were better ways to get attention.
He wondered how much of her behavior this morning had been to get his attention.
After chapel, he let Ororo take over watching Jubilee for him, then went to face his second unpleasant duty for the day: talking to the one who hadn't come to chapel at all that morning, had never come to chapel despite repeated, increasingly pointed invitations.
He found her out on the lawn, wrapped in a Navajo-blanket jacket that he saw only as red and black and wine. She had her face turned up, eyes closed, towards the rising sun. She was frequently up with the dawn, and over the past month, he'd come to realize that Gracie loved morning as much as he hated it. Why she refused to come to chapel he didn't understand. Of all the adults at the school, she and Valeria were probably the most religious, albeit in their very different ways. He was the least so, but he went dutifully. He even liked it.
She turned at his footstep. "Hey."
"Hey." He sat down by her, wrapped his arms around his drawn-up knees, didn't say anything for a while. That was one of the things he liked best about spending time with her: he didn't have to talk unless he wanted to. He didn't have to talk with Jean, either, but that was usually because they were each doing their own thing: reading, grading, working on lesson plans, exercising in the danger room. They couldn't just go sit on a bench and not talk. The pattern had started early in their relationship; he'd been too nervous, too intent on impressing her, constantly shooting off at the mouth to get her attention. So she'd come to expect him to entertain her, say something clever, witty, intelligent. Grace didn't expect that.
But right now, his silence with her wasn't comfortable. She slid her eyes sideways after a minute, then pointed to the sun. "I know it looks red to you all the time, but this morning it is red. A real Ind'n power sun." Then, almost without pause, she added, "You've come to scold me, ain't it?"
She had odd English. She spoke with a lilt, said 'ain't it' even when not grammatically correct by any stretch, and used fewer contractions. Red English, she'd referred to it once. "I'm not here to scold you," he said now.
"Ah. Then why are you nervous?"
He smiled slightly. Unlike Jean, Gracie had no qualms about reading people, maybe because picking up emotions was less invasive than filtering mental images. It facilitated, didn't frighten. "Okay. Maybe I did come to talk to you. But not scold. You're not one of my students."
"Thank god."
"Hey! I'm not that bad."
She laughed. "No, you're not. But the students get great mileage out of pretending that you are. Mr. Summers the Grouchy Grizzly. I am going to start calling you Mato, not Cyclops. So what do you want to scold me about?"
He couldn't keep the grin off his face. "The Grouchy Grizzly? And I'm not scolding."
"Fine, Mato X-Man. What do you want to talk to me about?"
"Chapel."
"I should be a good girl and show up on Sunday mornings."
"Something like that."
"I have a hard time worshiping the Creator with a roof over my head. Why don't you hold chapel outside some Sunday? I'll come then."
He sighed, rubbed his eyes under his glasses, felt her hand on the back of his neck. "They hurt, don't they?"
"Don't change the subject, Gracie." He moved away a little, didn't like her touching him. It made him feel things he shouldn't.
"I am not changing it. We can talk about chapel in a minute. Right now, answer my question. Do your eyes hurt?"
"Sometimes."
"Most of the time, I think."
"I'm used to it."
"You would make a good Ind'n, Mato X-Man. Grin and bear it. Here, keep your eyes closed."
"Why "
"Don't ask questions. Closed?"
"Yes."
He felt her lift the glasses away, then she laid one hand sideways over his eyes, pushed lightly. He could feel her other hand at the back of his head, pulling at his hair, not hard, just tugging. In three breaths the ache had lessened, three more and it was gone like fog retreating under morning sun. He sighed audibly. "There. Better?" she asked.
"Yes. Thank you."
She drew her hands away and handed him back his glasses. He put them on, opened his eyes. The pain remained gone and he blinked several times. "It'll come back in a while," she said, still kneeling in front of him. "I'm sorry."
He just shook his head. "Being without it, even a short time, helps."
"That is one reason you are so tense. The pain. Your mind may get used to it, but your body don't forget. The muscles clench up. Probably gives you headaches, too. You must go through the Bayer."
In fact, he did.
"Let me show you something else, something you can do for yourself." Before he could protest, she took his hands and placed the right at the back of his neck, then the left at the base of his spine. Her touch was gentle, impersonal, like Jean in doctor mode. "There. If you do that for a few minutes, it'll help to relax you, make the headaches go away."
"What on earth good is this?" He felt foolish.
"Your body has power in it, energy. I don't mean just you, in your head, from your gift. I mean in all of us everything on the earth: trees, birds, animals, even the rocks. You call the rocks inanimate but my people know better. There's a spirit in everything, a power. Some of us, like medicine people, can use those powers, channel them. We learn it by discipline. But all of us got power, not just mutants." She grinned. "There are different kinds of power, too opposites. Man power and woman power. Sky power and earth power. Water power and fire power like your Bobby and St. John. When they are old enough to fight with you, you should always let them fight as a pair. They will be stronger together. We have opposite kinds of power in our bodies, too. If that energy fights itself, it hurts us, can make us sick. But if it flows together, it relaxes us. That's what you're doing, letting the power flow together in your body. But you got to do it this way, not reverse the hands, or you'll make yourself worse instead of better."
It sounded like the most ridiculous New Age tripe, but oddly, he did feel more relaxed. He couldn't figure out why it worked. He might have thought Gracie was doing it, but she wasn't even touching him. He found himself grinning stupidly. "It does help."
She nodded, sat back down off her knees. "There is something wrong with your gift, Scott," she said after a minute. Her voice was very serious now, none of the light tease it often had, or even the didactic edge she had used to tell him about 'body powers.' "I am not sure what is wrong, but I can feel it. Your power . . . buzzes. I know that doesn't make sense, but it is the best way I can describe it. As if a note is out of tune in a song. Your power shouldn't cause you pain."
He pondered this. It made sense. Other's power didn't hurt them. And most other mutants could control their abilities, too, turn them on or off, but not him. He moved his hands finally, folded them together in his lap. "What about Rogue?" She couldn't turn off her powers, either.
"There is nothing wrong with Rogue. There is something wrong with you."
Despite the seriousness, he smiled. "I'm sure the students would agree with you."
She popped him with her hand, lightly. "Now chapel. Give me one good reason why I should go."
"To be an example. If even one adult doesn't go, it makes it ten times more difficult to convince the kids that they should."
"Maybe they shouldn't."
"Gracie "
"Listen to me. Maybe you're trying to shove them into your own model of how to worship."
"I don't have any model of how to worship! Neither does the professor. It's entirely interfaith or no faith, like me."
She studied him. The sun was bright on her hair, bright on the leaves of autumn. "You may not mean it to be a model, but it still is one. Go into a building, sit in a pew, be still and listen to people talking, or not. That's very European. Did any of you ever ask Ororo what worship meant to her? Or ask my little cousin, John?" He started to protest but she held up a hand. "I know. You don't want to impose, you're not trying to. I got the whole lecture from the professor's himself. He wants to teach them how to be quiet. I agree with that, you know. It's something we teach our own children young, to sit still and listen, not have to be constantly doing. But don't lock me up in a building. That seems . . . obscene to me.
"Bring the kids out here and I'll teach them to be quiet and listen to the voices in the wind, the spirits in the rocks, the Great Spirit who made us all. But I can't hear Wakan Tanka in your chapel. It's all tame wood and glass. It's all man-made. White man made. I'll take my hour out here, under the sky. Why not let some of the kids join me next week?"
Part of him wanted to protest, wanted to emphasize unity, cohesion, uniformity the things that made a team work. But she was watching him with those dark eyes, waiting, not angry but challenging him to think outside his own lines. "All right," he said finally. "I'll talk to the professor. Next week, you can have some of them." He smiled, wicked. "Including Jubilee."
She laughed. "Bring her on! I was even worse, at her age. A complete contrary!"
"What? You? I'd never believe it."
Laughing, she shoved at him. He shoved back, which got them into a pushing contest like a pair of ten year olds She always made him feel better. Or maybe it was just the sun-warm smell of her hair.
Suddenly uncomfortable, he got up, brushed the grass off his pants. "I'll go talk to the professor." Maybe after, he could catch a very late lunch. She nodded and he left.
On his way to the professor's office, he ran into Jean in the hall, stopped to hold her close a minute. She'd been acting strangely all morning. Or rather, even more strangely than she had for the past several weeks. Pulling back, he studied her tired face. "Are you okay, hon?"
"I'm fine."
He didn't believe her, but wasn't going to argue with her. He wouldn't get any better answer now than he had the last ten times he'd asked the same question. Instead, he said, "Jubilee finish the restroom?"
Jean nodded, but frowned. "You're too hard on them sometimes, Scott. She and Bobby were just being kids."
"She and Bobby are almost adults, in a world that doesn't like them much. They need to learn a little discipline. Sitting still for an hour a week won't kill them."
"I agree. But embarrassing them to death in front of all their friends by dragging them out of chapel and making them clean the bathroom isn't the best way to deal with it."
Less than five minutes and already they were bickering. That seemed to be the nature of their interaction, these days. She was on him constantly; he couldn't do anything right for her any more. Now, he drew away. "Well, it's the way I did deal with it. I can't undo it."
"You could apologize."
"You've gotta be kidding!"
"Scott "
"Don't 'Scott' me! I'm not apologizing! They were out of line. Severely. It's my job "
"It's your job as what? Their teacher or their drill master?"
That did it. "Never mind. I can't talk to you any more." And he stalked past her. Behind him, he thought he heard her sob, but didn't turn back to see. If he tried to say anything, he'd probably make a bigger mess of it.
Thus he arrived in the professor's office in a very foul mood, collapsed in one of the leather chairs to wait while Xavier spoke on the phone to someone. Xavier gave him a raised 'wait a moment' forefinger and the glare. He wasn't pleased about something probably what had happened in chapel that morning and Summers was starting feeling more like a boy sent to the principal's office than a teacher in his own right.
The professor hung up the phone, folded his hands on his desk and studied Summers, who squirmed. After a moment, Xavier sat back. "I don't need to say anything to you at all, do I?"
Scott didn't answer immediately, then replied, on defense, "I punished them for it. I don't think they'll do it again."
"That wasn't what I meant." Xavier sighed. "There were better ways of handling this, Scott. You might have had Jean levitate the notes over their heads where everyone else could see what they were doing, or perhaps even read a few out loud. That would have been enough, I think."
Had Jean been right? Had he been too harsh? He looked away. "I'm sorry. They made me angry."
"Yes, exactly. They made you angry and so you reacted instead of acted." Then Xavier waved his hand dismissively. "No matter. They learned their lesson. And so did you." He glanced out from under his brows in that way he had. "You didn't come here for me to tell you again what Jean already said."
Scott felt the blood scald his ears. Had the professor mentally overheard his quarrel with Jean? But as Xavier had said, that wasn't what he'd come to the office to talk about. Forcibly, he turned his mind back to the proposal he had to make. "I talked to Grace. About her refusal to come to chapel." He took a deep breath. "She says she can't worship under a roof."
"I doubt she can." The professor's mild reply startled him a little.
"She had a counter-proposal," Scott said.
"And that was?"
Summers explained Grace's objections and her idea, finished with "She'd like to have some of the kids join her next week. She even offered to take Jubilee." He grinned.
Xavier was nodding. "I think it would be an excellent idea."
"You do?"
Xavier steepled his hands and gave Summers that subtle head-tilted half-grin. "Scott, really. Grace hasn't ask for anything unreasonable; why should I object? I'm pleased to hear that she's willing to step forward and take more of a leadership role at the school. In fact, if this should work out, I've been considering asking her to teach a class all her own next spring."
"Teach what?" He couldn't imagine a subject she was qualified to teach. He had a dual degree in education and mathematics and a teaching license for the state of New York. Grace barely had a high school diploma. He would have decked anyone who called her stupid, but that didn't mean he thought she belonged up in front of a classroom. They had a responsibility to these kids, a duty to give them a proper education whether this was 'mutant high' or not . . . .
Xavier was smiling at him. "You're reading my mind, aren't you?" Summers asked.
"You're very predictable, Scott." But it was said with great affection. Then he went on in Scott's mind, You might be surprised at what Grace could teach these kids about life. What she could teach you.
Summers got up and paced over to the window. Down below, he could see Jean and Ororo heading off up the road towards the stables. Jean walked with her head down, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around herself. He shouldn't have snapped at her earlier. She'd been right. But why did she have to pick at him so much now? These days, all he felt around her was guilt. Guilt for whatever he wasn't doing that she wished he would. Guilt for whatever he did that she wished he wouldn't. And guilt over his inappropriate feelings for Gracie.
Do you want to talk about it? The mental invitation made the inquiry gentler, less accusatory.
"Can a man love two women, Charles?" He rarely used the professor's first name, but at the moment, it seemed right.
"Of course. Can a father love two children? Can a man love two friends?"
He hadn't expected that answer, swung his head around and blinked to adjust from the glare outside to the dim of the room. The pain behind his eyes was returning, too, after its too-brief hiatus. He rubbed his forehead. "I didn't mean to fall in love with her." He didn't need to say who 'her' was. "I wasn't trying; I wasn't looking. It just happened. She makes me laugh."
"I know."
"There's nothing going on. I've never touched her. She's never touched me. Not like that. I don't intend to break up with Jean."
"I know that, too."
"Grace and I have nothing in common."
"She just makes you laugh."
"Our worlds are completely different."
"You spend a lot of time with her, for such completely different worlds."
Scott shook his head and came back to sit down. "Are you encouraging me? I'd think you'd be telling me to keep my distance. That's what I've been trying to do."
"Seeking her out this morning was keeping your distance?"
He blushed. "That was just part of the job. Someone needed to talk to her. And not Jean."
Xavier didn't bother to point out that it could as easily have been himself or Ororo. Instead, he steepled his hands again and leaned elbows on his desk. "What I'm encouraging, son, is for you to know yourself, be sure of yourself before you take a step with Jean that you can't easily undo."
"I already made that decision."
"No, you did not. There is no ring on your finger. What do you think an engagement is? A trial period. A time to be certain before the vows are spoken. The engagement itself isn't the vow. You have an overdeveloped responsibility muscle."
Summers smiled. It was true.
"That sense of responsibility is why I've always intended for you to lead the X-Men. But you also have a duty and I use that word intentionally with you to be certain that Jean is the right one for you. You have a duty to Jean, and to yourself. Even Cyclops has a right to be happy." He smiled faintly. "And you were very young when you first met her. Very young. You still are young. Neither you nor Jean has had much opportunity for a normal dating life."
"I never wanted one." Leaning over, Scott rested his own elbows on his knees and rubbed at his temples again. To be without the ache even for a little while had made it that much worse when it came back. "But I don't know any more," he admitted finally. "I don't know. If I wasn't If I wasn't with Jean, then yes, I might be interested in Grace. But we're so different in so many ways. And I can't fool around, Charles. It's not in me to do that."
"Of course it's not. No one has suggested that."
"I can't break up with Jean, either. She needs me."
"She needs you to be certain of yourself."
"I can be certain. As I told her love's a decision, not a feeling. What if Gracie had come a year from now? After we were married. Would you encourage me to get a divorce just because "
But she didn't come a year from now, did she? The mental question shut Scott up. "The Lakota believe that nothing happens by accident, nothing of this degree of import, in any case. First Logan, now Grace."
"You think it's fate?" Summers didn't believe in fate.
"I think it's normal to question at this stage. Even healthy. Sometimes you're so certain of yourself that it worries me. I learned a thing or two from my friend Erik, before we went our separate ways. I learned that even Jacob wrestled with angels. Even Abraham bargained with God. The Jews are very good arguers." Xavier leaned back, smiled a little. "You don't like to question. You're a mathematician and an engineer. You like formulae, you like answers. You're decisive all good traits in a leader. Too many questions make you nervous. But life is all about questions, my boy." He spread his hands. "Let yourself ask a few. Let yourself dare to wonder what might have been, had you met Grace Kills-his-Horse first. If you don't ask that question now, and settle it, it will haunt you for the rest of your marriage."
"Fine. I'll think about it." Summers got up and started for the door. This had stopped being a comfortable conversation if it had ever been one to begin with. Before he got out the door, however, he paused and glanced back at the professor. "Gracie said something to me, earlier." He touched his temple. "She stopped the pain in my eyes, for a while. Touched my eyes and made it go away. She said that she thinks there may be some kind of problem with my powers, something not quite right."
Frowning slightly, Xavier sat up. "Did she elaborate?"
"She said that it felt like a 'buzz' to her, a note out of tune, and that my powers shouldn't cause me pain. It's not much pain and it's been there so long, I'm used to it. I never think about it. But it's there."
Xavier leaned back again and Summers could see him turning this over in his mind, then he gestured Scott back over, around the desk, to kneel down in front of his chair. Summers was so used to living with telepaths that he knew precisely what was wanted, how to clear his mind. The professor touched him lightly, right between the brows. It lasted a few moments, felt to Summers like someone rustling around inside his brain. Not uncomfortable, but a bit strange. When Xavier or Jean did this, he always had to steel himself to keep from yanking away. After a few moments, Xavier released him, grunted thoughtfully. "She may be right. I simply can't tell for sure."
"But you're more powerful."
"We have different gifts. What is obvious to her is only a dim shadow to me. I would like her to examine you again. I think that Grace has only begun to tap into her full potential as an empath and healer. That was part of why I wanted to bring her here. To help us, yes. But also for us to teach her." He smiled faintly. "Despite your earlier protests, the two of you have a great deal in common including a stubborn streak if you are told you have something yet to learn."
Scott laughed in spite of himself, sat back on his heels but didn't rise up. He didn't like to stand over the professor, tended to stay a step behind or to the side if he was on his feet, although he knew Xavier wasn't troubled by the visual symbology. Summers was troubled by it.
"As much as you might not like to hear it," the professor went on, "I look forward to the return of Logan. Just as Jean's gift is a compliment to my own, so Logan and Grace share a similarity in power."
"You think Logan can teach her something?" Summers couldn't keep the scoff out of his voice.
"Logan understands his own power better than you think. It is not an intellectual understanding, but neither is it for Grace. And Logan is older, has been living with these powers far longer."
"I can't see those two, together."
"You don't want to see those two together." Xavier winked at him.
He looked off. Would Grace be drawn to Logan in the same way that Jean had been? And if she was? It might be simpler on them all. But Scott didn't like it. In fact, just now, he liked it even less than he'd liked Jean's attraction to the wolverine before and that bothered him most of all. Was he ready to give up Jean to Logan if it meant he was free to pursue whatever this was he felt for Gracie? "Logan's in Canada, so it doesn't matter."
The professor just smiled.
And at that very moment, Summers heard the roar of a motorcycle at a distance off down the mansion lane. His motorcycle. He knew the sound of that specialized engine. He leapt to his feet and scooted around the professor to lean far out the office window, look up the road.
Logan. Black leather on black steel and no helmet on his head, popping goddamn wheelies.
Rogue, who had been out in the yard, had seen him, too, and now let out a wild yelp, went charging at full tilt down the road towards him. Logan slammed on the brakes to avoid running her over; the wheels skidded on gravel and the bike almost went out from under him.
"Son of a bitch! He'd better not wreck my bike!"
"Language, Scott."
Summers jerked around from the window. "You knew he was coming back! How do you time these things? You're a telepath, not a prophet!"
"By the clock," Xavier said mildly, indicating the grandfather clock in the corner; it read three in the afternoon. "Logan called last night."
But Summers was already out the door. Behind him, Xavier laughed. Show the bull the cape and off he charges, he sent after his favorite protégée. It didn't even slow Summers down.