his is a one-shot, written for the X-Men Movie Ficathon. I figured I'd post it

here, too.



Title: Secrets and Lies



Author: mofic



Summary: There’s something Jean never told Scott.



Rating: G



Recipient: joanne_c



Request Used: Charles Xavier/Jean Grey or Charles and Jean. Charles teaching

Jean how to control her powers and if the author can, his teaching her about

telepathic sex. Inclusion of Scott is fine in either scenario as well.



Scenario: “Secrets and Lies” draws only upon the first X-Men movie as canon,

so the account of Jean’s childhood, family, and entry into the X-Men does not

match that depicted in X3 or that of the comics. This story is, in addition,

consistent with my X1 fiction and expands upon some events briefly recounted in

my series “Canadian Nights,” “Reminiscences,” “Taking Chances,” and

“Past and To Come.” Except for the reflection at the end, everything takes

place before the events depicted in “I Know What You Are.”



Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my betas: talktooloose, niteslayer, lilacsigil,

bittenfeld.











Secrets and Lies



by Mo



It weighed on Jean sometimes that she’d never told Scott the truth. Their

relationship wasn’t the kind where you kept things from each other. Their

whole lives were entwined: they lived together, worked together, went into

battle together. Scott and Jean had built the school together, along with the

other X-Men. They’d been a couple for close to ten years, and she was still as

much in love with him as the day they’d met, when she’d been totally bowled

over by the boy who had been Charles Xavier’s first student. She still felt

blessed and sometimes even surprised that he loved her back. With all they

shared, with all they’d revealed to each other that no one else knew, this was

the one thing Jean didn’t feel she could tell him. It wasn’t so much that

she felt he couldn’t handle knowing. It was more that she felt she couldn’t

handle him knowing. And that made her feel inadequate, both as Scott’s

girlfriend and as a member of a

  superhero team facing far more terrifying challenges. But still, she didn’t

tell him the truth.



She hadn’t always felt ambivalent about keeping her secret. When she’d first

met Scott, she had been certain she didn’t want him – or anyone but Xavier

– to know. It had even been one of her conditions in agreeing to join the

Professor. She wanted no one to realize how damaged she was, how incapacitated

by a telepathic gift she couldn’t control and didn’t want. She did not want

them to know what he’d done to help her. She was introduced to Scott – then

the Professor’s only student – as a telekinetic. It was a useful skill for

combat and one she needed guidance with, a clear reason he’d wanted her to

join what would later become the X-Men. Not that Charles had told Jean’s

mother that his agenda for her daughter included being a key combatant in his

planned private army. No, Alice Grey thought her daughter was only leaving home

to attend a special school for the gifted, the chromosomally gifted.



Her mother had been ready to sign Jean up after Charles’s first visit to their

house; he was that persuasive. Not that it took much convincing to part with a

sixteen-year-old daughter who was increasingly a stranger, a frightening

stranger at that. When Alice Grey said to her friends with similar aged

daughters “I feel like I don’t know Jean anymore” they all nodded in

agreement. Still, Alice knew her friends’ agreement was based on bad attitude

and loud music and staying out too late with boys, problems Alice would have

been grateful to have. Instead, Alice was dealing with unpredictable flying

objects and screaming tantrums over overheard thoughts never meant for Jean to

know. The loud music was there, briefly, but it was an attempt to drown out the

voices in her head, an attempt that only lasted until Jean realized it was

unsuccessful. Alice worried that the next try would be drugs.



Alice talked to Brad about the change in Jean as soon as she realized what was

happening to their daughter. She hoped he’d have some ideas, although she

certainly wasn’t counting on her ex-husband coming up with a solution. He had

been a fond, if somewhat uninvolved, father before the divorce and the fondness

remained afterwards. The involvement – such as it was – decreased to visits

every other Saturday and weekly phone calls on Wednesday evenings. Even with

such little contact Alice was sure he had to see the change in Jean, but denial

is a powerful thing. Brad Grey would not believe that his little girl was a

mutant.



“It’s just a phase,” he said. “She’s a teenager. Hormones make them

act out.”



“She’s not ‘acting out,’ Bradley,” Alice replied, trying

unsuccessfully to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “She’s moving objects

with her mind, hearing things that were never said. Yesterday she got mad at me

for something I was *thinking* and before I knew it one of her boots flew up and

would have hit me in the back of the head if I hadn’t turned in time and

ducked!”



“Come on, Alice. You’re exaggerating again. You didn’t see the boot ‘fly

up,’ right? You turned and saw it flying, after she threw it. It’s bad

behavior, not a mutant power. And there would likely be less bad behavior if

you’d be a little more consistent with discipline.”



“What about reading my mind?”



“Anyone can read your mind. It’s an open book. Right now you’re thinking

‘That Brad should take more responsibility for his eldest daughter and give me

some relief, instead of busying himself with Layla and the twins. If he’d only

been as interested in Jean when she was two years old as he is in them, maybe he

never would have left.’ Am I right?”



He was too close to right to argue, although she’d also been thinking of

snarkily remarking that his knowledge of adolescent behavior was more current

than hers, since he’d married an adolescent. But, of course, Layla wasn’t

really an adolescent, even if she was too young for him. And Jean really was a

mutant, even if her father didn’t want to know it. Alice found herself tuning

him out as he continued to lecture her on lax discipline, but her interest

perked up when he started “reading her mind” again.



“I’d have Jean live here for a while if I could, you know it,” he said.

“But Heather and Dylan are a handful already, and there just isn’t room. I

don’t regret at all giving you the house – it was important for continuity

for Jean. But you’re two people in a five-bedroom suburban house and we’re

four in a city apartment. We just can’t take Jean on. Plus you know how

impossible Jean can be around Layla.” Alice thought of turning his comment

about consistent discipline back on him, but she knew he’d just accuse her of

poisoning Jean’s mind against Layla, and there was too much truth in the

accusation for her to be comfortable provoking it.



“We could revisit the boarding school idea,” he continued. “Maybe she

needs to get away from home. Maybe you need a little distance from her.”



Brad handed Alice a file folder of glossy boarding school brochures the next

Saturday he picked Jean up. She threw them away unread, but she didn’t

disagree with the basic idea. She did need some distance from Jean, but she

thought it unlikely that she could find a boarding school that was willing to

take an emerging mutant, or would know how to teach the girl if they did. Only

as it turned out she didn’t have to find a school, because the school found

her, or at least its headmaster did.



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

Charles Xavier clearly knew a lot about the Grey family before he visited. He

showed up on Tuesday at 2:00. It was Alice’s day to work late, so she wasn’t

expected at the library until 5:00 and Jean, of course, was at school and not

due home for another hour. An hour in which the Professor told Alice all about

his vision for a world where mutants and normal humans coexisted peacefully, as

well as the school he had founded to further that aim. He didn’t mention that

right now the school was mostly in his mind, that he had only one student so

far. Neither did he mention his plans for a mutant combat team, or that he

believed Jean’s powers had great battle potential.



Alice was convinced by the time Jean came home, but her daughter was more wary,

asking pointed questions of the Professor about his plans. It was only from

Jean’s questioning that Alice found out that the school was just beginning.

“For now,” Professor Xavier explained, “I’ll be your teacher. I can

assure you I’m qualified to handle all high school subjects,” he added with

a smile. “As we grow, I’ll hire specialists as needed. But right now I

believe I’m uniquely qualified to teach you to control and manage your powers,

along with instructing you in the standard high school curriculum.”



“I don’t want to control it. I just want it to stop.”



“Many mutants feel that way when coming into their powers,” he responded,

calmly and sympathetically. “It’s only natural. You’ve never heard

anything good about mutants. They – we – have always been presented to you

as freakish outcasts. Mutants are almost the archetypical ‘other’ in

today’s society and it’s very hard to assimilate the knowledge that you’re

one of them.” The tears in Jean’s eyes told her mother the professor

understood what Jean had been through. “I know just how you feel, Jean. I’ve

been there myself. But your mutant powers are gifts, truly, and in a supportive

mutant environment with instruction on how to control and manage your powers I

firmly believe you’ll come to see them as such.”



“Tell me about the boy you love so much,” Jean said, changing the subject

abruptly and startling Alice. “Not like that, Mom,” she added, hearing

Alice’s alarm in her brain. “He’s the professor’s first student, and

almost like a son to him. He has such hope and dreams and love for this Scott

Summers.” Turning to the professor, she added, “He must be someone

special.”



“Oh he is, and so are you, Jean. I want to teach you to understand just how

special you are. Come with me, see our school, meet Scott, and then decide.”



“I’ll come with you if you’ll make this stop,” she said, hands on her

head. “You can do it, can’t you?”



They ended up compromising. He told her that he understood that it was too much

to adjust to at once, and that telepathy was a particularly difficult gift to

use and control. So before her first visit to the nascent school he suppressed

it, walling the ability to hear others’ thoughts in a restricted part of her

brain, locked until they both agreed she was ready to open the door.



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



Jean certainly didn’t want Scott to know about her inability to handle her

telepathic gift when she met him. She wanted to make a good impression. Not that

she ever dreamed that a boy who looked like him could be interested in her. And

he wasn’t, well not at first, not the way she wanted him to be. They did

become friends right away. Both were achingly lonely and just thrilled to find

each other. Charles had done his best to be a companion to him but Scott was

delighted to have a classmate finally, to be around someone his own age. Jean

and Scott studied together and trained together and watched movies on TV and

went into town on shopping expeditions. He was so beautiful she found it hard

not to stare at him, particularly when they swam or trained together. And she

wished she could see his eyes. But she didn’t think he’d ever be her

boyfriend.



In those early months of Jean’s tenure at Xavier’s, Scott used to go off

campus sometimes in the evenings. Charles always seemed a little bit concerned

when he left, although he never said why and as far as Jean knew he never

objected to Scott’s disappearances. Of course Scott only left when all of his

school work was done and he’d completed enough studying and combat training to

satisfy his own high standards – considerably higher than what Charles

expected of them. He would stay out late and not say where he’d been, at least

not to Jean. Jean figured he had a girlfriend in the city – perhaps someone he

thought Charles would not approve of, since he never mentioned her at the

mansion.



Jean knew that Scott had been homeless for a year before the professor found

him. Who knows what kind of people he might have met on the streets of New York

City? Jean imagined her as tough, experienced, and very beautiful – maybe a

dancer or an actress. The evenings Scott went out, he would leave a bundle of

tension, wound too tight for words. And then he’d be relaxed and happy at

breakfast the next morning. She wanted to be happy for him but she was sure that

the girlfriend – whoever she was – couldn’t love him like she did,

couldn’t understand him like she did. Still, it was clear he only wanted to be

Jean’s friend. Or at least it seemed clear those first few months.



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



The next year Warren and Hank joined them. Jean went from being one of two

students to the lone girl in a group of four. They coalesced quickly into a

class of sorts and into a fighting team. They came up with the name “X-Men”

and started truly implementing Charles Xavier’s plans for them all. Hank was

always way ahead of the others in their school work; Scott led their training

and the more and more frequent missions Charles assigned them. They all bonded,

became close in the way that only living and working and risking your lives

together can engender. She loved all three of them, truly, but it was only Scott

she wanted, and he had no interest in her as a girlfriend.



Warren was a different story. He asked her out the day he arrived, and seemed

not to think she meant it when she turned him down. Jean figured if you’re the

only son of a billionaire you get to thinking you can always get what you want,

so she tried to be very clear, but he kept trying. It was flattering, but she

only had eyes for Scott. Not that she told Warren that. She just kept telling

him no and he kept asking. Then one day he wore her down and she let him kiss

her in the Danger Room after practice, after the other boys had left. Scott

walked back in from the changing room and stopped stock still. Jean pulled away

from Warren. If she could have seen Scott’s eyes, she would have said their

eyes met. And suddenly she felt something, something unaccustomed, the first

telepathic activity she’d experienced in almost two years. It was Scott’s

jealousy, painfully sharp in her brain. He left quickly but she ran after him,

more worried for the moment

  about the misunderstanding than the possibly re-emerging telepathy.



“It’s not what you think,” she told Scott when she caught up with him.



“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I was just surprised. There’s

no reason you and Warren can’t go out,” he replied. “I just didn’t

know...”



“We’re not going out. He wants to but I don’t. That’s the only time he

even kissed me.” She took a deep breath and it took all the courage her

17-year-old self could muster to say what she said next. “I want to go out

with you.”



It was as simple as that – they were a couple. She felt nothing more from his

brain, but he threw his arms around her and they hugged. And he kissed her, a

kiss that was everything she’d hoped it could be and more. When finally she

pulled away from him, she said, “You have nothing to be jealous about.” He

gave her a wry smile, as if he wasn’t quite sure.

Jean had never been happier. Warren grumbled at first, but even he could see how

happy they were. Jean had never had a boyfriend and couldn’t believe her luck

to get just the one she wanted, the one she knew she’d stay with forever.





They were inseparable – studying together, going for long walks on the

mansion’s grounds, going into town (Scott used a white-tipped cane, pretending

to be blind, so no one would think it strange he never took off the dark

glasses) or to the Connecticut beaches (where the glasses were not a problem, of

course). And after a few weeks of kissing and cuddling and wondering whether

she’d have to make the first move on that as well, there was sex. Scott

confessed that he, too, was a virgin, a statement that shocked Jean. She

didn’t need telepathy to know the effect he had on other girls – and grown

women, too. Yet he told her he’d never had sex with any of the girls he’d

met in his previous life, never felt he’d met the right one, but now he had.



It was wonderful to discover sex together. Well, kind of awkward and a bit

embarrassing at first. No one had ever even seen her naked before. She was

scared for him to. But it helped that she was his first, that he felt awkward

and unsure, too. Sharing the newness made it less embarrassing and more fun. And

over the course of a couple of weeks they got to know how to please each other

and marveled that such joyful coupling was possible, certain that no one else

had ever had it so good. They lost a little perspective, perhaps. Charles –

discreetly, privately – told Scott they needed to tone it down a bit, not

touch each other so much when the others were around, not skip group meals or

training sessions to be together. Jean was mortified when Scott relayed the

message and abashed the next time she saw Charles. Had they really been so

blatant in their new found sexuality?



In spite of her embarrassment, Jean knew she had to talk to Charles privately.

The moment of feeling Scott’s jealousy when Warren kissed her turned out not

to be a fluke. What was happening wasn’t like the uncontrolled telepathy

she’d experienced before Charles’s intervention. That had been constant, a

cacophony of thoughts and feelings any time she was with other people. This was

occasional, intermittent, and limited to the people she knew well – Scott and

the other X-Men, her family when they visited or she went home on vacations. She

could be in a crowd of strangers and hear nothing other than what was spoken.

Still occasionally – and with greater and greater frequency – the thoughts

of her friends and family were entering her brain.



“Are you making this happen to me?” she asked.



He shook his head. “No, but I’m not surprised. The telepathic wall I built

couldn’t hold forever.” He looked at her, a considering expression on his

face. “May I?” he asked, his mind knocking on the door of hers.



She nodded her assent and he went in. She could feel his presence, his

exploration. It went on for a while. Then he left and was merely sitting in

front of her again. “Can you fix it?” she asked.



“Maybe. I can try to shore it up, but it will still be temporary. Maybe it’s

time to open up, instead. It’s starting to dismantle itself. I can help it

along.” She felt the beginning of panic, but then his presence returned to her

mind, reassuring her it would all be okay. “I’ll do it slowly,” he added

in speech, “and teach you how to control it as you go. I know what your

experience has been, but it doesn’t have to be like that. It can be...

selective. I don’t listen in to your thoughts, you know. I ask, like I just

did. I do that with all of you. This is a power that can be controlled. And

it’s one that can be used in combat, as you know well.”



“Yes, we’ve always benefited from your ability to tell us what the

adversaries are thinking.”



“I can’t always go with you,” he said, looking down at his motionless

legs. “My disability sometimes precludes it. And I won’t always be with

you,” he added.



“Professor? Are you okay?”



“Fine, fine. I didn’t mean to sound melodramatic. It’s just reality. I

expect to be with you and the other X-Men for a long, long time. I plan on

seeing generations of mutants grow up in this house. But I’m also planning for

a team that can continue after I’m gone, and a strong telepath is an important

asset. It’s a fairly rare power, particularly when combined with other psionic

gifts. You’re very special, Jean.”



She smiled. “That’s what you always say.”



“I want you to have the use of all your special ability.”



“Okay, I’ll try.” She paused. “But I don’t want anyone to know that

you’ve suppressed it all this time.”



“Not even Scott?”



“Especially not Scott. He’d wonder what else I’d kept from him. And I

haven’t... kept anything, that is. It’s just... I don’t want him to know.

Can’t we just say I’m developing telepathy, and you’re helping me with

controlling it and managing it? It’s so close to the truth. It *is* the truth;

it just leaves out what happened before.”



He agreed and that’s how her new power was presented to the other X-Men. She

worried that they’d feel like their privacy was being invaded, but they’d

all been accustomed to sharing quarters with a telepath, so it didn’t faze

them to have two in the house. And Charles had been quite right about the

importance of telepathy on missions, and about the limitations that his

disability presented. He had often come along on combat missions previously, but

the energy and time necessary to keep their mobility-impaired leader physically

safe had been an impediment to the team’s effectiveness in battle, even as his

telepathy had been a boon. With Jean providing telepathic reconnaissance instead

there was no downside and they quickly became a much more effective fighting

team.



The adjustment in Scott’s and Jean’s personal relationship was a little more

bumpy. They both really loved having a telepathic link to each other, reveled in

the ability to speak privately and silently while others were there and to speak

to each other when separated, as well. In many ways it made Jean feel much

closer to Scott, something she’d thought wouldn’t have been possible. But

continuing telepathic contact with your boyfriend wasn’t an unalloyed

blessing. Sometimes she heard thoughts she wished she hadn’t.



There are all sorts of times that it's just best not to know too much about what

your partner's thinking. If she asked him if she looked fat in her new jeans,

she wasn’t really looking for an honest answer. If he was kissing her and his

mind wandered to the mission they’d just been on or the paper due tomorrow,

she found she’d rather not know that. There were some misunderstandings, some

too much understanding, and some tears those first weeks that Scott and Jean

adjusted to her emerging telepathy. But Charles taught Scott how to use mental

shields and they both became more accustomed to dealing with, and averting, the

potential negative consequences of Jean’s developing powers. Scott learned to

use his mental shields more often and Jean learned not to listen to his brain

all the time, and not to mention it if she accidentally caught a thought not

intended to be shared. Yes, it was all working out well except for one area:

sex.



Scott and Jean found that as they got aroused the control that they both had –

her in not projecting her thoughts and him in shielding his thoughts –

diminished. It wasn’t something they were ready for and Jean in particular

found that unsettling. On the one hand she was excited in an almost overwhelming

way by the feelings and thoughts he projected right before and during orgasm. On

the other hand she found that she herself just could not relax enough to climax,

knowing he’d feel what was happening to her. If she had felt awkward when

naked in their first sexual experiences, it was nothing to what she felt now. A

nakedness of her mind, her sensations and even her soul – it was too much. She

couldn’t take it.



Embarrassing as it was to share with her mentor, Jean found herself confiding in

Charles that she and Scott were unable to shield their thoughts during sex, and

that it was ruining their sex life. “Teach me how to stop – how to stop

feeling his thoughts, how to stop him from feeling mine.”



“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “During times of high arousal –

sexual and otherwise – none of these techniques work.”



“Well, what am I going to do?” She blushed, realizing how desperate she

sounded.



“Learn to like it,” he said with a smile.



“I can’t!”



“Of course you can,” he responded, with the same even tone he used when

assuring his students they could succeed at a particularly difficult simulated

battle or a complicated math problem. “I can teach you some telepathic

relaxation techniques, which should help you get over the block. This doesn’t

have to be a negative. I think you’ll find that sharing one’s partner’s

experience enhances the sexual connection. Maybe you’ve felt a little of that

already.”



Jean blushed scarlet. “I have, but the other way round, I can’t... this is

so hard to talk to you about.”



“I know. I wish we had a house mother for you – a telepathic house mother.

We’ll certainly have to work on getting some more female students, at least. I

realize it’s hard for you to be the only female in the house, and to have to

confide in a stuffy old man like myself about sexual matters.” She started to

protest, but he continued. “I know it’s embarrassing, but for now I’m all

you’ve got. And this is a subject I do know something about. I’ve been a

telepath a long, long time. I’m telling you, if you learn to relax and just

accept the telepathic component to sexual relations, you’ll find it increases

pleasure, increases closeness. It can even make up for something that’s

missing.”



Jean looked down to avoid meeting Charles’s eyes. But then, worried that it

would appear that she was looking at his motionless legs, she looked up again.



She’d never thought of Charles as a sexual being. He was her teacher, her

mentor, and more of a father figure than her own father had been. So she

didn’t – couldn’t – envision him that way.



But of course she knew that there was more to Charles Xavier than what she saw

of him. With no feeling or voluntary movement in the lower half of his body, the

only kind of sexual sensation accessible to him was what he felt telepathically

as his partner experienced it. No wonder he said it could make up for something

missing. Jean found herself speculating about whether Charles had a lover now,

and if so, who she was.



Charles turned out to be right on this subject, as on so many. Once Jean was

able to relax enough to let go even knowing that Scott would feel what was

happening to her, they had a truly shared sexual experience, beyond what

they’d been able to feel before telepathy. It was new and wonderful, an

excitement and a connection that profoundly affected them both. Cuddled together

in the afterglow, Jean related to Scott what Charles had said about it making up

for what’s missing, and they felt a pang of shared pity that Charles could

never fully experience what they had with each other.



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



Over the years, when Jean remembered that time, she felt vaguely guilty,

thinking that Scott had always been so honest with her and yet she was still

implicitly lying to him, still keeping this one secret. Then later, when

everything fell apart, Jean remembered those early days with a new kind of

sadness, one full of bitter realization of how wrong she’d been in thinking

she was the only one with secrets and lies. But she also remembered with new

insight. Charles hadn’t been talking about “something missing” for him,

she realized, but something missing between her and Scott. It just about broke

her heart all over again to realize that Charles knew what was missing long

before she had had any idea anything was wrong.









================================================================================\

=

Additional Note on Request Not Used and Why: joanne_c had a Scott/Logan slash

request and that’s most of what I write so my first inclination was to do it.

The request was “Scott/Logan or Scott and Logan (much prefer slash but is okay

if not). Learning about each other after Jean's death in X2, the good and the

bad and accepting each other for who they are. I would like for Jean/Logan to

have been completely one-sided on Logan's part, please.” I didn’t do it for

this ficathon because I decided I’d written that story pretty thoroughly

already here and didn’t have anything more to say about it. 

 Mo

Mofic Website: http://mo.fandomnation.com/fic/

www.livejournal.com/users/mofic