Title: Phoenix Rising
Author: Musamea
Rating: PG-13 for situation and language
Disclaimer: X-Men belong to Stan Lee, Marvel, Fox, etc. I just play around in their universe.
Summary: A meditation on Jean Grey's final moments.
Author's Note: This fic started as a response to questions concerning so-called "plot holes" in the Phoenix manifestation scene in X2. I was tired of hearing about how the Iceman could have frozen several million tons of water or how Storm could have cooked up some weather phenomenon to take care of it all when the simple truth was that neither would have been powerful enough to do so. Jean would not have been either, had it not been for the Phoenix inside of her. So it all came back to the idea of how terrifying it must be to house such power inside of you when you don't know its origins or its intentions, and to what lengths you might go to ensure the ones you love were safe from danger… and from yourself.

"You sure?"

She is not at all sure. The force that had erupted from her in the dam has not quite tucked itself back into the shadowy niches of mind. She can feel it twisting, turning, restless within her mind. But she just gives Scott a faint smile. "Yeah."

He nods and turns toward the cockpit, where Storm is already flipping at the controls. Jean looks around, checks to see if everyone else has gotten into the jet.

Logan. She pauses.

He's coming.

"Scott," the Professor says. "We've got to get to Washington. I fear this has gone beyond Alkali Lake."

Cars flipped over, piled atop each other, hanging off embankments… airplanes fallen from the skies… trains run off twisted stretches of track… surgeons with shaking hands… politicians collapsed in the Senate… the images flash through her head so quickly she almost cannot catch them. And then they are gone.

And then Logan sprints up the ramp, with Arty in his arms. "Bobby!"

"I got 'im." The Iceman rushes forward, already more of a leader than he knows, trained up as insurance in case Scott- She pushes the thought away.

"Hey," she grabs Logan's shoulder. "You all right?"

"I am now." He flashes her the brief, melt-you-inside-out smile, then turns to his seat.

Something's wrong with the Jet. And sure enough, two seconds later the lights flicker. She hears Logan say, "What's wrong?"

"Vertical thrusters are offline."

She would smile at Scott's curt, no-nonsense explanation that explains nothing to a man who has spent his entire life mistrustful of technology, only there's an edge of panic in his voice. Her cool-as-ice, devil-may-care flyboy, who eats pressure for breakfast, panicking.

Oh Scott, what did Stryker do to you? What did I do to you?

She does another head count; they're all there, except…

"Hey, has anyone seen John?" Rogue's face, framed by the two silvery streaks, is still pale, taut. Not a girl anymore, Jean thinks. Not after flying the Blackbird.

But that's wrong too, the thing inside of her whispers, she hasn't been a girl since Liberty Island, since nearly sucking the life out of Logan, since her mutation manifested.

"Pyro?" Logan turns around, scans the jet.

Stryker's helicopter, rising in the air, whipping the tress into a fury of whirling branches and white snow.

"He's with Magneto," she says. No one, not even the Professor, questions how she knows this, no one even presses her further, and this is surprising.

Rumbling.

She turns her head, straining for it… there. Clear now.

The dam is breaking.

She feels the strange power inside of her ripple, the clear shape of wings beating against her mind. Go. Jean. Now. Let me out.

She looks toward Scott. I need to know what Stryker did to him. I can't leave him now.

Jean. Go. Or else no one will have a chance to find out anything.

She hesitates one moment longer. If I leave this jet and let you take over, we will both die. I do not know what you are. I cannot allow you into this world.

Her power does not dispute this, does not tell her try to save them all from inside the jet, does not try to tell her that Bobby can freeze the water, that Storm can somehow divert it through whirlpools or waves. They both know that no one else in the jet has enough power to do this.

She can do this, but only if she gives herself over to this foreign force, whom she has feared ever since the dreams started after Liberty Island, ever since it quickened and burst into being when she destroyed that missile fired after the X-Jet.

The power does not argue for its own goodness. Only, with a slight rustle like dried leaves or feathered wings: Yes.

She takes a deep breath, turns, limps down the ramp. She puts up a small shield against the Professor's mind. The others are too concerned with the Blackbird's engines to worry about who's coming and going in and out of her.

Her. Jean smiles, a little; sometime over the past years spent with Scott she's picked up his habit of personifying the X-Jet as female, though, as she'd often teased him, she saw the Blackbird as more of a huge, bitchy metal rival for his attentions than anything else. The other woman. To her, flying the jet was just another part of her job, and one that she did not particularly enjoy. But Scott is a flyboy, with engine fuel rather than blood running through his veins, and so – as he had once told her – there are few things that make him feel so alive as feeling the Blackbird responding beneath his touch.

The other woman indeed. She glances back. Well, bitch, she calls the jet by that name with not a little wistfulness, you win.

She feels Xavier searching for her, probing against her shield. She hears him say, half in her head, and half to the others in the jet, "Jean?"

Logan's voice: "Where is Jean?"

Her shield shatters and the power inside of her spreads itself further in protest.

"She's outside."

She knows what is coming after the Professor's announcement and braces herself to do this one thing that will be harder than any other task still to come.

Jean. Hurry.

She closes her eyes. I love you, Scott, and then she snaps off the link, established for so long they are both usually only subconsciously aware of it, between her mind and his. His red – he was always red to her – recedes from her mind. I'm sorry. She looks back, sees him appear at the top of the ramp. His face is set in that same determined expression that she remembers so well from the days, ten years ago, when he had pursued her singlemindedly, refusing to give up until he had convinced her that he was not too young for her, that she was not too old for him. One thought and the stairs close and slam upward, shut. Locked. She starts the engine. Oh God, Scott, I'm so sorry.

Everything else she hears through Xavier, who refuses to let go of her mind. It is a small comfort, perhaps, that her mentor is still stronger than she is. For now. Until she gives the alien power full reign.

"No!" She hears Scott yell. "We're not leaving! Lower the ramp, Storm, lower it!"

Oh no you don't.

"I can't!" Storm tells him. "She's controlling the jet."

The power in her flaps wildly now, scrabbling to get out, but she clings stubbornly to the last vestige of consciousness, the last vestige of Jean. She stretches out one hand, strains a little against the Blackbird, then lifts it. It is almost too easy.

A rushing wave, a roaring flood.

Her other hand comes up to ward off the wall of water. It splits and twines around her, leaving a small island of dry land for her and the Blackbird. Jean Grey parts Alkali Lake, she thinks dryly. Then the full force of the erupted dam hits her and it is all she can do to keep the water away. Her head is all a whirl of heat and feathers and fire and she feels herself being shredded, dissected, pulled apart.

Oh God.

"You, get her now!" Trust Logan to remember they have a teleporter on board, after what Wagner did for Rogue. What's left of Jean within her smiles. The rising force holds The Incredible Nightcrawler firmly in place.

"She's not letting me."

"Damn it." That's Scott, and she focuses the last bit of herself on his voice.

Say goodbye, the fire within her whispers. I will allow it.

She will not reach into his mind just to leave him again. It would hurt them both too much. Xavier is safer, easier, though painful in other ways. Her mentor, her teacher, friend, father.

"I know what I am doing," she says through him. "This is the only way."

"Jean, listen to me. Don't do this."

Don't fall apart now, Scott, not when they need you most. Don't fail them now. She wonders if this thought reaches Xavier, and if so, if he will speak it aloud to Scott.

"Goodbye."

Then she gives herself over to the flames, banishes Xavier from her mind, and the power explodes out of her. She hears the Blackbird clear the water, engines running smoothly now. She trusts Storm to have enough presence of mind to keep that big metal bitch up in the air.

We had a bargain, she reminds her fire. It screeches, almost triumphantly, in response, and the last thing she feels before lowering her hand is relief.