[OP:  "Voices"-- Switchfoot]

[Title references episodes of  Wolverine and the X-men show. Another title I had referenced the 90s animated show, so all's fair.]

Surprisingly, Emma was the one to ask Shine about something.

Because Shine was the only one who knew the full extent of her past, not because she really wanted to.

"I can't tell Scott about it," she said. "But he may have got a slightly incorrect view of things because of that."

"Emma..." Shine said, "I think you should just tell him. Come, you must have known I'd say that."

"I really hoped you'd have something better than that," Emma said.

"Better than honesty? Sorry, no," Shine said. "But you won't do it, will you?"

"I simply can't," Emma said. "Would you?"

"If it was the Scott from here, no way," Shine said. "Unless I felt I was doing something unfair by not doing so...which, I kind of do feel. At least, he will think so. Everyone will. The whole team should know, Emma. What if it's important?"

"How could it be? You don't see a connection," Emma said.

"I do, actually," Shine said. "I still think it ties into your problem. How much worse does this need to get for you to act on it? You should let me help you more, or Xavier, or both of us, even. If we just explored more what happened and how you felt about it."

"I really don't want to sit around and talk about things I can't change," Emma said. "I just wish I knew a way to alleviate this situation."

Shine stared at her.

"Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," she said, as if to herself. "I can't help you, Emma, till you want to help you. I'm sorry. But Scott will remember soon, that's almost certain. Could be today. You will lose your chance to have been honest soon. You will regret it if you choose not to be. And if you already admitted there was something bad...then why leave it a mystery? He could have come up with any number of ideas, some probably worse than what actually happened."

"I doubt it," Emma said.

She lowered her voice. "You don't understand, Miss Likstar.... When it came out--I should say, when Selene, one of the Circle, spilled the whole thing, which she did to make me look bad, but it was true even so--it didn't take longer than a moment for Scott to lose all faith in me. It was Wolverine who actually gave me a chance to redeem myself. I don't know if Scott ever really forgave me. Or the others. I never meant to...to hurt him, you understand." She bit her lip. "I mean, for goodness sake, when I joined the X-men, he wasn't even there... I never thought of the bit about Jean really harming someone personally. I didn't know how close they were... Of course, I felt guilty later. But it was too late. The plan was in motion; I had to go through with it."

"Perhaps it'd have been beneficial for them in the long run, if it worked," Shine said. "Jean would be free. The Phoenix force is not safe. You've never admitted so much to me before. I can see it's been tormenting you a lot if you are willing to say it."

Only every waking minute of most of the day, when she wasn't thinking about losing her mind, that is.

"I'm sorry." Shine seemed to read her expression. "I'm sure it's difficult to carry this burden around. I have lived with guilt also, Emma...but, you know, there's this famous line in my world. It's meant to be funny, but it was true too: No one will ever hate you more than you already hate yourself--provided that you do hate yourself, at all, I suppose. I used to. No particular reason, I just couldn't seem to love myself. I learned later it's because I was taught to hate myself. Demonstrated it by people who hated themselves and hated me also. I find most mutants have similar experiences as me there. In different forms. You must also."

"I don't hate myself," Emma said. "I made a mistake, that's all."

"Uh huh." Shine didn't buy it, clearly. "Well, in that case, you have no reason to feel guilty still. What are you worried about? Scott would have to be stupid not to understand that."

"No, he has every reason to be angry." Emma backtracked real fast without even realizing it. "I stole the Professor, after all... I caused most of the problems I was allegedly solving. Who knows...? Even the ones in the future could have been byproducts of my choices, not that I knew that."

"I wouldn't assume that," Shine said.

"Well...if Mystique can affect the future, why not me?" Emma said.

"I see," Shine said. "Well, you can, but from what I understand, it's not that simple. But you're right. Scott perhaps has a reason to be angry at you."

Hearing someone else say it was even worse than thinking it.

Emma looked down. "Well, I thought it was right at the time..."

"Emma," Shine said seriously, "you did what you could to fix it. Someday, you must let go of the weight of responsibility for what followed. None of this is your fault. We're only human. We cannot answer for any and all future events and consequences of our actions. Good actions do not always yield good consequences, because this game of chess that's really a full on war between Good and Evil that we call life, has a lot of twists. Evil makes countermoves, and evil cheats too. Good is stronger though. And I believe we win in the end."

"Good...good people are crushed by the world," Emma said. "I don't think good wins that often. If at all. Perhaps that is why I understood Scott's anger."

"It mirrors your own at some point in your life," Shine surmised easily. "Before you gave up on it."

Emma's mouth dropped open.

"It's nothing that hard to figure out, Sweetie," Shine said. "You have the disappointed idealist written all over that cynicism/optimism of yours. You're an odd hybrid of both. Scott's not quite there yet. is he? I wonder why that is."

"Well, because he has Jean," Emma said.

"What does that have to do with it?" Shine said, with a puzzled look.

"They have a link." Emma didn't see anything weird about saying that. Perhaps being a telepath had made her immune to thinking it was odd. "A Psionic rapport. I explored it once. Scott was considering having his memories of Jean removed... I offered to help."

"Why would you do that?" Shine asked, quietly. "Guilt?"

"Well...at the time I didn't know where Jean was either," Emma said. "But it was...causing Scott a lot of problems. I thought it might be easier."

"Easier for you also," Shine said, knowingly, "if in the end, he didn't have to miss her, in case something went wrong."

"You don't trust my motives," Emma said.

"Do you?" Shine asked bluntly.

Emma pursed her lips.

"Well, I'm not here to judge, Emma," Shine said. "Clearly that didn't happen. Or did it?" [I'd really expect Shine to be more horrified by this, but I think maybe the experience with the character Lethe in the MHA story that comes before this one might have helped her understand Emma's situation better.]

"No, no, in the end he decided against it, because we realized Jean caused the explosion," Emma said. "Though, I technically already knew that. Just not that he'd remember it."

"One odd thing about this is that it didn't put you in a coma or the other telepaths you mentioned before," Shine said. "They were all there."

"Yes...we were too far away, I suppose. Also, more ready to protect ourselves," Emma said.

Shine mused. "It's strange that Scott doesn't remember Jean, then. She's the only one he has not recalled in some capacity. True, because he hasn't seen her, or anyone who looks like her. Though we have pictures, but I suppose only in their room... But if they have this link... Sorry to ask you, but I assume you understand it best, and you're my only source for it. I can't ask him what he won't know. Can you describe it more for me?"

"Of course." Emma was only too glad to have an actual answer on something. "Telepaths can bond with certain people, if they so choose. "

"Yes, Xavier has bonded like that with someone here," Shine interrupted.

"Do you mind?" Emma said.

"Sorry, go on." Shine was quiet.

"It's not that complicated to understand," Emma finished. "Jean and Scott formed a connection through working together as teammates, eventually a romantic connection, built up over the years. It allows them to sense when the other person is in danger, in some way. More for Jean, but I believe it's why Scott couldn't let her go--and began seeing visions of her, asking for help. At some level, she was calling him."

"When did those visions happen?" Shine said. "Because it's strange that they have not happened again, unless the Jean he knows had not yet noticed he's gone. Time can be tricky--that's a possibility, but it's unlikely."

"The visions happened on the job mostly." Emma suddenly looked a little flustered. "Once at home. They were very...real."

"That sounds dangerous," Shine said. "He could tell it wasn't real, right?"

"No, he couldn't," Emma said.

"And...that didn't lead to any problems?" Shine said.

"Oh, no, he almost got killed," Emma said. "One reason I offered what I did...I thought if he went off on his own, like that, he'd be too distracted.... But it seemed to get better after he found the cause."

"I guess it could," Shine said. "Giving it attention.... But that could happen again?"

"It's possible," Emma said. "You are right...it's very odd it hasn't. But perhaps the separation of dimensions prevents it."

"It's true, he's just too far away, maybe, but sometimes these connections can transcend dimensions...especially parallel ones. I wouldn't have ruled it out," Shine mused. "But it's lucky it hasn't happened. That would only add to his problems.... But, Emma, this link sounds like a bad thing to me."

"How so?"

"Um...did you hear what you just said to me?" Shine gave her a look like she was daft. "Causing hallucinations? Distraction? What madness is this? as my friend Diana would say. I love people, but their distress should not be endangering my own sanity just by proxy, Emma. Is this link formed on purpose?"

"I don't think it is exactly, but it can be maintained that way," Emma mused. "Are you concerned about it? In many ways, it was beneficial. Scott had a hard life.... Jean made it all go away...giving him purpose."

"I see," Shine said. "You said that with no irony at all."

"Why would I?" Emma wished she could read her mind; she was being so annoyingly cryptic.

Shine walked around the room they were in, picking up a small replica of some statue, probably belonging to Xavier or Hank.

"You ever read Pygmalion, Emma?" she asked.

"The play My Fair Lady is based on?" Emma said.

"Yes...also the original myth," Shine said. "You can take that myth many ways. One way is quite touching...that love can bring to life even cold stone. The Bible has a verse like that. 'I will cut out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.' It's beautiful.... But outside of the Divine, myths tend to teach us what humans trying to play God actually do.... Without Aphrodite bringing the statue to life, it remains just an image of the perfect woman...an image, nothing more. It's not real. And the thing is, if it became real, she'd have a mind of her own, and it wouldn't be perfect. Real, for us, is not perfect..... You can attach a perfect statue to a pedestal and look up to it and worship it, even, if you like. But a real, living person, they won't be content to stand on a block forever."

She looked up. "It sounds to me like Scott and Jean were a house of cards, and they were going to be knocked down sooner or later, if not by what you did, then by something else. I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Seems like a good thing to me. No one person can give someone else meaning to their life and heal their hurt, and it last forever. I love my husband, more than I love anyone, and I enjoy almost every minute of time together, with a few bumps here and there...because I don't expect him to be like God. Or to take away my problems...just to bear them with me, that's all."

She gave Emma a serious look. "You're not a statue, Emma. No pedestal here. You ever notice your biggest problem is just with being human? On its own--no diamond...no telepathy...nothing? Welcome to what the rest of us deal with all the time.... No offense, but you mutants can be a bit ridiculous about what you think you can handle. Inside, you're the same as the rest of us. Weak. Which is fine. Weak is fine. Weakness becomes strength, sooner or later, if it's tempered....but trying to be strong by being inhuman is, in fact, brittle weakness and is shattered as easily as glass."

She tapped her chin. "Whenever Scott remembers, he ought to see that Jean is no solution to his problems. Which he must ignore about as chronically as you do, I have to say. Both of you are like that. You expect the world to be better than it is, and, not finding it so, you pick a person to pin that on, and you think they're the one who's 'different'.... And some people are very good, don't get me wrong, but they're still just people, you know. You won't find anything real there. You can't really be Pygmalion or Galatea. In my faith, man was made from dust, not stone. We're just dirt, you know...but oddly enough, living things grow out of dirt. They don't grow out of stone, do they?"

She gestured around. "I think I've said enough."

Emma was dead silent, and then she walked out of the room.

* * *

What Shine told Emma did not, in Emma's view, solve her problem at all. It was just a lecture.

And she still didn't know what to do.

But Shine, when she talked it over with Wally, had a different view.

"Did you ever really answer her, though?" Wally asked. "Didn't she want to know more about how to handle things with Scottie?"

He'd adopted the nickname immediately. The hilarious thing was that, unlike their Cyclops, the new Scott didn't mind it at all, apparently. He seemed to find the Star Trek reference flattering, if anything.

"After hearing more, it became clear to me that she won't be able to do a thing until she gets rid of this idea in her head that Scott's idea of everything is so correct," Shine said. "Once I heard about him and Jean's bond, I saw why things feel off. That bond is not normal..."

"Isn't it kind of sweet, though? What's wrong with it?" Wally said.

"Oh, sure." Shine sat cross legged on the bed, facing him and looking intent. "It sounds sweet.... A lot of things sound nice, don't they? But look at the results. It seems it almost drove him mad when she went missing. That's after one year, from what Emma told me before. What if it had been longer? What if she died? Would he be able to handle it...? I remember in the movies he fell apart too. Though I never thought those were that accurate."

"Okay...so why is he fine?" Wally said.

"I gave it some more thought," Shine said. "I think the memory loss is connected to the dimensional separation in another way. Because his and Jean's bond is psionic in nature, it may actually be less like his memory of other people. Probably if Xavier or Emma could stir it up, he'd remember her. But Xavier couldn't find the right memory, since he didn't know what to look for, and Emma's condition prevented her...so that's out. But maybe that's for the best.... If Scott started suffering like that here, with no Jean to alleviate it...he could get himself killed. And now I'm alarmed about what may happen when he does remember. That block may have been a huge blessing in disguise. Once the door is open, he may not have a way to shut it. Jean can't reach him from so far away, I take it, or we could sense her probing also. Rather, the other Psions could...so I guess she can't stir him up. But it could act on its own, just because she's not here."

"Okay, so why hasn't it?" Wally was interested now. "I love it when you get into explaining this stuff. Super hot."

"Wally!" Shine said. "Serious. This is serious."

"I know, I'm just saying," Wally said.

Shine rolled her eyes. "Well thanks, but it's not so great for me, thinking about this potential crisis...on top of the other ones."

"But why?" Wally got more serious.

"I wasn't sure," Shine said. "But Emma was telling me about what he was saying to her...and something about how she was talking about it...just made me suspicious. I think it's because of her."

"How so?" Wally said.

"It seems Emma slowed down the effects of it in the past," Shine said. "Though she herself doesn't seem to realize that was true. Odd how she missed that, but telepaths continuously miss the obvious when it comes to their own powers. I think her trying to help him process it, psionically, was a sort of relief for his mind from Jean's power...just temporarily. And here...well, they have the same predicament, so that's enough of a reason to focus on Emma, not Jean. It's possible it's just enough so that he's not actually trying to remember hard enough for it to come through yet."

"So...are you saying Emma is the only reason Scottie isn't breaking down?" Wally said.

"Knowing our Scott, would you really put it past this one?" Shine said dryly. "He always had to have someone to save to feel at all useful. I believe Scottie may be the same way. Actually, he may be even more that way. I notice he's not as arrogant as the other Scott is. He's not a leader either. He seems smart enough, but he's not that type-A person."

"Yeah, honestly I think I like him better," Wally said.

"Me too...though I do miss the other one, somehow," Shine said. "It's just not the same without him and Jean here...but I digress.... I think so. He has to have someone to protect. Emma's condition makes her vulnerable. Focusing on that is helping him. That's why he hasn't remembered Jean yet...but he will. It's only delaying the inevitable, I'm sure of it, after what she told me."

"And that would be...really, really bad for him," Wally said. 

"Yes...something worse than what Emma is experiencing if he doesn't take steps to alleviate it," Shine said.

"But how could he?" Wally said.

Shine frowned. "I have one idea.... One we could help him with, but I don't know if he'd agree to it. And he'd have to...or it could seriously hurt him if we tried."

"I don't like the sound of that," Wally said.

Shine sighed.

"Wow..." Wally rubbed his head. "This sucks.... How long do you think he has?"

"While Emma absorbs his focus...could be days, maybe weeks, tops," Shine said. "But at some point, he'll remember what happened, since she was a part of all of it, and I'm sure he's going to be furious...and worried about Jean. I see no way for us to prevent that.... Suppressing his memory might do it, but I would never resort to that kind of thing, and I'm afraid to even mention this to Xavier. I think he might, with or without our knowledge."

"Oh, yeah...but he might anyway, then," Wally said. "Scottie might even let him."

"That won't solve anything. It'd undo itself sooner or later, I'm sure," Shine said. "And he'd probably be worse off...but do you think Xavier will listen to us?"

"I don't know, Sunshine. He doesn't always," Wally said. "But I'm with you--it won't fix anything to remove his memory.... Finding Jean would stop it, though, right?"

"Well...it might stop the symptoms," Shine said. "But is that really healthy? Telepaths seem to think just because they can do something with their minds and emotions, that automatically means they should do it. Yes, it's a bond.... Trauma is a bond also. Doesn't mean it's a good one. I'd rather say it's deeply damaging, from personal experience.... Psionic rapport sounds good, up until you realize the other person will literally shut down if their partner is gone. Not sure if it will work that way for Jean.... What's so unfair about it is that a telepath might be able to resist those symptoms, to a degree. But not a regular person."

"So...low risk to Jean, high risk to Scott," Wally said. "Funny...that's not how it worked here."

"Jean's power seems smaller here," Shine said. "And she no longer has The Phoenix.... Do you think we should try to warn Scott? I'm not sure how we could, but it's that or just letting this happen."

"Well...yeah, but warning him might just make it happen sooner," Wally said. "Maybe we'll find answers before then. And how would we even explain how we know this? He'd have to figure Frost told us.... I don't see it ending well that way."

"Yeah, but I hate the idea of doing nothing also," Shine said.

"I know, but...sometimes you just have to let things play out." Wally took her hand. "Just be ready for it, you know? At least we have an idea about it. You can't take care of everyone all the time."

"I know that in my head, but it feels like crap to actually live by it." Shine was bluntly honest.

"You're telling me," Wally said. "But seeing as how both of us try to do it all...maybe we both should just sit it out for a while.... Whenever the feathers hit the fan on this world-merging stuff, we're going to have plenty to do and not get any choice at all about it. We can't just run ourselves ragged trying to stop every problem before it happens."

"No, we can't," Shine agreed somberly. "Just pray.... I feel sorry for Emma, though. She's so proud.... She won't let anyone help her with this. She won't even accept forgiveness. She won't even allow herself the need for it. How long can she take that kind of pressure? No wonder she's losing her grip."

"She'd better just figure that out, then," Wally said. "Nothing else to do until she does. It's too bad that she's so stubborn about it. I feel like she'd be a cool person if she wasn't so stressed. Funny, even."

"Yes...but I guess most of us would be a lot better to hang around if we let go of our ego," Shine said, wryly.

[True dat.]

* * *

Emma half wondered if Shine would just tell Scott the truth on her own, now that she knew so much of it.

Perhaps paranoia came with having all these secrets.

But she soon realized it hadn't happened.

For the couple days of not using her power, she had managed to not have any more episodes of whatever her problem was. Which only proved it was linked to it.

So, she should have stayed out of further activities, the others thought.

But when they decided it was time to finally just go back to Genosha, and that they wouldn't risk waiting any longer, Emma said she was going.

Everyone told her it was a bad idea.

Emma replied that if they didn't let her come, she'd walk to the airport and hop on a plane to it herself--or a boat.

Logan wanted to lock her in one of the rooms for that threat, but the others saw it was useless.

For this venture, they needed a lot of people, they thought, just to have any chance of success, so the kids were given the option to join them.

Jubilee was glad enough to get a chance to get some action finally.

Kitty was more anxious to just get this problem resolved in any way possible. She hated the stress of the situation.

Colossus was happy to join them.

Ryan felt kind of useless...

Kevin would have liked to come, but he was too unstable; they were worried he'd not be able to control his power enough. And totally destroying the island was not their goal.

Scott also insisted he come.

Everyone else wanted to come also.

But it seemed someone would have to guard the house with the remaining kids in it--and Illyana, who was not combat ready but certainly could still get kidnapped.

Xavier would stay home to monitor the situation also.

Hank offered to stay.

Some of the Morlocks with them were pretty powerful, but not anything like what they might need against the kind of attack they'd seen before.

Storm reluctantly said she'd stay. She wanted to go with them, but not many other people had anything near like enough experience to properly guard the kids from something like a rift. She knew basically what to do.

Morph could have stayed also, but he didn't want to miss anything.... Plus...if they did find Blink, at least he knew kind of what she looked like. Though it seemed like a long shot that they'd find anyone they knew...

Still if Genosha was looking for mutants like that...they might find other ones.

Kurt also agreed to come for the reason that they might need backup.

So pretty much everyone, really. The plane was very full.

"Everyone knows the plan?" Shine asked.

"There is no plan," Logan said. "We go in there, we find the people we're lookin' for, and we waste the place."

"I already miss Storm," Shine said.

"De plan is not ta get caught," Gambit offered.

Shine face palmed.

"The plan is to find out where they're keepin' the special mutants and get those mutants out of there," Rogue spoke up finally. "Try not to get caught, at least no more than necessary, and not hurt any innocent humans or other mutants. And...uh, watch out for any more of those awful scary things in the air. The tears."

"Thank you, Rogue," Shine said.

"What if we find someone who might be the one behind this, like Sinister?" Scott said.

"If you're so unfortunate at to find Sinister on Gensoha, tell him I said hi," Shine said. "And of course...alert everyone else."

"So without Storm or Cyclops, you're in charge," Emma said.

"Anyone else want to be?" Shine asked.

No one raised their hands.

"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd all say." Wally was trying not to laugh.

"Hey, it come natural to her ta boss us around. Why mess with it?" Gambit said.

"Aw...so you finally trust me." Shine was touched.

"I don't not trust ya, let's jus' leave it at dat," Gambit said.

"Same thing," Rogue said.

"And we're just about there..." Morph said nervously. "So...I hope the plan made sense to everyone.... Mostly it's just winging it from here."

"Ha ha," Kitty muttered.