Running

Charles watched with a small hint of curiosity as Jean entered the study. "What can I do for you today, Jean?"

Jean sat down on the same chair where Harry had sat moments before. Instead of speaking she lifted a hand and along with that hand, a bunch of the papers on his desk floated up instantly.

"It's been getting stronger, alongside my telepathy." She spoke words that would have made most people happy, but not her. "It's getting harder to stop the other's thoughts. I need your help."

Suddenly there was a concern in Charles as she stopped speaking and looked at him with an almost pleading gaze.

"When did this start?" He asked her.

"I woke up to the voices last night. And they've steadily been increasing in volume." She gave him the response he was afraid of.

'It seems that helping Harry with his problem weakened the measures I left in Jean.' He thought to himself as the girl in front of him continued to look at him. He would have to strengthen them again.

Charles tapped the wood of the desk for a while, thinking before making a decision. "Would you let me inside your mind?"

Jean nodded in response and opened her mind for him. The mindscape of a telepath was complicated, like a maze that took time, trial, and error to navigate through. While Harry's mind had something rudimentarily similar, it was nowhere near as complicated as Jean's was.

It took him nearly ten minutes to get to the place where he had restrained the foreign entity within Jean's mind. The locks he had placed were cracked and some chains that had previously been taut were now slack and floating in place without an anchor.

'It's worse than I thought.' The entity had almost broken free from the restraints he had laid down. His recent encounter with Harry had only increased his worries about what this entity was and the repercussions of it being freed.

From what he could remember, this entity was far stronger than the dragon within Harry was. Charles steeled his mind as he concentrated with all his power and reinforced the locks, mended the cracks, and reconnected the chains to their original locations.

He could only silently regret the fact that he wasn't able to do this for Harry too, the dragon was far too integrated with his mind to just lock it away like this.

This was the only way to protect Jean from the entity until she was strong enough to protect herself from its influence. He would have to start training her too. He wouldn't be around forever and the moment he died those measures would disappear.

If that happened before either Harry or Jean were ready, the damage would be catastrophic, both for the individuals themselves and for the relations between mutants and humans. Since two rampaging mutants would do nothing but worsen the humans impressions on mutants.

Charles retracted his mind from Jean's. The reinforcement of the restraints had taken quite a lot out of him, and he felt exhausted and lightheaded. He rubbed his temples as Jean regained her wits, closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate.

A moment later she opened her eyes, and they were filled with gratitude. "Thank you, professor. I can block out the voices again!"

He gave a smile in response as the lightheadedness was slowly transforming into a headache. It seemed that reinforcing the restraints in Jean's mind alongside maintaining them and Harry's defenses were too much for him.

"I'll devise a special training plan for you to manage it if they ever suddenly spike like that again." Charles continued smiling at Jean even as the headache got worse. "You'll have to learn to control them yourself eventually."

Jean looked at him in concern and nodded. "Thank you."

She stood up and made her way out of the study after repeatedly thanking him. And as she left the study and he was left all alone, he couldn't help but rethink his choices once again.

When he had restrained the entity within her mind, he also used the opportunity to seal away specific parts of her memories regarding the accident and her family. Charles had wondered many times if what he had done was the right thing.

Sealing away a part of someone's past. He had wondered many times if it had been an ethical choice, something that had benefitted her. It certainly looked like there wasn't any negative repercussions right now.

The girl had transformed from her former lifeless shell after the accident to the lively girl that lived here now thanks to his choice, but he knew that it wouldn't last.

The restraints would not hold forever. There would come a time where the entity regained its freedom and she regained her memories, yet Charles couldn't predict what the consequences of it would be. Would she hate him? Would she thank him?

He didn't know, and as the headache grew, he stopped thinking about it and tried to focus on the papers in front of him.

/-/

"Jean! Where were you?" Kitty yelled out from across the library, eliciting a bunch of annoyed glares from people reading or studying and a particularly hateful one from the librarian that stalked towards her and gave her a warning.

The warning didn't manage to dampen her mood though, even if she did wait for her to approach the table and sit down before continuing her questioning with a lower voice. "You're late."

"I had a few questions for the professor, sorry." Jean apologized as she took out the homework Miss Ororo had assigned them.

"Is everything okay?" Kitty asked, suddenly concerned for her friend.

"It wasn't anything serious." Jean tried to calm her down. "My powers were just weird for a moment, but the professor helped me control them again."

Kitty seemed relieved. "That's good!" Then she dragged her chair closer to Jean and looked at her homework. "Now, let's finish these fast. I want to do something fun today."

"Okay." Jean smiled and nodded, letting the normalcy of the situation wash away the panic of before away. Hearing familiar voices in her head when she didn't want to was familiar to her, hearing an ancient voice in her head whispering her name was unsettling. It asking for help in freeing itself was scary.

She hadn't ever heard the voice so clearly; it was usually barely a whisper that came by once a month. It was something she had never mentioned to the professor and had hidden away in fear of being labeled as crazy.

A crazy telepath wasn't looked on favorably, even by other mutants. If someone found out about it, she would probably be shipped away to some remote facility. That wasn't something she wanted, and the professor had already helped her suppress the voice even if he didn't know it existed.

She didn't want to be taken from her friends, her family. It was a secret she would tell to no one.

She shook her head and dispelled the thoughts about the voice in her head before focusing on the homework in front of her.

/-/

Harry awoke in the middle of the night, the moonlight shining past the little cracks in the blinds, giving a little light to the otherwise dark interior of his room.

'Well, what am I supposed to do now.' He wondered to himself as he sat up on the bed. The reason he usually refrained from naps was because if he took one, he couldn't get to sleep easily that night.

He stood up, stretched, and picked up the clothes he had thrown to the floor earlier. Harry continued to think on what to do before going to the window and pulling the blinds open, revealing the beautiful starry night sky.

He opened the window and let in the cool night breeze, it was refreshing and as he took a deep breath, he got an idea.

He closed the window and made his way outside his room. Harry quietly made his way across the hall, to the stairs and then out the front doors into the front yard of the mansion. He was careful to be as quiet as possible to avoid waking anyone up.

As he stood on the green grass underneath the starry sky, he took another deep breath. He hadn't taken a midnight run in ages. It was basically impossible to do so during winter and he had been too busy with school in spring to do so. This summer he had a job that took all his energy and left him with nothing to use for the run.

This time, he was feeling quite energetic. Much more so than ever before. The soreness in his muscles were gone, as were the aches that had plagued him earlier. His mind also raced with thoughts, the sluggish sensation that clouded them before was gone.

Harry spent a few moments stretching just in case, as he hadn't really run in quite a while. Maybe he had ran last night, but it was all a blur to him and thinking about it just made him depressed.

There was a gravel road that snaked out from the mansion and was not a part of the main path. Harry guessed that it was the track the group had used earlier today.

He looked around to see if there was anyone around him, and when he saw that there was no one, he got into position to start running.

He put his weight onto his left leg and sprung forth with a speed and force that surprised him.

"Whoa, whoa!" His arms flailed around as he tried to catch his balance after the sudden burst of speed.

He failed miserably as he fell face down into the gravel, his face scraping down into it as his momentum forced him forward. Harry probably skid around a meter into the gravel before the force bled off and he stopped.

For a moment, the night air was filled with muffled groans as Harry placed his hands on the ground next to him and forced himself up.

"Ow, ow, holy fuck that hurts!" Harry cursed as he raised his now bloody face that was matted with pieces of gravel stuck into it. His hands had also suffered a similar fate as he noticed while bringing them up to try and brush the pieces from his face.

He gritted his teeth and brought his right hand to his left one and started picking out pieces of gravel. A few moments of picking later, and most of the gravel had been removed from both his hands and his face. The wounds were also healing at a speed noticeably to the naked eye.

Harry released a sigh as he realized that his goal of running was probably not going to be realized today. At least he wasn't filled with small cuts, though. However, the regeneration did nothing to numb the pain.

"Note taken, shit still hurts me, and it hurts like hell." Harry groaned out into the air as he made a mental note to keep avoiding anything that causes harm. Just for a little moment, just a little, he had thought that it wouldn't hurt like this with his new powers.

How naïve he had been. Harry still had a lot to learn about his powers, it seemed.

Even though his ability to run had been temporarily disabled, it didn't make him turn around. Harry continued to make his way along the gravel road, occasionally trying to get into a light jog before falling down onto the gravel once again.

Each time it happened, it hurt less and there was a smaller number of wounds. After what felt like an eternity of falling into gravel after losing his balance, Harry finally got the hang of his newfound strength.

'So, this is what they meant when they said I adapt and grow.' Harry thought to himself as he could steadily start increasing his speed. 'Amazing.'

He ran a single lap around the gravel road that seemed to loop into itself after a while. Eventually, he started to notice the signs that he was getting sleepy again, so he headed back into the mansion.

As Harry arrived at the beginning of the gravel road, that also conveniently acted as the end point, he noticed that there was a person standing on the grass next to the gravel road. The person didn't seem to pay him any mind as he approached.

As he came closer, he noticed that pebbles of gravel were slowly levitating upwards and circling the figure that became clearer as he neared and the cloud that was covering the moon gave way for light.

The long red hair revealed the figure to be Jean, clothed in the same clothes – which he assumed to be the training clothes here – that she had worn earlier during the day. What she was doing up so late, on which he assumed was a school day, Harry didn't know.

"Morning?" Harry greeted as he neared her. The pebbles dropped down on the grass as she opened her eyes.

"Morning." She replied back, not at all surprised to see him there. "Why are you up so early?"

"I took a long nap." Harry started doing some stretches. "What are you doing here?"

"A long nap?" Jean asked curiously as ignored his latter question. She looked him up and down. "You know you're covered in blood, right?"

Harry turned to look at her with a confused gaze before looking down and seeing that his clothes were indeed quite bloody, and he assumed his hair was stuck to his scalp based on the feelings he received.

"Ah, shit." He sighed as he let his arms hang to his sides and stared into the sky. "These were my only clothes."

Jean smiled in amusement. "You know, most people would be worried about a different thing if they had blood so much blood on their clothes."

"Different personalities, different priorities." Harry looked at her. "Do you know where the showers are? A laundry machine would also be appreciated."

Jean raised an eyebrow in response. "You might want to just get new clothes; we have a lot of spares."

"Alright then, what about the showers?" Harry asked. "I don't exactly know the place yet."

"I know, I can lead you there." She turned around and started walking towards the mansion.

Harry followed after her, wondering why she hadn't asked what he had been doing. Had she seen him coming out? If so, she had also seen his failed attempts at running, how embarrassing.

"I seem to have gained an ability to ruin clothes." He muttered under his breath. "I've ruined more clothes in two days than the last two years."

Jean seemed to have heard him as she gave a cute small laugh. Harry couldn't help the small smile that found its way to his lips.

As they continued walking towards the mansion and what looked to be the best shower Harry had had in years, he couldn't help but think that maybe it wouldn't be all doom and gloom after all.