The Covenant

Posted on Sat Jul 25th, 2026 @ 11:42am by Jean Grey-Summers & Cecilia Reyes M.D. & Lorna Dane
Edited on on Sat Jul 25th, 2026 @ 11:47am

2,391 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 0: X Lang Syne
Location: X-Mansion
Timeline: October 19, 1991

“She’s finally asleep,” Lorna said as she gently closed the bedroom door behind her, moving with such care that it seemed even the softest click of the latch might wake the drugged and exhausted Jean on the other side.

“Yeah. Valium will do that to a person,” Cecilia remarked as she reorganized and closed her medical bag. It had been a long and brutally taxing day. The emotional weight of it all, combined with the physical demands of caring for Jean, had left the doctor weary in a way that went beyond simple exhaustion.

“How long will it last?” Lorna asked as she lowered herself onto the worn leather couch in the living room of the private apartment Jean and Scott had moved into after Xavier had fallen ill and entered stasis.

The Professor had been among the most susceptible to the Legacy Virus and when he began showing signs of illness, it had become a call to arms across the mansion and throughout X-Factor in New York City. Everyone had come home and had united around the same desperate goal; to save Charles Xavier from the cruel and unjust fate of death by Legacy's consumption.

In the end, they had not been able to save him but they had managed to buy him more time. It was a precious gift that had not sealed his fate, but had instead filled them all with enough hope to keep going, to keep trying. So rather than mourn Charles as though he were already gone, the X-Men had continued forward with the shared belief that someday, somehow, they would find a way to bring him back.

While the First Class had returned to Westchester during those desperate days, Lorna had remained far away in the hidden city of Kamar Taj, where she was known simply as Mother Askani.

The title had been given to her by the freed slaves and rescued mutants of Limbo, a hellish dimension where Lorna had eventually found her own voice and her own people. Calling themselves Clan Askani, they now guarded the mystical city in the clouds and protected its ancient secrets from the likes of Mr. Sinister and any other villain who dared to reach for its treasures.

Her arrival in Limbo had been brutal but it had also changed everything. There, she had found the lost son of Scott Summers, a child who had been cast into the hell dimension and whom she had raised as her own. To the people of Limbo, he was known as Alaric Thane, Prince of All.

Though Lorna's departure from Earth had lasted only several months by Earth time, time moved differently in Limbo, those weeks had become years. By the time the Askani people were finally freed and permitted to return to Earth, Lorna had become an old woman.

Once, she had been known as Polaris, the youngest and final member of the First Class. Her vivid green hair and mastery of magnetism had made her a bright and refreshing addition to the established team. But those days were long gone now, her hair had turned white and her skin had become lined by a lifetime of surviving in Limbo. Arthritis had begun to creep into her joints, leaving her walking with a slight shuffle.

Time and distance had separated Lorna from the rest of the First Class. To her, they had become memories from a childhood that seemed to belong to another lifetime. But when the sickness spread and the First Class began to fall, she had finally left her people in the clouds to care for the last surviving member of the X-Men, Jean.

“Hopefully until tomorrow morning,” Cecilia answered as she took a seat in the armchair across from Lorna. “She was starting to upset the younger children. I wanted to make sure that at least tonight was peaceful.”

Earlier that day, Scott had finally worsened to the point where it became clear that he would not recover from the Legacy Virus. The disease was a strange and unpredictable villain. It claimed some mutants almost immediately, while others suffered nothing more than a common cold.

Scott had fought it for so long and so hard. He had outlasted every other member of the X-Men until, at last, it had been reduced to just him and Jean, standing together and holding the school steady, then it was his turn to leave.

When the time came to place Scott inside his cryopod, Jean did not merely cry, nor was she filled with simple grief, she snapped and broke.

The sound that came out of her was so raw and devastating that it seemed to tear through the room. She sobbed until she could no longer draw a full breath, each desperate gasp sounding as though her body could not understand how to continue without him.

She had spent her entire adult life learning how to survive impossible things, the death of a child, the loss of friends, the terrible darkness that had lived inside her all with Scott by her side.

Scott had been the person she returned to after every battle. The hand she reached for when the world became too frightening. The voice that reminded her who she was when her own mind became a place she could no longer trust and now he was being taken away from her.

When the psychic bond between them began to fade, Jean felt the connection loosen.The warmth of him retreated from the deepest corners of her mind and then he was gone, Jean crumpled.

Her body folded in on itself as though something vital had been ripped out of her chest. She made a sound that no one in the room would ever forget, a broken, animal cry that carried the unbearable finality of losing the person who had been woven into every part of her life.

It was as though something inside her had died with him, not metaphorically or emotionally, something that was real and essential. A piece of Jean Grey was gone, and there was no way to bring it back.

The power inside her had always been immense, but everyone close to Jean also knew how much of her life had been spent restraining it. Containing the terrible force inside her from hurting the people she loved, but grief had stripped away her ability to hold it back.

Loose objects throughout the mansion rattled and trembled with every gasping sob. A sharp psychic pain stabbed through the minds of everyone nearby as Jean's anguish spilled outward, touching anyone unfortunate enough to be within reach.
And then there was the fire. The most terrifying part of Jean's power was the bird that appeared beside her. A creature of flame, a cosmic presence that had once nearly consumed the world. The Phoenix Force returned to Jean in a manner that had not been seen since the events of Genosha.

Its flames appeared easily now as they crawled across the room and licked at the walls, beautiful and horrifying, carrying enough heat and power to have killed any number of innocent people. Lost in her anguish, Jean did not seem to notice or she simply did not care.

Thankfully, Dr. Reyes had been prepared for this day, she had watched Jean slowly fall apart with every loss suffered by the First Class. She had seen the way each death took something from her and she had known that the day Scott left would be the worst of all.

Now, she hated that she had been right, placing the needle into Jean's neck had been easy. But it had felt wrong to do it, wrong to prevent her from feeling the full depth of her grief. Jean deserved to mourn Scott, she deserved to scream and to fall apart after losing the person she loved most in the world.

But Cecilia had been warned by Charles himself that a telepath losing control was always dangerous. Combined with the astral evil that haunted Jean, the situation had become something far more terrifying than ordinary grief. So when the Valium surged through Jean's veins and her body finally went limp on the floor, Cecilia had told herself that she was doing the right thing.

With Alaric and Lorna's help, they had carried Jean back to her private quarters and it was where they stayed as Jean slipped in and out of consciousness. Cecilia had tried to wake her gently, but every time Jean opened her eyes, she cried. Not softly or quietly, because when Jean returned to consciousness so did the pain. Her sobs tore through her with such force that the air seemed to leave the room. She would wake confused, searching for Scott, and then she would remember he was gone. The realization would hit her all over again and every time it did, Jean would break anew. Cecilia had no choice but to sedate her again and round after round, they went back and forth like two tired boxers.

Sleep.

Wake.

Grief.

Sedation.

Sleep.

Until everyone was exhausted and spent from the toll of a grief this deep.

“Are you going to sleep here tonight?” Lorna asked as she reached for a mug of tea that had gone cold long ago.

“No. I could use some time to myself,” Dr. Reyes replied. Her own mental health was ragged from the day. She needed time alone to collect herself, to breathe, to exist somewhere that did not contain the echo of Jean's sobbing. “But if she wakes up again, I’ll know.”

“That’s fine. I’ll stay here anyway. I’ll stay with her until she’s stable again.” It was an easy decision for Mother Askani, she loved Jean like a sister.

“I just don’t understand how Charles would have allowed this,” Cecilia said. “How he willingly participated in fostering this... this...” She could not find the right word, instead she gestured toward the room where Jean slept. “He knew she was dangerous from the moment he met her as a little girl. Rather than keep us all safe, he thought he could control it all on his own. The world's most powerful telepath, there was hubris in his choice when he decided to hold this tiger by the tail.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” Lorna replied with a touch of compassion that came from caring for a flock of her own people. “Jean was a lost and frightened little girl when he met her. She was ten years old when her mutant abilities appeared, that’s so much younger than most. Are you trying to say you would have locked her away in a stasis chamber then? Refused her the right to recover and live? I know you aren’t that heartless, good doctor.”

“Maybe not, but proceeding without a plan was foolish,” Dr. Reyes continued. “He knew he wouldn’t live forever. He couldn’t keep walling off her mind and denying the monster access to her brain.”

“Give Jean some credit, Cecilia,” Lorna countered. “She is one of the kindest and strongest people I have ever met. For goodness sake, Jean takes spiders outside rather than killing them. I think Charles believed in her. I think he believed in what she was capable of, he wouldn't have continued mentoring her if he didn’t believe she could handle her own fate.”

Dr. Reyes could not help but smile at Lorna's comment. Amidst all the fear and pain, it was still nice to hear someone remain hopeful. “You really do love her, don’t you?”

“She was my big sister once upon a time,” Lorna said as her eyes grew distant with memories of the past. “She taught me how to wear mascara without making my eyes water. She curled my hair before every date. We sang The Bangles together into the handles of our hairbrushes. We grew up together and I watched her fall in love with Scott right in front of my eyes.” Lorna's voice softened. “The two of them have always been inseparable. Jean loved him in ways that healed him, and he believed in her. He was amazed by everything she could do.”

She looked toward the bedroom door. “We all were.”

“So yes, I love her,” Lorna continued. “Because she has loved me too. I can’t fault her for coming undone when her love, her soulmate, was taken away from her. Especially when they had only just begun their lives together.” She paused. “You know she lost a baby a couple of months ago?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Cecilia said softly but she refused to let go of the point that mattered. “But you agree that the Phoenix Force is dangerous?”

“Yes.” Lorna's admission was all Reyes needed to hear.

“So we make a deal. Right here. Right now. If that thing takes over and she stops being Jean, we end it.” Cecilia's voice was firm and resolute. It was not a choice she made lightly but she knew it was the right thing to do. “If the voice inside her head switches from us to we, and then finally to I, it has to be stopped.”

“Or else what?” Lorna asked, she needed to hear the words out loud, she needed to make them real.

“Or else she kills us all.” Cecilia's voice was quiet now. “Not just you and me. Not just this school. The whole planet is at risk. The Phoenix Force promised that at Genosha. It was willing to end us then if the Professor and Scott had not intervened.”

She looked toward Jean's bedroom. “We no longer have those safety measures in place. The two people who could have stopped this are gone now.”

Lorna knew she was right, that was what made the words so painful.

“Yes. Agreed.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth. “But only when the danger is clear and apparent. Give her a chance to mourn and recover. I have faith that she’ll find her feet again.”

“I hope so,” Cecilia said as she rose to stand. She looked once more toward the closed bedroom door. "Not just for our sake but for humanity's.”

- END -

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