The Kindness of Forgetting

Posted on Fri Aug 7th, 2026 @ 9:37am by Jean Grey-Summers
Edited on on Fri Aug 7th, 2026 @ 9:45am

2,618 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 8: Shadows Over Avalon
Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Timeline: March 29, 1992

"Yes, I have the diaper bag!" Paul called from the front door toward the back of the house. With a toddler balanced on one hip while two energetic boys darted around his legs, he already looked hopelessly outnumbered yet somehow, he was still smiling.

"I'm just checking!" Sarah called back, grunting as she wrestled with a stubborn bottle of wine. "Have fun."

"When don't we?" Paul laughed. "Enjoy your girls' night."

As Paul was attempting to leave, the older boy tugged on his pant leg and insisted he needed to use the bathroom. Paul sighed dramatically from the child's request, they had all used the bathroom several times already. "I have made terrible life choices."

"You volunteered for all three of them!" Sarah shouted back

"I know!" Paul called back as the front door finally swung shut behind him. His muffled last words were heard inside as he departed with the boys, "That's the worst part!"

For a few minutes, silence settled over the house in a way that felt eerily unfamiliar to it. Leaving the two sister with a brief moment of respite that felt foreign.

Daring to disrupt the peace, Jean smiled as she stared at the closed door. "Gosh... they're getting so big." There was a wistfulness in her voice that most would recognize at being in awe over how quickly kids grow up.

"Well," Sarah said with a crooked grin, "that's what happens when you only visit twice a year."

Jean rolled her eyes. "I live two hours away."

"Exactly." Sarah pointed an accusing finger at her. "Two hours, not another continent."

"I'm busy." Jean replied

"Oh, here we go." Now it was Sarah’s turn to roll her eyes.

"I am." Jean snapped back in a way that was strictly reserved for her sister.

Sarah gave the wine bottle another futile twist before surrendering with an exaggerated sigh.

"Fine. Miss CEO." She handed the bottle to Jean.

With nothing more than a lazy flick of two of Jean's fingers, the cork eased itself free with a soft pop.

Sarah stared at the bottle. "You know..." she mused. "Years later and that is still incredibly annoying."

Jean laughed a little, Sarah always called out her on using her mutant abilities. "It's useful."

"It is cheating." Sarah answered back.

"It is efficient." Jean retorted.

Sarah huffed, "It is cheating efficiently."

"I run a private school," Jean said, smiling as she set the cork aside. "I oversee a corporation, manage a charitable foundation, and apparently spend half my life signing paperwork. Some nights I fall asleep at my desk. So I'll take all the help I can get from my efficient cheating."

Sarah poured them each a generous glass. "And yet, you use it to magically open wine."

"It's about priorities." Jean laughed.

"I like that answer." She handed Jean a glass before flopping onto the saggy, soft couch in her living room. "Or..." Sarah said with a mischievous smirk. "We can ditch the wine, throw on something scandalous, and go find a bar."

Jean raised an eyebrow. "You already evicted your husband and children."

"I know but the house is quiet and it feels suspicious." Sarah said while looking towards the staircase, half expecting to hear a crash or screaming at any moment.

"I'm okay here." Jean said in a weary tone as she took a seat next to her older sister on the couch. She winced slightly as she settled before plucking out a wooden train that had been stuff between the cushions.

Sarah looked at her over the rim of her glass. "Jean..."

"What?" Jean defensively shrugged.

"You've been eighty years old since you were twelve." Sarah teased.

Jean laughed. "I am not."

"You organized your crayons by color." Sarah commented on Jean's perpetually dull behavior.

"I was six." Jean replied, "And you even said that the box looked nice when I was finished."

Sarah couldn't help but continued, "You labeled your bookshelf."

"I liked books." Jean said before taking a sip from her glass, "Plus it's so much easier to find something when it has a designated space.

"You folded your socks." Sarah was just picking on her now, "And I bet your underwear is color coordinated."

"They fit better in the drawer." Jean responded but refused to comment on the current state of her undergarments.

Sarah pointed triumphantly one of Jean's bra straps that had slipped off her shoulder. "Case in point."

Jean couldn't help smiling as she corrected the strap. "I'm just... more of a homebody."

"You're a square." Sarah snorted.

Jean huffed from her sister's description of her. "I prefer peaceful."

"I prefer boring." Sarah quickly replied, still a little annoyed that they would not be going out tonight.

"I'm married." Jean retorted, as if that was enough to justify her choice to stay home.

"So?” Sarah quickly answered.

"I don't need strangers buying me drinks." Jean said with a touch of irritation.

Sarah waved dismissively. "You're not dead."

"I'm serious." Jean snorted into her wine.

"So am I. A little harmless attention is good for the ego. Wait until you've had a kid, when someone calls you pretty at the grocery store, you'll ride that high for a week." Sarah said before taking a drink from her glass, "Just give it a few years and you'll see that I'm right."

The smile slipped from Jean's face almost as soon as the words left her sister’s mouth. Her green eyes settled on the wine in her glass as she attempted to hide how sensitive of a nerve Sarah's comments had struck. The future Jean had dreamed of, and the reality she was living in, were two very different things and it was hard for to pretend like she wasn't disappointed.

Sarah's expression softened immediately, she felt bad that she had upset her little sister. "...Hey."

Jean didn't answer.

"Scott's coming home." Sarah offered.

Jean nodded her head in somber agreement, "I know."

"You do." The older sister confirmed in an attempt to restore Jean's hope and optimism. Jean had always had a sunny disposition, so when clouds lingered over her head, it felt wrong.

"I have to believe that." Jean’s voice was quiet now. "Because if I let myself believe anything else..." She swallowed hard. "I don't know who I'd be."

Sarah reached out and took her hand. "He's coming back."

Jean nodded faintly. "I tell everyone else it'll be okay." She stared into her wine. "The students. The faculty. The residents... His son... I tell them to have hope, to trust me, and that everything is under control."

Jean gave a hollow laugh. "The truth is... I haven't felt in control for months."

The confession hung between them. A lack of control was a very scary thing for a telepath to admit to and it created an uneasy tension in the room as both the sisters remembered what it was like when Jean had little control over her abilities.

"I'm running a school full of frightened kids who look to me like I have all the answers. I'm responsible for a hospital. A company. A charity. Every week someone drops another stack of financial reports on my desk and expects me to understand them." The redhead shook her head. "A year ago I didn't even know what a Q-10 report was. Now I'm expected to approve budgets, navigate tax exemptions, negotiate with lawyers, reassure donors..."

Jean exhaled slowly but it felt like she couldn't stop talking now that the dam had broken.

"And then there are the X-Men." Her grip tightened around the stem of her glass. "Cerebro never really stops. Every time I put it on, I hear people crying for help. Thousands of minds. Children afraid of powers they don't understand. Mutants hiding from people who want them dead. Sometimes I find them... sometimes I don't."

Sarah listened without interrupting. When Jean was a little girl, the weight of her telepathy had crushed her spirit to the point where the entire Grey family worried about her future. It had only been when Charles Xavier came into her life that things had improved and now that Jean's mentor was gone, it placed a whole different strain on the telepath.

"And every time someone knocks on my office door..." Jean continued, "...I wonder if they're bringing me another body to shelter." Her voice cracked. "Or another mutant who's been attacked. "Jean looked exhausted. "I'm supposed to be Charles now." She laughed in defeat. "I'm not Charles."

She paused and another long moment of silence filled the house but now it felt eerie for completely different reasons.

"I'm lonely," Jean admitted. "So unbelievably lonely."

She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block out the memories of her husband and Sarah watched her wince from the pain that thinking of Scott created inside of Jean.

"I haven't slept beside my husband in months. I haven't been held. I haven't kissed him. I miss the stupid little things... like arguing over whose turn it is to make coffee. Falling asleep with my feet on his lap. Waking up next to someone who makes me feel like everything is going to be okay."

Jean wiped at one eye before the tear could fall and Sarah watched as her expression darkened.

"At night the nightmares come." Her voice became almost a whisper. "I dream about Sinister. About what he did to me... about what he could still do. I wake up soaked in sweat because for a few seconds I can't tell if I'm still dreaming."

It had been Scott that had saved her from Sinister's grasp, he had refused to give up and had gambled on a lot of radical guesses in order to find her. Without him, Jean wasn't sure she would escape Sinister again. The idea of going back to that lab made her blood run cold.

"I have to scream into my pillow because I don't want the students hearing me.” Because without Scott, it was only the merciful exhaustion that followed the terror that would eventually soothe her back to sleep.

Jean took another long sip of wine. "And when I'm at my weakest..." She hesitated. "The Phoenix starts talking."

Sarah stiffened from that confession.

"It whispers that it could make all of this stop." Jean's voice was almost ashamed. "It tells me I don't have to carry any of it anymore. That grief and fear are optional. That I could burn away every memory that hurts."

Jean closed her eyes. "And some nights..." The words barely escaped her lips. "...that sounds so tempting."

Sarah squeezed her hand tighter in response to the out pouring of emotion from her sister. "That's why you have me."

Jean looked up at her but there was no solace in her eyes.

"You have Mom. Dad. Me. You don't have to carry all of this by yourself." Sarah reassured her

A sad smile crossed Jean's face. "I wish that were true."

"What do you mean?" Sarah's brown knitted in concern from her sister's words

"The hard part..." Jean looked down. "...is that you never remember our conversations."

Sarah frowned now that she understood what Jean was saying. "...Jean." She shook her head, "You wouldn't..."

"I always have." Jean's voice was full of regret. "The Professor and I decided years ago that it was safer this way."

Sarah seemed to be wounded by this information, as if it was the first time she had ever heard it. "How many times?"

Jean couldn't meet her eyes. "More than I'd like to admit."

"And how many times have I asked you that exact question?" Sarah dared to ask as distrust and upset caused the tone of her voice to change.

Jean remained silent.

Sarah's hurt turned to anger as she shook her head in disbelief. "You don't get to make that decision for us."

"I know." Jean looked away.

"No, Jean. You don't." Sarah said firmly. "You can't do that to people, you can do that to the people that you love!"

"I have to," Jean whispered. "If you remembered everything I've told you... everything you know about me... about the X-Men..." She looked up, tears welling in her eyes. "...people would use you to get to me."

Jean’s voice broke. "They'd hurt Paul… The boys… Mom… Dad… I couldn't live with that."

For several long moments, neither sister spoke. The silence settled heavily between them, and Jean felt the crushing weight of the life she had chosen, not only for herself, but for everyone who loved her. Being one of the X-Men meant accepting that she might die for a cause she believed in. That was a choice she had made willingly. It was never fair to expect the people she loved to shoulder that burden alongside her.

Long before she had ever called herself Marvel Girl, Jean had understood that the safest way to protect her family was to keep them at arm's length. Secrets created distance, but distance kept them alive. Professor Xavier had lived by the same painful philosophy, and over the years she had come to understand why. Loving someone sometimes meant denying them the truth, even when that truth begged to be shared.

Most days, Jean could live with that decision. She could convince herself that every omission, every half-truth, every carefully crafted lie served a greater purpose. But then came moments like this, when the cost of those choices stood before her in the eyes of someone she loved. In those moments, the conviction that had carried her through countless battles gave way to guilt, and she was forced to confront the cruel reality that saving her family from the dangers of her world meant allowing them to believe they had never truly known her at all.

Jean looked at her with quiet apology. "I'm sorry."

Sarah set down her wine glass and wrapped her little sister in a tight embrace.

Neither of them spoke for a very long time. Despite how angry Sarah had been with Jean there was a unspoken understanding between them because deep down Sarah knew why Jean had made these choices. She didn't like them but she understood them and she felt the weight her sister carried when she finally confessed everything to her. It was a heavy burden but sharing it put everyone's life in danger.

"I'm sorry too, and I really wish things could have been easier for you and better for all of us. Annie's death was a tragedy that changed everything for so many people. But I also know that you probably would have ended up somewhere much worse without the Professor. The things you do are brave and hard, I see that and I understand that. I just wish I could do more to stop my baby sister from hurting."

Jean finally let a few tears roll down her face as she listened to Sarah's word. "Thank you for understanding."

After a few moments of comfort in her sister's arm, Jean sighed and let go of Sarah before her eyes narrowed in a moment of calculated, telepathic concentration.

Sarah blinked slowly before she looking down at the wine glass on the coffee table as though she was confused about how it had ended up there.

"Oh." She frowned thoughtfully. "What was I saying?"

Jean managed a small smile despite the tears still clinging to her lashes. "You were trying to convince me to go to a bar."

Sarah brightened. "Right! Are you sure you don't want to?"

Jean settled back into the couch, her smile tired but genuine. "No." She lifted her glass. "I'm happy right here."

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