Hi everyone. Yes, yet another story that continues my passion for playing with the disintegrating marriage between Scott and Jean. I'm fascinated by infidelity, okay! I tend to find it the most humanising of subjects - that which allows the best explorations of the underlying motives/moral structures/passions of a character. So there.
Many thanks to all of those on the cyc&phoenix group - your help is much appreciated!
Rating: probably R - swear-words again, and definitely adult themes.
Disclaimer: Marvel's. I have no idea how accurate this is in terms of canon, due to my closest comic store closing down which means I'm very behind, but if it isn't possible in canon, call it AU. No money made so no suing allowed!
The Other Woman
Yesterday, I became nothing.
Yesterday, I stopped being Scott Summers' wife and became just another woman he's fucking.
Yesterday, my husband fucked Emma Frost for the first time. And probably the second, third and fourth time but I'd shut down my mind by then. I don't want the details. The big picture's bad enough.
*She* - the cow, the bitch, the slut - made sure I knew about it. She found the link, that long-dormant fucking *link* between Scott and I and she sent her message down it, oh so delicately, oh so triumphantly. Just that, triumph, a stab of triumph in my brain, a brush against the pulse-space, the thought-place where Scott used to live. It was like wine, like flowers, like dancing under the stars. Scott was back, Scott was there, Scott was talking to me again, Scott wanted me again.
Such a drought. Such a fucking *waste*. All that love, all that passion and since he'd come back from Apocalypse we'd just been tearing each other to pieces, laying each other open with the scalpels you get from years of living together, flaying each other and leaving ourselves alone to bleed out our life through the holes in our skin. That's what it felt like, every time he pulled back from our link, what it felt like every time he turned his back on me, what it felt like every time he refused to tell me anything.
I nearly fucked it up. I nearly went to Logan. If he hadn't said no, maybe I would have screwed up my marriage completely. But I didn't, I *didn't* and I kept trying to get my husband back, get back what we had, find the love again. Find Scott again.
He was back. Back in my head. Feeling triumph. He must have won, whatever battle he was in, he must have won. And he wanted me to know about it. Finally, he wanted me to know him again. So I followed it back, chased that tendril of thought back into his brain and that's where I found *her*.
She knew. The instant I touched her, she knew. A smirk, a kiss almost, the brush of telepath against telepath. Just long enough to let me know what they were doing. Just long enough for me to feel the length of him inside of her, filling her. Just long enough for me to feel the heat of his breath against her neck, hear the groans as he thrust hard into her.
He hasn't fucked me like that for months.
He hasn't touched me for months.
RedragepainhatefearpainfearhatehatehatehateHATE
Can't hate. Can't hate. Can't hate.
That's what *she* wants. Wants me to hate him. Wants me to loathe him. She wants him. All to herself.
Bitch.
He can't have known. Known what she would do. Known she was inside his head. He hasn't let me in since Apocalypse. Hasn't let me know anything he's been thinking. Something broke in there, something that Nur changed, turned into something else. Scott thinks he's hidden it from me, but he can't think I don't know why he hasn't let me in since then.
Apocalypse changed him. They were one being, one mind, and I don't know if what came back to me was entirely Scott and he doesn't know either. All I know is that he's so afraid of what's been changed that he won't let me see it.
God, I was Phoenix. She gave me all Her memories, all the things She did when She was me, She made me into part of Herself. I ate a solar system, I killed so many people, I fell into evil, into Evil, and I never shut him out. I let him in, I linked to him, I gave him the key to my pain and despair and I let him heal me.
He shut me out.
Bastard. Bastard. *Bastard*.
He can't have known. Can't have known she would dance through his head, taste the parts of him that were Scott, the parts that were Apocalypse. She's so light, bitch/thief/sneak, so delicate in her touch, he couldn't have known she was in there.
She didn't know Scott.
She'd never been inside his head.
She wouldn't recognise the changed places, wouldn't know what was Apocalypse and what was my husband. She wouldn't try to soothe him, wouldn't try to gentle him, wouldn't try to heal him. She wouldn't be me.
He knew.
He knew she was there.
He wanted her there.
He wanted her to send that message through the link, to touch my mind, to say ~see, here, look what I do, feel what I do, see me betray you, watch inside my head as I screw another woman, this is what's in my head now, this, this experience, this knowledge, it will always be there, if you come in this is what you will see~.
He wants me to stay out of his head.
He wants to have Emma there, the memory of Emma there, the memory of fucking Emma there, a guard, a barrier to keep me out, to stop me ever touching him again. He wants to hide inside his head, hide away the parts that Apocalypse changed, hide away the fear that fills that parts of him that are Scott. He doesn't want anyone, *anyone* to know what he is now.
He's full of pain and hate and fear, full of those things that Apocalypse gave to him.
And he wants to spare me.
Does he think I don't know him at all? Does he think I can't have spent so many years with him and not understand how he thinks? Does he think that under all the things Nur did to him, my Scott, my darling best beloved Scott, isn't still in there?
He wants to drive me away, far away, to make sure I can't be hurt. If the things that Apocalypse changed take over and he isn't Scott any more, he wants to make sure I won't be around to get caught up in the disaster that would be.
*Fuck him*.
He doesn't get to choose.
It's my life. It's my marriage and he doesn't get to choose for me. I vowed in sickness and in health, until death do us part and I'm not giving up on that.
I'm not letting him win.
I'm not letting *her* win.
I'll fight for this marriage and I won't let him drive me away and I will be here for him and one day he'll let me back in and he's going to see how much I love him.
I love him. I love him so much it burns in me, aches in me. I love Scott and I'm going to get him *fucking* back and I'm going to make it better and I'm not going to let him end us.
Do you hear me, Scott? Do you understand? I love you and I am not going to let you do this to me. It isn't bad enough. You can't *make it* bad enough. I'm not going to let you win.
He's back. His footstep on the stairs, the sound of him. He's back and I'm not going to let him know and I am going to beat him and I am going to love him until he lets me back in.
A smile. Radiant, loving, wanting.
'Hello, darling.'
The End
As for the title: if anyone can work out which one of Jean or Emma has become the other woman then you're better at these things than I am <g>.
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