leftwithmybones | [For Jean]

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jean

[For Jean]

McCoy is trying to think of anything except 'the last time you tried this, things ended up in a terrible disaster on the proportions of ruining your life'. That really wouldn't behoove anything good. So, instead of dwelling on that, he's turned his attention to cooking greens and as close as he gets to steak on an open-fire, grill made of random pieces of metal lying around.

He's not in anything too fancy. A pair of jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt, sitting around outside his hut and drinking beer, just waiting for her to show up.

Maybe he's gone too far in the direction of casual, but it beats being too anxious and eager about something that he's not exactly sure how to define yet. And yeah, that voice in his head crowing on about how he's a fuck-up isn't exactly a welcome presence at that moment. So he'll take it slow and easy, one thing at a time.

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"Or that are aliens. But if you could manage all three I would be very, very impressed."

As well as a little terrified because while Jean understands botany as a hobby to pass the time, that is taking it to a place that it should not go. But isn't that what people are always doing? Getting themselves into more trouble than they should?

"Good. Not as busy as I'd like to be, but that's normal. How are you?"

"I've seen my fair share of aliens and trust me, it's not just the plants that want to eat you," McCoy advises with a cock of his brow upwards, heading back to where he's got some of the food set up, taking comfort in this at least. "Well, I still live with a logic-crazy roommate. My best friend got married of all things, and I'm still here, existing."

"It never is," Jean replies with a slight shake her head. The last alien people she had a run in didn't want to eat her, but certainly wanted her dead. There isn't much a difference when it ends with you no longer having a pulse.

"Well, you have me. I'm not logic-crazy or married or your best friend, but I have to be good for something. Probably."

McCoy takes a long moment to stare at her, almost in disbelief that she could be anything but incredible. "Trust me, you're better than anything else at the moment," he says before he can filter himself and he clears his throat, a sheepish look on his face. "I just mean, I really like spending time with you."

Biting her lip for a moment before giving into the wide smile that breaks across her face, she looks up at him. It's like being young again, even though she knows she's not really that old. She just feels like it sometimes.

"I like spending time with you too. I mean it."

Well. McCoy ducks his head down and grins, unable to help himself from feeling just a little bit insanely happy and for a second, he really doesn't know what to do about this. "In the interest of full disclosure," he says, glancing up at her. "I've been married before. And divorced. And I have a daughter. But she's not here and neither is the ex."

"If we're playing that game," Jean starts, taking what he has told her in stride. Everyone has someone they've left behind. In her case she has several someones, both here and there and all in different ways.

But honesty never did much harm. It is the lying that causes the pain. "I've been married, divorced, widowed for a little bit of time. My husband isn't here, but the woman he cheated on me with is and the man that I loved for a little while is here as well. I have two sons and a daughter, sort of, but only one is here. So...I think you have more to worry about than I do."

Strangely, after all the things that McCoy's heard and seen, he can deal with this because it's not like he doesn't have his own skeletons. After all, they're not even touching on why he's not allowed to practice medicine in Georgia, anymore.

"After meeting another universe's version of a friend of mine and seeing time-travelling aliens come through black holes, that sounds...normal," he admits, letting out a brief laugh that almost comes across like relief. "I know I'm an idiot for asking, but I feel like I have to. That man, the one you loved. If he's here, why aren't you with him instead of here?"

Jean prefers people to have skeletons. Those with nothing to hide are dangerous. People always underestimate them and she's been here long enough to know that it is even harder to tell without her abilities to fall back on. It has erased her laziness and for that she'll always be grateful.

But of her secrets and skeletons, there is one she is not certain she can ever share. The Phoenix is too dangerous to be let out into the light.

Rolling her eyes slightly, she shrugs. "Because he makes me crazy and I loved him and maybe I still do but it wouldn't have worked. I've done too much to him and I think he's finally starting me back. Besides, sometimes there's just too much history. I am happier this way, truly. Aren't you?"

He glances askance to try and make the instant reaction to that question as hidden as possible because hell, he's not sure he's enjoyed something so much in ages and so when he turns back to her, he's smiling and that's a rarity in itself. "I'm definitely happiest with whatever situation puts you right here having dinner with me instead of anyone else," he says, absolutely clear on that.

"Good. I like to hear that. It would kind of awkward if you weren't. Not that you're being forced into being happy, I just..." Jean trails off, shrugging her shoulders and letting the whole thing go. A deep breath as she runs a hand through her hair, she smiles. "I'm glad. In short."

"Yeah, me too," he reiterates, aware that he probably sounds like a real idiot all of a sudden, but he's busy staring at her and not caring a single goddamn minute. He exhales and debates doing something stupid or serving dinner and plays the safe route. "C'mon, let's eat before we get into the heavy talk again, why don't we?"

"Yeah. Let's. Or else we'll ruin our appetites entirely and waste all of this perfectly good food."

It is like a switch gets flicked and suddenly Jean finds herself in the practical mom mode. She doesn't mean for that to happen, but it does and the only saving grace is that she doesn't start mothering Leonard. With a smile, she shrugged. "And after, you can give me a tour."

He can't help a soft laugh at that, glancing back over his shoulder at the hut. "I have to warn you, it's not much to see," he murmurs, modest as he can be as he serves food onto the plates and hands one out to her. "I mean, the new place will hopefully be something to see, but the old? Wood and shingles."

Taking the plate, she shrugs dismissing any fears he might have with a gesture. "So is my place, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see it. You can learn a lot about a person based on where they live. Whether that is good or bad is something else."

Her own place is nothing to brag about, but she's planted a few flowers in front so there is that at least. Her own personal touch on the place.

"Well, then, does this mean that you're going to be looking at my home to tell whether I'm good or bad?" he asks, slightly wary because hell, he's not sure if he's going to really like the idea of that. Not if the opinion comes out bad, at least.

"Not unless you want me to. I promise to withhold any and all judgments unless asked to make them."

That is the least that Jean can do. It doesn't do any good to judge things. It would just make tonight more stressful and all she wants to do is relax and enjoy it. Just for once.

"Maybe if you give me a little forewarning," he says with just the hint of a smile. "I mean, hell. I've got a noisy nosy cat and an emotionless roommate, so I don't think you're going to think my home is impeccable, of all things."

"Maybe, I am definitely willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Call it my years of teaching experience finally getting to be stretched a little."

Besides she has no room to judge anyone given what it was like back at the Mansion. That aside, Jean isn't willing to trade any of that time away. She just wears it with a little pride. "You don't strike me as a cat person, to be honest."

"The cat and I have a truce," McCoy admits, shaking his head because the situation of how they came to be roommates still amuses him slightly as much as it frustrated him. "I don't like cats. Maybe, once upon a time, I would've let my daughter have a dog, but it's the Island who decided I needed a cat. I let the damn thing bother my roommate more than me."

"I like both. Actually the only pet that I've never really understood would be birds. Even lizards can get some sort of pass from me, but birds...they just make me sad."

It is the fact that they are kept in cages. Jean understands the craving for freedom all too well. To be trapped because someone thought that you were pretty doesn't suit her at all. It seems pointless.

"It's not like you saw many pets, where I worked," McCoy admits as he gets a little more comfortable, like every passing moment brings that to them in their conversation. "I wouldn't feel right seeing them in space, anyway. Space is barely meant for humans, never mind pets."

"You've got that right. All of the times I've been in space it never ended well."

There is a level of knowingness to what she says. Space was where the Phoenix found her, where she and Logan nearly died. Where parts of her life were destroyed bits at a time. "I thought you worked in space? Or did I get that wrong?"

"I worked on a ship, up in space," he admitted, but that wasn't the whole truth. "I mean, I went up there because I barely had anywhere else to go, but I went up there because Jim did. When I was a mess, what I had nothing left, he became my best friend and I wasn't about to let him romp around the universe without a good doctor to patch him up."

"That's kind of sweet." It really was. It wasn't every day that you heard about people who followed others to save their behinds. Of course Jean had done it multiple times, but she knew that her life was not the norm.

"Maybe not the whole part where you had no where else to go, but the other part of it. That's nice."

"Hell, he was my only friend. It's pretty desperate," McCoy admits, setting aside his plate when there's nothing left to be eaten. "I like to think at least there was something not so self-serving in there. Makes me feel better, at least."

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