Charmed Checkup [open]

Coming back from the dead was never easy. The simple fact that Jean could speak with experience, and the ability to measure one such instance against several others, was depressing enough. Beyond all previous examples, this had been the most difficult on Jean. Rather than anything else imaginable, the ordeal was the hardest to cope with because of the change that one had to accept. That people, places, the world itself had developed and pressed on while she was lost in the infinite pocket of the White Hot Room to atone for the Force's sins.

Change was necessary. Jean knew that. She was intelligent; a doctor; learned' a woman of science. That was a fact. The X-Gene wouldn't have developed if change wasn't a constant in the world. That fact did little to console her, however. The first instance where Jean had returned from supposed death, she had felt was dramatic and complex enough. What with the Phoenix Force having taken her place when she lay in a psionic cocoon, healing at the bottom of a bay.

Not only had the Force become deluded, thinking she were Jean, but the entity had corrupted and wrought untold chaos, death and destruction on the earth and Jean's friends with her face before being killed. Then there was the fact that Mister Sinister had fashioned a clone of Jean who did the same to try to take her place, Madelyn Pryor. Jean had returned only to see that Scott had moved on, her friends had grown, the world had changed, all without her.

Those changes had been intense. Not as intense as this time, though.

Scott had moved on, this time to Emma Frost. Few knew the truth, but Jean had actually prompted him to make that move from the White Hot Room. The man had her heart, but he had sacrificed too much of his life waiting for her. Mourning for her. He deserved the chance to live, and all Jean had ever done was die on him. That development alone had been one of the easiest to make her peace with.

What had happened to the X-Men was a different story. The events of M-Day, circulating around the Scarlet Witch. Scott's journey into apathy. And, above all else, the Phoenix Force's role played most recently in unraveling the world at the seams, as it had always done. This time, it had taken five hosts instead of one, and it had done just as much evil through them. Corrupted them. Driven them to do unspeakable things.

An image of Charles' grave flashed through her head.

Jean and the Force were more closely knit than many understood. Her soul, her being, was the perfect vessel for the Force. They were one in some ways, and completely separate in others. The short of it was that, when Jean came back this time, things were even more askew. Beyond what had happened to her family, her soul mate, or her species of mutants, what the Force had wrought most recently proved to be the greatest hurdle to jump.

Given all that had happened, and how fresh it all was, certain measures had to be taken that she hadn't had to address in the past. It hadn't taken long at all for individuals beyond the X-Men to know of her fate. SHIELD and members of the Avengers foremost. Thankfully, what had happened to Wanda when she was in a similar situation helped give Jean and her friends foresight. They convened a meeting before anything disastrous could befall.

With leading figures of the X-Men, Avengers and SHIELD present, Jean's fate had been decided. Debate, argument and harsh words had gone on for hours, blows had nearly been dealt several times, and there were several points where she couldn't fathom anything good coming out of it. All the while, Jean remained silent unless directly spoken to. Until, at the climax of the entire communion, she had finally tired of not having a say in her fate. Then she spoke up.

Marvel Girl liked to think that her outspokenness had helped things work out for the better. At the very least, repulsor beams had cooled down, claws had been sheathed, guns had been holstered and the atmosphere calmed afterwards. Finally, it was decided. Jean was a potential threat, but she gave no inclination of being hostile. Since the Phoenix Five, the Force had been remote, if not entirely estranged from her.

Jean would spend a good deal of time in the foreseeable future being put under a magnifying glass by the three groups that had met. And each - it had been decided - would have full disclosure of what had transpired, what had been discovered and what methods had been taken in the checkups of all the others. Marvel Girl had been glad to have something to focus on. Beside herself, and how she would move on now.

She had expected to be in transit more often, honestly. In truth, Jean had only spent a few solid hours every week at Avengers Tower, even less at SHIELD HQ (they didn't want her aboard the helicarrier yet). No, the majority of her time had been spent in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Apparently Doctor Strange represented some form of even ground between the Avengers and SHIELD. They both respected him enough to keep him at his word, and knew that his methods would be the most expansive.

Marvel Girl had grown to know Stephen very well. Sometimes standing in a glowing circle of runes as he evoked incantations over her, sometimes in the recesses of her mind as nothing but astral phantoms, and sometimes just over a cup of tea. Jean felt like everything was going well. She felt more comfortable testing her limitations with the power of Doctor Strange bent over her in case something went wrong. And, thus far, nothing had. Her hours at the Sanctum could only remove her mind from the other problems in her life so well, though.

Jean stood on the pavement before the condemned building at her back that was the glamour to disguise Stephen's home. Her shoulder-length red locks swirled in the strong, brisk breeze, intermingling with the pale gold scarf around her neck that rippled away from her. Marvel Girl almost wanted to turn around and seek refuge back inside the expansive mystical mansion. Only, she knew that Stephen was in another dimension - something to do with Clea - and would not return until the following day.