11 Ashes of the Mind – Part 1

Jacob looked on and quietly waited as Jean settled into the chaise lounge, from what he could tell she was visibly nervous, though she looked more relaxed as she got comfortable on the lounge. He gave her a few seconds to get comfortable before speaking up.

Honestly, he started to understand why therapists liked to have clip boards in their hands, or coffee's...or rather anything. Just sitting there and trying to give off a calm feeling was making him want to twiddle his thumbs, or play with the tablet hanging in front of him.

He settled on crossing his legs and steeping his hands in the meantime. Giving out a calm smile that he hoped set her at ease, he made sure to make eye contact before speaking.

"Miss's Grey, or would you prefer if I call you Jean?..."

He left the question open, hoping to get the conversation started. Once she started talking, Jacob knew, or at least hoped it would make every other interaction smoother, so far she hadn't said anything.

"Ah.. Y-yes, please call me Jean."

His hopes were to be answered in this case as Jean's shoulders relaxed as she spoke up. The smile on Jacob's face widened a smidge as he gave a nod in confirmation and quickly moved on.

"Well as I said before, Jean, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I know I didn't start off on the best foot the other day, I was under a lot of stress at the time and sort of snapped..." Flashing her an embarrassed look for a second, one that many people, especially those doing exams in school could understand he continued with a disarming smile.

"...But I was hoping you could forgive this mistake and not hold any grudges." Jacob looked apologetic as he finished his words and truth be told he was. He was under a lot of stress the day the CONSOL App appeared, and thinking that his friends were messing with him he had, in retrospect lashed out at the people in the chat group.

The fact that it had so deeply affected someone like Jean, brought a certain amount of guilt that he wanted to air out at the start of the session.

At the same time, he wasn't stupid. Jacob was a man that wanted to go into business as a manager, and to be a manager you needed certain social skills. By bringing this up now and hopefully resolving any issue that might have been caused he would make the rest of the session easier and make Jean more open to conversation.

At the same time, he was making himself more human in her eyes. Yes, she had the telekinetic abilities and telepathic abilities, but he was the one sitting in an impossible position of knowing her future and being able to bring her to the therapy room.

He could be a god or transcendent being for all she knew. By making himself more human, he was lowering her mental hang-ups to talk to such a being.

Was it manipulative....

Maybe.

But if he meant his words, did it really matter?

Jean herself was surprised, she herself hadn't thought about the chat message outside of worrying about what information it contained. At the same time, she could hear sincerity in the Counselors voice. Though she had so many bad things happen to her over the last day, in the end she couldn't truly blame the Counselor.

The information in the chat was.... harrowing, but so far had only made her actually start to question some of the things in life she had taken for granted, or never really thought about too hard. It didn't make the information untrue, or make him the villain.

Being in a calmer state of mind than the last few hours, she critically analyzed her thoughts on the matter before giving her decision.

"Ok, I forgive you." Jean saw the dazzling smile that appeared on Jacob's face after her words and couldn't help but smile back, she meant her words. Also knowing this fact, Jacob finally wanted to move onto what the session was truly about, Jean herself.

'Though...'

He stopped himself, it was better to tell her a few things about the therapy room so she doesn't get surprised later.

"Thank you. Well, before we start your session, I guess there are a few things I should inform you about." Jean raised an eyebrow in question as Jacob motioned around the room.

"First, you are currently in the therapy room. This is where all the therapy sessions will be held..." A mischievous smile came to his lips and his eyes twinkled, heightening the mood and making Jean relax even more.

"...Don't worry though if you don't like the room. I can change it at any time..." With a quick tap of the environment feature Jacob quickly thought of a high rise building in Melbourne. He personally hadn't been to Newyork or any of the big American cities before, but he had been to Melbourne in his own country of Australia.

The room didn't even ripple around them. One second, they were in a cabin house by the beach side, the next they were in a high-rise apartment, overlooking the city. The penthouse windows wide and clear, showing off a beautiful day and the other building below.

Jean's eyes widened in surprise as she sat up from the lounge, before she thought about all the other crazy things she usually deals with in her life and calmed down again. With another quick press they were back in the log cabin, Jean's smile returning as the sound of waves crashing in the background returned.

Jacob noticed the smile and decided to leave it on this setting for now.

"Secondly, the therapy room is an independent dimension, I don't think I have to explain what that means..." Hearing the question in his tone, Jean responded after a few seconds as she realized exactly what that meant, shaking her head in mute shock. Her and the x-men had done some crazy things in the past, but she had never been to a different dimension before.

'And all of this was for a therapy session???'

"Good! Now in the therapy room, I want to get this point across, there can be no violence." With a chipper voice his eyes locked onto hers intently as he tried to get this point across.

"None whatsoever. The admin wants the therapy room to feel safe, so there can be no violence here, even from myself."

"None?" Jean asked in shock.

"None." Jacob confirmed.

"At the same time, you can't use any of your abilities. I don't know if you have tried already but your telepathy and telekinesis are both unusable here." Jean furrowed her brows at those words. She had tried to read his mind when she first came into the therapy room, but attributed the fact she couldn't to his own mental ability, or control of the room.

Raising her hand to the side, she tried to call one of the paintings off the wall and realized that he was telling the truth, she couldn't feel the usual pull of her powers coursing through her, or the weight of the object she was trying to move.

At the realization that her powers were gone she couldn't help but feel a spike of terror go through her mind.

She was powerless.

'I guess that was why he said there could be no violence here.'

Her mind quickly worked through all possible scenarios as she calmed down. Not having her powers, was scarier than she realized. To be in the room with a man, in any situation without her powers put her on edge, just on principle.

Sure, she wasn't any damsel in distress, she had trained in hand-to-hand combat, but it still wasn't a good feeling and the counselor was...

Well she didn't know what he was.... he did look human though.

The sense of security with her powers, was gone.

Jacob gave her a small amount of time to settle her thoughts before continuing.

"At the same time, it blocks out any outside influences on the mind as well as calms you down. It doesn't control your mind I reiterate; it just calms you."

'That explains a few things... is that why I'm so calm?... also, the voice isn't speaking in my head anymore... will it come back when I leave here?'

Seeing that she had nothing to say, Jacob finished the introduction.

"Finally, if you are worried at any point, please remember that you can exit at any time by using the CONSOL app on your phone. The session will last 6 hours..."

Jean calmed down tremendously as she silently pulled out her phone and opened the CONSOL app, seeing the small x button that was on the screen to exit the therapy room set her at ease. Though she had no true thoughts of leaving before she got some answers.

It was when he mentioned that the session would last nearly 6 hours that she wanted to speak up. She couldn't be gone for 6 hours! Everyone at the institute would notice her missing, it would be a huge disaster! She didn't even know how to begin with explaining where she was and what problems she had.

Before she could interrupt though she heard the rest of the sentence.

"... But each hour in here is only 10 minutes outside. The session will finish in 1 hour. Your body on the outside will be in a sleeping state for the period."

Jean almost wanted to berate herself from getting worked up so many times. Her emotions had been a roller coaster as she took in all the new information and wonders before her. First and foremost, she was in a different dimension!

'How does one get over this fact?'

Follow that up with the supposed powers of the CONSOL app, being able to control time! It was a little much.

Once again seeing that Jean hadn't responded, Jacob frowned in thought. He wasn't a psychologist, he was not bad at social interaction, but he wasn't equipped with the best tools to deal with people's mental problems.

He had hoped that by introducing her to a few of the therapy room abilities he would help her open up to him. But she had been unresponsive, well verbally anyways. She had physically responded. But she had been quiet and thinking to herself a lot.

'Maybe I have given her too much information?'

The thought popped into his head. He was new at the gig and was already thinking about how to possibly make the process smoother in the future.

But he only let his mind wander for a second. He still had to guide and generally stay in control of the situation in the room. He only had so much time and couldn't waste it. Wanting to move the conversation on and get into the true session Jacob got Jean's attention again before continuing.

"Well, we have wasted enough time on all the formal introduction to the therapy room and necessities of the session, it's finally time to actually talk about you." That grabbed Jean's attention immediately, as her mind focused back in on the Counselor. There was a kind look in his eyes, his voice soothing as he relaxed into his comfy leather chair.

"So Jean, what would you like to talk about?" Jean was stunned by the question. She was so stunned that she actually repeated the words back.

"What do I want to talk about?" Jacob gave a small laugh, one that wasn't ridiculing or anything like that, it was more playful in nature.

"Yes, this is Your therapy session; I will be helping You deal with issues in your life. So, I need to know what you would like to talk about."

It was as those words dropped that Jean's anxiety increased. She had been distracting herself from what had been happening outside, focusing on every weird thing that had been introduced by the Counselor. But now that she thought of them again...her worries... her fears... the can of worms that were opened when she started to question those, she had implicit trust in up till that point...

Her heat beat sped up as her anxiety began to rise, though almost instantly she felt her mind try and calm down, her body relaxing back into the chaise lounge.

'That voice that talked in her head, the fact the professor might have messed with her mind.'

Her mind whirled with worries, it was all too much to bear and she knew that once she left this 'therapy room' the voice would start all over again.

She didn't want that.

Even though that was the case the first words that came out of her mouth had nothing to do with those worries.

"I wanted to know what you meant when you said my husband cheated on me?"

It really had nothing to do with the terrors that haunted her mind; the ones that had started to consume her life, but at that moment she wanted to put those off, avoid them for as long as she could. She knew she couldn't keep it up forever, and that this whole session was brought about by those questions, but she just didn't want... didn't want to deal with them right away.

Jacob kept a calm smile on his face as he quickly figured out what was going on. He also didn't expect that would be her first question, but knew what she was trying to do, everyone liked putting off untill it was the last minute.

It was human nature.

Though because she had asked about it, he would explain it to her and do his best to help her when they did get to the real heavy topics.

Exaggerating it just a little to lighten the mood he spoke up.

"Ahh you started off with the hardest question to explain right from the start."

These were not the words Jean was expecting, she expected this would be one of the easiest to answer, not the hardest!

"Well, I guess the first thing I have to bring up is the multiverse theory. Do you know what that is?"

**************

End Notes:

Sorry if this feels a bit like filler, but I was writing the chapter and it just ballooned so much, that by this point I have to cut it in two. Next chapter will be the focus of the session, with it delving into the Pheonix, Jean's future, Scott and Emma's Psychic affair and how she reacts and deals with all this information.

I did think this was a good chapter still, as it deals with Jacob not knowing what he's doing, and maybe refining how he does stuff in the future, as well as importantly introducing the therapy room mechanics to Jean. (Yes, it is a repeat of information, but I feel it needs to happen once, and then skipped with the others or changed so that each character reacts differently to the information their given. I stand by saying this is a necessary chapter, but do feel a little bad as not much happened.)