x_project | Something I Meant To Do

Better late than never, yeah? A few people saw this when I got drunk and wrote this when our internet went down for a bit a couple weeks ago. It's the goodbye I wanted Jennie to have, before Life got in the way. I guess this is something to be filed under fanfic, but I liked it too much not to show it. (And I'm procrastinating this morning like craaaaazy)

The decision crept up on Jennie slowly. It was harder to concentrate while she was in the mansion, doing her best to go about her day to day life and forget all that had happened in May and June. She resumed her normal duties, and Scott continued her tactical training and Ororo her practical classes, but her heart just …wasn't in it anymore. Being groomed to be a leader in the X-Men left her with a sour taste in her mouth. It wasn't that she didn't believe in the dream anymore, or that it was any less worth fighting for, she just wasn't sure if she could take the reins from Scott or Ro if the time came. The events of the spring had shown her how very little she was respected, and in order to be a leader, a good leader, the people you lead had to respect you. Absolutely.

After that spring, after the way Forge had treated her, and the way Marius that had drifted away from her, with Wanda gone and no one else she felt safe enough to talk to, the mansion had stopped feeling like a safe place. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but there was a moment when, staring out at the back quad from the kitchen window with a cup of tea in hand and a secret tearing her up inside, the mansion didn't feel like home anymore. It felt like a burden, a place to be endured, where she wasn't safe from the whispers or the gossip, or safe to be herself. There she was too obnoxious, too loud, too angry, too bitchy. Constantly being told to tone herself down, to behave, to adapt, to fit into a box and pretend.

And she remembered a time when she didn't have to do that, and it hurt.

She still had her wafflehouse buddy in Kevin, and Zanne as a generally available ear, but in light of the intensity of her earlier friendships, and just how badly she had been burned by them, she was too gunshy to nurture those relationships. She was more content to drift away, snap those remaining ties like so much loose thread.

She was growing, changing, becoming something more than what she was. She was growing up, becoming a young woman, and some days she wondered if among her friends and her peers, if she was being allowed to do that. People still stubbornly clung to an image of herself that she was beginning to shed, and constantly being shoved back into that box felt suffocating.

More and more she found herself retreating into her school work. Dance was a place where she could grow. There was no box she needed to be squished into, no behavior she had to watch. When she danced, when she moved, the world felt all right. She felt calm, and safe, and knew she belonged. Here in this world, more and more, was where she belonged. Jennie had long ago stopped questioning those strange twists of fate in her life. Where, had she been in a different place and a different time, even so much as a matter of minutes in fact, that the entire course of her life would have been completely different.

A fight and a night spent on a friend's couch sent her from a small apartment in a stucco box to Westchester, New York and a completely different life.

A layover in Paris that irrevocably damaged her relationship with her best friend, and nearly destroyed all of them.

A dinner with friends that will forever leave her wondering which pieces of herself truly belong to her, and which ones were forced onto her.

A party in a SoHo loft, and a quick cigarette break lead to the meeting of a stranger, who would leave her at her lowest point and show her the true colors of the people she trusted most.

And an afternoon spent in a stuck elevator with just her and a visiting guest artist from London, which lead to an audition, which lead to an invitation and a way for Jennie to have a completely new life.

She believed in fate, and to her, it was the sign she had been waiting for. She had no hesitation in saying yes.

---

The people she told seemed to take it pretty well. Ororo seemed sad but accepting, and Scott, when she talked to him on the phone, was extremely supportive.

"It's your life, make sure you live it in the way that makes you happy," he said. Nathan had given her a list of art exhibits to check out, and a list of people to look up in case she needed any help.

Pete had also given her a list of people who owed him favors, "just in case" as well. Plus the directions to his favorite pub.

Kevin she told during one of the their last wafflehouse nights. She grasped one of his gloved hands and promised him emails every week, and an invitation to come visit her and see the glories that London had to offer.

Crystal, Zanne and Angel threw her a going away party, complete with hideous party decorations, courtesy of Angel, and delicious and tastefully arranged catering from Crystal, and Zanne bringing to champagne. The ladies of the X-Men celebrated with her that night, and she gave them all hugs and promised to be on the next flight out of Heathrow if the world was ever imperiled again.

Mark was met in a small underground club, so as to keep his cover, and they got thoroughly shitfaced and took lots of naughty and fabulous pictures. Jennie promised Mark first dibs on her couch as crash space.

Yana gave her a list of things to organize, and threatened to cut out her liver if she did not email at least once a week.

Her father and his family also took her out to dinner to celebrate, and offered her lodgings with his mother in the family home in London. Jennie politely demurred, saying she would be happier living with the other dancers in her program, but she was grateful to have family close by. Her father she would see every month when he visited on business, and this pleased her greatly. No matter what she decided, or who she was, to Ari Niachos, she still belonged to him and his family.

She and Kyle took one last walk around the property, and told stories about the old days while watching the sunset over a snow bank.

She ate breakfast with Manuel, and he gave her a list of restaurants to try while she was there, and even dragged a promise to visit out of him.

Forge she tried to call, but was never able to get through to anything but his voicemail. Not wanting to say goodbye on a voice message, she left it blank. Maybe one day she would get through to him, but probably not for a long time.

Wanda she had dinner with one last time, and Wanda gave her a bracelet that had once belonged to her mother. "Because you are my sister, forever and always," she said while Jennie discreetly wiped the corners of her eyes so as not to smear her mascara.

Then she was packing, cleaning everything out for the last time. Boxes to be donated, clothes and knickknacks to be given away. Other boxes to be shipped to a new address. And then finally, an empty room with two suitcases. She was leaving as she had come in.

The shuttle took her to JFK, and she stared out at the barren New York landscape as she left Westchester further and further behind. Her stomach hurt and her eyes stung, but she didn't look back. It wasn't home she was leaving, it hadn't been home in a long time.

There had been one final loose thread, one final goodbye she had needed to say. But she couldn't bring herself to say it. Couldn't stand the rejection of it, if he decided not to see her off, or if he didn't seem to care. He knew she was leaving, how could he not? But he hadn't said one word to her, and she didn't approach him. It didn't feel right, to force him to say goodbye.

She'd left him a letter, similar to one he'd left her, years and several lifetimes ago.

Dear Marius,

I honestly don't know where to begin, or what to say really. You were the one with the words, I was just some trashy girl from Las Vegas, who would never amount to anything. Yet for some reason you decided to be my friend. You couldn't have known it, but that meant more to me in my life than anything else. You saw me for me, and you didn't judge me. You didn't treat me like I was stupid, or a pair of tits in a tight t-shirt. I was Jennie, who could be brave, and silly, and irresponsible, and strong, and lovely, and angry, and worth saving.

I'm glad to have known you, and have had you in my life. You saw in me someone worthwhile, and taught me how to look in the mirror and see the same thing. Thank you for that.

You play the fool, and pretend to not be worth of much, and I know your reasons for why you do it. But I also know, deep down, the real reasons as well. I know your guilt, and your shame, and your fear. But you've always been Marius to me, the boy who always meant well but sometimes fell just short of it. I look at you and don't judge, because you are simply yourself, no more and no less.

I want you to know that even though our feelings got tangled up together after that horrible summer, and neither of us could ever properly sort them out again, that I do love you, I think I did before I found you in that Paris airport. You are one of the few people in my life that I deeply cherish, and I think I always will. Doesn't matter how many years we spend not talking, or not even thinking of one another, deep down, you have meant more to me than anyone else I've ever met. You are the first person to ever do that, and I think that means something.

But I'm leaving. My life is not here anymore. More and more, I'm coming to understand that the bonds that I thought were unbreakable, just aren't that strong. Everyone believes I'll come back once this is all over, but I'm not sure if I will. I'm going in search of my home, a place where I feel safe and free to be me, to be the girl you were so certain existed under all that attitude and pain. I'm chasing my dream now, and by God it's so close I can brush it with my fingertips. And going to live my life the best way I know how.

I wish I could say goodbye to you in person, but we both know how busy you are, and how you feel about these things. And even if we do never see or speak again, I do want you to know that you were my very bestest friend. And that I loved you for it.

Be happy Marius. Be well.

-Jennie

All the way through the airport she couldn't stop herself from looking, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would be there. To see her off properly. Like a proper friend. But there was no mop of curly hair to be found, no yellow eyes, and no musical laughter. She would be doing this by herself. As she in her heart knew she would have to.

One last look at the world behind her, still searching, and seeing nothing, she turned and walked through the security gate, onto her new life. Like the last time everything had changed, she was alone and carrying two suitcases and a thimbleful of hope. That maybe things will be different somehow.

Then she was on the plane, with her bags stowed, thinking of a girl sitting in perhaps this same seat, sixteen years old with short hair and ripped fishnets, hitting this tarmac with a bump and leaving her stomach behind. Now she sat, looking at that same runway as it passed her, a young woman twenty-one years of age, long curls tied in a neat bun and toes wiggling in fashionable shoes. How different these girls were, would the first one recognize the other? Would the younger girl believe what she was seeing, who she would become? A girl getting a college education, about to attend a prestigious dance program, one her mother almost attended nearly 30 years before?

How much had changed in the last four years, all the good and the bad, shaping and molding Jennie, preparing her for this flight, and this new life that she was running toward as fast as she could.

The plane left the runway with a bump, and Jennie settled back, determined to not look behind her as New York disappeared.

"World only spins forward," she said, as the plane gained altitude and took her to the next phase of her life.