A/N: This isn't a new story; I wrote it last winter and am posting it here now for the sake of having all my X-Men fanfic in one place.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Fox and Marvel, not to me.

The first thing that registered in Jean's mind was that she was not holding the fires of creation in the palm of her had; all she was clutching were handfuls of her newly cropped red hair. The second thing was that Scott was calling her name urgently; sometime during the night, she had twisted from his embrace. When she tried to answer him, the words scraped against the inside of a throat that felt like it had been set aflame. On the bedside table, the glowing red numbers on their clock radio changed from 1:41 to 1:42.

Jean, answer me.

The last time he had whispered those exact words so urgently, so lovingly, was... last February, when she'd used Cerebro to track Magneto's Brotherhood. At this moment, she was reminded all too well of the sensations that came with the experience: An unstoppable, unconquerable rush of sounds an images assaulting her mind with bruising force, that had vanished as quickly as they'd arrived, dragging from her all vital energy like foam on the withdrawing tide.

His arms were around her again, and he was chanting, It's okay, honey, it's okay, it was just a bad dream, you're fine now. Yet something in his voice made her sit up at last, surveying the room around them. Her dresser had swung outward from the wall, and a couple chairs had been knocked over. I don't think it was, she said as bracingly as she could.

Has this ever happened before?You'd know. It hasn't for...a while. She shook her head, trying to clear it of something she couldn't name in the first place. And it won't happen again. I'm all right.You're sure.I'm sure. She lifted her chin and murmured the words between her lips and into his mind, infusing the spaces where their thoughts touched with the strength she'd been trying to recall before. Thanks for being there.

He fell asleep half an hour later, give or take, and after half again that length of time listening to his rhythmic breathing, steady and achingly peaceful, she wriggled carefully out of their bed and donned her robe and the Elmo slippers that Hank had given her two Christmases ago. Not quite aware of exactly where she was going, she padded down the carpeted stairs to the ground floor and ended up just outside the brightly lit -- and anything-but-silent -- kitchen.

She identified the voices easily; they were discussing the fine points of either a video game from bygone days or a Danger Room session that Jean would have to be mad to let them execute. She stepped into view with what she thought was a rather impressive under the circumstances.

Bobby's head jerked up guiltily, as if he and John had been caught in a frenzy of passion on that very table instead of facing each other across it while they made fast work of a carton of ice cream apiece. It was something of a nocturnal pastime for the two of them, reserved for exam time and what passed for commiseration over personal crises between these two. Then a moment of awkward silence, owing mostly to the setup of a pair of young male students cornered by a female teacher wearing her night dress and bathrobe and those ludicrous slippers. When he saw that she looked neither angry nor as embarrassed as he was, his face relaxed into an expression of mere sheepishness, and he waved his spoon at her. Hey there, Dr. Grey. What are you doing up?

Of all the students, she thought Bobby might be the most sympathetic, but of course she only replied, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to make some tea. And yourselves?Sleep? Us? A shrug from John. Ice cream craving. More unresistable than mind control. Bobby corrected him.

It's irresistible, not unresistable, Jean elaborated automatically, reaching into a topmost cabinet and trying to ignore the way her skin had prickled at the mention of mind control. She did manage, And how would you know that, Mr. Allardyce? Bobby sounded both skeptical and awed. How would you know?

John gave what he apparently thought was an enigmatic smile. Dude, if I told you that, you'd be next. Catching Jean's eye, he held up his carton. Phish Food?No, thank you. She filled the kettle with water and let their rising, intertwining voices serve as background music for the simple task. By the time she had busied herself with brewing and stirring, the conversation had shifted from video games to movies, in the form of their nearly endless debate over which was the best of the Jay and Silent Bob saga. Knowing full well that this could go on for quite a while, she cleared her throat, checking herself to make sure the shakes had passed again before speaking. (Why was she so jumpy tonight? Was it the mini-earthquake in her room, the nightmare she could barely even remember, or both? What would be frightening enough that she could actually let on that she was frightened?) Both of you should think about going to bed soon.No classes tomorrow, John pointed out. I mean, um, today.

Two pairs of eyes rolled, two were mumbled, and she turned and walked back the way she'd entered. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy their company; they had been there longer than almost any of the younger generation, and Bobby, at least, was practically a shoo-in for the X-Men after graduation (and shouldn't someone talk to them, and to Rogue and Piotr, about that soon?).

In the earliest days, before the team had been a sparkle in Professor Xavier's eye, much less ready to investigate an underground base brimming with blueprints and wires and anti-mutant zeal whose equal wouldn't be seen for years... in those days, when Jean was just beginning to be enlightened about what was happening to her, she had spent many a sleepless night on the window seat in the common room, staring out at the blackened sky. And it was where her footsteps next led her tonight.

She was suddenly smacked with a brilliant flash of nostalgia for those days. For all the new surprises coming their way, choices had become, for a time, deceptively clear. Friends and enemies. Inside and outside. Right and wrong. A girl who was just beginning to grasp the concept of head games and her potential place in them, and slowly realizing that the boy in the red sunglasses wouldn't let himself be played. He would always call her on her perilous mistakes.

Did that thought comfort her, or was it part of what was scaring her?

Bits of music were running through her head, a sugary, bouncy love song that she didn't recognize, but that wasn't so surprising, really. She could have heard it from someone's boom box, or on the radio en route from the grocery store.

...wonder if I should tell Drake he has ice cream on his nose...

...should sleep, massive paper due Monday...

...must make prearrangements with the museum staff...

...strange not like where I come from what is this place i want to want to want to go HOME....


...was she dreaming of him? does she miss him tonight?...


Half the contents of her cup had spilled, mingling with the rough fabric, soaking through terry cloth and satin, damp and hot against her bare leg. She realized she was hugging her knees like the frightened young girl who still quavered and sobbed somewhere inside her, who was waiting for someone to make it all better. There were two people in this mansion alone who would be all too willing to help her, to save her, to bring things back under control. And there was one, far away, who personified her every resistance to that type of salvation. She knew that Scott would never voice his wayward, half-unconscious suspicion aloud, but just hearing it had brought back memories just as chaotic as the ones incited by her dream.

As soon as she could, she stood up slowly, creakily, as if she hadn't done so for an age instead of a matter of... how long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? And how long would it take for the crack in her shield to heal?

For now, she eventually found her way back to their room. Scott had drifted off yet again, and stirred only slightly as she eased between the sheets.

Jean, answer me.


He had run after her that day, had helped to keep her from falling, had cradled her face in his hands and kept the two of them eye-to-eye...or eyes-to-sunglasses.

Remembering that, and everything that had happened both directly before and since, she pressed closer to him Ridiculously, passages from her mother's bodice-rippers in which the heroine let herself be in the hero's broad chest and the manly musk of his body or some such thing, scrolled through her brain. She'd had a chance to scoff at the books before hurriedly replacing them in Elaine's night-table drawer and beating a hasty retreat from the room, and she still scoffed. Scott really didn't see her as his damsel in distress, did he? And was it even as important as whether or not she saw herself that way? Dr. Jean Grey had all the answers, except (she sometimes thought) the ones that would let her reconcile that part of herself with the one that needed to cling to him, to be assured that she wasn't losing it -- whatever was -- that there was still something worth holding onto.

But he didn't need convincing. That was why she was here with him, and that was enough.

I love you, Scott, she whispered, and then silently, A part of me will always be with you. Corny, maybe, but she hoped it would always be true. Whatever horrors came their way in the future, it would be side by side that they waited out the night. As much as anybody could promise anything, she made that promise now.

Line snaffled from Uncanny X-Men #137. Thank you, Mr. Claremont.