What happened afterwards, did not come as any surprise to any of the X-men. Under Logan's supervisions they were all assigned the task of cleaning up the entire premises before they could clean themselves up. The smell of sour milk began to permeate throughout the air which made their tasks that much more unpleasant. It appeared that Logan was there to make sure that the clean-up would indeed be without any hint of fun or pleasure. Everyone was being punished; even Scott who was only a victim of circumstance was forced to assist, with his entire body still caked over with dried-up cream and pie crust. In what would be an otherwise comical scene, Scott's anger was apparent in the way gathered pie plates from the grounds and into the garbage bags. Jean was well aware of Scott's mood and it was clear that he was ignoring her. She felt guilty about how everything turned out, which made her next task even more inappropriate and ill-advised. With a cleansing sigh, she gathered enough courage to saunter up to her boyfriend and ask the unthinkable.
"Uh, hi," Jean announced meekly.
:"Hi," Scott replied unemotionally, not raising his head up to look at Jean.
"How are you feeling?" Jean asked, knowing all too well the answer.
"Fine," Scott answered, still pre-occupied with his task.
"Good," Jean said, nodding optimistically, but recognizing that Scott was being curt with her in the hopes that she would leave him alone. A pause lasting a few heartbeats passed between them before she spoke again.
"Look, Scott," she said regretfully. "I'm really sorry about what happened and that you got in trouble because of it. Well, um, because of me."
"That's real big of you," Scott replied sarcastically, as he finally paused and looked directly at her. "You made a fool of me, humiliated me and got me grounded for week and extra training sessions with Logan! But its real burden off my mind that you're sorry."
In any other situation, Jean would throttle Scott for speaking to her in that way. But she already felt bad enough and he was right about everything, so she let it slide. Unfortunately, she feared everything was going to be made worse by what she was about to announce to him.
"Scott," she began rather tentatively. "I talked to Logan and explained that you had nothing to do with the pie fight and you were an innocent by-stander. I asked him if he would lift his punishment of you, including the extra training sessions."
Scott seemed to soften with Jean's revelation. "And?"
"Well, he was pretty resistant at first," Jean replied, wringing her hands nervously. "But I managed to get him to do it…"
"Are you kidding?" he replied excitedly, cutting Jean off in mid-sentence. "Ah Jean, I love you!" Scott then proceeded to hug her, forgetting that he was still covered in pies, making Jean even more of a mess that she already was. Realizing what he had done, he backed away.
"Oh Jean, sorry," Scott said embarrassingly. "Thank you Jean! Thank you! You are the best girlfriend ever!"
Jean who was overwhelmed by the unexpected elation from her boyfriend, tried to finish her statement before Scott got even more excited.
"Thank you, Scott but…"
"Isn't she great?" Scott shouted to the other students. "Isn't she the best girlfriend ever?!"
"Please Scott," Jean pleaded, whose task was becoming more difficult by the second. "Let me finish what I have to say."
"Alright, beautiful," Scott said beaming. "I'm all ears!"
"Okay," she replied, preparing herself the best way to get the words out. "Like I said before, Logan lifted your punishment but he had only one condition…."
Scott's high spirits were suddenly deflated with Jean's ominous announcement. Whatever that one condition was, it wasn't going to be good.
"What's the condition?" he asked, looking at Jean accusingly as if she had a lot to do with what the condition was going to be.
"Well," Jean answered, growing more apprehensive. "I explained that I needed your help with the carnival and that everyone would need to be present so I got Logan to delay until after the carnival to begin the punishment…"
"Okay," Scott stated, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"So then I explained that we didn't have a booth ready yet for the carnival and we only enough time and money to do one thing."
Scott did not say anything because he already knew what was about to happen. Jean saw the expression on Scott's face, she knew it too, but proceeded to explain it anyway in the hopes to assuage the negative emotions that were sprouting.
"So then I explained that I needed your help in order to pull this booth off I would need your co-operation so after that Logan said that it was alright as long as you participated in this booth."
"Oh no," Scott uttered, sinking to the ground.
"He said it was either that or the punishment," she said. She felt real guilty about what she conspired to do, but she was desperate.
Scott glimpsed Logan looking at him from the corner of his eye, and while it often had a stoic growl, he could see a partial smirk on his face. It was apparent that he was listening in to the whole thing, and with his superior hearing, it was impossible not to eavesdrop. Logan was going to be able to punish him one way or the other. It was simply a matter of what would be worse: over the long stretch of a week or one incredibly brutal day at the carnival. Although he tried to reason otherwise, Scott knew what the answer was.