Thanks to hippiechick2112, mexicana, ellie, and guest for reviewing!


When Alex didn't answer the third time, Scott stopped knocking and opened the door. It was Monday, so he shouldn't have been home, anyway—he had his algebra class. (Alex's algebra class was not, of course, to be confused with, "No, Scott, slope-intercept form cannot be simplified further… because it's on the vertical axis… no, that's the y-axis…")

Scott pushed open the door and hit the light switch. He had waited all weekend for this. The room was empty, it could be cleaned—sanitized—

"The hell?!" Alex asked.

He was sprawled across the bed, face-down and naked except a pair of boxers. The covers were in a pile on the floor. He raised his head and twisted to squint at whoever dared to turn on the goddamn light… like he didn't already know.

"Alex?"

"Get out."

"Alex, you—"

Alex reached forward, grabbed something off the floor, and hurled it. Scott batted the beer can away before it hit him. A few drops spilled on the floor. Not much, it was mostly empty.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" Scott asked.

"Spring break. Go."

"But last week was—"

"It's two weeks. Get out!"

"Can I at least take the garbage—"

Scott ducked. A bottle whizzed past his head and shattered in the hallway. He turned off the lights and backed out of the room.

This whole situation had him knotted up. Even if it was just spring break, Alex barely left his room and he was drinking—and, from the smell, smoking—a lot. Scott knew he was upset about Sean. They all were, but it was hardest on Alex. Not only had he been the closest to Sean, he had been with him when he died.

Not that he had talked about it since the day he came home—I couldn't protect him.

So Alex had every right to be in pain and no, it wasn't fair to ask him to be okay. Scott wasn't sure what he wanted for Alex. Not to be so alone, maybe, but he hadn't been so close with Sean. He wasn't having the same grief. Still…

Scott sighed and went to fetch a broom. The glass was dark in color, not like a beer bottle, and the smell made him gag. It didn't surprise him too much that Alex was hitting the harder stuff. He wished it surprised him.

He just tried to clean up before anyone else found out.

Scott carried broom and dustpan back to the kitchen and dumped the glass into the bin. He really should have tossed it in his bedroom or the bathroom he shared with Doug, but the smell was too much. He couldn't have that, even a hint, in his bedroom or bathroom.

Couldn't face that every day.

And of course taking out the trash with an empty bin was odd behavior.

So he dumped the glass in the kitchen trash, then opened the cabinet. They had a mostly-empty package of cookies. For good measure, he dampened a handful of paper towels and wrung them out so they would look used. Then he tossed them out and the cookie package on top.

Well, now he had a small stack of cookies. Whatever could he possibly do with those!

Ororo dropped into a seat opposite him about halfway through the stack. Scott moved the cookies closer to her.

"You look like shit," she said.

Scott raised his eyebrows. "Where'd you pick up that one?"

He liked Ororo's expressions, really. She seemed to take great joy in using them, sometimes bungled them in amusing ways, but most of all, she made him think about them. For example, why exactly did they say 'beating around the bush'?

She shrugged and licked the filling out of an Oreo.

"Happy birthday."

She nodded. "Can we have pancakes?"

Scott got up and started making the batter. "So, uh, is everything okay? You and Mom sounded pretty heated last night."

"We're fine."

"'Cause you were shouting—"

"People shout!" Ororo snapped. "It happens! Anyway, why didn't you tell?" She took another cookie and bit into it, this time keeping the Oreo intact. It was a different way of approaching the Oreo situation—not better or worse, just different.

"It was an accident," he said. "Call it a birthday present."

Ororo left half an Oreo on the table. "Hey." The word or the approach made him turn. She yanked up his shirt a few inches.

"Don't—"

They were clearing the table the previous night, when she hooked his ankle and shoved him. She didn't remember now why she had done it, only that he was holding cutlery at the time and managed a shallow gash on his belly. Now it had a clean gauze patch taped over it.

Ororo doubted that was what he wanted hidden. He had an older scar, thick and puckered and crossed every few millimeters. Now that it was exposed, he didn't seem to remember how to move. She pushed his shirt higher, tracing the scar. All told, it formed a big I, from just above his waistband to just below his arms.

She tried to ask something, but the words weren't coming.

Finally, tracing a fingernail along tiny perpendicular lines, "What's this?"

"Stitches." The scars they left behind.

"Why?"

"They hold the pieces together."

They stayed there for a long moment, Ororo with her hand on Scott's chest, neither of them comfortable or sure what to do next. Neither of them had the context for it. He knew but didn't tell—even the Professor hadn't seen, and Hank had but didn't ask. She didn't know what it meant, besides something bad, worse than she thought happened to boys.

Neither of them heard the adults approaching until the last second, so that Charles and Ruth saw Ororo drop Scott's shirt and quickly turn away.

Ruth and Charles shared a glance. "What did we just walk in on?" he asked her, baffled and a little amused.

"You did not walk in on anything," Ruth returned.

As Charles reacted to this with undue incredulity—that wasn't really out of character for Ruth—Scott murmured, "Birthday grope," too softly for the adults to hear him.

Ororo heard, though. She laughed until her face went red and she had to lean on the counter.

He patted her shoulder and started from the room.

"Scott," Ruth murmured.

He paused. "I thought I should—I haven't checked the post in a few days."

For a moment, they stood, aware of one another's wishes—Scott's to leave, Ruth's to have everyone act like a family. But only Ruth had ever been a part of a proper family.

Finally, she nodded. "Go ahead. Come back and we'll have pancakes."

Scott opened his mouth to argue. The look Ruth gave him was enough to dry up his objections. "Just gonna be a minute," he murmured.

Ruth ruffled his hair as he passed by.

Scott squirmed away. "Aaw, Mom!"

"Scott-" Charles began, but Ruth interrupted, clearing her throat. He waited until Scott was gone before saying, "Ruth, it's not acceptable-"

"Charles, you do not see? This is affection," Ruth said. She bent down and kissed him. "Just to clarify."


"Ruth said I could do whatever I want today."

"What did you decide?"

Ororo shrugged.

She and Scott had cleared the table. He decided to wash the dishes—not a choice she would have made. She sat on the counter, supplying moral support.

"How about not doing homework?" he suggested. Then, before she could answer, "Wait, you don't have homework… what's your favorite thing to do?"

She shrugged again. "I never had time for that."

"What do you mean? Everyone has time for a favorite thing."

"Well… when I had a friend, with the Maasai, she was like it is with you. I liked whatever we did." She chose not to mention that this didn't have to mean doing whatever her friend did. She didn't need to mention it; Scott was almost finished washing the dishes.

"You wanna do math with me?" he asked.

Ororo groaned. "Oh, please tell me you're joking."

"I'm joking," he assured her. He rinsed the last mug and set it to dry.

"It's upside-down."

"It dries better."

"The sun would dry it."

"There's not enough sun."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"You don't know weather. I know weather."

"Will you make me more sunshine?"

She flipped him the bird. "I'm not wasting my sunshine drying cups."

Scott grabbed a tea towel and dried his hands. "So, since it's your birthday… want to do something stupid?"

Ororo gave him her look specially reserved for moments in which she observed another culture and couldn't begin to understand it. "Why?"

"Because it's fun."

She rolled her eyes. "Dork."

"Yup. C'mon. We're gonna need sheets."

He started for the door.

"Sheets?" Ororo asked.

Scott paused and turned to her. "Are we doin' this?"

She shrugged and hopped off the counter.