Jean had just stepped out of the shower when Scott opened the door to their room and stepped inside.

"Don't get too used to sleeping in," he said, and though his tone was light, Jean knew he meant it. He took his responsibilities as the X-Men's leader so seriously, it often got in the way of his having fun. Sometimes she missed the young man who'd first gotten his glasses. At least he could relax once in a while.

She kissed him briefly, wrinkled her nose. "I don't understand why some women find sweat sexy. To me, it just stinks."

"Unless you're sweaty, too," Scott countered. "Then it's seriously hot." Jean wished her heart could be in the teasing, but it wasn't. She'd hoped that she'd find that young man again, but so far she'd had no luck. He peeled off the T-shirt and shorts he'd worn for the morning run. "You busy today?"

She thought of the sample and research notes Erik had given her last night. "Nothing that can't wait."

"Want to drive to Boston with me?"

"Boston?" Then she remembered. "To pick up your car."

He nodded. "We can have lunch before we come back. Just us."

She considered. The round trip would take somewhere around eight hours -- slightly less for him, slightly more for her, given how he tweaked any engines in his general vicinity and regarded speed limits as a general guideline for the worst possible weather conditions. It would be a good time to tell him about the control serum -- she'd realized while in the shower that she couldn't keep something so important from him. The only trick was going to be finding a place to talk where they couldn't be overheard. In the car on the way to Boston fit the bill nicely.

"Sounds good," she said. "I'll let the staff know, and we can leave as soon as you're done in the shower."

- - - - -

Magneto watched the gold Toyota leave the mansion grounds at Graymalkin Lane and turned to the woman next to him. "Are you sure about her, Callisto?"

"Positive," the dark-haired woman replied. "Her power's stable, and maxed."

"Such a pity. She was so promising when she was young." Magneto allowed himself a moment of regret. He'd hoped Jean would mature into someone powerful enough to stand beside him as his queen. Alas, he'd have to keep looking.

"You sure about him?" The woman asked.

"As sure as you are that his power's stuck in both condition and level."

"Huh." Callisto looked at the road where the car had disappeared as though she could still see it. "Seems too preppie to be of any use."

"We have to be careful with him," Magneto said. "He's as gifted a tactician as I've ever seen. If we make one false step, he'll figure everything out."

"Which is why you gave them the research notes. So he wouldn't figure anything out."

Magneto chuckled. "He can figure a little bit out. It's better if he does." To Callisto's skeptical expression, he added, "Trust me. I know how they think."

"As long as they don't know how you think."

"They don't. They never have."

- - - - -

Scott had offered to drive, and Jean handed over her keys without protest. Driving, Scott fell into Zen-like calm. She suspected that some part of his mind, the part that housed his tactical genius, maybe, was happily analyzing and responding to situations on the road. When he wasn't driving, though, his body couldn't react or respond, so he talked to or yelled at other drivers. To preserve her own sanity, Jean let him drive whenever they were together.

Today, though, while he was quiet as he navigated through New York City, Jean sensed his thoughts weren't as calm as they could be.

"What's bothering you?" She asked once they had cleared the last interchange before I-95. Best to get that out of the way before she told him about the control serum.

He stayed silent a moment longer, and she sensed his thoughts settling. At least he never tried to avoid the question or change the subject, she thought. Sometimes he'd say he wasn't ready to talk about it yet, but he always answered.

"The night before last."

She tensed. The last thing she'd expected to be bothering him was the phone sex experiment gone bad. She'd thought they'd just pretend it hadn't happened.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have --"

"No, Jean. No." He reached over to take her hand, bring it to his lips. "That's not it."

"What is 'it', then?" She wanted to relax, but still her stomach pulsed.

He rested their hands on his thigh. "You surprised me."

"That was at least partly the point."

He squeezed her hand. "I know."

"But you didn't enjoy it. Not the way I wanted you to, anyway." And could she sound more pathetic and disappointed?

"I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to."

"So I won't do it again."

"Don't jump to conclusions."

She felt both eyebrows climbing. "But if you didn't enjoy it, why should I do it again?"

"I didn't say I didn't enjoy it. I said I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to."

"The point stands. And the question."

She sensed his reluctance to say what came next. "I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to because I wasn't alone when you called."

"You weren't --" Then she groaned. "Kurt. I forgot."

"Not Kurt." So quietly she almost didn't hear him. "He'd already left to go back to Germany."

"Not Kurt? Who, then?" She couldn't imagine Scott taking anyone joyriding in the Blackbird, but he'd apparently done just that.

He clung to her hand. "My father."

His father. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest.

"We ran into him at the Pentagon -- I wasn't expecting him, I swear. And then he invited me and Kurt over for dinner. After dinner, Kurt left, and we went flying."

"And then I called," she said, her voice as dull as her thoughts.

"Yes."

"Was he listening the whole time?"

"I don't -- No. I went to the back of the jet."

"You were about to say you don't know."

"I was about to say I don't think so."

"Why?" The question vibrated through her, and she had to remind herself that ripping the answer from his mind was wrong.

"Why'd we go flying?" He sounded confused.

"Why'd you do it, with him sitting right there?" She hated the note of hysteria that tinged the last two words.

"Because you wanted it." Simple and direct, like she'd come to expect from him over the years.

"Because I -- ?"

He just nodded, still holding her hand, though gently, as if he were afraid she'd pull away.

"Why," she began, her voice carefully steady, "didn't you ask me to link?"

"Link?" He sounded surprised. "We were three thousand miles apart."

"So?"

"So that's quite a distance for your telepathy to reach, isn't it? Even the professor can't reach that far without Cerebro helping."

"But if you'd asked, I would've known you weren't alone. I wouldn't have embarrassed myself -- God, what must your father think of me after that?"

"He invited us to Fourth of July barbecue."

Jean felt his mental, "Ah, crap," as soon as he said it. Under any other circumstances, she would've laughed. As it was, she all but yanked her hand from his grasp. "He did, did he? So he can meet the woman who gives his son phone sex?"

"He and Mom asked about you at dinner," Scott said. "They'd already invited us."

"That's so reassuring."

"That's not fair, Jean." His voice had taken on an edge she normally heard only in battle.

"Maybe it wasn't the best decision, but I don't see how I could've made any other."

"'Not now, hon, another time' wouldn't have worked?"

"Would it?" He countered, and it was almost a challenge. "Or would you have taken it as just another sign that your boyfriend isn't as wild as you want?"

"Not as wild?" She stretched a thought toward him, found that his mental shields were up as high and tight as she'd ever felt them.

"We've been together five years, Jean. When have you done that before?" He didn't give her a chance to answer before answering himself. "Never. So I'm supposed to refuse you when you do ask?"

"Because letting me embarrass myself in front of your father is so much better an option."

"Jean --"

"How am I supposed to look your father in the eye now?" She'd gone beyond reasonable, beyond rational, and Scott's outward calm did nothing to help. She wanted a good fight, and there he sat, simply driving. Maybe she should make him pull over and take the keys.

"I was --" he broke off, and it was a sign of how distressed he was that his shields faltered and she picked up the thought he'd tried to hide.

"You thought if you refused, I'd go to Logan?" She couldn't believe it, not from him. But the thought was clear in the instant before his shields slammed into place again. "Don't you hide from me, Scott Summers, not about this."

"I can't. You're the telepath, after all." It should've been a statement of fact, but his tone carried -- bitterness? Resentment? A little of both, she decided. "You'll always know what I'm thinking, if you bother to look."

"I don't eavesdrop, deliberately, you know that. And I don't go looking without permission." Those rules had been drilled into her since her power had manifested. The first thing the professor had told her was that it was rude to read minds without permission. In almost the same breath, he'd impressed on her the need to control that power. Telepathy was always on, of course, but she'd spent years learning how not to focus on others' thoughts, how to let those thoughts fade into the background like a radio tuned to a station she didn't like.

"Jesus, Jean."

"What? You know the rules almost as well as I do."

"I also know there are times the rules don't apply. I thought you did, too."

"You want me to go trolling for thoughts?"

He turned his head enough to be sure she knew he gave her a glance. "That's not what I said. I said there are times the rules don't apply. Like between us."

"You have the right to the privacy of your own thoughts, Scott. Do you want me just to come barging in whenever I feel like it?"

"You could've. It wouldn't have bothered me."

"You say that like it would bother you now."

"If you want to know what I'm thinking, I can't stop you."

"I'd rather you explain it to me."

"Explain what?"

"Why you think I'd go to Logan. That's a lot to infer from a kiss that I didn't even start." She'd thought they knew each other, trusted each other. To find he had so little faith in her disturbed her on more levels than she cared to think about.

"Trade you an explanation for an explanation."

"What?"

"Why'd you want phone sex that night? Why not before?"

Jean raised one hand in a half-shrug. "Why any time? It was an impulse."

"I see."

"What's that meant to mean?"

"Nothing. Just seems odd timing for an impulse."

"Just say what you're thinking." She could read his mind, and he couldn't stop her. She knew that, was very tempted to do it, but the habit of control was too strong.

"I'm thinking that you get a wild impulse for the first time within weeks of his dropping into our lives, and maybe that's not a coincidence."

"It was a rough procedure. Kitty did a lot of it, but I had to finish it. It was long, and invasive when I'd hoped it wouldn't be, and I was tired, and I wanted you."

"Me?" He sounded skeptical.

"You."

"I wish I could believe that." He thought it more than said it, but loudly enough that she picked the thought up.

"Why can't you? Because he kissed me?"

"It's not the kiss. Jesus -- you all think that I should be upset about it."

"A lot of people would be," Jean couldn't help saying.

"Like I told Ro, you're both beautiful women. Of course men notice. And men like Logan push. It's just the way they are." He sounded resigned more than angry.

"So what's really bothering you?"

"I told you. You didn't say yes when he asked if you really do love me. You started in on some lecture instead."

Behind his words, she picked up a strong sense that he wasn't telling her everything, and the urge to look into his thoughts was nearly overwhelming. She couldn't do that, she just couldn't -- but she could drop her own shields and be open to him.

"I didn't think it needed to be said. Wouldn't it just give some kind of validity to his question? Which, of course, he had no right to ask."

"Like going into some long, defensive explanation didn't give validity to it?" Scott sounded frustrated.

"You make it sound like there was nothing I could've said that didn't validate the question. It's none of his business."

"That never stopped anyone from asking something they wanted to know." His shields were the best she'd ever encountered among non-telepaths, but not even a telepath shielded perfectly all the time. Beneath his frustration, she picked up insecurity. Well, of course. That's what all of this boiled down to, after all.

"No, I guess not." She'd thought they'd built up a level of trust over the years -- not just time they'd spent together, but time they'd shared minds and hearts. Just how wrong had she been?