"Ms. Pryor? Mr. LaRue and Mr. Mayfield will see you now."

A bit uncertainly, Madelyne entered the posh conference room at the Anchorage Sheraton that was functioning as a preliminary job interview site for potential pilots. An interview with her old company, which was how her name had come up. Her surprise had been profound when she'd arrived home two days ago from yet another frustrating visit to yet another airline company with no openings, only to have her mother inform her that Summers Air Cargo had left a message requesting an interview. "But they don't exist anymore," she'd replied.

"Apparently, someone bought them out. They're looking to set up shop again, and need pilots."

So here she was, feeling nervous in this nice, clean, and very bare conference room instead of the paper-littered mess that had always been Ted Konner's office. The two men awaiting her couldn't have been more different. One was a neatly dressed corporate Suit with a leather briefcase and good shoes. The other . . . well, he was wearing jeans and flannel and a red baseball cap, and she struggled not to laugh. She liked him instantly. He held out a big, beefy hand that was calloused from hard work. "I'm Mark LaRue. My aunt and her husband started this company back in 1949. They sold it in '79 to retire. Now, me and my cousin are taking it back. We need some pilots, and understand you flew for the company for about six years before the Blackout."

She shook the hand, then released it. "Yes, that's right." Should she say anything about the fact it was her downed plane and medical bills that had helped tip the company into bankruptcy? But surely they already knew that.

As if reading her mind instead of her reading his, LaRue said, "I been told what all happened earlier this year, and ain't blaming you. It wasn't pilot error, and this is a new slate. You're here today 'cause you had one of the best flight records in the company." He glanced at the Suit, who was writing something on a yellow pad as if he weren't really part of this interview, just sitting in. She couldn't figure out the connection.

"Thank you." She blushed a little. "I certainly didn't intend to cause problems for the company."

"'Course not," LaRue said as if that were assumed, then added, "Besides, you're air force. So was I and a couple of my brothers, and so was Phil Summers who started this company. We got a little bias towards vets."

Grinning at that, she gestured to the other man. "Is Mr. Mayfield your cousin?"

That seemed to surprise LaRue, who snorted even as Mayfield glanced up. "I'm the personal assistant of Warren Worthington the Third - of Worthington Steel," Mayfield said, as if she ought to recognize the name, which might be why it felt strangely familiar, except she didn't recognize the name for it to be familiar.

Puzzled, she frowned. "Warren Worthington is the cousin?"

Mayfield rolled his eyes at that, as if impatient. "Hardly." And Lynn, curious at the barely submerged hostility, reached out to ruffle through the man's thoughts, picking up that he was frustrated to be here, believing it a waste of his time on the personal whim of his employer's boy-toy. And now he was stuck for at least another two-and-a-half hours with this backwoods native hick who didn't know the first thing about running a business or proper interview etiquette.

"Mr. Worthington is just helping us set things up," LaRue clarified. "But that's another reason we're tracking down a few trustworthy old employees who can fill in some blanks for us, help us get the business back on its feet."

She started to say she was the wrong person to ask, because she was still filling in blanks herself, but didn't. She needed the job, so instead, she said, "What are the terms of the contract you're offering?"

And they got down to business. At the end of the hour, she left with her signature on five forms, and a new-old job.

"You think this is nuts?" Scott asked as they waited on uncomfortable couches in the reception area of Alaska First Community Bank & Trust. Warren's personal assistant, Aaron Mayfield, was back at the hotel, overseeing interviews, while one of his lawyers and a financial advisor had come along to the bank with them. It was the minimum staff Warren would take to a buy-out negotiation, although he wasn't the one doing the buying, today.

"Would I have told you about it in the first place if I did?" Warren paused, then asked, "Getting cold feet?"

Scott ruffled fingers through the hair at the back of his head; it was his classic, 'I'm nervous' gesture. "No. Yes. I mean, I have a weird feeling about this trip. I've been wanting to make this buy-out for years, but it's pure sentiment. There's no good reason to do it, and I could wind up losing a hell of a lot of money that's not really mine."

Warren shook his head. "First, sentiment can be a perfectly good reason to do something, as long as you realize that's what it is. And second, the money is yours. Xavier named you heir, your signature is on the trust fund - and he okayed this little venture. You aren't 'borrowing' his money, Scott. It's yours in the same way Worthington money is mine. You're not apt to squander it, so I don't think Xavier's worried."

"It could still be a hellish financial sinkhole -"

"- which is why I'm here. If it looks like a bad idea, we'll tell you, okay? So far, it hasn't. In business-speak, it's a pretty low-risk venture. "

Scott grinned. "You know I appreciate you taking time off to fly up here with me."

Warren made a dismissive gesture. There was no way he wouldn't have come. It was too important to Scott, and Scott wasn't a businessman. He needed Warren, and this wouldn't take more than a few days. Warren could spare them to be sure Scott got his family business back.

Scott's grandparents had sold Summers Air Cargo some twenty-six years ago and it had gone through two different owners since, though the company name had never changed as it was one of the oldest air-freight businesses still operative in Anchorage. Reputation and seniority had helped it survive pressure from larger, corporate-owned freight companies such as Arctic Air.

Yet in the wake of the Blackout, the company had run in the red for months until finally filing for bankruptcy. Warren - who'd had it flagged in his own financial reports - had called Westchester to tell Scott the company was open for purchase, and Xavier had practically booted Scott onto Warren's plane to go recover his grandparents' business. This purchase was important to Scott as a link to the people and past he'd mostly lost, and Warren considered that just as significant as any investment potential - which the company certainly didn't have. This was a personal acquisition, not a business venture, even though Warren would do his best to ensure it didn't turn into the Money Pit, either. He knew all about setting up companies under the umbrella of his family's industries, and making them run in the black. He and his advisors would assess the debts accrued versus the company's assets and potential earnings, and figure out what had to be done so it didn't collapse on itself again immediately.

Now, Scott asked, "You really don't think I'm making a mistake, trying to buy it back? It's not like I'll make any money from it."

"No, you won't - but that's not the point. As long as you don't lose significant money long-term, that's success for this venture. This isn't an investment for you, Scott, so quit feeling guilty that it's not. Let it be what it is. You want to keep your family company in your hands, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a solid market niche in Alaska for these small cargo and charter companies, and this one did pretty well for itself, up until the Blackout, so as long as you don't get too big for your britches, you'll be fine. An important rule in business is to maintain reasonable expectations. It's like gambling. People lose because they trust luck, not probabilities and percentage yields."

"I'm glad one of us has the business degree," Scott replied, pulling a little pack of breath strips from his pocket to pop one in his mouth. It made Warren smile. His hair was neat, his face shaved, his teeth clean, his suit pressed, but he was still worrying about something.

"You're anal, Gamma-Gaze," Warren said fondly, then changed the subject. "Tell me about the job interviews - the two new teachers. Anything to write home about?"

"Doug Ramsey intimidates the bloody hell out of me - talk about completely overqualified for a position - and so does Betsy Braddock, but for completely different reasons."

"And those would be?"

"She's gorgeous."

"Ah." And Warren . . . wasn't sure how he felt about that. For personal reasons, Scott didn't usually make observations on the attractiveness of people, but Warren was well aware that he noticed. Warren just wasn't sure whether Scott admitting to noticing meant he might choose to do something about it eventually - and what that would mean for them.

Scott was as straight as uncooked spaghetti and that wasn't likely to change, which Warren had known going into their "relationship," or whatever it was they had. He'd tried to tell himself it didn't matter since he didn't have a crush on Scott anymore, and had never had trouble separating sex from love anyway. He got the latter from Scott (and once, from Jean), and the former he got wherever he found it. But Scott didn't handle things the same way - couldn't - and Warren doubted he could go to bed with someone he didn't love. Or rather, he could and had every night for fourteen months and some odd days, but it had messed him up so badly, he'd spent the last fourteen years crawling out of that hole. Warren had wondered what he was going to do now, with Jean gone. He couldn't have sex at random, and wasn't going to have sex with Warren, but Warren also doubted Scott could be a monk for the rest of his life. Eventually, something would give and he'd wind up doing something he couldn't reconcile, or he'd find a new lover to allow inside his shell because he still needed the physical, whether or not he liked to admit it. And then where would Warren be? Jealous as hell, he knew. Jean had been one thing; he'd loved her as much as he loved Scott and there had always been room for Jean because Jean had been part of the equation almost from the beginning. But any other woman? No way in hell. Betsy Braddock meant nothing to Warren and wasn't likely to, and she'd better keep her mitts off Scott Summers. "The question," Warren asked after a moment, "is whether she was intimidated by you? You're not exactly unattractive yourself."

Scott glanced over at him. "She flirted with anything sporting a dick - except the professor - from the minute she walked in the door." It was intentionally crude. "I wasn't particularly singled out, no. It's just her modus operandi. She's going to tie the boys in knots, but maybe it'll get them to read Shakespeare, I don't know. She's certainly qualified for the job."

"What do you think of her personally?"

Warren had tried to keep his question level, but Scott knew him entirely too well, and both his eyebrows went up. "Don't worry about it. There's zero chance of anything." Annoyed, Warren's lips thinned, but he didn't push the matter and now it was Scott's turn to change the subject. "So what's the current status with the White King campaign?"

"There." Warren was saved from saying more about it as the bank loan officer entered the reception area, and he struggled to his feet from the badly designed couch. These places bought furniture intended to make one feel like an idiot climbing out of it, he was sure. "Come on, let's go get your company. After a quarter of a century, it's time Summers Air Cargo was back in the hands of a Summers."

Rising with a little more grace (he didn't have the damn wing rack), Scott replied with a grin, "My, what a Worthington thing to say."

"Don't bite the hand that balances your books, buddy."

Scott just kicked at the edge of Warren's foot with his own.

Lynn arrived at the company offices off the airfield very late Monday afternoon. Parking and grabbing her purse, she headed in to meet with the new owners, who wanted to talk to all the returning employees. "Get a sense of how things were run, at least," Mark LaRue had told her on the phone. Apparently, he was to be the new business manager, and whatever down-home charm he projected - and whatever the Suit named Mayfield had thought - she was starting to gather that he was sharper than he pretended.

He met her at the door. "Come on in, come on in." The outer offices looked quite different, decorated in local native motifs and far sparer, with less furniture and less junk - but that might be just a function of a company reboot before things started to pile up. There was a secretary or receptionist at work at the outer desk, but she didn't offer more than a brief wave before returning to a stack of papers.

"You're Alaskan Native?" Lynn asked, studying a carved wooden mask on the wall. She'd gathered before that he might be, but wasn't entirely sure.

"Half," LaRue replied as he ushered her through into a meeting room with a long table, standard-issue corporate chairs in blue, and a handsome blond man seated with a laptop in front of him. Another man in dark jeans and a hooded sweatshirt looked out the window towards the airfield, his back to them. "But yeah," LaRue was saying, "we're Tlingit. Come meet my cousin. Scott, this is Madelyne Pryor. Lynn, this is my cousin, Scott Summers."

The man at the window turned.

And the world froze.

She couldn't move, couldn't think - all her skin was on fire and her knees felt weak. "Scott . . . ." she whispered.

He frowned, as if he almost recognized her, but then just moved forward to offer a hand. "Yeah, I'm Scott Summers. Nice to meet you, Ms. Pryor."

"Scott," she said again, unable to take the hand just as she felt unable to breathe. That wished-for recognition-of-the-familiar that she hadn't felt with her family crashed in on her now.

THIS was the man she'd come back for. THIS was the one she'd defied death for.

"Scott."

The rest of them were staring - Mark LaRue and the blond man at the computer . . . .

"Warren -"

She raised a hand and everything STOPPED - LaRue himself, the shuffle of papers from the secretary in the outer office . . . everything but the three of them. Scott and Warren stared at her, confused - then at the frozen LaRue, then back at her. "Who are you?" Warren asked at the same time Scott said, almost disbelieving, "Jean?"

JEAN.

She wasn't Madelyne. She was JEAN.

Closing her eyes she . . . rippled. It felt like a shrug all over her skin.

"Jean," both men said then in unison.

"Jean," she replied, then fell to her knees. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God."

She'd barely hit the floor before they were both there, Warren having leapt the table corner to reach her. "Jean!" Scott yelled as Warren said, "Are you okay?" Then he slapped his forehead. "Jesus! You're not okay!" They hauled her back to her feet and got her set down in a chair; she felt completely unsteady, and Scott's face was white, while Warren had two flushed spots high on his cheeks.

"I'm okay," she said, looking up at their anxious faces, then - a little to her surprise - broke up laughing. "I'm okay!" And she was pulling them down to hug both at once, an arm around each of their necks. "I'm okay. I'm back." Almost unconsciously, she reached out to their minds, rifling through their memories of her - and yes, she KNEW this life. She KNEW these memories. Her spirit knew, and she swallowed them.

She was Jean again. She was Jean Grey.

"What the hell happened?" Scott began when she let him go. "How did you - " But before he could even finish the question, she pushed it at them, everything that had happened to her since leaving Alkali Lake. It was easier than explaining verbally.

Both men grabbed their heads as if in agony. "Shit!" Scott screamed, and Warren had collapsed on the floor, writhing.

She released them instantly, dropping out of the chair to kneel beside Warren, stroking his hair as he panted, recovering. "I'm so sorry!" She looked up at Scott, who was rubbing his temples and frowning behind the glasses. "I'll go slower," she said.

"Thank you," Scott said as Warren sat up.

Jean glanced around, remembering Mark LaRue - still standing there frozen, mouth half-open as if to speak - and then she looked down at herself, her real self. Her own body, not Madelyne Pryor's. "This is going to get a little . . . complicated."

"Understatement of the week," Warren said, pushing himself to his feet and pulling her up, too.

"We need to talk," Scott told them, also glancing at LaRue. "Can you play along for now?" he asked Jean.

"I can do better." And she passed her hand in front of Mark LaRue's face. He began to move again, but just sat down at the table and began jotting notes on a pad of paper, as if none of them were in the room. "He thinks I've already come and gone, and the two of you got called away for a little bit. Come on." Turning, she led them out of the room. "Let's go to what used to be the copy room. We can talk there." The secretary noticed them no more than LaRue had as they paraded past her desk and headed for the copy room down the other hallway.

Reeling, Warren followed Scott, who followed Jean. Jean. Alive.

He couldn't begin to name everything he was feeling - besides shock.

She took them to a small room full of copy paper and a big copier, and shut the door. For a moment, they just stared at each other, then moved with that synchronicity they'd always shared to converge in a three-way embrace, arms tangling, heads knocking, but it didn't matter. It lasted a moment until Scott broke away. Jean reached out to him, hand poised to cup his cheek, but he yanked back. His jaw was working as he struggled to contain something volatile. "Why the hell did you do it?" he snapped.

"Do what?"

"You didn't have to get off that damn plane!"

They locked gazes and Warren felt suddenly like a voyeur, but when he tried to step away, Jean's hand shot out to grip his wrist, stopping him. "I don't remember," she said to Scott. "There's so much I don't remember. I know things - I recognize them. But I can't remember."

She reached out telepathically to them both again, but far gentler this time. Warren opened to her but Scott resisted, chin gone up. Finally though, he relaxed, and she gave them the story of her rebirth in a jumble of images - her bodiless disconnection in the lake but the need to know that had driven her from the water, then discovering that downed plane, her recognition of Scott's name and the coincidence of a woman pilot who resembled her enough to confuse, the familiarity of Anchorage, her attempt to BE someone she wasn't . . . all innocent. And last - meeting them.

Then her touch was gone. "What a fucking mess," Scott muttered, rubbing his forehead. Warren could only nod, but the inadvertent comedy of errors wasn't foremost in his mind.

What was she now? What had she become? Unbidden, he recalled Xavier's own description of her in those final moments on the plane: The power that she exhibited in those last moments was . . . staggering, quite honestly. I've always known that Jean harbored far more potential than she'd even begun to tap, but I would never have predicted anything like what I saw and experienced at Alkali Lake.

She was watching him and he knew, absolutely knew, that she was reading his mind as easily as a child looked through a window. "What are you?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she replied - it sounded small, and scared. She hugged herself, frowning down at the floor. "God, I don't know. I don't know."

Scott moved forward to embrace her, answering the fear in her voice, but Warren felt caught, like a bug in a spider's web. He was scared of her. "I won't hurt you," she said - pleaded, really - looking from him to Scott. "I love you both. I'd never hurt you."

"Of course not," Scott said, but more as a reassurance than as if he fully believed it. She wouldn't mean to hurt them, certainly, but a creature who could build herself a new body was more like a god than a human being, and what might she do to them just by accident?

Was this how normal humans felt about mutants?

"I won't," she insisted now. "I won't." She held out a hand to Warren. "Come here."

He came, and it was Jean's gentle hand on his upper arm, his cheek, and running through his hair. She drew him closer, into her hug with Scott. "I won't hurt you. I just . . . help," she said, her voice small.

And that finally sounded like Jean. She'd always been a little afraid, tentative, unsure of herself, and they'd been her bulwark. "We're here," Warren said now, his reserve melting.

This time, their embrace felt honest, not desperate or overwhelmed. "We'll figure it out," Scott said, chin resting on the top of Jean's head. Jean began to cry in relief, sagging against them. They held her up. She was a thousand times more powerful than they, but they held her up.

Jean felt hollowed out. She sat in a chair in the reception area, a cup of water in one hand and a box of tissues on the table beside her. In the past hour and a half, she'd been through every powerful emotion she had, and now felt hollow and clean. Clear-headed.

Scott and Warren had gone back to tell Scott's cousin they were calling it a night. At a little before seven in the evening, the secretary had long gone, yet the sun still rode high in the sky. It was mid-summer in Alaska and hours of daylight remained, though she felt utterly drained.

They needed to get out of this office and figure out what to do next. There was so much to fix. She knew now who she'd been and what she'd been able to do.

And how she'd died.

Yet she knew it only from Scott's mind, and Warren's. She still had no personal memory of her final moments, not really - just an impression of desperation, like the faint dimple of feet in the sand after a wave has come and gone.

She'd died to save them.

Except why had she died?

That was the question in Scott's mind. And Warren's, too, though Warren felt it to be less pressing. But she'd lifted the plane and split the wave. Later, she'd rebuilt a body from the remains of another, and swam through minds like a fish. She hadn't needed to die. She understood that now. Why hadn't she understood it then?

The sound of footsteps made her look up as Warren came through the door, alone. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said back.

"How are you?"

"Shocked. How are you?"

She smiled. "Shocked. Relieved." She paused, adding, "I've known, I think, that I wasn't who I thought I was, but didn't know who I might otherwise have been. Silly, isn't it? I leapt to a lot of conclusions, but it never really occurred to me that I had. It just . . . seemed logical at the time."

He sat down in the chair next to her and took her hands. She gripped back and tried to give him a smile. "How aware were you, when you were reborn?" he asked.

"Not very. I knew I had to come back. I was . . . needed. Or something. Maybe I just couldn't let go." She paused, thinking it over. "It's different, not having a body. It's like - you know in the morning, when you're not quite awake, but you're not asleep? It's like that. I remembered, but didn't. I was aware, but not. And now, I don't quite remember what that felt like, yet I do." She shook her head and pulled her hands from his, ran them into her hair. "And that's a completely inadequate explanation, but it's the best I can do."

"I get it, I think. Well, as much as I can."

Letting go of her hair, she gripped his hands again; he was her life raft. He always had been. Maybe she'd come back for Scott, but that was because he'd needed her. She needed Warren. "How is he? I can feel that he's angry. He's hiding it but he's still angry."

Now, Warren shifted, uncomfortable. "Jean - I . . . ."

"Just tell me."

"He believes you killed yourself."

"What?"

"He believes you suicided on purpose. To get away from him."

She was flabbergasted. "Why on earth would I do that? Warren - I couldn't die because of him! I couldn't die!" She yanked her hands free again and sat back, dropping into the memories she'd pulled from Scott. Memories were a little like picking up puzzle pieces, or stacks of paper. She could skim them quickly, but a deep reading took time to integrate. Now, shuffling through, she could pick out what Warren was talking about, and it stunned her. Warren hadn't exaggerated. Scott honestly believed she'd killed herself, and the why both boggled and angered her.

There had been Scott. And there had been Logan. And Scott believed she'd chosen not to choose, because she'd wanted Logan - not him.

How stupid.

Yet while she knew it was wrong, she didn't know what was right, precisely. And that frustrated her even more. "I didn't want to get away from him," she told Warren now. "I love him." She studied Warren's face, to see if he believed her. He just nodded. "I don't know why I did it," she went on. "But I know why I didn't. It wasn't to get away from him, the idiotic ass. I came back for him. But then - why did I do it? Do you know?"

He shook his head. "Not really, just have a few ideas."

"Which are?"

Glancing towards the door, his hands still gripped in hers, he said, "I don't think you realized you could save yourself. Well really, that's Charles' theory, but I'm inclined to agree. You were thinking about saving them, not saving you."

She pondered that; it felt neither wrong nor right, as Scott's theory had felt decidedly wrong. "That may be part of it," she said, "I don't know for sure. All I can say is that it's not false."

"You really don't remember?"

"I really don't. I . . . recognize - sometimes." She paused, then explained, "Some things I just seem to know - like how to speak English; some things I recognize; but some . . . no, I don't remember. I don't quite understand how it works, maybe because I'm not sure what survived. I mean, me, obviously - my spirit or whatever you'd call it. But what is that? You can't quantify it scientifically. All I can tell you is what I know of the physiology of memory. The brain stores things - all those wrinkles - but brain damage erases them. It's gone." She made a sweeping motion with her hand. "And the notion that we remember everything that happens to us? False. New knowledge eventually pushes out the old unless we're actively using it. So hypnosis can be as much invention as recall. It may help us get at things we've blocked, but it's tricky because if we can't remember, we make it up.

"So whatever I knew as Jean Grey, those memories are gone, obliterated along with my old body. And yet . . . I do know things. I remember some, I recognize others, like I've got this . . . imprint, or something - as if I were developing a picture. But even that - how much of this is mine? I have memories from others - you, Scott . . . I recognize them, or at least I feel that I do. But what IS mine? I don't know anymore."

She rubbed right between her brows. "It's a little like watching a movie, seeing yourself from the outside but never the inside. I have feelings - not memories."

While she'd talked, he'd rubbed a thumb over the back of her hand. Now, he said, "It's a start. Maybe the rest will come back -"

"No," she interrupted. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, War. There's nothing to come back. My old brain is dead. Gone. Kaput. How can I remember if there's nothing from which to get the memory?"

"But you know things - recognize them. You just said so. And all this about brain function? You're not getting that out of my head. Or Scott's. That's what Dr. Grey knows about memory."

And she blinked in surprise because it was true. She'd just lectured him on neurophysiology without even thinking about it. "I know it like I know English. Or how to drive a car, use a computer - fly a plane."

"Exactly," he said. "You pull it up on instinct. You knew us the minute you saw us. Maybe you needed a little help to get some of it back, but give it time. The Jean who survived still has some kind of memory, and it's imprinting the new brain you've got now - or however that works."

She was nodding. "Maybe so." And maybe she'd needed practical Warren to help her look past what she thought she knew about memory - what she knew for living people. Who'd ever had a chance to assess memory in someone eight months dead and back from the grave in a different body? Her case was completely, totally unique.

Another shuffle of footsteps made them both look up to find Scott standing in the doorway, looking exhausted and a bit ruffled around the edges. He was watching them, his expression . . . hungry. And angry still. And plain bewildered.

She was worried about him.

Letting go of Warren she stood to cross the floor and hug him, because he needed it. "Come on," she said. "Let's get out of here."

He was pulling away even before she released him, and she reached up to stroke his cheek. He allowed that, at least, then led them out to his and Warren's rental. Lynn's car was still in the parking lot, too, and Jean said, "I can't leave it here." But should she follow them straight to their hotel, or drop by her (Lynn's) house to tell her (Lynn's) mother where she'd be, and pack some clothes and toiletries? (And how fast had she shifted to think of it as Madelyne's house and family, not hers?) They elected to follow her back to the house, and she suspected that Scott (and Warren) didn't want to let her out of their sight. So they drove over there and, in the car, she shifted back to the form she'd worn for the past several weeks while she tried to decide how to explain the strange men with her, and why she'd be spending the night with them.

As it turned out - much to her relief - she didn't have to. Lynn's mother was out playing bridge, and Jean packed up some clothes in a bag, then left a note, saying she was staying with friends for the night and would be back sometime tomorrow - not to worry.

But she worried herself. What would she say to the woman who thought she was her daughter? "I'm sorry, I'm not Madelyne. She died in a plane crash last October, just like you thought." It was hard enough to lose a child, but to lose that child, regain her, then lose her again?

Jean wouldn't think about that just now.

By the time she was finished packing, it was coming up on nine in the evening and none of them had eaten. Warren and Scott had followed her into the house when it was clear there was no one else there. Now, she fed them sandwiches before they headed downtown to the Sheraton. Even that made her feel guilty, to be eating Lynn's mother's food, much less sharing it with strangers. This wasn't her family.

As they eeled through the Anchorage streets back towards the Sheraton, she sat in the back seat and stared out a window. The sun had crept low on the horizon at last, the light of it firing the edges of things like a halo, and glaring in her eyes.

Jean - looking like Jean again - seemed subdued when they reached the hotel and headed for the elevator to the Neo-Classical suite, the same one, ironically, that they'd stayed in all those years before when Warren, Jean, and Xavier had first accompanied Scott to Anchorage.

Which reminded Warren. "We need to call the professor." They'd all been so preoccupied - and plain shocked - no one had yet thought to do so.

Jean and Scott both glanced over. "We will," Scott said. "But let's sort out a few things first." They stopped in front of the elevator doors and Scott hit the call button. A car arrived almost immediately and they boarded, yet the near-cling they'd felt back at the air cargo offices had vanished, and now, none of them seemed to know what to say or how to react. Scott stared at the elevator buttons, Jean stood against the car rear, arms folded over her chest, staring at the wine carpet, and Warren leaned against the far wall, watching them both. The silence was heavy, and when the doors parted, they moved down the hall in the same awkward silence, Scott letting them into the suite.

Immediately, Warren threw off his jacket to start unhooking the rack, and it was Jean who came to help, her fingers expert at the fastenings, remembering, or recognizing, or whatever. But she got it off of him as easily as she could have done eight months before, while Scott headed straight for the in-suite wet bar to make himself a drink - a sharp reversal, as alcohol was usually Warren's answer to stress, while Scott reached for tobacco. Of course, he'd had plenty of that in the car already, and his blood had to be half nicotine right now.

Jean was carefully unfolding Warren's wings, smoothing her palms over the long bones while he shivered them open until they reached from one wall to the other in a white, feathered screen.. "So soft," she whispered. "I'd forgotten . . . ."

Downing half a Jack and Coke, Scott said, "Okay - what next?" No one answered immediately, and Scott pointed out, "Jean can't stay someone she's not."

"I know," Jean said, ducking under a wing to go collapse on the crushed-velvet suite couch and grab a pillow, hugging it to her middle like a child with a stuffed animal. Silence reigned again, with only the faint clink of ice from Scott's drink, and the hum of the air conditioner. "I'll just make them forget," she said finally. "After all, I created the whole history - everything I needed to be Madelyne. It was easier than trying to explain the truth."

"Except it wasn't the truth," Scott pointed out, harshly.

"I didn't know that! I thought I was her!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't jumped to conclusions in the first place, we wouldn't have this problem now."

"Stop!" Warren shouted, suddenly furious. "Just fucking stop it, both of you!" He glared at Scott, who glared back, then slammed down the (now empty) glass to stomp for the suite door.

"Scott -!" Jean called, leaping to her feet.

He paused, hand on the knob. "I just need to take a walk by myself," he said. "I need to think. I'll be back." And he didn't sound angry, just weary. Warren and Jean watched him go.

"I should go after him," Jean said.

"Give him a few minutes," Warren told her, but she was right. Leaving Scott alone too long, whatever he thought he needed, wouldn't be wise. Nonetheless - "You can't just make them forget, Jean."

She glanced from the shut door to him. "Why not?"

"It's . . . too big. There's too much to change, now. And it's not right, to mess with that many people's memories."

"I can't tell them what really happened!" She sounded both frightened and angry. "I can't say, 'Sorry, I'm not really your daughter, I just thought I was'!"

"I know," he replied. "We need to talk to the professor. He's more used to this kind of thing."

"People coming back from the dead?"

Warren made a frustrated noise. Sometimes she was as deliberately obtuse as Scott. "He's used to figuring out the simplest, cleanest solutions to accidental problems caused by mutations."

She thought about it. "Okay." But it was clear her attention was divided - half of it out the door.

"Go find him," Warren told her.

She headed out, but paused before exiting, just as Scott had. "We'll be back."

"I know. You two need some time."

She removed her hand from the knob and came back to where he still stood, not far inside the entryway. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. "I love you," she said. Then she headed out.

And Warren headed for the wet bar himself, grabbing Scott's empty glass. "You love me," he said to the empty room. "But you love him best."

And abruptly, he dropped the glass. It hit the leather bar top, bounced, and rolled onto the floor. He didn't notice. He'd fallen back against the wall, hand raised to his mouth, biting the back of it, weeping. His wings shook.

Jean loved Warren, but she loved Scott best, and always had, even when she'd thought she hadn't. Scott loved Warren, too, but loved Jean best, and always had. And Warren had simply accepted that status quo because they were all he had. Until she'd died, and he'd finally had one of them to himself.

But now she was back, and the two of them were out there together, while he was in here - alone.

Scott had gotten all the way outside and down several blocks by the time Jean caught up to him on the sidewalk. Finding him had been no problem. His mind burned bright to her psychic sight, familiar, beloved . . . angry. "Scott!"

He halted in front of a modernesque office building done in pink stone with three totem poles out front for decoration. Turning, hands shoved into pockets, his face was frustrated under a drawn up hood. "I said I wanted to be alone."

She came up to him and just stared into his face. "If I left you longer, you'd start to brood, and we both know how much good that does you." A pause. "I didn't leave you, you know."

"What?"

"I didn't die to leave you. I didn't. I know it's what you think - but it's wrong."

He just stared back at her from behind the glasses, and frustrated, she reached out to touch his mind, feel what he felt.

She hit a wall - a wall she'd taught him to make, in fact, she and Charles. Let me in.

"No," he said aloud.

"Why?"

He didn't answer, just continued to glare. With the sun all but down at last - just a little glow yet over the western bay - she could see the soft light of his eyes behind the quartz.

He'd had such beautiful eyes once, so wide and expressive.

And without quite thinking, just reacting on instinct and some innate knowledge of her new ability, she lifted away his glasses with her TK, power surging forward to stop the beams even as he snatched for the ruby quartz. Then his hand froze when no red lashed out. Stunned, his jaw dropped as his glasses drifted down, earpieces folding neatly to fit into her hand.

For the first time in thirteen years, their eyes met with nothing in between.

"They're still blue," she said softly, reaching out to brush a lock of hair off his forehead under the hood. He seemed too stunned to speak. "I thought they might be red now, but when I hold back the beams, the iris is still blue. I always loved your eyes."

"How are you doing this?" he whispered.

"I don't know. I just can. I needed to see you again - and I needed you to see me. I think we lost ourselves a little, these last few years."

He was crying. And he could cry, without the beams in the way. The tears welled and slid down beside his nose, winking in the light of a street lamp. She wiped them away. "I never stopped loving you," she told him. "I loved you so hard, I couldn't die. I don't know where you got that crazy idea that I died to get away from you. I didn't. I came back for you."

And that broke him. He shuddered, and the tears turned to sobs as she embraced him hard, his face - no glasses - pressed to her neck. She held on as tightly as she could. The few people passing on the sidewalk at such a late hour looked politely away. When he pulled away finally, his hands came up to tangle in her hair, pulling her forehead to his. "I missed you," he hissed.

"I know. I'm back."

"Don't ever leave me again."

"I'll do my best to avoid it."

And they drew apart, recovering their public dignity in this public place. She returned the glasses to his face, releasing his power again, but softened, so it didn't pain him when it surged back, as it might have otherwise. It was so easy - so easy to block it, hold it, diffuse it, finesse it. Before, at Alkali Base, it had taken everything in her just to turn it aside. Now, it was child's play.

"What have I become?" she asked him, all her fears returning.

But she didn't feel any fear in him as he cupped her cheek. "You're the fire and I'm the moth," he said. "You're my life - my phoenix."

"You're a sap," she replied, but she was laughing a little.

Notes: First, thanks to Elle for checking Warren's business comments; all errors are mine, not hers. Second, on Scott's family business, a lot of the background for that was established in Special, entry 12, "A Capella," but everything necessary to know appears here, and the whole thing is based loosely on the comics, where Scott's grandparents (both still alive there) did, indeed, own a private cargo company in Anchorage called North Star Airways. Deborah Summers' maiden name was never given; LaRue is entirely my invention. For more info on that, see the notes at the end of "A Capella." And just for the record, in the comics, when Jean erupted from the Bay newborn as Phoenix, her words were, "I am fire, and life incarnate! Now and forever - I am Phoenix!"