From Scott Summers' Personal Journal:

You don't expect your fiancée to blow you in an alley of downtown Anchorage.

Well I don't, anyway. I did that once for money, not love, and it's sure as hell not my kink.

It was, however, my first serious clue that Jean had changed in more ways than just an enormous power jump. Xavier is powerful, too, so much so, it can scare the pants off a person, but I've come to trust him. It's not that he can't or doesn't screw up, but even when he does, there's a line there. He doesn't cross it. Yet after that first evening back together, I wondered if Jean still saw lines. I do believe she wanted to, tried to, but there was something missing, like a person with brain damage relearning how to walk, move, act.

And what an ironic analogy for me, given that "brain damage" has defined both my history and my power. Ironic for Jean, too, as she's occupying a body that was, apparently, missing its head.

Jean's spirit - or whatever you'd call it - rebuilt and resuscitated a corpse that was never hers in the first place, even if she can make it look as thoroughly like her as anything Mystique could do. And where, exactly, does spirit end and biology begin? Body chemistry affects our thoughts and behaviors more than we often realize, and I wonder - is she still Jean if there's nothing left of the original, physical woman? "Life" may encompass more than mere electromagnetic charges in our cells, but I don't know if anything actually survives when they stop. Jean did, but is that because she's a spirit whose mutation lets her stick around, or is she something else entirely - something that can't die? And if so, is she even human? It's a metaphysical question worthy of my philosophy degree but pursuing that line of thought just raises the hair on the back of my neck. It's not philosophical to me. It's personal.

Whatever she is now, though, I won't abandon her - not when she needs me most. I may never have said the actual words, but "in sickness and in health, until death us do part" applies here. Death didn't, apparently, part us.

Part of me thrills to that. Her words, "I came back for you" - I can't even begin to articulate what they meant, how they pierced me. I needed those five words more than any explanation, any rejection of Logan, any miraculous resurrection. Not only did she not die to get away from me, she came back for me.

I can forgive a hell of a lot for that kind of love.

After our confrontation a few blocks from the hotel, I was feeling such an intense rush of emotion, I wasn't ready to go back yet and share her with anyone, even Warren. She wasn't, either, so we ambled about a while, arm in arm, speaking little. It was all about sheer sensation - to touch again and be touched, grounding her and filling a desperate (and mostly ignored) need in me. I can't ask for physical affection, and I'm often afraid of it - but I need it. Jean's known that almost from the beginning. Even when I held aloof from everyone, resisting touch, she imposed it on me. I once described her as being like a force of nature, and she is. Irresistible. Upbringing gave her refined manners, and age has given her restraint and caution - but in her core, she's none of those things.

And she loves me. It's different from Warren. Warren has always accepted me, cared about me, put me first, supported me when I wasn't worth the mud on his shoes, but Jean makes me believe I can live - be more than I am. Warren protects me. Jean . . . Jean pulls me forward. One behind, one in front. I need them both, but my eyes are turned forward. On her.

It doesn't hurt that I find her sexy as hell.

And that night, I needed. After eight, almost nine months without her, I needed. Unfortunately, Warren was back in the suite, and though it had two bedrooms, if we'd returned there and shut ourselves up in one, he'd have known what we were up to, and I just . . . I couldn't do that to him. It was more than privacy of space.

It felt like Greece all over again, when we'd first gotten together, except Warren had seen that coming for months, with time to prepare himself. In fact, he'd all but shoved me at her because I was a dolt. But it had hurt him. And later, he'd gone to Istanbul, rather than back to Greece with us. Time had eased the awkwardness, but all of a sudden, everything was complicated again - though one thing wasn't complicated at all. I wanted to fuck Jean. Now. My body ached.

Sensing it in me must have been as easy for her as reading a billboard. After a decade together, she was psychically attuned to me anyway, and it was so much more powerful now. Thus, we strolled down the sidewalk, sides pressed together, sometimes pausing to kiss open-mouthed - an unusual display for me, which, at the time, I chalked up to horniness. In fact, it was Jean. She wasn't putting it in my head, but she was helping to suppress my (normally enormous) inhibitions.

Like a city of any size, downtown Anchorage had the ritzy sections and the less ritzy, and one could cross out of the first into the second in just a few blocks. So we found ourselves in south Anchorage where iron bars blocked doors and windows, and neon signs advertised beer, cigarettes, pool, and tattoos. It wasn't nearly as rough as similar neighborhoods in New York, but it was rough enough. My side of town, once, where people pretended to ignore you while watching your every move.

"Jean, we need to go back. This area is dangerous."

"We don't need to go anywhere," she told me, head on my shoulder, thumb hooked in my back belt loop so that her hand rested on my ass. "They don't see us." And she stopped me, pushing me up against a brick wall to kiss me, distracting me thoroughly (yet again) while pressing a knee into my groin, and I was hard inside my jeans. Her mouth moved from my lips to my jaw and throat and I just stood there, letting her nibble down my neck, my hands kneading her back and shoulders. "Nnngh." So articulate.

A little alley opened between the pawnshop on the right and the pizza parlor on the left. I could smell the hot scent of spices and bread, and my stomach growled; laughing, she maneuvered me backwards into the narrow run, angling me against pizza-parlor brick, her body still pressed all along mine, and now her hand was working the front of my jeans -

Except both her arms were still around my neck while she kissed me. Nonetheless, she was fondling my cock - and that was a telekinetic trick she'd attempted a few times before but had never been any good at, her touch not strong enough (and neither of us were eager to experiment with anything rougher that might cause pain there). Yet now, she demonstrated such uncanny control that I was too worked up to think much about how she was doing it. I did care about the people passing not ten feet away, even at eleven-thirty at night. Pulling away from her mouth, I said, "Jean, this is a street. There are people watching!"

"No, they're not. I told you, nobody can see us. Relax."

And I did. I wouldn't have, normally, but I did, probably because whatever the hell she was doing with her TK had sent me right around the bend. It felt as if two-dozen fingers were working up and down my shaft, hitting every sensitive spot from the tip to the root in a way impossible for a hand (or two) to do. She had me raised up on my toes, thrusting against the invisible force of her TK even as she was trying to get my fly undone.

I really wasn't thinking anymore at that point. Pure lust had taken over, and whatever hang-ups my history would normally have imposed, she'd managed to undercut them - telepathically soothe them. This wasn't about power. She wasn't trying to prove she could drive me crazy or make me want her so badly I didn't fucking care; this wasn't about her, at all, in fact. She was aroused, too, but mostly in response. This was all about me.

Fly open finally, one of her hands worked with her TK to free me from my underwear, push pants and underwear down, and I flat didn't give a fuck who might be watching because she'd dropped to her knees to take me in her mouth and -

- I wasn't wearing a condom. "No!" I pulled away. "You know that's not safe!"

Relax, she sent telepathically. You can't infect me now.

How do you know?

I know. Stop worrying, Scott. Enjoy it. And she leaned in again, mouth encasing me in a wet, engulfing heat like I'd never experienced with latex between - and it quite thoroughly shut down my brain. She could have used her TK for this, too, and without drool or the threat of teeth, but it would've lacked the same impact. It mattered that for love, someone would do for me - would want to do for me - what I'd been forced to do for money, and it had required years before I'd been able to let her. It wasn't as physically intense as being inside her - the wrong shift of posture could take pressure off just where and when I needed it most - but the psychological impact was so great, it sent me off faster than anything else.

One of her hands had snaked up under my sweatshirt to play with a nipple while the other was rubbing the back of my thigh as her mouth worked me, tongue stroking my shaft, and I rocked into her, gripping her hair to hold her steady, as gentle as I could. Yet when she pulled up to suckle and lick all around the swollen head, I was back up on my toes, teeth gritted, balls drawn tight, ready to explode - but I couldn't. Pressure squeezed the base of my cock, keeping me from climax, and I could feel the sperm pooling, blocked. Her tongue was sawing all around the cock head now, then she tickled the slit with her tongue tip and slid it down to the indentation on the underside, pressing hard and flicking back and forth. The fingers of one hand continued to pinch and roll my nipple while the other stroked my tight balls, and by this point, I was groaning and writhing against the brick wall. She'd never held me off like this and I gripped her head to rock into her mouth roughly, not conscious enough to be gentle, striking the back of her throat, but she was taking it without gagging - was humming instead and the vibrations were the last straw for me. "Dammit, Jean, let me come! Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck . . . ." I was just incoherent.

The pressure at the base of my cock disappeared and I arched forward into her, ejaculate rushing out and down her throat, and I still had her head gripped hard in both my hands, but couldn't stop. She swallowed around me and I shouted again in painful ecstasy. It was so amazingly intense, flesh to flesh like this, that I almost fell over. Her TK kept me from doing so.

Then the peak was past, and I was panting, my hands still holding her head, but stroking her cheeks now, her hair. Pushing her back carefully, I slipped out of her mouth and my poison semen spilled down her chin. Whatever she'd said, that worried the hell out of me, and I wanted to get her cleaned up and off her knees. And Jesus, Mary and Joseph - we were still in that alley with people passing beyond the mouth of it, and no one was looking.

I was shaking all over, and not from the sexual release. My past crashed in on me and I felt used, even though this whole encounter had been about my needs. Realizing that, she got to her feet - graceful as always, and my clothes were rearranging themselves under her invisible TK hands, tucking me back inside, zipping up, and all the wetness and mess that should have been - it wasn't there. Atomized, maybe, I don't know. It wasn't on her face anymore, either, and she was just holding me. "It's okay," she said over and over. "No one saw us. It was as private as if we were alone in a room, just you and me. It was just you and me, Scott."

But we hadn't been alone in a room, and even if she could dismiss the setting, I couldn't. Still, she'd been responding to me, giving me what my body had desperately wanted. It just hadn't been what I'd wanted, and once, Jean would've known that, would've ignored my physical desire to answer my heart. It was why I'd fallen in love with her in the first place. She knew and respected my hang-ups, never made fun of me or tried to rush me past them, and so I'd been able to get past them . . . but as me - in a conscious act - not by her momentarily suppressing them, which is what had happened here. Yet it had been done as a gift - the best damn blow job I'd had in . . . ever, really.

To say I was confused wouldn't have begun to cover it.

And she knew. "I'm sorry," she whispered, holding me, head pressed against my chest. "I didn't mean - "

"I know." I stroked her hair, trying to bury my disgust.

But she felt that, too, and drew away, head bowed. "I won't ever do that again."

"You can do it again," I said, "just let's do it in our bedroom next time, okay?"

"They really didn't see us, Scott."

"I know; I believe you. But I saw them. And this - it brings up some bad memories. Plus next time, we should use a condom."

"That's really not necessary." I opened my mouth to protest, but she put a finger over my lips. "Quit worrying. Think a minute." And she held out her arms to indicate her resuscitated body, as if to say, "If I can do this . . . ." She had a point there.

I nodded, and we just stared at each other for a moment. "Thank you," I said finally, and that covered a multitude of things from her regret over the mistake to the simple fact she'd given me mind-blowing sex. Then we headed back to the hotel, fingers intertwined but no longer glued to each other's side.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was after midnight, though I'd stalked out a little before ten. Warren wasn't in the outer room; we found him passed out face down on the bed in the smaller bedroom, TV blaring. We'd had a long couple of days, true, not to mention the emotional drain, but the little night stand collection of those sampler liquor bottles they put in hotel rooms was the chief culprit. I picked one up and showed it to Jean, who sighed. I counted at least six bottles - all downed in two hours. And he was out cold, didn't even wake when Jean shook him.

"Damn," she muttered, looking up at me from across the bed. We didn't need to discuss what had brought on the bender, and I sat down on the bedside, clear of his wings. She came around to kneel beside me, laying her head in my lap while I stroked her hair. "I didn't want to hurt him."

"Life's like that," I replied, sounding more philosophical than I actually felt. "He's glad you're back, Jean."

"I know he is - part of him is . . . really is. But part of him -" She looked up at me, then joined me on the bed. "I took you away from him again."

"I never belonged to him -"

"Yes, you did. For a little while, you did."

"It wasn't anything like that." I hesitated, unsure whether she realized we'd been sleeping together recently - even if it was really just sleeping. "We didn't have sex."

"But you love him. You, of all people, know better than to equate the two."

I frowned a little and she stroked my hair. "This isn't a competition," I said. "I never wanted it to be a competition."

"It's not, it's just . . . hard to balance. Even before you and I became a couple - it was hard to balance. When I died, things went back to just you and him."

"But we were never a couple - not like you and I."

"Oh, quit it!" She got up and stalked a little away from the bed, then turned on her heel to face me, hands on hips. I was reminded of a younger Jean with her red head's temper. "You weren't having sex, no, but you were together. I felt it."

I glared at her from behind the glasses. "Stop reading my mind without my permission." My anger wasn't just at her invasion of my privacy, but also embarrassment that she might know I'd been prepared to move on.

She frowned back. "It's not a matter of reading your mind, Scott. It's a matter of not reading it."

"What do you mean?" The subject change provided distraction from going into what I'd had with Warren.

"To read minds before, I had to . . . reach out. It was like taking a book someone else was reading, then turning it so I could see the words. Sometimes, I had to fight to get the book at all. But right before the end, I had to keep other minds out - like when I was a girl."

She stopped abruptly, hand going up to her mouth in glee. "I remembered something! All on my own, I remember that!"

I smiled a little at her obvious excitement. In the car on the way to the hotel, Warren had told me about his conversation with Jean back at the office. He'd also said he thought she remembered more than she realized.

Now, she went on, "Anyway, it's not a matter of me trying to read your mind. It's as if you had the book turned towards me already, and I consciously have to not look." She wrinkled her nose in frustration, an expression I'd always found charming. "It's going to take some practice. But just so you know - I'm not trying to sneak a peek, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"As for what you and Warren had -" I tensed but she barreled on, "It doesn't upset me, so quit worrying about it. There's no one I'd rather have seen you with, and I think, if anything, knowing you'd still have Warren makes it easier."

Jaw tight, I looked away, "It wasn't that I moved on overnight."

"Scott," she seemed amused, "loving Warren wasn't moving on at all, really; he was in the equation already. Plus, it's been almost nine months. I think I'd be more upset with you if you hadn't started to think about what came after."

I eyed her. "You sound awfully reasonable about this." And she did, the same way she'd used to sound when we'd been kids and I'd been difficult to live with. "Don't rationalize."

"I'm not - exactly. I had a little practice with this coming back from the dead thing when I still thought I was Madelyne. She had a fiancé, too. That's part of what contributed to the confusion in my head. There was someone she might have come back for - except he really did move on." She walked back to the bed and I reached out to her, our fingers twining. "But you're still here." She glanced back at Warren, dead to the world behind us. "Come on, let's get him up and into the other bed."

"Why?" I asked, baffled.

But she didn't answer, just released me to walk around to the bed's other side. "I can help lift his weight with the TK. Get his arm, Scott."

I did as she instructed, and we maneuvered him off the bed, supporting him between us, his wings dragging the carpet as we walked him out of the smaller bedroom and through the living room. "Why are we moving him?" I asked again.

"Because we won't all fit in that bed comfortably."

And I got it then. "We're going to sleep together."

"Of course. It wouldn't be the first time." She grew serious then. "I don't want him to wake up alone." We had him to the other bed now, the one Warren and I had been sharing already, and Jean wrestled with his shoes and dress slacks, getting them off while I turned the bedsheets down. Then she was stripping out of her own clothes, digging in her bag for a nightgown and toothbrush. It was all a bit surreal for the very mundanity of it. How often had we shared this routine? And I'd never thought to share it with her again.

We got ready for bed, then fell asleep with Warren bracketed between us. The next morning, Jean woke first and brought him water and aspirin, waking him, and me by default. I threw my pillow over my head. I'm not a morning person.

"How the hell did I get in here?" Warren asked as he took the pills and water. His hair was a sweaty mess.

"We carried you," Jean replied, matter-of-factly.

He stared at her, then turned to look at me. I still had the pillow half over my head. "But didn't you two -"

Jean cut him off. "You're part of this, too, aren't you? The bed is big enough for three, War." She sat down, still facing him. "It's big enough for three."

Warren turned to me again - as if asking permission, but I just stared back. I didn't resent him being here, not this morning of all mornings, and I knew Jean was trying desperately to keep him from feeling excluded. But I also wasn't too sure where she expected him to sleep tomorrow night. After what had happened in the alley, I wouldn't pretend to predict her. "This could get a little unorthodox," Warren said lightly - but I could hear an edge of uncertainty behind it. He was no more sure what she'd meant by that than I was.

But Jean laughed at him. "Worrywart." And reaching out to grab a pillow, she bopped him on the head with it. He grabbed his own pillow to swing back, and it devolved from there until we were all three engaged in a titanic pillow fight like a trio of hyperactive ten-year-olds, and I wasn't sure which feathers came from the pillows and which from Warren's wings.

It also allowed us to avoid talking further, but by that point, we needed the stress relief, and wound up in a giggling lump on the hotel-room floor. "The Three Mutant Musketeers are back!" Jean howled, holding up her pillow like a limp sword. We tickled her until she cried uncle.

Then we called Xavier. It was almost noon out there. "Professor," I said when he answered. "I have someone here who wants to talk to you."

And I handed Jean my cell phone. She held it gently, hesitated, then said, "Hi, Charles -"