I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.
- Revelation 3:3
Jean stared down at her notebook, feeling betrayed, frustrated, confused, and slightly sick. In that order.
Her best friend - her best girl friend - was a back-stabbing sneak, and her best boy friend was willingly aiding and abetting. Now her own brain had turned against her. How else could she explain the traitorous message she'd just written?
"Jean & Scott." With little hearts.
She looked around to make sure no one had seen it, knowing that her paranoia was completely unfounded and that the guilt was equally unreasonable. Then she scratched over the words with her pen until they were a meaningless black rectangle, and returned her attention to her history teacher's lecture.
Five minutes later, after a brief interlude of absent doodling, she realized that she'd added another footnote.
"Jean & Scott." One heart, a big one that embraced both names.
This time, she didn't scribble it out of existence. This time, the more she stared at it, the more she wanted to write it again. It looked... good.
She bit her lip, feeling lost. Scott didn't want to be her boyfriend; if he did, he wouldn't have gone to the dance with Taryn. And she already had a boyfriend anyway, although she was reluctant to give her relationship with Duncan that level of significance. No, she should just get over this silly crush and-
"Well, Ms. Grey?" someone said very close to her ear, and Jean jumped slightly in her chair, startled. The teacher was standing next her desk, tapping his foot with one eyebrow arched. The rest of the class was looking at her with undisguised anticipation. Even without telepathy, she could see how much they were loving it.
Fighting to keep what dignity she had left, she asked, "Could you repeat the question?"
The students broke into scattered giggles and the teacher scowled. "So you weren't paying attention."
"Ah, no sir. I'm sorry." She tried to close the notebook, but he put the tip of his laser pointer firmly on the page, stopping her. Luckily, she managed to keep the incriminating sentence hidden under her hand.
"And what, exactly, is more interesting than my lecture?" He lifted the pointer and gestured at her to hand over the notebook. The giggling gave way to muted "uh-oh"s that didn't sound at all sympathetic. For a split second, she hated them all. What made her the bad guy? Just as quickly, she chastised herself; such an emotion was unfair of her.
"I'm waiting, Ms. Grey."
She bit her lip again and started to hand him the notebook, knowing that he was going to read it out loud and that she would spend the rest of her high school career living this incident down, and also knowing that she had no other choice because she was too much of a good student.
The classroom door opened just as his fingers were closing on the paper. He turned to see who it was, and his hand fell away from the notebook.
Jean immediately pulled the notebook back and closed it; now, if he asked for it, she could show him any page. She might've been a good student, but she wasn't stupid.
Several students made disappointed noises.
The visitor was an office aide, bearing a square yellow check-out slip. "Um, for Jean Grey?"
"That's me," Jean said with ill-hidden relief, practically leaping up from her desk. In one quick move, she had her backpack on and was hurrying across the room.
"Saved by the bell," someone stage-whispered, but by then she was in the hallway and shutting the door behind her.
"Says to go to the parking lot immediately," the aide informed her, giving her the life-saving piece of paper.
"Thanks," Jean said. She walked briskly down the hallway, reading the paper as she went. Wolverine had signed. That was a first.
Rogue was walking down the hallway, too, yellow check-out slip in one black-gloved hand. Jean walked a little faster to catch up with her.
"Hey," Jean said as she fell into step beside her teammate. They'd never been good friends, and they probably never would be - they were just too different - but they'd been on slightly better terms ever since their Siren adventures - or misadventures, whichever you wanted to call it. "What do you think is going on?"
"You're askin' me?" Rogue said, giving her a sidelong glance. "I don't know. But it's gettin' me out of math, so it can't be too bad."
"Yeah. I'm just curious, because Logan signed for us instead of the professor."
Rogue shrugged and pushed open one of the heavy glass doors that faced the parking lot. "Guess we'll find out soon enough."
The Institute's black van was parked at the curb with its engine running and Logan standing beside it. He looked less happy than usual. "Let's move it, huh?"
"Sorry," Jean and Rogue said, and jogged the last few yards. They climbed into the back of the van as he went around to the driver's seat.
"Get changed," he ordered, tossing their uniforms at them. "We don't have much time."
Jean automatically started switching clothes, asking, almost as an afterthought, "Why? What's going on?"
Before Wolverine could answer, a familiar burst of sulfurous smoke and light filled the front passenger of the van. Jean hastily tugged her uniform over her more important parts, hearing Rogue curse under her breath. She had to agree; having a teleporter around was convenient sometimes, but it could also be a genuine pain.
"Cyclops is prepping the Blackbird," Kurt told Wolverine in his German accent, then did a double-take at the back of the van. "Whoa!"
They were mostly dressed - the first thing you learned at the Institute was how to change clothes in thirty seconds flat - but Rogue snapped one of her gloves and warned, "Look and you'll wish you hadn't." Kurt wisely averted his eyes.
Wolverine grunted, possibly in amusement, but there was no way to tell with him. "You're not staying anyway, elf."
"This is so not fair!" Kurt exclaimed, indignant, crossing his furry blue arms. "Why do they get all the fun?"
"They don't have a science exam today. Now get back to class," Wolverine added with a jerk of his thumb in the school's direction. "You've been gone too long already."
Kurt sighed heavily and 'ported without further protest. Wolverine was pulling into traffic before the brimstone had cleared the air.
Jean finally got her headpiece into place and shook out her hair, not bothered at all by the high speed or the way the van was weaving in and out of lanes. "So wh-"
"Cairo, Illinois. Mutant. Xavier and Storm are already there. We're playin' calvary." He glanced at them in the rearview mirror. "I could only pull a few of you out - too suspicious. Three's pushin' it as is."
The third person was Cyclops; Wolverine had probably gotten Nightcrawler to teleport Scott to the Institute in order to save time. Great, she'd get to work with the person she'd been writing love notes about. They weren't love notes, she argued with herself. Right. Little hearts didn't have anything to do with love. No, no, Jean, that was totally platonic.
Her life was such a mess.
Rogue finished fastening her boots and asked, "It's not Magneto, Juggernaut, or any of the other usual suspects, is it?"
"Nope."
"Good," Rogue said, leaning back. "The way my day's going, I don't think I could take a real slugfest."
"We'll see," Wolverine said. Jean tilted her head, recognizing the tone. Whatever they were walking into, a fight was definitely a possibility. Not a problem, just as long as Scott didn't get hurt. As soon as she thought it, she wished she could take it back, because the slightly sick feeling returned with a vengeance, and she knew that was exactly what was going to happen.
The van screeched to a halt in front of the Institute and she forced the feeling down. They ran into the mansion and somewhat impatiently rode the elevators down to the hangar where, true to Kurt's word, the Blackbird was sitting ready for takeoff.
Scott was in the pilot's seat. He looked over his shoulder at them when they boarded, the ruby lens in his visor flashing, and Jean felt herself blush for no good reason. Guilt over a hopeless crush was not a good reason.
"Go," Wolverine ordered. And they were off.