Chapter 14

The remainder of the holidays flew by, and Scott and Jean were careful not to repeat their encounter on the sofa Christmas night. On the one hand Scott was almost glad Logan had interrupted them before things had gotten really out of hand – he didn't want his first time with Jean to be a frantic coupling on the couch in the common room. She deserved better than that. They both knew it was simply a matter of time, though.

Back at school, Jean and Scott had decided that some hand-holding might not be too bad, not too obvious a PDA. Since everyone now knew about their relationship anyway, they didn't need to be as discreet. Talk around the school had them crowned the new Super Couple – the perfect pair.

Jean was searching through her locker for her American Lit textbook when she caught sight of a familiar figure heading towards her. She suppressed a groan and tried to ignore him.

"Hey Jean," Duncan greeted as he approached. "Did you have a good Christmas break?"

Jean glanced at him. "It was fine, thanks. Why?"

He raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, chill, I was only asking. Can't we even talk anymore?

She shrugged and returned to rummaging through her locker. "Fine, what do you want to talk about?"

"I miss you," he said with as much sincerity as Jean could remember hearing from him. It caused her to pause in her digging and look sideways at him.

"You do?" she asked warily.

He smiled, hope flaring in him. "Of course I do. We had some really good times together. I was kinda hoping we could give it another shot."

Jean sighed. "Duncan, you know that Scott and I are together now –"

Duncan smiled cockily and cut her off. "Oh, c'mon, Jean. You and Summers haven't been dating that long. Break it off with him and get back with me. You know you want to." He reached out to stroke her cheek, and she jerked her head backwards.

"No, actually I don't. Look, you and I...it just never would have worked. We were a bad idea from the start, I just couldn't see it. I'm happy with Scott."

Duncan gave her an ugly smirk. "Summers is a loser, Jean. What the hell do you see in him, anyway? God knows you're not with him for the sex – you're too much of a prude to be screwing him already. It took me months before I even came close to getting in your pants."

"That's it!" Jean shouted in exasperation, slamming her locker shut. "I have had it with you! I've tried to be the bigger person here. I have tried to ignore your nasty, snide comments about me, but I just don't have it in me anymore." She turned on Duncan and took several steps forward. He retreated slightly, backing himself up against the wall of lockers.

"Do you want to know why I wouldn't sleep with you?" she demanded, not expecting a reply. "Because I didn't want to – simple as that. Hell, most of the time we were together I didn't even like you, let alone want to have sex with you. You treated me like shit half the time we were together, but I stupidly overlooked that because at times you could actually be charming."

"Babe, c'mon, it wasn't like that," Duncan said smoothly, adopting what he knew to be his most dazzling smile. Jean raised her hand sharply, commanding his silence.

"Number one, don't call be babe," she spat out. "Ever. Number two, it was like that. You were just too high on yourself to realize it."

Duncan just blinked at her, not knowing what to say or do.

"You will stop harassing me and my friends. You will not speak to me or Scott. And you will stop spreading rumors about me – you may not think I've heard the things you've said, but I have," she told, her eyes narrowed in anger.

"Or else what?" Duncan had the gall to ask.

Jean smirked at him. "You remember Logan, right? The scary guy from the Institute who met you at the door the first time you came to pick me up?"

Duncan swallowed loudly and nodded, remembering the barely veiled threat delivered by the older man that first evening.

"Well, Logan's very protective. If he ever found out any of the things you said or did to me, I don't know if there's a force on the planet that would be able to keep him from hunting you down." Jean smiled sweetly at him, then turned and walked away.

*****

"I was wrong – Duncan isn't just a moron, he's a delusional psychopath," Jean proclaimed to Scott as she flopped onto his bed. He'd glanced at her from where he sat at his desk when she entered his room, but now spun his chair around to face her.

"What did he do?" Scott demanded.

Jean sighed and lay down, staring at the ceiling. "He asked me to get back together with him."

"You're kidding!"

"I wish. I finally lost it and threatened to sick Logan on him if he didn't leave us alone."

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" Scott asked angrily, rising from his chair to pace around the room.

"Because I figured you'd get mad and want to get into a pissing contest with him. And obviously I was right," she said with a smirk, rolling onto her side to look at him. "Anyway, I really do think he'll back off now – for a while anyway. And by the time he gets over his fear of Logan I'm sure he'll have moved on to making life miserable for some other poor girl."

Scott watched her carefully for a long moment. "Can I ask you something?" he finally asked.

Jean nodded for him to continue.

"What did you ever see in him, anyway?"

She was silent, pondering her answer. "Well, a big part of it was the idea of him. The handsome star football player, one of the most popular guys in the school, was interested in me. I was a little star struck, to be honest – I couldn't quite believe that someone like him really liked me, but I grasped it and held on for dear life. Even when I started realizing he wasn't the guy I thought he was, I wasn't quite ready to let go of the illusion." She paused and glanced away from Scott. "He brought out a side of me that I didn't like very much. I'm not blind Scott, I know I acted differently when I was with him. I'm very much ashamed of that."

"You weren't that bad, Jean," Scott tried to reassure her.

"No, I was that bad," she insisted, sitting up and absently running her fingers through her disheveled hair. "I was downright bitchy sometimes – you know I'm not usually like that. I could see how I was behaving, but I couldn't seem to stop it. It frustrated me, because I knew I was hurting my friends – hurting you – by acting that way."

Scott sat next to her on the bed. "We survived," he told her with a smile.

"You've always been too good to me. I've taken that for granted over the past year or so, I think. I've counted on the fact that you would be there, regardless of what happened. Why did you put up with me?"

"Honestly? Because you've had me wrapped around your finger since the first moment I saw you," he admitted with a grin. "I'd gotten to know the real you before that, so I was already half-way gone. The whole package was just irresistible."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," she muttered, embarrassed.

"It's not flattery, it's the truth," Scott insisted gently. "Besides, I was just biding my time until you came to your senses, and I'd have a chance with you."

"I wish you'd said something sooner," Jean said wistfully, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "You could have saved me from wasting half a year of my life on that creep."

Scott shook his head. "I don't think either of us would have been ready for this before now. Sure, I wanted to ask you out, but I would have been terrified if you'd said yes."

"Thanks a lot," she said dryly, smacking his chest lightly.

Scott laughed and hugged her tightly. "So did you come in here for any reason other than to complain about your ex?"

"As a matter of fact, yes: I wanted you to give up on your homework and go outside with me for a while."

"Let me guess," he said mock seriously, pretending to think really hard. "It wouldn't be snowing out, would it?"

Jean stuck her tongue out at him. "Stop making fun of me. Yes, it's snowing. But more importantly than that, thanks in part to Bobby, the lake has finally completely frozen over. So let's go skating."

"I don't get a say in this, do I?" Scott asked, leaning over to brush Jean's hair aside and kiss her neck. "'Cause if I'm going to take a study break, I'd much rather stay right here with you."

"Not this time," she told him as she slipped out of his embrace. "Come on, let's go!"

Scott looked into her smiling face and sighed. "Fine. You're no fun."

"If you're nice to me, maybe I'll help you warm up when we come back inside," she said lightly, hopping off the bed and heading towards his door. She glanced back over her shoulder and flashed a flirtatious grin.

Suddenly skating didn't sound like such a bad idea to Scott.

~~

*Jen holds up a sign and waves it back and forth* Will write for feedback!