Scott hated waking up. He hated being reminded of yet another day without Beth.  His mind had been unusually hung up on his twin for the past two days which was causing him to be depressed.

"Hi, honey," Jean said as she rolled over next to her fiancé.  "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine," Scott said with a smile.  He knew that she had been overjoyed the day before when he had asked if they could get married in three days. She'd been planning for so long that all she had to do was get dressed and call the wedding guests.  "Want to go down to breakfast?"

"Do we have to?"

"We should at least put in an appearance."

********************************

Downstairs, Buffy was extremely anxious herself.  Angel had gone to go talk to the professor some place where he wouldn't become a cremated ex-vampire.  Now, she was simply waiting with Alex.  She was also trying to convince herself that Logan did not smell familiar.  If she didn't know better, she'd say he smelled like…don't go there Buffy! she told herself sharply. 

"Ms. O'Brien," the professor called. "May I ask to talk to you?"

"You can ask but I don't have to say yes," she replied.

"It's just…after I left you and Angel with Logan and Alex last night…I tried to telepathically listen in on the conversation.  Would you know why I couldn't?"

"I'm not a mutant," the blonde pointed out. "So why are you asking me if I shielded us?"

"Because if you knew absolutely nothing about mutants as you claim, then you wouldn't know that word."

He had her there.  But she was her mother's daughter, and she knew that Joyce didn't want the whole world to know that because she was an empath she'd taught her daughter how to shield.

Luckily, Alex interfered. "Professor, she's not a mutant.  Perhaps someone taught her how to shield long ago. If one grows up in the right type of home, it isn't that hard."

 "I suppose not," Xavier conceded.

As the professor went back to his meeting, Alex stared at his little sister in amusement.  "I swear that you are a never ending puzzle, Elisabeth."

"My mom's an empath," she explained with a smile. "She taught me how to shield before I learned my times tables."

Logan who had simply been watching the two interact shook his head.  "Has anyone told ya that you are strange?"

"I grew up on a Hellmouth and married a vampire," Buffy smirked.  "Why wouldn't I be strange?  Of course, that's without even taking into account that most of my kind don't live to see eighteen and I'm twenty-five."

She hadn't told them that part the night before.  It threw her big brother for a loop, to know that her kind died so young.  Alex watched her and wondered what they would have done if she had died when the rest her kind seemed to. Alex couldn't imagine it, couldn't imagine not having her back in his life. "Glad you're not dead," he said gruffly.

"Well," she said, "I wasn't kidding last night when I said that I died.  It just happened that one of my best friends brought me back.  I was fifteen."

Before either of them could respond, Scott and Jean walked into the dining room.  Even though it had been close to twenty years, and they were two totally different people, the recognition was instantaneous.  Buffy gave a squeal that sounded remarkably like, "SCOTTY!!!!!" and Scott looked like he was going to pass out from shock.

Everyone but Alex and Logan stared at the blonde girl who had just launched herself at their normally unflappable leader.  Logan was laughing his head off, and Alex wore a small, sly smile.  Jean looked like she wanted to kill the younger-looking woman.  In Jean's mind, this familiarity could have only come from being intimate, which made the other female her enemy.

Alex looked over at the seething telepath, and commented gently, "If they'd ever liked each other in a way that you would be jealous of, it would have been incest.  And while they're close, it's a type of closeness that's caused by being twins."

However, for some odd reason, Alex's voice carried.  Which wouldn't have been a bad thing but it carried during one of those odd lulls in conversation.  The twins turned to their older brother with identical glares, which to everyone else in the room was down right scary.  Because he could remember when they'd wet the bed, Alex just smiled.

"ALLLLEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!" Buffy screamed. "I don't mind the red-head knowing but did you have to tell the whole bloody school?"

"Bloody?" Alex questioned.

His sister shrugged. "Guess I've been hanging around Spike too long."

"Ya really are strange, Buffy," Logan commented.  "You know a guy named Spike?"

"At least I'm not a damphir who's masquerading as a mutant."  It slipped out before she realized what she'd said.  Buffy covered her mouth wishing with all her heart that she could take it back but it was too late.  What surprised her was that instead of looking pissed, Logan just looked confused.

"What the hell is a damphir?" he asked.

Now it was Buffy's turn to stare; she'd never thought that he might honestly not know.

A/N: I know, I know.  I've been a very bad girl and not updated.  Tell me what you think of it and then see if you like any of my other fics.  Might be while before this gets updated again but I'll try.  I just have all these stories appearing in my brain. I really don't like it!