Retrospection

"You've got to be kidding me."

The lean woman flipped her fiery red hair casually over her shoulder while smiling at her boyfriend. "About what, Scott? It's a well-established course in all high schools. Why should it be any different here?"

Scott Summers took one ludicrous glance at the book in his left hand then faced her with the same baffled look. "Because we're not like other schools," he reasoned.

Jean laughed and turned her back on him, leafing through random items on her desk without care. "Because we house and teach mutant teenagers?" She sat down in her leather armchair and propped up two shapely legs on the desk's surface. "Darling, our physiology may be different but our educational needs are surprisingly the same as everyone else."

Scott's eyebrows knitted in confusion above his amber-coloured glasses. "So why don't you teach it?"

Jean's eyes grew wide. "Have you seen my schedule? You have lapses in yours that would be more than enough time for you to teach them." She stood up and swayed over to Scott, lovingly throwing her arms around his neck. She cocked her head to the side and smiled warmly at him. "You'll be fine, Scott." She leaned in until her lips barely grazed his earlobes. "Besides," she smiled mischievously, "you may learn a thing or two yourself."

She had to duck to miss his half-hearted whack.

Cyclops initially had a fear of large crowds. His first childhood recital had been a traumatic affair – nervous tension that takes the form of lethal optic blasts rarely wins over a crowd. But through the help of his professor and mentor Charles Xavier, Scott had been able to squelch that memory until it was nothing more than a somewhat humourous sidenote of his life.

Today, however, was a decidedly different affair. Scott eyed his classroom, jaw rigidly set and arms crossed sternly across his chest. His students – ranging in age from 13 to 18 – stared back at him in clueless silence.

"Do you know why you're here?" He asked slowly.

The class shared quick, confused glances between themselves. Bobby Drake drew up a shaky hand. Scott pointed at him. "Isn't this Life Management Skills?" He prompted.

Scott's eyebrows raised above his coloured glasses in a moment of disbelief. He shook his head and turned away from the class. "Is that what they're calling it these days," he muttered quietly to himself. With a mixture of self-pity and resignation, Scott Summers sighed and picked up the piece of white chalk lying beside the green board. In big, bold, capital letters, Scott spelled out "SEX EDUCATION".

There were several gasps followed by several more nervous giggles.

The second Scott turned around the noise ceased, and once more his class stared at him with wide eyes.

"It's about life choices – taking responsibility for those choices. This will give you just some idea of how difficult that responsibility can be."

He was met with an awkward silence.

"But Mr. Summers," Rogue shyly spoke. "That's an egg."

Scott didn't even bother glancing at the store-bought egg held upright in his right hand. "I know what it is, Rogue."

Rogue nodded quickly, red tingeing her cheeks slightly. But she looked up again. "An' how is an egg supposed to teach us about sex?"

"It's not to teach you about…" he waved his hands around in the air, "sex…it's to teach you about the consequences and the responsibilities that come with having…" he cringed, "sex."

"Oh." Rogue nodded her head slowly this time. "Now it makes sense."

The class released its anxiety with bouts of laughter. Scott held his hands up to quiet them down, but the teenagers were beyond listening at that point. Scott made a mental note to hunt both Charles and Jean down like rabid dogs and show them no mercy. "Guys," he started, but soon had to shout over their ruckus. "Guys!" Kitty glared at him. "And girls," he conceded. "This isn't a joke. This is a serious lesson about caring for something that's fragile," he stared at the egg in his hand. "Even if it does come from a…chicken."

There were some snorts of derisive laughter.

"The point is, this isn't something to be taken lightly. How you handle your egg will directly affect your mark at the end of this course. If there's the slightest bit of damage or negligence in the caring of your egg then you may find yourself repeating this course." He noted the flashes of dread flickering across their faces with satisfaction. Mission achieved. "Now get into partners."

John Allerdyce placed an arm around Bobby Drake's shoulder. "Can we be life-partners?"

The class erupted into fits of laughter again. Scott frowned at John. "Sorry John, I missed that. How long did you want to be in detention for?"

John slowly removed both his arm and his smirk.

***

The horizon was sinking in the west; the sun seemed to expand its size to a neon orange ball and the sky surrounding it faded from blue into a vivid yellow sheen. Mountains of white clouds arose from the west, glowing eerily with the oncoming darkness and the last remnants of light.

Claresholm was a one-street town along the stretch of Alberta highway. It was filled with people just passing through and those that never left. It was a town that didn't ask many questions but saw its usual fill of them; from the absurd, "Don't y'all say it 'aboot'?" to the alarming, "Did we miss the turnoff to Moose Jaw?" All questions were met with the patient temperament typical of a slow prairie life.

The Harley Davidson pulled into the 7-11 and sat behind a slew of RV's. The engine remained idling, and the young man stayed on the bike, staring blankly ahead of him with an elusive frown. He pulled up into the next available stall and gassed the bike up quickly. A roll of distant thunder made him look up.

"Wouldn't want to be traveling on that thing when the storm hits."

Scott Summers turned toward the man standing across from him holding a gas nozzle in his Winnebago's tank. The man smiled openly at him and Scott forced himself to return the gesture.

"I'll be fine," he remarked quietly.

But the truth was inescapable; the sky was darkening in surprisingly quick succession. The storm would not take long before it was upon them. As if to confirm the fact, the sky rumbled loudly. The man looked up.

"This highway gets pretty bad when it rains," he turned back to Scott. "You'll want to head off the road once it gets ugly."

Scott blinked a few times, his action obscured to the man by his red glasses. Finally he nodded slowly, just as the nozzle clicked. "Thanks." He replaced the nozzle and screwed the gas cap back on. "I'll be careful."

The man shrugged and continued pumping gas long after Scott had left the convenience store.

The clouds were still rising and to the west Scott could see the trailing clouds that kissed the prairie floor, signaling the onslaught of powerful rains. Scott placed his black helmet atop his head and continued north without a second thought.

***

The teenagers were their usual noisy selves as they slung off their backpacks and threw them beside their desks. Ignoring the teacher standing sternly at the front, they turned around in their seats and talked excitedly to one another.

"Ahem."

The interrupting noise went completely over their heads. Scott coughed loudly. But the class was entirely oblivious to his presence. "Excuse me," he started, then sighed as they continued their tirade of gossiping and flirting.

Scott turned and walked lazily over to the broad windows that looked out onto the school's manicured lawns. His eyebrows creased as he squinted into the distance. "God, I wish Storm would quit sunbathing in the nude."

From behind him came the rusty creaks of desks being moved and pairs of trampling sneakers darting over to where he stood. Every teenage boy in the class was clamoring over each other to see out the windows while Scott turned back around with a smirk on his face. The remaining girls sat in their seats with arms crossed and feet tapping the floor, meeting his amused gaze with their own disgruntled stares.

"Not funny." Jubilee remarked.

By now most of the boys had realized their teacher's cruel joke. A young teenaged boy with chin-length blonde hair still stared out the window. "Well ah don' see nothin'." Scott tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the boy's desk. Sam Guthrie sat down with a disappointed frown.

"Well, now that I have your undivided attention, it's d-day."

A look of panic flashed across several faces. No one moved.

"Your eggs? I assume you all still have your eggs in perfect condition like a careful and diligent parent would."

The looks of dread now increased. Scott sighed. "Just hand them in."

"Ah couldn't help it! He was being so annoyin' an' he wouldn't leave me alone, so ah had to!"

Scott tapped his clipboard with his pencil. "Rogue, where's your egg?"

She pointed at John Allerdyce who was standing behind her with a smirk on his face. "Ah threw it at him."

"I ducked."

Scott looked from Rogue's red face to John's grinning one. "So…where's the egg?"

"It hit me."

Scott looked further down the line to where Bobby Drake stood with his hand in the air. "Got me in the back of the head."

There were several tentative giggles from the line. Scott exhaled loudly. "I see. John, where's yours?"

John shrugged. "I got hungry."

Jubilee popped her head in front of John's chest. "He fried it accidentally."

John pushed her head away with an irritated shove. "It was not accidental," he smiled at Scott with a twinkle in his eye. "I wanted to see if I could make it explode."

"Oh, it exploded alright," Kitty snickered.

Scott waved them away. "Bobby?"

Bobby's eyes grew wide and crimson slowly traveled up his neck to paint his cheeks and ears. "Oh, well…I kind of-" he stammered.

Rogue shrugged nonchalantly. "He froze it, dropped it, shattered it. It was kinda cool."

Scott shook his head. "Sam? Please give me some good news."

Sam looked uncharacteristically bright-faced for the particular assignment. "Ah'm with you Mr. Summers. Ah for one am appalled by the lack of parenting skills in this class." He turned to the rest of the students with a severe gaze. "Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves."

Scott cleared his throat. Sam turned back around with a wide smile and handed Scott his perfectly unmarred egg. "Ah called him Sambert Overeasy. Ah hope you will love him just as much as ah did." He pretended to wipe a tear away melodramatically.

Scott was studying the egg intently and just as Sam was about to make a clean getaway, Scott grabbed the back of his tee-shirt. "Sam?"

Sam's face fell, noticeably to the rest of the class who stopped and stared at the teacher scrutinizing the student. "Yes Mr. Summers?"

"Did you…" Scott turned the egg over in his hand. "Did you…hardboil your egg?"

Sam widened his eyes in a dramatic play of innocence. "No Mr. Summers! That's outrageous! Why, that'd be like-"

"Like boiling your young." Scott finished for him. He released Sam and shook his head. "You guys are beyond help."

The bell sounded, signaling the release of the students who stampeded out of the classroom in a mad dash for freedom. They nearly missed sweeping up Dr. Jean Gray in their hurry; she had to side-step them and wait for an ebb in the flow of escaping students before she could enter the classroom.

Her boyfriend stood over the teacher's desk with his back turned to her, flipping through papers. "Well, that didn't go so bad, now did it?"

Scott lifted his head at the sound of her voice but didn't turn around. "They're hopeless. The day those little monsters start having children will be the apocalypse for the rest of us."

Jean sauntered up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Honey," she murmured into the back of his sweater. "You vaporized your egg."

Scott unwrapped her arms from his body and pivoted to face her with a forced glare. "Yeah, well, maybe if you had been a more attentive mom, then maybe little Scotty Junior would still be alive today."

Jean snorted with laughter. She looked up into his face with a devious grin. "Come on Mr. Sex Education. Why don't you give me a lesson?"

For the first time since agreeing to teach the course, Scott found himself smiling from ear to ear. "You are a naughty, naughty girl."

She threw her head back and laughed.

***

There were scores of vehicles pulled over to the side of the highway. Rain mixed with little chunks of hail splattered across the asphalt, pelting the cars and trucks mercilessly that sat patiently, waiting for the storm to abate somewhat before carrying on.

The drivers shook their head at the defiance of the driver on the motorbike that streaked a path through the sleeting rain and onwards north. No hurry in the world was worth risking a late July storm in Alberta, the same storms that sometimes brought the horrifying tornadoes. But the driver carried on as though the storm had no factor in his mission, and indeed it could not have slowed him down, tornado or not.

Her laughter would not leave his ears.