Rebirth and Awakenings
Chapter 8
High school classes resumed after New Years. Ororo had taken the SAT's back in the fall and the results were due any day now. Like all the college bound seniors, she was getting nervous about the results.
"Where do you want to go?" Scott asked her one day at lunch in the cafeteria.
"I've asked my scores to be sent to WestConn and a few other places, but I think I'd like to go to WestConn. It's closer, and I could still live at the Institute. Jean and Hank both think I should go to Columbia, but I'd have to live in New York and I'm not ready to leave yet. Have you thought about where you'd like to apply for next year?"
The question floored Scott. "I hadn't really thought about college much," he admitted. "I'd have to get a scholarship or something."
Ororo smiled. "You *have* a scholarship, Scott. From the Professor. At least, that's how he explained it to me." She saw the look on his face and took his hand. "You're not taking anything from anyone else. The Professor paid for Hank's education and Jean's medical school fees. Warren's family can support him without help, but you and I -- the Institute *is* our family. I like to think of it as a scholarship for 'The Gifted'." She grinned.
"I guess so," Scott returned. College -- that was something he hadn't thought about in years. It hit him suddenly that he actually had a future. He could do anything -- he could even go to college.
* * *
Scott always understood how powerful his gift was and the need to careful at all times. But accidents would and did happen. Scott felt accidents happened to him with alarming regularity.
While Scott didn't like to admit it, he enjoyed being in the choir. But being in the choir meant performing, and performances meant extra practices after school, especially for the soloists. On one such night, Scott offered to find a ride back with one of the other students, but Ororo only sighed and said she'd pick him up afterwards.
The practice rooms were separated from the parking lot by the playing field. Scott looked at his watch and broke into a jog -- he was going to be later than he told Ororo and he didn't want to keep her waiting. But the ground he was running over was uneven and he found himself tumbling to the ground. He lost his glasses in the fall and a blast escaped before he could shut his eyes. Scott heard a shout, but he didn't dare move.
"Hang on," said a familiar voice. Ororo -- thank God. He felt her place his glasses back on his face. Scott took a deep breath and looked away before opening his eyes.
"What did I take out?" he asked glumly.
"The bleachers," Ororo told him. "Well, three of them, anyway. Don't worry. No one was hurt."
"Did anyone see?"
"I don't see anyone else around, so I don't think so," Ororo responded gravely. "But we need to move away before someone sees us."
Much later, they found out someone had.
* * *
Although Ororo and Scott weren't originally going to tell Professor Xavier what had happened, they were compelled to do so after the damage was reported on the local news and was blamed on unnamed "vandals". The Professor didn't seem surprised, gave them both another lecture on the need to be careful, and paid for the repairs anonymously. Thankfully, there were no more accidents the rest of the year.
After his fight with Wayne, Scott had settled into the routine of high school. Through Ororo, Scott made a number of friends, and Ororo had been quite correct regarding Scott's possible effect on some of the girls at school. She was certain behind his glasses he had a "deer in the headlights" look when some of them got a little too forward. But Scott was always able to extricate himself from any awkward situation. He continued with his karate lessons and did well in his school work. His final grade in chemistry was a B minus -- largely thanks to Jean, who drilled him whenever she was at the Institute.
The highlight of the year was Ororo's graduation from high school. Everyone came to cheer her on and she was accepted at Western Connecticut State University in nearby Danbury, where she could easily commute back and forth. Scott understood her desire to stay at the Institute. Even Warren chose Yale mostly because it was close enough to allow regular visits. The Institute provided them with a measure of peace and safety they couldn't find anywhere else. Scott agreed with Ororo; he too had no intention of giving that up any time soon.
* * *
That summer was wonderful, in Scott's opinion. Warren came back, Ororo wasn't leaving, Hank was going to be "in residence" again doing research and even Jean was going to be spending most of her summer break there. It was becoming possible for Scott to forget, forget the explosion in DC, the FBI, and everything that came before. He could think of himself as almost normal.
Of course, Scott *wasn't* normal; he was an extremely powerful mutant. He and Professor Xavier continued to work on his gift, but no amount of concentration on Scott's part provided any level of control. The nearest they could come was when Scott narrowed his eyes, the beams narrowed accordingly. Seeing this, Hank went scurrying back to the lab, to work on a new type of visor he said. At the end of a long day, Scott didn't much care what Hank was going to work on -- his head hurt too badly and he was just glad of an opportunity to lie down.
They discovered the limits to Scott's powers quite by accident. Hank and Scott had been experimenting outside with a neatly camouflaged blast wall. Scott had been keeping his eyes open for several minutes, before Hank started noted a downward trend in the measurements. The slide was steady until the blasts stopped.
"Scott," Hank called. "Why did you close your eyes? Scott? Scott!"
Scott had passed out on the grass. Twenty minutes later, he revived.
"Wha, what happened?" he murmured.
"You lost consciousness," Hank informed him as he applied another compress to Scott's forehead. They were still in the gardens, but Hank had moved Scott beneath a tree for shade. "Your power does not seem to be of indefinite duration. It appears that the blasts will deplete the energy in your body until you collapse."
"Hmm," Scott said. He look away at a dead tree limb and tipped his glasses slightly. The dead wood was blasted to splinters. "Seems okay now," he commented.
"Yes, that does appear to be the case," Hank agreed. "I'd like to perform this experiment again, with your permission. It would be of interest to know exactly what the power interval is with your gift."
Scott shrugged. "Fine with me."
* * *
At dinner that night, Hank waxed poetic on this latest discovery. While Professor Xavier was intrigued by the results, Jean was vehement in her disapproval.
"Scott's not a lab rat, Hank," Jean stated furiously. "This could be dangerous. You don't know what the long term effects of this will be."
"I assure you, Jean, I have no intention of putting Scott in jeopardy," Hank replied. "However, it would be in his interest, in everyone's interest, to understand what the limits are on his gift. He'll never have any chance of controlling it otherwise."
Jean had no real answer for that, so she remained silent, but was obviously unhappy. Scott attempted to placate her. "I *want* to know what I can do, Jean," he said. "This is the only way to find out. Hank's very careful when we do testing. I only passed out for a little while; my powers came right back. It's not like I threw up, or something."
Both Jean and Hank had to smile at Scott's view of what constituted a serious medical problem.
"Fine," she said, relenting. "But don't come to me if you fall on your face and your nose starts bleeding."
That drew a chuckle from the Professor. "I think Hank is capable of dealing with that."
* * *
The results of the experiments were exactly what Hank surmised. Scott had a "firing time" of about 15 minutes, after which, he would become so weakened he would easily pass out. After about 15 to 20 minutes of rest, Scott would recover completely and have full use of his optic blasts again.
The Professor found the results interesting, both for the information regarding the duration of Scott's powers, as well as the physical effect on Scott. Hank turned the information gleaned into a new visor design for training. Made of a lightweight, but durable, polymer, the ruby quartz was a single lens inlaid in the center. An aperture allowed the beam to be controlled by width.
Scott turned the visor over in his hands with interest. Hank happily explained the mechanism.
" ... and with this control here, you can widen or narrow the beam. Otherwise, the lens is secure. It's just like what we were hoping to provide with nat--, er, non-artificial control."
Surprisingly (for Scott was touchy regarding his inability to control his powers), Scott smiled. "Adaptive technology?" he asked.
"Adaptive technology," Hank confirmed.
* * *
At the end of July, Hank went to visit his mother and Ororo accepted Warren's invitation to spend the weekend at his family's home in the Hamptons. Scott passed on the invitation and was delighted to have done so when Jean unexpectedly showed up for the weekend. He was less happy to find she had a date with "Dr. Bob", but, he decided, you couldn't have everything.
Late that night, Scott woke up, thirsty and with his nerves jangled by a dream. He rarely told anyone he had bad dreams, but he suspected Professor Xavier knew anyway. He got up to get a glass of milk from the kitchen. That would help him get back to sleep.
He made his way downstairs by the light of the upper landing and crossed the hall. He froze at the sound of voices.
"No, Robert, don't. We're not alone in the house."
Jean's voice. She was in the Drawing Room, even though the lights were off. Her words were followed by,
"The old man's not coming downstairs and the kid's tucked up in bed. We're alone."
*Robert.*
"I don't want to." Jean sounded irritated.
"Dammit, Jean, you never want to," Robert returned, matching her tone for annoyance.
"Please, I'm just tired ..."
Scott wasn't going to tolerate Jean being bothered by anyone, even her boyfriend. There was an easy way to break things up. He kicked the side table with a theatrical "Ow!" and continued on to the kitchen. He got his milk and paused in the doorway, listening to Jean bidding Robert good night in the hall. He heard the door slam as Robert left the house. Satisfied, he took the back stairs up to his room.
* * *
He wasn't surprised to hear a knock on the door a few minutes later.
"Scott?" Jean opened the door and looked in.
Scott turned on the bedside light and Jean crossed the room, sitting at the foot of the bed. For a moment, she just looked at him.
"I just didn't want you to think ..." she began.
"I don't have to think -- I know what was going on. Does he make you, Jean?"
She smiled slightly. "No, he doesn't *make* me do anything. Sometimes he doesn't pick the best time -- like tonight."
Scott was skeptical and his face showed it. She sighed.
He regarded her for a moment. Robert was such a jerk. "Jean," he said softly. "No one should ever hurt you."
Scott leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. It was brief, sweet, and held a hint of the passion that might lay beneath. For a moment, Jean was stunned. Then she stood up.
"Well," she said quietly. "It's late. We need to go to bed. Good night." She moved quickly out of the room.
It was years before Scott realized there was another meaning behind her parting words.
* * *