Please, remember that I'm French so I had to translate the whole fic before making correct it (thanks to ET and Double27) and mistakes always goes through.

Thanks for the ones who have reviewed Lexan, Oceanbang's, Tootsie and slicky !!!

And believe my, there'll be a lot of cliff-anger MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA ! lol

He went inside in a quickened pace, but passed nobody in the corridor guiding him to the hall.

- "As usual, there's never somebody when it's needed…" grumbled Logan to himself.

Before all things, he decided to climb the stairs and went up to Jean's bedroom. He knocked and slowly opened the door, but it was empty, same for the bathroom. Don't panic, maybe she only has deigned to leave her room, thought Logan before going down again in the hall and, this time, to take the direction of the Professor's office ; but, passing in front of Ororo's classroom, he stopped in the way. The Weather Witch was teaching the history in this beautiful place with an arched and glassed roof, full of green plants of all kinds.

- "Logan ? What's up ?" asked the mutant by seeing Wolverine coming.

The students turned themselves toward him, he wasn't the kind of interrupting a session for nothing. Logan made sign to Ororo to come closer in order to speak to her.

- " Where's Scott's car ?"

- "What do you mean ? it's not at its place ?"

- "If it was the case, I wouldn't be asking ya" made noticed Logan "I thought that the Professor may have sold it ?"

- "No he'd have talked to us about it before"

- "And Jean isn't in her room" added Logan

- "What ?"

- "Do ya know if she's with Charles ?"

- "No, she hasn't wanted to go out of her bedroom when I purposed to her for the umpteenth time" denied Storm before yielding of the fact "…Oh no ! She must be the one who took the car !"

- "But to where ?"

- "I dunno, anywhere, she's so lost!"

Ororo was really worried henceforth.

- "The class is over" she announced to her students in a deep voice before calling the Professor who didn't be long to answer to her by telepathy.

I'm on my way Ororo; Jean is not in the Institute anymore, but Cerebro will be able to locate her

However hard she didn't look well after theses nightmarish days she had endured, however hard she hadn't paid attention to her appearance, Jean still owned this bewitching charm which characterized her. When she entered into the bar, some of the present men followed up her by theirs eyes, but she didn't returned anyone.

She had left the Institute without any exact destination, maybe had she thought that by moving far the pain would do the same ? But it hadn't been the case, on the contrary ; Scott's car was full of memory each one more intense than the other and it was terrible to know there won't be more, never. Under the influence of the emotions, blinded by tears, she had stopped as soon as she could and found herself in front of this establishment. She wasn't the sort to frequent the bars but nothing mattered anymore except to soothe this suffering which was like a blade stabbed in her soul.

A music was softly playing on the radio, a television was broadcasting pictures of a base-ball match, some clients were laughing, some glasses were knocking against one another, but she wasn't of this world. These alcohol' scent mixed with tobacco was turning her stomach but she didn't pay attention to it. She went up to the counter and sat up on a chair facing it. Quickly, the barman left his conversation with some of his clients and came to take her order.

- "What can I get you ?"

- "Cognac" she answered in a faint voice given slightly harsh by days of muteness.

- "A…" the barman opened his mouth but the stranger cut him as if she knew what he was about to say.

- "Please, don't ask anything"

The man didn't end his sentence, turned himself to catch a bottle, poured one glass and put it in front of her. Jean seized it and drunk it bottom up, shutting her eyes when the alcohol burnt her throat like a thousand of needles. She never had liked it, but she didn't want to feel this pain anymore during a moment, didn't think anymore about his absence…

She was feeling herself emptied of her vital essence. She couldn't help to think that, last week at the same hour, she and Scott were sharing a romantic moment on the landing stage near the lake, last week, he was still alive. Nothing was worse than to wake up the morning finding the other side of the bed empty, to realise she hadn't found him again like in her dreams, that she wouldn't been able to feel him near her anymore even if she still had the impression he would appear anytime. She had the feeling that she couldn't be able to smile anymore and to recover her taste for the life, not without him, not without Scott.

- "Another one" she asked the barman as he was about to return to his fellows.

The man came again toward her and poured another glass.

- "Let me the bottle" she said as he was recording it.

- "Listen, I don't know what happened to you, but you…" he tried.

- "I don't ask anything of you, only the bottle…I've enough to pay you if this cans reassure you" she answered always in the same faint tone by throwing two bills of $20 on the counter.

He briefly met her gaze and could read a deep sorrow in it. After all, he only had to be sure she wouldn't leave his bar before having sobered up –even if this meant to dig in her pockets to find someone to inform who could come to fetch her– thought the barman; this idea seemed to satisfy himself because he ended by seizing the bills and reluctantly gave her the bottle.

Glass after glass, Jean felt the alcohol muddle her mind, but not like she would have wanted. Scott…the pain was still here. This absence as much bodily than psychic, this interior emptiness like if she was deprived of a part of herself…yes, a big part of herself had died with him and couldn't be rebuilt, never… this was growing inside her, was compressing her heart, she felt tired, she felt bad.

In a move less and less sure, she poured herself a fourth glass which she emptied with one stroke before pouring another one. But this time, she waited a while. Why couldn't she savour some minutes of unconsciousness ? She screwed (scrunched ??) up her eyes, a headache was beginning to pierce her skull, the kind of headache which she had endured during whole days some years ago, when she couldn't control her powers…and what was meant to happen happened, without she could help it, thousand thoughts wormed their way into her mind…

…I dunno what I've to do……And then we went……But what is he doing ?…… She's good this one, look her shapes……ten dollars for a beer ?? he won't see me again this one…… I didn't…… Then he……and…… ………………

She pinned her hands against her temples. Some bottles, pushed by her telekinesis, fell down and broke up on the ground, but nobody would think she was the cause of that. Jean knew what she had to do even if this will oblige her to focus on the reason of her sorrow: Scott, thinking about him had always been the only thing able to help her to resume the control of her powers. Quickly, she achieved to empty her mind, to isolate herself and reform her mental shields whereas the barman was cleaning the alcohol on the ground asking himself if his bar was haunted.

Easing of all these thoughts which weren't hers, Jean sighed, leaned on the counter and emptied another glass, sustaining her head with her other hand. When she opened up her eyes again, she saw that a man with a sloppy appearance had sat up next to her and was ogling at her in a perverse way:

- "So my pet, you're feeling alone for what I see ?"

- "Let me be" she answered in a thick voice.

- "Come on, we could go for a ride just you and me…" he insinuated by putting his hand on her thigh.

Without being aware of it, the man was projecting some images from his actual fantasies toward the telepath, which, with the move he had just done, didn't pass.

- "Remove your dirty paws" she reacted.

Even if she would have wanted it, the alcohol was so beginning to consume her that her words hadn't had a lot of impact. She hadn't even turned her head toward him and was keeping her eyes half-shut, her hand in her red-hair.

- "Come on…"

- "I won't repeat it…"

- "It's your man ? He frankly must not be a good trick for not having been able to keep you ; He wasn't…" began the oaf by trying to run his fingers trough Jean's hair, but, without understanding what was happening to him, he found himself threw through the place and crashed on a table some meters away, half knocked.

- "You don't know anything" she said before massaging her temples which the use of her powers had been murderous.

In the bar, after the moment of silence needed for the clients to understand what had just happened, the reactions made their apparitions…

- "But what's the ???…It's her !! She's a mutant !!"

- "I don't stay in a bar which serves freaks !"

- "Yeah !! We don't want this here !! Watch what she has done to Vic !"

Jean shut her eyes by hearing the threats beginning to fuse against her. She shouldn't have lost her self-control, but she couldn't stop herself from doing it ; without wanting it, this guy had attacked Scott's memory and the images he had projected unconsciously in her mind weren't acceptable that she was inebriated or not. She knew she had to leave but she felt ill and truly couldn't be able to go far away…But, after all, did she want to escape from her waiting lynching ? She wasn't really sure…

Some clients raised up from theirs chairs and came closer to her with a threatening look, whereas the bar's door opened and a man with a sullen look entered, without nobody paying attention to him.

- "Clear off dirty freak !!" snapped the barman.

- "Yeah !" added one man by catching a bottle by the neck...

To be continued….

Review please !!! the more I get the sooner I want to update :-p