Chapter 13!

No special notes. Just go review at the end. I can't believe i'm at chapter 13. This was suppose to end long ago! Darn you Valar and Chele for bringing up things that i had to write about'! :P heheh.. kidding!

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(2 weeks later. School's started!)

"Marie!" Came a loud whisper.

Marie looked up from her table in the city library and saw Bobby coming towards her.

"Bobby." She smiled and moved her books over to make room for him.

"Hey. You're not studying at Xavier's anymore?"

Marie shook her head.

"I finished the last of my high school credits in the summer as well as some extra courses. I'm doing some correspondence courses with the collage now, but I'm still living at the Mansion. What about you? Aren't you done at Xavier's now?"

Bobby tilted his head.

"Officially yes. My high school creds are finished, so I'm in some of the college credit classes that are being taught by Professor MacTaggert."

Rogue twitched her lip.

"The microbiology courses right? Yeah, not for me. I'm at the collage taking some intro Communication courses."

Beside them, Jean came up.

"Hey." Jean smiled and quickly ran a hand through Marie's hair, lightly stroking the young woman's neck. The telepath wore black slacks and an open collared navy, blouse with a black jacket. She had just finished speaking at a seminar on genetics at New York University. "Hi Bobby. I saw Lorna at the checkout line. She'll be here in a couple minutes."

Bobby nodded and pretended not to notice the behavior exhibited by Jean, and the change of body language in Rogue. He had heard some whispering rumors since he returned from vacation about Jean and Marie being very close but had never seen anything thus far. At any rate, it wasn't his business.

"Alright." He pulled out his bus pass and looked over at the library entrance before looking back at Jean. "Why aren't you teaching at the Institute this semester?"

Jean put down her book bag and sat at the table.

"The school has Hank and Moira to make sure the students learn your sciences. The Professor and I felt it would be better if I focused more on my role as mutant spokeswoman and school physician."

Rogue smiled happily.

"And how did it go today at the university?"

Jean blew out a breath.

"Good. A lot of students came to the session and thankfully it didn't turn into a theology discussion, like last time, where we debating on the reality of evolution. Anyway, ready to go?" She asked of Rogue.

Marie nodded and as she packed her textbooks away, Lorna arrived.

"Sorry. There was a huge fine on my card from a book I forgot to return from the beginning of summer." She said a little acridly.

"Did you have enough to cover it?" Bobby stood and pulled out his wallet.

"Yeah. It's fine." Lorna sighed. "It's times like this I wish I had better control over my powers." Lorna flung her hand upward in a sweeping motion. "I could just magnetically wipe out any electronic record they had on me."

Jean cleared her throat in disapproval. Xavier made it a point to teach all his students that using his or her mutant power as an advantage over normal humans was unacceptable, and Jean, his original student, lived by this code.

Lorna snickered.

"Joking! You should have sensed it."

Jean smiled.

"I did. But still, I just had too." She stood up and picked up her bag. "Lets go. I can give you two a ride back to the Mansion."

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(11pm that night in the school infirmary.)

Scott clumsily rummaged through the cabinets of the school's infirmary. His right hand and part of his forearm was bleeding freely and the makeshift band-aid he had made from his shirt was almost soaked through. Fifteen minutes ago he was in the garage tinkering with his collection of cars. These days, if Scott wasn't teaching the students or training by himself, he was hiding in the garage, pointlessly tuning up his cars.

"Finally." Scott muttered to himself through clenched teeth as he found a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, medical gauze and surgical tape. After using his mouth to open the lid of the bottle, Scott poured the disinfectant down his arm, and growled in pain as the liquid burned his wound clean.

"Scott?" Jean said as she entered the infirmary. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw the trail of blood splatter on the floor of her infirmary. "What happened?" She asked as she rushed over to Scott to inspect his wound.

"Nothing." Scott said as he hastily piled on gauze along his arm and hopelessly tried to tape it on.

Jean removed the gauze despite Scott's effort to pull his arm away.

"Scott. These need stitches."

"No, it's fine. I just scratched myself when I was in the garage."

"Sit Scott. God, you're lucky you didn't severe a vein." Jean pushed Scott over to the examination table and prepped some medical equipment. "Elevate your arm." She ordered as she injected a painkiller into his arm.

Scott did as he was told and Jean went to work on him. For the following ten minutes, as Jean cleaned his wound and administered painkillers, the two were silent. Jean could sense that his mind was in turmoil. He wanted to speak, but wasn't sure what would come out of his mouth.

"Say something. Whatever is on your mind." Jean said as she began to sew up Scott's arm.

Scott's jaw tightened and he was silent a moment more, but finally spoke.

"The Professor explained to me your relationship with Rogue." He said. "If I didn't leave for the summer, would you two have..." He dropped off.

Jean stopped sewing and looked Scott in the eye.

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Did Charles tell you that none of us knew this would happen until after the training accident? Well he was right. No one saw it coming, so I think that even if you were here it would have happened eventually."

Scott looked away.

"It should have been with me." He said softly. "I'm so angry. I'm angry that it's her you're with. I'm angry with myself for not being able to open up to you like Rogue. I'm angry with you because you lied to me. I'm angry with the Professor for not stepping in, but encouraging you. I'm angry." He stopped talking and looked away.

Jean continued fixing Scott up and thought of something to say.

"I'm sorry." She said finally. "I didn't mean for this to happen, but it did and I love her."

Scott clenched his fist as he tensed up.

"I know." He looked back down at his arm. Jean was working on stitching up his hand now. "I hate this. I can't do the 'lets be friends' thing. I can't. Maybe I wasn't close enough to you for your liking, but it was more than enough for me, and there can't be anything else." Scott hated how it sounded like an ultimatum, but it was what he felt. When Jean tried to say something along this line of conversation Scott changed the subject. "The students are talking. They're starting to notice."

Jean swallowed and paused for a second as she debated which line of discussion to follow. In the end, she opted for the latter.

"I know. I sense it. It was easier in the summer to be discrete when there were fewer students. But now they notice you and me and I think Elizabeth has been poking around with her powers. Maybe even Emma, she's a telepath too it seems. It shouldn't matter anyhow; Marie isn't really a student here anymore." Jean was almost finished with Scott's hand.

Behind Scott's ruby quartz glasses, he narrowed his eyes.

"Then why do you hide? People only hide their actions if they know something they are doing is wrong." Scott's resentment to Marie flared up again and he couldn't help but make the jab.

Jean tightened her jaw and finished tending to Scott. She let the comment pass over her without a reaction. Scott's view on the whole matter was obviously not a supportive one.

"There. Done. Come back in the morning and I'll look over it again." Jean said of the wound. She never looked up or said anything else to Scott as he left the infirmary.