A/N: I've never really read much about Emma Frost's character. I'm basing her from the 90's X-Men cartoon and from what I interpret from her bio at www.mutanthigh.com. I'm just making her... frosty. Haha. Emma Frost frosty.
A THOUSAND thanks to Chele for beta-ing this chapter and the next chapter for me. It is only because of her that you guys won't be croaking over with the atrocious grammar mistakes I have. I have this thing with commas... it's quite disturbing.
Do me a fav and read/review Chele's 'Rebel Girl'. It's a Jean/Marie slash and I love it. Last, I have AOL IM now! J flaerond is my SN (haha, how predictable)
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(A few weeks later. Early October and 10:30am on a Friday morning)
"Hey, where are you going? The route back to the Mansion is on this bus." Alison held open the bus doors and tilted her head towards the bus she held stopped. Marie and Alison had recently taken up to bussing to early morning squash games at the community centre.
"I'm going down to City Hall. Jean's doing that Senate speech for Mystique, and Hank gave me his pass to get in."
Alison glanced down at her watch and frowned.
"That's in five hours. What are you going to do for that long? Come back to the Mansion and get Logan to give you a ride on his bike."
Marie shrugged a little uncomfortably.
"It's better if I just go now."
Behind Alison, the bus driver cleared his throat and revved the engine. Alison apologized and hopped off. She wasn't in that big of a hurry to get back anyway.
"Avoiding Cyclops again?" Alison asked as the bus pulled away. Alison and a handful of others knew about Jean and Marie. It had taken a lot of gentle prodding and time to drag out a confirmation from either women, and it was done so only under the promise of secrecy. Alison was the first to suspect a relationship and was also one of the few that knew of the terrible tension between Jean, Marie and Scott.
"It's just better if I keep away, Allie. Jean's trying to deal with him, but it's not good for the others to know of this internal conflict between the X-Men."
Alison frowned. She knew that Jean and Rogue went to great lengths to accommodate Scott. Marie spent the majority of her days away from the Mansion to avoid the risk of running across Scott and upsetting him, and Jean did her best to continue a friendly relationship with Scott.
"While I respect Mr. Summers as an X-Man and teacher, I think it's wrong that you and Jean are doing this. He's got to get over it, you know?"
Marie sighed.
"Well, his reaction is not very serious or anything. He's not acting out publicly."
Alison deepened her frown.
"But he's making your lives rather miserable."
Marie shifted her gaze to the new bus that pulled up.
"It'll blow over soon enough. I just think it's better that I don't aggravate the situation. It's fine. Jean and I are okay with it." She said, half-lying.
Alison snorted and shook her head.
"The Mansion's your home, too, you know. If the Professor wasn't away at Muir Island, he would agree with me" When Marie looked doubtfully at Alison, the blond mutant women sighed. "Chances are you might not even see him. He's probably off doing some X-Man thing."
"I suppose." Marie said hesitantly. She did want to go back to the Mansion anyhow. The past weeks of her camping out in the library or university had become mind numbing and Marie really wanted to lie down on her bed and recoup after her game of squash
Alison flashed a smile.
"Good, Mansion it is. Sitting around those books all the time has got to be bad for your health anyway."
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(30 minutes later. Alison and Marie are back)
"Jean?" Marie dropped her duffel bag on the floor as she reached for a bottle of water in the fridge. "I thought you would be down at City Hall by now."
Jean was in the kitchen making a sandwich. She smiled at Marie as she looked up from glopping honey mustard on her sandwich. The telepath had expected Marie to go straight to City Hall, but was nonetheless pleased that Marie came home.
"I'm going right after I finish making my lunch. Had fun playing squash?" Jean finished making her sandwich, and with her TK, she lifted it and placed it into a tubberware container.
"Mmhmm." Marie answered as she continued drinking her water.
"Did Alison kick your ass again?" Jean said teasingly.
"Hey!" Marie glared at Jean and tossed her bottle lid at Jean. "She only kicked my ass the last time because you kept messing with the ball using your TK! Where was that 'use your powers responsibly' lesson you and the Professor keep grilling us with?"
Jean laughed quietly as she caught the bottle lid with her TK and placed it in the recycle bin.
"It was too tempting." Jean picked up her lunch and moved towards the kitchen exit. Marie picked up her bag and followed Jean. "The look on your face that day when the squash ball took a ninety degree turn to avoid your racket was priceless." Jean slowed her pace, and when Marie caught up beside her, the red head wrapped her arm around Marie's shoulder and planted a kiss on the other woman's cheek. "Besides, I was just training my TK."
Marie smiled and extended her arm around Jean's waist. In hindsight, the little prank that Jean had pulled was indeed hilarious. The two mutants turned the corner and continued onward to the garage.
"So I'll see you there today? Smiling and nodding to everything because you don't understand a thing about genetics like always?" Jean asked.
Marie chuckled.
"You'd be amazed at how much I've learned from following you to all those science geek fests."
The telepath lightly shoved Marie for her last comment but then laughed. Jean knew that Marie never enjoyed the sciences in school, and had often teased Jean for her 'geeky' days in high school. The two were still laughing at each other as they entered the garage, but their mirth ended abruptly as they walked in on Scott.
"Scott." Jean said, a little stunned. Usually she kept a mental look out for him. This time, however, she had been too distracted.
Scott stood looking at them with a heavy box held tightly in his arms. He didn't say anything to acknowledge their presence.
Marie shot Jean a quick glance.
I... better go. Marie said to Jean, mentally.
As the younger woman turned to leave the garage, the box slipped out of Cyclops' hands and went crashing onto his foot. He muttered a curse and tried to lift the box off his foot, but Jean was there first.
"Here, let me help." She telekinetically lifted the box. "Where do you want it?"
"It's fine. I don't need your help." Scott grumbled and pressed down on the box to force it out of Jean's mental grip.
Jean pressed her lips together into a firm line and frowned.
"You're going to hurt yourself. Let me help you." She lifted the box again, but was rewarded with an annoyed glare through Scott's glasses.
"You would know a lot about hurting me, wouldn't you."
Jean's shoulder's slouched, and she shook her head.
"Don't do this again. Don't be like this." Jean watched sadly as Scott moved on to lift another box. She had tried to talk things out with Scott for weeks, but time after time her efforts were rebuffed
"Jean, just leave it. We have to be civil in front of the students, but on our own time I'd rather not be near you."
"Scott..." Jean tried to reason with him, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by Marie. Neither Jean nor Scott had realized the young adult still stood at the doorway.
"How can you be like that to her?" She said, her voice tight from the effort to keep it from rising "We do everything possible to accommodate you. We never try to be around you together; I'm off at the city library most of the day and our room is in the farthest part of the Mansion. Jean bends over backwards to try to help you, but you just keep making it hard."
"Marie..." Jean said softly. Jean knew how Marie hated the way Scott took to stepping on her these days.
"I thought you were leaving." Scott said to Marie coldly.
Marie swallowed hard.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't swoop in, like Logan, and try and take her away from you. It happened, and it's not like you didn't have your chance either. You trained together. You grew up together for God's sake. It's not my fault that you couldn't find it in yourself to trust her with your everything. Jean's happy now. I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I wish you could just live with that, but you can't. Everywhere you go, and every chance you get, you will tear open the wound and make it worse."
For a couple seconds Marie and Scott just glared at each other. The atmosphere was thick with animosity.
"Why are you still here anyway?" Scott said suddenly with much vile. Marie blinked at him and looked disconcertingly at Jean.
Jean, stepped in at this point.
"Scott. No." But that didn't hold him.
"You're done with your schooling. You've mastered your powers. You're certainly not going to be an X-Man. Shouldn't you be on your way?"
"Scott!" Jean exclaimed. She couldn't believe what Scott was saying.
Scott didn't so much spare a glance at the two women when he left. Let them think I'm being childish. He thought. These days, Scott hated being the leader of the X-Men. It meant he had to lead by example and bottle up his true feelings for the good of team.
Jean gaped slightly at Scott as he left. She never knew he could show this much anger when provoked. Maybe this is what he kept hidden in his mind away from me Jean thought sadly. She quickly turned her attention back to Rogue.
"He didn't mean that." She quickly said.
Marie sighed and shrugged sadly.
"Yeah right." Marie let out a loud sigh, before meeting Jean's gaze. "We can deal with that later. You probably should head to City Hall now. I'll see you there in a couple of hours, I guess"
Jean nodded slightly and went to embrace Marie. Marie tilted her head slightly upwards and kissed Jean. Through the rapport, Jean felt the frustration that Marie had against this whole situation. The thrill Marie felt in this relationship with Jean was muted rudely by Scott's dark presence and Marie hated that. Jean broke the kiss and buried her face into Marie's neck. It would work out in the end, but how close that end was to coming, Jean didn't know.
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