CHAPTER 6

Kim felt boneless as she slipped back into her dark house. A small smile graced her lips as she remembered the dancing and the way Jean had danced with her. Sure, straight girls danced together sometimes, but part of Kim, the slightly tipsy part, let herself fantasize that it wasn't just friends dancing. Her own moves had become more seductive and Jean had not backed away.

Kim and Jean stayed to dance until the place closed, and now Kim had to get some sleep before she just passed out. Jean would be coming by for lunch and for them to get to work.

Kim kicked her shoes off near the dining room table and moved down the hall towards the bedroom. She'd been so tempted to just tell Jean to stay the night, but she hadn't. It felt wrong that she hadn't and Kim almost wished she could go back a few minutes and make that offer. Next time she would invite the redhead and she wouldn't worry about scaring the woman away. Kim nodded to herself as she pulled her shirt off her body and tossed it over the chair in her bedroom. She needed sleep bad, she thought as she noticed how unbalanced she became taking her pants off.

It took discipline to actually go to the bathroom and do the normal things like brush her teeth before getting into what would doubtlessly feel like a heaven sent bed.

Kim fell asleep quickly once she had laid down, pulling a pillow into her arms so she had something to hug.

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The next day Kim had the samples laid out on the dining room table in some order, she'd done it as she waited for Jean. The redhead was a little late and Kim started to worry that the dancing had frightened Jean off after all. How drunk had Kim been? Did she do something too bad? Kim tried to remember, but she really didn't think she'd gone over the line.

Once she'd gone over the night in her head twice Kim relaxed, confident that it hadn't been something she did. The idea that she might have pushed her only friend away had been upsetting, but Jean was better than that. She wouldn't run if Kim were a little flirty, that's all it had been.

So that only left everything else as possible reasons Jean was already, Kim glanced at the clock, a half hour late. It wasn't like the redhead. Jean tended to show up early. Kim sat down at the table with a sigh and opened up a sample book. With Jean the reasons could be simple like oversleeping or not getting a decent shower time for the day, or as bad as having to rush off and fight for her life.

Kim had always been a worrier, she'd worried about Jason even before he mutated. He worried about her dad's health and how much he worked. Kim even worried about her mother, who tended to support promutant political candidates by putting their bumper stickers on her car. Now she had Jean to worry about and Kim finally had to admit her dad was right. She worried too much and it wasn't good for her. Even the family counselor they'd seen after Jason finished mutating had told Kim she couldn't protect the people she cared about all the time, and that she needed to learn to trust them to watch out for themselves. At sixteen Kim had thought the counselor was being oversimplistic and condescending.

If anyone could take care of herself it would be Jean, Kim told herself and turned to see the redhead's car pulling into her driveway. Kim's body relaxed and she mentally chided herself for thinking the worst. Vicki must have really messed with her head the day before for Kim to regress to being that bad again.

Kim watched Jean get out of the car and start to walk towards the front door and Kim smiled at the way the redhead walked, graceful in even that movement. All the Xmen had that utter command of their bodies, but on Jean it looked especially good. Kim blushed and looked down when Jean looked into the window and smiled at her, wondering if the telepath might have heard her thoughts, which were more appreciative than a friend's normally were.

After letting Jean in they spent some time talking about the look Jean wanted and looking at samples. Finally Kim had a good idea of the look Jean wanted and knew she had a better sample in the other room. Kim stood up and stretched. "Come, I want to show you something."

"What?" Jean smiled a little as she stood up and it stalled Kim's thought process for a moment.

"Ah," Kim shook herself out of it and did her best to ignore the growing amused grin on Jean's face. "Something I made that I think is what you are talking about, only scaled down." Way down, her mind added as she started down the hall to her workshop, Jean on her heels.

The natural lighting in her workshop came in the shape of a half octagon of large windows. Tables, supplies and shelves were all along the walls, and the largest model in the room sat on a table by itself, a subtle hint to its importance. "Um," Kim moved to carefully remove the roof so that they could look inside of it. "This flooring is a miniature model of something I think you might like." Kim looked down at the floor, the carpet, and into the rooms she'd carefully built to look like a three bedroom house. A small workout room filled one bedroom, another a bed that most would think would fit a Barbie, and a closet that had very small men's clothes.

"That's perfect." Jean smiled at her almost fondly. "You build doll houses?"

"Ah, no." Kim blushed and stared down into the house again. "This is a fully functioning house with running water and enough room next to it on the table for my brother's computer."

"Oh," Jean's eyes changed from looking at Kim with amusement to looking at her with admiration. "You built this for your brother."

"I just thought he'd like to actually have things that fit. To be able to take a shower or bath in peace." Her hand moved into the bedroom and pulled up a small blanket that had crept down the bed. "I pretend when other people come here that it's a dollhouse for a niece I don't have. Jason hasn't seen it yet. He's never seen my new house, let alone his."

"When did you finish this?" Jean asked gently. "It's so detailed."

"Six months ago." Kim moved her hand to touch the flooring she was showing Jean. "I made everything to scale so in here he could feel like the world still fits." Kim sighed. "I don't know if he'll like it."

"I'm sure he'll love it." Jean moved closer and slowly reached in to caress the bathtub Kim had worked so hard on to make it work. "He's lucky to have a sister that cares so much." Something in Jean's voice sounded like it lead to a painful story. Kim turned to look at the redhead. They'd never talked about Jean's family, had they disowned her? "My sister died." Jean caressed the front door of the small house. "She was publicly standing up for mutants though, I loved her for that, even if it scared me that she was making herself a target."

"I'm sorry." Kim didn't know what else to say, so she rested a hand over Jean's as the redhead leaned on the table.

"She left me a beautiful niece and nephew though, and I see them and the rest of my family when I can." Jean sighed. "So many of the students we see don't have that, a loving family. Sometimes when I was a student I used to feel a little guilty that I did, back when Bobby's dad was a bigot and when Scott was the ever hurting orphan, but I grew out of that."

"Do they know what Scott did?" Kim asked softly, knowing that having her own parents support both helped and hurt. Her dad, especially, kept calling to make sure she was okay, but it just served to remind Kim that she had been hurt sometimes when she had been doing okay.

"They wanted me to come home, but I don't want to abandon the Professor when he needs me." Jean moved away from the model, her voice growing a little deeper with some anger. "And I don't want to run from this. I guess I do understand why you want to keep this place so much, because that mansion is my home and I don't want him to force me out of it either. The Xmen need me, but even without that, it's home."

"At a time like this, a home is really important." Kim glanced around her own.

"I talked to a few people about what Vicki's doing. Just to see if there was anything we could do." Jean said and Kim turned to look at Jean, a little surprised and pleased that Jean cared enough to try and help, but Kim knew she couldn't legally stop Vicki. Vicki's name was on the house. She'd paid half the mortgage for almost two years, but it had been Kim's dad that gave Kim the start up money for the project. Kim hated to think about how much more she put into the house in money and care, and to think that Vicki would take it away and claim a full half. She wasn't even paying these last few months. "And I called my divorce lawyer. He says that it isn't the same, that you don't have the same legal rights as I do, but that doesn't mean there was nothing that could be done."

"Jean, I'm sinking what money I have into the house now. There isn't any money for a lawyer, I'd end up having to sell the house to pay for one." Kim pointed out, feeling defeated.

"Mine agreed to meet with you, just to give you some idea of what you're up against." Jean sighed. "It can't hurt to listen Kim. He said he could meet with you Monday at four if you want to bring him information on anything the two of you owned together, financial records." Jean stared into Kim's eyes. "It isn't easy, I won't lie to you, but you need to do this."

Kim's jaw clenched as she considered it, and then she nodded. She could at least talk to the man. Maybe there was something she was missing.

"He also wants the information on what the house is worth, how much Vicki paid into it and what you've paid into it."

"Okay." Kim could find the files easily. With her job she had to be organized and it extended to her own records.

"My problem with the flooring is that the students are very very hard on the floor." Jean brought the conversation back to work easily. "But I like the look of what you've done here."

"Then we need a flooring that comes is small pieces that can be pulled up and replaced." Kim gave Jean a small smile. "I ruined the kitchen floor when we were twelve trying to cut wood for a birdhouse in the kitchen where is was warm and dad has never gone with a large solid piece of flooring in the kitchen since."

"So you started with birdhouses and worked your way up?" Jean smiled and turned to face Kim fully.

"Well, after I got off of being grounded dad showed me how to make model houses and gave me a table in his workshop that I could use." Kim remembered the hours she'd spent with her dad fondly. "Jason didn't care for building like that, but I loved it. I went from birdhouses, to doll houses, I did a few brief models of larger buildings, the kind my dad makes, but it was always houses for me. Eventually I started learning how to plan them, and I was still in high school. Dad was a great teacher." Kim moved over to an old and slightly dusty model that should look familiar to Jean. The plans had changed, but the house still looked similar. "I'd tinker with plans for my own home all the time. I started planning this house in high school and every so often I'd take out the plans and change them. This was the model when I first started my Architecture program. The plans changed when Vicki and I started talking about kids, but overall it's the same, just more rooms."

"Oh Kim." Jean moved up behind her and Kim felt a little startled to feel arms wrap around her in a hug from behind.

"I'm a little obsessive." Kim smiled weakly. "What I used to do for fun I started to do for work and it means I almost always think of work."

"You have records of the earlier house plans? Before you met her?" Jean asked and Kim just glanced over to her files where they were. "Bring those too. It isn't money, but that kind of involvement in this house has to count for something."

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They picked out what needed to be ordered and then sat around talking for a few hours about growing up. Kim learned about some of the trouble a young Jean gotten into and they'd laughed, but Kim had also learned how damaging telepathy could be to a mind too young to deal with it. Jean lost years of her life after her powers emerged while her best friend was dying. She'd been unresponsive as people's thoughts bombarded her and the Professor had heard and come to Jean like he'd come to Jason. Jean had gone through the countless doctors in the same way Kim's brother had.

As Jean picked up the samples she wanted to go with so she could show then to anyone who asked the redhead started to talk. "If you want I could come by and pick you up for your appointment with my lawyer. I know where he is and we could go out and have dinner afterwards. Maybe go dancing again, you'll need the fun." Jean's grin looked a little wicked as she looked back up at Kim, "And the women staring at you can't hurt either."

"What?" Kim's eyebrows drew together at that comment, wondering where it came from.

"You didn't even noticed the eyes on you last night when you were dancing?" Jean asked and Kim blushed, not wanting to say she'd only noticed Jean. The other people must have existed, but they didn't register to Kim after a while. Jean's eyes softened. "I could hear the women damning both of us for being with each other. If people didn't assume we were a couple other people would have asked you to dance."

Kim was quiet a little while, trying to get a grasp of her own feelings on this. "I don't want to start dancing with people I don't know. I'm not ready for all of that, the senseless chatter as I try to get to know someone, to see if they fit, if we have anything to talk about."

"We talk all the time."

"It's different with you Jean," Kim looked into green eyes. "It's so easy with you, it doesn't feel like work at all."

"Yeah, it is easy to talk with you." Jean moved a step closer. "But what about going out and just having fun, being with people?"

"Like what?"

"Fling, I've been told I need to just go out and have a fling. To just relax and enjoy life and to wash him away with the feel of another person." Jean set the samples she had back down on the table as they started talking yet again.

"Let me guess, Ororo told you that?" Kim's voice was weary. Ororo was a little too wild and clearly didn't fully understand how other people took break ups. "I can't do that, I'd feel worse about myself and I think you would too."

"It would be nice if it were that easy wouldn't it?" Jean sighed. "It's been too long." Kim understood Jean was talking about sex. "You too?"

"Oh yeah."

Jean chuckled. "It must be too long, the way you said that."

Kim smiled and shook her head. "You better be careful Jean, I hear it can grow back."

"What?"

"Your virginity and I'm betting yours is already halfway back."

"Oh, OH." Jean mock glared at Kim and Kim felt something intangible hold her still as Kim tried to back away from a pretend mad Jean. "Oh no, you aren't getting away that easily." Jean's eyes were wicked and Kim did her best to not respond in an inappropriate way to her friend moving closer. "For that you ARE going dancing with me Monday, and you will drive so that I can drink."

"Yes Ma'am, virgin Ma'am." Kim saluted and Jean started laughing, the hold on Kim forgotten. Kim's face was red with her own laughter. Jean was always fun to have around, and Kim loved how they could talk for hours and never get bored.

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