A/N: My first comicverse story. Will be Scott/Jean by the way. :) Please let me know what you think of it.
The world is going to end.
No point in making a fuss.
"Jean?" Jean Gray shook her head slightly, clearing if of cobwebs. She'd been too busy lately. She turned to look at Scott.
"Hmm?" As soon as she said it she saw that the younger kids they were chaperoning at the Museum of Natural History were moving on with Storm and Hank. She'd been standing staring at nothing for the past couple of minutes. She blushed slightly.
"Oh. Sorry."
"That's alright…" He said, sounding uncertain. "You okay?"
"Just daydreaming."
She had been too, she insisted to herself as she walked away with a dubious Scott and doubts of her own. Though she couldn't remember what she'd been daydreaming about.
After all, fighting what is to come isn't going to change a thing.
Might as well admit it.
Jean's eyes opened, as she was started out of the half-awake, half-asleep state, between dreams and awareness. What had woken her up? There weren't any unusual noises, no flashes of lightning or booms of thunder, no busy cars on the mostly deserted street outside the mansion. She shrugged, sighed, and fluffed her pillow into shape. Unable to get back to sleep, she took a silent walk down the corridor, muffling her footsteps with her telekinetic powers. Unknown to her a worried Scott watched her from the doorway of his room, sitting up in bed and wondering what she wasn't telling him.
Armageddon. Catastrophe. Crash and burn.
Death. Power. Evil.
What it boils down to is that the entire world is going to end.
"Jean? Jean?"
Jean started again, an abrupt jump. "What?"
It could be called a snap, but Jean didn't snap. Annoyed reply. Sharp retort. Not a snap. Never a snap.
"You were standing in the middle of the hall. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
Standing in the middle of the hall? Why? She had lessons to get to, kids to tutor. This was college (for her anyway) for Pete's sake.
"Jean? What's wrong?"
"Nothing Scott. You're being silly." She said it calmly, smoothly, but her hands were shaking. It didn't escape his notice.
"Jean." It wasn't exactly a question anymore.
"Lay off."
The confused twenty year old watched as his friend walked briskly off down the hall. What was so important that she couldn't tell him? They were best friends, right? Right.
Right…?
Burning. Cinders. Ashes.
Come on, get it through your thick skull.
Life on this planet - this planet itself - is over.
"What - !"
Breath coming in frantic gasps, Jean sat straight up in bed, staring wildly around the nondescript room she shared with Ororo Munroe. To her right her roomie was peacefully snoring (imagine if the rest of the students knew that Ororo Munroe, the serene "goddess", snored) to her left, her dresser sat calmly to her right, the window above her bed let a small shaft of moonlight slant down onto her red hair. It shone.
"This planet itself is…over. Over?" She murmured to herself, trying to capture the words that the ironic sounding voice had been saying. It was a harsh, grating voice, but that was all she remembered it saying. "This planet itself is over."
"Sorry, what's over?"
It was Scott's voice, startling her so badly in her already jumpy state that she almost screamed. She managed to muffle it and turn it into a furious hiss. "Scott!"
"Sorry, sorry!" He said, backing up with his hands up, palms towards her. "I was… just wandering by on my way to the…kitchen, and I heard -"
"You're a really bad liar Scott."
"I know." He admitted, blushing slightly. "I've been following you for a couple days. You've seemed a little…spacey lately."
"The last couple of days?" And she hadn't even noticed. She really had been out of it. If she hadn't picked up on him stalking her around the mansion with her TK powers, she really should have just noticed that he was everywhere she was. And come to think of it, he had been. Kitchen, Danger Room, classrooms (well he was in all her classes she supposed), tutoring sessions with the kids, grocery trips. Coincidence? Duh: no. She groaned.
"Jean, look, there's something wrong you haven't been telling me. I just want to help. Can't you tell me what it is?"
"Nope." She said, trying to sound jokey. But he frowned. "
"Why not?"
"Because I don't even know." She confessed, staring at her hair, which was still glimmering in the moonlight.
"What?" He was just confused now, not angry or annoyed or even miffed. Just confused.
"I mean, this…spacing out I've been doing. I've got no idea what causes it. I don't remember anything from it. I just…wake up sort of. When you wake me up come to think of it." She looked at him wryly, trying to make the news a little more lighthearted. But Scott looked worried. Well, more than a little worried.
"You don't remember? Jean, you should have told someone!"
"Oh come on, it's only happened a couple times!"
"Eleven times in the last two days." He pointed out, very serious.
"Eleven!" That was a lot more than she even remembered. Then, something occurred to her. "You've been keeping a count."
Like the straight laced, shy guy he was Scott stared at his feet. "Well, you're my best friend Jean. I mean, I know it's a little weird, following you everywhere, but I was worried about you, and -" He seemed, she reflected, to be apologizing.
"Scott." She said, holding up a hand. "I think it's sweet, once you get past the stalker part. Actually, taking the motive into account, that was pretty sweet too."
She smiled at him, wondering if she ought to ask him just when she'd spaced out those eleven times. But that wasn't really a direction she wanted to take the conversation in when it could go somewhere much better.
Jean leaned forward, closing the gap between Scott and herself to just a few inches. She didn't need to say anything really. Snappy or romantic lines had deserted her though they never seemed to do that to the heroines in romance novels. There had been almost kisses before. So many times before, under more ideal, untroubled circumstances. Times when she hadn't been having strange space outs, odd daydreams, troubled nightmares. But those had been broken off with embarrassed mutterings and excuses. Somehow now was perfect.
She was never sure which one of them closed the remainder of the distance between their faces, nor was she sure it mattered. No matter what, it was perfect.
She just was his girlfriend after that, and everyone knew somehow, without having to ask at all.
A/N: Should I continue? Let me know, 'k:) Oh, and for one really cool Scott/Jean fic, check out Loving You, by Tashasfic.
Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Scott, Jean, the X-Men, Marvel, or pretty much anything else you recognize. Only the ideas are mine.
If there's interest in this story I'll explain a little more next chapter where and how it is set, and what timeline it follows. Thanks.