A/N Hi there! I decided to fix and finish this story. I hope you enjoy.

Timeline: Set after X2, except that Jean was found alive. This story is a quickly interlude between Alkali Lake and the discovery of the Phoenix.

Please note: I have not seen X3 yet, so characters might be a little dodge.None ofthe characters are not mine – sob – and I have nothing to gain from this except extreme personal satisfaction.

Chapter 1: A taste of the Orient

"Don't forget to study for the French Revolution test next week!" Jean Grey warned her History class before dismissing them for the day. There was a rush for the door as all the students headed out for lunch. Jean sighed and sat down. Things were finally getting back to normal after having to catch up all the work her students had missed while she was recovering from the incident at Alkali. Since then, however, things had been pretty quiet for the X-men. Jean took a deep breath and stood up. She took off her glasses and put them in her pocket as she made her way towards the classroom door. She made her way upstairs to the room she and Scott shared to drop off some assignments that she would have to mark later that night.

Opening the door, she found Scott coming out of the bathroom.

"Hey honey!" she said, going up to him for a hug.

"What's wrong, you look tired?" asked Scott with a concerned frown.

"I am. Things have just been so incredibly hectic lately, I feel like I'm in a tailspin."

"Well, I hate to make things worse, but its Kitty, Rogue and Jubilee's turn to cook

today…" Scott grinned at her. Jean pretended to be afraid.

"I'm sure it will be okay, or at least I HOPE so!" She said.

"Jubilee's actually a pretty good cook, just a little rough around the edges." He pulled Jean towards the door and opened it.

"Besides, " said Jean optimistically, "with Ororo watching them, what could go wrong?" Scott smiled and shrugged, leaning down to kiss her before the two proceeded downstairs to the dining room.

x

"Kitty watch out!" yelled Storm as Kitty nearly dropped at plate of Parmesan cheese into a pot of boiling water.

"Sorry!" Kitty said sheepishly. The other two girls giggled and continued working.

Suddenly Logan put his head in the kitchen door. "Storm, can I speak to you for a few minutes?"

"Sure!" Ororo followed him to the door, leaving the girls alone and not noticing the smirk that crossed Logan's face.

"Hey Rogue! Please get that bottle of tomato out of the pantry." Jubilee called over to her friend.

Rogue nodded to her and walked towards the pantry. "One bottle of tomato coming right –AAAAH!" Rogue screamed.

"What? What is it?" Kitty and Jubilee rushed over to see.

"A huge fat spider!"

"Gross!" Squealed Kitty.

Their occupancy with the bug was just what a tall, burly figure clad in black needed to sneak in and pour a sachet of orange powder into the pot boiling on the stove. He barely made it out the door when Storm came in mumbling about being called out for nothing.

"So girls. Are we ready to serve?" she asked cheerily.

"Yup, lets go poison everyone," joked Kitty. She gave the pot on the stove a quick stir then began helping Rogue with the spaghetti.

x

"So, what do you think?" Kitty nudged Storm who was sitting besides her at the table.

"Good. But there is a distinctly Indian flavour about this that I'm not too sure should be there." Ororo smiled

"Indian? It's supposed to be Italian. We didn't add any curry powder?" Kitty frowned.

"It's not too bad, just skip the spicy stuff next time,' Ororo winked at her and continued eating.

Beside Storm, sat Jean and next to her, Scott.

Scott leaned towards Jean to whisper in her ear, "Can you taste something…um…unusual about this pasta?" Jean nodded and started fanning her face with her hand.

Scott looked over at her. Jean's cheeks were flushed. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

"I feel kind of dizzy, like I can't breathe properly," Jean said.

Scott put his hand on her forehead. "Hey, you're burning up! Maybe you should go lie down after lunch."

"Maybe. This food is making me feel kind of woozy."

He cast another glance at Jean. Her cheeks had gotten redder, her breathing erratic and heavy. Her eyes were closed and she was swaying dangerously. Scott quickly changed his mind.

"Maybe you should go now! I'm sure the Professor won't mind."

"I think you're right!" Jean said softly. She rose unsteadily from her seat. The eyes of all the students moved to her.

Ororo touched her arm. "Jean? Are you okay?" She asked.

Jean nodded and started walking away from the table. Professor Xavier cast a questioning glance at Scott, but he had no time to explain. They heard a sickening thud.

Everyone spun round to see Jean lying sprawled on the carpet in the doorway. The students immediately huddled into small groups and began whispering.

"Jean!" Scott jumped up from his seat and hurried over to her. Ororo, Logan and the Professor followed suit.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Logan.

"I don't know. She wasn't feeling well so she was going to lie down before afternoon lessons," explained Scott.

"Well, lets get her to the Med Bay and check it out there. She might have just fainted from the heat." Said the Professor.

"I dunno, she said something about the food." Said Scott uncertainly. The Professor looked from Scott to Jean and back again.

"It seemed okay to me. If there was something wrong with it, I'm sure it would have affected all of us." Scott shrugged and turned his attention back to Jean.

He and Logan lifted Jean and carried her out of the room. The Professor followed them.

Storm turned to face the students. "Finish your lunch then keep yourselves busy. And stay out of trouble!" She said.

She called Kitty and the other two 'cooks' over to her.

Kitty gulped. "What's wrong with Dr. Grey?"

"We don't know. They're taking her to the med bay to find out. Before she left the table, she said something to Mr. Summers about the pasta. Did you three pull any tricks?" she said seriously.

Kitty immediately remembered her comment about the poison. "NO! We would never do anything to hurt anyone!" she said.

"Yeah. All we did was follow the recipe." Jubilee joined her in their defence.

"Are you accusing us of trying to kill Dr. Grey!" demanded Rogue a little loudly.

Ororo looked around, noticing one too many students watching them.

"No, Rogue, I am not. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this. Now, lets go somewhere where we can talk without every student hearing us." She went down the corridor to her office.

Meanwhile in the med lab, Scot was frantic as he tried to figure out what was wrong with Jean, but nothing he tried was working. He was fast running out of ideas. Jean lay unconscious before him, she was covered in perspiration, her breathing growing increasingly weak as her temperature soared, and all he could do was watch.

"Perhaps it's an after effect of that whole episode at the lake," suggested Logan.

"But Jean's over that. She recovered fully." Said Scott. They looked at the Professor. His concern for Jean showed on his face, but he remained composed.

"Perhaps," he said, "I could probe Jean's mind to find out what is wrong?" Scott nodded and the Professor put his hands on either side of Jean's head and concentrated.

When they were seated inside her office, Storm continued her 'third degree'.

"Ms. Monroe, you were there, you would have seen if we did something?" reasoned Jubilee.

"But, I did go out when Logan called me. What did you do then? I heard screaming."

"Rogue found a spider in the pantry." Storm sat in silence for a few moments while the girls fidgeted nervously.

"So you didn't notice anything strange?

"Well," Kitty said, "There was some funny orange powder in the pasta sauce when I stirred it before we served, but I thought it was just from the tomato."

Storm frowned. "Orange stuff? Orange stuff?" she began pacing. "And the food had that Indian taste…"

"But curry powder is yellow. How would it have gotten there in the first place?" said Rogue, a puzzled expression crossing her face.

Understanding burst across Ororo's face. "That's because it wasn't curry powder, it was turmeric!" Suddenly her triumphant expression faded.

"What? What's wrong Ms. Monroe?" asked Jubilee.

Storm put up a finger to silence her and hurried over to her computer. She opened the personnel search engine and typed in Jean's name. Jean's full profile and history came up, including a photo of her when she first joined the institute.

"Aaw! Ms. Grey was so pretty when she was our age," crooned Kitty as she watched over Ororo's shoulder. Rogue elbowed her.

"What?" she yelled.

Storm ignored them and continued scrolling down. She stopped halfway and leaned closer to the screen.

"Oh my God!"

"What?" All three girls leaned closer to the screen.

Storm didn't say anything; she just jumped up from her chair and sprinted out of the room. The girls watched her go, then looked back at the screen. Flashing in red before them on the screen were the words

FATALLY ALLERGIC TO TUMERIC