Friend

Jean woke at her regular time the next morning, feeling rested and refreshed. Looking at the clock in awe she realized she'd slept through the night. Glancing down at the bear she had wrapped in her arms, she smiled and got up to start her day.


For the first time in a long while, Jean hummed to herself while she worked, moving more fluidly and seamlessly around the lab than usual. She chalked it up to her beautiful night's sleep.

"Dr Grey?" The voice that called into the lab was soft and tentative, but the idea that some one – a female someone, from the voice, and thus, not Logan – was calling to her startled her. She turned around and spotted Rogue.

"Does the professor want something?" Jean asked, snapping off the gloves she was wearing.

"Um… no." The teenager shook her head. "I… I tried asking Logan and Mr. Summers, but they couldn't help me…" Jean couldn't keep the sheepish smile, extremely tentative, from creeping over her face.

"Rogue, it's okay. What can I help with?" Jean hoped she sounded more confident than she was feeling. The younger woman sighed.

"My biology. I can't understand this cellular respiration," Rogue admitted. Jean could feel the tension rolling off of the brunette in waves.

"Sure," Jean replied, pulling up a spare chair at her desk. "Let's take a look at it."


It turned out that Rogue was having problems understanding a variety of her chemistry and biology topics so she and Jean sat together almost every day after classes ended. One day, Rogue came in a little late, bringing Bobby and John behind her.

"Show them the coloured fire, Dr Grey! And the thing… boiling stone…"

"Magnesium?" Jean inquired, spinning on her chair from her microscope. Rogue's face lit up.

"Please?" Jean chuckled softly, valiantly ignoring the blatant fear rolling off the boys.

"Rogue, you're crazy."

"No you're chickens. She's the same as she was before Alkali Lake." Jean could hear the exasperation in Rogue's voice, as if she'd had this conversation before.

"You have no proof," John hissed.

"Neither do you. Plus, any of my proof would come from experience," Rogue shot back. "Who did you think was helping me with chem and bio?" Jean stepped in before the boys could reply. She smiled softly at them as she filled a petri dish with water.

"We'll save the fire for another day," Jean promised as she brought the equipment to an empty lab bench. Regardless of their misgivings, all three teens gathered around. Jean held the magnesium over the water.

"What are some of the properties of magnesium?" she asked, unwittingly slipping into 'teacher mode'.

"It's unstable," Rogue offered immediately. Jean beamed with pride.

"Exactly. So when I put it in water?"

"It'll react," Bobby responded, his brain slipping into that of a student. Jean performed the experiment, and they all watched as the solid bubbled and fizzed on the water's surface.

"That was awesome," Bobby stated once the reaction had gone to completion. Jean shot him a puzzled look.

"You've never seen that before?" When she taught the science course – with the exception of physics because the professor loved it too much – they were always doing experiments and lab work. In fact, the magnesium reaction was done like clockwork, a permanent addition to the curriculum.

"Not since…" John let the sentence trail off.

"We got someone new, a temp, in after Alkali Lake, but Mr Summers and the professor teach now. We don't do in-class experiments," Rogue explained.

"But the practical application is half of the learning process," Jean protested. The students in front of her shrugged. It was soon after that Bobby and John left, but Rogue stayed behind.

"You should come back to teaching," the young woman suggested quietly.

"Rogue –"

"Come on, Dr. Grey! You saw the look on their faces and you can't tell me their wariness didn't fade over time!" Gently, Jean settled her hands on Rogue's shoulders.

"You're three people and I'm a telepath," she said softly with a sad smile. "Even with your support it wouldn't be a far stretch for them to assume I'm controlling you." Rogue scoffed, but Jean knew the younger woman heard the truth in her words.

"You used to be an optimist," Rogue said softly, not allowing her eyes to meet Jean's.

"Used to be?" Jean questioned. If this was going where she thought, it was about to be the first ever conversation she was having with another person about Alkali Lake and her death.

"Before Alkali Lake." Rogue's voice was almost a whisper, as if even to her it was a touchy subject. Jean rolled her eyes as she moved things about.

"I haven't really had anything to be optimistic about," she countered scathingly.

"You died, Dr. Grey! Some of us watched the water crash over you! Then we dealt with it, moved on almost. Then you came back. We had no idea of what to make of any of it."

"Except Logan," Jean pointed out matter-of-factly. Rogue smiled tightly.

"The moment he got word from the professor, he was rounding us up to head back," Rogue remembered.

"He never believed I was mentally unstable."

"He wouldn't believe you were dead." Both women were silent after Rogue's statement.

"You think dying… messed that much with my head?"

"We don't know," Rogue stressed. "That's the problem."

"There isn't a test, Rogue, and I told everyone I was perfectly fine. That's what hurts." Jean vaguely wondered why she was explaining all of this to a sixteen-year-old, but it felt good to admit they were hurting her.

Rogue wasn't exactly sure what Jean was referring to. Subconsciously, she was aware there wasn't a test that could judge a telekinetic/telepathic person's mental stability, but to hear it from a doctor's mouth did a fairly good job of solidifying it. That, however, wasn't what confused her. 'That's what hurts' Jean had said, pain more than evident. It took a few seconds for Rogue to puzzle through the phrase.

"No one believed you?" Rogue whispered finally. "No one listened." Jean wouldn't meet Rogue's eyes. Suddenly, the younger woman felt horrible for the way Jean had been treated since she'd been back.

"God, Dr Grey, I'm so sorry." Before Jean could process, Rogue had wrapped her arms around her in a tight hug. Tentatively, Jean returned the hug. Rogue eventually stepped back.

"Guess that was kind of mean of us." Jean shrugged and sighed.

"That's a conversation for another day," she said, all but shooing Rogue out of the lab.


Half an hour later, too distracted to do any more work, Jean made her way upstairs. She wasn't paying attention when she opened her bedroom door, so when her eyes fell on Logan, sleeping on her bed with a bear in his grasp, she jumped.

"Damnit Logan," she cursed under her breath. Mumbling something, he rolled over with the peach-coloured bear. Jean sat delicately on the edge of the bed, hoping upon hope he didn't wake and attack her like he had Rogue almost four years ago.

When he didn't move an inch, Jean allowed herself a little more freedom, delicately withdrawing the peach bear from his grasp and noticing the pen and blank piece of paper on the bedside table. Inwardly, she frowned. Who was this bear? Did Logan usually sleep with stuffed animals? The second endeared her to him more than she really would have lived.

Then her mind started wandering. Why was Logan asleep? It was the first time se'd left the lab early… Did he always take a nap here while she was downstairs? Was it a habit he'd picked up before her return – a question made plausible by the idea that Jean had discovered everything had been left the way she'd left it when she moved in with Scott years ago and thus, technically the room was still hers – or since she'd moved out of Scott's? She jumped when her alarm clock went off and moved to cut the sound. When she turned back, Logan was looking at her blearily. She smiled shyly, squeezing the bear in her hands.

"Hey," she said softly, taking careful steps to the foot of her bed.

"Hey," he answered, voice made husky by sleep.

"Tired?" she asked with an amused smile.

"You're up early," he replied, ignoring her question. Jean couldn't stop the blush creeping up her neck.

"I got distracted," she replied honestly, not meeting his eyes. "I couldn't focus."

"Dr. Jean Grey? Distracted?" Logan sounded awed, but the smile on his face when she did face him told her he'd always thought her concentration was admirable.

"Yeah," she smiled shyly. She picked at loose threads in her bedspread as a comfortable silence stretched between them.

"Do you always have an afternoon nap?" she asked carefully. Logan, though he didn't show it in his face or body, was oozing surprise at her question.

"Got tired," he said with a shrug. She couldn't stop the slightly satisfied, slightly predatory grin from stretching across her face.

"In my bed? With a bear? And why did you set the alarm?" she asked, barely masking amusement in her voice. Logan looked at the bear in her arms.

"Friend bear…? She's for you." Her face lit up brightly.

"You're spoiling me." Jean's 180 in attitude disturbed Logan a bit, and he had made a mental note to ask about what had distracted her in the first place, but a carefree Jean Grey was a sight to behold.

"What's this one for?" Her question startled him back to the conversation.

"Excuse me?"

"The bear, Friend Bear," she prompted. "Cheer was for happiness, Bedtime was to help me sleep and Friend Bear…?"

"Help be a good friend," Logan replied after a minute, having to wrack his brain to remember. Then he shrugged.

"You don't need to be shown how to be a good friend. I meant for him to be your friend."

"I'm a little short on those," she admitted softly. Her head bowed and hair from where she was constantly tucking it. Slowly, making sure she was aware of his movement, Logan reached out and brushed it back. Then, as if realizing the intimacy of the action, moved to leave.

"The ones you have will never abandon you," he told her fiercely, his back still to her. He closed the door on the way out.


If I'm not mistaken, at the beginning of the first movie Rogue's on her way to college, but for the story, she's 16. I had to make it fit with asking Jean for help... Rogue didn't strike me as the type of girl who would be studying science in college.