Chapter 6

While Jean, Logan and Scott now lived under the same roof, they managed to do an extremely job of avoiding each other. At least, Jean avoided Scott, Scott avoided Logan, and Logan – at Jean's begging – avoided Scott. That was, until Scott cornered Jean in her own classroom after a particularly trying class. She'd decided to sit for just a moment, to regain her equilibrium before taking on any other member of the mansion, completely forgetting Scott had been trying to talk to her.

"Jean?"

She couldn't stop the wince. "Hi Scott."

He entered carefully, still slightly frightened of her since the Phoenix incident before he'd left ten years ago. "Are you busy?"

Part of her had wanted to answer the affirmative, but the bigger part of her was against lying. "Just the end of a difficult class," she answered, compromising to suit her heart and her conscience.

"You still have them?"

"Sorry?"

"I would have thought the kids would be used to you back in class again."

Jean smiled. "Most of those kids have moved on and graduated, Scott. You forget how long it's been since you've been back here." It wasn't meant as a jab in the slightest. She'd understood his reasons for leaving and hadn't held it over his head at all. She had been forced to come to terms with it herself and the fact that she could pretty much blame herself for his decision.

"They aren't all new kids," he responded, giving her one of his boy-next-door grins. Years ago, she would have melted at that smile.

"Not to the school but to the senior science program. I teach two classes," she reminded him, slowly beginning to gather her pages.

Scott sat on one of the front desks. "Tell me about your daughters."

That made Jean light up immediately, as it inevitably did. "They're… they're everything I could've wanted in my children," she admitted, hoping he could deal with the brutal honesty. "They're my life."

Scott's face contorted in confusion. "Your life?"

"My priority," Jean corrected. "Their well-being comes first."

"So you don't go out on missions anymore?"

"Sometimes, but Logan and I promised the girls years ago that one of us would always be home, just in case."

"You don't go?"

"Logan is usually the one that leaves. He gets restless here and missions are something like wandering to him. It's the least I can do for tying him down." The last was said with affection, letting Scott know neither of them resented the other for the situation they were in now.

"So you don't get a chance to exercise your abilities?"

Jean shot him a suspicious look over the top of her glasses. "I do in the Danger Room and outside, places where I know people won't be hurt by them. And I do go on missions, just not as often. What's with the obsession?"

"Just curious," Scott replied, though Jean was pretty sure, by the speed in which he'd answered, that wasn't exactly the truth. "And the girls like it here?"

"They know nothing else," Jean pointed out, "but they do enjoy always being around people that spoil them rotten."

"You're lucky."

"I tell myself that every time I see them," she responded with a soft smile. "But what about you? You haven't done too badly for yourself."

"That is true," he answered.

"And you an Emma? That must be serious."

"Something like that," he responded vaguely.

"I'm glad," she told him honestly. "You deserve someone."

Scott smiled slightly. "We get along." She's not you.

Jean wanted to roll her eyes or slap him or something. She'd been happy he'd moved on, ecstatic even, since it meant he wasn't hung up on her anymore. Apparently, that wasn't the case. "You get along?" she decided on instead, teasing him.

"We have our moments," Scott replied easily. So many more than you and I did.

"Every relationship does," she told him reassuringly.

"Even yours?"

Jean laughed. "Are you kidding me? The mansion cleans out when Logan and I get into a row. That, and there's usually something broken by the end of it."

"They get violent?" Scott asked, concerned.

"We get angry Scott. That usually results in the loss of some composure," Jean replied, as if explaining it to a small child.

"He doesn't…"

"Logan would never hit me, Scott. The things that are broken are objects because I've lost control," she told him solemnly, locking her eyes on him to make sure he understood. Even without Scott for ten years, the jealousy was not something new for her to deal with.

"You still lose control?" Again, he seemed intrigued.

"Not often," Jean revealed. "Phoenix and I had a chat and we came to an understanding."

Scott chuckled slightly at her choice of wording. "Had a chat?"

Even Jean chuckled. "The professor helped."

"You let him?"

"It was better than barriers, Scott," she admonished softly. "That was the last thing I wanted."

"So you have control then?"

"We've never fully tested it," she said slowly, suspiciously. "But to the extent of our knowledge, yes."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, like he was making a mental note, before recovering. "That's impressive."

"Thanks. Why all the interest? You never cared before."

"I did," he protested after a moment, too much of a hesitation and not enough in his shield so Jean felt his deer-caught-in-headlights mental waves.

"You were afraid of me," she parried, finally gathering up her pages and starting to head back to her room, Logan and the girls.

"That doesn't mean I'm not interested," he insisted.

Jean smiled slightly, shaking her head. "Scott, a lot of things have changed since you made the decision to leave and a lot of things we thought you cared about we had to re-evaluate. You never liked Phoenix and you were never comfortable with the power I wielded. I know that."

She didn't give him a chance to reply before leaving.

Jean took a deep breath before opening the greenhouse door later that week. She needed to talk to someone badly, and Logan was not going to be her best choice. Her conversation with Scott had disturbed her, his unhealthy fixation on her mutation even more so.

"Ro?"

"Hey Jean," Ororo called back, popping her head out from behind one of the larger trees. "You wanted to talk."

"Scott caught me in my classroom."

It was all she had to say before Ororo was at her side. "And?"

"It was… odd," Jean admitted.

"Odd?" Ororo questioned, guiding Jean to two wicker chairs she kept set up in the greenhouse.

"We started talking about my classes, then the girls… then my control and Phoenix," Jean tried to explain.

"What?"

"That was what got me too. He's never taken any interest in Phoenix and then it was suddenly all he wanted to talk about."

"Why? That doesn't make any sense."

"That's what I thought," Jean exploded, jumping from her seat and pacing in front of her white-haired friend. To Ororo, Jean looked like a caged animal, like Logan when he was restless.

"It doesn't make any sense. Why does he suddenly care about what control I have, if the barriers exist or not?"

"You know something was wrong," Ororo pointed out. "Did you think he would be different now that he's back?"

"A girl can dream, right? I figured he thought about everything and about how he'd acted."

"Did you expect him to accept everything?"

"Goodness no!" Jean exclaimed. "He will never accept the relationship between me and Logan and I never once thought he would have accepted Phoenix. That's now what's bugging me. It's the questions and the constant pressure about Phoenix that threw me. I didn't like them."

"Why?" Ororo inquired, trying to understand.

"Something… it wasn't right. He skipped questions all about my control, never about how it affected me or my family."

Ororo smiled slightly. "I think you've been spending too much time with Logan and his suspicions."

Jean sighed, finally able to sit down again. "Ro, I hope you're right."

It hadn't been more than a week since her conversation with Ororo when Scott managed to corner her again, this time in the lab. She'd continued her research, Hank by her side, and spent some of her free periods in the lab. Apparently, he'd found out her schedule.

"Jean, good. I wanted to talk to you."

Jean, her back turned to him, closed her eyes and groaned mentally. She wasn't sure she was over the interrogation of two weeks prior. "Really?" she settled on.

He stopped in the middle of the lab, an action Jean sensed. "I remember all the time you used to spend down here and how we'd have the hardest time trying to get you out," he said a laugh in his voice.

Jean couldn't stop a smile from lifting the corner of her mouth. "It wasn't until Michele and Jane were born that I kicked the habit," she admitted.

"You spent time down here pregnant?"

Jean laughed. "Like anyone was going to stop me. Logan found me down here asleep a million times. That's why the couch is down here."

"He came looking for you?"

"Scott," Jean warned. "Don't start with this."

"With what?"

"You don't like him, I understand that, but that's no reason for you to tear him apart in front of me."

"Jean, you know he's not right…"

"You don't think so," Jean snapped. "You don't think he loves me, you don't think he cares, and you don't think I should be with him. I get it, we don't have to talk about it."

"You know he's going to throw you aside when he's done."

"That's your problem, Scott. You don't know him."

"Do you? Do you know what he's been through, do you know what he's like when he's not in control?"

"Do you?" she shot back. "Can you honestly say you know him? Damnit Scott, you don't know anything!"

"I know he'll run scared at the first big problem. I know he'll leave you with two kids if he has to in order to save his own hide."

She whirled on him, anger flashing in her green eyes. "How dare you," she said, the words coming out as a feral growl, Phoenix lingering just behind her eyes. "You do not have the right to say anything, do anything or even think. You don't know anything about this, nothing. You have no idea what we've been though, you have no idea how often we may or may not fight and you have no idea how our relationship works. You can't just waltz back in here and think you still own this place. I have news for you, Scott. We moved on without you. We made this school work without you. We're fine without you."

"And he's my replacement?" Scott spat.

"He's not a replacement, you idiot," Jean exploded. "He's another part of our team, like you were, like Rogue and Shadowcat and Iceman are now. You left. Period. Logan didn't take over your leadership, Ro did and she's doing a damn good job. You do not have the right to attack him, when he's generally an innocent party in it all."

She stormed out of the lab, inwardly wincing when glass broke in the wake of her anger.

Logan could smell her anger from four floors above. He'd known Scott's presence was not going to bode well for the redheaded telepath, but he'd hoped Scott would have the intelligence to keep from provoking her. Apparently, he'd been wrong. He heard her mumbling from the end of the hall and leaned against the window where he was standing, knowing she would pass him on her way.

"Don't even try," she growled, her mental senses on high alert from her anger.

Logan said nothing. Instead, he simply pulled her to him, fitting her body to his as it did every time. "I wasn't planning on it."

Jean sighed in his embrace, already feeling her emotions calm down purely from being in his arms. "Why does he want to do this to me? I thought he wanted me to be happy."

"Darlin' he only wants happiness if it's with him."

Jean's mouth twitched in a smile. The comment had been so bluntly Logan. "I love you, you know."

"I do. And you know and you can always trust, that I love you."

This time, she really did smile. "Thank you."

"Mommy!" Jane screamed, tearing into Jean's grade twelve biology class. Jean jumped, dropping her chalk, which shattered into pieces on the floor. Jean scooped up her daughter securely, holding the crying child close to her body.

"Jane, honey, what's wrong?" Jean asked, rubbing a hand up and down her back.

"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," was all Jane would say, her arms locked around Jean in a death grip.

Jean faced her class. "Read and take notes on the rest of the chapter. Class dismissed."

The students were out of the room like shots, leaving Jean with the sole focus of calming down her youngest daughter.

"Sweetheart, you're okay," Jean said softly, her hand still travelling the expanse of the small back. Jane, however, shook her head.

"You're not all right?" Jean asked, confused, but Jane couldn't seem to speak.

"I'm going to look, okay?" But before Jean could muster the concentration needed to see what had her daughter so upset, Jane lost her tenuous control on her composure and gave three particularly large sobs before pushing away from Jean and throwing up on the floor.

"Jane!" Jean exclaimed in surprise, terrified for her daughter. Then something hit her.

"Where's Michele?" she questioned anxiously. As the youngest children in the mansion it was rare to find one Grey child without the other close by. The question made Jane sob, if possible, even harder.

"Jane?" When Jane didn't answer, Jean reached out with her mind to try and find the familiar mental signature of her other daughter. She confined her search to the mansion and its grounds, knowing it would be better for her to seek help before going off of the grounds. She started to panic when she couldn't find it.

Jeannie? In her haste, she'd forgotten about the link she shared with Logan and its sensitivity.

Michele's missing, she said promptly, trying to keep herself calm for her child, for Logan and for her own sanity.

What?

She's not in the mansion and Jane can't stop crying. I'm going to find the professor.

I'll meet you at Cerebro, Logan answered, knowing without having to ask what finding the professor meant.

It didn't take Jean long to locate the professor and explain her issue to him. Jane was still sobbing into her neck when she and the professor met with Logan outside of the cavernous room that held the professor's pride and joy.

"She may not even be in the mansion," Jean said softly before Xavier wheeled into Cerebro, her first tear leaking through the iron façade.

Xavier laid a gentle hand on her arm. "We will find her, Jean," he promised.

"I hope so."

Second after the doors to Cerebro closed behind Xavier, Ororo came racing down the hall.

"Have you seen Marie?"

The mention of her Aunt's name had Jane sobbing again and Jean could only guess what that meant. "She's with Michele," Jean managed, her voice hitching.

Ororo, the adrenaline of fear starting to pump through her veins, glanced between Logan and Jean. "And where is Michele?"

"We don't know," Logan growled.

"You don't…"

"Marie was looking after them this afternoon," Jean recalled, her hand still trying to soothe Jane, especially since the table just down the hall had started to shake.

"How is Jane here?"

"When Chuck finds Michele, I'm sure we'll have a lot of answers," Logan grumbled.

"What are you thinking?" Jean asked, leaning into him for support and comfort.

"Janey's got a whiff of Scooter on her," Logan said lowly.

"Scott?" Ororo asked concerned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"They… they could… b-be… l-l-long g-gone," Jane managed to stutter.

"Who, Jane?" Jean asked softly.

"I… I hid…. I should have…s-saved her," Jane answered, her lower lip shaking.

"From what, Angel?" Logan asked, softening his growl for his daughter.

Before Jane could answer Xavier wheeled out of Cerebro.

"Did you find her?" Jean asked immediately.

"I did," Xavier replied tiredly. "With Marie."

"Where are they?" Logan growled.

"Going west," Xavier answered.

"Marie kidnapped our daughter?" Jean asked in surprise.

"Mr Summers and Miss Frost did," Jane finally said, stringing her first sentence together smoothly.

"Professor?" Ororo looked to the older man for confirmation.

"I'm afraid that could be true. Scott and Miss Frost are in the car with them."

"I don't understand," Jean said softly. "What's going on?"

"Golden Boy's workin' for the Brotherhood," Logan growled menacingly. "I knew we couldn't trust him."

"How long? For what? Why did he come here?" Jean rattled off questions. "Why did he take Marie? Why did he take our daughter?"

"I wish I could answer those questions, Red," Logan replied, wrapping his arms around what was left of his family. "All I knew was that we couldn't trust him any more."

"None of this makes any sense," Ororo said rationally. "How the hell does Scott go from our leader to our enemy?"

"He doesn't get what he wants," Logan answered easily. "He finds somethin' he believes is better, a better offer, a better life… somethin' he didn't have while he was here."

"Are you saying that it's my fault?" Jean asked fearfully.

"Darlin' o' course not. I'm sayin' Scooter's screwed up, has been for a while."

" Korea," Jean supplied, still remembering that conversation with Logan and her mental note to check the mission logs. The others were surprised she remembered it.

"Is that when he…?" Ororo began, but couldn't finish the question.

"We know next to nothing right now," Xavier told them. "We'll call a meeting, see what we can understand from Jane's accounts and move from there."

"They could be killin' our Chell and you want to have a meetin'!"

" Logan, calm down, Charles is right," Jean said soothingly. "We can't do anything until we know what happened, and until Jane calms down, we know nothing."

"How can you be so calm?" he growled at her.

Jean was unaffected. "I have to be," she whispered. "I don't have a choice."

"What?"

Jean rolled her eyes. Jane blames herself, she reminded him. Calming her down is my first priority.

Logan continued to growl slightly under his breath, but tried valiantly to make sure the animal didn't escape. Instead, he pulled his remaining family closer, hugging Jane and Jean tightly to him.

"Take her upstairs, settle her down," Xavier suggested quietly. "Ororo and I will see what we can find in the mean time. Let me know when you've calmed her down enough for her to talk."

Jean and Logan nodded and they all parted ways.

"How can he do this?" Jean asked rhetorically. "After everything…"

"That's exactly how he can do it," Logan said, pacing with Jane cuddled against his shoulder at the foot of their bed. He was trying to settle Jane down enough to talk but the small five-year-old seemed to have an endless well of tears.

"What do you mean?"

"He had everythin'," Logan began slowly. "He had power, he had the love of his life, he had prestige."

"Then I died?" Jean asked, part of her understanding and part of her still confused as to where Logan was taking this.

"He was a mess when you died, Darlin'," Logan agreed. "We couldn't get him out of your room for six months."

"What?"

"You were his life," Logan stated bluntly. "He knew nothin' but you."

"He knew Ororo, his life at the mansion," Jean protested, gently taking a slowly calming Jane out of her father's arms.

"You were his life at the mansion, Jeannie," Logan repeated.

"But… I'm not sure that makes sense."

"When you died, Scooter figured he'd lost everythin'. When we finally pulled him out of his funk completely, Chuck sent him and me gallivantin' across the world to Korea."

"Where everything fell apart."

"Red, I don't know what happened up there, but I do know it was somethin' wrong. I could smell it on him and you could see it in the way he held himself. All of a sudden, he owned the world again and took over the leadership position he'd forfeited in his depression."

"Big words," she teased softly, her heart not in the words.

"Somethin' screwed him over," Logan responded.

"Something that gave him better than what he had," Jean added.

"In all honesty, he was… weird," Logan said, lacking a better word. "Then when you came back he just got weirder."

Jean took no offence to that in the slightest, though did find minimal amusement in his wording. He'd been spending way too much time around the twins. "I think I messed up something he was planning," she told Logan. "Something big."

"He was plannin'? Or somethin' he was ordered to do?"

"That's the question," Jean agreed, smoothing hair back from Jane's still teary face. She'd fallen asleep on her mother's shoulder having cried herself out. "What kind of evil is he?"

"She's asleep," Logan said carefully, nodding to the small body. "We can take a look."

Jean sighed. She'd considered doing such a thing, going into Jane's mind while she slept so technically her little daughter wouldn't have to relive the experience, but had pulled back. It was almost an invasion of privacy, something against the telepathic code of conduct.

"It's an invasion of privacy," she whispered unconvincingly.

"Then she'll have to tell us," Logan reminded her. "She'll have to live through it."

"That's not fair," she tried again.

"I'll tell you."

I hope you liked this, especially since, to me, it feels a little rushed. Still, the point of this is not the relationship between Jean and Scott but the plot has everything to do with what Scott's evilness is going to mean.

Special mention to samantha w. since I couldn't actually write a reply to your review. Scott's going to stay evil for a little while yet. I'm glad you enjoy him like that!