Title: Starting Over

Pairing: Well, several. Jean/Logan and Scott/Emma for sure. Maybe a bit of Kitty/Colossus and Rogue/Remy for fun and flair. We'll see what we get into. :)

Rating: T at the beginning (mainly for language, because dude...seriously...Logan swears a lot.), M (for fluff, maybe?) later on.

Author's Note: A little flirt, a little tease, a little snow. This isn't going to end badly at all.

I was tied, but now unbound

My head is off the ground

For a long time I was so weary

Tired of the sound, I've heard before,

The gnawing of the night time at the door,

Haunted by the things I've made

Stuck between the burning light and the dusty shade.

Marcus Foster - I Was Broken

two months later

It hadn't been a lot, this little piece of normal. Perhaps that's what made it feel as close to perfect as she could hope to achieve. Jean taught biology, geology, and chemistry to high school students by day. Her evenings were spent in lesson plans, mostly, and projects for her students.

Every few days, however, she would text Logan just to see how things were at the mansion. He would send pictures now and then, and she laughed to think at him trying to stealthily snap photographs on a cell phone he wasn't known for using. The first ones were a little blurry, but she could make out several students playing basketball. They got better quickly, though, and while it was painful to see the candid photos of Ororo and Hank sharing a laugh, or Charles contemplating life while looking outside the window, Jean wouldn't have traded anything for those morsels of her old life. There was something incredibly gratifying about seeing so many of her former teammates and students leading happy lives.

It wasn't lost on her that Scott and Emma never appeared in any of the photos Logan sent to her. She wondered how Scott, in particular, was doing, but the thoughts of him no longer held the sting of heartbreak and frustration. Regret, yes, but ever since encouraging him to be with Emma, more and more of the emotions surrounding her abortive marriage became memories instead of current events.

About every two weeks, Jean and Logan met up for coffee or a casual dinner. There was something magical about being so far away from the school and spending time with someone who knew her past and didn't look at her like she was a monster. When some weeks were particularly difficult, it seemed like she would push through only because of the promise of a few texts or a dinner with the man who never stopped flirting with her.

Jean had to admit she was charmed to her toes by the depths Logan had. The times she'd been gone, he'd lived through so much that added layers of complexity onto the personality of the harsh, grousing man he'd once been. Logan's fondness for reading and his knowledge of history had led to several conversations about which figures in history might have been mutants. They were both almost positive Grigory Rasputin had to have been a mutant to survive all the assassination attempts. Jean thought that Joan of Arc may have been a mutant, but Logan disagreed and stated that the power of organized region could be power enough to make a person think they were hearing God when they really weren't.

When the snow began to fall that Friday evening, Jean had gone for a walk in the flurries. The kids running around, laughing and trying to form snowballs from the bits of snow that had accumulated thus far didn't even sting the way she'd thought it would. Instead, Jean was thankful that all was at peace in her little world and she could walk and enjoy the sights around her without worrying about what might happen in the next few hours, what new crisis might unfold.

When she woke the next morning, the fresh landscape the few inches of snow created had a degree of pristine cleanliness that appealed to her. She texted Logan as she drank her morning tea.

Hey, did you guys get snow dumped on you as well?

It was less than a minute before the reply came.

Yeah, it's about 6 inches here and it keeps going. I think we're gonna have about a foot.

The picture he sent made her whistle. The mansion looked like something out of a Christmas postcard, frosted and somnolent through the flurries coming down. She chuckled and texted Logan back.

You sure Ororo hasn't come down with the plague?

A lightning fast reply this time.

Lol. No. She's diverted some of it to help keep the roads safer around here

Jean's jaw dropped. She'd never thought to see the day Logan would learn text speak. It shouldn't be surprising considering how well he adapted to different situations, but given how much of a grumpy old man exterior he had, the temptation to tease him was irresistible.

You're using lol now? What's next? Will you be telling students their sessions in the Danger Room were "lit" if they did well? Will you start saying "I'm weak" when Kurt cracks a joke? Gonna start calling the team "squad"?

About 30 seconds later, Jean jumped when she heard the phone ringing. Seeing it was Logan, she made him wait for a couple rings before answering so she could manage to not cackle at him. As she lifted the phone to her ear, she could already hear him roaring.

"...and let me tell ya somethin' Red, you don't know what kinda shit I put up with from these kids and their stupid phrases. I gotta have a dictionary with me at all times just to figure out what they're sayin'! Who the fuck comes up with this shit anyway?"

Jean couldn't help the peals of laughter that came out of her. She had to lay her face down on the table in her kitchen, shoulders heaving with each fresh round of howling. It took her a full two minutes to calm herself, wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes, and bring the phone back up to her ear to actually speak.

"I'm sorry it's been such a pain, Logan, but I never pictured you as a texter or someone who would use lol in anything, ever. Doesn't really fit with my mental image of the terror of the X Mansion."

That got a low chuckle out of him, and a pause before he spoke.

"Hopefully that ain't all your mental image of me consists of."

Jean suspected her students would refer to Logan as "thirsty" if they could hear this conversation. And perhaps the term was fitting. While he was always low key about his attraction, even more so since she'd returned, it always simmered under the surface. A small part of her was terrified of encouraging anything from anybody, but she was feeling daring and happy and normal. So she teased Logan once more, this time with a flirty edge.

"Maybe it does. Maybe it includes you being a devastatingly handsome superhero. Who wants to know?"

The silence from the other end terrified her. Had she misread the cue?

Oh god. Oh god. Why did I start this? Why did I continue this? I should have thought that stupid statement through ABORT ABORT AB-

"Ya know damn well I'd wanna know, darlin'. Goddamn tease."

The last words were muttered, but there was no malice in the tone. Holding the phone away from her face, she breathed a huge sigh of relief and brough the phone back to her ear.

"I suppose that's true. But I'd need some incentive to give out my secrets. Can't just do it for free."

Logan's laugh was slow (and maybe a little sexy, she admitted to herself) as he shot back, "So, gotta buy ya off, do I? What'll it be?"

Jean bit her lip as she thought for a moment. The back and forth game was fun, but she had no idea where to take it from here.

What do I want from this? To feel like a woman again, one who is desired and cared for?

Maybe.

"Make me an offer I shouldn't refuse and we'll see what happens."

Logan had an answer for her after a beat.

"Remember that lake where we'd all go to camp? Sterling forest? Remember that flat, kinda open area by the loop?"

"Yeah? What of it?" Her nose scrunched, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

"I'll tell ya what. You never did get the rematch to that snowball fight from several years ago. Meet me there. Winner gets to ask the loser for a forfeit. And I'll tell ya right now, Red, when you lose? I'm gonna have out of ya what all your mental image of Logan has in it."

Jean swallowed, heart pounding. The words were out of her mouth before she had time to really think about what she was saying.

"You're on, Logan."