A/N: Hello, everyone! Thank you to my lovely anon reviewer - your note meant a lot to me! And thank you to everyone that read but didn't review! At least I know people are interested. :D

Enjoy, please!

Jean Grey.

Psychic.

X-Man.

All these things and more. That's who the red-haired woman with the too-blue eyes claimed to be. And, yes, Todd vaguely recalled knowing someone that went by that name, but it had been so many years that he wasn't certain.

They had been on seperate teams, and that thought was at the forefront of his mind. That they had been enemies. So when she moved to take a step closer to him, he forced his spine into the bend that hurt-but-shouldn't, and pulled both arms up in front of him; one hand palm out, one hand curled into a fist so tight that his blunt nails dug into skin.

"Stop movin', Red." he snarled, and he didn't really know where that nickname came from but it seemed right. Had he called her that, before he left Bayville?

Maybe. Maybe not. The small details were always such a jumble, and usually too worthless to even attempt sifting through. Facts like that just blended with reality, and if Jean hadn't frozen the way that she did, Todd would just as easily have brushed it off as being something he made up.

"Todd...What happened to you?" asked Jean, and she seemed almost hesitant to ask.

Todd didn't answer. Just countered her question with one of his own. "Where the fuck am I?"

Jean winced at the course language. It was something that she had never gotten into, even as she aged. Uncouth and rude, she didn't see where curse words served any real purpose.

"You're in a hotel room, Todd." she answered, and she made sure to keep her voice soft and her words gentle. Like she was speaking to a wounded animal - and she just as well might have been, because she knew as much about the man before her as she knew about a rabid dog.

The last time she had seen Todd Tolensky, he had been fifteen and, while his eyes hadn't exactly been bright, they hadn't been dead like this either. He had always been on the scrawny side, but the way that his collar bones jutted against skin and his clothing hung loosely off his frame was something that she had never seen before.

To Jean, it looked like he hadn't eaten anything in days. In reality, that wasn't far from the truth.

When they had caught up to him, sprawled out on the side-walk and more unconscious then awake, they had brought him back here, to the room she and Scott were staying in. Jean had done what she could with his left eye - but there had been a lot of blood, and she was no doctor, far from it, actually.

Jean had seen scars on his face - including a thin one, above the right eyebrow, that looked like it may have been torn open more than once.

Her bright blue eyes met the almost golden-grey ones of the man across from her, and they saw fear and anger and pain and uncertainty. Then, in just a split-instance, for just a moment, she saw nothing.

Just coal, staring back at her.

Todd never moved his eyes away from Jean, even as he tested each leg out. Shifting his weight from one side to the other, and deciding that even though his left leg hurt like a bitch, it wasn't badly injured. Just stressed.

"Why'm I here?" demanded Todd - because that was something that he honestly didn't know the answer too. Even if he had been friends with Jean before, which he doubted because he didn't think he had any friends, no one outside of the Brotherhood at least, what was the point in her finding and helping him now? After so many years had passed?

Jean thought that was a very good question.