Scott wasn't there when she woke up.

And it took a few moments for Jean to remember that he wasn't supposed to be there.

He had to wake up early that morning, to pick up a stock of chlorine for the pool, in time to for the party. He had mentioned that. It had been on the calendar. No surprise.

But he usually kissed her on his way out when he was the first one out of bed.

She'd pretend to be asleep when he did it, or sometimes she really would be asleep, but the kiss would wake her up. Or it would happen in her dream. Or she'd just wake up knowing it had happened. His scent on her.

Cyclops hadn't kissed her that morning.

That was the first time she could remember, when he had been home and not done it. But not really a surprise, either. It seemed they'd hit a rough patch lately, and she couldn't figure out why. It had bothered her, to be sure, but it felt routine. No big deal. Just a bump in the long road that any marriage travels. Scott Summers and Jean Grey had been through this before, worse probably, and it had always worked out.

Fortunately, this time, it was happening in a lull for the X-Men. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was broken. Master Mold had been destroyed; this time, apparently, for good. Magneto was hiding in his asteroid base, according to Charles. And all the mutant-hate groups were in disarray, after that nasty business with Mystique and the Brood. All in all, things were pretty quiet for once.

Jean Grey knew better than to expect that the peace would last. But knew well enough to count her blessings at the same time.

She sat up in bed, swinging her feet over the edge of the mattress and into her waiting slippers. She pulled the blinds open telekinetically, tugging invisibly on the cone at the end of the dangling set of strings.

The summer sun, waning in the season, was shining. Birds were chirping.

As she brushed her teeth in her distinctly unsexy pajamas—baggy flannel pants and one of Scott's old t-shirts—she listened to the creaks and cracks in the floorboards of the house—the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters—and tried to identify each of them:

Beast swinging from one end of his room to another, a science text open in one foot.

Rogue's alarm clock radio, blasting country music that she didn't turn off until her favorite song came up, and played through.

Storm working out in the gym, getting in some cardio first thing, no matter what the day held.

Gambit making no noise at all, except maybe snoring; he was always the last to one up, being the last one in bed.

And something else. Maybe not even a sound or a presence, but something Jean could just feel.

Something wrong? Maybe.

Wrong in the sense it wasn't usually there, anyway.

"I wonder if Logan slept here last night?" she thought. Maybe that was it. He had a habit of disappearing now and then. It threw it off the whole balance of the house.

She could have cheated at all of this, of course. She could read the minds of everyone in the house in a matter of seconds, and know immediately who was doing what, without her ever moving an inch. That was easy for Jean Grey. But where was the challenge? Where was the fun?

…

Downstairs in the kitchen, Wolverine was making coffee.

Jean bounded down the steps in her slippers, flannel pants, and ratty t-shirt. Wearing no make-up. Her hair as a tangled, red nest.

"Hey, beautiful." He said it warmly and without a hint of irony. But he sounded tired.

"Good morning, Logan. Nice to see you, too."

The windows of the kitchen looked out onto the back patio. A pile of empty chlorine canisters rested next to the pool, which was now filled with water.

"Guess Cyclops got the pool back up and runnin'." Logan took a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, and a cereal bowl out of the cupboard. "Just in time for the end of summer."

"It's for Jubilee. We wanted to let her have a pool party for her birthday."

Logan chuckled. "Right. Wasn't she the one who broke it in the first place?"

Jean sighed. "Yes. She said she wanted to find out if her energy blasts were strong enough to break concrete."

Logan poured cereal in the bowl, and milk. "Well, she found out."

"There was never any question." Logan and Jean turned to see Beast passing through the kitchen, his nose buried in a book. "If she had listened to my evaluations of her power levels, Jubilation would not have needed to execute further tests. The concrete used in residential swimming pools breaks under 3,000 pounds of force per square inch. Well within Mrs.'s Lee's power capacity, last measured at—"

Rogue 's laugh could be heard before she entered the room. "If you want a teenage girl to listen to you, Hank, you might want to keep it brief."

"Duly noted, Rogue."

She mussed his hair on her way past, into the kitchen. "Just a tip, blue." Rogue picked up a banana from the bowl on the counter, and smiled at Wolverine as she peeled it. "Howdy, Logan."

Wolverine snatched the banana from her hand, popped a claw, and cut a few slices into his cereal.

"Hey yourself, country."

Rogue took the banana back, playful, and opened a kitchen drawer, withdrawing a large envelope. "Speaking of the child, I got her a birthday card for everyone to sign!"

Jean took it from her and read it.

You're 6,328 days old!

She opened the card.

That sounds even older than 17, doesn't it?!

Happy Birthday.

Rogue had already signed it, "Happy Birthday, J."

Jean added her signature, and handed the card off to Wolverine, but Gambit intercepted it, striding into the room in only a towel. "Gambit will take that. Think of me as your PR agent, 'chere!"

"Remy…" Rogue fumed.

Wolverine laughed through a mouthful of cereal. "Just don't charge it up, Cajun."

Gambit snickered at the card. "Sweet as candy, 'chere, but you know Jubilee is turning 18, yes? Not to mention the card here is a month early."

"No, a year and a month. I got it last year. But she was being such a bitch last summer, all I wanted to give her was a knuckle sandwich."

"No kidding." Jean remembered that summer. The kid was definitely still a kid then. Only then did Jean realize Jubilee might actually be maturing into a woman in the last year; there had no freakouts in a while. She'd been less angsty. Keeping to herself lately.

Wolverine popped his claw back in and signed the card. He almost dropped it when he saw Storm enter the room. And not because of the bikini she was wearing.

"Ororo!"

He hugged her, and Storm recoiled only slightly.

Jean felt a shift in him when he saw Storm. A realization. He was relieved, to put it lightly. Why?

"Logan! Good morning!"

"I'm so glad to see you, 'Ro."

Rogue furrowed her brow at Jean, signifying she didn't know what was going on either. If she wanted to, Jean could have read exactly what was going on in Logan's head. But she long ago told him she wouldn't do that, and she meant it. If Logan wanted to talk about it, he would.

Gambit leered at Storm's butt as Wolverine picked her up in his arms. "I'm even gladder to see you, princess."

"Easy, big fella," Gambit heard Rogue mutter as he set the card on the kitchen counter.

"Gambit didn't mean nothin' by it. Only dat 'chere has the right idea wit' her attire."

Gambit slung off his towel, revealing his speedo.

"Time to break in dat dippin' pool proper, I say."

Jean clucked her tongue. "Scott fixed it for Jubilee's birthday. We should wait."

"Nah, we should test it for her, right Doc?" Gambit nudged Beast as he passed back through the kitchen on the way to his basement lab. Beast nudged his glasses further back on his nose.

"Well, the chlorine should be diluted by now. And I have had to disable some of the Institute's security sensors during construction, as the vibrations of the jackhammers interfered with the sonic detection, so a sequence of tests might actually—"

Gambit interrupted Beast with a punch to the shoulder. "Just like I was saying. No harm when de birthday girl is out keepin' herself pretty."

Rogue smirked despite herself. "X-men pool party. Old-schoolers only. Before the kids come back in the Fall."

Gambit spanked Rogue on the (spandexed) ass on their way out the door, not waiting for a vote.

Jean's conscience perked up. "What about the chlorine?"

"It dissipates in water in a matter of seconds." Beast answered, finally putting down his book. "The proportions are what is relevant in that respect. And I submit that friend Cyclops is more than up to the task of measuring two variables of volumetric liquid."

"Okay, Hank, but what about Xavier?"

Beast was unbuttoning his Hawaiian shirt. "At the moment, he's in the middle of his speech at the genetics symposium in Holland. The doctor won't be back until the evening, truth be told." He shrugged on his way poolside.

Jean turned to Ororo, figuring her the most reasonable person left in the room. "Storm? Are we the adults here?"

"Perhaps so, Jean, but who would we be to fight the wind of popular opinion?" She slung a towel from the closet over her shoulder on her way out the door to the pool.

"I guess she's the authority there," Jean muttered to Wolverine, but he wasn't listening.

Jean ducked into the bathroom nearest the kitchen, and changed into her one-piece swimsuit. She saw the tide of X-men opinion: there was going to be a pool party, come hell or high water.

She listened to Wolverine through the door, alone in the kitchen. Using only her ears, not her powers.

He wasn't moving at all. Not even eating. Just staring into space, she figured. Not good.

She stepped out of the bathroom in her swimsuit, and that sight did seem to finally jar him into paying attention. He tried to compensate, looking away suddenly.

"You know, your cereal is getting soggy."

He dumped it out in the sink. "Think I'll make a steak instead."

Something was definitely wrong with him. She floated Jubilee's birthday card from the countertop over to herself, and scanned the signatures.

"Something on your mind, Logan?"

"Why don't you check?"

"It's not my place to invade your privacy, you know that."

"Then why ask, Jean?"

That hurt. He turned and headed the opposite direction of everyone else. Back up the stairs, to his room.

"Logan?"

"Yeah?"

"Who is 'The Deep'?"

…

Logan froze in his tracks.

"You say you respect my privacy and then you violate it anyway."

"I didn't. You signed it." She held out the card, and Logan turned around and took it from her, reading his own botched signature. He had spelled out THE DEEP in block letters. Jean must recognize his handwriting, he thought.

"Ah, damn it all." He scribbled out "THE DEEP" and wrote simply "Logan".

"The Deep? Who is that? Is that a person?"

"I…I don't know."

Jean stepped in closer to him, seeing that the thought caused him pain. She took his hand in hers.

"It's okay, Logan. You can tell me. What is it?"

"I mean it, Jean. I don't know. It's just a thing in my head. I can't tell if it was a dream I had, or, if it was, when I had it. Okay?" He stared into her eyes, trying to scare her off, but all she saw was desperation.

"What was in the dream, if it was that?"

He took his hand from hers, shaking his head. "You don't need to know things like that, hon'."

"I want to, Logan."

He stopped again at the stairs. Inhaled, uneasy. "It was a nightmare, I guess. A lot of people dead. People I care about."

"Who?"

"Storm. I think Beast, too. Maybe you. And then me, at the end. It's hard to read it, the memory is fuzzy, like a puzzle with pieces missing."

"Dreams are often like that, Logan. It's just how our brains operate, the—"

He turned around from the staircase, his voice raising.

"It wasn't a dream, Jean! I don't know how, but this was a real thing. Like a damn bug in my brain."

"Okay. That's alright, Logan. You're not in any danger now." Her hand on his shoulder, she felt him relax some, and led him back into the kitchen. "Just tell me what you remember. Tell me what happened."

"It was…on some kinda space station. Alien planet. Lots of military hardware…" Wolverine seemed to be dragging bits and pieces of the memory from his brain. "Shi'ar. It was at a Shi'ar base."

"Okay. What's the first thing you remember?"

He flinched. "Sentinels. I was almost killed by 'em and I was all by myself. I managed to get away. And…then the only person I could find alive was Cyclops."

Now she flinched. "Scott was there?"

"Yeah. We were the only ones. And he fought as brave as I've ever seen, but…"

"What?"

"He didn't make it, Jean. It was bad. Scott, he—"

Wolverine stopped. Jean waited on his next word, then turned to see why he had stopped: Cyclops loomed in the doorway. And he didn't look happy.

"I didn't make what?"

It didn't help that neither Jean or Logan would feign continuing the conversation. They just let the silence hang, twisting the knife Cyclops imagined in his back.

Wolverine cracked first. "Hey, slim. It was nothing. Just a dream I had, was sharing it with Jean."

"As long as it's just a dream." Scott pulled Jean close, with more force than she'd like, and kissed her on the cheek. She felt him eyeballing Wolverine as he did it. More for Logan's appreciation than hers.

"Not that kinda dream, bub."

"Forget it. Where is Beast? I need to talk to him about a project."

Jean motioned out the window, to the pool, where Beast was cannon-balling off of the diving board, with Rogue, Storm and Gambit cheering him on from the shallow end.

"Oh, great. Ruin the whole reason I fixed the pool. Jubilee will be thrilled." Cyclops headed for the door.

"Easy, Bub. She'll be alright. They're just having fun."

"Whatever." Cyclops huffed.

Jean and Wolverine followed him out to the pool, shrugging to each other. What can you do?

…

Gambit slung a can of beer at Wolverine, who caught it on reflex, and popped it open, also on reflex. He took a gulp and smiled at the sunshine, and his friends in the pool. At Jean.

She watched him from a deck chair, leaning back and applying sunscreen to her arms.

"Maybe the biggest man in the smallest package I've ever known," she thought. "He's lived through so much, and of all the places he could be, he chooses to be here with us."

With me, she tried to keep herself from thinking.

Cyclops stood somewhere behind her, not having changed his clothes. He surveyed the scene, arms crossed, jaw set. Barely trying to hide being pissed off at the whole situation.

Logan waited at the back of the diving board, while Storm bounced on the tip.

"No cheatin' with a gust of wind, 'chere! Remy is watching you!" Gambit shouted at Storm from the water.

Storm lept up from the diving board and performed a perfect flip, the sunlight glinting off of her wet skin, and slipped into the pool water with nary a splash.

"Excellent form, Ororo!" Beast applauded as she surfaced.

Wolverine stepped onto the diving board, and paced to the edge.

"Show her how a man does it, Logan!" Gambit shouted, opening another beer from the poolside cooler.

Wolverine hopped on the tip of the diving board, bouncing and building momentum. The X-men in the pool shouted and clapped for the epic dive about to be witnessed. He was a nimble man, and never one to let down a crowd waiting for a spectacle; anyone would grant him that.

But Jean saw his gaze drift up to the sky and freeze somewhere there. He stopped jumping, and the bounding of the diving board slowed. He was frozen, erect, looking in the sky in front of him.

Uncomfortable murmurs rose from the pool crowd.

In that moment, Jean felt the same pang of dread she had detected when scanning the house that morning. A hint of something just new just coursing through the air. A change.

Jean sat up in her reclined chair, trying to see what Wolverine was looking at. She expected an incoming ship, or a fleet of sentinels. Something that would justify stunning a man like Logan. But all she saw was the natural scene; clouds, the pale moon, and a few birds.

A *SNIKT* broke the silence, as Wolverine popped his claws, seemingly without noticing. Never taking his eyes off whatever had stolen his attention in the sky above.

"You alright, Logan?" Gambit shouted.

And then he slipped. Wolverine's foot drifted off the wet diving board, and the rest of him followed. He sank, limp, into the pool.

The X-men nearest him gasped and went to help him, but Jean was already in midair, diving into the pool. She swam to the bottom, to the just-dried concrete floor her husband had patched the day before, and wrapped her arms around Logan.

"Adamantium skeleton. I almost forgot," she thought as she kicked back to the surface, dragging his diminutive body with her, barely able to carry the weight.

They gasped for air together, and Beast was the first one next to them.

"Mr. Logan, are you alright?"

"Yeah, peach-fuzz. I'm fine." Jean was relieved to hear Wolverine's voice.

Storm placed a hand on his shoulder. "Wolverine, maybe you should lie down for a spell. You do not look well, old friend."

"Nah, it's alright, 'Ro. Come on, you're all embarrassing me."

Gambit chuckled. "A few hundred years can sap even your grace, eh savage?"

Wolverine waved him off, and they all spread out, back to their fun. Relieved. Everyone except Jean.

She slicked his hair back from his face, and clutched his jaw.

"What was it, Logan?"

"Forget it, Jean." They kicked in place, keeping themselves afloat. "Just tired."

"Tell me, Logan. Don't shut me out."

He just looked at her, pain shimmering behind his eyes.

"It's The Deep, isn't it?" She said without knowing what she meant. Pretending.

Wolverine nodded, reluctant, his gaze drifting back over her shoulder to the sky.

"I'll tell you about it later."

"When?"

Wolverine spat water back into the pool, shaking off his trance. "Let's go get a drink tonight. Hash it out. Sound okay?"

"That sounds great, Logan. Anytime."

"Bring Scott along. He should know, too."

She smiled, finally letting go of the vague fear that maybe a disaster was just now happening. "Sure."

She took Wolverine's head in her hands and planted a kiss on his cheek. Then turned around to swim back to her edge of the pool and continue her tan, when she saw Cyclops.

Scott was standing at the edge of the pool, his fists balled and white-knuckled.

"Oh, dammit" she thought to herself. As she reached the edge, right in front of his feet, he didn't help her up from the pool.

"What happened, Jean?"

"Nothing. It's okay. He's fine."

"Yeah, I'll bet."

She rose to her feet, picking up the towel from her chair and drying off.

"Logan wants to go get a drink."

"Oh yeah?" His fists tightened even further.

"Yes, you know, get away for a bit. You should come. His idea."

She saw Cyclops think it over, his face never drifting away from a stern non-smile, his eyes masked by a pair of red shades.

"I'll pass. Have fun."

He turned back to the house.

"I love you." She said it quiet enough, to his back, that she thought he might not hear her. And he didn't reply. But she had saw him slow down for just half a moment on his way inside. Knew he had heard her. His only reply was a door slamming.

She stood still in that moment. Hating it. Not quite hating him, but as close to it as she'd ever been.

"Whoa, the pool is fixed?"

All the X-men turned to see Jubilee, standing pensive at the edge of the pool area, shopping bags in hand.

They were all frozen again, waiting for each other to speak. Embarrassed. Caught in the act. Gambit finished his beer and shouted "the water's fine, 'chere! Join us!"

Jubilee grinned and snapped a bubble of chewing gum, tossing off her yellow trenchcoat and setting her shopping bags down in the grass. She kept stripping, peeling off every layer until she was just in her bra and panties.

She dove into the pool, to the cheers of Beast and Wolverine and Gambit.

Jean caught Storm's eyeline, and they shrugged to each other. What can you do?, indeed.

"Well, she is a woman, now" Jean thought to herself. She hated feeling like a prude. It hadn't been so long since she was that age herself. But she decided then that she needed to have a talk with the girl; about how men show attention, and how to deal with it in a mature way. To explain the adult world to her.

To tell her to give Gambit a wide berth, at the very least. But that could wait.

Wolverine padded over to Jean, a towel around his neck.

"Alright, Mrs. Summers. Let's blow this popsicle stand." He had heard the door slam, and nodded to Cyclops's exit. "Where's he going?"

"He said he has a headache. Staying home."

"Oh." She saw Wolverine evaluating his social position. Never his strong suit. "Should we… you know. Still go?"

Jean compared in her mind the prospects of a relaxing drink with her old friend, or an angry silence at home with her husband, who was going to be mad at her either way. She smiled at Logan. "What do you think?"

He smiled back, his sharp teeth glinting, the first time all day that she had seen the fog over him lift for a moment. "I think you know better than to ask me for advice on good behavior."