Author's note: I've giving up on saying that maybe things will start to move faster. I think that's a jinx. I'm going to say that next chapter will be slow in coming, hoping to reverse this trend.
Author's note 2: I would really like some input on where my readers think the dividing line between T and M stories is, because that will help me decide whether I'll need to change the rating on this in the next few chapters. If you want to weigh in, either leave a note in reviews or send me a private message or email. Thanks a lot.
And, as always, thanks so much to everyone who took the time to leave me a review here. It's wonderful to hear what people think of the story. And all the people who have favorited or put alerts on the story make my day as well. You are all amazing.
Chapter Nineteen
Repeatedly throughout the meeting, Marie's mind flitted back to her kiss with Scott. The regret she'd felt at not wholeheartedly responding faded into a sort of confused euphoria. Though they discussed monsters and the safety of the whole world Scott continued to touch her -- a lacing of fingers, a stroke of his thumb against hers. There would be other kisses, she realized, more than kisses given her vision in the grass. That vision seemed inevitable now, and that no longer seemed a bad thing at all.
But, it was confusing to think in terms of a normal relationship with a guy. For the first time since her power manifested she could enjoy imagining a future where she didn't have to be afraid of sexual longing. She couldn't hurt Scott simply by loving him, an amazing thing on its own. Still, it was all happening too fast to think through.
And the meeting was no place to muse about romance. There probably was still an Eater out there plotting to turn every mutant into a rampaging monster. They all were still going to have to fight, maybe die. But, that wasn't as terrifying as it had once been either. She was beginning to like the idea of being a hero.
Then Bobby shattered the calm, shouting insults. Marie had to jump back to avoid being hit by his flailing fist. He was on the ground an instant later, and Scott was telling him to settle things in the Danger Room. Then, to everyone else, Scott added, "Meeting is adjourned after all. Let's all cool our heads."
"Scott?" she managed, stepping farther away from Bobby.
"We'll talk, I promise." He didn't rub her arm this time. "But right now I have to find Ororo and apologize about the meeting. This…" He glanced down at Bobby. A muscle in his cheek twitched and she wanted to stroke it. "shouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." Shouldn't she be feeling disappointment that she'd have to wait for him? It was a little strange to find herself worrying not just about herself, but him as well. She liked it.
"I didn't say it was. Marie, I have to go. I'll talk to you later. Find me in half an hour."
"Sure." A half hour from now was okay. She could let him go to deal with duty, knowing there would be time for them later. And later would give her time to figure out if all this new perspective was the result of … could she actually say love?
A smile tugged her lips as she watched Scott stride through the doors. Dr. McCoy was caught in that wake of authority and hurried after, probably to discuss plans for rebuilding Cerebro. That meant her own private conversation would be delayed more than half an hour. Scott would be dragged off to work as soon as he was done with Ororo. He wouldn't be able to say no, a fact which would likely be annoying at times, but was also just Scott.
Peter and Kitty were still sitting off in the corner, talking low. It occurred to Marie that if Kitty were smart she'd be over with Bobby now instead of huddling with Peter. But, that wasn't Marie's business anymore.
A heavy hand landed on her shoulder. She didn't have to look before saying, "Hi, Logan."
"Always wanted to know what women see in the dick. Care to explain it to me, kid?" His tone was low and teasing, like he wasn't really angry about her feelings for Scott.
"Other than the obvious?" she joked, glancing over her shoulder at him.
He rolled his eyes. "Please."
What to tell him? The whole was new, personal, private. Marie wanted to hold her new feelings close and quiet for a while, study and understand them better. But this was Logan who'd died for her back on Liberty Island. He had some rights to her secrets.
"Part of it is how strongly he can love, I guess. I saw that in what he felt for Dr. Grey. I wanted to be worthy of that." But, that isn't the whole, she thought, not even half. There was a lot more to her feelings than that first spark, more too than the surge of desire she'd felt this morning. There was the camaraderie too, and the sense of being able to be more with Scott than she'd be without him. But, she couldn't talk about that either. She hadn't lived with the emotions long enough to explain them to someone else yet. "And part is that he won't try to lock me down into being a weak little girl. I'm not, you know?"
"I know that, kid." Logan squeezed her shoulder.
"I don't know what else to say. I just like him, Logan."
He studied her a moment, then nodded. "Fair enough."
"But?" she prodded. His tone suggested he had more to say.
"But, I got a suggestion for who else needs to hear that." He gestured toward Bobby, now seated in the chair she'd occupied all meeting and holding his head in his hands. He looked both dejected and miserable. Yesterday Marie would have felt sorry for him. Tomorrow she would as well. But today he'd embarrassed her and tried to punch Scott.
She'd just caught hold of so many good feelings. She didn't want to tarnish them with the ugly things she might say to Bobby. "I don't really want to have that conversation right now."
"I'm thinking earlier might have been smart," Logan said. "But, since that opportunity was missed, now is when you've got. Later things will just be worse."
He was right, of course. Marie had intended to tell Bobby it was over long before this. But other concerns had crowed him out. That didn't mean she liked the prospect of discussing it now. "What happened to not telling me what to do?"
"I'm still not your father and don't want to be. But there's a whole load of serious stuff going on right now and we don't need this kind of mess to slip on while we're dealing with it." He paused then added. "Scott doesn't need it."
That got her. If she'd been responsible and talked to Bobby beforehand the embarrassing punching incident just now would not have happened. "You're right. I'll talk to him."
Logan nodded again. He exited, taking the others with him and leaving Marie alone with Bobby. She bent down to get closer, squatting as if she were going to talk to a child.
That wasn't the right attitude to take at all. Bobby wasn't a child, even if he'd acted like one just now. Still, sitting or kneeling on the floor would seem subservient, and that was not happening. So, she stayed where she was and said, "Hey, we should probably talk."
"That's what I was trying to get you to do earlier." Bobby looked up and offered a small, somewhat miserable smile. "What the hell is going on, Rogue?"
She remembered her first day in the school. She'd been so lost until Bobby had made her feel welcome with a single smile and an ice rose. He'd been her first friend here. Yet, she'd never really understood him. She read his surface, not the inside thoughts where he lived.
That's why they never should have tried to make their relationship into love. Somehow, she thought she'd always known that, but he probably hadn't. Looking at him now, she realized he'd gone deeper down that wayward path than she ever had. She was going to hurt him when she told him they were through.
"It's complicated," she hedged. Maybe she was moving too fast. Maybe she should think about all this more carefully. "So much has changed since I got to the school."
"I'm sorry I haven't been paying you enough attention." He would have said more, but stopped when she shook her head.
Whatever she felt or didn't feel for Scott, she knew a romance with Bobby was wrong. It really was time to finish that. "It's not you, Bobby."
"No." His brow crumpled like paper in a fist. "Don't say it's you. I know when a girl says, 'It's not you, it's me.' that it's really over."
"It is really over." As she said it, the confusion she'd been feeling began to lift. Granted, this attraction to Scott had happened fast, but maybe she needed fast in her life. They all could have died at Alcatraz without her ever having the chance to love him. For all she knew they could lose their chance tomorrow in some other disaster. It was all well and good for normal people to work slowly up to kissing, or touching, but she neither had the luxury nor wanted it.
"Because of him?" Bobby's voice had chilled.
"Only partly." This was easier with him angry. Marie suspected that wasn't the way it should be if they were going to stay friends. "You and I weren't right for each other."
"We were fine with each other until you realized you could touch another guy. Is that all it is to you, Rogue? Physical?"
Bobby had never called her by her real name. She'd never told him to. How strange was that? Marie shook her head. Unlike with Logan, she felt no obligation to bare her feelings to Bobby. "It's more complicated than that. I told you."
"It looks pretty simple to me. The boss man comes back single and you are all over him."
His anger beat on her patience. Marie forced her fists to unclench. She didn't want to escalate this into a fight, much as Bobby seemed to be trying for one. He was hurt. She got that. And she'd certainly been nasty enough when she found herself in the same jealous position a week or so ago. Still, he had no right to exaggerate.
"I was not all over him. We held hands."
"In the meeting, what about before?"
Before she'd been kissing Scott. "Before, after it's all none of your business, Bobby."
"How is it not my business? You're my girlfriend."
"I'm not. Not anymore." She was shouting now. So much for not fighting. But, he was being intentionally nasty beyond what being hurt warranted. "And if I had been this morning, the stunt you pulled in the meeting would have ended it. What were you thinking taking a swing at him like that?"
His expression hardened with an anger she'd never seen directed at her. "What do you expect when my girl is screwing around with another guy?"
"I was not."
"But you're going to."
It was the truth. Marie gaped a little in surprise, realizing it. Whatever was going on with Scott -- convenience laced with friendship, or something more -- she wanted to explore the feelings. Physically. As soon as she got the opportunity. The thought made her a little giddy.
"How else am I supposed to read this? You're dumping me for him just because you can fuck him."
The insult should have made her furious. All it did was remove the last wisps of guilt she felt for leaving him. "No, Bobby I'm not."
"What then?"
"I'm not dumping you because I can sleep with Scott." Though I can, and will. "I'm dumping you because, right now, I wouldn't sleep with you even if I could touch you."
--
I can do this, Ororo told herself as she gathered randomly scattered notes from her desk. I can get through all these changes. It wasn't the discussion troubling her. It wasn't even the monster. The X-men had dealt with monsters before. It was what wouldn't be discussed, what wouldn't even be spoken about.
The meeting in the conservatory brought back so many memories. She remembered the old days when she, Hank, Jean, and Scott would wait for the professor to go to bed so they could sneak into that grand glass room to stare at the stars, discuss the world, and confess hopes for their combined futures.
She and Hank would snuggle on the floor to one side. Scott lay with his head in Jean's lap, looking up at her rather than at the rest of the group. Ororo could still taste the cocoa she used to drink, feel how Hank's fur bunched under his sweatshirt when she leaned against him. She missed those days more than she wanted to admit. Everything had seemed fixed, certain, and full of hope. And now…
Now there was no professor. Now it seemed Scott held onto reality by only the small hand of a girl who, until yesterday, Ororo fretted would abandon them. Now Hank would use Scott's return as an excuse to void his promise to stay a semester. Now everything would be different.
I can do this, she repeated silently. By myself if I have to.
Ororo's hold on her stack of papers tightened until she felt the paper crinkle. When she looked up, Scott was standing in the doorway.
"You all right, Ro?" He stepped closer.
"I will be," she told him. "We should get back."
"Actually, I ended the meeting. Bobby got upset and took a swing at me. I had to put him on the floor."
"You hit him?" That didn't sound like Scott. He was usually more in control. But, who knew what he would be like now with Jean dead, with his own body only a temporarily resident of the here and now?
"He didn't give me a lot of choice." Scott softened that with a boyish grin that looked forced.
"That worked better with Jean than it ever will with me." Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned Jean, but it was out now, and Ororo didn't want to forget her friend entirely.
"Why do you think we were always partners in the field?"
"We were always partners because you could trust me to be honest with you." Which was true. There was a time when she could tell Scott anything, and hear anything from him as well. They were all the closer because there was nothing sexual between them -- none of those messy, aching emotions, just simple trust.
"So, be honest with me. What's wrong?"
It had been that easy once. She wanted it to be again. "The professor is dead."
"I know that."
"You know it. You probably feel it. But the burden of his death is resting on me, Scott. Do you know he asked me to take over for him? You were supposed to do that." I was supposed to be able to fly out to the edges and crusade, not stay home and mind the business details. She wanted to punch him too, or maybe hug him and beg him to stay around.
"I'm back now."
"But, you aren't." She realized she was still crushing the papers and carefully put them down. The edges no longer rested in a neat pile but curled on top of each other like so much rubbish. Was that where their lives were all headed? Rubbish? "Things will never be like we used to dream at midnight in the conservatory. The future is going to continue as it is -- cold, and full of loss."
"Ororo, I know I haven't been holding up my end of things lately, but that's over. I am here. Maybe things will never be like we planned when we were kids, but that doesn't mean they have to be horrible." His visor only partly hid the creases forming across his brow.
He had been happy in the meeting, Ororo had seen that. He was picking up the pieces of his life, maybe with Rogue, and she was honestly happy for him. But, there were hard realities they both had to face.
"How long can you stay visible if you aren't in contact with Rogue?"
His jaw clenched a little. "Not sure."
"Last night, when you were unconscious, you only lasted about twenty minutes without contact. Are you going to lead missions while holding hands? How are you going to run the school if you vanish in the middle of parent-teacher conferences? What if Rogue decides to leave again?" Given the girl's renewed dedication, Ororo didn't think that would happen, but they had to face the possibility. So much had changed.
He was frowning his stubborn frown. "She won't."
"Because you are so irresistible?" It wasn't really a joke. She still wished he would have laughed.
"No. Probably not. But, I'm not leaving all of this in your lap, Ro. I'm going to find a permanent solution to this folding problem."
"And until then I have to carry it all."
"Damn it, no you don't." He looked away, which meant he agreed with her even though he refused to admit it. "Even in this state I'm not useless. You run the school. I'll figure out something with the team."
"You can't lead missions," she pushed.
"I'll find someone then. You don't have to do it all yourself."
"Maybe." She hated the fact she could no longer just trust him as she once did. "I have to be prepared to take it all. Hank promised to stay, but he won't. He'll be heading back to Washington. Jean is dead. And I can't just accept that you will be yourself again."
"I'm still me. Even folded, I'm still me."
"And if you aren't, are you going to leave us?" Am I going to be alone?
"Leave?" Scott caught both her arms in his hands, but stopped short of shaking her. "I know I was missing in action while The Eater beat me with guilt. But, that's over. I'm here for the duration, whatever it takes."
"Are you sure? Because I think we've all lost ourselves recently." She'd gotten over Hank. She had, but when he returned so did all the feelings.
"Of course, I'm sure." Of course he would say that. Scott was always sure, even when he shouldn't be.
"I need to be sure again. I'm not sure of anything anymore."
He squeezed her shoulders. "You will find yourself again, Ororo. You're strong and brave and you know what to believe in."
"I used to think I did." She remembered a conversation with Rogue that now seemed very long ago. She'd told the young woman to be strong, that solutions were never fast or easy. How easy that had been to say from a place of security. Now it was so hard. It was as if she and Rogue had switched places.
"Trust me."
Once, she had. She might have now if his request had sounded more like the old Scott and less like a plea. But, none of them were what they'd once been.
--
When Marie went looking a half an hour later, she found Scott on the lowest level of the basement, inside the brain of Cerebro. Dr. McCoy sat cross-legged in the hall outside the imposing, round entrance with a computer open across his knees. He was muttering, "Red, gray, red, green…" into a communication device. All she could see of Scott was a pair of legs sticking out from the service panel in the wall next to the door.
"He's busy," she observed. Once he finally emerged and Dr. McCoy was gone, she was going to suggest they go to the reservoir and make that vision come true. The thought made her skin tingle. She didn't bother to fight the excitement. After all, she'd made her decision and was happy with it.
"No indication that he's fading however," the doctor replied.
"Folding?"
"Fading, folding, whatever happens to him when the two of you aren't touching. This extended stability is peculiar given the duration of your touch's effect last night."
"Maybe it's cumulative," Scott said, pushing himself out of the hole. He looked remarkably clean for having just crawled around inside a wall. "Marie's repeated contact could be training my body back to it's normal state."
"That's probably all we can manage on Cerebro today." Dr. McCoy closed up his computer, ignoring Scott's hopeful suggestion. "We'll need to manufacture those couplings before we can even run a full diagnostic."
Scott made a show of wiping his not-dirty hands on a rag from his toolbox. His knuckles clenched white around the cloth. Marie couldn't help being glad Dr. McCoy was leaving, but she still thought he could have at least offered a little encouragement for Scott's theory. Instinctively, she wove her body under his arm, more to comfort and support than to renew the anti-folding therapy.
"I'm going to see what I have, Hank," Scott said. How did he keep his voice so even when he was clearly distressed about something? "I might be able to manage something that will hold long enough to run the scans. I'd like to know the full extent of what we're dealing with tonight, if possible."
"You know where to find me."
"The lab, right."
Scott squeezed her arm after the other man was gone. Marie pivoted so she could wrap both arms around his waist. She wanted to know what was troubling him, and squinted into the lens of the visor. It was hopeless. The blasts washed away all hint of whatever emotion might lurk behind them.
"Sorry," he said. "The windows to my soul are always blocked."
It still felt good to hold him. "Have to get at it in other ways then."
That seemed to be the right answer because she felt his tense muscles relax a little. He glanced back at the open service hatch. "The job is going to be worse than we thought. Those thugs did a sloppy scavenging job."
"They didn't impress me as having a deep regard for personal property." She couldn't help shivering a little with the memory of that terrifying night. She should have been stronger. She'd nearly panicked during the attack. But, that was the past. Right now she could rest her head on his chest and soak up strength. This was good. It would be better if he wasn't troubled though. "Cerebro isn't what's bugging you, is it?"
"Not really." He pulled out of her embrace and resumed wiping his hands on the towel. "I've been slacking, apparently."
"You've been invisible and -- " There were times she wished she had Kitty's vocabulary. "--not touchable. How were you supposed to do anything?"
"That's not the point. I have responsibilities here and others have been carrying them."
"Yeah, it is the point, but I already had a fight with Bobby when I broke up with him. One is all I'm allowing myself per day."
"We weren't going to fight."
Okay, he's stubbornly in denial as well as obsessed with duty. This was going to be the downside of the relationship. She couldn't get Scott Summers without accepting Cyclops too, and Cyclops always had duty to contend with. "We were going to talk."
"Yes. We were. I got caught up here with Hank." He crouched and began organizing the tools in the box.
"This is important stuff. That part's okay. I just hoped now that you're done we could ride your bike up to the reservoir." Just making the offer caused her gut to tighten nervously. She didn't proposition guys every day of the week, after all.
At least he gave her his full attention. "Now?"
"Unless you own the thing just so Logan can steal it, yeah." I am not moving too fast. I won't even let myself think that. But a little enthusiasm from him would have been nice.
"All right. Sure." He deliberately closed and locked the tool case, then stood slowly. All his movements had slowed. He was dragging himself into this. "The Cerebro parts can wait until later."
Her chest felt hollow. Why was he being so reluctant? Was the machine actually more interesting to him than she was? "You know if you don't want to go, you can stay and work ."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." Her palms itched and there was a prickling sensation across the back of her neck warning her that this was wrong -- the anger, the accusation, all of it. The closeness she'd felt toward him was shredding for no reason. It was just one day, one ride, one talk. It was just their time in the grass. "The work shouldn't wait, right? Duty first and all that?"
"Sometimes it's going to have to be that way."
Marie swallowed hard and nodded. She must have been frowning because he ran his thumb over her lower lip. The air thickened as it usually did when they touched. She was pulling him deeper into reality again just from the brush of a finger.
More than that, her pulse spiked. All she really wanted was to kiss him again.
"This is the point where we talk rather than bottle things up," he said. "I guess I'm not doing a very good job of that."
Her mouth worked, but she couldn't push words out. How was she supposed to admit that she was feeling shallow and lusty when he was focused on duty and responsibility? God, was Bobby right after all? Was she fixated on the physical?
"It's not important," she made herself say. "There's lots of times for rides, right?"
"If I didn't have so much to do. If others weren't carrying so much for me." He let that line stumble off rather than articulate what could have been. Then he gave a little shrug, all loneliness and nobility, and Marie just broke inside.
Here he was brave and dedicated and trying to be considerate of her and all she was doing was lusting. She'd given up being a child, hadn't she? She'd embraced her own responsibility to the team. Selfish, shallow, nasty Marie. Stop it.
"You're trying so hard and no one cuts you any slack. It's not fair to burden you like that. I don't want to. I mean it was just a stupid vision from a woman who was probably crazy anyway. No one says that future is fixed and you don't have to want me just because I can touch you."
His head snapped up. "Wait. What?"
"I'm saying it's okay. I get it that duty comes before love. If there is anything like love here with us in the first place." She heard her own voice babbling madly, saying things she never thought to voice out loud. Her whole body heated with embarrassment.
"Marie, it's okay. Just let me catch up here."
There was her chance to escape, if she wanted to take it. She stayed where she was, staring up at him. "I didn't mean to say any of that."
"I guessed that." His mouth twitched, not in humor but in a sort of confused uncertainty. He was, she realized, as out of his element here as she was. "What exactly are we talking about here? What vision?"
She stared at her toes, suddenly unable to look at him and talk. "I touched Irene -- that's the woman with the prophecies I met at the clinic -- and got this vision of us. You know. Together. It was up by the reservoir, on a sunny day like today."
"So, because today is sunny you thought we need to fulfill this prophecy you saw?"
"I wouldn't say need to," she whispered.
"Oh." The sound vibrated against her. He hadn't realized, until this moment, what she was talking about. Her embarrassment escalated. This wasn't at all how she'd pictured things -- him distracted by work, her pushy -- and the last thing she wanted was him making love to her out of some mistaken sense of duty.
Suddenly, the whole idea seemed rushed and wrong. "But, I've realized it's all wrong, too soon. I need to think about this more, I guess."
That was a lie. He needed the time, not her. But, she didn't think he would accept that line of logic right now. She leaned up and kissed his cheek lightly. Then, before he could protest, she added, "I'll see you later."
And she ran.
--
It was about an hour after lunch when Logan found his way out onto the roof through a window off the third story hall. The window led to a flat ledge large enough for a couple pairs of boots. A little crenellated wall enclosed the ledge and Scott had braced his feet on that wall. He sat on the slopping roof tiles, staring out across the grounds, just as Marie had said he would be.
"Brought beer." Logan slapped the six pack down between them as he sat.
"Just what a man perched on a rooftop needs, alcohol." Still, Scott took one of the cans and even opened it.
"I don't need to worry about getting drunk or falling. You better watch your step." Logan laughed because he liked the air up here, and the view out over the grounds, and could tolerate the company. "This is a good place to think."
Scott's posture, however, remained rigid, as if he were trying to turn himself into a stone gargoyle for the castle roof. "How'd you find me up here?"
"Followed my nose, like always." Logan downed his first beer in one swallow.
"Why?"
"Lots of reasons."
"Marie one of them?"
Logan shrugged. "She seemed kind of worried about you. Said you didn't show up for lunch and she wanted to make sure you hadn't folded out of sight again."
"I seem to be holding pretty solid today."
The early afternoon sun was hitting this side of the house so Logan had to squint. Scott dangled the open can between his knees rather than drink from it. Apparently with his glasses, he didn't have trouble with the glaring sunlight. "I guess I need to talk to her."
"That hard?"
"Sometimes."
Rogue wasn't the topic Logan had dragged himself up here to discuss, and what he had to talk about was too important to let himself get distracted. "Drink the beer. I've got something else to discuss."
He expected a protest. Instead, Scott took an obedient swig. "So, talk."
"It's these memories that Jean, or Phoenix, shoved into my head -- the ones about sensing Eaters. They're a jumble. I know Stryker was there in Nam, that we were in the army together, and that there was a village full of poor, Eater-possessed bastards. I convinced him to kill those people. I also know those were Stryker's memories that got shoved into my head, not mine. But, what's bugging me is I'm sure that I've felt that evil-eyes sensation from an Eater some other time."
"You don't mean in the foreign memories. You mean recent, in the last fifteen years?" Cyke had pinned it exactly in one. If there was anything Logan actually liked about Scott it was the fact he didn't have to explain things a dozen times to the guy.
"Yes. Sometime in my own memories. That means I ran into a different Eater sometime in the last fifteen years."
Scott took another drink, longer this time. "Can you remember when that happened?"
"Recent. But, I wasn't aware when it happened what I was feeling. I didn't pay enough attention at the time and now I've lost the way back. My whole memory is a jumble, even the new stuff." Logan shook his head. Every time he tried to grab that memory it floated away. "If Jeannie were here I'd ask her to pull it out of my head."
"If the professor were here we could ask him to do the same," Scott said. He frowned a bit and Logan regretted mentioning Jean so often. Though maybe they needed to talk about her too, especially if Scott was going to get tangled up with another woman Logan cared about.
"I'm not sure I'd want the professor in my head again after what he did to Jean and Phoenix," Logan told him, intentionally pushing the sensitive subject harder. "He messed her up, and that messed up a lot of people."
"He did what he thought was right. He was just afraid of the wrong person."
"Figures you'd defend him." No, that was the wrong way to do this. He didn't want a fight with Scott right now. He wanted … what? To mend fences? Maybe that was it. Jean wasn't here to fight over anymore, and apparently the fight had never been over her anyway.
"Not defending," Scott insisted. "Just explaining."
He fell quiet for a while. Logan just chugged another beer and waited. He knew the signs. The guy had a lot more to say and what came out would be more interesting if Logan didn't push.
"The professor thought he was helping Jean contain her powers, but all he was doing was locking up the other person inside her. I don't think he created Phoenix with those blocks he put into Jean's mind. From everything I read on the topic, multiple personalities come into being very early in a child's life, and Jean hinted at a few telekinetic surges before she was five."
"Maybe not, but he sure didn't help her. He locked part of her soul up."
"He wasn't the only one," Scott whispered. Logan knew this was the important part. "None of us saw what was going on with Jean and Phoenix early enough to save them."
"Maybe they didn't want to be saved."
The breeze picked up so it pulled their hair. Scott propped his chin on a fist and just stared across the lawn for a long moment. When he turned back to Logan his expression was closed and tense. "Who doesn't want to be saved?"
Sucking the beer foam off his lips gave Logan a moment to think. "How about someone who knows she's not whole, who knows the two parts of herself are at war about too many things. But, she also knows if she becomes whole she'll lose the person she loves the most in the world."
"She wouldn't have lost me."
"Who said anything about you?"
Scott leaned his head back so he was staring at the sky and gave a short, sharp laugh. Then he drained his beer. "We were each loved by a part of her, neither by the whole woman."
"You may be right." The guy was being honest. Time for me to step up too. "I only kept chasing because I got encouragement. Hell, Scott, if I'd known there were two people fighting inside one woman, I would have backed off. I just figured Jeannie was lying to herself and staying with you out of habit."
Scott snorted, not quite laughter this time, but not quite disgust. "I knew about Phoenix and didn't help her. I lived with her, but I didn't see what she needed. What does that say about me?"
"That, contrary to most available evidence, you're human."
"Or that I'm a selfish bastard who doesn't deserve a good relationship."
They weren't talking about Jean anymore. "Much as I agree with the selfish bastard part, I don't have the right to tell anyone what they deserve."
Logan crumpled the can and tossed it over the side. Before the low arcing metal ball could get very far, Scott shot it out of the air. "Don't litter."
"Oh yeah. Stop me." He tossed another can. Scott obliterated that one as well.
And then another. The bastard managed to disintegrate all the empties. Only two full cans remained. But, the tension had broken. "About this thing with Marie."
"Let's see if I can guess how this will go," Scott offered. "You're going to say you'll kick my ass if I hurt her. Then I tell you it's none of your business. You come back with, 'I'm making it my business.' We each growl a bit, then one of us leaves with what's left of the beer."
"Yeah, that's about how I figured it would play out."
"How about we try for something more original?"
"Okay. You love her?"
"Not yet, but it could happen."
"Then why the hell are you up here moping about not deserving relationships?"
Scott uncoiled to stand on the little ledge. He'd only had one of the beers, not enough to make him tipsy, but the balance was still precarious. "This is a good thinking spot is all."
"And there's a time to be done with thinking."
Scott stood stone-still for a minute, staring out at the grass and trees and sky. Then he nodded. "You're right, Logan. It's all about action and I've been falling down on that part a bit today. There's something I need from you."
"From me?"
"Yes. As long as I'm in danger of folding out of sight I can't act as field commander for the team. Ororo is consumed by school administration and Hank isn't personally suited for the job. That leaves you. I need you to take over for me for a while." He smirked. "Just don't get too comfortable, because I'll want the job back."
"Fair enough." Logan felt left behind by the sudden change in mood and topic. But he couldn't argue with the logic of it all.
"Starting now."
"Why now?"
"Because I have to leave for the rest of the day and someone has to be in charge if there is a disaster."
--
Marie sat in the window seat downstairs. The afternoon sunlight cut rainbows across the old wood casement and the sky outside was brilliant blue, just like in her vision and totally at odds with her mood. If she'd done the right thing when she saw Scott before lunch, why did she feel so miserable?
She knew it was because she was facing hard truths. She wanted to be a hero. The nobility and honor of all that glittered, bright and pure, in her mind. She could be that. Scott would respect that. He'd understand it too. They would be close comrades in arms.
But she also dreamed of her shadow lover, all dark and sweaty. She'd contemplated the cure in the first place because she longed for the physical. She'd clung to that vision from Irene because she liked it. She could admit that to herself now. And she was fairly sure she could seduce Scott, but would he even like her if she did?
She wasn't destined to get both her desires. She had to sacrifice something. It seemed terribly unfair.
"Marie?"
She turned to the door, a bit surprised to hear Scott's voice. He'd changed clothes. Instead of the sloppy sweats from this morning, he wore a crisp blue shirt and jeans. He looked as if he were going out. "So you haven't vanished into thin air."
"No, I haven't felt myself refolding all day. I was looking for you."
She returned the smile he gave her, and felt suddenly warm inside. "You were?"
"I was." He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets. "I cleared the afternoon. Maybe we should take that bike ride after all."