Note: Okay, it's been forever and this isn't even a very long chapter. But, I had to write the next chapter and part of the following one before I could be sure what was in here was correct. So, 22 should be up soon. I just have to edit it. And maybe, with a bit of luck in my mundane schedule, the long waits for chapters won't be quite so long.

Thanks to everyone who commented. I love you guys. And thanks for hanging in with me. I hope the rest of the story doesn't disappoint.

Disclaimer: Long waits between chapters doesn't change the fact I own nothing but my words, drat. The world and characters and all that still belong to other people.

Chapter 21

Bobby couldn't wait until the rest of the students returned in a week or so. In the evening the mansion was too quiet. He couldn't find anything to distract him, and he really wanted a distraction. Rogue's dumping of him was still raw. If he gave his mind time to wander back over those events, he wound up feeling like an idiot.

Some hero he'd turned out to be. Hell, he'd taken a swing at their team leader, and been put on the floor for it. Bobby's shoulders slumped. It had taken Rogue flat out dumping him to make him see how stupid he'd been over her. He'd even hidden Magneto's helmet under his bed to impress her.

And what was he going to do with that helmet? He couldn't exactly take it to Cyclops now. What would he say? He didn't think, 'Found this and thought you might want it' would work after he'd tried to punch the guy.

Head down, hands driven deep into his pockets as he surged down the hall, Bobby nearly ran into Peter when he turned the corner. They both jumped back an instant before collision. Peter flushed and folded his arms quickly. Only when Bobby caught that reaction did he realize Peter had been holding Kitty's hand.

Kitty, still close by Peter's side, scowled. "Just what are you stalking, Bobby? And do you plan to kill it when you find it?"

"Just trying to figure some things out," Bobby muttered. Kitty's mouth flattened into a pinched line and her brows furrowed. Clearly, she knew he was regretting some of his recent decisions, especially about the helmet, but she didn't challenge him in front of Peter. It wasn't in Kitty to betray a confidence, even if she thought the secret should be out in the open.

"We're all trying to figure things out," Kitty offered, and her hand slipped back into Peter's grip. Instead of continuing on their way, she tugged Peter into following Bobby. "Everything around here is changing so fast. How can any of us keep up?"

War. Monsters. Team members were dead, then alive, and then dead again. Rogue was in love with Cyclops. It was a lot to take in. When Bobby thought about it that way, he felt a little less stupid. "Maybe we don't have to keep up," he said. "Maybe we just have to catch up."

Light spilled out of the open doorway to the professor's old office. Someone was likely packing up books again. Ms. Monroe, probably. She seemed to be having her own troubles adjusting to all the changes. Bobby probably would have passed by quietly, leaving Ms. Monroe to her privacy. But, Kitty peeked in. Peter lingered beside her, and Bobby found himself stopping as well.

"It's Charles. He's alive and wants to come home."

Had whoever Ms. Monroe was talking to just said the professor had returned from the dead too? That was three for three. Bobby wasn't sure how he felt about that. Technically, he supposed, Dr. Grey hadn't actually returned from the dead. She'd been taken over by a death monster that wanted to destroy the world, which made her reappearance an unfiltered disaster. Cyclops hadn't been strictly dead, and Bobby supposed he had to admit that their leader coming back had only been bad for him personally. Cyclops, after all, hadn't turned evil, just remembered he had a sex drive, which, in most cases, wouldn't be counted as a bad thing. So, he'd call that recovery called a mixed blessing.

But, whatever the details, Bobby couldn't escape the fact what was passing for resurrection so far hadn't been chocolate bunnies and tulips. Would the professor's return balance things by being an absolute good thing? Or was he going to follow the trend and fall somewhere between a disappointment and apocalypse?

Kitty seemed to be having similar thoughts. She scowled deeply at the news. "I know that voice. That's the doctor the professor was working with in Scotland," she whispered. Then her tone grew grave. "I can't believe he would have actually done it."

"Done what?" Peter asked.

"Hush. Listen." Bobby leaned closer to the opening. This was important and he didn't want to miss details.

Ms. Monroe sat facing the monitor, and therefore turned away from the door. Her whole attention seemed fixed on the screen. "Alive? How is that possible? When is he coming? How is he?"

"That could take a long time to explain, Ororo," the Scotswoman said. "And I'll be coming with Charles so I can answer all your questions in person. As for when, we'll be arranging a flight to New York and should be arriving tomorrow morning at around ten your time."

"Is he there now? Can I speak to him?"

"He's getting ready for the trip." The Scotswoman sounded a bit condescending to Bobby, which troubled him further. Something about all this wasn't right, and Ms. Monroe seemed to sense it too. She frowned at the screen and the invisible doctor quickly reassured her, "Don't worry. He's better than fine. You'll see tomorrow."

"I'll be there to pick you up, of course." Ms. Monroe got the details of the flight and tapped them into her PDA, then reached to hang up on the caller.

"One other bit, Ororo. Charles would like this to be a surprise. Don't go telling the others, all right?"

A nod, nothing more from Ms. Monroe. Bobby frowned himself. Maybe he was just excessively suspicious given recent events, but he thought they should be more cautious about bringing home dead people. He considered stepping in and telling Ms. Monroe that.

Bobby glanced at the other two. Neither of them moved. Maybe letting on that they'd overheard wasn't such a good idea. If Ms. Monroe hadn't decided to follow up on her own uncertainty she might not be open to listening to his. Ms. Monroe hadn't seen them hanging about the door. Bobby gestured the others back.

They'd crept a way down the hall before Kitty pulled them all to a halt and stared at Bobby. The question was clear on her face -- what's going on?

He didn't think he could explain. He'd already strained her trust with the helmet mistake. "If it's supposed to be a secret, maybe we should pretend to be surprised."

"Maybe." For Kitty to accept that she had to be seriously troubled herself. Peter rested a hand on her shoulder, a silent prodding. She shook her head. "Not here, Peter. Let's head out toward that old hideout by the lake where we'll be good and alone. Then, I'll tell you what happened in class recently."

-----

Scott loved the moments immediately following climax. His body still sang with pleasure, but he had control again, and he could once again focus on Marie. She'd stopped shuddering around him, and her sated, labored breathing pushed her body up and down heavily now, beneath his. He felt her heartbeat through his own chest. Her fingers brushed up his sides to his shoulders, creating a tingling path along his skin. He kissed her neck, and in the same action caught the changes in her scent.

The first intimate thing he ever noticed about her was a whiff of vanilla perfume. She still wore it, but he'd come to associate her with something deeper and stronger, a fragrance that was smooth as the professor's cognac and wholly Marie. Sex spiked the mélange he was sure no one had ever smelled but him. That thought made him bury his face against her neck.

"Scott, no. You have to move."

Move? It took him a moment to realize she was pushing against his shoulders. Questions crowded his mind rapidly. What had he done wrong? Had he hurt her? Did she regret what they'd done?

"Scott, please. It's going to hurt."

A dry-ice cold gripped him an instant later. His strength leeched out at every point their bodies touched. It took all his will to plant hands in the grass to either side of her body, pull away, and fall, limp and panting, onto his back. "Dear God."

"Oh Lord, Scott, are you okay?" Marie knelt over him. Her voice wavered on the edge of panic.

"Yes. Don't worry." He stared at the sky, thin clouds sweeping across. Honestly, okay wasn't really accurate. His body threatened to sink into the ground. He felt dirt grind beneath his shoulders and smelled the grass blades his body had crushed. The sensations were strange though something told him they shouldn't be. He felt strange for feeling strange. But he wasn't going to die. Her power had simply captured part of him.

"Sorry." The misery in her voice cut him. He didn't care that her power caused him pain. The risk had been worth the reward. But, he hated hearing her regret. Sorry was the last thing he wanted her to be. He reached up, muscles protesting the movement, then remembered why he couldn't touch her face and let his hand hover in front of her face.

"I'm not sorry, Marie. I don't want you to be."

"Of course you aren't."

He watched her turn her face and duck her chin. Her hair fell as a curtain, helping to hide whatever expression she didn't want him to see. Then, slowly, she curled the rest of her body away, knees against her chest, back toward him. She was cutting him off from her. That severing of connection was worse than any agony her power caused him.

He needed to bridge that physical distance between them before the emotional separation became impossible to cross. But, his bones seemed too heavy for his muscles. He was afraid she'd drained too much of him and that movement would make him pass out entirely.

"You needed to unfold," she continued, her voice choking on a sob. "It's a good thing."

Unfolded. That explained his body's familiar strangeness. He'd grown so used to having to fight the very air for existence that he'd forgotten what it was like to completely inhabit real space. Her power had brought him completely back. No, not her power. Their intimacy.

And Marie must have known, beforehand, that making love to him would take away their ability to touch. Otherwise she would be more surprised, less resigned. She could have stopped short of intercourse. He wouldn't have protested restraint. She'd chosen not to. Because she wanted him, and wanted him to be whole. His throat tightened at the thought.

Scott could see only her back, a hip, one bended leg and arm. Still, he noted all the details he'd missed in the heat of love making. A line of small, yellowing bruises studded her leg. She'd probably gotten them while rescuing him at Alcatraz. He suspected there were more, hidden now by her posture. Tiny blades of grass clung to her skin and hair. And her shoulders shook ever so slightly, the only hint she might be crying.

Scott still felt half frozen from her power and his limbs seemed to jerk forward too quickly, making him clumsy. But, he had to touch her. He forced his body to move. His discarded shirt lay next to him in the grass. He wrapped it around her shoulders so he could grip her arms.

"Marie, don't leave. Not now."

"I'm not leaving." She sounded as if she were falling into some hole inside herself.

He tightened his hold as if that would keep her closer. "You are, in all the ways that count. In another moment, I'm afraid I'll lose you."

She worked her arms through the sleeves of the shirt. He waited until she snuggled the fabric around her before enfolding her in a real embrace. Her fingers, still buried in the sleeves, locked around his. At least she didn't want to sever their closeness. He held her in silence, willing the sense of intimacy to return.

"I can open my eyes," she whispered after a moment. "I didn't think I'd be able to."

"Open…?" An instant later he followed her thoughts. "My power."

She looked at him over her shoulder. Yellow fire -- his fire but dampened and controlled -- glittered in her eyes from beneath a curtain of silver-tinged hair. "I thought it was uncontrollable, like mine."

"An old injury preventing me from controlling the beams, Marie. In anyone else it would be much safer."

She squeezed his fingers. "I think everything is safe with you."

"Even you," he whispered. Then he pressed his cheek against her back. The shirt fabric rubbed against his face, soft but not nearly as soft as her skin would have been. His own heat radiated from her body. He listened to her heart beating, determined and steady, and to the more subtle beat of the power under his, a match to the tempo that pounded under his own skin. The distance between them evaporated. He felt as if he could push himself inside her soul. "Especially you."

"I believe you. I trust you." Her grip on his fingers tightened. "But I'm going to miss the -- the other stuff."

The memory of their love making was new enough that it sprang in full detail to Scott's mind. There had been nothing cautious about Marie, no tentative uncertainty. She'd shocked him a little with her aggression. He'd loved her passion. It surprised him. And he struggled with how to tell her he'd miss it all as much as she would. "I know. I--"

She overran his stumbling efforts. "I mean, I looked forward to sleeping with you. I imagined curling up against your body in the dark and knowing I'd wake up feeling your same warmth. I believe that you don't want to lose what we have together, but you have to admit a certain specialness is out of reach for us now."

He couldn't lie to her. He could give her his loyalty, his mind, his heart, but never again his body. It grew more difficult to swallow around the constriction in his throat. He hugged her closer. His cheek bumped the bones of her spine. "We have to find a different specialness."

Marie tucked the shirt collar over his arm then rested her head against him. She felt so warm in his arms, warm against his cheek. He loved her. The truth sat in front of his mind a long time before he dared to absorb it.

"You are different inside," she said. "I mean every time my power acts on someone I wind up with a part of them in my head. You'll always be there now."

"That's something." But not something unique, because everyone she touched was there.

"You're the only one not screaming in pain. You're calm." Another little shift and she kissed his arm through the fabric. "Almost as if you are happy to be there."

"I was. I am."

She shivered. "I don't know if that makes it better or worse. It reminds me of how we could have been. And that we can't be that now."

"That's not true," he told her, more in desperation than certainty. There had to be something that would hold them together. They couldn't drift apart to become merely friends, teammates, acquaintances.

"I wish that were true"

"Don't wish." All wishing ever did was make fantasy. Reality, both the sort he'd just regained and the deeper, more internal form was what mattered. "We'll find a way to make it true."

Another little shiver. He realized this one was laughter, though without joy. "How are we going to do that? This problem isn't going away. Loving you isn't going to give me a way to control my power. I can't fix me."

"You don't need to be fixed. There's nothing wrong with you."

"Nothing wrong with any of us. That's what everyone keeps telling me." She turned so they were facing one another. She was no longer trying to use his shirt as a shield. It hung loosely down her body, and a line of pale skin showed down the front. "I believe that. I don't want to change what I am anymore. But--"

"But, it's hard to deal with. I know." The twin edges of being a mutant -- the special power and its ability to destroy -- could cripple a person. Scott caught the faint glow in her eyes again. The gold shimmer reflected in the lighter streak of hair hanging before her face. He could be jealous of the ease with which she controlled his own power, if he let himself. Instead he thought about how holding that force inside herself would help her understand him, how feeling the pull of her power gave him the same insight into her. "The power joins us, you know."

"My power?" She meant what she'd said before, the piece of him that remained inside her mind.

"Not just yours. Mine as well." The truth bloomed inside him, making his heart beat faster. "There is something your power mixed with mine gives us, something I've never shared with anyone, or ever hoped to."

Marie settled back on her heels, waiting for him to explain. He decided he'd rather show her.

"Look at me and turn on my power, Marie. Just a little."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You can't. It's part of me."

The red glow overwhelmed her eyes. He'd had no idea his own eyes looked so wild and alien. He'd never found a way to see them, until now. She'd focused her gaze on his chest and he felt the power tapping there against his skin. Its steady rhythm echoed the one he always felt inside himself.

Her eyes opened a little wider, broadening the beams, and the tap against his sternum became a steady thrum. Behind the familiar beat, he caught a foreign cadence -- Marie's own rhythm pulsing beneath his. He felt her attention move a little lower down his body, and then her heart accelerated.

Scott's stomach clenched. He was suddenly very aware of his own nakedness.

"I didn't get to look much before," she whispered. Her gaze dipped a little farther and she startled at his reaction.

"I can feel you looking at me."

"Is that what we can share, me touching you with my eyes?"

"That, and this. I've never been able to show anyone -- "He steadied his breathing and took his visor off." -- me."

Jean may have dampened his power so she could see his unpowered face, but she hadn't seen him as he truly was. This was the real revelation, this exposure of burning eyes and a power he didn't have to fear because it was inside her as well.

He watched her experience the pulsing touch as he had. She looked slowly up until she took in his real eyes, his real face, and the beat of her regard felt like kisses. He managed to swallow twice, to not twitch while she studied him.

"I like your eyes this way, even better than blue," she said.

He had expected acceptance, yet wasn't prepared. He had to settle himself, clench his fists and remember not to pull her close. Only eyes could touch, only powers. "This may be a strange sort of closeness, but it is ours."

"Only ours." She licked her lips quickly. Scott memorized her mouth, the way it bent upward more on one side than the other as she smiled, the lingering moisture from her tongue glittering on her lips. Against his own mouth, he felt her eyes' caress. Not quite a kiss, but close.

"I like it," she whispered.

"So do I." Then she slowly opened his shirt so his gaze could wander down.