Stumbling Along the Path
"Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night?" Erik asked, "The feeling that one day, they'll come for you? And your children?"
Xavier wheeled around, "I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to my school looking for trouble."
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or universe. They belong to Marvel and FOX Studio.
Just a bit of a filler from where I was sick for a few days. More building up the story and whatnot tomorrow. Until then, enjoy!
Jean stared at herself in the mirror, she felt like she didn't know whose eyes were staring back at her, she felt empty and devoid of feeling. Something felt wrong, deeply wrong. She felt a pounding in her head, she walked away from the mirror and grabbed a pill bottle. She was about to take two Tylenol but realized she didn't have any water.
She pulled her hair out of the pony tail that it was in which relieved some of the pressure from her head. She put up the mental blocks the Professor had been teaching her to do to keep thoughts from entering her head unwanted and she headed downstairs.
She held her head as she walked downstairs, it throbbing with each step down. She saw the Professor talking to Bobby Drake, their newest recruited student while Kurt and Scott sat across from each other playing a not very intense game of chess.
She walked past them into the kitchen where Ororo and Jubilee were chatting about places to get food because neither of them were in the mood for chicken. They waved at Jean but went back to their conversation as Jean searched through the cabinet for a glass that she had not broken. She found a sufficient one and filled it quickly as she took the Tylenol and continued to sip on the water.
Scott came into the kitchen and Ororo and Jubilee giggled as they made their way out of the room. As Scott tried to clear his throat to speak, he noticed Jean was looking a bit pale… more so than normal.
"You okay, you look kind of pale?" Scott said softly as to not startle her.
"Oh yeah. Just a headache I got at the coffee shop that hasn't gone away yet. I think it's cause I skipped breakfast… and lunch… I just haven't been paying attention to time at all today." She jested.
"I can get Jubilee, Kurt and Ororo and we can all go get something to eat if you want, I just wasn't sure if you felt like going back out after last night but we can if you want." He rambled.
"If it's fine with you, we could go out, just you and I." She looked up from her glass with a faint smile.
"Oh…" His face got red and his hand went instinctively to the back of his neck as he shyly looked away.
"Is that a yes?" Jean smirked.
"Sure, I would love to go out with you." He relaxed a little bit and adjusted his shirt collar.
Jean smiled at him, he was so awkward and adorable, but there was a lot more to Scott than what met the eye.
"Let me just grab your jacket and I'll be right back!" Scott chimed as he headed out the door to go get Jean's jacket for her.
Jean sat there and rubbed her temples, she noticed her vision was a little blurry and wondered if it could be an oncoming migraine but when she rubbed her eyes and looked back up, she saw clear as day Scott standing in front of her with her jacket in his outstretched hand. Her face lit up as she stood up and took her jacket and said a soft "Thank you."
They headed to the garage where the car was parked from the return of their mission. Scott opened the door on her side of the car as she slid in gracefully, which he didn't even think was possible for people to climb into a car and look good, but she managed to.
"Thank you, Scott." The sound of his name on her lips was like heaven to his ears. He smiled back at her and then headed to his side of the car while trying to think of something to talk about.
"Kurt and I tried to play chess earlier. You should have seen us, oh man, it was bad. To be honest I haven't played chess since my grandfather was alive, but I don't think Kurt had played at all so we were equally at a disadvantage." He started rambling.
He wondered if Jean was ever bored of his rambling but she just smiled and could see a light in his eyes when he talked about the things he enjoyed. She didn't mind if he did all the talking during the car ride because to be honest, she would have just rambled to about something terribly boring as well like her getting ready to start medical school.
"You know sometimes when I start to miss how things used to be, I realize that if things had never have changed, I wouldn't have met you, and you've been so nice to me, even when I was a jerk to you when I first got here." Scott suddenly changed from small talk to what he had really wanted to say after everything had happened with Apocalypse.
"I'm glad I could be here to help you; it's never easy making a change like this one. To be honest, I am quite surprised that Bobby was so quick to adjust and ready to just up and leave. I suppose we all handle things differently." She said, as she noticed Scott pull into the parking lot of the diner.
"Yeah I suppose. I mean I was ready to shut myself away from the rest of the world forever. I guess I was a bit dramatic about it." He chuckled as he turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car to go open the car door for Jean.
She slid out just as gracefully as before and hooked her arm in his as they walked arm in arm into the diner. The waitress sat them down by the window in a corner booth. Jean took her jacket off and sat it down on the seat before sitting down. Scott slid into his seat and opened up the menu.
"I can't say I've ever been here before." Jean smiled as she looked down at the menu which consisted of mostly burgers, hot dogs, various other sandwiches and milkshakes.
"Me neither. I always said I wanted to take a girl here cause I was told they have the best burgers." Scott nervously chuckled, looking at the burger of the day which was a a burger with Swiss cheese, grilled mushrooms and onions.
"Don't tell me you weren't a lady's man in high school?" Jean joked, as she eyed their veggie burger selection.
"Not exactly. But I wasn't real interested in them either. I was just trying to make it through the day without getting my ass kicked, I was definitely not the most popular guy in high school. What about you though?"
"Well I was basically home schooled with Xavier after everything that happened with Anne. The extent of people even relatively my age at the closest were Alex, your brother, and Hank… oh and Peter but he was real in and out a lot. I didn't really have any friends and so I never really had any boyfriends either. Jubilee was the first person to ever really talk to me, and even that didn't really happen til you showed up. You're the first person to not be afraid to be around me." Jean admitted as the waitress made her way back around to take orders.
"So what can I get you guys to drink and eat? Can I interest you in our newest milkshake?" She pointed to a spot on the menu but Jean and Scott were both already dead set on what they wanted.
"Um, I'm good, I would actually just like a cola and then your burger of the day, the one with mushrooms, but no onions. Thank you." Scott said, pushing back up his glasses and folding up his menu.
"Okay. And for you, doll?" She addressed Jean.
"Actually I will have the same but can I get your veggie burger patty with that? Oh and just a water to drink. Thank you." She smiled as she too folded up her menu and handed it to the waitress.
"I'll have those right out for you in a bit." She said as she turned on her high heels and headed back to the kitchen.
"Are you a vegetarian?" Scott asked, realizing he didn't know much about Jean on a basic level.
"Yeah, but I do like fish, but red meats and chicken not so much, the texture freaks me out. I know that sounds silly." She admitted nervously.
"Not a bit. I just didn't know that about you. I guess there's a lot that we don't know about each other still." Scott admitted shyly.
"That's what a date is for, silly." She teased him and reached across the table and put her hands on his till he looked up and looked her in the eyes.
"So what colour are your eyes?" Jean asked abruptly, nervously moving her hands back and breaking the eye contact.
"Blue actually." He stated.
"What is your favorite color?" Jean asked another question.
"Shouldn't I get to ask the next question?" Scott laughed.
"I will let you ask one after this." She agreed.
"Fine. Red. Not a bright red but a reddish orange like in a tiger lily or a sunset or…" He stopped as he stared at Jean's hair laying on her shoulders.
"That's a pretty colour, though I don't pull off red very well. I look good in green, cause of my hair. My favorite colour is blue like my sweater." Or what she imagined his eyes looked like behind the red.
"Okay my turn. What is your favorite animal?" He thought that might be a lame question but couldn't think of anything better.
"I love sea turtles, and manatees, or really anything from the ocean." And he could see the way her eyes lit up at the mention, he made a mental note to take her one day to an aquarium.
"That's really cool. I don't know why I expected something like a cat." He laughed.
"I'm not as predictable as people may think. What do you want to be when you finish college?" She said, starting to get more deep with the questions.
"Um… I haven't put a lot of thought into it, maybe a teacher, or something more hands on. I never really excelled at one specific thing so there's never been a clear cut path. What about you though?" He redirected the question hoping she would have a better answer than him.
"I want to be a doctor. Get my PhD and work with genetics, help figure out the science and biology behind our mutations to help find ways to better control them and help people understand why they happen and that they have nothing to fear, that it's just a part of nature, and just like how the seasons change, so do we genetically speaking, and it doesn't make us worth any less or any less beautiful." And Scott found himself falling in love with Jean Grey in just a few sentences.
