Disclaimer: I own none of the characters!! Thanks for the reviews, guys; keep 'em coming!

Chapter Seven – Shadow Dance

May 1996

Opening her locker, Kitty nodded absently at what Jean was saying, paying very little attention as an internal war raged in her thoughts.

The Sadie Hawkins' Dance was in a week and she still hadn't asked anyone. In fact, she was wondering whether she should cut her losses and stay home.

Oh, she knew who she wanted to ask, but – her eyes scanned the hallway – that was going against their 'staying friends for now' plan.

Of course – she glanced at Jean who had switched conversation to Scott and heard her ask to meet him at lunch – there was a chance that, with the love-triangle forming between Duncan, Scott and Jean, Cyclops wouldn't even notice who she was with.

"He'd say 'yes', you know."

Kitty started, her book falling through her hand, and she grabbed it again quickly. "Tabby, don't do that!"

Tabitha just smirked and leaned against the lockers. "Kitty, I don't get why you're even thinking about this; you like him, he likes you; what's the problem?"

"We decided to stay friends until everything's smoothed over." Kitty answered automatically.

"'We' decided or 'he' decided?" Tabby asked knowingly.

"Okay, he decided." Kitty admitted with a sigh.

"He just doesn't want to get you in trouble." Tabby told her confidently. "Doesn't think he's worth it."

Kitty rolled her eyes. "Prat."

"Isn't he?" Tabby agreed. "So you'll ask him?"

Kitty closed her locker. "Where is he?"

"Water fountain." Tabby answered promptly. "I've managed to convince the others to go to class early; you won't be interrupted."

The two girls exchanged a conspirational smile, before parting ways, Tabby for her own class, Kitty to find Lance.

Sure enough, she found him at the water cooler; he glanced up at her approach and smiled at her, sending a pleasant chill down her spine.

Whoa. That's never happened before.

"Hey, Lance." Suddenly nervous, although she never had been to talk to him before, Kitty shifted her weight slightly, fiddling with a strand of hair while she thought how to word what she was about to say. "Sooo…Sadie Hawkins' Dance coming up. Anyone asked you yet?"

"No." Lance shrugged. "Who would?"

Perfect opening. "Well…I am."

Lance seemed surprised. "R-Really?"

"Yeah." Kitty tucked the strand of hair back into place.

Lance turned away from her. "I'll have to think about it."

"Oh." Kitty faked a smile. "Yeah, totally." Did I read him wrong? I've never done that. "Well, I'll see you around."

"Kitty?" Lance called before she could take more than a few steps.

Kitty turned to face him. "Yeah?"

"I'll pick you up at six."

A genuine smile graced her face. "How about I come to you? I don't think you'll make it out the Institute."

"Good point." Lance agreed. "See you later."

Kitty turned again to go to her first class, but she was stopped again, this time by a light tremor that ran through the ground. This time she didn't turn, but allowed herself a small smile.

"Okay." Jean sighed. "I'll bite. What's wrong?"

It was lunch-time and Kitty had been grinning at her all morning. "Come on, Jean. You're totally gonna ask Scott to the dance!"

"Now wherever did you get an idea like that?" Jean asked calmly as they stopped at her locker, but a blush rose in her cheeks despite her words. "You're jumping to conclusions."

"Yeah right!" Kitty laughed. "You've had a crush on him for, like, ever, and you asked to speak to him at lunch. Plus this morning, when I asked you about going with Duncan, you said, and I

quote, "I might just have to disappoint him." Am I right? I'm right, right?"

Jean opened her mouth to respond, when the colour drained from her face and she made an odd choking noise in her throat, her eyes focusing on something over Kitty's shoulder.

Kitty turned around to see Scott down the hall, talking to a pretty brunette she recognised as Taryn Winters, one of Jean's friends.

"So I was wondering if you had a date to the dance." Taryn was saying, clearly audible over the throngs of people.

Scott shook his head. "No, I don't."

Taryn smiled brightly. "Well…do you want to go with me?"

"Sounds great." Scott responded.

"Cool. I'll see you in Math." With a wave, Taryn had vanished into the crowd, leaving no indication that she had ever been there.

It was at this point that Scott noticed his two team-mates. "Morning, ladies. Or afternoon now, I suppose. Jean, you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah." Jean's voice faltered slightly. "I was wondering…"

Kitty closed her eyes, praying that Jean wasn't still going to go through with it.

Amazingly, Jean continued flawlessly, as though there had never been anything else to talk about. "…if you had a copy of Pride and Prejudice I could borrow. I've got Williams for English Lit and since you had her last semester…"

"Sorry, Jean." Scott cut her off. "We did Sense and Sensibility."

Jean heaved a sigh. "Darn it. There's never a hero around when you need one."

Kitty smirked. "Don't worry, Jean; I've got a copy you can borrow. Maybe, if you're lucky, Mr. Darcy will jump from the pages and help you."

"One can only hope." Jean laughed. "Thanks, Kitty. Oh, speaking of heroes, did you ask Lance?"

Kitty stifled a laugh, as Scott gritted his teeth, clearly biting back a retort. Oh, very well played, Jean. "Yes, I did. And he said yes."

"Great." Jean nodded. "So we all have dates. See you two after lunch."

As the redhead walked off, Scott turned to Kitty. "There's no way that was why she wanted to talk to me; she knows you've got that book; she gave it to you at Christmas. Why did she really want to talk to me?"

Kitty smiled sweetly. "Scott, if you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you."

For the first time in her life, as soon as lunch had finished, Jean headed out to the parking lot, got in her car and skipped her afternoon classes.

Thoughts flying round her head like butterflies, never resting long enough for her to decipher, she took the coastal road down to the bay. It was tucked around underneath the cliffs that bordered one side of the Institute grounds and was so sheltered that the water was as still as a mill pond, not even affected by the ebbing and flowing of the tide.

Jean parked the car and levitated herself down, not bothering with the ancient steps that put most people off of visiting the beautiful spot. Once she had landed, she slipped her shoes off and held them at her side as she walked along the sand, thinking deeply about that morning.

Taryn was the only person at Bayville High that Jean would ever consider trusting with her secret. The two girls had been close friends ever since Jean had moved to Bayville; the brunette had also recently lost her father, though to an affair, not a heart attack, and they provided comfort to each other.

Taryn knew how Jean felt about Scott; the whole school knew how Jean felt about Scott except the man himself.

But, Jean frowned, she couldn't find any reason for her to be mad at Taryn for asking Scott out; she hadn't told her she was planning on asking him, after all, and she had a boyfriend.

Duncan Matthews.

Jean sighed and, not for the first time, wished she had turned the quarterback down when his asked her out. She had been the new girl, quiet and painfully shy, and she had been so flattered that the captain of the football team knew who she was and wanted to ask her out that she had accepted without a second's thought.

Jean was, if nothing else, a typical redhead: stubborn with a short temper. Taryn told her Duncan was a jerk, Scott warned her she was going to get hurt; she refused to listen to them or admit they were right.

And, boy, were they right.

Duncan Matthews was the only thing Scott and Lance saw eye-to-eye on, even before Lance had known she was his sister; the Brotherhood leader may not have had any trouble with him personally, but Duncan insisted on bullying the rest of the Brotherhood and Lance was having none of it.

Scott had once admitted to her that, if there was anything he admired about Lance, it was his loyalty to his team; Lance may have been strong, but he was still no match for Duncan.

"I wonder if I need a reason." Jean murmured aloud, staring out at the horizon.

"Need a reason to do what?"

Jean started and turned around to see Lance standing behind her. "Don't do that! Why aren't you in school?"

Lance sniggered. "You're one to talk!" His humour vanished quickly. "What's wrong?"

Jean sighed and let herself drop onto the sand. "Nothing."

"Come on, Jeannie; I know you better than that." Lance sat down next to her. "Does this have anything to do with Taryn asking Summers to the dance?"

Jean sighed. "Yes. And it shouldn't. And it's pissing me off."

Lance was quiet for a few minutes. "You really like him, don't you?"

Jean laughed. "What? No! No, of course not! It's just a crush, that's all. Understandable, really, with all we've been through."

"Jeannie, it's more than just a crush." Lance disagreed.

"No, it isn't." Jean insisted.

"You never were a very good liar, Jeannie." Lance told her. "You know how I know it's more than a crush?"

"How?" Jean asked reluctantly.

"Because that's three times I've called you Jeannie," Lance smirked, "and you haven't hit me yet, which means you're extremely distracted."

Jean sighed. "It seems kind of pointless to get on at you for that. I only do it for appearance anyway."

Lance wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Alright, tell me what happened. You know what happened to me; now it's your turn."

For the next few hours, Jean talked and talked, telling him all about waking from the coma, about moving to Bayville, about helping Scott figure out what materials he could and couldn't see through, about the problems she'd had with her telepathy and how they'd led to the bond she now had with her best friend.

Eventually, her voice trailed off and the twins slipped into silence. Jean didn't need to know the time to know that school had let out. Her team-mates would soon start looking for her and what excuse would she give?

The sound of a motorcycle cut through her thoughts and, for a second, her heart stopped; the only person who would come down this way who had a motorcycle that she knew of was Logan and he was unlikely to listen straight away.

So it was with great relief that she heard Kitty's voice echoing over the ridge. "Jean? Lance? You here?"

"Yeah, we're here." Lance responded, helping Jean to her feet.

Concentrating carefully, Jean lifted them both off their feet and up to where Kitty was standing by their cars and…

"Sweet mother of Jesus, that's a beautiful bike." Lance whispered as they landed.

"What was that?" Kitty asked innocently, though it was obvious she had heard him.

"That…that…" Lance shook his head, looking for all the world like a man possessed. "Bloody hell."

Of the X-Men, Jean knew that only she and Logan knew the extent of the couple's relationship back in Northbrook, but she would never have believed if she hadn't seen the two together in Philadelphia. In Bayville, they usually kept up layers upon layers of pretence, but, every so often, the true nature of their relationship shone through, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud.

Kitty brushed some invisible dust from the seat. "Beautiful, isn't she?"

"You can say that again." Lance whispered reverently. "Stunning."

"Fast." Kitty shot back.

"Powerful."

"Sleek."

"Elegant."

Their eyes locked in a way that made Jean feel a little uncomfortable, as though she was intruding on some private moment.

A smirk touched Kitty's face. "You're not talking about the bike anymore, are you?"

"No." Lance admitted shamelessly. "Where'd she come from?"

"Early birthday present from my parents." Kitty answered, her smile slipping slightly. "Can you believe it?"

"From your parents?" Lance repeated. "The people who freaked out when your uncle taught us how to drive these the summer before last?"

"Yeah." Kitty nodded. "They're up to something."

"How'd they get it here?" Jean asked, admiring the bike. She didn't know a whole lot about cars or bikes, but she spent enough time around Logan to recognise a beautiful piece of work when she saw it.

"They didn't." Kitty sighed. "They're going away for my birthday, so they phoned and asked me to drop by when I had the chance. Kurt teleported me there and back; those sessions have really been working. I just wish I knew what they were up to."

Jean was suddenly struck by a horrible thought. "They wouldn't pull you home, would they?"

"I don't think so." Kitty said slowly. "If they wanted me to come home, it'd be so I could pretend that all this was just a dream and that I'm still their perfect daughter who conforms to every aspect of society. If they have to force me to come home, it won't work as well. They're probably trying to entice me into coming home."

"And will that work?" Jean asked warily.

Kitty laughed. "Hell, no!"

Jean was so relieved she didn't even bother to correct her language.

AN: Review please!