OK so this is a small taste of what is going on between the characters afrer the years that passed.

I hope you like it...

Enjoy!

Chapter Three – Decision

Jean sighed as she closed the door the of her daughter's bedroom and moved two feet further in the corridor and reached another door. It was the middle of the night and the corridor was dimly lit, she opened the door and smiled at the other occupant of her bedroom.

'She's ok?' Scott asked as he had woken up with Jean by their child's cries. Jean had insisted on him going back to sleep as he had a long day in the Danger Room and a similar waited for him in the morning but he couldn't go back to sleep. He remained in the room in his t-shirt and pajama pants, waiting for her through their bond to call him for extra help but she managed on her own.

'Just a scare, some tree from outside was making strange shadows. I think she's going down with something and her sleep is lighter, making her sensitive. Tomorrow I will take her to the infirmary for a check.' Jean explained and made a mental note to stop her daughter from hitting the pool so early in May. Hope adored swimming and playing with water. Or maybe it was the scoops of ice-cream she had with Bobby and Marie a few hours ago. Scot nodded and opened his arms for her to approach their bed.

'I will cut down the branches of the tree tomorrow.' He said as he looked out of their window, guessing which one was the trouble- making tree. Jean moved close to their bed, slipping back between the light covers in her satin black nightgown. Scott kissed her temple, cheek and then locked her lips with his. 'You're sure it's not her powers manifesting?' Scott asked when they stopped their kiss and Jean nodded.

'Not yet, her powers are quite.' Jean reassured him and Scott nodded and pivoted their bodies so they could lay back in their bed, he pecked her nose as they held each other in an embrace.

This had been a tiring day. Scott had been out with Charles and when he came back he had hit the Danger Room with Ororo, Jubilee, Nightcrawler and Psylocke. Logan was off duty for the foreseeable future and Scott had insisted on more training of the older members to keep up with the speed the younger team had. Jean was glad she had stepped down from the team years ago. This however didn't allow free time for the redhead. Jean had spent her day with classes of hers and Logan's that she had taken until he was back on track and then she had spent her evening showing things to him, how their lives had been in more or less the past forty years.

She was exhausted and she hadn't even showed him everything, she had kept the part of her experiences with Aliens and the Phoenix force as she wasn't sure Charles would want Logan to deal with extra terrestrial life and the concept of its very existence just as of yet.

Her mood had also shifted after the flashbacks she had re-experienced in an evening. Hope had came back from the mall being difficult because of her exhaustion and too much ice-cream and Jean needed no telepathy to know her daughter wouldn't have an easy night's sleep. She was almost half sleeping herself until she heard her child's cries and rushed to her side as to comfort her and prevent her from waking everyone else up.

Scott was massaging her lower back and she hummed in pleasure as his hand moved slightly lower and pulled her closer against him. They were exhausted, it was evident in their faces and Jean felt the need to look in his eyes. She moved her hand close to his face, he knew what she wanted and he let her. Exhausted or not she was unstoppable and they were doing this frequently when nobody was around. Jean pushed down the sleep visor she had designed with Hank for her husband and smiled as his eyes were already open behind it. These amazing blue eyes that were inherited by their only child. The couple shared another kiss as Jean sent the visor on Scott's nightstand.

She remembered the first time she bumped onto him, scared, worried, bewildered, just like their little girl had been a few minutes before.

'I was wrong, you know,' Jean said softly and Scott looked at her in amused curiosity, knowing her tone very well. 'There was a lot to see in your mind….' Jean admitted, projecting to him their first common memory of each other, hers was by sight; his was by sound as he still had the blindfold.

'Oh that's so kind of you, baby,' Scott laughed and his fingers on her back became tickling on her sides, making yelp and slap his hand softly.

'Don't start,' she commanded him and he laughed and kissed her lips.

'I was wrong too,' he added, he knew she was thinking of all this because she had showed Logan their own past. But he liked she remembered their first encounter from so long ago. Jean was looking at him with curiosity.

'I needed a weird girl creeping up in there,' he said and tickled her again, making her laugh and squirm away from his ticklish fingers. 'Shh! You will wake up everyone!' Scott laughed as he kept teasing her until she held his fingers with her powers and took a breath to calm down.

'Then don't start!' she insisted on her command and let go of her telekinetic grip on his hand, half unsure about him tickling her again. He only pushed her back against him, loving the feel of her body.

Have you made up your mind? Scott sent when their kiss ended and Jean sighed and nodded. She knew what he meant; a week ago Hank had visited the school from DC. He had offered Jean the position of Secretary for Mutant Affairs. He was promoted as the ambassador for Mutants in the UN. Jean had asked him a few days to think about it and he had given her two weeks, of which, one had passed and all she had done was worry over Logan, Ororo and catch up with all the extra lessons she had been assigned with.

At first, she thought of turning down the proposal. The responsibility was massive, the complications between the X-Men and their funding as a special force of the government and her new authorities would raise voices of protest. The X-Men were heroes but she had her own times of destruction that her political enemies would use against her every time she would stop an attempt of abuse against mutant liberties. But she knew very well that these liberties were closely watched and in many cases annulled.

The cure hadn't been used as a punishment only because it didn't actually work, especially on powerful mutants like Magneto, who regained his powers after seven years from the time Jean actually shot him with it. However it had been used as a suppression serum on mutants with criminal records and in most cases, like Raven, it wore off with no problems. But there had been recorded cases where the serum created abnormalities, hearing or sight loss and infertility were the most common side effects. There were also drones designed to attack mutants with the cure and actual weapons. And even if Bolivar Trask hadn't made his dream come true with the Sentinels, the drafts still existed and any time they could become law. The Registration Act never passed but the cure took use and the X-Men knew it was because of them that the worst scenarios hadn't come into fruition.

Charles had been wrong to lose focus in '92 with all the fame and exposure to the media, leading almost to catastrophe but he had been right to go public with the team, even if back then, they had all objected. The X-Men were heroes, part of the pop culture and people looked up to them. Mutant children wanted to be like the X-Men and human children could only hope the X-Men would be there to save the date while they read the comic books and bought the merchandise.

However Jean knew how people thought, she knew human memory was very fragile. The moment the X-Men, or at least the most popular of them would step down – like she had done- people would start seeing the mutants as an unpopular problem again. And the "audience" had allowed her to step down and forgave her the destruction she had unleashed in the 90's only because she was expecting Hope and people wanted to believe in happy endings and fairy tales.

That's why Hank had offered her the position, she knew, for the future that had to be stabilized. For the next generations to be raised in reassurance of survival with or without the X-Men. For every villain of the future, the X-Men would capture but an ethical jury had to be there to make the hard decision and that jury had to be her. She was to become the first mutant Madame Secretary. For Charles' dream of Mutants becoming part of the governments around the world, from freaks and feared personas, they were becoming accepted individuals and people in positions of power.

She would have to give up on her classes entirely; raising Hope had already stopped her from half of them. She would have to be going to DC frequently as there was no way Scott could leave the team and the school and their daughter couldn't be alone for long periods of time. Hank had reassured her that there would be clearance for her to come back and forth even daily with the second blackbird that made the trip faster as it could go supersonic. He had joked that even if the clearance didn't exist, she could simply fly home with her amazing powers.

I am not sure I will be good enough, Scott. She finally expressed her insecurity and Scott smiled and pecked her lips. She could see the faith in his eyes now that the visor was off.

Apart from the most powerful of them all, Jean had grown to be an amazing doctor, teacher, mother and wife. He couldn't ask for more from his life. His beautiful wife would reach the top in a cabinet that could save their kind, what he had vowed to do ever since he took the leadership of the X-Men from Charles himself.

They had spent decades together and he still looked at her as if seeing her for the first time under that tree, their tree by now. She was as beautiful after all that time, age had been extremely kind to her, graced her with fire red hair and the sweetest of eyes, the eyes that flicker with fire when she uses her secondary mutation.

'You are the best person for that position. You will do great, I am sure of it.' Scott vocalized his support and Jean smiled and sighed.

'You don't say that just because you're my husband?' She asked even if she knew the answer and he smiled and locked her lips with his.

I just say the truth. You are the most kind, headstrong, charismatic and loquacious Secretary the Mutant population could ask for. Scott answered and it was his words that mattered the most to her.

'And you agree with me being absent for days at a time in DC?' she asked and he smiled and nodded.

'We agreed on this. It will be ok, the days you'll be away I will be taking care of Hope full time. She's already eleven. Soon she will actually wish for us to be away.' Scott said with a smile and Jean chuckled and nodded.

'What if her powers manifest while I'm away?' Jean asked and Scott smiled again.

'Kurt will have you here in no time. We'll be here until you arrive. That's another reason we need to move out, by the way.' Scott replied and Jean nodded.

Their dream of the boathouse turning into their home had remained in their minds ever since Jean was pregnant with Hope but it always got postponed. Missions, Hope getting used on everyone while being a toddler. Charles wanting them close and looking unsettled every time they discussed it were some of the reasons they never actually made the move. But the school was getting crowded, both for a couple like them and practically, there was no more space. Their double suite, if turned into regular rooms could hold up to ten more students. Hope had her own room by theirs as she was too young to live with teenagers and that room could be exploited too.

Hope was eleven, this was another reason for them to move out of the mansion. When Jean manifested, the mansion held up to thirty people and it was only a miracle she didn't hurt someone. They had no idea what would happen if Hope's manifestation got wrong in a school of almost two hundred people that it currently occupied.

Charles had been right, Jean was an Omega five with potentially limitless power and many people had tried to take advantage of the fact, people like Magneto and Nathanial Essex, even aliens had tried to manipulate her. They all ended up either jailed or six feet under. Jean didn't want her child seeing her mother as a source of destruction. Hope needed a full time mother by her side and since Scott couldn't step down as the X-Men's leader, she had to stop from the team and take care of their potentially powerful child. And she had loved her choice, no more bloody missions, no more tension. For years she had lived peacefully as the school's physician, she had done her research on genetics and possible submission and acceleration methods of mutation and she had been raising the sweetest child in the world.

Jean always worried over the day Hope would reach her powers even though she still had at least a couple years more to get in the age of danger. She had been worried during her marriage with Scott on how things would be for a child as powerful as theirs and that was the reason it had taken them so long to actually have Hope.

Both Scott and Jean would give their lives for their little one, currently sleeping in the next room but they knew that she was a special kind of child. They had taken the responsibility to have her in this world and they wouldn't risk anyone else the moment her powers would ignite.

'We need to tell Charles,' Jean finally said and Scott nodded and moved slightly so he could put his visor back on for the night.

'But now, we need to sleep, both of us.' Scott added and tried to stop a yawn as Jean nodded and with a blink of her eyes shut the lights of their suite. Only the moonlight got through the window.

She was worried about Ororo, Logan, the move, the position as Secretary and Hope. She had hoped things would be easier for them but that never was the case in the School of Gifted Youngsters.

OOK I wanted a scene with Jean and Scott ever since x2 or something. I wanted to show a lighter version of their encounters as the old movies didn't make them justice but Apocalypse had beautiful glimpses of the two and their actual dynamics. I hope you liked it, please let me know what you'd like to see in the future for this story.

Thank you for reading

CP09