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Nothing Will Be the Same

Author's note: A little continuation alternative of "Day of recovery". Imagined it without knowing the follow of the cartoon; beginning just at the end of the episode. Scott doesn’t wear his uniform (so he his always half bare chest). Assume the end of the episode takes place at the midnight.

"We'll have to live in an hostile world, a world which is scared of us. Somehow or other, we must show them that we are good persons before it's too late," declared Storm.

"Time for bed kids," groaned Logan before correct himself with a less assured voice, "I mean...we must sleep now, it remains only a few hours before the dawn, and we'll have to find our recruits."

With sad faces, the others members of the team agreed and most of them fell flat on the grass where they were. Scott and Jean, did the same, Cyclops crossing his arms behind his neck by way of a cushion.

He turned briefly his head toward Jean, on his left, a certain discomfort drawing his eyebrows.

Jean, I'm...I'm sorry for lately, you know, I didn't want to appear disdainful," he said with an apologize tone about the way he had pushed back her embrace a few hours before.

"That's nothing Scott, you don't have to apologize," she comforted him in a deep voice, "you were beside yourself and I admit that, in your place, I would have acted in the same way."

She sighed, her gaze lost in the stares while a fresh breeze began to softly blow.

"I can't realised all which had landed in us in such a little time. The coming of the brotherhoods, the institute destroyed..."

"The world uncovering our existence, and not in the best way..." added Scott.

"The existence of this robot, this "sentinel" like Logan has called it, programmed for killing us."

"Magneto's return."

Mystique's usurpation, Professor Xavier's disappearance and the division of our team..."

Jean left to hang a brief time of silence before to pursue with an overwhelmed voice. "All the things we have constructed until here, our reputations, that means our identities, the ones which we had developed in order to melt us better in this world, have been swept away before to be re-covered by an etiquette which would be here for a long time…Now, we'll risk to be named only under the appellation of "mutant" and nothing else."

"I don't understand why Magneto dide it," pursued Scott supporting her words with a soft sign of his head. "I mean, he'll be tracked down like us, so I don't see where is his interest, except the fact having provoked scare and panic," he missed a resigned grin. "I know, that's exactly what he has always wanted, the war between humans and mutants...I think he just has had a good beginning."

He slightly shivered as the result of the breeze, which didn’t escape to Jean.

"You’re shivering," she said.

"That’s nothing, it's only because I didn't really wear survival clothes," he tried to joke, showing his teared sweater leaving his chest half bare. I should have looked at the report before think sleep in the open."

Jean slightly smiled, but takes another worried gaze.

"You will be taken ill and this is not the good time for it, really," she said.

She slightly stood up and looked around her. In the semi-darkness, the shapes of the other X-Men were standing out against the ground and, of course, any cloths or blanket on the horizon -- yes, it seemed that these things didn't grow on trees...

Whereas Scott has returned in the starring of the stars, she extended against him, putting away this strange feeling which had made her hesitated.

"Jean?" asked a surprised man

"I’m not gonna let you die of cold whereas I can warm you up," she justified herself with a voice which wanted to be assured. "We have already lost the professor, we need our leader in his best form."

"There are Storm and Wolverine," he said without seeing the two X-men in question wink at each other in their direction.

"You truly know what I mean."

Scott didn't add anything and put an hesitant arm around the young woman's waist. In other circumstances he must have been in the seventh heaven, but he couldn't forget the situation in which they were…in which all the mutants were. Having said that, a pleasant heat went soon warm him up whereas Jean's hair covered his left shoulder in a soft caress.

A1so Jean couldn't deny these feelings of well-being and security which was gradually overrunning her, but this remained veiled by a slight embarrassment like a sort of shyness facing in front of Scott's body proximity. That was absurd, she knew it. After all, when they were younger, the two of them had already been as close physically meaningfully. But now, it was different and she knew the reason...her feelings had changed, she had realized this lately and particularly since the day her powers had gone crazy. It was not Kitty's, Wolverine's or the professor's voice which had saved her, no, it was Scott's, the one who knew her the better, the one who had always been here during difficult times and on who she had always counted on him. Since, she couldn't help seeing him differently and feeling a certain confusion in his presence, something she has never felt for someone before.

The return in strong of the last events suddenly brought her back at the reality whereas only a few seconds had passed since she was in Scott's arms.

No more roof, no more anonymity, their team dispersed and the professor...

"I’ve tried you know..." she murmured.

"Hum? What?" asked Scott who didn’t have understood what she was talking about.

"I’ve tried to contact the professor by telepathy several times, but I haven’t reach it. Perhaps I've not concentrated enough..."

"Or perhaps he is too far for you," Scott suggested, couldn't let her doubt of her capacities.

"Or, furthermore, he may not be in a state to contact us, perhaps he is hurt or..."

"No Jean, don’t even think on that, he is not dead," he refuted.

The young woman briefly quivered at this hypothesise which she hadn't been able to formulate.

"You say that, but you're doubting it yourself," she said raising her gaze to him.

"You?" He asked with an interrogative expression on his face.

"No, no need to be a telepath to read in you, I know you, that's all, she answered to his implicit question. That's because mystique, isn't it?"

"Yes," he admitted with a gloomy voice. I have put one’s card on the table caughting off her guard and asking her where was the professor on her freedom, but she has said nothing.

"She is a lot too proud and self-assured for that, she hasn’t believed in your threat and, when she has realised you were not bluffing that was too late, that’s all," she said with a voice which wanted to be convincing.

"But, this is not the only reason, she hasn’t let you read in her mind."

"Nobody wants that somebody rakes up in his memory, whether he has something to hide or not," argued Jean. "Moreover, Mystique has a really good resistance to telepathy, the professor he's the only one who reaches to read in her and only in surface. I reminded this to me too late."

Scott didn’t answer anything and let himself being convinced by this argument.

"We should sleep now, it was a long day and the others risk to be too," he said a few moment after.

Jean nodded before to close her eyes.

Scott, him, hesitated to do the same. The unexpected coming of the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s members sooner in the evening was not reassuring him and he was afraid that an other commando with less mean well would come across them. That was a grumbling voice, but nevertheless murmured in order not to wake up the others, which pushed himself into taking some rest.

"You can sleep kid, I’m looking out for squalls," said Logan, "and no argument."

Scott didn’t make one. Trustful in Wolverine watchfulness and couldn't denied his tiredness, he closes his eyes at his turn, Jean always against him. Tomorrow will be another day.

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