Fandom: X-men: Evolution

Pairing(s): Scott/Jean

Rating: PG

Warning(s): Language and a bit of emo Scott

Title: This Is Twice Now

Summary: So simple, the gift of touch, so easily given, and yet its effects can change the world. This is the story of how Scott Summers met Jean Grey, and not, as it turns out, for the first time.

AN: My "Illuminate" series is set in the pre-canon Evolution universe, focusing mainly on the time when Scott and Jean were the only students at the mansion. However, this fic in particular was inspired by an episode of Wolverine and the X-men and also draws heavily upon comicverse.

"Well, someone got up on the wrong side of bed this morning," Ororo Munroe remarked as fifteen-year-old Scott Summers stalked into the dining room, bitter anger seething off his tall, lanky frame.

"You'd be pretty cranky, too, if you blew up the entire left wing yesterday," Scott retorted, plunking into a chair.

Ororo held back a sigh at the expression on the face of the boy seated across the table. The mouth, set in a grim line, the brow tightly knotted. The eyes were hidden behind ruby quartz lenses, but Ororo could tell that they were glaring at the breakfast sausages as if those miserable tubes of meat had committed some personal affront.

"Scott," she began in a gentle tone, "no one was hurt, and you know as well as I do that the professor can easily afford to have the damages repaired. It was an accident---"

"Yeah," Scott interrupted furiously, "like I was an accident. Of birth." The sun's rays glinted off his shades as he sat with arms crossed, as belligerent in that light and airy room as the thunder that Ororo called down from the heavens.

"You were born for a very good reason," she firmly insisted. "To use your gift for the benefit of others."

"I'm sick of you people calling my curse a gift!" Scott complained hotly, fists clenched. "I trip, the glasses fall off, and boom! Goodbye, wall and windows and priceless paintings."

"Those paintings looked like shit, anyway," Logan stated in a gruff, matter-of-fact voice as he entered the dining room and sat next to Ororo. He raised an eyebrow at Scott. "Give it a rest, will you, kid? I could hear you whining all the way from the shower."

Ororo shot Logan an oblique glance, silently warning him that now was not the time for rough treatment, but he merely ignored her and speared a couple of sausages on the tips of his adamantium claws.

Scott opened his mouth to respond, but clamped it shut again when Charles Xavier chose that moment to glide into the room.

"Good morning," the professor said cheerfully. "Eat a hearty breakfast, Scott. I have a special task for you today."

The boy's shoulders slumped. "My punishment, I guess."

"There's nothing to punish you for," Charles smoothly corrected. "This assignment is simply a part of your training--- call it helping out an old man, if you will."

Wariness edged into Scott's demeanour, even as his fists relaxed. "What do you want me to do, Professor?"

Charles made his way to the head of the table and slathered a fastidious amount of sausages and mashed potatoes onto his plate as he explained. "The Greys have finally agreed to set up an appointment to discuss enrolling their daughter into the School for Gifted Youngsters. If all goes well, Jean Grey will be my second student." The last sentence was declared calmly, but with such obvious pride and enthusiasm for his budding project that Ororo couldn't suppress a small smile.

"So where do I come in?" Scott asked.

"You will accompany me to the meeting. I thought it wouldn't hurt to reassure the family that Jean will have a friend her own age at the Institute," Charles replied. "And I also want to show them, through you, that we have much to offer in helping young mutants come to terms with their abilities."

Scott began to retreat back into his tense shell. "I'm not exactly a model student, Professor," he muttered.

"Nonsense," Charles said briskly. "You've shown remarkable progress. I'm proud of you, Scott."

Instead of registering pleasure at the warm praise, the boy only cringed. "If there's any way I can help pay for the paintings---"

"There is no need. I had planned on replacing them prior to yesterday's incident. Logan was right; they did lack a certain... aesthetic value."

"Eavesdropping again, Charles?" Logan growled through a mouthful of toast.

The professor tapped his head. "It does come easily to me, I must admit."

Charles filled Scott in on Jean's background as they drove to the Greys' house. "She's a telepath, and an extremely powerful one, at that. Her ability first manifested itself when her childhood friend, Annie Richards, got hit by a car. Annie died, I'm sorry to say, in Jean's arms. Jean slipped into Annie's mind at the exact moment that life left her."

"Whoa," Scott breathed. "She actually felt her friend die?"

"Yes," Charles said gravely. "It was a traumatic experience. Jean was only ten years old, too young to cope, and was thus rendered comatose. Her parents sought the help of specialists until they found me. I was able to revive her and work with her for a bit, but it soon became apparent that her powers were evolving too fast for her body to handle them. I installed blocks in her mind so that her abilities could grow at a more natural pace, but those blocks will soon deteriorate. When that time comes, it is imperative that Jean be equipped to deal with the situation."

"So it's really important that her parents allow her to live at the Institute."

"Not just important. Necessary."

Scott sighed as he watched the road unfold through the windshield. "You shouldn't have let me come along, Professor. I'll screw this up. I know I will. I'm not a people person. What if Jean and I hate each other's guts?"

"I do not believe that will be the case, Scott." Charles glanced sidelong at his young ward with a hint of tender amusement. "She found you, you know."

Scott started. "What do you mean?"

"Before I put the blocks up, she was helping me locate other mutants with Cerebro. During one session, she sensed you. It was through Jean that I was able to keep an eye on you until your abilities manifested themselves."

"That's pretty uncanny."

"I'm surprised you don't remember."

"Remember what, exactly, Professor?"

"Her mind reaching out to you. It was a very... formidable presence." For a brief instant, the shadow of something akin to fear, akin to foreboding, crossed Charles' face.

"No." Scott shook his head. "I don't remember anything like that."

"Now that I think about it, you probably wouldn't. You were very young, then," Charles mused as the car rolled to a stop. "Ah, here we are."

John and Elaine Grey were respectable-looking folks who, despite their obvious flutters of apprehension, welcomed Scott and the professor into their home with a genteel politeness that was normal-suburban-America enough to make Scott uncomfortable. The visitors were seated and served tall, cold glasses of iced tea, garnished with mint leaves, in the tastefully-appointed living room as they waited for Jean to make her appearance.

"She'll be along any minute now," John informed them. "She was drying her hair when you arrived."

"I can't tell you enough, John and Elaine, how grateful I am that you agreed to this meeting," Charles said earnestly.

"Yes, well." Elaine smiled, tired and tight-lipped, and Scott marvelled at how all of a mother's concern, all of a mother's sadness, could be contained in that small movement of muscles. "Anything to help Jean."

John cleared his throat. "So, Scott, if you don't mind me asking, what is your, uh, ability?"

The boy tried his best not to fidget, adopting the professor's emotionless, academic tone to describe his powers. "I emit blasts of energy from my eyes. It's similar to laser beams."

"Is that the reason for the sunglasses?" Elaine asked tentatively.

"Yes," Scott answered. "The lenses are made of a special material called ruby quartz that can contain the energy."

"You mean you're unable to control it by yourself?" John blurted out. His distress made Scott want to sink beneath the floorboards.

Charles spoke up. "Scott is learning control. He's training to adjust the size of the beams and focus them in the right direction. And he's doing exceedingly well, I might add."

"But isn't that dangerous?" The colour was slowly and steadily draining from Elaine's face.

"All mutant abilities are dangerous if used in the inappropriate manner and for the wrong purposes," said Charles. "That's what the school is for--- to inculcate prudence and discipline among its students."

I'm your only student, Professor, Scott thought with despair. And, judging from the fact that the mansion currently has no frigging wall on its left side, I have about as much prudence and discipline as a coked-out elephant. He shrank deeper into the couch under the Greys' intense, wary scrutiny, resentful of being put on display like some circus freak, ashamed---

They all looked up at the sound of lithe footsteps on the staircase.

"Ah, there she is," said John, affection creeping involuntarily into his tone like warmth. "Say hello to the professor and his student, darling."

Never before in his whole fifteen years on Earth had Scott wished as fervently for full colour as he did now. He saw her in shades of red and black, coming down the stairs, every moment a juxtaposition of uncertainty and grace, a tall, slender girl with large eyes and angular features softened by the long, flowing hair that framed her face and fell past her shoulders in gentle waves. The afternoon light streaming through the windows enveloped her in radiance, as light always would, whenever he looked at her, in the years to come. Her parents stood up--- as did he, thanks to the professor's never-ending lessons on etiquette--- and her mother greeted her with a fond "Jean, Doctor Charles Xavier is here for another visit. This is his protégé, Scott."

A shy, wan smile flickered in the professor's direction, but she never quite stepped forward, as if electing to use her parents as a shield from the world. Almost hidden behind the broad curve of her father's shoulder, she peered at Scott through a veil of thick eyelashes.

"I know you," she said, and it was a half-whisper, a song, a prophecy trapped in the liquid amber of her voice, a wraithlike hello.

And that--- eerily, irrevocably--- was how Scott Summers met Jean Grey.

At pleasantries' end, the two teenagers found themselves banished to the garden while the adults resumed their discussion. Scott suspected that the professor wanted to give him time alone with Jean so that he could win her over, but there seemed to be little chance of that happening since he had absolutely no idea what to say.

The garden was a simple, charming affair. Dozens of translucent bee and butterfly wings hummed as they caught glints of the bright sunlight, which poured down in a golden syrup on the hedges and flowerbeds. Scott could no longer distinguish flowers by their colour; all he had was the shape of the petals, the pattern--- furled like roses, or splayed out like irises, or bunched together like foxgloves. He made himself comfortable in the shade of a large tree, sitting with his back against its sturdy trunk, and after a few moments Jean hesitantly joined him there.

Scott racked his brain for something to talk about. Your house is nice? Fine weather we're having? He discarded those ideas as soon as they entered his mind. He'd never been one for small talk and, given what he knew about Jean, she deserved more than that.

"Back in there, you said you knew me." He spoke in slow tones, hoping not to scare her off.

"I've seen you before," she replied. Her voice, medium-pitched and delicate, touched off inner chords within him. He reeled at this strange familiarity. "With Cerebro. The machine. I called to you, and you answered..."

"I did?" Scott blurted out before he could stop himself. Great, now she's going to be offended that you don't remember. Way to go, moron.

But she merely turned to face him, tilting her chin up so that he found himself gazing down into her wide eyes, and she laid slightly trembling fingers against the hard plane of his cheek. So simple, the gift of touch, so easily given, and yet its effects can change the world. For him, it was the sensation, the feel of her, that brought memory rushing back, in the same way that certain scents can remind you of someone you once knew.

A boy in an orphanage, looking out the window, on a night rimmed with stars and frost. A boy in an orphanage, surrounded by the dreams of other orphans, as they move and murmur in their sleep. He can't sleep because of the migraine piercing his skull, but he stifles his cries of distress because he's scared of hospitals, their coldness, their sterile smell. And so he remains a boy in an orphanage, looking out the window, trying to ignore the pain behind his eyes.

A sudden flash of light. A vague stirring in his mind, like someone poking at a fire's dying embers. Someone's voice, and a rush of white-hot heat. The faintest impression of... wings? Wings, unfolding in his head, bearing down upon him, ghost-fingers, reaching out to touch. Curious and excited, he welcomes the presence, makes contact---

And then it withdraws, it is gone, as suddenly as it appeared (and, although Scott wouldn't know this, would have no way of knowing this, hundreds of miles away a man in a wheelchair has just freed a little girl from the grips of a hulking machine, and the girl's eyes are blazing with eldritch golden light as she shrieks in a voice older than worlds, older than the race of men), and the boy in the orphanage is left alone once more, with the stars and the frost and the silence and the dreams of other boys.

Scott drew back in surprise, throat suddenly dry. "That--- that was you?" he sputtered. He'd thought it had just been a weird effect of the headaches, so he'd shoved it into the back of his mind, dismissed as something trivial and unimportant...

"Yes," Jean replied, her face draped in alternating patches of sunlight and shadows, a half-smile traced on the corners of her lips. "That was me."

"Welcome back, Professor," said Ororo when Charles returned to the mansion. "How was the meeting with the Greys?"

"It went very well, Ororo," Charles answered. "They're coming next week to have a look around the Institute before making a final decision. They're more receptive of the idea than they were before, and I take that as a good sign."

Ororo beamed. "That's wonderful news! Where is Scott? I should congratulate him on a job well done."

"See for yourself." Charles inclined his head to the window, and Ororo peered out.

Scott was standing by the professor's car, hands tucked into his pockets, staring up at the sky with a pensive expression. Light--- the mellow, flaxen light of afternoon--- filtered down through the clear air, tangling itself in the strands of his messy brown hair, playing off his high cheekbones, shining on his ruby glasses. From this angle he seemed incredibly young, but not quite, a boy caught on the verge of becoming a man.

"He's a good kid," said Ororo. "He tries so hard."

Charles nodded. "I know."

"It would be a great help if Jean came to live here. Scott would finally have someone in this large and lonely place. Not an adult or a teacher, but someone his own age. A friend."

"Indeed," agreed the Professor as he steepled his fingers. "I have high hopes for their friendship."