Heyoka: Chapter 2
by Minisinoo
Notes: They're Marvel's (mostly), not mine. As for my interpretation of telepathy: common wisdom assumes that a telepath would be privy to emotions as well as thoughts. Fair enough perhaps, but there are other possibilities and I decided to use a narrower definition for my purposes here. Also, while I'm well aware that if one wears sunglasses of a particular color for long enough the vision will compensate, that assumes Scott's power doesn't modify his sight. I'm not sure it wouldn't, so in this tale, it does. In general, my treatment of the novel is thus: if it didn't contradict the movie, I used it. As for the scenes cut from the film (ala video/DVD), assume those all happened bar one: the garage scene where Summers teaches students while holding hands with Jean Grey. Whoever wrote that has obviously never been in front of a classroom. The lyrics referred to are from the album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. See Part I for other disclaimers.
Scott Summers, sometime jet pilot, military strategist, math teacher, motorbike daredevil, and current computer repairman, had more pressing things more global things to concern himself with than the mentally-overheard snap judgements of a woman he had known for less than fifteen minutes. He wouldn't even have been aware of what was going on in her head had Jean not caught him up in that damn investigative mental snooping. Jean linked him in sometimes without asking him first. She was trying to be generous, but frankly, he preferred his own quiet skull, didn't necessarily want to eavesdrop on other's random mental images. Most of the time, they were inane. And when they weren't, they could be embarrassing.
The leggy older woman who he'd sweated over with his hand at night when eighteen. And nineteen. And twenty. And . . . .
He was supremely irritated with Grace Kills-his-Horse, but angry only at himself. She'd just laid open what she'd found in his own mind at that particular moment.
No, not in his mind. Wrong head. What she'd found resided due south of his navel. But how was it wrong for a man to desire his own fiancee, especially one who looked like Jean? He'd be abnormal if he didn't. Trouble was, it embarrassed him to be normal. He'd never been normal, even before the mutation had manifested. Maybe mutants were marked out from birth with wacky psychology.
His grip on the screwdriver slipped and the philips-head scraped across the black-glaze case of the Blackbird's navigational computer. Nails-on-chalkboard noise. "Damn. Sorry."
The professor didn't respond. Probably not a good sign. Summers could feel an analysis coming.
As if on cue, Xavier said, "What goes on in people's heads isn't necessarily any more insightful than what comes out of their mouths, Scott. Just less politic."
"I know that. I've lived with both of you for eight years."
He felt, rather than saw, the professor's smile. "Grace was a bit blunt this afternoon."
"You could say that. She was wrong, too."
"She's not the only one who's occasionally blunt. Or wrong."
"I know what not to say, dammit!"
"Nor did she say it."
True. And Summers didn't respond for a moment. He had out the screws holding the cover in place, slipped them into a ziplock bag for safety and set them aside. Replacement screws for SAC jet fighters couldn't be found at the local Ace Hardware. "She may as well have said it. We all heard what she was thinking."
The professor's lips twitched. "Yes, but she didn't intend for you to. Jean was broadcasting rather loudly; we'll have to work on that at our next lesson. Ororo may even have heard it, up in the danger room."
"Christ." Summers unhooked the case and set it aside, turned his body so that he could slip in under the cockpit.
"As I said, Grace didn't realize that Jean was broadcasting, or even that Jean could hear those particular thoughts." The professor had propped one flashlight on his knee while Summers fixed two more, snake-necked, to light up either side of the now-open navigational computer. For this kind of work, he needed more light than a normal man since his gift doomed him to life in dim perpetual red.
"Maybe not," he said now, slipping the motherboard free. "But that doesn't mean I appreciate being lumped in with hormone-crazed teenagers."
"And how far off would it be?" The tone was teasing.
Summers stopped to glare though he knew the professor couldn't see it. Xavier could feel it. "At twenty-five, I think I'm a little past that."
"Sometimes I wonder if you ever let yourself live through it to begin with."
Summers didn't reply. Sex wasn't something he wanted to discuss with Professor Xavier, even to be teased gently. He remembered a line he'd read once in a book: 'Sex and sleep remind me I'm mortal.' Supposedly, Alexander the Great had said that. Summers understood. Self-mastery was the greatest conquest of all. At least Jean knew what he wanted and how he wanted it, even how often. He didn't have to talk. A hand on her hip, his face pushed into her soft hair . . . .
Stop. Steely dan was making a lump in his pants.
He took a breath and returned his attention to fried motherboard. Ah the glory of integrated circuitry. "Shit," he muttered to no one in particular. "I need some butter and maple syrup."
"Why is that?" An edge of anticipation in the voice above him.
"Because this whole friggin' thing is toast."
"Ah, Scott. What would the students say if they heard the leader of the X-Men resorting to scatalogical language and bad puns?"
"They might decide I was human after all."
"Your sense of humor is your best-kept secret."
"I have a sense of humor? I thought school legend said mine had been amputated at birth."
He won a real laugh that time, and smiled to himself where the cockpit dashboard concealed it. "By the way, tell Ororo that next time she calls up a storm and fries my navigational unit with a bolt of her lightening, she gets to fix it. I flew back by the seat of my pants."
Life with Charles Xavier negated a need for cell phones or beepers, at least around the mansion. Summers was coaching basketball late in the gym when the professor's familiar voice in his head summoned him to the med lab. He should have taken time to shower he smelled like a horse run hard and put away wet but Xavier hadn't given him time. When he showed up in the downstairs lab, he had sweat rings under his armpits and a dark stripe down the middle of his back. His hair was a mess. Jean gave him an appreciative-but-inquisitive glance. She liked him sweaty. "Basketball," he said by way of explanation as he leaned up against a far wall.
"Did you let Warren use his wings?"
"Absolutely not."
From the room's center, the professor tsked lightly, smiling. "It might be more interesting to let him. Let each of them utilize their powers."
"Interesting, but not exactly fair. Some of them have gifts the others can't match, at least on a ball court."
"Ah but dear boy, do you think any of them could stand up to Michael Jordan, powers or no?"
"Michael Jordan? He's a professional ballplayer and very " He cut off. The professor was watching him, smiling slightly, letting him complete the sentence in his head, where Xavier could hear it just as well: gifted.
"But Michael Jordan doesn't play alone," Scott added after a moment.
"Exactly. He has a team to support him. And the X-Men don't fight alone, either, do they?"
All of a sudden, he laughed. The professor was always doing this to him: backing him into a corner until he saw the absurdity of his own position for himself. If Xavier had simply told him he was wrong, he'd have been too angry to listen to why: his stubborn streak. It had put he and his father, or he and his teachers, at odds more times than he cared to count. Only Xavier hadn't been threatened, had chosen to lead him instead of forcing him, explained, not insisted. Scott had once overheard the professor tell someone, "Order him to do something and he balks worse than a mule. Ask him to help you and he'll bend over backwards and put himself out ten times over." He'd been more flattered than insulted.
"Touche," was all he said now. The professor's smile widened.
Their newcomer had been sitting on the lab's single couch, head back, clearly exhausted and apparently ignoring everything. A dark sweatshirt had been draped over her torso like a blanket. Storm had already gone to bed. It was almost nine in the evening and they'd taken a red-eye the night before. But now, Grace raised her head to stare at him. "One of your students has wings? With feathers, or like a bat?"
"Feathers." He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. "They grow from his back. At full stretch, they reach about ten feet."
"White?"
Something tipped him off. Her tone maybe. He felt himself grin. "White as Gabriel's. And blond hair, too."
She burst out laughing. "No angels in the outfield, but angels on the ball court! And they say white men can't jump."
"It's not considered polite to laugh over another person's mutation," Jean snapped.
Grace shook her head and the motion ignited highlights in hair that lacked the sheen he'd have expected of blue-black. It must be a deep brown. Over the years, he'd learned how to interpret colors from the red-black-grey he habitually saw, but he didn't always get it right. "There's a huge difference between laughing at someone and laughing at irony," Grace said. "But you want to talk about my mutation, not your Gabriel's, so go ahead."
Rising, Jean switched on the light boxes along one wall, snicked up CATs of Grace's brain, EKG reports, and other medical transparencies, began spouting medicalese until Scott's eyes crossed. The professor was following her as usual, but finally, a bit frustrated, he raised a hand. "Jean simpler, please. What can she do, and what can she not do?"
"Well, as we knew, she has a similar ability to what we saw in Logan, if not as dramatic. He could regenerate himself. She regenerates others."
"How bad? I mean, how bad can the injury be "
"I can't bring back the dead."
That from Grace, not Jean. Her voice was flat. This wasn't a joke. She didn't seem inclined to elaborate and he opened his mouth to press but the professor interrupted him. "What of the empathy?" It took Scott by surprise. He'd have expected the professor would want to know all about her regenerative capacity. It was an incredible gift, one they'd never seen until that damnable Logan had showed up with it.
But Jean accepted the redirection. "Telepathy and empathy are two sides of the same coin. I'm looking at one side, Grace sees the other. You" she glanced at the professor "see both."
"Not quite" he replied. "I see a lot of one and a little of the other."
Jean accepted the correction, glanced at Scott. "Telepaths see only mental images." He nodded; he knew how her telepathy worked, but maybe Grace didn't. "I can't feel emotions directly. I figure them out because I know what emotion a particular thought or experience would generate, or because I can sense the mental interpretation."
"What you feel and what you think you feel aren't always the same thing," Grace warned.
Jean glanced at her a hard look. "We're not a bunch of impulses, Ms. Kills-his-Horse. I, at least, am a rational woman. My mind interprets and controls physical impulses. Elementary biological psychology. Our 'emotions' are simply biochemical reactions, and the same reaction will be induced whether a situation is exciting or frightening. Our minds interpret that situation, tell us whether to embrace it or to flee. Without the capacity to reason we would be little better than animals."
Scott had never heard Jean use that tone before, certainly not to another mutant: downright patronizing. Grace's jaw had hardened and the two women glared at one another for a moment.
Good God. What had happened in the lab after he'd fled? Grace may have embarrassed them, but after his talk with the professor and his workout on the ball court, any irritation Summers had felt was drained away. He wasn't angry any more, even at himself. Jean knew what he felt; she was the one who mattered. Grace Kills-his-Horse would understand when she knew them better. This was not like his Jean at all.
Now, Grace was speaking. "I call the animals my relatives, Dr. Grey. You could learn a lot from them, if you looked up from your microscope long enough to see the world. But I think you are afraid to. I think the animal inside you, inside others, terrifies you because it fascinates you."
Jean's face had gone white and Scott had to look away to conceal the rush of strong emotion blasting through him. Not that such a gesture would do any good, with an empath.
The animal which fascinates . . . .
Grace couldn't know. She couldn't possibly know. She hadn't met Logan or witnessed Jean's reactions to him.
If Grace was aware of the whirlwind her words had raised, it didn't stop her now. "People can deny what they feel, suppress it, misunderstand it. The more rational you think you are, the more you are kidding yourself. You can't even find a word in my language that means 'objective.' My people know that it don't exist. You are not your mind, Dr. Grey. You're your whole self: body and spirit. But I doubt you believe in spirits, either, ain't it?"
"Ladies," the professor interrupted, clearly irritated, "we can debate philosophic worldviews later. May we return to the matter at hand?"
Jean and Grace held their glare a moment more before Jean returned to her transparencies. It gave Summers a good look at how his pissing contest with Logan must have appeared, a few months earlier. He didn't like the revelation. He didn't like this side of Jean, either. She was usually the one reigning him in, the kind-hearted one.
"Ms. Kills-his-Horse's empathy is directly connected to her ability to heal." Jean said now. "Not only can she sense biochemical reactions in a human body what we call emotions but she can manipulate those biochemical reactions, up to and including rapid cell re-growth. Hence, her healing talent."
Sudden revelation pierced Summers; he glanced at Grace. "If you can manipulate biochemistry, you can make another person feel something they weren't? Not simply know what they do feel? You could impose fear or confusion or anxiety in an enemy?"
She blinked as if the thought had never occurred to her. "I guess. I never have. It ain't right."
The simplicity of that reply kicked Summers right out of his strategical planning mode, but Jean wasn't so easily deterred. "Sometimes we must do what wouldn't be ethical in a more perfect world, in order to secure a more perfect world," she said, but it was calm, not cold. She sounded more like herself.
Grace snorted anyway. "The ends justify the means?"
"Not entirely," the professor replied, coming to Jean's rescue. "'Means are ends in the making.'"
"Mohandas Gandhi." Summers confirmed. The professor had it etched on a plaque hanging on his office wall. "Sarvodaya the welfare of all. But Gandhi also said, 'Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'"
Xavier smiled faintly and nodded to him. "Force should never be the first choice, but sometimes, it is necessary if the alternative is a greater evil. Not admirable, nor excusable, but necessary."
Grace had tilted her head sideways, like a bird of prey. "I won't argue with that. After all, we fought you when you gave us no choice. You were killing us."
For a moment, Scott had absolutely no idea to what she referred. When he thought 'us' and 'them,' he thought mutants versus normal humans. His confusion must have shown despite the visor, or perhaps she could feel it. "The Little Big Horn," she elaborated. "Or Saint Claire's Defeat. Or Osceola in the Everglades. Or Cochise and Geronimo. Or even Alcatraz in '69 and Wounded Knee in '73. We kicked your collective white ass every time we weren't outgunned, like the Red River War. Or betrayed by allies, like Tecumseh. Or given a kangaroo trial, like Leonard Peltier. I have no problem with fighting back. I do have a problem with broken treaties and white man lies and stolen land. Poverty that kills our children and gives our men nothing better to do than drink themselves into a stupor or knife each other in the back after pow-wows."
Rising, she stalked out. The slamming door reverberated into silence.
"Where in hell did that come from?" Scott muttered.
"Now you see what I've had to put up with all day," Jean replied, taking down transparencies and slapping them on a table. "She's here because we paid her to come. She made that very clear to me. She has absolutely no concern with the welfare of other mutants. She doesn't consider herself to be one of us."
The professor had held up a hand. "Jean. Did you give Grace a complete physical?"
She glanced around, surprised. "Yes, of course."
"So if you were to give a report for a clinical pathology conference, how would you describe Grace?"
Scott had absolutely no idea where this was going, and neither apparently did Jean. "A Native American female," she said, "age twenty-three, presenting with slight diabetes controlled by diet, ten miligrams of Glucotrol XL and twenty of Glucophage, a hairline fracture to the left arm and two to the right, now healed, some pelvic expansion showing parturition before full adulthood had been reached "
"And where is the child of that parturition?" the professor interrupted.
"I have no idea, I "
She stopped, looked at Scott.
I can't bring back the dead, the professor echoed Grace's words in their minds. "How would it feel to watch your daughter die in your arms because your family couldn't afford a phone and couldn't afford a car, and you lived two miles from the nearest person who had either one? And your gift wasn't quite strong enough? Grace was seventeen."
"We didn't cause that," Jean said, but the words weren't harsh.
"Didn't we? Not the lack of sufficient power to heal but the poverty and the rural isolation? Oh, yes, Jean, we did cause that. Little pink squares on a map, more commonly known as reservations."
Jean's back had snapped straight. "I don't believe in collective guilt, professor. If I did, I'd hold every unmutated human responsible for what happened to me, to Scott, to Ororo, to Logan, to you . . . ."
He held up a hand to stop her tirade. "I know. But you feel anger for it, do you not?"
"Yes, of course "
"So does she." Xavier sighed. "Despite her words, she doesn't see us as her enemy. But it may take some time before she trusts us, and I promise you she never will unless we make an effort to understand her and her anger however uncomfortable it may make us. There is more to Grace Kills-his-Horse than anger, a good deal more. I'll go talk to her." And he wheeled out.
Jean sighed, too, ran a hand through her hair and spoke to Summers. "I know what you're thinking."
"Do you?"
His words came out harsher than he'd intended and she blinked, started to reach out towards his temple but he pulled back. She let the hand fall; they stared at one another a minute and then she left, too. He didn't try to stop her. He was too conflicted to deal with Jean just now. He stayed a while, sifted through the transparencies discarded on a table, more for something to do with his hands than because he could make any sense of them. He couldn't have begun to say what he was feeling. Anger, certainly. He was very tired of being both white and male and catching shit for it. He hadn't asked to be born either one. Or handsome, either. He tried not to be a vain man, but he'd been a vain teen. He knew what he looked like. His vision worked perfectly, if one didn't account for a distinct lack of color differentiation.
Yet none of that altered the fact he was a mutant. He supposed it was a bit like being gay. He could make his mutation obvious if he wanted, but most of the time in his sunglasses, he passed. And if he chose to pass, he enjoyed all the privileges of being white, male, and handsome, whether or not he'd asked for it. It put him in a strange position. Social hypocrisies were more evident. But that didn't mean he liked being a minority group's punching bag just because his secret made him more willing to listen. He had a few punches against the larger society that he'd like to throw himself.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been there when the door opened behind him. He jumped, spun. Grace Kills-his-Horse seemed equally startled to find him; she must have assumed the room safely deserted. "I left my sweatshirt," she explained, gestured vaguely towards the sofa. The dark shirt still lay there; he hadn't even noticed. She fetched it, headed for the door, stopped with her back to him. "I shouldn't have snapped at you earlier. I'm sorry."
"Did Professor Xavier ask you to apologize?"
"No." She glared over her shoulder. "I was taught it was polite."
Glancing down, he waved a hand like a flag of truce. "I'm sorry. I'm just "
"Angry."
He smiled tightly. "No. Frustrated."
Her chin came up and she turned. "Angry is part of frustrated."
"Fair enough."
"You're feeling guilty, too."
"Yes." Little point in trying to lie to her.
She just nodded, turned back to the door but didn't open it. "She don't bring out the best in me, your Dr. Grey. I know she is your lover "
"Fiancee."
"Being one don't cancel out the other."
"No." But it did put a different spin on the relationship.
"She gets my back up. I'm sorry about that, too."
He wasn't sure how to respond. Tonight, Jean had annoyed him, as well. He shifted a little, a nervous gesture and was sure she could read it as such. "I've known a few people who did the same to me." He thought of Logan. "Others may like them. I can't."
But could he honestly say that he disliked Logan? When push had come to shove, the man had stood by them, played with the team, almost given his life to save a girl he hadn't known the week before. Scott could forgive much for that. Once they'd gotten past the issue of mutual respect, he'd even found that having Logan around provided someone to joke with, however black the humor they shared. Jean didn't give him that. She had passion and sweetness, and he loved to make her smile, but they didn't laugh together much. Other things bound them.
"Do I get your back up, too?" he asked Grace now, curious.
She turned, smiled at him. Luminescent. She wasn't a beautiful woman no match for either Jean or Ororo but her smile was luminescent. Pretty hair, pretty smile. "No, you don't."
"Why not? I'd think you'd like me even less."
She just shook her head. "You know how to laugh at yourself. And you feel guilt. You can feel guilt." She opened the door. "Good night, Scott-Summers-called-Cyclops." And she left.
Jean was in bed asleep by the time he got back to their room. He should wake her and ask what had happened that afternoon, apologize for shutting her out earlier -- it had been cruel -- but he just sat down on his side of the bed and kicked off his shoes, stripped and donned his sleep shirt. New York Knicks in blue and orange on white. Or to his eye, black and darker red on bright red. There was a stain on the belly where he'd spilt coffee and never been able to get it out, and there were holes under both arms, another near the collar. Jean teased him about that shirt, threatened to burn it or at least put it through the office paper shredder, but never did.
He slipped under the covers and glanced over at her. If she wasn't asleep, she was faking it well. He turned off the light and closed his eyes, exchanged his glasses for the band he wore around his eyes at night a reminder to keep his lids closed if he was startled awake. Jean had sewn it for him, put sharp-scented flax seed in the part that covered his eyes. It helped. Discomfort had been his constant companion since seventeen, a low-grade ache like a mouthsore or back pain. He'd become used to it, didn't think much about it any more. But the flax helped, felt cool and heavy.
Beside him, Jean rolled away, tugged the blankets up to her chin. She hated to sleep uncovered, would pile everything from their closet on the bed during the winter. It drove him nuts. Then there was her tendency to leave her shoes by the door where he'd trip over them, or dump clothes on the desk chair if they weren't dirty enough to wash, but too dirty to put back in the closet. He had to clear them off before he could sit down, not to mention that it made the room look messy. Sometimes she left lights on, and forgot to turn the shower knob back to the bath faucet when she was done at night so that when he started water in the morning, it hit him in the head. Of course he was getting in the shower anyway, but that got his glasses wet. Unlike most people who wore glasses, he couldn't open his eyes to see what he was doing when he cleaned them off.
And you have no bad habits?, he asked himself. This was why he didn't want to talk it out when he was angry. He needed time to get his temper under control, time to remember that whatever Jean had done to piss him off, he was sure she could name plenty in turn about him. That was the nature of love. Mutual admiration, yes. But mutual putting-up-with, too. She put up with a lot.
She turned again, or flopped really, back towards him. He found her shoulder by feel, gathered her against him. She snuggled down but didn't really wake; he didn't mind. It was better just to hold her right now. Apology by body contact. "Good-night, hon," he whispered, kissed her hair.
NPR's Morning Edition on the radio dragged them out of sleep at six-fifteen. After dressing, they arrived in the big dining room for breakfast. Sun streamed in the bank of east windows, lighting long wood tables with their complement of students eating cereal or bagels or sausage and toast. Jubilee had her usual yogurt and even two tables over, he could hear the racket from her headphones. "Money taking, heart breaking now you wonder why women hate men. The sneaky silent men the punk domestic violence men. The quick to shoot the semen stop acting like boys and be men. How you gon' win when you ain't right within . . . ."
"What is she listening to?" Jean muttered over her coffee. She never ate breakfast.
"Old Lauryn Hill."
"Is that a person or a band?" Ororo asked, joining them at the "teacher's" table, the one nearest the kitchen. They could hear the clatter of Valeria working over breakfast, a sharp protest from one of the boys who had kitchen duty, a squeal of laughter from another, then Valeria's rebuke. "Finisci in merda! Straighten up!" One of the boys yelped. Scott smiled to himself; good thing the kids didn't know street Italian. He glanced over at Ororo.
"You haven't heard of Lauryn Hill?"
"Some of us do not know every band on the radio." She reached for the honey, poured it on her toast. Ororo and honey.
"I don't know every band. And Lauryn Hill isn't exactly obscure."
"I have yet to find a band that you do not know." Ororo glanced around the room. "Where is Grace? Didn't anyone show her the location of the dining room?"
Summers could feel Jean stiffen. "Maybe she's not awake yet," Scott said. "She doesn't have to teach."
But Ororo hadn't missed Jean's reaction. She glanced from Jean to Summers, eyebrows raised. "How did the examination go yesterday?" Innocent little question. "Discover anything new?"
Jean frowned and took a sip of coffee. "Her mutation is definitely similar to Logan's. That's helpful." She'd apparently decided to sidestep the true nature of Ororo's query. "Hank could probably tell us more, but if we can find enough mutations of any given type, we may be able to map the variations possible in the gene, so we can anticipate what type of mutation might manifest in any given child. At least some kids could escape a traumatic manifestation experience." Jean's eyes slid in Summer's direction and she covered it by sipping more coffee. Then she asked equally innocently, "How was the flight back? I didn't see you much yesterday."
Ororo answered both the apparent question and the real. "It was fine. Long, but fine. I like her. I found her easy to talk to."
Before she could say anything further, John Proudstar came up to the table, a little hesitantly. "Mr. Summers?"
"What is it, John?"
"I can't find Gracie," he replied. "She wasn't in her room when I stopped by a bit ago."
"Are you sure she isn't still asleep?"
"No. The door was unlocked. She wasn't there." Then he added, "Indians don't lock their doors much." Smiled. "We don't usually got nothing worth stealing."
Summers refrained from correcting his grammar and said, "Maybe she went for a walk."
"She'll get lost."
Sighing, he pushed himself to his feet. "I'll go find her. Jean, would you carry my plate in to the kitchen for me?"
Jean nodded. Ororo glanced up. "Want some help?"
"No. You've got a class earlier than mine. John, let's go." Proudstar trotted along in his wake. Outside the door, he gestured down the hall to the left. "Head towards the gym area; I'll check in the direction of the chapel. We'll meet at the front door if we don't find her in the building."
They had no luck, met at the door and went outside. Summers was beginning to wonder if, after last night, she'd decided to ditch them all and head back to South Dakota. But then Proudstar spotted her across the main drive, out on the lawn, and pointed. She had her back towards them, sitting to face the rising sun. "You go back to breakfast," Summers told the boy. "I'll fetch her."
Nodding, Proudstar retreated into the mansion. Summers took off across driveway and yard towards her. She looked up when she heard him. "Good morning," he called.
She'd stood, wiped grass and fallen leaves from her behind. "Don't tell me. I missed the 'please keep off the grass' signs."
He grinned, brief. "No signs."
"You seemed a little worried."
"We were afraid you'd gotten lost."
"For once, no. I just wanted to be outside."
"'For once'?"
"I'm not on speaking terms with directions; 'lost' is my middle name."
"I thought Indians never got lost."
"Bad Hollywood myth."
"Ah." He sat down cross-legged next to the spot she'd occupied and leaned back on his hands, squinted into the sun. Even with his glasses, it was bright. A flaming red ball in a wine sky. Not a cloud crossed it. The line of oak, pine and cedar on the property edge was fired with scarlet. "I don't get to watch the sunrise much."
"Why?"
"I'm usually getting ready for class. Or I'm asleep."
She sat down again. "Not a morning person, ain't it?"
"You and directions aren't on speaking terms, I and mornings aren't on speaking terms."
She laughed, tossed her hair back. They sat in silence a while until she began to sing something, soft. It wasn't in English.
He glanced over when she was done. "What was that?"
"A prayer. For the morning."
Another silence. It was easy. Most of the time, when he was silent it was because he was uncomfortable. Not now. He enjoyed the quiet. No students. No Lauryn Hill. Just the wind whipping dry autumn leaves and Canadian geese crying overhead as they made their way south. It really was a beautiful sunrise.
But he had his responsibilities, and sighed. "You hungry? I meant to show you to the dining room before Valeria stops cooking. Breakfast hours end at eight. They kids are supposed to be in class by that point."
"Valeria is your cook?"
He nodded. "Valeria Placido. I think her mutation is making the best pesto this side of Genoa. Not for breakfast, of course."
She laid her head across her drawn up knees, her face towards him. "Pesto?"
"A basil-garlic sauce for pasta. Green. Looks weird, tastes good."
"Sounds very yuppie."
"Not in Italy."
"You have been to Italy?"
"A time or two."
"Is it as pretty as they say?"
"Prettier. The quality of the light is amazing and the sea. And Florence. No one should go to Italy without visiting Florence. Bella Firenze."
"I have never seen the sea."
Startled, he glanced over at her. Early morning wind off the Westchester hills blew her hair around her like a dark shawl. She had an odd profile with high forehead and wide cheekbones narrowing to a round chin, sharply angled jaw. Deep-set eyes, slanted but small. Squint-eyed. Very full mouth. It was the kind of face better described as pleasant, occasionally beautiful. Never something as insipid as 'pretty.' "You've honestly never see the sea?"
"Only in pictures. When would I go to the sea? I grew up in the Dakotas."
"If you'd like, I'll drive you there before you go home. It's not that far from Westchester."
"I'll take you up on that." She rolled to her feet then, one smooth motion. "I am hungry." And she offered him a hand. He took it, let her pull him upright. They walked back to the dining room. It was mostly empty; he took her in to introduce her to Valeria, then left them and headed to class. He was going to be late. Just outside his classroom door, he found Jean waiting for him.
"What took you so long? John told me that you found her." Her long dark cat eyes were cold and her cheek ticked with irritation.
He set both his hands on her shoulders, rubbed with thumbs over the light sweater. "I was just talking to her. The professor asked us to try to be her friend, remember?"
Her lips thinned. "She's not going to be here that long."
He tilted his head. "What is it, Jeannie? This isn't like you at all. You're always the one telling me to try to understand people more. Okay, I'm trying."
"She has a crush on you."
He actually laughed, glanced towards the door. "I need to go in. But hon no, she doesn't."
"Yes, she does."
Glancing down between them, he shook his head slightly. He'd dealt often enough with women and crushes to know that wasn't a factor here. There was something between them, true enough. But it wasn't a crush. Jean wasn't seeing things as they truly were. After a moment, he glanced up again, couldn't keep the grin off his face. "You're jealous."
"No, I'm annoyed."
" because you're jealous. And you ragged on me about Logan. Remember what you said? 'Trust me'? Okay, hon. Trust me."
She sighed in a gust. "I do trust you." The irritation faded and she smiled at him. He did love her smile. "She's not your type anyway, not any more than Logan was mine, really. I know that. I know it's silly. It's just She gets my back up."
He blinked to hear Jean echo Grace's words.
"It's like you and Logan," Jean added.
"I don't dislike Logan."
"Oh, really?"
"I don't. I did, but I don't now."
"He took your bike."
"Who do you think left it for him?"
"What! You?"
"Xavier's idea. My decision."
Her lips curved. "I'm proud of you." She closed the distance between them, her breath puffed against his mouth. They were the same height, or as close as made no difference. She stared at his lips, whispered, "Sexy man."
"Sexy woman." And he leaned in to kiss her at the same moment Bobby Drake pushed the door open to look out in the hall. "Woops," he said. He actually seemed embarrassed to have caught his teachers necking in the hallway. "I'll be in shortly," Summers told Bobby, who closed the door again.
"You should go," Jean said.
"Yes." He didn't move. She didn't move. They were still an inch apart.
"You doing anything for lunch?" she asked.
"No plans."
"Meet me by the pasture pond?"
"It's a date, sexy woman. Bring a blanket and some food."
"Fine." She leaned even closer to whisper against his mouth, "You bring a condom, sexy man." And she kissed him, light as butterfly wings. Then she was gone down the hall in a click-click of heels. He watched her hips sway a moment in her short skirt, then opened the door to enter his classroom. Whistles and claps. He blushed. "Trig," he yelled over the din. "Books. Yours. Open to page thirty-five. Who got through all seven proofs?"