"What do you think?" Ororo continued to gaze uninterrupted into her water glass. Jean nodded to herself and leaned in close to her best friend. "I'm breaking up with Scott... he said he was madly in love with you."

"What?!" The white haired beauty snapped out of her reverie and glared at Jean. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing." Jean smiled and took a sip of her wine. "What's got you so introspective. You haven't touched your veggie burger."

"Not hungry." She shrugged and moved the burger to the other side of her plate, nosing a fry to the blue table cloth below her crystal plate.

"Not quite what I asked, now was it?" Jean flipped her hair over her shoulder, straightening the toupe corset that laid over the billowy white blouse she wore. Ororo huffed and pulled the sunglasses out of her quaff of hair, sliding them into her slim tube purse hanging on her chair.

"Look heifer, I don't want to get into this right now."

"Bullshit. I don't care, you're going to tell me. Roche called this meeting, so that means there is another mission. I need you there one hundred percent. If not we're risking our lives-"

"I know Jean. You don't have to give me the whole "if you lose focus" routine. I made it up remember?" Ororo sighed and twisted her pearl necklace around her slim finger.

"Then what is making you trip?" Jean watched her best friend twist the amethyst ring around her finger, matching the sleeveless purple velvet dress that draped down to the ground, silver sandals peeking from underneath the hem.

"It's a man."

"Thank god it wasn't a woman, although at this point, I would be grateful for anything for you." Jean smiled sweetly. "Continue."

"Thank you ever so much. I don't know Jean. At the beginning of all of this, I knew where Remy and I stood. He was the blackmailer, I was the blackmailee. That was it. He was the bad guy and I was comfortable with that."

"But then..."

"But then he just decided to show me this stupidly nice side to him... a side I could live with, and then... the lines became blurred, and I don't know what to do."

"Well, you've told him how you feel right?"

"Yes."

"And he feels the say way?"

"Of course... this is me you're talking about." Ororo raised and eyebrow and smiled glancing at a handsome man across the restaurant and getting a raised champaign glass in return. "It wasn't that, it was the fact that I was thinking about bringing someone into my life again. I don't have the best luck with men."

"True. But you must step lightly." Jean checked her nail polish absently, sighing and raking her hand through her hair.

"I know. This would be so much easier if it didn't involve Logan."

"If what didn't involve me?" Logan grinned yet again around a cigar, sitting down and placing his fedora on the table beside his place setting.

"None of your business...speaking of which, lets get down to it." Jean straightened. "What is it this time? The Crown Jewels of England?"

"Hardly. I'm not in antiquities right now." He pushed a small card over to Ororo, and picked up the menu.

"Worthington Technologies?" She asked, her heart beating a little faster.

"Yes ma'am."

"Which branch?" Jean asked, biting the inside of her lip.

"The Pennsylvania headquarters. Get familiar with it. Don't want my prized girls getting caught now do I?"

"That's all a woman is to you, a trophy." She smirked, signaling for the check.

"Besides the point. Please, let me get that for you." Logan dropped a Ben Franklin on the table and rose. "I want it done in two days." Without another word he walked out, under the gaze of the two women.

"Worthington." Was all Ororo could say. "Why Worthington?"

"It just makes sense. Something isn't shitty until it's completely shitty." Jean stood and gathered her purse, sliding her tan tinged glasses on her nose. Ororo agreed, and both left, noticing the nondescript man watching their every move.

~*~

After a while, Jean frowned and looked over her shoulder. "We're being tailed." She said with slight surprise. Ororo took out her compact and aimed it over her shoulder, watching the white car trail about three cars behind them.

"And how do you know?"

"Because it takes the same turns that we do, stays in the same lane, and is always, I repeat always, three cars behind us. That's more than coincidence and you know it."

"I wonder if it has something to do with the man in the restaurant... he was staring kind of hard through his glasses... very dark, as if he were blind or something. That's what everyone thought at least. I'm guessing it worked for his advantage, because no one could accuse him of staring, thus giving him the opportunity to glance around without being noticed." Ororo slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked at her friend. "Remember when Logan left he nodded at him? Our blind man wasn't blind at all, and I think I know what he was doing... what do you want to bet that he is also the driver of the car that is following us?"

Jean raised a rust colored eyebrow and smiled. "Logan has hired someone to follow us? Why?"

"I don't think it's us. If it were he would have hired someone before now. He's watching me... and Remy."

"Why? I mean, I think he has something better to do than to follow the love lives of his employees." She cocked her head and thought. "Hm.... although that would fit seeing as how we're being blackmailed and Logan holds all the keys... Logan and Remy."

"I don't need Remy to get out of this. WE don't need Remy to get out of this." Ororo paid the cabbie and they exited the car, walking quickly up the stairs to the lobby of their apartment. Jean looked at the street through the glass in the door, and watched as the white car rolled past slowly, then speeded up to find a parking space.

"Yes, but do you really think Logan knows this? You're a woman. Women are conniving, thieving individuals who use their looks to get out of all that is menial and character building in the world. We can't lift a finger without finding a way to bat an eyelash to get someone to do it for us."

Ororo sighed, and in a building overlooking Central Park, Remy echoed the exhalation. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the file yet again. Jean and Ororo were to break into the Worthington Technologies Corporation Building in Philadelphia. Nothing big, nothing they couldn't handle. Nothing they hadn't done before. But Worthington made his money by selling security technology to companies. Why wouldn't he have the very best for his own company?

Ororo and Jean could do it. He knew that, but it was his job to tell them what they would be retrieviing. He didn't look at it as stealing anymore. Retrieving from a certain spot and placing it in another one was more like his line of work. But sometimes it was harder to liberate merchandise. That's what made it exhilarating.

Remy walked over to his desk, shoes making no sound on the Queen Anne pattern on the hardwood floor. In almost one motion he picked up the phone and dialed Ororo's number.

Once...twice.. "Hello?" Unmistakable. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Ororo?"

"Remy." It wasn't a question, and the smile that crept into her voice was warm.

"I have to meet with you." He felt her mood change on the phone.

"Of course." Her tone was formal, almost cold, and he winced. It couldn't be helped.

"I'll see you about nine, your apartment?"

"That's fine. I'll be waiting for you." 'Is that a promise?' He thought, but it went unsaid.

"Okay. Until then chere." The click was like a knife licking it's blade against the skin of his chest. Sharp and quick. No nothing... Until then.

~*~

It was apparent from the look on Jean's face that Ororo was a little short. "What?!" She asked, placing the phone back on the receiver and turning to see what could be eaten in the fridge.

"Let me guess who that was. Remy?"

"Yes." Ororo contemplated. A salad with grilled tofu or a veggie sandwich. Decisions....

"What did he want?"

"Another meeting. He has to tell us what our target is." Reaching for the bread and the condiments, she rifled around for her mushrooms and sliced red and green bell peppers.

"When will this meeting take place?" Jean's stomach growled as she walked to the kitchen, taking four pieces of bread and toasting them.

"In about five hours. Give or take a few minutes." Jean furrowed her brow, thinking.

"Nine?"

"My, and to think, they weren't sure you were gifted."

"Sounds like a date."

"Walking to the mailbox and running into an old flame is considered a date to you, isn't it hon?" Ororo smiled a quick, fake smile to her best friend and brought out the Boars Head honey mustard and the veggenaise, making room on the counter for the pickles, lettuce, tomato, and onion.

"No. What makes you think that that man that followed us isn't watching us right now? Logan wouldn't be so suspicious when we meet in a public place. Not at nine at night, and where was it he wanted to meet?" Ororo pursed her lips and slathered on the condiments on the bread.

"Here."

"Oh hell no. What if Logan decides to just end it, and that's it? It's over for our parents. It's over for our sisters, and it's over for us. You can't be with Remy if we're dead. Just wanted to remind you." Jean piled the sandwiches high and placed them on plates.

"I know that Jean. It's just...I'm not going to show Logan Roche that I'm afraid of him. I refuse to. I'm not afraid of him."

"Fuck, prudence isn't cowardice. I know I'm supposed to be the reckless one in the group. But I can see some things you can't. You have to keep a level head. And since you haven't, it falls to me. Babe, get it straight. If you really want to be with him, be with him. But everything in it's cycle. You've always said that right? Everything in it's cycle? Right now, lets concentrate on getting this done, and done right, so our family isn't hanging in the balance. It's like a cloud over my life. I look at Scott as if I might not see him again. I call my mom just to make sure she's still breathing. I took a trip up to Harvard to make sure that Jenna was safe. I don't like doing that. They're my family, and because of me, I'm checking to see if they're still alive. Does that seem right to you?"

Ororo had stopped cleaning and gave Jean her full attention. Shaking her head slowly, she said, "No."

"I'm glad you realize. 'Ro, Logan and Remy are responsible for the mess we're in. We need to get out and get the hell away from Roche, and if Remy wants to come, is able to come, then by all means, join the party. But until then, don't forget whose side he's on... or you for that matter." Without another word Jean picked up her sandwich and went to her room, leaving Ororo to think in silence. What she said was true, but it wasn't that simple. Ororo was always the one thinking in black and white, but when tested, it wasn't that simple at all. She was always told that, but never believed it. Until now.

You shouldn't love someone who puts your family in danger. That is the action of an insane person. You can't love someone like that. But god help her if she didn't feel her heart soar at the sight of him walking into a room. But what if it were all just some sort of danger kick? Anyone she felt was superior to her she had an attraction to... until she realized they were worthless. Maybe that was what was happening now... or perhaps she had actually found her match.