A.N.: Second chapter up!

StormyxScott: Hey thanks so much for your review and being the first and only so far! I'm super glad you loved it so far and as soon as I saw your review I was inspired and kinda excited and decided to update faster! Thanks again and hope you like!

-2-

When Scott came to, Emma's blue eyes which were always slanted a little coldly and hard with experience and cruelty, were wide open with concern and staring straight into his glasses.

In his haze, Scott giggled slightly and Emma's eyes uncharacteristically (at least for this Emma's body) hardened into a slanted glare, which was so unexpected from the young brunette girl's shy-looking face.

Her voice was still Emma's just younger, a little softer, higher-pitched and brimming with youth.

Scott thumbed aside Emma's hair behind her ear and leaned forward to the face near his own and kissed Emma's former young eyebrows, former nose, and lips.

A gruff "ahem" that came out more like a growl surprised Scott who had not noticed anyone else but the girl at his bedside.

Scott looked over vaguely at the hairy man with Jean and smiled lightly, "Ah, Logan."

That was when he noticed a very cross-looking and young Jean Grey with those emerald eyes that clashed with his old ruby sunglasses.

There were other people in the room with them now, and Scott recognized a younger less furry Hank McCoy and for some reason, a young dignified looking Warren Worthington.

Scott cocked a silky eye brow, "Worthington? What are you doing here?"

The others in the room shifted uneasily and some guffawed and Warren lifted his own brow and smirked, "What are you talking about Summers?" Warren seemed quite amused that Scott who was a couple years younger than him and much his junior was talking to him nonchalantly like they were old friends of the same age.

Hank adjourned, "Alright gang, there is much to sort out today let's get started so we can see things right."

Jean grumpily sat down at the end of Scott's bed and throughout the entire day, gave him spiteful looks and displayed her discomfort obviously every time Scott or Emma touched.

Finally, fed up with her boyfriend's behavior, Jean blurted out, "Okay, sorry do you have to do that?"

Scott looked up from fondling Emma's hand and Emma looked up as well, asking, "Excuse me?"

The adults of the room looked at their young red headed member who cried out, "Scott's my boyfriend! He can't just like, be this way in front of me, it's not okay with me!"

Warren put his hand on the young girl's shoulder, "Alright Jean, shh it's okay. Yeah do you guys mind not being so affectionate in front of Jean? After all, Scott is her boyfriend, and you." Warren directed his gaze to Emma, "just kind of barged in on our lives."

Jean sniffed and Scott looked helplessly confused.

The shock and stress finally hit Emma, who was fed up and impatient with their hopeless situation and she defiantly stood up, not tolerating this sort of treatment from a young girl who could be her student in her own reality. "Scott and I did not ask to barge in on your perfect little lives! Just this morning, we were two mature adults and our lives were fine, bloody fabulous actually! We were happy and everything was starting to be the way it was supposed to and we were in love."

Emma did not see the smile form on Scott's face for she was holding the very intense stare of Jean.

"Where was I?"

Emma cocked her head, "Come again?"

"i-in this life… It sounds as if it was like some kind of…future, the world in the future and everyone we know is in it… Where am I…in all this. Am I just there and I-I'm fine with this? With you two? I'm just there and okay without being with Scott? That doesn't seem possible. Scott-I know you say you're not the Scott I know in this lifetime, but there has to be something there, we're supposed to be forever you just said so on our date two nights ago."

The room became ominously silent and Scott and Emma shifted uneasy glances and Scott especially looked at the adults in the room uncomfortably, remembering their faces differently with a much more different and personal reaction to his relationship with Emma Frost, the new headmistress of the institute back at the world Scott knew.

How could these be the same people? How could they not be the same people he knew?

Everyone's attention turned to Emma who seemed to be struggling with opening her mouth as if she was about to say something. If it had been the perfect diamond Emma Scott made love to on a daily basis, he would not have been able to immediately see her emotions, but displayed in this young former Emma Frost, Scott could read the young and vulnerable girl easily. Her feelings were flashing across her face and body language.

He knew that she was going to save his ass and bother with all the explaining a whole former lifetime of pain and loss and everything their love had destroyed and survived. She was always the cold harsh one practical and cynical with the bitter truth, the one to do the dirty work while Scott evaded and hid.

Seeing the adult Emma's small act of sacrifice and courage form in the younger girl's demeanor broke Scott's heart, something reached inside of him, making him want to protect this young girl he was in love with no matter what age she was.

He interjected, "Jean. Y-you're not in this world… At least not the one I know… Not anymore."

How could this be? The young Jean Grey was sitting warm and living in the flesh in front of him, sitting with patient hands clasped distraughtly to her knees, and her large green eyes gazing at him so trustingly and expectantly, alive and vibrant. So beautiful, Scott could never forget the kind of beauty she had showed him. Fortunately though, he had thought he had forgotten how to be a kid until he met Emma and seeing his high school sweetheart brought back the nostalgia but did not overtake what Emma was to him.

Scott let a silly smile wash over his face, relieved in a way. This was what he had really needed, to glimpse the past again, to see Jean as he had met her, to revisit the past and know whether or not he would be okay. He was okay now and so he knew he would be okay for the rest of his life with Emma.

Scott finally gave Jean a good look. She was here and she had not even heard of the phoenix yet. She believed in their young love and she was so alive and beautiful. Something tore at Scott's heart, leaving a piece flapping open and bleeding freely. Knowing that this face he had known and loved, this young face blossoming with life would soon be buried under the school grounds angered him. It was so unfair she was so young and she was this once, not a fiery bird monster, she was just his Jean and she wanted to be his forever.

The usual insecurities and guilt did not nag at Scott, but the pain in knowing her fate hurt more than the actual loss had. What would she do now? Scott knew in his heart it could have been forever, but he knew also that even if this young Jean Grey were to grow up and keep growing, that he would live the rest of his life with Emma by his side.

Jean stared hard at the young Slim and without breaking eye contact, asked, "So. We broke up? And you left me…for…her?"

Jean looked almost quizzically at Emma in her preppy clothing and straight brown hair. Her clothes were dull but her blue eyes were piercing. But she was so conservative and prude-looking! What a nerd! Even now and then, Scott could see what Jean was thinking. She was laughing inside almost hysterically, that this plain Jane from New England would grow up to steal away her gorgeous Scott from her own gorgeous self.

Scott shrugged sadly, "I didn't mean we broke up and you aren't in my life… I mean you aren't in that life at all… The Phoenix, this life force. It-it took over and…well a lot happens, Jean. You were too powerful and you had to be-you had to be put down."

Scott looked the young Jean in the face sadly who stared back with a broken connection to him and sudden hidden understanding. "But how could you? I died and you moved on so easily? That's not like you at all Scott!"

It was like a scene from their youth, them sorting out their earlier years and the fights, it was just like that and he felt his old self rush back in and his young hormonal blood boil. "It's not like that Jean! We were married, I loved you more than anything and I gave so much of myself to what we had, it was the hardest time of my life. The worst feeling comes with burying your dead wife! You don't know yet how it is, you can't base everything you know about what I used to be like on who I am now. As I said, things happened, s-something happened to me and I changed. I am definitely not the same Scott you know now, especially with the years that have passed. I wish I didn't have to say these things to you, you're too young to handle this and it isn't right you should know it, but I know you will catch my thoughts anyway so I thought you should have the truth from me."

Scott felt Emma's small hands grip his reassuringly and tore his gaze away from his teen love.

Hank tore in, "When the Professor gets back from his seminar in Miami I suppose we will have a conference and checkups. For now, I know Scott has been our leader but…I think we should wait for further instructions upon the professor's evaluations."

Scott nodded grimly, "Of course full evaluations and tests are definitely required I wouldn't expect you to allow anyone on board without knowing they are trust worthy."

Scott was about to pat Hank comradely on the arm, but realized this was not the same man beast he knew but an older middle aged man beast who was supposedly his instructor not colleague and apparently they did not share a friendly relationship, merely respectful.

Hank turned to Emma seriously, "As for you young lady, we have located your family and spoken with your parents on the phone, they will be here in the morning to pick you up."

Emma arched a brow and muttered, "Really? They're bound to send a chauffeur instead I bet."

Scott grabbed Emma's arm and protested, "Absolutely not! She is not leaving my sight we cannot be separated." Jean looked away out towards the window.

Warren chuckled at the younger boy's manly chivalry and devotion.

Hank calmly placated the young mutant, "Scott, I know where you are from you are the leader and a full grown man in charge of the entire institute, but for now here you are a seventeen year old boy and yes you are our team leader but you haven't gone beyond that yet. Please understand it is hard to take you seriously when you have yet to even grow hair on your chest! Emma is not the same headmistress either; she is a young girl under her parents' custody until she is eighteen. Mr. and Mrs. Frost are under the impression that 'rebellious little Emma' has run away once again with a dashing reckless young boy to New York from Boston, and we will keep that impression, alright? We cannot let them know about the Xavier Institute."

"Why not? Emma shouldn't leave and her parents should know! Emma's a mutant, one of the best telepaths, after you of course, Jean. She is a mutant her parents are allowed the knowledge of this facility, if the rules haven't changed in the past?"

Jean broke in, "No, she can't stay with us! Scott is that what she told you? She is not a mutant, she's a normal human, she has no powers, I scanned her mind and checked cerebro and she doesn't come up. She's powerless."

Scott looked disbelievingly at Emma who looked up slightly ashamed, "I-I noticed that I had not been able to read into anyone's heads…I figured it was because we were in different terrain, that we were just in an alternate reality where my powers won't work. I can't change my skin, I can't hear anyone's thoughts my own bloody ones."

With a sigh, Emma mumbled, "I-I'm stuck in this bloody body in this bloody fucking universe where I'm stuck in this drab little girl in horrible prep school cardigans and I have no powers because my abilities didn't peak until my eighteenth birthday and I'm perfectly ordinary!"

Emma's young face contorted into an expression that resembled crying. Scott cupped her face instinctively and reassured her, "You're not ordinary, you never will be, to me you are the universe."

Emma returned Scott's cold gaze with watery blue eyes which quickly dried and hardened. She quipped after tearing her gaze away from Scott's young guant face, "Yeah…can we fuck in here?"

A.N.: Please be considerate and review! Thank you.