Galatea

Galatea Chapter Thirty Seven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch, Uberbeta, I dub thee fire goddess as well. ;) InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, and Dracena get purple muse sparkles for archiving/hosting. ProPhile gets...something...I need to think of later, LOL. Morgan: *GLOMPS GLOMPS GLOMPS * Readers/Reviewers: *swoon * Danke!

"Well, if it bothers you so much, why don't you have Heather do it instead?"
"Jean, stop it!" He leaned against the door so she could not leave. "Heather isn't anyone important!"
"Oh, great. Makes me feel good..."
"Read my mind."1
"No," she protested stoutly, using all her mental and physical e toe to pull him away from the door.
"Come on. It's the easiest way to end this bullshit. Read my mind."
"No!"
"Then you *want * to fight?"
"No," she snapped, "I want you to tell me who Heather is, why you've been sneaking around and...and...what's that?"
"Your necklace," he sighed, letting the chain dangle from his fingers. "I accidentally broke it when I was moving stuff around your dresser. The chain was so fine, it just snapped..."
She took it gingerly from his fingers, seeing it was whole and not even md wid with solder. "Why were you moving stuff around?"
"I was looking for your ring."
"You took it?"
"If you'd just scanned me days ago, you would have known."
She narrowed her eyes at him, automatically slipping the necklace on over her head. "Scott, what the Hell is all this t? t? You've let me stress myself out past what is even remotely healthy, I nearly failed a biology exam because of this shit and you see me freaking out that someone here might be a thief and you don't say anything? And who the fuck is Heather?"
Scott was actually surprised at Jean's invective. He swallowed a lump of dread at her temper and said calmly, "Heather is someone I met in Bayville who offered to help me out."
"Help you out? Is that what it's called?" She had a clear path to the door now but found she could not make her feet move. She could feel him trying to reach out to her mentally but she shook it off. Jean had an absurd urge to drag this out the old fashioned way.
"Jean, stop freg oug out, okay? I wanted to surprise you so I took your ring to have actual stones put in but then I broke the necklace so I took it to get fixed, too,2 and then it took so long to get the ring done and I didn't want to tell you..."
"Who's Heather?" she repeated, not softening in the slightest.
"She works at the student travel agency at Bayville College.3 I met her when I went to return your intro to nursing textbook for you last week."
Jean exerted her entire will not to read his thoughts and feelings. A perverse part of her mind was insisting she do this the hard way, not pry and maybe find out more than she could ever want to know. She wanted to hear it from him, not take it from him. "And?"
"And the Professor is paying me to keep up the cars and stuff here and I'm working part time in town so I thought you might like to go somewhere during your spring break since we didn't go on a honeymoon."
His words did not have the desired effect. Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned and she crossed to him in three long strides, pressing an accusing finger against his breastbone. "Scott, I love you very much, more than you can possibly understand but what the Hell made you do something stupid like that?"
"Like what?" he cried, properly outraged. "Something nice for my wife?"
"Maybe I liked having fake stones in my ring, ever think of that? Maybe I thought it was sweet and would remind me of how we started out like this! And sneaking around, making me worry..." She stepped back and shook her head. "I have to take a walk. I need to cool off before I say anything else..."
Scott stared, agape, as she strode from the room, the front door slamming behind her a moment later. "What the Hell?"

Kurt eyed Kitty as he slid into the seat across from her. "What'd the Professor want?" she asked as she flipped through the pages of her chemistry text.
"Figured out what's going on with Jean's jewelry."
"What did he need you and Remy for?"
"Ah, that was for...something else..." He flushed slightly under his fur. The Professor had caught wind of the plans of the male contingent and rewarded their tired plot with a stern warning. Showing affection is fine, he told them, but the first attempt at an over the top gesture would be considered as a plea for an extra Danger Room session at dawn every day for the following week. "Katzchen, can we talk?"
"Sure," she said brightly, shutting her book. "I can't really keep my attention on homework anyway, what with worrying over Amara's visit and all..."
He frowned. He had heard something Rogue said to Amara not less than an hour before and he had hoped Kitty would bring it up herself first. "Ja, about that...um, did you, er, do something for her?"
Kitty froze, her eyes taking on a wild, startled look. "What do you mean?"
"I was porting back from the boathouse and came back in the dining room. Rogue and Amara were putting away the silverware and I heard Rogue say something..." He checked himself, reing ing his was babbling. "Kitty," he blurted, "did you do something illegal?"
_Moment of truth, _ she thought. _ I can and and say no, get caught and have a huge fight or tell the truth and have a huge fight. _ "Yes," she said finally. "I did. I falsified government documents so Amara wouldn't get kicked out of the country. "
"Ah..." He leaned back in the chair and assumed a carefully neutral expression. "I thought you had given up your schemes..."
"This wasn't a scheme. This was a mild bit of hacking and some fast footwork with a laser printer. This was making sure Amara didn't get locked in some federal pen for the rest of her life when they find out not only is she here illegally but her entire homeland doesn't exist. This was," she heard her voice rising in her own ears and found she did not care, "this was helping a friend!"
"I know," he said quietly. "And I'm glad you did it."
"Huh?" She sat back, surprised. She had expect some protest of her actions, at least a token chiding. "Did you just say you were glad?"
"Ja..." He leaned across the table and capd hed her hands in his. "Katzchen, I've been....unforgivably rude to you these past few days." He paused and seemed to be trying to think of the words carefully before he said them. "I was upseout out the piercing because to me, it's like violating your body for the sake of appearance. And I love your body without extra holes in it, or without your ribs showing or even without all the stuff you put on your face when we go out."
"Make up, . I. It's make up."
"I know, I know... And I got upset about you making plans because, well, I was ticked already about the navel thing and it just sort of boiled over to that. I worry when you do things like what you did for Amara. Do you know what would happen to you if you got caught? I looked it up...Kitty, I don't know what I'd do if you got sent to federal prison!"
"Visit me on weekends?" she suggested blithely, feeling the slight tremble in his hands. "Kurt, I'm not going to get caught..."
"You're very smart, I know, and very good at the computer thing, but you never know, Kitty..." He sighed and kissed her hands, first the tops, then the palms. "I just have one thing to ask of you..."
"What's that?"
"Promise me that, next time you do something drastic, you'll give me some warning..."
"I think I can handle that." She smiled and pulled him towards her, rising to meet him halfway and offer a kiss. "Kurt, there's something you should know."
"About Piotr?"
"Um, yeah..."
"We'll talk later," he smiled. "Right now, I need t hel help Jamie with some homework. Do you think maybe you can sneak over tonight?"
"That can be arranged," she giggled.


1 Yeah, kind of like in X1 with Logan and Jean there.
2 I have a feeling this was one of my more transparent plotlines, lol.
3 The university I went to had an office for a travel agency and so did the first grad school...*shrug * o Iso Istanbul cheap.