The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Forty (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… squish! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and squishy for archiving/hosting! ProPhile: *glomp * Morgan: *twirls * Readers/Reviewers: Sorry for being late on updates and such lately but RL ™ kind of sucks like that. Le sigh.

Jean tried to ignore the silence but it was just too great. She had studied, overstudied if the truth be known, finished her two class projects for biology and chemistry, color coded her notes by date, subject and sub-subject, she had sharpened her pencils, made sure her pens all had ink, re-collated her notes, this time by importance for the final exam, and filled out three more applications to pre-med programs in the tri-state area. It had taken her all of twenty hours to do. She was, by her estimation, the most bored, depressed woman under the age of thirty in upstate New York. Scott was nowhere to be seen, heard or, after a brief attempt with her powers, felt. It was as if he had vanished and she knew that he was doing it on purpose. She had dodged him since moving most of her things back to the main house, even when she knew he had set Jubilee and Jamie looking for her. She had simply locked the door to her little study space eked out of the basement’s first level storage and thrown up all the mental shielding capability she had. She did not know whether to be glad or upset that Scott had not tried to contact her for almost twelve hours. _He can’t be asleep for this long… he never sleeps more than four or five hours at a time. Maybe he had to go out. But where? And with who? _ She forced herself to laugh at this idea, pushing away from the narrow table she had set up in lieu of a desk and walked to the door. Even Jono was quiet, she noticed. He had turned off his loud music an hour ago and gone upstairs and she had yet to hear him return. _Maybe he found something to do other bla blast loud guitar… _ Jean cocked her head to one side, a faint tickle in the back of her mind making her pause. It felt as if someone were trying to get to her, tell her something, but when she tried to let them in, it faded away. _*Hello? _* Nothing. _*Professor Xavier? _* Her query was met by stony silence, as if she were talking to a brick wall. She realized that she was, at least in telepathic terms. He had his shields up and there would be no breaching them. The first prickles of warning ran up her spine; the Professor always tried to remain accessible and usually made a point of either explaining why he would not be responding or at least letting it be known that he was, as Jubilee called it, in silent mode. She glanced over her shoulder one more time at her carefully laid out academic life, the work she had put into the last day and it’s emptiness compared to the guilt she felt inside, and sighed. _Okay, _ she told herself, _I’m making a choice damn it. Just… not yet. _

Scott narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. Something did not sound right. He could not put his finger on it but he knew there was something amiss. He had eschewed going to Boston at the last minute, claiming too much work to be done around the garage and at his part time job in town, but in reality, everything was just fine with the Institute’s garage and he was giving serious thought to quitting his job. He sighed and returned his attention to arranging his toolbox by size, ignoring the possible Freudian implications of it all. Jean, he knew, was here. She had not gone with the others but had stayed to work on her school things. _God damned college, _ he punctuated the thought with a viscous slam of the tool box lid. _I obviously know where I stand in the scheme of things for her. Fuck the relationship, fuck the fact we’re married, for crying out loud, some damned text book is more important than me, than us! _ He shoved the metal box towards the back of the work table and turned on his heel to stomp into the house, only to int into the object of his thoughts and desires, nearly knocking her over. “Jean!”
She staggered back, but did not complain about his lack of attention to her presence or point out that he should have heard her come in because the door from the house squeaks loudly. Instead, she looked pale and more than a little worried. “Have you seen Jono? Or Professor Xavier?”
Scott jerked his chin, surprised by her thin tone and nervous countenance. “No, why? What’s going on?” _If she wants to play this neutral, fine. _
“Come here,” she said, reaching for his hand without a second thought, turning and pulling him towards the house. He followed willingly but grudgingly, already deciding that she wanted someone to fix something, that something had broken or was on the fritz and she had only come to him right now, despite her ignoring him earlier, because she could not find the others. She led him into the rec room and stopped, pointing to the television. “Look.”
He raised a brow. “A diaper bag? What? Tabby’s here with Lucas?”
“At the screen, you dick.” She reached up and turned his face forcibly to the television.
Scott bit his tongue and paid attention to the screen. It was the local news, something which struck him as strange since it was hours before the evening news was supposed to start. “What…”
“Pay. Attention.”
There was no sound, but he did not need any to know that what was happening was beyonrangrange and terrifying. The legend at the bottom of the screen read “Massachusetts” in the station’s familiar block script. A large, white stone mansion stood in the middle of expansive grounds. Scott recognized it immediately. The one thing that was strange though, the thing that could not be explained away by natural causes or even familiar mutant ones, was the three presences on the lawn before the house. Three metal giants, stock still and overshadowing it all. “Fuck,” he finally breathed. “Fucking hell.”
“I can’t get anyone on the phone and I can’t find anyone here,” she said, her voice thin with worry. “Scott… “
“Shit… the Blackbird is gone and we can’t…” His eyes widened. “I have an idea.”
“What? Tell me!” She trailed him from the room as he headed for the Professor’s upstairs study.
He turned and smiled tightly. “You’re the telepath,” he said. “Read my mind.”