Current mood:

pleased

"respice, adspice, prospice" for andrastewhite
Title: respice, adspice, prospice
Author: wyoluvr
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nada
Written for: andrastewhite
Disclaimer: Jean Grey and Charles Xavier belong to Fox and Marvel, not that they've been terribly nice to them. (How many damn times can they kill Jean off, for pete's sake?). I own my computer, but just barely.
Summary: Between the events of X1 and X2, Jean and Charles chat over a midnight snack.
Pairing/scenario requested: Andraste requested either a Charles and Jean friendship fic or an Ororo fic. I hope there's enough friendship here for her *g*.
Author's Note: The title means 'Look to the past, the present, and the future' in Latin. Thanks to queenofalostart for the beta. Remaining holes and cracks are all my fault.



Jean moved silently through the halls of the mansion, her thoughts on the peanut butter and banana sandwich she was headed down to the kitchen to make and her very comfortable, though lonely bed. Scott and Ororo had left to investigate a concentration of new mutant signatures down South, so Jean had spent the sunny weekend locked up in the lab downstairs.

She was at the top of the main staircase when she heard a high-pitched giggle and saw a shadow move out of the corner of her eye.

"Hello?" Her nose wrinkled as her mind caught a distinct sense of teenager mayhem. There were few times that she truly regretted coming back to Xavier's to teach, but this was definitely the exception that proved it.

A quick check around the corner from where she'd seen the shadow revealed nothing. But she continued down that hallway, following her instincts. Again, a giggle came from further down in the shadows. Jean crossed the hall and flipped the light switch to reveal Bobby and Rogue, wide-eyed, holding hands, and standing flat against the wall.

"Um, Ms. Grey?" Marie spoke softly, dropping Bobby's hand.

Jean blinked and shook her head. "If you're going to try to tell me that there's a good reason why the two of you are in the hallway alone, hours after curfew, I don't want to hear it."

"But..."

"Robert, I don't want to hear it. Marie, I suggest you go to bed. Alone. Now." Marie cast a longing look at Bobby, but did as Jean said, stepping back and into her partially open bedroom door. Jean saw Jubilation's eyes gleaming in the darkness, as the girl waited to undoubtedly interrogate her roommate. "You too, Bobby."

"Ms. Grey, this was all my..."

"One more word and you get to help Scott in the garage. Follow me."

Jean felt satisfied as Bobby's face turned chalk-white. No one liked to help Scott in the garage. Cyclops loved her, his cars and bikes, the X-Jet, and the Professor, and not necessarily in that order. After an hour of enduring Scott's uber-anal attitude towards garage maintenance, only the more stalwart troublemakers, like Johnny, were repeat offenders.

After making sure that Bobby was safely in his room, Jean walked back the way she'd came, frowning as her tummy grumbled. The mansion creaked comfortably as she once again made for the stairs, taking them two at a time near the end. At night, sometimes, she felt as if she were a kid again, coming to Xavier's for the first time. By day, she was Ms. Grey, teacher, but at night she remembered that she'd been just like the children she now taught, once. Terrified until the Professor showed them that they weren't so strange after all.

She pushed the kitchen door open to reveal the subject of her thoughts sitting at the table, with a pint of ice cream in his hands.

Jean smiled. "Didn't your Doctor tell you to cut down on your midnight snacks?"

Charles licked his spoon before replying. "Yes, but my Doctor eats disgusting concoctions of peanut butter and fruit at midnight, just after midnight, actually, so I've decided to ignore her."

As her head was now buried in the depths of the main fridge, Jean's reply was muffled.

"What was that, my dear?"

Jean pulled away from the fridge, her booty -- the private stash of peanut butter and one perfectly not-quite ripe banana -- in her hands.

"I said 'Fine. Die of a heart attack.'"

The Professor clutched on hand to his chest. "Really, Jean, it hurts me to hear you say things like that."

Jean ignored his melodrama. In his own way, the Professor was a bigger drama queen than any girl in this school, even Jubilee. Mentally, she remembered a time not so far in the past when the Professor would regularly guilt trip Warren and Scott into doing their chores by playing up his own wheel-bound status.

Mmmmm, and it worked so well, Charles's eyes twinkled as he made eye contact with Jean. She joined him at the table and bit into her sandwich. In between bites, she spoke out loud.

"Guess who I found sneaking through the halls with their boyfriend after curfew. Again."

"Mmmmm. Peter?"

Jean raised her eyebrows, popping a bit more of her sandwich into her mouth.

"No, then. Too bad. I suppose you are referring to Marie."

"Good guess." She pushed the plate away from her and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. "Someone needs to talk to them. Someone that's not me, preferably."

"Jean, I have every confidence in you."

"To give a sex talk to two horny teenagers? Or to explain to Marie that she's headed right for a repeat of what brought her to us?"

"Both." The professor smiled, brought one last teaspoon of melting ice cream to his mouth, closing his eyes as he relished the taste of it.

"Mmmm. All the same, I think I'll see if Ororo can do something. She's a bit more earthy than I am...I think the kids see it that way, at least." Ororo is sexy and young and I'm old and a bit of a prude, Jean thought, but tried to keep it hidden. Charles didn't pick up on it, or chose not to, she thought. So many years and she still never knew what he actually heard, and what he let them all think he didn't know. Jean thought she knew the limits of his mind, but now and again, she did wonder if she knew the boundaries of his morals.

"My dear, it's not as if they're any worse than you were." Charles said, manipulating his chair backwards a few feet to reach the garbage and the sink, and disposing of the empty ice cream pint and spoon.

Jean's eyebrows shot up in outrage. "What??!! I was *never* as bad as them."

"Oh really? I seem to recall one Valentine's Day, I believe, just after Ororo, Scott, Warren, and Hank joined us. Two of our new young gentleman had latched onto you as the target of their affections."

She blushed. Oh goodness, the things you forget when you're old and almost married.

"Warren hired a full orchestra from New York City to serenade you during dinner. Scott laid down carpets of flowers and serenaded you himself-- morning, noon, and night. Elvis, if I remember correctly." The Professor shuddered. "I begged him repeatedly to stop singing, but he was quite determined to win you over."

"That was a very long time ago. And no one was sneaking out at night to make out."

"Not then, they weren't."

He had her there. It wasn't that long before she was sneaking out to sleep in Scott's room, mostly just to talk, too shy to do much else. Then, anyway.

She blushed harder, felt the color creep up to her ears.

"Thanks for the long memory. I felt like a pedophile back then."

"Hardly. That, my dear, is one of the many reasons for my existence. To remember what old friends might prefer to forget. And to remind them that there's another side to every story." His smile seemed bitter, as if he's bitten into a bad piece of fruit or something. Jean thought of the first time she met Magneto -- just Erik then -- and how he worked with Charles to set up Cerebro.

"Remember, Jean, some day you may remind Marie, or Kitty, or Peter of something. Old friends are very important."

The Professor went still, then one side of his mouth quirked up.

"Speak of the devil - Scott and Ororo are not five minutes away."

Jean put her plate and the professor's spoon into the dishwasher and turned off the lights as she followed Charles out of the kitchen. As they approached his study, she heard the X-Jet approach and lower into the hangar.

Charles had wheeled next to the fireplace, so Jean joined him, sitting on the chair opposite. Her eyes fell on a book laying on the mantel.

As if he'd heard her, Charles said, "The Once and Future King. I was thinking of teaching it soon. I believe it's quite fascinating."

"And appropriate."

The professor nodded. They sat companionably in silence until the big grandfather clock rung out 1 am and she heard Ororo speaking outside the study doors.

"...no problem, Scott, please. It's been a long night. Go to sleep."
They knocked as they entered, already out of their uniforms.

"Ororo, Scott, I'm glad you're back."

"Thank you, Professor. If you don't mind, Ororo will brief you and if there's anything else, I can go over it tomorrow morning."

"Of course, Scott. Everything went alright?"

"Yeah. The family was receptive, but the townsfolk weren't what you'd call friendly." Scott's face twisted up tight, and Jean chose that moment to cross the room, lean up, and kiss him. He softened into the touch and Jean saw Charles smile out of the corner of her eye.

"Off with you, then. Ororo and I need to chat."

As they passed, Jean touched Ororo's arm in greeting. The white-haired beauty did the same before sitting in the seat which Jean had vacated.

Jean closed the door quietly, took Scott's hand as they ambled towards the stairs. She stopped him at the base of the stairs, pulled him toward her and held both his hands.

"Hey."

"Hey, back."

He looked very tired, and very young in his worn gray t-shirt and sweats. She reached up to brush his hair off his forehead, pleased that he didn't stop her, worried that she'd knock his visor off.

She stood there for a minute, thinking she wanted to say something. That he was her best friend. That she'd missed him. That the Professor wasn't just a father figure, he was a friend. But she couldn't quite find her voice.

Come on, let's go to bed.

Words never mattered as much as actions, anyway. She took his hand and led him to their rooms, humming 'I can't help falling in love with you' as they went.