Jean and Scott have dinner

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

It was dinnertime, Jean's stomach had informed her, but rather than going down to the kitchen she headed upstairs. Jean had a Plan. She tapped on the door frame of Scott's office before leaning in and grinning at him. "Working?" she asked, pretty sure of the answer before she asked it.

Scott looked up from his computer. "No," he said with a perfectly straight face, "I'm browsing eBay. There's a vintage Star Trek tricorder prop I've had my eye on for a few days now..."

Her smile widened. "Oh, excellent then. Since you're not busy, let's go get dinner."

Scott looked thoughtfully at the scenario file he had open on his computer, then saved it and closed it. "Fresh air would be good," he agreed. "Let me grab my coat..."

"You will have to tell me if there are any good new places to go," she said, stepping back as he came out of the room. "Or we could just go to that little Italian place."

"Hmmm... there's a new Mexican place I've been wanting to try," Scott said, leading the way to the garage. "In the mood for something spicey? I promise not to do anything embarassing with a sombrero."

"Spicy sounds good, but I'm holding you to that promise. Also, please remember that it is no one's birthday and the singing is always terrible and not worth the laughs. Especially since Hank's not coming."

Scott laughed all the way to the garage. As they pulled out and onto the road, he grinned sideways at her. "You're never going to let me live that damned birthday party down, are you?"

"Not planning on it, nope. It was traumatizing, really. Especially the bit when they dropped the cake on Ororo's head. I thought she'd have an apoplexy." Jean grinned. "Also, I continue to resent the implication that I had anything to do with the waiter tripping. The chair did not move."

"We didn't practice our innocent looks well enough beforehand," Scott said mock-wistfully. "They didn't buy them."

She snickered. "Can't imagine why not, with you boys unable to stop laughing for more than half a minute at a time."

"There's a reason I'm a pool player, not a poker player," Scott said with a laugh. "As for Hank... well, Hank is Hank."

"Truer words were never spoken. I'm still not sure how he managed to talk Charles into not confining us to the grounds for the next year."

"Hank always has had a way with words," Scott said. "Which has occasionally been a very, very good thing." He sped up a little, staying within the speed limit but wanting to give the car a bit more of a run.

"And occasionally a very bad thing, particularly when he decides to talk the rest of us into a bet." Jean smiled as the twilit scenery flashed past on the familiar path to town.

Scott made a mock-mournful face. "He started with me when I was young and innocent, remember?" Although he hadn't been particularly innocent, even when he had been young.

Jean raised an eyebrow at him. "If you were so innocent, why did you always help him talk me into things with such enthusiasim?"

"Uhh... you all corrupted me fast?" He took the next right, slowing down a bit as they hit more traffic. "I was all impressionable, see, and between Hank and his talking fast and you and your rendering me speechless with a smile..."

"Ah, so it was all our fault?" she asked. "I seem to recall at least a few of our stranger escapades were definitely your idea." She glanced out the window, smiling as the familiar streets went past. "Looks like they finally opened something in the old pizza parlour building."

"A Vietnamese restaurant, actually. Not too bad - we'll have to try it another time." Scott smirked a little. "It's not been heavily patronized by anyone from the school so they won't cringe when they see us coming."

"Excellent. I'm always for not being feared on sight. So, tell me about this tricorder on ebay you were looking at?" She grinned at him.

"I thought it might be a good gag gift for Hank at some point," Scott said a bit sheepishly. "It was a medical tricorder, and you remember the old joke..."

Jean laughed. "Oh, I think it would be perfect. Do you still have the list of 'He's a doctor, not a...' lines? Or Ororo might."

"I still have it somewhere. I keep everything, you know." Scott fell silent, remembering just how often he had gone through all that he had kept, after Jean's 'death'.

"I know," she said softly, feeling his thoughts turn to darker things.

No letting the mood take a nosedive, Summers. They were at the Mexican place even as he was struggling to think of a cheerier conversational topic, and finding a parking place provided a helpful distraction. By the time they were inside and seated - it wasn't busy, which he appreciated - inspiration had hit.

"I think I'm going to Alaska in June," he volunteered.

Jean smiled, the menu open before her. "Sounds good," she said. "Summer holiday to Alaska will get you a lot of sun." She'd seen the note in his file about that, and been sort of amazed that they'd never realized it before.

"Phillip and Deborah invited both Alex and I up for the Midnight Sun festival." Scott paused. "I thought... you might want to come and meet them? Maybe?" He didn't mean to sound so tentative, but he didn't know whether this was rushing things or not. "I mean, I'm not absolutely sure I'm going. Or at least going for very long. It depends on what's going on by then..." Okay, now he just sounded like an indecisive idiot.

Jean's smile blossomed into a full on grin. "I would love to meet them. It sounds wonderful. They sound wonderful. And if the work tries to conspire to keep you from going on vacation I'll be happy to... well, stop it from doing that." Although she was less sure how she could do that these days.

"They have, uh, baby pictures. Just to warn you," Scott said, hiding behind his menu. "I look sullen in most of them. It's really kind of appalling."

Her eyes shining with delight at the thought, Jean managed to keep her voice at least somewhat restrained, although her mind was pure glee. "Somehow," she said, "I don't think 'appalling' is the word I would aply to them."

"No," Scott said mock-dourly. "Of course you wouldn't." He could just see her and Deborah cooing over them. Actually, that wasn't a displeasing a mental image as he might pretend it was.

"There is no such thing as an un-cute baby," Jean informed him, "even a sullen looking one." The waiter came by just then to take their orders.

Scott opted for a couple of the more authentic dishes on the menu, then waited until Jean had ordered her dinner and the waitress had vanished, promising to return with their drinks, before he went on. "Alex was an adorable baby. I, however, was sullen. Unsmiling, at best."

"This will have to be seen to be believed. Somehow, I suspect that even if you were sullen, you were still a cute baby."

"It was strange to see them," Scott said reflectively. "There were lots more than just baby pictures. I think the latest of them must have been just before the plane crash..." He shook his head. "Didn't really jog my memory much," he said regretfully.

Jean reached out to rest her hand on his, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "But now, at least, you have your grandparents, and their stories. And... does Alex remember?"

"More than I do, at least," Scott said quietly. "I'm glad for that, you know. A little jealous," he confessed with a brief smile, "but glad. And Phillip and Deborah do have a scary, scary number of stories to tell..."

"I can imagine. Most grandparents do. My mother wants me to come up for a weekend so I can catch up on hers. Well," she added after a slight pause, "and so she can see I'm back for herself."

"Think of how well it went with Sarah," Scott suggested, taking a sip of his water. "It's going to be okay, Jean. I'd offer to come along, but then, your mother never particularly liked me..." He gave her a crooked smile.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "It'll be all right. Honestly, I'm almost more worried about going off the grounds than about seeing them. I mean, am I really up for it, or do I just wear the inhibitor, or what?"

"Probably better to be safe than sorry? If you feel you're handling it well, you can always switch it off," Scott said, eminently practical as always. "And speaking of weekends away... do you have a date to the wedding, Doctor Grey?"

"Yes, that's true. Would probably be very good idea to have it on while driving or in crowds, anyway." She blinked at his question, then grinned. "Why, no, I haven't, Mr. Summers."

"Well, can I request the pleasure of your company, then?" He smiled. "Sounds like it's going to be quite the event..."

"I'd be delighted, and it does, indeed, sound like the wedding of the century. I'm going to see if Ororo wants to go shopping. The massive excursion people seem to be planning seems a bit... overwhelming."

"I'm sure the two of you will have fun making it a two-woman expedition," Scott said with another smile. "You always did..." Especially the times that they had managed to drag him along. Of course, he hadn't always enjoyed those occasions...

Jean laughed at that thought. "You never complained when we played fashion show, though, particularly not during swimsuit season."

"Do I look like an idiot? That was the only compensation that made it all worthwhile," Scott said firmly.

"At least we did make it worth your while, then. But I think we're both past the age where we need our own personal boy for opinions, and we can surivive without a packhorse, so you're safe."

"I'll just admire the results, then." Their dinner arrived, and Scott made an approving noise at his. "Looks great, doesn't it?" he asked as the waiter smiled and retreated. "I'm starved, too. I didn't eat lunch." Or, come to think of it, breakfast.

"Insert standard 'don't skip meals, it's bad for you' lecture here. This smells too wonderful to lecture, especially since you already know them all. One of these days I'll write new material but for now, dinner." Jean smiled as she started on hers. "Oh, and it tastes just as good as it looks."