Scott and Jean, Sunday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Scott brings Jean something to eat while she's on shift. They talk wedding. Man, they're getting ambitious.


The latest tests looked promising. A few anomalies in the results, but nothing too worrying. Well, nothing worrying compared to the state he'd been in before. Jean was about to open the next file, but a mental nudge along the link made her pause. #Hmmm?#

"Brunch," Scott said cheerfully, appearing at the door with a tray. "I can either drop it and go," he said, "depending on how busy you are, or I can sit down and keep you company while you eat."

Jean considered the files, then shrugged. They were looking promising, and company would be good. "Stick around," she said, saving her work and closing the program. "I don't get enough time to see you these days."

"You won't get any disagreement from me," Scott said, setting the tray down on an empty corner of her desk. "And you really don't know the extent to which I've been going to amuse myself. Really. Don't ask."

Jean arched an eyebrow at him. "Oh, come on. With a set up like that, how can I restrain myself?" She waved vaguely in the direction of one of the spare seats. "Looks good," she added, taking the glass of juice.

"Not my cooking, this time. Dani's. I'm just the delivery man." Scott flopped down in the chair, regarding her assessingly. Still tired-looking, but better than she had been.

"You know, I think I could tell." Jean smiled as she broke off a piece of frybread and waved it at him. "So, are you just on fiancee-feeding duty, or is there an ulterior motive behind this visit?"

"Little bit of both. Fiancee-feeding, time with said fiancee, maybe even making plans for when the fiancee will no longer be immured in the medlab..." He smiled. "Ambitious of me, I know."

"Mm-hm," Jean said. "But hey, it's multi-tasking and it's all about me, so I think I approve. Any particular plans you were thinking about? And have -you- eaten?" she added, offering him some of the cut vegetables.

"I had breakfast," Scott said vaguely. "Coffee and... um, more coffee." She gave him a look, and he took a few carrots. "Anyway. The plan. That's what I was thinking of. The one I don't actually have a spreadsheet for."

"Right, the one you don't actually have a spreadsheet for, and haven't actually color coded the spreadsheet you don't have." She grinned brightly at him. "Ororo tried to tell me that foster sisters ranked higher than real sisters and that she should be my maid of honor. I told her she'd have to take it up with Sarah, and she dropped it. I think she's scared of my sister."

"I've been thinking about dates. Don't want Alex to miss too much in the way of classes, so, a weekend?" Scott grinned ruefully. "Only problem with late October is that we'll probably have to wait for a honeymoon. We don't have Nathan and Moira's good reason to get away right then." Theirs had been as much a sanity break as a honeymoon, Scott thought.

"Yes, a weekend makes the most sense to me. Does the University of Hawaii have a fall break?" Jean shrugged slightly. "I can deal with waiting for a proper honeymoon, but I make no promises about not needing a short holiday if things ever calm down again." Ok, that was probably a touch too dry for a discussion of their wedding. "Er... when things calm down again," she amended.

"I'll have to ask him. I've been..." Scott paused, then sighed. "He's not all that enthused. Mostly because of the situation with Lorna, I think, but also just because he's not so enthused." He tried to smile, but couldn't quite hide the edge of resentment.

"I know," Jean said, catching his hand and squeezing it softly. "I know it's rough on him with Lorna helping her family, but..." Sighing, she shook her head. "No, never mind. I shall refrain from indulging my desire to analyze your brother's dependency issues."

"Let's turn your analytical abilities towards a potential guest list, instead," Scott said wryly, squeezing back. "Because that's going to be the tricky part. How small can we indeed make it..."

"Um... Immediate family. 'Ro and Hank, and Hank will probably want to bring Maddie, at which point we really ought to invite Moira, who will bring Nate, and are you sure eloping isn't an option? You're right, Vegas is tacky, but we could run off to Mexico..."

"Elope, and have everyone annoyed at us, or have a small wedding, and just have most people annoyed at us in a slightly different way... decisions, decisions." Scott grumbled, stealing another carrot. "Why do these things have to be so complicated? I'm remembering why we never got around to doing this in the first place..."

"Because it's an important event and everybody who cares for us wants to share. Instead of, you know, wanting to let us do it our way. Oh, and there, I'm getting cynical again. I need to stop doing that." Jean leaned back in her chair with a sigh. "If we do do it upstate we at least get to use the 'there's not a lot of space' excuse. Might soothe some ruffled feathers."

"There is that." Scott brightened a little, and then, abruptly, gave her a challenging grin. "Of course, then there's the trade-off that is your mother. Not that I don't love your mother, Jean, but you just know she's going to leap on this like a starving rabid... something."

Jean laughed. "And by 'not that I don't love your mother, Jean' you mean 'your mother worries me in ways Magneto never did, Jean'. I've been talking to Sarah, and apparently she can be kept in line with threats of non-visitation rules in regards to hypothetical grandchildren, but if you've found a better location, I'm game."

"Alaska?" Scott suggested, not all that seriously. She'd see that. "Although there are far better places to get married than Alaska at the end of October, obviously..."

"It would be very cold," Jean said. "A far cry from Mexico, certainly. We could get married in Rockford. But then people would know where we go to hide out, and I worry that Moira would have better luck liberating the quilts than I've had."

"Moira is a whole lot scarier than you," Scott said, and ducked as a carrot piece came at him. "I thought we had a rule about food fights in the lab?"

"Yes, which is why I didn't let it hit the floor." The carrot came floating back, the slight wobble showing how tired she still was, but when she had it again she shook it menicingly at him. "I'm not sure which is worse, that you're implying I'm scary, that you're implying I'm not scary enough, or that you're right."

"I think I like you better only moderately scary," Scott said with a perfectly straight face. "Nathan is either the bravest man in the world or completely whipped. I haven't decided which yet."

"Or both," Jean offered, before deciding that eating the carrot was better than threatening him with it. "But we still don't have a decision. You want to come up with a starter guest list and I'll wrangle a concession or four out of my mother?"

"Well, I do have the spreadsheet all ready," Scott said. "The nonexistent spreadsheet, I mean. Maybe I'll do a few versions. The guest list we really want, the guest list everyone will expect, and then we can go looking for that elusive middle ground."

"The nonexistent, color coded spreadsheet. Yes." She grinned. "That sounds workable. And I promise not to tell anyone if you organize the second one by how much of a fuss people are likely to kick up if they're left off the final list."

Scott gave her a very long, very even look. "It's only good strategy," he said primly.

The grin widened. "And you are a very good strategist."