“Where’s Dutch? He finally flee all the overly nice people?” Scott asked the new man behind the bar curiously. He had been planning to get right back out but a meeting with Tann made him need a drink desperately.

He turned back to his drink, downing it and signaling for another. He heard a voice next to him requesting another round, he turned to look and “Holy shit you’re Jeff Moreau.”

The red of Scott’s glasses prevented her from making out his expression. Once, it wouldn’t have mattered. Once, Jean had always been able to tell what he was thinking, even before they’d had a psychic link. They’d never actually needed it. One look had been enough, a perfect team, on and off the field. Not anymore, clearly, if her performance in today’s mission was anything to go by. She’d just been off, a little bit behind every move the team had made, a little too slow to follow every instruction, throwing everyone off balance. “So,” Jean broke the silence eventually, looking up at him and then away again. “That didn’t go well. Maybe I’m not ready for-” She stopped. There was nothing Jean felt particularly ready for: not being alive again, not pretending everything was fine and normal, as though she hadn’t gone power mad and killed a lot of people, begged Scott to kill her, and then killed herself. Maybe that was what it came down to, in the end, like it always had for Jean: Scott Summers. Not ready for him. She was definitely not ready for him. “For being on the team again.” 

Scott smiles, the smile spreading slowly across his face, smiling so big it nearly hurts. He lets out a quiet chuckle and leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “You know, I think I’m falling in love with you, too,” he replies, the truth and ease of the words surprising him. He had given up on finding love and he was fine with that, content to spend his time single, but now that he’s found Penny, he can’t believe he’d ever felt that way.