Title: In My Head
Author: Phoenix
Email: x_x_phoenix_x_x@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Scott and Jean don't belong to me.  Marvel
doesn't belong to me.  But the sap...ahh, yes, the sap
will always be mine. 
Pairing: Scott/Jean
Rating: R
Warnings:  Nothing scary graphic or anything, just a
mention or two
Archive: None, yet.
Series/Sequel: None planned.
Summary: A post-Apocalypse Scott Summers muses on his
deep connection with his wife, his unvoiced needs and
fears.
Dedication: Kiba, my Scott inspiration!
Notes: Scott's POV, sap warning *grin*  Feedback,
please!! :)

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There's a warmth in the back of my head, the kind of
heat that reminds you of summer days long past or
crackling fires in a dead winter freeze.  It wraps me
up in its golden-amber glow and I bask in it, in all
the glory my love's light can bring me.
Having her always in my head is a welcome intrusion,
even when she accidentally stumbles across a fleeting
thought I'd rather keep to myself.  Sometimes she's
like a sweetly thoughtless child, running around in my
head like it's a candy store.  You should see that
woman at Christmas--she tries to sneak surprises out
of my head while I sleep.  She's relentless, and it
makes me laugh.
The few times, since the inception of our bond, that
we have been mentally separated were the loneliest and
longest moments I've ever spent.  It had taken me a
long time to grown accustomed to her constant
presence, getting over the feeling that I was being
watched.  It unnerved me at first, to be close enough
inside her head that I could experience first-hand the
awesome, untapped power simply waiting to be unleashed
as time marched on.  I thought I'd never get used to
having her there, until one day when she wasn't.  It
was torture.
I missed the redhead in my head.
For days, weeks, months after the Twelve, she was
still there--faint but present, the tangy sweetness of
her lingering on my lips, the perfume clouding the air
around me, the velvet brush of her everyday thoughts.
Her grief.
Knowing she was grieving for me, for my death, was the
knife that twisted in my heart, the heart I had hidden
away with my humanity.  If he had found them, I would
surely have been dead.  My body would have walked on,
a monster wearing my face, but the things that make me
Scott Summers would have been gone.
I missed her more keenly then than I ever had when
she'd been out of my arms or out of my mind.  They all
mourned me for dead, all feared me for evil, and they
didn't listen to her when she said I wasn't gone.
They feared her for her power, and the power in her
grief.
Jean's gone crazy, they said.
Scott's gone, they said.
But for the flicker of warmth in the back of her head,
she might have believed them.
Now her arms hold me at night, but my body resists her
touch, her heat.  My mind is locked up, afraid to let
her see what I saw, see what I did.  When he wore my
face, terrible things were done in the name of evil,
things that sullied the humanity inside me.
I don't want to disappoint my beautiful golden bird,
so pure is her fire.  She came so close to seeing it
all, wrapped up tight inside me.  When I returned to
the land of men and mutants, it was by her hand.  The
first living night I spent agajn with my wife, our
lovemaking was intense and primal, hunger borne of
desperation.  It was the last real contact we had
before I retreated into a tough shell of my own
creation.
I had to protect her.
I had to protect myself.
Her fierce possessiveness, her quick defense of all my
actions still stuns me, as it reveals the intensity of
her love for me so casually.  She wears her fidelity
like a shield, against all the misgivings and the
fears in her mind.
I'm so scared to let her near me, even though I want
that more than anything in the world. 
I miss the gentleness of her touch, the tender passion
that ignites between us so easily.  I miss the heat of
my firebird's embrace.  Until I have the strength to
ask for it, all I have to guard against the bitter
cold of despair is the warmth in the back of my head.
For now, it is enough.






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