It had been a whole week since Jean's experience with the Phoenix force, she had been very tired through all of the last seven days but was finally getting her energy back. Emotionally and mentally she was fine and had gone through several medical, mental and psychological examinations. All of the Professors were happy enough to say that she was perfectly fine.
Right now Harry and Laura were walking outside, Jean was with them, though she wasn't walking, that was mostly because she had simply jumped on Harry's back and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and insisted that he carry her. Harry had rolled his eyes at that but did so, carrying her around as they walked. Though truthfully it was not really that much of a hardship with his increased strength.
"I'm pretty sure that this is the tallest I have ever been." Jean commented.
"Yeah, but you'll grow." Laura replied.
"No, she won't," Harry responded. "you and me will grow, she will stay as a little red midget."
"Hey, no I won't." Jean protested as she flicked him on the ear.
"Oi, not on the ear." Harry said as he shook his head. "You know I don't like that."
"Fine." Jean grinned as she flicked the side of his head.
"Do that one more time and I will drop you." Harry warned a small smile tugging on his lips.
"Oh?" Jean asked in an innocent voice as she slowly but gently flicked him on the side of the head for a second time. "Really?" She asked.
"I did warn you." Harry said before he let her go and tried to shrug her off, Jean didn't fall down however and hovered in mid-air using her powers.
"Ha!" Jean said with a smug grin.
"Very nice, but you've forgotten one thing." Harry pointed out with a smirk.
"What?" Jean frowned.
"Your powers work on concentration." Harry pointed out before he reached out and tickled her under the armpit.
"Harry...Harry stop." Jean laughed before she fell onto the ground, landing on her butt. "That...was not funny." She huffed as the other two laughed.
"Hmm, yeah it is." Harry said as he and Laura helped her up.
"No it wasn't." Jean said, sticking her tongue out at him. She brushed some dirt off herself before she quickly moved behind Harry and jumped back on Harry's back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. "Now carry me properly." She said in an imperious voice, or at least a decent one for her age.
"Yes ma'am, do you want me to clean your shoes as well?" Harry rolled his eyes before he and Laura started walking.
"Oh could you? That would be lovely." Jean grinned while Laura giggled into her hand.
"I hate you." Harry sighed.
"No, you don't." Jean smiled and planted a kiss on the side of his head. Harry shook his head and mumbled something under his breath, Jean wasn't able to hear it but Laura did if the increased laughter was any indication.
"You're very happy and cheery now." Harry noted, "More than before I mean." He added.
"Hmm, probably because of the whole 'Phoenix' thing." Laura guessed.
"Yeah," Jean nodded. "I don't really know how to explain it, but I think I feel...lighter. You know?"
"That's because you don't eat enough, that's why you're going to stay midget." Harry joked.
"Oi!"
A short distance away Alex was sat with his brother, the two had been talking but now Alex had been noticing that his brother's focus, much like his eyes, were now focused on something else. Or at least he assumed they were, in his defence he couldn't really tell since he couldn't really see Scott's eyes. For all he knew Scott was probably asleep under those red tinted glasses.
"Scott," Alex whispered, Scott didn't reply. Alex leaned his head to the side to get a better look at Scott's face and could see that Scott didn't really look that happy. Alex followed the direction that Scott was looking in and saw those three kids he had met earlier, Alex saw the red headed girl piggy backing on the boy's back, a moment later realisation hit Alex. "Scott," Alex spoke again but Scott wasn't paying attention. "Scott!" Alex clapped his hands next to Scott's ears, causing the younger boy to jump in his seat.
"Whoa! What the hell?!" Scott blurted out as he turned back to Alex.
"You were zoning out." Alex told him with an eye roll. "You okay, little brother?" Alex asked.
"I'm fine." Scott said in a quick voice.
"Uh huh," Alex snorted. "it seems to me like you weren't listening to me, because your attention was somewhere else."
"It was not." Scott replied.
"Oh really?" Alex asked in a disbelieving voice. "I had just told you who my favourite wrestler was, who is he?"
"Um...was he that guy who drinks all that beer?" Scott guessed.
"Alright, first of all..." Alex paused and slapped Scott on the back of the head.
"Ow! What the hell was the for?!" Scott said as he rubbed the back of his head.
"Second of all my favourite wrestler is the Undertaker…."
"That creepy guy who dresses in black and has the weird music when he walks?" Scott asked.
"Yes," Alex said right before he slapped Scott on the back of the head again, honestly he deserved it that time. "third of all I wasn't talking about wrestling at all. Scott, you are at least twenty-five brain cells too short to attempt to lie to me. Now, would I be incorrect in guessing that my little brother was looking at a certain lady with red hair?" Alex asked with a small grin.
"I...I wasn't..." Scott fibbed.
"Make that thirty brain cells too short." Alex corrected before he looked in Jean's direction. "Hmm, that one might be taken sooner or later though, those two are looking very friendly." Alex commented, glancing at Scott and seeing his lips thin.
"You know...before the...accident..." Scott began, he did not need to explain what he meant, not to Alex at least. Before Scott's powers manifested their father, USAF Major Christopher Summers, took the family for a flight in their plane from his grandparents home in Anchorage, Alaska. Then something happened, something went wrong with the plane. The plane started descending, descending much faster than it should have, and if that wasn't bad enough then it also caught fire. As plane went down in flames, Alex's parents fastened him and his younger brother into a parachute and pushed them off the plane, hoping that they would both survive. "...Mum told me that when we grew up we would both find a girl, and fall in love. That they would stay with us, be our best friends forever and..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Alex cut him off, wrapping an arm around Scott's shoulders. "I get it kid, really I do. Mum told me the same things as well, but she said when you are 'grown up'. Just because you like a girl doesn't mean that she's the one for you, you can't take the first pretty girl you see and say that she is the only one for you. That's just setting yourself up for disappointment, I'm not saying it's wrong to chase after a girl, but you've got to let it come naturally. You can't force it."
"...But then how would you know which girl is the right one?" Scott asked, looking up to his brother.
"Well...that's a good question, a hard one...but a good one. I...I don't know, really. You're supposed to just spend time with her and um...you'll just...know." Alex mentally sighed, he was not at all qualified to speak to Scott about this at all, he was more qualified to talk to him about how to pick up a girl from a bar. Maybe he could get somebody else to talk about it, probably the Professor, or maybe that Logan guy, he looked like the sort of guy who knew about girls.
It was night time and Harry was currently with Ororo, shopping in a mall. The two had gone out shopping rather late and both decided to make a last minute stop at a shopping mall to get a present for Laura's birthday, which was coming up soon. At the same time Ororo was also discreetly trying to buy or at least find something that she could get for Harry, since he had apparently forgotten that it was also his birthday.
"I don't really know what to buy her." Harry admitted as he and Ororo walked along the upper level of the mall, walking past various shops. "I mean...I know she likes ice cream, but I can't give her that as a present, it would melt."
"That is indeed a problem with ice cream." Ororo nodded in a sagely manner.
"Oh look!" Harry said suddenly as he gestured to a pet shop. "I'll buy her a pet!" Harry grinned as if he had just come up with the most brilliant idea since the creation of the television.
"Hmm, I don't know, Harry." Ororo frowned. "Those can be hard work to look after, and we will need to ask the Professor's permission."
"Can't you just phone him and ask?" Harry said, silently begging her with his eyes.
"Harry, don't you dare give me those eyes." Ororo sighed. Of course at that point Harry's eyes got wider. "Of for goodness sakes, I will call the Professor and ask him about it." She said after taking a deep breath.
"Yes!" Harry grinned.
"Don't act so happy." She rolled her eyes, before she realised that this was actually a golden opportunity to quickly search for a present for Harry. "I am going to go make a call and go to the bathroom, you can go and look at the animals and pick out one for Laura. Don't pick any up or touch any until I get there, is that understood?" She said, giving him a stern look.
"Yes ma'am." Harry's grin got even wider, he gave her a small salute before he walked off and entered the shop, he walked around, getting past the bits of the shop with no actual animals, his first stop was in the bird section.
Harry rather liked birds, but did Laura like birds? He knew she liked looking at them when they were outside but that was because she liked watching them fly, plus Harry didn't want to risk it trying to fly away, if he was being honest then Harry was quite worried about his claws accidently popping out when he tried to catch it. He was no expert with people but he was pretty sure that Laura would not appreciate him cutting off a bird's head, even if it was accidental and even if he was the one who brought the bird in the first place (got somebody with actual money to buy it).
Harry then moved onto the fish section, he looked around and saw lots of fish. Maybe Laura would like a fish, everybody liked fish, right? Well...Harry liked eating them, but he was pretty sure that the fish he ate from takeout stores were vastly different from these little fishes. Harry had heard the getting fishes are really expensive because of the tanks, but he supposed that probably didn't really matter when the Professor was rich enough to buy this whole shop. Plus there was already a fish tank in the mansion for everyone to look at. Harry couldn't really imagine why people wanted fish for pets, Harry could admit that the little fishes are nice to look at but they didn't really do much beyond swim around, so what was the point in them? What was Harry missing?
She calmly walked past several shops, her bodyguard following behind her, dutifully holding her shopping bags in his arms. She was dressed in nice and expensive clothes, blue shoes and jeans with a white shirt and white fluffy jacket. What was the bodyguard's name? Well, it was...um...to be quite honest she had forgotten. But in her defence she had a lot of bodyguards and servants, she wasn't expected to remember all of them. Besides, this one was rather new and had only been working for the family for about a week. Though she knew that if she wanted to then she could easily find out the answer.
As they continued walking she just narrowly avoided walking into a beautiful black skinned woman who was on the phone before she stopped outside of a pet shop. Hmm, she could probably go in and take a look. She of course could not get one without her father's permission but there was no harm in looking. She turned to her bodyguard who had stopped behind her.
"I am just going to go in and take a look." She said to him, "You can wait out here, I will be back in a few minutes."
"Miss, it is my job to escort you everywhere." The bodyguard protested.
"I am aware, but that does not mean that I wish to experience you peaking over my shoulder all day. I simply wish for a few minutes of alone time to look at some animals." She argued.
"But I..."
"Of course I could tell my father that you seem uncapable of listening to instructions." She calmly added, she made things a little easier by using her telepathic powers to gently encourage him to agree, it wasn't really controlling him as much as it was slightly pushing him in a certain direction.
"Uh...no, no ma'am." He quickly said, shaking his head as he did so.
"Good, then you can wait out here." She smirked before turning and walking in without waiting for an answer. After a minute or so of walking around the shop she stopped by the fish section, she couldn't help but wonder what the point of fish was, she supposed they were nice to look at but they didn't seem like really interesting pets. She was about to leave when she spotted something odd.
There was a fish tank with multi-coloured fish in it, though the oddest thing about it was not the fish or the actual tank, it was the boy who had his face pressed against the glass. He was roughly about her age, he wore blue trainers and blue jeans, a grey shirt under an open black hoodie and his black hair was spiked up. She frowned, wondering what he was thinking, she used her powers to reach out into his mind. Apparently he was trying to find a gift for his sister, much like herself he was also wondering what the point was in having fish.
She was about to withdraw when the connection to his mind suddenly broke, she blinked and in the real world she saw him looking at her with a small glare on his face.
"Don't do that again." He said, his face softening slightly.
"What?" She looked at him with disbelief on her face.
"Don't try and read my mind, it's rude." He said as he walked over to her.
"W...who are you?" She asked as he stopped in front of her, her forehead just reached his chin so she had to look up, her pale blue eyes caught his bright emerald green ones.
"I am Harry, Harry Potter," He said as he extended a hand. "who are you?" He asked.
"Emma," She said slowly as she carefully placed her hand in his and gave it a small shake. "Emma Frost."