Author:  Jocelyn (jdog985@hotmail.com)

Feedback:  Always received with gratitude

Summary:  Scott and his old prom date see each other again.

Characters:  Scott P.O.V., Selena P.O.V.

Rating:  PG

Disclaimer:  The X-men do not belong to me (I'm creative, but not THAT creative) they belong to Brian Singer and Marvel Comics and I am not making any money off this story.

Author's Note:  Follows the movie and novel canon in whichScott's powers emerged at the prom.

*Denotes unspoken thought by characters.

Part I:  Scott

Logan's not the only one who has nightmares.  I suppose all mutants have them, dreams about the moment their powers took over.  I certainly do.

They don't come as often as they did when I was a teenager, but I still wake Jean up in the middle of the night once in awhile.  Even if I don't make any sounds, she can feel it when the nightmares start.  From the times she's been inside my mind, she remembersit just as vividly as I do.

I'm asleep, and suddenly I'm there again.  Prom night.  I was seventeen, top of the class, popular, and dating the most beautiful girl in the school.  She was angry at me because I'd hugged another girl.  I ran after her, but she ran into the washroom and I had to wait for her to come out so I could tell her I was sorry.  The night had been perfect until Selena started screaming at me in front of everybody.

I remember my eyes starting to sting; I thought it was because of the  smoke in the boys' room.  But the pain got worse and worse until I  was screaming, and the other guys were yelling that my eyes were… glowing.  Someone said that maybe they should call an ambulance.  I  was rubbing my eyes, trying to make it stop, but then I opened them  again.  And everything turned red.  I saw the light blast through the  washroom wall, go through the walls of the girls' washroom, heard  everyone screaming and running.  I can't blame them; I was scared  too.

I did the only thing I could think of to make it stop.  I shut my  eyes.

The rest of the night was a mass of noises to me.  I remember sirens, pounding feet, people outside screaming that a bomb had gone off, and  my name being said over and over again.  But nobody said it the way  they do when they talk about a friend or a classmate or a student… they said it like I was either dead or a criminal.  Then the  police took me home and told my parents I was a mutant.  They all talked  about me like I wasn't even there.  Then I heard my parents in the  kitchen arguing about what to do with me.  My father kept saying, "My  son's a freak," like it was all my mother's and my fault.

I spent the next two months locked in my room—yes, locked.  I had my  eyes taped shut since that first night; I think it was my father who  put the tape on, but I couldn't tell the difference between my  parents' hands yet.  All I ever did was lie on my bed and listen.My  mother cried all the time when she talked to me, and I was never sure
whether she was crying for herself or for me.  Sometimes my father  came in, but he never said anything or moved beyond my doorway.  When  he would open the door, I had this terrible vision of him tiptoeing  up to me with a pillow to smother me and get rid of his  embarrassment.  In my dreams, I could feel the pillow over my face.   I never got more than an hour or two of sleep at a time, because once  I fell asleep, the nightmares would start.  After one of those dreams  was the only time I remember hearing my father saying anything to  me.  "Shut up, Scott, your mother and I are trying to sleep." The  next morning, I fumbled around the room looking for a way to kill  myself.

Professor Xavier showed up the day after my father moved out.  I only  knew he'd moved out because Mom told me after he left.  I was  exhausted, miserable, and still scared and I completely went off on  the Professor.  I was convinced that he was someone who'd been sent  to lock me away somewhere.  For a minute after I ran out of breath,  he was quiet, but then he started talking to me.  Talking to me, not  past me, and not to my mother about me.  He used my name like I was a  person again.  I don't know how, but he made me trust him.  Actually,  I should say I didn't know how, because I do now.  When he took me to  his school, I became human again.  But the two months during which I  was a freak have never left me.

Past horrors have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect  them.  But it really is true that looking your fears straight in the  eye makes you feel stronger.  Today I literally stood face-to-face  with a demon from my past.  Not my father.  Selena.

I was with Jean and Logan in New York City after checking out a  report of a possible mutant.  We were waiting on a crowded subway  platform when, I'm not sure what it was, but something made me look  around.  And I saw her again.

It took me a minute to recognize her, but she gasped and backed up,  and I remembered her face.  The last time I saw her face, it was  through the hole in the washroom wall.  She had jumped away from the  energy from my eyes, and stared at me like I was a monster.   I have  no idea what her life was like after prom night, because she never  came to see me.  No one did.  I remember Jean touching my arm,  saying, "Scott, what's wrong?"  But I couldn't stop staring at  Selena.  I thought I'd left all the horror from that night and those  two months behind me, but seeing her again brought it all back.  I  couldn't move, just stood there with a huge knot in my stomach.

She's still beautiful, even though she's older.  Instead of a prom  queen, now she looks like a movie star.  I knew she recognized me; it couldn't have just been the visor that  made her gape like that.  We  stood there staring at each other, but there was nothing to say.   Finally, she turned and ran away from me again.  I just stared after  her and felt like I was going to throw up.  Jean was staring at me,  "Scott?"

"Nothing," I told her, "It's just someone I used to know."  She  understood, and we got on our train.  I don't think I said two words  for the entire trip home.

Last night, the nightmare came back again, with as much force as it  used to when I was younger.  The prom, Selena's dress swirling as she  ran away, the light, the screams, the sirens, the voices, and my arms   flailing in terror as my father shoved a pillow over my face.   Suddenly, I was being shaken violently, *Scott!  Scott, wake up!*   "Scott!"

I sat up so fast that I knocked my glasses off, and Jean put her hand  over my eyelids so I wouldn't open them.  I felt her press the  glasses into my hand, and I shoved them onto my face again.  When I  opened my eyes, I realized I'd been crying.  I sat there, sweating  and shaking like a leaf, and Jean pulled me into her arms, "That
was  a bad one," she murmured.  All I could do was nod.  She held me  tighter and whispered, "Who did you see today?"

Finding my voice again, I told her.  Then she hugged me so tightly  that it hurt, but I didn't want her to let go.  I had always had  nightmares about my father, but Selena haunted me too.  She had been  the last person I saw before shutting my eyes on my normal life  forever.  I hadn't realized how much a part of my nightmares she  was.  Jean understood, and in my mind I heard, *I'm here now.*  And  then the horror went away.  I wasn't alone and vulnerable anymore.   The shaking stopped, and I fell asleep again in Jean's arms.

Seeing Selena again somehow helped to close that open wound of those  months I spent as a freak.  I guess it's because I no longer live  with this mental image of her staring at me at the prom.  I know now  that her life has gone on too, and at last, she's stopped haunting  me.  It's strange that seeing her again brought everything to a full
circle.  I realize now that the life I have is far better and more  meaningful than anything I could have done if I'd remained normal.   I've finally stopped thinking of that night as the worst night of my  life.  I'm finally free of her.

Part II:  Selena

I never imagined that I'd ever see Scott Summers again.  I really  wish that I hadn't.  You know how as you grow up and have different  experiences, there are the ones that stick in your mind for the rest  of your life?  The ones you know you'll be telling your grandchildren  about?  My junior prom night was it.

There are also memories that we look back at and cringe.  I was a  cheerleader, and call me immodest, but I was gorgeous.  I knew I'd  have no shortage of guys asking me to prom—hell!  I went each year  for all four years of high school, and each time with a different  guy.  What makes me cringe now is the fact that I didn't mind  stringing along as many guys as I could (I made a game of it) but I  demanded total devotion for any guy whom I favored with even one  date.  I guess I figured that a knock-out like me deserved nothing  less.

My junior year, out of all the invitations I received, I picked  Scott.  Of course, it had to be Scott!  He was smart, popular,  athletic, and, most important…he was SO fine!  I always looked at him  during classes, but of course, when I said yes to prom, I made it  seem as though I was accepting because I just had nothing better to  do.  Just my luck, eh?  Then, the Friday beforehand, I caught him  hugging Bonnie whats-her-name in the hallway.  Okay, okay, I knew he wasn't trying to cheat on me or anything  Bonnie hugged EVERYBODY!)  but I wanted to punish him.  For daring to even look at a girl other  than me.  So I threw it in his face in the middle of prom and walked
out on him in front of everybody.  He looked so hurt and upset when I  turned away, but of course, at the time, I enjoyed that.

I was in the washroom when that…light came blasting through the  walls.  Everyone thought a bomb had gone off, and suddenly it  stopped.  The building didn't fall down, there were just these huge  holes in the washroom and dance hall walls.  I looked through the  hole into the boys' room, and there was Scott, sitting on the floor
with his hands clapped over his eyes, gasping.  It took me a minute  to realize what had happened, and what he was.

They evacuated the building and left Scott in there with the police,  and I never saw him again.  All sorts of rumors flew around school  for the rest of the year and our senior year too:  Scott had killed  himself, his parents had killed him, he'd moved away…the general  consensus was that he'd been locked in a room somewhere, one with
walls that could stand up to those eyes of his.

That prom night, he became a freak, but I became an instant  celebrity; I was the girl who had dated the mutant boy.  Everyone,  classmates, reporters, teachers, they all wanted to talk to me, to  ask me about what it had been like when my prom date blew a hole in  the walls.  Of course, I enjoyed that too, and exaggerated the hell  out of the story.  After all, Scott was a mutie, and nobody cared  about him anymore.  So what did it matter if I stretched the truth and hinted that maybe he blew the walls open on purpose because I had  walked out on him?  What did it matter if I told guys at parties  where his house was so they could go throw bricks in the windows?   That got me even more attention to the boys, and convinced me even  more of my right to possess anyone I wanted.  For the rest of the  year, and my senior year, I went through the dates so fast that by  graduation, there wasn't a single boy in the school's in-crowd that I  hadn't gone out with—or publicly turned down.

So then we graduated, and I grew up…and looking back, I had a few  regrets.  Not that I'd spoken badly of Scott and not that I'd treated  anyone else badly…only that not very many of my old classmates seemed  happy to see me later on.

And just yesterday, something else happened that I'll tell my  grandchildren about.  I saw him again.  I saw Scott Summers.

I was in New York City, waiting for the subway;  I was on my way to a  play on Broadway.  The platform was full of people, but somehow,  through the crowd, my eyes picked out one man.  It was probably this  funny, visor-looking thing over his eyes that got my attention.  He  was just standing there, waiting for his train to come in. I suppose  the only reason I even saw him was that people were standing back  from him, probably realizing he wasn't…normal.  I didn't recognize  him right away, I just stared at him like everyone else because of  his visor.

I don't know what happened, there was a noise or something from  behind me—and he turned and saw me looking at him.  I felt like I'd  been punched in the stomach.

Guys always stared at me in high school because I was pretty, and I  always loved the way they looked at me.  I always relished their  stares, and that's how I put it together.  Scott.  Scott Summers.   I actually gasped out loud when I realized who he was, and I guess  that's when he recognized me.  His mouth opened, and we both took a  step backwards.  I just stood there, frozen.  Seeing him again…I  couldn't understand why, but it terrified me.  I'd always loved  telling that exaggerated story to people about the hot prom date I  had who turned out to be a murderous freak, but standing there  staring at him, I could see that night again.  Remembering what had
really happened.  It made me afraid of him.

He didn't move either.  I couldn't see his eyes, but somehow I knew  that seeing me had shaken him up too.   The sight of each other had  too many frightening associations for either of us to bear.  So I did  the only thing I could do.  I backed up a little more, and then  turned and ran away as fast as I could.  I didn't look back, but
I  know he didn't follow me this time.

I didn't go to the play.  I went back to the hotel where I was  staying and sat in my room all night, trying to make sense of what  had happened.  Scott Summers is alive and well, and he's even found a  way to control those eyes of his.  I finally figured out why we'd  both been so horrified.  His reaction was pretty easy to understand.
I guess, to him, I was a reminder of the worst night of his life,  when that mutation showed up and he went from being the school's  heartthrob to bona fide freak.  After all, he'd been trying to talk  to me when that thing happened to him.  It can't be a pleasant memory.

It wasn't until five in the morning that I finally figured out why I  was so afraid of him.  That discovery wasn't very pleasant either.   He's a reminder to me, too.  It made me remember prom night the way  it really was, and it made me remember the kind of person I'd been  ever since.

Seeing me was a reminder to him of the night when he became a freak,  because of something beyond his control.  But for me it was something  much worse.  Seeing him was a reminder to me of the night I became a  monster.

~Fin~