His tongue was weighty in his mouth as their eyes met and his heart buffeted his chest from the inside. It was his humanity come calling once again, and he took a breath to steady it. She’d asked him a question with a thousand answers, and Scott considered which he would give before remembering how he didn’t need to. A comfort settled over his shoulders and he didn’t speak out loud. He didn’t need to. Jean would hear him just the same, and he could offer her a more conclusive and comprehensive answer this way than he ever could in the clumsy attempts of his tripping tongue.
He showed her the inner workings of his mind, opening himself completely. Emma was well, if stressed in these trying times. The School struggled against the parameters of the Sokovia Accords, fighting for the same autonomy those in Genosha enjoyed. His favorite students’ faces flicked unbidden through his mind despite himself, Laura Kinney at the forefront. Even considering her drew to mind the arguments and discord with Emma when he dug his heels in to protect the younger Wolverine. It was not all paradise between them, but Scott hid nothing from Jean. Her awareness of his faults and limits never intimidated him.
As for Scott, himself. He was aware of each new gray in his hair and understood it to be a mix of both his advancing years and the weight of their world on his shoulders. He took more and more onto them with every passing development against mutantkind and the greater good, in general. Somehow, he always found the means to keep walking forward in spite of it. He did occasionally allow himself to settle into the existentialism of wondering when it would become too much.
While he showed her his mind, Scott stepped forward and reached out to rest his fingertips against the outside of Jean’s wrist. Things began to trickle out and he smiled, a little sheepish from the overload of information. “Sorry. It was the kind of question too difficult to answer out loud.” He hoped she’d understand. “I’ve gotten too comfortable not having to talk when I can show. I have you and Emma to thank for that, mostly. And Charles.”
She had been wary of reaching out with her mind, of brushing their psyches together as instinctively as they had done when they were younger, but she felt the opening he offered her - the relieved relaxation of the constant tension he held in his shoulders - and she took it gratefully. As easily as ever, she welcomed him into her mind, let him share the images he wanted to without having to worry about words or comprehension. There was always far less misunderstanding this way. She understood why it came to be soothing.
The reel of Emma perhaps once would have felt like a shard of ice to her heart, something to incite that fiery rage within her that she tried so hard to keep under control. These days, she merely smiled, hearth-warm nostalgia. It had been a simpler time in many ways but with all the sharp emotion of errant youth. It was curious to see the way they had fought over Laura, over her use and protection. Always a difficult decision at every turn when it came to superpowered children. She knew that just as well as he did.
The brush of his fingertips against her wrist was unexpected but welcome. In response, she shifted her own hand slightly, just enough to loop her fingers around his wrist and hold him there, feeling his pulse thrum gently under her touch. It was a steady, tangible reminder. He was here. Alive. They both were. Against all odds. They didn't have to be together to know that was worth everything - especially as the Accords tightened evermore.
She shook her head slightly and smiled back, gaze softening. "No, you don't have to apologise," she assured him, voice pitched low in the space between them. "You're always welcome in my mind - no matter what." She didn't have to elaborate. No matter if they were dating others, or hosting cosmic beings, or holding the weight of the world. He would always be able to sit in her mind if he needed to. "We do seem to favour that way of communicating, don't we?"
