Slow and steady wins the race (Patreon)

“That was a long time ago,” Jean said suddenly, a decisive end to the conversation. “I shouldn’t expect—“

“What?” Madeline interrupted herself, so alike to Jean in that moment that it could’ve burnt Scott. “To get some sympathy when you’re scared and traumatized? To have an old friend care about you? Or an old friend’s wife?”

Jean laughed, a little hysterical, and Scott could hear the Phoenix laughing too. And she, it, had been so quiet… “I was going to crawl into bed with him, Maddie. Just because that’s what I always did…”

“What’s changed?”

Scott looked at Madeline, surprised, not shocked. All the things he remembered and he’d forgotten how caring she was.

“It’s a big bed,” Madeline said. “And if you don’t want to be alone…”

“A little old for sleepovers, aren’t we?”

“Scott, tell her,” Madeline said. “I’ll show you two I’m not jealous and you can show me I don’t have anything to be worried about.”

Lighting dropped again, thunder like an explosion. Jean jumped a little. Madeline clutched Scott tighter.

“Just for tonight,” Jean said, not taking off her housecoat. Her feet padded toward the bed. “And because otherwise I’ll have nightmares, and a telekinetic having nightmares is no good…”

It was a big bed. They’d bought it planning for the nights when little Nathan would climb into bed with them, or maybe his sisters, or his brothers.

Jean went to the left side of the bed, pulled back the covers, eased her legs up onto the mattress one at a time, something quaint and even marital about how she did it, like something an Amish woman would do. Scott laid in the middle of the bed, Maddie on the right, scooped up by Scott’s body, her head on his chest.

Jean laid on her side, facing the two of them. It must’ve been like staring into a mirror.