Let us end with the house.

Built in the mid-1800s for long-term guests at the Xavier Mansion, the boathouse was a small, two-story structure perched on the eastern edge of the property's lake and accessed by a gravel drive off Greymalkin Lane.  Trees screened it from the mansion proper, giving at least the illusion of privacy, and the back porch was a deck that overhung the shore, connecting to a pier that ran thirty feet out into the water and ending in a T.  Originally brick, the house had been refinished at some point with white stucco, making it look as if it belonged on the Mediterranean, not in New England, and its newest pair of owners had gone with that theme, decorating the exterior accordingly with terra cotta and flowers.  There was even a grape arbor.

At the moment, the arbor was trimmed in white crepe and glass bells, and the yard around it had been covered by portable tables under taped-down paper cloths and decorated by sprays of lily-of-the-valley in small glass vases and little crystal swans full of wedding mints.  Closer to the dock, rows of folding chairs had been set up to either side of a single aisle, festooned with more flowers -- white lilies tied by teal bows.  A torpid breeze stirred the bells and the lilies, the hair and the fancy dresses of the guests.  They'd arrived from as far away as California and Italy to see the wedding of Jean Grey and Scott Summers, a wedding that, two years ago, none of them would have dreamed could take place.

Dead women didn't get married.

Just now, the groom was pacing about by the arbor, his face as white as the crepe above.  He wore a black tux with a yellow-rose boutonniere, as did the man who followed him, saying, "Chill out.  Or you're gonna pass out."  EJ Haight, his best man.

"And you weren't just as bad?"

"Yeah?  So I'm speakin' from experience."  

A second man approached, dressed like the other two, his hair as dark as his coat in shocking contrast to the white rope braids of the woman on his arm.  Francesco Placido and Ororo Munroe.  Ro wore a teal dress the same shade as the bows tying the lilies, and Frank carried a plastic glass filled (rather high) with red Umbrian wine.  "Drink," he said, handing it to the nervous groom.

"Bossy," Scott replied, but he took the glass and finished half in one swallow, then made a face even as Ororo reached up to pluck his bow-tie straight and adjust his boutonniere.  "Man!" he complained.  "I am not five-years-old!"

"Fine, then.  I shall go see the bride."  And she walked away.  

"Everybody gets to see the bride but me," Scott lamented.  

"Patience, man," said EJ.  "It's bad luck to see her before the ceremony."  

"And heaven knows we don't need any more of that."  

While Scott spoke, his eye had been caught by the tardy arrival of a tall man awkward in his suit, coarse hair slicked into submission and muttonchops shaved neatly for once.  However ridiculous he appeared all dandied up, women still looked twice and threw him a smile, some of which he returned with flirtatious brass.

"Logan's here," EJ observed.  

"Yes."  

"Why wasn't he at the dinner last night?"

"He wasn't invited."  

EJ snorted, amused.  "Don' know what you're worried about.  She ain't wearing white for him, Slim-boy."

"I don't think that's what he had in mind, anyway."

"Exactly."  EJ elbowed Scott, who didn't reply, just stared down at the wine in his glass.  He finished it, dropping the plastic on the grass inside the arbor, where someone could find it later to clean up (hopefully without stepping on it).  Behind his back, EJ and Frank exchanged exasperated glances.

A few guests had begun moving towards the folding chairs set along the bank, but the rest were slower to follow, and three of the California contingent hurried over before taking seats.  Diane, EJ's wife, kissed Scott's cheek, then Clarice offered him her hands.  He squeezed them, hyper-aware of the simple band encircling the third finger of her left hand.  "I'm glad you came," he said, "even if your husband couldn't."

She flashed him the smile that he'd fallen in love with once.  "Wouldn't miss this for all the gold in Fort Knox."  And that was honest, and happy, not a veiled rebuke for the fact that he'd missed her own.  But Jean had been only two months dead then, and he'd been unable to watch anyone else get married, especially the only other woman he'd ever really loved.  She'd understood.

Now she stepped back to let Lee Forrester approach, awkward and shy in her nice slacks and blouse.  "Rick, EJ, and now Scott," she said.  "Three down.  I guess that just leaves me."

"We keep tryin' to fix you up."  Clarice shoved at her, good-naturedly.  

"I'm not the marrying type," Lee said, "which is kinda funny, I guess, considering I was the girl in the band."  

"You were also the drummer," Scott pointed out.  "You never exactly went with convention."  

"And nothing of the future is certain," Francesco added.  It stopped conversation as they all glanced at him.  He held up both hands.  "Merda!  I am speaking generally!  It isn't a prophecy!"

Which made them laugh (mostly in relief).

"What is this?" said a new voice.  "Old home week?"  Rick Chabon had wandered over, trailed by his wife, a pretty woman as neat-handed and petite as he was.  They'd arrived from Cincinnati just the day before in a bright red Audi, Rick's Lake Placid Blue Strat (and amp) in the trunk.  The students had been singularly unimpressed, doubting such a small, owl-eyed man could be the Rick Chabon of whom Scott and EJ had bragged all week, until he'd set up his gear and left them all jaw-slack with amazement (just as he'd once done to Scott, EJ and Lee themselves).

Now, Scott clapped his shoulder, then accepted a kiss from Tamika, his wife.  "So, are we all set to play at the reception?" he asked.  "Lee, did you find a trap set?"

"Yes, I found a trap set, but not much of one.  Don't expect miracles."

"I'm just hopin' the resurrection of Soapbox don't crash and burn on the landing pad," EJ warned.  

"You're mixing your metaphors again," Diane told him.  

He ignored her.  "When was the last time we all played together?  Five years?"

"Six," Rick corrected.  

"It'll be fine," Scott said.  "We could play some of our old shi- . . . stuff . . . in our sleep."  

"Which is what I suspect you'll be," EJ told him.  "Or at least out orbiting Venus."  

Scott smacked him on the arm, then said, "Go sit down, guys.  I'd like to get married sometime today."  

Laughing, they scattered, all but his groomsmen.  Most of the guests were seated now as well, the students making giggling blocks on either side of the aisle as they tossed wedding mints at each other.  "We were never that bad," Scott told EJ, conversationally.

"What d'you mean?  We were worse," EJ replied.  "Remember the cellophane-over-the-exits during exam week?"

Scott palmed his face.  "Christ.  I'd like to forget that."  

"Ain't never gonna happen.  That was your brainchild, Slim."  

Scott and Jean's families were still milling about at the rear, shepherded by Violet Haight and the professor, who acted as the Odd Couple of wedding directors but nonetheless worked together beautifully.  They'd converged on Elaine, who seemed to be complaining about something yet again.  "I wonder what it is this time?" Frank muttered to Scott.

"The price of rice in China," Scott replied, making the other two laugh.  

"Mom wants to strangle her," EJ said.  

"Everybody wants to strangle her," Scott replied.  Elaine had spent the past week -- the past four months, really -- expressing her indignity at the notion that her daughter would be married in a less than suitable (to her mind) setting.  "You could at least have chosen the mansion gardens, Jean."

But Jean had shrugged off all protests with, "I want to be married on the boat dock."  And she hadn't budged.  Ever since returning from Alkali Lake, she'd shown a remarkable immunity to all Elaine's disparagement and vituperation.  "Dying has a way of putting things in perspective," she'd told Scott once, and he might have been amused if he weren't still half-afraid that the other shoe was going to drop.

In fact, it wasn't nervousness of the ceremony that had him on edge today, but a fear that fate would step in to snatch her away again, and not return her this time.

Scott's family watched the Drama-of-Elaine with ill-concealed disgust, and Chris Summers escaped to walk over and slip something into Scott's hand.  A crucifix on a chain.  The crucifix, in fact, that his father had carried all through 'Nam, even in Hoa Lo Prison, the infamous Hanoi Hilton.  Scott's jaw dropped and he started to hand it back, but Chris refused to take it.  "No.  I meant to give it to you last night.  I wore that on the day I married your mother.  You keep it now.  It's seen a lot of unlikely things."  And he walked off again.  Scott opened his palm to examine the tiny figure stretched athwart its cross.  It wasn't silver or gold, just cheap stainless steel, which was why the North Vietnamese had let his father keep it.

"I am the resurrection and the life . . ."  he murmured, slipping it over his head and inside his shirt.  He'd never believed in life after death until Jean had died, and he still wasn't sure what he believed, but he believed in something.  Maybe he just believed in her.  "You have the ring?" he asked EJ.

EJ held up his hand, Jean's wedding band circling his pinky.  "You remember getting DeeDee's stuck on your forefinger?"

Scott laughed.  "I thought I'd never get it off; your Dad was ready to strangle me."

"I think DeeDee was ready to strangle you."

"It wouldn't be a proper wedding if something didn't go wrong."  Then Scott reconsidered, and turning, knocked on the wood of the grape arbor they stood beneath.  "You didn't hear me say that."

Finally, it was time.  Jeremiah Haight took his place behind the podium at the end of the dock and EJ and Frank ambled off to seat the mothers while JaLisa and Violet began an a capella rendition of Amazing Grace.  The song choice had been Jean's, but Scott hadn't argued.  What else did one call getting a second chance?

When the mothers were seated, Frank hurried back to escort Ororo down the aisle, then EJ followed with Barb Clark.  Scott remained at the back.

"This is our wedding," Jean had said two months ago when they'd flown out to Los Angeles to plan the ceremony with Jeremiah.  "Nobody is giving me away; I give myself.  And we're going into this together, so we'll walk down the aisle together, not just walk out."

Thus, Scott Summers would escort Jean Grey to the altar.  

As he stood there, looking over the heads of the hundred-and-something assembled guests, he wondered why people had such a hard time remembering their wedding day.  Everything was perfectly clear to him.

It was his last coherent thought for half an hour.

Jean had emerged at last from their boathouse, and both breath and sense deserted him.  It wasn't the dress.  He'd seen that already -- not on her, but he'd seen it hanging in their closet, heavy with pearlescent beading from breast to hips, and crisp ivory satin.  ("White would make me look like death warmed over," she'd said, and Scott had had quite enough of Jean and death, thank you.)  He'd taken the dress out of the closet once, too, lifting the protective plastic sheet to run fingertips over beads and cloth.  It's going to happen, he'd told himself.  On a spring day, ten years from their first concussive introduction, she would become his wife, and he her husband.

This was that day, and it wasn't the dress that shook him, or the veil in her hair, or the smile on her face.  It was the ethereal fire that surrounded her body and the glow in her dark eyes.

Phoenix rising.  

They'd never been Just Jean and Just Scott, whatever they'd told each other.  They were each the sum total of their life experiences, the events that had brought them to this day, and the people they'd known, and loved, and lost -- or kept.  So now, she came to him as the whole of herself, reborn, united, and most of all, unafraid.  And that had everything to do with him.  

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home . . . .

As she drew up beside him, their friends, family and students rose from folding chairs, making little gasps or other sounds of shock.  But Scott wasn't afraid.  He took her gloved hand, tucking it into his elbow as she cast her nimbus around them both.

Then they walked up the aisle, together.

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Further Notes / Afterward