"Jerk!" Emma Frost shouted into the phone before slamming it down. "Absolute jerk!" she repeated to herself.

Celeste had hoped to slip in and out of Emma's office, leaving the Johnston file on her boss's desk. "Sorry for broadcasting," she offered, timidly. Lately, she'd been apologetic at the drop of a hat. "Guess I need to work on my shields."

Emma looked up, distracted. "Man troubles on my end," she muttered. Dialing the number of the research department, she looked at her recently promoted chief operations officer. "Bobby and I had a fight."

Celeste sighed as she sat down in the chair across from Emma's desk. "Men are scum," she announced as she crossed her legs. She had had enough of them to last her a lifetime.

The older woman started to play along. "We need them to reproduce the species now- the other way isn't as fun." After pausing, she added, "Bobby's not that bad."

"There's good scum like Bobby and bad scum like my boyfriend." Acid sizzled on the last word. Celeste did not like having to date Matt but she did so for her sister's sake. Emma looked at her friend and bit her lip. Mentally, she reinforced the younger woman's self-esteem.

"Matt is pond scum," Emma agreed. "Bobby isn't, Tony isn't." The older woman never missed a chance to push the man to her assistant. "I dare you to call Tony scum." Celeste blushed slightly as her lips tried to form the word. Emma held back her laugh. Early courtship was fun to watch.

"Tony's algae," Celeste finally said, unable to call her best friend something as degrading as scum. "There are time I almost think about him as a eunuch or an honorary female."

"That would be painful for him," Emma joked. Celeste laughed. "Especially since he's so sensual..." Emma knew that, for the most part, Tony didn't trust or like women because of something in his past. Still, he had a way of inspiring lust among the women of the office.

Celeste held up her hand, trying to stop Emma before she started predicting what Tony would be like in bed, again. "Emma, we work together. The last thing I need to think about is him naked in front of a fireplace, listening as I, wearing something black and trashy, read out loud from an erotic novel, making plans for later." The mental image brought a smile to her face. She didn't need such thoughts about her friend, but they were nice to have from time to time.

Emma grinned because those were Celeste's ideas, not hers. She was succeeding in nudging her friend back into awareness of her sexual persona. Still, ever the perfectionist, Emma corrected the details of the erotic daydream. "Of course not. You look so much better in blue or champagne. Tony likes class and classy ladies, so you wouldn't wear the trashy stuff that often. But he would like the novel idea." Celeste blushed again, trying not to think about her friend that way.

After a long moment, Celeste asked, "What did you fight about?"

"The circumference of the earth." Emma started to laugh, remembering the fight. "Bobby is the most bullheaded, stubborn, pig headed, sweetest, kindest man I know."

"Tony is the most intelligent, protective, bright, inventive, and intense man I know," Celeste added, not realizing that she was talking about him like they were romantically involved. After spending as many hours as the two did together, it was natural to think about him as her . . . well, Tony.

Emma nodded again, and decided to challenge her assistant again. "And how would you describe your relationship with him?" Celeste, to most men, came across as asexual, the quintessential mother despite her looks. Emma was the extreme opposite.

Celeste shook her head. "Give me five words to describe Bobby and I'll give you five to describe Tony."

Emma got up to the hot chocolate machine she kept in her office. Pouring the mixture in her cream, she paused. "Compatible, incompatible, soft, happy, forever." That made the younger woman grin. Bobby was very good for her boss in so many hundreds of ways. "I didn't mean that last word."

Celeste just smiled as Emma offered her a cup of hot chocolate. The Ice Queen had a remarkably playful, childish side that not that many people saw. Who would think that Emma Frost, mistress of the sensual, would spend months on the perfect hot chocolate recipe? "Tony and me.... trusting, high esteem, deep friendship, and more."

Emma held back her laugh on the last word. After Matt had gotten what was coming to him, Celeste and Tony would get together. Together, they would learn to shed their painful pasts and trust each other. It wouldn't be an easy or traditional match but, to the two involved, it would make sense. In so many big and small ways, Celeste reminded her of herself. "So what's the difference between Bobby and Tony?"

"Looks, attitude, height," Celeste joked, knowing what her boss was trying to say. "Tony and Bobby have as much in common as, say, Gambit and Scott."

Emma sighed. "And in the end, you know you can say you are sorry and he won't hold it against you." She was kind of afraid that Bobby would gloat if she was wrong.

"Heck," Celeste laughed, "he tells me that enough that I know I can tell him that." Tony had apologized for shadowing her when she went to save Gracie, even though he had been correct in doing so.

"Celeste, for you, that's a survival skill." Emma informed her right-hand woman with a grin. There was a reason the younger woman reminded her of herself. They were both very strong women who needed the men in their lives to temper them, so that they weren't totally unapproachable. They both could hold a grudge to the point of absurdity. Emma had waited twenty years to pay back a man for standing her up on a date. And they didn't care who got hurt as long as the people they cared about were protected.

Celeste nodded as she accepted Emma's point. As a recovering actress, as she termed it, she was always very conscious of men giving her a break because she was beautiful. The last man that had done that ended up looking like a moron in front of his boss. "True. There aren't that many better with a gun than me."

Something about that statement touched Emma's funny bone. Emma started chuckling and Celeste joined in. "And I can really plant some images in Bobby's head...." she trailed off, thinking about apologizing.

Celeste nodded. "The difference between friends and friends is that ability to swallow your pride and admit that you are wrong." Tony had taught her that one.

Emma nodded and picked up the phone. "Good practice for when and if we ever get married." The younger woman nearly dropped her drink at that one. "I mean," Emma started, "I'd kind of like... but I'm not that kind of woman... am I?"

Taking a long second to dab the hot chocolate off the side of the mug, Celeste thought about her answer. "Are you?" she simply asked.

Emma hung the phone up as she thought. "Actually, for Bobby, I might be." She picked up the phone again and hung it up again as she thought about her answer. "Still, might be nice to wake up and just discover that we are married and then find out," she said softly.

Celeste's eyebrow rose as she glimpsed a side of her mentor she'd never really seen before. Emma was afraid of committing to commitment. But, once committed, she'd stay committed. "A journey of a thousand miles starts with one phone call," the younger woman prodded.

Emma nodded and looked at the phone. "Celeste.... Tell public relations I want that new campaign on my desk by the end of the week, or I'll crack a whip over them."

"Is that an incentive or a punishment?" Celeste grinned. "The guys will love it either way." She ducked out on the last remark.

***

Bobby sat down at the computer and sighed. Typing in a few words, he started a search for the information he needed. He thought he was right but, then again, he could be wrong. He groaned as the computer found the circumference of the earth.

"Something wrong, my frigid friend?" Hank asked as he munched an apple. Taking a rare break from his Legacy virus research, he was in the mood to play.

"We were both wrong..." Bobby muttered as he turned off the computer.

"Who about what?" Hank started to juggle the half-eaten apple, a book and a shoe he found on the floor.

"Will you cut that out?" Bobby turned to his friend sharply. Books were not the best thing in the world to juggle with, as his head had discovered once too often. "Emma and I got into a fight and I was hoping I was right about something."

"I don't know," Hank said with a grin. "Being wrong with Emma isn't a bad idea. She might just have to punish you..." The grin grew more knowing.

Emma really change and didn't deserve to be thought of that way anymore. Bobby groaned as Hank continued, "She might think that you are a naughty, naughty boy and need a good spanking."

The truth was, after Bobby had learned why Emma dressed and acted the way she did, the comments were almost cruel. Emma had been sexually humiliated nightly for almost a year. Her behavior was a way to punish men for her treatment, and to punish herself for not fighting harder. "That's enough!" Bobby snapped and stood up.

Seeing the vivid anger in his friend's face, Hank stopped his teasing comments. "Sorry," he offered as he backed down. "You and Emma... I never should have said what I said."

"Emma and I are together, no matter what anybody may say." Bobby had had a hard time lately, between Gambit's "joking" remarks and Warren's attempts to give him advice. Suddenly, his personal life was team business, and he didn't like it. For some reason, it was one thing to date Emma, and enjoy sleeping with her, but it was another thing entirely to be serious about her.

Bobby's best friend agreed. Personally, he thought, Emma had made a world of difference in the Iceman's life. While still the prankster, Bobby had started to settle down. He would never lose his joie de vivre, but he had learned to put others first, to care about how his actions would affect others, and to be serious when the time called for it. "How serious?"

Bobby sat down as he thought about his answer. "If Emma were the marrying kind, I would." Somehow, he could never see her as the type to settle down and raise a family. But that didn't mean that he wasn't the type to leave the X-Men and become an associate teacher at the school or an accountant at Frost Enterprises. But, because he didn't want to pressure her, he wasn't going to bring up the topic.

Hank blinked at that. Somehow, even with all the changes Bobby had gone though, hearing him talk about marriage was staggering. "I never said that about Tras- Trish." After discovering the depths his ex-girlfriend had been willing to sink to, he had broken up with the news reporter. He had no desire to stay with a woman who would air footage of another woman being raped just for the ratings.

To be honest, Bobby hadn't been able to see Hank and Trish settle down. "Wouldn't have happened." There was only one woman that he could see Hank spending a lifetime with. "What ever happened between you and my mom's doctor..."

"Cecilia Reyes?" Hank blinked twice at that. From the first moment he had met Dr. Reyes, he had been impressed by her spunk, her wit, and her total honesty. They had shared lunch and Legacy research exactly twice. "Wasn't meant to be." He thought about her again, this time more regretfully. "Our timing was wrong."

"It wasn't that she said that X-Men were nothing but a group of sterile men and underdressed women parading around in body condoms looking for a good or bad fight?" Bobby smiled as he repeated what the doctor had said. In the same way that Emma was rooting for Celeste and Tony, he was rooting for Hank and Cecilia.

Hank shook his head. The truth was, between his research and his duties to the X-Men, he had no time for a love life. And he had been so badly burned by Trish Tilby, he had no room in his heart for another heartbreak. Changing the subject he asked, "So what was the fight about?"

Bobby laughed as he realized the strangeness of the tiff. "The circumference of the world." It had started as a casual talk about Emma's planned trip to Austial in December, and how far she had to stay from her plant down there, and then switched into a talk about the outback. From there, they had gotten into their fight.

Hank nodded. "Weird topic to fight about."

"No weirder than what we see on a day to day basis." Bobby started laughing. "Remember last week when that crazy telepath tried to attack the Mall of America?"

Hank started chuckling at that one. The X-Women and Sam had gone to Muir Island when a dejected lounge lizard had decided to turn the whole mall into his private showcase. "After seeing Scott Summers sing 'I Feel Pretty' anything would be commonplace."

"Or Warren–" What he would have said was cut off as the phone rang. Bobby picked up his personal line and motioned for Hank to leave the room.

***

Emma was silent for a moment and then quietly said, "I'm sorry. I was wrong." She held her breath, hoping Bobby wouldn't gloat.

Bobby paused, half surprised that Emma would admit she was wrong. That was outweighed by his pride. Emma felt comfortable enough around him to actually say that she was sorry, which meant he had won her heart. No other man could claim that. "I was wrong too."

She smiled as she heard those words. "Let me at least get some tickets to that concert you wanted to go to, just because I was an idiot." She felt she had to get him something to say how sorry she was and he had been wanting to go to the Liberated Unicorns concert for months.

He shook his head, knowing why she was offering. "Emma, all I want to do is sit beside a fire and talk to you." His voice grew husky. "I just want to be alone with the woman I love."

She smiled. The world might be 40,074 kilometers around but, at the moment, there was no distance between their hearts.