Scott, Catseye and Jean, early Wednesday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After writing possibly the least coherent team report he's ever put in the database, Scott goes for a walk flees the mansion in the grip of a very severe case of after-action nerves. Catseye finds him, purrs at him, and then herds him inside to Jean, who holds onto him until he gets through it. Scott's left not actually hating himself for showing weakness. I think they call this progress.


He had filed the mission report. Easy to write, really; everything had been so straightforward, the plan had gone off without a hitch, no casualties, no loose ends. A smashing success, really.

So Scott honestly didn't know why he was half-walking, half-stumbling down one of the walking trails at two in the morning, or where the tightness in his chest or the headache was coming from. He felt like he was on the edge of flying right apart, and it was all he could do to keep it together and not let any of it slip down the link to Jean. Who was very busy in the delivery room, and he so didn't want to distract her.

Maybe that was why he was out here. Trying to get away from the telepathic baby in the process of being born.

The mouse Catseye had been stalking started abruptly, then ran off before she could even more to pounce - the reason why soon explained as she also heard the sounds of someone stumbling down one of the footpaths. Unsteadily so.

With a low, inquisitive "Mrrr?" Catseye slinked off from where she'd been lying in wait for her prey, and headed off to find out who it was, scent identifying the person before sight ever did.

It was entirely possible that Scott wouldn't have noticed the purple cat even if he'd been at the top of his game, mentally speaking. She was, after all, a cat, and it was the middle of the night.

But in the state that he was in, he missed her entirely. Scott tripped over a tree root and nearly fell, flinging out a hand against a nearby tree trunk to steady himself. He stopped, breathing heavily, like he'd been running a race.

With a startled sound, Catseye scurried over to him, scrambling over the same root Scott had tripped over to make her way to the tree and stretch up towards him, one paw on the tree as well for balance while the other reached up to paw the air towards him carefully.

"Mreow!"

The sound broke through the night time quiet firmly, a hint of unmistakable concern to in.

Scott nearly jumped out of his skin. "Cat--Catseye," he stammered, his heart racing - even faster. "You scared me," he managed, sliding down the tree to sit on the ground. Much better. Really.

She could have approached him as quietly and not and she still would have, she knew. Catseye knew those symptoms only too well. Without any further ceremony she climbed into his lap, starting up a purr not unlike that of a small motorized engine, bumping her cheek against his chin firmly. Breathe now!

Student on lap. This was generally a bad thing, Scott told himself a bit wildly, but then he registered the determined purring and he swallowed, trying to tell himself to calm down. "I'm all r-right," he said, the faint stammer giving him away. "I was just... walking. Out for a walk." Okay, pitiful excuse. Really pitiful. Scott took a shaky breath, feeling his self-control fraying even further.

"Mrf." The purring never abated, even as Catseye patted as his cheek carefully with one paw, the revealing wetness upon them something he'd likely not even noticed. Forge never had, during his panic attacks. It was a moot point though, and instead the purple cat concentrate on purring loud enough to be head all the way to the mansion.

This was insane. He was falling apart after the fact - after! - and the fact had gone fine. Better than fine. Doing it again, Scott thought frantically, he was doing it again....

But the steady purring and patting didn't stop. Catseye didn't shift and start yelling for drugged coffee, and Scott gave a tiny cracked laugh, reaching out and stroking her head gently, his hand shaking.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," he muttered.

Too much. The thought was matter of fact, Catseye knowing that there was only one thing to do. Let him work through it until he was able to stand again, then get him back to the mansion to someone who would actually be able to help him properly. Scott had Jean and that made things a lot easier, in that respect. As such, purring still she let him pet her, arching into the touch as any cat would whenever he faltered.

"I'm so tired." It slipped out before Scott could help it, but he kept petting Catseye, listening to the steady purring. "Have to have it together, though. Have to be seen to have it together."

The purring never missed a beat, though Catseye did pear at him carefully for a moment. Now, that line she'd heard before, all right. She let him pet her a little bit longer, waiting for the sound of his heartbeat to settle a bit more from the frenetic pace it had been following previously, and then wrapped her tail around his wrist once as she squirmed from his lap to the ground, tugging firmly. Back now. Back to CrazyRedHairWoman!

"What--no, I shouldn't," Scott protested somewhat weakly as he realized she was turning in the direction of the mansion. "I need to... settle down before I go back, Catseye..."

Uh huh. Catseye knew how that went - and while with Forge it had made perfect sense, in a way, it didn't with Scott. He was missing someone to settle down with. With a reassuring purr, Catseye wound around him once, stropping against his side before nudging him firmly with her head. "Mrrr!"

"... I get the sense that you're not taking no for an answer." And if he vacillated any further, he suspected she'd be tempted to bite. If there was one thing he'd noticed about Catseye since her arrival at the mansion, it was that she was fairly direct and efficient about such things.

As humans went, Scott was pretty darn smart, Catseye thought serenely. Nudging one last time, until he got to his feet again, she trotted by him, occasionally nudging lightly whenever he seemed likely to slow, careful not to trip him up as they progressed along the footpath. Humans had no idea how to walk properly like cats did, and though usually Catseye didn't mind showing tonight wasn't the best of times for that, really.

This was probably, she realized suddenly, why she always ended up having problems walking in a straight line as a human. She kept trying to walk like a cat…

~*~

Jean was showering, Scott thought, even before he opened the door to the suite and heard the noise of the shower. Catseye was no longer at his heels, and Scott glanced sideways in time to see the purple cat disappearing around the corner, tail waving. He swallowed, managing a very faint smile, before he stepped inside.

...good to get clean! Jean's thoughts bubbled happily on the link, as they had been doing ever since the flash of joyful images that had told him quite conclusively that Moira and Nathan's daughter had arrived on the scene, safely if quite vocally. Scott moved slowly through the suite and into the bedroom, sitting down on the bed with a shuddering sigh. He sat there for a long moment, staring blankly at the wall. Then, moving like an automaton, he stretched out on the bed, curling up on his side.

Jean finally stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around herself, mind essentially going Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, with the occasional telepathic baby! thrown in for variety. She made it about two steps into the bedroom before she spotted Scott on the bed and stoped, eyes narrowing. #You're getting much better at shielding, if I missed this,# she pathed, for now that she was focusing on him she could sense what she'd been unaware of while concentrating on the birth. "Are you all right, love?"

Scott didn't move. #I didn't want to distract you,# he sent back, his mental voice weary, dull with pain. He also didn't really want to bring her down, given the good mood she was in, but Catseye really hadn't seemed inclined to listen to protests. #And there was a cat herding me.#

#Well, kicking you in the ass is probably hard for her when she's in her cat form.# Jean settled onto the bed next to him, gently rubbing his back. #What's up? Where did all of this pain come from?#

Scott shifted onto his back so that he could look up at her. "I'm being irrational," he said aloud, tiredly. "That mission went just about perfectly." Images from the school flickered down the link - she'd read the report anyway - as he instinctively reviewed the night. The sequence of events that had let to their decision to go in, the brief fight with the hostage-takers. Muzzle flashes in the dark. "None of the kids were hurt," he said, his voice growing tighter, more hoarse, and he was shaking again, damn it. "I should be... celebrating, something..."

"Oh, boy..." It was a soft sigh of understanding as the images flashed in her mind, sensing the edges of a panic attack. "It's all right, love." Her hands continued moving soothingly, along his shoulders. "Breathe..."

"Could have gone so wrong." His chest felt like a vice was closing around it. "Opened fire right over the kids' heads. They were screaming..." If he'd deployed just a little differently, half the team could have been caught in the crossfire, too.

"It could have. It didn't, thank God." Jean kept her touch light, not demanding anything, just enough to remind him he didn't have to be alone.

"I don't know what the hell's wrong with me." His voice broke, but he made himself go on. "Falling apart like this. I'm not supposed to do that anymore. I fuck things up when I do that..."

"There's nothing wrong with you, Scott. You're allowed this. It's okay."

"No it's not!" He pushed himself up to a sitting position, still shaking, to see if it was easier to breathe sitting up. It wasn't, particularly. "I do this and they drug my coffee and stick me in the medlab and look at me sideways from now until the end of time..." The laugh that slipped out was breathless, rattled, and he ran his trembling hands through his hair, drawing in on himself almost automatically. "No sense, this makes no sense."

"Panic attacks don't, Scott. That's normal." Jean kept her voice level, not trusting to her shields to keep her stable if she tried to use the link to reassure him just now. But she caught one of his hands and held onto it, so he couldn't draw away completely, and so he would know she wouldn't leave him. "And it won't come to the drugs in the coffee. That's the end of the road, when there aren't any other options. We won't let it get that far, this time."

"Kids." He clutched at her hand almost desperately. "More kids... I can't handle it when it's kids, Jean, when I'm the one who has to make the decisions and they're the ones who suffer from it..."

"I know, Scott. I know." It was as simple as that. Jean simply held onto him and gave him all of the love and support and understanding that she had, trying to help him find his own way out of the panic.

Scott tried to remind himself of her shields. That it wasn't fair to be falling apart on her like this, that he shouldn't... but it wasn't as convincing an argument with himself as it usually was, for some reason, and before he quite knew what he was doing he was shifting towards her, clinging to her almost frantically. "They're all right," he said unevenly, still shivering. Her hair was still damp, and the familiar fragrance somehow managed to ground him a little. "They're all okay. I didn't screw it up."

Jean wrapped her arms around him, hands moving soothingly up and down his back. "You didn't," she agreed firmly. "you didn't at all."

He still couldn't stop shaking. He didn't feel like he was going to fly apart at the seams anymore, but it was like all the tension was draining away, like water through a sieve, and he just couldn't pull himself back together in the absence of it.

"Couldn't really unwind on the plane back," he said a bit unevenly. Trying to focus on being here, the feel of her arms around him. "Nate was pacing and swearing, and I swear the man projects without meaning to sometimes..."

"He does. Can't always help it, sometimes. But you're here now. It'll be ok, eventually." Jean didn't actually project safety, or security, or strength, she just let them rest in her mind, available for him to draw on, if he needed.

Scott concentrated on breathing. "Everything's okay? With the baby?" He caught himself smiling shakily suddenly. "I heard her. Or heard you hearing her."

Jean managed not to break her face with a grin, but the mention of Rachel did flood her mind with joy. "Everything's fine. She's adorable, and her mind..." Everything was so simple and pure with children, and Rachel could share that.

"I'm glad. I'm really glad. I mean, I thought we were going to have to knock Nate out on the way back before he paced a hole in the 'Bird's floor..."

He worried entirely without need. Which, really, isn't that uncommon, is it?"

"Ow." An exhausted laugh slipped out before Scott could help himself, and he drew back a bit, still smiling, even if he was still shaking a little. "Remember, I knew this didn't make any sense..."

Jean smiled softly, then leaned over to kiss his cheek. "And remember, I said it didn't have to. People's minds and emotions are even more confusing than most people would guess. Don't worry, I understand."

There was nothing in the least bit judgemental, or even assessing, about the way she was looking at him or her presence on the link. Just calm confidence and love, and Scott relaxed a little further.

"Just... got ahead of me for a while there, I guess."

"It's okay," Jean said, brushing a wayward strand of hair away from his glasses. "Now, are you going to have objections if I put on clothes?" The towel was decidedly slipping.

He mustered up another smile. "Do I really have to answer that?" he joked a bit weakly, and then laughed again at the look she gave him in return. "Seriously? No. Although feel free to remind me of that at some point when I can regret it..."

Relieved by his ability to laugh more than anything else, Jean smiled. "Will do. Love you, by the way," she added, before standing up to collect some clean clothes.

"Love you too." More than anything. As she moved around getting dressed, Scott laid back with a sigh, closing his eyes and trying to focus on something other than the memory of muzzle flashes in the dark. Faces, instead. The faces of the kids as they'd been led outside and run into their parents' waiting arms. That was better.

Decently clothed at last, Jean came back to the bed to curl up next to him, just being there and listening in on his thoughts as he steadied himself, a soft smile on her lips.

"Need to beef up the hostage rescue scenarios," Scott murmured, not opening his eyes. "Lots of variables in that one I hadn't ever planned for."

"Ok, that's doable," Jean agreed. "Won't even protest if you work through a couple meals..."

"Talk to Sean about... profiling. And Charles." His words were getting ever so slightly slurred, his thoughts slowing down. "And I need to learn Portugese."

Jean arched an eyebrow at that, but didn't answer. Instead she started going through a relaxing pattern in her mind, keeping her own thoughts quiet so as not to disturb him.

"Hate relying on translators..." Her thoughts were looping around and around, almost hypnotically, and Scott was breathing more deeply, distantly aware of the fact that yes, he was dozing off. Again. And maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Not such a bad thing, at all, Jean thought quietly in the back of her mind.