Scott and Jean, Tuesday night

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Another red-haired doctor checks on her significant other, although Scott is in considerably rougher shape than Nathan.


Empty exam room. Yay. Moving like an old man, Scott shuffled over to the table, then stopped, staring fixedly at it. Too high. Definitely too high. He went over and sagged down into the chair instead, wincing. Should have taken his leathers off, he supposed, but he hadn't had the energy. And Sam had been muttering something about "Medlab. Now. Before Jean comes down looking..." at him.

Jean did not come running into the room. There may have been a certain amount of excessive haste in her walk down the hallway, but there was no running. Running upset the kids. Once she was in the lab, though, and could get a good look at him, she was across the room like a shot. "Christ, Scott," she breathed. Bruises and lacerations, predominately, and they would have said if there was anything worse... "Come on, on your feet long enough to get the leathers off."

He swallowed; his throat felt like sandpaper, which was kind of weird. "Kind of like it where I am," he said a bit hazily, but she was right there, somehow managing to be insistent and gentle at the same time as she helped him to his feet. He winced again, a pained noise slipped out as she helped him out of the jacket. "Hurts..."

"I can tell, sweetheart." And that, right there on his shoulder, would be one very good reason for it to hurt. A set of rather spectacular new bruises bloomed across the shoulder he'd rammed into the Danger Room wall, where the old bruises had only just started to fade. The rising bruises on his lower chest were entirely new. She gave thanks that her TK control was getting better as, helping him to sit down again, she located and collected some heavy duty painkillers out of the medlab supplies. "Did they give you anything at the medical center in Budapest?" she asked, frowning slightly. The work the paramedics had done wasn't exactly sloppy, but it didn't come anywhere near the exacting level of care she required of other doctors when they were treating Scott.

"Yeah... can't remember what, my head's a little foggy." He blinked down at his tightly wrapped hand and wrist, remembering Veres... Nimrod, part of his mind insisted, catching his hand and squeezing. "I still have a hand," he said abruptly. "This is good."

Well, his mind had more of the fuzzy-from-pain feeling to it than the fuzzy-from-medication, but she halved the dosage she'd originally taken out and gave the pills to him. It would, at least, cut the worst of the pain. "That is very good," she said. "I'm fond of your hands." His shoulder obviously wasn't dislocated, but she was going to sling the arm anyway for at least a couple days to keep the stress off of it. "Am going to get a couple x-rays of your shoulder and your hand. You can just stay right there. I imagine not-moving is high on the list of priorities."

Scott closed his eyes, half-listening to her move around, half-reviewing the events of the mission in his head. Had to get things straight so that he could make the report. And debriefing, too, he'd completely forgotten debriefing. It made his eyes come open and he started to struggle up out of the chair.

"Stay. Put." Jean was there in front of him, the x-ray machine set up next to his chair. Her tone clearly said she was not going to accept any arguments from him.

"But..." She was glaring at him. Not the 'I'm angry' glare, at least. "I think they did that already," he muttered, sagging back into the chair. "Said something about hairline fractures..." Jean might not be entirely in control of her TK just yet but she wouldn't need it to manhandle... womanhandle him? If he didn't do as he was told.

"So they weren't completely incompetent..." She was not being fair to those poor paramedics, who weren't even here to defend their work, but she didn't care. First she wanted to get Scott properly bandaged up, then she was going to make sure he didn't have anything he absolutely had to do now (and Ororo could fully handle the debriefing, if she had to), then she was going to drag him off to their suite, lock the door, and make sure he slept while she held on to him. "Just want to get a look at the shoulder, and it won't take that much longer to get spares of your hand."

"Okay..." He sagged in the chair a little more as she set up the x-ray machine. "Optic blast to the head," he said after a moment, "and I don't feel bad about it at all. He was like... Cain. Sort of. Really ought to avoid hand-to-hand with people like Cain."

"Yes, I think avoiding such things whenever possible is the way to go." The x-rays didn't take that long, and Jean could feel the painkillers start to hit Scott's system, the sharp edge to his thoughts dulling slightly.

Scott was relaxing slowly, the residual tension ebbing away. They had after all been flying over some airspace where they weren't strictly supposed to be, and he'd been unable to really rest on the flight back. But they were safely home, and everyone was all right... mission was successful, too, and that was good...

"Oh, I'm tired," he murmured, his voice a little slurred. "You're not on duty or anything...? Can come upstairs with me..." He tried to laugh, then caught his breath, bruised ribs protesting. "Don't know that I can make it upstairs on my own anyway..."

"Nope, not on duty. Just here for you. And there is going to be much care taking and general fussing over you, so you know." She carefully brushed his hair back from his temple, smiling softly at him. "I want you to keep the arm in a sling for a couple days, at least until the bruising starts to go down," she said, switching briefly to the doctor voice. "Ice the shoulder and the ribs whenever you can, and we can discuss how long the hand is going to keep you out of training later, when you're not so exhausted. You might also consider making one of the trainees play secretary for you for a while, because typing with that hand is out of the question."

"Bet you I'd have at least one volunteer..." He blinked, trying to focus on her. "Resting sounds like a good idea," he said tiredly. "Should make sure everything's... under control, first. Didn't break the plane this time, though." Which was good, because he honestly didn't think he'd have been able to help fix it this time. And three times was too much.

"At least, yes. Give me half a second..." Jean's eyes unfocused slightly as she reached out for Ororo with her mind. #Ororo, is everything under control so I can make Scott go to sleep?# The answer came in the affirmative, and Jean smiled at Scott. "You're covered. Ororo's got it under control."

Scott blinked up at her for a long moment. "Did you just do something you haven't been able to do since you came back, or is it the drugs playing tricks on me?"

Jean smiled wryly. "What, talking to Ororo? No, my intentional telepathic range covers most of the grounds these days, so that wasn't particularly spiff. Brining you the painkillers was new, but as you hadn't had them yet, I'll forgive you not noticing."

"I need to just stop talking, I think." Scott smiled a bit wanly at her. "I'm not tracking very well. Think you probably noticed." He looked around a bit aimlessly. "The others'll get looked after, right? Kylun and Haroun were there, too. And Nate got hit. From across the street. Not exactly sure what happened there yet..."

"Of course, love, there are some serious advantages to having four doctors. Hank and Maddie are already here, and Moira will make sure Nathan is fine before she starts to scold him. Don't worry. Or at least don't worry now. Let's just get you to bed." She offered him her hands, knowing he'd need the help to stand up.

He reached out with his good hand, hauling himself back to his feet with Jean's help. Definitely a little wobbly. "Ow... you know I just... worry, right? Trust you all implicitly. But I can't help myself."

"Course," Jean agreed, tugging his arm over his shoulders and slipping her own around his waist. It was impossible to fully miss the bruises, but she avoided most of them, and he wasn't steady enough on his feet for her not to help. "It's just the way you are, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, you're not the only one who worries. I may not scold you the way Moira does Nate, but I don't worry any less."

Scott took a cautiously deep breath, wincing, as they moved slowly towards the door. "Going to be devising scenarios from that... mess," he said heavily, letting the memories sit at the top of his mind so she could see them if she chose. "They sealed off that building with all the tenants in it... eight, nine hundred instant hostages..." Even if a couple of police lieutenants had seen sense even before Istvan had started to talk to them, it still could have been a disaster.

"I am continually impressed and horrified by how many and creative the ways are to take hostages and threaten innocents." She frowned at the images in his mind as she helped steer him down the hallway. "Elevator's this way, love," she added as he started to automatically turn towards the stairs.

"Right..." He leaned against the inside wall of the elevator as they stepped in, his eyes trying to close of their own accord. Jean was still holding onto him, which was good, because otherwise he thought he'd probably be sliding down the wall. "I feel like Horatio could beat me in a footrace at the moment..."

"Just going to pour you into bed and you can be unconscious for as long as you like. Unless you'd prefer a bath? Will keep you from drowning, if you want."

"Now there's love..."