Scott and Jean and Nate the Incredible Unconscious Man

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

First thing in the morning, Scott and Jean go try to find out if she can get anything out of Nathan's mind. It doesn't work very well at all.



Jean looked weary and worn at the edges, but compared to the man on the bed she was the picture of health and well being. "One of these days," she said, setting his file back down and looking up at Scott, "we're just going to confine him somewhere where he can't get hurt. I'm tired of seeing him hurt like this." Her heart ached, knowing there was nothing she could do for him, that he was better off here in an impersonal hospital than he would be back at the medlab, and that her energies had to focused elsewhere and not on her friend and teacher.

Scott gave a small, humorless smile. "Plastic bubble, is the running joke," he said softly. Not that Nathan was going to notice people talking one way or the other. He was still on the ventilator, and Jean had just noted concernedly that his fever was rising. Apparently the drug cocktail wasn't kicking in just yet. He glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door. Cain had taken Moira down the hall to get some coffee; they'd be back soonish.

"I'm not sure plastic would cut it. With Nate I think we'll need something more heavy duty." Jean couldn't argue with any of the treatment decisions the hospital had made and, truly, if there had been anything Moira would have picked up on it long before she had gotten there. Smoothing back his hair, she added, "I'm not sure how well this is going to work. It's much easier to scan a conscious mind..."

"Do what you can," Scott said quietly. "Anything you can find out would be helpful. We're working with too little information here to be able to even guess if anything else is coming down the pipe."

Jean nodded and settled carefully on the side of the bed, making sure not to jostle Nathan's bandaged arms. Wanting the focus, although in truth she didn't need it so much these days, she reached down to frame Nathan's head with her hands, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes.

Contact. Only not with the intricate patterns that usually represented Nathan's mind, but a jumble of images and sensations, scrambled by fever and shock into something unintelligible. Jean was plunged into searing heat, then icy cold. Children's faces, everywhere she looked, familiar and unfamiliar. Bodybags overlarge for what they carried. Open skies, and white rooms, and dark cells...

Physically Jean flinched back from the deluge of images, but mentally she tried to press on, seeking anything intelligible in the chaos that filled Nate's mind. With his fever rising delirium had set in, overlaying the pure psychic shock that he'd suffered. The shock itself ought to be related to what had happened, so Jean reached further into the chaos, looking for something that could be sorted out.

There was a mechanical whine, as if something was running at too high a capacity, and connected to that were the images of breaking patterns, delicate spirals torn asunder as if a whirlpool had opened up just below them. More images flickered in and out. A darkened office. Some kind of lab. Plaster and wood flashing into glass. Some sort of blast shield shattering under a psionic explosion.

The whine grated in Jean's mind like fingers scraped down a blackboard, shaking her concentration and the explosions in Nathan's mind almost broke it entirely. "Broken... it's all broken..." she gasped.

"Jean," Scott said, softly but forcefully. He didn't move to touch her, not wanting to shock her out of her rapport with Nathan, but if she was floundering... His hand moved up towards his collar, to his com, almost involuntarily.

With a gasp she pulled back, shaking. With the paterns in his mind ripped apart, there was no thread to follow, no way to link the events into a coherent order of what had happened. "I can't... There's... I can't."

"Deep breath," Scott said, his voice low and soothing, and did move forward this time, laying his hands on her shoulders. An anchor. "Try to tell me what you saw?"

Jean followed his instruction, breathing in deeply, and again, before speaking. "It's... chaotic. An, an attack on his mind. Mechanical. Sonics? Broke his... broke everything, really and it's all chaos. And with no consciouness to recreate the lines, there's just nothing to link it together. I can't even tell what's from today and what's not." Because she knew the delirium images could not have happened today, but they were just as vivid and relevant as everything else.

But Scott rocked backwards a little, his hands tightened on her shoulders almost spasmodically for a moment before he forced himself to ease his grip. "Oh, Christ," he muttered, his jaw clenching. "Pete, you bastard..." Jean looked up at him, and he swallowed. "Not sonics. EMP. Of course. Pete would know... he probably knew before Nathan ever got to the mansion."

"Oh..." Jean's hands clenched into tight fists. Really, she was quite far down on the list of people who got a crack at Pete if they ever got their hands on him, but she was damned well going to take her turn when it came.

Scott bit his lip, hard, wrestling himself back under control. Jean still looked a little shaky, and who knew what Nathan was picking up in the state he was in. "Like psionic electrocution," he said under his breath. "It's his one real vulnerability - specific frequencies of EM." He squeezed her shoulders more gently. "It's in his file, but locked to the COs, Charles, and Moira. No wonder that building was still standing." He had wondered.

Jean's heart rate was slowly steadying, but already a faint pounding was beginning in her temples. "That... makes a sort of sense, yes." And was probably something she should be at least investigating. Although surely if she were vulnerable to EM fields her earliest lessons would have shown something... "And you think Pete knew before?"

"He's known Nathan for a long time," Scott said tiredly. "And I think from what little Nate's said, they met on the job. Pete's certainly worked with the Pack before. It's plausible." He took a deep breath, then let it out again. "The good news is that it apparently doesn't do permanent damage. Scrambles his powers but good, which would explain the problems with the virus, but the effects do fade."

Jean turned her worried gaze back to the man on the bed. "That," she said slowly, "is very good news." Especially considering the state his mind was in right now...

"So you don't think there's any chance of getting any of the details from him right now?" Scott said bleakly. He hated to push, but... he worried.

She shook her head. "Scott, fever delusions on top of psionic shock. There's no coherent pattern of thought in his mind for me to follow. I can't tell what images are from this and what's from a week or a year ago. I can't even tell what are true memories and what's the fever."

"Then we wait." Scott's shoulders slumped a little. "Make sure he's protected here, keep an eye out at home, and see if Intel can turn up anything."

"Afraid so. When the medicines start to kick in and his fever breaks, Elisabeth or I can try again, but we may be stuck until he wakes up." The alarm on Jean's watch sounded and she glanced down. "Hell. I've got to get back to relieve Madelyn. I told her there was a chance I might be late getting back, but I don't want to leave her in there longer than I have to." At least she'd thought to grab a quick bite before they'd left the school.

"Thanks for trying," Scott said quietly, giving her his hand to help her up. "I know how tired you are." He smiled a bit. "Shall we go do the supportive thing for a few minutes with Moira before we leave?" The smile turned a bit strained. "She may be managing the hospital staff as if the place belonged to her, but I think we can both see through that."

Jean swayed slightly when she regained her feet, but the brief vertigo vanished quickly. "I think that would be a good idea. Even putting aside the fact that she'd probably kill me if I'd been here and not checked in to get her latest from her and give her and update." She wrapped her arms around Scott for a brief, tight hug. She might be tired, but Moira had to be at least as tired, and at least Jean didn't have to deal with Scott, unconscious in a hospital.

"Then let's go do that, and get you back to the mansion," Scott murmured. "You can have a nap in the car."

"A nap would be good, yes. God," she added, hand raising to rub at her temples, "my head hurts."