Jean and Scott, Sunday evening

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

As expected, Jean scolds Scott for using the laptop, they talk about other things and Scott gets to have a little bit of a breakdown. The brave front only goes so far.



He had made the post to the journal system - he wasn't sure what had spurred that, other than some vague need to reassure the kids that he was in fact doing just fine, minus one eye or not - and was now idly surfing some of the more interesting mutant-affairs related blogs, trying to get some sense of the general reaction to the riot. Some of it was predictable - sadly predictable, and Scott sighed as he scrolled through one particularly virulent screed.

Jean stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest as she arched an eyebrow at Scott. "You know what's not a great thing when you're worried about eyestrain? Computers. I should have known better than to leave my laptop in here."

Scott looked up at her very meekly. The picture of meekness, he was. "My brain. It was... um. Crying out for diversion. Isn't that a good thing? If I'm feeling well enough to be restless?" Although he really wasn't feeling all that well. His head was clearer, yes, but the pain was awful, and the painkillers - he was off the morphine pump, sadly - were only taking the edge off.

"Or feeling bad enough to need a distraction?" she asked, his thoughts tinged with that brightness she associated with pain. "I still think it's kind of my duty to tell you not to push yourself. So, consider yourself scolded." Jean smiled. "Anything I can do to help with the finding of diversions that won't strain your eye?"

"Just keep me company?" Scott asked as he shut down the laptop. "I guess Phillip and Deborah are back at the hotel... I don't quite remember them leaving. Guess I drifted off again."

Jean took the computer from him once he shut the screen, setting it on his bedside table - not actually out of reach at all, because she did understand that daytime television was stultifyingly dull. "Yes, they left a while ago. Stopped in to say 'hello' while Moira and I were working and let me know you'd fallen asleep. I think Moira was very impressed with the cookies."

Scott settled back against the pillows with a sigh, ignoring the wave of dizziness that passed over him at the movement. "I had a little chat with Phillip, while Deborah was off making sure Alex ate."

"Oh?" Jean asked, sitting down in what had become her chair. "About the leather thing?"

"About the leather thing. I gave him the basics. Slightly more descriptive version of the talk that parents get after their kids go to them for permission to train." Scott gave a soft laugh. "He was, not unexpectedly, completely unsurprised."

Jean smiled. "And your lack of stress suggests that he took it well. I'm glad."

"He told me he had me pegged as more than an engineering teacher five minutes into our first conversation, but that he just hadn't been sure what. He was okay with the basic details, too. Didn't push for more."

"I've still never really decided if it's easier that they know or not." Jean's parents, unlike Phillip, had never been comfortable with what little they did know about the school's extracurricular activities. "Did he say if he was going to tell Deborah?"

"I think he's going to play it by ear. Canny old fox, that grandfather of mine..." Scott rubbed at his neck, wincing. "I didn't tell him exactly what did happen. Just said we were trying to help control the riot."

"One suspects that that's perhaps where you get it, love," she said with a smile. "But I think that was... probably a good choice. The details might have been a bit much."

"Hell," Scott said quietly, "I don't like thinking about them too hard myself. And I think... it's worse on the rest of you."

Jean sighed softly, reaching out to take his hand. "Maybe."

Scott took a deep breath, then let it out, hearing the unevenness. "Just about fell flat on my face getting out of bed. Again. I get so dizzy... please tell me that's going to go away."

"It will," she promised. "You're still adjusting to only having half the visual input you expect. It may take a little while, but you'll adjust."

"I just want to go home." It came out sounding considerably more woeful-sounding - and fretful - than he intended. "I hate hospitals. And I'm starting to wish I would have a slip around Helga. She's mincing, now."

"I'm going to not offer to deal with her." Jean's eyes narrowed. "McDonnell would disapprove. But we're going home tomorrow, love. I booked a flight this afternoon."

"I'll be able to rest better at home," Scott said, squeezing her hand. "Or, you know, pretend to rest and really run around and try and catch up on all my work..."

"Don't make me tie you to the bed, Scott. You know I will."

"I just... want to be back." His voice sounded almost wistful now. "Doesn't feel right, to be somewhere else, trying to deal with all of this... does that make sense?"

"It does. All of this," she waved vaguely around the room with her free hand, "is just an extra worry. I'm not saying it will be easy when we're home, but easier."

"Phillip and Deborah want us to come up over Christmas," Scott said. "It was... pretty wonderful, last year, to be up there over the holiday."

"So you'd be vote number three for the idea?" Jean asked. "I think that would be nice. We could go for a while, if you wanted. More than just a couple days."

"I would really," Scott said after a moment, "like to see the northern lights for real. And they were spectacular last year at Christmas."

Jean's smile widened. "Let's do that, then. Take a week or so and go up and do Christmas in Alaska."

He squeezed her hand with a tired little half-smile. "Deal. I don't care what's going on at that point, we're doing the family thing. Although... gah." He managed to look slightly distressed. "Your family. Not looking forward so much to their reactions to the one-eyed husband-to-be."

"Don't worry, love. They know. I called them and talked to my father, and he's handling my mother. They were more worried than anything else. Sarah offered to fly out, but the twins have a flu and I said she should stay with them. Even my mother doesn't actually dislike you, you know," she said wryly.

"I just... okay, I don't really know what I'm worrying about." He tried to smile. "It's not like I lost a noticeable piece, right? No one's going to be treating me differently..."

Jean shook her head, then leaned across the bed to kiss him. "Don't fret. There will be uncertainty at first, there always is, but it will go away."

"I'm not sure having my head clearer's been a good thing," he muttered. "I've been thinking about things..."

"Good things or bad things? Or just those things which insist on being thought about?"

"Just... things. Flying," Scott made himself say.

Jean pressed her lips together, bowing her head for a second and squeezing his hand. "Scott..." She didn't know what it would do to him if he couldn't fly again, but she didn't know if he would ever be able to, either.

"Just... tell me it's too early to be thinking about that?" It came out almost as a plea, and he gave a wistful little laugh with very little in the way of real humor about it. "Need to... prioritize, and all. Focus on relearning how to do things like walk without running into doorframes, right?"

"It is too early," she said immediately. "We haven't even gotten out of the hospital yet."

"Right." His voice sounded a little choked, though. He'd made the mistake of asking Phillip what the flight down had been like.

"I don't know what to tell you," Jean said softly. "We're just going to have to wait and see what can be done."

"Seems like such a silly thing to be g-getting upset about." But he was tired and in pain, and the idea of never flying again, of always being a passenger...

"It's not silly," she told him. "Not at all. But... right now, it is something we can't do anything about. There are so many little steps to work on first."

All at once, he wanted to go home and didn't. He hated the hospital, with the proverbial passion of a burning sun, but going home and putting his nose to the grindstone, trying to learn something he'd never had to learn before, hoping he didn't slip, trying not to think about all the things that might have to change... Scott closed his eyes, his breath catching in his chest. His whole head was throbbing, and he knew it wasn't anywhere near time for a next dose of painkillers yet.

Without a word, Jean stood up and moved to sit carefully next to him on the bed. #It'll be all right. We'll get through this and it will be all right. It's just going to take time.#

"I know. I know," he managed in a hoarse voice, and knew that it was much more trying to convince himself than a response to her. "I'm just... I'm trying not to get down about this, but I just..." The words caught in his throat.

"You're doing amazingly, Scott," Jean said, her voice gentle. "There's nothing about this that isn't hard, incredibly hard. And it's all right to admit that."

It would have been easier if it had been a fight. Or something. It was easier to think the words at her than to say them aloud, his throat was so tight. Not like this, by chance like this...

#It was a fight the size of a city. It didn't get out of hand, it started out of hand.#

Just... if I hadn't been turned the other way, if I'd just been paying attention... But what-ifs didn't do any good, did they? He had been turned the other way, had missed it until it was too close... had blasted it anyway. Instinct.

#There are so many ways it could have gone differently. Some of them are better, but some of them aren't.# If he hadn't blasted it it would probably have been closer when it exploded. At his feet, or against him. The glass from the bottle, the fire... She clenched his hand. #But this is what happened.#

Shouldn't second-guess. I know that. He couldn't quite stop shaking, and every faint tremor sent a wave of nauseating pain through his head. Pull yourself together, Summers, a different voice said from the back of his mind, reprovingly. This did not class as keeping up the reassuring front, and he'd indulged himself quite sufficiently yesterday, between the frayed nerves and the growling and the sulking.

"You don't have to put a front on for me, Scott. Not ever." Jean pulled his hand up to her lips to kiss it.