Paige and Scott

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Because the world needs Paige's opinion on this whole mess. A very ticked off Paige storms in on Scott and beats him up a bit. Then she tucks him in for a nap and threatens to give him a concussion. But she gave him Tylenol and a hug at some point, so it's okay.

Yeah, their relationship is weird.


He ought to be resting. Charles had suggested that he rest - quite firmly, as a matter of fact - but Scott couldn't seem to settle down, despite the pounding headache. Even another shower hadn't helped. He prowled the guest suite restlessly, feeding his turtle, rearranging the single shelf's worth of books, remaking the bed.

While Scott was stalking about in close quarters, Paige had extended herself to the entire mansion and even part of the grounds. She firmly repeated to herself that she did not want to see him as she shelved books in the library, really did not want to see him as she groomed the entire left side of the stables, and would probably punch him if she did as she washed the pans from this morning’s breakfast feast. And yet, she still, somehow, found herself outside his door, his new door, and then opening it without a single knock.

“Good afternoon,” she offered briskly, arms already beginning to fold over her chest.

Scott half-whirled at the opening door, falling into a defensive position instantly before he saw that it was Paige. "Do you not knock?" he asked, more gruffly than he'd really intended. But his heart was racing at her sudden appearance, and he really was not doing all that well with surprises today.

“I’m doing all right, thanks for asking, and yes you do owe me an explanation for what the hell is going on,” chirped back at him, almost eerily, as she held her position of perched on the arm of his chair. “Have you lost your clothing iron, by the way?”

Scott stared at her for a moment, taken aback in entirely new and strange ways. "I-" He glanced down at his clothes, almost involuntarily. "Wait, what the hell?" he said, shaking himself. "Paige, wrinkles are not high on my priority list today, all right?"

“Scott, when wrinkles are not high on your list, the only explanation is an oncoming Apocalypse. No, scratch that, you’d probably want to look nice for the falling frogs and balls of fire.” Completely nonplussed by his reactions so far, Paige let her eyes wander slightly, taking in her surroundings; magazines stacked and restacked, it seemed, pillows recently fluffed, oh yes, there had been some mad pacing going on here. “Explanation? Go? Now would be cool?”

"Explanation of what?" Scott said, frustrated. He went over to the windows and tugged the curtains back. First one, then the other, until they were spaced properly. "Do you think I have any idea what happened?"

Leaning over, Paige picked up a pillow from the loveseat, moving it a few inches so it was no longer even with the other with oh-so defying eyes; she knew this game. “Well, you sure as hell have more of an idea than I do! All I got was ‘Oh, shucks, mind wipe! Sorry about that! Might want to make sure we don’t all die in the night!’”

"I went out, all right?" She had a point, he supposed. She was team. Team deserved a more full explanation than the brief post he'd made when he'd staggered in this morning. He just wasn't sure he was up to writing it all down just now. The panicky feeling in the pit of his stomach started up again, and wouldn't go away. "I went out, I... stopped at this club, I have no idea why, just a whim or something. I was talking to someone, and that's apparently when the real memories of the evening end. Then I woke up in the alley outside." Leaving stuff out. He was so leaving stuff out.

No expert on psychology, Paige stared at him a long, hard minute after he finished until he blurred slightly out of focus around the edges; something more was in those words. “You went out. By yourself. And ended up at a club,” she stated slowly.

"I needed to get out. Just... to get out," Scott muttered, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "The fake memories... they weren't right, I knew they weren't right. It wasn't a hangover I had when I woke up. Hangovers don't come with nosebleeds, first of all."

“Out. To a club,” she repeated, keeping his gaze tightly. “Why are you not seeing what’s so very my hero has been possessed by Manuel’s alien love child about that?”

"For all I know," Scott said bitterly, "whoever was in my head made sure I wound up at that club. I remember it not making sense. All of a sudden I was parking the car, and standing in line..." He let the air in his lungs out on a shaky sigh, looking away from Paige. "But the memories are wrong," he repeated. "Were wrong. They're gone now. Didn't happen."

“A lot of things about you aren’t making sense these days. I wouldn’t pin everything on your break in,” Paige replied evenly.

Scott's eyes darted back to her, even as his throat tried to close. "Well, it's been kind of a shitty month," he said, forcing the words out past the tightness.

Her anger extinguished instantly into a tired kind of resentment, Paige didn’t answer for a moment. “So you’re just going to fall completely to pieces and that’s that.”

"Don't... don't do that," he snapped back, his own anger sparking. "Goddamn it, I handled that t-tape... I trashed my room, but I pulled it together, I didn't do anything that couldn't be fixed."

“What, it has to be something that can’t be fixed before it counts? Then I can get mad at you?” she answered, not even bothering to raise her voice as she coldly stood up, brushing down her jeans. “Fine. You want some goddamn tea, Captain?”

"I don't understand what reason you think you have to be angry with me in the first place." Scott realized he was pacing again, and told himself to stop. "And no, I don't want any goddamned tea. But Ororo left some, if you wanted to make some for yourself."

Making an angry growl, threaded with curses and rude names, Paige drew back and smacked him upside the head. “Because you’re being a dumbass! Throwing temper tantrums and storming around and doing stupid, stupid things, that could not only get yourself but other people hurt! I know no one will tell you this, but you’re not doing fine.”

Had she just - yes, she had just smacked him. Breathing hard, Scott took a step back, feeling oddly detached all of a sudden. As if it had cleared his head. Of everything.

"I refuse to blame myself for leaving the fucking house." His voice was strained, but level. "Don't you lay that on me. I don't know who did this to me, but going out for a drive was not a stupid thing, it wasn't."

But other things last night had been. Hadn't they? Scott turned away, rubbing at the scars on his face and trying not to shake.

“That would hold up better in court if your other car was not currently a tin can, you moron,” she spat back, throwing out her hand in a gesture of complete frustration that seconded as a way to keep herself from touching his shoulder. “I refuse to balk at your sudden ability to curse, either.”

"Not connected," Scott muttered. "The two are not connected. This was something else. Just... bad timing."

“I’ll totally hit you again if you think I’m buying that,” Paige retorted, glad he was turned away from her so he couldn’t see the way she was tugging at her hair.

He gave a strange-sounding, shaky laugh. "Please don't hit me again. My head hurts." It wasn't connected. Was it? How could it be? Oh, he was confused...

Giving him a weak smile, Paige replied in quieter tones this time. “Look. I’m trying to mean. And I don’t like it, but if it means you admit that there may be a problem and poke around for help from someone much wiser than I, I’ll do it. Tea and hugs won’t work here and I’m no good with the big words that don’t relate somehow back to the table of elements.”

Gently sneaking a hand up on his shoulder, just the fingertips, she continued. “Please? I don’t like being mad at you. You’re so much better than this.”

"Am I?" Another odd little laugh slipped out, but he didn't pull away. He rubbed at the scars on his face. "I--something happened, last night, even if it didn't happen the way I remembered it. I can't... I never thought I'd do something like that, but apparently I did."

“Scott?” she asked softly, puzzled as to what he meant; this was no longer just a drive.

"The false memories were of... getting drunk, and sleeping with this girl from the club. But they're not right. I knew they weren't, even before Charles told me they weren't and took them away again. None of the edges matched."

“Oh.”

The implications hit Paige hard and sudden, like sunlight to sleepy eyes, and she dropped her hand to back to her side.

Scott folded his arms across his chest, tightly, as if bracing himself. He was shivering slightly as he forced himself to face that part of it head-on, which he hadn't yet, despite telling Amelia and Charles both.

"I don't know what really happened. I suppose I never will. It's just gone, and all I know is... is that something happened, and I think I could go around and around in my head forever, trying to figure out the logic of it. If there's any logic."

“Should it have happened at all?” Paige stumbled, confused and hurt and angry, at him, at her, at herself for not being someone else, someone better for this.

"No." His voice was hollow. "It shouldn't have happened. However it did. And I might not remember, but I know it was wrong, whatever it was. I feel it."

“Then... then what are you going to do about it?” she prodded, her voice rising.

"I'm going to see Charles every day, unless he talks me into going to Alaska for a little while after all. I imagine we'll pick up when I come back, if I do that." The emotions were all still seething beneath the surface, confused and incomprehensible, but he stayed away from them. Tired, he was too tired.

That was all she could ask for, Paige mused to herself, swallowing all accusations and emotions as circled around him, wrapping her arms about his waist. Her cheek rested on his shoulder and she let go of a held breath. “Okay.”

"I hate this." It slipped out, almost involuntarily. "Just hate it..." His knees were getting a little wobbly again, and he sighed raggedly. "I've got to sit down, Paige," he said, one arm slipping around her in an awkward hug that doubled as supporting himself. "My head's killing me, still..."

“Can I carry you? I’ll get you Excedrin after. Eh? Eeeh?” she asked, tilting her head back to grin at him. Hugs and cuteness, that’s really all she knew how to do on the fixing people front. “Come on, you know you want to,” she continued, gently leading him towards a seat as she did.

"You practiced fireman's carry with your siblings or something, didn't you?" Scott murmured as he sagged down into the chair, more slowly than he would have if Paige hadn't been helping. He raised a shaking hand and rubbed at his eye. "I think I'm finally crashing. Should have hours ago, with all of this..."

“It’s fun! And I won’t even drop you!” she promised, absently brushing his hair back as she took his hand; rubbing your eyes made icky noises. “But, if you want to wobble all the way to your room by yourself while I rummage around for a glass of water and some pain killers, even though I could totally stop you, I guess I could momentarily be blind or something.”

"It's okay... I like the chair." He did, too. It was all upright, and nicely large, and he could just sink into it and feel like no one was going to come up from behind him and - he stopped that train of thought right there, shivering and drawing a little further in on himself. "Can bench-press me later... promise."

Pulling the throw off the back of the couch, and grabbing one of the pillows there while she was at it – if only for hugging purposes – Paige turned and handed him both. “That’s what you said last time,” she said as she wandered into the bathroom. “And if you get a crick in your neck, so help me...”

A sad, feeble little smile flickered across his face and was gone again as he settled himself more comfortably in the chair. "Crick in my neck... back to normalcy, no?"

“But then you’d have to go to physiotherapy, and they’d ask you what kind of stress you were under that your shoulders and neck are essentially solid from knots, and then they’d tell you to take a trip to Mexico-“ Paige rambled, finally returning with a glass of water and two little pills which she handed to him. “Ah, the end of the train of thought. I see your master plan.”

Scott took the two pills with a sip of water, then set the glass on the table next to the chair. Just in case he wanted it. "Me, scheming to get a vacation? Not me..." It was banter, but weak banter, and he didn't know how convincing it was, or whether he'd meant it to be in the first place. His eyelids were drooping, and the question didn't really seem all that important anyway.

Chuckling warmly – Paige appreciated the attempt – she tucked the blanket in around him and smiled one last time before heading for the door. “Funny, one of us always seems to be going to sleep at the end of our conversations.” Turning off the light, she’d just about closed the door behind her when she popped her head back in to say, “But if I catch you doing work when I come back, I’ll make sure you don’t sleep for days due to repeated concussions, mkay?” before ducking out again with a click.