Marie and Scott, Friday

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Marie goes to check on Scott. He’s incredibly jumpy and she tries to get his mind on happier topics, but she’s only temporarily successful. Marie then makes a promise she hopes she can keep.

He couldn't sit still. As little energy as he'd had yesterday, now he had too much, and Scott moved restlessly around the living room, his mind turning in circles. Jean was downstairs - with Charles? He thought maybe with Charles - and Alex was... he wasn't sure where Alex was. Getting ready to go back? His mind jerked away from that thought, and Scott's expression went even more flat as he moved from the turtle-tank to the window to the bookshelves and then back to the kitchen.

"Scott? Scott?" Marie called out while she knocked on his door in a manner that could not be referred to as gently. She hadn't been able to see him since his return to the mansion and she wanted to prove to herself that he was okay. Despite his journal post the day before, she had waited to seek him out, hoping to give him a chance to settle in first. She rattled the door handle, very tempted to break the lock and let herself inside.

Scott was halfway across the room and in the doorway of the bedroom in what really hadn't - it hadn't - been a panicked flight. He made himself stop. Marie. It was just Marie. He swallowed past the tightness in his throat and found his voice.

"Come in..." Okay, so a fainter than usual version of his voice.

As she walked into the room, she was shocked by how bad Scott sounded and looked after all the time he'd spent recovering. "What did they do to you?" she blurted out. She had seen the signs of torture when they had picked him up from the silo, but she hadn't been thinking clearly then and seeing the way he looked now was still a shock. "Oh god, Ah'm sorry," she said, quickly walking over to him and placing a hand on his arm.

Scott jerked back, his heart pounding in his throat suddenly. "Don't-" He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut, one hand going up to cover the real eye instinctively.

Marie pulled her hand back as though she had touched a hot stove, looking at him with pained confusion. "Ah didn't think…Ah'm sorry…." She tucked both her hands into her pockets and looked down at her feet. "What can Ah do to help?"

Calm down. Calm down, it's just Marie. The itch behind his eye went away, and he lowered his hand, opening his eyes again tentatively. "I'm okay," he said feebly. "You just... you startled me, Marie. I'm sorry." He edged away from her, towards the couch.

Marie stood still, waiting for Scott to calm down. He reminded her of an injured animal and she tried to make her voice soothing. Remember, no sudden movements. "It's okay, you've been through a lot, Ah shoulda known better than to just reach out."

Scott sank down on the couch, breathing a bit raggedly. Calm down, he told himself again. A few flecks of dust floated through the sunlight, and Scott stared fixedly at them. After too long a pause, he remembered that Marie was still standing there.

"I'm... not having a good day," he said with a certain sad irony. He shouldn't have made that pose. Should have just... waited. Except that he'd felt the need to try and grasp some semblance of normalcy, after what Jean had told him. Hah. Hah-bloody-hah.

"Ah can see that," she said, her voice quite serious. "If you need me to leave, Ah will. Ah just…well, since we brought you back Ah hadn't seen you and Ah was worried."

"I've been resting a lot. Or outside. I needed sunlight... they kept me in the dark the whole time." Scott swallowed, the fear stabbing at him again, even if it was more distant. "That's why they had me up in the greenhouse... sunlight deprivation makes my metabolism shut down. If they'd kept me down there in that missile silo for another few days I probably would have died."

Marie sucked in her breath. She knew that he had been tortured, but she hadn't realized how bad it had been. Resisting the urge to reach out and touch him, she thrust her hands deeper into her pockets. "That's horrible."

Scott's shoulders hunched a little. "One of those experiences you don't want to repeat," he muttered faintly. "I don't remember a lot of it clearly. Between than and the drugs and... it's blurry, most of it." Lie. Out and out bald-faced lie. He remembered entirely too much of it.

"Ah wouldn't think so," she said, walking towards him hesitantly. She was careful to watch his reaction, ready to halt at the slightest sign of skittishness from Scott. She found herself at a loss for words – what could she say? How are you holding up? "Ah don't know what to say except that Ah'm sorry this happened to you.

"It's okay, Marie. You don't need to say anything." He summoned up a limp smile. "I'm sorry it happened to me, too. Although it's better than it happening to Alex..." Focus on that. Alex hadn't been hurt, that was all that mattered."

It's shouldn't have happened to either of you. Marie very slowly sat down in the chair across from Scott. "Is there anything Ah can do?"

Scott shook his head fractionally, then told himself Marie deserved more than that. "I just need... some more time to rest up, I guess," he said, his voice almost steady. Calm. "I'm sure I'll be just fine in a couple more days."

Liar. It took longer than a few days to recover from something that had him acting as jumpy as he was right now. "You take as long as you need. You don't have to wow us with your recovery speed, you know?" she told him gently.

Scott smiled again, just as faintly and far more briefly. "Well, you know me. Bet you I'm dying to be back in the office before you know it. Can't keep me away from my paperwork... it and I have a long-term love affair." His expression trembled briefly as he thought about Jean.

She smiled back at him. "You're always dying to be back in the office." She saw his quivering expression and attributed it to not wanting to talk about what had happened to him anymore. Grasping for a safer, happier topic, she revealed the first thing that came to mind. "So Ah went on a date with Doug."

"... with Doug? Huh." Scott let himself focus on that, instead. Nice harmless topic. "I didn't know the two of you were... in a place where you dated." Last he'd heard, there had been slapping, and public nastiness.

Marie blushed. She knew the timing was off, what with Doug and Marie-Ange breaking up less than a month before. "Ah didn't either. He kinda caught me off guard in San Diego…but he's been real sweet." Her smile grew a little silly. "Just nice to have something semi-normal in my life." Or as normal as things get around here.

The blush was cute. And the whole situation was kind of sweet, Scott supposed. Especially since Marie was so obviously happy. He managed another ghost of a smile and a nod, not sure why this, almost more than anything else in this whole conversation, make him want to find an excuse to go lock himself in the bedroom and break down.

Damn it, he was a mess.

"That's... really good, Marie. You deserve that. I mean, if he doesn't treat you properly I'll invite him back to the DR for some ass-kicking, but I suppose that goes without saying." He held the smile on through sheer will.

Oblivious to Scott's reaction, Marie blithely continued speaking. "That's nicer than what Logan said he'd do. Ah swear, Ah've got more overprotective brother types than any girl has a right ta."

Logan. "Oh... yeah, I'd imagine," Scott said much more faintly, getting up and moving over to the window. His hands were shaking again. Logan. Logan would be back eventually, and find out what happened, and he'd want to know... "You do... attract the type, you know."

She looked at Scott, puzzled by the unmistakable change in his tone. Did Ah say something wrong? "Ah never really thought about that... guess Ah do." She stood, careful to rise to her feet gradually. "You look... tired. Maybe Ah should leave y' to get a bit of rest."

"No, don't - please?" It was automatic, very close to a plea, but the idea of being alone with his thoughts, especially after they'd taken this particular turn, was suddenly horrifying. Scott's hands clenched into fists at his sides, until he forced them to relax, and went back over to sit down on the couch. "Please don't. Not yet?"

"Ah'll stay as long as you want me to," she said immediately as she sat back down. It worried her to see Scott acting like this. He was usually the strong one and today he seemed broken and she didn't know how to fix him.

"I'm... I'm worried about what to tell Logan, when he gets back." Scott's voice faltered, but he forced himself to go on. Talk it out. Think logically. "He's going to want to know about what they wanted..."

"Oh," she said softly. "What did they want?" The last thing they needed was Logan flying off the handle about something. And the last thing she needed was for him to take off again. Though just the mention of Stryker might be enough for that. "An' what are you gonna tell him?" she added, even more softly.

Scott folded his hands together so that their shaking wouldn't be quite so visible. "Information I had from back at Alkali Lake...." He had intended to say more. He really had, but his throat closed and he stared down at Marie a little too wildly.

Marie nodded numbly. "Ah thought you didn't remember what happened while you were there until Jean got to ya." She pulled her hands out of her pockets and rested her clasped them tightly in her lap.

"I didn't say I-" But he had, hadn't he? Scott's shoulders hunched a little further. Caught in his own intended to be reassuring lie. Lovely.

"Yes you did," she insisted. "But..." It was obvious from the way Scott was acting now that he hadn't been entirely truthful. She didn't know how hard to push or even if she should, so instead she lapsed into silence, watching him.

Why had he lied? He didn't lie. That was so... stupidly uncharacteristic, really. At this rate he'd be making them think they'd brought the wrong man back from Wyoming.

"... I remember a lot of it." He forced the words out, surprisingly level.

"Oh." Marie felt like her vocabulary had been severely limited in the past few minutes. "What... why..." She felt a spasm of pain and glanced down in surprise at her hands. Quickly releasing the vise-like grip that had began to stop her circulation, she shook her head. "Ah don't understand."

"I just..." His voice failed him again for a moment, and he stared into empty air, a distracted, distressed look on his face. "Maybe I just thought if I said that I didn't I wouldn't."

"What kind of sense does that make?" She covered her mouth with her hand, embarrassed to have called her friend out without any careful wording or padding. "Ah just mean, you of all people know that pretending something didn't happen doesn't make it so."

Marie's words seemed weirdly distant. "It's easier that way, though." Scott's voice was low, almost composed, although the words came out a little too quickly. "I don't want to think like I did when they had me, and I'm back home now. I should be able to just... be like I should be, again. I won't be able to do that if I dwell on what they did to me."

"Scott... there is no 'should be' for how you are. Ah'm not saying you need to dwell on what they did, but you need to deal with it or it'll keep haunting you." Marie's voice was soft yet firm and her tone was one of someone speaking from experience.

"How do I deal with it?" Scott gave her that ghostly smile again, dimly thankful for the distance that had opened up between him and the conversation. "It happened. You all found me and brought me home. I mean, I wouldn't have complained if it had been a couple of days sooner..." He made the smile widen a little. To tell her that it was a joke.

She couldn't force herself to smile back. "Ah don't know how... Ah mean, part of dealing with it is moving on, but Ah don't think its healthy to try an' pretend it never happened."

"Oh, I don't think I'm going to be allowed to do that. Realistically." He was really making no sense at all in this conversation. But he didn't know how to tell Marie that he'd been... just tell her? His jaw trembled, and he clenched it, the smile wavering and disappearing.

"I wake up in a panic. I can't stand for the lights to be off. Running water..." Scott swallowed, but forced himself to go on. "Any noise I can't identify. It's all so stupid. I know where I am, I know I'm all right."

"It's not stupid. You can't help how you feel... after what they did to you... " She shook her head, reaching out to pat him reassuringly, but stopping her hand in midair. "There is knowing and there is experiencing and they don't always match up the way they should," she said, thinking about some of her own nightmares.

Stop being so understanding. She'd feel otherwise if he told her what he'd done, that he'd given them some of what they wanted. Logan certainly would, wouldn't he?

Scott shook his head, just fractionally again. "I'll be okay," he said, and it didn't even sound semi-convincing this time.

"Don't give me that. You don't believe that and no way you can expect me ta." She stood up and began pacing, unable to stand still any longer. "What would you tell me if Ah was saying to you what you're saying to me?" Did that even make sense?

"Shake my head at you and send you off to Charles for tea?" Scott ventured softly.

Stopping mid-step, she threw her hands up in the air. "Exactly! So why can't you do that for yourself? Or do you need someone to do it for ya?" She shook her head and did her best Scott impression. "Young man, Ah think you need to meet with Charles for tea."

Scott took a shaky breath and rested his head in his hands for a moment, the sleeves of his shirt slipping back enough to show the bandages on his wrists and on one arm, the still raw circular patches of electrode burns. "I know I do," he said, oblivious. "I will. I think I'll be having a lot of tea with Charles."

She smiled sadly at him, trying not to wince at the marks that had been left on him. "It's not so bad. At least Charles makes good tea. And those little biscuits aren't half-bad either."

"I just feel sick, thinking about it." His voice was strained, but still level. Maybe too level. He shouldn't be able to talk about this so calmly. "I knew why they were doing all of it. I knew what it was meant to accomplish. But that didn't change anything. It didn't help."

"Why should it help?" she asked simply. "Why should knowing their reasoning make it any easier?" She tapped her head gently with one finger. "Ah know why Erik does some of the things he does. Doesn't make it any easier to deal with."

"It should!" Too loud, and his hands were shaking more violently again suddenly. "It should make a difference, knowing... I should know that they were trying to get me to react in very specific ways. It was... it was out of the textbook," he choked out, shuddering.

"Maybe it should, but it doesn't, and that's the G-d's honest truth." Her voice was quiet, subdued as though she was trying to convince herself as well. "You can't reason away torture."

He was not going to fall apart on Marie. He wasn't. Scott wiped at his eye, doggedly. "I don't want to feel this." He sounded like an overtired child, lashing out at something incomprehensible. "I don't."

Marie flinched. She had never seen Scott like this before. Cautiously, she moved to sit beside him. She didn't reach out to touch him, but she wanted to be close enough that she could if he looked open to it. "Ah know. But you can't make yourself stop feeling…you can just let it get better with time and help from your friends."

Time and help... "Jean's leaving," Scott said, his voice breaking. And there they came to it, at last. "To try and... get her head on straight, after what happened. She's not... she's s-still recovering, too. I told her. That she should go. I meant it."

"Jean's what?" She stared at Scott as though he was speaking in a foreign language. She reached out, unable to stop herself from gently rubbing his arm before she pulled back again. "Ah'm sure she appreciates your support... but how are you gonna handle that?"

Scott's face crumpled and he looked away. He couldn't muster the words to answer, he just couldn't. Tears brimmed over in his eye again and he rubbed at it frantically.

She wrapped her arms around Scott and hugged him close, trying to be as gentle as she could. If Scott stiffened momentarily, she ignored it. "It's ok to cry. You don't have to be Cyclops all the time, y'know? It's okay to be Scott Summers, the man who's been through more than he ever deserved."

Scott leaned against her, shaking, tears trickling silently down his cheek. "I don't know what to do." His voice was more unsteady, but hollow. He felt hollow. "I should, but I don't."

"You keep saying should... but Ah don't agree. I don't think you should know or feel anything in particular. You just are who you are and feel what you feel. People don't always know what to do…that's part of life. But you'll figure out. Jean... she'll be back, Ah know that, you know that, she knows that. And you have your other friends here to help you out," she said as she continued holding on to Scott.

Something that was half-laugh, half-sob slipped out. "I'm such a mess. I'm sorry, Marie..."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she admonished him gently. "This is what friends are for. You would do the same for me and have in the past." She let him cry in silence before speaking again. "In all honesty, Ah'd be more worried if you weren't a mess right now. You have every right to be one."

"I just want to stop feeling like part of me's still there." It came out before he could stop it. "That's what it feels like, you know.... it's so hard to remember that I'm here, that I'm home..." His voice wobbled on the last word.

"Well, we'll make you remember. You are home and we're not gonna let anyone take you away from us." Careful what you promise, Marie.She finally broke the hug, but remained close to Scott. Lifting one hand, she wiped his tear stained face. "You are safe now."