Kaiten: Fly Away (2/4)

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Things are looking pretty grim in Florida, but Jean hasn't lost hope. Unfortunately, someone else has - and unfortunately, Scott's not content to sit and brood about it.


The first of the federal boys had been pulled off the case. Jean didn't know if his expertise was truly needed elsewhere or if the higher ups had decided that it was time to start getting their people out, but either way the result was the same. One less person looking for a solution. That much less time before the others started clamouring to be reassigned, put somewhere safer, somewhere where there was a chance of success instead of this horrible drag to the end. Somewhere there was hope.

Jean had managed not to start yelling when she'd heard - the last thing she needed was someone deciding she was too unstable to keep working on this and forcibly try to remove her from the premises - and to keep from crying until the young Dr. Michaels had left her temporary office/bedroom. She'd even washed up and it wasn't quite so screamingly obvious that she'd been hysterically sobbing ten minutes ago. But there was that brightness to her eyes, the faint redness to her nose. The shaking in her hands. She didn't want Scott to see her like this.

But she couldn't not go to him. That would be even worse. She needed to see him. She couldn't be strong for him and she wouldn't let him try to be strong for her, but she needed to see him. He was her hope when there wasn't any hope left. Because she couldn't lose him, not again. She wouldn't survive that.

And so she went, not even hesitating before knocking on the little window. She even managed to smile, no matter how false it seemed to her.

Scott was sitting on his bed, leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed. When they opened again at her knock, there was a definite strobing light behind one lense, flaring almost painfully bright. "I was trying to meditate, like you suggested," he said as she came in. His voice was gravelly, hoarse. The pallor of the previous days was gone, replaced by an alarming flush. Though he was sitting still, there was a suppressed air of restlessness about him that hadn't been there before, either. It wasn't the most reassuring change imaginable.

"Was it working?" Jean wasn't sure when he'd switched to wearing his sleeping goggles full time; it was a wise choice, but it was another sign of how bad things were getting, given how much he hated the way they chafed.

"Not really." His gaze stayed locked on her. "Michaels left. I heard him talking to DuBois. Who is leaving too, by the way. As soon as he can devise a legitimate excuse."

Jean's lips thinned as she reached about for a reply, any reply, anything she could say which didn't just emphasize what they both already knew and just wouldn't say. As long as she didn't say anything, her lip couldn't quiver, nor her voice betray her. But the tears in the corners of her eyes gave her away as she nodded.

"I think it's time you left, too, Jean." The restlessness was audible in Scott's voice, too, seething beneath the surface. "Things are different today, I can feel it. I think I'm out of time and I don't want you here when it happens."

Jean narrowed her eyes. The fact that she'd gotten the others to stop pressing this point with her had left her thinking it wouldn't come up again. "I'm not going anywhere." At least the sudden flash of anger kept the tears from falling. "Not now, not ever. I've left you too many times already and as long as there's a chance we will come up with something, I'm not giving up. And there's always a chance."

He'd been afraid of this - but he'd known it was a possibility. Thankfully he had a strategy. Didn't he always? "You've done everything you can," he said after a pause. "Jean, this isn't about you leaving me, this is about you being safe. You can keep working from the mansion." It was bordering on a direct contradiction of what he'd just said, and he knew she'd see it as such.

Jean was already shaking her head as he started making excuses. "If there's work to be done that can be done from the mansion, then it can be done better here and I haven't done everything I can. Besides," she added, "my being safe is not a concern."

"Jean, you've already been nearly blown up once this month. I'd prefer your husband not to be the one to finish the job." Oh, crap. He hadn't actually said that aloud, had he? Damned fever. Strategy, think of the strategy...

The anger just got brighter, but it wasn't the sort that would turn her around, send her storming out of the room. Instead she came closer, standing over Scott, hands on her hips. "You think I can just leave you? After we've fought past everything that tried to keep us apart, you think I can just walk out that door and wait for the end?" she hissed.

Scott opened his mouth, and then closed it again, giving her a hard look. Bracing a hand against the wall behind him, he pushed himself to his feet. "What is this?" he asked restlessly, meeting her eyes. "You're so afraid of living on without me that you'd rather die with me? What a load of crap, Jean." His voice was deliberately brutal, a calculated sort of savagery. Back on track. "Romantic, idiotic crap."

"Don't be stupid," Jean shot back, almost snarling. "Alkali pretty well proved that, if there is any way for me to survive, my subconscious is likely to go for it, whether I want it, expect it or not. Maybe I'll pick up a fun new psychosis when my telekinesis leaves me standing, alone, in the middle of a blast field the size of Manhattan. Which, I'll point out, if anyone could pull off it would be me or Nate, and Nathan hasn't got the medical degree which both compels me to try and find a way to help you and gives me the tools to try, above and beyond the fact that I'm not just going to let you DIE."

"You are so stubborn!" Scott snapped back at her, flushing more deeply, his calculated composure seemingly gone - but not quite. "How do you know Alkali wasn't a freak chance? And I've been listening to the others, Jean, they're not as careful about talking around me as you are - I know what the upper estimates are on an explosion!" Keep her shouting, keep her angry. He just needed a moment.

"I. Don't. CARE!" Oh, Jean was definitely still shouting - it was shout or cry, and she'd done enough crying, and not nearly enough screaming about what was happening that she couldn't stop. "There's still a chance, and as long as there's a chance I won't give up."

He itched. He hurt, but he itched, too, all over his body, an itch that should be located behind one eye and nowhere else. That was what decided him in the end, even as part of him heard Jean's words and wanted to believe them. It was the itch, that same itch he'd felt in the winter of 2005, every time his powers had started to edge towards slipping his control.

"I know," Scott said hoarsely, and half-turned away. Let the anger go. Draw her after him. Keep her off-balance, get her close enough...

The sudden loss of an argument, of anything to fight against, definitely did throw Jean off balance. She'd been frustrated enough before, unable to do anything, and now... The anger didn't have anywhere to go, no target - it just simmered below the surface as, once more, the fear and loss bubbled up. "Then why?" she asked, reaching out to him, tears in her voice. "Why won't you let me help you?"

"Because I'm not willing to take the chance." He started to turn back towards her - and lashed out with a fist. The punch connected, of course. She hadn't been expecting it - he'd been masking his intentions very carefully - and he was there to catch her as her knees buckled. His real eye stung with tears behind the lense of the goggles, and he half-carried her to the cot, laying her down carefully. "I'm sorry," he breathed raggedly, crouching down beside her. "I'm so sorry, Jean, I just can't..."

He smoothed the hair back from her forehead with a hand that was shaking violently, then leaned in and kissed her. I love you, he sent down the link, and then took the keycard out of the pocket of her lab coat and headed for the door.

He'd seen the whole facility, coming in. Jean had showed it to him through her eyes in the day since, too - a poor substitute for going outside into the sun, she'd said. But he'd appreciated it, nevertheless.

He appreciated it even more now. Scott made it out of the containment room and into the hall before he ran into someone - a rather shocked-looking guard who gaped at him, obviously stunned that the very docile-to-this-point prize patient seemed to be making a break for it.

Briefly stunned, of course. His hand was already going down to his radio when Scott lunged at him. The hesitation was just enough, and Scott had him on the floor in two moves.

All right, Scott thought a little dizzily, staring down at the unconscious soldier. Time to really move, now.

He made it out the front doors of the facility without any pursuit appearing; the building wasn't all that large, thankfully. It was also right on the water, which was the only saving grace here, and Scott ran towards the docks. If he could just find a fast enough boat, or -

Or maybe not a boat at all. Alongside the speedboats he'd seen on the way in was a seaplane, bobbing gently on the water. Better than a boat. A plane would get him farther, faster.

He'd just... fly away. Yes. That would work. Scott stared blindly out at the Atlantic for a long moment - and then ran towards the plane.