Jean & Farouk, Saturday Aftrenoon.

[x-farouk.livejournal.com]

Farouk comes for his first medical.




Jean glanced up from her screen and frowned at the clock. Blast, she was running late. Professor Farouk would be down for his appointment soon and she still had a dozen reports she'd wanted to read through today. Well, they'd wait.


Closing the laptop she stood up from behind her desk, checking to make
sure there was fresh coffee in the pot. No point inflicting the normal MedLab brew on someone who wasn't expecting it.

Farouk smiled and nodded at a passing student, whose name he wouldn't have been able to recall, even if threatened with extensive anal probing. He twitched his mustache suddenly as he realized that it was about the fourth time his thoughts have turned to that particular subject in the last 10 minutes.

Not that he was at all nervous about the upcoming interview. No. Not at all.

It had to be the smell. That indefinable, hospital miasma of disinfectant and concentrated misery.

Amahl resisted looking at his watch again, out of sheer perverseness. Where the bloody hell was this Grey woman?! Was she playing some sort of power game with him?

He paced, glowering grimly at the cheery sign that advised him not to smoke through a medium of some animal, that neither nature nor God ever created, and twitched his mustache again, seriously considering going back to his quarters to fetch something he could demonstratively light up directly under the sign.

Like a grenade, for example.

The approaching sound of heels clicking confidently on the floor distracted him from his nefarious plans. Turning, he instantly summoned back the habitual mask of the mean-nothing smile and checked his shields. Right in time as it turned out.

Those are fantastically excellent legs, I have to admit. Almost worth the wait.

Jean was well used to the first thing most any man she met looking at was the legs, so it wasn't like she took it personal. Hell, she tended to be surprised when she didn't catch the slight flicker as the eyes went down.

"I'm sorry, were you waiting long?" Jean glanced at the clock on the wall - she'd left the computer just in time, she saw. "People are almost never early for appointments, I'm afraid, so I wasn't expecting it, and all of the students know they can just come grab Amelia or I from our offices if they need."

There was an edge of what Jean assumed was nervousness to his posture - common enough if someone didn't much like doctors, and Jean smiled as she offered her hand. "I'm Dr. Jean Grey-Summers."

"I am still wary of getting lost, I suppose, so I tend to give myself a bit too much leeway in terms of starting time." Farouk grinned, taking up the offered hand lightly, and bringing it up for a slightly exaggeratedly chaste kiss. "It's my pleasure to meet you, Dr. Grey-Summers. Please, call me Amahl."

Double name. A 'liberated' woman. This ought to be fairly horrifying.

On the other hand he was pretty sure she caught him looking at her legs, and yet seemed perfectly amenable to ignoring it. Which was fine by him, if she was willing to turn the blind eye, he certainly wasn't planning on bringing it up.

Her husband had the sort of face that screamed insecurity in marriage and disturbing proficiency with firearms.

"I have read you paper on the psionic harmonics exhibited by the concussion victims, by the way. Very impressive, if I may be so bold."


"Oh, just Jean is fine," she told him. "I'm amazed anyone managed to find that paper at all - psionics and medicine is not exactly the widest of fields. On the plus side, I get to basically make it up as I go along, but it does mean any publications tend to take some persuading before they'll print any of my less traditional work."

Complement their mind and they will fallow you everywhere. Cheaper than buying them diamonds, too. Amahl once again pondered the utility of coming to a meeting properly prepared. So many people underestimated the advantages of doing one’s research.

Given that Charles had told her a little bit about her new patient, Jean had made sure her shields were in firm place before offering his hand, but it seemed she hadn't needed the extra caution. Whatever else might be wrong with his powers, he seemed to be in good control of his shields.

Smiling as he released her hand, she waved back down the hallway she'd come from. "I don't know how in depth you're wanting to be today. Obviously, we can do a full examination, but if you'd rather, there's fresh coffee in the office and the chairs are rather more comfortable."

“Oh, I am a rip-the-bandage-clean-off kind of person. Let’s try for the full work up. Unless you are pressed for time?” Farouk smiled, following her, and burying deep his visceral reaction to the strength coming off this woman.

Her shields were nothing like he’s ever seen and left him in equal part shaken and aimlessly angry, bringing up memory of the time when he too was power to be reckoned with.

Intellectually he realized he was still far from helpless, but emotionally he still felt as an invalid, futilely reaching for the limbs that betrayed him, refusing to work, paralyzed and useless.

Running errands for the Alamut he met plenty of psis, but most (although not all) were penny-ante local ‘talent,’ barely worth the name. Running into another Player… yes, that brought up to the surface all the acidly bitter, crystal-clear realization of all that’s he has lost. All that he was still losing, God damn it!

He smiled again. “Yes, by all means, the full work-up I think.”

"Of course," Jean said, opening the door to one of the private examination rooms. "Step in here and let's get started."

Whoever designed the American hospital-wear should be shot, Farouk grasped at his flailing gown and, conserving as much dignity as possible under circumstances, sat up straight on the examination table, scowling at the partition.

Somewhere behind the thin fabric Grey was mysteriously clanking something, the faint tinkling sound of glass and her indistinct murmur, carrying faintly to him. He sniffed and rubbed his backside gingerly. Goddamn quack. Where did she train to work the needle, the fucking Gestapo?!

The partition moved, sliding away and he looked up quickly, cheerfully smiling up into Jean's face. "Well, what's the verdict, doctor? Is the patient going to live?"

"Thankfully, yes," Jean said, looking up from her notes and smiling, albeit faintly.

"Unfortunately, I think, that's probably the only news your much going to appreciate from this. The lab test results won't be ready until tomorrow, but given everything, I don't think much will show. You're in excellent health - I can't find a single thing wrong with you, physically. Well," she amended with a slightly wider smile. "You should stop smoking and drinking and eating rich foods, but I imagine you've heard it before and are no more likely to listen to me than any other doctor. Or, at that, than anyone else I've ever had to say it to."

The smile slipped away with a sigh as she closed his file. "I am sorry to say this, but I can't find a physical source for your problems."

Amahl ruthlessly suppressed the sharp stab of disappointment. Any other answer would have been a shock really. He’s been to the best doctors In Egypt and France. If there was something to catch they certainly wouldn’t have missed to the redhead to pick up, no matter how thorough her examination done in the basement of a school.

Still his throat burned with frustration.

It had been a long shot from the first. He, of all people, knew how seldom physical condition adversely affected psychic powers. In fact the adverse was usually the case.

Speaking of which…

“The weight loss?” He asked reaching for his pants. “It has been much more rapid the last year, although my diet remained the same.” He forced another smile. “As unhealthy as ever. For that too, no visible, physiological cause?”

"Nothing definitive," she said, opening and going through the file again to give him privacy while he changed. "Stress and lack of sleep is a possibility, although it seems a tad extreme for that. The blood tests will let us know if there's any unusual bacterial or virus, but something like that should have shown up before, and presumably would have had other symptoms. Not necessarily, though, so we'll check."

Honestly, the lack of cause for that worried her - psychic and mental illness without physical cause was fairly common, but if it was related to his powers problems, there ought to be a connection and if there was she just wasn't seeing it.

"Anything gastrointestinal would have other symptoms, and would be very unlikely to be related to the psychic problems, and there's no reason for any sort of allergy or adverse reaction to be triggering now."

Farouk grimaced at her back. Some things didn’t change. Whatever gender or nationalities, all of doctors he’d ever known without fail took half an hour to say exactly nothing.

“So, Jean, where do we go from here?” He pulled his shirt on, and straightened his hair absent-mindedly. “It seems obvious that the next point would be focusing on the psionic element. Whether or not my weight-loss is connected, fluctuation of my power-levels certainly appears to have no other cause, yes?”

Something cold and slippery tightened deep inside his stomach. It was inevitable that this would culminate in a psi-sifting of his mind. He had months to prepare himself, but the prospect still filled him with crawling dread.

Quite apart from his personal feelings there were other considerations to bear in mind. His brain was full of secrets, not entirely his own.

He didn’t like to imagine what el-Gibar’s reaction might be, if he found out that Amahl had generously entrusted Xavier with the data on his front-man in Sudan, for instance.

He sighed. Why couldn’t the life be ever simple…

"Yes," Jean agreed. "Unless something extraordinary shows up in the lab tests, I think we are down to purely mental causes, psionic or psychological. Either way, I'd suggest talking with Charles again to determine a course of investigation."