Scott and Jean, Monday morning

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After spending all night in the infirmary, a very tired Jean comes upstairs to find a husband in a fair amount of pain and finds out something from her time away that Scott hadn't told her.


Amelia had finally shown up to let her off from her late night shift with Nate and Jim, and Jean was exhausted. It had been a while since they'd needed anyone in the medlab all night. The fact that she'd gotten to deal with Nate's grousing all night hadn't helped much. Finally she could go home, have a bite to eat and sleep for, oh, six hours or so. Stumbling into the suite she rubbed at her temples. "Ugh."

Scott looked up from his laptop, offering her a slight smile. "I'd say 'good morning', but you'd probably come over here and throttle me," he said lightly. He wasn't really feeling the 'good morning' anyway. He'd been up since five working on Danger Room scenarios - they had a potentially serious new problem to deal with, if Saidullayev turned out to be receptive to Magneto's overtures - and he hadn't slept well in the first place. His knee was throbbing today, and had in fact been throbbing since last night. If Amelia and Jean hadn't been otherwise occupied, he probably would have gone down to have them take a look at it. Given the look of Jean right now, however, it could wait.

"Yes, throttling would be on the menu. As you're smart enough not to, though, toast will do." Jean made it across to the kitchen by dint of willpower alone and she started poking through the cupboards until she found the bread. "Did you sleep well, at least?"

"Eh. It's been a long weekend," Scott said with a sigh, saving the half-finished scenario. His concentration was wandering. "I slept better than the night before while I was sitting on coms, at least." He smiled to make it a joke. After all, Jean hadn't slept at all, rushing to Derbent on the Blackbird.

Bread in toaster, push the button. Fish the butter and jam out from the fridge... "See, that's wrong, surely. The bed ought to be more comfortable than a chair down in the basement. Even if I'm not in the bed." She managed a small smile at him.

"A bed without you just seems wrong," Scott said dryly and reached for his crutches. Only a couple more weeks on the damned things... He winced as he got to his feet, but set his jaw and headed towards the kitchenette to join her.

They were both too tired to really be guarding the link and the sharp pain echoed through her mind as Jean grimaced. "And a night without sleep doesn't?" Oh, she was not in a great mood.

Scott paused, eyeing her at the tone. "Well, yeah, that seems wrong too," he said, summoning a smile. "Just wrong in a more mundane sort of way."

"Yeah..." Jean sighed, rolling her shoulders. "Sorry." The toast dinged up and she grabbed a plate and knife, setting to. "Don't mean to be sharp tempered..."

"That's all right. Long weekend," Scott reminded her. The muscles in his leg started to cramp, and he gritted his teeth, changing his trajectory to head for one of the chairs at the table instead of the kitchen itself.

"Why are you in so much pain?" Jean suddenly snapped, spinning around to glare at him as the echo of the pain slid down her own leg, not even noticing the jam covered butter knife she waved at him. "Are your medications not working? And, if so, why the hell haven't you mentioned it?"

Scott stopped, flustered, but then reminded himself that the chair was good, especially if they were going to have this conversation. "I've been... going lightly on them," he said, heading for the chair. "Not out of some sort of macho impulse. And I probably do need a checkup, I'm not sure why it's bothering me so much this last day or so. I would have come down if you hadn't had your hands full with the concussion twins."

"Going lightly. Huh." Jean scowled, although it was more her own headache then his argument that was disturbing her.

Is she actually going to let me get away with that? Score! a very private part of Scott thought a bit wildly. "Well, bum knee or not, I haven't wanted to have my thinking muddled with the teams that have been out lately. A stoned me on coms is not a very helpful me."

"Oh, and a pain muddled you is? Yeah, right. And you're not on coms now, are you? Nor were you last night. There's no need for you to be in pain now. Nor to be sharing it with me." Oh, that last bit came out much sharper than she'd meant.

Scott opened his mouth and then closed it again, sitting down rather stiffly. The color was rising in his face, but he rather doggedly shielded the link. If what she was sensing was bothering her, he could do something about that. Needed to. Common courtesy, that was all.

Jean sighed. "I'm in a vile mood, and I'm sorry for it, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I just don't understand... What's going on, Scott? You'd rather close your mind to me than take a pill? If you're hurting this much it can't be that it's too soon."

"I just don't feel right taking them," Scott muttered, not looking at her. "They don't... I don't like the way they make me feel." Which was the absolute truth, after all.

"You don't like not being in pain?" Maybe it was the lack of sleep but something just didn't make sense and Jean wanted to understand.

"I just don't want to get dependent on them," Scott said, still not looking at her. "It would be too easy, when I know that I'm going to be in some degree of pain for at least a few more weeks."

"Dependent?" Jean asked, looking confused. "Why on earth would you think you would become dependent? A few weeks... Scott, what's going on? Since when are you worried about this?"

He took a deep breath, then let it out. "You remember me mentioning the chronic pain, back in the fall before you came home?" he asked evenly, but went on before she could even nod. "I had been self-medicating. I didn't get myself into too much of a mess, but it caused a bad week or two."

Jean stared at Scott for a second, blinking, then set down the butter knife and came to sit next to him, food forgotten. "Okay," she said slowly, face shuttered. "And you were planning on mentioning this to me... never?"

"I was..." Scott trailed off, his voice sounding vaguely strangled. His face was downright crimson at this point. "I just really can't believe I ever let it get to that point."

Jean was still frowning, but it was less angry and more simply upset. "Please tell me Amelia, at least, knew?"

"She felt awful. She'd told me there was nothing wrong with me." Scott shrugged slightly, still not meeting her eyes. "She kind of threw herself into looking for alternatives. Helped me through the worst of it, too."

"I'm glad of that, at least." And she could understand why Amelia hadn't told her. Hell, Amelia probably thought she already knew; that Scott would have told her, or she'd have asked before now.

"It was just such a stupid thing to do," he said helplessly. "And I did it during the same time that Shiro was recovering from his Kick addiction. I don't like to think of what he would have thought, if he'd known." He sighed, finally looking up at her. "It was hard, getting back to a place where the team could have confidence in me again. Something like this... I just felt like I had to put it behind me as hard and fast as I could. I wasn't consciously keeping it from you."

"I... I can understand that, Scott. I can. I just..." She stopped. In truth, she wasn't sure what she felt, or even what she ought to feel. Angry at him, frightened for him, frustrated with him. Really, right now all she felt was... "I'm awfully tired, Scott. For now, can we just go with 'that was stupid of you, don't do it again' and talk about it more later?"

Scott nodded, repressing a sigh - not at her, just for the whole situation. "Yeah. We can. And you should eat your breakfast," he said, managing a smile that was only slightly strained. "Prior to getting some sleep."

Jean leaned her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes as the plate with the toast floated over to them. "My moron. I love you."

"In sickness, health, and rank stupidity," Scott said. Almost cheerfully.