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xp_logs2008-03-28 11:28 am
x-cyclops.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2008-03-28 11:28 am
Nicobar Reef: Madripoor
The question of 'good' pirates and 'bad' pirates is resolved in the former's favor back in port, and the day after their somewhat slapstick re-introduction, Scott finally gets his father's story.
The one-eyed man in the co-pilot's seat next to Forge had been more than merely taciturn, on the way to Madripoor; he'd been absolutely silent, right up until the moment he'd needed to give Forge specific directions to the shipyard where his captain had assured Cyclops there'd be a safe landing spot for the Blackbird. Directions given, he glanced sideways at Forge. "The blue-skinned one - Nightcrawler - told me that your orders are to hand the pirates over to what passes for the authorities here," he said, more than a trace of scorn in his accented English.
"That's the plan," Forge said calmly, guiding the Blackbird around the harbor, deftly weaving in and out of the low fog cover. "We're not any kind of authority, and there's more than enough evidence of their kidnapping and smuggling to convict them in any court. Nautical law says they get tried under Madripoor jurisdiction, as I understand it."
"Chang will have them back out of custody within the day. Probably back on a ship before the end of the week, unless he kills them for failing." Badri Raza muttered something under his breath in a language that wasn't English. "I prefer the captain's way. It actually provides a deterrent."
"And what would that be, keelhauling them?" Forge replied sarcastically. "Look, you guys did a number on them already. There's not a one of them that won't need some medical attention, and I'm not going to say they don't deserve every ounce of pain they're in. You think the legal system here's that corrupt that they can just walk... like that?"
Raza gave him a semi-incredulous look, but answered, if grudgingly. "For ordinary men, no. But throw enough money at a problem in Madripoor, and it's easily solved. The captain may try to outbid Chang," the older man conceded after a moment's pause. "Bribe them to overlook the bribe..."
"Might not be a bad idea," Forge agreed. "You could recoup a lot with whatever you can salvage off their ship. The electronic equipment alone, we're talking high six figures. Or hell, retrofit it for your ship. Spoils of war, man. These guys were pretty well geared up. No reason for that to go to waste." He gave a conspiratorial nod to the co-pilot. "Theoretically speaking, of course."
Raza snorted, but he clearly liked the idea. "Up ahead," he said. "The fog's a fortunate piece of luck. This is our shipyard. It and four of the warehouses surrounding it - it all belonged to our former owner. Before he met his own untimely end."
Forge opened his mouth to make a comment, then the revelation hit him. "Your... you were a slave? Like the ones we rescued?" The world's not like you thought it was, is it, scout? He shook his head to clear the thought. "This must be important to you, then."
He pivoted the jet around neatly with the maneuvering thrusters, bringing it in for a smooth landing. "Let's get these sons of bitches off my ship, then. Don't have a plank for them to walk, or whatever's customary, but there's a nice low bulkhead there..."
Raza gave him another narrow-eyed look, then cracked a rusty-looking smile. "No," he corrected Forge, "the ones we rescued will never be slaves. Differences of opinion over what to do with Chang's men are not as important, I think." He rose, giving the cockpit of the Blackbird one last admiring look. "You will want to leave a couple of your people here," he went on, "just in case. You don't have any particular reason to trust us once I'm off this plane. But I'll have some food brought out, while we're settling the matter of the prisoners."
"Thank you," Forge said, releasing the yoke and letting the Blackbird's engines whine down to silence. "You're right, you know. We might not see eye to eye on how it's done, but we agree this needs to be done."
A short moment of silence, then Forge extended his hand to the other man. "My name's John Forge. Your captain should be able to get a hold of us once we leave, I'll bet. If you want to keep doing what you're doing, and if you come around to thinking it might just work with less casualties... give me a call. That tin boat of yours might be able to stand a few upgrades."
--
Scott was standing by the rail as Corsair's ship moved into Madripoor Harbor. He had his com to his ear, listening to something, but closed it as Marie approached and nodded at her. "That was Kurt," he said gruffly. "They've still got the Blackbird stashed in that shipyard. No problems overnight. Everything's just like... like our host said." It wasn't like Scott to stumble over words, and he flushed, looking back out at the harbor, busy even this early in the morning. "Everything's fine. Just as advertised. They even dropped off the pirates with the authorities." Not that it would do any good, but it was really their only option, according to Nathan, whom he'd spoken to already this morning. They'd had the right to stop the ship, but extraditing people anywhere else was another matter entirely. And Madripoor did claim to officially condemn piracy.
Marie leaned against the railing next to Scott. Something was up and she wasn't sure what it was or if she wanted to know. The mission had been a success...so why didn't Scott look happy? "That's good," she finally offered..
Scott was quiet for a long moment, knowing that Marie was probably wondering what was up with him. "What do you think of... the captain?" he asked finally. Stalling. Or maybe it was feeling her out, he wasn't sure which.
"Didn't really interact with him all that much," Marie said with a shrug. "But...well, his little group seemed to help out, in their own ways. Personally, Ah'm just trying to reconcile the fact that pirates really exist with my old classification of them alongside fairy tales."
A somewhat strangled laugh slipped out before Scott could help himself. "Yeah, that's... tough to reconcile, isn't it?" He continued in a rush. "Want something tougher? According to Jean, he's my father." He didn't give Marie a change to answer before he went on. "My father, Christopher Summers. The apparently undead pirate. You didn't spot any cursed gold lying around last night, did you?"
"Musta missed that when the monkey jumped on my head," Marie said, shifting to rest her head on her hand. "So...not exactly what you expected, huh?"
"I expected to rescue a bunch of kids and bring them back to Sri Lanka so that what's left of Mistra didn't take it upon itself to go invade Madripoor to get them back. I didn't-" Scott laughed again and rubbed his hands over his face before taking hold of the railing once more. "This is just crazy."
"Welcome to the club," Marie said softly. After a moment of silence, she sighed and added, "Ah don't mean that to sound so...well, uncaring."
"Trust me, I'm more than seeing the farce in all of this. Cliche, rather. Maybe I just feel like it's a farce." Scott swallowed, wrestling for some semblance of composure. "I was almost hoping it would take us longer to get here. Wrapping things up is going to be more complicated than I thought."
"Yeah, throwing genetics into the mix tends to complicate things to say the least. Just...well, you know it's ok to be reacting like you are right? You seem to think you shouldn't be...and really, that'd be strange."
Scott's smile was a bit forced. "Mission now, kicking of things later." He gave her a quick, grateful look, though, and reached out and squeezed her arm briefly. "And if you ever hear me mocking or being dismissive of weird parental issues again... wait, what am I saying, I never did that in the first place." It was possibly the most forced banter he'd ever managed in his life. But bantering was the thing you did, at times like this. Right?
"At least yours is a good guy...sort of...and, y'know, male," Marie said, a wry smile on her face.
"True," Scott said, more quietly, then shook himself. They were well into the harbor at this point. "All right... I think it's time we started keeping a close idea on our 'allies'. Jean vouching for them or not, they are pirates, and I don't want to get double-crossed anywhere here."
--
"We're low on fuel," Scott said as Jean came up behind him in the cockpit. His posture was visibly tense, and he didn't turn to look at her. Outside the cockpit window, the shipyard where they'd stashed the Blackbird had continued to be quiet; Corsair had been as good as his word on that, at least. Fortunately, the fog had stuck around, which would make leaving easier. "We're probably going to be running on fumes by the time we hit the West Coast."
Jean crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the co-pilot's chair, nodding slightly. "I'm sure you and Forge will be able to get us there, even if it is cutting things tight." She paused and then, when there was nothing further from her husband, narrowed her eyes. "Scott..." she started.
"No," was the low, but nearly growled response. As their business had gotten concluded here, piece by piece, and the time for departure had gotten closer, Scott's tension had ratcheted further upwards. He'd retreated to the Blackbird an hour ago to try and calm down. It hadn't worked. "I don't care who he thinks he is, or who you think he is-"
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's the shock talking, not that you're actually saying I don't know how to do a telepathic scan properly." Which she had done, once she'd heard Christopher's story and gotten over her own shock. "And it's not that I don't understand and empathize with the shock. But it doesn't change anything, Scott. You need to talk to him."
Scott's jaw clenched in an expression that could only be termed mutinous. He did not, however, argue the point, which was as good as a concession that he couldn't - but oh, how he wanted to. "This is ridiculous," he finally said, instead of arguing. "This is just... ridiculous. Is there some... unwritten rule of the universe that says that people in my life get to come back from the dead whenever they want?"
Rather than kick him in the shins (as that so clearly warranted), Jean swiveled the co-pilot chair around as far as it would go and dropped into it. "Yes. Yes, there is," she said. "Terribly sorry you didn't get the memo." Then she winced and immediately said, "Sorry. I don't mean to be sharp with you - you've every reason to be upset." And she was undoubtedly picking up on some of it, to be so snappish. Well, that and he'd taken a dunk in the ocean. That never went well for Jean's nerves.
Scott's fingers drummed restlessly on the edge of the console. "I don't want to talk to him." It came out sounding childish, and Scott bit his lip. Hard. "I know I can't ignore... him, but I just... how the hell am I supposed to handle this? He's been dead and gone for..." Not dead, obviously, but... "Damn it!" Scott burst out, and kicked the underside of the console, knowing he was being incoherent.
"I don't know how we handle this, but you're right that ignoring him's not an option. Go talk to him, Scott."
Scott swallowed, folding his arms tightly across his chest. He certainly couldn't go home and not tell Alex about this - or tell him, and then say that he hadn't even talked to the man. And then there was Phillip and Deborah, who deserved to know their son was alive. "Will you come with me?" he asked, then smiled a bit weakly. "I promise no more hitting."
"Of course," Jean said, standing up and offering Scott a hand. He wanted to stall, she could tell, and she wasn't real inclined to let him. "I think he'd appreciate it if you didn't hit him again, sure." She paused. "Why did you hit him, anyway?"
Scott eyed the offered hand for a long moment, then took it and got up. "I didn't like his mustache," he muttered. For lack of anything else to say that wasn't going to get him smacked, this time by his wife.
--
They found Corsair in the warehouse Raza had pointed out to them earlier, speaking to someone who hadn't been on the ship with them, a thin, vaguely weasely-looking man in a business suit, who nodded at Corsair's crisp instructions in a language Scott didn't recognize and then hurried away. Corsair turned to watch him go, then spotted Jean and Scott, his business-like expression turning awkward.
"Just... making some arrangements. For those kids." Scott bristled immediately, and Corsair raised a hand. "Nothing that changes our arrangement," he said rapidly. "It's just.... when we bring smuggled people back, I usually find them a job, and... well, I give them the price they would have brought on the market." Corsair straightened slightly, and there was perhaps just a hint of a dare in his expression as he met Scott's gaze. Go ahead, the look said. Take issue with that. "It gives them something of their own, something to build on, even if they decide Madripoor's not to their liking."
"Can't argue that you do good work," Jean said, glancing about the warehouse. "In that regard, at least." She arched an eyebrow. "It's still a rather bizarre choice of profession."
"I'm not quite a pirate," Corsair said, with a slightly weary smile. "I'm a thief, and a smuggler. I don't accost ships at sea unless they're smugglers, too." He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking very uncomfortable, and then inclined his head to the left. "I'm got an... office there, I guess. It might be a better place to have this conversation."
Oh, just a thief and a smuggler, Scott thought sourly as he and Jean followed the older man. That made it all so much easier. "You've certainly got quite an operation here," he said, not quite accusingly, as Corsair preceded them into the small, rather cluttered office. "No long-distance telephone capacity, though?"
Jean restrained the urge to bury her face in her hands again. She couldn't even tell Scott to behave because, really, he wasn't wrong. There were, at least, free seats in the office and she settled into one of them, crossing her legs. "Right off the bat let me say, I'm so not playing mediator today. Not in the mood. Kidnapped children and certain people," she shot a look at Scott, "ending up all partially drowned. And, I have to tell you, Christopher, there has been an alarming precedent about rediscovered parents secretly being evil. Just, you know, as a warning that you're not necessarily on the best foot starting out."
"I was wondering why the boy was so insistent." Corsair sank into a chair, and reshuffled some of the papers on the pile in front of him, almost restlessly. "It's a very long story, Scott," he said finally. "I don't come off looking very good in it. But to answer the question you didn't ask, I never came back because I thought there was nothing to come back to. I thought you and your brother were dead." His voice grew tight, almost hoarse. "They told me they'd found you, while they were tracking down the crash site, and killed you both."
Scott sat down. "They?" he said, as neutrally as he could.
"I... had been a bit of a fool, the year before. Got myself into trouble, with someone who wasn't..." Corsair stopped, coughed to clear his throat, and then went on. "I was a test pilot, Scott. I had access to technology that foreign governments were very interested in. I let myself get played, and I made more of a mess of things trying to get back out of the mess I'd created. OSI - Air Force counterintelligence, they tried to help me, but I bungled it. That's why they shot down our plane."
Scott liked to think he was good at reading people, and there was nothing he was seeing, in the man in front of him, that suggested this was a lie. There was Jean's telepathic confirmation too, and the story so far just... made sense, in that sordid, awful way true stories so often did.
He made himself ask the next question, although it came out almost inaudibly. "My mother?"
Corsair blinked rapidly, looking away. "We pushed the two of you out, with the parachute," he said, his voice gruff, gravelly, "and then tried for an emergency landing. Kate died in the crash."
Without even thinking about it, Jean reached over and took Scott's hand, squeezing gently. "Alex isn't dead either," she told Christopher. "Scott and he found each other about five years ago."
Corsair made a small, involuntary movement at Jean's comment, swallowing visibly. Though his struggle for composure wasn't visible, the long pause before he continued told the tale. "Both of you. I just... I don't know what to say. We saw the parachute on fire, and we thought the worst... and then Kate..." He took a deep, shaky breath, squaring his shoulders. "I tried to bargain, when they found me. Told them I'd give them what they want, if they let me live. I thought I could get away afterwards, look for the two of you. But they took me to the coast, brought me aboard a ship... it was during the trip here that one of them told me that they'd killed you and Alex. I thought I'd lost everything."
"And yet you believed them." Scott's voice was almost as hoarse as his father's. "You never tried to look-"
"I couldn't, Scott!" Corsair was up out of his chair in a flash, pacing angrily across the narrow confines of the office. "They brought me here, to the man who'd set all this up... I laughed in his face, told him to kill me. They didn't. They sold me, when I wouldn't give them the information they wanted. I spent the next six years working in Lowtown factories. You have no idea what kind of life that is." His jaw clenched, and there was something cold and almost distant in his eyes as he turned back to Scott and Jean. "You can't know. So don't judge me for what I had to do to survive."
"I will damned well judge you," Scott snapped, rising to his feet as well and moving towards Corsair. "You've been gone for fifteen years. Your parents have thought their son was dead for fifteen years! Maybe you thought Alex and I were gone, but you're clearly in a position now to be in touch with the rest of the world! How the hell can you justify leaving them in the-"
Dark, he meant to say, but didn't get the chance, because now he was the one getting punched in the jaw. I have got to learn not to let people on my blind side! he thought, absurdly, as he reeled backwards. Corsair was glaring at him, the cold facade still intact everywhere but in his eyes. The depth of the anguish and guilt there was undeniable.
"Well," Scott muttered, "I suppose I deserved that."
Jean had restrained herself from hoping to her feet and doing... something, when Scott got in his father's face and got his own smacked for the trouble and now she said, "Yes, probably," before turning dark eyes to Corsair. "You don't get to do that again, though," she said, and it was part threat and part idle conversation.
"I'm sorry," Corsair said to Scott, gruffly. "I just..." His hands clenched tighter, then unclenched, and he let himself sag back into his chair. "Do you think I could face going back to my parents, and telling them that the three of you were dead? That I'd gotten my family killed because I was stupid?" The withering contempt in his voice was for himself, not for either of the two people in the room with him. "They loved your mother like she'd been their own daughter, and the two of you..." Corsair stopped, swallowed, and went on. "What I did, the life I lived here... what I had to do to get free, in the end.. it wasn't anything that my parents could have lived with. That's what I told myself, at least."
Scott went over and sat back down. After a moment, he reached out for Jean's hand again. Corsair noticed, his eyes flickering between the two of them for a moment, assessing.
"I hardly remember you." Scott's voice was tight with something that wasn't anger. "When we fell... my mutant ability manifested. I used it to slow us down, but when we hit - I fractured my skull. I was in the hospital for months, and by the time I woke up, Alex was gone. They'd already found him a new family. No one wanted the brain-damaged mutant kid."
Corsair jolted forward in his chair, his expression resolving into shock. "But... Mom and Dad, surely they would have-"
"They didn't know. They thought we'd died in the crash, too." Scott gave a hoarse laugh, rubbing at the scars on the side of his face with his free hand. "What a fucking mess. All of us so determined to think the others were dead, and here we all were, all along."
"Hey, don't be like that. Really, you couldn't have known - any of you. Plane crashes are not usually things people walk away from. The fact that any of you survived is a miracle." Jean might not agree with Christopher's reasons for staying out of touch, but she could understand them and they were his cross to bear. Scott already had too many of his own.
"Having you drop in out of nowhere is almost enough to make me believe in signs, Scott," Corsair said, although the look in his eyes was haunted, and more than a little shocky. This clearly hadn't been easy on him, either. "There's not anything I can do to change the past. But I'd like to see Alex. And I think... I owe Mom and Dad an explanation, too."
Scott wrestled the instinctive and somewhat explosive response to that back under control. He could be civil, surely. "I'd rather not deal with Alex coming looking for you if you don't come and meet him. He gets into too much trouble as it is."
Corsair almost managed a smile. "Does he make a habit of jumping out of planes and into combat situations, too?"
"No, and he's never been crazy that I do." Scott squeezed Jean's hand, then made another stab at civility. "And in case she didn't mention it, this is my wife."
Jean smiled wryly. "Might have left that out earlier, during the grilling. Jean Grey-Summers," she added with a nod. "And in spite of it all, it is a pleasure." For now, at least. If he turned out to be evil she might just have to kill him for hurting Scott.
Corsair didn't look all that surprised by the news, although the assessing look he gave Jean was a particularly keen one. "My son and my daughter-in-law both jump out of planes to rescue kidnapped children. I get the sense that I'm not the only one with a story to tell."
"No," Scott said, "you're not. But you don't get to hear ours here." He met Corsair - Chris's eyes as steadily as he could. "I'll tell you where to find us. Whether you come... well, that's up to you."
The one-eyed man in the co-pilot's seat next to Forge had been more than merely taciturn, on the way to Madripoor; he'd been absolutely silent, right up until the moment he'd needed to give Forge specific directions to the shipyard where his captain had assured Cyclops there'd be a safe landing spot for the Blackbird. Directions given, he glanced sideways at Forge. "The blue-skinned one - Nightcrawler - told me that your orders are to hand the pirates over to what passes for the authorities here," he said, more than a trace of scorn in his accented English.
"That's the plan," Forge said calmly, guiding the Blackbird around the harbor, deftly weaving in and out of the low fog cover. "We're not any kind of authority, and there's more than enough evidence of their kidnapping and smuggling to convict them in any court. Nautical law says they get tried under Madripoor jurisdiction, as I understand it."
"Chang will have them back out of custody within the day. Probably back on a ship before the end of the week, unless he kills them for failing." Badri Raza muttered something under his breath in a language that wasn't English. "I prefer the captain's way. It actually provides a deterrent."
"And what would that be, keelhauling them?" Forge replied sarcastically. "Look, you guys did a number on them already. There's not a one of them that won't need some medical attention, and I'm not going to say they don't deserve every ounce of pain they're in. You think the legal system here's that corrupt that they can just walk... like that?"
Raza gave him a semi-incredulous look, but answered, if grudgingly. "For ordinary men, no. But throw enough money at a problem in Madripoor, and it's easily solved. The captain may try to outbid Chang," the older man conceded after a moment's pause. "Bribe them to overlook the bribe..."
"Might not be a bad idea," Forge agreed. "You could recoup a lot with whatever you can salvage off their ship. The electronic equipment alone, we're talking high six figures. Or hell, retrofit it for your ship. Spoils of war, man. These guys were pretty well geared up. No reason for that to go to waste." He gave a conspiratorial nod to the co-pilot. "Theoretically speaking, of course."
Raza snorted, but he clearly liked the idea. "Up ahead," he said. "The fog's a fortunate piece of luck. This is our shipyard. It and four of the warehouses surrounding it - it all belonged to our former owner. Before he met his own untimely end."
Forge opened his mouth to make a comment, then the revelation hit him. "Your... you were a slave? Like the ones we rescued?" The world's not like you thought it was, is it, scout? He shook his head to clear the thought. "This must be important to you, then."
He pivoted the jet around neatly with the maneuvering thrusters, bringing it in for a smooth landing. "Let's get these sons of bitches off my ship, then. Don't have a plank for them to walk, or whatever's customary, but there's a nice low bulkhead there..."
Raza gave him another narrow-eyed look, then cracked a rusty-looking smile. "No," he corrected Forge, "the ones we rescued will never be slaves. Differences of opinion over what to do with Chang's men are not as important, I think." He rose, giving the cockpit of the Blackbird one last admiring look. "You will want to leave a couple of your people here," he went on, "just in case. You don't have any particular reason to trust us once I'm off this plane. But I'll have some food brought out, while we're settling the matter of the prisoners."
"Thank you," Forge said, releasing the yoke and letting the Blackbird's engines whine down to silence. "You're right, you know. We might not see eye to eye on how it's done, but we agree this needs to be done."
A short moment of silence, then Forge extended his hand to the other man. "My name's John Forge. Your captain should be able to get a hold of us once we leave, I'll bet. If you want to keep doing what you're doing, and if you come around to thinking it might just work with less casualties... give me a call. That tin boat of yours might be able to stand a few upgrades."
--
Scott was standing by the rail as Corsair's ship moved into Madripoor Harbor. He had his com to his ear, listening to something, but closed it as Marie approached and nodded at her. "That was Kurt," he said gruffly. "They've still got the Blackbird stashed in that shipyard. No problems overnight. Everything's just like... like our host said." It wasn't like Scott to stumble over words, and he flushed, looking back out at the harbor, busy even this early in the morning. "Everything's fine. Just as advertised. They even dropped off the pirates with the authorities." Not that it would do any good, but it was really their only option, according to Nathan, whom he'd spoken to already this morning. They'd had the right to stop the ship, but extraditing people anywhere else was another matter entirely. And Madripoor did claim to officially condemn piracy.
Marie leaned against the railing next to Scott. Something was up and she wasn't sure what it was or if she wanted to know. The mission had been a success...so why didn't Scott look happy? "That's good," she finally offered..
Scott was quiet for a long moment, knowing that Marie was probably wondering what was up with him. "What do you think of... the captain?" he asked finally. Stalling. Or maybe it was feeling her out, he wasn't sure which.
"Didn't really interact with him all that much," Marie said with a shrug. "But...well, his little group seemed to help out, in their own ways. Personally, Ah'm just trying to reconcile the fact that pirates really exist with my old classification of them alongside fairy tales."
A somewhat strangled laugh slipped out before Scott could help himself. "Yeah, that's... tough to reconcile, isn't it?" He continued in a rush. "Want something tougher? According to Jean, he's my father." He didn't give Marie a change to answer before he went on. "My father, Christopher Summers. The apparently undead pirate. You didn't spot any cursed gold lying around last night, did you?"
"Musta missed that when the monkey jumped on my head," Marie said, shifting to rest her head on her hand. "So...not exactly what you expected, huh?"
"I expected to rescue a bunch of kids and bring them back to Sri Lanka so that what's left of Mistra didn't take it upon itself to go invade Madripoor to get them back. I didn't-" Scott laughed again and rubbed his hands over his face before taking hold of the railing once more. "This is just crazy."
"Welcome to the club," Marie said softly. After a moment of silence, she sighed and added, "Ah don't mean that to sound so...well, uncaring."
"Trust me, I'm more than seeing the farce in all of this. Cliche, rather. Maybe I just feel like it's a farce." Scott swallowed, wrestling for some semblance of composure. "I was almost hoping it would take us longer to get here. Wrapping things up is going to be more complicated than I thought."
"Yeah, throwing genetics into the mix tends to complicate things to say the least. Just...well, you know it's ok to be reacting like you are right? You seem to think you shouldn't be...and really, that'd be strange."
Scott's smile was a bit forced. "Mission now, kicking of things later." He gave her a quick, grateful look, though, and reached out and squeezed her arm briefly. "And if you ever hear me mocking or being dismissive of weird parental issues again... wait, what am I saying, I never did that in the first place." It was possibly the most forced banter he'd ever managed in his life. But bantering was the thing you did, at times like this. Right?
"At least yours is a good guy...sort of...and, y'know, male," Marie said, a wry smile on her face.
"True," Scott said, more quietly, then shook himself. They were well into the harbor at this point. "All right... I think it's time we started keeping a close idea on our 'allies'. Jean vouching for them or not, they are pirates, and I don't want to get double-crossed anywhere here."
--
"We're low on fuel," Scott said as Jean came up behind him in the cockpit. His posture was visibly tense, and he didn't turn to look at her. Outside the cockpit window, the shipyard where they'd stashed the Blackbird had continued to be quiet; Corsair had been as good as his word on that, at least. Fortunately, the fog had stuck around, which would make leaving easier. "We're probably going to be running on fumes by the time we hit the West Coast."
Jean crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the co-pilot's chair, nodding slightly. "I'm sure you and Forge will be able to get us there, even if it is cutting things tight." She paused and then, when there was nothing further from her husband, narrowed her eyes. "Scott..." she started.
"No," was the low, but nearly growled response. As their business had gotten concluded here, piece by piece, and the time for departure had gotten closer, Scott's tension had ratcheted further upwards. He'd retreated to the Blackbird an hour ago to try and calm down. It hadn't worked. "I don't care who he thinks he is, or who you think he is-"
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's the shock talking, not that you're actually saying I don't know how to do a telepathic scan properly." Which she had done, once she'd heard Christopher's story and gotten over her own shock. "And it's not that I don't understand and empathize with the shock. But it doesn't change anything, Scott. You need to talk to him."
Scott's jaw clenched in an expression that could only be termed mutinous. He did not, however, argue the point, which was as good as a concession that he couldn't - but oh, how he wanted to. "This is ridiculous," he finally said, instead of arguing. "This is just... ridiculous. Is there some... unwritten rule of the universe that says that people in my life get to come back from the dead whenever they want?"
Rather than kick him in the shins (as that so clearly warranted), Jean swiveled the co-pilot chair around as far as it would go and dropped into it. "Yes. Yes, there is," she said. "Terribly sorry you didn't get the memo." Then she winced and immediately said, "Sorry. I don't mean to be sharp with you - you've every reason to be upset." And she was undoubtedly picking up on some of it, to be so snappish. Well, that and he'd taken a dunk in the ocean. That never went well for Jean's nerves.
Scott's fingers drummed restlessly on the edge of the console. "I don't want to talk to him." It came out sounding childish, and Scott bit his lip. Hard. "I know I can't ignore... him, but I just... how the hell am I supposed to handle this? He's been dead and gone for..." Not dead, obviously, but... "Damn it!" Scott burst out, and kicked the underside of the console, knowing he was being incoherent.
"I don't know how we handle this, but you're right that ignoring him's not an option. Go talk to him, Scott."
Scott swallowed, folding his arms tightly across his chest. He certainly couldn't go home and not tell Alex about this - or tell him, and then say that he hadn't even talked to the man. And then there was Phillip and Deborah, who deserved to know their son was alive. "Will you come with me?" he asked, then smiled a bit weakly. "I promise no more hitting."
"Of course," Jean said, standing up and offering Scott a hand. He wanted to stall, she could tell, and she wasn't real inclined to let him. "I think he'd appreciate it if you didn't hit him again, sure." She paused. "Why did you hit him, anyway?"
Scott eyed the offered hand for a long moment, then took it and got up. "I didn't like his mustache," he muttered. For lack of anything else to say that wasn't going to get him smacked, this time by his wife.
--
They found Corsair in the warehouse Raza had pointed out to them earlier, speaking to someone who hadn't been on the ship with them, a thin, vaguely weasely-looking man in a business suit, who nodded at Corsair's crisp instructions in a language Scott didn't recognize and then hurried away. Corsair turned to watch him go, then spotted Jean and Scott, his business-like expression turning awkward.
"Just... making some arrangements. For those kids." Scott bristled immediately, and Corsair raised a hand. "Nothing that changes our arrangement," he said rapidly. "It's just.... when we bring smuggled people back, I usually find them a job, and... well, I give them the price they would have brought on the market." Corsair straightened slightly, and there was perhaps just a hint of a dare in his expression as he met Scott's gaze. Go ahead, the look said. Take issue with that. "It gives them something of their own, something to build on, even if they decide Madripoor's not to their liking."
"Can't argue that you do good work," Jean said, glancing about the warehouse. "In that regard, at least." She arched an eyebrow. "It's still a rather bizarre choice of profession."
"I'm not quite a pirate," Corsair said, with a slightly weary smile. "I'm a thief, and a smuggler. I don't accost ships at sea unless they're smugglers, too." He rubbed at the back of his neck, looking very uncomfortable, and then inclined his head to the left. "I'm got an... office there, I guess. It might be a better place to have this conversation."
Oh, just a thief and a smuggler, Scott thought sourly as he and Jean followed the older man. That made it all so much easier. "You've certainly got quite an operation here," he said, not quite accusingly, as Corsair preceded them into the small, rather cluttered office. "No long-distance telephone capacity, though?"
Jean restrained the urge to bury her face in her hands again. She couldn't even tell Scott to behave because, really, he wasn't wrong. There were, at least, free seats in the office and she settled into one of them, crossing her legs. "Right off the bat let me say, I'm so not playing mediator today. Not in the mood. Kidnapped children and certain people," she shot a look at Scott, "ending up all partially drowned. And, I have to tell you, Christopher, there has been an alarming precedent about rediscovered parents secretly being evil. Just, you know, as a warning that you're not necessarily on the best foot starting out."
"I was wondering why the boy was so insistent." Corsair sank into a chair, and reshuffled some of the papers on the pile in front of him, almost restlessly. "It's a very long story, Scott," he said finally. "I don't come off looking very good in it. But to answer the question you didn't ask, I never came back because I thought there was nothing to come back to. I thought you and your brother were dead." His voice grew tight, almost hoarse. "They told me they'd found you, while they were tracking down the crash site, and killed you both."
Scott sat down. "They?" he said, as neutrally as he could.
"I... had been a bit of a fool, the year before. Got myself into trouble, with someone who wasn't..." Corsair stopped, coughed to clear his throat, and then went on. "I was a test pilot, Scott. I had access to technology that foreign governments were very interested in. I let myself get played, and I made more of a mess of things trying to get back out of the mess I'd created. OSI - Air Force counterintelligence, they tried to help me, but I bungled it. That's why they shot down our plane."
Scott liked to think he was good at reading people, and there was nothing he was seeing, in the man in front of him, that suggested this was a lie. There was Jean's telepathic confirmation too, and the story so far just... made sense, in that sordid, awful way true stories so often did.
He made himself ask the next question, although it came out almost inaudibly. "My mother?"
Corsair blinked rapidly, looking away. "We pushed the two of you out, with the parachute," he said, his voice gruff, gravelly, "and then tried for an emergency landing. Kate died in the crash."
Without even thinking about it, Jean reached over and took Scott's hand, squeezing gently. "Alex isn't dead either," she told Christopher. "Scott and he found each other about five years ago."
Corsair made a small, involuntary movement at Jean's comment, swallowing visibly. Though his struggle for composure wasn't visible, the long pause before he continued told the tale. "Both of you. I just... I don't know what to say. We saw the parachute on fire, and we thought the worst... and then Kate..." He took a deep, shaky breath, squaring his shoulders. "I tried to bargain, when they found me. Told them I'd give them what they want, if they let me live. I thought I could get away afterwards, look for the two of you. But they took me to the coast, brought me aboard a ship... it was during the trip here that one of them told me that they'd killed you and Alex. I thought I'd lost everything."
"And yet you believed them." Scott's voice was almost as hoarse as his father's. "You never tried to look-"
"I couldn't, Scott!" Corsair was up out of his chair in a flash, pacing angrily across the narrow confines of the office. "They brought me here, to the man who'd set all this up... I laughed in his face, told him to kill me. They didn't. They sold me, when I wouldn't give them the information they wanted. I spent the next six years working in Lowtown factories. You have no idea what kind of life that is." His jaw clenched, and there was something cold and almost distant in his eyes as he turned back to Scott and Jean. "You can't know. So don't judge me for what I had to do to survive."
"I will damned well judge you," Scott snapped, rising to his feet as well and moving towards Corsair. "You've been gone for fifteen years. Your parents have thought their son was dead for fifteen years! Maybe you thought Alex and I were gone, but you're clearly in a position now to be in touch with the rest of the world! How the hell can you justify leaving them in the-"
Dark, he meant to say, but didn't get the chance, because now he was the one getting punched in the jaw. I have got to learn not to let people on my blind side! he thought, absurdly, as he reeled backwards. Corsair was glaring at him, the cold facade still intact everywhere but in his eyes. The depth of the anguish and guilt there was undeniable.
"Well," Scott muttered, "I suppose I deserved that."
Jean had restrained herself from hoping to her feet and doing... something, when Scott got in his father's face and got his own smacked for the trouble and now she said, "Yes, probably," before turning dark eyes to Corsair. "You don't get to do that again, though," she said, and it was part threat and part idle conversation.
"I'm sorry," Corsair said to Scott, gruffly. "I just..." His hands clenched tighter, then unclenched, and he let himself sag back into his chair. "Do you think I could face going back to my parents, and telling them that the three of you were dead? That I'd gotten my family killed because I was stupid?" The withering contempt in his voice was for himself, not for either of the two people in the room with him. "They loved your mother like she'd been their own daughter, and the two of you..." Corsair stopped, swallowed, and went on. "What I did, the life I lived here... what I had to do to get free, in the end.. it wasn't anything that my parents could have lived with. That's what I told myself, at least."
Scott went over and sat back down. After a moment, he reached out for Jean's hand again. Corsair noticed, his eyes flickering between the two of them for a moment, assessing.
"I hardly remember you." Scott's voice was tight with something that wasn't anger. "When we fell... my mutant ability manifested. I used it to slow us down, but when we hit - I fractured my skull. I was in the hospital for months, and by the time I woke up, Alex was gone. They'd already found him a new family. No one wanted the brain-damaged mutant kid."
Corsair jolted forward in his chair, his expression resolving into shock. "But... Mom and Dad, surely they would have-"
"They didn't know. They thought we'd died in the crash, too." Scott gave a hoarse laugh, rubbing at the scars on the side of his face with his free hand. "What a fucking mess. All of us so determined to think the others were dead, and here we all were, all along."
"Hey, don't be like that. Really, you couldn't have known - any of you. Plane crashes are not usually things people walk away from. The fact that any of you survived is a miracle." Jean might not agree with Christopher's reasons for staying out of touch, but she could understand them and they were his cross to bear. Scott already had too many of his own.
"Having you drop in out of nowhere is almost enough to make me believe in signs, Scott," Corsair said, although the look in his eyes was haunted, and more than a little shocky. This clearly hadn't been easy on him, either. "There's not anything I can do to change the past. But I'd like to see Alex. And I think... I owe Mom and Dad an explanation, too."
Scott wrestled the instinctive and somewhat explosive response to that back under control. He could be civil, surely. "I'd rather not deal with Alex coming looking for you if you don't come and meet him. He gets into too much trouble as it is."
Corsair almost managed a smile. "Does he make a habit of jumping out of planes and into combat situations, too?"
"No, and he's never been crazy that I do." Scott squeezed Jean's hand, then made another stab at civility. "And in case she didn't mention it, this is my wife."
Jean smiled wryly. "Might have left that out earlier, during the grilling. Jean Grey-Summers," she added with a nod. "And in spite of it all, it is a pleasure." For now, at least. If he turned out to be evil she might just have to kill him for hurting Scott.
Corsair didn't look all that surprised by the news, although the assessing look he gave Jean was a particularly keen one. "My son and my daughter-in-law both jump out of planes to rescue kidnapped children. I get the sense that I'm not the only one with a story to tell."
"No," Scott said, "you're not. But you don't get to hear ours here." He met Corsair - Chris's eyes as steadily as he could. "I'll tell you where to find us. Whether you come... well, that's up to you."