xp_logs | Keep the Faith aftermath: Terry and Scott

Scott checks in on Terry. She tries to keep it together.

"Put it away." Scott's voice wasn't loud, but it was very firm. He
shook his head at the sight of Terry with her laptop, his jaw
tightening slightly. She'd apparently fled the infirmary as soon as
Amelia had cleared her, before he'd been able to get down there to see
her. "The mission report can wait. Close the computer."

Her hair was still wet from her very quick, very hot shower; her skin
was still red from the scrubbing. She didn't look up immediately but
even with the headphones in her ears it had nothing to do with not
hearing him. Her fingers kept moving over the keys, trying to get down
her thoughts as quickly as she could before excuses started to creep
in. At the end of her paragraph, she saved it and finally looked up,
expressionless. "I was going to come see you tomorrow morning for a
debriefing."

Scott was still wearing most of his uniform. He'd shed only the jacket
before coming upstairs. He took a step into the room, glancing around
to make sure there was no Adrienne in evidence, and then focused again
on Terry. "I'm not here for a debriefing. That can wait, too."

"Oh." Right. Mission was over. People expected her to put it aside and
get on with life. That's how this worked. She just needed to get
used to that distance. Terry closed her laptop and took a breath,
shoving away the sense of failure and forcing herself to give him a
relatively normal smile. "What did you need, Mr Summers?" She could
do this.

"Stop it." Scott came over, crouching down beside where she sat. He
didn't reach out to touch her, as he wasn't entirely sure what had
happened and it was just common sense, in a situation like this. "I'm
here to see how you are," he said, much more gently. "That's all."

She blinked, trying to figure out what the right answer was here. She
knew she'd screwed up, the mission report would make that clear
enough. Should she admit that now? Or just wait? Her chances were
slim of ever being allowed to lead a team again as it was.
"I'm...okay. A couple bumps and bruises but nothing that Dr Voght said
I should worry about."

"I know you're physically okay, or Amelia wouldn't have let you out of
the infirmary. But that's not what I was asking." He did reach out
this time, laying a hand gently on her arm. "I'm proud as hell of all
of you for getting yourselves as far out of that mess as you did, but
that doesn't mean I'm not still worried." Not all injuries were
visible.

Terry winced. "I screwed up. I know. The report..." she was going to
say it would explain but she didn't know how to explain it. Her team
had been ripped apart, the mission was a failure. There wasn't really
an explanation for that. "I'll work on it."

"Terry, stop. This isn't about you failing. These things-"
Scott bit off the rest of that. Cliches were not what was called for.
"We can't foresee everything that happens."

It wasn't about her failing. But she had. "I don't know what you want
me to say," Terry replied quietly, looking at her hands.

"I don't need you to say anything." Scott laid his other hand over
hers. "If I could teleport Bobby here tonight, I would. Since I
can't... I thought I'd settle for making sure you didn't spend the
whole time alone."

"The Keep doesn't have the security systems that here and Muir do.
It's open to the public." She'd failed her team already. She
couldn't fail her family the same way. "It's not safe. We barely got
out of there. Every last one of them got away. And they have a
teleporter. They could be anywhere and it's my fault."

"You don't understand me. There's no reason for them to go after
Bobby. There was every reason to make you think that they would."

Terry trembled before she managed to lock it down. She couldn't lose
it yet. Not in front of Scott. "I can't take that chance. It won't
hurt to have him cancel the tours this week. Give it some extra
security. I don't want... I have to do something right with this."

"You did everything you could right with this," Scott said, starting
to understand. "I won't say don't tell Bobby to take precautions, not
if it makes you feel more secure about his safety..."

Everything right? Terry's temper flared, "Kyle has a broken jaw.
Forge is missing an arm. And I don't have a scratch on me!
How can you say that I did anything right? I told her! I told
Mystique that she could go on hurting them instead of trying to get
them out of there. I didn't protect my team. I was in charge and
they're..." Her voice broke, guilt strangling more words.

"We've talked about these situations before." And they had. Once he'd
been properly back on the team after the mess with Lyman, he'd talked
to Charles about how to at least introduce the subject to the X-Men
properly. It wasn't as if they could train for this sort of
situation, not without going a lot deeper into training of the type
they couldn't really do themselves. "You know what she was trying to
do. It might not help a lot right now, but you do."

"I know," she said automatically, not really hearing him, "But it was
my fault. I was in charge and that makes it my fault. If I'd been
faster. If I'd found them sooner, or just stalled Mystique more. I
just...I shouldn't have been so stubborn. I almost had her but I
messed up that too."

Yeah, you haven't been learning too much from me at all, have
you? "Are you going to be annoyed at me if I ask your roommate to
keep an eye on you overnight?" he asked quietly, instead of commenting
on what Terry said. The initial period of shock was not the
time to be trying to convince Terry she was being too hard on herself.

Terry shrugged, focused on her hands which she was folding and
unfolding almost compulsively. "She already thinks I'm here to keep an
eye on her. If you can find a bribe that will make her agree, it's
none of my concern."

"I'm a deft hand with bribes." And the wrong person to talk to Terry,
at least right now. She'd struggle to keep it together just because it
was him, and she thought he expected it of her. He rose, but not
before squeezing her hands gently. "You call me if you need anything.
I mean it. I'll talk to you again in the morning."

Her mouth trembled a moment before she firmed it up. Tomorrow they
would talk about this rationally. Tomorrow he'd have the report and
would know how everything had gone wrong. Tomorrow she'd be able to
take whatever consequences she had to from this and she'd face her
teammates and apologize for failing them. Tonight she really just
wanted to give up. Terry nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Definitely he needed to give Adrienne a heads-up. And possibly ask
Charles to keep an 'eye' on her as well. Sighing, Scott let his hand
rest on Terry's shoulder for a moment before he turned for the door.