xp_logs | Seven Minutes In Heaven: Retreat (Reply)

On the way back to Eielson, Kyle discovers that while it wasn't all for nothing, Trask and Lense got away with more than any of them would have liked. At the base, after seeing to her team, a tired and angry Jean calls home.

"You know, I'm almost sure that some of our rescue party would be happy to sit on you and force-feed you this," Doctor Morrisseau said, standing in front of where Kyle was huddled in one of the helicopter's seats. The aircraft bringing them back to Eielson could have been the twin of the one they'd come in, although there were considerably more people aboard than there had been on the way up. Their rescue party hadn't known, after all, if they would arrive in time to join the fighting or just pick up the pieces.

"Possibly also some of the rescued," Morrisseau went on. "Don't think I don't notice your teammates giving you looks."

His wet and half-frozen uniform was in pieces in a bag, by the time he was out of the water, he so numb he couldn't take his clothes off without help - he'd clawed them up trying to get them off, and still had to enlist aid. Kyle had been given a spare pair of BDU pants and a clean t-shirt and two blankets and a pair of socks, and he still wasn't warm. It wasn't the shivers in his hands that were troublesome, it was the spasms in his thighs and abdomen. And they'd told him that he was recovering fast. If this was fast, he didn't want to know what slow was ever.

He looked up at the doctor, and made a face - one that would not have been out of place on a certain three year old he knew. "It smells like butt." He said, stumbling over the s-sounds with still slightly numb lips and tongue. "Prob'ly tastes like it too."

Morrisseau looked back over his shoulder at where Jean and one of the medics who'd come along on the rescue were conferring over Nathan, still and unmoving on the stretcher. "I suspect your teammate would be glad to be awake to have the opportunity to address his hypothermia this way," he said idly, looking back at Kyle. "I suspect he'd also probably be very annoyed, if you suffered unnecessarily because you helped rescue him."

"Betcha he'll agree that it tastes like butt." Kyle grumbled petulantly, but released his deathgrip on his blanket and took the metal cup from the doctor. He gripped the cup tightly, and noted that it was half-full unhappily. The shivers would've sloshed out anything more, but he had a good idea that they were going to force more of the nasty-smelling drink on him.

He took a sip, and screwed up his face in distaste. It tasted just like it smelled - hot water with chicken bullion and salt. A longer drink just confirmed it, but the warm liquid seemed to help calm the shivering, if only slightly. "Tastes like butt." Kyle confirmed. "Like chicken butt."

"Think of it as medicine. It's not meant to taste good." Morrisseau paused a moment, then sat down beside him. "Are you feeling any better? I haven't worked much with mutants with healing factors."

Kyle took another drink before answering, doing his best not to -taste- the chicken soup and not really having any success. "I'm still cold, but not like I was an hour ago. Now it's just shivers and I kinda ache." Ache was downplaying it, it was more like a full-body bruise, but it would end eventually. Probably faster with the nasty soup, even. "How's Nate? Is he gonna be okay?" he asked, looking over towards the stretcher. "He was down there longer than I was, and he doesn't have a healing factor."

He took another drink from the cup, finishing the soup in one long swallow and made a face. "This shit stinks. Stupid Mistra, stupid Lense. Fucking whatsherface. I dunno if we even got anything. Wasn't like I had time to check while I was turning myself into a Kylesicle..." It was mostly muttering, ending with Kyle handing the cup back and asking "I dunno if you know? I mean, did we.. "

Morrisseau answered after a pause, as if composing the reply in his head. "He's pretty banged up, but the hypothermia will probably work for him. People have been successfully revived with no lasting effects from cold water after much longer than he was down." His jaw tightened. "As for what we got - not a whole lot. We lost that hard drive and the files from the lab. And one of the rooms we hadn't gotten to yet had filing cabinets. The door was open and the drawers were empty when Thirsk checked it while we were waiting for rescue."

For once, fighting the urge to growl and swear a blue streak wasn't all that hard - he was just too cold to do more than mutter expletives under his breath. Kyle reached behind his back to tug the blanket off his neck and rolled his head, neck cracking a few times. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck. All that, Nate's busted to shit again and that bitch got everything anyway." Kyle's very short list of people he would have to work very hard at not doing gross bodily harm to expanded by one, and he filed that thought away with his vague daydreams of dropping Victor Creed into a volcano, and throwing Rory Campbell under a bus.

"We know basically what sort of... research and experimentation they were doing," Morrisseau said, "just... none of the details. Or why. Or whether it actually succeeded." He sighed. "There's a lot more investigating that needs doing now, but I think it's safe to say that something there was worth all this trouble."

"I wonder if they'd let me kick her a few times..." Kyle mused out loud, in a low growl. He very much wanted to get up and pace the length of the helicopter, or check in on Nate, or sit with Sam and Clarice and Angelo and Zanne and have a nice long bitchfest about Tara Trask, and until his temperature came back up to his 'normal', he'd been told to stay put and not move. Sitting still wasn't something Kyle was normally good at, and to have to do so under these conditions was at the high end of difficult.

Morrisseau stood up again, squeezing Kyle's shoulder briefly. "Stay put and finish warming up," he said, looking tired. "Plenty of time for that once you're no longer hypothermic."

Slumping back into the seat, Kyle pulled his blanket back up further, but snaked one arm out to rake through his still-damp hair. "Does that mean I don't need any more chicken butt soup?" he asked, hopefully, and let out a unhappy sigh when Morrisseau shook his head, head, refilled the metal cup from a plastic bottle, and handed it to Kyle with a "Finish that and we'll see."

--

Something had definitely gone wrong. Scott had been able to tell that himself, even before the phone call from a semi-hysterical Moira had confirmed it for him. He hadn't been able to raise the team himself, and had been reassured that they weren't looking at a total disaster only because his link was intact. He'd gone to Charles in the end, not that the Professor's report of the brief long-distance conversation he'd had with Jean had been much more reassuring. They'd run into trouble. They were all alive, and headed back to Eielson.

He had decided to wait in the Situation Room, knowing Jean would call in as soon as she was able. It was a few more very quiet, anxious hours before that happened.

"Are you all right?" he asked first. Ignoring the usual formalities.

"More or less," Jean said, cradling the phone as she tried to figure out what posture hurt the least while sitting. Collapsing seemed like the best option, and sleeping for ten hours or so, but it wasn't time for that. "Going to have some real pretty bruises, but compared to some I got off lightly. Nate... is going to be okay. Eventually."

"Moira called, from Muir. She knew something had happened." Scott took a deep breath, then let it out. "What should I tell her? She's on her way back. And what about the others?"

"Sam's kind of... drained; strange powers reaction to Amber Hunt, I'm watching him. Angelo was shot, but it's not critical thanks to his mutation, and Zanne picked up a graze on the arm. Kyle's the next worst off after Nate; moderate hypothermia, but his healing factor is coping well." Jean paused, then closed her eyes. "Up to you what you tell Moira and what you leave for Nate, but he ran into Saidullayev and Lense. They... really went after him. I still don't know how much of it was that he was dangerous to their plan and how much was personal." With Saidullayev there of course it was personal.

Scott caught himself rubbing at the scars on his face, and forced himself to lower his hand before he answered her. "Charles told me what you told him, that you were dealing with two groups, cooperating... I guess the next question we'll have to answer is what Lense was doing there. Who he's working for." He took another steadying breath. "I'm assuming SHIELD will get you all back here. I haven't heard from Fury yet."

"Yes, we'll be home... soon. Ish. There's a timeframe, but it's still kind of... wobbly. They want to debrief, I want them to let our people go and we can do that later. I think I'm winning, but it's hard to tell."

"I could call Fury," Scott said. "Or get Charles to do it." Despite everything, a sad half-smile escaped as he said it. Now wasn't really the time for jokes, though. "Jean... I'm sorry I didn't come with you. I don't know whether one more person would have made much difference, but... I still wish I'd been there."

"Don't worry, I'll get us home." And she'd do it on her terms, not Fury's, no matter what the man thought. She was rattled enough by Nate's injuries and the whole thing to be looking for some aspect that she could take care of and fix, no matter how small.

Give her something else to focus on, part of Scott's mind said firmly. He knew what it was like to have a mission go bad - knew all too well. "What did you find?" he asked. "In the facility, I mean. I know it was abandoned." Charles had picked that much up from Jean and passed it on.

"Genome alteration and obstetrics. They were creating mutant babies," Jean said, her face expressionless, though he couldn't see it; it certainly resonated in her suddenly flat voice.

Scott was quiet for a long moment. "I looked it up, while you were gone," he said. "Taygetos. Mistra meant something. I thought it might too, if it wasn't just a random Greek word they picked because of the connection to Mistra. It's a mountain, Jean. Supposedly the one where Sparta disposed of its unwanted children."

"Yes, of course it is," Jean said, sighing, and now she just sounded tired. Screw finding the least uncomfortable way to sit or keeping up a strong front for anyone who came by. She slumped into the chair; at least her bruises hurting distracted from her heart hurting. "So, yeah, next time? We do that research first."

Scott didn't point out he was wondering if someone at SHIELD had. They must have. Had they written it off as unimportant, or just as obvious given the connection to Mistra? He wondered, too, if Nathan had made the connection, and if so, why he hadn't said anything.

"We'll find out what happened," he said. "We will."

"Oh, you'd better believe it," Jean said, frowning slightly. "I think even Fury's figured out that I'm not letting this one go. Which he's not best pleased about, but is trying not to be obvious about that."

"We can talk about it with him. He came to us for a reason in the first place - he'll see the value of keeping us in the loop on this." Scott actually believed it as he said it, too. But he liked to think he read people well, and Fury didn't strike him as the type to think too much on the niceties of jurisdiction if someone could be helpful. And they could.

"Yes, you're probably right," Jean agreed. "He may just being prickly at me because... well, because I'm being prickly at him." She could admit it, even if she wasn't really in the mood to stop.

"Try not to be." It was said gently enough, but it was a definite request. "SHIELD's not the enemy here. We all had the best of intentions going into this. We just didn't account for other parties being interested."

"You know that the next chance I get I'm going to break Trask's face, right?" Jean said conversationally, although there could be no doubt that she meant it. "Break it into little pieces."

"I'll hold your coat." Scott bit his lip. "I should let you go. You sound like you still have details to attend to." And I want you back here as soon as you can be back here.

"Some, yes," Jean admitted with a sigh. "The sooner we get them done the sooner Fury agrees to let us go."

Back here. For some rest. "Keep me updated," he said softly. "I love you." It was not the most formal and proper way to sign off an 'official' communication, but he thought he'd cut himself some slack this time.