Log: Kurt And Meggan

[x-meggan.livejournal.com]

Following Moreau’s defeat, and a long shower on her part to clean up after a week’s grime, Meggan heads for Kurt’s hotel room—where she learns the sad news of Rachel, and they grieve together.



Meggan knocked softly at the door to Kurt’s hotel room. If he happened to be sleeping, she wouldn’t want to disturb him…and would likely as not just tip toe away until some time that was a little later and not as inconvenient. She just wanted to see him, after everything that had gone on, talk to him a little.

The door opened without a challenge. Whoever it was, Kurt knew it would probably be a friend and right now, the more time spent with friends the better. He had only enough time to take in the sight of Meggan and brace himself a little before she flung herself at him for a hug.

While Meggan had known she was going to go in for a hug when she knocked, she hadn’t expected how desperately she needed to actually do it, now that there was time for it—or that he would scarcely get the door open before she lunged forward and latched on. So it was time for what she could only consider a hug that veered into ‘I missed you, I wanted to hug my brother, and I’m glad we weren’t all killed’ territory, then, rather than a regular run-of-the-mill snuggle. When she finally pulled back a little, she looked up at him and said, “Hi. Sorry, was that too tight?”

"Not at all, baby sister." He had let out a quickly hidden wince, but didn't seem willing to let her go too far either, frowning down at the obvious large bruise on her face. "They hurt you."

“Yeah. A slap wasn’t good enough for the guy in charge, so—a punch,” Meggan explained. She knew he’d want to know that much, at least. “I wasn’t hurt anywhere near as badly as some others,” she offered with a sympathetic wince, not willing to move from her position just yet. She had only been punched, not hit over the head with a gun or beaten. Unless she accidentally poked the bruise too hard, it was doing better. Not much in the throbbing department.

He put a hand on her chin and tilted her face into the light, wanting a better look. "I am so very glad that man paid for his crimes", he muttered darkly. "For myself, I am not so bad. Bruises, mostly."

Meggan angled her face better for him to see everything he needed to. There was a small cut resting in and partially obscured by the center of the bruise, by now long since scabbed over. “That’s good. I was worried it could be more,” she confessed. Truthfully, she’d been worried for everyone, but she hadn't known how bad he was hurt at any point.

"A little more damage to my bad leg", he admitted, "but nothing that will not heal. The bone was not even broken." He examined her face, then drew her in for another hug. "Amanda had a nasty cut to the head and a concussion, but no worse. I do not think anyone took life-threatening injuries, though some will have new scars."

“You just answered my next question,” Meggan nodded, while hugging him. She squeezed a little more gently than before, lest she accidentally bump his leg with some extra damage. She didn't want to cause him more pain. She’d planned to ask after Amanda once she’d checked in with him, but now she didn’t need to. “I’ll wait until she’s not so concussed. So she’ll remember if I’m talking to her.” Concussions and loopiness went hand-in-hand.

Kurt nodded with a faint snort of unamused laughter. "Probably for the best. I will check in on her again this evening, and Jubilee too. She was... they beat her. We were in a cell together that night, and she hurt so much."

Meggan had expected hit over the head with something heavy or blunt, not…a beating. She probably should have, though, given the circumstances. As if she needed another reason to loathe those bullies. “You’ll…let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, too? Even a little?” There probably wasn’t much, if Amanda was in excruciating pain.

"It was Jubilee they beat worse, and who was my cellmate", he clarified, belatedly realising all the 'she''s might have been confusing. "Amanda was hit in the head to stop her fighting, I think, and once in the kidneys when she talked back. Jubilee... we were going to be sent to a mine to work. Moreau said she would be distracting, they should spoil her beauty, and one of them hit her in the face with a gun. Three times."

Meggan nodded. She had, in fact, mixed it all up with the ‘she’s’. “Oh, right. Sorry. Still, if there’s anything I could do—for either.” As he said the last, she paused, not knowing what to say. Finally, she said the only thing she could think of. “He was just very twisted and evil.” Because there was no making sense of anything he did.

"He was", Kurt agreed quietly. "More than almost anyone I have ever met." There were, obviously, exceptions. "But he is gone now. Meggan - " He hesitated, having been trying to avoid thinking about this. "Has anyone told you what happened to Rachel?"

Meggan shook her head in the negative, not having heard the news yet. “No. What--What happened to her?” By Kurt's tone, it sounded like something bad had gone down with her, too, but she hoped she was wrong. Dreaded that she wasn't.

"...come inside", he said, pain in his voice. "Sit down with me, I will make a hot drink." And then break the news.

“Okay,” she agreed softly. She rubbed his arm gently as she let go to take the closest seat, not knowing what else to do to try to comfort him before he gave the news. Whatever the drink was, that didn't matter right now.

He headed for the table where cups and sachets sat, coming to join her a few minutes later with two cups of hot chocolate. "Moreau... wanted to punish us, for fighting and not cooperating like good little prisoners. He had already taken Rachel, perhaps as another bargaining chip, but... he decided to make her a mutate." He closed his eyes, hands cupped around his mug. "The chief technician warned him outright that there was a high risk of her death from the process, I heard him, but..." His voice choked for a moment before he continued. "Moreau did not care. That a six-year-old girl would likely die."

She accepted the cup, putting it down on the table in front of her for now. Trying to make little Rachel a mutate was not one of the possibilities Meggan had anticipated. She looked down, horrified. Taking her, and sticking her into that was far worse than the list of things she had been conjuring up that may have happened, that Moreau may have done. Weakly, she asked, “And the process--it…did? It killed her?”

"She died", he confirmed very quietly. "She burned up and she disappeared, and teleportation was never one of her gifts, so..."

“So, she’s gone,” Meggan whispered sadly. But—but that didn’t even leave them a body to give a burial, or anything for a small urn, Meggan realized with a start. She burned up and turned into nothing? Hard to get around that. She immediately moved to give him another hug as tears welled up, knowing an ‘I’m sorry’ would be futile and worthless.

He blinked hard as he hugged her back. "I do not like to think what poor Nathan and Moira must be going through."

“Yeah, with no way to say goodbye,” Meggan realized, almost muffled against his shoulder with one squeeze. Could Nathan and Moira be able to do a funeral after all this? Would they be able to deal with it?

"And the second time each of them has lost a child", he murmured into her hair. "I do not believe Moira had a body to bury with Kevin, either."

Oh, that was true. Then, it would be doubly hard, if it wasn’t a hard enough level for the two before. A tiny sniffle, and then, “Do you think...would they at least be able to do something for her? Even if they can't have anything done like a burial?”

"I hope so. A memorial service, perhaps a marker on the island... it is Moira's land, after all, she can put whatever she likes there."

“I hope so, too,” Meggan sighed. She removed one arm from the embrace only long enough to carefully scrub hot tears away with the back of her hand. She didn’t want to get his shoulder wet, and was simultaneously doing her best to avoid her bruise.

"You know I never mind you crying on me if you need to", he said, looking into her face. "What else is a big brother for?"

“Yeah, well, you can cry on my hair while you’re up there next. If you need to,” Meggan offered with a watery smile. Having him contorting in the hug enough to cry on her shoulder while they held onto each other like this if he had to might just end in neck cricks, and she suspected Kurt was sore enough. He didn’t need that tacked on. “I don’t mind.” A little sister could be good for that.

He smiled faintly, and his eyes were already reddened. "Then we shall cry on each other and perhaps feel just a little better."