Scott and Betsy, Saturday night

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Late Saturday night, after the events of the blood drive, Scott finds himself without any idea of what to do next. Betsy rescues him, but he's not really hearing her. The phrase 'at the end of one's rope' applies here.



Scott stood in the hallway outside the medlab, frozen for one of the few times in his life. He had checked on Doug. Checked with the doctors to hear their opinion on his condition. No one else was hurt. He'd debriefed the team members involved... or had he? Scott shook his head slowly, trying to slow his thoughts down, concentrate. What else needed doing?

Betsy came up behind him, wrapping her arm around his waist. "Nothing. You need not do anything else tonight." She nuzzled Scott's neck, soothing his runaway thoughts.

"I suppose I've done what I can," he said hollowly. "When it comes to damage control, at least..." He pulled away from her, but only so that he could turn and wrap her arms around her, hugging her tightly, almost desperately. "God damn it," he breathed raggedly into her hair. "Seventeen years old and going off to die... what are we doing to these kids, Betsy?"

"This had nothing to do with us, Scott. Absolutely nothing." Betsy reassured, her breathing hitching at the sound of his voice. "We couldn't predict some nutter deciding to strike at the blood drive than we could someone attacking us on a field trip." She tightened the embrace, sensing in him the fragile threads threatening to snap if she pushed too hard. "This could've happened at any time or any place, but if it had happened in any other way than it did....Doug would be dead."

He clung to her, shaking, trying desperately to pull himself together. Something else might happen. He needed to be able to deal with it if it did. "She told me," he said hoarsely. "Angie. She told me she'd seen Doug die in an X-Man uniform. He had the kevlar insert from my uniform, Betsy..." He was still trying to wrap his mind around that. Trying and failing. It was just too ironic, too much... he'd had the uniform in the car, just in case, and Doug had somehow known to take advantage of that, too. "But I told her not to worry, that there was no way Doug would be in an X-Man uniform anytime in the near future." He laughed wildly. "Lack of imagination bites me in the ass and nearly gets someone killed, again..."

Feeling the approach of onlookers, Betsy shifted away from Scott and led him away from the main corridor in medlab. She opened a door to one of the empty offices and quietly shut it behind them. Soon enough, murmuring voices could be heard traveling up along the hall, while Betsy kept her eyes on his face. It was a moment longer before they heard the voices move on and she returned to his side. Betsy cupped his face with both hands, hoping that something of what she said would sink in.

"Doug jumped in front of that bullet and fulfilled Marie-Ange's vision because he knew ahead of time what was to happen," she pointed out. "But who's to say that this was actually the vision she had of him? No one knows for sure if he'll join the X-Men, but if he does, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for him to be threatened. If you ask me, her Sight might be as solid as a sieve."

"His interpretation," Scott said after a moment, slowly, trying to sort through it. Thinking about the emails, Rahne's involvement... how did it all add up? It had happened the way Doug thought, or almost... but was that the only way it could have turned out? Precogs couldn't easily interpret their own visions. How could Doug have been so presumptuous as to think he understood all the variables? "Self-fulfilling prophecy... or what he thinks it was..." He stopped, shaking his head slowly as Betsy lowered her hands. "Doesn't matter, I guess," he murmured. "No one's dead." His mantra, lately. A situation wasn't a catastrophe if no one was dead. "Pick up the pieces, try and make sure nothing like this happens again..."

"It isn't bloody possible, Scott!" Betsy said in irritation. "There's no way to plan for something that is unpredictable." She walked over to the desk, leaning on it for a moment. "In all of your simulations, there wasn't a single one predicting this would happen. Not one. Because if you had, obviously, no one would've been hurt, right?." She shook her head. "That type of thinking doesn't work. Ever. You did have several scenarios of the school being attacked by the government, rampaging mutants, and/or unhappy members of the FOH. Yet, Stryker still managed to get in." Running a weary hand over her face, Betsy moved toward him. "There are just too many variables to account for, too many to run and still manage to be sane, afterwards."

Hadn't seen anything like this. Not once in all his scenarios. He gave a brittle, unsteady little laugh, then stopped dead at the sound of it and the look on Betsy's face. "I give up," he whispered after a moment, his chest so tight he could barely force the words out.

"Don't," she shot back. She reached for both of his hands, bringing them to her chest. "All I'm saying is, we work with what we have and prepare as much as we can. Everything else, we leave to the stars." Betsy brought his hands to her lips and kissed them

Scott closed his eyes for a moment, trying to concentrate on breathing. Slow, steady. Let the tension drain away... anytime now. Really.

"One foot in front of the other," he murmured. "Do what we can." It should have been reassuring. It really should have been.

None of her words were soothing to him; in fact, she felt the tension in him building. She sighed, ran a hand down his face. Working through his befuddled thoughts, Betsy sent a telepathic suggestion. Scott didn't truly register it, but she sensed it working against all the stress. No more, Scott. It's time for some rest. You'll have nothing but peaceful dreams tonight.