Scott, Madelyn - Friday afternoon

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Scott decides it's time the over-worked doctor had a break. And makes a gesture of thanks for the support during his own nervous breakdown.



The medlab was empty, and the silence after so many days of activity, was a little unnerving. Acting on autopilot, Madelyn was clearing up the room Kyle had been in - the boy had surprised them all with how much he'd bounced back, but she'd keep an eye on him any way - stripping the bed, putting away the equipment, trying hard not to think about anything much at all, really.

"Paging Dr. Bartlet," Scott said wryly from the doorway, watching her fussing with the equipment. She jumped, and he raised a hand, wincing a little. "Sorry, Maddie. Didn't mean to startle you." He shook his head as he got a good look at her. "Yeah," he murmured. "You are coming with me, right now."

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately, tensing. But after so many days on edge, the adrenaline surge didn't do much more than make her feel even more tired.

Scott smiled, shaking his head again. "Nothing," he said gently. "Nothing at all. But you're going to come up with me for some fresh air. Lorna made me enough lunch for three people - I think that's her way of telling me she's glad I'm back - so I think you and I should take it and go outside for an impromptu picnic. It's a beautiful day out there."

Madelyn blinked. "You've hit your head," she said flatly. "You've hit your head and you've got concussion and that's why you don't sound like Scott Summers at all. I'll just get my kit..." She made to head off to do exactly that.

Scott laughed. "Come on, Maddie," he wheedled, stooping as low to use what Betsy termed 'that bloody irresistible grin' on her. He couldn't manage the puppy-dog eyes, after all, not with the glasses. "I'm turning over a new leaf. And since you were one of those people who tried very hard to keep me from killing myself while I was still on the old leaf... well, I want to share."

He was serious. Or not-serious, but in a serious way. Madelyn blinked again. "Maybe _I've_ hit my head," she murmured. "Or I've finally snapped and you're guest-starring in my delusion..."

Scott pursed his lips, then smiled again suddenly, the expression a little more subdued but just as warm. "And I forgot to do something," he pronounced, coming across the room and enfolding her in a gentle hug before she could protest. "Didn't mention how glad I am to remember you."

There was no protest. There was perhaps a little clinging, which she'd deny strongly, but no protest. Madelyn rested her head briefly against Scott's shoulder, the tension draining from her so suddenly she felt almost a little dizzy. "Welcome back," she said quietly, muffled by his shirt.

"Thanks," Scott said lightly, smiling and letting her draw back when she started to do so. "Now. You are coming upstairs with me, right? You need out of here. Nothing that needs doing or watching, is there?"

There was the morgue... but there was nothing to be done there now. Not until the FBI came to claim the bodies. "Do you know, there isn't?" she said, sounding almost surprised. "Kyle's upstairs, Shiro's been checked over... Nathan and Alison are still gone, so even if they did need something, there's no way I can get at them..." She shook her head as if to clear it, and gave him a weak smile. "Take me away from all this. Please."

"Then come on," Scott said, taking her arm and leading her towards the door. "The medlab's not going anywhere. It'll survive with you for an hour or so." Or longer than that, possibly? Ah, well. He'd see. "Lorna outdid herself," he informed Madelyn as they went out into the hall. "I hope you're up to eating."

"Eating? Yes, that's something I'm supposed to do, isn't it?" Madelyn quipped, letting herself be led, wrinkled labcoat and all.

Scott didn't bother with much else in the way of small talk until they were safely outside, having neatly avoided any possible kid-shaped distractions, and ensconced at one of the tables out by the closed-for-the-winter pool, where he'd put the over-large lunch before heading down to get Madelyn. "Really is almost warm out here," he said thoughtfully, sitting down opposite her.

Madelyn tipped her face up into the weak sun, closing her eyes. "Close enough," she said. "And after the dungeon, definitely almost warm." Opening her eyes again she looked at the spread. "Oh my. Lorna's outdone herself, hasn't she?"

"Like I said. Definitely her way of expressing something." Scott chuckled, helping himself to some of the pasta salad. "Whether it's 'I'm glad you're back' or 'Don't you ever scare your brother like that again', I'm not sure."

"A little from column A, a little from column B?" Madelyn suggested, stirring herself to grab a plate and actually start putting food on it. She'd lost track of when her last actual meal was.

"At least Alex doesn't seem to feel the need to watch me like a hawk today," Scott said. "He and Betsy both seem to have figured out that I'm not about to vanish again on them. Which is good. I'm angry they both had to go through that," he said forthrightly, "but it's done."

"And seems to have done you some good, as tasteless as that comment seems..." Madelyn said, looking at him carefully. "The Scott Summers of last week would have been beating himself up about his 'failure' in being attacked and drugged."

Scott grinned suddenly, a bit ruefully. "I'm good, Madelyn, but six to one, without my visor and with Alex in the middle of it..." He shrugged. "Besides. Call it a shot of perspective. When you forget your life for a day, it's funny how much clearer you see it when it all comes back." The realization of just how much of his stress was entirely self-imposed had been a bit galling, but long overdue.

"Perspective. Hmm. Maybe I should order some of that in?" Plus a sense of humour booster - she'd managed to lose hers somewhere along the way. "And I understand how it is, losing that. Sometimes I spend so much time in the medlab, it's all I can see." She smiled wryly. "Like lately."

Scott gazed across the table at her for a long moment, then reached for a sandwich. Lorna's ideas of sandwiches, of course, which meant they were small works of art in and of themselves. "It's been a bad few weeks for you," he said steadily. "Maddie, if you need a break... I'm sure between Charles and Moira, they could find another MD we could trust to fill in for a little while."

"I'm fine." It came out automatically, and Madelyn looked a bit sheepish. "All right, maybe I'm not. But I will be. It's just the last few weeks have been non-stop, and then there were those kids..." Her vision blurred, and she lay her fork down, appetite gone. "It hit a little too close to home," she admitted.

Scott shook his head slowly. "I can imagine," he said softly. "I've seen Sam briefly. Haven't managed to catch up with Paige. But when I passed Pete in the hall, he was a little more stone-faced than usual, and Nathan..." Scott paused, grimacing a bit. "Why Charles let Nathan run off like that, after what happened..."

"I don't think Charles got much of an opportunity to stop him," Madelyn said with a sigh. "He's driving himself, not letting himself feel... I can only imagine what finding those kids did to him." She picked up her fork again, stabbed at the salad she'd grabbed. "We're going to need to watch him. One of the reasons I can't go anywhere. Not yet."

"Madelyn," Scott said after a moment spent watching her. His smile was coming back, despite the tone of the conversation. "I don't know what we'd do without you. I really don't."

She looked up, surprised. "Huh? You said yourself, Scott, you can just as easily get another MD in - I have no illusions as to my mad medical skillz." She shrugged. "You'd manage. You have before I got here, and will after I leave, if that happens."

"I don't mean your medical skills," Scott said. "I mean you. It's biting you in the ass right now, but you care about the kids, about all of us. Put that together with your training, and your medical skills - and if you insist on running yourself down, I'm going to have to throw pasta salad at you - and you're pretty much singular, in my not-so-humble opinion." He smiled suddenly, wryly. "I'm not going to tell you that you're indispensable. I don't think any of us are, except possibly Charles. But I'd much rather have this place with you in it. Which is why it worries me that it's been such a hard few weeks for you. Lesser doctors--lesser people would have run away screaming by now."

Madelyn blushed to the roots of her hair. "Well, if you put it like _that_," she said, her smile coming far more naturally now. "After all the disasters, all the near-misses... it's hard not to wonder what the point of us doing anything is. Not that it stops me from trying - stubborn, as Lorna pointed out. So I keep trying, and hopefully that's enough."

Scott leaned on the table, regarding Madelyn thoughtfully. "I was just about ready to give up myself, last weekend," he said quietly. "I don't mean metaphorically. I mean... give up, totally."

"I thought that was the case." Her expression softened. "You had us worried there, Captain."

"It's not like my little vanishing trick was a magic wand or anything," Scott told her, smiling a bit at the nickname. "Just... clarified some things, like I said. Such as," he went on, with a touch of real humor in his voice, "just how good an idea that mentoring concept of yours is. I mean, I can look at it now and think that, as opposed to 'Oh, God, why didn't I think of that before, I'm such a miserable excuse for a teacher'..."

"I never said it was. But I can look at you now and see a man who's decided to take another whack at things. Which is far more heartening." Madelyn snickered a little at his last. "And it is? The response I got was... less than encouraging. I mean, I _know_ it can't be an official program - no teen in their right, hormone-addled mind would agree to that - but it's working relatively well in the medlab. Clarice is coming along with leaps and bounds, for example. Just having someone who listens to her, takes her seriously... It's important."

"See, I like the tried-and-true approach," Scott said cheerfully. "You medical types and your proteges, Nathan and his--how did you phrase it? Band of misfits?" He laughed. "I'm surprised he didn't growl at you for that. But both examples are good ones. The medlab version's a little more formalized, obviously. I think we'd have to be very clever about it in the larger context, try to make it look as informal as possible."

"Well, 'misfits' was probably a bit strong, but I was a bit on the stressed side at the time. Those 2 AM posts never come out the way they're meant to, but that's generally the time I'm awake and thinking. Well, mostly thinking." Madelyn finished the salad on her plate, reached for more. She was _hungry_. And vegetables were definitely a good thing after far too much processed package meals consisting largely of fat and carbs. "What were you thinking of trying?"

"A complex and wide-reaching conspiracy," he said, attempting his best innocent look. "Otherwise known as 'Hey, everyone pick a kid and have at it.'" He shrugged, trying the sandwich. He had been just ravenously hungry since his very extended - almost twenty-four hours, which had appalled him - nap. "We're very creative people. No one needs to be told how to go about trying to make a connection with one of the kids. They just need the encouragement to do so." He smiled cheerfully. "People keep telling me I have some sort of bizarre, nebulous sway around here. I ought to start making use of it, wouldn't you say? Although," and he raised a hand, "I haven't spontaneously resolved all my issues. I will pick at least one target for myself, but it's not going to be a certain firecracker."

"No need, I think I've pretty much picked up that one myself," she assured him with a laugh. "She talks to me - brought me food and coffee the other night, even - and I think she even listens sometimes. Besides, she reminds me of my kid sister. A lot. About the same age now, although Carlie is both older and younger than Jubilee mentally. It's the same for a lot of the kids here - too old in some ways, too young in others. Some of them have seen so much, done so much, it's made them cynical beyond their time. But they don't have the first clue about the interpersonal stuff. And that's where the screaming fights come from." She paused, then added. "Well, that and having a house full of teenagers living on top of each other dealing with Disaster Of The Week."

"I think Doug is an obvious choice for me," Scott said. "I already told him we'd be spending a lot of time together, so I've got the 'excuse' covered. I feel like I should try with one of the newer arrivals, too. I imagine Nate'll probably have Kyle well-covered, but there's this Forge kid, and I really think someone probably needs to be talking to Jay Guthrie on a more regular basis..."

Madelyn nodded. "He does at that. It's one of the reasons I thought of this - there's too many kids left to their own devices, to muddle through on their own... We're doing them a disservice."

"It's a fine line," Scott said thoughtfully. "We don't want to start overcompensating, because they'll see through that in a flash."

"Of course. But still, we've been walking the edge of a lot of lines for a while now. I think we're getting good at it." She smiled ruefully. "When we don't mess up completely, that is."

"Falling from time to time is inevitable," Scott mused after a moment. "I think the key's to be able to forgive ourselves when we do. As people kept telling me, we're only human." He smiled, a bit defensively. "Still working on that concept," he said, and reached for another sandwich.

"You wouldn't be alone in that," she said. "But we're adaptable."