Scott and Madelyn, backdated to Friday evening

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

With Carlie running around the mansion, her big sister gets a chance to take a break from playing hostess. Not coincidentally, Scott picks that time to come looking for Madelyn to talk to her about her plans for the Columbia memorial.


Ah, peace and quiet. Madelyn loved her sister dearly, but prolonged exposure to Carlie levels of perkiness tended to wear her out after a while. Practically cuddling her coffee mug, Madelyn stretched out on the staff room couch and sighed a little. Carlie was off meeting Clarice, which meant she had an hour or two of time to herself...

Scott wandered Oh So Casually past the door of the staff room, having heard from a couple of passing students in the hallway that yes, they had seen Doctor Barlett duck in here. And there she was, reclining on the couch and looking rather weary.

"Zoe," Scott said dryly. "Bend your ear?"

"Of course, Captain." Madelyn's smile was a touch strained - she had a feeling she knew what this was going to be about. "Coffee?"

"Nah, I'm good." He flopped down in the armchair. "So. Noticed that little tete-a-tete of yours with Remy." He smiled a bit wryly.

"Uff, don't remind me." Madelyn set her cup down with a sigh. "The drive down to Philly and back got a lot of it out of my system, but... arg. I'm tempted to show him just how bad a shot this 'amateur' is."

Scott slouched in the chair, shaking his head a bit. "Peripheral issue, in any case. Annoying as it might have been. Tell me, were you expecting me to object when you told me you were going armed?"

"To tell the truth... I wasn't sure. On the one hand, there will be students there, and while I'm not planning on whipping a handgun out and waving it around willy-nilly, I was thinking you might be concerned." She shrugged a little. "And Charles' philosophy regarding lethal measures is pretty well known, and guns don't exactly give you a lot of range that way, good shot or not. On the other... If there is trouble, I don't want to be caught defenceless. Not with the kids and my sister there."

"Look," Scott said briskly. "You know how to use a gun, whatever Remy had to say. You're not going to be whipping it out, as you said, and given the circumstances? I can understand." He laughed suddenly, ruefully. "This is not to say I'm giving in to any of Haroun's blandishments about letting him carry guns out in the field. I need a 'Not a precedent!' sign to wave around."

"Well, you can always point out I'm not team and I don't have the ability to fly out of range of danger," Madelyn pointed out. "Plus the training to _not_ use it. Provided there's no need for it, the kids won't even know it's there. I'll make sure of that."

Scott nodded. "I'm okay with this, Madelyn," he said more seriously. "You're a professional."

She gave him a wan smile. "A professional wouldn't let herself be goaded like that by an arrogant Cajun twerp." she said. "Maybe I should stick to the doctoring - it seems to be what people take more seriously, any way. Although Al has some ideas."

"Madelyn? I would imagine the provocation is something that Remy was taught how to be good at. It's as much a weapon as anything else," Scott pointed out.

"So I was played. Great. First Ali, now him. I should _know_ this." Disgusted with herself, Madelyn leaned back on the couch, looking up at Scott. "Can I ask you a question, Scott?"

Alison had played her? Scott nodded. "Anything," he said with a frown.

"Why haven't you contacted me about helping out more? Not the medical side of things, the FBI part. Contacts, skills, the rest of it." She hesitated, then made herself as the question. "Is it because I fell apart so badly when Ali was hurt? Do you think I'm unreliable?"

Oooh, boy. Scott didn't answer for a minute, giving the question some serious consideration. "To be honest, Maddie? I spent most of the fall in such a myopic state that it didn't even occur to me to make proper use of the resource you are." He sighed. "That's not meant to be an excuse, but it is the reason."

She relaxed imperceptibly. "It's been bothering me," she said. "Especially after Hank came back... I understand perfectly why he's field medic and I'm not, but I couldn't help feel I was being relegated back to the nice safe medlab because I was too fragile to be of use." She gave him a wry grin. "I sort of blew up at Al the other day along those lines. We're working on things now. But I had to know - I respect your opinion, Scott, and thinking it was because you didn't have confidence in me... well, it bothered me."

"Don't think that," Scott said quietly, a smile tugging at his lips. "You can think all kinds of profoundly negative things about me and you'll probably be spot-on, but not that."

"Oh, that was pretty much the main one..." Madelyn returned the smile. "It's why I got so pissed at Le Beau - he managed to smack that particular insecurity as hard as he possibly could. Anything else, even criticising my medical abilities... that I could have shrugged off without a hitch. But you're right, he's trainined to go for the weak points."

"You should see Nathan do the same thing," Scott said wryly. "Same training, plus telepathy."

"See, that's just unfair," Madelyn mock-pouted. "Unfair advantage and all the rest. Which means I have to work twice as hard to get one over on Nathan. Still, I do have insider information in the shape of Moira."

Scott snorted softly. "I think Nate's been a little more thoroughly domesticated," he said. "Then again, he's also had seven years longer in which to get domesticated. I know Remy can be damnably annoying at times, but he's doing his best. Doesn't help to think that when he's taking pokes at you, I know, but once the initial urge to shoot him passes...?"

"Don't worry, I'm not about to see him run off the place. Or even drop hints to the local law enforcement people about the scruffy man lurking around the crowd on Monday, tempting as it is." She reached for her poor neglected coffee. "I'll be good, I promise. I won't be going out of my way to interact with the man, but I'll keep my scary medical instruments to myself unless he actually needs them."

"All anyone can ask," Scott said and got up, going over to investigate the box of what he knew had to be donuts. "My shoulder's fine, by the way," he volunteered, knowing she'd have read Hank's medical report from the last mission. "No stiffness at all today."

Madelyn gave him her best innocent look. "I wasn't going to nag, honestly," she said. "Oh, but speaking of nagging and injuries... Lorna. I've taken her off all training until I can go through Moira's file on her powers and make sure they aren't exacerbating the problem. I'll have a diagnosis for you by tomorrow afternoon, since I'm using Carlie to distract Jubilee and vice-versa. You'll need to work out a new variation of her training schedule, and make sure she sticks to it. Lock her out of the DR if she goes over her allocated sessions, that sort of thing."

Scott nodded. "No letting people overtrain," he said very seriously. "Defeats the purpose of it."

"Good." Madelyn's smile turned just a little evil. "Because we'll be going through the entire team with a fine tooth comb now, you realise. We've let stuff slide for far too long."

Scott looked her right in the eyes and smiled. "I wholeheartedly approve." Especially since he didn't overtrain and so she wouldn't find any dirt on him, oh, no sir...

"Oh good." She gave him one of those innocuous looks. "So I can pencil you in for first thing Sunday morning then?"

"Absolutely." Take your best shot, Scully, the grin said.