Madelyn, Scott - Sunday morning

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

While Hank is making the rounds, Madelyn is seeing Infectia packed off to the FBI. Scott comes down to find her well and truly sagging, and gets her to bed.



Madelyn closed the front door and leaned back against it, suddenly so tired she wasn't sure she could keep standing up. It was over, finally. Hank w ould be fine, the perpetrator was under arrest and looking at life imprisonment (and hadn't there been a small amount of satisfaction in having her hauled off in front of the kids. See? The law does work sometimes!), and there was nothing stopping her from sleeping for... oh, the next week. If she could get up the stairs to her bed, that was.

Scott appeared from one of the doors just down the hall, moving soundlessly to her side. "You look like you need carrying to bed," he said with a faint smile, taking her arm, just in case she decided she wanted to topple over.

"Hey, Captain," she said with a tired smile, not objecting to the supportive hand at all. She'd earned a small amount of not-so-tough time. "Just seeing off our guest."

"So your hospitality duties are all discharged and so forth, Zoe," Scott said dryly, leading her towards the stairs. She followed along as docilely as if she were a small child. "Hank's bounding around making up for lost time, and you... you need to sleep."

"Sleep is a good thing, yes," she agreed. There was something else she needed to do, but for the life of her she couldn't think what that was right now. "I'm sorry for not telling anyone we were going after that woman," she said vaguely. "There wasn't time, and at that point we weren't even sure she had anything to do with it. Although the big golem thing answering the door pretty much solved that question."

"Golem-thing? I suspect this is going to be an interesting report to read..." Scott shook his head, sliding an arm around her for support as they started up the stairs. She seemed perfectly happy to lean against him. "And there's no need for apologies. You use your own judgement in situations like this, and it sure as hell paid off in this instance."

"Report's written and emailed to you, although you might want to ignore the typos - I think I was seeing double by the end." Madelyn was definitely in the fuzzy happy place of no brain function whatsoever, working on automatic. "But I'm glad I'm not in trouble. Charles would want to have tea with me, and that's just too scary."

"Tea doesn't always mean trouble. Just fifty percent of the time, or thereabouts..." It was something of an adventure, getting her up to the third floor, as she was drooping more and more with each flight. He was half-tempted just to scoop her up and carry her, but there were still students around and that might be difficult to explain.

"Too many stairs," Madelyn complained almost petulantly. And it was getting very hard to keep her eyes open. "And I don't like those odds. Tea bad."

All right. Screw the students. Scott picked her up easily - she wasn't a small woman, but he was a fair bit stronger than he looked, even if he wasn't built like Nathan - and smiled a little as she immediately laid her head on his shoulder. "You're going to get your own entry in the Big Book of Sleep Deprivation, you know."

"I wrote the damn book," she proclaimed, body going limp as it realised it didn't have to move any more. "All of you are just damn amateurs." She chuckled a little. "Takes training and practice to not sleep as much as I do."

"Careful how loud you say that around Nathan. He might challenge you to an insomnia duel, and while the idea of the two of you staggering around here hallucinating is very entertaining... wait, no, it's not. It's alarming." He reached the top of the stairs and headed down the hall to the door of her suite, carefully freeing a hand to open the door without having to set her down.

"Unfair advantage, all those people in his head. It's just me in here..." Madelyn's voice was getting thick with drowsiness, although she'd managed to wrap her arms around Scott's neck to make herself more secure. "Are you going to tuck me in?" she murmured. "Think I deserve tucking in. Saved the day and everything, just with my brain."

"Tuck you in, yes," Scott said, carrying her into the bedroom and managing to twitch the covers aside before he set her down. "Although I draw the line at undressing you. Hank would kill me." He did take off her shoes, though.

"Hank's a sweetie, but he forgets I can look after myself..." Madelyn complained, although the current situation was a blatant contradiction of that. Still, bed was good. Nice and soft and... ow, something hard poking her in the ribs. Stirring herself enough to roll back over and reach under her jacket, she pulled out her handgun. "Damn. Knew I forgot something." She woke up enough to catch Scott's look. "Safety's on. Goes in the safe, over there." She waved in the direction of her closet.

Scott took the gun, checking it just in case - not that he didn't trust her, but she was fairly loopy - before he stored it in the safe and then came back to the bed. She was already curling up around her pillow, sighing, and he pulled the blankets over her.

"Thank you," he said quietly, ignoring the lump in his throat.

With monumental effort, she opened her eyes again, giving him a sleepy smile. "Any time, Captain," she replied, before drifting off into well-deserved slumber.