Thermopylae Aftermath: Madelyn, Scott/ Madelyn, Hank

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Doug isn't the only one wanting to keep busy so as not to worry... Madelyn's endeavours are frustrated by her injury, and she eventually goes and sits with Scott. There's tears, and comfort, and the realisation that this is just the first of many small steps.



They wouldn't let her help. Why wouldn't they let her help? Didn't they realise she needed to do something, needed to occupy herself with anything other than Mick's still face and Kurt's expression as he realised he'd as good as killed that operative and the smell of blood and burned flesh and the terrible blankness in the eyes of the triggered operatives? Madelyn balled her fists, then winced as the muscle movement twinged the shoulder. She'd find something to do, something out of the way...

"Maddie?" Scott called softly from the bed as she passed by the open door. He was still in medlab for the simple fact that he a) couldn't get around on his own and b) was rightfully low on the priority list, even back here at the home. Hank had given him another painkiller, so his head was fuzzy. Fuzzier.

She started, wincing again. Damn shoulder. It wasn't going to forgive her any time soon, especially after she'd tried to... She pushed the thought of what she'd done when she'd found Mick away, obscurely ashamed of herself. He'd been obviously dead - she should have realised that. "Hey Captain," she said, coming in. She could at least check on Scott, and hope he wouldn't comment on the way she wasn't moving her arm if she could help it. In the chaos it had been easy enough to let herself slip through the cracks in favour of more urgent cases. "How's the knee?"

"Still there, I think," Scott said, leaning back against the pillows with a sigh. "Why aren't you resting, too?" He looked pointedly at her arm.

"Too much to do," Madelyn replied, and then honesty pricked her. Scott would know bullshit when he heard it. "I can't, not yet. There's too much going on, in here." She tapped her temple. "And at least if there's something I could do here, well, it's something. Better than turning up too late." The last slipped out before she could stop it, impelled by pain and heartache.

"Sit with me for a bit, at least?" Scott suggested, and rather shamelessly used his best imploring look. She didn't have a prayer, at that point. The look she gave him as she sat down was kind of funny, or would have been if he hadn't been so tired. "So," he said, almost lightly, "I nearly drowned today. Did I tell you that?"

"Drowned?" Madelyn blinked - Youras had been dry and dusty and not high on the actual water content. She leaned back, then flinched as the bruises on her back contacted the chair back and leaned forward again. "How does one nearly drown on a rock like that, Captain?" she asked, trying to keep the tone light so he missed the obvious pain she was in.

"There was an aquakinetic in the command bunker," Scott murmured dryly, not missing the flinch, even if her voice was commendably even. "He decided that breathing was optional for the rest of us." He sighed, shifting his leg where it was propped up. "We wouldn't have gotten through if it hadn't been for Konstantakis."

"I saw, later, during the clean-up..." Madelyn couldn't finish. She'd already told Sam about the woman's death. So many deaths. Anger and grief burned. "They tell me you got two of the directors?"

"Got two, left two dead on the floor," Scott said heavily. "I was trying to get all four of them out, but there were just too many of the triggered operatives down there with us." He paused for a moment. "Thank you for getting Sam," he said quietly. "I know you took a hell of a risk going out of the evac area after him."

"Someone had to, and everyone else was tied up." Madelyn didn't want to dwell on the risk she'd taken. It had to be done, and she'd been there to do it. "Kurt only left me for a second - just bad luck it was the wrong second."

She sounded like him. Focusing on the cold facts of the situation... "Still," he said quietly. "I had to wonder why Konstantakis was so insistent about getting him out of the bunker... made me wonder if having him out there to crash was really preferable to whatever she saw when she told him he had to get out and not wait for us."

"With pre-cogs, even short-term ones, who's to say?" Madelyn replied. "He's pretty banged up, but he'll live. Especially with a boost from Amanda. So maybe it was just as well he got out."

Scott made a noise that might have been agreement, or any of a half-dozen other things. "How is the shoulder?" he asked, trying to focus a little more on her. "You're not resting, but you've been seen to and everything, right?"

"I got checked out back there," she said vaguely. She'd slipped away again after a cursory exam, knowing full well there wasn't much to be done until she reached the school. And they'd needed doctors so badly at that point. "It's fine for a while longer - I'll have one of the others check it out when things are less hectic."

Scott raised an eyebrow, managing not to sigh. "I'll hold you to that, you know," he murmured. "Even if I have to get off this bed and make an idiot of myself dragging you off to Hank or some such thing. You wouldn't want to see me wind up on my face, now, would you?"

"I will, I promise." It sounded childlike, almost, and this time Madelyn did manage to smile. "Can't have the Captain falling on his face in front of everyone, can we?"

Scott hesitated, then reached out for her good hand. "Highly undignified," he said, as gravely as he could. "And my dignity is dinged up already. Haroun had to rescue me. Do you know how long I'm going to be hearing about that?"

"For the rest of the year, at least." The touch undid her a little, and she found herself holding onto his hand tightly. "He likes to rub it in when he manages to save someone's butt, those uselessness issues of his, you know..." Her voice cracked on the word 'uselessness' and she closed her eyes tightly to hold back the sudden tears. But that only made Mick's face appear in her vision again.

"Maddie." His own eyes were stinging, but he squeezed her hand gently. "He... he did an astounding thing, you know. I didn't know him very well, but he made a choice that saved lives... so many lives."

"I know, I know he did. I just... I didn't know. I wasn't there - God, I didn't even get there until it was all over and there was just the bodies to go through..." A half-strangled sob escaped. "I just feel so damn helpless! Mick was my friend and I wasn't even able to make it easier for him, wasn't able to say goodbye..." The tears were flowing now, nothing was going to hold them back. "I shouldn't be reacting like this. A few nights of conversation and poker don't give me the right to have any sort of claim on him."

"To hell with that," Scott said, quietly but vehemently. "You helped the man get over a suicidal reaction to his conditioning breaking, Madelyn. You are probably one of the first few people outside his fellow operatives who showed him any real human kindness since he was a child. Don't minimize that. Don't minimize your reaction to seeing him lose the chance to--" He bit his lip, his eyes burning.

The chance to live. To have a life outside of Mistra and conditioning and violence and death. The same chance those kids would now have. "It's just so damned unfair," she said quietly. "I spoke to him before I headed out, he was laughing and joking and..." She swallowed heavily. "He was happy Scott, even with this looming ahead."

Scott turned his head on the pillow a little, blinking back tears of his own. "I wish I'd known them better," he said softly, thinking about Konstantakis. "All of them. I wish I'd had that chance." He smiled a little faintly at Madelyn. "How did they learn?" he asked, his voice almost inaudible. "To be loyal, to care for each other... coming out of an environment like that, with everything that was done to them. I always thought Nathan was an exception, you know. I couldn't imagine that any of the rest of them were anything but... cowed. Broken. But they weren't." The memory of Nash and Konstantakis and their moment of decision at the heart of the complex flickered back through his mind, and he sighed raggedly.

To rattle off something about an artificially imposed pack mentality, or the effects of the conditioning would be trite, disrespectful to the dead. "Some things you just can't destroy," she said softly, letting go of his hand briefly to wipe her eyes before clasping it again. She badly needed contact just then, and she would bet that Scott did too. "They were... so strong, in so many ways."

"Will you see the others? The ones that made it?" He tried to smile a little more convincingly at her, didn't quite manage it. "I imagine there's still a lot of work for the taskforce to do..." And she'd see it through. He knew that much about her, with absolute certainty. "It might help them to know," he murmured. "If you could tell them how Mick made it through, that he did get to a place where he was happy."

Madelyn nodded. "As soon as I'm fit, I'll be visiting - I think there was talk of MacInnis taking them on with his team, but everyone was in a state of shock. There's plenty of time for what happens next." He knew her so well, how to make her feel better by giving her something else to focus on. "The surviving second gens, too - it's going to take a lot of telepathic therapy to help even some of them, from what Elliott was saying, but they'll be cared for." The anger burned again. "I saw Ruiz was taken into custody."

Anger flared in Scott, and he clamped down on it hard. "Yeah. We can thank Cain for that, apparently - remind me to do that, just to see the look on his face." He swallowed, his throat tightening again. "MacInnis was... I don't think he'll ever forgive himself for not knowing, or anticipating, what she could do."

"Poor man." It slipped out without warning, and Madelyn blinked. "He just... he seems so alone, so isolated. Cut off from everything and everyone around him. It's got to be hitting him hard, all of this, and unlike us, he doesn't have people around him to cushion the blow." She squeezed his hand gently.

"Colonel Catano stopped to talk to me, you know," he murmured, squeezing back. "He's a good man. They all were, everyone who went in with us. I'm..." He stopped, smiling unsteadily. "Sounds so fucking cheesy, but I feel privileged that they trusted us enough to fight beside us. It means a lot."

"It's not cheesy," she told him. It was too early to talk of repercussions, of changes and new relationships and possibilities, but they were beginning to spark in her mind, flickering embers of hope. This wouldn't have been in vain, not for the kids, and not for those who survived. If they could make something out of all this destruction... She saw on Scott's face the echoing realisation that this wasn't an ending, but a beginning. A good beginning. "I think the feeling was mutual, in the end."

"Small steps," Scott ventured wearily, "but important ones. Every single one of them." He took a deep breath, then let it out. "How are the other patients? Everyone hanging in there okay?"

"As far as I know - Moira chased me out the last time I showed my face. They've got Amanda in there, which means serious but will be fine." She was pleased there was no resentment in her tone, no sense of being replaced by a certain red-head, and wisely she kept the name to herself. "The kids have done wonders tonight, making sure things run smoothly."

"They're growing up," Scott said, then chuckled tiredly. "Jubilee all right? Have you had the chance to see her yet?"

"Not yet. Not while I'm like this..." Madelyn's words could have meant the shoulder, or the dusty, blood stained clothes, or even the recent tearstains and puffy eyes. "And not with everyone else around." She grinned wryly. "She's so going to kick my ass for this."

"Lucky you," Scott said wryly. "I can't wait to hear what Alex says about all this."




Later, when everything is settling down, Hank comes across Madelyn in the exam room, where she's finally been pinned down for treatment. She's a lot more cheerful, but we're blaming that on the happy painkillers.



She'd managed to avoid Wrath of Moira for only so long, but now things were settling down, Madelyn found herself directed to the exam room and told to strip while Moira went and finished up some last minute things. And when Moira used that Look, it was generally a good idea to obey. Or at least attempt to - the injured shoulder had stiffened up considerably to the point where she was having trouble moving it, and the rest of her ached as only someone who has been thrown into a wall can ache. Hissing with pain between clenched teeth, she started easing out of the heavy leather jacket. She didn't even want to contemplate the Kevlar vest underneath - hopefully Moira would be back by then.

Hank saw a closed exam room door, with light coming from under it, and stifled a whimper. Surely they were done by NOW... then he realized. Of course... now that the patients were seen to, it was the doctors' turn. His leg was properly stitched, cleaned, and bandaged now - he and Moira had worked on it together. And now it must be Maddie's turn. He tapped softly on the door. "Madelyn?" he said softly. "Is that you?"

"It's me," came Madelyn's voice, sounding strained. She'd finally managed to get her good left arm out of the jacket, letting it drop to the floor, and was struggling awkwardly with the buckles of her gun holster as Hank opened the door. She was pale and exhausted-looking, dark circles smudged under her eyes in the harsh light of the exam room. "You should off that leg and resting," she told him, voice flat with weariness and pain.

"It's fine for now. I had a lovely local, stitches, and a clean bandage." He shook his head, smiling a little. "Putting in one's own stitches feels a little odd, though, no matter how many times I do it." He moved a little closer, extending a hand but not actually touching her. "May I help? I still have two good hands, if only one leg."

"Moira finally managed to pin me down, and you know how scary she is to argue with," Madelyn said with a brief, wry grin. Her look was grateful as she added. "Can you? I can't use the arm much at all, and it's as awkward as all hell."

"I'd be happy to." He set to work on the buckles, doing his best not to jog her bad arm. "And, for the record..." He waved a large blue finger under her nose. "You Ought Not To Have Gone Out Alone, You Should Have Stayed Where It's Safe, And You Were Very Naughty," he said, exaggerating the emphasis in the hopes that it would make her smile. "The Naughty Doctor Scolding usually runs longer, but I thought I'd break with tradition and be succinct. It's traditional, after all, can't leave it out entirely."

"I wasn't alone, I had Kurt with me. It was just bad luck that operative showed up the second he bamfed Sam to safety," Madelyn said with a tired sigh, taking the gun holster from him with her good hand and laying it carefully beside her. It was unloaded, but her training was still telling her to treat it as if it wasn't. As Hank began work on the buckles of the vest on that side, she went on. "How're you pulling up?"

"I'm fine. As egotistical as it sounds, I've had much worse injuries." He smiled a little. "How about you? How are you doing?" Bravely, from what he could see... she still had to be in a lot of pain, but she was trying to hide it.

"Grateful for Kevlar... No broken ribs, as far as I can tell." She made a noise that was half-whimper, half-sigh of relief as he eased the vest loose, the plain grey t-shirt she was wearing underneath sticking to her back with sweat. "God, that feels good to get that off - I was starting to think I was going to have to sleep in it." She was skirting around the question, she knew, but she'd prefer not to get another lecture on her weaknesses. And admitting her shoulder was on fire and her back was throbbing would be to invite one.

"Kevlar is our friend." Hank set the body armour aside. "Although I was most annoyed at you, when I got back to the med-evac area and was told you'd already gone out after Sam." He grinned a little. "There I was, all ready to be heroic some more, striking fear into the hearts of the enemy and sending the other doctors into swoons at my courage, and instead I had to simply wait and worry, and incidentally repair an arterial tear and treat several second-degree burns. I'm used to being the only hero-doctor around here, and here you are, not only doing it just as well, but being prettier than me."

"Sam couldn't wait, and Kurt hadn't bamfed to that spot before, so we had to go on foot." Madelyn began to shrug, but a warning twinge reminded her that would be a bad idea. "Besides, sharing is a good thing." She gave him a weak smile, and then looked down at the t-shirt with a sigh. "This is going to have to come off, and frankly? If I have to lift this arm again, I'm going to pass out or something else terribly weak-willed." She nodded at the instrument tray, and the scissors on it. "Looks like you get to tear my clothes off."

Hank blinked. He looked at her, and blushed so hotly under the fur that it was a wonder his hair didn't catch fire. "Of course," he said cheerfully, hoping like hell the embarrassment didn't show. He'd done this dozens of times. The fact that Maddie was involved this time really shouldn't matter. "Although tearing might jolt your shoulder rather too much. Would you settle for some gentle scissoring?" He reached for the scissors... finger-holes too small, as usual, but he could get the very tips in.... and looked at her shirt again. Oh, dear...

"Scissors are fine - I was joking about the tearing. Bad joke, I'm sorry..." Madelyn was unconsciously cradling her right arm, trying to ease the pain on the abused joint. "It's a generic FBI-issue shirt. I've got dozens of them at home in a box somewhere."

"Jokes are always good." He started at the lower hem, trying very hard not to inadvertently touch ANYTHING he shouldn't. And doing his best not to look at anything but the blades of the scissors. "And you haven't even started on the generic Xavier's shirts. We have hundreds. Literally. Have you ever seen the big boxes in storage? We have stockpiles in every size from newborn to, well, me."

Madelyn was too tired and too sore to notice Hank's sudden bashfulness. Besides, she was wearing a sportsbra underneath, so what was the problem? "I've got a few that have made their way into my closet," she said with another faint smile. "They breed like tribbles, I swear."

"I suspect t-shirt gnomes," Hank said seriously, finishing the first cut. He slit the upper sleeves from hem to neckline, too, and pulled the t-shirt off as gently as he could. And got a good look at all the bruises. "Oh, my dear..." he said softly. "May I say in sympathy, ouch?"

"I see your 'ouch' and raise you a bunch of curse words." Madelyn awkwardly turned her head to see the bruises flowering along her back and extending to her side. The shoulder itself was deepening to almost blackish-purple, and she had several small cuts to her face and hands from fragments of concrete. "Okay, I think it's time for Mr Painkiller," she decided, voice coming out a bit more wobbly than she'd intended. Seeing how bad it was made it hurt that much more. "And one of you gets the honour of putting me under some time tomorrow to fix the tendon damage I'm bound to have done."

"I will," Hank offered. "And I will also fetch Mr Painkiller for you. Would you like the kind you swallow or the kind that gets delivered by a needle?" He wanted to hug her and be reassuring, but with all those bruises, hugging would only make things worse. And she was so determinedly being strong, she probably wouldn't want reassurance either. "I'll put something on those bruises, too, once you're numbed enough for them to be touched."

"Needle," she said, knowing it would work faster that way. And really, it wasn't like it was going to hurt any more than she already was. "Kurt popped the shoulder back for me, but I'd like you to check it's in properly. He hadn't done it before. Poor man, he looked like I'd asked him to stab a puppy when her realised what I needed."

"I can imagine. And he would have had to hit it, too, wouldn't he?" Hank flexed an an enormous hand. "I never have, but I imagine it doesn't make the job any more pleasant." There were painkillers already laid out, fortunately, and he selected one, loading up the syringe with habitual care. "Here we go... nice numbness, coming up." He swabbed a less bruised spot behind her shoulder and injected carefully.

She winced a little at the contact of the swab more than the pinprick of the needle, trying to relax until the painkiller took effect. "It's not the first time I've done it," she said. "I dislocated the same shoulder back when I was a kid, climbing the garage roof after Joe - he and his buddies would get up there and have 'secret meetings' away from nosy little sisters." She chuckled in reminiscence, even as she realised she was taking refuge in familiar things to avoiding thinking too much. "Joe told me there was no way I could do it, so of course, I had to prove him wrong. It's amazing I didn't break my neck." The painkiller was beginning to kick in - the pain was still there, but less up close and personal. "Someone should check on Kurt. He had to... the operative who threw me into the wall, he wouldn't stop with that damn trigger being activated. Kurt ended up bashing him unconscious with a chunk of concrete, and we had to just leave him there."

"Oh, dear..." Hank nodded. "A fatal wound, do you think? And would Kurt have known?" He shook his head. "Not that I'm denigrating his comprehension, you understand, but it's often difficult for a layman to judge the severity of a headwound."

"Probably - the last hit fractured the poor bastard's skull like an egg. And I think Kurt knew - it was hard to miss, really. And then seeing me..." She took a deep breath. "Another operative was coming up behind him, and I shot her. In the head."

Hank winced. "Never something one wants to have to do. My own progress was not.... free of fatalities. And I'm not really at all sorry about it." He sighed. "I was the lucky soul fortunate enough to locate the 'white room'," he explained, when she gave him an enquiring look.. "The team were still there, with a victim of about ten."

"Oh, Hank..." Madelyn reached out with her good hand for one of his. She remembered Jubilee's stumbling into Nathan's dream only too well, and the briefing material had been fairly thorough about the conditioning process. "I'm sorry it had to be you," she said softly. "X-Man or not, you're still more a doctor than anything else."

"I'm not sorry," Hank said softly, taking her good hand and holding it gently. "I had strong enough mental shields to hold them off, and the strength and agility to be able to handle them alone. I'm glad I was the one who found them. And really? I don't regret a single thing. After what they'd done, to so many helpless victims... they deserved to know how it feels, to be helpless and suffering and have nobody care or come to save them." He growled a little, at the memory. "That poor child.... I hope that she, and the others, can sleep sounder knowing that the White Room is gone, and that those.... monsters... can't ever hurt them any more."

"They can," Madelyn said quietly, but with no less determination, her grip tightening on his hand. "It's over, Hank, and God knows it's cost so much, but it's over and those kids are safe. All of them." Her eyes filled, but she went on. "It makes it worth all the lives lost today. All of them. It has to." Mick and Tim and so many other of MacInnis' people. At least a dozen more from the taskforce. The girl she'd shot, who'd never had a chance to surrender, even that taken away from her. Suddenly the iron will that had been holding her together, keeping her tone normal, splintered, and she closed her eyes, fighting the urge to curl up and cry. She didn't regret what she'd done, but she regretted the need, and hated the people that had created the situation with a passion that almost frightened her.

Hank rested his hand on her good shoulder, curling his arm around her good side in the closest approximation of a hug that he dared, when she was so battered. "I know. And I think all those we lost would agree that it was worth it, that no other child should ever suffer like that." He sighed. "Even if it means that, having sworn to preserve life, we sometimes have to take it away, too," he said, with sadness in his voice, but no regret. "I wish it never came to that... but sometimes it does, and I'd rather fight than stand back and let the innocent suffer."

She leaned against his arm curled around her, ignoring the discomfort. "Same here," she said softly, brushing away a few escaped tears with the back of her hand. "Yay for painkillers," she said with a watery smile. "The pain's down to a dull roar."

"They're our friend. Just like kevlar." He wiped a stray tear away with a gentle fingertip. "Would you like a sedative, as well? You may not be able to sleep, otherwise, and we do both need to sleep... there'll be plenty more to do tomorrow, including surgery on your poor purple shoulder." He rested his cheek against the top of her head, just for a moment. "If you're good and get some sleep tonight, I'll promise not to 'accidentally' sedate you afterwards and knock you out for a nice, restful eight hours or so."

Normally she'd argue, but not tonight. She was too tired, and he was right - they'd be needed tomorrow. "Heaven forbid you start chasing me around with my own tranq gun," she told him with a low chuckle and a pat of his arm. "It'll probably cause the end of the world, me saying this, but... a sedative would be great. I need to sleep, and that's not going to happen without help." And she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep without seeing Mick's slack face in front of her again.

Hank nodded. "I'll provide one. And would take one myself, if I wasn't just about tired enough to fall down right here." He smiled tiredly, reaching for the tray again to gently but quickly strap and immobilize her shoulder, so she could sleep without having to worry about permanently crippling herself. "That way we'll both be fresh and sunshiny and ready to take over from Moira and Jean when they need THEIR sleep."

"Looks like we'll both be walking each other back upstairs then," Madelyn said with another chuckle that ended in a sigh at the thought of all that upstairness. "No beds left down here."

"Indeed." Hank smiled, and offered her his arm. "May I limp you to your room, my lady? If one of us falls down, the other one can pull their hair until they wake up again."

"Don't forget the happy little sleepy pills," she reminded him, letting him help her down off the exam table, after scooping up her gun holster and slinging it carefully over her good shoulder, wincing a little at the contact of the weight on her bruises. "And we ought to let Moira know I'm not absconding without treatment. The last thing I want is to be on Moira's bad side. Especially when she's not allowed to have that much coffee."

"We'll see her and our sleepy green friends on the way," Hank promised. "And she'll probably be cross at not already being in bed, since she shooed me off as soon as she was done with me. But I'm going now, so she won't be too cross."

"I'm sure you'll charm her if she is," Madelyn replied, shivering a little in the chill of the exam room and realising she should probably be wearing more than her bra and the military-issue black combat pants she'd been given for the operation. The thought of pulling anything else over her head was daunting, though.

Hank saw the shiver, and looked around. "One moment," he said, holding up a finger, and ducked out. The cupboard was right outside, and he pulled out one of Madelyn's labcoats and ducked back into the exam room. "Your coat, my lady," he offered, holding it out so she could slide her good arm into the sleeve. "It should drape around you suitably, and be easy enough to remove once you reach your room."

"Once again, you're an angel in blue fur," she told him with a grateful smile as she awkwardly did up the top several buttons. Best not to flash the place. "Knowing my luck we would have run into Forge or Kyle and their brains would have exploded."

"They would have died happy, my dear, I assure you." The bruises made it harder to appreciate her beauty, but certainly not impossible. He smiled at her, and offered her his arm again. "Shall we drag our poor, broken selves past Moira and up to bed?"

"If I didn't know better I'd say you were propositioning me," Madelyn said, falling back into the old teasing style. The painkillers were making her a tad loopy. She took the offered arm, trying not to lean on him too heavily, but unable to help herself. Her boots seemed to be filled with lead.

Hank laughed softly. "As enticing as the thought is, my dear," he said, entirely truthfully, but hoping she'd take it for another of his flirtations, "even were I to manage to lure you to my bed, in the condition we're both in, all we'd manage to do is pass out in unison."

"Not tonight, dear, I've got an all over body ache?" Madelyn quipped tiredly. And it was true, even with the painkiller. She ached all over. "Nope, just me and my faithful icepack tonight, I think..."

Hank nodded. "To bed, to bed, at last, to bed," he said, yawning. "I can already hear mine calling me. Never has my pillow sounded so downright seductive."

"Physicians, heal thyselves?" Madelyn suggested with another of those wan grins.