Bits and Pieces
15
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Bits and Pieces Chapter Fifteen
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather is a wondermous beta and BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, goddess of many many things (including
multitasking) and she deserves slash happy cabana boys bearing a tray of strong
rum based drinks… InterNutter, TC,
Maxwell Pink, Greywolf and Dracena are loverly and
wondermous for archiving/hosting.
when you can! J
Scott spit
into the sink, the bile-bitter saliva stringing from his lips.
paper towel
“Don’t
apologize, Scooter,” he replied gruffly.
“You’re allowed to be scared.”
“I’m not
scared,” he lied, dabbing at his mouth in self disgust.
“Afraid,”
Remy supplied. “Scott,
‘bout what’s gonna happen…”
Scott
motioned for him to be quiet, pressing his forehead against the cool
mirror. Blindly, he reached for his
discarded glasses, finding the earpiece and putting them on before opening his
eyes and finding Logan staring back at him.
“Okay, I’m okay now…”
did not look as if he believed him but he nodded and opened the bathroom door,
standing aside to let Scott pass. Rogue
and Kitty were huddled on the hard plastic chairs of the ICU waiting room,
elbows linked and heads bent. He could
hear the soft murmur of their voices tinged with fear and crying.
door, looking as if he might be sick again.
Remy stood next to him, hands stuffed in his coat pockets and face
carefully blank. “Girls,”
said quietly, his low voice carrying in the otherwise empty room.
me again…”
Scott
decided he could not stand to hear about Jean’s morning one more time.
to march determinedly towards the nurse’s station.
yet but he was going to demand that he be admitted to her room if they tried to
stop him. He did not notice Remy behind
him until the Cajun cleared his throat politely.
“I don’t need you to hold my hand!”
“Non,” Remy
agreed, “but mebbe a distraction would be
the nurses station. “Fait attention.”
nurses’ station and the two harried women behind the desk.
Scott
snorted and shook his head. Remy was
turning on the charm like it was going out of style, the nurses captivated by
him after a moment or two of his thick accent and aw-shucks grin.
station and took a deep breath, walking towards it as if he belonged.
to, he realized with an inward sigh of relief.
Remy was doing his job too well.
He stepped inside the room before allowing himself to really look at
Jean. She looked so small on the bed
that it was hard, for a moment, to remember she was nearly as tall as he was,
easily the tallest female at the Institute. She had tubes up her nose (oxygen,
he told himself) and in her arms (glucose, saline, medicine, he thought, unable
to read the IV drip bag from his position at the foot of the bed.
foot of her bed, and he winced, knowing how upset she would be if she knew
others had seen her naked. He moved
softly, afraid of waking her, and reached for her left hand.
usually wore there but the indentation from months of wear was still
visible. “Hey,” he murmured.
“She can
hear you,” a friendly voice chirped in the doorway.
the nurse added, laughing slightly.
Scott had
not been aware his body language gave his fears away, but he simply
nodded. “Thanks… Where’s Doctor
called the hospital, demanding his old college friend be put on Jean’s case. If
Beast trusted him, Scott thought, I might as well.
made his heart lurch in near panic. She
was limp, unmoving, and her breathing so different from the usual soft rise and
fall of her chest while she slept that it made him want to scream at someone,
demand that they fix her and fix her now.
“He’s on
his way up,” the nurse said kindly, checking the chart and making
notations. “Your wife is pretty ill,
Mister Summers, but if anyone can fix her, he can.”
“Was it…
was it her heart?” he heard himself asking as if from a distance, not wanting
to know the answer.
“I really
can’t say,” the nurse sighed. “But she’s
sedated right now and we’ve got her on some antibiotics for the infection…
tell you more.”
Scott
nodded and he was left alone with Jean.
“Jeannie,” he said quietly, “if you die on me, I’m never going to
forgive you.”
Logan
stretched his legs out in front of him, his booted heels thudding on the mint
green and white tiles of the hospital floor.
Kitty was crying softly but Rogue was eerily quiet, staring straight
ahead at the poster of a cancer-riddled lung.
“Hey,” he said conversationally, “there’s some magazines over there from
the Ford administration if you wanna see something
less repulsive.”
“Huh?”
Rogue blinked and seemed to realize belatedly what she had been staring at.
Sorry. Just thinking.
words. “Do you think it’s contagious?”
“No,” Logan
replied quickly. “I don’t think it is.
She hasn’t been feeling good for a while, Rogue.
by now.”
Kitty
looked up sharply, frowning. “The
telepaths… when the Shi’ar were here, they all had problems. That’s when Jean
started getting sick…” She looked at
Logan, her eyes blazing with an idea she did not know how to voice.
“Half Pint, no,” he said
sharply. “I know you want answers.
But this isn’t the time for Scooby Doo
theories, got it?”
Kitty
narrowed her eyes but bit back her denial.
She was insulted by his implication that her ideas were harebrained, but
she did not speak the words aloud.
“Fine,” she finally said. “You’re
right. We’ll just wait.”
at Logan, even when he sighed. She felt
Rogue’s gloved hand on her elbow, though, and slid a glance her friend’s
way. Kitty raised a brow as if to say
‘what?’ when she met Rogue’s gaze.
_Bathroom,
_ Rogue mouthed. _Now. _
A/N Smut next chapter.
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