Perfectly Normal

PERFECTLY NORMAL CHAPTER SIX

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… And the box is FINALLY on it’s way! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: *insert witticism here* Morgan: *gloke?* Readers/Reviewers: Thanks for reading and reviewing as you can! I’ll catch up posting to AFFN in March when the site is behaving again!


“Good morning!”
Professor Xavier winced, then held perfectly still. Even a tiny movement sent pain singing through his body. Did the nurse have to be so damnedably cheerful? Couldn’t she see he was recuperating? “Morning,” he rejoined after an interminable moment in which Nurse Mary Sunshine, as he decided to call her in a fit of pique, bustled around the window, pushing the flower arrangements around and adjusting the blinds for maximum daylight allowance. She turned a wide, beaming smile on him, the shimmer of green on her skin and the flutter of gills at her neck the only sign that she was not a nurse in a typical hospital.
“You gave your friends quite a scare!” she went on, fussing with the tray by his bed, setting up several vials and humming off key.
“I think,” he said carefully, “I scared myself…” He flexed his fingers experimentally, then rotated his wrists.
“You’re going to have a procedure this afternoon,” a familiar voice intoned from beyond the humming nurse.
“Emma,” Professor Xavier sighed. “Don’t sound so tragic,” he added, his headache blooming into a full grown migraine as his old friend moved where he could see her, her brow etched with worry. “You know as well as I do that I will be fine,” he finished, closing his eyes and trying to shield her out of his head. “Um, would you mind?”
She raised her brow and parted her lips as if she were about to speak, then colored ever so slightly. “Apologies. It seems we have hit on the one thing that causes me to loose my grip on my powers.” She shot the nurse a glance but the vaguely amphibious woman did not pay her any mind as she made some notes on the Professor’s chart. She adjusted her white sweater and tossed her hair over her shoulder in a mask of her usual self, modulating her voice so that the pain she felt in her chest and head did not carry through. She had not been able to shake the thread of connection between the Professor and herself since that first, searing pain the night of his heart attack. She could feel his psychic and emotional turbulence at all hours of the day and night and it was on the verge of driving her mad, this inability to shield herself from him. She felt his hooded gaze on her and realized she had been silent for too many seconds. “Your…friend and his assistant have arrived at the Institute and are in place for the filming to begin.” She glanced at the nurse, who was still busying herself with the Professor’s beside, and snapped “Privacy please!”
The nurse blinked, her smile slipping a fraction before coming back in full force. “Sure thing! I’ll be back in an hour to prep you for surgery, Charles!” She slipped past Emma, a low hiss emanating from her gills as she passed, and shut the door behind her.
“I think she just cursed at me,” Emma murmured, her eyes crinkling faintly in amusement. “Tell me again why you wanted Magneto there. Is it because you’ve lost your mind?” She did feel a twinge of jealousy and anger at not being the one he asked to be in charge, even for a few days while the filming took place. But she knew he did not need to be told that; he could read it off of her as easily as she could read the nurse’s annoyance under her façade of cheerfulness, as easy as she could feel the groggy sleeplessness washing off of Sean in the hallway.
“Emma,” he said on a soft groan. “You have the Boston campus to run. It has already been delayed four times and the recidivism rate will skyrocket if you do not maintain the school. And Magneto…Eric…is capable.”
“Capable of what?” Emma demanded, pressing her knees against the bed. “Ruining what you—what WE--have worked for? Making a mockery of everything? Or revealing the truth about the Institute to the world at large? Getting your students killed?” She felt the throb of the migraine behind her eyes but her own anger was overriding any sympathy she might have felt. “Logan will be back up here for your surgery.” She turned away suddenly, grabbing her purse from the chair she had been sitting in and opening the door in one swift movement before pausing and looking over her shoulder at the Professor. “There is very little even I can do should your friend decide to exercise his freedom of speech.” She shut the door behind her, not even looking at Sean as she stalked towards the elevator bank. Her companion rose stiffly, his joints creaking, and followed her. “Where are the students?” she asked by way of greeting. “Did you send them back already?”
“Hours ago, love,” he sighed, stifling a yawn. “Beast came and picked them up. How’s he doing in there?”
“They’re going to do the angioplasty this afternoon,” she bit out, stepping into the elevator car, her lips tight with anger and discomfort. “The doctor is going to tell him he needs some time off to recuperate, that his stress levels are far too high for a man in his health situation.” She shot Sean a glance and sighed heavily. “I may kill him before this is all said and done.”
“Why? Are you going to have to take charge of the Bayville school again until he’s able to come back?” Sean was already making a mental list of things he would need to do in order to ensure the Boston academy stayed running, including hiring some substitutes who knew what they were doing. “When do you have to start? Monday?” He barely managed to hide a huge yawn, missing what Emma said. “What?”
“I said,” she repeated, this time more firmly and loudly as the doors slid open, revealing the parking garage, “that he has someone in place already.”
“Who?” he mused, wondering if Storm or Logan had been the final choice, personally wondering if either had the time or ability to run the entire school and maintain their usual duties.
“Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

A/N Next chapter, Kurt and Kitty have a run in, someone unexpected shows up and all Hell breaks loose.