Skipping Along 47 – Recovering

By Gemsong

Summary: Neill hates being laid up and helpless. Fortunately he has the Jack-Beast for protection.

*Neill*

This sooooooo sucks. One tiny little distraction and here I am with a broken leg, a healing shoulder and all the boredom one could wish for. Okay, so it wasn't that tiny a distraction. Skiing in a bikini is so wrong. Not only is it cold, but innocent bystanders get hurt. Namely me. I couldn't help it. I was surprised by the breasts that defied gravity and other G forces. This wasn't my fault. It was her fault.

The only one untouched by the disaster of our 'family' weekend was Jack. Somehow that doesn't seem fair at all. He's supposed to be the trouble magnet, far outstripping what Daniel could manage on a good day. Oh no. Not a mark on him. It was the rest of us who had to suffer.

Not counting my varied and numerous injuries, Cassie ended up with a concussion and a sprained wrist in the hospital parking lot. Mom… Janet had to play emergency room doctor for 27 hours. And Dad…. He had to face General Hammond with nothing to prove the Jack Beast's involvement. How fair is that? Hours on end keeping Jack out of trouble in the hospital waiting room should count for combat pay. Especially after he jimmied open the vending machines.

According the expression on Dad's face when he got out of his meeting with the general… he looked like a whipped puppy. He should not have taken Jack to the meeting with him. I'm sure the little monster gave 'grandpa' a lot of unneeded detail.

I could say more about that, but I think I'll whine about me some more and wallow in self pity. Looks like I get to kiss off the rest of football this year. And this was supposed to be my last year of high school. No scholarship for college. This sooooo sucks. You want to know the worst part. The girls.

Technically I'm not too old for them, but my mind keeps whispering 'jail bait' when I look at them. I've dated a few. Last thing I want is people to start rumors. Like nerd or… well… you know. Like high school the first time wasn't tough enough. I wanted to do this on my own without help. I was going to college and this time I'm going to go for engineering. Sure I… he… had the dumb colonel thing going, but we're not really that dumb and this time I could really do something I wanted to do.

I even got accepted at MIT. Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how expensive that is? The military stipend wouldn't begin to cover the expenses. That's what the scholarship was for. I almost had it. This so SUCKS!

As a reminder of how much my life has begun to suck, the moment the word got out that I broke something the girls descended on the house like a fleet of death gliders making claim on a planet for their personal system lord. The cloying sympathy. The love notes on my cast. I'm about to become a misogynist.

I heard the doorbell. Here comes another one with only the Jack Beast as my defense. I think I should have given him more credit.

"Hey, Neill," Jack said coming into the den. "Sleeza's here."

"Leeza," she said sharply. She'll never forgive Jack for last summer, not that he cares.

"Whatever," the beast replied with an uncaring shrug.

She walked in with a tight look already straining the make up lathered on her face like so much play-doh. What did I ever see in her?

She hurried to my side and made herself comfy on the couch beside me. Of course she had to push me aside to which my shoulder protested loudly and painfully enough to make me grunt.

"You poor darling," Leeza oozed. There is no other way to describe it. She oozed with fake sympathy. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

I wondered if telling her to go away would work.

"Get lost?" Jack asked as if he read my mind.

"Don't be silly, sweetie," Leeza said with false brightness. "Why don't you go play so Neill and I can be alone?"

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and gave her a considering look. "You're joking right?" he asked in a serious tone. "Like I would leave him alone with a pit viper."

Leeza stared at him stunned. I engineered a coughing fit while covering my mouth with my free hand. Then she turned to me. "Look what you've done to your brother," she said accusingly. Not the most observant cheerio in the box.

"Yeah right," Jack said with a lift of his eyebrow. Since Leeza was looking at me and not him, he smirked. This was going to be ugly. I should have made popcorn.

She decided to ignore the beast's presence and shifted to look at my cast which was fairly well marked up with all kinds of feminine kindness. "You've had a lot of visitors, I see," she said tapping my cast with the long fingernails of death.

"Uh… yeah…" I said. I didn't date her exclusively. She knew that. I think.

"Neill you have to stop being so nice to them," she said. "Leading them on will give them false hope."

"For crying out loud, why would he want to do that?" Jack piped up having moved closer.

Leeza jumped having forgotten his presence. A frighteningly short attention span this girl has. "Well… because… we're dating," she said. "You're not old enough to understand, but when a boy and a girl…."

"Oh Pul-leeze!" Jack interrupted. "Until there's a ring on your finger or pin on your sweater, you're not the only one in his life."

She gaped at him like a landed fish. Jack may look like a three year old but his family knows what he's really like. Then she turned to me. "Are you going to let him talk to me like that?!" her voice rising to a painful screech.

I opened my mouth to stutter something but Jack was too fast for me. "Why not?" he said.

The dried moose… I mean mousse that held her hair together was beginning to crack from the force of her head snapping back and forth between us. "Because…." She began helplessly.

"Of course I don't know what he saw in you in the first place," Jack said.

"Why you…." Leeza began standing up to try to intimidate him with her height.

Naturally that didn't work. "I don't like you," Jack said bluntly. "You're not a nice person. All you care about is your hair, your nails and your trophy boyfriend of the week. You really came over here to dump Neill because he's not a prize anymore."

I really didn't need to hear that. Leeza's mouth was opening and closing with nothing coming out.

"I dare you to deny it," Jack said. I felt my stomach twist. He probably was right.

Her hands came up, those galvanized nails on the end of her fingers were either going to pop off or spark her hairspray to go up in flames. The thing is she didn't deny it.

"Gonna add beating up little kids to your questionable rep?" Jack asked his hands in his pockets casually.

Leeza glared at him. Then she glared daggers at me. Then with a huff she stormed out of the house the door slamming loudly behind her. I winced.

Jack climbed up on the couch with me careful not to jar me. "Sorry you got dumped," he said.

I laughed weakly. "I think you were the one who dumped her," I said and then sighed. "Not that you were wrong."

Jack shrugged a little. Then before things got emotional and weird he spoke. "Can I color on your cast?" he asked.

That made me smile. "Sure," I said. "Maybe you can blot out some of those love notes adoring my cast in pink lipstick."

Jack left and quickly returned with his colored markers. I settled back on the couch and tried to relax. I felt very tired. But then Leeza was always exhausting to be around. I closed my eyes as Jack started to work on his masterpiece.

My leg felt warm and the itching had stopped. That was nice. The warmth seemed to be spreading through my body. I cracked open my eyes to see Jack drawing on my cast with intense concentration. He has a tendency to stick out his tongue when he was focused on something. He seemed to glow faintly. I blinked. He glanced at me a smiled. Must be a trick of the light. Mom had him on suppressants to keep his ancient powers in check.

I closed my eyes again. I have the same DNA but no powers like healing which would be really handy about now. I wonder why that is? Oh well and I drifted off to warm comfortable sleep.

Finis