Chapter 10: doctors and scientists
"Stupid bandage." Rahne mutters angrily under her breath as she pulls on one end of the white gauze dangling from her left palm. She tries wrapping it around again tighter and winces at the pain caused by the movement of her right.
Moira comes and sits beside her daughter on the bed taking the girl's damaged hands into her own. Her hands are cold and rough against Rahne's flushed skin after years of scientific powdered glove use. She pulls Rahne's fingers back gently to look over the pink exposed flesh of her palms before reaching for some more gauze. Rahne turns her head away from her mother like a child receiving a shot as the woman expertly and painlessly wraps the gauze around.
"They won't stay on," Rahne says almost pitifully. Helpless. She doesn't know why, but the thought of her hands and her vague memories of the incident and her overall inability to ever do anything right suddenly gives her the urge to cry. She tugs at her bottom lip with her teeth to keep it in.
"Well, we'll just have to make them stay on, won't we?" Moira comforts in her lullaby voice. An ill Rahne, no matter how infrequent, always turned their relationship back into what it was when she first found the girl all those years ago, alone, helpless, and in need of love.
"I hate this feeling."
Moira takes a worried hand to Rahne's forehead, her eyebrows crinkling. "Is the fever getting to you? It was low-grade just a moment ago. Hardly over 99."
Rahne internally rolls her eyes. She supposed that's why the compound brought in Doc Samson, to deal with the misgivings of Doc MacTaggert. Sure her mother meant well, but if Rahne was really worried about a fever she could just as easily if not more so turn to a thermometer and couple of aspirin. "No. I just… I feel so broken."
"Broken?"
"You know," she shrugs awkwardly, "weak."
Moira lovingly brushes aside a lock of Rahne's hair behind her ear letting the green of her eyes shine through. "It's part of being human."
"I'm not human," she answers in muted defiance.
"You know what I mean."
Rahne turns to the older woman. "I wish you'd just let me morph. My healing power is ten times stronger when I morph."
"I know. I know and I'm sorry, but I just like Barnell too much. I don't think I'm ready for you to murder him just yet." Not exactly the best time in the world to be joking of such matters but somehow it brings the slightest of smiles to Rahne's lips. "Now why don't you try to sleep off this little cold," Moira clears the bed of the excess medical supplies of which there are plenty. She pulls down the covers and helps her child in, kissing her red locks as she tucks her in the way Rahne always imagined a mother would do. She adds comfortingly, "and I'll be back up with some soup later, okay?"
"Hm," Rahne moans contentedly, "okay." As Moira reaches for the door, Rahne stirs. "Mum? Not chicken soup okay?"
ooooo
"Will she be alright?" Moira turns to see Gordon addressing her in the hall just beside her daughter's door. She's worried about what the child has seen and wonders how it might affect the young empath.
Behind him with hands on the young boy's shoulders stands Jamie. He can read the look on her face and offers his pseudo-explanation with a shrug, "He wanted to see her."
Moira smiles and bends down slightly to address her youngest charge. "Of course she will. Just give her a few days. She'll be fine," she says most reassuringly.
Gordon's head begins to droop and he is visibly saddened as he responds, "They're saying she can't morph anymore. That she has to stay human."
"Only until she's feeling better," Moira adds hopefully.
"That's sad."
"Sad? Why?"
"She doesn't like staying human. It makes her feel bad. Ugly." He cheers up suddenly as his head shoots up and a grin spreads across his face. "Can I see her?"
Moira stands straighter. "Only for a minute okay?" Gordon doesn't answer just bounds along cheerfully into the room.
"He's right you know. It is sad."
Moira looks at Jamie. "That she can't morph?"
"That she feels that way," he responds sincerely.
Moira's not used to this from Jamie. His and Rahne's relationship consists mainly of childish jokes and playful bickering, though Moira had seen some softer moments between the two of them. She's reminded of their long history together. "You know I created this school for her. Because she couldn't fit in as a human in Scotland and she couldn't fit in as a mutant in New York."
"I… I thought you pulled her out of Xavier's because you didn't agree with him."
"No. No. It was Rahne's choice. She begged me. And so I started my own special school. For people that just have a hard time being people."
Jamie is almost shocked by the admission. It's not the way they pictured it happening all those years ago. Not like Jubilee being pulled away from the place she belonged the most. He always knew that Rahne was special in her own way and it surprises him that he just never quite realized how much.
"Look at me," Moira catches herself though her voice still sounds so distant. "I don't know why I'm telling you any of this anyways. Unloading on you as if you were Samson." Like she's caught in a memory. She smiles her weary smile before going back to check on Barnell. "Don't let him stay in there too long. I don't want him catching anything."
ooooo ooooo break ooooo ooooo
"So this is Ohio huh?" Bobby stares out the window of the blackbird. Rolling plains, random farms, grass. "Somehow, it's exactly as I always pictured it." He looks at Paige jokingly trying to provoke a response. "Exciting." He says sarcastically while looking out the window again so Paige can't see the smile on his face.
"Give it a break." She jabs him playfully with an elbow as best she can considering how they're both buckled tightly into their seats. "It's nicer than you guys think."
"Give what a break?" he chuckles though his joke seems to only be funny to the two of them. "There's nothing out there to give a break."
Josh sits in the row behind them cut off from seeing their faces. But he hears the light-hearted affectation of their voices and sees their arms brush by each other on the armrest that they share. He watches these things quietly as his feelings fester. He knows that they're there but he doesn't completely recognize them. Anger? Jealousy? Regret? He doesn't know and he doesn't care. He just wonders how long it's going to be this time before he loses her too, like they lose everyone with ties to Bobby. Though in a way he knows he already has.
Hank's reaction is the opposite. As he focuses on piloting the jet, he is similarly unable to see the looks on their faces, but he knows just as everyone else on the plane bothering to pay the slightest bit of attention knows. Of every resident at the mansion, it's nice to see the two of them in some form or other of happiness. They deserve it. And he hates to have to break up their little exchange as they near their destination, though he does so with a smile. "We didn't exactly come here for the sightseeing," he jokes right along with them.
"Why are we here?" pipes up a bored voice from the back.
Hank motions forward with his head as his hands pull the plane into a slow descent. Amidst the sea of long grasses lies a lone single story building. There are non-descript cars parked nearby though there is no paved road in sight. Both look as if they are in danger of being smothered by the overgrown foliage. It oddly brings such excitement onboard mixed with the usual anxiety that comes before a new mission. They all stare at it knowingly but Hank continues anyways. "We're here for that."
ooooo
"Stay away from her Bobby." Josh approaches from behind.
Bobby scoffs. "Excuse me?" He turns around. Josh looks like a peacock during mating season with his chest puffed out, feathers ruffled, standing tall.
"Paige." He pauses for emphasis as he takes a step forward. "Stay away from her."
Bobby rolls his eyes. This is ridiculous. Frankly, it's even a bit… childish? "What, Josh?" He approaches almost threateningly, daring him to do something. Anything. "Are you jealous?" comes the snide remark.
Josh takes a step back. It's a moment of instinctive weakness. Bobby's pleased with this. He turns.
"She's too young for you. She's a kid compared to you."
"If she's a kid, what does that make you?" He jokes derisively to the high school senior over his shoulder as he walks away.
Josh fumes. "I'm not gonna let you drive her away like you did Angie."
"Hey!" He's hit a raw nerve. Bobby turns back before he even realizes what he's doing. It would be a moment of subconscious clarity almost had it not been full of pure unadulterated emotion. Had he not been lying to himself. "You leave her out of this. Angie left on her own! I never told her to go! And Paige, Paige is just a student. Just because she doesn't want you, doesn't mean she has anything to do with me." Bobby stops for a moment and in that moment he can feel his outrage surge through him. It's in his clenched fists and gritted teeth. He tries to will himself to release them but it's hard. "Why are you even here, Josh?"
"Trust me," Josh stands unfazed with his arms crossed at his chest. That anger he's incited in Bobby means that for all intents and purposes he's won. He speaks with almost no intonation at all. "It's not by my choice."
"That's fine." Bobby dismisses the boy and situation as best he can before proclaiming one more act as Josh's squad leader. "As soon as we get back to New York you are officially removed from this team permanently. I hope you're best friend Alex has better luck dealing with you."
ooooo
They walk through the building. This one was relatively intact. Whoever it was they were up against was getting better. Unless all of it was intentional of course. In either case the X-Men weren't any closer to figuring any of it out. The place didn't look blown to pieces like the last few. Heck, it didn't even look broken into. Just deserted. Like a ghost town. And that's what made it more disturbing than the rest. This was a smart organization. They knew what they were doing. What did it mean that they were walking through these untouched hallways? Was there nothing to hide? Did they not have enough time? Was it a clue? Or a warning?
"Bobby," Beast stops so abruptly at the doorway to the main office that Bobby almost walks into him, though it doesn't help that Bobby is still carrying with him the confrontation with Josh that occurred hardly fifteen minutes ago. "Take everyone and go back to the jet. Send Wolverine." Hank doesn't sound right. There's an edge to his voice.
"Why? What is it?" Bobby asks the man's furry back while trying someway to peer around his massive blue body. He turns around with a look Bobby had never seen on someone so much older than himself before. It's slightly unnerving, but Hank's movement opens a small gap between the door frame and his own body and Bobby's only interest is sneaking a peek at whatever is on the other side.
And there they are. Five of them laid out one by one on the muddy grey-colored floor. They're all in lab coats or suits. Simple scientists or business people. One is old and has hair like his grandfather's. Hands tied behind their backs, face down. Blindfolded. Dead.
"Now, Bobby." Hank interrupts his thoughts and Bobby doesn't need to be told again. He runs from the building as quickly as he can. He can't totally remember what he's supposed to do. He just knows he has to get out of there. He has to get as far away from that image that's now burned into his brain as he can. Suddenly a hand grabs his arm from nowhere. Bobby looks back to its owner, his face still uncontrollably contorted by the rush of emotions and thoughts filling his little brain.
"Bobby, what is it?" Paige says thoroughly concerned despite the constant reassuring qualities of her voice. None of it triggers though. His mind is still fighting. Fighting itself and anything else it can possibly pit itself against. How can he possibly explain what he himself doesn't understand?
"They're dead," is all he says, though he knows he shouldn't.
Stupid recon missions. Hadn't the X-Men learned anything? Dammit. This isn't what it used to be about.