Hank was just finishing up with restocking his band-aid supplies when the door to his office was all but kicked down. He dropped the box and took a step back as Alex came in, panting and carrying what seemed to be an unconscious Lorna.
His feral senses immediately picked up on the smell of burnt cloth and skin. He could also detect the smell of sweat and adrenaline from Alex, see the pure, unadulterated panic in his eyes.
For a moment he blinked at his two friends, and then the doctor took over.
"Put her on the table," he said, kneeling down so that he was level with one of the cabinets and grabbing his emergency kit, "She's out, so keep her her head elevated. Why is she unconscious?"
Maybe he should have said 'how' instead of 'why,' but he needed to know if it was from pain or something else. The smell of burning flesh told him it was pain, but he couldn't jump to conclusions.
"She got knocked back about ten feet and hit her head against the swing set," Alex said, his voice still coming out in pants, "Hard."
Hank wanted to ask just how she'd gotten knocked back that far, but the why's weren't really important. All he needed to know was that she was unconscious due to a blow to her head, and there was a rather nasty burn on her shoulder. He put the box down, opening it with one hand and gingerly examining her head with the other. He had to settle this before he figured anything else out.
"There's no bleeding, and I don't think she's concussed," said Hank, "I'll do a more thorough inspection in a few minutes."
Usually a head injury took precedence in his line of work but, with it looking unlikely to be anything serious, he had to deal with what he knew was bad. Hank grabbed a pair of scissors and redirected his attention to Lorna's shoulder.
The cloth there was melted: her synthetic winter coat hadn't been able to withstand the blast of heat. It was difficult to tell because of the melted cloth, but it looked like something had hit her right above her clavicle, but it hadn't been a concentrated beam. The affected area stretched from the worst affected, the spot of impact, to the side of her throat and halfway down her upper arm.
He turned on the tap, moving the faucet so that the water would be as cold as possible. Hank grabbed a nearby gallon beaker and began filing it up. He had to cool the fabric so that it didn't fuse with her skin. This wasn't going to require skin grafts, but this could get nasty very soon if he didn't cool the cloth.
Hank turned around with the water and realized that Alex was shooting worried looks not only at Lorna, but at the door. He looked torn.
"Alex, tilt her head up," Hank said, "I don't want this running into her face. It's likely she's going to wake up when I do this, but just in case she does have a concussion, I don't want to pour a bunch of cold water in her face."
Alex nodded, looking grateful for something to do. After all the times he'd had to tend to his injured friends, he understood. The water ran over the cloth, taking away the heat and cooling the skin. She didn't wake up, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.
He refilled the beaker. Soon they'd be able to take the synthetic jacket off. He could see that she was wearing wool underneath it, and that was fine. It had probably caught fire from its singed state, but it hadn't melted.
As he poured, he caught Alex giving another concerned look at the door. Hank gingerly tapped the cloth with his hand. It was cool enough to separate it. He grabbed a pair of tweezers, specially created for his hands, and began peeling the coat away.
"Alex, what's wrong?" he asked, not looking up, "She should be fine when she wakes up. In pain, yes, but fine."
"I just...I...Scott," Alex said.
Curiosity stirred inside Hank, and he had to force himself to stay concentrated.
"What about him?" he asked.
"He...he needs someone with him," said Alex, "And I can't...I should..."
Hank finished with the cloth and got down to the final burn. That was going to need aloe vera to be sure.
"Did he see this happen?" asked Hank, thinking of Alex's sensitive cousin.
He looked up and Alex shook his head mutely. Hank raised his eyebrows, reaching for the medical cabinet.
"He...he did this."
Hank froze halfway to the cabinet.
"What?" he asked.
"He didn't mean too," Alex said, "He didn't know...Hank, he's a mutant. But he's like me. It's just...his eyes..."
Alex swallowed, perhaps aware that he wasn't making sense. Hank forced himself to go for the aloe vera, to began smearing it over the burn on Lorna's shoulder. He would have to check her pupils in a minute, and he needed to have this sorted before then.
"Your cousin manifested," he said, "Where is he now?"
"Some kids ran up when they heard the commotion," said Alex, "I told Scott to keep his eyes closed and for Ororo to take him to Charles. And then I came here."
Hank nodded, although inside he could feel Alex's desperation seeping into him. Ignoring his back injury, Alex had scooped Lorna up and then run with her to the school. It wasn't very far to the playground if he was running, but he'd been carrying a full-grown woman. It must have looked very bad for him to do that and leave his cousin behind, even if it was with a friend.
He took a deep breath, pushing those thoughts away and trying to look at the situation with an objective eye. It had been the right thing to do, and the fact that Alex had had the presence of mind was amazing. Now though, now that presence of mind was slipping a little. If they'd been on the battlefield things would've been different, but they weren't. Alex was clearly in distress, and if Hank let his true feelings show then it wouldn't do anyone any good. He head to divorce himself from his feelings.
So, instead of trying to figure out more about what had happened, he walked over to the sink and washed his hands.
"You did the right thing," he said, "She needed immediate medical attention or this could've gotten infected. Once you were here, a second pair of hands was necessary. But now? Not so much."
He wiped his hands and took a small flashlight out of his pocket to test her eyes.
"Where do you need to be right now?" he asked.
Alex looked at Lorna and swallowed. He grabbed one of her hands and kissed the back of it.
"I'll be back later," he said, "And I'll send her mother down when I go up, or do you want her to stay away for now?"
"Give me thirty minutes," said Hank, "I know this is hard to believe, but right now this looks worse than it is. I don't want to freak Magda out."
His friend gave a jerky nod. His eyes rested on Lorna for a moment more before he left the room, his running footsteps echoing on the floor. Hank sighed and pulled back Lorna's eyelids. As he moved the flashlight over Lorna's eyes, her pupils, following the light, he could only wonder about the hell that Scott was experiencing now.
Alex had only wished that there were two of him more fervently once before in his life. It had been during a particularly nasty hostage situation. Sean had told him that he could handle one of the gunmen without back-up. He'd argued that there was only two of them, while there were five in the other room. He insisted that Alex should go with Hank.
He'd wished that there was another one of him that could have gone with his friend, could have been his back-up. When they'd gotten to the room only to watch his friend die, Alex had wished that there weren't any of him. He didn't want to watch that.
Now he simply wished that there were two of him so that he could be in two places at once. Alex wanted to be with the woman he privately acknowledge that he'd fallen for as she recovered. He wanted to be there when she woke up, to tell her that everything was okay, to make sure that she really was okay.
He also wanted to be with his cousin. Scott's powers had revealed themselves in a spectacular way. Alex's had too, but he'd just chopped down a few trees by accident. Scott had sent his teacher flying across the playground and into as swing set. He needed his guardian there to tell him that it was going to be okay. Alex needed to be there to make sure that it was true.
However, there weren't two of him. There was only one of him, and he could only move so quickly. Lorna needed to go to the infirmary. Scott needed to go to Charles's office. Alex needed to take Lorna to get medical attention, and then he needed to comfort Scott. It was as simple as that.
So he took the stairs to Charles's office three at a time. He didn't bother to knock, just opened the door. Scott was seated in front of Charles's desk, his eyes squeezed shut and his head bowed. Charles had his hand on Scott's shoulder, speaking to him in a low voice.
He stopped when Alex opened the door. Alex gave Scott an anxious look, and Charles sighed. His heart sank. Alex shut the door behind him and sat down in the chair next to Scott. Scott didn't move but, then again, he had no way of knowing that it was Alex who had come in the door.
"Hey Scott," Alex said.
Scott stiffened slightly, and took in a sharp breath. Alex swallowed and, to his relief, Scott didn't flinch away.
"Is Miss Lorna alright?" he asked, his voice small.
"Yeah," Alex said, glad that Hank had told him that before he left, "She's a little banged up, but she's gonna be okay."
Scott made a small noise, and Alex knew that he was stifling a sob. Alex could take a pretty good guess as to why that was. His little cousin was too damn scared to cry, afraid that his eyes would open.
"She's gonna be okay," said Alex.
"She's gonna hate me," Scott said.
Alex shook his head. Despite his own fear, unwarranted though it might be, over Lorna's condition, that was one thing that had never crossed his mind.
"She won't hate you," Alex said, "She's a mutant too. She knew that it was an accident."
"She's gonna be scared of me," said Scott.
"No, no she's not," Alex reassured him.
"Ororo will be," whispered Scott, "She saw what happened."
"No, no. Why would you think that?" Alex said, "No one here will be scared of you."
Scott stifled another sob.
"I'm scared of me," he said.
Words failed him. Alex remembered that cloying, choking feeling all too well. He remembered what it felt like to failure, to feel as though he were sinking. He remembered what it felt like to be different, to have that weight pressing down on him, the knowledge that so many people wouldn't accept him for who he was.
But above all, he remembered the absolute loneliness. And as he looked at Scott, he saw that same loneliness reflected a thousand fold into the body of a child who, for the first time in their life, had hurt someone.
He reached out and pulled Scott into a crushing hug. His back screamed as Scott dug his nails into it, trying to anchor onto something.
"I was scared of myself too once," Alex said, "And I felt so alone. And because of that, I can tell you one thing for certain."
He closed his eyes and held his cousin as tightly as he dared.
"You're not alone," he said, "I'm never gonna let you be alone."