Chapter 15 - Hearts And Minds

The next day, after everyone had at least tried to get a good rest, it was time to try to take on the Horsemen - and get rid of Apocalypse's hold on them. With three powerful telepaths - Rachel, Hope, and Nate - in one place, they were going to tackle all three at once, to shatter the bonds and make sure there were no ill effects.

It was simply by coincidence that they'd even discovered that there was an odd connection between the horsemen - and it was Rachel that had pointed it out as just a vague, odd tendril that seemed to reach out from James when she was going through and trying to clear his consciousness of whatever Apocalypse had done to him.

But it was enough that she was convinced anyhow that they needed to do a coordinated attack, and Nate didn't hesitate to agree.

All three of the remaining horsemen were being closely monitored, though, thankfully, the rooms that Stark had provided could do that remotely without having to actually risk anyone going in with the three former horsemen. They cleared the hall, sending Leslie Ann's parents, Jubilee, and Noh out of the area as Hope, Nate, and Rachel prepared for a vicious psychic battle.

Of course, it didn't look vicious. Anyone not fighting on the psychic plane would have thought that the three of them were simply glaring hard at their respective targets. But having the hall cleared really helped to keep anyone from distracting them from what was truly very serious business.

And that was what it looked like. Tony, Reed, Hank, and Strange all stood at the far end of the hall observing the three telepaths as they glared, fists at their sides in deep focus for over an hour.

Rachel stepped into Amadi's mindscape and was instantly hit with gale-force winds. The young weather witch's mind was in turmoil, and that manifested in the weather around her. In fact, Rachel was sure she could see a funnel cloud - and she decided that was where she needed to be.

Pushing against the rain and sleet and hail, she forced her way toward the worst of the storm until she found its eye, where Amadi was suspended in the air, her eyes bright white.

Scenes of memories were playing out in the storm around them, but the one Rachel kept seeing, the one that had the most strength and didn't peter out in the rain, was one of James stabbing Remy and then manhandling her, pinning her down, forcing her to come to Apocalypse.

There were other memories, too, of pain and terror and everything she and the other horsemen had endured at Apocalypse's hands for every failure they had. Amadi couldn't escape it. She was soaked in the storm of her own experiences.

"Amadi!" Rachel called out, one hand raised against the driving rain as she pushed closer to the little Goddess.

But Amadi either didn't hear Rachel or didn't want to pay her any heed. She had her hands over her head, as if she was shielding herself even as she let the storms rage. She couldn't stop.

Rachel frowned and then lifted off the ground, floating up to where Amadi was, though as soon as she was close enough for Amadi to register her presence, a wall of sleet rushed toward her. Rachel put up a psychic shield, but she still ended up soaked and cold.

Still, she had Amadi's attention.

Rachel threw both hands out from her center, disrupting some of the water temporarily and creating a path for her to get back to Amadi, stopping so that they were even with each other. "Amadi," Rachel said again, this time speaking gently, because she was finally close enough to hear the quiet, whimpering sobs coming from the young girl in front of her.

"Don't touch me," Amadi whispered, and the wind picked up around them as she tried to push Rachel away - though this time, Rachel didn't let her push her back, meeting her wind with a steely gaze as she held herself in place.

"I'm not going to touch you," Rachel said, still speaking softly, "but your parents are here, Amadi. Your dad has been helping get Sying back, but he checks in with you every chance he gets."

Amadi finally lowered her hands, and Rachel could see how red her eyes were. Her face was wet, but that was from the rain as well as her tears. "Dad?"

Rachel smiled and let her shoulders relax. As much as Amadi was like her mother with her powers, she had always followed her dad around like he hung the moon. "He probably misses his favorite lab assistant right now."

Amadi let out another sob, but she was starting to float toward the ground, with Rachel following her. When she touched down at last, the wind and rain followed suit, falling all at once until the air was eerily still. The storm wasn't over; it was simply hanging in the humid air.

Rachel took one step forward and then, when Amadi didn't flinch away, another, until she was close enough to touch Amadi but didn't reach out, instead holding her arms out in an open gesture so Amadi could be the one to make the move. "I'm sorry," Rachel said gently. "I know it hurts."

Amadi nodded wordlessly, looking up at Rachel with an expression that so sharply reminded Rachel how young fifteen was to have been used up by Apocalypse like that that Rachel couldn't help but gasp in a breath.

Not one of these kids had deserved this.

"Come on," Rachel said, her hands still open. "I can help. So can your mom."

Amadi paused, and the rain started to fall again. "She can't help me," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "No one can stop this… this pestilence." Her eyes flashed with her power, and suddenly, the wind picked up again to nearly gale force. "I'll never stop feeling so sick. No one can take it away."

Rachel sighed. She knew Amadi had fought her mom, and she'd been worried about bringing her up, but that didn't change the fact that she was disappointed to see Amadi reacting this way. "Of course she can," Rachel said patiently. "I'm a mom, remember? I know what it's like to have sick kids. I know there's nothing I wouldn't do to comfort my kids when they don't feel good."

Amadi's eyes were still bright, but the winds had started to slow down. She didn't say anything, but Rachel recognized the expression on her face. She'd seen her own kids wear it, too: it was a kid in pain wanting someone to take it away.

Rachel waited wordlessly for Amadi to come down again, holding her hands outstretched. She waited for Amadi to come to her, and when she finally did, Rachel wrapped her in the warmest hug she could manage.

"Come on," she whispered. "Your parents are dying to hug you like this."

Amadi clutched onto Rachel for a good, long time before she finally whispered, "Okay."

The two of them left Amadi's mind together, and in the physical world, Rachel frowned when she saw that Amadi still looked sick. She had dark circles under her eyes and a hitch in her breath, even now that she was in control of her own mind. Rachel couldn't understand why she still looked like a Horseman.

Still, when Amadi looked up at Rachel, she looked like the Amadi Rachel had been talking to in her mind, small and tired and sick and looking for her parents. So, Rachel projected to Ororo and Forge that all was clear for them to come in.

On hearing that they had a clear path, both Ororo and Forge rushed inside, and Amadi fell into her father's arms, with Ororo holding both of them to her tenderly. For the moment, it seemed Amadi trusted her dad more than her mom, but Rachel knew they would work that out soon enough. It was hard not to take it personally when you fought with your parents. Rachel knew that from experience.

Still, Amadi was exactly where she needed to be, so Rachel excused herself, stepping out of the room and leaning heavily against the door once it was closed behind her. Then and only then did she finally show how tired she felt. Fighting Apocalypse's influence hadn't been easy, even if she had done everything in her power to make it look that way so that Amadi wouldn't lose hope and give up on trying at all.

She wished that she could say she was surprised when she looked beyond Amadi's room to the one-way glass windows for the other two Horsemen's rooms and saw that both Nate and Hope were still working with Sying and Leslie Ann. Those two were harder cases; they already had existing traumas Apocalypse had likely built on, whereas Apocalypse had to manufacture some for Amadi by trying to kill Remy in front of her and making James mishandle her.

Rachel hated to admit it, but she knew that Nate and Hope were giving her the easier target because she'd lost control. She was alright now, but she could still hear the Phoenix in the back of her mind and couldn't help but wonder if they were right to be cautious.

She'd never lost control before. Not like that.

She shook her head and straightened up, realizing that she had an audience. She held her head up as she gestured toward the other two rooms. "I won't step in unless they need it," she said softly to the gathered onlookers - which consisted of just about everyone on the short lists for seeing the other Horsemen first as well as the men working on Sying's nanites.

"You want to, I don't know, sit down or something?" Tony asked with an eyebrow raised. "I mean, you were just sitting…"

Rachel rolled her eyes at him and let her weight shift to one foot. "I know from this side it doesn't look like much," Rachel said. "But in their minds it's a different story. Amadi was going full weather witch in there - lightning and gales - she even had a tornado."

"I'll take your word for it."

She let out a scoff and lightly punched his shoulder. "It's not that different than when you get all excited about a bunch of ones and zeroes," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Now you're just trying to start something," Tony teased, though he gave her a little smile. "Let me know if you change your mind and need something."

When Hope went into Sying's mind, she did so knowing that she had a ready-made trump card in her back pocket. She didn't want to ruin the surprise for Krissy if she didn't have to, but she wasn't above using it if it came down to it.

And her first impression of Sying's mindscape was that she might well need to use it.

Most of his memories were stained red with a rage that he couldn't seem to escape, as if everything that had happened to him up to that point was one injustice after another. Even the good memories of time spent with his family were tainted - especially the ones of Krissy and all the time she'd spent spurning him.

Hope frowned. She was going to have to break the spell of anger and resentment before she could bring up Krissy's good news. Otherwise, she could complicate things for both of them.

It actually took her some time to find Sying, too, because he seemed to be going from one source of anger to another. Just when she saw him pushing Andri'i away as the Shi'ar tried to kiss him while he was captive on Chandilar, he pushed through his captor and through the door of that memory into another - this one of a facility in Siberia where they had him tied to a table giving him orders for a mission while a doctor pumped food into him through a tube, since he was wearing a mask that covered his nose and mouth.

Hope stepped toward the memory and then paused when she saw a green undercurrent, like a glowing trail of wires, feeding into his memories. She glanced back at Sying and decided she would find him again in the next awful memory he chose to linger in; she had a hunch that this green current would lead her somewhere.

The more she followed the current, the more Sying's mindscape shifted to whites and greens and blues, until she realized that there was a corner of his mind that was structured like Hala. It looked nothing like the rest of his mind, which was natural as memories flowed from one scene to the next with doors marking the way to the next section. This was a section of Hala, a city made of straight lines and pristine walkways.

Curious, Hope kept following the green undercurrent until she found where it stopped, right in the middle of the city - though the center of the Kree city was marred by what looked like an Egyptian obelisk.

This, Hope realized, had to be Apocalypse's influence. She simply wasn't sure what it was doing in the middle of a Kree city.

As she approached the obelisk, some of the green energy flickered, like a power surge, and a holographic image of Apocalypse's head lit up at the obelisk.

Hope raised a single eyebrow. In this setting… En Sabah Nur almost looked like the Supremor.

She only thought about it for a second before it all made sense. She and her father had been to enough timelines that she knew Noh had been engineered in a way that allowed his handlers where he was from to step in and control him - and in this timeline, the Warden in the Cube had done just that - but she hadn't yet seen Sying's mind in any visit to a timeline, not in any extensive way, that is. It made sense that he would have similar engineering to his dad.

The good news for Sying was that the controls in his head weren't central, so even though Apocalypse had serious control over Sying's mind, Sying was still able to fight back - even now.

The bad news was that if Hope was going to get him back into his right mind, she'd have to get rid of the obelisk - or Sying would always have War in his head.

Hope raised her chin and squared up with the obelisk, starting to float in Sying's mind. But as soon as she started up her assault, the green energy that had been flowing from the control center released a mist full of whispers:

The Kree are supreme. The Earth must suffer. Make them pay. Make them see their insignificance.

Hope shook her head. This was more than just Apocalypse's influence. This was a bastardization of the kind of Kree brainwashing Sying must have absorbed even living on Earth. His dad wasn't immune to it, and he was born with this control center bleeding Kree doctrine into his mind. Apocalypse must have been delighted to have such an easy in.

With her eyes narrowed, Hope threw out both hands and dispersed the mist, floating closer to the obelisk until a holographic version of the full-bodied Apocalypse stepped out to meet her, looking smug and confident.

"Come to save the little Kree?" Apocalypse sneered. "You are nothing. Why would he follow you when I allow him to serve his purpose?"

Hope rolled her eyes. She'd heard this kind of thing before. "His purpose? If you're using the Kree way, you're nothing but a lowly Terran to him. Bow to the Kree Empire, En Sabah Nur. That's where you're leading him." As she spoke, she threw energy at him, and he stumbled back a step before he returned the favor. But he was only an echo of Apocalypse; he couldn't break her psychic shield.

Of course, the fight had drawn Sying's attention, and even though Hope was steadily pushing Apocalypse back, Sying rushed over to stand in defense of his master, planting himself between Hope and Apocalypse just as Hope was drawing back for a finishing blow.

Hope's eyes flashed. "Get out of the way, Sying."

"No."

Hope's hair was floating around her as she moved closer. "Get out of the way," she repeated, her voice echoing with power.

Sying responded to her display with one of his own, building up a black plasmoid rather than the colorful ones he used to make before he was War. He drew back and let out a Kree war cry, and Hope rushed toward him as well, confident in her ability to use this fight to her advantage.

Hope's power and Sying's plasmoid collided in a spectacular explosion that knocked them both back from each other. Sying might have been immune to the fires of war in the real world, but here, Hope could use the way he was lashing out and direct it. He was already doing damage to his own mind with his rage and terror and hurt - might as well send that damage toward the obelisk instead of out into the rest of his mind.

Both Sying and Hope picked themselves up, and when Hope gestured toward Sying in a "come on" sign, Sying let out another cry and rushed forward. This time, however, Hope was better prepared for the explosion, setting up her shield so that Sying's rage was caught in her web and then shattered into smaller plasmoids that Hope then redirected at the obelisk along with her own sparks.

"No!" Sying scrambled toward the obelisk, but it was already falling, toppling in on itself with so many holes in it. And when it did finally fall, the holographic image of Apocalypse blinked out, too.

When the dust settled, Hope could still see green Kree energy leaking into Sying's mind from a gaping hole just waiting for someone else to install themselves in the control center - but that could be addressed some other time. For now, her focus was on Sying as he picked himself up, staring at the hole in obvious dismay, looking suddenly lost.

"Sying," Hope said, her tone gentle but wary.

"You… you shouldn't have done that." Sying's tone was dull; he was in pure shock.

"Why not?" Hope asked, trying to get him thinking on his own.

Sying frowned, still staring at the hole. "The… the Earth wronged me," he said, almost mechanically. "I'm Kree. I should raze it."

"You don't really believe that, though," Hope said, and Sying looked up at her with a confused frown.

"Of course I do," he said. "It's what I'm supposed to do."

"So that's it? You're just going to listen to those instincts that someone else put in you and burn down your home?" Hope shook her head and decided to play her trump card, at least a little,. "That's a helluva way to tell your wife you're done with her."

Sying looked like Hope had slapped him. "What?"

"This planet you're so willing to raze for whichever master you think you're serving - is it the Kree or Apocalypse, by the way?" Hope didn't give him time to answer, though he looked confused in the split second after the question. "You may have forgotten that it's your home, but has she?"

Sying fumbled for words. "She…"

Hope crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow.

At that, Sying let out a slow breath, his gaze drifting back to the hole in his mind. "Tell me what to do," he said softly.

But Hope shook her head. "No," she said. "You need to get back in the driver's seat. I know it's tempting, and I know it's how you were engineered, but you don't need orders." When Sying looked lost but still nodded, she smirked. "Besides," she said. "You're going to want to be yourself when Krissy comes to say hi."

Sying finally smirked at that and nodded, getting to his feet when Hope offered him a hand up. Once he was steady, the two of them left his mind and came back to their senses in the room set aside for Sying - and were both alarmed to see that black sparks were still falling off of his fingertips.

Sying glanced up at Hope, his eyes wide. "That's not normal, right?" he asked in a breath.

She shook her head, frowning hard. He should have been back to normal. She didn't know what had gone wrong. But he at least seemed to be in control of his mind again, so she said, "We'll figure it out."

While Hope and Rachel had dealt with very young and very traumatized kids, Nate had the harder battle. Leslie Ann had enough life experience behind her that she could have been fighting back, but instead, she was clinging to what Apocalypse had done, not because she'd wanted it but because she was so overwhelmed with hunger that she'd gotten used to her power.

"Don't," Leslie Ann said, the jungle of her mind churning beneath her feet as soon as Nate showed up. "You've come to tell me to let it go, right? Don't."

"Leslie Ann, you don't have a choice," Nate countered.

"Sure I do," she said, still standing in a vast tangle of vines. "It's this or go mad."

"Apocalypse is gone, and with him, those powers will fade. Let it go on your own and it'll go easier for you." He held her gaze as he squared up with her. "But if you try to fight, you're only going to hurt yourself."

Leslie Ann narrowed her eyes before she sent the trees and the vines of the forest speeding toward Nate, her eyes flashing. The ground was still unsteady; that itself was telling to how little control she had of her own mind at that moment anyway. She'd already been rushing toward insanity trying to fill that aching pit Apocalypse had left her with; Nate was right. Having a fight in her mind wasn't helping.

Nate was quick to hover - avoiding most of the destruction Leslie Ann was doing to her own mind ."You need to stop," he said calmly, reaching out to forcibly settle the mindscape. He didn't like to use that card, but he also had his mother's patience - which meant that when things got this shaky, he went right to the heart of it quickly.

As his eye glowed brighter, the plantlife stilled and the ground shored itself up. He was simply following the tendrils of Apocalypse's influence as they wove through the grass and around every bit of plantlife in Leslie Ann's mind. And like any other invasive vine, he was yanking them out by the roots before they could strangle the life out of the trees and flowers that should be there. "You can't sustain this on your own, Leslie Ann. Your parents and your sister are waiting for you to shake this off."

Leslie Ann stood on a patch of grass that grew like bamboo until she was standing even with Nate. "Of course I can't sustain it," she snapped back at him. "Nothing works."

"You can't keep draining people," Nate bellowed. "Try letting go of Apocalypse. That will work."

"Do you think I care about him?" she shot back angrily. "I can't even think since he got in my head!"

"What do you care about then, Leslie Ann?" Nate asked with a harsh tone. "Because whatever you do give a damn about is going to be destroyed at the rate you're going."

"That's life," she said, shaking her head. "You want to bring back every friend I make in the X-Men? Jana? Neil? Look what happened to Amadi, and we were only just starting to train together." She rose up higher. "I'm a destructive force, Cable. Get out of my way."

"No, you're not," Nate said, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated on her a little more than he had been. It wasn't that he was just getting started though … he'd already taken all the precautions and was prepared to stop any counterattack she could come up with, and had looked into her thought processes to see what she'd like to do, too. And the instant that Leslie Ann made a move to try and get past Cable, he held out a hand and simply switched everything that she had access to through her powers off. It was a quick move - one that effectively blockaded Apocalypse's influence from a constant flow down to a trickle, but even that had Nae frowning. It should have been like a switch. Not building dam.

Leslie Ann still had one hand out, but when nothing happened, she stared at Cable in shock. "What…?"

"I told you," Nate said. "It's over."

She started to shake her head without thinking about it. "You can't - you can't do that!"

"Yes, I can," Nate said, perfectly composed once again. "And I did. You need to accept this sooner than later. For your own good."

"Give me my powers back!"

"No."

Leslie Ann let out a frustrated sound, but she couldn't reach Nate without her powers, and she was left fuming with no recourse. And she was still furious when they left her mind - where Nate was able to see what the other two had: Apocalypse's changes hadn't faded.

When it was all over, Hank was frowning as well. He'd seen Apocalypse's influence released from those he loved enough to know that this wasn't right. His hands were clasped under his chin as he watched the monitors that showed the vital statistics for Sying, Amadi, and Leslie Ann. It was clear that he believed there to be something very wrong. It was less obvious with Amadi, who had already been a weather witch and who was clearly feeling better after Apocalypse was out of her head, and only slightly morseo with Leslie Ann because of the slight greenish tint to her veins that had started up the first time she drained the life out of someone. Though Sying's was the most obvious, black sparks still dripping from his fingers no matter how hard the alarmed young man seemed to be trying to keep them from doing just that.

"They shouldn't be this altered anymore," Hank said quietly. "The enhanced abilities should have fallen to the wayside as soon as Apocalypse found himself in pieces in the sand."

He let out a sigh and got up to head down the hall and peek in on how James was doing. He wasn't in a room like the other three were - mostly because Rachel had said she had burned out all of the areas of James' mind that were tainted by Apocalypse. But when he saw that finally, the young man was starting to shed back the charred, blackened portions of his skin, he decided he needed to take a few more precautions.

He stopped next to James' bed and started to readjust the monitors so they could travel with him, but he was sure to take the extra time to put the restraints onto James' wrists and ankles before he wheeled him down the hall to where the other four were. "If you don't mind, Mr. Stark, I believe we need an open room," he called out when Tony looked up with a frown. "Call it a hunch, or a bit of overthinking on my part, but I believe that something is severely amiss with our young friend."

"O-kay," Tony said slowly, keying in the code to open up a room so that Hank could bring James in - and Nate followed, already picking up on Hank's suspicions with one eyebrow raised.

"It would make sense," Hank said quietly to Nate. "That if En Sabbah Nur was going to use a backup, it would be the sensible upgrade to use someone that could take whatever damage was handed out."

Nate nodded. "Let me take a look," he said, not exactly telling Hank that this was why he and Hope had stuck around as well - not just to help with the Horsemen. Knowing what he did, it took almost no time at all before he nodded to himself and took a step back to look up at Hank. "Yeah," he said, shaking his head. "We're going to need a way to get into an adamantium skull to remove the spore."

Hank let out a little growl. "Oh, that should be simple enough," he said in his most sarcastic tone.

"That's why he picked a healer - and gave him adamantium. After the fact."

Hank had one hand on his hip as he looked down at the slowly healing young man. "Yes, well. I'd much prefer - as would his family - that we keep his head on his shoulders." After a long moment, he looked up at Nate wearing an expression of enlightenment. "Your Aunt Lorna. I can send one of the bamfs after her - unless you want to slip off to her yourself."

"I'll do it," Nate said. "Best to keep the circle small, all things considered."

While Nate was gone, Hank waved Tony closer. "If you could, please," he said clearly in a tone just over a whisper so as to keep the others calm. "It would be unwise to wait one moment longer than necessary, and James is in need of an operating room and for Doctor Strange to scrub in if we are to save the boy at all."

When Scott woke up much later, he felt a lot less foggy. And since this time, Annie was asleep, he decided not to wake her up as he tried very carefully to edge himself out of the bed - though to his frustration, he seemed to be having a hard time managing that. Getting the leads off and the IVs out he could do, as well as the cuffs around his ankles, but he was just too … something to stand.

They must have hit him with more drugs than he realized. Not that he was prepared to take that as a proper deterrent.

Of course, his attempted escape didn't go unnoticed, and he was irritated to see someone come rushing in - though the fact that it wasn't Hank was strange in and of itself.

"What do you think you're doing?" Celia said as she sped up her approach from the hall, her heels clicking on the floor. She was wearing a determined look that Scott recognized well, but he was not used to seeing such severity directed at him.

Scott shook his head to himself as he put out a hand to try to steady himself. "I need to check on the others," he said. "Where's Hank?"

"Dr. McCoy is preoccupied at the moment," Celia replied shortly. "And you need your rest. You've had another heart attack and then some. Don't push for more so soon."

Scott frowned when he heard it but pushed the thought out of his mind. The last thing he remembered was being with Jubilee and Cody - but he could not think about that right now when there were other considerations. "I'm not pushing for another heart attack; I just need to know what's going on," he said.

She crossed her arms and let out a breath. "Tell me who you want to know about and I'll tell you what I can. But you need to stay where you are before you hurt yourself."

"I need to check on the four - and I need to know if James is healing," Scott said. "I've been through this before; I can help the kids, and I need to talk to Leslie Ann."

"Not yet you can't," Celia replied. "But … the three have been purged by Cable, Hope, and Rachel. They will need therapy at this point - if you're going to be smart about it and send them in that direction. Which I would recommend."

"Great, then if they're through, I can talk to them," Scott reasoned.

"Not yet," Celia stressed. "If I need to, I'll pull your other doctors in here to explain, and if I have to restrain you, I will."

"I'm not going to sit here and do nothing," Scott insisted.

"You will sit there and heal until you find out what you can physically handle," she replied with some heat.

"Just - at least get me some crutches so I can find my kids."

"I'll page Dr. Manning and Dr. Strange," Celia said, though Scott did a small double take on hearing Dr. Strange was involved - which was at least showing he was paying attention. She stayed in the door and handled it right from her phone. "You'll need to hear from both of them what you're allowed to do for your own health."

"I don't need either of them to tell me if I'm allowed to find my kids," Scott shot back angrily.

She gave him a dry look. "The four are still in isolation. All of them."

"And what about mine?" Scott said. "I still don't know who - I need to talk to them."

"They can find you. They are all doing well," Celia said. "As I understand it, Chance is with his wife, Charlie is with Noh and Jubilee, and Chloe is with Sadie. Everyone is still asleep at this hour." She glanced down at her phone and frowned. "Dr. Manning will be by shortly. Dr. Strange … is not done yet."

"What now?"

"He's in surgery," she replied. "He'll be done when he's done."

"Who?" Scott asked, sitting up straighter and looking ready to bolt again.

She let out a sigh. "Can we at least wait for Dr. Manning before we get into this?"

"If one of my friends is in surgery with Dr. Strange, I want to know about it."

"I need to check your blood pressure first. No one wants to see you have another issue." She stopped when she got next to him. "If I have to, I will partially sedate you to take the edge off. Not enough to make you groggy, but enough to keep you calm. I will tell you what I know."

"That bad?" Scott asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Potentially," Celia replied as she double checked the monitors.

Scott leaned back and let Celia check his pressure, resting his head against the backboard for a long moment with his eyes closed. Stopping and slowing down just… wasn't an option for him. He needed to stay busy.

She nodded to herself when she saw the readouts and then rested her hand on his arm. "You need something to help you take the edge off anyhow. You are worrying yourself on the possibilities."

"What I need is to get out of here," Scott told her. "I'm not of any use to anyone sitting here."

She gave him a look. "Are you a physician? A psychologist? Physical therapist perhaps?"

"Celia…"

"That's what we need right now," Celia said. "And if you're not one of those things and are in fact in need of one of those things, there really isn't much you can do but to stay here where you can be properly attended to."

Scott let out a frustrated breath. "Fine."

She drew up a measure of a sedative and put it in the IV line. "I swear, this will only take the edge down. Not even off." She turned her head as his heart doctor came in and she quickly ran down what all had happened with him medically since last he was conscious and aware. Including the fact that there had been a stroke during his operation.

"You're really very lucky that you happened to have such a talented neurosurgeon standing around with nothing to do," Dr. Manning told him.

Scott nodded quietly as he listened to what she had to say before he let out a breath. "Alright. So when can I get moving?"

"Usually with anything involving the brain, you need to stay in bed for a few days. That's not a suggestion, Mr. Summers. If you like your grey matter where it is - take a break." She shrugged and gestured to him openly. "Your heart - that was not an open chest situation, so that you should heal from quicker. I'm sure your leg hurts from that though, and I would suggest keeping weight off of that leg until the vein is better healed."

Scott didn't bother to hide his frustration as he heard it, scrubbing both hands over his face before he looked back up at the doctor. "Alright. So. A couple days here and crutches after that."

"No crutches," she said, shaking her head. "I doubt you'll have the strength for it, honestly."

Scott stared at her for a moment. "Then…" He shook his head. "Alright. If you can get a chair - something I can move around in - how does that work with the bed rest?"

She nodded at that. "Two days, and I'll get you mobile somehow," she swore before she looked at Celia with a sigh. "I've also been informed that your entire group doesn't respect Doctor-patient confidentiality, so … I'm going to step out of the room, and go back to looking over your latest blood tests."

By that time, Annie had started to sit up, she'd been awake since the two of them had raised their voices, so she'd heard all of what Dr. Manning had said, and she was sure to give Sarah a sleepy smile on her way past. "Thank you," she said, and Dr. Manning returned the smile before she left.

And of course, Scott didn't waste any time before he turned to Celia. "Alright. I'm not moving. Now will you tell me what's going on?"

Celia took a seat and folded her hands in her lap. "The Howletts have stabilized. The three horsemen still haven't lost their enhanced abilities - even though they had a psychic cleansing. And pretty much everyone else that was injured is stable, comfortable … and secure."

"Then who's in surgery?" Scott asked with a frown. "Is that something they think will help the horsemen?"

Celia thought carefully on how to present it, but she was already nodding. "Dr. McCoy and Cable came to a conclusion together. This surgery should fix the physical issues with the horsemen. And it's James who is in surgery. He started healing - and had gotten past the charred stage when they took him in."

Scott frowned as he thought it over. "James," he said slowly, then looked back up at Celia.

"Cable and Hope said that there is every indication that Apocalypse wasn't going out of order in taking his Horsemen. They believe that James was supposed to be his failsafe and that he intended to possess James' body once he had killed off his consciousness. He was not necessarily intended to be Death. Not long term anyhow."

Scott swore under his breath and sat up a little straighter. "I should be there," he said - not necessarily trying to get up but just frustrated generally with the state of affairs.

"I'll make sure you can see him when he's out of surgery," Celia promised. "But you know that it's tricky at the best of times operating on one of them. This operation had to be rushed into before James regained too much strength. I'm sure that Lorna will be by once she's done assisting."

"Yeah, alright," Scott said, leaning back into the pillows with a light frown.

"Thank you, Celia," Annie said, moving her chair so that she was closer to Scott again so that she could take his hand. "I'll take it from here."

Celia gave her a small smile at that and nodded, then headed out of the room, leaving the two Summerses to talk very quietly with each other.