Chapter 16 - How Did We Get Here?
"Hey, Sying." Krissy poked her head into the room where Sying was still holed up with a small smile. Tony's rule that people had to go in pairs was still in place, just in case, so she'd decided to take both of Sying's parents in with her, and he looked honestly glad to see them.
"Krissy!" He grinned her way and got up to cross the space and lean over to give her a kiss, though for as long as they'd been separated, it wasn't nearly as involved as either of them would have liked when he was keeping his hands behind his back not just so he could be sure he didn't accidentally burn anyone but so he didn't have to look at the black sparks that were a constant reminder that someone else had taken control of him.
Still, it was amazing to be able to see him again, and Krissy smiled as she brushed Sying's hair out of his face with one hand. "Long time no see."
"Yeah, no kidding," Sying said, shaking his head as he gestured for them to sit down with him. When he sat, Krissy was able to see the black sparks falling from his hands, though the sparks didn't seem to bother or burn him.
She frowned watching the sparks dripping, because what she wanted to do was take him by the hand and pull him into someplace private and make up for lost time and also let him know the news she'd been sitting on for weeks now. But instead, she just leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Red really isn't your color, honey."
"Don't I know it," Sying said, shaking his head as he looked down at himself. He clenched his hands a bit before he looked up again, forcing his thoughts out of the spiral they were too often going down lately. "Are you okay? I don't remember seeing you in any of the fights I was in, but-"
"No, no, I'm okay," Krissy promised quickly. "I mostly took care of Chelsea. Helped out with things on the home front."
"Really?" Sying raised both eyebrows as he turned her way.
"Not that I didn't want to come after you," Krissy said quickly, all in one breath as she reached out a hand and then remembered herself at the last second and rested it on his cheek instead. "It was tearing me up knowing you were being used again, Sying."
At that, Sying's shoulders dropped, and he looked almost lost, "Yeah."
Krissy let out a little noise before she took him by the chin and pulled him into a long and not very polite kiss that went on for exactly as long as she wanted it to. When they finally did break apart, Sying looked less like he had been ready to fall into that sort of quiet malaise right before he ran off - and he was even grinning her way.
She watched him for a moment longer and pushed back his hair before she decided to just go ahead and tell him. It wasn't like she was any good at patience anyway, and he looked like he could really, really use some good news at that point.
"I wasn't just helping with Chelsea, either," Krissy told him, still playing with his hair as he leaned into her touch, and it occurred to her watching him that he probably hadn't had anything in the way of positive human contact for weeks now, too. She gave him another quick kiss until the thought made its way back around to fixing the situation and giving him something happy to hold onto and then bit her lip. "I was benched from day one in the fight, Sying. You know how your grandpa can be about letting pregnant women fight."
Sying blinked at her for a moment - but that was all the time it took for it to sink in before he had leaned in to kiss her hard.
It was a long while before the kiss finally broke, and she couldn't stop grinning at him as he looked her over with a suddenly much more excited look on his face. "How far along are you?" he asked.
"Not very," she said. "If this was a normal pregnancy, Hank said I'd be due around mid-October."
Sying grinned outright at that. "That's a good month," he agreed.
"But it's a part-demon part-alien baby? So… she might come closer to my birthday," Krissy teased.
"Oh, you've decided it's a girl?"
"Has to be," she said with a little smile. "And she'll look like you and know all the lyrics to every Beatles song ever written."
"And have your powers and beat me in every race as soon as she gets them."
"Oh, good, as long as we're on the same page," Krissy said with a little laugh as she pulled him into another long kiss, while Jubilee and Noh shared smiles. They'd been checking periodically on Sying, and this was the most responsive he'd been since he woke up. So, they were happy for multiple reasons as they watched the two soon-to-be parents.
Sying grinned at Krissy for a long time, but it didn't take long for the issue of his hands to make its way back to the forefront of his mind. His hands were at his sides now, inching toward Krissy on instinct even as he kept them far from her; he glanced down at his fingertips for a moment before he looked over to Jubilee and Noh with a much more urgent expression. "Did Hank - did anyone say if there's a way to just… make this stop?" he asked, clearly worried about it.
"They're working on it," Jubilee said with a smirk, then gave him a wink. "Right now, actually."
"Well, just… just tell me this will go away before I miss out on something important like feeling her kick or something," Sying said, staring down at the black sparks.
"Inhibitor collar if nothing else," Jubilee said, nodding her head. "But that's probably not going to be the case."
"Good," Sying said, glancing over at Krissy again with an obviously excited smile. "I want to be able to hold her. Or him. Or them. Or whatever."
"Not to mention I need a solid hug from you still," Krissy agreed, and Sying nodded seriously before he leaned over to steal another kiss.
"And you feel okay?" Sying asked when the kiss broke. "You're not… super miserable?"
Krissy nodded quickly. "I'm alright," she promised. "I mean, I'm hungry, and I've probably cried four times today, but…"
"Yeah, okay, I'm definitely going to need a collar for future… everything until this is sorted out, because you can't be crying by yourself, Krissy," Sying said, shaking his head at her.
"I'd prefer not to," she said with a small smile before she simply hugged him around the shoulders and kissed his cheek. "Love you too."
When Lorna came in to visit Scott, she looked almost like she'd run a marathon - wide-eyed and wearing scrubs still. But she didn't come alone; Doctor Strange was with her, in surgeon's garb, not at all the usual image of the man decked out in a cape and wearing the Eye of Agamotto.
"You really don't need to be this dramatic to get me to visit," Lorna said in a breath.
Scott gave her a dry look for that one. "How'd it go?"
Lorna looked up at Strange, who took only a second more to answer. "It went well. We removed the death spore that was resting nearly on top of his brain stem. Lorna sealed everything back up. The only thing that is giving me a bit of pause is that he doesn't seem to be healing at the accelerated rate right now, but … considering the severity of the surgery, and all of his other health concerns, it may just be overload."
"When can I see him?" Scott asked.
"He's in recovery right now," Strange said. "Once he's stabilized and we pull the sedation … probably a few hours. Maybe sooner if he burns the drugs out faster than that."
Scott nodded slowly. "And nobody's going to argue with me on going to see him, right?" he said.
Strange smirked. "Cable and Rachel are going through his mind to double check that everything is clean. So no, no one will argue you going to see him, though I can't guarantee that he will wake up. That was a very dangerous surgery, even without factoring in the adamantium problem. Since we don't know if he's healing as he should, or if he can, I will continue to monitor him as if he had no regenerative healing at all."
"Alright. Good." Scott leaned back with his arms crossed and let out a breath. "Thank you."
"You're very welcome," Strange said, then paused. "Your surgery went well too, even if you didn't bother to ask on your own benefit."
"And thank you for that too," Annie said with a smile his way, her eyes red from crying but her hand in Scott's. "I really appreciate it."
Strange gave her a little smile. "Then I'm glad I was available. It was certainly a simple enough thing compared to what I used to do."
"That's good to hear," Annie said.
"So I'll be back on my feet in no time," Scott said.
"You'll be back up and about," Strange said in a metered tone. "On your feet might be optimistic."
Scott looked up to meet Strange's gaze and then let out a little noise from the back of his throat before he looked down again. "Fine."
Annie sighed and squeezed his hand in hers. She knew it was killing him being stuck in bed. Hearing that his health could keep him down even longer wasn't helping him to move, to help, to do anything but think of loss.
Her family has been far too hurt, and Annie could barely put one foot in front of the other to get herself to the kitchen. That was all she could do. She could feed herself and her family.
She hated that she couldn't do more.
It hadn't taken any time after James' surgery and the removal of the spore before the other three Horsemen felt the effects. It wasn't a slow drain of their powers - it was more like a switch had been thrown.
It was easiest to see with Sying, of course, when the black sparks stopped dripping off of his hands, though he did wait a few minutes longer just to be sure they wouldn't be coming back before he relaxed enough to run his hands down his face and hug his elbows, letting all his breath out in relief.
It wasn't quite as obvious for the other two - the sort of yellow tinge to Amadi's eyes disappeared and the greenish veins on Leslie Ann's face faded, but Leslie Ann was, understandably, reluctant to try and see if she really was clean. Obviously, both of her parents wanted to hug her, but the truth of the matter was that she was more than a little worried that it was a bad idea and that she'd end up draining the life out of them.
So it wasn't until Hank had actually come into the room and explained, in general terms, what had happened, reassuring her that she was, in fact, clean of Apocalypse's influence, that Leslie Ann finally relaxed enough to let Anton and Rachel pull her into a hug between the two of them.
At the contact, though, Leslie Ann could feel that small urge in the back of her mind, the reminder of the intense hunger and the need to fill it. It was almost a reflex at this point to reach for that power as soon as she was touching someone - but it wasn't there.
What was there was a new sort of feeling - or, more accurately, feelings. She was flooded with them, all at once - fear and anger and resentment and self-doubt and hatred, all of it directed toward her. All of the lives that she'd snuffed out, those last moments of fear, all at once, until she found herself pushing back against her parents to get out of the embrace, absolutely terrified.
"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" Rachel asked, her voice dripping with worry as well as pure hurt on her little girl's behalf.
Not that Leslie Ann could really explain what the problem was. Not when there was a good chunk of time - several long minutes - when she simply didn't know where or who she was. The consequences of stealing life from thousands of people had been held at bay when she had that connection to Apocalypse, but now, without that vast emptiness pushing it back, everything came rushing in, the sort of semi-psychic feedback of a thousand last moments.
It was completely overwhelming, and Leslie Ann could hardly breathe - until, finally, she simply slumped to the floor, with both of her parents completely unsure of what had just happened and terrified that something had gone wrong.
Hope popped her head into the doorway and waved with her fingertips before stepping through the door. "Oh, hi there. Sorry … I didn't mean to alarm anyone, but she was projecting a nasty psychic feedback and I had to stop it."
Anton looked up at Hope and narrowed his eyes for a moment as Rachel knelt by Leslie Ann, running her hand through her daughter's hair. "What did you do?"
"I didn't hurt her; she's just sleeping," Hope said.
Anton crossed his arms over his chest. "How about you give me a straight answer on what's going on here?" he said.
"I thought that was pretty straightforward," Hope told him with a little frown. "But okay. Um … so, it seems like in addition to taking life forces out of people to sustain herself, she was … sort of collecting some of her victims' feelings. Of course, she couldn't process that while she had Apocalypse's power surge, but now that his influence is gone, it's ... " She took a deep breath and looked at Leslie Ann. "It's all rushing in. Every single person. All of them."
Anton frowned as he turned toward his unconscious daughter, and Rachel just seemed to hold onto her a little tighter. "What do we do?" Rachel asked, her eyes shining.
"Well, she's going to need a lot of support," Hope said. "It's not too different from what telepaths feel when we first get our abilities, only … it's made worse when you take into account it's how that person felt while she was draining them. Lots of fear, anger … all kinds of negative things."
Rachel's shoulders dropped as she held onto Leslie Ann a little tighter, and Anton looked like he was barely holding himself back from hitting something. "Okay," he said through his teeth.
"Nate and I will be around for a while still," Hope promised. "And we'll do all we can to help her through this. But there's not really a guidebook for this kind of thing."
"No, there never is," Anton muttered.
Hope pulled up a chair and took a seat nearby. "If you don't mind, I'll just wait with you for her to wake up. And then I'll explain to her all that I can and see if I can help ease this transition." She didn't wait for an answer, instead just crossing her legs and folding her hands on her knees.
When Hank poked his head into Scott's room to let him know that everything was set so that he could visit James, he wasn't surprised to see that his old friend was quiet, unmoving. With Annie checking in on their girls, Scott had fallen into much the same mindset as Hank had seen the last time he'd lost family, simply staring at nothing.
Hank let out a breath and made his way into the room, bringing with him the temporary wheelchair that would help Scott get around until they could set him up with something a little more personalized - some of the resident geniuses already had thoughts. "James is still unconscious, but he's in recovery now. I can take you to see him, but it's not likely that he'll wake up any time soon. He's on pain medication, and he's healing much slower than usual, but I believe he is coming along."
Scott nodded slowly, tearing his gaze from the wall to Hank as he listened and seeming to straighten up a bit as well. "Alright," he said. "Let's get moving."
Hank gently helped Scott from the bed to the chair and led him down the hallways to where James was. "As I said, it's not likely he'll be waking up anytime soon, but you can stay as long as you like," Hank said.
"Thanks," Scott said, frowning as he took in the state of his godson.
James was unconscious, and his head was wrapped, which was expected. But it was pretty clear that he hadn't gotten beyond the still-red new skin stage, and he hadn't grown back any of his hair or eyebrows. At all. He was hooked up to every monitor known to man, with an oxygen mask in place, and as Hank kindly pointed out, painkillers were flowing almost freely in a steady drip.
Scott let out a breath as he rested his hand on James' wrist, though he didn't say anything, simply spending the time with James as he let the frustration on James' behalf show. The kid had done nothing to deserve everything that had happened to him, and even though they'd killed Apocalypse, it didn't feel like enough to make up for everything James was suffering.
He sat there like that for a long while with nothing but the sounds of the monitors marking time and the steady, quick drip to watch as a means of echoing the monitors. Scott let out a breath and looked up to see that Hank hadn't yet returned. But, since James' condition wasn't changing, and there was no danger of him waking up spontaneously, Scott nodded to himself and decided to pay a visit to Logan and K and see how they were progressing, too.
He wheeled himself down to where the other two Howletts were healing and was pleasantly surprised to find that they did look much better - though obviously, that wasn't saying much when they had been so close to death the last time he saw them. They still looked worn and skinny, but the monitors were showing much better life signs, so that was something, at least.
Scott's timing couldn't have been better, either. He'd only been in their room for long enough to start honestly studying their monitors and mentally comparing them to where James was when Logan started to stir.
He didn't really say anything as he slowly woke up, obviously worn out from all the healing he'd had to do to get even this far.
Scott raised an eyebrow his way when he saw Logan wearily crack open one eye - half grimacing at the bright lights. "Welcome back."
"Wasn't out for that long, was I?" Logan asked, one eye still closed as he gave Scott and his transportation a hard once-over.
"Few days, anyhow," Scott admitted as he wheeled over to lower the lights.
Logan rubbed his hand over his face and started to sit up, though he didn't succeed at first, so he took to watching Scott while he built up enough steam to move. "Where the hell are we?" Logan asked, simply to break the silence. He only took a few moments to yank loose the tubing that was running around his head for oxygen when it was itching his nose before he started looking around the room. But he couldn't just ignore Scott's condition. "What happened to you?"
"We're in one of Stark's facilities," Scott told him. "It's a temporary place to stay - so everyone that needed it could get the medical attention they needed."
Again, Logan gestured to Scott with one hand. "Didn't answer my other question, Slim."
Scott took in a deep breath and held it as he looked down at himself. "It's…" He let out the breath. "We lost Cody," he said quietly without raising his gaze or explaining anything further.
Logan froze and stared back at him for a long moment before he let his gaze fall to his hands. "What can I do?"
"There's… not much left to be done," Scott said in an almost flat tone. "Chance and Elin have been handling things - we were planning to do a service in Westchester once I could travel, and, well…" He gestured to himself.
"So we're going soon, then," Logan said.
"We don't have the school rebuilt yet," Scott said.
"Hasn't been long enough," Logan agreed with a nod before he glanced over to K. "I think we can set most everyone up. We got enough places tucked away."
"That's fine," Scott said. "Stark said we're welcome to this place as long as we need it, and James isn't exactly mobile yet."
"Why not?" Logan looked openly confused, which was when Scott remembered that Logan had missed everything at the end of that fight.
Scott glanced up at Logan and let his frown deepen. "Rachel lost control," he said quietly.
Logan's eyebrows shot up. "She what?" He shook his head and looked around the room once, just for something to focus on. "Is she okay?"
"She's with Bobby," Scott said. "James was beating him to death when she stepped in, and then when she saw how deep Apocalypse had his claws in James, she lost her temper," he said.
"How bad is it, Scott?"
"Bad enough he's still in the pinkish skin stages," Scott said. "No hair whatsoever."
Logan ran his hand over his face and let out all of his breath slow, though even Scott could hear the crackle in his lungs as he did so.
"There's something else you should know," Scott said slowly. "Apocalypse wasn't doing things out of order."
"The hell are you talking about?" Logan asked with a scowl.
"He left a spore in James' head," Scott said. "James wasn't just Death - he was a backup."
Logan stared at him for a long time before he shook his head slowly. "I … James tried to take me with him. I wasn't going to let that happen, but I figured it was to make an example out of a failed servant - not ... " He looked over to Scott warily. "The spore …"
"It's gone now," Scott promised. "Strange and Lorna got involved. Nate checked him over thoroughly to make sure he was totally clear."
Logan was still holding his breath, though. "Is he healing?"
"Hank says he is, but it's slow," Scott said. "It's bad enough Tyler's even been able to do a little healing for him."
"Damn," Logan said. "Ty's been doin' too much."
"He's been eating enough to keep up with Thor, Annie tells me."
"Once K wakes up, we'll do what we can to catch up," Logan said, though he was still hung up on the fact that Tyler had been able to do anything for James.
"Annie will appreciate it," Scott said. "It's something to do."
The two of them sat there in relative silence for a long while. Logan had no idea where to start with the questions, and Scott had more or less said what he'd needed to. But it was just a kind of stillness until K started to move - and Logan didn't even attempt to hide his relief on seeing her rouse. It was enough to get Scott to look away for a moment in an effort to give them a little privacy.
"Hey, there's my girl," Logan said, turning toward K with a growing smile.
She turned her head his way echoing his expression without knowing it before she opened her eyes, then paused when she saw him. "Oh no … you look your age," she mumbled.
"Yeah, you too, gorgeous."
K picked her head up and gave Logan a slow, obvious once over. "You're not allowed to call him 'Slim' now," she said in a tired tone. "Hi, Scott. By the way."
"Hi, K," Scott said with a quiet wave.
"You look so muscular, Scott. Impressive." K had to tease. "Mark your calendar; you've got him beat. By a mile."
"You're hilarious," Scott said, though a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"That is temporary," Logan clarified, turning a little so he was up on his side to face her better.
"Oh, I hope so," she said, reaching up to fiddle with the oxygen tube; she pulled a spectacular face when she realized Hank had put in a feeding tube at some point.
"Gotta get a better look at you," Logan said, smiling crookedly at her. "Gorgeous as always but too skinny for my tastes."
"Like you have room to talk," K replied, smiling wider at him, though the sparkle that was returning to her gaze spoke all kinds of different trouble. "You look like you're more hair than man right now."
Logan let out a bark of a laugh that turned into a cough, though he was still chuckling and smiling at her through the little coughing fit. "You might just be right about that."
"I don't mind," she said, still smiling crookedly at him. "And we're small enough we can share a bed, right?" She turned to look at Scott. "You won't narc, will you?"
"He won't," Logan growled out. "Mostly because he's gotta tell us what's the story with Sying and the girls." He gave her a little look. "I'll tell you about James later."
"Oh, alright then," K replied before she turned her attention to Scott. "I'm listening. Maple sugar. Sweet girls … Go."
Scott shook his head and couldn't help but smirk at her. "Right now, we're just focused on recovery. It took a little longer than we expected to get Apocalypse's last hold over them out, and they're dealing with the aftereffects now."
"So what do they need? Annie? Snuggles?" K asked, rearranging her pillow.
"Honestly, that's probably part of it," Scott admitted. "I know for a fact that none of them had any kind of positive human contact the entire time, and Leslie Ann in particular couldn't touch anyone at all without it being a drain." He frowned deeper. "And that in itself left psychic damage too."
"I'll get her," she said, nodding to herself. "She won't be able to tell me no."
"Sying is doing a little bit better just because Krissy's expecting," Scott said, and couldn't help the small smile.
K nodded. "Makes sense," she said. "And Amadi?"
"Amadi …" Scott let out a breath. "Neither of her parents have left her side, and Remy's been actively helping her to feel something other than self-blame over the disasters."
"So she's pretty covered," Logan said. "We'll do what we can for the other two."
"Tag team," K agreed.
"And when James wakes up," Scott said, pausing to look at both of them - but they had the right to know. He let out a breath. "He asked Rachel to finish him off when he was in the fire. And I doubt he's just going to leave that mindset behind just because he's been out for so long."
"Probably not," K had to admit, nodding, but not yet up to snuff on that yet. "We've been there. Might just be a part of … well. Everything."
"If he needs someone to talk to outside immediate family," Scott said, "I've been through this before. With Apocalypse."
"You know how this has worked before," Logan said. "No one knows what'll work until it does."
"I know, but I'm still going to offer anyway."
"Good," K said. "More people to be there, hopefully he'll get it through his head before he does something stupid."
Scott nodded at that and let out his breath. "You know everyone's keeping an eye on them. All of them. Hope's with Leslie Ann now, and I know Jubilee said they're watching Sying for panic attacks again, all things considered."
"That's not something I knew about," K said. "The whole future family thing."
"They're still around if you want to say hello," Scott said.
"Sure, I'll just trot right over," K said sarcastically.
"They'll probably be at the funeral; you can see them then."
She frowned at that, her nose scrunched up. "How much did we miss?"
Scott froze for an instant before he closed his eyes and let out a breath. He'd forgotten K hadn't heard, but he hated to say out loud that his son was gone. It was hard enough to face that reality without being constantly reminded of it. "You've only been out for a few days," he said, dropping his gaze. "But we found Cody after the fight."
"Scott," she said, pushing to sit up better and incidentally showing how clearly she wasn't ready to move. "I'm so sorry. Just … tell me who needs to be hunted down. I promise I'll make it hurt."
"As far as we can tell, it was just… part of the fight," Scott said without looking up. "The junior squad was keeping the Marauders off our backs, and he took a bad hit."
"Doesn't mean my offer isn't good," she said gently. "I … probably ought to get a milkshake or something before I start."
Scott smirked lightly and nodded. "Annie could use something to do."
"We'll put her to work," K promised.
Logan swung his legs over the bed, and it was just then that Scott really could see exactly how positively skeletal the two of them were - though as always, Logan wasn't letting anything like that slow him down. In short order, he'd made his way the short distance to K's bed - where she had wiggled over to make room for him. He took a moment to climb in with her, but he was wrapped half around her with the blanket pulled up before the monitors he'd stripped off really started to complain. Of course, Logan wasn't too worried about them, since he had already started kissing his wife.
"Don't know how long it's been, but it's been too long," Logan told her quietly, then pulled her as tightly as he was able, and after a moment, he took a deep breath and started to relay all that Scott had told him so that Scott wouldn't have to do it all over again. It was pretty clear to Logan that Scott was holding himself together with strings already, and Logan didn't want to make it worse. Especially since he still was avoiding admitting to him what had happened to put him in a wheelchair.
Scott still hung close by, though, sure that K might have questions, and he simply waited until she had processed everything. He was sure it was a lot to take in, after all.
K finally looked like she was ready to start crying at all of it before she turned to Scott. "Scott, are you okay? This had to be awful for you."
"I'm fine," Scott said.
"You're a liar. But a cute liar," she said. "And as soon as I polish off half of a cow, I'm going to come and find you and hug the living snot out of you. Fair warning."
"Well, at least I know it's coming," he said, shaking his head at her lightly. He looked between the two of them for a moment and nodded once. "Well, I'll let Annie know she has a project on her hands."
"It's not that big of a project," K argued as Logan pulled her a little closer and tried to shush her.
"Tell me that when you look a little less skeletal," Scott told her with an eyebrow raised.
"This is all the rage in Paris," she muttered. "I just need to emphasize the dark circles under my eyes. Fake eyelashes…. Start smoking again… maybe start using heroin to blend in..."
"You know you're not getting out of the kitchen once Annie sees you until she thinks you're fed to the brim, right?" Scott said.
"So she hasn't seen us is what you're saying?" Logan said with a chuckle.
"She's been busy," Scott said simply.
"Let her stay busy then," Logan said. "She's on more important matters."
"She's the one who made sure the doctors had something to eat once they came out of multiple surgeries these past few days," Scott said with an undeniably proud sort of tone. After he had stabilized, she had seemed to steady herself and then disappeared to the kitchen. He'd been glad to see her find something to do - and proud of her strength.
"She should keep doing that, then," K said, nodding. "They don't know how to take care of themselves."
"No one needs surgery anymore, K. Things have died down." Scott shook his head. "I'll let her know you're coming. You both know you need to eat anyway." He paused and smirked. "And if you wait too long, you'll get it in bed."
"I … am very comfortable right now," K said as Logan nodded along with her.
"Then I'll let her know that too," Scott said, nodding once to both of them before he simply maneuvered himself out of the room to go find Annie with a small smirk in place. At least Logan and K were alright.
"Thanks, Scott," Logan called back.