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"Solitude is the playfield of Satan."
-Vladimir Nabokov
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Chapter Thirty-Six: Satan's Little Playfield
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Sometimes, there's nothing we can do to make things right. Other times, we get the idea into our heads that we can change the world, if only we try hard enough. Most of the time, however, it's just a combination of the two: a wealth of helplessness with just enough hope remaining to spur our efforts on. The percentage of each is all that changes the equation.
Scott Summers knew this equation well. He'd lived most of his late childhood living in a perpetual state of powerless optimism, waiting for his day in the sun to come. He'd lost his parents far earlier than most people have to, and had been separated from his only brother for years afterward, as both boys were "settled". Things had worked out alright for Alex, for the most part, but Scott had been the stereotypical unwanted orphan for far too long for his tastes.
Xavier was the first person who came along that understood about his mutation, and, in fact, embraced it, and showed the frightened boy to do the same. Scott had been a member of the professor's first class of mutant trainees, along with Jean, long before any of the others had come along and joined. The wheelchair-bound telepath was his most resilient father figure, his source of guidance and reliability in a world that seemed to make no sense more often than it made any.
Now, Xavier lay helpless and silent on the hospital bed, his hands folded on his stomach in a sick parody of a corpse. He was draped in pale blue blankets, and his skin looked eerily like white clay, with sweat beads dotting his high forehead. Plastic tubes ran from his hands and throat, and a machine hummed alongside the bed as it breathed for him, pumping oxygen into his tattered lungs.
In all the time that Scott had known the man, he'd come to hardly notice his crippling disability. His teacher had always seemed far too disciplined and imposing to appear weak, too strict-faced and mentally capable to look like harm could ever come to him. The wheelchair was just another physical characteristic, like his Roman nose and severe eyebrows, rather than an outward sign of his paralysis.
But as he lay in that bed, looking feeble and undeniably old, Scott realized just how vulnerably mortal his mentor really was. And if the great Charles Francis Xavier was so vulnerable, meaning that the world's most powerful telepath and the guiding light in so many young lives was still susceptible to danger's clutch, then they all were, Scott realized with a jolt.
Scott clasped his hands together, trying to ignore the tug of exhaustion at his eyelids. He hadn't been to bed in nearly three days, although he occasionally fell asleep sitting in the hard-backed plastic chair beside the professor's bed. The others would trickle in periodically, usually staying for a few hours before a nurse would come in and usher them out, none of them having enough nerve to ask Scott to leave. From time to time, he could hear the nurses whispering about "that poor boy", and "such a horrible tragedy".
Hank and Moira had come in early that morning on a commercial jet, neither wanting any of the students to fly at the moment, and not wanting Storm or Logan to leave the kids behind at such a time, either. Their presences were warmly welcomed, and they had rushed to the hospital before they had even dropped off their bags at the mansion.
Moira, her auburn hair disheveled and her glasses slightly askew, was pacing, unable to sit still long enough to do much more than check the professor's vitals. She'd been determined to transfer Xavier back to the mansion where she and Hank could keep a closer eye on him in the infinitely superior medical bay there, rather than the "useless Yankee medi-quacks" at the hospital, as she had referred to the doctors. Hank, on the other hand, had remained considerably calmer, and had convinced the frantic Scotswoman that moving a coma patient could easily be more damaging than beneficial, and Moira had simply dropped into a chair for a long cry, with Kitty silently, softly stroking her upper back.
There was a faint rustling of sound in the doorway, and Scott glanced up to see Jean leaning against the doorjamb, her red hair coiled into a long, thick braid, and her arms crossed over her chest. She eyed him sadly for a moment, then pressed a gentle smile onto her lips and approached the bed. She came silently to his side, draping her arm over his shoulder and pecking his forehead with a tiny kiss. Her slim hand slipped onto his neck, cool and tender, squeezing the tensed muscles there.
"You go get something to eat. I'll stay here with them." She nodded hello to Hank, who smiled at her, the harsh neon light on the ceiling glinting off of his wire-framed glasses. Moira had collapsed against his enormous shoulder, suddenly asleep.
Scott shook his head. "Nah. I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten in more than forty-eight hours, Scott," Jean scolded kindly.
"I'm okay. Really."
She nodded, smiling crookedly. "I knew you'd say that. So I brought you food." She handed him a paper sack and a bottle of grapefruit juice, practically forcing them into his hands. "Eat."
Muffled in Hank's sleeve, eyes still clamped shut, Moira grumbled something almost unintelligible. "Eat yuir damn food, Scott. Ye hae nae eaten in too long, an' I won' hae ye faded t' nothing when Charlie wakes up. He'd hae me head on a pike, f'r sure."
"Later," Scott mumbled, shoving the food aside on the bedside table. Jean shook her head, but said nothing, and Hank looked relatively nonchalant. Moira sat up and yawned, patting Hank's side as if to brush away the memory of her head leaning there, slightly embarrassed.
Again, a sound in the doorway caused them all to look up, and Kitty stood there with Storm at her side. The tall, exotic woman's hands were wrapped around the base of a glossy, lushly leaved potted plant, with massive red blossoms hanging plumply from the branches, full of seeds like largely pregnant fruits. She placed it gently on the low table by the door, and glided in on soundless footsteps, nodding at Moira and Hank in the window seat and reaching down to smooth Scott's rumpled brow. Kitty hung back, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
"Have the doctors shared any recent news?" Ororo asked quietly, her voice a rich chocolate hum even with the drone of the air conditioner on the windowsill threatening to swallow her soft, deep tone. Jean shook her head sadly, and Moira harrumphed, rolling her eyes as if the idea that the doctors had made progress was laughable at best.
Kitty bit her lip and tried not to let her gaze linger on the professor's slack figure for too long, lest she burst into tears. "Why can't they, like, make some frigging progress? This is so totally ridiculous!"
Ororo patted the girl's hand, and turned to Jean, her expression serene but hopeful. "And what of you, Jean? Anything on a more intimate front?"
Jean sighed, dropping into a chair she'd dragged up beside Scott and leaning her cheek on her hand. Her face wore a hesitant mask. "I still can't get into his head, no matter how hard I try. He's there, just not…able to communicate. He's still too weak."
"But he isnae gone? Not completely?" Moira asked, her expression expectant.
"No, not at all. He's definitely nearby. His astral form is still present in his body, but when he lapsed…you know, into the coma, his mind sort of closed in on itself. I can't get in, and I don't know if he's trying to get out."
Glancing away, Hank rubbed absently at his face, trying not to let the others notice the moist glimmer in his behind his glasses. Moira was staring down at her shoes, and Scott's eyes still lingered solely on the professor. Jean rubbed his forearm gently, and noticed Kitty staring anxiously at her when she glanced around the room.
"What is it, Kitty? What's wrong?" Jean asked mentally, her narrow red eyebrows slanting inward slightly.
She saw the younger girl gulp heavily, trying to keep down her sadness. She clasped her palms together as if they were terribly cold. "Could…could I talk to you in the hallway, Jean? Please?"
Jean nodded and rose to her feet, saying nothing to the others, who understood the unheard message that had been passed between the two young women. Scott didn't seem to notice that the two were gone, but he shivered slightly when Jean's hand left his arm.
Jean shut the door softly behind her, not bothering to trouble herself with the undrawn, gauzy curtains on the other side of the thick window. She turned to face Kitty, and the slender brunette was already loosing the fight against her tears, and Jean soothed her quietly with a cool palm against her cheek.
"Is there something you want to talk about, Kitty?" she whispered, feeling the need to let her voice be heard outside of her skull, and hoping to calm Kitty with it.
"Have you…have you seen Kurt in the past day or two?"
Jean's fair eyebrows drew inward again, and her eyes looked momentarily pained. "Not much. He doesn't seem particularly eager to come out much these days. He's come to visit the professor a couple of times, but I don't think I've heard him even speak once."
Kitty sighed sadly, and it came out sounding like a desperate little moan. "I know! That's exactly what I mean! He's, like, so totally bummed…and worse than ever. I mean, I know he's sad, but I've never seen him so ripped up before. Never like this! Oh, God…it's never been like this."
She slid onto a bench outside the door, and Jean took a seat next to her, moving quickly in case the girl's feet went out underneath her before she sat all the way down. She looked pale and haggard, and her cheeks had lost their normal blush in exchange for an unhealthy ruddiness brought on by crying. Her eyes looked slightly red, and her hair hung loosely around her face, brushed and washed but no more styled than anyone else's at the moment.
Kitty tipped forward, her elbows resting on her knees and her face in her hands. Jean laid her fingertips across the base of the girl's skull, lightly playing against her hairline, and leaned forward to whisper, "It's going to be alright, Kitty."
With a burst of sudden speed, Kitty's head snapped back up, her eyes flashing. "How do you know? How do you know for sure? Kurt's more depressed than I've ever seen him, the professor's unconscious, and the little brat who did this did it because I upset her! I can't believe I couldn't just keep my big mouth shut for, like, once."
"Kitty, please. You know this isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault, really."
"'Cept Nat's."
Jean frowned, her lip curling back a bit into a tiny semi-growl. "Fine. You go ahead and blame her. Everyone else apparently does. But before you do, ask yourself one very important question: do you think Kurt blames her? If so, do you think he wants to? And if not, have you ever considered that this guilt-spreading game of ours might be exactly what's upsetting him so badly?"
The large blue eyes were cast downward, ashamed. "I…never really thought of that."
Jean sighed, shaking her head as if to loosen something irritating inside. "Whether or not she's responsible isn't what's most important right now. From what we saw, she's as guilty as sin, but we also have no way of knowing if that's accurate." She clapped her hands against her bare thighs, dressed in denim shorts. "I understand, Kitty. Really, I do. I've never been as angry at anyone as I am at her right now. But the important thing right now is sticking together and getting through this. And that includes Kurt, even if that means we can't exactly direct blame at anyone for the time being."
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Nat's hands were trembling, the heat of an unwanted flame traveling with stunning speed throughout her limbs. She squeezed her eyes shut forcefully, running her dry tongue against the back of her teeth and trying to concentrate on the voice on the telephone. Her own words sounded as if they were being spoken by another mouth, a mime inside a speaker listening to the sound of language as something foreign and inexplicable.
She'd tried to pretend that it didn't bother her, this idea of wandering aimlessly without a soul to confide in save a few friendly homeless boys and her own inner voice. In the conclusion, she had surrendered to the sense of necessity, the terrible fear that she was to end up without anything or anyone to lean on, forever.
So there it was. An agreement, hammered out on common terms between the speakers, one of whom was trembling with barely restrained eagerness, the other with a sense of disbelief at her own lack of self-control. A few words and sentences strung together in just the right pattern to change her life forever. There was no going back now. Not again.
On the other end of the line, Pietro smiled to himself.