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Chapter 6
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"Wolverine? You mean tall, dark, and hairy?" Cyclops whirled around to see the Blackbird landed with the main double doors wide open and Cecilia smirking at him. Seemed the impromptu flying lessons had done her good. "He's back at the mansion--Xavier's office. Come on." She ushered them all inside and, once the doors were securely shut, lifted off. "The professor knew he'd go nuts if he saw Creed here--safely sedated, by the way," she assured the worried-looking Cyclops as she explained. "So Xavier gave him some sort of telepathic tranquilizer before he sent us on our merry way." With a bit of a sigh Cecilia flipped the autopilot on and sank back in her seat. "That went smoothly," she observed after a few minutes of silence.
The team nodded. Well, Scott and Kurt nodded. Hank was still kicking himself for nearly killing that girl--Scott could have sworn he saw a comforting smile pass from Cecilia to him and wondered what was up--and Calvin had elected to drive the car home. "As smooth as any Sabretooth take-down could be," Scott replied. "Hank." The big, blue man looked up. "You know the records better than I do. Did you recognize--"
"No," Hank cut him off. "Hers was a visage that had not yet graced my presence."
That settled that. "For a while we all need to be on the look out for her, then. We don't know who she is or where she is but my bet is that she's going to be coming back for Creed." Scott doubted mansion security could work too well against a teleporter but he would do as much as he could to protect the students and the team. An avenging protegee was one of the most dangerous enemies possible--particularly if their mentor was someone like Victor Creed.
The ride back to the mansion was blessedly uneventful. Cecilia didn't even have to manually land the plane--the autopilot took care of even that. They maneuvered successfully into the hanger and everyone unloaded. Hank and Cecilia wheeled Sabretooth into the medical bay where they could keep a good eye on him until he woke up into a--hopefully--subdued state. Kurt had a class to prepare for so he quite literally disappeared back to his quarters to do so. Scott himself tracked back to Xavier's office both to report in and see how the latest mansion additions were doing. And to wait for Calvin to get back, but he would be returning any minute now.
The professor was engaged in a deep conversation with Theresa Cassidy when Scott arrived at the door. Not wanting to interrupt he waited patiently out in the hall but less than a minute later he heard the quiet voice in his head telling him to come right in, they weren't talking about anything important anyway. So he opened the door and stuck his head inside. "Good afternoon, Professor. Hello again, Miss Cassidy. Just wanted to let you know we're back and everything's fine.
Charles smiled softly. "Scott, you do not need to hide any of this from Theresa. She'll be joining us as a member of both the staff and the team. We've needed an art teacher for quite some time now, remember? And a flier as well I believe." Scott managed a nod. "Theresa, this is Scott Summers--the assistant headmaster of this school and our field leader when necessary. You will be able to meet the rest of our faculty in time. Now Scott, sit down and tell me exactly what happened." This was not completely necessary of course as the professor could dig through his mind for the information much more quickly but Charles' ethics prevented him from ever doing this to anyone.
And so Scott did so. "Not a whole lot to report, sir," he admitted. "Sabretooth is safely sedated in the med lab and when he awakens he should remain calm--Hank and Cecilia are taking care of that." Brute force and defense should be enough to take care of Creed, especially a heavily tranquilized Creed. "But apparently he had someone working with him that we had no idea about--a young girl, a teleporter. None of us recognized her. I'm going to alert the mansion to keep an eye out for her, just in case she come to get him back."
"She will," Xavier assured him. Scott looked oddly confused so he elaborated. "Erik has mentioned her before, in passing conversation. Her name is Clarice, I got no last name to go with that. She's been working with Victor since before she really understood what he did for a living and now that she does know she doesn't really care. She and Victor are like family and there is no way she is going to leave him here with people she now considers enemies. Trust me on that."
Scott closed his eyes, an action invisible under his visor. Visor--he was still wearing it. Needed to change into his glasses soon. "I'll have people keep a look out for her, try to stop her when she does show up. We need to be able to question Creed before he's broken out. Okay." He paused to take a breath. "Thank you for that information, sir." Scott stood, preparing to leave.
"Scott?" the professor called. "Would you do me a favor? Show Theresa around?"
Scott glanced at the pretty young woman who had turned to look up at him. Theresa was smiling, a smile with an indistinguishable emotion behind it but one that was clearly a cross between an apologetic grin and a smirk. And consisted much more of the latter. Scott managed to smile back at her. "I can do that. Shall we?" Theresa stood and, after saying good-bye to the professor, followed him out of the room. "So," he said to her once they stood in the hallway. "Any room in particular you'd like to see?"
"Aye," she admitted. "Yuir cafeteria, if you dinnae mind. Haven't eaten since breakfast."
~~~ In the Next Two Hours ~~~
They had started at the cafeteria and had a very late lunch--Scott hadn't eaten in a while either. Some of the students seemed amazed to see their recluse of a math teacher venturing out in the open again. Then they toured the upper floors; third, then second. The top floor was faculty only. Xavier had his suite at the end of the hall, away from as many minds as possible. The other suite was empty as Scott had moved into a single room when Jean left. Kurt, Hank, and Calvin also had rooms on that same floor, giving it the nickname 'Bachelors' Pad'. Cecilia lived on the second floor, with the students. As she was the first of the new faculty to arrive she should have gotten a third-floor room but they needed a woman to take Ororo's spot as female chaperone with the kids. When Calvin got there he became the other teacher on that floor, but got a new room when Logan took his place as "lowest on the pecking order". Unless Cecilia didn't want to move all her stuff, Theresa would probably be getting the other woman's room on the second floor while Cece moved to the empty one upstairs. The third floor housed a small faculty lounge with a television, couches, a computer, and even a small refrigerator--just a place to relax. There was also an attic that led onto the roof, but that was mainly used as a greenhouse where Ororo kept her plants. On the second floor, students were two or three to a room with girls on one end of the hall, boys on the other, and the staff rooms right there in the center.
The first floor was a little more complex. Next to the cafeteria was a big kitchen where all meals were prepared and beside that was another small room, one with a fridge and a microwave where the staff could cook their own meals in peace, or jut hang out on occasions. Down the hall was a break room with another television and a foosball table, a few more computers, and three big bay windows. The rest of the computers lived either in the many faculty offices--there was one for Charles, one for Scott, one for Kurt, and one for Calvin, but there was an empty room Theresa could use if she wanted--or lived in the library, along with shelves upon shelves of books. The rest of the first floor was made up of a maze of halls, bathrooms, stairwells, and the elevator.
The elevator, mainly installed for the professor, ran from the third floor all the way down to the basement. The basement was the most interesting part of the entire mansion. "I'm sure the professor told you about the X-Men, and our operations." He had. "We work out of the basement areas here as they're restricted to everyone but the team, and a few of the older students. Down here we've got our training rooms, our hanger bay, our meeting rooms, and the medical laboratory. Hank's domain--well, Hank and Cecilia's domain. They should be down here." Scott beckoned for Theresa to follow him as he made his way to the closed doors of the med lab. "Hank is an old friend of mine; really nice guy, kind of hard to miss. Cecilia got here about two weeks ago, so I don't know her very well. Hank knows her best."
Oh wow. Definitely knows her best. Scott didn't know quite what to think, much less say, when he opened the med lab doors to find Hank and Cecilia pretty much sitting in the same chair. Sitting in the same chair with their arms wrapped around each other and both lab coats on the floor--though those were the only discarded articles of clothing so far--and . . . Oh wow. Definitely unexpected. But while Scott was struck speechless Theresa had no such impediment.
"Don't mind us."
Cecilia and Hank both sat up with a start, quickly disentangling themselves and each looking like a child with their hand caught in the cookie jar. Scott was still trying to sort things out in his head, trying to see just how those two personalities had meshed in the first place. Hank was an exuberant, giddy research scientist with a penchant for Twinkies and big words. Cecilia was, well, sarcastic and cynical. A realist, she called herself--with a pessimistic streak a mile wide, everyone else added. He just couldn't see how such radically different personality types worked so well together. It had to be more than just the age-old cliché of "opposites attract". Maybe Cecilia's attitude was just a front, that was always a possibility. God knows it was something he had tried several times. But wait, Hank was saying something.
Of the two, Hank was the first to regain his composure. Cecilia was still blushing to the roots of her hair. "My apologies, I did not realize anyone would be venturing to my humble abode."
Abode it was, but humble it most certainly was not. The medical bay was packed wall to wall with state-of-the-art technology and some of the most highly advanced research on the planet. As always, Hank was being modest about the fact that he had invented a good portion of it himself. "No need to excuse yourself, Hank." Scott finally managed to spit something out. "We're all adults. However, had we been some of the kids coming through the door . . . you two would be subject to some wild rumors, at least." He smirked to let them know he was kidding. Well, half-kidding. Even though they were only kidding, teenagers would take any story and expound on it to their hearts' content. "I was just showing Miss Cassidy around the mansion. Hank, you may remember her father Sean. Miss Cassidy, these are Doctors Henry McCoy and Cecilia Reyes."
"I remember your father fondly," Hank told her as he warmly shook her hand. "And my first name is indeed Henry but most do call me Hank."
"Cecilia," the other doctor introduced herself. "And unlike the resident fur-ball, I did not know your father."
The redhead grinned. "Call me Terry, or Theresa if you must. 'Miss Cassidy' is too old for me."
Both doctors returned the smile, and once again Hank was the first to speak. He turned back to Scott, his comments obviously directed towards the man in the glasses. "Am I correct in my assumption that your journey had other reasons behind it than just to startle the lovely lady and myself?" he asked, his tone joking and now growing serious. "If you wish to speak to the latest addition to the infirmary, first allow me to revive him. His is fast asleep but I am only administering enough sedative to keep him on the brink of consciousness so it will not take long for me to bring him around."
"In short," Cecilia translated for a very confused Theresa. "Sabretooth's out of it, but we're feeding him just enough sleeping pills to keep him under. He can be up in a minute or five."
Theresa nodded slowly. "Ah."
Scott nodded as well, but for another reason. "We don't want him loose, just awake."
"Understood, mon capitan," Hank replied with a mock salute as he motioned for the other three to follow him into a separate room. This room was divided by a pane of unbreakable glass somewhere around the one third mark, leaving the larger portion beyond their reach. Behind the glass lay a soundly sleeping Victor Creed, some of his blond hair falling over his mouth and nose and fluttering with every breath he took. Terry stifled a giggle--the man they had all been so worried about, scared of even, was sleeping like a baby. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dr. McCoy move to some controls that had to be hooked into the IVs feeding directly into Victor's prone body. A dial was turned, a button pushed, and they all sat back to wait for him to wake up. Hank looked from Cecilia to Theresa to Scott and asked, "Do you wish for us to vacate the room, so as you may converse with him alone?"
Scott shook his head in response. "Power in numbers. He wakes up to see four he's going to be more subdued than if he wakes up to one." And so they stayed.
Cecilia's estimate of "a minute or five" was more correct than she had expected. At four minutes and thirty-seven seconds--according to a digital timer--creed began to twitch. Moved a hand, then an arm, then opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He focused on the one familiar figure among the four and immediately understood what had happened and where he was. He bared his teeth and gave a half-hearted growl. "Where is she?" he demanded.
Scott took over the questioning. "Where is who?"
"You know who I'm talking about. What did you do to her?" He was eyeing a slightly guilty-looking Hank. The doctor had always been a terrible liar.
"That I do," Scott admitted with a bit of a smirk. "And I must say, you did a very good job of training her. Very quick little thing she is." Scott couldn't help but see how proud Creed looked. "But we aren't here to discuss Clarice. You went through Wolverine's files. Why?"
Creed glared, baring his teeth once again. "You self-centered fucks," he hissed, the speakers that let them communicate barely picking it up. He was becoming more and more alert so Hank manipulated a few controls and administered another small dosage of sedative. "You think yer Canuck was the only one they ever experimented on? You think I wouldn't want to know about myself? I didn't go through his files--they were gone. So were mine, and anyone else who escaped." He paused, then smirked at the confusion across all four faces. "You think everything's about you, don't you? I ain't working for Mags no more--unless you really piss me off, I don't give a shit about you--"
If he was going to say anything more it was cut off as Scott motioned for Hank to up the sedatives. Creed yawned and drifted back into unconsciousness. The four of them in the control room looked around and each other and Cecilia finally asked what they were thinking. "So, what now?"
Silence reigned for another few moments, then Scott spoke. "We're keeping him here," he said with all the authority he could muster. "The Clarice he mentioned, she's like his protegee but she's only a kid. She needs a proper home and education. Friends her own age, that sort of thing. When she comes to get him back we'll convince her to stay. But for now--" He looked pointedly at the two doctors who glanced at each other before returning his gaze. "I know you two haven't eaten lunch. Take Theresa back upstairs with you, introduce her to people. I'll keep an eye out down here." They gratefully accepted and Scott watched as the three of them left the room, Hank's arm slipping around Cecilia's slender waist as she briefly rested her head on his shoulder. That reminded Scott--he was going to have to talk to Cecilia later. If she even thought about hurting Henry McCoy . . .
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A/N: Ideas for mansion lay-out were borrowed from Left Turn At Westchester.