Lucky Me
Chapter 043
I woke up and that was a nice thing to do. It was even nicer that I couldn't feel my wing. But the best thing was my being able to breathe again. Of course, I looked weird, or at least I think I did, because I had an oxygen mask over my face.
My eyes burned, but I was able to see everything. No more black taking over my vision, and that was, again, a blessing. I swear I thought I was going to sit down with Death and talk about the Giants or something equally as weird when I was lying in the water.
"Look who's alive!" Said a voice that put my heart at ease. Dr. Hank. He strolled over to me, I think I was in the Med. Lab, and started to poke and prod me, I didn't feel anything.
I felt tears of relief start to sting under my eyelids. I couldn't believe I was going to start crying. If Dr. Hank was okay, that meant Stacey was probably okay, too. I didn't see how they survived, or why he was trying to help me, I thought for sure he'd be more than willing to let me sit and suffer after letting him meet the ground in a fast way.
"You had us worried," he continued, "I need to go get Cecilia, so stay put, all right Miss Summers?"
Where the heck else was I going to go? An animal hospital?
Wait...Summers?
Scott! I forgot! He, I think, was there. But I remembered something about Dad. It was Dad who got me out of the water, wasn't it? But the pink flash, the guy with the gun? My head hurt. I couldn't even think straight.
But that's okay, because I felt like I was about to pass ou-
"Hello!"
That was one voice I didn't want to wake up to, but when the jerk was screaming in my ear, I really didn't want to wake up to it.
Chris glared at me as I opened my eyes. Gee, what a joyful sight.
"Talk about lame! She gets hurt, and sleeps for a month!"
A month!
"Don't dramatize things, stupid. She's only been out for a few days." It was D-M, I guess Thanksgiving had come and gone. What day was it? "Dork."
"Can you two of respect for the dead?" Bobby-Jerk asked, wonder why he's down here?
"She's not dead, Robert," Dr. Hank corrected, thank you very much! A dead person wouldn't have to listen to this junk.
Dead, wow, I came so close. Just like Dad, but I didn't die-I didn't...because of Scott.
Saved twice by men who I had their last name.
Both saved my life, I didn't want to think about all it implied to my new life, so I wouldn't.
I couldn't focuse very well, but I saw Dr. Hank chasing a few of them out of the room, Adrian, Bobby, and Chris. D-M bent down to look at me face to face.
"You look bad." Wasn't she just so sympathetic? I couldn't talk; my throat was raw and probably badly damaged with all the hacking and gagging I did. "But Ah'm going to help you, kay?"
Like I would object, like I could object.
"Ah can't heal your wing, but the rest of you, Ah can. At least Ah think Ah can." D-M glanced over to where I think Dr. Hank was standing, and then I felt her hands on my arm.
Ever felt a numb pain? Does that make any sense? I felt uncomfortable, but it wasn't like being cut, it was more of being itchy. My arms and legs tingled, my back I couldn't feel, and they probably had me heavily sedated.
My eyesight started to clear even more. I felt my throat tickle to the point of coughing, but by the time I was able to cough, it didn't tickle anymore. My face was hot and dry, but it too went away like the throat thing.
"Ah-Ah think Ah got it all," D-M said, stumbling backwards.
I think Dr. Hank caught her, but I was not sure, I was out again, feeling a lot better.
If waking up to Chris' bad attitude was the worst way, then the best way to wake up after being damaged like I was, was to him. No, I wasn't talking about in the same bed or anything, please, I took up half the room. No, I wasn't calling myself fat, but my wings were outstretched and considering how long they were, I took up half the room.
Back to him. I woke up when I felt someone touch my face. I usually was a serious don't-touch! type girl, but I gotta say, he felt nice. Apparently hair in my face was driving him crazy or something because it was my bangs he was messing with.
My eyes got a mind of their own as they, for the first time in my existence, fluttered (I kid you not) open and looked up at him.
"Welcome back," he smiled, and he really shouldn't, he really didn't have to because he was talking in that deep voice. Whenever he smiled, he made me want to smile back. And I tried, but my throat was still semi-sore, though nothing like it was before D-M worked her voo-doo on it. "You scared us."
I wanted to laugh it off, but I couldn't and probably never would. That stupid episode made me remember some rather painful things about my dad's death. It hurt to even think it.
"What the hell are you doin' here?" Chris' oh-so-loving voice asked.
He turned around, "What the hell are you doing here? Visiting your little girlfriend?"
"That might be your reason; I'm just coming to see how pathetic she looks!" Chris was such a bad liar. Everyone could see that he and D-M was a thing, but not at school, and no one could ever understand why.
Sort of like me and him. He never acknowledged me more than he had to outside of the private times. I could only guess he was going to leave now as well.
"Yeah right, tell me another, Chris," he said, turned back to me, smiled, and started to get up to go.
I made a noise, something that was supposed to mean 'Screw him, and stay here' in the nicest way possible, of course, but all that came was a pathetic noise which got him to turn, lean over to my ear and whisper.
"I'll be back when there isn't such an audience." And then smile.
Dang him and that smile!
Oh not to mention he did that whole trace-the-jaw-line-with-his-finger thing.
"Kerry?" It was Professor Xavier; I swear I never saw half these people as frequently as when I was hurt. Although I hadn't seen Scott or Professor, and here the Prof just chopped it down to one person.
I wasn't bothered by it, really. I mean after all, the guy did save my life, so I shouldn't ask any more from him.
"I see you are doing better." Yeah, my skin wasn't messed up anymore, but my wing was still a throbbing numbness. "I'm sorry this was your first experience on the field. Let me assure you that this is not typical. Minor missions such as this usually run much smoother."
Oh thank you for making me feel better. Not only did the newbie get hurt, nearly kill two of her teammates, but it was all done on a minor mission. One that should have gone off without a hitch.
And getting shot, I wouldn't be surprised it was initiation around here for going on the field. Professor smiled at my thoughts apparently, I couldn't speak (hadn't tried) because of the plastic cup covering my mouth and nose.
"You have a unique ability," to get hurt and embarrass myself, "to adapt to whatever comes your way. It is a rare and highly sought after quality in this line of work."
Wonder if I didn't have this supposed quality how long it would take me to get fired from this job?
"Do you remember anything from the time Cyclops found you until you woke up here?"
This was an interesting question. Of course I didn't remember anything. I wasn't conscious to do any remembering and it was a very good thing in my book!
He nodded, and went on to tell me that it was about week since I got shot, and so on and yadda yadda yadda. Hurt people are not captive audiences for this guy to torture, I knew his speeches were important, but would someone just get me the cliff notes, please?
I bit at being a good student, didn't I?
I'd tune back in to his talking eventually, but my mind was on anything but the wounded wing, the blood, and him.
AGH! I didn't want to think about those things and they were the first things I thought of! Someone stop me!
"Hey, there." He was back around three in the morning. "Sorry I didn't come back earlier, monitor duty." He rolled his eyes. "I think I like you when you can't back talk."
But I could glare, I could still glare!
My eyes were already half-lidded, and with the plastic thing on my face, the power of the glare lost its depth.
"I thought you might want this guy." He pulled Stitch from behind his back. I couldn't move a lot but I was able to take my little friend and stuff him under my arm. He must have been carrying the little blue guy (Hank Jr. according to some) for a while, it smelt like him (yeah, I cheated and took the plastic thing off for a bit).
He apparently didn't know a sick girl's glare because he did that thing that made my sedated brain melt. He did the touching-the-face thing again. I was glad they didn't have me hooked up to a heart monitor or Dr. Hank would have been down here asking why it was going through the roof.
"I brought some entertainment for you." That scared me. "Let me just get the TV hooked up." He then went to work, I tried to keep my eyes open, but Dr. Cecilia said I would sleep a lot more than normal because of the trauma to my wing. Apparently I was shot at the base of my left wing. The bullet went clean through the bone, muscle, and skin and came out of the other side. It would take the average four to six weeks for it to be useable again.
Mr. Warren said I had to learn how to fly again.
Mrs. Jean told him my thoughts that I better not end up on another ice pillar with Cyclops taking shots at me.
For some reason, Mr. Warren said he doubted Scott would even look at me much less shoot at me for the next eight years or so.
"I think you'll appreciate my movie choice if I do say so myself." And then he hit play, if I had the ability, I would have laughed. He had picked, Miss Congenitally, and then after that was Lilo and Stitch.
I fell asleep sometime after the Elvis Stitch scene. I never even heard him leave.
"My dear, dear Miss Summers," Dr. Hank, got to love a morning person doctor who always woke you up at seven on the dot. "I believe you will no longer need this lovely breathing aid, and will be able to sit up for the rest of your stay here. Isn't that nice?"
He took the cup off my face, "Won...d..ful..."
"I'll get some cough drops for your throat, be back in two shakes of a Nightcrawler's tail." That will leave you with an interesting visual image. I tried to get up, after a week or more on your stomach, you kind of start to get sick of it. But as soon as I tried, the pain ripped through me again and I ended up falling back onto my face.
"Genius," someone remarked, and I felt a pair of hands aiding me up to a sit-lean position. I was on my right side, with the top of the bed reclining forward. Mr. Warren then came into view. "You shouldn't have tried to move by yourself. Take it from someone that knows from experience."
His wings twitched as if saying 'Hey! That's not funny!', they made me smile.
"You know, I'm really taking it on the chin about the mess up." Mess up! Don't tell me they were trying to say I was to blame for this whole thing. It's not like I wore a sign reading 'shoot me please, I like laying on my side and being jabbed with needles'!
Then again, I was wearing the 'X' symbol, and if that didn't scream shoot me, nothing would.
I could joke about it, only because it's my defense mechanism.
Some funny thing, ha ha.
I hated guns.
"They think they need to step back on your training." Step back? Last I heard they were going to start going hard and heavy on me as soon as I was able to move without screaming in agony. "I think it had something to do with what you said to Scott."
I didn't get a chance to ask what it was I said to Scott, but I had a bad feeling it was probably related to why Professor Xavier asked if I remembered anything from the time I was found to the time I woke up. Maybe it would also explain why Scott never came around. Mrs. Jean made excuses and came to visit almost as frequently as him, but she didn't stay half as long.
"If it isn't the other fair-feathered mutant of Xavier's. Came to visit the pupil I see." Dr. Hank handed me the cough thingies, "Or did you just come to prove the old saying about birds of the same feather?"
Oh, brother.
I wasn't bothered by it, heck no. He could do whatever he darned well pleased. I didn't care. I was a teenager I was supposed to rebel against any parent figures in my life, right? Right.
Then why the heck was I still thinking about it?
Everyone kept referring back to something I said when I was out of it. Personally I thought I shouldn't be held accountable for anything said when I was out of it, because I didn't know what I said and I didn't know what I was saying then most likely.
But what was it?
And since when the heck have I actually wanted Scott to pay attention to me? No funny ideas about me wanting attention, because I didn't mean it in that way thankyouverymuch.
It's just that, I don't know, I guessed I kind of got used to the idea to having him always there for me, and Scott. Even though in Scott's case it was mostly just annoying ways. He was the one to put me on the diet and everything, but I'd broken down in front of both of them. But Scott was actually nice to me, and not messing with my head like he was.
One minute he's all over me, and the next, it was like, "Kookie, Kookie who?"
It messed with a girl's head.
I didn't think Scott and Jean were going to be like that. But I guess I was wrong, I wa just little Miss Tax-break. Man, it bites. Why should I care? And why didn't they give me enough morphine to knock me out? I had nothing else to do but think, and if it kept going I was going to end up a philosopher!
I woke up, again.
It had been a week and a half since I got shoved in here, I was supposed to be able to go back to school the next Monday (oh yippee, look at me do a back flip for joy). But back to the reason I woke up.
For a moment I had to analyze the situation (as I was trained to do -ha-ha- and not to mention thinking was the only thing I was allowed to do).
My throat finally worked as I let out an ear-piercing scream.
The drugs had worn off, and due to the pain, my natural reaction to pull my wings to my body to try and protect me; this in turn, ripped the stitches out of place.
This caused me to start crying, and more screaming, but it was so hoarse that I didn't think anyone would hear me, not even Wolverine. I could barely see with the tears in my eyes and the feathers in front of my face. I couldn't stand to move my wings again, and I felt the sticky, hot blood soak into my sheets and thin hospital gown.
"...heee...lll..." It was supposed to be 'help' but it was an accurate description of how I felt.
It was like I had been shot all over again.
Then I saw someone, walking past the door. Several someone's in fact, they must have been dismissed from the Danger Room session or something. After all it was a Friday night, no one had a life around this house (yeah right). I tried to call out to them.
No one heard. They were too busy making enough noise to wake the dead, or to let a dying girl die without notice. I tried again and again, my tears choking out the volume I might have been able to gain, but it hurt! I felt like all my feathers had become knives stabbing at every nerve in my left wing, and sending white lightening through my body.
I was going to bleed to death. That was the only thought pumping like my heart beat in my mind. I was going to pass out from the pain, and slowly bleed to death because no one would come to check on me. I didn't want to die!
I was way too stubborn to die in such a pathetic way! I didn't do anything yet! I couldn't die! I was supposed to breed, and become (in some weird way) a role model for Mr. Bishop, what kind of role model didn't live long enough to ever use a freakin' driver's license?
So I, with the blinding, ripping pain surging through me, fought it back long enough to find Stitch and chunk him across the room, and out the doorway.
Bobby-Jerk had to be the one who found it! Oh man! That guy would probably use it for a sacrifice or something to himself!
"Hey, Hank! You've been trying to clone yourself or something?" Bobby-Jerk joked, then tossed it back into the room, and through my tears and sore throat, I was going to say some nasty things about that brat.
I was going to die because Iceboy found my cry for help and threw it back in my face! When I looked up again, I heard someone come back, and then scream for Hank.
Bobby-Jerk must have realized something was wrong. Good for him.
"Hank! Get in here! Kookie's bleeding all over the place!"
I would have to thank him later.
After I hurt him.
I would definitely thank him, but the hurting had to come first. He could have noticed earlier, ya know!
"And the cast is complete and she can be made mobile again!" Dr. Cecilia then went through the dos and don'ts when having a broken bone. After that lovely little mind-numbing monologue, I was finally allowed to live on the outside. Not that seeing him and watching different movies was a bad thing, but not being able to take a shower was. He offered to give me a sponge bath and I twisted the hair on his arm and croaked for him to stop being perverted.
As for the person who I was supposes to look up to as my new 'father figure' he never once showed up. And I said I wouldn't let it bug me, but it did. How could you help someone then completely forget they existed, like you didn't care or something? That wasn't right.
I wobbled out of the Med. Lab, glad to be freed from the place and hoping I wouldn't have to be back there any time soon. After the episode of me ripping my stitches out, I made it worse by making the slice in my skin even bigger. That really had nothing to do with anything, but I felt like sharing.
"Kookie," Oh man! I wasn't even half way to the house part of the mansion before I was being bugged about something. "Could you come with me?"
It was Mrs. Jean, and what was I going to say? I could say 'no' but this lady had come to visit, not to mention adopted me. So I followed her.
"How's your throat?"
"..k.."
"I see, I know you don't like it when I speak telepathically to you, so I'll just guess at your responses." Whoops, I didn't mean for my dislike of mind leeches to be that strong.
"..where?" I managed to get out.
"There's something in the hanger I wanted to show you." We got to the doors; they opened, and guess what we did? We went in. Wow. That was a surprise. Sorry, but my defense mechanism was still on code red. She turned on the lights and the whole four football fields or longer tunnel came to life and in the middle stood the Blackbird.
Actually, it looked like a fried Blackbird, one that had been on the grill for way too long. Wires hung from beneath it like guts, the windshield was shattered on one side, and the other was just gone. Metal was scorched and dented, I didn't mean like lighter-and-hammer kind of thing, I mean like the-army-used-it-for-target-practice-with-their-latest-tanks kind of thing.
How on earth did they manage to get this thing back to New York in one piece?
"Take it from someone who knows the man," Mrs. Jean started, coming up next to me as I examined the underside of the plane. "He isn't the first to say how he feels."
"...w..ho?"
"Scott." At his name I turned my nose up in the air and tried to make like I didn't give a fig. If he was wishy-washy then I didn't need a 'dad' like that. No one could ever replace my real Dad, but I did miss having that aspect in my life, no one but those like me could ever understand.
"..dun...care."
I glanced at her and she smiled and shook her head.
"Of course not," Mrs. Jean came right beside me to look at a particular nasty spot by the hatch. "Even if you don't have his blood in you, you sure act like him."
Same thing Dr. Hank said, but I just took it as an insult.
"..how..?" I asked, jabbing my thumb to the plane.
"We all saw you go down," her tone dropped, "Storm and I were able to get Hank and Stacey before they hit, but not even Rogue or Angel could catch up with you, and then you disappeared into the woods. Scott told everyone to start looking."
Wasn't that nice of him.
"But after ten minutes, no one could catch feather or scent of you, and Storm, to protect us from being tracked too easily started to make it rain. That messed up Logan's senses to the point he said everywhere had your 'friggin' scent'." She smiled as she quoted him, and then looked me in the eyes. "Normally, Scott commands us to leave, because the people we went up against started to pull out their bigger guns, but he wouldn't retreat. We had to fight them back for hundreds of yards, until our backs were against the Blackbird."
So what she was telling me, I guessed, was that even though it put the whole team in jeopardy, Scott refused to leave without me? Was I that big of a tax-cut?
I heard her snort (no, I was not being mean, but the lady actually snorted).
"Scott doesn't have the easiest times showing he cares. But he does, Kerry, your his kid now. Once you let us adopt you, you became ours and Scott is very protective of the people he loves. But he's lost so many people over the years that he keeps it all inside and sometimes he comes off as cold."
No kidding.
"I just wanted you to know," Mrs. Jean smile softened as she began to lead me out of the hanger (I was going to be able to take a shower again! It's a good thing my hair was black so no one can see how dirty it really was). "Don't be too hard on him."
What was I going to do? Fuss at him for not coming when he saved me? Oh yeah, I was that rude. "..sure.." then another thought struck my mind. "..wh..t...did..I..sey..too...'im?" I told you my throat was in pain.
"You," she seemed stunned, "Don't remember?"
If I did remember, why the heck would I ask about it? Just because I liked the memory or something? A memory that I did not have.
"You, you said you loved him, and," I could feel my eyes pop from their sockets, Oh heavens, please say I didn't say my drugged, short-on-blood-supply thoughts had been spoken. "You even called him Dad."
Oh, my puppies.
