Lucky Me
Chapter 106
It took a few days, but Dr. Hank was finally convinced that I was okay to run out of the med. lab. It just so would happen that as soon as I left there, I ran into Bobby. Now, for those of you who were keeping track, this was the guy I confessed to loving who, in turn, didn't say anything equally as shocking.
Lately, before the demented voice from nowhere turned Julie against me and controlled Mr. Logan's emotions enough to go feral and jump after me like a rabid wolf, I had been learning how to sneak around the house without seeing Bobby. Whenever he was down visiting me in the med. lab, I would fake sleep.
So needless to say I wasn't too chatty with him when he met me outside the door.
"Hey, good to see your back on your feet." Though he kept trying to get me on my back-wait! No! Bad thought! Bad thought!
"Yeah, well, uhm, can't become a professional couch potato until after I become rich." I laughed nervously and tried to get around him, but he stood in my way. I would step to the left; he'd step to the left. You get the idea.
"Going somewhere?" He asked, that cute little smile on his lips.
"Yeah, away from here before Dr. Hank decides I need another shot in the behind."
He flinched at that. Hmm, so it would seem that he has felt the pleasure of having the needle in a "fleshy" part of him as well.
"I'll come with you." Bobby smiled and let me pass but kept in step with me as I went down the corridor.
I was at a loss, I felt my cheeks fire up when I remembered the last time I was alone with him. It slipped out! Really! It did! Did I lie? No. Should I say that it was a lie? Maybe. But lying about it would require me bringing it up, something that made my blood turn yellow and my nose and mouth morph into a beak.
My destination was the kitchen. I was hoping that everyone was in there eating, fighting, or doing whatever else was able to be done in the kitchen in broad daylight.
No one. Not even a mouse or a cockroach was there.
Great.
Completely and utterly alone with Bobby.
Normally, I would be doing mental back handed flips of joy but right now with all these questions unanswered I wasn't doing anything but wanting to be in the middle of the Danger Room with ten sentinels pointing their guns at me.
"You're quiet." He stated, as I walked from cabinet to cabinet taking the things out I needed to make something to eat.
Pretending not to have heard his question, "Hungry?"
He smirked and came in for the kill. I had no time to do much of anything but squeak in surprise as his lips quickly meet mine. My eyes grew large before (on their own violation I swear!) they closed and I, again, just melted.
Gross and gushy? Trust me; it's not if you were part of it. I felt him smile against my lips because of the reaction. He broke off the kiss and looked down at me, my head was spinning. He was grinning and I was having a hangover.
Bobby finally stepped away and I tried to focus on something besides his presence. Like an ice cold wave, I remembered. There was a difference in the way I saw him and in the way he saw me. I loved him and he wasn't so enthralled with me, or at least he didn't tell me that. I needed to know that.
"Bobby?" I questioned; he tipped his head to the side, waiting. "I—"
"OH GROSS!" A scream made me jump and check out the door. Adrian was there, his face contorted in utter disgust. "Come on, people have to eat in here you know!"
Blushing, I forgot about my stomach and booked it out of the kitchen.
"You can't be real!" I jumped to my feet as I glared Chris down. "When did you ever get a say so in my life?"
"Since I am a part of your team, limp brain." He gave me, what I considered to be a very wicked and smug grin.
"Children, this is not the way to resolve this." Professor tried to calm us down but because he called us 'children' it only serve to further irritate us both.
"How many times do I have to tell you that it isn't your business!" He'd been doing this for about a week (10 days since the insane whacko nearly killed me via Wolverine) and he had been going on and on about how I wasn't ready for heavy work again. It was just a few cracked ribs for Pete's sake!
"I'll keep this up until you stop trying to kill yourself!"
"And I'm never trying to kill myself, you dolt. And even if I was, it's none of your business! Dr. Hank said I was fine so shut-up about me not being fit enough for the field!" He sucked in a deep breath and sat back down in his chair. I followed his example but crossed my arms and huffed in annoyance.
"Chris, will you please state as to why you think Kookie should not be allowed into any Danger Room or Field exercises?" Professor shot me a look, "and Kookie, let him finish this time."
"Like I said before, I'm not doing this to be a prick." Professor raised an eyebrow at that. Storm got an amused look on her face for some warped reason. "I saw her falter in the Danger Room just two day ago. She was supposed to lift something up that was only a hundred pounds and she nearly collapsed under the pressure. Later, she was holding her sides and gritting her teeth and things like that."
"Is this true, Blyt?"
"No." I could feel Chris' eyes narrow on me. "I did trip up but that because a second before I had to lift that thing, a simulated mutant had me in a crush hold. If Mr. Super-Observant would have truly been watching, he would have seen that." This time, I wore the smug expression.
Storm looked down at the Professor who held his eyes steady on Chris and me. They were both silent for a few minutes before the Professor spoke up.
"It would seem that there was a simple misunderstanding. I can see where you would be concerned that Blyt's recent injuries might be more severe than we thought, but she has passed the medical examine and has been able to move about freely with no hindrance giving evidence of being injured."
Ha ha! Eat that Mr. Know-it-all-brat-child!
"However," Uh-oh. "To put all our minds at ease, I will request that you, Kookie, take another examine. Since you assure us there is nothing wrong, I will assume there will be no protesting?"
Heh, fancy way of saying that if I didn't do this, it'd send up a red flag in everyone's mind. But more than that, it would prove that Chris was right and I was hiding something. I was hiding the fact that my injuries were a bit more of a pain than I let on, but I wasn't going to be 'grounded' from working with my team.
"Fine with me, I have nothing to hide."
"Then do so now," Professor prompted. "And Chris, please remember to keep your own feelings out of team choices."
His jaw was so tight I thought his bottom teeth would be embedded into his nose. He got up to go, and I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." Chris muttered under his breath.
Once we were both outside, I turned to him. "I guess you got-"
"He was wrong. Don't even think I still like you or anything." Chris' blue eyes narrowed as he pointed a finger at me. "I did this because you are a weak link in the team right now. If I have to depend on this team to save my ass, I want them to be in their best condition. You aren't and you know it. You aren't going to be the one who gets killed because you have this inferiority complex."
I took this all coolly. "Keep your eyes elsewhere then on me."
"Don't see anything that's not there." He ground out in a low voice before backing off. It was like his previous actions disgusted him now and Chris wanted to make believe that it didn't happen. He wanted to pretend that he didn't make an idiot out of himself. Heh, if he only knew how many of our problems were similar this go around, he'd be amazed.
"Whatever." I repeated his earlier statement and turned to go to the medical lab.
I looked at the X-rays that were up on the light dock thing.
Dr. Hank was saying how the bones were fine and went into elementary mode because Chris was there. He was saying how there wasn't anything wrong with me. My bones were whole and any slight fractures were healed.
But I saw them.
There were three, two on one rib, one on another. I felt it, but I guess my adrenaline took over the pain or something. But how come Dr. Hank wasn't seeing it? Not to mention Chris was begrudgingly agreeing to seeing nothing.
"So, Mr. Bradley, are you satisfied?" Beast gave the boy a toothy grin and Chris admitted defeat.
"Maybe it doesn't show it here, but I know what I saw." With that, he turned and left. I soon followed Chris after having Dr. Hank reaffirm that perhaps I should be a bit more careful when it came to the danger room exercises.
I was confused, I know I saw the fractures or cracks or whatever. But how come they didn't?
Thinking it over for a day, I reached a conclusion and set out trying to find where Jean was currently hiding. I found her in the boathouse fussing over some stew she was making. I made idle chatter for a few minutes, trying to figure out a delicate way to ask a weird question that might have me getting a CAT scan in the end.
"So, uhm, I have a hypothetical question." Jean's shoulders instantly tightened.
"Oh?" I'd asked her serious questions under this guise before, which was probably why she was reacting this way.
"Don't worry! It's nothing that has happened this time!" Okay, that was just a lie and it didn't ease her tension I could tell because her shoulders stayed just as square. "I was wondering if there was some freaked out way a telepath could, let's say, invade someone's mind who knows how to protect themselves against telepaths."
"There is a way, yes." Jean didn't seem to want to cough up any more information, but I prodded and was rewarded with a longer answer and a deep sigh. "Having someone's permission makes it morally okay, but normally it is very easy for a telepath to slip into anyone's mind. True, that it comes to a power struggle when it is two telepaths, but still one will eventually win."
"So is there like a back door or something?"
"You might be able to say that in a way. When a person is completely at ease or when they are sleeping is the easiest time to 'sneak' in to their mind. Their defenses are down and if you do accidentally leave some sort of impression, you can just make them feel as if it were a dream." She was adding a lot of salt to the pot. I guess I was distracting her too much from her cooking that she didn't even realize what she was doing. Finally, after half a bottle, I snatched it from her.
"Any particular reason why you found the subject of telepathy so appealing?" She smiled and raised one of her neatly trimmed eyebrows.
"Curiosity and all." I gave what I hope was a truthful 'aren't-I-cute' smile. "Know thy enemy and all."
Jean accepted that answer, but I wasn't being very honest. I had a suspicion that it was the creepy glowy-eyes guy showing off his powers. The 'fated' mission was supposedly in two days. All these things made me leery of how far he was willing to go to get me there.
If Dr. Hank found out about my pain and injuries, he wouldn't let me do anything for another two weeks at the least.
Scott, just to prove to everyone that I was okay, decided to give us a grueling round o' fun in the Danger Room. I swear that man got some sort of disturbing kick out of watching us dodge bullets, get burned, and then be squashed under a sentinel's foot!
But regardless of what Mr. Evil had done, I had a mission. While still in uniform from the exercise, I went to my room.
The next destination was the computer files. I figured if anything was being studied, Dad would have it all jotted down for nosy little bodies (me) to peek through.
I went back to my room and logged in. When I signed on to the computer's main frame thing, it dinged me and said I had an e-mail waiting. Figuring I could spare a few minutes, I clicked on the mailbox.
It was from Bobby.
Gulping, I clicked on it. I expected it to be some sort of joke he forwarded but instead what I found was this ridiculously long letter.
It started off with how annoyed he was that I wasn't talking to him like I used to, and he went into how if I didn't like him anymore, then I just needed to say it and go out with Chris instead if that was what I really wanted. I felt bad at the first half of the letter but by the time Chris' name came up I was seeing red.
How could that moron think I wanted anything to do with Chris? Was this an over-sized jealous bone poking out or what! Growling and forgetting about whatever the heck I came in to look at and went stomping to Bobby's room.
"Petite havin' a bad day?" Gambit asked as I went past his room.
"'Petite' is going to give someone else a bad day!"
Bobby opened his door and just as I was going to give him what for, he smirked and beat me to talking.
"I knew if I couldn't charm you over here, I could always tick you off enough to come."
"You mean to tell me you did all of that on purpose just get me in here?" He nodded with a happy smile and I turned on my heel to leave. I didn't get far because he grabbed my wrist, tugged and effectively tossed my hinny in his room.
"Nice touch, Drake." Mr. Remy laughed. "That'll get your tail kicked in no time." After that Bobby shut the door and by this time I had recovered. I pretended to brush off some imaginary dirt from my sleeves. If he wanted me here angry then he'd get me angry.
"Oh come on, Kookie. It was just a joke."
I crossed my arms and stuck my nose up in the air.
Bobby sauntered over to me, put one hand at the curve of my waist, another one at the base of my neck and said, "You stink."
I was tired, sweaty, and above all confused. Here stood the first love of my life and he was being anything but charming. So what he might have started off as a joke quickly came down to a fight. We were only interrupted once, and that was by Chris' voice coming through the comm. link saying that we (X-cites) had just been assigned to a mission.
"We will have to continue this later, Robert," I hissed after he made a rather snide comment about being Chris' call girl.
"I'm not sure I want to," he muttered low.
Okay, that was a stab, it made me blink in shock, but I still continued. "Only because you are incapable of holding a mature conversation more than once a week!"
"We all can't have rods rammed up our as-"
"I have to go!" I cut in. My eyes were already to get lined with tears. I didn't want him to stop and feel sorry for what he was saying only because I started to cry. So I bit my lip and turned to leave.
"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this stuff for a while," he snapped.
I twirled around to face him; "Maybe I'll die on mission and make your wish come true," I threw back, hurt and lashing out to make him hurt just as bad.
"You'd be a lot easier to live with," he deadpanned.
If I thought I had been hurting before, I was wrong. I was so mistaken that there was no way I could be in any more pain then I already was. His words sliced through me—no, there was nothing for him to slice through. With those words I had been blown away and disintegrated into nothingness. I left my mouth open, disbelieving what I just heard.
"K-Keh—-Kerry..." He tried to touch me, to reach out to me. But I was blind to his nice intentions. How could he try to be nice? How could he even think that it would help?
The communication link came crackling through, "Blyt! Here now."
It was just what I needed, an escape. With tears in my eyes, I turned away. I started to walk away slowly, but then, I ran.
By the time I got to the bay, I was red in the face and looked like I had just left and lost a fist fight.
I sat down in the plane's co-pilot seat and I knew all eyes were on me.
"Kookie?" D-M tried to coax me into responding.
I sniffled and then locked my eyes in a glare. "We have a mission to do." I spat it out and I saw Chris nod as he got the plane ready for takeoff.
I would have to think on this later, right now, my first priority was my mission. Who needed a heart when beating the crap out of the bad guys?
