Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth. All other characters belong to me.
A/N: Thank you to all my reviewers out there; you really are all stars.
Scene 23 Day 06, Saturday........."Its in the whiskey."
Blaze slammed the bottle home clunking on the counter in the infirmary like she was trying to beat it to death. Her eyes were intense; her expression so compelling it was almost vacant, as Ilehana, Ororo and Hank just watched her. Shaking her head and forcing her slender hand to peel itself from the polished glass she'd been clinging onto despite the pain from her stitches, she tried to explain again.
"The virus. It's been let out, in New York, and it's in the alcohol. That's how they're distributing it, that's how they are going to blackmail the government, cause anti-mutant riots, whatever. Not to mention kill us all."
"Or keep us all stone sober for the rest of time..." Ilehana muttered; picking up the relatively harmless looking bottle and watching the stark light of the infirmary play off the golden liquid inside.
"I confess don't understand." Hank inquired. "How do you know? Have you drunk it and can describe the early symptoms? Where is Hg?"
"Hg?" Blaze wanted to answer all Beast's questions, but that particular one didn't make sense.
"Mercury, Hg is the scientific terminology for mercury." Hank was worried, and Blaze realised there had been more to this patient-doctor relationship than mere ethics. Mercury could have that effect on people.
"I don't drink Hank. But I have seen other mutants, and yes I'm sure that's what they were, both drinking this stuff and showing all the same symptoms that Colossus did."
"And Mercury?" Storm this time, her lovely emotional eyes highly concerned. As always Blaze's heart went out in thanks to the air-goddess for that silent emotional support.
"One of them." Blaze answered with a sigh that betrayed how tired she was, how scared for her friend. "I couldn't tell her..."
"So you'se abandon her. What, she not useful to you no more? Not somebody you can help to make yourself feel better?"
Blaze spun on the spot, anger suddenly overriding her every other desire. Beast, Storm and Vixen suddenly found they had other things to be attending to as Gambit faced down the aftermath of his thoughtless words alone.
"Je ne suis pas parfait, Gambit!" Blaze snapped, "Maybe you think I should be but I'm just not perfect! I got scared, my friend is going to die and I got scared! C'est d'accord?"
"Okay? It okay? Chere..." Exasperated, Gambit took hold of her arms and pulled her into a hug. He didn't say anything else, neither of them did, for which the room's other inhabitants were eternally grateful. Storm and Hank exchanged laden glances of concern and secret knowledge. But equally as Blaze relaxed into the friendly embrace, it was over too soon, Xavier calling to her in her head. She broke away from her friend unwillingly, but without explanation...
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Mercury awoke hazily to the morning's murky sunlight on what promised to be the hottest day of the year so far. She hadn't made it back to her hotel room. Instead she was terrified to discover she'd collapsed drunk and unwell on some park bench. Rolling over, she coughed, feet scrabbling for the floor, hand to her mouth to cover the splutter, her fingers backed away hastily as they touched an acid burn on her face. Her lungs felt like they were dissolving, her skin tugged at her, irritating in multiple places like poorly healed scars. Or new skin lesions. She was ill? How could she be? And where was Blaze? Blaze had promised not to let anything bad happen to Eloise. She'd promised to take care of her...
Mercury knew then that Blaze had known she was ill. The virus. The virus that had killed Blaze's friend. It was out, and Mercury had it. She was going to die, and Blaze had been too scared to face that. Eloise closed her eyes against the uncomfortably bright sunlight, rested her head back on the painted bench, and waited for death to claim her. After all her paranoia, all her nightmare terrors she had imagined over the years, suddenly she was not afraid.
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Jubilee sat outside, examining her feelings with intricate precision. Her stomach growled unpleasantly, and she wondered when the last time was she'd bothered to eat anything. Or shower, Jubilation was suddenly very aware that she probably smelt. Yuk. She knew she'd so forcefully abandoned all thoughts of carrying on without her dead friend that she'd stopped doing the things that would allow her to live.
She felt old. Jubilee had never felt old in her life, she was the baby of the bunch, the giddy school girl with outrageous taste who dared herself to get away with things no other kid would dream of. But now she felt weary and tired, uneasy in her own company. Why? She'd been through rough times in the past, especially before she ever came to the Xavier School. An orphan, she'd been passed from foster home to foster home and when they found out she was a mutant, well... But this was different. Was it because she couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel? Because if invincible Colossus could succumb to a disease the X-Men had no way of stopping, any of them could?
She knew what Peter would say to that. That she was being stupid. Over-excitable, definitely, but mostly stupid. The X-Men could solve anything between them. All she needed to have was a little faith...
On cue, Nightcrawler teleported in to sit next to his younger friend with an elaborate sigh and a sly sideways smile. Jubilee couldn't help but risk a smile back. For a moment neither the German nor the Chinese American said anything, staring out over the grounds in amicable silence, enjoying the fresh morning sunshine before the day got too hot. The only movement was a casual twitching of Kurt's long blue tail he seemed unable to control, a soft stillness resting in the warm air without even a hint of a breeze.
"So..." Kurt did not so much break the peace as add to it when he spoke, still smiling. "You going for the grungy look these days, nien? Was ist das all about?"
"Hey, leave me be, Kurt!" Jubilee couldn't help but smile at his teasing. A smile quickly lost as she sighed, brown eyes full of anxious worry and pain. "I don't know what to do. Everyone looks at me like I'm just some kinda joke, but I don't feel funny anymore. I don't know what I'm doin' here, with Peter dead, apart from waiting to die myself..."
"Grieving for those we have lost is part of life. No one expects you to be your usual cheerful self right now Jubilee, nobody but you perhaps."
"The why isn't anyone else grieving? 'Cept maybe for Bobby, nobody even seems to remember we haven't even buried Peter yet?" Jubilee's remorse was drifting towards anger, making Nightcrawler sigh a sad little sigh for his friend.
"The X-Men, they is busy trying to do so many things. They will grieve; when it is time that they can do so, and grieve well."
"And when will that be?" Jubilee asked, faith that such a time may ever happen near non-existent.
"Soon," Kurt promised, putting a three-fingered hand comfortingly around Jubilee's shoulder, briefly shocked as she turned to hide herself in his embrace, smiling at her trust of him. "I promise you Jubilee, soon we will be able to celebrate Colossus' life with all of our hearts..."