It wasn't long before the two men in the front seat of the car decided it was a futile effort to make civilized conversation with the two in the back, and they seemed content to begin relating anecdotes to each other, each of which was accepted with uproarious laughter from the pair and a series of annoyed sighs from the woman fuming to Scott's right.
Scott was aware of the men's intentions. The car ride was looking to be every bit as awkward as he had assumed it would be, and Jeremy and his friend were doing everything they could to lift the elephant of repressed emotions off of everyone's back. Unfortunately, their attempts were just annoying in their execution.
Jeremy fired up the radio. The speakers in the back seat were quickly squelched at Julia's request. Thus, for the first few hours of the trip returning to western Ohio from eastern New York, Scott and Julia were cocooned in an orb of silence. For a time, Scott considered various ice-breakers, things he might say to Julia. The few things that came to mind seemed sure to only cause an argument, so Scott decided to respect her desire for silence. Everything he had to say could wait until they were alone.
His thoughts fell, then, to the disturbing thought he'd had earlier in the jail cell. He'd wished, for the first time in his life that he could ever remember, that people would stop treating him as if he were just like everyone else. What kind of arrogant thought is that? he asked himself. It goes contrary to everything that Charles Xavier ever taught me. He tried to find the origin of the thought and could only come up with the fact that not once in his life had he ever been a "normal" person. From unwanted orphan, to awkward teenager, to mutant, to X-Man, there had been a time in his life when he'd been treated like everyone else, or fit in with the popular crowd, or even been forced to live by the same rules as the populace at large. The only real frame of reference he had was the short time he'd spent with Madelyne Pryor. Before he revealed he was a mutant, he had shared a real, normal relationship with her. Even that was tainted by his false emotions, based on her, as he now knew, manufactured likeness to his first, and true, love.
Images flashed before his eyes as he stared out the window at the dark landscapes and passing lights, images of Madelyne and Jean. As uncanny as the resemblance was, there were differences. Madelyne's hair had been shorter, her face slightly rounder. The memories filled him with a deep sense of sadness, as they always did when he reflected on that time of his life. So Julia's sudden outburst caught him completely by surprise and utterly emotionally unprepared.
"How could you!" she said. Tightly clenched fists landed on Scott's shoulder and, as he turned his face sharply in shock, one blow landed right across Scott's jaw. Scott's right arm quickly raised, blocking any further blows from landing on his face, and his left hand began rubbing his sore mouth.
"Hey, hey!" Jeremy cried from the first seat. "Thomas get her off of him!"
Thomas turned in his seat, appraising the situation. He tried to reach back, but only got a smack on the arm for his troubles. "He's on his own, brother," Thomas said, as he turned back into his seat. "Scotty can take care of himself."
And then, as quickly as the storm had started, it was over. With one last punch to Scott's arm, Julia's frustrations were apparently expelled, at least for the time being. She silently slid back to her side of the seat and resumed staring out of the window, now rubbing her reddened knuckles. Scott ventured a look and noticed the quivering of her lip and the dampness in her eyes. She noticed him looking.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing," Scott replied without emotion. As if nothing had happened, he, too, resumed staring out the window.
Even Thomas and Jeremy were quiet after that.
Scott drifted in and out of sleep throughout the trip through Pennsylvania. When the quartet crossed over into Ohio, he finally started recognizing landmarks on his original road trip. Thomas was driving now, and the atmosphere in the car was slightly more relaxed, mostly because everyone was too tired to be emotional.
From the slight conversation, Scott determined that Jeremy was supposed to have been his partner, and Thomas was another officer and apparently a close friend
After seemingly an eternity in the confines of Jeremy's car, they finally arrived at the pound where Julia's car had been brought after Scott abandoned it at the small airport. Apparently a friend of Jeremy's had been good enough to have the car transported to a pound in Ohio, closer to 'home.' That must have been some favor, Scott thought, imagining the paperwork nightmare the procedure must have created. Transporting anything like that across state lines could be quite the headache. Still unwilling to believe everything at face value, Scott couldn't help smelling a trap. He looked at Julia as they dropped off onto a gravel road, but her face was an empty page. Her only distinguishing features were the dark circles under her eyes. She seemed to watch their progression with only a hint of interest, as if she didn't really care whether they ever reached their destination or not. She had pulled her hair back again into a ponytail and the vibrant happy woman who had come to pick him up from the hospital had been replaced by the emotionally wrecked, exhausted woman he'd been introduced to soon after waking.
Leaning forward on the smooth seat, Scott looked between the heads out the windshield and watched as they drove beneath a large sign that announced their arrival at the pound. Behind huge link fences were rows and rows of automobiles of every shape, size, and color. Scott felt his nerves ease. At least they were going where they said they were going.
Thomas parked the car. Julia said a quick "Thank you," to the two men in the front of the car, and got out of the car. Scott winced at the slamming of the door, and watched as she stepped towards the office, already digging through her purse.
There was a moment of silence in the car. He knew the men were waiting for him to get out, but Scott wasn't quite ready.
"Thank you for letting us do this for you, Scott," Jeremy said without turning around. "You've done so much for me, Thomas… all of us really. Finally, we get a chance to return the favor, and we don't even have to listen to you complain about it."
Scott looked at the side of Jeremy's face as he swallowed hard. "I know you're confused. I know there's a lot of things you don't remember. Julia told us…" He swallowed again. "We wanted to come to the hospital. We talked about it a lot. Julia said… We decided that we didn't want to give you any more stress. We figured you had enough on your plate learning to walk and all that…"
Scott cut the man off, trying to spare him any more discomfort. "Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Thomas. It was very kind of you to bring Julia to me in New York. I know it was a substantial inconvenience…"
"Substantial inconvenience?" Jeremy said as he turned, a slight smile on his face. "Only you, Scotty," he said, shaking his head, tears in his eyes. "We'd do anything for you, man. Anything."
Now it was Scott's turn to swallow hard. His eyes dropped. "I'll make it up to you," he said, continuing his thought. "Someday. Somehow. I'll pay you back." He had nothing else to say. He didn't know these men. He didn't understand their loyalty. He hadn't done anything to earn it. He reached for the door handle. "Thank you."
"See you soon, Scotty," Thomas said.
"Take care, partner," Jeremy followed as Scott stood and stretched his legs. "It'll come back. You'll be back on the streets in no time. You'll see!"
"Thanks," Scott said again, as he shut the door and followed the path Julia had taken. He stopped at the door and turned. Jeremy and Thomas were still sitting in the car, staring at him and smiling. Uncomfortable with the attention, Scott was unsure what to do. With jerky movements, he raised his hand in a sort of half-wave. The two men smiled and waved back.
Turning, he stepped through the doorway, glad to be free of the pair even if it meant facing Julia's wrath. Inside the brightly lit office, there were a handful of people of varying degrees of cleanliness all lined up in chairs along the wall facing a large counter with a couple of sour-faced employees flipping through paperwork. In front of one frowning woman was Julia, writing out a check. Neither woman seemed very happy to be talking with the other, and even if he had planned on going over earlier Scott certainly wasn't going to approach them now.
After a few moments and a few signatures, Julia was given a receipt and left the counter with a curt "Thank you."
"Let's go," she said as she approached Scott. She pulled the keys from her purse that had been in the envelope the officer had given him. "I guess I'm driving…"
Scott stood for a moment, tired of following like a whipped puppy and definitely tired of the attitude. He reminded himself, though, that he had possibly been responsible for an enormous financial burden on this woman and, as far as she knew, he'd thrown their marriage out the window. For the moment, he decided, he could understand and endure her unpleasant demeanor.
The pair waited in silence as the very familiar Camry was brought through the fence. Julia thanked the man as he got out of the car and was quick to sit down behind the steering wheel. Scott quick-stepped his way to the passenger side, careful to go behind the car. He wasn't stupid, after all, and he knew better to offer such temptations to an angry woman.
He was reaching for the door handle when the engine revved and the wheels spun, throwing gravel. Scott jumped back, covering his face instinctively, and when he looked up, the Camry was fast barreling down the gravel road, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.