A/N - Well. First we slowed down due to real world issues for robbie ... now we're slowing down on my account. Not going to apologize for it, just putting it out there that there is still plenty of this story to be read. I am simply readjusting to a major life change that is leaving me either with lots of unfocused nervous energy that doesn't lend itself well to sitting still to edit/write or feeling almost paralyzed with doubt and also unable to do anything useful HERE. Even the story I've been actively writing on has seen a massive drop in my attention outside of just ... notes and reading it.
But ... that means you have plenty of time to catch up to what we do have going on here. If you can, take a moment to leave us a little review. It doesn't have to be in depth, but it does help me (at least) get motivated to hit the accelerator on this one. Happy Reading.
Chapter 11 - What Do You Remember?
In an attempt to help Alyssa adapt to the increased scrutiny that had come with the public finding out she was dating James, Chance had suggested a double date that would at least mean that there were more people to shield her from idiots if need be — and an extra feral around to get the growl on. Which, he assured her, was twice as scary in stereo.
"You like it," James accused him when he heard Chance mention his advice while they were out at a local restaurant. "The stereo."
"Maybe," Chance said with a little smirk and a shrug, leaning back on the bench in the waiting area where he was seated next to Elin with one hand on her knee and her foot tucked underneath his. "But as Elin keeps telling me, I'm also a little bit warped."
"You are," Elin said, nodding. "And more than a little. You're positively wobbly."
Chance shrugged at that. "And you married me anyway. So that makes you pretty wobbly too."
"I have low self-esteem," Elin deadpanned.
"And questionable taste," James added. The two ferals shared a look and started to nod in unison.
"Looks like that might be scarier in stereo," Alyssa said quietly toward Chance.
Chance just laughed and nodded. "I've been dealing with that since I was a toddler. They're just like this."
"You married into it," Elin pointed out.
"I did," he agreed, leaning over to steal a kiss before their names were called out for a booth at the steakhouse, and he gave her his hand to pull her to her feet as they followed the waitress.
"I'm not sure we thought this all the way through," James said quietly to Alyssa. "We're going to have to watch them."
"We are?" she asked with one eyebrow raised.
"We're at least stuck in public with them for a while," James said before he gave her a little peck on the cheek. "Then we can ditch 'em and do something fun."
She couldn't help but smile and lean over to kiss him. "This is fun," she assured him. "But if you have something even more fun in mind…"
"Oh, I absolutely can think of something more fun," James promised in a low rumble.
She grinned at that and pulled him into another kiss. "I'll bet you can."
"Are you sure you two don't want to just … skip dinner and just jump straight to the make-out session?" Elin asked before she looked up at the two of them.
Alyssa blushed at the question. "No…"
"Don't deflect on me," James laughed. "We don't need a babysitter. If you two want to cut out …"
"If we let them, they'll go on like this the whole dinner," Chance stage-whispered to Alyssa. "One-upmanship in deflection: master class."
"Like you don't do the same," James said.
"It's a learned thing," Chance said, smirking.
"Alright, we'll hold a cease fire for now," Elin said before she gave her brother a look, then turned to Alyssa. "Summers. Can't stand not being the best at everything."
Alyssa had been watching the back and forth like a tennis match and couldn't help but let out a little laugh. "I see."
The teasing did, in fact, settle down just a little bit, though obviously, with that group in particular, it was hard for them not to pick on each other. Most of it was as benign as they could get it, though, with the truce called for the moment, and by the time Alyssa had seen for herself what three healers could eat at a steakhouse, the mood was high around the booth.
"We had a long training session today," Elin explained. "And these two have been one-upping all day."
"Do they ever really stop?" Alyssa couldn't help but ask, considering she'd seen them teasing each other back and forth really since she met them.
"Not since ... " Elin thought about it for a moment. "Not since James hopped up to Chance's class for that semester or two."
"That long, huh?" Alyssa couldn't quite stop the smile at the thought.
"It was a tentative jump," James said. "And it was before that, actually."
"Pretty sure it was when I finally got your dad to agree to teach me karate," Chance said, leaning back.
James smiled outright at that. "Right. He told us to be nice to you until you caught up."
"It drove me nuts that you guys had a head start," Chance said, shaking his head as he draped his arm behind Elin's shoulders.
"We're still being nice," James said with a perfect grin.
Chance rolled his eyes at that and then turned to Elin. "Well, one of you is," he said with a smirk.
"Yeah … I'm not doing that," James said flatly. "Ever. Stop asking."
"Yeah, don't. I like the one I've got. Stop looking for reasons."
"Reasons to keep my door locked?" James asked. "Thanks, you already gave me plenty."
"And they're back again," Alyssa whispered to Elin.
"Well, my sweet husband really did leave himself wide open on that one," Elin said. Then, she leaned forward. "I should tell you what he wanted to do for his graduation party."
Alyssa lit up at the idea of another X-Men story and nodded quickly. "Please do."
"Well, it was entirely inappropriate," Elin said, smirking already. "He said he wanted a luau just so he could get everyone lei'd."
Alyssa burst out laughing — especially at the fact that Chance had turned bright red and was muttering, "every time," under his breath to Elin.
Elin grinned back at him and then reached over to cup his face in her hand. "You love it."
"You love turning me into a tomato."
"Minimal effort, sweetheart," Elin said with the grin still firmly in place.
"This might be the part where we wisely give them space so we don't have to be around the rest of it," Alyssa whispered to James.
"He's too embarrassed to do anything," James laughed, though he was already pulling out his wallet to pay — and even managed to snatch the bill before Chance could. "But I'm game to move on while he works on getting out of that one."
Alyssa looped her arm through James' and smiled at the other two. "Thanks for inviting us along. This really was fun," she told them.
"Next time, you pick the place," Elin said, grinning still.
James gave them a little wave and headed up to cover things before coming back for Alyssa, and before long, the two of them were headed back to her car — taking their time and going the long way. "You're very patient," James told Alyssa before he pulled her to his side.
"It's not hard to be. It's kind of fun watching you two be ridiculous," she said with a laugh.
"Which two?" he asked, with a look of pure trouble.
She looked up at him and then burst into a laugh. "Yes," she said as she laid her head down on his arm.
They didn't quite make it all the way to her car, though, before there were people flocking around them. Not that it was a surprise to either of them the way the publicity had been going lately. What was a surprise, however, was the fact that the people seemed to be fans of Alyssa's, looking for her autograph — which completely took her by surprise.
Of course, James loved it and was more than happy to step aside and help some of her fans to get pictures with her, smirking at her over the tops of their phones.
Alyssa was already shaking her head at him, and by the time the group dispersed after getting their pictures, she leaned over to punch him in the arm. "Stop — stop looking like that!"
"Like what?" he asked, smiling at her. "I'm proud of you. What's wrong with that?"
She laughed self consciously and then stood on her toes to steal a kiss. "You're just ... you," she said at last, shaking her head.
"I'm not going to apologize for that. I can't help who I am."
She let out a breath of a laugh, smiled, and leaned in for a more involved kiss. "No, and I wouldn't ask you to change it," she agreed, draping her arms around his shoulders as she leaned into the moment — until James stiffened up and pulled back, frowning at nothing in particular that she could see.
"Get in the car," he said as he turned away from her, his chin tipped up as he scented out the air. "Stay there."
Alyssa looked outright worried at his change in tone. "What's going on?"
He closed his eyes and turned slowly, his head tipped to the side. "I don't know, but it can't be good," he said before he went into motion. "Get in the car." With that, he turned and started to run down the street, and a few moments later, Alyssa could hear the faint pop of gunfire down the road.
What she didn't know was that James had smelled a particular type of gun oil that was only used on semi-automatic weaponry from a handful of countries — and the US wasn't one of them. He rushed back toward the steakhouse, sure that the target had to be his sister and brother-in-law, and when he saw the wall of black ops blocking off the street, he knew he was right.
He hit the button at his hip and simply dove into the thick of it, claws out and cutting though everything that didn't look immediately important to life. When he saw that they were blocking off the back of a van, he pulled the panic button from his side, flipped a switch on the side of it, and threw it at the van before it could drive away.
His intention, of course, was to track the creeps, but the moment he'd taken to do it had cost him — and he hadn't gotten through all of the soldiers before they could surround him from behind. The first shot from them went through his shoulder, and he turned to face them. But that didn't last very long when several of them began taking pot shots until they got him down.
He took another round to the head, but not dead center — instead on the side, well hidden in his hair — but that was enough to knock him out so the soldiers could gather up their wounded and leave.
When the shooting and mayhem had come to a stop and James hadn't made his way back to the car, though, that was enough to get Alyssa worried — enough that she slipped out of the car and made her way around the building cautiously, ready to bolt if she saw anything dangerous.
But when instead she saw James lying on the ground bleeding, she let out a gasp and rushed forward to start immediately trying to help. She knew he could heal, but… he was bleeding a lot, and he wasn't responding to anything she tried. All she could do was try to keep the bleeding under control.
She was openly panicking as she pressed her hands over what looked like the worst wound and crying outright as she called for help, at a total loss as to what to do.
It took a few minutes, but James' hand covered hers and he tried to settle her down. "Hey, I'm okay."
But as soon as she heard his voice, she simply collapsed, halfway doubled over and crying hard, clearly overwhelmed by everything that had happened.
"'Lyss, it's alright. I promise."
She choked on a sob as she tried ineffectually to wipe her hands off. "You're bleeding," she said in a numb sort of voice.
"I'm healing fast, too," he said with a little smile, careful not to smile too broadly since he could taste the blood in his mouth.
Alyssa wiped her hands on her pants a few more times before she all but folded over onto him, holding onto his shoulders even from where he was lying down. He did his best to get her to calm down, muttering quietly soft, and low until he was healed enough to sit upright and then wrap her up and hold onto her. When she seemed to be more settled out — or at least not outright weeping — he took his phone out of his pocket and called the Institute, quietly explaining what the situation was and even going so far as to ask for Annie if she was free, since Alyssa needed someone to support her too.
It didn't take long before Kurt arrived, his mouth set in a frown when he saw the blood, though he hid it well as he instead put an arm around Alyssa and quickly brought her to where Annie had already prepared a place in the living room where she could wrap the young woman up and let her fall apart as much as she needed to.
"I got her," Annie promised over Alyssa's shoulder, and Kurt simply nodded, trusting Annie to handle things.
When Kurt returned to James, he let the frown show more obviously, however. "What happened?"
James let out all of his breath and shook his head. "Elin and Chance were attacked," he said. "I tried to stop it, but they got away with them. I need to get to my laptop so I can trace them."
Kurt nodded at that and immediately teleported them both back to James' room so he could get to work. "The bamfs are just waiting for your coordinates," he said, his tail switching behind him and giving away how worried he was.
James didn't respond when his mind was on what he was doing and instead worked quickly, and in a matter of minutes, James had the coordinates. "Ready when you are," he said, holding up the paper.
Kurt took only a moment to check the coordinates before he teleported with James — and had a pair of bamfs bring Logan as well, no matter what he was doing at the moment.
Kurt filled Logan in as James pulled the tracer off of a van parked seemingly in the middle of nowhere and started swearing outright. Whoever had taken Elin and Chance had abandoned the vehicle. Which meant they had to start the search over. Still swearing at the loss of precious time when his family members were missing, James pulled out his phone and called Stark, asking for him to check into satellites for them as Logan tore the van apart looking for a clue on who they were dealing with.
Elin's head was fuzzy as she started to wake up — though she couldn't move more than her head, and her hearing seemed to take a long time to tune in right. Even with the stranger standing over her speaking slowly. She frowned at him, focusing on his mouth to try and read his lips — but he wasn't making any sense. "I don't know … any method … what are you talking about?"
The man looked frustrated but tried again. "We know you were the source of your husband's new abilities. If you will just tell us about the methods used, this will be so much easier."
"I don't know how it happened," she said, her nose scrunched up.
"You were there. You know," the man insisted, looking even more annoyed by her answer.
"Okay, but … that doesn't mean I know what was going on," she said, looking at him as if he was completely daft.
"Even if you didn't understand the finer details, surely you can give us an idea," the man said. "Whatever you remember will be useful to us."
"I can tell you where you can stick your ideas," Elin said. "But it won't help you heal."
The man glared down at her. "If you won't tell us, we'll have to find out by trial and error - and it will not be pleasant."
"Have you ever had surgery done, mister … idiotic jackass?" Elin asked.
"That's not relevant to my questions."
"It really is. Because if you have ever had anyone work on you, you'd be hard pressed to explain how any procedure is done," she pointed out.
"You have an advantage — you don't have to be drugged," the man replied smoothly.
She stared at him open-mouthed. "All that means is that I was in absolute pain while it was going on," she said. "That's not an advantage. And it's not good for remembering anything."
"I'm sure you can remember something," the man pressed. "If it's so awful, as you say, then you can give us information to stop it happening again — and not just to you."
Elin shook her head lightly. "I really don't remember."
The man let out a noise that was equal parts irritation and disbelief. "Fine. If that's your position, trial and error it is," he said.
"It's not my position," she said, frowning deeper. "It's the truth. I couldn't see anything."
"First you don't remember; now you didn't see it."
"That's because all that happened that I can remember is getting cut up," she said with a flush to her cheeks. "It blends together."
"Tell me what he took from you to give to Mr. Summers," the man demanded.
"I ... " she paused, knowing that there wasn't a solid way to answer him. "I'm not sure — it just hurt."
"Are you telling me that you don't know what it is that you're healing? Regrowing?" the man asked.
"No, I don't," she said. "It's not the same as hitting your elbow."
"And yet doctors can tell if your appendix hurts given a location," the man said. "Tell us what you can."
"I'm not a doctor," she said. "And pain in the abdomen anywhere hurts. Everywhere."
"Anywhere other than your abdomen?" the man asked with a smile. "Be specific."
She stared up at him and then lightly shook her head. "That was a response to your appendix remark, not … direction."
"That's still a start, at least," the man said before he gestured to a few soldiers to move Elin out of the room and drag her to what looked like a cell block.
Elin did what she could to take in all the details around her, though when she saw Chance in one of the cells, she started to fight the hold the soldiers had on her — especially when she realized what was going on. Chance's cell wasn't empty; several men had him surrounded, and one was scribbling notes and talking into a voice recorder. They weren't just asking her what had happened; this was the start of the "trial and error" the first guy had warned her about. So his threats didn't hold much water since they were already screwing with her husband anyway. "Let me go," she growled out. "Or are you big, strong men scared of a half-grown woman?"
"You're not going anywhere," one of the soldiers said with an obvious sneer as the other one keyed in the code for an empty cell for Elin — though they didn't seem overly concerned when her hands were locked away in metal gloves.
"Wanna bet?" Elin said with a glare. She pulled to get away from them, and when one of them moved to get a better grip on her, she headbutted him hard and stomped on his foot. She couldn't quite pull her arms away to crack the other one in the face like she wanted to, though, and he responded by shoving her as hard as he could into the open cell and all but slamming the barred door shut in her face.
The soldiers who had brought Elin there sneered at her and then stepped back to leave her fuming, no longer blocking her view of the cell directly across from her. She could see that a soldier had crouched by Chance to check for a pulse as they waited for him to come back from what Elin could see had obviously been a gunshot from the blood and the way his shirt was torn.
She lost all of the fire she'd been using to fight with when she saw the shape he was in and stayed where she was on the floor, staring across the hall and holding her breath.
When the man who was crouched down finally picked up a pulse, that seemed to be good enough for the soldiers at least to prove that the healing extended to fatal wounds, and since they had to wait for Chance to recover before trying anything else, they soon left the two X-Men alone in the prison block — though Elin knew they'd come back.
Elin crept closer to the bars on her door and leaned against the wall, watching Chance and waiting for him to wake up. She could see the cameras mounted in the hall, though, and she knew it was going to be tricky to do anything while they were being watched.
When Chance did finally start to wake up, he let out a soft groan and turned over, though he almost immediately tried to sit up faster in obvious shock when he saw the cell and the gloves covering his own hands too. Whoever had caught them obviously wasn't sure if he had claws in addition to healing and wasn't willing to take chances. His gaze found Elin, and he blurted out a panicked, "What happened? Where are we?"
"We got kidnapped; I don't know where we are," she replied. "It's just us, though. James and Alyssa aren't here."
Chance looked around the cell and then frowned a bit. "Alyssa? The girl with the blog?"
Elin raised an eyebrow and nodded. "Yeah, that's the one."
He shook his head as he maneuvered himself to sit up a little better. "Why would she be here?"
"They were with us when we were attacked," Elin told him.
Chance nodded slowly and then let his shoulders drop. "I must have hit my head or something. I don't remember that."
"It's okay," Elin said, wondering what else the soldiers had done to him and deciding to keep her explanations vague in case he was too far off. "It was a hard hit."
Chance nodded again and then looked around the cell. "So, what's the story, El? We ran out the Canadians, and last I heard, no one was that out for our blood…"
"Bad guys want to be like me," she said with a self-deprecating smile.
"Yeah, well, I can understand that," he said with a little smirk her way. "Jealous. Clearly."
"Clearly," she agreed. "Are you okay otherwise?"
He nodded. "Head doesn't hurt as much as my chest," he admitted. "What about you?"
"I'm okay," she said.
"If they're trying to be like you… El, seriously. You okay?" he asked, this time more openly.
She nodded and leaned her head against the wall. "I'm fine. Really. I just want to get us out."
"Do you know where we are?" he asked.
"Um … bad guy lair number 362? Unimaginative decor and guards. Three out of ten. Not impressed."
"Last year's painting scheme," he agreed with a small smile.
"So bourgeois," she said with a little shrug.
Chance smirked at that and then leaned back. "Did we get the chance to call for help in this attack I don't remember?"
"Ah ... " She thought of the bracelets they all wore but knew she couldn't activate the thing the way the gloves covered them anyhow. "No. I didn't. James might have — so they might have been able track, depending on how we … well. How we were moved."
Chance nodded at that, though he didn't have the time to ask her anything further when a few guards appeared — and considering they didn't have any food with them, it couldn't have been for anything good.
"Hey creeps — why don't you give a girl a fighting chance," Elin said. "I'll even keep my hands down."
But the guards flat out ignored Elin as they let themselves into Chance's cell again, this time with a new method to test as one of them helped to hold him down and the other simply wrapped his hands around Chance's neck. Immediately, Chance started to panic, thrashing as much as he could in a desperate attempt to get free, since it took him right back to when Sinister had tried to kill him in front of Cody. It was the worst way they could have chosen to kill him, and Elin doubted it was an accident.
Elin of course started swearing — and she didn't even realize what language she was swearing in as she berated the soldiers and hissed out curses their way. She couldn't get to her husband, and she could see he was terrified, especially since this time, the guards had dragged him toward the door of his cell so Elin got a closer look at what was happening. She was so furious she kept switching languages, too; she was so tired of people hurting him when she had spent so long trying to help him realize he wasn't expendable but special — especially to her.
And after some time had passed, that was exactly what Chance woke up to — Elin cursing in a foreign tongue as the soldiers left the two of them.
"What… Elin?" He blinked around, obviously trying hard to focus as he shook off the buzz of the healing.
"Yes, it's me," she said, her cheeks bright red and streaked with tears.
"Elin, what's — are you crying?"
She covered her eyes and slid back down to the floor from where she'd gotten so frustrated she'd even stomped her foot as she swore. "That's not really important." She turned her face to her shoulder and did her best to clean herself up.
"I don't think I've seen you cry before," he said, frowning when he looked down at his hands and around the cell. "What's going on?"
She let out a breath, realizing pretty quickly that he was losing at least parts of things. Especially since she'd already told him this. "Oh. You know. Creeps kidnapping us."
Chance frowned deeper at that as he tried to rearrange himself to sit up better. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Chance," Elin said quietly.
"Did they get anyone else? Is Krissy okay?" he asked.
She glanced up at him and frowned a little deeper. She recognized the tone of his voice, but it had been a long time since that tone had anything to do with Krissy. "It's just us. No one else is in trouble."
Chance shook his head at that. "I don't get it, El. Why go all the way to Europe just to grab me if they've got you… what's the plan here? Play for our parents?"
But at that, she didn't even know how to answer him. "Guess we'll find out," she said softly.
He frowned at her expression and shifted so that he was leaning closer to the bars on his door. "Hey. You know our families will come after us. I'm sure Moira's spitting mad right now, if nothing else."
She watched him for a long moment. "You should get some rest, Chance."
"I literally just woke up," he pointed out.
"Go back to sleep, Chance," she said. "Please."
He frowned hard at her tone and was already shaking his head. "Elin, what's going on that you don't want me to see, huh?"
"Just … rest up so you can fight your way out, okay?"
He seemed to regard her for a long moment before he nodded. "Guess there's not much else we can do right now anyway, huh?" he muttered — though he was surprised by how tired he felt already, not realizing the healing he'd already been through to that point was taking it out of him.
But when the guards returned, Elin was on her feet quickly. "Please don't," she said, her voice already shaking. "Tell your boss I'll do whatever you want — just please stop."
The guards paused, looking a bit smug when they heard it. "Guess that depends on what it is you have to offer," one of them said.
But that had Chance quickly on the defensive too, forgetting about any kind of rest as he scrambled to his own feet. "You leave her alone or I'll leave you in a body cast," he snapped angrily.
"Don't listen to him," Elin said, almost shouting.
"Elin, I'm not gonna let you let these guys walk all over you!" Chance shot back.
"He's not in his right mind," she said, flat ignoring Chance now. "I already said I'd give you what you want. Just don't hurt him."
The guards seemed to take a moment to think it over before they called it in that they would be bringing Elin to meet up with the captain in charge of the operation. "You better have something worthwhile, missy, or we won't play so nice when we get back," one of the guards said in a low, sneering tone her way as he unlocked the door to get into her cell.
She didn't argue with them at all, and when the guard took a hold of her arm, she simply kept up with him when they pulled her out.
The last thing she heard from Chance before the door closed behind her was a string of vulgar insults directed at the guards, topped off with, "If you so much as look at her sideways, I'll kill you, do you hear me?" But she didn't hear the rest of the threats after that. Not the words anyway. The muffled, indistinctive yelling went on for quite a while once the door behind her had closed, leaving Elin wondering exactly how far back he'd gone mentally as the guards pulled her toward the same smiling 'doctor' that she'd talked to before.
