Chapter 23

Jean sat up. It was just barely too early to be awake; it was bright enough to see, but the colors of everything were washed out to dark grays and browns. She felt Logan, on the other side of the fire, wake up just enough to check for trouble before subsiding into unconsciousness again.

"He stayed awake a long time," said a voice, barely above a whisper. Jean turned around. When she'd fallen asleep, Laura had been next to Logan, curled up within arm's reach and with nothing between her and the door. Sometime in the night, she'd moved her nest of rags and detritus away from the fire, off into the darkness where she felt safer. She was sitting up now, a dread of hair hanging between her eyes.

"Yesterday was really hard for him," Jean whispered back. "He stays awake when he's worried, to be sure everything's all right. Did you sleep?"

She shook her head, and the dread waved in front of her nose. "I don't need to sleep."

"What, ever?"

"Not for a long time."

"So what did you do all night?"

"I watched you."

Creepy as the words were, the tone made them creepier; it was fierce and suspicious, as though Laura was as afraid of Logan and Jean murdering her in her sleep as Jean was worried about her murdering them.

"Wow. That must have been . . . really boring."

Laura didn't answer.

Jean cast her mind about for something to say, some topic of conversation to bridge the gap between her own normal self and this child, soldier, wild-animal creature that sat watching her in the gray dimness. Her eye fell on the mutilated book, still lying where she'd dropped it. She reached out and picked up the volume. "It looks like you liked this."

"It's . . . useful." Jean saw Laura's eyes fix on the book, like it was being held hostage. "There are records of how . . . how to make things. I don't know how to make things."

"Me, neither. Not things that would be useful out here, anyway." She opened the book and thumbed gently through it. "I always liked Jack the dog. I wanted to have a dog like Jack when I was a little girl. But my mom's scared of dogs, so we never got one."

Laura didn't say anything.

New tactic. "Do you like Skittles?"

Laura's head flicked sideways. "What?"

"Skittles. The candy." Jean opened her backpack, which she'd been using as a pillow, and removed the still-unopened package. "These." She tore off one corner and shook a few of the candies into her hand. "Want some?"

Laura leaned forward, far enough that she had to set one hand on the floor to balance herself, and sniffed experimentally. "They're drugs?"

Jean laughed, surprised. "No, of course not! They're candy. Just sugar and food coloring and citric acid."

"What are they for?"

"For eating. They're good. See?" Jean picked one up and put it in her mouth.

Laura hesitated, leaned forward again until she was nearly entirely out of her nest, then drew back a little. "Maybe you drugged one of the others."

Paranoid much. "Well, you pick one, and cut it in half. I'll eat one half, and you eat the other, and that way even if they are drugged, I'll die long before you do." She proffered the handful again.

Laura sidled forward, on all fours, ready to jump back if Jean moved too suddenly. Jean opened her hand a little wider. "The red ones are my favorites, but you can pick whichever one you want."

Laura hesitated, one hand already half-extended towards the brightly colored rounds, trying to figure out if Jean were tricking her into picking a red one or tricking her into picking something else. Finally, she darted forward and snatched a yellow one. Two broad, curved blades sliced their way out of the back of her hand, making Jean jump . . . she was used to Logan's claws, but Laura was so much smaller, the shock of their appearance was somehow worse. The yellow Skittle flew into the air, the claws sliced after them, and her hand snatched up both halves again before they came anywhere near the floor. She dropped one back into Jean's hand and watched as Jean put it in her mouth. Only when she was quite sure that Jean had chewed and swallowed it did she dare to try hers.

"Good, huh?" Jean asked.

Laura coughed, her dark eyes bugging a little bit. "It's sweet!"

Jean laughed. "Yeah, it's sweet." She handed Laura a purple one to slice and redistribute. "You've really never had candy before?"

Laura shook her head. "Once I had to take a glucose test . . . they gave me a drink that was sweeter than these. I hated it."

"Yeah, I hear those are nasty." Jean popped her half of the purple one in her mouth and let Laura take a red one. "Logan used to bring me these whenever he came home," she murmured, jiggling the ones that remained in the palm of her hand. "He'd go away for weeks, months at a time, and then just show up some random night, sometimes with his clothes all in shreds, always smelling horrific, but he always had a bag of Skittles for me."

"Why?"

"Because he knows they're my favorites." Jean leaned in a little bit and let her voice drop conspiratorially. "What you need to do is just go try every kind of candy that there is, and pick which one's your favorite, and then let Logan find out. I bet he'll bring it to you every time he comes home."

Laura's dark brown eyes solemnly examined Jean's face. "I don't have a home," she announced, matter-of-factly and without a shred of self-pity.

"I think," Jean murmured back, "that's why we came to find you."

Behind herself, Jean felt a warm telepathic flicker. She twisted around, smiling. "When did you wake up?"

Logan hadn't moved, and still looked for all the world like he was completely unconscious, but he answered her without opening his eyes. "Couple of minutes ago."

"And you eavesdropped?"

A subtle smile appeared on his face. "Just listenin' to my girls."

Jean's smile widened involuntarily. She liked that.

He opened his eyes and sat up. "Hey, Kiddo," he told Laura. "Didn't sleep, did you?"

"Sleep wasn't a priority," Laura told him.

Logan nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Good instincts."

Doesn't she need to sleep? Jean asked. She's gonna go crazy.

You think she's not crazy now? She isn't gonna sleep until she trusts us. Better get used to it.

Looking at her makes me tired.

Suck it up. "How about food? When was the last time you ate?"

"I'm eating now." Laura nodded at the three remaining Skittles in Jean's palm.

"Food with vitamins, darlin'. From the look of you, you've been living off straight meat all winter and probably most of last fall. Now shooting, stabbing, incineration, nuclear bombs . . . you can walk away from any of that. But vitamin deficiency'll kill you." He grabbed his backpack and threw an energy bar at Laura's head. "Cliff bar. Eat it. You too, Red." A second bar flew through the air. Jean TK-snagged it and dropped it into her free hand.

Laura held the bar, but didn't open the wrapper. Her voice suddenly suspicious and aggressive, she demanded, "Why are you here?"

Logan tore open his own pre-packaged breakfast and took a bite. After he'd swallowed, he answered, "Could ask you the same thing. You got here first, so you answer first."

"That's not relevant."

"Maybe not, but there's two of me and one of you, so that's how it's gonna be."

Laura's eyes flicked between Logan and Jean again, sizing them up as opponents. Against both of them, her odds weren't good, and they all knew it . . . besides which, no amount of fighting was going to make either of them answer her question.

"Everywhere I've ever been, I either blew up or I can't go back to," she snapped at last. "They're all highly secured, all strategically important. I had nowhere to go. So I looked for your places. They were all the same. Except this one. No one cared about this; everyone forgot it . . . even you."

Logan nodded. "I get ya."

"How long have you been here?" Jean asked.

Laura shot her another fierce, none-of-your-business look, but she answered the question. "Almost five months."

"Through the middle of the winter? With no supplies?"

"I can take care of myself."

"We know," Logan told her, placating her hostility. "But here's the deal, kiddo. Stateside, they just passed new legislation saying all mutants have to be registered with the government. Anybody not registered . . . and probably a bunch that are . . . are getting hunted down and rounded up. And you're at the top of the hit list. The registry goons will want you 'cause you're dangerous. Nick Fury wants you 'cause you're valuable, and he thinks he can snag you real quiet-like in all the fuss. And I . . . I don't want to see you locked up. I want to get you way, way out of the country, where you'll be safe and free and they will never, ever find you. That's what I want. That's why I came."

"I am out of the country. I'm across the border."

"Yeah . . . the Canadian border. Big whoop. These people took down a sonic manipulator and a ninja telepath in the UK not two days ago, and Her Majesty's government hasn't batted an eye. You found this place, and I found you. They will come here. Soon. And I want you to be well out of here before they do."

Laura nodded. "I'll go."

Jean saw her gaze flick back to the books. She was going to go . . . right now . . . deeper into the woods . . . but she wanted to take the books with her.

Logan saw it, too. He leaned forward and put his hand on the top book of the stack. "I don't want you to go, Kid. I want you to come. With us. You don't have to keep running."

Laura shook her head, one sharp, sideways jerk. "HYDRA wants me. SHIELD wants me. And now you want me."

"I'm not them, Kid. I'm nothing like them. I'm like you. And you know it, or else you wouldn't be here, hidin' in the broken pieces of my screwed-up life. We're two of a kind, whether either of us likes it or not."

"Give me the books."

Logan obediently lifted his hand away. "Just thought maybe it was about time you actually had a childhood, instead of just reading about one. But I'm not going to hog-tie you and drag you out of here. You go where you want."

Laura darted forward and grabbed Little House in the Big Woods, clutching it to her chest with one hand. Never letting her back be turned to either Logan or Jean, she moved towards the door and out into the sunshine.

Jean brushed Logan's mind, and immediately recoiled at the tension. He was taking a huge risk, and he knew it. She didn't think that he was breathing. Best case scenario, Laura would be back in a few seconds . . . but it was also more than likely that she'd disappear into the mountains and she'd never be seen again. With such a traumatized mind, there was no way for anyone, even a telepath like Jean, to be certain what she would do.

Jean's ears were ringing. No . . . that wasn't the thrum of blood in her ears, it was something else, loud but far away.

"What is that?"

She felt his attention swing away, from Laura to the distant pulsing sound. "Chopper."

Then in a heartbeat they were both moving, shooting out the door. "Laura!"

Laura was in the middle of the clearing, standing upright and motionless, her eyes fixed on the sky. "Two choppers," she announced. The book was still clutched tightly in her left hand. "One over the lake with the island in it, the other coming up on the long skinny lake."

"It's Nick," Logan snarled. "I know those engines. He knows you've got to be by water, he just doesn't know which."

"How'd he find us?" Jean asked.

"Probably got flagged when we tried to use the credit card."

"You think he's found Velocity?"

"Yeah. Would've secured that before he went lake-hopping. And we're gonna need 'er."

They would. With Magneto in the game, the metal-free craft could be the difference between life and death. "What do we do?"

Laura's head came round; she, too, was listening for Logan's instructions.

"Jeannie, you go head back into the woods and find cover. They're here after Laura, so they're using live ammo, and I don't want you shot. Laura, how are you against an in-flight helicopter?"

"Good," said Laura.

"All right. Swing southeast, around that inlet, and get high. I'll come down the other side of lake here and see if I can't get it to come in on top of you. Just cut the tail controls and crash it in the shallow water, and then at least we'll have some weapons to work with. Get going."

Laura took to her heels and was gone.

"I can—" Jean started.

"No," Logan snapped at her. "Stay hidden. Hidden, and down. We'll come back for you." And then he was off in the other direction.

Jean spent about ten seconds giving serious consideration to Logan's orders and the pros and cons of following them. Then she decided they really ought to be ignored.

"What happened?"

"Knocked out a tooth."

"How?"

"Fistfight."

"Who would he get in a fistfight with? This is Summers, isn't it? He's supposed to be in solitary confinement! What idiot put him in GenPop? Sit down, Kid."

Scott realized, a beat late, that this last bit had been addressed to him. He reached out to find what he was supposed to sit on, and found a vinyl-covered exam table.

His whole jaw was filled with a deep, fierce, aching pain, and his mouth was full of blood. He couldn't swallow and couldn't spit, so he just let blood and saliva run down his chin, vampire-like. He felt disgusting, and didn't dare explore the most painful spot with his tongue, not wanting to feel the jagged chunk of bone where his healthy, never-even-a-cavity tooth had been.

He sat, and felt a latex-gloved hand take hold of his chin. "Open your mouth," ordered someone, and Scott obeyed, hoping this person was actually a medical professional. A gloved finger slipped between his teeth and over his tongue, gently proving the bloody spot. "That's gonna need dental work. Start making the arrangements for prisoner transport. Scott, I'm going to give you a glass of water to rinse out your mouth, and then we'll get that bleeding stopped and give you something for the pain. Sound good?"

Scott nodded. Dabbing blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand, he muttered, "Thank you."

The doctor gave a dry snort of amused laughter. "Polite one, isn't he?" he commented, probably to the Corrections Officer that had brought Scott up here to the infirmary.

"Huh," the CO commented neutrally. "Mutants with manners."

"We're starting a club," said Scott.

The doctor laughed outright. "Okay, let's get you cleaned up. We'll get you to the dentist by this afternoon. You're going to be all right." The voice dropped to an annoyed mumble. "Not that the same can be said for whatever moron put you in the gym with the rest of the cons. Someone in this facility has a death wish."

Kitty woke up again, less dizzy, less excited, more confused, hungrier. She felt awkwardly for her hair and found cotton cloth under her fingers.

"Good morning," said a woman's voice, one she didn't recognize. A lady she'd never seen in her life came to stand over her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Kitty admitted. "Who're you?"

"Liz," said the woman, smiling with a little bit of embarrassment. "I'm . . . I came up with the refugees last night. Hank's been organizing people to help out where their powers and skills can be useful, and I'm an RN, so I'm on medical duty. Is it okay if I check on your pulse and your blood pressure?"

"I guess so," said Kitty wearily. "Knock yourself out."

She dozed off a little bit while Liz fitted the cuff on her arm and counted off the pulse beats in her wrist. "You're looking a lot better," she told Kitty. "Your blood pressure's way up towards where it should be, but a lot of that is just saline. You're going to need to take it easy for a while while your body rebuilds all those red blood cells."

"Swell," said Kitty listlessly. "I needed a vacation."

"Are you hungry?"

"Like starving."

"Do you want me to bring you something from the kitchen, or do you feel up to getting out of bed?"

Out of bed. Out to where Peter is. That was what she would have thought, if she'd given herself permission to think about Peter. But she wanted out of this bed, now.

"I'm great," she insisted, fighting her way up into a sitting position. "I want to get up. I . . ." She stopped. "Am I wearing one of those hospital gowns that, like, opens in the back?"

Liz laughed. "Yep, you are. Hang on and I'll get you some scrubs."

The scrubs were duly brought . . . unfashionable mint green things, but at least they were clothes. When Kitty shook out the shirt, she found that the Institute logo had been drawn on the right shoulder in what looked like black permanent marker. "I guess my badge didn't survive any more than my hair did."

"Nope. But I'd wear that with pride, if I were you. The X is getting to be rather a big deal up here." She unhooked the clear tubing from the needle in Kitty's arm. "I'll unplug you so you can get dressed, but I'd feel better keeping you on the drip for at least a few more hours. You'll have to cart it around. Sorry."

"I got brought here naked and bald," Kitty pointed out. "I think the iv stand is kinda the least of my image problems."

Liz laughed, and Kitty found herself laughing too.

When she was dressed, plugged in, and on her feet, Liz gave her leave to head upstairs to the kitchen. The floor was cold—well, everything was cold, what else was new—but her head was pretty clear and balance didn't seem to be too much of a problem. She made it to the elevator without any trouble, wheeling the silver stand along with her.

The kitchen was on the floor designated by elevator controls as 2. Above that were two levels of dorms. She and her team had set up camp on the higher level, with bigger rooms that housed more people. She pushed the button for level 4.

The stairs, which were how she'd come up here before, were somewhere else in the irregular and unpredictable twisting floor plan. But she recognized the room she and the other X-Girls had claimed. It had a catchy door number - 4646. And across the hallway would be the boys' room.

Kitty stopped. And panicked.

She'd made it this far on impulse, urgency, and curiosity. She wanted to know . . . had to know . . . what had happened between her and Piotr, what it had meant. But the sudden wave of ways this could end badly left her immobile in the corridor.

"He's probably not even in there," Kitty told herself. "It's probably empty. He's probably somewhere else. I'll just . . . no, I won't even check."

But with the knee-jerk recklessness and instant regret of someone driving through a yellow light they probably should have stopped for, she pulled open the door and looked inside.

Oh, my gosh, he's here.

He was sitting on his bunk with his back to the door, but turned when he heard her. The part of her that wasn't freaking out was noticing with breathtaking, embarrassing vividness all sorts of things she'd never noticed before . . . like how his bright blue eyes were wise and kind, and how his faint, almost sad smile made her face and her heart flush with warmth, and how his broad arms and shoulders filled her head with memories of how it felt to be held by him. It was a really, really good thing he wasn't a telepath.

But he'd smiled at her. Kitty had never been good at playing it cool; she felt her whole face light up without her permission. Running at him and jumping into his arms seemed like a really good idea. But she was plugged into an IV stand. And her balance still wasn't so good. So that plan wasn't going to work.

So she waited in the doorway. And he didn't come to her.

"Piotr?"

Drat, her voice was too high.

His smile widened a little. Kitty's heart thumped, and she decided it wasn't important that her voice cracked.

"You're feeling better?" he asked.

"Uh . . . yeah. I mean, I'm all, like, woozy and I have to drag this thing . . ." She gestured awkwardly to the stand. Her hand jerked up involuntarily to fret her hair behind her ear . . . oh, yeah. She had no hair.

"I'm glad."

He was glad. She heard it in the rich gentleness of his voice. But he didn't stand up, didn't move towards her.

"You got me out," Kitty told him.

"There was a strike team."

"But you got me out."

"Yes, that was my assignment. I got you out."

"But . . . when I woke up, it was cold, and you said . . . you . . . did I . . . I didn't imagine any of that, did I? Please tell me you have a clue what I'm talking about."

His smile widened, and he laughed. "Often I don't."

She felt all the blood drain from her face. Oh, no, she'd hallucinated it all. Oh, gosh.

He seemed to take pity on her; he stood up and came across the room. "But in this case," he admitted, "I do."

Kitty suddenly realized she'd forgotten to breathe for the last several seconds. She made up for it by sucking in one big breath all at once, which made her even dizzier. "So it, like, really did happen?"

Piotr nodded. "Yes. And I said it at the time, but it bears repeating. I'm sincerely sorry for the way I behaved."

"You're . . . you're sorry? Why would you be sorry? It was . . ." Words failed. Again. She wasn't handling this very well. "Piotr, just, you know, tell me. Did you kiss me? When you saved me?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because you were alive."

She hesitated over her next words, trying to talk herself either into or out of saying them, before they came tumbling helter-skelter out of her. "But . . . I'm alive now, and you're just, like . . . standing there."

His faint, sweet smile reappeared. He reached one hand across to her face . . . he was still standing so far away that his arm was at full extension . . . and let his fingers graze the side of her jaw, his thumb gently stroking the corner of her mouth. Kitty leaned into his touch, but he drew his hand away, just enough to keep the contact feather-light.

"Katherine," he murmured, and Kitty felt every muscle in her body go limp and warm. If this was what swooning felt like, then it felt spectacular. She hoped he was close enough to catch her when she collapsed onto the floor in a mind-blowingly happy puddle. She wanted to swoon every day.

"I care about you," he told her, his voice soft and rich and deep. Then he stopped, and rephrased. "I care for you. A great deal. And I want to be for you whatever you need me to be. But what I don't want, and what you don't need, is for me to be just one more complication between you and Lance Alvers."

Lance. The name hit her like an ice cube down the back of her shirt.

"You've been injured and traumatized, and right now you are very fragile. It is a very bad time for you to be making important decisions, particularly ones you may regret later. Take some time. Consider your choices and your feelings. And whatever you decide, I will be there for you."

For just a second, she felt his fingers curl a little bit under her jaw, as though he would draw her close to him. But before she could react, his hand fell away.

"Have you eaten?" he asked gently.

Mutely, Kitty shook her head.

"Are you hungry?"

Nod.

"Come on. I'll take you down to the kitchen and we'll get you some food."

Kitty allowed him to take her gently by the arm and lead her back to the elevator, steadying her when she wobbled. His hand was big, and warm, and strong, and Kitty loved the feel of it and hated that she liked it so much. He'd saved her last night, but now she felt like she was drowning in her own problems and he was refusing to help her. She'd felt less lonely confined in the plastic tube.

Another person she didn't know, a short, middle-aged man with faint fish-scale patterns across every inch of his visible skin, was on duty in the kitchen, cleaning up from lunch. "You're Shadowcat, right?" he asked, drying his hands. "Lunch isn't ready yet, but if you're hungry there are leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Chili."

"Can you bring a bowl into the dining room?" Colossus asked on her behalf. "She's still not very coordinated."

"Yeah, absolutely."

"She likes sour cream and cheese, but no hot sauce."

"Got it." The man grinned. "I'm Mark, by the way. I don't have a fancy nickname . . . it's just 'Mark'."

"Nice to meet you, Mark," Kitty intoned politely. Piotr's steadying hand was against the small of her back, and he knew how she liked her chili. But he took her through to the dining room, pulled out a chair for her, made sure she was settled and comfortable, and left her alone.

The bleeding in Scott's mouth had stopped by the time he was escorted into the dental clinic. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles, and the chains clanked as he walked as though he were the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"We've got the chair ready. Bring him through here."

"You got the message that he's a high-risk prisoner, right?"

"Yes, and we have all the standard precautions in place. We can sedate him, if the warden thinks it's prudent."

"I won't do anything stupid," Scott assured whoever was talking. "I just want my tooth fixed."

"I don't think you need to sedate him," said the guard at Scott's shoulder. "But strap him down real good. He sent four other guys to the infirmary, with his eyes closed like that the whole time."

This was not at all the time to be self-congratulating, but Scott stored this information away for later smugness.

"Understood. Have your men bring him through."

Rough hands gripped Scott's arms and shoulders, shoving him forward. He reached out his hands to keep himself from smacking into any door frames as they maneuvered him into another, smaller room. Something bumped against his thighs: the dentist's chair. His roving hands did a quick check of its position and shape, and found a strap of thick leather with holes pierced down the middle. Cuffs. Well, he guessed it made sense, if this was a clinic to which inmates were regularly taken, to have restraints. With freedom just beyond the unlocked clinic door, someone was bound to try to fight his way out.

Scott climbed into the chair and lay back willingly, as the guards buckled his wrists, ankles, head, and waist into immobility. When he was secured, he heard a male voice say, "That'll do. You gentlemen can wait outside until we're done here."

There were retreating footsteps, and a closing door.

"Well, young man," the voice observed, "I can't wait to see the other guy."

"Me, neither," Scott joked back. "Do I look that bad?"

"Pretty black and blue, yeah. They sure did a number on you."

"I believe it."

He felt a gloved hand take hold of his chin tug gently down; he obligingly opened his mouth as wide as he could manage. "Well, you've lost a good chunk of your number twenty-one . . . that's your first premolar over here . . . but it looks like we can just take care of it with a filling, without resorting to crowns. The question is this: some con hit you hard enough to break off a chunk of your tooth, and you didn't even open your eyes?"

He let go of Scott's jaw to let him answer the question. "If I'd opened my eyes, I'd have blown a hole in the wall, probably let a couple of the other inmates escape into lower Manhattan, and started a media blitz about the crazy uncontrollable mutant threat. Given the choice, I'll just take the filling."

"Yeah, you're absolutely right. That would have been a media disaster. Imagine the headlines."

"'Mutant riot in New York City! Are our children safe?'"

"'Crazy unstoppable mutant menace! Step up registration! Harsher penalties for failure to register! More secure prisons!' All right, Scott, I'm going to put this rest in your back teeth so you don't have to hold your jaw open this whole time . . . is that all right, right there?"

"Ah, ahh's ouh," said Scott, assuming that dentists were pretty good at interpreting consonant-free speech. He nodded to reinforce the point, as much as he could with a strap around his forehead.

"The thing is," the dentist continued, "if you could potentially cause that much trouble for this anti-Registration-Act cause you seem to be campaigning for by blowing a hole in a prison, how much more trouble would you cause by damaging, say . . . a dental clinic?"

Scott's head recoiled back a little bit against the chair, but there was hardly any wiggle room; they'd buckled him in tight.

"I respect your courage, young man, but this society isn't the place for you or your kind. So the sooner you open those eyes, the sooner I stop drilling."

The next twenty minutes were a descent into hell. Scott screamed until his throat was raw. But his eyes stayed closed.

Author's Notes:

Hi, everybody! I'm back! I'm sorry to string out your nerves for so long. Our understaffing problems at work have smoothed out, so hopefully I'll have an hour or so a day to actually make some progress on this story. Yaay! As always, feedback, criticism, and questions are always appreciated, as is your unfailing faith in me.

Seri