Chapter 20 - Summers Ink Master

Elin, of course, had taken the seat next to Chance, who was still unconscious well after Kate had woken up. But when he did wake up, it was apparent that he had once again lost a chunk of memory, since he looked sort of confused at waking up in the medical wing.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" Elin asked.

Chance smiled her way softly and reached over to squeeze her hand. "Starving," he admitted. "How long… what even happened?"

"There was an explosion; you were too close to the middle of it."

He frowned at that and then let out a breath. "Anybody else get hurt?" he asked.

"Yeah, there were a few, James knows more about it than I do, though."

Chance nodded as he started to sit up and then made a face. "Man. I'm starving. Ty must have been working overtime," he muttered, then glanced up at her and gave her a small smile. "Sorry. I suck at staying out of trouble, apparently."

"Yeah ... " Elin said, smirking to herself as she texted her parents to ask them to keep the twins. "Working really hard."

"Well, hey, why don't we grab something to eat?" Chance said. "And then I'll try to properly apologize for being accident prone, apparently," he added with a crooked smile.

"We could," she agreed, nodding slowly. "I think you should chill here for a little bit … I can bring you some food. What sounds good?"

"I'll eat whatever. I could probably eat a horse, but please don't get me one of those," he teased. "I like 'em too much to do that."

"Alright. How about a burger? Steak? Chinese? You pick; my treat," Elin said as she made her way over to snuggle up with him for a moment.

Chance chuckled and leaned over to kiss her. "Steak sounds really good right now, honestly," he said, then kissed her again.

"You want it; you got it," she promised before she gave him a little more involved kiss. "Just … stay here while I'm gone."

"Yes ma'am," he teased, grinning widely and stealing another kiss, though when the door opened to admit Cody — coming to check on Kate and see what he could do — he positively froze, his eyes wide. "El…"

"What?" she asked, though she followed his gaze.

Chance held his breath for a long moment before he very suddenly got up and all but sprinted over to Cody to grab him and wrap him in a tight hug, taking Cody by surprise, though he wasn't going to argue with the hug.

Memory issues; don't press, Elin projected to Cody. I'm not sure where he is, mentally, but don't mention the kids. He might not come back. I told him to stay here while I get him food.

Yeah… the impression I'm getting right now is he thought I was still dead, so…

So that would put him before the twins anyhow.

Yeah, it would, Cody replied as his big brother didn't let up on the hug until Cody set him back down on his feet and just stared at him like he couldn't believe what was happening.

"Cody, do you want me to bring you a bite too?" Elin asked. "Since I'm going up?"

"Yeah, that would be nice," he said, then smiled at his now-shorter big brother. "Yeah, um, hi. Wasn't dead. It's a long story."

"You grew, like, two feet and got tattoos," Chance said, his tone half awed and half accusatory.

"Yep," Cody said with a smirk. "Like I said: long story. The long and short of it is that Sinister's the worst, but hey, we knew that."

Chance shook his head at that and then pulled Cody into a hug. "Man, I must have been out for a while."

"Yeah, well, we'll catch you up later," Cody said. "You can thank Billy for pointing the team toward Sinister."

"I'll definitely have to thank him." Chance sized up his brother, one eyebrow raised. "Sinister gave you tattoos?"

"Um, no, I did that myself," Cody couldn't help but laugh. He glanced toward the door that Elin had slipped through and then gestured back to the bed Chance had vacated. "Come on. Doctor's orders: you need to stay down here for a while. I don't know what I can tell you. Seems like the hospital stay has fogged your head a little bit, and while you're getting your bearings, I mean, I'm sure you don't want to hear about Sinister."

Chance made a face. "Yeah, no."

"So… how about you tell me what's been going on with you?" Cody asked.

Chance shrugged and hopped up on the bed. "Well, I'm planning on making Elin take some time off with me for our anniversary," he said. "You… probably don't know, but it's been rough since Apocalypse, and everyone's been running themselves ragged trying to help where they can."

Cody nodded. "Yeah, I bet," he said.

"I don't know if it's already past the date," Chance said, frowning as he watched his little brother. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to get tattoos," Cody said with a smirk. "You did get hurt pretty badly," he added, deciding to play into Chance's misperception that he'd been hospitalized for a while.

"Yeah. Clearly," Chance said, shaking his head. He leaned back, grinned, and then reached over to pull Cody into another hug. "It's so good to see you again, man."

"Yeah, love you too, Chance," Cody said, grinning to himself as he returned the hug, since he hadn't really experienced Chance in one of his memory loss situations firsthand like this.

Chance was catching Cody up on what he thought was the most recent news — some of which was, in fact, news to Cody, since he hadn't been around for the immediate aftermath of Apocalypse — when Elin came back a while later. And she had to smirk when she saw the obviously happy look on Chance's face, since he was clearly over the moon at having his brother back.

"Alright, you need to eat up, boys; you might be slower, but you'll never heal right without something that's less than 90% sugar," Elin had to tease.

"Lies," Chance said, though he got up to steal a kiss from her and help with the tray anyway.

"Yet, you'd think that when it comes to healing that I knew what I was talking about," Elin said, shaking her head at him.

"We're Hales — it's a whole different thing," Cody chuckled. "Totally different species."

"Right, right," Elin said, nodding. "I forgot. It's a lie if you don't like the answer too."

Cody laughed at that, though he did make sure to fill her in on where Chance was in his own mental timeline while Chance was pretty quiet feeding the healing he'd just been through.

Oh, She projected out when she realized it. Yeah, thanks, I'll make sure that my folks keep the twins until he's back to himself. He … yeah.

I kinda want to stick around and see the baby face happen all over again. Can you imagine?

I don't want to break him, Cody. And it would break him.

He's going to remember it sooner or later. Or figure it out.

Yeah, but it would be my luck that he forgets all the stuff that went with it. And I can't … handle that.

Cody nodded slowly at that. If it comes to it, I'll give him a blast of memories of the whole thing. Gotta take care of my sister-in-law, right?

We'll just have to see how it goes. If he sees Maria, the jig will be up anyhow. Or little Kurt.

If we're lucky, he'll think Kurt is John. They look pretty similar.

All my brothers look similar.

Cody smirked at that and nodded. We'll just take it as it comes, he said.

But, yeah, it would be funny to let you see the look. You know. Since if it ever happens again, it'll be a while.

I'll make sure to get a picture. It'll last longer, Cody teased.

Smart man, Elin decided before she stole a carrot off of Cody's plate. "Oops."

"Chance, your wife is a thief," Cody laughed.

"Yep. A scary, scary thief," Chance said without missing a beat, which had Cody snickering.

Kate was pretty hungry after all that she'd been through, though Kurt had been the priority for the first little while, simply because she knew that he must have been beside himself while she was gone. After all, she knew this time exactly where she had been.

But when Elin had brought some food for the Summers boys, she had realized she was starving, and the moment she mentioned it to Kurt, she found herself teleported up to the dining room — since Kurt was still of the mindset that he was going to spoil her rotten when he had been so very close to losing her.

Logan and K were there with the tiny Summers twins with the rest of the steaks and food from the meals Elin had brought down, directing the traffic of the rest of the crew.

"You really need to tone back your danger level," K teased.

Kate smirked her way with her arm around Kurt's waist. "Yeah, what was I thinking being a businesswoman? I should do safer things like join the Avengers or the X-Men."

"Cut. Throat," K agreed. "You'd be much better off in Cap's drawing circle."

"Oh, definitely," Kate chuckled as she loaded herself up a plate, still starving.

"You okay, Kate?" Logan asked just after Matthew went a step too far in his pushing and playing and got a much more serious-sounding warning growl that had him sitting back and toeing the line quickly.

Kate couldn't help but grin when she saw the interaction before she nodded. "I am now," she said haltingly.

"That building was a mess," Logan told her.

Kate frowned and let her shoulders drop. "I'm going to need to call some of the families," she said softly. "And make sure everyone else knows that they'll still be getting paid in the meantime." She drummed her fingers on the table as she thought about it until Kurt grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles and whispered to her to take it easy, just for a moment longer.

"Stark already sent over a few suggestions for new digs," Logan said conversationally as Matthew finally snuggled in under his chin for the duration.

"Of course he did," Kate said, shaking her head before she glanced up at Logan and bit her lip. The last time she'd had a message like this, she'd waited a while, but this time… "Also… I have a message for you," she said, looking up to meet his gaze.

Logan frowned at her for a moment. "You playin' secretary now?"

Kate smiled. "Well, only on special occasions," she said slowly. "And I don't think there was really another way Kitty could tell you that she knows what you're planning and you really don't have to do that."

All of the other adults around the table simply froze on hearing who it was from, but after a moment, K and Logan shared a look, and he shook his head. "Yes, I do."

"Okay, but she said you didn't, and I promised I'd tell you so," Kate said.

"She's wrong," Logan said, reaching for his coffee.

Kate watched him for a moment and then let out a long sigh. "She said you'd say that," she said, leaning back into Kurt, who was staring at her openly.

"Then she should have sent you with a more reasonable message if she knew she was wrong," Logan said without missing a beat.

Kate shook her head at him. "Yeah, she loves you too," she said before she glanced back up at Kurt and then kissed him gently. "Don't worry, Kurt. I'm not planning on staying there. Not for a long, long time," she whispered.

"Good," he replied, pulling her a bit tighter than before and still watching her with that same open expression — at least until Liliana decided that he looked too upset and climbed up to tug on his pants leg repeating 'up' until he picked her up so she could snuggle him.