We Can Explain...

We Can Explain...Chapter ty Ety Eight (NC-17)
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A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta... *shimmies because we can * ;) InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly marshmallowy goodness for archiving/hosting. ProPhile is glompworthy. Morgan: *HUGS * Readers/Reviewers: The armadillos are watching... *sneaky glomps *

Jean closed her eyes and wished for sleep. She had forgone the pizza in order to nap. It seemed like she just could not get enough sleep lately, even before the ill fated trip to the fair, she had been fatigued. After three pregnancy tests came back negative, she and Scott had decided it was due to her heavy course load and job at the clinic, neither of which she wanted to give up for any reason. She had taken to napping at every available moment and was verging on giddy when the Professor announced the two hour break. She had managed to extricate herself from Scott's insistence that she eat, she dodged Jubilee's plea to help her fix some history paper problem, and practically ran to the boat house and flung herself into her bed. Jean exhaled slowly, willing the tension from her muscles and mind, closing the curtains in the process just by thinking it so. Her fingers drifted to her stomach, under her sweater to the small spot on her stomach. The skin there was smooth and without feeling; she knew that, if she looked at it, it would be pink and shiny. The spot where the silver implant had been would be with her forever, a constant reminder of what had happened to them. She felt sleep claiming her and knew she would dream of it, no matter how hard she wanted otherwise.

"What do you mean it's not there?" she demanded, stuffing the map into the glove box. "I have the damned address printed out and everything!"
Scott sighed noisily and made another U-turn, the fourth of their trip in the last ten minutes. "Jean, I don't care what that piece of paper says. There is no truck stop here! There's...oh."
Jean looked up from her perusal of the small plastic map of New Jersey they had picked up at the last gas station and frowned. "Oh what?"
Scott did not answer but instead turned suddenly into a parking lot, the entrance all but hidden by overgrown weeds, trash and random debris from the side of the road. He winced as the bottom of the car scraped cement and the bounced into the empty parking lot. Barrels that once contained fuel oil dotted the scenery. Out of habit, he pulled into one of the empty spaces in front of the store and shut off the engine. "This is it."
She dropped the map to the floorboard and stared. "There's no one here, to be blatantly obvious about things." She did a quick scan and picked up nothing save for Scott's mental swearing. "And the phone is broken," she added, pointing to the shattered window. Jean slid out of the car, her mind open for any signal, distress or otherwise, that would indicate their friends' presence. She barely paid any attention to Scott joining her at the broken window as she tried to discern any sign of recent visitors. The receiver lay in the broken glass and some footprints were obvious in the dirt and dust near the window, but they were already starting to erode in the slight breeze. "These must be recent," she finally said, squatting to point to one print, deeper than the rest because the boot was heavy, a combat boot from the look of the print, and set into a particularly soft pile of sandy soil on the sidewalk. "They're only just now starting to get ruined so they can't have been here too long ago..."
Scott joined her in examining the prints. "Ah...Jubilee..." he murmured.
"Her foot's not that big!" Jean protested, tracing the outline of the print with her finger and wishing she had paid more attention in Logan's classes on tracking the opponent. _He always said I relied to much on my powers... damn it. _
Scott drew her attention to something else near the print with a soft snort and a nod. "No, that. Look..." He pointed to what had caught his attention. A glob of multi-hued gum, like several different flavors chewed together, proclaimed a recent presence at that spot. "Indecisive Jubilee strikes again..."
Jean made a noise of either frustration or acknowledgement, Scott was not quite sure which, and rocked back on her heels. "Anyone could've spit that out," she sighed. "Just because it's...ew...fresh..."
"How many vagrants do you think would be wearing combat boots with little wear on the treads and chewing several flavors of bubble gum?" He stood as if something was decided. "Come on. They have to be around here somewhere."
Jean groaned and stood. "Scott, who said it had to be either them or a vagrant? I mean, for all we know, someone had car trouble, saw the pay phone, came over here to use it and spit out the gum to talk."
"Then ripped it off the cord and threw it through a window?" he rejoined.
"Maybe they wasted their change on a wrong number," she shrugged. She knew from the look on his face that she was going to be forced into a detailed search, no matter what she said, and sighed. "Let me get the phone out of the car, just in case..."
Scott started around the side of the building, following the sporadic combat boot tracks until they disappeared near a storage shed that smelled of diesel. The door to it stood open, revealing nothing more than a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes and empty fuel containers. "Shit..."
Jean jogged up behind him, the phone pressed to her ear. "Yeah, he's with me, why?" She mouthed 'Kitty' in response to Scott's curious expression. "How the Hell...okay. Okay. Right. What's the address?" She made a writing motion to Scott, then waved off his open handed gesture of lacking. "Sure, sure. Look, just don't go anywhere, okay? Promise? Right. See you soon." She snapped the phone shut, annoyance and worry rolling off her in waves. "Anything?" she asked curtly.
"Huh? Oh...no. The shed is empty and the tracks end here...that was Kitty?" He toed the ground, making a small show of looking for more prints rather than face Jean's narrowed, angry gaze.
"She says," she gritted between clenched teeth, "they're in Tucson."
"Arizona?"
"Do you know of another one?"
"Er...no..." He cleared his throat in sheepishness. "Well...now what?"
"She wants us to come get them. She said no one is answering at home and she can't get Storm, Logan or the Professor to answer their cels."
Scott blew out a breath. "Well...we can probably get plane tickets together for this evening..."
She nodded. "But we still have these guys to worry about."
Scott frowned. "Okay. Here's what we'll do. Call the police."
She started. "But we should get a hold of the Professor first!"
He shook his head. "Police. This is too weird to handle ourselves anymore."

Jean was shaken from her dream but Scott's hand on her knee. "Hey...the Professor is ready to start again."
She groaned and pulled herself into a fetal position. "Ten more minutes..."
Scott frowned. He had been trying to wake her up for more than fifteen minutes and was starting to get worried. It wasn't like her to be such a heavy sleeper and it seemed to be getting worse over the past week. "Jeannie?"
"No Jeannie. Ten more minutes..."
Scott sighed and ran his fingers through his hair in mute frustration. "Jean..." He gasped as she mentally shoved him out the door. "Okay, okay. Ten minutes!" He turned and went down the stairs, making the decision then and there to get her in to see Beast.