Sins of the Father

Sins of the Father Chapter Fifty Five (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta...still in O.B.N. induced haze... *melts * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are squishy goodness for archiving/hosting! ProPhile: *poke * Morgan: You doing okay? Readers/Reviewers: Yay! Cohesion! LOL... Thank you sooooooooooooo much for reading/reviewing! *Glomps *


Scott passed a soothing hand over Jean's brow. They were blessedly alone in the boathouse, ensconced in the bedroom with the lights off and the curtains drawn against any errant strand of moonlight that would dare disturb Jean's migraine. Beast had hurried them out of the lab in an astonishing amount of time, merely looking Jean over in one ranking glance, asking her three curt questions-where, for how long and why-then shoved a bottle of painkiller into Scott's hands and ordered them away. He had the distinct feeling that Beast would have carried them bodily to the boathouse if they had not left then. Jean had managed to walk mostly under her own power, her teeth gritted against the throbbing, searing pain that radiated off her, leaking through her mental control and slithered into Scott's mind and body. He had gotten her home and summarily poured two painkillers down her throat, followed by tepid water poured into the bathroom tumbler in haste. Jean had not even whimpered in protest as she lay in wait for the pills to take effect, Scott's pace surely agitating though he could not make his feet stop their trek across the carpeted floor to the window, then back to the bed where he peered down at her for a few minutes before resuming the circuit. Jean murmured in her sleep but otherwise gave no sign of realizing his presence. In her drug induced somnolence, she did not project. Her pain had receded from his senses but he could not forget it or pretend that she did not still feel it. An uneasy silence had fallen across the grounds, thick and hot like a blanket in the spring warmth. He did not know what was going on anymore and frankly, he did not care just then, so long as Jean was not in pain when she woke up and that this strange and twisted nightmare of deception and half truths would be over soon.
"Scott," her soft voice broke the silence like snow falling in a still night.
"Shhhh," he urged, at her side in a second, already on his knees beside her. He slid one hand across her stomach and one up her arm in a sort of embrace. "Beast says you were having some sort of psychic backlash migraine, brought on by so much stress and just overusing your powers lately..."
"But I wasn't," she began, but seeing Scott's face set in his "I'm not going to listen to a word you say" expression, she trailed off. "What did they give me?"
"Some little blue and purple capsule," he murmured, ashamed almost that he did not remember the name. "Want me to call over and ask?"
"No," she sighed, "that's okay. I just wanted to know because they make me feel really good..." Jean smiled thinly, her lips pale from lack of blood, pressed together in a mockery of her usual expression. "What's going on? You look stressed. More than usual."
"Nothing," he answered quickly. _Maybe she doesn't remember right now... _
"Did the others come back?" she asked worriedly, her voice regaining some strength as she shoved herself to her elbows. "We need to go after them. I know where they are..."
"Professor Xavier has sent Logan, Warren, Banshee and Psylocke after them," he soothed, opting not to tell her about Jubilee and now, last he heard, Jamie and Todd being missing. He laced his fingers through hers and covered the juncture with his other hand. "You scared the Hell out of me... I don't like seeing you in pain."
"I don't like being in pain," she rejoined. "I don't know what Amara and Lance see in it." She smiled ruefully, white lines of tension highlighting her mouth.
Scott barked a laugh and brushed a kiss against the back of her hand. "I feel better now, seeing that you aren't going to drop dead on me."
"I wasn't even close," she sighed. "Scott, we can't just sit here." She focused intently on him and squeezed his hand in return for his embrace. "Our friends are in danger, serious danger. They might very well die tonight."
Scott opened his mouth to protest her melodrama but he knew, just by the expression of sheer fear in her eyes, that she was not exaggerating for effect. "There's already a rescue team on the way..."
"They don't know what I do," she hissed, releasing his hand and struggling to sit up. The effects of the painkillers were still coursing through her system, making her sluggish and off kilter. She swayed drunkenly as she sat up, her eyes unfocused for a moment and her face draining of color. "I can feel them moving... I don't know how he did it but I can feel them. It's like echoes that never really die, dopplered almost..." She was murmuring, her voice rapid and light as her fingers crept up to her mouth. "I hate not having control over this," she said a bit louder, her eyes fixing on Scott's lens-covered ones. "Ernie...he's leaking through my shields. It's like a whisper almost... I don't...I can't feel good, Scott." Her voice hitched on a sob and she buried her face in his neck as she rose to sit beside her on the bed. "Everything happy is gone from me."
"Jean," he began carefully, then paused. He thought he had heard something outside their window, down below in the garden area. He shook it off when the sound did not come again. "Jean, I want you to rest. Sleep off the rest of these painkillers. Whenever Beast is done with the Kurtty monster, we're going back over. Or," he added at the sight of the grimace on her face, "I'll ask him to come over here."
"No," she sighed, drawing out the syllable. "No, no, no..." She pulled away from him and looked up, her face curiously placid. "Stick your head out of the window and tell Todd and Jamie to wait for us."
"What?"
"Do it," she said, her eyes unfocusing slightly, "do it before they get too far and you'll have to yell." She shoved herself to her feet and wobbled for a moment before making a beeline for her dresser. "Scott!"
"Okay, okay!" He shook his head sadly. "You're going to be the death of me, you know that?"
"Not tonight I'm not."