We Can Explain...
7
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We Can Explain…Chapter Seven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch, and Uberbeta… Kilts for the
muses! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink
and Dracena get marshmallow Peeps for archving/hosting.
something, I’ll work on characterization.
Thanks for the input!
“And how
was disappearing for a week your fault?” Storm asked with a slight smirk in her
voice. “I should think it would have
been Kurt’s, for the teleporting…”
“Danke,” he
grumbled, picking at the remains of Kitty’s roll pile.
Jean shook
her head, her expression pinched and pale.
Brushing Scott’s hand from her arm, she hunched over the table and
began. “I sort of freaked out…”
“Where did
he go?” she choked, startled beyond belief.
The usually cool, calm, and collected Jean Grey was surprised into
near-panic. “He can’t have gone far
with Kitty with him…”
Scott,
leaning over the back of the front seat, demanded of Rogue, “Which holo did he
have on?”
“I ain’t
got a clue,” she snapped in return, just as panicked. She turned in a full circle, her eyes scanning the parking lot,
which was mostly devoid of people. “Kurt!”
she bellowed, making Todd and Jubilee twitch.
“Kurt Wagner, this ain’t funny!”
“We have a
two mile radius to work with here,” Scott reminded her, slamming the car door
shut. “Okay, we’re going to fan out…”
Jean shook
her head, her braid punctuating the movement.
“Pair off. It’ll go easier that
way and less chance of us getting lost or something. Amara, Jubilee, you take
the midway…”
Scott
frowned, his Fearless Leader reaction hard to deny. “Jean, wait a second.
“Scott,”
she said tersely, “Kurt is obviously ill, he has Kitty with him and he ported
blind, as far as we know. The more time
we take standing here is that much more time they have to be stuck or lost or
worse!”
Remy sighed
from his position leaning against the trunk.
“She got a point, homme…Mais, Jean,” he said, trying to gauge her temper
as he moved towards her, hands held out in placation, “Scott, he ain’t wrong,
either…”
Scott
nodded. “If we fan out, we can cover
more area.”
Jean
pressed her fingers to her temples in agitation. “If we go in pairs, it’s easier to find everyone when we’re done.”
“But
fanning out,” Scott said more firmly, “would mean we not only covered more area
but drew less attention.”
Lance made
a noise of agitation and ground his cigarette butt out under his boot
heel. “We’re dickin’ around and wastin’
time… I’m gonna go this way,” he pointed towards the Ferris wheel.
slightly muddy field that served as parking for the fair, heading downhill once
he got to the edge. He looked back over
his shoulder once, shrugged, and kept walking.
Jean
glared. “Damn it… Remy, go with
him. Amara, Jubilee, midway…”
Scott was
still fairly annoyed more than an hour later.
The search had been futile, resulting only in Todd winning a novelty cap
from the throwing booth and Lance finding out that the school slut from the
year before had a job as the bearded lady in the sideshow.
that hairy last time I saw her!”
“Look,”
Jean snapped, be serious!”
“Jean, calm
down,” Scott murmured. “If you get
pissed off, you’ll make mistakes.”
“Right,”
she nodded, her lips tensing. “Okay.
“Bingo,” Rogue
sighed. “We need to get some help here…”
“Two miles…do
we have a map?” Jean asked suddenly, throwing open the passenger side door to
rummage through the overstuffed glove box.
“What the
Hell are we gonna do with a map?” Todd groaned. “My legs hurt, yo… Let’s call Logan an’ Rahne, people who can
sniff ‘em out, ya know?”
Amara
frowned at that. “Be nice.
flooded and we needed someone to dive for the pipe, now did we?”
“You’re
just jealous bursting into flames ain’t useful.”
“Shut it,”
Lance growled, though no one was quite sure if he was ordering Todd or
Amara.
“Okay, here’s
what we’re going to do,” Jean announced, coming from her search slightly
frazzled and mostly certain. She had a
plan and she was going to execute it. “We
split up again. Two miles in every
direction, starting from this location.
Everyone has a phone, right?”
“Um…no…”
Remy spread his hands sorrowfully. “Dis
thief not be a big fan o’ dem electronic leashes.”
“I broke
mine,” Jubilee sighed. “Kind of.
Todd and
Lance laughed. “Right!” Lance
snorted. “Like I’d be trusted with a
cel phone!”
Jean’s face
slid into a frown. “Well…Okay. Slight
change. Two miles in each
direction. I’ll try to keep in contact
with each of you but if you don’t hear from me in…” She glanced at Scott, who made a low sign only she could
see. “Iu dou don’t hear from me in two
hours, use a pay phone if you can find one and call my phone.
are. Don’t wander off, don’t take your
own initiative. Any questions?”
“Yeah,”
Todd said nonchalantly. “When did Scott
get neutered?”
“Don’t,”
Jean ordered tightly, exerting her powers to hold Scott in place.
Amara
nodded. “Yes. What if we don’t find them?”
“We cross
that bridge when we come to it.” She
assayed a smile and smoothed her hands over the front of her jeans as if
rubbing away wrinkles. “Okay… we all
set?”
“I think,”
Scott began, but paused. “I think we’ll
do fine with this plan.” He nodded
encouragingly but left his words at that.
It had been a bone of contention between them since the jewelry incident
that he made all the decisions and never let her in on them until after the
fact. While she told him again and
again that she appreciated the gesture, she still wanted to make more of an
effort to make some of the decisions sometimes. He did not want to bring up the fact this decision affected more
than just him, though. He knew how
difficult it could be to regain control of the situation once one’s authority
was undermined. “Okay, we split up.”
Remy and
Jubilee automatically locked hands, as did Lance and Amara. Rogue sighed and
glanced at Todd. “Pick a direction,”
she said as if greatly bored, trying not to sound worried.
Jean smiled
to herself as they set out in their separate directions, she and Scott heading
north, away from the fair and towards the gentle downward slope leading to
Bayville some miles away. “Do you think
we’re doing the right thing?” she asked suddenly, once they were out of earshot
of everyone else.
“Why do you
ask?”
“I’m also
telepathic, you know,” she said dryly, never breaking stride.
“Jean, I’m
sorry…”
“No, it’s
okay.” She glanced at him and smiled
crookedly Her mascara had smeared to
faint gray circles under her eyes and most of her hair had escaped it’s
formerly tight braid, giving her the look of a little girl caught playing dress
up with her mother’s things. “I sort of
took over your Fearless Leader role…”
He
shrugged, pausing to snap the head off a long blade of grass and stick it
between his teeth rakishly. “Aw shucks, ma’am, “ he drawled in something
disturbingly like Sam’s accent, “it ain’t nothin’ to let a lady lead…”
“That’s
it. No cotton candy for you from now
on.”
“I don’t
under stand how this made the whole thing your fault,” Professor Xavier murmured
when Jean broke for breath. “Nor do I
see how you all managed to remain undetected…”
Jean
sighed. “It gets worse…”