Unspoken: Traumas II

Traumas II
by Minisinoo

Warning: Not sure, really. But it's certainly not a happy topic.

Summary: What do you say when words won't fix it? (Jean POV)

Timeline: Directly follows Traumas by Shana

Notes: Scott got his pov piece; Jean's turn. I'm being uncreative in my titles, but this is really the second half of Shana's story. :-) Thanks to Vic for reminding me what time it was <g>, as well as to all the NYC info. I couldn't have written this little chapter without her. Decided to go with the car, Vic. :-) The stories about Grady are from my own experience, and the tale of the GSW is true. I've never been in St. Mary's; descriptions of the ER is based on the ERs I have been in. I never did get the medi-babble I wanted, but I got impatient; this has been "in process" too long.

Date: November 12, 2001

Rush hour. New York City.

I think I'd rather have an enema than suffer rush hour in a car. At least Scott was sparing me the driving part, but I still had to sit through it. Stop, start, stop, start. Scott swearing under his breath at the State of New York for "letting fucking idiots behind the steering wheel."

"You're going to get an ulcer before you're forty," I tell him.

He whispers something obscene under his breath in reply. Admittedly, I haven't known him long, and I've never before driven anywhere with him (I don't think the Blackbird counts), but somehow, I doubt it's the traffic. His knuckles are white on the wheel.

"We could have taken the subway," I say.

"I'm not walking you back to the subway after dark in that neighborhood."

I don't reply. We take FDR down to the Brooklyn Bridge and cross the dark water, waves below lapping white in an autumn wind, to Brooklyn-Queens, and one exit south to Atlantic Avenue.

"Lock the doors," Scott says as we exit the BQE.

Even taxi drivers don't like to go down Atlantic.

It gets worse, the further we go. Burned out and boarded-up storefronts here and there, and the kind of dirty poverty that bears one down, even to see it. We pass a shopping mall with an Old Navy and a K-Mart. People are on the street in the twilight of coming evening, a sea of brown skin. I feel like a privileged ghost haunting where I don't belong. Pedestrians notice the car. It stands out in the neighborhood. Silver jag. White boy, you're on the wrong side of town.

We take Atlantic to Rochester Avenue and make a right, then go four blocks to St. Mark's and make a left. Buffalo Avenue is a block down and we can see the parking garage. It's packed. They usually are and I sigh. Finally, Scott finds a spot four floors up. As he's pulling into it, I undo my seatbelt to reach over into the back where I'd flung my white lab coat earlier with my name stitched on the left, along with a few medical 'accessories.' Before we'd left Warren's, I'd made Scott wait while I ran upstairs after these. If I've learned nothing else about hospitals, it's that doctors and chaplains can get in anywhere they want as long as they act like they know what they're about. I hadn't taken time to change anything other than the flannel shirt for a blue silk blouse, and grab the coat. Now, I slid out of the car and into medical white, twisting my hair up into a clip even as I was headed for the stairs, Scott on my heels. He got to it first and held the door for me, gave me a fast once over. Even with the glasses, I can tell the direction of his gaze. "That was quick, Dr. Grey. I'm officially impressed."

"Three minutes from first beep to the ER on a trauma call. You learn how to be quick," and I was past him down the stairs, running-not-quite-running. He kept up without trouble, out the bottom door and down the sidewalks past the hospital visitors and the locals. Here on hospital grounds, at least, we were back in a racial rainbow and I felt less out of place. "Reminds me of Grady," I mutter.

"Grady?"

"Grady Medical Center in Atlanta. Same kind of neighborhood, same kind of clientele. The advantage of working in a place like that is you see it all."

It was a walk to reach the ER doors and the covered drive for ambulances. "What were you doing in Atlanta?" he asked.

"Residency."

"You didn't do that here in New York? I thought you went to Columbia."

"That doesn't mean I did my residency there. I worked at the CDC, and did an ER residency at Grady. Oh -- CDC . . . Center for Disease Control." I glanced at him sidewise. "AIDS research."

"You?"

"That surprise you?"

I know that I've handed him a difficult question. Either way he answers, he risks putting his foot in his mouth and he knows it, so he doesn't reply. I elaborate for him. "I spent my life sheltered and privileged, Scott. I didn't like it. I wanted to do something, make a difference. I didn't become a doctor to make money, whatever my mother thought. So I chose to work on AIDS research. And I did a residency in Grady because . . . ." I trailed off. I'd meant to say, 'because I wanted to see how the other half lived,' but that sounded patronizing and arrogant. Instead, I finished with, "I learned a lot - and not just about medicine."

He's glancing around himself at the people. He's not from my social class, maybe, but he's still solidly upper middle and it shows in everything from the clothes he chooses to his haircut to his educated cursing in the car. "I can imagine."

We're almost to the doors and I grin over at him. The sun is lost behind the red brick towers and everything is in shadow. "First day in the ER, they wheeled in a guy with a GSW -- gun shot wound -- to the chest. Barely got him in the doors when a second guy came running in after, pulled a gun and finished the job. Right there in the ER lobby." Scott's jaw drops. "Needless to say, there was blood everywhere and we were all ducking for cover."

"And you stayed after that?"

"I stayed because of that, Scott. It woke me up. I loved it there. I met some amazing people - just amazing. Only a handful had skin my color."

And the doors are in front of us with their big "Emergency" in red on the glass, wooshing apart to admit us both. People clog the hall, a mostly-brown sea of pain, boredom, fear, or confusion. I slam up every shield the professor taught me to make and hope it'll suffice as I weave between, looking for a tall blond head that would stand out above the rest.

But it's Logan who I see first, and who sees us. He cuts right through and grabs both my arms. "What the hell are you doing here, Jeannie?" And he glares over my shoulder at Scott. "You dickhead - don't you have any better sense than to bring her to a freakin' hospital?" What he doesn't say, but we all know, is that a hospital was where my telepathy had first manifested -- catastrophically.

Yet before Scott can do more than open his mouth, I grab Logan by the chin and jerk his head back to face me. "Listen, mister. This is what I do for a living. Did for a living. Scott isn't 'letting' me come anywhere. My choice. I appreciate the thought, but I can decide for myself. We clear? Now where's Warren and what happened?" I let him go. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Scott grinning.

Logan blinks but actually backs down, tells me instead about the explosion at the warehouse. I can *feel* Scott getting madder by the minute till he's like a white tower of indignant rage behind me. Reaching back without even thinking about it, I get hold of his hand and squeeze. He squeezes back, and relaxes a little.

"So the upshot of it," Logan finishes, "is that Wing-Boy is pacing around in front of the doors with some chaplain whose trying to keep him from barging in there, and the girl's family is on the way. And we don't know a damn thing because we're not family."

I nod once, shortly, and glance back at Scott, let his hand go. "Take care of Warren." He nods and is already half gone even before the words are out of my mouth.. "You, too," I say to Logan. "I'll see what I can find out."

Straightening my jacket and hanging my stethoscope around my neck (a prop to prove my right to wear the white), I make sure the embroidered "Dr. Grey" is clearly visible on the left side of my jacket and clip an old ID badge from my previous job -- backwards -- low on a pocket, then push my way through towards the big double doors that separate the ER from the waiting rooms. Warren is standing there, protesting, as Scott tries to lead him off to a chair. I kiss Warren on the cheek. "Go with Scott," I say, then take a breath before pushing the doors open.

"Please God," I whisper to a deity in whom I've never believed. "Let my shields hold."

Inside isn't much quieter than the hall beyond, but it's a controlled chaos. Trauma A is directly in front of me past the nurses station on the right, and I can hear them calling back and forth. Sidling up to the door, I listen to shop-talk. They're transfusing and trying to get her fluid up -- stabilize her enough to take her to surgery. The most serious damage is a nicked aorta that's tearing further from blood pressure.

*Damn.*

Suddenly there's someone tugging on my sleeve and it makes me jump. I turn around, into an olfactory assault of fetid breath and unwashed man. Ugh. Involuntarily, I scrunch up my nose and pull back. This always was the hardest thing for me to deal with when treating indigents: the smell. I knew they had few places to wash but it still got to me. "Hey, hey, hey, hey," this one says, repetitively. He's not old, maybe mid-thirties. A certain wide-eyed delicate look under a ragged Yankees cap alerts me that he's not playing with a full deck. Ever since mental institutions had to release patients onto the streets, they've shown up in the ER rooms of big cities. Police get calls about them and have no where else to bring them. "Hey, hey, hey," he keeps saying, tugging at me. I can't hear a damn thing in the trauma room, and try to brush him off -- gently.

Just then a big guy, a nurse, comes over to get hold of the man's elbow and lead him away. "Come with me, Ed. Your room is over here." Ed must be a regular. And with the distraction gone, I can finally hear the conversation -- and wish I hadn't. It doesn't sound good, not good at all. Candy's blood pressure is bottoming out and I'm amazed she hasn't coded already. Circling the drain and going down fast.

I take two steps back. I need to get out of here. It's unlikely that Candace Southern will leave ER any way other than shrouded and toe-tagged, and I'd best go prepare Warren. And Scott. She may not be dead yet, and surprises can always happen, but given what I just heard, a little judicious pre-preparation is in order.

When I exit ER back into the hall beyond, I don't see Scott, Logan, or Warren, and I glance around helplessly until a middle aged man, short and slender, touches my arm. "Dr. Grey?" He has kind eyes.

"Yes, I'm Jean Grey."

"Scott Summers asked me to look for you." He smiles and offers a hand. "I'm John McKip, one of the hospital chaplains." I shake the hand. He isn't wearing a collar, which means he's probably protestant clergy. My experience with chaplains and social workers at Grady was a mixed bag. The student chaplains (like student doctors) were sometimes more trouble than they were worth, but the clinical supervisors had been saints. If I hadn't been so scared the night my telepathy had manifested, I might have called Rev. Bennet to come minister to *me*, for a change. She'd had skin like old leather under snow-white hair, yellowed dentures, and a quirky sense of humor, but a heart as big as an Olympic swimming pool. I'd never met a wiser woman.

Now, Rev. McKip says, "I took Warren to a family room, along with Candy's mother, who just arrived. I was going to see what I could learn."

I shake my head. "It's not good. Her aorta was nicked and she's bleeding out faster than they can transfuse her." He nods, able to guess the rest. It was just a matter of time, and probably not too much time, either. "Where are the others?"

"Follow me." And he leads me down a short hall between two ER waiting rooms, past triage to a closed door that he opens in order to usher me in. The ER family room, for crisis cases. And how many of these have I seen? But always on the other side: to give news, not wait to hear it.

An elegant, older woman looks up. When she sees me, she pops to her feet and runs over to clutch at my arm. I wince as much as the strength of her grip as at the need to block out her overwhelming fear. "Doctor, how is she?" she asks.

Scott has followed, right on her heels -- as if he knows. And maybe he does, maybe he can feel the anxiety that I've been suppressing, my fear that I can't maintain my shields. He pulls the woman away and says, softly, "Jean's a friend of Warren's and mine, Mrs. Southern. She came along at our request. She's not the doctor caring for Candy."

"Oh." The woman's face falls and she wanders back to sit down on the couch, shoulders bent with the weight of a grief that I've seen too much of in hospital work. The utter shock of sudden trauma. Warren's in no better shape. Scott's just suppressing it; he's appointed himself to be the strong one. Now, he studies my face as the chaplain goes to sit next to Mrs. Southern and hold her hand. Light spills yellow from lamps on end tables -- none of the nerve-irritating glare of overhead flourescents. Warren is alone at the little table in one corner, his body bent over his knees, his head in his hands. There is a box of institutional tissues on the tabletop in front of him, and cup of coffee. Logan, who I'd almost not noticed, stands off in a corner, arms crossed, as if he is needed to hold up the wall. The chaplain quietly asks Mrs. Southern if there is anyone else to notify.

"Well?" Scott whispers to me.

I wasn't sure I could do it, I wasn't sure I had the skill yet, but I laid a hand on his arm and REACHED, mentally. *It's just a matter of time, I'm afraid. The aorta was nicked. She's bleeding too fast and her blood pressure is bottoming out. We can hope -- but it sounded bad.*

He looks away and his jaw works a moment, but he nods sharply. He doesn't move his arm from beneath my hand, and I'm not sure why I chose to bespeak him instead of whispering. But I'd needed it, I'd needed to feel the solidity of his mind, like bedrock. My eyes flash across the room to Logan, who is watching the two of us rather than Warren, the chaplain, or the mother. I shake my head faintly and know he understands what I'm telling him. His chin goes up and he shifts his weight as if accepting a burden.

At that moment, the door bursts open and a middle-aged man enters, all command, all anger. It radiates out of him. "What happened to my daughter? Why was Candy at Warren's warehouse in the first damn place? And what idiot ambulance driver brought her *here* to this hell-hole?"

*Oh, just great*, I pick up from Scott's mind, but I don't need the commentary to recognize the type. This is a man used to getting his way.

"As soon as she's out of ER," her father continues, "I want her transferred to a better hospital -- one in a part of the city I'm not afraid to drive through in daylight!"

"Bigot," Scott mutters, but loud enough to be sure he is overheard. Irritated with his attitude, I squeeze his forearm. He wasn't very happy to drive down here earlier, either.

And luckily, the man ignores him to focus on me in medical white. "You're the doctor?" He doesn't give me a chance to decline before launching in. "Be sure to have all her medical records in order; our family physician is taking over direction of her care as soon as he can arrive."

Warren stands up, and even without the wingspan behind him, he's impressive. This is a side of him I haven't seen -- the authority and prestige of old money. "Darren, Jean's not Candy's doctor. She's just a friend. As for why Candy was brought here -- it was the closest hospital with a class A trauma center. Would you really want them to waste time -- at rush hour -- getting her to a hospital uptown? Or did you want them to save her life?"

Her father's jaw works and I hold my breath. My eyes slide to Scott. *And what happens if they don't save her life?* They're not likely to. It has nothing to do with skill, but a matter of timing and chance. Yet the anger in this man worries me. It's the spoiled kind that seeks to lay blame, not the white anger of rage on behalf of others, like Scott's earlier.

*We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Jean,* he sends back. Almost without thinking, I slide my palm down from his arm into his own hand and he squeezes, reassuringly. He's not afraid of Candy's father. Then again, I don't think Scott Summers is afraid of much, unless it's losing control of himself. *I'm sure this wouldn't be the first time the doctors here have had to deal with an unreasonable family member,* he adds.

I almost laugh at that. *I'm sure it's not, too.*

As if on cue, Chaplain McKip has come over to introduce himself and lead the man over to join his wife -- or ex-wife, I'm not sure which. He responds to the man's pain, not his anger. "I know it's frightening to be out of control when it's your child, and you can't do anything but wait." He doesn't add, But the doctors are doing all they can. It's not about what the doctors can do. It's about fear. And frustration.

Warren is watching, his jaw working. His eyes are red from tears and he looks as helpless as Candy's father. I leave Scott to go to him, put an arm around him and sit him back down, kneel on the floor beside the chair. Scott has approached, too. I half-expect jealousy from him, but don't find any. This moment goes beyond anything so trivial as sexual rivalry.

Warren is clinging to my hands; his grip is very strong and his skin is cold from shock. "She was down there because I asked her to go. It was supposed to be me there this afternoon, Jeannie. It should have been me."

"You didn't know," Scott tells him, pulling around a second chair to Warren's other side. "You couldn't know. It was chance, Warren. Goddamn chance."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Warren snarls, head half-turned towards Scott.

"I'm not trying to make you feel better. I'm trying to keep you from kicking yourself for something over which you had no control."

"Yeah. Like you're such an expert?"

"I am." The tone of his voice is full of a self-depreciating humor. "I'm an expert in doing exactly what you're doing. I recognize the signs, old friend." He nudges Warren. "Do as I say, don't do as I do. And leave the blame on the right shoulders. Which aren't yours."

"God, Scott -- if Candy dies . . . . " And he breaks down again.

With a glance at me, Scott puts an arm about Warren's shoulders, pulling him out of my grip to hug him hard with all the strength he can manage. Gentleness isn't always what's needed, and sometimes pain needs to be beaten out. "We'll find the asshole who set that bomb," Scott says softly, so the others in the room can't hear. "I *promise* you." Held up by Scott's strength, Warren sobs. I feel a presence at my back and glance around to find Logan.

He kneels down. "How you holding up?" I know he's not asking about my physical condition.

"I'm all right." Then I added, "Thank you," because I'd been unduly sharp. He just nods and pats my shoulder, then fades again into the background. Yet I feel better, reminded of his presence. Like Scott, Logan is fundamentally grounded.

And now . . . it's just the wait. I don't think it will be a long one, but that's the whole nature of waiting -- one doesn't know. The chaplain has disappeared to bring Candy's parents some coffee. Someone else arrives, an aunt, I think, but related to which parent I'm not sure. The room has polarized into The Family and The Boyfriend. Darren Southern glares over at Warren from time to time, but Warren's so shaky and dazed, he doesn't notice. Scott does. We trade a look. *He could be trouble,* Scott sends.

*I know. But you said something earlier about crossing bridges . . . .*

He grins, short and brief. And it's only then that I realize we've just spoken to each other without touching. I've never been able to do that with anyone but the professor. I wonder if it's because Scott has latent telepathic talent, or because he's spent years with the professor . . . or if there's some other reason -- that natural connection we felt from the outset. I'm reminded again of the strange telepathic cry of a few evenings ago that I'd dismissed as a figment of my imagination. *JEAN.* A cry of pain. *Had* it been imagination? And what was it about Scott Summers that drew me? On the face of it, we were so very different -- in backgrounds, in interests. Why was he so comfortable? Why did I understand him so well? It made no logical sense, and that bugged the hell out of the scientist in me.

Abruptly, the door opens. All of us jump (except maybe Logan). It's another doctor, also a woman, the main attending whose voice I'd heard earlier in the trauma room. She's not a great deal older than me -- late thirties maybe -- and not tall. She's also black, or black-Hispanic mix. Three strikes against her right there, with this family: young, female and a minority.

And I know just from looking at her face what news she's bringing.

*Candy's dead, isn't she?*, Scott sends.

I just nod, and without even thinking, rise to go stand beside my occupational sister. Solidarity in potential crisis. What she has to say is never easy news to bring.

Candy's parents have both approached, while the chaplain stands behind, the aunt off to one side. They know the truth, too -- they can feel it: a weight of palpable gloom that leeches all warmth from the very air. Sound falls dull, heavy, and it's hard to breathe. "You're Mr. and Mrs. Southern?" the doctor asks.

"Yes," the mother says, face beginning to crumple like an old rag, damp and used.

The doctor glances down and I feel her grief and anger. We're charged with saving lives, and when we lose that battle . . . it's personal. I know the name of every patient I've lost. Every one. I felt the pang of each, even if it wasn't in my head like the last. I still felt it in my gut and my heart and in the burn behind my eyes. Instinctively, I reach out now with my mind -- no more than a brush, a quick offer of strength to the other doctor.

And to the parents?

They need it, too. I recall how the chaplain spoke to her father: responding to the fear, not the anger. And I think on what old Rev. Bennet might have done. So I reach out to them, as well. I send them . . . something. A breath of calm, a touch of shared sorrow. Not to influence. Simply to be with them.

Scott has come to stand at my back. I think he knows what I'm doing. I think he might even approve.

"I'm sorry," the doctor is saying. "Her aorta was nicked in the accident, and on an artery like that, her own blood pressure tore it worse. We tried to transfuse, keep her fluid level up so we could seal it off. But in the end, it just wasn't possible." A pause, then she says again, "I'm so sorry."

The mother has put both hands over her mouth, and her body twists a little to curl in on itself. She sinks down as her eyes squeeze shut. Close it out, close it out. The father, Darren Southern, looks as if he's taken a direct hit to the chest, right through the heart. Whatever else I may think about these two, they've lost their daughter. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children.

The aunt is sitting next to the mother on the floor, rocking her, and the chaplain has hold of the father, steering him back to a chair. The man moves like a zombie. The doctor follows; she'll explain further, though I doubt either parent is in any shape to hear and understand. But grief demands information, as if by knowing more, the awful truth can somehow be denied, or changed. Scott has left me to return to Warren. Of the three closest to Candy, I think Warren was the most prepared. He'd seen them bring her out. It was more real for him.

I debate. Where should I go? My previous training and experience would have me join my fellow physician, fall back into the security of privileged knowledge -- raise it like a shield in front of me. Life hurts less when you live amputated at the neck.

But I look across at Logan, and his eyes meet mine. His great strength lies not in his intellect, or in that amazing body with its regenerative capabilities. It's in the heart. In the compassion he can still feel for others -- including one terrified, lost woman -- despite everything that's been done to him. And I know that I want to learn that strength. But I must risk, to do it. I must risk getting hurt. I must risk feeling the pain of those I love. It would be easier to join the ones I don't know, where I can hide in professional distance.

But I don't. I turn and join the ones I do know. This is my place. And these are my people. They need me.

*****

"Will Warren be okay?" I ask Scott. "I'm not sure he should be alone tonight."

Scott looks dead beat. Here, away from the others and with the crisis past, the bad news is finally hitting him -- the enormity of it all. We're standing out in the ER hallway beyond the family room. He has a Styrofoam cup of coffee, but it's stone cold. "God knows," he says. "He says he wants to be alone. I'm not going to argue with him. He's a big boy." He glances off to where Logan is talking to Warren, along with an oriental woman who I've never seen before. She arrived about ten minutes ago and has been shooting me odd looks ever since. Betsy Braddock, Logan had named her. Not a very oriental name. When she wasn't looking at me, or ogling Warren, she was sizing up Scott like he might be the main course for dinner.

That annoys me, and I think, *Hands off, bitch. He's mine.*

Oh, how very primal of me.

Scott belongs to himself, and the only woman who might reasonably lay claim to him is Miss Southern Molasses.

I sigh. I can't even be nice tonight in my thoughts about her, can I? When did I become so catty, over a man? I'd laugh if I had the energy. Or if the situation itself weren't so grim.

"Logan and his . . . friend . . . are going to take Warren home," Scott says. "Warren told me to get out of here." He looks at me. "We need to find out who did this, Jean."

"Yes, we do. But not tonight."

He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, Candy Southern's father explodes out of the family room and breasts up to Warren. The man was calm for a while, and I'd thought -- probably foolishly -- that any threat from him was past, faced as he was with the reality of loss. But he'd simply been in shock. Now, he tries to accost Warren in the ER hallway. "They just told me that Candy was injured in a *bomb blast*, not a fire! It's your goddamn fault she was in that building, you mutie freak!" He's yelling, and everyone in the vicinity is watching with morbid curiosity.

Scott moves almost before I can register what's happened. So does Logan. Logan has Warren from behind by both arms, to keep him from fighting back, and Scott has placed himself square in front of Darren Southern. They're about the same height. "Warren isn't responsible for the bomb," Scott says.

The chaplain has come running, and hospital security is moving closer, too. "He sent her down there!" the father yells. "He sent her down there because he was too much of a coward to go himself! He knew what was going to happen!"

"No, I didn't!" Warren yelled back. "She offered to go!"

"It's your fault, freak!"

"You think I wouldn't have traded places with her, you jackass?"

"That's enough!" Scott shouts with surprising authority. It might not stop Wall Street or board rooms, but it's the voice that leads the X-Men. It gets attention. "There will be a police investigation," he goes on, more quietly. "The ones responsible will be found." And I remember what he promised Warren earlier. He's not just talking about the police, I know. Cyclops has a score to settle on behalf of his best friend.

But it's going to take more than Scott's native authority to diffuse the situation. There's a point past which grief will push a person, and Candy Southern's father has hit it. His face is almost purple with rage. Scott needs me. I *reach*. Touch. Calm. It's not a lot. But it's enough.

Darren Southern backs down. Frustration is written all over his features, but the violence is gone and he lets the chaplain lead him away, back towards the family room. Back to make the awful but necessary mundane arrangements of death. Organ donor? Funeral home? Etcetera.

"Thanks," I hear Warren tell Scott. Scott just nods, and moves away - back to me.

And softly, he says, "Thanks to you, too."

He knew. He felt what I did. "You don't think it was wrong?" I'd never before tried to use my telepathy that way. I'm unsure if it's morally right.

"It prevented a needless confrontation," he says. "You calmed him down. I felt it. You made him able to hear what I'd said."

I smile. "We make a good team, Mr. Summers."

"We do, Dr. Grey."

And I watch the last of his energy flag abruptly. "I'm so fucking tired," he says, and rubs at his forehead. It must be near eleven, by this point. We've been here for hours.

"You want me to drive back?"

"Back *where*?"

And oh, that's the crux, isn't it? We look at each other. "It's over with Marie," he says. "Really over."

"You're sure?"

"Very."

We stare a minute more. "I have a bag packed; it's in the car," he says, then he winces. "My, that was tactful."

I feel my lips curve up. "You're tired. I'm tired. How about we agree not to worry about tact. You packed a bag for what?"

He's grinning -- that damn charming grin. And he knows exactly what it will get him. "I packed a bag for the weekend. I'd planned . . . well, I'd thought . . . . Oh, shit!" He laughs and rubs his head again, then glances at me. "You want to go up to the cabin with me? Just for tonight and tomorrow, and maybe the next night? Sort this out?"

I'm too in tune with him. I can feel his uncertainty, how he's risked himself. He's as nervous as a school boy asking for his first date and I respond to that nervousness, give him a smile and a touch on the arm. All night, it's been one long series of touches between us. "I'd like that, I think," I tell him. "But we'll need to go back by Warren's and pick up my things." I look over to where Logan, Betsy and Warren are sorting out details. "Think we can beat them there?"

He straightens, and I can feel a renewed energy flow into him. Reaching into his pocket, he palms his keys. "You know what they call me, don't you?" And he ushers me towards the ER exit.

"No, what?"

"The Getaway Kid."

I laugh. At all of it. I laugh at death, that it can't steal hope. I laugh at fear, that it can't steal steadfastness. And I laugh at grief, because love will always survive.

I survived, too. I'd walked back into an ER room tonight, and my sanity had survived. Maybe *Doctor* Jean Grey wasn't down for the count, after all.

~*~

Truth Will Out by Victoria P.

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