Spring In Yellowstone
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Spring in Yellowstone Author: Terri E-mail: xgrrl26@yahoo.com Rating: NC-17, violence, gore, sexual content Disclaimer: I own the little kids, Holly, and Tom - everyone else isn't mine. Darn. Archive: WRFA, Peep Hut, Dolphin Haven - anyone else, please ask and I'll say yes ;) Feedback: Please? With a cherry on top? Good, bad, and ugly welcome.............. Summary: Sequel to Winter in Yellowstone. Scott unravels at an inopportune time; Hank gets some new housemates in an unusual way; and Logan spends time doing something very uncommon - languishing in his sickbed. Rogue has a tough time dealing with almost all of that. Comments: I wanted to write a sequel to Winter in Yellowstone almost as soon as I was finished with that story. I had lots of ideas for it - most of which you don't see here. Why? Well, as interesting as some of them were, I'd written something similar to most of them before. Also, some of them would've made this story be less of an ensemble piece and I wasn't sure that's the way I wanted this little mini- series to go. But most of all, you don't see a lot of the ideas I originally had here because what really caught my attention from the first story was Scott. Here's a guy who's been through as much trauma as any of our heroes (with the possible exception of Rogue) prior to arriving at Yellowstone. He's suppressing his strong desire to be a leader, to be in charge, for the sake of his own survival and that of his son. Despite all of that, he's still pretty together - he's trying to do the right thing, make the settlement a better place for his son to grow up in - when he gets the mother of all kicks in the pants, the news that his beloved (I'd maybe even go so far as to say sainted) late wife has done some unspeakably horrible things. What does that do to someone like Scott? I didn't focus on that in the first story because that was largely Rogue's story and the story of how this AU world came to be and functioned. If I'd have included the aftermath of that news for Scott, the story would've easily gone another forty pages, and that lone story wouldn't have been as 'neat' if I hadn't wound up doing a sequel. Of course, my Scott muse kept calling to me and now we've got another 54 pages worth of story that's poking at me to do a sequel already ;) Oh, and if you haven't figured it out so far, this is a little more Scott-centric (and light on the W/R) than anything else I've probably done. ----------------------------------------------------- Marie tugged harder, dragging an uncooperative Logan along. She was trailing along the edge of a steep cliff, frantically trying to put ground between her and a mob of what looked like about a hundred angry humans shooting and yelling at them. They'd come across them by accident, while exploring some of the far reaches of the park. Apparently, they'd decided to crash Logan's little mutie paradise and make at least a part of it their own. They'd signaled those intentions by peppering them both with gunfire and shooting out the tires of the jeep upon sight. Logan and Marie had tried to run, gotten cornered, then fought their was out. The price for their temporary escape was paid in Logan's flesh and blood - his legs had been so badly shot up, that they were no longer operative. There were more wounds in both of them than their shared healing power could handle at once. Marie knew they were in trouble. And worse, she didn't see any clear escape route now. She was dragging them backwards, way too slowly, along a sheer cliff that perched them about a hundred feet over a rocky gorge. The humans were catching up - she could hear the gunfire - and she struggled to push her own panic down and keep going. "Dammit. Marie. Leave. Me." Logan ground out the words. It was far from the first time he'd told her to run for safety and leave him behind. He'd heal, he'd said, nothing could kill him. Marie didn't believe that. She suspected she'd even come close to doing him in herself, with her skin. The humans were crazed, and who knows what they'd do. She wouldn't repay Logan's kindness, generosity, and love by just leaving him to them. Her resolve was sorely tested, though - memories of her betrayal by Jean kept surfacing despite her best efforts to push them down, almost as if they were some horrid 'coming attractions' preview of what awaited her as soon as the humans once again had her in their grasp. She took a deep breath, tried to ignore the fire in her lungs that the gunshot wounds brought along with it, and kept tugging her 350 pound lover along. "Marie!" "No." She could hear them and smell them now - they were closer. "Yes! Go!" Logan tried to squirm out of her arms, and he succeeded on the third try, forcing her to stop and try to grab him again. While they both issued grunts as each struggled against the other, the humans advanced to within eyesight. Logan and Marie both momentarily stopped their movements at that. "Go. Get Scott." "No," Marie insisted. The humans came over the rise, and surprisingly, held their fire. Maybe they knew it was a waste of bullets at this point - there was no doubt that they would be caught now. Marie knelt beside Logan and waited for them to arrive. She couldn't reason, couldn't move to escape, even if it would be futile, even if she was afraid enough to leave him now. The panic was finally gaining control, and it was paralyzing her. The leader of the mob gestured for his compatriots to halt while he strode up within inches of the two. "So, nowhere else to go, huh? You goddamn muties never learn, do ya?" His eyes roved over Marie's form. "Well, that's all right. You're gonna learn now. After we're done with ya, there won't be much left." Some chuckling from behind flowed over the three figures. "We'll get started with you, little girl." The man took a step toward them, and Marie felt Logan's hand at her side. She was touched beyond words that he was trying to comfort her at this moment, and her surging panic receded behind a flood of warm emotion. However, before her tears or words could even form, she felt his grip tighten, and felt his strong arm shoving her aside, over the cliff. Terrified and confused, she locked eyes with him just as she spilled over the edge, but she only saw love in them. In the scant seconds it took for her fall, she realized what he'd done - he was protecting her, performing the function of her long-gone cyanide pill in its absence. She took a shuddering breath in to brace herself for weathering a split-second of immense pain she knew she would feel at the impact. Then she hit, and shortly felt nothing at all. Above her, on the cliff, the human leader watched her fall, then peered over the edge at her still, broken form strewn across the rocks below. His cold eyes turned to the other object of his hunt, who seemed to be smirking at him. "You're gonna pay for ruining my fun, you filthy mutie." He drew a pistol from his hip, shooting Logan once, in the face. Logan fought to keep the smirk across his features. He'd already won - they didn't get Marie. Nothing else much mattered to him now. Certainly, he hung on to the hope that she'd heal from the fall, that the powers he'd given her would be enough. But even if she didn't, Logan thought darkly, he'd still done right by her. She couldn't have lived through anymore than she already had; death would be much kinder. As he felt himself being dragged away from the cliff, he turned his head toward the abyss, even though he knew he could no longer see Marie. Marie woozily awoke to find herself rather uncomfortably splayed over what felt like jagged rocks. Flopping herself onto her stomach, she soon realized that it felt that way because she was, indeed, lying on jagged rocks. She let out a moan, and lay her head back down, trying to remember how she'd gotten here. It came back to her after a few moments, flooding her with panic. She almost called out for Logan, but then realized that would only alert whoever might still be above to the fact that she hadn't been killed. She forced herself to calm, to think. She was hurt, she knew, but she could feel herself healing, and she tried to organize her thoughts. It was dark now - it had been mid-morning when they'd been captured. No one would likely be looking for them - they often spent a day or two away from their cabin and incommunicado now that the weather was beginning to break. She knew they had wandered far from their home, and the main settlement, but she remembered passing a cabin a few miles back. She thought that if she followed the gorge, then somehow found a way to scale the cliff, she could find the cabin again. She could do that, she thought, it seemed possible. There were only God knows how many bullets in her, and they ached, but the wounds had healed over. She guessed that her spine had been broken in the fall, but an experimental wiggle of her fingers and feet produced semi-normal movement and sensation. If she could heal, if she could heal well enough to run, she could make it. She'd find a way up the cliff or out of the gorge, and she'd make it. She had to. Logan was depending on her. Scott sat at the kitchen table, savoring a few moments of early morning quiet before his son awoke. Scott's habit of rising with the sun hadn't vanished, even in the days when Christopher had prevented him from getting much nocturnal rest at all. He enjoyed sitting here, with no demands upon him, no residents clamoring for this or that, no Logan ordering him around, no sightings of Rogue, dredging up unwelcome emotions of pain and anger. Scott still couldn't quite admit to himself that he was angry - angry at Jean for not being who he'd thought she was, angry at himself for not seeing the truth when Paul had confirmed it, and maybe most of all, angry at himself for still loving Jean anyway. He found himself overreacting to even the smallest of irritants, and having to make constant efforts to push everything that had happened with Jean out of his mind. Christopher, with his skin coloring and strawberry hair, reminded him of Jean every day, and, even though some part of him chastised himself for doing it, he occasionally indulged in happy memories of Jean's pregnancy with him. His favorite was the memory of one night late in her last month, when they'd just lay together in bed and she'd let him feel Christopher kicking and squirming inside her. He remembered his wonder at the time that he didn't sense even a trace of resentment of the child from Jean, knowing as she did that his birth would herald her own death. She'd only ever talked about it once, saying that he wasn't bringing her death; he was giving her seven more months than she'd have otherwise had, seven months to spend loving both of the men in her life. Jean had somehow always known it was a boy, though she'd never done an ultrasound on herself. In fact, she'd picked out his name, Christopher - it was her father's middle name. Scott always wondered if she could sense his son's mind in utero. Not for the first time, he asked himself how someone so loving, so giving, could have done what Jean did to Rogue. Scott's contemplation was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside. It came to an abrupt, gravelly stop, signaling to Scott that there might be trouble. He grabbed the house rifle, one he'd kept ever since the human attack, and went to the door. He opened it to see a dirt-and-blood-covered Rogue running for him with fear in her eyes. "What is it? What's happened?" Somewhere, distantly, he thought it must be grave trouble for her to seek him out. "Logan. They've got Logan," she panted, stopping just short of Scott and leaning over to put both hands on her knees for support as she heaved for breath from the short run. That bullet in her lung really did have to come out soon. "Humans. Attacked. Dozens. Armed. On the edge of the park. We've got to save Logan," she finished in a rush, straightening to breathe more deeply despite the pain as she awaited Scott's response. He didn't give one at first, he only stood in the doorway, still holding the rifle, so she eyeballed him. "Rogue, I - I - I shouldn't leave Christopher." She hadn't asked for his help, she'd only given information, but it was clear why she was here. "What?" she asked, in a daze. "Some of the other residents, Bill and Tom - I can send out a call, an alarm and I'll get them, they'll - " "You son of a bitch!" The words were spat out, shock searing every syllable. "Rogue, I can't fight like I used to, and Christopher - " "You can fight," she countered with venom. "You just don't want to." At that point Hank, who must've heard the commotion, peered out of his cabin door and approached the arguing parties. "You son of a bitch, they're going to kill him!" "Logan's hard to kill," Scott reasoned, with a backward glance at Christopher's room. "And he made the rules here. 'You can live here, but otherwise, you're on your own' is rule number one." Scott felt uneasy saying the words, and he didn't wholeheartedly feel the sentiment behind them, not at all. But after all he and Jean, and even Rogue, had sacrificed for Christopher, he couldn't leave the child unprotected now, when there were humans in the park, and he couldn't leave him fatherless if he was killed in some fight to rescue an unkillable man. There had to be some way to convince Rogue of that. Some heretofore quiet part of him also put in that Logan had abandoned the X-Men in their hour of need, and that fate was now dealing him a prime opportunity for a little revenge for that, and for what both Jean and Rogue had consequently suffered. Scott tried to make that part be quiet again. After the news about Jean, he tried to be very vigilant about those kind of dark thoughts. He'd noticed them coming with inordinate frequency lately. Rogue took the three steps needed to close the distance between them, taking no notice of the approaching, limping Hank. "Yeah, just like he left you on your own, just like he left you and your *precious* son on your own when the humans came for you. He threw me in the jeep and raced down here as fast as he could to help you when you needed it! God, you're such a fucking hypocrite!" "What is going on?" Hank inquired, nervous at Rogue's apparent emotional state combined with the proximity of her bare skin to his friend Scott. "Humans got Logan," Scott answered in an even tone. "I'm sending out a call to gather some people and help rescue him. We can meet in a half hour and - " "No! No! Not in a half hour, now! They've had him since we left yesterday morning, we go now!" "Rogue -" Scott began, only to be cut off when Rogue grabbed him by the pajama shirt and hauled him up so that he was nearly nose-to-nose with her. Scott felt a stab of fear - she'd done it with a strength he didn't think she had. "Fine. You want to say 'fuck him' so maybe you can take over and be the big boss that you're just dying to be? Fine. You still have some stupid grudge against him because he wanted to fuck the brains out of your piece of shit wife way back when? Fine. But. You. Owe. *Me*." There was absolute murder in her eyes, and her vicious tone made Scott flinch despite himself. "*I* suffered. *I* gave my body and my blood for yours. You owe me." "Christopher - " Rogue's mouth twisted in a grimace at the name and she forcefully threw him back away from her, causing him to collide with the wall. "Good God, what is that kid, the baby Jesus? Look, either come with me or - " "I'll go," Hank interrupted, putting himself between Scott and the furious Rogue. "I shall go with you. Scott shall watch the children." Rogue softened just slightly. She'd actually come to like the doctor quite a bit, not to mention his son, Jules. But this was a fight, a struggle for Logan's survival, and what Hank was suggesting was not the best way to make sure Logan lived through this. "No. You can barely walk now, and you don't have powers that can be used from a distance, like optic blasts. You wouldn't do any good. You'd only get yourself hurt." "You may need medical assistance, for Logan or for any surviving humans - " A low growl from Rogue told him that that was not a likely possibility. "You may need medical help." Scott's hand came to rest on Hank's shoulder. He looked up at his long-time friend, obviously moved by his offer. Hank was unhesitatingly throwing himself into a fight, a fight he knew well that he had little chance of walking away from unscathed. He was acting just like the X-Man he'd always been, just like the admirable friend and teammate Scott cherished. He couldn't let Hank get hurt just because Scott still carried some resentment of Logan and a lot of overprotective feelings for Christopher. "I'll go. Wake up Bobby. Send out a call for help. Have him lead them. I'll go with Rogue. You stay here with the children. Hank, protect them, and if anything happens........" Hank gave Scott a clipped nod. "Let me grab some ammo." Scott retreated back inside the cabin, leaving Rogue to relate the last known location of the humans to Hank so that he could summon additional forces. He'd noticed that she'd come in old lady McCollum's Explorer, so he guessed that they were somewhere in the far northern end of the park, in what used to be Montana. Scott allowed himself a dark chuckle at what the intensely private, crotchety eighty-year-old widow's middle-of-the-night wake up call courtesy of a frantic Rogue must've been like. He retrieved what he'd come for, and detoured to Christopher's room to give him a soft kiss on the forehead. Scott's son sighed in his sleep, and smiled. Scott returned it briefly, then shuffled into some shoes and ran out to meet Rogue. They found the humans easily enough - it looked like more than a few had died by Logan's hand (or, rather, claw) along the way to their current camp, and Scott and Rogue could practically just follow the trail of corpses to them. Rogue whispered that by her calculations, that left about 75-80 of them. Scott still didn't like those odds, but help *was* on the way. They parked the Explorer in a thicket of trees, about four hundred yards from the human camp and, taking the rifles and ammo that Scott had brought, crept closer to get a better look and to try to locate Logan. At first, they couldn't find him. Scott thought he might've been held prisoner in one of their many tents, but then again, why waste shelter and heat on a prisoner? Especially one who was well-nigh indestructible, which Scott figured that the humans must've realized by now. But then, Scott noticed a small group of humans gathered around one spot, hiding from his view with their bodies what was apparently of interest to them on the ground below. Scott told Rogue to stay put and cover him while he hazarded climbing a tree for a better vantage point. What he saw sickened him. It was Logan on the ground, of course. Scott had assumed that it would be. But he hadn't expected to see Logan in this condition - reduced to a smoldering, burnt-black mass of flesh. It looked like the humans were gouging his eyes out at the moment. Scott's stomach flipped and he fought to contain the bile rising in his throat. Logan was moving, twitching a little, so it was a good bet that he was still alive, but Scott ashamedly began to revise his estimate of 'indestructible.' Still, feelings of satisfaction surfaced along with the disgust - Logan had abandoned his friends and teammates to almost as gruesome a fate at the hands of the humans and of the virus. Scott shook his head, trying to rid himself of those thoughts. Now wasn't the time for that. He slid out of the tree, taking a moment to gather himself at its base before heading back to an eager Rogue. "Did you find him?" she asked breathlessly. "Yes. Rogue, he's - he's in bad shape." She drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment, Scott thought she was going to ask him for details of Logan's condition, details which he wasn't sure he could muster while keeping a steady stomach. But instead she gave a nod of acknowledgment and said, "We should get him out of there now, then." Scott didn't like the odds, but couldn't argue with the necessity of moving fast, either. He distantly wondered whether Logan's eye would regenerate if the humans scooped it out. "OK. I'll make a distraction. See if you can get to Logan. He's at the west edge of the camp, in the middle of a small group of humans. Help should be here any minute." Rogue gave him another nod, grim this time, and they each took a rifle and a fistful of bullets. "And Rogue - " Scott suddenly realized that if help wasn't coming any minute, things could turn even uglier. "If you can't get him, just fall back, just head back into the woods. Wait for more help. He'll make it, he's tough." The look in her eyes told him that wasn't how she'd do it, not at all. "Rogue - " "Let's go," she cut him off, already crouching and creeping toward the camp perimeter. When they reached it, still unnoticed, Scott gestured for her to go to her left, toward Logan, and he began creeping to the right, preparing to strike. When Rogue was making her way between the tents, and nearing Logan's position, he opened fire with an optic blast, incinerating the nearest tent, occupants still inside. He quickly took cover behind a large, thick tree, and continued fire as the humans scrambled to defend their camp and their lives. Rogue crept through the camp carefully but rapidly as Scott blasted away and the humans began shooting back at him. Just a minute or so after Scott began firing, reinforcements arrived, with Bobby immediately constructing an ice barrier in front of his friend to help deflect the gunfire. The humans were so absorbed in combating this intrusion of 'filthy muties' that they'd left Logan, or what was left of him, unguarded. They probably figured, and rightly so, that he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Marie advanced on him, checking to be sure the humans were still occupied. When she finally reached him, she didn't flinch at his condition or even the fact that part of his eyeball was sticking to a knife lying next to his head, abandoned in the human's rush to defend the camp. She only bent to pick him up, as gently as possible. All of his hair was gone, and he was covered in sticky blood and charred flesh. His good eye rolled lazily in her direction. "It's OK," she reassured him, "We're getting out of here." She wasn't sure if he'd been stripped naked or if his clothes had just been burned into his skin, but she did know he was shivering from the burns and that he needed medical help, soon. She tried not to hurt him too much, but he let out low groans with each step. The fight raged on around her, but miraculously, no one noticed her as she dragged Logan out of the camp. She reached the tree line, catching Scott's eye. Gesturing with her head toward the Explorer, she hoped he understood what the signal meant - I'm taking Logan and getting the hell out of here. Whether or not he fully understood, Scott nodded. Bobby, and several of the mutants that had come to help drive the humans out of the park (for she had no doubt that that's how it had been put to them - none of them were especially fond of Logan) gasped at the corpse-like figure she dragged with her, but none slowed her progress. She maneuvered Logan into the Explorer, and thought for a minute about whether to seat-belt him in. His flesh had come off in chunks where her hands had lifted him, and it had come off in strips on his legs, since she'd been forced to drag him along the ground. The belt would likely mean more flesh attrition, but it would keep him from flopping around in the seat. They had about an hour's drive over some very rough terrain to reach their cabin, and help. Deciding that the belt was best, she applied it as gently as she could. "I'm sorry, Logan. I know it hurts." He didn't say anything, only let out more groans and tried looking at her with his intact eye. Marie had no idea whether he really had any concept of what was happening to him or not. "We're going to get Hank. We're going to get help. Just hang on." She jumped into the driver's side, started the engine, laid the rifle across her lap just in case, and set off. The battle raged on for about a half an hour before the mutants began to gain the upper hand. Apparently, the humans had spent a great deal of their ammo on subduing Logan and Rogue and hadn't planned on fighting off nearly a dozen mutants with a range of formidable powers. The question for Scott was no longer - will we win? It was very quickly becoming - what do we do with these people when we win? After seeing what they'd visited upon Logan, Scott's sympathy for them wasn't running high, but executing them wholesale would be wrong. That would be something Logan would do, and Scott wouldn't do that. The humans were close to surrender now, he could feel it, and he mentally scrambled to figure out an appropriate plan of action. He was faced with his considered dilemma more rapidly than he thought. In the next second, he saw a white handkerchief being waved alongside one of the tents. "Hold your fire," Scott bellowed. When the sounds of battle had quieted on both sides, a tall, gruff-looking man stepped out into the clear. Scott knew from Rogue's description that this was the man who'd acted as leader of the group when they'd cornered her and Logan. "Yes?" "Let's just call it a draw and we'll let you walk away," the man yelled back. Scott swiftly replied by way of an optic blast incinerating the tent next to him. He saw a dark stain spread between the man's legs; he'd wet himself. "Surrender and lay down your arms, and we won't kill all of you," Scott offered, drawing a surprised look from Bobby. He knew what the younger man thought, but this was a different world, and it called for harsher measures. Besides, Scott assured himself, he could spare all of them if he wished; he was just scaring them. He was the assumptive leader of this little army, and they would follow his orders. He still had the chance to show mercy and leniency despite his words, and he would. "OK, OK," the man temporized, "we surrender." "Hell, no!" was heard from somewhere to the leader's right. "Surrender, or we'll keep firing," Scott called out in an even tone. When he received no response, he blasted a tent in the approximate area of the 'hell no.' The leader began frantically waving his arms over his head. "Stop! Stop! We surrender!" Scott leaned back, somewhat convinced that it was the truth this time. "Bill, Tom - cover me." Then, he took a step into the clear and, to the still-hiding humans, he called, "Show yourselves and throw down your arms." Slowly, but steadily, about twenty humans emerged from hiding, each following Scott's instructions then putting their hands in the air. Looking back with a relieved and satisfied smile, he beckoned, "Come on, Bobby, let's go." They moved through the humans, gathering up their weapons as they went. Scott was fairly sure they were out of ammo, but it didn't hurt to take the guns anyway. After they swept the area to be sure they had them all, Scott herded them to the center of the camp. He still hadn't decided quite what to do with them, but he was leaning toward turning them out of the park with the clothes on their backs, and letting the wilderness decide their fate. Scott did feel some residual guilt about how he'd helped dispose of Gary, although those pangs were few and far between. Mostly, he wanted to set a good example, to temper the flare of anti-human hatred that he knew would follow this incident. He was just about to address the captive humans when he heard something - something that sounded much like a baby's cry - from one of the far tents. "Watch them," he said, setting off in the direction of the cry. When he reached the tent, Scott knelt before the opening flap, hand on his visor and at the ready. Just because it sounded like a baby's cry, that didn't necessarily mean that's what it was, or that it couldn't be some trick. He had to remain cautious, and alert - this was still a battle, and experience, both as an X-Man and otherwise, had taught him that in battle, anything could happen. Scott slowly unzipped the flap and drew it back. What he saw inside sickened him just as much as his view of Logan had. It was a tent full of women - girls, mostly - and young children. All of them looked malnourished, in stark contrast to the relatively hale and healthy men of the group. All were cowering in terror at the moment; and, some looked sick with something more than fear - coughs and wheezing could be heard from one corner of the overcrowded tent. All of them showed visible bruises and cuts, and one bore crudely carved initials on her cheek. She looked about twelve. Scott swallowed hard. "Please, don't hurt us. Please?" The words had come from a pretty dark-haired girl of about seven. Scott's heart clenched a little when he saw the abject terror in her eyes. An older woman, twenty or so by the looks of her, scuttled up to the girl who'd spoken, protectively embracing her. Scott tried to smile reassuringly at the girl. "Don't - don't worry, no one's going to hurt you." The baby that had made the cry which caught his ear asserted himself again, and its mother frantically tried to quiet it. "It's OK. Don't worry, it's going to be all right." Nobody in the tent looked very convinced of that. "How long have you been - are they - are the men of the group keeping you with them against your will?" They all looked stunned by the question for a few moments, but the baby's mother finally nodded in reply. "We're - we're going to expel them from this place. You - you don't have to go with them if you don't want to." "But -but aren't you mutants?" the seven-year-old asked. Scott nodded. "My Daddy says that mutants hate us and they eat our babies." Her words came in a whispered rush, half frightened but honestly curious inquiry and half conspiratorial confession. "That's not true," the woman holding her whispered back as she kept her eyes trained on Scott's visor. "That's right," Scott reinforced. "I'm a mutant, and I can promise you that that's not true. We're not - I know we're fighting with some of you, but if you don't want to fight with us, we don't want to fight with you." "I don't wanna fight," the little girl whispered. "I wanna go home." "Let's see what we can do about that, all right? Is - are any of you hurt? Do any of you need medical attention? We have a doctor here," Scott offered, wondering what these women and children would think of meeting a mutant like Hank. "We pretty much all need medical attention," the twenty-something woman offered. "I'm a nurse, but - but we don't have any supplies or anything. If you have a doctor, and you're willing to help us, we'd like to see him." She looked around to some of the other women for support, and got it - they were nodding. "OK. Stay in here while we deal with the other humans - uh, people." Scott took a deep breath and tried to smile. "It's going to be OK now." He let the flap fall back over the opening as he scooted out. As he rose, he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. Scott started a little before realizing it was Bobby. "What do we have in there?" the younger former X-Man queried. "Women and children, about twelve or thirteen of them," Scott replied, leading Bobby away from the tent and back toward the subdued group of humans. "They haven't come along voluntarily and they need medical help. We're going to take them to Hank to get them checked out." Bobby nodded. "And what are we going to do with the rest of them?" He looked intently at Scott as he waited for an answer. Scott sighed, absurdly wishing to go back to the days when he could rely on the Professor to make decisions like this. Just as that thought occurred to him, an idea ran through his head, a good one. "If it were your decision, Bobby, what would you do with them?" Maybe it was time he returned to his pre- war task of training and grooming Bobby to be a leader one day. He would be one soon, just not the same kind of leader Scott had once envisioned. He was well-respected in the camp and had a reputation as a fair, compassionate person with a somewhat formidable power. Maybe it was time to let Bobby in on some of the hard decisions, time to begin really showing him what leadership and responsibility were like. The thought that he was also grooming Bobby because Scott felt tired and frustrated by his responsibilities and the constant fights with Logan lingered in the back of his mind, but Scott dismissed it for the moment. "Me? I - I don't know. I wouldn't just kill them all." "You saw what they did to Logan," Scott parried. "They've abused those women and children too. We're not dealing with someone who made one mistake or fell in with the wrong crowd. These are a bunch of prejudiced, hardened, cruel, abusive, hateful people." "That still doesn't make killing them in revenge right. It just makes us like them. It makes us the bad guys too." Scott shrugged. "I don't disagree. But what do you suggest we do with them?" "We could talk to them, tell them if they come back that we'll punish them, and make them leave the park." Bobby said it with conviction, as though it were the obvious solution. "Bobby, these people won't listen to reason. What if they just leave here, gather up more mutant- hating humans, and come back? What if they attack our cabins next time?" Scott was playing devil's advocate a bit here. He actually favored Bobby's suggestion, except that he'd leave out talking to them - wouldn't make a dent - and he'd tell them he'd kill them on sight if they were ever caught in the park again, not just that he'd 'punish' them. "I don't know, Scott - maybe they'll learn their lesson. Maybe they'll be too scared to come back here after what happened. I mean, we killed, like, seventy of them in the fight. Some of them are hurt, and I don't know if they'll even make it outside the park. I don't think they'll come back." Bobby sounded a lot less sure now. "OK," Scott acquiesced, "We'll do it your way." He began taking the final few steps to the gathered prisoners. "Wait - Scott - don't just do that 'cause I said it. You're the team leader, you - you have to decide." Bobby's words halted Scott, and he turned to look at his friend with a deliberately kind, open expression. "There is no more team, Bobby," Scott said with more than a hint of irritation. "There never will be again. The entire world has changed, and we have to change with it. I'm not going to be around forever, you know, and I'm going to want to be the one making crappy decisions with no good options to choose from for a very much shorter time than that. One day pretty soon, you'll be making those decisions. Might as well start now." Scott turned back toward the prisoners, leaving Bobby to ponder his words. He closed the remaining gap and stood directly before the man he knew to be the leader of the humans. "You will be escorted to the perimeter of this park. You are to remain outside of it, from this day forward. Your guns, ammunition, supplies, and tents will be remaining here. If you return to the park, you will be shot on sight." Scott nodded to Bobby. "He'll be leading you out. He has orders to kill anyone who gives him or any of my men the least bit of trouble." Scott turned back to Bobby. "Take them in the big truck you came up here in. Radio back and get someone else to drive a truck out for the women and kids. I'll stay with them, the rest of you will escort the prisoners." "Hey," an indignant voice called from behind Scott. He didn't turn to answer the human. "Hey! You can't take our women!" "I can and I am. Count yourselves lucky that I don't take your lives." "Dammit, I paid for mine fair and square and I - " Scott did turn at that, and silenced the man with a quick optic blast at his feet. "The next one will be through your head," Scott warned. "Shut up and sit down." The man did as he was told this time. Scott gave him a harsh look before taking Bobby by the arm to lead him out of earshot of the group of prisoners. "Bobby, keep a close eye on them. They'll try something, I'm sure of it." Bobby's eyes went wide and he swallowed hard. "But what do I do if - " "You'll know what to do. The priorities here are your safety, the safety of the men in your command, and the safety of the park and its residents. Do what you have to, but carry out my orders. You'll know what to do, Bobby." Scott clapped his arm. They would try something, but they were twenty or so unarmed humans, some of them injured, against ten mutants with combat-adaptable powers who had already beaten back four times their number. The odds were certainly stacked in Bobby's favor. Scott found himself actually hoping they would try something. It would be a good experience for Bobby to deal with it, and Scott had every confidence that the young man could. It would also provide a way to get rid of a few more of these pieces of living trash and scare the rest. At least he was giving the humans a chance to live through this, something they'd not have gotten from Logan. "I trust you. I'll see you back at the cabins." With that, Scott nodded his final goodbye to a still-unsure Bobby, and headed for the women's tent. Back at Logan's cabin, Hank was finishing up what was perhaps the grimmest, most difficult examination of his career. Horrible third-degree burns covered more than 90% of Logan's body. Every hair on his body had been burned off. His nose, ears, tongue, penis, and testicles - anything not attached by an adamantium-coated bone - were missing altogether. Hank knew there were also gunshot and knife wounds, but couldn't begin to pin those down to a specific location since Logan's skin was so badly burned all over. The humans had had him for about 24 hours; in that time, they'd managed every kind of injury and torture Hank could think of. He found himself thanking God that Rogue had not been subjected to the same treatment, that Logan had found an escape route for her, even if it did include a hundred-foot drop and a broken back. However, despite the horrific severity of his injuries, Hank was fairly certain that Logan would eventually heal - his left eye, which, according to Rogue had been half-gouged out by the humans, had already regenerated itself, and Hank remembered that Logan's ear had regenerated in only an hour or so after Sabretooth had once ripped it off in a fight. Yes, Logan would heal, Hank thought, but it would be an incredibly painful and (for Logan) slow process. His healing factor was beyond overloaded and it would take time for it to deal with the multiple life-threatening injuries Logan had incurred. "Hank?" Rogue had been nervously pacing the cabin. Hank knew this entire incident had to be greatly emotionally upsetting for her, not to mention physically painful - he would still have to dig out several bullets from her. But she had actually been remarkably calm, collected, and restrained, all things considered. "I believe he will heal. His, ah, missing parts should regenerate and his skin and internal wounds are healing now." Her entire body relaxed at that. "But it will be painful, and very slow. I have given him a large dose of morphine, and he appears to be sleeping. He will need rest, as much of it as he can get, and protein, to help his healing factor work. His burned skin has, in the past, taken the longest to heal, and he is critically burned nearly everywhere. But he will heal." "How long until he's completely healed?" "Completely healed - well, I do not believe that he will be completely healed for months, perhaps even a year. There will be a lingering weakness of his healing power from severe overuse for quite some time, and - " "I mean - how long until he's up and walking around reasonably OK?" Rogue folded her hands over one another, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "I expect approximately a month or so. I will keep a close eye on his progress. But, Rogue, do not worry. He will heal. He is very difficult to permanently harm." Her eyes changed at that, became harder, closed, and Hank wondered what he'd said wrong. Rogue supplied the answer to that question promptly. "That's what Scott said, he's hard to kill. That doesn't mean it's OK to just throw him to the humans like that. Scott was so casual about it all this morning, and I - I know he doesn't like Logan, but how could you be indifferent to someone suffering like this?" There was heat in her voice, and Hank flashed back to her fury on display this morning. "I do not think that Scott meant to be indifferent." Hank considered telling her that Scott's behavior was in part a product of his concern for Christopher's welfare, but he doubted that would be a good path to go down with Rogue at any time, and especially not today. "We have never - never seen anyone subjected to such brutality. I am sure that Scott thought they might be inflicting some harm upon Logan, but none of us could imagine anything on this scale." Rogue gave him a sour, twisted smile. "I guess that's the difference between all of you and me. I don't have to imagine to understand what people are capable of. I've lived it." Hank didn't know what to say to that, and, seeing his head hung down, Rogue relented. "Can you dig the bullets out of me now? I know that you've got those humans coming......." "Certainly." Hank tried to smile, and prepared to tend to Rogue's much less severe wounds. Scott drove back toward the main settlement with the human women and children in tow. He'd offered the front seat of the truck next to him to the seven-year-old, whose name he'd learned was Rita. He thought she was warming up to him, even though she kept looking back to the truck bed to sight Holly, the one who'd identified herself as a nurse. He'd explained a little to them, telling them all that Hank was an obvious mutant, with blue fur and some exaggerated features (fangs and claws) but that he was also a very good physician and a very nice man. They all seemed too shell-shocked to produce any reaction, so Scott simply got them underway. Now, as they neared the trio of cabins that belonged to Hank, Bobby, and himself, Scott thought it best to say something more. "Where we're headed is that hill. Hank, Bobby - the man who took the men away - and I live on the other side of it. We radioed ahead to Hank and he should be waiting for us. Holly, could you try to assess who needs to be seen immediately, so that Hank can start with the people who need the most help?" "Sure," she answered slowly. "Ah, Scott?" "Yes?" Her voice had been shaky, and Scott tried to make his tone and demeanor as friendly as possible. He knew she must be afraid. "Is there any food there? It's - it's been a while since some of us have eaten." "You're welcome to whatever's there and we can get you more food if we need to. If you need fresh clothes, shoes, that kind of thing, we'll get you some too." "Thank you." Scott flashed her a reassuring smile through the rearview mirror. "We're here," he announced as he rounded the hilltop and the cabins came in sight. Hank emerged, followed by Paul, who Scott guessed had been pressed into babysitting duty while Hank tended to Logan. The fact that Hank wasn't still working on his former teammate was either good news or very bad news. He tried to make himself hope for the former, not the latter. "That's Hank, our doctor." The sight of him drew muffled gasps from some of the women. "He really *is* blue!" Rita exclaimed in wonder. "He's not gonna hurt me with his claws, is he? He's not gonna eat me, is he? I'm not a baby." "No, not at all. He's a very good doctor and I'm sure he'll be very gentle. And he eats mostly junk food, not children." Scott smiled down at the girl as he brought the truck to a stop. "Everybody ready?" Holly alone answered, "Yes," and scrambled from the truck bed to begin assessing the needs of the women and children. Scott let out a breath and disembarked from the truck. It was already a long day, and it was only about to get longer. Logan woke to see Rogue anxiously looking down at him. For a moment, he thought they'd somehow gotten to her, realized she was alive after her fall, but the fact that he couldn't smell fear on her comforted him a bit. Then he realized he couldn't smell much of anything at all. "Unnnhhhh....." His failed attempt at speaking didn't help hold back his rising panic. "Tsss okkkk." Why did she sound funny, muffled? "Vrryynnngsss okkkk." Christ what was wrong with him? He couldn't move, couldn't talk, couldn't smell, couldn't hear - what the hell had happened? "Logan, tsss okkkk." That was better - she'd said his name, he recognized that sound. "Whhaaa...." Still couldn't talk. He closed his eyes and urged himself to think, to remember what had happened. It came back to him slowly, very slowly, but at length, he let himself relive the events - fighting, getting shot, stabbed, cut up, set on fire. The memories made sense of why he couldn't speak or smell or hear - they'd taken his tongue, so speech was much harder; his ears were cut off, so sound wasn't coming through normally; and his nose was gone, so scents were weaker - and that did comfort him a little. Now that he thought about it, they'd also taken his - oh-oh. Logan's eyes tore back open and he struggled to sit up a little so he could see if his genitalia were indeed gone. "Shhh......" Marie. Right. She was pushing him back down very gently, but Logan couldn't fight her. He had no strength left. He flopped back on the soft surface and wondered where they were and why Marie was here. "Wrrr saffff, Logan. Tsss okkk." "Mmmmm........." "Jssst rssst. Tsss okkkk." Logan fell back into the blackness, helpless against its pull. He hoped that Marie was right, and they were somewhere safe, but even that urgent concern was not enough to fend off sleep. At that moment, Hank and Holly were busily examining the women and children from the human camp. They'd been using Jules' room as a makeshift examination room, and Hank had already sent Paul to the storehouse for more medical supplies. His patients were in bad shape - they were all malnourished, one had what was probably pneumonia, and nearly all had wounds that were infected to one degree or another. Hank had already treated the most critical, and was now examining the youngest among them, the baby, with Holly's help. Hank was grateful for her assistance - not only her medical assistance, but also the way she steadied her compatriots, and readily accepted him as a person and a physician. She seemed a leader of that little group, and when she didn't scream or faint at Hank's appearance, they followed her lead. Her friendly smile and wink upon meeting Jules had also made a very favorable impression on Hank. "This child needs food, desperately. Is - is the mother unable to breast feed?" From what Scott had told him, he didn't doubt that the men of the group would leave one of their own children to fend for itself. Holly sighed. "The mother isn't really interested in taking care of the child. She hasn't even named it. She never tried to breast feed. She's - she's in deep psychological shock, I know, and it certainly wasn't her choice to become pregnant, so I understand why there's not - not a normal bond there. But it's not like she's actively tried to harm the child, and she changes it or wraps it in a blanket sometimes. I guess I just don't think she wants to take care of it, or is able to." Hank looked down at the squirming child. He'd had a can or two of formula in the house from the days when he used to babysit Christopher, and it was heating on the stove now, while Scott retrieved a bottle. The child would get food soon enough, but what Holly was saying about its prospects for long- term care were not going to be conducive to its continued healing and survival. "Oh, dear." Holly rubbed the infant's stomach, then looked up to catch Hank's eye. "I'll take care of her, but - but I'm assuming that you're not going to let us stay here in the park. Your 'no humans allowed' policy is pretty well known," she said gently. "I'm not sure that she'll be any better off with me than her mother if that's the case. I don't - I don't suppose there might be someone here willing to adopt a human baby?" Hank was plainly taken aback by her words. No, it wasn't likely that anyone here would adopt another mouth to feed, human or not. But what had really struck him was her assumption that they'd be treated, then kicked out of the park. Hank hadn't really thought about what would happen beyond the next few hours, but he hadn't assumed they'd be put out. On the other hand, Logan's 'no humans' rule was well-known and scrupulously followed. Humans were most certainly not welcome, probably even more so now, after this attack. But they couldn't just put them out into the wilderness, unprotected, Hank thought. That would be nearly as good as signing their death warrant. "I, uh, just meant that if there were someone here willing to take her in, that might be best. If not, we'll - we'll figure something out for her," Holly backtracked. Hank suddenly realized that she might not be as steady, as accepting as she appeared. Maybe that was all a show of sorts, a way to keep her friends calm enough to get the help they needed. Maybe she wasn't so sure that the mutants weren't going to hurt her after all. Hank didn't really blame her - he'd feel the same way among humans nowadays, even though his own son was half-human. "No one willing to adopt her immediately comes to mind," Hank replied, keeping an open look and friendly smile on his face. "But I do not know that the decision as to whether you will be permitted to stay if you so choose has been made. Our leader, Logan, was injured by the - the people you were with. Typically, he makes these type of decisions, but he will not be able to do so for a few days at least, perhaps a week. I would hazard a guess that, in the mean time at least, you will be staying here." Hank himself was inclined toward that option, but he wanted to talk it over with Scott - he'd know best what resources were available to house these humans and what the general mood of the settlement would be about having them here. "Dada, bottle!" Jules happily trotted in, bearing the baby girl's dinner. "Ah, thank you, Jules." Hank took the bottle from his son's hand, smiling his approval down upon him, and scooped the infant up with his other, putting the bottle to her lips as quickly as he could. The poor child had been starved for so long, that she was too upset to eat at first, but Hank soon coaxed her into feeding. In no time, she was sucking on the nipple, with one tiny fist clenched in Hank's shirt. "There we go," Hank cooed to her. "You're very good with children," Holly offered, still with some caution. "Yes, well, I do resemble a large teddy bear of sorts. I have always theorized that that was the secret of my success." As he had hoped, she laughed a little at his self-deprecating joke. "Is there anyone else we need to see?" "Yes," Holly answered with a smile. "Maybe Jules can help me call them in?" She ruffled his hair as he lit up at the suggestion. Jules loved 'helping' of any sort. Hank watched them go, rocking the infant human girl in his arms a bit. "You shall be all right," he assured the child, "You shall be all right now." Bobby stood over the remains of the human leader, shaking his head. Scott had been right. They had tried something, something extremely stupid. Bill, a telekinetic, was their target of choice - all twenty of them attacked him at the back of the truck just a mile or so short of the park border. It was a very poor choice of targets - Bill easily fended them off with his mind, and the other mutants quickly jumped to his defense. Bobby had hoped that would be the end of it, but then they turned on the others, attacking with only their fists. They were again fairly easily subdued, but the humans took casualties - nearly all of their number were now dead. Two had survived, but were wounded. They were under guard, back at the truck. Bobby shook his head at the stubbornness and futility of their actions. "What're we going to do with the other two?" That was Tom's voice behind Bobby. Tom was an elder statesman of sorts. He was fifty-eight, and he'd been a small-town mayor before the war, still no easy feat for an African-American in a mostly white Alabama town. His power, bursts of biologically- generated electricity, similar in a fight to Scott's optic blasts, had come in very handy at times, but he kept to himself for the most part. The nature of his power was also one reason why the human casualties had been so heavy - there was no way to control the intensity or voltage of the blasts once they were generated and unleashed; each blast had been fatal to the recipient. Tom had killed about eight of the humans. "Scott's orders were to take them to the border of the park and let them go. I guess we'll do that." Bobby felt Tom's hand come to rest on his shoulder. "You did your best to get them all there. They decided to what they did. You did what you had to, Bobby." Bobby was comforted a bit by the words. He valued Tom's opinion and knew him to be a learned and fair man. But he still felt very much like a failure. He hadn't wanted it to go this way. "Why did they attack? We were just going to drop them off and let them go." Tom heaved a sigh. Bobby reminded him a little of his own youthful son, who was one of the many who'd died, not as a result of the virus - he'd inherited Tom's immunity - but as a result of the societal breakdown it had wrought. He'd had a simple case of appendicitis, but there was no doctor, no hospital for him to go to by that point. Things that used to be easily fixed in the old world were once again the grave, life-threatening conditions they had been. Tom shook his head a little at the memory, and decided to impart to Bobby the same advice he'd have given his own son in this situation. "Maybe they didn't believe us. It's hard for people to conceive of anyone acting better than they would themselves, if they had the upper hand. I doubt they'd have let us go, so I'd imagine that it was hard for them to believe we would. They made their decision about what to do here. They suffered the natural consequences of that bad decision. You did what you had to, and you'll honor our bargain by taking these two to the border." "Maybe if we'd have just talked to them, explained a little more - " "Son, there's just no talking to some people. People who've lived hating and being violent, destructive all their lives, well, it doesn't matter how much sense you make, they're just not going to listen. They see the world through different eyes. Sense and reason, they don't have a place in that world." Bobby looked squarely into Tom's eyes. "So what, then? Should we have just killed them all back at the camp? Is that how to deal with those kinds of people?" Tom smiled. "There's no easy way to deal with them. You wrestle a pig, you're bound to get a little mud on you. That usually isn't too bad. Point is - don't grow yourself a corkscrew tail. You can't make them play by your rules, and you can't play by theirs. Best you can probably do is to do what you have to, to keep yourself and your friends and family safe. At least that way, you know your intentions are good even if the things you have to do might not be so good." He could tell that his words had reached Bobby, that he was thinking it over. "Come on, let's get these two on their way and head back. It's getting dark." Bobby nodded, and headed back to the truck. "Scott? May I have a word for a moment?" Hank could see that he was interrupting Christopher's dinner, but he'd finished with his patients and they were awaiting some news on where they'd be staying. Hank needed to talk that over with Scott a bit. "Sure. How are they?" "I am worried about one of them - she has a rather advanced case of pneumonia. I've put her on my couch and made her as comfortable as possible and I have started administering antibiotics. I am hoping that some warmth, rest, and food will assist the medication in restoring her to full health." "Good," Scott replied, spooning what looked like mashed peas into Christopher's open mouth. "Scott, have you given any thought to what we shall do with them now?" Scott's spoon paused in midair, causing Christopher to pause and frown. "Peas, dada!" Scott smiled at his son, and obliged, clearly thinking over how to answer Hank's question. Hank let him mull it through. After a few more spoonfuls, Scott answered. "I don't think they can stay here, not permanently. Most of the people here - well, I don't think they'd stand for it, even though they are a fairly harmless bunch of humans. Frankly, I think keeping them here for any amount of time is going to be a hard sell after what happened today. But I don't want to turn them out. That wouldn't be right." "What about Logan? What do you suppose he will do?" Scott shot him a surprised look. "I thought you said he'd be down for a month or so." "Yes. But he should be sufficiently healed enough in about a week to begin resuming the decision- making functions of his, ah, position." Scott pondered that while shoveling the last of the peas into Christopher's mouth. "But he's not going to be in any position to enforce those decisions, so I don't see why his opinion should be binding." "Scott," Hank said warningly. "Even so, Logan *will* heal eventually, and he will not take kindly to his authority having been usurped. There is also Rogue to consider." "What about her?" Scott rose from the table with a shrug, and Hank gaped a little at him. Could he really have missed the evidence of her attachment to and protectiveness of Logan after all that had happened today? "Has it not occurred to you that she may endeavor to enforce Logan's decisions for him in the interim?" "Are you saying that he'd make her fight his battles for him?" Christopher fidgeted as Scott returned to the table with a fresh glass of juice for the child. "I am saying that she may be inclined to do so, especially if it is you opposing her. You know well that there is no love lost between the two of you. Did you not see how she was this morning? She was ready to do anything to save Logan." Hank tried to meet his friend's eyes behind the visor. He had no idea what was going on in his head, that was certain. "Saving his life is one thing. Contesting who runs this place is another. I know she's attached to him, and she probably thinks she loves him, but Hank - I'm not going to sit here and let Logan decide everything from his sick bed. I'm not inclined to just kick those humans out, are you?" "Well, no, but - " "I know that they can't stay permanently, but as long as Logan is down, they're staying here. And as long as he's down, I'm going to run this settlement as I see fit. If Rogue has a problem with that, well, we can talk, but things have to get done, and if Logan's not well enough to enforce his decisions, then he won't be making them until he is." "Scott," Hank said, leaning forward across the table. "Do you think that is a wise approach? I know you are not fond of Logan - neither am I - but it is his settlement, his place. He has fought everyone - you included - to remain in control of it. You may be able to put Rogue off and to run the settlement for a time, but Logan will recover and he will not permit your authority to stand. What if he exiles you? Are you prepared to deal with that?" Scott sighed. "I'm just tired, Hank. I'm tired of kow-towing to whatever he wants. I'm tired of watching him play at being in charge while everyone else does all the work. I'm tired of dealing with him. I don't want us to be exiled, and I don't think he'd do it, but - but - hell, I don't know. I'm just frustrated, you know?" "And you've never liked him," Hank added. "No," Scott admitted with a grimace, bristling a bit at Hank's implication. "But that's not what this is about. It's about the best way to run this place." "No, Scott," Hank countered softly. "It's about your feelings toward him. You would approach this entirely differently if it were anyone but Logan. I daresay you would approach things in quite the opposite fashion. What would you do if it were Charles who lay incapacitated? Would you not discuss your plans with him, at least attempt to seek his counsel and get his opinion? Because it is Logan, because of how you feel about him, you are taking this opportunity to exorcize your frustrations about him by deliberately bypassing his authority, something that you know will provoke a reaction in him. I have no love for the man, either, but he has made wise decisions in securing and running the settlement. And it is his to run." "It's not personal, Hank, it's not." Hank sat back in his chair, clearly disbelieving. "Have you even considered how this may affect Rogue? Do you not think she is under enough stress as it is?" That did reach Scott, at least a little, Hank could tell. "Just think it over, my friend. In the mean time, shall we find tents for the humans?" "Yeah. Keep them close to our cabins, just in case. Keep whoever's not suitable for staying out in the tents for medical reasons in your cabin or mine or Bobby's. I'll call a meeting in the morning at the storehouse and explain what happened. Bobby should be back soon - we'll see how that goes. I'll tell the people here the news, and I'll tell them that the humans are staying temporarily, while they receive medical treatment, and that we're discussing what should be done after that. I'll make it clear that they in no way participated in the attack on Logan and Rogue. We'll see what the general reaction is." "Sounds like a good plan. I'd suggest you inform Rogue personally. It would be an unwelcome surprise for her to hear of humans from that group staying here without understanding the context in which they are being permitted to stay." "Will do. And Hank - " Scott reached a hand out to his friend, grabbing on to a large, furry paw. "I'll think about what you said, I really will." "Good," Hank said seriously. The last thing any of them needed right now was a power struggle, a fight. He shook Scott's hand then took his leave, heading back to his cabin and his patients. |
