Who: Adalene and OPEN
What: New Arrival
When: Early evening, friday
Rating: TBD
Status: Incomplete

Adalene leaned against the enterence gate of the infamous school. She had been going back and forth with the idea all morning at her desk in the Senator's office. She had worn out Scott's business card, turning it over and over in her hands. She had even picked up the phone to call him a couplbe of times. Though remembering where she was had forced her to put the phone back in it's cradle. She had even written an e-mail to him but deleted it as soon as she was finished, afraid they would be able to catch that as well.

Making up her mind she decided to go as soon as she was out of work. Though walking with a coworker, as usual, to the station as well as riding it to their normal stop she came up with a new lie to be able to continue riding it to where she would be able to get off near the institute. Unfortunetely with all of the people around she had yet to be able to shift out of Veronica's form.

Though now she found herself outside the institute and wondering if she was making the right decision. She pushed herself off of the gate and paced for a moment unsure of what to do.

Hank had been a busy, busy man. He hadn't slept much since they'd been brought back to the mansion, but he hadn't really minded. He could survive off much less sleep than the average person, and besides, his patients came first. They always came first. When he thought of them, of how much they had been put through, he found that extra bit of resolve that kept him awake and plodding on. Not only that, but Ethan had been kind enough to bring an automatic coffee maker down, and had supplied Hank with plenty of coffee. The man was entirely too kind, and Hank made a mental note to thank him when he had a chance.

He had taken a short nap in his office while he had a break, but now he was rested enough that he was ready to tackle the mystery that was the strange girl named Laura. Perhaps she was an offspring of Logan's, which, considering the fact that the man only had about fifteen years worth of memories, it wouldn't such a stretch that he simply didn't remember her at all. If he had even any memories of her to begin with. Hank had been following this conclusion, up until the point that he was studying her test results.

Now that... that was interesting.

With a thoughtful "hmm," he picked up his cell phone and dialed Logan's number. He explained to him that the results were in, and he was available to go over them now, if Logan wanted.

Now he just had to wait. While he was at it, he poured himself another cup of coffee and flipped through the results again. "How peculiar," he murmured under his breath. Really, this was nothing short of amazing. Well, amazing and also rather disturbing.

Gaia had gotten back to the school somewhere in the realm of four, but hadn't gone inside yet. It was starting to get dark, but she couldn't bring herself to care too much about the passage of time.

She wandered, getting angrier and angrier as she thought about what she'd gone home to and the torn pictures. Those animals! She wanted to throw things to hit people and get pissed out of her fucking skull.

Now who to go with her? Because that sort of evening demanded an accomplice.

About then she heard the strum of a banjo. Not Gaia's favorite instrument, but whoever was playing it was pretty damn good. She followed the music and it took her to a wide and tall tree. She looked up and smiled. Well, it was one way to meet Logan's girl.

"Hey, Matty! Wanna get pissed?"

The mansion was nothing but absolute chaos. Ethan could tolerate only so much of it before his head began to feel as though it would explode from all the noise and children running to and fro. He loved kids, really, but the school was far too understaffed. He had been trying to quit smoking before the... well, before, but now he found himself ducking outside more often than not to have a quick cigarette while he tried to maintain a hold on his sanity.

Most people thought Ethan was one of the more patient, sane people around. While this was usually true (Ethan had been told more than once that he had the patience of a saint), he now only seemed to make it through the day by spiking his coffee with alcohol. Or keeping himself distracted. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, and it made him seem that much more scatterbrained.

He pulled his aviators on over his sensitive eyes as he stepped outside, a cigarette already dangling from his lips. Within seconds, the cigarette was lit and he was starting his walk around the building. He had been doing that a lot lately, circling the mansion, almost as if he expected another attack. Truth be told, he almost did. After Brenna had told him and the other X-Men the info she had stolen from that scientist's mind, he didn't think it would be too far off to expect another attack. He just hoped they would be better prepared when that happened.

He caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, coming from just ahead of him. Frowning, Ethan strode forward. "John?" He found the teenager smoking in the space between the the main building and the alcove that housed the industrial-sized dumpsters. Hey, you live in a boarding school for mutants, see how much trash you accumulate over a week. "Still hiding?" he asked with a hint of a smile.

He was relieved to see John. The teenager had made himself scarce once Bobby had woken, and Ethan had to admit he worried. He worried about a lot of people, and part of him wanted to say John could easily take care of himself. And he could - physically, at least. It was the mental that Ethan worried about.

Who: John, Gambit & NPC!Kids
What: John and Gambit talking then getting interrupted by John's would-be admirers
When: Afternoon
Rating: PG
Status: Closed


This place was crazy.

Of that, Remy LeBeau was absolutely certain. This place was insane. When it wasn't filled with students it seemed like a dead place, all the life sucked out of it, but when it was? It was almost too lively, kids everywhere and even though they were all suffering from some form of PTSD (Remy recognised the signs), the general relief in the air that they were all back and all alive was palpable.

( Idle chit-chat )

After dropping Jenn off at a bar, Illyana had gone back to the citadel. She just wasn't in the mood for drinking and bar fights tonight. Her temper would snap and she would probably end up killing someone. That would end up pissing off Magneto and Victor, and that wasn't something she wanted to deal with tonight.

Instead, she found an empty room in the citadel and decided to work on some sword moves. She warded her circle so that nothing could escape from Limbo and out into Genosha. That would be another one of those things guaranteed to piss of the bosses.

When she was ready, she opened a disk to Limbo and waited for the first demon to get brave enough to come through.

The garage was full of motorcycles with keys and helmets. He would have to make sure not to take Logan's bike. The last thing that he wanted was to piss off the Wolverine. Settling on one he was sure wasn't his or Scott's and set to work hotwiring it. It only took a few seconds and before he left, he wrote a note and set it on the chair nearby.

borrowed your bike.
promise i'll bring it back. with gas. in one piece

- alex.

With that, he was off. He needed to get out of there, just for a little while. He had forgotten how stifling it could be around all those people. People judging him, expecting him to be Scott. Scott he wasn't and he was so glad for that. He skidded to a stop in front of a nearby bar and made sure the bike was locked up before he made his way inside.

"Gimme a beer?" he asked as he sat down at the bar, shrugging out of his jacket. Fishing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, Alex leaned back and finally felt like he was somewhere familiar.

His conversation with Ada still in the forefront, Scott eventually made his way to Ororo's office. It'd be the first time they'd spoken since the rescue, and he found himself missing the other woman.

They'd always been close, like brother and sister at times, and he felt bad for avoiding her, because, truth be told, that's what he was doing. 

He'd been acting like a spoiled child, and he was ashamed of it. If it hadn't been for the children's disappearance, he probably never would've snapped out of it, instead choosing to sulk and pout.

Heading upstairs, he knocked lightly on the door of her office. "Hey, Ro, you busy?"

Narrative

It was a cold night, but John barely felt it.

He'd slipped out of the window in the shared bedroom with Bobby sometime after his confrontational communication with both Adelaide and Jubilee and found a place to sit. It was suitably dark and he could be left alone, not even wolf-boy would find him out here.

The events of the last week or so weighed heavily on his mind, how Bobby had been slipping away in front of his eyes, and how everybody else had been hurting in one way or another. It wasn't that he didn't care, he was just... afraid of caring, because rejection was inevitable.

( Cut for a lot of mentions of self harming. It's not pretty under here. )

Consciousness was one of those things that seemed pretty shaky to one Bobby Drake by the time it finally decided to return to him. His arms felt heavy, as did his legs, and there was a throbbing somewhere... he couldn't quite pin down where and a very maddening itch that some part of his brain just knew he couldn't get to, so it was going to make the itching even worse just to spite him. Of course.

He shifted a little, coughing as his eyes still refused to open. He wasn't sure he wanted them to, though. What if they were still in that place?

( A little bit of confusion )

[OPEN]

Evelyn checked her reflection in the full length mirror of her hotel room not for the first time that day (sixth to be exact) trying desperately not to wrinkle her nose at her outfit.

In reality it was a very sexy sophisticated outfit: black skinny jeans that clung to her skin like a second skin, calf high stiletto boots, fitted shirt that again clung to assets like it had been made specifically for them, long dark hair loose with even a slight curl and makeup just this side of subtle. She wasn't sure what she was trying to achieve with this outfit, aside from getting noticed.

It just wasn't... her, she was more used to... combat clothing.

The brief was laid out on the bed of her hotel room - she was to join the mansion as the foreign languages teacher and all she could do was hope that she managed to make it convincing. It helped that she was multilingual, it was an essential talent to have in her position.

To be precise Evelyn spoke: French, Russian, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and well, English. Granted it was more an Irish take on English, but, still, it was English.

Her superiors had even forwarded on an impressive resume along with a comprehensive list of references along with just the right amount of detail on the form itself.

She breathed, sliding her hands into her hair, recently manicured nails skimming the skin along the back of her neck as she fiddled with it, not used to having it down.

Part of her felt bad about this, but another part, a much larger part knew she had a duty to serve as best she could. Eve took one last look at her reflection before she pulled on a leather jacket, zipping it up until once again another layer of clothing looked as if it had been created especially for her.

Evelyn let herself out of her room and caught the first cab she could to the address she'd noted down, hopefully somebody would be there to meet her.

The gardens were a mess.

Well, not really, but if Millie convinced herself that they needed an exceeding amount of work, then she could throw herself into that and not have to think about anything else.

She'd gotten up early, almost before the sun, and gone out to the shed. She was pleased to see that the trees she'd ordered before- the trees she'd ordered had arrived. Ms. Munroe would be happy with that, too.

She spent all morning moving some of the saplings to the spots she'd already marked for their planting. Some were going against the fence, but a good portion were being scattered around the extensive grounds. The entire project would take her a long time, but she didn't care. At least she would be busy and exhausted.

She was avoiding. And she damn well knew it. She didn't want to think about what had happened. She didn't want to consider what had happened to the others while she'd been kept like a little pet inside her cell. She'd never seen one of the robots that the others had been put before, but David made sure she knew what she was missing. In as much detail as he felt he could afford. Which considering the mouth on him, was a lot of detail. And wasn't she just fucking lucky as hell that he'd decided to keep her as his pet so she wouldn't have to go through that.

Yeah. Real fucking lucky.

She started digging. The whole would need to be deep enough to secure the root ball and twice as wide to allow the roots to spread out properly. Maybe three or four feet down and three across. Not that she really needed to be that mathematically correct about it. But it helped.

The work was hard. Her muscles strained and ached, her back hurt, and sweat got into her cuts and stung like mad. Millie didn't care and in some ways didn't notice. She got focused as she usually did when working the gardens, and nothing else mattered.

Waking up was not something that Kitty knew if she wanted to do or not. Being awake meant she would feel the pain again. Being awake would mean that she would have to face the truth that she was in no condition to protect Jubilee or fight back against their captors without getting herself hurt worse. Having to wake up meant that she would have to deal with way too many things that she would rather not have to face -- including the fact that she was worried she was going to die before she'd see Andrew and the rest of her loved ones again.

Being awake meant dealing with the fear that it was getting harder and harder to pretend didn't exist.

The first thing that Kitty realized when she allowed herself to come closer to waking up was that she was warm. It was a nice warm, a good change from the coldness in the cell. The second thing she realized was that whatever she was laying on was a lot more comfortable than the cot or floor. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking up into a ceiling that she vaguely recognized. It wasn't the same exact ceiling that she was used to growing up, but it was definitely similar.

She closed her eyes again for a moment, this time in relief. She hadn't been dreaming, then. They really had found them and brought them home.

She turned her head to the side and was surprised to see a head of brown hair laying on the bed next to her. Her arms felt heavy, but she still moved her hand to stroke his hair. She had been so scared she'd never see him again and even now, tears filled her eyes as she thought about it.

Narrative

John was a trouble-patient, the sort of patient that never did as he was told and refused to sit still and be treated. He'd even point blank refused x-rays even though the only way to determine how bad the cracks in his ribs were was by using an x-ray.

The reason behind his refusal was simple: his bones told his life story and quite frankly he didn't want anyone knowing about that, not even Hank. Not that objection had gotten very far, given that Hank was the doctor and eventually the x-ray had taken place.

Every bone, it didn't matter how big or small, had some sort of break or fracture, badly set and some had clearly never been treated. John had simply avoided eye contact and gruffly excused himself to the bed he'd been stuck in since he'd passed out in the Blackbird. What? He'd made it all the way there, he didn't think passing out right at the end was something to be ashamed of. In fact he thought he'd done super fucking well in comparison to everybody else who sort of... well, he wasn't about to say it, people knew how things had gone down. It had been a fucked up situation.

Blood loss. Cracked ribs. Multiple cuts and bruises. Electric shock. Burns. Puncture marks. Spinal fluid loss. Malnutrition. Fatigue.

( Easily Overlooked )

After sending an email to everyone in the contact list for the Institute, Adelaide reached out and took another sip of her cooling coffee.

The door to her office was slightly open, an invitation for anyone walking past who knew of her position to come in if they wished. She only believed in closing doors when people were actually in her room and wanting to talk privately. The Professor had always had an open door policy, as had Jean, and she was not going to be one to break tradition in such a way.

She hoped that the students would take her up on her offer. Hell, she hoped some of the faculty would too. There was nothing wrong with just sitting down and talking. It helped, a lot of the time, just to shed the load, get everything off ones chest. Sometimes the conversation wasn't even about what had happened. Often with trauma victims that was the case.

She supposed she should email Logan separately, or at least talk with him about what had happened and whether or not they should make the counseling sessions for those that were taken compulsory. She knew that her presence would help, it just needed to be taken advantage of.

"Ugh, cold." she muttered, putting the mug down beside her computer. She enjoyed cool coffee, but not cold coffee. There were some thing that should never be cold; coffee was one of those things. She got to her feet and pulled the door open a little more, thinking back on the session she'd had earlier that day with one of the younger students, and even her brief conversation with Jamie.

It didn't seem right to her that they felt they couldn't talk to the staff because they were afraid to be a nuisance in a time when they should have been able to turn to them more than ever.

Plucking a book off her bookshelf, Adelaide settled in behind her desk and waited to see if anyone was going to come to her today, the same way she would every day. She got three pages into it before she put it down again, picking up her sketchpad, pencil in hand as she drew.

Brenna didn't break down when the Blackbird landed. She didn't break down making sure everyone got to the medbay. She was still riding on endorphins from kissing Ethan and adrenaline from the escape. She'd held his hand the entire flight home, sitting near the back of the plane where the extra jump seats were, and by the time they were home she was dozing on his shoulder.


( cut for slight discussion of rape )

Gaia'd gotten off easy. She knew that without having to see the full infirmary downstairs. If her body had been abused beyond being pumped full of drugs, she either didn't notice or was choosing not to acknowledge it.

She had her telepathy shields up as tight as she could. The emotions were riding strong around here right now. Relief, nightmares, a thousand different fears from different people about and from what had happened. Yeah. She'd gotten off easy.

If she were smart, she'd go home and ride it out alone. But home had it's own set of issues right now, too.

Gaia wasn't used to not feeling safe. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was in control and she was secure. More than anything, by breaking into her home, those thugs had stolen that sense of security from her. She was sort of reeling from it, and wasn't ready to face up to having to clean up and reclaim her space just yet. She would. Just not now.

It was nice having Wolvie nearby again. Whenever she got itchy and left, she always forgot how much she loved, and in some ways needed, to have him around. For a moody bastard, he had a way of balancing her that she could never quite figure out. It wasn't like a soulmate or whatever drivel people read about in books. It was just comfort, security, companionship, family.

He was worried for Matty, and so was she. Matty, from all the Gaia had heard about her from Logan was good for him and the two of them needed each other. She hoped that the woman would be alright, but hadn't yet braved the infirmary to see for herself. She hated places like that. She'd spent too much of her life alone and waiting for the end of various worlds to want to spend it in a place that could be equal parts salvation and graveyard.

Goddamn, she was maudlin today. Gaia supposed that was just to be expected after everything, but she hated these moods. They just sucked.

She wandered out to the balcony and sat on the stone railing, dangling one leg over the edge as she lit a cigarette.

There was no way he could sleep -- not while the mission was underway.  He sat by the communications console, and just monitored, waiting for something, anything.

Eventually, he got it, and soon later, the jet was landing and all the injured students (and god, there were so many) were herded down into the medlab almost immediately. 

Scott had stood by idly enough and he couldn't any longer.  Heading downstairs himself, he steeled himself for what he was about to find. Everywhere he looked, there was a student in pain, a student crying, a student without any emotion.  It made him hurt inside to see the children (and they'd always be children to him) like this.

Clearing his throat, he tried to find something to do, someway he could help but before he could, his eyes fell on the first student he saw.  Rogue. She was cradling an arm and he winced inside.

Without speaking, he walked over to her side, and leaned down to give her a hug, careful of both her arm, and her skin. He just couldn't find the words to say anything yet.

He was going to have to hire new contacts. Damien hadn't received word that his sister was in danger until too late. He had already caught a plane to the States, and by then, she had already been rescued. Part of him was pissed because he had missed out on taking down her captors. He may have something of a chivalrous streak to him at times - it was well-hidden but it liked to rear its ugly head from time to time - but he still loved him some well-meaning violence. Still, she was safe, so far as he knew.

But he was already here, so he might as well drop by and see her, right? After all, he hadn't seen her in nearly a year. He hated to think of the flight as a waste, especially as he hated flying - well, he hated the other passengers and just everyone, really.

The wall surrounding the outside perimeter of the school was nothing. He had scaled it in all of maybe two seconds, and moved through the darkness of the woods. They didn't have any sort of security within the trees, probably because too often they'd find themselves chasing deer or rabbits. At the treeline, he stopped and climbed several feet up into an oak tree, crouching on one of the higher branches as he surveyed the area.