Cyclops was right and he wishes he wasn't (cyclopswasright) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-07-23 11:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alma wade, scott summers (cyclops), wrex |
"Well we were facing extinction, too. At least, we all thought we were"
Who: Alma, Wrex and Scott
What: Talking about rebuilding the ranch - with additions for kids with special powers, like Alma. Also, they're kindred spirits!
When: Sunday
Where: Wrex's hospital room
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for king of the Krogers
Alma was standing guard over Wrex, at the moment. She'd moved easily between him and Roy, though Roy had his own watchers. She felt uncomfortable, like she was an observer watching in on something that was denied her. It hurt. But it was also a relief, like she finally understood.
She looked up when Scott entered. The man looked tired, and dirty, but there was a seriousness to his face. Alma could sense it. This would be a serious talk, "He should be awake soon."
"Stick around, he'll probably want to see your face." Scott took a seat.
It was actually extremely frustrating to Wrex, how often he kept passing out. They had him on the 'good' drugs, he'd been told, but he didn't want to BE on the 'good' drugs. If it was up to him, he wouldn't be on any drugs at all.
It wasn't up to him, of course. They'd at least been nice enough to stop waking him up every 4 hours to make sure he didn't somehow die in his sleep. That had made him extremely cranky on Saturday.
He grunted something about some chick named 'Benezia', then opened one of his eyes. It went immediately to Alma, and he smiled, "Kid."
Alma remembered. She'd been scarce when he was awake. And she hadn't slept since the meteor. Which meant she was on her third day of no sleep. She gave him a tired smile, "Hello. You're looking better."
"And you," his voice rumbled a bit. One of the ribs had punctured his lung, which made talking sound somewhat wheezy. He didn't care, and did it anyway, "Look like hell. Been eating? Sleeping?"
Of course he'd yell at her for not taking care of herself while his own actions were probably the reason he was still in a bed. Because he was Wrex, and being Grumpy At Other People was his thing.
He reached out his hand for hers.
"Yes," though to which she didn't clarify. "Scott wants to talk to you about something." She took Wrex's hand and squeezed it tightly, "I am okay.. really. Everyone else is too. Roy is still out of it."
Her phone beeped and she looked at it. Probably not a good time to bring up "I made a friend and she makes me feel funny" right now.
He squeezed her hand, "Get some sleep, or I'll yell at you and ground you. You don't want that."
It was mostly an empty threat, but he was really worried about her. He made a mental note to tell Scott to make her sleep, later. Speaking of Scott, he opened his other eye and went looking around the room for the other man. He nodded when he saw him, "Hey."
"I would not want that," She replied, giving him a smile. She got to her feet, "I will sleep if you promise to rest." She shot Scott a look, "You have twenty minutes then you have to let him rest."
"Yes ma'am." Scott chuckled as she left. Then to Wrex, he said, "You look like hell."
Wrex made no such promise, but the look on his face was one that might hint that he was going to promise her, maybe. He squeezed her hand again before she let it go and took off.
After making sure she was well out of earshot, he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh, "I needed medical attention, you were right. I hate it when you're right. There'll be no living with you after this."
Scott grinned a bit, "Probably not. I wanted to give you a report in person." He sat up more and leaned in a bit, "Nothing is left standing. We'll need to rebuild from scratch, but that's not necessarily a bad thing."
"Nothing at all," Wrex grunted. It wasn't that big of a shock, considering how much had been in cinders when they'd evacuated. Scott's tone was very serious, and somewhat eager. Wrex figured the man had a plan of some kind, and wanted to pitch it.
He side eyed Scott, "You have a plan. Start talking."
"We all saw what Michele did," Scott said, using Alma's code name. "She's not alone. There are probably going to be kids out there who could cause even more damage. They'll need help. A place that could withstand that kind of impact."
Right to the point. That's what Wrex liked about Scott. Everyone had seen what Alma had done... in fact, he was surprised more people hadn't asked him questions about that. Probably, because of the crisis they were all dealing with, people were more willing to pretend they hadn't seen it.
He recalled some things he'd read about on that network thing, his own dreams - which he hadn't even shard with Shepard, but involved blue glowy wizardy and his ability to use that to move things around - and sighed, "You're right. But I wouldn't even know where to begin with that. They're going to need a place to learn to control that stuff, before it's more than just earthquakes ruining the city."
"I know what's needed. That's pretty much my thing in those dreams. But I don't really want more than a back ground role. Teaching too, maybe. There's downsides." He got up, closing the door, then walking back over, "Dangers to the kids without powers. Dangers to every one there should someone decide they don't like all that power concentrated in one place. But it's that, or sit back and watch while someone loses their mind trying to deal with both memories, and powers. I'm going to recommend keeping psychiatrists on hand, should we do this."
"We had dangers anyway. There's a reason I kept a stocked armory on the ranch." Wrex was talking about the danger Alma had posed to all of the students there - not by her powers, but by the sheer fact that she was present, and people wanted to take her, "So I'm used to the fact that my kids are in danger. That kids, in general, are in danger, and that it's my job to keep them safe anyway."
He closed his eyes and frowned a bit, "You want to set this up, but you don't want to lead. I take it there's problems with being the leader. I understand some of them. I'm the king of all the fucking krogers, in my world. It's like 24-7 war prevention between militant groups of people who are all well armed and very jumpy. No one likes to listen. Not everyone gets along. Lots of pressure, there."
"I threw myself into it completely," Scott explained. "Until I lost the person that I had been, because it was that or go extinct." It didn't seem like he was entirely comfortable giving up the leadership role, but to him, he thought in this case he might not be the best choice. He nodded at Wrex understandingly, "Yeah. Like that."
"Well we were facing extinction, too. At least, we all thought we were," Wrex grumbled. Him and Scott were a lot alike in a lot of ways.
"Maybe we lead together. You don't let me get lost, I don't let you get lost. We both have people we care about that we need to stay ourselves for. Got to be some middle ground, there."
Scott thought about this for a long moment, "We need to have an escape plan. For us, and for the kids. I promised someone I wouldn't let myself get sucked in too deep."
It was a good idea to have a plan like that. Wrex nodded agreement.
"I think we need to pick a focus for what we want to do for these kids, and just stick to that. Don't let it get too far off course, or let ourselves get too wound up in other concerns."
"It's real easy to fall into a pattern of 'hey we have powers, we can help!' It only leaves rubble and makes the entire property one big target."
"You're gonna have people who feel they need to use their powers responsibly, and to help people though," Wrex frowned, and shook his head.
"Where do you draw the line there? You sound more experienced with that than I am. Where I come from, space-wizardry is pretty common among most of us. It doesn't really make us targets, because everyone's used to it. Even I've got some. I woke up the other night and tossed my night table." Wrex shrugged. If he hadn't had the dreams, he would have freaked out more.
"A few million out of billions, and then only a few hundred," Scott said quietly. He pulled his glasses off and his eyes were glowing more red than ever before. "We went from a minority to an endangered species over night."
There was almost a kindred feeling in the room, like he knew somehow that Wrex would understand, "We can't stop people who want to help, but we can train them to understand when their help would cause more harm than good. Sometimes doing nothing will save more lives than intervening."
"They made something called a genophage, because my people were considered a threat to the galaxy. Because of that, only 1 baby in a thousand that are born, live. A militant race such as we were, we would have killed eachother into extinction, anyway. The females have to be sequestered. I was one of the only ones who withdrew my tribe from the fighting to recover and try to recoup some of our numbers. Later on, when I was the Warlord, they still didn't want to listen. That was centuries later." It took a few minutes for Wrex to get all of that out, and the entire conversation was making him tired. But he felt like he needed Scott to understand the paralells there, despite how the circumstances had been different.
"We understand each other more than you think."
That was something Scott could understand, "There was a virus that targetted only us." There was an understanding there. He nodded at Wrex. There couldn't be a better person to really understand this kind of pressure. What could happen from those who didn't understand, or were too scared to understand.
"We have iron men flying around, and girls like Alma." He put his glasses back on, "I can shoot lasers out of my eyes, and you're a space wizard. I'd like a save place for Alma and others like her."
"So let's build a safe place." Wrex nodded.
He paused for a few thoughtful seconds, and added, "Maybe we should use reinforced steel this time."
"Underground bunkers," Scott added. "Safe training rooms." There were a hundred little other things, "Once we have some buildings up, we can have Kitty and your computer friend get something set up. A high-tech computer lab would do wonders for education."
"Tali, yeah. She was setting one up anyway. Really glad that we didn't spend the money on that." Wrex grunted, and closed his eyes. Scott had really thought this all out and Wrex was of a mind to let him run with it.
"Work with someone on some blueprints. You can pull up a chart of the property with the county records. I'll still want the farms and the livestock. Alma likes working with the vegetables."
"It would be good for everyone," Scott agreed. Agriculture and husbandry skills had a lot of uses, even in the real world. From a simple garden to just an understanding of where their food really came from. On Utopia they'd had to learn those skills the hard way.
"Good. Go ... set it up." Wrex waved a hand, then added, "Hey ... make sure she sleeps. She can't stay up like that, watching over all of us. And ... Ned Stark offered his house if some people need a place to sleep, his house number's in my phone to call ahead... and Elena is watching the other kids, but she might need backup, and Shepard ... ... listen, you might get a raise out of this. But I really need someone to look after all this stuff."
He looked like he was about to pass out, but obviously those few things on his list were going to eat away at him until he was sure they'd be taken care of.
"I'll take care of it. I'll get Elena some help, too," Scott replied. His mind was already trying to figure out the most efficient way to go about this, and where he should take Alma so she can rest.
"Trust you, kid." From Wrex, that meant a lot.