Running - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Monica Tamaru
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 5

"Xavier was just showing me around. It’s been a while, huh? Nice to see you guys looking so healthy. What, Jean, no greeting?" The Puerto Rican doctor was looking back and forth between Remy and Jean. Jean waved quickly and stepped out from behind Remy. "What is wrong with you two?"

"Sorry, Cece, you just surprised us," Remy said flatly.

"Hmm. Well, Xavier offered to get me out of that hell-hole I was working in so I decided to come home." Cecelia Reyes smiled at Xavier. She looked like a daughter looking for approval. It gave Remy the creeps.

"Home? You used to come here?" Jean asked. Cece did a double take.

"Yup. I didn’t know you could talk. Xavier mentioned that Hank needed more time for research and his classes, so here I am."

"I thought you liked the ER," Remy said, looking at her curiously. The Cecelia Reyes he knew would never leave that "hell-hole".

Cece paused for a second and frowned. "I did."

"It’s time for dinner. We’re going to formally introduce Cecelia tonight," Xavier cut in brightly. He smiled down at Cece and watched everyone trudge into the main hall.

Jean sidled up to Cece and whispered, "I’m glad you’re here."

Cece looked surprised, but leaned down to give the girl a hug. "Me too."

The dining hall was full of noise when they entered. Remy pulled Jean aside as Xavier and Cece went to take their places at the head table.

"We go in tonight."

---------------------------1 year ago--------------------------------

There was a light layer of snow on the ground. Forecasters claimed it would be five inches by the next morning. Remy had his face pressed up to the upstairs window. It was so cold outside he shivered just watching the people scurry on the streets. Jean’s raspy breath was competing with the whipping wind outside.

Remy stuck his hands deep in his pockets, fumbling for more pills. The moon’s light cast a deathly glow to his skin that mirrored how he was feeling.

"Here, Jeannie, take these," he murmured, holding the aspirin and water to her lips. She struggled to open her eyes. The cup seemed too big to her, and water leaked down her chin as she tried to drink.

Her eyes had heavy shadows beneath them. They seemed less green, her hair looked less red. In Remy’s opinion, she was a living ghost. He was scared out of his mind. He decided to risk it all.

"Come on, petite, put the jacket on," he coaxed, practically picking her up and dressing her like a doll. Jean just stared up at him questioningly as he piled clothing and blankets on her. "We’re going to the hospital."

She tried to struggle. They couldn’t go. They didn’t have the money. People would ask questions.

"If we don’t go, you could die," Remy said harshly. "Don’t try to argue with me. Conserve your strength. I’m not going to lose you!"

He carried her outside and had a cab take them to Our Mother of Mercy.

"Fill these forms out," the ER attendant said, barely looking at him. The room was packed full of agonizing cries and pitiful moans. Remy made his way back to Jean, who was leaning up against the wall, trying her best to stay awake.

Remy quickly filled out the forms with the information from the life they left so long ago. He ran the forms back to the front desk.

"The wait’ll be two hours for you." She didn’t look up, didn’t wonder why Remy was taking care of the information.

"Two hours! My sister is really sick! She needs someone now!"

"Look around you, son; gunshot wounds, stabbings. We’re busy tonight and if there’s no blood, nothing broken then the wait is two hours."

Remy stalked back to his seat, finding it taken by a man holding a bloody gauze to his head. He pulled Jean onto his lap and waited. Minutes slowly ticked away with no change. People moved in and out, noise went up and down. Three hours later, Remy got up to check on Jean’s status.

"I wanna check our status. Rachael Dayspring." The alias flowed easily off his tongue. The man now at the desk checked for the forms.

"She’s sick? You’re going to have to make an appointment. This is the Emergency Room."

"This is an emergency. She can’t breathe. Help her. The lady said it would be a two hour wait – three hours ago!"

"This is not for sick people, this is for people with life-threatening injuries. You should have made an appointment long ago if she is as bad as you say."

"We’ve been here for three hours! I’m not leaving until someone helps her!"

"I’m sorry. I can make an appointment for you for tomorrow."

"Excuse me." They both turned and faced a young woman with cocoa colored skin appraising them through wire-rimmed fames. She was wearing a white lab coat.

"Doctor, my sister is very sick," Remy began, his voice betraying his desperation.

"Bring her back here," the woman said. Turning to the attendant, she ordered him to give her Jean’s forms. Remy ran toward the waiting room.

"C’mon Jeannie, wake up," Remy murmured, carrying her out of the waiting room and into an examination room.

"Hi, I’m Dr. Reyes. Let’s see what we have here." She began checking Jean’s pulse and temperature.

"She’s been sick for about a week. I thought it was a cold, then the flu. I gave her medicine, but she never seemed to be doing any better," Remy said quietly. "Then she began throwing up and wheezing."

"Hmm," was all Dr. Reyes said. Jean was pretty groggy, so she didn’t put up much of fight against all the probing. "Looks like pneumonia. She’s going to have to stay here for a couple of days. Do your parents have coverage?"

Remy didn’t say anything.

"You don’t have the money." It wasn’t a question and Remy didn’t say anything for a minute.

"I’ll get the money."

Dr. Reyes bit her lip. "Well, the doctors here have a fund for, uh, kids like you. I can put in an application."

Remy opened his mouth to refuse when Jeans hand shot out and clamped around his wrist. Cecelia turned away.

"Accept her offer," Jean said softly, but firmly.

"Jeannie, I can get the money. We don’t accept charity."

"I know how you’re going to get the money. Remember last time? Along with the money, you also got a broken leg and cracked ribs. Accept the offer."

Remy glared at her, but didn’t argue any further. Cece sighed in relief when he told her of their decision. This is why she became a doctor – to help those who can’t help themselves.

------------------------------------------

Jean got her way. She would get to penetrate the underground offices of the Institute. The mission: find out what was going on. So far the only thing Remy and Jean could find was that a lot of the graduates got high position jobs and the school had a very healthy alumni circle. Nothing wrong with that, but they were sure something more sinister was at work.

It had taken a full hour to convince Remy she should go, and still he was grumbling. "Don’t know why you’re going. You’ve never done this before."

"You know I can, though. Relax." Jean was scared out of her mind. Though truly confident that she would have no problem breaking into the systems downstairs, she didn’t know what she would do if she were caught.

The girls were still living it up back in Jean’s room. The party had grown to ten teenage girls bouncing around the room. Smiling sweetly, Jean explained that she needed to catch up on some homework. She offered to switch rooms for the night with Theresa Cassidy, daughter of CIA head Sean Cassidy. The girl agreed, flipping her bright red hair out of her face.

Jean headed to the library and plugged into the system through the computers that were set up for research to set up a few things to get her in undetected. The videos cameras were set up to loop and the doors were unlocked but still showed the telltale red light. All that remained was a small break in the system’s continuity. Jean got ready to run.

"The systems just blinked off," Scott insisted. Logan looked over his shoulder.

"Well, they’re back on now! Ororo just checked in and said Jean was in bed and Hank is gambling with the boys in Remy’s room," Logan said, impatience creeping into his voice. "I thought you made sure all the upgrades were made to the system."

"I did. You said to tell you if anything weird happened, so I did," Scott said stubbornly.

Jean smiled to herself as she crept down and crawled past them. The file room was a couple doors down. Her laptop was strapped securely to her back. The door opened soundlessly and Jean quickly got herself situated. First thing to do was to jam the door against any intrusion. Although this would alert anyone trying to get in, it would give Jean enough time to send the information somewhere safe. Second, Jean hacked into the files that contained all the information on the students- past, present, and for the future.

"Come to mama," she whispered as her fingers flew across the keyboard. Getting Xavier’s codes had been easy for Remy. The man obviously felt no one would dare intrude upon his private space because the lift took about a minute. While she downloaded and saved the information from the computer, Jean decided to look at the hard copies as well.

The keys for the file drawers were taped to the back. Jean rolled her eyes at the stupidity of the action and dove in. She was pleased that both her and Remy’s files were missing. She found a file for Cece. She paused in her reading to switch disks twice. As she learned more and more, she grew more and more angry. Cece had reported everything she and Remy had told her. Then she came across Lensherr, Erik. Her stepfather. Jean caught the scream in her throat and forced herself to move on. She waited until her hands stopped shaking before she continued.

There was more. Under each student’s file, there was a former student’s name. In the file there was a check stub with a healthy sum going towards the former student. They were getting paid for each kid they got into the Institute. She checked an older student’s file and saw a lot of financial transactions. A lot of money was coming into the school. Jean noticed that her computer had stopped downloading, so she quickly packed up and got ready to leave. They would look in depth at the files when there was more time. She hooked into the campus’ video system, bypassed her patch and saw that Xavier was in with Hank in his lab and Scott and Logan were still in security. Jean got out of the lower levels without incident. One more obstacle to go. Ororo was pacing the girls’ dorms, so Jean backtracked and went upstairs to Remy’s room.

"Remy?" she said as she opened the door a crack. Her voice was soft as she slowly immersed herself in the darkness of the room.

"Shh. C’mere." Jean carefully made her way toward him. She stashed the computer under the bed and climbed her way to the head of the bed.

She then cried all over him.

"What’s wrong? Jeannie, calm down." Remy was alarmed. He glanced worriedly at the door as if expecting someone to burst through. He pulled the comforter over both of their heads to hide the noise.

She hiccupped. "He knows we’re here. He always knew where we were."

"Who knows?" He rubbed her back to try to calm her down.

"Erik." Remy felt his hands go cold. Just saying the name brought back a hard fear that flowed through his body. Ever since they were little, Erik had run the house with an iron fist. They had been trained to fear him. "We’re out of here tomorrow. We need to stay out of sight for a while from this place."

"How do we do that?"

Remy shrugged. "We’ll just have to be careful."