After a little while, Jean has to leave Scott to get back to the lab.
She helps/steadies him back to his bed before she goes.
Rogue goes after her, catching up to Jean in the hall.
"Jean?"
Jean turns around, part of her mind still clearly back in the room. "Yes, Rogue?"
"Ah feel sorry for what just happened...Ah know you and Beast are doing everything you can."
"Not as much as I wish we could."
Rogue gets to her point: "Well, ah noticed just before Cyclops' brother was taken away, Cyclops used his own body to keep his brother's blasts from goin' everywhere. Doesn't that show Cyclops is maybe on the other sahd of this thing? Lahk if he isn't immune to his own powers anymore he shouldn't have been able to resist Havok's, rahgt?"
Jean closes her eyes a moment with the weight of the reality: "Scott isn't on the other side. The fact is," she opens her eyes, "he isn't that far down this one, yet. The resistance he's lost so far is to the force of his blasts. He's still immune to the blasts themselves..." Otherwise. That goes unsaid.
"Oh.." Rogue draws a hesitant breath, but she has to know: "Is that how we're all going to end up?"
Jean doesn't give any automatic, comforting answer. "Honestly, Rogue, I don't know -I don't think so. It would be dependent on the particular nature of each individual's mutation."
Rogue nods, that answer doing nothing to remove her uncertainty.
"I'm sorry."
Rogue nods again.
"But you're right. Beast and I are doing everything we can."
On this day, the rise of the sun does not equal any fresh start.
The light in the Danger Medical Room is a burning orange as Xavier addresses those inside:
"What has happened, to say the least, is a shock. You can trust me when I say I know the thoughts you are having right now. Be assured Drs. Grey and McCoy ARE doing all in their power to create a cure to arrest the affects of this..'viral mist'." Nightcrawler is standing beside him. "Kurt will be available to you if you feel in need of some spiritual guidance, or just to talk. Those of you who do not have your family with you but feel now you would like their company, if you think they would be agreeable, Kurt can assist with that, too."
Despite his fatigue, Scott has been listening..
..but at that he turns his attention away.
It's a minute before Xavier's voice takes it again, much closer now: "I am so terribly sorry for your lose, my son."
Scott looks to him, but has no words.
Xavier does: "The loss of Alex..it's one to us all, as mutants. But, that kind, can not compare to personal loss." He lays his hand on Scott's, speaking now in a tone of firm resolution: "May he mark not the first, but the last."
The weight of reality setting in. .more days pass which feel strongly now like a countdown. . tensions rise in the Danger Room...
"If these are our last days I don't want to spend them in here!"
"We've already wasted this much time!"
Storm: "Please," she draws a breath, "let's breathe. If you go we may not be able to reconvene with you swiftly enough once a cure has been made."
"But is one?!"
"Will one?!"
Over with Bobby, Rogue and Colber, the former tYwo are passing time with Logan while Colber seems a distance away despite their proximity. Almost since Alex's departure he's been figuratively smoldering, and now he snaps: "WHY is it always US?!"
Bobby and Rogue come to attention.
Logan reacts as though he'd sensed this coming and was wondering when it finally would.
Colber: "Some people try to mess with us-- or help us-- did they even ASK? Do they even CARE--!" His arm goes rocky but this time that's not what he wants. He makes an aggressive throwing motion towards the nearest wall, hitting it with pebbles and cobbles all.
Some ricochet off in ways disruptive to other occupants, who quickly make their displeasure known -- some reacting with panicked eyes, as though fearing Colber's headed the way of Havok.
Colber: "I didn't mean tha--I did that on purpose but I didn't mean THAT!" He raises his hands to his head but too forcefully -they're both rocky, whether by choice or lack of control this time- and he hurts himself. "OW!"
Logan physically rises with Colbur's irritation: "Alright, alright. Look, kid, I get what you're feeling. If we weren't already in the Danger Room I'd take you there to get out some a' that. But I also know, under some circumstances...it's better to find another outlit." Logan eyes the little rock sculptures Colber made before out of stacked rocks.
Colbur considers this.
Then throws a cobble - smashing the sculpture.
Logan looks like that's not exactly what he meant, but sure.
Colbur smashes the next, and the next.
The rocks break apart but not unsafely or disruptively - minus the sound, which isn't the loudest in the room just then.
Ball Lightning Kid is crossing down the middle on their way to somebody else, when Walley's Mother snaps at them: "Don't come by here! Haven't you learned in school yet what lightning means to water?!"
Colber's "fish-like" friend, Walley, instead of a cot, is hanging out in a tank of water as his mutation has progressed to the point that he can't get enough oxygen from the air.
Ball Lightning Kid: "I'm wearing my gloves!"
"Just get out of here!"
Turns out the rock smashing is disruptive -- it seems to have raised the ire of a couple of the mutants whose mutations are more "beastly". Luckily they don't pay much attention to Colbur after eying each other. Unluckily for Logan, he soon finds himself trying to keep these two from each other until their territorial minds stop driving.
It practically progresses into a three-way brawl.
While some seem disinterested in anything go on, others can't help but notice; Storm among them. "Logan! Be easy!"
"You think I'm goin' hard? You're not the one fightin' with them."
We hear Walley's Mother again across the room: "Oh my God! What are you -- you're going to KILL my son!!"
One of the mutants has aquakinesis. Inadvertently they've risen the water of Walley's entire tank right out of it. It hangs suspended like a liquid block just above, while Walley is gasping and trying to stand to at least stick his head back in.
The water "block" loses shape just as suddenly as it had risen -- much of it falls back in the tank, startling Walley though at least he has something to breathe in again; it's considerably less full though, and he's upset.
Storm is back in the action. She uses her powers to make rain clouds from the puddles and directs the fall over the tank. It'll refill eventually.
The aquakinetic mutant is directed as far away as possible. "Maybe Beast...." but Storm stops herself. Beast dedicating time away from cure-work to construct assistive devices for powers is an only when completely necessary option, now.
"Listen, everyone!" Storm tries to speak over what's getting to be chaos. "We need to choose consideration over panic -- think of your mutations, we must reorganize into sections-"
Some are already figuring out who they could and who they shouldn't -and don't want to- be close by.
But most don't even realize instructions are being given.
The Talker who had approached Logan the other day -and whose then-meek friend is among those he's presently reigning in- speaks up: "She's trying to help us, people! Listen up!"
They clap their hands.
Apparently their mutant power relates to this in some way as the gesture results in a terrible shockwave of sound going out - something they were not expecting.
And neither was anyone else.
Everyone is brought down -hands to their ears; Logan's eardrums seem even to have burst, being the closest of those with more sensitive hearing.
It is now later.
Storm is in the control room making adjustments to the simulation; delineating specific areas, subtly adjusting room temperature and lighting to encourage a more settling atmosphere.
We can see Jean's on scene, too, checking in after the soundwave damage - Logan's eardrums are already on the mend due to his accelerated healing.
Talker/Clapper: "I'm sorry I contributed to this -but aren't you wasting your time here when there's a cure to make?!"
Jean remains composed: "Part of the work involves thinking through the data and coming up with new avenues to try. I can do that remotely. Plus certain parts of the process take time which can't be accelerated. Patients aren't the only ones made to wait for results."
"But this is already taking forever. Do you even have the right data?"
Jean responds to the emotion rather than the question: "Believe me, I'm uncomfortable with the pace of things, myself.."
Last of all, she goes to Scott.
His ears are alright, but he's got a hand over his brow.
Jean: "I'll get you something for your headache."
His answer comes with terrible awareness: "..it's not my head. The pain is in my eyes."