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It's probably as sound of a sleep as Wesley has had in a very long time. At least the most restful, if not the longest. Perhaps both. He slumbers despite the hospital bed, and a stirring is the first sign that he's returning to consciousness. Then a sudden freeze, futile attempt to pretend to still sleep as real consciousness starts to fill with memories.
Bobby is at Wesley's bedside. His arms are folded, he's leaned the back of the chair against the wall, and he's paying more immediate attention to the ceiling than Wesley. The stirring takes a little time to be processed and only belatedly do Bobby's eyes move down.
One eye slowly is pried open, then immediately slams shut after it focuses on Bobby. Still sleeping. Pay no attention to the man behind the sheets.
"Wesley." Bobby's voice is neutral, almost wary, but he does try a smile. "Are you awake?"
"No." A long sigh hisses through his teeth, and Wesley opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling directly above. "I take it since I'm waking up here and not back in my own bed that it wasn't just some bad dream."
"Not a bad dream." Bobby's voice segues from just wary to a wary sympathy. "I'm sorry."
Wesley moans softly, just staring, sifting through...everything. "Gawd," he whispers. I...what...where do..." His head turns just a bit to catch Bobby from the corner of his eye, and after a couple seconds to observe, slowly pushes himself to a sitting position to look at him. "I don't know what to say. I don't know...can't figure out...why the heck I did that.""
"You were, uh, influenced." The words come out overquick, but Bobby gives them visual reference by pointing helpfully at his forehead. He also half rises. "It wasn't you. Or it was, but-- you know."
Wesley stares blankly, then slowly pieces start to come together. "Pete. What happened to Pete." He slumps against the headboard, closing his eyes again. "Gawd, how come I didn't...see. Realize. Get...help. They fixed it, right?" his eyes pop open, panicked as he looks to Bobby.
"Not that I'm experienced," Bobby says dryly, "but if I was turned into a woman-grabbing jerk, I wouldn't be thinking of help either. I . . . I think you're okay now, though." Bobby even tries more of a smile.
Wesley attempts a smile as well, not nearly making it to his eyes. "It was...I felt so...good. Confident. Like I could do anything I wanted. Have anyone I wanted. The girls. I've got to have thirty numbers in my room." His head falls into a hand, rubbing hard against his forehead. "Geez. Jubilee. She...she's gonna kill me. I'm so dead."
Bobby's expression slackens listening and he retakes his seat. His hands curl around the arm rests, a little too tight. "I don't know how forgiving she's going to be," he says, subdued. "I'll go with you, if you like. When it's time."
"She's never going to speak to me again," Wesley mumbles as much to himself as Bobby. "And...I wouldn't blame her. She...I was Pete all over again." He's quiet again, finally daring to say, "Bobby, the...things I said. I...didn't mean it. I don't know where that all came from."
"I know you do-- didn't." Bobby pries one of his hands off the arm-rest to hold it palm out. "It's okay. /I/ don't blame you. I don't think I'd've been any better in your place, or Peter's-- I mean, apparently we all go-- go crazy in that way." Bobby is not really as comforting as he likes to be here.
Wesley pulls back at the hand, eyeing it warily. No signs of freezing condensation, and he finally pries his gaze from it. "I don't know what to think. Like this massive...almost headache. Like I've been sleepwalking or something. For I don't even know how long."
"I think it might have been a while," Bobby says carefully and folds his hand. "At least as long as Rogue."
"Could...could you tell?" he asks hesitantly. "Did you suspect?"
"I-- I hoped it wasn't you," isn't much of an answer. "But I don't know. I didn't see you much until the end. It /might/ have been just a week. That's when I noticed."
"I guess punching you in the gut kinda tipped you off, huh. Oh, I don't know," Wesley growls at the sheets in front of him. "What was me, what wasn't. Am I me now. Makes my head spin."
"Other things tipped me off first," Bobby counters, but not with much force. "You sound like you to me. You didn't before. Maybe-- maybe you had you periods then, too."
"So how come you're here?" Wesley asks bluntly. "I mean, I'm glad ya are, but...I was pretty nasty to you."
"Someone has to be here!" Bobby spreads his hands and . . . promptly drops them. "Jean told me what happened. I figured someone had to be here to tell you it was okay. You know."
"But it's /not/ okay. How can you..." he glances to one side, catching sight of the unoccupied bed. "After...Rogue. She was..." Wesley's head drops to his chest, hanging there. "She was trying to tell you the truth. Bobby, I'm...so sorry."
"Okay's the wrong word. Okay." Bobby, Rogue mentioned, has to avert his eyes to the ceiling. "But I forgive you for what you couldn't help. I have to. I mean, it could be me one day, right?" He doesn't put as much weight on the last sentence as the others.
"I /should/ have been able to help it." Wesley, it seems, is less forgiving. "She's...man, /everyone's/ gotta hate me right now."
Bobby is still looking at the ceiling. "Jean seems to think you couldn't do a thing. So who'm I to argue?"
"Jean." A look of horror crosses Wesley's face at the sound of the name. "Oh my god. I...how am I ever going to face her again?"
"She forgives you," Bobby says hastily.
"Of course she does," Wesley says. "She's /Jean/. Doesn't mean that. Ugh," he smacks himself in the forehead. "So. Stupid."
"Not you! Not you!" Bobby sneaks a side-glance. "Stop hitting yourself. Seriously."
"I think if you'd...gah," he interrupts himself. "You'd be hitting yourself too. Man...I must have been insane."
"You were!" Bobby supplies . . . then reconsiders. Then leaves it. Yes. Insane.
"Yeah, you know how far insanity pleas ever--get--you--" Wesley swallows hard, realizing what he's saying. "Gawd, Bobby, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"I--" Wow, Bobby is just engrossed with the ceiling. "Whatever, Wesley. You say what you need to and think whatever you want. You're recovering."
"I think I should just shut up," Wesley decides. "Maybe forever." He rubs at his head. "Think they have any tylenol or something?"
"You'd think so," Bobby says. A little terse. "You're just feeling a headache? Nothing else?"
"Like there's a spike between my eyes. But I'm me. I think."
"Good." Bobby finally lowers his eyes, opens his mouth, and . . . can't think of anything else to say.
Wesley's head sags. "I think I might sleep a bit more," he says, offering a way out. "But...thanks. For, y'know, sticking around."
"I-- can stick around more," Bobby offers, a little forced, but also a little earnest.
"Appreciate it, man," Wesley nods. "I'll...probably need it. For now, though, I kinda need to sleep." Read: Think. Alone. Probably with a fair bit of self-beratement.
"Okay. I'll be by later." Bobby gets to his feet, hesitating, then walks toward the medbay doors.
Wesley watches Bobby's back as he leaves, slumping against the headboard and just rubbing the sides of his head.
Bobby is a gewd fried and is there to greet Wesley when he wakes up.
As much as he would like to still sleep to escape reality, there's only so much rest a body can take before it says 'enough.' Wesley's is long past that point, leaving many hours for reflection while chained to a hospital bed. Figuratively, of course. He's currently reclined, staring at the ceiling above, counting the ceiling tiles. The number comes out the same, as have the previous eight countings. Today.
Jean has been sitting over at her desk for a very long time. It takes some doing to get Dr. Jean Grey's in tray completely empty, but there are times when the effort is worth it -- it's allowed her to sneak surreptitious glances both physical and mental over at the Wesley still in her medical bay. But eventually even she can stall no longer, and so there's the sound of chair rollers on tile floor, and then the sound of footsteps padding over to Wesley's bedside to take a seat. It's telling, perhaps, that there is no friendly pat of the shoulder. Jean merely asks a disembodied "How are you feeling today?" from out of Wesley's line of sight.
Wesley jerks back out of his mathematical daze, head craning to catch sight of the voice. He slowly slides up in bed, leaning against the headboard, mind spinning through dozens of answers before finally settling on, "No worse than yesterday,"
"Yesterday was better than the day before it," Jean reflects, with a wry press of her lips, and her eyes carefully no-where near Wesley's. "It's not going to be easy out there," she warns, prefacing a statement that takes the space of a pause to finally emerge. "But I'm releasing you from the medical bay as soon as you're feeling up to leaving."
"Does that mean I can stay?" Wesley asks, carefully studying his feet beneath the bedsheets. "Or that you're kicking me out?"
"If you -want- to hide down here, it's not like I can blame you," points out the former, (albeit unknown to Wesley.) Dark Phoenix, staring intently at a refrigerator's temperature display across the room.
"Guess here's not any better than out there," he finally shrugs. There's a long pause, and finally he forces himself to say the words he desperately wants to avoid, the tinge of panic carrying over to his voice that doesn't even need telepathic abilities to read. "Jean, about the other night. Imsorryidontknowwhatcouldnthelpitwassogahwassostupid," he finally blurts out.
Jean may not be able to make out the words, but the tone and the emotions are clear enough. Expression even more wry than before, she stares at Wesley's toes, and notes to him that "It's not like you were in your right mind."
"Doesn't matter," Wesley mutters, staring at those very same toes, unaware that they're being cross-examined. "Was still me. Or close enough," he adds, a touch of bitterness creeping into the tone.""
"The whole's more than the sum of its parts," Jean counters, and if the feeling is more directed inward, at some triumphant little voice, than outwards at Wesley, then so be it.
"Yeah, philosophy's never been my thing," Wesley sighs, finally daring--trusting himself--to look over at her. Okay, safe enough. Still himself. "Is it...really gone?"
On this, Jean can give a firm answer. "Yes," says she, and thoughtfully keeps her eyes out of a direct line with Wesley's as he looks at her, focusing instead on how his chin moves as he talks. "I did it while you were asleep -- no resistance," And less immediate realization that Jean has to see.
"You're sure?" Wesley, it would seem, is not. "It's not...going to come back. When I'm not expecting it? Like before?"
"The two people responsible for the influences affecting people like you, Piotr, Rogue--" Jean cuts the list short at that. "Are getting the help they need," she concludes, inspecting her fingernails now, and finding them as clean and neatly kept short as they always are. "This wasn't something your mind did on its own, Wesley."
"I'm...not sure that really makes things any better," is Wesley's dull response. "/I'm/ still the one that has to live with it. Gawd, I don't even know /when/ this all started. If this is gone, why isn't everything clear now?"
There's a short laugh for that, self-directed and laced with negative nostalgia. "Because we're not comic book superheroes," is Jean's answer. "We break and it takes more than just the next printing to get us back together again."
"I don't know what to do," Wesley finally admits after a long pause. "Even if I /wasn't/ myself, I said so many things. Did so many things." The image of Jean's bed springs to mind and he winces as he pushes it away. "What am I supposed to say? Supposed to do?" Because Jean must have the answers.
Jean sighs, and shifts in her seat, hitching a hip and rubbing the side of her neck in the hopes that this will convey mythical amounts of understanding and perfect solutions to all problems. In the end, all she can offer is a crooked, sympathetic half-smile and the advice of "Say 'I'm sorry' to those you're sorry about, and then... you just go on."
"But what when 'Sorry' doesn't cut it?" Wesley's back to examining his sheets. "I made a fool of myself with you," he chokes out, turning beet red in the process. "'Sorry' doesn't make that go away."
"No," Jean admits, and isn't -quite- quick enough with the tact to avoid admitting further that "I think certain visuals are going to be scarred on my eyes for all eternity-- er. I mean." She sighs, and waves a hand. "You just go on. 'Sorry' won't change the past, but saying it -- and meaning it -- lets you have a better shot at moving on to the future."
Wesley winces at the word 'visuals', "Sorry" being the first thing that comes to mind and his lips as she finishes. "I don't even know where to start with people. Bobby...well, he's talking to me. I'm not even sure Jubilee will do /that/. And I can't blame her. I made a complete ass of myself."
"Grovelling," Jean opines, eyes lifted to the ceiling. "Can sometimes be useful."
Wesley sighs, slow and weary. "Would this fall under 'mercy killing,' or whatever they call it, if I asked?"
"No." Jean replies, although she awards him a brief look, and a briefer smile, approval of humour, dark and tenuous though it may be. "That would be the -easy- way out."
"I like easy," Wesley doesn't meet her look, nor the question entirely in jest. "I don't think I can do this."
"You can." Finally, after all this, does Jean reach over and offer a pat on the shoulder, light and dry, touching cloth not skin and as brief as possible. But it's contact, rather than revulsion, at least. "And you will. Besides," she reflects. "I do need that hospital bed clear eventually. You know -someone's- going to break themselves in a new and interesting way."
The contact is mostly lost on Wesley, but there's the slightest internal relaxtion, a small twitch of a tightly coiled spring, and he forces a small smile. At the sheets. "I'm really sorry," he restates.
"Just be glad it wasn't Storm you declared your undying passion to," is Jean's advice, a small attempt at injecting humour as she rises. She withdraws from the medical bay entirely, without a backwards glance, but leaving the lingering mental image of lightning bolts behind her.
Jean gives Wesley a clean bill of health, and a bit of a push out the medbay doors. With averted eyes.