Je veux du soleil...
Jean was exhausted. He had woken up at the hospital without any more inconvenience than an intense fatigue and some pains that were making him feel old and sore rather than on the verge of dying. He was also feeling mentally diminished but maybe it was only tiredness. Anyway, he was still clearly cleverer than those doctors who were telling him to rest but wanted to badly to understand. They put him through an impressive amount of tests and he was feeling like a restless lab rat. After 4 days of this treatment he refused to stay at the SHIELD hospital any longer whatever the consequences on his file he refused to cooperate anymore. Unsurprisingly but hopefully, Hazel agreed with him. Little France was still an inviolable crime scene and he was not cleared to go back to the helicarrier. His two homes were forbidden. So she proposed her Manhattan flat for him to rest. Really rest.
He had momentarily lost his diplomatic skills somewhere during an endurance test. So Princess took care of it all. She couldn’t stay. She had been gone from the Cafeteria since already too long. But she left Arthur, The King of the Badger, who anyway was taking his duty to keep guard a little too seriously. She even prepared a few meals in advance just to reheat.
She had gone back up there and he was trying to not feel lonely in her couch. He put on some jazz and started his phone that had stayed off all the time he was at the hospital. He immediately felt it tremble under the assault of countless messages but he didn’t take care at first. He knew that the world didn’t stop spinning because he was ill. SHIELD job was to take care that it kept spinning in fact. He served himself a cup of his traitorous but still favorite hot beverage, got back on the couch, smiled at the ever vigilant Arthur, closed his eyes for just a second, and fell asleep in the vapors of coffee.
He was waked up by his coffee cup ringing in agreement with the vibrations of his dumb-phone placed just beside it. Grumbling, he checked on the messages and his heart dropped, shortly followed by his jaw.
He checked on the earlier messages from His Sun Beam, feeling more and more dizzy with guilt and anger. It all started when she wanted to thank him for his St Valentin’s gift to her. He didn’t reply. Nobody told her about what happened to him. Maybe she didn’t ask. He knew she was insecure, more than once he had to help her feel welcomed and desired. She imagined that he had forgotten everything about her. The worst of it was that he had. Not once did he think about her when he felt that he was dying. Not once did he see her face in his comatose dreams or even nightmares. Not once did he ask for her when he woke up. Not once did he long to see her again when he was under the doctor’s "care". Not once did he think of calling her before taking an unexpected nap today.
He stared at his phone during a long time not knowing how to contact her again. It was not like him to search his words but he was crushed by tiredness and guilt.
[text to SunBeam] You didn’t offend me. How could a SunBeam offend a man seeking for light?
[text to SunBeam] I do apologize because I have no short explanations for my absence.
[text to SunBeam] If you still want of me my arms will always be open to you
[UNSENT text to SunBeam] I can’t go to you but you can join me at… [UNSENT]
Where was he? Hazel gave him the address, of course she did, but he couldn’t remember! He took his head between his hands and squeezed. He knew the poison should have melted his brain but it didn’t… So where was his precious memory? His memory the only gift he had been raised for... Without it he was...
Arthur nose bumped on his shoulder. Jean looked up behind him to meet the eyes of the worried badger. Jean gulped, sighed, and smiled reassuringly to his furry friend. Tabitha was waiting and a solution was forming in Jean’s mind.
[text to SunBeam] Please ask Agent Brompton about me. Tell her King Arthur send his regards.
[text to SunBeam] If your heart can pardon me, then ask her, she knows where I am and I want to see you.
[text to Princess] Sister, maybe Agent Warner will ask about me. Please tell her what she need to hear. Her smile is precious to me.
He put down his phone and shrugged:
If he was logical, his memory would came back. He just had to rest.
If he was lucky, His SunBeam would forgive him. He just had to hope.