Bones (Part Four)
Written by RatMist.
Caution: Rated R for harsh language.
The Medlab hissed with the sounds of Hank's, aka the Beast, massive computer. It smelled of the computer's ozone and the facility's rubbing alcohol, of possibilities in reach of a brilliant scientist! But the most important feature, for this particular lab, was that it was rather clean.
It was Cecilia's sporadic cleaning fits that kept the area around Hank's comp equipment sanitary. His 'Study Pit', as she named it, was full of Little Debbie snacks, and the occasional crusted plate of food. Cece snorted. That chicken pot pie had to be at least a week old, from the bits of green fungi around it. Even KFC didn't smell good after contact with a week of stale air. Henry McCoy might have been one of the most brilliant doctors in the world, but as a housekeeper, he couldn't catch a clue.
Oh well. "My dear Puerto-Rican associate, it is the nature of intelligence to take into account only what is completely necessary to subside in the world." Hank's words echoed from the first time she encounted his Study Pit and completely raked him for the unsanitary mess.
"Uh huh. Not buyin it," Cecilia thought. She smiled ruefully as she picked up old celephane wrappings adorning endless papers of the Fucking Virus, a considerably less cultured name to counter Hank's version, Legacy. "Of all the names, he picks the one that would make the Professor feel the most guilty and angsty." She shook her head, but then chuckled at the stash of candycanes left over from Christmas. There were the traditional peppermint flavors, but she saw he had also swiped the butterscotch ones from the massive tree.
How could he know Cece loved butterscotch? A question for another time.
Without a word, she began to shuffle the papers into a small stack. Hank had not objected to her cleaning fits, and it gave her ammunition in their teasing flirtations. It also calmed her down when she felt the world spinning out of her immediate control.
For Cecelia, that loss of control started when she walked into the massive doors of the X-Men's headquarters, Professor Xavier's mansion.
Flirting was last on her mind as she saw her friend carefully walking to the examination table with a certain dusky pink problem child of the X-Men. Cece winced. If Marrow was knocked out, it was anyone's guess as to who was on their way in as well. One or more on their way?
Her eyebrows shot up in query to Hank, but he was busy arranging Sarah onto the examination table. She silently helped Hank lay Marrow on her chest, then snapped sterile gloves onto her hands and began to cut the shirt off the girl's back with her scissors. She sighed, mentally counting the number of times Sarah had graced the lab with her unruly presence. She had always come in pairs before, Cece wondered, then saw the answer to her query.
Cece had never seen these particular wounds on the girl. The deep gashes were in an odd pattern, unless one was familiar with a certain Canadian mutant with an attitude problem rivaling the unconscience girl on the table. The slices even went straight through the bone armory on Marrow's back.
Cecelia remembered how Marrow had proved on more than one occasion to be extremely creative in her viciousness. Sarah always lived to cackle lewd comments at Cece and Hank as she counted all her bones in the Medlab later. She unnerved Cece, only to pull at her heart strings later in preliminary examinations. Cece saw her as a problem child, nothing more or less. As Cecelia's time at the Mansion mounted, however, she was starting to change her profile on the angry, scarred, petulant Morlock. She sighed. The bone armory would have to be completely pulled, in order to stitch up the wounds. Which meant the two doctors would be sewing all afternoon before letting the Shi'ar technology finish the healing process.
"My dear Dr. Reyes, we will need a transfusion, blood type O, if you please," Beast was quiet. He did not meet Cece's gaze as he set up Sarah's IV for the transfusion.
She moved to get the transfusion, calling over her shoulder, "So when's Wolverine gonna come down here and finish the job?"
Beast did not reply to the question. "According to Jean, it was over a stupid cooking pot," he grumbled. "She will heal fine, no doubt with the boon of her mutant healing factor, but she will have thick scars to add to her already impressive visual display."
Cecelia had come back with the plasma. "Like I said, when is the other resident part-time psycho comin' down to help with the recovery?" Her voice was cold and accusing. She had not been with the X-Men long, but she admitted she did have her favorites. Neither Wolverine or Marrow were on that list, but Sarah did rank considerably higher than Wolverine. As far as happy thoughts towards cold-blooded murderers went.
Hank looked up from his gaze at the girl's mutilated back. The bleeding had stopped once Sarah had been laid on the table, but the wounds were no less gruesome without the blood. Sarah was very, very lucky her bones had been in between Logan's claws and her internal organs. Logan had not held back in the least, and could have severed her spine easily. That he did not cripple Sarah was a miracle of itself.
"She attacked Jean, Cecilia. Logan defended Jean. Jean stopped both of them from killing each other. End of story. No extra murdering after the credits." His voice was flat, and devoid of the usual flowery adjectives and phrases.
Hank's attitude was unusually reserved, thinking of his comrades in arms, Cecelia knew. The rest of the hour was spent literally patching up Sarah, who blessedly stayed unconsciencess during the entire process. They had to stabilize her blood levels first, then they carefully stitched her back together. The criss-crossed gashes would leave one hell of a scar, with or without the Shi'ar technology.
By the time they placed her on the Shi'ar stasis bed, both doctors were exhausted from the endless stitches. The computer stated the healing process would take at least three hours.
Neither mutant doctors admitted they wanted Sarah out of the Medlab as soon as possible. But the guilty feelings pervaded the air anyway, and both knew they were hiding nothing from the other. Cecelia avoided her colleague's gaze almost as earnestly as she worked with the Shi'ar control panels.
As Hank busied himself on his computer, logging his patient's records onto the Medlab database, complete with his analysis and personal comments. Cecelia began to restock the supplies they had used, and neither was aware when Logan slunk into the facility.
He walked up to the stasis bed, crouched down so his face was level with the girl's face. He gently breathed in her scent, testing for her alertness. He could see a fine criss-cross of scars on her throat and the lower leftside of her jaw. She was naked to her waist, lying on her stomach. She nearly sprawled on the bed, the long bones of her entire body making her seem at a glance to be buried underneath a strange skeleton. Her fine pink hair was streaked with her own blood.
Without warning, or perhaps in response to the intense survival skills she learned on The Hill, Sarah sanpped awake. A bloodshot blue eye popped open, and the left side of Sarah's mouth twisted into a smile. The Shi'ar stasis bed was gently whirring above her and below her. Like being encased in her mother's womb, it felt wonderfully comfortable.
If not for the three X's gouging her back.
"I thought...most criminals.....got...the.....three- strikes....rule," she murmured to the man staring intently at her face.
Hank and Cecelia yelped in surprised, and then were immediately at their patient's bed, trying unsuccessfully to pull Logan away from Sarah.
"Get the fuck offa me,' he growled at both his friends at his back, and easily shoved them off his thickly muscled arms.
He edged closer to the bed and said quietly, so that Beast and Cece could not hear, "You did get a three-strikes rule, darlin'. And anytime ya wanna see those three strikes up close, you git yer cowardly boney ass inta the Danger Room and I'll give ya a mirror. Don't fuck with me," he said menancingly, his low voice carrying the threat back to her. "And don't ever fuck with Jeanie again."
Marrow grinned on the table. "Still...holding a flame...for the mind-bitch.....huh?....*cough*......" Sarah coughed for a bit, a ruse, then quickly reached out to snatch Logan's shirt and pull him closer to her face. He let her pull him close, adrenaline beginning to pump through his body. He wanted to know what the bitch had to say.
Sarah haltingly took a breath, then breathed deeply the smell of latent cigar stink he usually had, and something infinitely more familiar. Then she smiled. Of all his tainted smells of blood, she easily recognized her own.
"When I get outta here," she whispered, licking her lips in a mock of a romantic interlude, "you and me are gonna have this conversation again. Morlock style. Ya fuckin' branded me, Old Man. We've shared blood now." She used the last of her strength to pull Logan's face onto her own, into a brutal mashing against her lips. She bit his lower lip hard, and sucked the blood from the rapidly closing wound. A kiss, Morlock style.
It happened so fast, none of the three standing mutants realized what had happened until Sarah had already released the Canadian. Logan's claws popped out with the familiar *snikt!*, but Marrow had passed out again, the Shi'ar programming for initiating healing slumber finally taking effect in her body. He used his claws to cut the shirt away from her grasp, not wanting to touch her bony hand to pry it away. Her arm fell back onto the bed, her forearm falling to the side of the bed. The smirk was still on her face.
And he still wanted to gut her. Fear pumped through Cece, the situation about to get extremely ugly, and she shouted, "Wolverine! Logan, I need you to step out of the way so I can examine her. I need to--"
"Ain't nothin' you can do t' fix this bitch," he said with a rough grimace. But he did sheath his claws. "Sorry fer the intrusion, Hank," he said amiably, as if the kill lust was not shining brightly in his piercing brown eyes. He nodded once to Cecelia, then pushed past both of them towards the elevator and the rest of the mansion.
Hank watched him leave, saying, "Logan, my friend, I'm not sure if next time it won't be my current charge intruding upon your healing sleep."
Logan turned, his profile sharp and feral in the dark shadows near the elevator. "Hank ole buddy, she wouldn't git th' chance t' intrude." He walked into the elevator and the conversation ended.
"Well that was a predictable statement," Cece observed cynically. "Now that you've gotten Psycho Number One to admit he's a cold-blooded killer, can we finish healing Psycho Number Two so these two can annihilate each other sometime around Friday?" Her voice was cold and completely annoyed, but Hank knew she meant every word.
"Actually, my dear, I was hoping it'd be Wednesday. Trish and I are scheduled for a rendezvous on Friday evening, and I'd hate to spoil my lady love's good graces with apologies and a dozen roses rather than my bodacious blue bod."
Cece snorted. Hank was back to business, sarcasm and all.
Upstairs, the Professor waited for Logan to exit the elevator. "Logan, we must talk. Please accompany me to the War Room," he said in his usual monotones. Logan's craggy eyebrows shot up a bit, but he followed the yellow hoverchair without protest.
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Continued in Part Five.