Bones IV
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 Cecelia'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,' Cecelia 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
gift 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, Cecelia. 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 statis 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 statis 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. He could tell 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
statis 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 Jeannie 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 cunt," 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.
Part Five
She awoke to the cold of the Medlab a few hours later, but not any less tense for the extra sleep. She immediately scanned the area for any possible threats in the form of six very familiar bone claws, but found Wolverine had left.
Left at least two hours ago, if her nose told her correctly. One hour only if her nose was incorrect. But after relying on her instincts for so many years on The Hill, she did not think her instincts were wrong---she had staked her life on it too many times. All the more reason to withdraw from every Upworlder and rely only upon herself. At least, in the cold of the Medlab, that is what she told herself.
She gingerly stretched her bones, noticing for the first time the tightness of her back. Slightly panicking, she reached behind her for her bone armory, but found nothing but air to grasp at. Rather comically, she tried to crane her head behind her to see the bones, but saw only the soft black leather of the Shi'ar stasis tube's mattress which had served as her bed as the machine had healed her backside. Her 'home-grown' armory was gone.
'Guess the Healers had to pull 'em cuz a' the Old Man's damage,' she thought sourly. 'Great. Means another good week 'fore I can have that...chat. That means Friday at the earliest.'
She grinned. She could still taste the copper on her lips. Oh yes. A friendly chit-chat was definately in order. Her next week was already shaping up to be amusing at best, exhilarating at worst.
She did not care either way. It had been so long since she had had a decent sparring partner. Wolverine was perfect. With that thought, she swung her bare legs over the edge of the stasis tube and stood up.
The Healers were not in the lab. 'Perhaps they were eating in the' *smirk* 'kitchen?' she wondered aimlessly.
Regardless, she left the MedLab, naked as the day she was born, and the idea of modesty did not enter her mind once.
----
Outside, less than a week later, Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, stood smoking his rollup.
Storm called out from her ledge in the attic, "Remy, those are bad for you." Her beautiful white hair was like a flag of truce from a castle turret, waving in the breeze of the midday. He grinned.
"_Really_, Stormy? No one ever tol' old Gambit," he said with a smile, flirty even in this casual exchange. Ororo Munroe just laughed and shook her head, and Gambit tossed a friendly wave in her direction before heading back to the shade of the porch. The sun bothered his eyes, regardless of the sunglasses he always wore in the daytime.
'T'ings be too quiet,' thought the Cajun, as he settled on the porch. Like the rest of the team, he had heard by word of mouth of the fight between Logan and Marrow. Depending on which X-Men one talked to, the incident was either 'Marrow's attack on Jean', 'Wolverine's attack on Marrow', or 'Marrow's attack on a cooking pot'. *snort*
Anyway, Logan had apparently won while the rest of the team had steered clear of the MedLab that day. But the incident had brought grave concerns to the entire team.
How could a team keep an angry Morlock on the grounds, and a dangerous one such as Sarah, and then trust her as a team member? Especially when she seemed so bent on burning bridges before they were even formed? Cyclops was ready to deposit Sarah at the sewage systems known as the Morlock Tunnels himself, and even Jean's gentle touch could not sway his opinion. The Professor had curiously delayed his opinions yet, but it would take a majority vote from the team to evict Sarah from the team and subsequently their lives.
Gambit sighed. True, the X-Men were infamous for accepting rouges into their group. Literally. That thought brought a wry smile to his face. 'Ahh, chere,' he thought, his mind wanting to go down that familiar and favorite path. He forced himself to think of his current situation.
The difference between Sarah and the more recalitrant members of the team, such as himself, lay in the willingness everyone else had shown in becoming a true team member. Marrow's attack on one of the earliest members of the team, unprovoked as Jean had described it, seemed to suggest that Marrow's presence was better off elsewhere.
Like back in the Tunnels she seemed to want to rather live in anyway.
But Gambit was not so quick to dismiss her out on her bony rear. Remy LeBeau, the original shady character to the X-Men. He thought about the title...the X-Men. How long had he wanted a true family? He did not remember a time when he did not feel the ache.
'Feh,' he thought dispassionately. 'She aint gonna welcome me wit open arms, wit' or wit'out knowin' de truth,' he brooded. But he already knew that this was one decision he had made a long, long time ago. Since the first time he had pulled her into his arms, little more than a pup himself.
She did not know it, but Gambit knew it was time to begin to pay his blood debts. In this case, he worried that it would be a quite literal exacting of blood. And if it came to that, well, Remy had felt like shit for so long over this particular part of his past that he would probably let her take her revenge and whatever else she wanted as payment.
Probably.
He took one more drag on his rollup and then tossed it in the general direction of the ground. It exploded with an audible poof, its ashes falling to the porch of the mansion. He headed back into the house, towards the direction of the basement.
Part Six
He found her in the Danger Room, taking out her agression on some weird looking programmed mutants and hellbeasts.
''De fuck? _Hellbeasts_?' he urked. Somehow, she had programmed into the Danger Room computer a few rather vicious demon-looking creatures, complete with fangs. It was monstrous, frightening. And not unlike the pink creature busily engaged in 'killing' it.
'She really not happy, den,' he thought sourly. Oh well. Time for her to find a new reason to hate, as if she did not readily supply reasons on her own.
From the Danger Room Loft, his voice broke through the microphone:
"I spy wit' my lil' eye an angry petit' Morlock." Marrow's head whipped up and around, and Remy winced when one of the hellbeasts took the opportunity to smack her hard with a clawed paw. She flipped with the power behind the attack, her body spinning in an football spiral before landing hard upon the surreal battleground.
It dawned on him then. This was the mysterious 'Hill' she had referred to once or twice while making rude comments on Scotty's choices of training programs.
And it was everything she had implied. Dark green vegetation covered the cakey red landscape, but there was not a tree in sight. Not a speck of tall foliage in which to run for cover. Pitholes were covered with sandtraps, and in the far stark background he could see dull grey mountains. They too were bare, little more than piles of rocks. The sky was a pale pink color, reminding him of a sunset. It was the only beautiful feature in the desolate program.
He heard her snarl at his general direction through the speakers, but she did not outwardly reply. She hurriedly launched herself at her attacker, and he watched as she latched onto the beast with her left arm and teeth. Her right arm hung uselessly at her side, more than a few broken shafts of bone peaking out from her elbows. It was painfully broken, and swinging on its hinge.
Her armory of blades was almost depleted on her back, but one blade still waited in its warm sheath. Sarah gathered her strength and waited for the hellbeast to stop wriggling so much, the grime in her teeth mixing with her own blood. Full of adrenaline, she barely felt her right arm, nor did she care. She could only barely remember hearing a familiar voice, so lost was she in the physical manifestations of her memories.
She dropped her left arm to grab at her last remaining boneblade, hanging onto the filthy creature by her teeth. Her left arm arched over as she plunged the boneblade into the hellbeast's brain, effectively killing it.
The battle was over, Sarah the victor. As she lay panting on the ground, next to her last prey, she coughed a bit of saliva out of her mouth. She vaguely tasted salt from the beast's hide. And her right arm was still broken.
Remy LeBeau watched as the young woman haggardly stood up and turned her face skyward. He saw her spikey cheekbones kiss the pale pink sky as Marrow struggled to regain her breath. She cradled her broken right arm with her left, and stood with her powerfully muscled thighs apart. She gritted her teeth, and Remy felt slightly panicky.
"Sarah, NO!" he shouted through the speakers, but Sarah had already wrenched her broken arm back into place. He watched in shock as she began to rip the splintered bones from her elbow, her face a grim line bordering on intense pain.
Both mutants endured three gory seconds of the bout of necessary self mutilation on the complimenting landscape.
After ripping the last one, she could not contain her strangled cries as she fell onto her ridged kneecaps. She threw the splinters away from her, and wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. Adrenaline was still pumping furiously, and she found her release.
Her head tilted back towards the creeping blue upon pink of the false night sky, broken arm and whole arm slightly arranged near the torn uniform covering her legs. And she screamed.
She let her voice carry her rage and dispair, her triumph and rebellion. She was conquered and the conquerer. Undeniable, and blending. She hated the Hill, hated everything it had thrown in her path, but now she rejoiced as she proved she was still its master. Bathed in the dark green blood of the hellbeast as well as her own body secretions, she felt herself knit into the scenery with an utter satisfaction that came with securing territory.
For Sarah, a Morlock who had known only pain, this was ecstasy.
Her smooth breasts arched proudly as her neck muscles strained with their efforts to release, and Gambit was struck by a surge of lust so primal he sucked his teeth. The womanizing side of Remy LeBeau wondered if even he could get her to scream like that for a man, but the rational and half-fearful side shamed him at the unbidden thought.
"Computer, end program. Auth'rization Remy LeBeau, codename Gambit. Team statis alpha gamma three-oh-seven-seven." His voice was a masked monotone.
The computer complied readily, and as Sarah's eyes opened, the sky of a nuclear winter over the Hill melted into the dull metal walls of the Danger Room. She inhaled sharply, then exhaled slowly, numbly feeling the tension in the back of her neck and an urge for water in the base of her throat.
She looked up to the tall Cajun, her eyes shining with moisture from the intense pain her bones had caused her. His black eyes seemed to gleam like a banked fire. The eyes of a different hellbeast stared at her with something close to pity and..._lust_??
And her hackles rose. How dare he intrude.
"What the fuck, is yer problem...Upworlder?" She sat on her heels, taking breathes between each pause. Each phrase increased in volume, as if her voice could match his height from her position at his steelclad boots. She was still shaking a bit from the adrenaline rush, the thrill of the Hill. It had been so long since she had felt so high, and Gambit's presence was fast taking that away.
"We need t' talk," he said, his face giving away a bit of apprehension.
Now that was a surprise. The Cajun was not afraid of anything as far as Sarah knew; she had never known him to show any fear before. Must be something nasty.
She grinned fiercely.
He grimaced painfully.
Ohhh, yep; it was definately something nasty. Goodie.
"Whatcha want, Gumbo?" Her tone, inflection, everything caught Gambit off guard a second. She could have been Wolverine with that statement, and her voice was a fine husky graval in the now sterile feeling Danger Room.
"Gambit t'ink it be easier if he jus' show you, eh?" His accent was almost too thick, and she sniffed the air. The fear was there, but also a resolved determination. She could handle that. She nodded, and adjusted herself on the floor, neatly resting on her haunches. Her broken arm was healing itself, the familiar ping of 'pins and needles' signaling its work.
"Computer," Gambit said, looking away from Sarah, "run archive program eight-two-two-seven. Authorization, Remy LeBeau, codename Gambit." The computer readily complied.
And Sarah found herself back in the Tunnels. 'What the fuck...' her mind whirled with coiled curiosity. What could he possibly have to show her here?
Harpoon launched himself at Sweetbreath, his intentions quite clear with his sharp harpoons in his hands. She sucked her breath. She had been six years old when the Morlocks had been attacked, viciously annihilated. Even the best warriors had been no match, but Sarah had not been able to help with that.
She had been in a shadowy corner, hiding with her mother. Mother, whom she could not even remember what mutation had forced her into hiding, into the Tunnels which became Sarah's home. Her only clear memory of her mother was from this night, tasting blood from her mother's mouth as it dripped onto own mouth, and reaching up to find that Mother was dead.
Someone had put ripped her throat out, and Sarah remembered covering Mother's throat with her small, bony, useless hands, trying to make her knit back together again, and only feeling the soft chewy meat and warm blood splash even harder onto her skin.
"What the fuck is this, Cajun," she said. "Aint nothing you could show me here that I haven't seen already."
"Computer, pause," Gambit said, staring at a darkened corner of the program. He pointed to it.
"Recognize it, petite?" his voice was genuinely curious.
"Why? What's it to ya? Get on with it already," she returned.
"Do you recognize it?" his voice was tinged with a desperation.
"WHY DON'T YOU EXPLAIN IT, PRETTYBOY," she snarled, rising to her feet. He walked towards the shadowy corner and pointed. There was a slender foot peeking out from the corner, barely covering a pink foot.
A small, dusky pink foot with an thickly calcified heel. Bone. Her eyes flew open with instant understanding, instant nausea.
"Gambit found you there, Marrow. Gambit, he found you that night. There was a woman, covering you, an' she was already dead. You were crying, and---"
She launched herself at him. Slapped him. Slapped him again. And again, even harder. "No," she moaned. "It wasn't you. It was an angel. It couldn't have been you!!" And her slaps turned into full out blows, a viscious backhanded punch drove him to his knees, rebreaking her right arm.
"You can't break me!" she shouted at him. "I am stronger! You can't do SHIT to me!" Her wellspring of intense resilience backed up her words. "YOU CAN'T HURT ME, you SONUVABITCH!!" She completely lost her temper, her battle rage hitting her so heavily she found she couldn't breath. She staggered away from him, wishing desperately that she had a boneblade in her back, but knowing she was completely empty.
"You....you..no....couldn't....oh goddess..." Sarah bent over as she threw up. It was too much. She had never spoken in detail of this night, never wanted to relive it. The Tunnels were full of blood. She sickly turned her head. Oh goddess she could smell it, taste her mother's blood on her lips again.
Her mind struggled. NO! It was over, right? Everyone was dead, right? And she had to go on living, and that meant never returning to this night. This night of death, of chaos. Of pain and a questions that could never be answered.
"Sarah, Marrow, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he murmured through his bleeding lips.
"I..." she couldn't finish her words. She couldn't even hear Gambit. She was lost, she was weak, she was six years old. Sabretooth leared at her in the background, Vertigo's face was a mad mask. She did not know what to say. The bile was still heavy in the back of her throat. Dammit, she was still thirsty, she thought ridiculously.
"Fuck you," she muttered at the crouching bundle a little distance away. "Go away, go away.....fuckin go aawaaaaay.....FUCK!" She was screaming again, lost in her nightmare.
"FUck yoUUuu!!! BRIGHT LADY, I HOPE YOU BURN I HOPE YOU BURN BURN BURN!!!!" she kept screaming and screaming at him. He crawled towards her, his trenchcoat sliding through the vomit, and he took her in his arms again. Just as he had all those years ago, on that night.
She pummeled her enemy. Screaming, lost in her memories of that horrible night, she screamed until her voice gave out and all she could do was cry. But he held onto her anyway, heedless of her broken arm, heedless of her attempts to gut him.
"Why, oh why did you bring me back to this?" She whispered, her voice so hoarse from overuse, the pain from her bruised body and broken arm finally registering. It was like she was awakening. She could smell the tinge of cigarettes, and she clung to that scent. It wasn't blood. It wasn't blood, and that was all that mattered. She sucked the scent into her body, still struggling with the bonds around her. No more adrenaline, and even the familiar rage had drained itself out. She was completely exhausted, and could do nothing but sit in her own vomit, with a Cajun's arms around her.
"'Cause, Sarah," he pulled back from her, as she swayed a bit to look into his demon eyes. "'Cuz Gambit, he be burnin ever since den, and he be wantin...." His words trailed off in her ears. She couldn't focus on his face anymore, blurring.....
For the first time in her entire life, Sarah passed out in a man's arms.
Part Seven