"Clear the way! I want him in Trauma One and put on an IV stat!" Shouts and commands were heard down the hall as nurses and visitors looked up to see the happenings.
"Ray? Ray, sugah, it'll be okay. Just hang in there." Marie was jogging beside the gurney, holding onto her bunkmate's hand. His face was disfigured, beaten, and bleeding from the claw marks scraped from his ears to his chin.
"We need his temperature control! Prep ER, we're getting these rocks out now! There may be internal bleeding, let's go people! And would someone get the girlfriend out of here!" At that, a couple pairs of hands latched onto Rogue's shoulders, slowing her speed, but she fought against them.
"No! I can't leave him," she released her hold of Ray's hand nevertheless, knowing it was pointless. They wouldn't understand.
"Come on. Let the doctors take care of him." Marie had, without realizing it, shrugged off the hands and was now standing in the doorway of the room they had taken Ray, watching as they hooked up machine after machine into the young man.
A doctor noticed her stare and nodded his head to the nurse, who shut the door in Marie's face without a word, cutting off her sight of her injured friend. She stood a moment more, when a younger doctor approached her. He peeked into the window a split second before the shades shut, long enough to see the leading physician cutting the patient's shirt off, which was now soaked in blood.
"Did you come in with him?" He inquired. Marie could only nod as she fought inwardly not to recall what had happened; she knew that she was going to asked that soon enough but the painful memory was something she didn't wish to remember.
"Why don't you come with me and we'll get you some juice and a bite of food?" Marie murmured a reply but he failed to catch it.
"I'm sorry?" He leaned closer to her and she stepped away automatically.
"Phone," Marie repeated. "I need a phone." She turned her head towards him and he recoiled. There was a gash from the bottom of her eye lid that trailed down to her dimples. It was as if she was crying blood.
"Nurse!" The young doctor bellowed and Marie shook her head in protest.
"No, no nurse. I'm fine." One ran up and shrieked at the sight of the young woman. "I just need a phone," she pleaded.
"We can't let you wander around like that. Just let us stop the bleeding," he persuaded her.
"Gloves, make sure you wear gloves," Marie insisted wishing he would just let her be.
The doctor nodded, "of course. Sheila, I'll need extra bandages in 131."
"Yes doctor," the petite woman replied before scurrying off.
Marie followed the young man into an empty examination room and settled on top of the medical bed reluctantly, watching the doctor pull a metal tray with antiseptics and such atop of it.
"Okay, now why don't you tell me what happen?" He snapped a set of plastic gloves on and grabbed some swab from a cabinet, before he lifted Marie's chine and made to wipe away the trail of blood on her face and neck.
She flinched upon contact and he hesitated, waiting a moment. The young woman noticed the doctor's pause and she dropped her eyes, "sorry."
"Would you like one of the nurses—"
"No, it's all right," Rogue cut off him before he could finish his question. The doctor nodded, secretly wondering if she had been a victim of abuse with her flinching from touch and the old bruises he could make out through the tattered mesh cover she wore.
"Now after I wipe the blood up, I'm going put some cream on the gashes, to prevent infection. It may sting but, if it gets to be too painful, let me know. Okay?"
Marie sat straight up, with a slight lift of her chin. She was an X-Men, she had logged countless hours in the Danger Room. Surely she could manage a bit of medical pain.
The doctor held her head high, eyeing the damage. He wiped away the dried blood, applying just enough pressure to get it off without irritating the tender area. He tossed the dirty swab onto the metal tray and grabbed another, pouring a clear liquid on top of it. He slid the cotton over the open sore slowly. Marie hissed immediately.
"Hurt?" The doctor inquired.
"It's cold." She countered. He laughed aloud as he wiped away the excess.
"Not the typical response."
"Well, I'm not your typical teen," Marie stated with automatically.
"I gauged that by the nasty mark on your face." Her smirk fell but he continued, "How did you get that by the way? Too clean to be from a bar fight. Drunks tend to be sloppier in their handiwork."
She squirmed and fidgeted in her seat, "I'd rather not talk about it."
"Well, it was an animal, we'll need to test for rabies," that comment froze the young mutant in her movements. "Was it an animal?"
His words echoed in the deep recesses of her mind, Was is an animal?
You could say that, she scoffed to herself. The look on her face seemed to answer his question for the doctor leaned back with a sigh.
Marie trailed the tip of her finger down her gash, noting it was still bleeding. He handed a wet gauze to her to wipe off her hand as he moved over to the wound on her face. It took only a moment for him to bandage it and soon he was disposing of the used cleaning materials in the waste basket.
"You're not going to tell me what happened, are you?" he smiled weakly, it not quite reaching his eyes.
"Thanks for the patch work doc," Marie stated, completely ignoring his question. "But I've got a phone call to make and a room mate to check on." She left the room with a turn of her heel and he could hear the young woman inquire from a nurse passing by the whereabouts of the nearest payphone.
He sat on the spinning chair a bit longer, musing and brooding to himself until he caught the attention of one of his colleagues.
"That the girlfriend?" Foreman inquired, poking his head into the examining room.
"Hm?" the Australian man only heard half of the question, distracted at might have happened.
"Girl with skunk hair, she came in with the animal attack, right?"
"Yeah, yeah she did."
Foreman nodded and glanced down the hall where she stood, peeking into one of the display windows.
"She attacked too?"
Chase shrugged, "I'd say so. She wouldn't tell me."
"He clearly got the worse end of the deal," Foreman stated bitterly. "Guess chivalry isn't as dead as we think."
The doctors had finally left Ray's side and Marie slipped in, stealing a peak at the chart hanging nearby.
She wasn't a medical major like Jean or a biochemist like Dr. McCoy, but she memorize some of the notes, in case something was amiss she could relay to the Professor when she called them shortly. Things like "anti-body rejection", "evidence of prolonged physical abuse", were scrawled onto the chart in the a hurried fashion. She scoffed at that last note, all the battle scars from the Danger Room sessions probably threw the doctors for a loop.
"How are you holding up B-Man?" Marie asked her sleeping roommate as she returned the chart to its place. He moaned in response and sparks traveled down his exhausted body, causing the machines to go way wire. She sighed, quickly removing a glove and resting the tips of her fingers on his forehead. For a moment Marie could hear his thoughts and Ray hers.
Am I gonna die? Man, I don't want to die. What about Rogue? Man, she's gonna kill me. Well I'm dying anyways, guess it don't matter. Man, this really sucks. I got my ass handed to me by a cat, a really big, ugly cat. (Ray)
Sugah, you're not gonna die. Doctors are taking care of you. (Marie)
The electric current that danced through Ray's body surged through hers after that thought and soon sparks were bouncing from her very fingertips. Her teammate slumped back against the bed, knocked completely unconscious by the energy pulling of her powers. The machines beeped back to normal as she broke the connection, breathing heavily with exertion.
"Just rest now Ray. Creed will get what's coming to him, I promise you that." Marie moved across to the door, casting her friend one last glance before seeking out the pay phone she had gotten direction for earlier.