A groggy "Oh shit" and then an explosion were the last things any of us heard from Elise's communicator.
For a moment, there's radio silence.
Scott breaks the silence, "Anomaly, status report."
Static.
"Anomaly, come in."
More static.
"Elise, this ain't funny. Are you okay?" I ask.
Static again.
With that, I drop what I'm doing and start tracking her. She coulda gotten herself captured.
Or worse.
I make my way through the enemy complex and get over to the wing she's supposed to be in. All of a sudden, my senses are assaulted by a scent that twists my stomach in knots: her blood. A metric fuckton of it, too.
I follow the scent to a small room in Cell block five. As I get closer, I can hear an unfamiliar woman's frantic voice.
"Oh god, there's so much blood. I should go get help but I can't leave you alone."
"Don't worry," Elise says weakly. The cough that follows is just as weak, but also wet-sounding. "I ain't about ta wander off."
I feel a contradicting jolt of relief and increased worry when I hear her voice. I run to the room and see Elise sprawled out on the floor in a small pool of her own blood. There's a grapefruit sized chunk of flesh and innards missing from her abdomen. She's pale as death itself and a small streak of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. The sickening smell of burnt flesh permeates the room. There are a few dead guards littering the scene
The woman, who had been kneeling by Elise, takes a defensive stance in front of her.
"Who are you?" she asks.
I ain't got time for her bullshit.
Shinkt.
"I could ask the same thing, lady. Now let me get to my sister or I will go through you."
She backs off and I retract my claws and rush in to check on Elise.
"What happened?"
She coughs again and the trail of blood running down her jaw thickens with half-clotted gore. She winces and explains through her teeth, "I was really outta it after healing her and we got ambushed. Got hit with an energy blaster 'fore I could react. She fought 'em off."
Fuck. Just healed someone means her healing factor probably ain't doing shit for her right now. I check the ragged hole in her belly to confirm. It ain't healing, at least not fast enough to save her from bleeding out.
She knows it, too. I can see it in her face. She grabs my hand, coating it in warm, sticky blood, and I can smell fear coming off her in waves. A single tear streaks down her anguished face.
"It's okay to be scared," I whisper. "But I promise you're getting outta here."
As I use her trench coat tail as a bandage to keep her insides in place, she coughs again and nearly chokes on the blood. I carefully scoop her up and motion for the woman to follow me.
"We have to leave NOW," I say into the communicator.
"What happened? Are y'all okay?" Rogue asks.
"No time to explain. She's alive, but we need to get back to the mansion ASAP. Meeting you at the Blackbird in five."
I can hear Elise's heartbeat and breathing growing weaker.
"How ya holdin' up?"
"Been better," she whispers, voice cracking and raspy. Her eyelids start to fall.
"Stay awake. We're almost there."
Not really, still have ta navigate lotsa corridors, but she don't need ta know that.
"Would, but… can't…" she trails off and her head lolls into my chest. Blood drips from her saturated costume as I run faster to the exit.
By the time we make it to the blackbird, her breathing is so shallow if I couldn't hear it and her heart, I'd think she were dead.
The rest of the team is waiting when we get there. The blackbird's being prepped to take off.
After a split second of shock at the sight, Jean says, "Bring her to the med bay."
We go into the back of the X-jet into a small room used for emergencies. Jean and Hank wash up and put on gloves and masks. I place Elise down on the gurney.
As much as I wanna stay with her, the room is so cramped I'm afraid I'll fuck things up, so I leave them to do their thing.
But I do sit outside the room and listen.
"We cannot do a transfusion on her. Her healing factor will reject it."
"Saline, then?"
"Absolutely. She appears to be in shock already."
"We need to stop the bleeding."
"Indeed. There is not enough flesh around the area to sew shut, though."
"Tissue grafts?"
"She does not look like she has that much time. Besides, all we need to do is stabilize her until her healing factor can take care of the rest."
"What about cauterization?"
"That just might work."
"Alright, I'll work on that while you set up the IV nutrition. We also need to sterilize the wound and protect it from sepsis."
I can smell burning flesh again and cringe internally.
"I will also put her on oxy-"
At that moment, the heart monitor blares a flat line. I jump from my seat.
"Atropine two milligrams, STAT."
I can hear one of them doing CPR on her. Can't shock her with metal bones, after all.
Just as suddenly as her heart had stopped, it restarts. Though still slow and weak, it's at least compatible with life.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and sit back down.
The entire ride to the mansion is just as agonizingly tense as that moment. Her heart stopped twice after that first time. Jean and Hank struggled the whole time to get and keep her in stable condition. Meanwhile, I could only listen 'cause there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help. The woman, found out her name's Selena, tried to talk to me once on the flight. Try ta calm me down, I guess.
Doesn't work. I'm so tense I actually have to concentrate just to keep my claws sheathed.
Soon as we land, they take Elise off the jet on a gurney. She still looks just about as pale as before, but at least she hasn't seemed to have gotten worse.
I follow them into the subbasement. John, who had stayed behind to help Chuck work on Cerebro, looks as pale as his wife does when he sees her on the gurney.
What happened?! Is all I can make out from his telepathic panic attack.
I do my best to shield the memories of gore from him, "She found a captive at the facility we were at, healed her, and then got ambushed."
I'da thought Selena mighta been part of the ambush, 'cept she apparently took care of the guards herself. That and I couldn't sense the least bit of deceit on her.
John looks like a deer in headlights for a moment, then rushes to the medlab. I follow him.
They have Elise hooked up to every kind of life support imaginable. The scene brings back memories I'd rather forget. I shudder before pushing the memories to the back of my mind so I can focus on Elise.
Is she… Is she going to be okay? He asks.
Jean looks up from a microscope, "I'm running some tests now to see how effective the current course of treatment is – as well as to see if her healing factor is kicking in yet."
"You don't think it has?"
"Well, the way it works, at least for her, is no blood, no healing factor. Hank and I have stopped the bleeding, but she lost most of her blood volume and all of her abdominal organs are damaged to some extent or another so we had to put her on dialysis and oxygen, give her fluids and nutrients, and a double dose of Erythropoietin.
"Erythro- what?"
"Erythropoietin. It's the hormone that signals for blood production."
John touches Elise's hand and when he does, I notice something I hadn't before.
"Hey Red, why's she got restraints on?"
She looks like she really don't wanna answer that question. She looks down, back into the microscope.
"So she won't accidentally hurt herself if she wakes up before she's healed."
"Y'know she's gonna panic if she wakes up in here with those things on, right?"
Actually, she'll probably panic if she wakes up in here period, John adds.
"John's right," Jean says. "And it's safer for everyone involved this way."
Part of me agrees with her – hell if I wanna see anyone else get hurt, but the idea still rubs me the wrong way.
"How long 'till she'll wake up, by the way?" I ask.
"It's hard to say," Hank says, coming in. "Could be as long as a week, depending on how quickly her healing factor gets back to full capacity. As it is, she's quite lucky to be alive."
Not luck, really. Ain't no such thing. But her healing factor must've kicked in, at least a little, 'cause no one woulda survived that otherwise. If it hadn't kicked in, she shouldn't have been alive, much less conscious, when I found her.
"Hmm," Jean says.
"What?"
"She has a far greater concentration of erythrocytes in her blood than she should have, given her injuries."
Does that mean her healing factor is working correctly?
"Not necessarily – this is the sample we took before we stated treatment."
"Interesting," Hank says, stroking his chin.
"Is that a good thing, then?" I ask.
"It means part of her mutation must be that she has an extraordinary number of red blood cells to begin with, but she is able to survive with the lowest survivable blood count possible if need be. It makes sense, given that her transferable healing factor involves a significant blood donation."
See? Not luck, she's just built a little sturdier than most.
I sit by her bedside and wait. John's here, too. We don't talk much, but if one of us leaves briefly, the other is always there.
On day five, she starts to wake up. Just as predicted, she starts panicking. John calms her down and she blushes when she realizes where she is. John and I undo the restraints and she sits up, winces.
"What's wrong?" John and I ask at the same time.
"It's nothing," she hisses through her teeth.
Liar.
"You aren't fully healed yet."
"I guess not," she says, using the bed for support as she stands.
John helps her sit back down, I'm going to get Jean.
Soon as he leaves, Elise crosses her arms and blows the long side of her bangs out of her face, "I don't want to stay in here. I really don't."
I can sympathize. I was only able to put up with it because I was watching out for her.
I look to make sure Hank or Jean ain't about to come busting in, then say, "Look, if you'll promise me you'll actually take time to rest, I'll carry you upstairs."
She nods desperately.
"Alright," I carefully scoop her up and make my way to the elevator.
"Thanks," she says and rests her head against my shoulder.
"No problem."
I lay her in her bed and sit next to her.
"So how long was I out?" She asks.
"Five days."
"Geez, no wonder John's so antsy."
"He's just worried about you"
Maybe you don't remember how bad off you were, but John and I sure do. I don't think that guy's ever going to forget.
"Yeah, I know…" She trails off, frowns.
Speak of the devil…
Logan, where are you? Where's Elise?!
I get up off the bed, "Hey, sis, I'd love to stay and chat, but I think your husband's gonna have an aneurism."
Gotta run damage control.