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Chapter 14

As it turns out, a "long road to recovery" isn't really in the cards. Flashing lights and sirens woke me up and, despite a quick assurance by Dr. McCoy (tee hee!) that he'd be right back. I've been alone in the infirmary ever since. Alarms have been going off for more than half an hour, there's no way I can do much more than lay here and appreciate the light show while trying to ignore the growing panic slowly taking over my body.

Where is Wade?

Where is Remy?

Where is BLUE VELVET!

Screaming that in my mind reminded me that I am actually capable of contacting someone, via that panicking brain of mine. Taking a deep breath, I gently…tentatively lower my shields and try to reach out for someone…anyone that I might recognize. My first impulse is to reach out for Remy, knowing that the feeling of his mind would calm me instantly. But the potential that the X-Men are embroiled in some kind of battle leaves the possibility that my contact might be a distraction at a critical part of the fight.

So, I shift my focus from Remy and is ruby eyes to Feels on Wheels himself, the man of the manor, the bald shiny head of estate, Mr. Charles Xavier. As I suspected, he accepts my contact easily, gently letting me into his mind at a surface level like ice cream seeping into the cracks of a brownie…

I guess I'm hungry if that's the only simile I can come up with.

Just one moment, my dear. We're a bit busy…

I know! I know! Just…please. What the hell is going on? I've been alone down here for the better part of an hour and I'm starting to freak out. I can't MOVE remember!

The wave of empathy and calm that comes over our connection is both helpful and extremely annoying. I can tell he means to placate me while everyone else does the heavy lifting. Once more I feel the rage that engulfed me when I woke up in that crazy prison. Helplessness, fear and desperation war for control over every neuron and I feel my body begin to seize with the beginnings of a panic attack.

Another wave of calm hits me and the rage returns.

What right do I have to lay down here, frail and useless while these people, these CHILDREN fight to protect me?

What right do I have to be useless yet again?!

I keep waiting for my superhero spandex to show up but it seems to have gotten lost in the mail. Damned postal service!

With a barely stifled groan of pain and the anticipation of more pain, I fit my stick-like arms beneath my ribcage and heave myself up into a sitting position. Every tendon, muscle…every hair follicle protests the movement but I am determined to not be another frail damsel in distress. It's just so…boring!

I can feel bone grinding on bone and it reminds me of that one time I tried running. GROSS

Guh!

How did I do this before?

Right! Sound…

Okay, clearly I've got sirens to work with. Blue Velvet said my mutation adapted to keep me alive, what about speeding up the healing process? That's like…pretty much the same thing. I think…

Focusing on the pulsating sound of the alarm, I begin to shut out everything else. One sense at a time, I forget the antiseptic taste of the recycled air, the scratchy feel of sterilized hospital sheets, the smell of my sweat as the panic subsides and desperate determination sinks in, and finally the one man light show still blinking on the other side of my shut eyelids.

My world is redefined by sound waves, first emanating from the speakers like water from a broken dam. I track each wave around the room, trace what it bounces off of, what echoes and finally what absorbs it. Eventually, all paths lead to me, my ears, my mutation.

Sound belongs to me.

I am sound.

The more I focus on the complexity of each wave, the more I can feel it begin to vibrate within my body. I am suddenly reminded of wind whipping through a field and I wonder if I can turn myself into giant turbine?

No a turbine is moved by wind, it isn't charged by it.

Charged!

Solar power. That's what I'm thinking of. Light is a wave (and a particle but we don't need to bother with that now) but so is sound.

I imagine my skin like one continuous solar panel absorbing the sound waves as they caress my skin, slowly synchronizing each wave until we are all vibrating on the same length.

The more I focus the more I lose track of the difference between me and sound. My skin becomes meaningless as my entire body, every molecule, every electron begins to vibrate in unison. I feel like I'm shaking apart and solidifying at the same time.

I am…everywhere

A new sound reaches me. Rich and warm, full of passion and love. Emotions aren't part of the five senses. I can still feel.

Is this a sound or a feeling?

Does it even matter that I can't tell the difference anymore?

I'm interrupted again by that same rich warmth. Like melted caramel over my heart, I feel such profound love and worry that I can't help but attempt more contact. I reach out…and immediately recoil as pain lances across my…I don't know. I can't feel me anymore.

What's happening?

Ma feé? Can ya hear Remy?

Oh! What a glorious feeling. I want more! I reach out again only to be met with the same pain.

Remy sorry ma feé, I canna take ya telepathy. Please come back an we can talk 'bout whatever ya want, wi?

Come back?

What does he mean? Aren't I right…

Non, ma feé. Ya are in da infirmary but ya also somewhere else. Remy needs ya, ma petit. Please come back to Remy (thump) to Remy and Wade. Ya have ta let go of da sound, ma feé. Let go and feel us, too!

But I don't want to let go! It's so unfair. I feel incredible, like I've never had a bad day in my entire life. I finally feel like a superhero! WITHOUT the SPANDEX!

Am I naked?

Still, the desperation in Remy's voice worries me. The more I focus on him, his warmth and his care, the more aware of everything else I become. Slowly, achingly I let go of the sound and focus on feeling the air moving against my skin, the smell of Gambit and the intoxicating sent that always surrounds him. Finally, I open my eyes to the infirmary.

Remy is standing before me, looking as if he's not sure he's allowed to touch me. The thought immediately makes me sad but before I can react, he reaches out and wraps his whipcord arms around me, pressing my face to the bend of his neck and winding his fingers in my hair.

"Ma feé. What did ya do?"

The combination of wonder and fear in his voice, his real voice, worries me.

What did I do?

"I was just trying to…recharge my batteries? I hate being the weak one all the time! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to cause more trouble. Shit knows I've caused enough already, I just didn't want you guys up there risking your lives while I was down here, laying out like a freakin' sardine in a can! It's stupid and I hate it and I'm so tired of being HELPLESS"

I don't realize I'm crying until my rant comes to a breathless close. Tears are streaming down my cheeks and soaking into the collar of Remy's trench coat. The crackling electric air and the smell of burnt ozone reminds me that he was up there, fighting, while I was down here…waiting.

"Asshole! You made her cry. Please Please Please can I stab him now?"

Wade.

Glorious Wade!

I turn my face on Remy's shoulder to see a pacing, frantic Wade, twin katanas strapped to his back, blood spatter on his cargo pants and a rarely seen panic covering his perfect face. It takes me a moment to realize that he really doesn't know what to do with himself when he doesn't have someone to kill. That's…kinda scary. But, well. Whatever.

"What did I do?" The sound of my whisper overtakes the quiet room, subsuming even Wade's pacing boot clomps.

The continued silent speaks volumes about how little they know.

"It would appear…that you became…part of the sound in the room, the building, even the entire property. You were physically here but we could hear you, everywhere. The entire estate began to shake and by the time we got down here, you were…blurring."

Charles' voice is ever the voice of reason and I take heart in the fact that he doesn't sound at all afraid of what I just did. Especially since it sounds quite a bit like what Phoenix did on Alcatraz.

"Blurring?"

"Yeah," Wade jumped in. "Like when you shake something really fast and it starts to smear, or like when you jack o…"

"Wade! That's quite enough. I'm sure the first description was more than adequate."

Aww, Rolly Polly Ollie, you're no fun. I know I'm blushing at yet another sexual innuendo but I can also feel laughter bubbling up in my chest. Were we not surrounded by an audience, I'd be tempted to run with that description and see how far we could take it before one of us wussed out.

"I was just trying to recharge my batteries. I was trying to use sound like solar energy. I guess that didn't work out too well…"

The dejection I feel is staggering. Apparently I'm not much of a superhero after all. From what it sounds like, all I did was make myself blurry and ghost around the property. What the hell kind of mutation is that?

"Actually," Blue Velvet interjects, "your idea was a fine one and it seems to have been quite…remarkably effective."

Wha?

"Super Trooper, how about we get you a mirror and you see just how much recharging you've done."

Wade's smug tone intrigues me and I am simultaneously excited and terrified to see just how much of me has come back. Big Blue and Beautiful told me before I'd lost all muscle tone and was down to 2% body fat, weighing in at a feather light 94lbs. I'd literally come out of that place a skeleton wrapped in beef jerky. Not cute

Remy lifts me, bridal style off the bed and I swoon both at his strength and the sudden movement. He's always been so strong that the easy at which he lifts me gives nothing away and I refuse to look down for a sneak peek. I want to see all of me at once, not clues from whatever string bean flesh is sticking out of my scrubs. It's only been a week since I woke up, a month since my rescue and I'd only managed to put on 5 lbs of water weight.

Remy stops moving and I assume we're in front of some kind of reflective surface. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for what I'll see. I vacillate back and forth between wanting to be skinny and lean and feeling like, if I was, it wouldn't really be me. I'm not a skinny girl. I've got curves and stretch marks, jiggles and cellulite. That's my body and I find myself suddenly terrified that it might be gone!

"It's okay, ma feé. You are as beautiful as always. A bit different, but just as beautiful."

Confirmation.

I am different. The question now is, how different?

I slide my eyes toward the polished surface of a closed panel wall. It's not a perfect mirror but it's clear enough to show me what everyone else can already see.

The first thing I notice is that Remy really isn't struggling to hold me up. The next thing I notice is that my butt is hanging down between his arms and it appears to be as…rounded as I remember. Eyes traveling up to my arms, I see the same curve of muscle slightly hidden beneath the scrubs. Apparently, I do have my original body back.

Relief and disappointment flood me simultaneously. It's not that I've changed my mind about my body it's just that…well…it's just so hard sometimes, being curvy. I take a deep breath and decide to just LET IT GO.

Moving up further, I notice my normally brunette locks are missing. In fact, they've been replaced by frost white strands of perfection.

…the hell?

In my shock, I make eye-contact with myself and startle, slamming the back of my head into Remy's shoulder. My eyes are green. But not normal green. They're green like emeralds. And even stranger yet, instead of the smooth pigment most eyes have, despite their otherworldly color, they also seem to shimmer lick crushed crystal. Eyebrows and eyelashes are also frost white. I look down to the hairs on my arms that used to be bleach-blond from the sun. Again, I see frost white.

The stark color contrast makes my skin look more golden but that skin is just as imperfect as it used to be.

"Uhhh, why do I look like an elf?"

Wade snarfs and Remy hugs me closer to his chest, allowing me to feel his silent laughter.

"It's funny cuz it's true," Wade giggles.

I take one more deep breath, wrap my arm around Remy's neck and move to stand on my own. The moment my feet hit the ground I gasp at the cold that shocks through my toes and up my legs.

"Yuck!" I screech. "Pick me back up! Pick me back up!"

Remy's loud gaffing doesn't stop me from jumping up into his arms like there's an army of spiders crawling toward me.

"What happened to not wanting to be the damsel in distress anymore?"

"Fuck that!" I reply. "That floor is COLD!"