Well . . . I've got nothing interesting to say so you might as well read on. -_-

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Chapter 14:

Scott and Logan were standing in front of the med lab's door, the first having his arms crossed and standing firmly in the middle of the passage, the other, leaning cross-armed against the wall, looking like a man totally apart. They stayed in silence, having finished arguing after the first two hours of waiting.

Logan was staring out into the unknown, thinking about the look on her face when they had argued. Why hadn't he trusted her? He had hurt her, emotionally and physically. He felt as if he would never forgive himself.

Scott was re-passing the night's events through his head. He had arrived after hearing the children yelling. She had been leaning on the wall, looking at Logan, as if asking him a question. He had seen the blood on the floor and three red trails on her baggy white pajamas.   

Logan had pushed him away when he had leaned towards her and he had carried her immediately to the med lab. Jean had temporarily forgotten that Shan was her enemy and had immediately started an operation to try and save her.

And now, after having been pushed out of the lab, after having verbally fought Logan, Scott knew that he was jealous and that he wanted Shania, maybe even more that he desired Jean. Since they had arrived, just watching the small cherished rituals between them, like Logan's hand brushing her cheek, his hands smoothing a trailing wisp of her hair, or simply the way she looked at him and kissed him, Scott felt a sharp pang of jealousy, a sudden irrational urge to wrench them apart and take Logan's place beside the woman.

Bobby, who had witnessed a great part of the accident, had told him that they had started arguing about something and that Shania had tried to calm him down, but then Logan had turned around and had stabbed her. It had been an accident, since he hadn't seen her coming, but still Scott blamed him more that anyone or anything else. Who couldn't?

Scott turned around and glared at Logan who didn't even bother to look up at him. The sound of the elevator was heard and the professor arrived, fully dressed in his wheelchair. Without a word spoken, he wheeled towards the med lab and entered. The door closed behind him.

Another half hour passed until, finally, Jean and the professor came out of the lab, both looking rather uneasy. Logan looked at them expectantly, as did Scott. 

"Her situation is very, very unstable," Jean said sadly. "But she's not at death's door."

Logan's look brightened a little bit but no one noticed, as sadness and misery were the top two emotions visible on his face.

"Come with me, I will explain," she continued, walking towards the meeting room.

They all followed her and stood in front of a large white board where Logan's X-Rays had once been showed. Jean clipped on a few pictures, but weren't at all of Shan's body.

"These are images of Shania's blood system," Jean said. "Here is how a mutant's blood system is supposed to be."

She showed them a picture where different molecules were 'floating' together, lightly separated from one another and moving in a regular way. Half of the molecules seemed darker than others representing the X-Gene, and the other half were human genes.

"And this is what Shania's test revealed," Jean said, showing them the second picture.

The molecules could be seen clearly here too, looking exactly like the ones on the other picture, but something was definitely wrong. All the mutant molecules were crammed together with the human genes, and so seemed to be a compact mass.

"Seeing that they weren't being used, the X-molecules crammed together and are totally blocking her blood flow," Jean explained. "When crammed up blood like that reaches the brain, it causes headaches, just like for humans. Aspirins' job is vaguely to loosen the blood flow and I tried using it on her during the whole operation, seeing that with the wounds, the blood wouldn't stop flowing, but it didn't work. I had a lot of problems because seeing that all the blood was cramming inside her, she couldn't breathe, but I was able to slow down the flow and she's now in artificial sleep."

"Can I see her?" Logan asked, taking his eyes off the images on the board.

"No," Jean and the professor said at the same time.

"Listen, it was an acciden-" Logan started.

"We know, Logan" Jean interrupted. "Its that the med lab is now a sterilized zone and that no one can enter for now. The wound isn't –"

Jean was herself interrupted by a beeping sound, coming from a beeper attached to her doctor's vest. She looked at it and ran out of the room, evidently returning to the med lab. Ignoring the fact that they weren't allowed to enter, Logan, Scott and the professor followed her inside the room.

Instead of being calm, as it was always supposed to be, loud thrashing and an alarm could be heard. Logan ran behind Jean and caught a glimpse of Shania. His heart stopped.

She was on a medical bed, wearing a tank top only covering her breast and small pair of shorts made of the same material. Tubes and wires were connected to her and a large bandage was wrapped around her waist. 

The bandage was starting to dye red because she kept moving. In fact, she was in an upright position, moving from side to side, her eyes shut tight. She was ripping off every tube connected to her that she could reach.

"Shania!" Jean exclaimed, walking to her and grabbing her arm that was tugging on the mask over her nose and mouth. "Stop that!"

Shania arrived to rip the mask off her face and immediately started pulling on the IV tubes in her arms, but instead of taking them out of her skin gently, she totally ripped them out.

"Scott! Logan!" Jean yelled. "Help me!"

The two men walked forwards and each took one of her arms while Jean was trying to control her legs, but she just struggled even more.

"GET OFF ME!" she yelled, clawing out to the ones holding her back. "LET ME GO!"

"Shania, calm down!" Jean and the professor pleaded.

For answer, Shan growled, pushed her feet away from Jean and backed up right into Scott, making him fall to the ground while she was still being restrained onto the table. With her now available hand, she started pulling on the bandage around her waist, just as the wound reopened and started bleeding profusely.

"STOP!" Jean yelled at her turn, trying to make her let go of the bandage.

Shania froze and opened her eyes for the first time. She was sweating and panting, looking around her like a frightened animal.

"Relax, Shania," the professor said calmly. "Rest."

Shan looked at him for a while, without moving or making a sound, until she sighed and was about to saw something, but blood had already reached her throat and she was now forced to spit it out of her mouth. With one last look at the professor, she fell backwards, being taken away into unconsciousness again.      

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