Chapter : The Dinner
"Hey, Hank?"
Dr. Henry McCoy turned at the sound of his name. Very few people ever intruded on his sanctum, down here in the medlabs. Only one person would be down here this close to dinner. "Jubilee?" he asked. "Why are you not upstairs obtaining sustenance?"
Jubilee giggled as she bounced into the labs. She looked much better, he noticed. She was starting to lose the extreme thinness she had had since her wedding, and was starting to look quite pretty. "I was actually on my way to dinner." She tilted her head to look up at his blue-furred countenance. "Aren't you coming?"
"I shall fulfill my body's physical necessity for nourishment later, Jubilee," he said. "I must complete my paper and have it mailed tonight if it is to make the next publication deadline for Genetics Today."
Jubilee handed him a small white envelope. "I'm out of stamps and this has to get out. It's the thank you card for Amanda. Remember Amanda Greene?"
"Jubilee," Hank chided her. "Of course I remember. She was at your wedding."
Jubilee nodded. "Yeah, she gave me this absolutely lovely engraved silver goblet set for a wedding present. I kept meaning to write her a thank you note, and I kept forgetting. I finally did it today." She showed it to him. "I was going to ask you for a stamp, but if you're going to the post office anyway, do you think you could drop it in the box for me?"
"Certainly." Hank took the envelope.
Jubilee started to dig into her pocket for her wallet, but Hank stopped her. "I shall take care of it, Jubilee," he said. "You need not worry."
She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks Hank," she said cheerfully. "I'll see you later?"
"I shall look forward to it."
Hank dropped the disk containing his paper into a stiff, padded envelope, wrote on the outside 'fragile', paste a stamp on the corner of Jubilee's letter, and got up. Putting both envelopes into a pocket of his capacious coat, he took the back door out of the mansion.
The post office was closed and silent, as he had already determined it would be. The two blue mailboxes outside the office, however, were always available to receive mail. He slipped his envelope into the 'out-of-town' box and reached inside for Jubilee's envelope. He was about to put it into the 'local' box when he stopped.
He did remember Amanda. Jubilee had introduced them at her wedding; and Hank had liked her immediately. She was a quiet young woman, older than Jubilee but younger than himself…but not by much. She seemed to like him as well, and they had spent some time talking. They had exchanged phone numbers and addresses before she left, but he had rather absent-mindedly forgotten to call her, and she had not called him. Had she forgotten him? He rather doubted it. Perhaps she might be feeling like a little company.
He drove back downtown to the block of apartments that she lived at. The Willows, said the sign over the door. He couldn't see any willow trees, and smiled at the incongruity of the name and the place. He was about to go in and try to find her apartment when he heard a car door slam, and he looked around. It was Amanda. He walked over to where she was locking the car door.
* * *
The night was cold. Amanda shivered as she got out of the car.
It was only the beginning of October, but it was unseasonably cold. The air was nippy, with just a hint of frost. Unless she was very much mistaken, it was going to snow before Thanksgiving; and if it did that then it meant they'd have a white Christmas. She giggled. This Christmas she was a free woman, Bruce was permanently out of the picture, and she was in her own place.
She could still remember last Christmas. Bruce had been out of town, and she was holed up in his parent's vacation cottage nursing a badly-injured young girl the river had washed up outside on the back lawn. She still shuddered at the thought of 'Julie's' injuries. Of course, she'd found out later her friend's name was Jubilee, but she'd still found herself thinking of her as Julie.
At least everything was turning out for the best for her friend. Amanda wasn't so sure about herself. She had a new job, teaching students biology at Columbia University; but her real passion, genetic research, was on hold. Seemingly indefinitely.
She sighed, grabbed her bag out of the back of the car and turned, to run almost directly into a large, blue-furred form standing behind her. She jumped, startled, then sighed and chuckled when she realized who it was. "Dr. McCoy! Sheesh, you scared me."
"Rest assured, that was not my intention, Dr. Greene," he said, his voice a low rumble in his massive chest. "Please accept my apologies."
"No apologies necessary," she laughed.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Amanda hushed him. "It's way too cold to stand out here talking," she said. "Come on up."
She climbed the two flights of steps up to her apartment, Hank following. The man in the apartment beside her was coming out just as she was going in, and he gave Hank a goggle-eyed stare and a slit-eyed glare, but Hank barely gave it a thought. He was used to getting stares like that. He really should have worn his image inducer, which was in his room, but as he was only going to the post office, he hadn't thought it necessary. She had seen him as he really looked at Logan and Jubilee's wedding, and it hadn't bothered her a bit.
She opened the door and ushered him inside, closing the door. She took his coat off his shoulders and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair, then did the same with her own. The bag, with her paperwork in it, went on the chair seat, and then she walked into her kitchen and turned on the light. Hank followed her in and frowned at the empty bowls sitting on the floor. "If I remember correctly, Jubilee mentioned you were companioned by a canine," he said.
Amanda smiled sadly. "Yeah, Buster. He's my Pomeranian." She sighed as she put the kettle on for tea. "I just didn't feel right leaving him here alone all day. The university needed a teacher to take the evening biology class, and they asked me to do it. I took it, and they're paying me the extra, thank goodness, but it means I'm out of the apartment from seven in the morning until about ten in the evening. It's not fair to him. So I took him back to my mother's and she told me she'd be glad to keep him."
The kettle started to whistle as its water boiled, and she pulled it off, poured it into two mugs, and added tea bags. Hank studied the three small chairs in the kitchen, and said, "If it is all right with you, Dr. Greene, I believe I'll make my way into your living room. I sincerely doubt that your chairs are built to handle my size and weight."
Amanda blinked. "Oh, go right ahead," she said, leading the way into her living room and gesturing to the much more substantially built couch. "But please call me Amanda, Dr, McCoy. I don't hold with formality with my friends."
"I shall do so," he said gravely, seating himself on the couch, "Only if you call me Hank."
Amanda laughed, seating herself in a battered overstuffed easy chair. "All right, then, Hank. Now, if I may ask, what brings you to my neck of the woods?"
He took an envelope from his pocket. "Jubilee asked me to deliver this for her," he said. "A thank-you note, I believe, for the lovely present you gave her upon the momentous occasion of her marriage."
Amanda grinned as she opened the envelope and read the brief note penned in Jubilee's slightly messy handwriting. "Please tell her I said thank you," she said as she folded the card up and slipped it back into the envelope. "How is she?"
Hank sighed. "She is recovering from the surgery I performed on her a few days ago," he said. "I doubt you knew; and she was quite adept at hiding what she felt, but there was a sizable splinter of wood passed through the soft tissue of her uterine wall and pierced her ovary."
Amanda sat there, face pale with shock. "I didn't know," she said. "Oh God. It must have been excruciating! How did she handle it all this time?" She shook her head. "How is she doing now?"
"Much better, both physically and emotionally. It was quite some time before she could talk about it to any of us, understandably. She has, however finally come to terms with the incident and is healing now."
"I'm glad." Amanda took a sip of her tea. "I like her. She's a wonderful girl. God, you should have seen what she looked like when I first picked her up off the riverbank. She looked as though someone did his damn level best to try to kill her."
Hank looked soberly into the mug in his hand. "She very nearly did," he said. "She is making arrangements to have the scars on her body surgically removed. She does not wish to be reminded of the incident."
"Hell, I wouldn't either." Amanda was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, I'm being a poor hostess. Would you like something to eat?" She opened the refrigerator. "I haven't had time to do my shopping for the week, but I might have some leftovers still good."
Hank smiled. "Some refreshment would not go awry," he said, "But I have no wish to deprive you of any stores of food you may have, as excellent as your cooking is," he said.
Amanda turned pink. "You haven't even tasted my cooking," she said.
Hank smiled. "Jubilee told me of your culinary expertise," he said. "But it is not that to which I was referring. We have not yet celebrated the momentous occasion of your obtaining a teaching job. Would you care to dine out with me tonight?"
Amanda stared…and suddenly realized her mouth was open. She closed it abruptly. Her? Famous geneticist Henry McCoy was asking her out on a date? She belatedly realized that he was expecting an answer, and she floundered, "Uh…yes…um…This is rather sudden…uh…is what I'm wearing okay?"
Hank was now the one floundering, as he tried to think of where to take her. Where did the other guys take the girls? He scrambled for the name of a restaurant, and came up with, "Della Notte." Charles had entertained Moira there once when she was in town on business, and he remembered it as a fine place, with good food. It wasn't the kind of place where one had to dress, though, thank goodness, because he was wearing khakis and a plain T-shirt.
Amanda blinked. She had been there once. The food had been lovely, but Bruce had been so irritated with the waiter that they'd never gone there again. He thought the waiter had been hitting on her. "I've been there before," she said. "Please wait while I change into something other than my lab outfit, please?"
Hank nodded. "The restaurant is not an excessively fancy place, but I do not think they will appreciate the smell of your dissection subject permeating the atmosphere."
Amanda grinned. The evening class had been dissecting rats, and she smelled of formaldehyde. She nodded, he grinned amiably, and she whisked into her room and closed the door.
"What are you doing, girl," she muttered to herself as she whipped through her closet for something suitable. "You've got a ton of papers to grade, you've got to plan the lesson tomorrow, and here you are running out to dinner like some lovesick girl." She shook her head at her own silliness, but she didn't stop searching.
She finally came out wearing a white blouse and teal colored twill pants. "Will this be okay?"
Hank blinked, bemused. Amanda looked better than okay; she looked lovely. Her brownish-red hair fell loose around her heart-shaped face, and she wore just the barest hint of makeup. The color of the pants brought out the blue in her blue-gray eyes, and the silver wire-rimmed glasses looked somehow right on her. He stood up, placed his mug on the table, and offered her his arm. "Shall we go?"
The restaurant wasn't crowded, and the hostess of the night got them settled into a seat quickly. Hank got a few stares from people, but, being used to them, he ignored them, and Amanda didn't even seem to notice the looks they were getting. He ordered the petti di pollo Donna Bianca, which was white chicken marinated in white wine and topped with eggplant and cheese. Amanda, he noted, shared his fondness for chicken, but opted for an entrée she could actually pronounce; she ordered their chicken marsala.
She declined wine, which was a relief to Hank, as he felt he would have been compelled to drink also if she had opted to do so. But she insisted politely to the waiter that she didn't drink, and had settled for a glass of iced tea. As they worked on their appetizers, he talked with her about the project she had last been working on.
"Oh," she said. "Yes. Well, unfortunately, Bruce has the bulk of my work at his laboratory. I have a few samples and most of my notes at home, but I don't have a laboratory to continue research, and I don't have access to the raw materials."
"I recall the last paper you published said you were in the process of gene-mapping a sample substance, but I did not catch the name of the substance you were analyzing."
Amanda sipped her tea. "It's actually a sample of plant that a researcher brought back form a rather remote place in the rainforest," she said. "The 'plant' was actually proven to be a very primitive form of animal life. What was more significant, however, is the fact that there is a virus contained in the DNA coding. What I found was that the virus can trigger spontaneous morphological changes in higher-order organisms." She fell silent as the waitress came back with their orders, and then continued as she tucked her napkin into her lap. ""The morphological changes can take unexpected, interesting, bizarre forms. For example, when the virus was injected into one of our lab rats, the rat developed a secondary forelimb within twenty-four hours. The next rat exposed to the virus didn't develop the same characteristic, however; it developed an extraordinarily sharp sense of smell and taste. It developed quite a fondness for Brie, and stopped eating Swiss."
Hank chuckled quietly. "This is an extremely interesting virus," he said. "Have you discovered how it does what it does?"
Amanda sighed. "I got as far as finding out that it attacks the out-of-sequence proteins in the genetic code that produces mutations. As you know, mutations are already encoded into our DNA at birth; but having the X-factor doesn't necessarily mean one is going to become a mutant at puberty. Some people have the mutant gene and yet are perfectly normal humans. As of right now, there's no way to tell whether a person will become a mutant before the metamorphosis actually happens, but there's a possibility that if the research into this virus were to continue, then introducing the virus into a stem cell sample from the cord blood left after the child is born could trigger changes that will indicate whether the X-factor is present."
Hank raised an eyebrow. "That is a major discovery indeed," he said.
Amanda ran on. "Yes, and the possibility exists that we may figure out how it works and be able to turn it backwards, a sort of reverse metamorphosis. We could expose a mutant to the virus, and the virus would attack and reverse the mutation, leaving the subject a normal human."
Hank was becoming quite interested indeed. "Tell me, Amanda," he said. "Would you consent to lending me some of your samples, and looking over your notes? I wish to see what kind of progress you may have made."
Amanda looked wistful. "I wish I had access to a lab," she said, "then I can continue my research myself. But no, I don't mind if you borrow my notes. The samples, though, need to be handled quite carefully, and I'm afraid that if I take them out of my freezer they may be irrevocably destroyed."
"The notes will be sufficient," Hank said, finishing off the last of his meal as Amanda pushed her empty plate away.
"Can I ask you a question?" Amanda said quietly as she donned her coat and preceded him out of the restaurant. The cold took their breath away, and Hank ran an arm around her shoulders as they walked out to where his van was parked in the lot. She huddled up against him, soaking in the heat coming off his fur. He forebore answering until they got out to the car. He opened her door for her, and she again flashed him a bright smile as she slid into the front passenger seat. "Certainly," he said as he started the car.
"If the technique could be perfected, and mutations reversed, would you take the opportunity?"
Hank pondered the thought as he waited for the traffic light to change. "I may," he said. "This was not the way I began. The way I presently look was due to my own experiment gone awry. So yes, I believe that were the opportunity to arise, I might indeed take it." The light turned green and he pulled into traffic. "Why do you ask?"
"Mmmm…no particular reason, I just…I think…You look better the way you are now," she said impulsively. "I can't imagine you looking like a normal human."
Hank pondered that as he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. It wasn't often that he had a woman interested in him, and never one who said she preferred him the way he looked. In a daze, he followed her up to her apartment.
He waited out in the living room as she disappeared into her bedroom. Shortly thereafter, he heard a thud, and a startled cry. He ran into the bedroom and saw her sitting on the floor under a large box of papers and disks.
He lifted the box off her easily, and helped her up. She gestured to the closet she was standing in front of. "Well, I have three boxes of notes. Do you want to look over all of them, or do you want just the most recent ones?"
"Just the most recent, and if I have difficulty making any of the connections, then I shall ask you about them," he said.
She grinned. "Then I look forward to your call."