Chapter 7: The Mansion
"Be careful, Amanda," Hank cautioned as she slid her feet over the edge of the bed.
Amanda nodded and clung to the rail on the bed as her feet touched the floor. The white tile was cold on her bare feet, but there wasn't really anything that could be done about that. She stood for a moment, trying to adjust to the feel of standing again after five days in bed, then released the rail and took a step forward.
Hank caught her as she pitched forward, off-balance. "Maybe I should stay in bed another day," Amanda said quietly.
Hank shook his head. "Your recovery has been sufficiently rapid to make movement necessary," he said firmly. "Should you remain prone any longer, you may begin to lose muscle tone."
She grabbed his arm and pushed herself upright. Hank steadied her as she stood there for a second, finding her balance, then she took a slow step forward. When she didn't fall over, she took another step. Then another.
Xavier chose that moment to enter, and almost ran into her. Her arms pinwheeled wildly, and she almost lost her balance. Xavier froze his hoverchair in place, eyes wide, until she regained her balance, then ventured, "I'm sorry; I did not know you were going to be…"
"It's all right," Amanda said cheerfully, leaning against Hank's chest as she smiled at him. "I have to relearn how to walk. You know, you never know how much a simple step can mean until your legs don't obey you anymore."
"Indeed," Xavier said dryly. Amanda suddenly flushed.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" She fell silent as Hank helped her back to a sitting position on the bed. "I didn't mean to…"
"It's quite all right," Xavier said, bringing his hoverchair a little further into the room and smiling at her discomfiture. "I have heard it all, and worse, since the accident happened."
"But with all the wonderful technology you have here, shouldn't Hank be able to fix your spine?" Amanda persisted. Xavier shook his head.
"The technology here may be advanced, but the damage done to my spine was irreparable," he said quietly.
"Have you seen some of the latest research they've been doing with shark nerve cells?" Amanda asked, interested. "I was at a conference with Dr. Clarence Sullivan of the Royal Academy of Medicine last year, and he was talking about a possible treatment for spinal-cord injuries."
Xavier shook his head. "I have not heard of it," he said.
Amanda ran a hand through her hair. "Well, Dr. Sullivan found that sharks, since they continue to grow during their entire life and don't stop, need to grow new nerve cells so that the spine grows along with the animal. He is working on a way to adapt the shark's spinal nerve cells' growth properties to the human physiology, and if that can be done, people with injuries could actually grow new nerve endings to replace ones damaged in accidents."
Xavier blinked. To be able to walk again! He kept his face neutral as he said, "That is wonderful news. I shall have to see what I can find out about his research, and how far he's gotten."
Amanda's forehead wrinkled as she rummaged in her memory. "If I'm correct, he should have had an article come out in the June edition of the Royal Academy of Medicine's biannual newsletter. It's undoubtedly going to contain the latest news on his research."
"I shall look into it," Xavier inclined his head toward her in a grateful acknowledgement of her information. "Meanwhile, Hank, Jean and Ororo wish to know if they should fix a plate for Amanda or if she will be coming up for lunch."
"I don't think I'm going to make it up the stairs," Amanda said regretfully. Over the last few days, restless at being confined to bed, she had Hank tell her about the mansion and its inhabitants. He even brought his laptop into her recovery room just off the main operating room and given her a look at the schematics for the mansion's layout.
She had been perfunctorily interested in all of it, but her passion had been reserved for the machines in the medlab and what could be done with them. As he went about the task of caring for her bandages and wound dressings, she asked endless questions about what he might be using at the time, how it worked, and even insisted on watching. She'd been taken aback when he took the bandages off her arm and she'd seen the edges of skin, cut apart from the surgery necessary to set the broken bones, healed without a scar.
Xavier said lightly, "Hank?"
Hank shook his head. "I believe we will be dining here, Charles. Amanda is not yet ready to climb stairs, and in her current fragile condition I do not believe it would be wise to even attempt it."
"Why not use my wheelchair?" For a moment Amanda thought he was offering her the use of his personal transport, and she was about to decline because she hadn't the foggiest notion of how to use the thing, but he shook his head quickly. "No, not this. It would be easier, my dear, but I have only the one, unfortunately. No, I have another wheelchair, a normal one, which I use when I go out. I was thinking you might use that."
Hank brought it out from a nearby closet, and Amanda slid herself into it gingerly, trying not to jostle anything. Hank had given her pain medication, but she hated pills, and only took one when it was absolutely necessary. Right now everything was throbbing dully, a faint, manageable ache, but it could flare up anytime if she moved something the wrong way. She reached over the arms of her chair, but Hank gently put her arms (one bandaged from wrist to elbow, one bare) back into her lap and took the handles of the wheelchair. With him pushing, she was treated to the grand tour of the lower level of the mansion on the way to the lift that would take them up to the kitchen. Most of the doors were closed, but one door was open; and she saw a clean, sterile white laboratory inside, with test tubes and all sorts of instruments in it. She sighed as they passed it. "You're so lucky," she said quietly, a little enviously, at Hank. "Look at that lab. I'd love to take a look sometime; it's got to be better than sharing stuff with a whole bunch of other people."
Hank leaned in. "After you recover, Amanda, perhaps you might consider bringing your research and your notes here to work in between teaching classes. I would welcome the company, and the chance to assist you."
Amanda twisted in the wheelchair, ignoring the pain that bloomed at the small of her back as her bruised kidneys protested the movement. "Really? You'd let me come here and work? But what about…wouldn't you…"
Xavier laid a hand on her arm. "Your research is too important to all of us to afford letting it lie for lack of facilities," he said.
Amanda nodded. "I'd like that," she said.
They got into the elevator, and she watched the door close on that gray utilitarian hallway. She stared at the door for a few seconds, waiting for the customary jerk upward as the elevator started, but she didn't feel anything. It was something of a surprise when the door opened a minute later and she saw a short hallway leading into the kitchen and the source of a lot of good-smelling food. She looked at Hank, surprise written all over her face. "I didn't even feel the elevator start!"
Xavier laughed. "The hydraulics are much better than you're used to," he said, and led the way out of the elevator and down the hall toward the kitchen. Hank pushed her down the hall after him and turned into a room just off the kitchen.
It was set up as an informal dining room. There were already people in there, and Amanda recognized several of them from the news reports she'd seen. The tall, muscular man with the odd-looking red glasses was Cyclops; Hank called him Scott. The slim redhead floating…floating!…steaming bowls of soup through the air to various places around the table was Phoenix, or Jean. The silver-haired woman Hank called Ororo was here as well, and sitting beside her was a long-purple-haired woman Hank had said was Elisabeth. And Amanda's heart skipped a beat as her eyes lit on the man beside Elisabeth. Tall, blond, almost sinfully handsome, with huge, white, feathered wings tucked tight to his back, he looked a little like Bruce except for the pale-blue skin and feathers. She could barely take her eyes off him, and was glad when Jean sent a bowl of soup skimming telepathically down the table toward her so that she'd have something to distract her.
Xavier was monitoring Amanda telepathically; had been since the pain in her kidneys had flared up. She hadn't noticed. He looked at her narrowly, wondering about the sudden surge of emotion from her, and saw her gaze riveted to Warren. Oh no. Up till now she'd had eyes only for Hank; but if she developed an attraction for Warren it could lead to trouble between the two men. Warren and Hank were close friends; he hoped Amanda wouldn't become a source of friction between them. He had been considering having Amanda stay at the mansion until she was fully recovered, but perhaps that wouldn't be so wise.
Amanda was introduced to everyone around the table, and lunch commenced. Amanda just picked at the soup, sandwiches, and muffins; she was too busy absorbing the names that went with the faces and listening to the chatter. Jubilee was getting into a friendly argument with Bobby about which one of them was a better snowball thrower, and it escalated until Ororo said, "Why don't you both settle this outside after lunch? If I am correct, the snow should be tapering off in an hour or so, and there should be sufficient accumulation to provide ample material for snowballs."
"Yes, and shovel the drive while you're at it," Warren spoke, earning a dirty look from Jubilee. He snickered at her disgusted face and said, "Well, I did hear you and Jean say you wanted to go shopping later. If you want to get out of the driveway, you'll have to shovel it."
Jubilee was about to protest, but stopped in mid-sentence and looked down the table to where Jean was sitting. There was a moment of silence, during which everyone went about as though things were normal, than Jubilee grinned and said, "You're on." Amanda was puzzled for a moment before she figured that they must have said something to each other telepathically. Hank had mentioned that they were both telepaths.
"Snow?" she said quietly to Hank. "I didn't know it was snowing outside!"
"Oh, yes," he said. "It began yesterday morning. I believe the weather reporter said we have accumulated about six inches so far." He looked at her contritely. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you did not know. There are no windows in your room downstairs, after all." He looked at her thoughtfully. "You are not much shorter than Betsy," he said. "Perhaps I could persuade her to lend you a jacket and some warmer clothing, and we might venture outside for some fresh air."
"Of course!" Betsy said, getting up from the table and putting her bowl and plate in the sink. "Come on. Let me take you upstairs and find you something that fits."
The rooms upstairs were as comfortable-looking as her room downstairs was. Amanda looked around the room, at the distinctly oriental flavor to the décor, and said, "Are all the rooms as tastefully done?"
"All our rooms started out plain," Betsy said. "But we're allowed to decorate ours as we like. I'm Japanese, so my room has an Eastern taste to the decorations." She dug around in her dresser for a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt. "Perhaps later you and Hank might return to your apartment and pick up some of your own clothes--" She paused. "Hank's room is just down the hall, if you'd like to see it," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
"How did you know--"
"I'm a telepath. I can read minds. Don't worry, though; I only read surface impressions. Charles has set down a lot of rules about the use of mental powers, both inside and outside the mansion. We all follow them." She opened the door and pushed Amanda's wheelchair out into the hall and down a short way before opening the door to another room.
The first thing that Amanda saw when she looked in was the massive bed. It was king-sized, with heavy wooden posts and extra metal beams supporting the mattress. She took a look and started to laugh. Betsy looked at her puzzled, and Amanda stopped laughing long enough to explain that when Hank had tried to lie on her bed he had broken it. "I don't wonder, now," she chuckled, wiping her eyes. "If his bed is built to handle his weight, then it's no wonder why mine fell apart."
Betsy laughed too, and as she did so, Amanda looked around. The Periodic Table dominated one wall of his room, and two large dressers sat against the opposite wall. A small mirror sat atop the dresser, and a desk with a pile of papers and pens on it sat in the corner by the window. Amanda guessed, by the way the room looked, Hank didn't spend a whole lot of time in it.
She returned to Betsy's room and started trying to get her arms into the shirt and jeans Betsy had found for her. It wasn't easy, given the awkwardness of the bandages, but eventually they managed to get the clothes on, Betsy was just trying to get the gloves on Amanda's hands when Hank tapped on the door and poked his head in. "Might I have the honor of escorting my lady out on the lawn for a bit of fresh air?"
Amanda grinned at him. "Certainly, Sir Henry," she joked back. Hank took the gloves from Betsy and slid them on effortlessly. "Thank you, Betsy," he said. "Will you be joining us?"
"Go on ahead," she said, waving a hand at them. "I'll be out in a few moments." They left, and Betsy was left with her own thoughts.
She'd caught the odd mental reaction Amanda had when she saw Warren. It had been physical attraction, and as Betsy took her upstairs, she'd gently probed Amanda's mind, to satisfy her own misgivings. Amanda thought Warren looked like her former fiancé and thought he was handsome. That was all. She'd wondered, at first, but when Hank came in Amanda had been so totally wrapped up in Hank she didn't have a single thought in her mind for Warren.
She got her confirmation when she went outside, wrapped against the cold. Ororo had been right; the storm had cleared, and left seven inches of snow on the ground. Jubilee and Jean were busy with shovels, clearing the snow from one side of the driveway for snowballs, and Bobby and Warren were shoveling the other side. Logan and Scott were busy over behind the pile of snow, hidden from Bobby and Warren's view, getting a head start on snowballs.
Amanda was seated in the wheelchair on the small area of cleared driveway, laughing as Hank and Remy engaged in a furious mini-snowball fight of their own. Hank seemed to be coming off best in that fight; He could make and throw snowballs faster than Remy, using his feet as well as his hands. Amanda was cheering Hank on, and Rogue was spurring Remy on to greater effort, but it was already clear who the winner would be, and after another few volleys from Hank that left Remy covered in snow from head to foot, he conceded the match by throwing up his hands. Amanda gave Hank a deep, fervent kiss. Betsy watched, amused, Hank began insisting Amanda go in or she would catch cold. Amanda resisted, Hank insisted. Finally, owing in large part to the fact that she really was tired, Amanda allowed Hank to push her back into the mansion.
Betsy smiled as she adjusted her scarf. Amanda loved Hank, There was no doubt about that. She didn't have to worry.
She turned, surveyed the huge pile of snowballs Logan had amassed, and decided to even the odds a little. "Bobby! Warren!" she called. "Logan's making snowballs! Want me to start making them for you?"