Chapter 11:
She was still asleep.
She looked so peaceful asleep, lying on her stomach there, that he didn't have the heart to wake her. Time enough when she woke up on her own for the reality of her situation to hit her, as he was certain it would.
He stroked her hair with the hairbrush again, patiently untangling the long silver locks. He'd loved the long auburn curls she had before, but the eggshell curls she had now looked better on her pale skin. And the wings sprouting proudly from her back, clear delicate filmy things with a faint rainbow sheen on them, reminded him of butterfly's wings.
He had put a hospital gown, open in the back, on her for now, but she was either going to have to buy new clothes or alter her old ones. Regular T-shirts weren't built to accommodate wings.
"Hey Hank?"
He turned, saw Warren in the door, and waved his friend in. "Come in."
Warren held a bundle of cloth in his hand. "Betsy dug it out for me," he said, unfolding it and holding it up. "It's too small for me, and it's going to be too big for her, but it's something she can wear, at least until she can get her own clothes altered."
Hank looked at the blue T-shirt, with two neatly-cut and stitched holes for wings on either side of a back seam. "Your thoughtfulness is greatly appreciated, Warren," he said as he looked at it.
"Yes it is," said a soft voice from the bed. Hank looked down, and saw Amanda's eyes were open. Those silver eyes were going to take some getting used to.
"I'm not looking forward to having to alter all my clothes," she said dryly, pushing herself up to a sitting position. The effort left her panting and gasping, and both men went around to the sides of her bed, taking her arm and pulling her upright. "Take it easy," Warren told her soothingly. "You're awfully weak."
"No kidding," Amanda said, taking the cup of water Hank handed her. "I feel like someone ran me through the wringer. How long have I been asleep?"
"Three days," Hank said quietly.
Amanda stared. "Three days? My God, no wonder I feel like crap." She turned her head, looked at the wings sprouting on her shoulder, and said dryly, "That might be part of the problem." She ran a hand through her hair, and made a face. "I could use a good hot bath, too. I wonder if these things are waterproof?"
Warren looked amused. "Let me leave you two then," he said. "I'm glad you're okay, Amanda." He leaned in and gave her a hug, then turned and left.
Hank reached around her, helping her slide off the bed, and she finally stood upright, swaying a tiny bit. She eventually found her balance and walked across the room, albeit a bit unsteadily, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hands went to her white face and she gave a small gasp of dismay.
"What's wrong?" Hank said to her.
"I…I…look at me," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. She reached behind her, yanking at the strings holding her gown closed, and untied it, letting it fall to the floor. She sucked in a sharp breath.
She had lost a lot of her body weight and mass during her transformation. Her ribs stood out under her skin in sharp relief, and her hip bones protruded painfully far from her body. The deep hollows under her ribs showed how much muscle she had lost. There was no abdominal definition left at all.
She looked off to the side and saw Hank's scale. She stepped on it, adjusted the weights, and blinked in startlement. "I used to weigh one thirty," she whispered. "Now I'm barely eighty-five! God, it's a wonder I'm still alive!"
Hank said, "Amanda, if those wings are to be functional, as I believe they are, you would need to weigh less if you wanted to get off the ground. There were changes to your bone structure that made them lighter and less dense. I recorded all the data I gathered while you were transforming into hard copy later, if you want to read it." But Amanda wasn't listening. She'd turned around, looking at her back reflected in the mirror. There was still a red, irritated, inflamed area around the base of each wing. "I have been applying salve to the area immediately under your new appendages," Hank said. "The irritated skin should clear up in another few days."
"I don't know how you can even stand to look at me," Amanda whispered, turning sharply away from the mirror and pulling the gown up over her chest. "I look so ugly."
Hank blinked. "Ugly is not the word I would use, beloved," he said quietly. "Aesthetically pleasing, maybe."
She looked at him in disbelief. "You like me, even like this?" she said. "You still think I'm pretty?"
"Of course. I love you, Amanda." Hank peered at her over the rim of his glasses, surprised at her reaction. She couldn't see how pretty she was? "Even if I did not love you, I would still consider you pretty. Look at yourself, Amanda. You look like a fairy out of the fairy tales I used to read when I was much younger.
"Jean and Jubilee stayed with you while I slept, and they have both said the same thing to me. You look beautiful, Amanda. Perhaps, when you become accustomed to your appearance, you will reach the same conclusion." Hank stood up. "Now I believe you were looking for a shower?"
Amanda picked up the T-shirt that Warren had brought for her as Hank picked up her jeans, underclothing, and a towel from a nearby chair. "There is a showering facility just down the hall. You can take a quick shower here, and then I'll take you upstairs to your room."
"My room?" Amanda turned to look at him.
"Do you not remember?" Hank asked her. "It had been decided that you would stay here. Charles' decision has not wavered, and in fact has become even stronger in light of your mutation. Your apartment building does not allow mutants to live there, if you remember."
"Oh. Yeah." Amanda looked suddenly depressed. "I forgot."
Hank watched her walk into the small bathroom. He waited to hear the water running before walking back into the medlab and turning off the monitors on the biobed. She would get used to her appearance, and maybe in time she would decide she really didn't look that bad at all. She was pretty, and he loved her, and he knew she loved him too.
The water stopped running. He listened to the silence for a moment, then smiled as Amanda came in, dripping wet from her shower. "Feel better?"
She nodded as she walked over to him and hugged him. "Much," she said. "Hank…"
"Yes?" he said gently.
"You never left me. All through that, you never left me."
"I could not, Amanda," he said, taking the towel from her hands and reaching out to dry the wet droplets on her wings. "You were in such pain, and you begged me not to leave. I couldn't leave."
"Thank you," she smiled at him, her old happy smile, one he hadn't seen in what felt like ages. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and squeezed him as tightly as he could.
He didn't mind one bit.
* * *
Author's Notes:
I had gotten used to using the last chapter of my books as Authors' Notes to clear my mind of everything related to the story and to clear the slate, as it were, for the next one. As it appears that chapters aren't to be devoted to this purpose, I'm going to have to insert short ones at the end of the books from now on.
Thanks to Anything But Ordinary, for the inspiration for this story, and for its sequel (hey, you knew there was going to be another one, right? Almost all the stuff I write is two-fers or trilogies). I don't know when I'm going to start writing it; probably in the next day or so if all goes well and the old think tank keeps working properly, and you should see the first chapter by the end of this week. So hopefully I will see you all then, and if not, well, I hope you all liked the story!
Sincerely,
Jaenelle