Hank McCoy took the glasses off his nose and rubbed his eyes. The computer screen's letters and symbols were blurring together, and the ache of his eyes was making it almost impossible to concentrate.
This disease is virulent, far too virulent. he thought, wearily. It has already started - three dead in Alberta, ten in Los Angeles, and those are only the reported figures. There are probably more, and spreading.
His warning to the Center for Disease Control had been largely unanswered - such a disease was simply too horrific to even consider, and their frantic attempts to control and quarantine were too little, too late. Once the parasite entered the atmosphere as it had, it was simply a matter of time before the average human life expectancy would be reduced to mere weeks - and in more concentrated areas, days.
The frightening - if not terrifying - aspect of parasite existing in every human gene had one extrordinary trait. It was a mutanegnic predator, a "learning" factory.
He had underestimated the tiny creature's incredible resiliance - and adaptablity.
It wasn't merely the activation of this microscopic assassin that was frightening, it was it's potential to become airborne, highly contaigious due to it's compatability.
One cure, even one treatment, would become useless in only hours.
It would quickly find the diseases virulent in areas viable food sources, rapidly growing in strength and virulence, geometrically, until only the immune mutant population survived.
The first victims had died only hours after the tiny protezoec virus - called rather cynically the x-o virus, and the people tending them were already beginning to fall.
In days, Los Angeles would lose half her population, Alberta suffering the same scant hours after the American City.
By the end of the week, CDI would have no choice but to quarentine not simply Los Angeles but all California.
Canada's rapid response to the virus had gained it days, but it too would find the medical facilites overwhelmed, the sick simply falling before the eyes of those dying of other disease and injury.
Hank could not bear any more, and a sick sense of loss filled him as he buried his furred nose against his folded arms.
And wept.
Ororo was seated on the floor in front of the restless Logan, who was slowly swirling finger-paints together with his fingers, eyes intent on his task.
He looked up at her once, gaze flickering with amber and golden in the light.
"You like blue? And yellow?"
Sky. Scent of clear-blowing wind, flickers of winter sky and gentle blues flickering on the ripple of a cool, deep brook. Spark. Eddy-sense of warmth and burning arcing down from the heavens, leaving crackling reds and golds, a den-warmth for sleep nearby.
She blinked, still unaccustomed to the power of those powerful surges that filled the senses and pressed against the mind.
Logan lifted a hand, batting her gently, a playful gesture.
Ororo laughed softly, aware that her nose was now a unique swirl of blue-yellow.
The golden eyes stared into her's, a firm and thoughtful gaze as he tilted his head back, drawing in air through his nose and clearly taking in the young woman's scent.
Sky. Free. Wind. Flickered against her conciousness, a flicker of her face tilted back, rapt, eyes closed, as rain-drenched wind swirled her nightdress around her, far above the ground.
Her dark, almond-brown skin hid the blush but not the rush of warm blood to her cheeks.
His hand came up, gently, knuckles running slowly down her cheek, fingertips light against her neck as he - petted her. A reassuring, soft touch.
Her skin seemed to spark with the lightning she knew so well, following the trail of his touch, as she stared up into his golden, wild, unfettered eyes.
They seemed to reflect her back into her own conciousness, showing a young woman with snow-white hair, worn soft and free as the wind, eyes that flickered like the blues of the cloud-drenched sky. Skin the color of almonds, scented of faint pine and distant streams, of secret flights and laughter as she danced on air and water.
She couldn't look away from that wild, honest gaze.
Ororo managed to whisper, "L-l..." But his finger, oddly graceful but strong, touched her lips.
Quiet. Share. Now. Soothing silence. Flicker of the comfort of the den, safety, calm.
For the next hour, they simply sat together, sharing the silence of a dawning understanding.
The computer bleeped.
Impossibly.
A match.
Hank sat up so fast that he knocked the mouse onto the floor, and extended a foot to whip it back up to a hand.
There was a way to slow - slow, perhaps even stop, but only slow at the moment - the protozoic demon loose in every living thing.
But the method made the blue-furred genius close his eyes in a different, more personal kind of pain.
"There is a way." Hank was telling a small gathering of the X-Men. Also present were Professor Xavier, Scott, and Jean. "But it is - very serious."
"If there's a way, we have to do it!" Jean's voice carried the strength of the desperate.
Well, that was fair.
They were desperate.
And running out of time.
Hank put down the sheet of paper of Xavier, watched as understanding dawned.
"Logan's immune system. We - use it to spread a carrier gene that will inhibit the growth of x-o. It is the only way, God help me. I have looked at this a thousand, ten thousand ways, and nothing else is even vaugely possible." A faint hope. "The Sh'iar?"
"I have contacted them." whispered Xavier. "They are...very reluctant to dispatch any aid unless we can insure their safety from this virus, and we cannot. It would appear we are own our own."
Jean looked distressed. "We have no other choice." she whispered.
"But...what about Logan?" Scott brought them back to the team-mate they were still unable to reach.
"The treatment would be - very difficult." Hank's head was bowed.
Scott's gaze was full of anguish. "We can't just..."
"If it is the entire human race, how can we hesitate?" Jean looked at Xavier for support.
Xavier's lashes were wet with unshed tears, but he whispered, "We have no choice. May God have mercy on us all. There is no more time."
Ororo was in her room, reading, when she heard the screams.
Horrible sounds, like throat-slit shrieks of a dying animal, one in horrible pain.
Throwing on her robe she dashed downstairs, following the sounds, throwing open the MedLab door, and halting in face-numb horror.
Jean's face was set, telekenetically forcing Logan into a life-support tube, tears on her cheeks, but exerting her power with fine control in attempts to control the wild thrashing of the Canadian mutant.
Moments later, the oxygen mask snapped over his face and he was restrained with adamantium bands, life-support activated with a whining gurgle, and Xavier contiuned to regard the trapped man, clearly telepathically restraining him from harming himself.
Hank's shoulders were shaking as he wept, forcing himself to hit the switch in front of him.
Scott had to look away, tears tracing down his cheeks.
The Wolverine screamed. Howled in agony, in terror.
Wild images, of men with sharp things that smelled of smugness and blood, one scratching on a metal board, of pain - PAIN! - burning in his bones! No!
FIRE! PAIN! the mental image-eddies were a shriek, claws of awareness slammed into a vunerable conciousness. Psycological agony, torture, words slamming into the wildly tottering mind.
Awareness!
MEMORY! It slammed into Logan with more force than any knife, any bullet, any violence.
NO! NO! NO! The negatives were frantic screeches, desperate attempts to hold onto himself.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!
Mental and physical, the howl shook the mansion as machines took the one tiny portion of his cells that could slow the virus, slamming needles and shunts deep into the struggling body of the Wolverine.
Pain. There was nothing but pain.
The golden eyes were wild, then feral, then filled with rage and murderous need.
Pack-betrayal.
No pack. No pack. Lone. Lone.
LONE! A defiant eddy-sensation-swirl-shriek of utter denial, of complete withrawal.
Ororo threw Jean aside, rushing to the tube, pressing her hand against the cold glass, screaming, "HOW COULD YOU??!!!" in a kind of insane rage she had never imagined.
She stared into Logan's agonized eyes, seeing the torment, the agony experianced now and forced back into his awareness, all at once, all without the mercy of lost memories hiding the agony.
His gaze saw her, wild and in pain and desperate, and she did not look away.
"Logan!" she cried, unaware of the tears that welled from her eyes and fell like bitter rain.
Clouds. Free. Free. Free.... Almost a moan, too much, too much pain. Too much fear. No more.
The agonizing process took only another few minutes, but in Logan's mind, years of agony passed, all burning with agonizing power in his mind.
With a gurgle, the liquid drained, the tube snapped open, disgorging the battered, empty-eyed Logan into Ororo's arms.
Going down to kneel, the limp body in her arms, wrapping her arms around him protectively, she snarled furiously at Scott, who had started forward, so filled with unfamiliar rage that she could not speak for a moment.
Looking into Logan's golden eyes, she saw emptiness.
Just emptiness.
The Wolverine had retreated to it's den.
"Oh, Goddess." she whispered, holding him against her, letting his face drop to her shoulder.
She looked up, eyes normally so white-blue that they seemed soft and calm as a summer sky, now sparked with golden-yellow, electric fury.
"Get away. All of you. Get away now." she whispered.
"Ororo...child..." began Xavier, hand outstretched to her, eyes pleading for an understanding she could not give.
"No. All of you GET OUT!" She rocked Logan's unmoving, limp body against her. "He's finally safe. He's gone to a safe place, and I don't know what to do now."
Only the pulse beating faintly in his neck proclaimed that the mutant known as Wolverine still lived, the faint breath was distant and almost inaudible.
Ororo held him, heard the door close, knew the others were outside, sharing their tears with one another, finding strength and reassurance there.
She stayed with Logan.
No-one had offered that same gesture to him.
And Ororo, Storm Goddess, mutant, Windrider, began to rock Logan unconciously, her shuddering voice singing softly, a song she had loved as a child. It came from somewhere deep within her, and she did not question it, only sang it to Logan with all her heart.
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away....