If you were Marvel, you'd have the rights to this. I'm not, so therefore, I don't.
Oh, the earlier chapters were written years ago, this is just a follow up.
The Healing Curse.
"Just that you've regained partial eye sight is nothing short of a miracle." The resident blue furred doctor remarks as he changes the bandages across the chest of the woman who lay in front of him.
"He knows I can see him?" She asks. Just months ago, she was beaten and left for dead. Her blood covered the walls of their new house as though it were muddy paint thrown carelessly by some vandal. Bits of her tissue clung tenaciously to her brand new white carpet, forever dying it a rainbow of colors, from pink to brick brown. That is until he had everything removed and hauled away. She was thin to start with, and she was so well toned, now, now her skin hangs off her as though it were an apron made of flesh. Her muscles have atrophied to the point that she looks skeletal, what's worse is that now she can see it.
"He knows." Beast breathes. He's known the two for quite some time, almost as though he's seen them grow up before his very eyes. The way the two danced around each other for years, their own separate failed relationships, the way they always found each other in the end, Beast watched it all, sometimes with a heavy heart. The two seemed to come into their own humanity through each other. "He loves you, I don't think you can avoid him forever."
"I'm not sure he does anymore." She looks away, her silky hair falling across her scarred face. She was beautiful once, and after the scars fade, after her body is repaired; she's assured that she will be again, there's much that can be done to help her. "He hasn't come to see me in weeks."
"How dare you even think such a thing! That man has killed for you!" Beast turns around to meet her eye to eye. "He doesn't come because he's ashamed! Because he blames himself for what happened to you, and you haven't done anything to convince him otherwise! You haven't done much more than lay there and feel sorry for yourself!" He snarled. "He needs you right now."
"What do you mean "Killed"? She hisses back. " And right now, not even being able to feed myself, having to rely on every blasted else for every blasted thing, I'm supposed to be sorry for being a little down in the dumps? I'm sorry I'm such a terrible burden on you but I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask to be crippled!"
"I'm sorry." He apologizes. "I didn't mean that so harshly." He sighs. Beast, Dr. McCoy knows this woman has been through much, perhaps much more than he himself could muster the strength to live through. She's had dozens of surgeries the last few months, and one more for tomorrow to replace the pins in an arm and leg.
"You still did not answer my question." She stares him down. Beast is notorious for subject change, should he find himself in an uncomfortable topic. "What happened, Hank?"
"I'm not confident that you are sufficiently recovered enough to hear this, one shock could relapse…" But he's cut off.
"You just got through telling me how sorry I'm feeling for myself, Hank. Don't be an enabler." If she could move her hand, she'd be holding his. She spent her life being the compassionate one, the one everybody else relied on. She can't be any of that now.
"He wanted to know what happened, what really happened, not the watered down, sugar coated version that was given to everyone else." Beast says as he looks away, pretending to be interested in an x-ray.
"And?" She insists. "I don't even remember it all." She doesn't, at least she doesn't think she does. So much of it is a blur of wood and pain, and that freshly painted white wall of hers. It hadn't even dried yet when her blood mingled with it.
"Oh, but you do." Beast fuddles with the black and white cellophane sheet. "Charles made sure to block them, so that they wouldn't consume you."
"What about my husband, Hank?" She stops him.
"He insisted Charles show him what you remembered." Beast pauses to think the easiest way to say this. "That man that you think doesn't love you anymore, is haunted by what he saw. He used every connection at his service to hunt your attacker down and brought him down." He breathes deeply. "It took quite a bit to cover it up and he's having a difficult time dealing with his emotions."
"I've never really seen him indulge in them very much." She says as she coughs, trying to clear the latest bronchiole infection away.
"Hmn... We may have to post pone your pin replacement if we can't break that fever." Beast absent-mindedly rubs his chin. "Ah, yes, as you were saying. No, only a few times. Your wedding, I believe to be one. Can you try to wiggle your big toe? I think I saw it move."
"Are you changing the subject, or truly interested?" She asks. Not because she cares, but as soon as she can wiggle a toe, she can start more rigorous therapy, and maybe go home, to her husband, to life.
"Both and neither. Now do it!" He demands.
She tries, but she can't. She can't even feel them. She can't feel the blue fuzz of Dr. McCoy's fingertips on them. She's so delicate right now that the gentlest of touches could break them. A break could cause yet another blood clot, another surgery, another month stuck in a hospital bed with tubes going every which way. The thought of it fails to find itself pleasant.
"Why can't I just go home?" She pleads as she tries to force herself to move.
"Charles feels it best you don't return to that particular house. I tend to concur." Beast replies as he attempts to manipulate her foot. "There's still blood flow and the skin is pink. I don't think this is permanent my dear."
"Why should you make that decision for me?" She challenges. "I've been an adult for quite some time."
"Yes, but here, you don't have any of your power. Even in your weakened state, should you be flooded with the memories Charles held back for you, you could snap and that would be cataclysmic." He cautions her. "There have been times before. And just as a matter of safety, being here lets me have you on an O.R. table in a minute. Your injuries have taken their toll on your heart, or have you forgotten?"
How could she forget the pain of her chest cracked open? How can she even ignore the ever-present itch of the disfigurement? How could she forget the worried look on her husband's face after she came through again? Her veins are starting to collapse because of the hundreds of needles that have been pushed in them, the drugs, blood transfusions, fluids, how could she forget?
"No, I haven't." She clears her throat, trying to breath through the thick mucus clogging her airways. She knows what's next, the mask for breathing treatments, the oxygen, and the terrible sleepless nights with somebody poking and prodding every couple hours. She knows that Beast can see the dark half moons under her eyes. He's not stupid. He also notices something else, the yellow tinge of her eyes and skin. Should she have been Kurt, this would have been different, but he knows that her liver has stopped functioning properly, yet another problem to deal with.
"I'm going to need more blood. I'm sorry." He says ruefully. "And a couple scans."
"Can you find him first?" She pleads. "You know how much I hate that machine."
"It is a little closed in, I agree, but being as I'm too big to fit, I cannot fully empathize." He jokes, trying to ease her anxiety. "I'll see if he can be located. None of us have seen him in two days. Charles sent him off on a mutant hunt."
Elsewhere in the Foothills of Salem
"John." The man speaks. "You didn't know what you were. It doesn't excuse what you allowed to happen to your sister, it doesn't excuse what you allowed to happen to my wife, but you can help. Show me what you gave your brother-in-law. Please show me what you made."
"Y' know, I always thought my sister was a freak. My parents loved her best; perhaps they were a little afraid of her. One time, I saw her completely change the color of a room just by thinking about it." John drawled sloshed.
"Yes, she could change the chemical makeup of anything she touched." The man informs him. "And you can create chemicals from almost nothing, and morph them into something completely new. Siblings often have complementary abilities."
"Do you have a sister or brother? Would you have done what I did?" John asks as he haunches over his brew. "I helped kill my sister out of jealousy and hate! My niece and nephew didn't deserve to lose their mother because I had to be better!"
"I'd rather not get into that." The man smirks. Just the thought of his family would be a study in itself. "Would you come with me? I need you to help save my wife."
"You know, he was always talking about you people over there. What freaks you are." John sneers, "I remember him talking about your wife. He was hot for her. Hate or lust, I don't care, but he talked about her."
"Quit while I'm sympathetic." The man warns.
"You killed him, didn't you?" John laughs. "I haven't heard scratch from him! Good for you." He drinks again. "I know at least a dozen other people who would have done the same thing. How did you do it?"
"I pushed his nose up into his brain." The man puts simply.
"Will you kill me?" John sobers up, dead serious. "I know you're a mutant, I know you've probably a dozen ways to kill a man. Why not use your powers?"
"My powers make too much a mess." The man swigs his beer. "And if you want me to, I will. Just save my wife."
"Deal." John agrees as he creates another draft. "Kill me the way I deserve to die."