I'm not even going to try and explain this chapter. ENJOY!
…or not…
Also, I would've had this chapter up sooner. But before I upload chapters for this story, I send them to my friend - who's a fan of the films - to edit them. But her computer had some power problems and suddenly crashed and it took a while for our IT teacher (it was her school laptop) to get it fixed. But...I'll always get a chapter up for you guys!
There were a lot of doctors and nurses giving Johnny and I weird looks as we walked into the hospital; of course it might have been the fact he has my snow jacket wrapped around his midsection and I was missing my jumper. I'm sure they've seen weirder things happen; especially in the emergency department.
We managed to find Reed and Sue in the restaurant where they were sharing a dinner. Wait, Reed and Sue together alone for the first time since their breakup two years ago?!
Ben, you're a genius.
Johnny called out to them to get their attention as we stumbled into the restaurant and they turned around to stare; giving us some not-so-friendly glares.
Reed…well, I didn't know how to explain his expression. He was torn between bewilderment and, actually, he was mostly bewildered by our current appearance.
Sue kept on glancing between the two of us before settling her eyes on me. Clearly, we'd be talking later, but right now, we have an explanation to give.
"We can explain this," Johnny promised.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that a young, ditzy waitress was being obvious in terms of checking out Johnny and I was not discrete in the glare I gave her for it. Johnny isn't officially back on the market…well, not yet, anyway.
Immediately, we launched into an explanation of what happened when we were on the mountain. The looks on their faces was horrifying, but not as horrifying as what they told us.
Sue had apparently turned invisible; she didn't know how she did it, but she was talking to Reed when it occurred. In her horror, she'd knocked over a very expensive bottle of wine and it would've crashed onto the floor if it weren't for Reed stretching out to grab it.
And when I say he stretched, I mean literally stretched.
It was then that we realized something important and it made us bolt out of the restaurant and race through the corridors.
"It has to be the cloud; it has fundamentally altered our DNA!" Sue argued.
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Reed immediately objected, "We need a massive amount of evidence before making that leap!"
"Hey, guys!" Johnny called.
We all glanced at him, and he grinned back in excitement at the small flame on his pointer finger. He clicked his fingers and the flames disappeared. He clicked them again and the flames instantly reappeared. Clicking one more time to rid himself of the flames, he said,
"Now picture that, but everywhere, it was everywhere," he couldn't keep the grin off his face as he shrugged wildly. "What?!"
Is that enough evidence for you, Reed?
"The cloud has fundamentally altered our DNA."
To my horror, Johnny was cackling in excitement; our DNA was altered in a freak cosmic storm and he's laughing about it? Does he seriously not understand the seriousness of the situation?
Then again, it's Johnny. I shouldn't be surprised about it.
"And you know what, guys? I think I was flying!" Johnny gushed excitedly.
"We need to find Ben," Reed interjected.
We all took off down the hallway, walking with hurried steps. When we reached his room, we heard groans of pain; massive pain. Worried, Reed began to try and open the door into his room but he had locked it. He immediately tried to find another way to open the door.
Sue and I would have helped, but we were too busy being annoyed by Johnny, who was continuing to click his fingers to make the flame disappear than reappear, the entire way here.
"I said cut it out, Johnny," Sue gritted, clearly annoyed.
"I think I'm getting the hang of it," Johnny objected.
I rolled my eyes. Johnny was like a little kid most of the time. He may have his mature moments, but most of the times, well, let's just say that if we did end up married, he would be living proof that every woman's oldest kid is her husband.
In the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw a clear vase filled with flowers and decorative pebbles of assorted colours and water.
Concentrating, I used my hands to see if I could control the water. Surprisingly, it came out of the vase but it was still as though it had a lot of water left.
I dunked what I had onto Johnny, as was wanted, on his hand where he was literally playing with fire. Sue, having never seen my powers in action until now, looked at me in amazement, ignoring Johnny's splutters in protest.
"Did you just do that?!" Sue asked, astonished and amazed.
"Yeah, I discovered that by freezing Johnny in an impromptu Jacuzzi he made with his powers," I revealed with a smirk.
Reed cut in, "Sue, do you know the code?!"
Right, Ben locked himself in his hospital room and he is lying on his bed withering in pain because of our cloud 'fundamentally altering our DNA', as Sue and Reed had put it just moments before.
Either way, more important situation occurring.
Then we heard a metal clang, it almost sounded as though the hospital bed had given out underneath Ben.
"Hey, Ben!" Reed banged once more on the door. "Open up, you alright, Ben?!"
Meanwhile, Sue was continuously trying to type the code to the room into the keypad. Every attempt, however, was met with a beep that indicated that the door would not open.
"Does anybody have the key to these doors?!" Johnny shouted down the empty hallway. No one called back amidst the eerie silence.
He groaned in frustration and turned to us, "Just break the glass! It can't be that thick!"
I would have grabbed an object nearby useful for the job to do just that. However, Reed stopped me.
Well, he didn't physically tell me to stop, but what he did made me.
He knelt before the door and lined his hand up on the floor to go underneath the small crack. Immediately, I went to object; there was no way Reed's hand would fit under the crack.
But it did, it flattened as it went through the small gap in the door.
Sue, Johnny and I watched as he got a good length of his arm through before stretching his hand towards the door handle. With ease, he reached the lock and turned it. Soon enough, we heard a beep from the keypad next to the door, telling us that it was unlocked and we could enter.
I watched as Reed's hand came out and expanded to normal size as he stood. Sue and I were too stunned to comment on this. Johnny, however, had two words to say,
"That's gross."
BANG!
That bang caused us to race into Ben's room however when we got in there, the damage was already done.
The bed, as I suspected from the earlier bang, had given way and was nothing but a pile of metal on the floor. The monitors were beeping to symbolize that it wasn't picking up readings from the patient. I don't know if Ben had detached them willingly or if the monitors fell off of him.
But one thing that we did notice was the massive hole where the wall once stood.
And Ben wasn't here.
"Ben?" Reed called as we entered.
"Look, look, look, look!" Johnny earned our attention as he walked to the hole and pointed to something, "What is that thing?"
I focused my attention to where Johnny was pointing. There was a large, shadowy figure in the forest that surrounded the hospital. The figure was loud and strong and he was running away. Immediately, I knew it was Ben. I don't know how he did the damage, but I knew it was him.
"What's going on?"
We turned around to see Victor standing in the doorway. Normally, I'd be eager to get away from him but I wasn't this time. For one thing, I couldn't escape from him and another thing, he may actually help us find Ben.
"What happened in here?" Victor demanded as he surveyed the damage.
"Victor, are you feeling alright?" Sue asked, concerned for his well-being.
"I'm fine, just a few scrapes," Victor shrugged.
It was true, he did have a scrape or two. There was one prominent on his head that was being held together by two small Band-Aids. The wound was still bumpy, as it is a few days after the accident.
Bet that would make him annoyed because of how conscious he is about appearances.
"Ben did this," Reed began to explain.
"What do you mean?" Victor wanted to know.
I decided to explain, being the only one in the room with a medical degree, "He was struck as he was coming back into the airlock and he was still inside the airlock when the storm hit the space station. He got a larger dose than the rest of us, so he's had a different reaction to the cloud."
When Victor still looked confused, Sue said, "We've all had different symptoms."
"Symptoms?" Victor repeated, concern laced in his normally cold voice.
But I didn't know the reason behind the sudden concern. Was he showing real concern about our health and well-being? Or was the concern for how it will affect him?
"Victor, I should have…," Sue began.
I knew what she was going to say. She probably had a date with Victor and instead, she ended up in the cafeteria with Reed. No doubt, because of Ben's interference because he discretely told me before the launch that he wanted to see if he could get Reed and Sue back together. Honestly, I wanted that too but I don't think Victor would be happy with that, even though Sue obviously still wants Reed.
"Just find him," Victor dismissed her before walking away.
"Any ideas as to where the big guy's going?" Johnny asked, bringing us back to the real concern at hand.
Nobody had an answer. Where would he go?
Then I saw it; the photo among the rubble. I picked it up and observed it was the photo of him and Debbie he showed me before the launch, the same photo he kept in that notebook he always carried.
"He's gone home," I answered, holding up the photo.
"What happened in here?" a nurse screeched as she walked in.
"Ben escaped, he's had a reaction to the cloud exposure," I explained briskly, the four of us preparing to leave; "We have to go find him."
"Not tonight," the nurse objected, "You haven't been discharged yet, I can't let you leave."
"Actually, you can't stop us," I retorted, "Doctors and nurses cannot make someone stay in hospital against their will. If they believe they are fine, they can discharge themselves at any time. All they can do is make them sign a waiver that states that the patient is leaving against doctor's advice and if the patient is seriously injured or killed after the discharge, the hospital cannot be held legally responsible."
"How would you know this?" the nurse scoffed, "You're too ditzy to be a doctor."
"Here we go," Johnny muttered.
"Excuse me? I'm 25 years old and I am already in my second year of residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. And yes, considering you have to do four years of pre-med and four years of med school before you can start your residency, it means I graduated high school when I was 15. When sixteen-year-olds were going to parties every weekend experimenting with drugs and alcohol, having sex and doing other things they shouldn't be doing, I was attending Harvard University. I was studying for my pre-med classes and when I could, instead of partying, I went home to my family," I retorted, before giving her a once-over, "And I bet that the only reason you went into nursing is so you can find a rich doctor to woo and marry. It's people like you that sicken me."
"Be that as it may," the nurse said coolly, "I am still not allowed to let you leave. You are still in quarantine and Mr. Von Doom has said that you are forbidden from leaving the hospital grounds until you are given the all-clear by doctors he has employed. You and Mr. Storm already broke that rule when you went off into the mountains."
I clenched my wrist, ready to take a swing at the bitch that should not have passed med-school. However, I felt a hand grab both of my wrists. Looking behind me, I saw that it was Johnny who was restraining me. Reed was standing there unsure of what to make out of this situation; Sue was ready to attack the bitch.
"Back to your rooms, and I will be posting security outside your doors to make sure you don't leave. Besides, Dr. Frazer, you don't want to get too hot, wouldn't want you to melt to death," the nurse smirked evilly before walking away.
"Fuck her!" I cursed, shrugging out of Johnny's grip before glaring at him coldly, "Why didn't you let me hit her?"
"Because you don't want an assault charge," Johnny said calmly.
"Leave her with me then," Sue smirked.
I would have been happy to do that, but we had another pressing matter to deal with. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to leave because of the pathetic excuse of a nurse.
But as soon as daylight broke, we were going out to find Ben.