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xp_logsRemy is brought home, and the team swings into action.
The medlab communications system crackled into life, while at the same time the computers began scrolling medical information, responding to voice recognition commands. Madelyn's words were rapid-fire, sometimes hard to hear over the sound of engines and other voices in the background, but she rattled off information as thoroughly as possible.
"We've got him, but it doesn't look good - I think 'mangled's' as good a word as any. Huge amounts of blunt force trauma. His pelvis has been basically pulverised and his left leg's shattered in several places. I've had to clamp the femoral artery there to stop the bleeding and I'm pumping in fluid as fast as I can - Jake, you are not fucking well going to pass out on me, I need you to hold that IV bag up, all right? - but he's got some major internal injuries.
"Pretty much anything under the pelvis has suffered serious trauma, and his left lung's... well, 'shredded' is the only word I can think of - looks like he's had nails fired into that side of his chest as well as a puncture wound. Something blunt - I think it was his staff. The left lung's collapsed and I've had to intubate the good lung, but he's still losing blood and he doesn't have much left in him to lose; fuck knows how much he lost lying there. ETA's about thirty minutes - I'll hand him over to you three since he's going to need all of you on it. This fucking government crap... we couldn't take him to a hospital in Florida, not with his fucked-up blood chemistry and the plastic on his bones. Moira, you'd better get out everything you've got on Remy's bloodwork, you're going to need it."
There was a pause, and the sound of frantic activity, with Madelyn's voice barking out instructions like "Hold this," "Pass me that wadding... no, not that, the one next to it," "Dammit, he's choking on his own blood, help me sit him up a little." Then Madelyn returned her attention to the comms. "Guys, better get ready for the worst. We've got septic contamination that I can't even begin to deal with, he's on pure oxygen and still struggling to breathe, and I have no idea why he's alive even now."
~~~
The MedLab was barely controlled chaos as Moira, Jean and Hank scrambled to perform surgery on the incoming Remy. Due to Clarice's training as an EMT, she was currently being radioed to "Get her purple butt down to surgery ASAP". This was not, Moira thought desperatly, knowing that the 'bird had landed, what she normally did.
Normally, she was in Clarice's place but they needed all hands on deck, and her particular knowledge of what had been done to him in the Lost Boys program. A life, Remy's life, was on the line and if she didn't snap to it...
Jean and Hank rushed to meet the incoming patient as Moira rushed to
finish set up and scrub up. Madelyn had handed over to them at the hanger, giving them the rundown on what she'd found before going to find Kurt to bamf her to the hospital to try and beg extra blood for transfusions - there weren't enough donors on campus of the right type. She'd replaced the displaced eyeball and put a gauze patch over it, as well as bandaging up the worst of the lacerations to stop further blood loss - those would hold for now. More important were the major internal injuries.
They bustled the trolley into the surgical theatre, Clarice there finalising preparations. She gasped as Remy's bloody form was brought in, but covered well, handing Jean a pair of scissors before she even asked for them to cut the remnants of Remy's clothes off him.
"Thank you," Jean murmured, before lifting Remy infinitely carefully from the trolley onto the operating table with her powers. Clarice bustled forward to get the trolley out of the way whilst the red-headed doctor began slicing deftly up the remaining whole leg of Remy's pants.
"Blood pressure's low and still dropping," Hank said, hanging up the IV bag that had come in already attached with one foot whilst attaching the automatic blood pressure cuff. "Moira, if you could bring us two units of Remy's blood from storage?"
"On my way," Moira's voice crackled through the intercom.
"We'll need to lavage the abdominal cavity," Jean said, investigating the pulped mess that was Remy's pelvic area. "He'll be going septic for sure with the damage I'm seeing to his intestines." She winced as she got a look at his left leg. "Hell, the only thing holding this leg on's the plastic bonded to his bones." She noticed his clenched hand, and carefully pried the three unbroken fingers open - in his bloody palm was a safety deposit box key, clutched so tightly it had driven into the skin in some places. Jean gently removed it, and beckoned Clarice forward. "Clean this off and put it somewhere safe," she instructed, laying the key with a clink in the metal bowl Clarice proffered automatically.
"I'll put it in the cabinet we use for property," Clarice promised, and 'ported away.
"I've got metal fragments in his left lung - Maddie was right about the nails." Hank was examining the series of punctures to Remy's chest. "Some of these are perilously close to his spine - Jean, my dear, do you think you can use your talents to remove them?"
"I can try. Switch places?" Jean looked up as Moira hurried in, two bags of blood in hand. The Scot expertly put in another IV line and started the first bag transfusing. There was a flash as Clarice reappeared.
"I've got his blood work on the screen," Moira continued, nodding up at the flat screen that occupied a large part of one wall - it meant every patient's file was easily accessible. "Th' only way he survived this long is because of the chemicals th' bastards who made him pumped intae him." She took over the checking of Remy's vitals smoothly, freeing Hank to change places with Jean. "Pressure's 90 over 60 and dropping. Pulse is getting thready tae."
"He's lost too much blood," Jean muttered, trying to 'feel' with her TK the metal shards Hank had mentioned. Carefully, using all her concentration, she began to gently pull the first of the nails back out through the entry wound.
At the same time, Hank was making an incision in Remy's abdomen. "Clarice, the sterile saline solution, if you please," he murmured, taking the tube Clarice handed him and beginning to flush out the contaminants.
"How are we going to fix this?" Clarice asked, taking in the unnatural lumps and contusions and fragments of bone poking through the skin. "He's like a bad puzzle. Who could do th--"
Her words were interrupted by the shrill pinging of the heart monitor, and Moira's urgent "He's goin' tachy!"
"Dammit!" It was said by at least two of the four people in the room.
"Give me two ccs of Lidocaine," Jean said, holding her hand out for the syringe as Moira handed it over, injecting it directly into the IV line. All three doctors watched the monitor anxiously, but the light continued its erratic path. "Come on..."
The irregular peaks and troughs on the monitor flattened, became a single line, the alarm changing accordingly.
"He's arrestin'!"
Jean moved to begin CPR, hampered by the unyielding plastic lacing Remy's rib cage. "Oh, for the love of... Hank, we need to crack him and we've got this damn plastic to go through. There's no way we can shock him with all this metal in him - we'll fry his spine at the very least."
"Get the saw, I'll take over here," Hank instructed, taking Jean's place and pushing down on Remy's chest with slightly more success due to his superior strength. He paused long enough to let Moira swab Remy's sternum from throat to diaphragm with bactine.
"Saw," Jean prompted, handing it over. With the plastic they'd need Hank to do the cutting. The saw whined, a high-pitched sound that drowned out even the drawn-out chime of the heart monitor. It bucked and jerked in Hank's hand's as it fought the substance coating Remy's skeleton but Hank held it steady, growling softly under his breath.
At last he was through, and handing the saw to Clarice, he pried Remy's ribcage apart with two huge hands with a cracking noise as several ribs broke. Immediately he reached into the bloody chest cavity and started carefully squeezing Remy's heart. "Give him norepinepherine and watch his brain activity, Moira," he said, mindful of the claws tipping his fingers. Jean, get the rest of this metal out of him."
"Pressure's still dropping," Moira said grimly.
"I"m losing telepathic presence too," Jean added, injecting the new drug into the line. "Hank..."
"I know," he said softly, but still continuing his manual pumping of Remy's heart. Clarice looked from one doctor to the other, lips compressed in order to stop herself saying something stupid. This was the Genius Medlab Team, they didn't give up. But then Moira spoke again:
"I've lost brain activity, pupils're unresponsive, pressure's down tae nothin'," She took a deep breath. "I think we've lost' him."
***
"No."
The denial came from the door where, unnoticed in the drama, a too-thin, too-pale figure dressed all in black stood. There was no emotion in the single word, just a flat refusal to agree with what was going on in front of her.
"Amanda, lass, ye can't be in here without a mask an' gown. 'Tis a sterile environment," Moira began, trying to soften her words for the sake of the girl, but brooking no argument either. What she got wasn't an argument. Not exactly.
"I can save him." Ignoring Moira's admonishment and everything they'd taught her during her time in medlab, Amanda came into the surgical theatre, boots ringing on the floor. "Just get out of my way and I can save him."
"He's dying," Jean told her bluntly, moving to intercept her while behind her, Hank continued to carefully squeeze Remy's heart in an effort to ensure oxygen reached the man's brain. "The damage is too much. You don't have the power to heal this."
"That's what you think," Amanda turned cold blue eyes on Jean, refusing to back down under the older woman's glare. "Get out of my way."
"Amanda, even if you could save him, the cost to you would be too much. As I understand it, the balance would demand your death." Hank's eyes above the mask were concerned, but no less stern than his colleagues. "We cannot allow..."
"Who said anything about 'allowing' me t' do anything?" Amanda retorted sharply, emotion entering her voice for the first time. Anger, frustration, irritation. Her eyes glittered icily as she took in the opposition she was facing. "Fine," she said at last. "We do this the hard way then."
She gestured, a dismissive flick of her hand, and Jean and Moira found themselves pushed aside, Hank shoved firmly back from the table. Jean tried to use her TK to counter Amanda's spell, but unlike Nathan she hadn't worked with Amanda's version of TK before - her power slipped off the unseen force with a crackle of interference.
"Clarice, get her out of her," Moira barked to the other girl, watching the scene unfolding open-mouthed. Clarice nodded, but before the teleporter could budge, she was grabbed by the same spell and frozen in place.
"Now, bloody well stay put an' let me work, all right?" Amanda told them, almost scoldingly, and it was that reaction, as much as the vocal mannerisms and body language, that told all concerned that this wasn't mind-control or evil twins or shapeshifters - this was Amanda. Who had, apparently Had Enough of holding back.
"She can't hold us all and try to heal Remy," Jean murmured to the other three as Amanda approached Remy, almost seeming to forget them now they were out of the way."When she has to let go, Clarice, go get Nathan. I'll hold onto her."
"Shouldn't we let her fix Remy first?" Clarice asked, eyes glued to the scene unfolding in front of them.
There was a pause, the doctors exchanging meaningful looks. Clarice had worked with trauma victims, she wasn't stupid... but there was a difference between an unknown drink driver and someone you lived with. Denial was a powerful force.
"She can't, Clarice," Moira said, her whisper regretful. "Not even Amanda's magic can help Remy now."
"Maybe someone should tell her that, then," Clarice replied, still staring at Amanda as she stood by the operating table, looking down at the ruin of muscle and bone that comprised Remy's body.
Bandages covered the ruined eye and the more minor lacerations, but with his chest cavity gaping open displaying shredded organs in all their gory glory, there was no pretending things were any less serious than they were. And yet Amanda's face was impassive, almost stony as she raised her hands, palms facing down over his opened chest. Golden light poured from her hands as she cast the spell, not even pretending to mouth the words this time. The light spilled into Remy's chest, repairing torn tissues and blood vessels, regenerating damaged organs, forcing displaced muscle to return to where it belonged. The effort was enormous on top of what she was expending on holding the medlab staff still - her vision blurred, her temples started pounding - but she held her ground, steady as a rock. She might have been sculpted from marble, so still and remote was she.
The worst of the damage to his upper chest healing, she moved onto his abdomen, countering the the infection, healing the perforated intestines and bladder and regenerating the liver. She'd explained to Hank once that the healing spell merely sped up the body's natural processes - if that was the case, this time she was pushing them into hyperdrive. The shattered pelvis was more difficult, fragments of bone too dense for her to manipulate easily... She did her best, using the TK spell to fit the pieces together and then the healing spell to encourage them to knit, but no more than that. The hip was the same, too damaged to just wave the injury away... Sweat was rolling down her face, stinging her eyes, and a tremor had started in her hands and arms, gradually spreading to her entire body. And still Remy's heart refused to beat, the monitors showing a single flat line, the dull tone of the continuous alarm its own particular death knell. The glow was fading as she pushed the magic to her limits, the power she held running dry.
Amanda didn't see or hear any of it. Instead her ears were filled with a wry Cajun accent, her mind's eye recalling every meeting, every moment, the bad as well as the good. Remy had always been straight with her, he'd never pretended to be anything more than he was, had expected her to do her best but also to remain true to herself... He'd tried so hard, done so much to keep them safe, and still he thought he was a monster, was ignored and shunned by most of the residents. Anger flared up in her again that it should end like this, that he be struck down by the woman he'd worshipped. If he died, there'd be no-one to call her 'chere', no strong arm to hold her up or cutting sarcasm to verbally spar with. He'd die, believing it was his due, his punishment, and she wouldn't even be able to smack him across the head and tell him he was being a plonker...
The magic stuttered and failed, and Amanda's eyes snapped open.
"No," she repeated, and before any of the others could move, she reached out with her mutant power and pulled. Magic was energy conversion, Forge had been right about that. But it had taken Selene to show her that any energy would work, as long as it was powerful enough. And there wasn't anything more powerful than life itself.
And that was what she was drawing on now.
Jean staggered slightly, feeling... She didn't know what it was, not in words. All she knew was this terrible tug, a pulling at her which left her weak and steadily getting weaker. In an inescapable flash of understanding, Jean saw just how this could end and the terror that she would lose everything, again, gripped her.
It was like Moira had suddenly gone without a good night's sleep in a couple of days and she shook her head to clear the sudden vertigo. "Wha' th' bloody hell?" she mouthed, focusing her eyes once again on the horrific scene before her.
Tommy sighed lightly as he turned a page with his good hand. Not that he *wanted* to accept anything from this household of freaks, but the big hairy freak had left his book down here. With nothing else really to do and he really didn't want to talk to anybody (probably trying to figure out the best ways to torture him for what he did to their "precious students"), Tommy had started reading it, from the beginning.
Suddenly the words on the pages began to blur. Tommy blinked his eyes but the words didn't get any clearer. In fact, his head began spinning, like all the energy he had manged to build up in the short time he'd been awake was being drained.
Then it abruptly stopped and everything was back to normal. Now Tommy blinked in surprised as he looked around the room. Shrugging, he went back to his book, making a mental note to mention it to the freakish doctors (though the red head was *hot*) when one of them came to check on him. Probably developing some new power that could cause even more damage to the world than they had already inflicted...
Hank staggered, his vision going a little blurry. The sudden drain left him dizzy and unsteady, and... he couldn't put his hands down, he remembered at the last moment. Gloves. Sterile. No contamination. And Amanda's spell holding him in place, thankfully, because as topheavy as he was, the dizziness would have tipped him right off his feet if he hadn't been held by something. And then he would have had to scrub again, and they didn't have the time.
Clarice felt like she was going to throw up, her throat spasming, but she couldn't move to hurl somewhere else, fortuantly nothing was coming up. "Urk," she swallowed hard, trying to keep everything down as she stood poised with the next instrument she thought they would need. All she could do was watch.
Amanda ignored the reactions around her, divorcing herself from the fact her 'power source' were friends, teachers, a patient, family. And through the link, a love lost. That part would come later - all that mattered now was getting Remy's heart to beat, his lungs to breathe. "Live you fuckin' cocky bastard," she growled, and shoved everything she had into his still-gaping chest. Remy's body convulsed, back arching and limbs flailing, and in the seconds that followed the spell holding the others motionless unravelled and almost in unison they began to lunge for Amanda and their patient...
...and then a single 'ping' broke the charged atmosphere. It was followed four seconds later by another, and then another, steadily building up into a rhythm. Inside Remy's chest cavity his beating heart quivered slightly, and there was a gurgling rasp that indicated his lungs were trying to inflate.
"There." Amanda's voice was flat with tiredness, but she was still on her feet, shoulders defiantly unbowed. The hollows in her too-thin face had filled out slightly, her skin alabaster pale. "Your turn," she told the others, and without waiting for a response turned on her heel and left.
Hank. already inspecting Remy's injuries, let out a disbelieving noise. "The internal damage, the infection... it's not completely healed, but this is incredible, even compared to the data we have on her healing before..." He shook his head, then stopped the movement as it prompted another wave of vertigo. "What did she do?"
"Time for questions later," Moira told him quietly. "Let's close the lad up and get him comfortable. We'll deal with Amanda - and these new powers of hers - then."
***
Deep in the bayou, shrouded in the darkness of the cabin, a figure stirred and opened her eyes. The whites shone in the mirk, outlining the depths even against the blackness. They hardened, and underlined the deep whisper.
"Oh childe. What have jah done..."
The medlab communications system crackled into life, while at the same time the computers began scrolling medical information, responding to voice recognition commands. Madelyn's words were rapid-fire, sometimes hard to hear over the sound of engines and other voices in the background, but she rattled off information as thoroughly as possible.
"We've got him, but it doesn't look good - I think 'mangled's' as good a word as any. Huge amounts of blunt force trauma. His pelvis has been basically pulverised and his left leg's shattered in several places. I've had to clamp the femoral artery there to stop the bleeding and I'm pumping in fluid as fast as I can - Jake, you are not fucking well going to pass out on me, I need you to hold that IV bag up, all right? - but he's got some major internal injuries.
"Pretty much anything under the pelvis has suffered serious trauma, and his left lung's... well, 'shredded' is the only word I can think of - looks like he's had nails fired into that side of his chest as well as a puncture wound. Something blunt - I think it was his staff. The left lung's collapsed and I've had to intubate the good lung, but he's still losing blood and he doesn't have much left in him to lose; fuck knows how much he lost lying there. ETA's about thirty minutes - I'll hand him over to you three since he's going to need all of you on it. This fucking government crap... we couldn't take him to a hospital in Florida, not with his fucked-up blood chemistry and the plastic on his bones. Moira, you'd better get out everything you've got on Remy's bloodwork, you're going to need it."
There was a pause, and the sound of frantic activity, with Madelyn's voice barking out instructions like "Hold this," "Pass me that wadding... no, not that, the one next to it," "Dammit, he's choking on his own blood, help me sit him up a little." Then Madelyn returned her attention to the comms. "Guys, better get ready for the worst. We've got septic contamination that I can't even begin to deal with, he's on pure oxygen and still struggling to breathe, and I have no idea why he's alive even now."
~~~
The MedLab was barely controlled chaos as Moira, Jean and Hank scrambled to perform surgery on the incoming Remy. Due to Clarice's training as an EMT, she was currently being radioed to "Get her purple butt down to surgery ASAP". This was not, Moira thought desperatly, knowing that the 'bird had landed, what she normally did.
Normally, she was in Clarice's place but they needed all hands on deck, and her particular knowledge of what had been done to him in the Lost Boys program. A life, Remy's life, was on the line and if she didn't snap to it...
Jean and Hank rushed to meet the incoming patient as Moira rushed to
finish set up and scrub up. Madelyn had handed over to them at the hanger, giving them the rundown on what she'd found before going to find Kurt to bamf her to the hospital to try and beg extra blood for transfusions - there weren't enough donors on campus of the right type. She'd replaced the displaced eyeball and put a gauze patch over it, as well as bandaging up the worst of the lacerations to stop further blood loss - those would hold for now. More important were the major internal injuries.
They bustled the trolley into the surgical theatre, Clarice there finalising preparations. She gasped as Remy's bloody form was brought in, but covered well, handing Jean a pair of scissors before she even asked for them to cut the remnants of Remy's clothes off him.
"Thank you," Jean murmured, before lifting Remy infinitely carefully from the trolley onto the operating table with her powers. Clarice bustled forward to get the trolley out of the way whilst the red-headed doctor began slicing deftly up the remaining whole leg of Remy's pants.
"Blood pressure's low and still dropping," Hank said, hanging up the IV bag that had come in already attached with one foot whilst attaching the automatic blood pressure cuff. "Moira, if you could bring us two units of Remy's blood from storage?"
"On my way," Moira's voice crackled through the intercom.
"We'll need to lavage the abdominal cavity," Jean said, investigating the pulped mess that was Remy's pelvic area. "He'll be going septic for sure with the damage I'm seeing to his intestines." She winced as she got a look at his left leg. "Hell, the only thing holding this leg on's the plastic bonded to his bones." She noticed his clenched hand, and carefully pried the three unbroken fingers open - in his bloody palm was a safety deposit box key, clutched so tightly it had driven into the skin in some places. Jean gently removed it, and beckoned Clarice forward. "Clean this off and put it somewhere safe," she instructed, laying the key with a clink in the metal bowl Clarice proffered automatically.
"I'll put it in the cabinet we use for property," Clarice promised, and 'ported away.
"I've got metal fragments in his left lung - Maddie was right about the nails." Hank was examining the series of punctures to Remy's chest. "Some of these are perilously close to his spine - Jean, my dear, do you think you can use your talents to remove them?"
"I can try. Switch places?" Jean looked up as Moira hurried in, two bags of blood in hand. The Scot expertly put in another IV line and started the first bag transfusing. There was a flash as Clarice reappeared.
"I've got his blood work on the screen," Moira continued, nodding up at the flat screen that occupied a large part of one wall - it meant every patient's file was easily accessible. "Th' only way he survived this long is because of the chemicals th' bastards who made him pumped intae him." She took over the checking of Remy's vitals smoothly, freeing Hank to change places with Jean. "Pressure's 90 over 60 and dropping. Pulse is getting thready tae."
"He's lost too much blood," Jean muttered, trying to 'feel' with her TK the metal shards Hank had mentioned. Carefully, using all her concentration, she began to gently pull the first of the nails back out through the entry wound.
At the same time, Hank was making an incision in Remy's abdomen. "Clarice, the sterile saline solution, if you please," he murmured, taking the tube Clarice handed him and beginning to flush out the contaminants.
"How are we going to fix this?" Clarice asked, taking in the unnatural lumps and contusions and fragments of bone poking through the skin. "He's like a bad puzzle. Who could do th--"
Her words were interrupted by the shrill pinging of the heart monitor, and Moira's urgent "He's goin' tachy!"
"Dammit!" It was said by at least two of the four people in the room.
"Give me two ccs of Lidocaine," Jean said, holding her hand out for the syringe as Moira handed it over, injecting it directly into the IV line. All three doctors watched the monitor anxiously, but the light continued its erratic path. "Come on..."
The irregular peaks and troughs on the monitor flattened, became a single line, the alarm changing accordingly.
"He's arrestin'!"
Jean moved to begin CPR, hampered by the unyielding plastic lacing Remy's rib cage. "Oh, for the love of... Hank, we need to crack him and we've got this damn plastic to go through. There's no way we can shock him with all this metal in him - we'll fry his spine at the very least."
"Get the saw, I'll take over here," Hank instructed, taking Jean's place and pushing down on Remy's chest with slightly more success due to his superior strength. He paused long enough to let Moira swab Remy's sternum from throat to diaphragm with bactine.
"Saw," Jean prompted, handing it over. With the plastic they'd need Hank to do the cutting. The saw whined, a high-pitched sound that drowned out even the drawn-out chime of the heart monitor. It bucked and jerked in Hank's hand's as it fought the substance coating Remy's skeleton but Hank held it steady, growling softly under his breath.
At last he was through, and handing the saw to Clarice, he pried Remy's ribcage apart with two huge hands with a cracking noise as several ribs broke. Immediately he reached into the bloody chest cavity and started carefully squeezing Remy's heart. "Give him norepinepherine and watch his brain activity, Moira," he said, mindful of the claws tipping his fingers. Jean, get the rest of this metal out of him."
"Pressure's still dropping," Moira said grimly.
"I"m losing telepathic presence too," Jean added, injecting the new drug into the line. "Hank..."
"I know," he said softly, but still continuing his manual pumping of Remy's heart. Clarice looked from one doctor to the other, lips compressed in order to stop herself saying something stupid. This was the Genius Medlab Team, they didn't give up. But then Moira spoke again:
"I've lost brain activity, pupils're unresponsive, pressure's down tae nothin'," She took a deep breath. "I think we've lost' him."
***
"No."
The denial came from the door where, unnoticed in the drama, a too-thin, too-pale figure dressed all in black stood. There was no emotion in the single word, just a flat refusal to agree with what was going on in front of her.
"Amanda, lass, ye can't be in here without a mask an' gown. 'Tis a sterile environment," Moira began, trying to soften her words for the sake of the girl, but brooking no argument either. What she got wasn't an argument. Not exactly.
"I can save him." Ignoring Moira's admonishment and everything they'd taught her during her time in medlab, Amanda came into the surgical theatre, boots ringing on the floor. "Just get out of my way and I can save him."
"He's dying," Jean told her bluntly, moving to intercept her while behind her, Hank continued to carefully squeeze Remy's heart in an effort to ensure oxygen reached the man's brain. "The damage is too much. You don't have the power to heal this."
"That's what you think," Amanda turned cold blue eyes on Jean, refusing to back down under the older woman's glare. "Get out of my way."
"Amanda, even if you could save him, the cost to you would be too much. As I understand it, the balance would demand your death." Hank's eyes above the mask were concerned, but no less stern than his colleagues. "We cannot allow..."
"Who said anything about 'allowing' me t' do anything?" Amanda retorted sharply, emotion entering her voice for the first time. Anger, frustration, irritation. Her eyes glittered icily as she took in the opposition she was facing. "Fine," she said at last. "We do this the hard way then."
She gestured, a dismissive flick of her hand, and Jean and Moira found themselves pushed aside, Hank shoved firmly back from the table. Jean tried to use her TK to counter Amanda's spell, but unlike Nathan she hadn't worked with Amanda's version of TK before - her power slipped off the unseen force with a crackle of interference.
"Clarice, get her out of her," Moira barked to the other girl, watching the scene unfolding open-mouthed. Clarice nodded, but before the teleporter could budge, she was grabbed by the same spell and frozen in place.
"Now, bloody well stay put an' let me work, all right?" Amanda told them, almost scoldingly, and it was that reaction, as much as the vocal mannerisms and body language, that told all concerned that this wasn't mind-control or evil twins or shapeshifters - this was Amanda. Who had, apparently Had Enough of holding back.
"She can't hold us all and try to heal Remy," Jean murmured to the other three as Amanda approached Remy, almost seeming to forget them now they were out of the way."When she has to let go, Clarice, go get Nathan. I'll hold onto her."
"Shouldn't we let her fix Remy first?" Clarice asked, eyes glued to the scene unfolding in front of them.
There was a pause, the doctors exchanging meaningful looks. Clarice had worked with trauma victims, she wasn't stupid... but there was a difference between an unknown drink driver and someone you lived with. Denial was a powerful force.
"She can't, Clarice," Moira said, her whisper regretful. "Not even Amanda's magic can help Remy now."
"Maybe someone should tell her that, then," Clarice replied, still staring at Amanda as she stood by the operating table, looking down at the ruin of muscle and bone that comprised Remy's body.
Bandages covered the ruined eye and the more minor lacerations, but with his chest cavity gaping open displaying shredded organs in all their gory glory, there was no pretending things were any less serious than they were. And yet Amanda's face was impassive, almost stony as she raised her hands, palms facing down over his opened chest. Golden light poured from her hands as she cast the spell, not even pretending to mouth the words this time. The light spilled into Remy's chest, repairing torn tissues and blood vessels, regenerating damaged organs, forcing displaced muscle to return to where it belonged. The effort was enormous on top of what she was expending on holding the medlab staff still - her vision blurred, her temples started pounding - but she held her ground, steady as a rock. She might have been sculpted from marble, so still and remote was she.
The worst of the damage to his upper chest healing, she moved onto his abdomen, countering the the infection, healing the perforated intestines and bladder and regenerating the liver. She'd explained to Hank once that the healing spell merely sped up the body's natural processes - if that was the case, this time she was pushing them into hyperdrive. The shattered pelvis was more difficult, fragments of bone too dense for her to manipulate easily... She did her best, using the TK spell to fit the pieces together and then the healing spell to encourage them to knit, but no more than that. The hip was the same, too damaged to just wave the injury away... Sweat was rolling down her face, stinging her eyes, and a tremor had started in her hands and arms, gradually spreading to her entire body. And still Remy's heart refused to beat, the monitors showing a single flat line, the dull tone of the continuous alarm its own particular death knell. The glow was fading as she pushed the magic to her limits, the power she held running dry.
Amanda didn't see or hear any of it. Instead her ears were filled with a wry Cajun accent, her mind's eye recalling every meeting, every moment, the bad as well as the good. Remy had always been straight with her, he'd never pretended to be anything more than he was, had expected her to do her best but also to remain true to herself... He'd tried so hard, done so much to keep them safe, and still he thought he was a monster, was ignored and shunned by most of the residents. Anger flared up in her again that it should end like this, that he be struck down by the woman he'd worshipped. If he died, there'd be no-one to call her 'chere', no strong arm to hold her up or cutting sarcasm to verbally spar with. He'd die, believing it was his due, his punishment, and she wouldn't even be able to smack him across the head and tell him he was being a plonker...
The magic stuttered and failed, and Amanda's eyes snapped open.
"No," she repeated, and before any of the others could move, she reached out with her mutant power and pulled. Magic was energy conversion, Forge had been right about that. But it had taken Selene to show her that any energy would work, as long as it was powerful enough. And there wasn't anything more powerful than life itself.
And that was what she was drawing on now.
Jean staggered slightly, feeling... She didn't know what it was, not in words. All she knew was this terrible tug, a pulling at her which left her weak and steadily getting weaker. In an inescapable flash of understanding, Jean saw just how this could end and the terror that she would lose everything, again, gripped her.
It was like Moira had suddenly gone without a good night's sleep in a couple of days and she shook her head to clear the sudden vertigo. "Wha' th' bloody hell?" she mouthed, focusing her eyes once again on the horrific scene before her.
Tommy sighed lightly as he turned a page with his good hand. Not that he *wanted* to accept anything from this household of freaks, but the big hairy freak had left his book down here. With nothing else really to do and he really didn't want to talk to anybody (probably trying to figure out the best ways to torture him for what he did to their "precious students"), Tommy had started reading it, from the beginning.
Suddenly the words on the pages began to blur. Tommy blinked his eyes but the words didn't get any clearer. In fact, his head began spinning, like all the energy he had manged to build up in the short time he'd been awake was being drained.
Then it abruptly stopped and everything was back to normal. Now Tommy blinked in surprised as he looked around the room. Shrugging, he went back to his book, making a mental note to mention it to the freakish doctors (though the red head was *hot*) when one of them came to check on him. Probably developing some new power that could cause even more damage to the world than they had already inflicted...
Hank staggered, his vision going a little blurry. The sudden drain left him dizzy and unsteady, and... he couldn't put his hands down, he remembered at the last moment. Gloves. Sterile. No contamination. And Amanda's spell holding him in place, thankfully, because as topheavy as he was, the dizziness would have tipped him right off his feet if he hadn't been held by something. And then he would have had to scrub again, and they didn't have the time.
Clarice felt like she was going to throw up, her throat spasming, but she couldn't move to hurl somewhere else, fortuantly nothing was coming up. "Urk," she swallowed hard, trying to keep everything down as she stood poised with the next instrument she thought they would need. All she could do was watch.
Amanda ignored the reactions around her, divorcing herself from the fact her 'power source' were friends, teachers, a patient, family. And through the link, a love lost. That part would come later - all that mattered now was getting Remy's heart to beat, his lungs to breathe. "Live you fuckin' cocky bastard," she growled, and shoved everything she had into his still-gaping chest. Remy's body convulsed, back arching and limbs flailing, and in the seconds that followed the spell holding the others motionless unravelled and almost in unison they began to lunge for Amanda and their patient...
...and then a single 'ping' broke the charged atmosphere. It was followed four seconds later by another, and then another, steadily building up into a rhythm. Inside Remy's chest cavity his beating heart quivered slightly, and there was a gurgling rasp that indicated his lungs were trying to inflate.
"There." Amanda's voice was flat with tiredness, but she was still on her feet, shoulders defiantly unbowed. The hollows in her too-thin face had filled out slightly, her skin alabaster pale. "Your turn," she told the others, and without waiting for a response turned on her heel and left.
Hank. already inspecting Remy's injuries, let out a disbelieving noise. "The internal damage, the infection... it's not completely healed, but this is incredible, even compared to the data we have on her healing before..." He shook his head, then stopped the movement as it prompted another wave of vertigo. "What did she do?"
"Time for questions later," Moira told him quietly. "Let's close the lad up and get him comfortable. We'll deal with Amanda - and these new powers of hers - then."
***
Deep in the bayou, shrouded in the darkness of the cabin, a figure stirred and opened her eyes. The whites shone in the mirk, outlining the depths even against the blackness. They hardened, and underlined the deep whisper.
"Oh childe. What have jah done..."
