Face the Blood - Laurie and Monet; Forge, Jean and Dr. Marcel

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Laurie tries to use her powers to counteract Yvette's.



Laurie could hear the music as she walked down the sterile corridor that led to Yvette's room in the hospital. She let it rest in her mind as she placed a hand against the doorknob, trying to pick out the name of the tune from her memory. Something Yvette would've played when they were roommates, perhaps? She had much of her knowledge of classical music thanks to that time. She turned the doorknob and pushed the door quietly inwards, stepping into the room before turning and shutting it closed behind her with a dull click. It was only as she looked up and around from that that she noticed Monet in the room.

"Um...hi," she said awkwardly, she hadn't expected much of an audience for what she was about to try. She'd wanted to make sure she could really do something before she went to Dr Grey-Summers. "I, ahh..."

Monet had been taking her turn to sit with Yvette. She was curled up in the chair someone had placed in the girl's room, laptop set out at Yvette's feet with one of Yvette's CD's playing in it. She'd discovered that she actually liked Albanian pop music during the trip and well, if talking to someone in a coma felt stupid, playing them music didn't. She had one hand resting lightly on Yvette's shoulder and was using it to make a link to the her, slowly, carefully piping a gentle stream of music in and, at the same time, she was listening for Yvette and for any sign that her mind was going to wake up again.

She was so engrossed in the task that it took her a moment to notice Laurie and another long moment to pull herself back into her body and out of Yvette's head. Opening her eyes, Monet waved to Laurie. "Hey, hon. What's up?"

Laurie looked uncertain for a moment, as if gauging whether Monet was someone she could talk to or not. Truth was, she was pretty sure that Monet could stop her from trying if she thought what Laurie was about to do was unwise.

"I think I might be able to soften up Yvette's skin enough so the doctors can help her," Laurie said finally, taking a small leap of faith. "I, um...I haven't exactly cleared this with Jean or the others."

Monet stood and looked carefully at Laurie. "The doctors don't think doing that will cause her to get worse, do they?" She'd know if Laurie was lying. "Do you think you can manage it? She's," and Monet guestured to Yvette, "pretty far down in there right now. Her mind's a long, long way off... I don't think Manny would be able to relax her now, to be honest. She's too far away."

"I can't say for sure," Laurie admitted, to herself and to Monet. "I know it's not hurt her before and we used to train our powers together, so I don't think it will make her worse."

She nodded. Laurie wasn't lying and she felt... certain about her abilities. "You know what you're doing, right?" Taking a look at Yvette, she said, "I'll link to her and make sure you stop if you're going to wake her up - I don't think that's a good idea."

"I know what I'm doing," Laurie said firmly, pulling off the jacket she'd been wearing and placing it on a nearby chair. Her skin had already started to turn from its normal pale white to a light violet colour, shimmering slightly in the soft light of the hospital room. "I'll try the more subtle approach first, it's a little less abrupt. You're probably going to start feeling relaxed as well, but I'll try not to put you to sleep."

"I know you know what you're doing!" Monet snapped. "All I'm saying is that I'm going to make sure you don't wake Yvette up, as well. I really don't want that to happen by accident because it could really hurt her, okay?" She settled down beside Yvette and carefully held her hand, making contact with her again.

To Monet, a sleeping mind was either loud with dreams and emotions or sunk deep into itself. Yvette's was unconscious, rather than asleep so her mind was even quieter, a small, faintly glowing spark of consciousness. A more powerful telepath might have been able to draw her out without hurting her. All Monet was able to do was watch and make sure nothing changed. "Go on, then."

Laurie ignored Monet, concentrating instead on drawing out the emotions she needed to make this work. While she was getting better at summoning specific hormones, for greater levels of effort she still needed to feel what she was trying to do.

There was no visible sign other then Laurie's continued purple skin that she was doing anything but slowly but surely pheromones started to fill the hospital room as she pictured the lake at Xavier's on a spring day, the feeling of Catseye's fur under her fingers, and the smell of baking in the big kitchen.

Slowly but surely, a sense of overwhelming peace flowed through Monet and she watched fascinated as the curls in Yvette's hair slowly softened before hardening again. She forced herself to focus through the haze of happycalmsafe surrounding her. "I don't think it's working. But this is...nice. Nice and fuzzywarm. I like it," she said, smiling dreamily.

"I'll have to try something more direct," Laurie muttered, only half aware of what Monet was saying to her.

She walked forward till she was standing beside Yvette's hospital bed, and then reached a hand out, the violet colour about her fingers deepening as she centered her concentration on her hands and pushed. Laurie hesitated briefly, and then reached out and brushed the palm of her hand over Yvette's face, and up over her hair.

Skin and hair softened under her touch, but as soon as her hand had passed it hardened again, skin that had been warm, tightening, hair that had curled slightly stiffening into spikes.

Laurie pushed harder in frustration, but stepped back after only a few moments. She had no way of knowing what sort of damage an overdose of hormone could do to Yvette. Especially in Yvette's weakened condition, Laurie didn't dare push it any harder then she just had.

"I can't," Laurie said, tears finally breaking through the icy calm she'd held. They fell, tracking silently down her face. "I'm so sorry, but it just isn't enough."

Monet shook her head to try to clear it. She knew that Laurie was upset, that not being able to reach Yvette was a bad thing and yet, it didn't really matter from inside her little bubble of happywamsafe. Standing, she moved around the bed to pat Laurie on one shoulder before hugging the girl. "I'm sorry. At least you tried, right?" She got a deeper whiff of pheromones and began to giggle, staring dreamily at Laurie's hair. Monet patted it gently. It was all soft, like a kitten's. "I like your hair..."

Laurie pulled away, wiping at her face and giving Monet an angry look. It would take some time for the pheramones she'd pumped into the room to wear off, and in the meantime anyone inside or entering the room would get the same sense of calm and happiness that Monet was currently going through.

"Snap out of it," she said harshly, unwilling to deal with the effect of her own powers right now. Especially not when they'd just failed her so badly. "You're an X-man for God's sake, act like one."

"I'm trying to," Monet said. "But I'm going to go play with Catseye till I'm good again, okay?" She patted Yvette's hand lightly as she left.

Laurie closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly as Monet left. She hadn't wanted to hurt the other woman, but she had anyway. She just wished...Wishes were horses though, and if they were real, Yvette wouldn't still be lying there dying. Laurie sighed, and after a moment walked over to the chair Monet had vacated. If she couldn't help, at least she could stand vigil till someone came along that could...or it was no longer needed.





Dr. Marcel lets Forge and Jean know what Yvette's status is.



Forge paced back and forth in the hospital corridor. He still wasn't sure why they'd asked him to come to the hospital - no one had told him how Yvette was doing, and it wasn't as if the Sarajevo hospital was the Mayo Clinic. Not a single state-of-the-art piece of equipment in the entire facility, even. No wonder the life expectancy was lower here, they were practically working with the equivalent of leeches, smoke sticks, and good intentions as far as Forge could see. Not exactly the most optimistic outlook, he realized as he jammed his hands into his pockets and kept pacing.

Jean sat tensely on one of the few waiting benches, which she was fairly certain had served as a patient 'bed' in times past; Jean had no doubt that there were times this hospital had needed every available flat surface for triage in the past. Thankfully, it looked like it had been a while since things had been that bad. She cast a glance up at Forge as he paced back and forth, her own thoughts on why his presence had been requested kept firmly quiet in the back of her mind.

Stopping suddenly and banging his fist into the wall, Forge let out a frustrated grunt from between clenched teeth. "What in the world is going on?" he asked, only half-directing the question at Jean before turning to her. "All I heard was that there was an explosion and Yvette got evacuated here. I don't get it, I thought she... I've run tests with her, she's damn near bulletproof. What happened?"

Jean sighed, straightening up on the bench. "Impact trauma," she said quietly, watching the young man. "You're right, she's basically immune to puncture damage but unlike, say, Monet, internally she's not significantly tougher than any of the rest of us."
Forge stopped and thought about that, doing the quick math in his head. Explosive force of a land mine, hydrostatic shock to internal organs... he found himself holding his left hand to his side reflexively, remembering the ordeal he'd gone through in the hospital after losing a hand and a leg, followed by the doctors explaining the internal damage from the explosion all those years ago.

He shook his head to clear his mind. "But how can I help?" he asked out loud.

From around the corner came an older, bearded man, leaning slightly on a cane. Dr. Pierre Marcel looked tired and old, his normally tanned skin almost greyish. "M. Forge," he acknowledged with a brief nod. "Dr. Grey-Summers. I have read some of your works on mutation." He switched hands with the cane and offered her his right to shake. "Dr. Pierre Marcel. One of the doctors at the camp in Bosnia and an old friend of the Petrovic family. Thank you so much for coming so far and so quickly, both of you." Jean took the offered hand with a smile, albeit a somewhat weak one. "Dr. Marcel, I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but it's a pleasure to meet you. How is Yvette?"

He grimaced. "It's been difficult to do much, given her mutation, but she's stable for now. The MRI results... aren't good. There's significant internal bruising and it appears her kidneys have been severely damaged."

"That's... bad. But not as bad as it could be, yeah?" Forge asked hopefully. "It's not like internal injuries are uncommon and... Yvette. Shit. Invulnerable skin, stress response increases that, she's got to be diamond-hard and razor-sharp right now. Okay, so you need me to provide you with something to help you operate, right?"

Marcel nodded. "They've been trying to establish an intravenous line, replace some of the blood she's losing from the internal injuries, but the needles are not even scratching the surface, so to speak. And with the damage to her kidneys, it looks like she will need a transplant - however, if they cannot pierce her skin, that won't happen. The same applies to dialysis; it would give her more time, but her powers just don't allow it."

Forge closed his eyes, thinking out loud. "Lasers might work, but given the skin density, anything with enough power to cut her skin would cause more damage. Adamantium scalpels, even IF we could acquire one, run the risk of heavy metal poisoning. Shit." He sat on a bench, head in his hands. "Her powers make it impossible to do what will save her life. How do we work around that?"

"Her conscious control isn't good enough for me to be able to trigger it telepathically," she said, shaking her head slightly. "I might be able to relax her a little, but I'm not a strong enough empath to make a significant difference, and Manuel's control is still shot. I take it Laurie's already tried?" Jean looked at Dr. Marcel, worrying at her lower lip.

"I believe so. Unsuccessfully - Yvette's condition is such that Mme. Collins did not want to risk making things worse by disrupting her hormanal state drastically." The hope that had been in his face as he had seen the two Xavier's staff members was beginning to dim. "There are no other ways of overcoming her powers?"

Oh, there was, but Forge was not going to like it, and it was him Jean looked at as she answered the doctor's question. "There is another way, yes, and one which is flat out more effective than anything else we've mentioned..."

Forge froze at the implications in Jean's tone, and raised his head to look at the red-haired telekinetic as the meaning sunk in. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Jean, you'd ask me this? You of all people, want to ask me to build an inhibitor to take away her powers? There's got to be another way!" he insisted, standing up and pointing at Jean accusingly. "Laurie could try harder! We could get her to Muir, there's... there's something else we've got to be able to do..." His incensed anger seemed to turn to desperation as the flat reality of the situation sunk in, and he hung his head. "If... if you tell me this is the only way, the only way to save Yvette's life... then I really don't have a choice, do I?"

Jean's eyes were gentle but there her tone serious. "Laurie could try harder, and we could try in tandem and we could get Manuel to come and try all three of us together and there would still be no guarantee that it would be enough and all of that would take time. Time she may not have."

Forge was uncharacteristically quiet for a few long moments, face impassive. Slowly, he turned from Jean to Dr. Marcel and spoke in a quick, businesslike tone. "X-ray machines, they need to be active-scan technology and I'll need at least three to cannibalize for parts. I want every spare computer, oscillator, radio, monitor - get me everything this hospital can spare with an integrated circuit board. I'll need access to your MRI machine and whatever radioisotopes you have on hand for chemotherapy. Find me a place to set up shop and you will have what you need to save her life." He turned back to Jean, pointing a finger again, his gaze intense. "Conditions. One: that as soon as Yvette is medically capable of being off the inhibitor, it gets destroyed. Two: I want restricted access to her, no government officials, engineers, medical technicians, no one that is going to try and reverse-engineer the inhibitor. You're asking me to build the mutant equivalent of the atomic bomb, to save the life of one person. Don't let me regret this, Jean."

"Of course," Jean said, nodding firmly and then catching Dr. Marcel's eye. "I assume that is all acceptable to you? I'm sure Professor Xavier can make a donation to replace the scavenged technology."

"I will speak to the hospital authorities," Marcel promised. "And that is more than acceptable. If there is something you can do to save Yvette's life, it will be a miracle." He moved forward, grasped Forge's hands. "Thank you. It is a great thing you do."

"Thank me when I succeed," Forge said defensively, but relaxed slightly at the doctor's obvious relief that there was a slim chance for Yvette now. "Please, show me where I can work. Like Jean said, Yvette's on a timetable and I need to work quickly. And if you could bring me what passes for coffee in this part of the world. Lots of it."