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xp_logsVanessa stops by to see Wade about that "date" of theirs only to find him not up to much more than burying his face in her skirt.
Wales had mellowed Vanessa out quite a bit. She had lost much of her tension and twitchiness, not to mention her general insanity, that she had flown to the country with. Aoife seemed more fitting than her own body as a result, much in the way blue might suit a person’s mood more than purple on a given day. So it was the befreckled redhead who came to the mansion with a knit purse hanging by her hip from where the long strap stretched across her torso, the purse oddly lumpy in places. The long skirt she wore nearly brushed the ground as she walked through the mansion’s halls. Vanessa considered Wade had never seen her in any of her alts, but it was inevitable sooner or later. Warning was overrated.
His suite was unlocked as usual, but she had knocked softly before pushing the door open. Looking around, she didn’t find the mercenary anywhere within sight. “Wade?” Aoife’s voice was soft, thick with an Irish accent that mirrored Thom’s and just barely loud enough to carry. She could see some sort of lump or movement in the bedroom.
After padding almost silently across the suite, the five-foot-four redhead stopped in the doorway to Wade’s bedroom, head cocked to one side and a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth as she leaned against the door frame. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “If it weren’t for your healing factor I’d ask if you have a hang over.”
There was a tiny lady standing in his doorway and Wade didn’t know why she was there. Paranoia prickled at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t work up the energy to do more than say, “If somebody sent you to kill me, you should go ahead and try.” Maybe it’d put him out of his misery. “But you should do it quietly. And without turning on a light. Also, who are you?”
He sounded worse than he looked. That only deepened her frown. The petite woman went rifling through her purse as she said, “We’ve a date, actually. And I brought you sheep.” Vanessa pulled the first of her little black sheep out of her purse and held it out toward him on her open, upturned palm. She didn’t draw any closer to the mercenary since he didn’t realize who she was yet and she was less threatening from this distance. Though, really, despite the gun and throwing knives in her purse and the single knife on her ankle Aoife couldn’t try to look threatening if she tried.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Wade said, narrowing his eyes a bit more in an attempt to keep the slight light coming in through the doorway out of his pupils than because he was glaring. “I don’t have a date with a tiny redhead. But I appreciate the sheep. Seriously, though. If you’re here to off me, I suggest you try severing the spinal cord. I’ll be helpful - I won’t even move.”
Vanessa toed off the ballet flats she was wearing and trailed closer to Wade’s bed at a very slow, shuffling pace. Aoife and her gently swaying skirt made it look more graceful than Vanessa’s natural body could have. “Your dates always look the same? Because, I assure, you’ve a date with me. It’s even related to killing someone by severing their spinal cord. Specifically, your claim you could do it in one shot down someone’s throat. Aye, but I’ve doubts you’re up for proving that. I thought you went to Jean about your headache that kept coming back the other week?” She stopped only halfway to his bed.
Wade opened his eyes properly again and then squinted because this whole light sensitivity thing? It sucked. It sucked a lot. “Nessa?” Nessa was not tiny and redheaded. But Nessa was a metamorph - she’d told him that. “How come you’re not blue?”
She shrugged a shoulder and started to pad the rest of the way over to his bedside. “Aoife suited more,” she told him just as she set the little sheep down on the bed by his hip. The frown was back on her face though. The suite wasn’t that bright but at least out in the main area one could easily see. In here shadows fell over everything and it had taken her eyes a bit to adjust to the dimness. A pale finger touched under Wade’s chin and tilted it up by the sparest fraction. “Why do you look like you’ve got both a hang over and insomnia?”
Fuck it - she’d find out from someone eventually. It hadn’t taken people long, really. News traveled fast in the mansion. “This,” Wade said, trying to keep his tone light, “Is what round two of cancer treatment looks like, apparently. Immunotherapy. Not quite as awful as chemotherapy, but still pretty bad.”
Her eyebrows darted upward in an instant, green eyes going wide. “You’ve a healing factor, though. How can you have cancer?” Cancer cancer? Kills people dead cancer? Vanessa tried to wrap her head around that but she also remembered how well she had wrapped her head around the idea of Garrison being dead a few years ago. It’d be lovely to not wind up in a mate’s lap curled up in a useless ball again, dear Powers That Be, she thought a bit bitterly.
“It’s hairy cancer, if that makes it more amusing,” Wade offered, shifting back a little and then reaching out and hooking one arm around Vanessa’s waist. “Tiny not-Nessa needs to help me keep the sun out of my eyes because daylight is bothersome.” He tugged until she was mostly in front of him, bag and all, and then buried his face against her hip to hide his eyes. She smelled nice. “You look flow-y.”
“How is cancer hairy?” Even as she asked her hand was coming up to lay atop his head. Aiofe had tiny hands with long, slender fingers that ran gently through his hair while he was busy using her as a shield. “Aoife’s a flowy, skirt sort of girl, aye.” She wasn’t really sure what do to here. Cancer. What the hell did you say to a guy who had cancer? Silence had settled before she remembered their conversation at the pool. “I’d asked if you were sick.”
“I didn’t lie,” Wade said, voice slightly muffled. He was good at not lying directly. Of course, he was actually very good at lying directly to people, too, so either way. “And my cancer’s called Hairy Cell Leukemia. It’s apparently very treatable. I was doing pretty good, overall, because of the healing factor and stuff. Just got really tired sometimes. Not exactly good, on a job. Been dealing with it for a while, figured I should get it checked out by some official type people. Went to Muir. They sent me here. OJ suggested chemo. That sucked. Hot Doc Jean says the chemo didn’t work. So now we’re doing immunotherapy. I like flow-y skirts. But not on me. I would not look good in a flow-y skirt.”
“No, you didn’t lie.” He’d sidestepped the question entirely, now that she thought about it. Quite artfully, at that. It was clear from her tone that she didn’t appreciate the way he had avoided lying either. There was a very fine line there and while he hadn’t lied he had still deceived her. He had owed her no honesty, truthfully. She was basically a stranger. But that didn’t mean she had to like it even if she understood it.
Vanessa chose to refocus on the current conversation rather than her unhappiness at his deception from a month or so ago. “I don’t think you’d look good in flowy skirts either, love.” Her fingers were still running through his hair from up near where his head rested against her all the way down to the base of his neck and then back up to the top to repeat the motion. Her free hand was searching her purse again until another sheep was set down next to him.
“I’d have to shave my legs,” Wade said. “I’d probably get in-grown hairs, with my luck. And razor burn that my healing factor would be too gimpy to take care of. It’d itch. Why are you giving me sheep?”
“You seemed like a black sheep sort of bloke. I could give someone else the sheep if you don’t want them.” By time she said that a third sheep was on her finger and she was poking his cheek with it very lightly. “I don’t think you should shave your legs. There’s something very off about a man with hairless legs. I’m just not open-minded enough to get behind cross-dressing mostly-straight guys. Particularly not masculine ones.” Vanessa tilted her head. “Well, usually masculine when they aren’t burrowing into my hip and...sort of clinging.”
“Sh, the light is the enemy and you are foiling its dastardly attempts to mess with my retinas,” Wade said, shifting enough so he could see the little sheep she was poking him with. “I like sheep.” He shifted his free arm under himself, turning partly on his side so he could get the two she’d put on the bed and tug them under the covers. “Mine. You can’t have them back.”
Aoife’s giggling was very different from Vanessa’s. Her voice was higher, more obviously girlish than the metamorph’s in her own body. There was something very cute and innately happy about the sound. “I knew you were a soft and fuzzy sort despite the weaponry.”
“I am not soft,” Wade said, scrounging up enough energy to sound indignant. “Or fuzzy. I just like soft and fuzzy things when they’re presented to me in a palatable manner.”
She rubbed his head. “Bit fuzzy, actually.” The smile she was wearing found its way into her voice in a fond note. “There’s no shame in being soft and fuzzy on the inside, love. It’s a bit obvious, really, when one considers your attachment to the various tiny people about the mansion. But I’ll not tell a soul if you wish an attempt to keep it secret.” Vanessa tried to not sound terribly amused at the idea of him trying to keep that a secret. She succeeded, instead sounding incredibly fond of him.
“Thanks,” Wade said, stifling a yawn by turning his head into his pillow. “Let’s do that. Cause it’d be kind of bad if people figured out about the fuzzy insides.” He blinked against the fabric covering Vanessa’s hip, eyelids feeling heavy, and then stifled a second yawn. “I am gonna fall asleep on you.”
Vanessa plucked the little black sheep finger puppet off her finger. She picked up Wade’s hand and slid the little puppet on his pinky because she was fairly certain it was the only one it would fit on. Her fingers ran through his hair again and then the metamorph stepped back from his bedside. “Suppose that’s my cue to bugger off and let you be. I’ll shut your door on the way out to block out the light for you. Call me whenever you feel better or what have you, aye?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wade said, wiggling his pinky finger at Vanessa a little so the sheep could say goodbye.
The waving sheep made her smile and Vanessa ducked her head a little in a nod. She grabbed her shoes instead of putting them on and left the door to his bedroom with barely a sliver of light peeking through it. On her way out she left the last of her fuzzy presents for him on his kitchen counter.
Vanessa left as quietly as she’d entered and wondered how she was supposed to adjust to the reality she’d found herself in suddenly. Jean wouldn’t tell her anything, of course, so she’d go home and research Wade’s type of cancer. Somehow she doubted that would wind up being terribly reassuring.
* * * * *
Before leaving the mansion Vanessa stops by to ask Jean the one thing weighing on her mind only to be disappointed in an unlikely way.
Her intention was to leave straight away after leaving Wade's suite, but Vanessa found herself walking through the part of the mansion where the classrooms were located. She stopped outside Jean's class, ballet flats still dangling from her fingertips. Once the last of the students seemed to have made their exit the petite redhead slipped into the room and shut the door behind her. Jean had never seen Aoife but Vanessa figured she would pick up on her psi-print or what have you to figure out who she was. "I don't actually know whether or not you can tell me this, but he told me he has cancer and the type and...is it going to kill him?" Outwardly she looked very calm, though also very serious. Vanessa was keeping a remarkable hold on her swirling thoughts relating to the revelation he'd laid on her.
The biology "lab" had always been makeshift but served its purpose well. It very much resembled an old 1950s lab with detailed posters of animals, plants, fungi, and the human body, as well as beakers and lab tables. However, it still contained modern amenities for the budding stalwart biologist--or the teenager destined to take the class to graduate. There had always been the desire to make sure the line between the school and the X-Men's more dangerous duties stayed solid. They could have feasibly had class down in the lower levels in the research lab, but it would've been far too easy to become a problem if one of the students decided they wanted to have a peek at Paige or Hank's work.
Jean had her lab coat on, this time not for a medical purpose but for a teaching one. The smell of formaldehyde was prominent the moment Vanessa walked through the door. Trays of frogs, their insides pinned back by oddly shaped needles, lined the tables. The outline of a frog was drawn on the chalk board. Arrows pointed to certain organs, labeling them.
The doctor was washing her hands, and glanced over as she saw the woman enter. Her face and voice were unfamiliar, but she did indeed know it was her. There were subtle ways to tell who a person was, the easiest one being the way she thought. The mind had a voice as well. It was unique to that person. She just had to 'hear' it.
The water shut off as Jean grabbed a paper towel and dried her hands.
"Even though we're friends...that would really be a question for Wade to answer. Trust is an important thing between a doctor and a patient, and I'm sorry, but I can't jeopardize that trust. If he hasn't told you, he may not be ready yet."
Vanessa wasn't sure how well Jean knew Wade. It was a funny thought since Vanessa didn't think she herself knew him terribly well either. But she knew enough to know that Wade didn't divulge pieces of himself easily. He didn't reveal and like to acknowledge it. He liked to put the strong front forward, even if it was more mask than truth. If he was going to die from his cancer she didn't think he'd tell her. She didn't think he would tell anyone. Vanessa wouldn't want the sort of pity it would bring so she doubted he would either.
She tried a different tactic, "Hypothetically, is a healing factor ever specialized? It is possible that it could heal certain things but not others? Rather, could it be strong enough to pull off things a weak healing factor couldn't, like regrow a limb, but not be able to guard against something generally considered easier like infection or disease?" Vanessa assumed Jean knew how old Wade was, but she would err on the side of caution. If the doctor hadn't been told Vanessa would not risk exposing the secret. She'd never met someone with a weak healing factor who looked thirty at the age of fifty. If his healing factor could do that why did he scar? Why did he bruise? Why did he have cancer at all?
Jean stared at Vanessa for a moment before closing the distance between the two of them. She leaned against one of the lab tables, perfectly comfortable being near one of the dead frogs. She smiled faintly.
"He told you he has cancer. That's a big thing. It means he trusts you enough to know even that. He's going through hell right now. And I know you're afraid for him, but if he's told you this much...give him time to tell you the rest. Will knowing if he's dying or not change the status of your relationship with him?"
"You didn't answer my question," was all she said. It was a question Jean very well could answer because it wasn't specific to Wade at all. Laura's healing factor would heal her to the point of not having scars. She was pretty sure Kyle's did as well. Garrison...well, she knew he had scars under his beard but she didn't think he had them anywhere else. Aleister had never scarred, neither had Logan.
"You're right, I didn't," Jean said with a nod. "Because you would take my indirect answer and try to apply it to Wade's situation when it may or may not be right."
Lowering her head, she sighed. "People may possess the same abilities on the surface, but the nuances of their abilities can be different. Metamorph, shapeshifter...By practical use, you and Mystique still have the same end result in that you can look like someone else. But the way you both get there, as well as what is what characteristics you possess of the person you are mimicking are not the same. For someone with a healing factor, it can be similar. They may possess the ability to heal, but not entirely the way someone else can."
"I'm well aware of the existence of nuance and differences," Vanessa told her in Aoife's quiet voice. She didn't sound annoyed or frustrated with Jean's answers even though she was. Vanessa had copied the powers of both Catseye and Jake at one point or another, both shapeshifters whose mutations worked entirely differently from her own. She used that as her frame of reference when thinking about variations on the same mutation, particularly since she had no idea who this Mystique broad was other than the few facts she'd gotten from people when they've made these sorts of references to her. Apparently she was blue, crazy and maybe evil. Vanessa found it interesting that Jean assumed she knew who Mystique was while also assuming she was either too stupid or blinded by emotion to differentiate between a specific case and a generalized answer.
The metamorph turned around and twisted the door knob. "I can do my own research, thanks." Nathan could probably get her some general information from Moira on healing factors and the way they typically worked.
"What do you want me to say, Vanessa?" Jean said. She was frustrated and angry and scared and she probably wanted someone to take it out on. But it wasn't going to be her. "That it'll kill him? Yes. It possible. It's cancer. It's one of the most unpredictable diseases out there. The truth is...I don't know if it'll kill him. Most cancer patients are human and don't have healing factors. He does. He's an anomaly. I don't know why he hasn't healed from the cancer. I'm trying to figure that out myself. So getting angry at me and treating me me like I'm a suspect in one of your cases isn't going to solve anything. I know you're scared," Jean said. She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. The strain of worrying about him herself showed across her face for a moment.
Opening her eyes, she nodded a little. "But his odds are pretty good with the cancer he has. It's one of the most treatable types." She wasn't lying to make her feel better, but sometimes the line between doctor and friend was crossed. She didn't want to make the promise that he'd be better because she couldn't. He could've gotten better, or worse. It was hard to tell. Optimism was a great thing to have but she was also realistic and had to be prepared for anything.
"I'm not taking anything out on you," Vanessa replied without turning around. "I was on my way out of the mansion. I stopped to ask you. You said you couldn't tell me so I asked a more general, hypothetical. You wouldn't answer that based on its connection with the first question. Out of respect for your position I didn't press further. Hence, I can do my own research on the odds of surviving his type of cancer as a human and see what I can find out about healing factors in general." Vanessa could heal some damage if she took it while in a mimic simply by dropping it and going back to her base form, but she didn't know much about mutant physiology or how a healing factor changed it.
Aoife's glanced over her shoulder and her green eyes set on Jean for a moment. "I'm still leaving. And you shouldn't have backpedaled. If you didn't want to violate his trust and tell me then you shouldn't have." She pulled open the door and slipped out of the classroom. Vanessa frowned to herself. She had just lost a little respect for Jean and that was unfortunate. Trying to maintain a patient's trust was something Vanessa understood, she really did. She respected that. If Jean had given her that answer to begin with then it would have been fine as well, but changing her mind because Vanessa was going to leave? That was...well she wasn't sure what it was precisely but she was a little disappointed in her friend for it.
Jean said nothing as she watched her leave. She was right. She didn't know what to tell her. She didn't know what to tell all of them. And to hear her, both in words and in thoughts, hurt her. Even if she was right. The door shut behind Vanessa as she left. Jean walked over to the desk, sinking into the chair. Her body felt like a stone, plunged into the water. She rested her head in her hands. She was so tired.
Wales had mellowed Vanessa out quite a bit. She had lost much of her tension and twitchiness, not to mention her general insanity, that she had flown to the country with. Aoife seemed more fitting than her own body as a result, much in the way blue might suit a person’s mood more than purple on a given day. So it was the befreckled redhead who came to the mansion with a knit purse hanging by her hip from where the long strap stretched across her torso, the purse oddly lumpy in places. The long skirt she wore nearly brushed the ground as she walked through the mansion’s halls. Vanessa considered Wade had never seen her in any of her alts, but it was inevitable sooner or later. Warning was overrated.
His suite was unlocked as usual, but she had knocked softly before pushing the door open. Looking around, she didn’t find the mercenary anywhere within sight. “Wade?” Aoife’s voice was soft, thick with an Irish accent that mirrored Thom’s and just barely loud enough to carry. She could see some sort of lump or movement in the bedroom.
After padding almost silently across the suite, the five-foot-four redhead stopped in the doorway to Wade’s bedroom, head cocked to one side and a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth as she leaned against the door frame. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “If it weren’t for your healing factor I’d ask if you have a hang over.”
There was a tiny lady standing in his doorway and Wade didn’t know why she was there. Paranoia prickled at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t work up the energy to do more than say, “If somebody sent you to kill me, you should go ahead and try.” Maybe it’d put him out of his misery. “But you should do it quietly. And without turning on a light. Also, who are you?”
He sounded worse than he looked. That only deepened her frown. The petite woman went rifling through her purse as she said, “We’ve a date, actually. And I brought you sheep.” Vanessa pulled the first of her little black sheep out of her purse and held it out toward him on her open, upturned palm. She didn’t draw any closer to the mercenary since he didn’t realize who she was yet and she was less threatening from this distance. Though, really, despite the gun and throwing knives in her purse and the single knife on her ankle Aoife couldn’t try to look threatening if she tried.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Wade said, narrowing his eyes a bit more in an attempt to keep the slight light coming in through the doorway out of his pupils than because he was glaring. “I don’t have a date with a tiny redhead. But I appreciate the sheep. Seriously, though. If you’re here to off me, I suggest you try severing the spinal cord. I’ll be helpful - I won’t even move.”
Vanessa toed off the ballet flats she was wearing and trailed closer to Wade’s bed at a very slow, shuffling pace. Aoife and her gently swaying skirt made it look more graceful than Vanessa’s natural body could have. “Your dates always look the same? Because, I assure, you’ve a date with me. It’s even related to killing someone by severing their spinal cord. Specifically, your claim you could do it in one shot down someone’s throat. Aye, but I’ve doubts you’re up for proving that. I thought you went to Jean about your headache that kept coming back the other week?” She stopped only halfway to his bed.
Wade opened his eyes properly again and then squinted because this whole light sensitivity thing? It sucked. It sucked a lot. “Nessa?” Nessa was not tiny and redheaded. But Nessa was a metamorph - she’d told him that. “How come you’re not blue?”
She shrugged a shoulder and started to pad the rest of the way over to his bedside. “Aoife suited more,” she told him just as she set the little sheep down on the bed by his hip. The frown was back on her face though. The suite wasn’t that bright but at least out in the main area one could easily see. In here shadows fell over everything and it had taken her eyes a bit to adjust to the dimness. A pale finger touched under Wade’s chin and tilted it up by the sparest fraction. “Why do you look like you’ve got both a hang over and insomnia?”
Fuck it - she’d find out from someone eventually. It hadn’t taken people long, really. News traveled fast in the mansion. “This,” Wade said, trying to keep his tone light, “Is what round two of cancer treatment looks like, apparently. Immunotherapy. Not quite as awful as chemotherapy, but still pretty bad.”
Her eyebrows darted upward in an instant, green eyes going wide. “You’ve a healing factor, though. How can you have cancer?” Cancer cancer? Kills people dead cancer? Vanessa tried to wrap her head around that but she also remembered how well she had wrapped her head around the idea of Garrison being dead a few years ago. It’d be lovely to not wind up in a mate’s lap curled up in a useless ball again, dear Powers That Be, she thought a bit bitterly.
“It’s hairy cancer, if that makes it more amusing,” Wade offered, shifting back a little and then reaching out and hooking one arm around Vanessa’s waist. “Tiny not-Nessa needs to help me keep the sun out of my eyes because daylight is bothersome.” He tugged until she was mostly in front of him, bag and all, and then buried his face against her hip to hide his eyes. She smelled nice. “You look flow-y.”
“How is cancer hairy?” Even as she asked her hand was coming up to lay atop his head. Aiofe had tiny hands with long, slender fingers that ran gently through his hair while he was busy using her as a shield. “Aoife’s a flowy, skirt sort of girl, aye.” She wasn’t really sure what do to here. Cancer. What the hell did you say to a guy who had cancer? Silence had settled before she remembered their conversation at the pool. “I’d asked if you were sick.”
“I didn’t lie,” Wade said, voice slightly muffled. He was good at not lying directly. Of course, he was actually very good at lying directly to people, too, so either way. “And my cancer’s called Hairy Cell Leukemia. It’s apparently very treatable. I was doing pretty good, overall, because of the healing factor and stuff. Just got really tired sometimes. Not exactly good, on a job. Been dealing with it for a while, figured I should get it checked out by some official type people. Went to Muir. They sent me here. OJ suggested chemo. That sucked. Hot Doc Jean says the chemo didn’t work. So now we’re doing immunotherapy. I like flow-y skirts. But not on me. I would not look good in a flow-y skirt.”
“No, you didn’t lie.” He’d sidestepped the question entirely, now that she thought about it. Quite artfully, at that. It was clear from her tone that she didn’t appreciate the way he had avoided lying either. There was a very fine line there and while he hadn’t lied he had still deceived her. He had owed her no honesty, truthfully. She was basically a stranger. But that didn’t mean she had to like it even if she understood it.
Vanessa chose to refocus on the current conversation rather than her unhappiness at his deception from a month or so ago. “I don’t think you’d look good in flowy skirts either, love.” Her fingers were still running through his hair from up near where his head rested against her all the way down to the base of his neck and then back up to the top to repeat the motion. Her free hand was searching her purse again until another sheep was set down next to him.
“I’d have to shave my legs,” Wade said. “I’d probably get in-grown hairs, with my luck. And razor burn that my healing factor would be too gimpy to take care of. It’d itch. Why are you giving me sheep?”
“You seemed like a black sheep sort of bloke. I could give someone else the sheep if you don’t want them.” By time she said that a third sheep was on her finger and she was poking his cheek with it very lightly. “I don’t think you should shave your legs. There’s something very off about a man with hairless legs. I’m just not open-minded enough to get behind cross-dressing mostly-straight guys. Particularly not masculine ones.” Vanessa tilted her head. “Well, usually masculine when they aren’t burrowing into my hip and...sort of clinging.”
“Sh, the light is the enemy and you are foiling its dastardly attempts to mess with my retinas,” Wade said, shifting enough so he could see the little sheep she was poking him with. “I like sheep.” He shifted his free arm under himself, turning partly on his side so he could get the two she’d put on the bed and tug them under the covers. “Mine. You can’t have them back.”
Aoife’s giggling was very different from Vanessa’s. Her voice was higher, more obviously girlish than the metamorph’s in her own body. There was something very cute and innately happy about the sound. “I knew you were a soft and fuzzy sort despite the weaponry.”
“I am not soft,” Wade said, scrounging up enough energy to sound indignant. “Or fuzzy. I just like soft and fuzzy things when they’re presented to me in a palatable manner.”
She rubbed his head. “Bit fuzzy, actually.” The smile she was wearing found its way into her voice in a fond note. “There’s no shame in being soft and fuzzy on the inside, love. It’s a bit obvious, really, when one considers your attachment to the various tiny people about the mansion. But I’ll not tell a soul if you wish an attempt to keep it secret.” Vanessa tried to not sound terribly amused at the idea of him trying to keep that a secret. She succeeded, instead sounding incredibly fond of him.
“Thanks,” Wade said, stifling a yawn by turning his head into his pillow. “Let’s do that. Cause it’d be kind of bad if people figured out about the fuzzy insides.” He blinked against the fabric covering Vanessa’s hip, eyelids feeling heavy, and then stifled a second yawn. “I am gonna fall asleep on you.”
Vanessa plucked the little black sheep finger puppet off her finger. She picked up Wade’s hand and slid the little puppet on his pinky because she was fairly certain it was the only one it would fit on. Her fingers ran through his hair again and then the metamorph stepped back from his bedside. “Suppose that’s my cue to bugger off and let you be. I’ll shut your door on the way out to block out the light for you. Call me whenever you feel better or what have you, aye?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wade said, wiggling his pinky finger at Vanessa a little so the sheep could say goodbye.
The waving sheep made her smile and Vanessa ducked her head a little in a nod. She grabbed her shoes instead of putting them on and left the door to his bedroom with barely a sliver of light peeking through it. On her way out she left the last of her fuzzy presents for him on his kitchen counter.
Vanessa left as quietly as she’d entered and wondered how she was supposed to adjust to the reality she’d found herself in suddenly. Jean wouldn’t tell her anything, of course, so she’d go home and research Wade’s type of cancer. Somehow she doubted that would wind up being terribly reassuring.
Before leaving the mansion Vanessa stops by to ask Jean the one thing weighing on her mind only to be disappointed in an unlikely way.
Her intention was to leave straight away after leaving Wade's suite, but Vanessa found herself walking through the part of the mansion where the classrooms were located. She stopped outside Jean's class, ballet flats still dangling from her fingertips. Once the last of the students seemed to have made their exit the petite redhead slipped into the room and shut the door behind her. Jean had never seen Aoife but Vanessa figured she would pick up on her psi-print or what have you to figure out who she was. "I don't actually know whether or not you can tell me this, but he told me he has cancer and the type and...is it going to kill him?" Outwardly she looked very calm, though also very serious. Vanessa was keeping a remarkable hold on her swirling thoughts relating to the revelation he'd laid on her.
The biology "lab" had always been makeshift but served its purpose well. It very much resembled an old 1950s lab with detailed posters of animals, plants, fungi, and the human body, as well as beakers and lab tables. However, it still contained modern amenities for the budding stalwart biologist--or the teenager destined to take the class to graduate. There had always been the desire to make sure the line between the school and the X-Men's more dangerous duties stayed solid. They could have feasibly had class down in the lower levels in the research lab, but it would've been far too easy to become a problem if one of the students decided they wanted to have a peek at Paige or Hank's work.
Jean had her lab coat on, this time not for a medical purpose but for a teaching one. The smell of formaldehyde was prominent the moment Vanessa walked through the door. Trays of frogs, their insides pinned back by oddly shaped needles, lined the tables. The outline of a frog was drawn on the chalk board. Arrows pointed to certain organs, labeling them.
The doctor was washing her hands, and glanced over as she saw the woman enter. Her face and voice were unfamiliar, but she did indeed know it was her. There were subtle ways to tell who a person was, the easiest one being the way she thought. The mind had a voice as well. It was unique to that person. She just had to 'hear' it.
The water shut off as Jean grabbed a paper towel and dried her hands.
"Even though we're friends...that would really be a question for Wade to answer. Trust is an important thing between a doctor and a patient, and I'm sorry, but I can't jeopardize that trust. If he hasn't told you, he may not be ready yet."
Vanessa wasn't sure how well Jean knew Wade. It was a funny thought since Vanessa didn't think she herself knew him terribly well either. But she knew enough to know that Wade didn't divulge pieces of himself easily. He didn't reveal and like to acknowledge it. He liked to put the strong front forward, even if it was more mask than truth. If he was going to die from his cancer she didn't think he'd tell her. She didn't think he would tell anyone. Vanessa wouldn't want the sort of pity it would bring so she doubted he would either.
She tried a different tactic, "Hypothetically, is a healing factor ever specialized? It is possible that it could heal certain things but not others? Rather, could it be strong enough to pull off things a weak healing factor couldn't, like regrow a limb, but not be able to guard against something generally considered easier like infection or disease?" Vanessa assumed Jean knew how old Wade was, but she would err on the side of caution. If the doctor hadn't been told Vanessa would not risk exposing the secret. She'd never met someone with a weak healing factor who looked thirty at the age of fifty. If his healing factor could do that why did he scar? Why did he bruise? Why did he have cancer at all?
Jean stared at Vanessa for a moment before closing the distance between the two of them. She leaned against one of the lab tables, perfectly comfortable being near one of the dead frogs. She smiled faintly.
"He told you he has cancer. That's a big thing. It means he trusts you enough to know even that. He's going through hell right now. And I know you're afraid for him, but if he's told you this much...give him time to tell you the rest. Will knowing if he's dying or not change the status of your relationship with him?"
"You didn't answer my question," was all she said. It was a question Jean very well could answer because it wasn't specific to Wade at all. Laura's healing factor would heal her to the point of not having scars. She was pretty sure Kyle's did as well. Garrison...well, she knew he had scars under his beard but she didn't think he had them anywhere else. Aleister had never scarred, neither had Logan.
"You're right, I didn't," Jean said with a nod. "Because you would take my indirect answer and try to apply it to Wade's situation when it may or may not be right."
Lowering her head, she sighed. "People may possess the same abilities on the surface, but the nuances of their abilities can be different. Metamorph, shapeshifter...By practical use, you and Mystique still have the same end result in that you can look like someone else. But the way you both get there, as well as what is what characteristics you possess of the person you are mimicking are not the same. For someone with a healing factor, it can be similar. They may possess the ability to heal, but not entirely the way someone else can."
"I'm well aware of the existence of nuance and differences," Vanessa told her in Aoife's quiet voice. She didn't sound annoyed or frustrated with Jean's answers even though she was. Vanessa had copied the powers of both Catseye and Jake at one point or another, both shapeshifters whose mutations worked entirely differently from her own. She used that as her frame of reference when thinking about variations on the same mutation, particularly since she had no idea who this Mystique broad was other than the few facts she'd gotten from people when they've made these sorts of references to her. Apparently she was blue, crazy and maybe evil. Vanessa found it interesting that Jean assumed she knew who Mystique was while also assuming she was either too stupid or blinded by emotion to differentiate between a specific case and a generalized answer.
The metamorph turned around and twisted the door knob. "I can do my own research, thanks." Nathan could probably get her some general information from Moira on healing factors and the way they typically worked.
"What do you want me to say, Vanessa?" Jean said. She was frustrated and angry and scared and she probably wanted someone to take it out on. But it wasn't going to be her. "That it'll kill him? Yes. It possible. It's cancer. It's one of the most unpredictable diseases out there. The truth is...I don't know if it'll kill him. Most cancer patients are human and don't have healing factors. He does. He's an anomaly. I don't know why he hasn't healed from the cancer. I'm trying to figure that out myself. So getting angry at me and treating me me like I'm a suspect in one of your cases isn't going to solve anything. I know you're scared," Jean said. She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. The strain of worrying about him herself showed across her face for a moment.
Opening her eyes, she nodded a little. "But his odds are pretty good with the cancer he has. It's one of the most treatable types." She wasn't lying to make her feel better, but sometimes the line between doctor and friend was crossed. She didn't want to make the promise that he'd be better because she couldn't. He could've gotten better, or worse. It was hard to tell. Optimism was a great thing to have but she was also realistic and had to be prepared for anything.
"I'm not taking anything out on you," Vanessa replied without turning around. "I was on my way out of the mansion. I stopped to ask you. You said you couldn't tell me so I asked a more general, hypothetical. You wouldn't answer that based on its connection with the first question. Out of respect for your position I didn't press further. Hence, I can do my own research on the odds of surviving his type of cancer as a human and see what I can find out about healing factors in general." Vanessa could heal some damage if she took it while in a mimic simply by dropping it and going back to her base form, but she didn't know much about mutant physiology or how a healing factor changed it.
Aoife's glanced over her shoulder and her green eyes set on Jean for a moment. "I'm still leaving. And you shouldn't have backpedaled. If you didn't want to violate his trust and tell me then you shouldn't have." She pulled open the door and slipped out of the classroom. Vanessa frowned to herself. She had just lost a little respect for Jean and that was unfortunate. Trying to maintain a patient's trust was something Vanessa understood, she really did. She respected that. If Jean had given her that answer to begin with then it would have been fine as well, but changing her mind because Vanessa was going to leave? That was...well she wasn't sure what it was precisely but she was a little disappointed in her friend for it.
Jean said nothing as she watched her leave. She was right. She didn't know what to tell her. She didn't know what to tell all of them. And to hear her, both in words and in thoughts, hurt her. Even if she was right. The door shut behind Vanessa as she left. Jean walked over to the desk, sinking into the chair. Her body felt like a stone, plunged into the water. She rested her head in her hands. She was so tired.
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