Wanda and Cecilia, fun times in the Medlab

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Wanda wanders down to the MedLab to see about a regular check up from Cecilia and the talk turns towards the state of the world and themselves


It felt - well, stupid, to come down to the MedLab for something as simple as a check-up.  Especially considering the amount of times Wanda had been down there for more grievous injuries and doubly so considering the stroke Charles had suffered.  She laid a hand on a wall for a moment; it seemed unreal because despite his age, the Professor was an institution.  The idea that something could happen to him...


She shook her head and knocked on the door.  "Cecilia?" she called, having spotted the doctor's name on the roster.  "I am not interrupting anything, am I?"


"Just some light reading." The doctor in question looked up from a pile of charts she'd been reading to get acclimated to this new world, her eyes darting toward the familiar-ish face in the doorway. "Oh, Wanda!" Did she sound too excited? Perhaps, but it was hard to tell, since she had little-to-no idea how well she knew this new old woman. She hadn't quite made it to that folder in her pile.


God, this was confusing.


Cecilia shifted in her chair and smiled warmly, because it was really nice to see some version of Wanda, even if she wasn't sure what version this was. "What brings you by?"


"Please do not do anything drastic like clutch your heart or swoon or pretend to have the vapors -"  It was interesting what 'having the vapors' sounded like coming from someone with an Eastern European accent.  "But I might, just might, be here for a regular check up. I can even promise that I bare no wounds!"  She smiled back and came fully into the office, sparing the tall pile of reading a quick glance but on that didn't linger.  It was never anything fun that doctors read - or, well, Doctor doctors.


"But I have spent quite a few months globe trotting and figured it was probably past my time to get seen."


"Oh, yeah, sure." Cecilia stood, grabbing the pile off the desk and carrying it to another corner of the room. "Uh..." She was at a loss and decided to try and approach things diplomatically. "How long have you been gone now? I–things have been a little crazy, so I can't quite remember."


That was an understatement.  Wanda shrugged her jacket off while she waited for Cecilia to direct her where to go.  "Ever since the teams dissolved, essentially.  Oh, I came back through town a few times but mostly I was globe trotting.  Europe, Africa - mostly sticking to the northern tip - and once or twice in Asia."  There was a pause as she digested what she just said.  "Good lord, no wonder I'm exhausted."


"Damn," Cecilia said appreciatively. "You've been a busy girl." She reached into the middle of her precipitously stacked pile, where she was fortunate enough to find Wanda's chart and pull it out. "Hop up over here." She nodded toward an exam table and flipped open the folder. "Enjoy your trip?" She added, almost as an afterthought.


"Somewhat."  Climbing up on the table, Wanda rolled up her shirtsleeves, knowing that was probably going to have to happen anyway.  "Hawaii, my last stop, was quite nice but the rest ... bah.  Too much money and time spent on empty leads.  I had a few days in Hawaii for New Years Eve but then everything went tits up and I booked a plane home as quickly as I could."  She took a deep breath.  "How about you?  What did you get up to during our, well, time off?"


Cecilia put the chart down and turned away from Wanda to find some antibacterial hand sanitizer. She wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question. "You know me," she shrugged, unsure if the other woman really did. "I hate being idle. Worked a little bit on this mutant healthcare project in Latin America for a few months, but from here. And then hopped over to West Africa to help out with Ebola. Putting my degree to use." She grabbed some Purell.


"I love this place," Wanda said quietly.  "But it sometimes makes the degrees and doctorates seem a little ..."  There was a moment where she tried to think of the right way to phrase what she was thinking.  "Other worldly, perhaps?  I sometimes think back to all the work and tears, sometimes blood, that went into my studies and it seems like it was another life.  Especially when you think of how little anthropology really came up when I was jumping out of the Blackbird or getting shot at in some back alley."


She waved a hand in disgust.  "Listen to me.  I sound like one of my old professors, though I dare say I hope none of them ever wore leather."


"That you know of anyway." Cecilia cracked a grin then sat on a nearby stool and wheeled herself toward Wanda. "I know what you mean, I guess. Never thought I'd be reading up on how strokes might or might not affect psychic..." She open and closed her palm as if she could will a word in existence. "Well, you know," she waved a hand, "you get my point. What happened with Charles and Rogue is all sorely out of my comfort zone." She didn't bother mentioning Logan, since dealing with him was as far from comfortable as she got.


The look Wanda shot Cecilia was sympathetic.  "I think the term 'not in my wheelhouse' does not even begin to cover it.  Are you ... how are you holding up?  I have not completely caught up on who is wandering the grounds so I'm uncertain if you're trying to juggle all of this on your own."


"I'm... okay," Cecilia shrugged. "I mean, I've been better. I'm great in the middle of crises, but once they're over..." She shrugged again and glanced at her hands. "It's been weird here. The whole 'where did all the mutants go' thing messed with a lot of people's heads, and my friends are all a little..." Once again, she lacked the right word. Preoccupied didn't seem to do it justice, and grieving wouldn't make too much sense to this Wanda. "I'm dealing with it."  She looked up at Wanda and gave her an apologetic smile. "Sorry, god, listen to me."


"You certainly do not have to apologize!  It must be so hard being in your position."  Wanda gestured to the area around them as she talked.  "I know you doctors must have signed some sort of ancient manuscript that instructed you to take as much on your shoulders as you could bear and then a little extra on the side, too.  But this is ... this is bigger than all of us, Cecilia.  I am happy to listen if you need to talk.  Besides, it distracts you from poking me with needles."


There was a smile with those words since Wanda had come down here without needing to be coaxed or asked first.


"Ha." Cecilia gave her a small smile in return. "Honestly..." She hesitated for a second, because she'd have to choose her words carefully or risk everything falling apart. Presumably in as dramatic a way as possible. "I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around everything that's been happening. I mean," she added to clarify, "you wake up one day, and the mutants are gone. No more mutants. Well, not no more mutants, but you know what I mean."


Wanda's fingers tugged on the hem of her shirt though it wasn't a conscious action.  "I do.  I know that we lead dangerous lives here.  It's what most of us signed up for.  It does not make it easy when something happens to us but ..."  She bit her lip and remembered the absolute mayhem that the news stations were broadcasting.  "None of those innocent people asked for anything like that.  Most of them were leading perfectly normal lives and now they're gone."


"Yeah..." Cecilia chewed her lip.  "I just – I wish there's something that we could have done. Well, that I could have done. I mean, you know, put a forcefield over the whole world or something." She smiled a little, because the idea was ridiculous.


"The what-ifs are the worst," Wanda agreed, shoving her hair out of her eyes with a sigh.  "I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if someone who died was close enough for me to get to, if I had just known.  Survivor's guilt is always the fun part of the aftermath."


"Right." Cecilia nodded. She wasn't quite sure what to say. "But nothing we can do, right? Just keep soldiering on, doing whatever it is we do. While we wait and get the band back together." She smiled, hoping to lighten the atmosphere a bit, even if she was the one who made it to heavy in the first place. "World tour aside, you're glad to be back, I take it?"


"Mmm, quite. Despite the reasons why we are back, it is so nice to see everyone." And to make sure everyone had come out alright from what had occurred. It had been quite nerve wracking trying to count heads and tally up who was at the mansion and who wasn't, even if they weren't around for completely innocent reasons. "I know your days must be much crazier than they were before. We, ah, always did seem to gravitate around the MedLab."


"Eh, not so crazy yet, the last few days aside, but we'll see." She smiled a little. "We'll see. I don't anticipate people being any less..." She fumbled for a word. "Danger-prone, let's say." Foolish is what she'd been thinking, but she wasn't so sure she meant that either. "Then again, I like to be busy, sadistic as that sounds."


Suddenly Wanda laughed.  "Cecilia, you could have not picked a better place to set up shop!  I am grateful we have not had to use your skills yet but I know it will only be a matter of time.  Goodness knows I have had my fair share of days waking up to these white ceilings."  It wasn't really a laughing matter - what they did was dangerous - but she'd had to at Cecilia's last statement.  If there was ever a better place to hang the doctor's sign...


"Speaking of which," Cecilia gestured around them. "Should probably get to it so I don't keep you here all day." And actually, she had plenty of work to be doing herself, and a dog she ought to pay more attention to. "So," she stood, adopting the slight formality of the doctor-patient relationship in her posture. "Gonna grab you some paperwork, really standard travel-y, questionnaire-y kind of stuff. And we'll have to do height and weight and blood pressure, and all that jazz."


"I'll need to tell myself this was my idea later on," Wanda deadpanned.  "You do still hand out lollipops, yes?"
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