knock on wood | howlett

viii. now

tnt ; ac/dc

she sat in her cell once more, playing with the scarring tissue at her chest. she then felt the one on her stomach. both healed in rather sloppy manners.

she sighed, her body was a road map of all her losses.

soon enough, her meal came and she ate in darkness. she had eaten whatever they gave her, it was all she would get so why should she waste it?

she leaned back in the coolness, listening: distant shrieks, scurries on the cell floor, the tapping of guards' shoes.

the smells were atrocious: rotten food, mold, musk, dampness, the stench of filth and disease.

she only bathed when the nurses scrubbed her down after surgery. how horrid.

the door opened and the rocking light of hanging lamps outside illuminated her cell. she looked up at the doctor.

"it's time for your final operation," he stated. she stood, happiness behind her determined facade. she would not shake this time, nor flinch, nor go unconscious.

he led her passed the ailing bodies, passed the curtain. she pulled off her garb and laid on the bed.

he looked down on her with a smile, "it's time to work on your head. i'll be searching for mutations and taking samples. it shouldn't take long."

she nodded, motivated to get out of this hell.

he cut into her forehead, just below her hair line. she opened her mouth to make a noise, but was silent. she closed her eyes to cry, but no tears came.

he cut into her skull and, eventually, the soft tissue of her brain. he'd never done this before and understood so little of what he was actually searching for. he cut on, taking here and seeking there.

he looked at his watch: five hours had passed.

she looked dead. so dead, in fact, he had to check her pulse. there was no rhythm. he cursed under his breath and ordered the nurses out.

he forced the balls of his hands into her heart, into the heart he once scraped away at, into the scar. again and again, he forced a beat.

she gasped crazily and he wiped his brow.

"nurse!" a woman peeped her head through the curtain at the call. it was the same woman that made a remark about rebecca's burn marks. "get her out of my sight!"

she wheeled rebecca's sweating body out of the room and into the infirmary.

her head throbbed, her brain thrashing against the skull in an attempt to break free of the constraint.

the nurse held her head down and placed a cold compress on the stitched-up incision wound.

"breathe," she urged. no one had ever awakened so shortly after surgery, especially such a traumatic one without anesthetics.

rebecca began to quake and thrust, she was undergoing a seizure. the nurse called for the doctor, unsure of how to help the thrashing, limp body.

the doctor rushed rebecca out of the infirmary and deep into the abyss of the hallway. he opened the end door of the compound and pulled her body inside.

there were scientists in the room, a laboratory.

"what on earth are you doing?" one questioned the doctor.

"she's dying from neurosurgery. we have to freeze her-"

"it's not ready yet. the formula is imperfect and she could easily die," he interrupted the doctor.

"freeze her!" he yelled erratically. he pushed the cot passed them, not caring about their next actions. after all, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

she was in the tube before anyone could say anything and it was sealed. he forced a button and liquid filled the tube, causing her body to stop all movement.

she was still as the liquid froze around her body.

the doctor finally went around the tube so the scientists could see him, "there."

"she will be dead when we thaw her," one raged.

"we will wait for the next generations. they will find a way to help her," he left the room. the scientists watched the unmoving girl, frozen in ice.

she was naked, both with vulnerability and literally.

and somewhere, james was waiting. only he wasn't james anymore. he was logan and he was desperately trying to remember the life he left behind.

he had no recollection of the woman who couldn't, in a thousand lifetimes, forget him.