Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), one week to go, lol. ;) InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are loverly for archiving. :) ProPhile is an evil man (notice I left out any other descriptors, lol) for some links...*g* But he's special because of the plotbunny. Readers/Reviewers: The ducks are ignoring me because I am besotted with joy that you're still reading this fic and reviewing. I'd kiss you all but...well, yeah. ;)

"Ice chips? How's that supposed to help if she's hungry?" Amara asked, staring into the cup the nurse handed her.
"She can't eat anything while in labor. She might vomit it up. Give her some ice chips."1
Amara took the cup grudgingly and trod back to Tabby's bedside. "No one answered at the apartment. Here. Have ice."
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with ice?"
"Eat it, apparently."
"Get that nurse back in here. I'll shove it down her throat for that crap about being an unwed mother..."
Amara smirked. "I'll singe her later for you."
"Thanks...ooooh....that kind of hurt." Tabby wrinkled her brow in confusion. "I thought it wasn't supposed to hurt...The childbirth lady said the pain was psychological."
"I think," Amara winced as Tabby squeezed her hand, "she lied to you all."
"Did you..." she paused to breathe as she had been taught, bitterly cursing the Lamaze teacher mentally, "call Beast?"
Amara nodded. "No one picked up in the lab."
"Try again!" Tabby let go of her hand and batted the Nova Roman toward the door. "Wait! Wait! Come back here!"
Amara sighed and stuck out her hand again, preparing for the pain. Tabby was obviously very scared and very much in pain, no matter that the nurse assured her it was purely psychological at this point. "I write with that hand," she pointed out after Tabby eased up.
"Then give me the other one next time!" Tabby pushed damp strands of hair from her brow with a shakinnd. nd. "I want Wanda," she said so quietly Amara almost did not hear her.
"I know," she sighed. She wanted very much to hate Tabby then but could not find it in herself to do it. Instead, she pitied her, and that disturbed her deeply. _I want her to suffer. I want her to know pain and sorrow and feel what it's like to be ripped apart from the inside out... _ As Tabby's eyes slid closed for a brief respite between contractions, Amara backed away from the bed and towards the door, running into the nurse. "Watch where you're going, woman!" she snapped, every inch the princess.
The nurse managed a sneer before pushing past to attend to Tabby's monitors. "I suggest you call her guardian and inform them of the situation. Someone from social services will be here in an hour to discuss options with her."
Tabby's hand shot out so fast Amara did not see it happen. She seized the nurse by the upper arm and jerked her down so they were face to face. "For the last fucking time, Nurse Ratchet,2 I'm keeping the damn kid, I'm in a relationship that's none of your Goddamned business, and if you come in this room again..."
"Tabby!" Amara snapped, seeing what the nurse could not, the glowing ball of plasma in Tabby's free hand. As she watched, the glow faded and the ball vanished. Tabby released the nurse's arm and turned away from her pointedly, her face paling and mouth pinching in denial of the contraction washing over her.
Amara stood just inside the doorway until the nurse swept past imperiously. "I'm going to call the Professor."
"No," Tabby said vehemently, suddenly very alert. "I don't want the whole damn place trooping down here. Just...find Wanda. And Beast! I don't want to have the baby here!" She did not even have to express to Amara the fear of a visible mutation with the child, something so glaringly obvious that it would be impossible to explain away as a simple birth defect.
Amara sighed. "Fine. I'll try again. But it looks like you're going to have to have it here, Tabitha. They won't let you just leave now..."
"Like...Hell..." she said through gritted teeth.
Amara narrowed her gaze and debated quickly about using the phone in the room or the one near the nurse's station. She knew what she was going to do would get Tabby more angry than was possibly healthy, and while that thought made her a little happy, she did not feel like dealing with a labor-induced tantrum. "I'll be right back." Tabby nodded, too busy trying to breathe through a contraction to notice. The phone was blessedly free and Amara looked around quickly before dialing the Institute. The Professor's line rang and rang and rang until she slammed the receiver down in frustration. _You think a man with his money would invest in one of those answering machine thingies. _ She glared at the desk nurse and snapped, "I'd like a new nurse in room twelve-c. The one attending my...friend...is a bitch." The desk nurse, young enough to be startled easily by harsh words, nodded and bolted from behind the desk, apparently to find another nurse for Tabby. Amara sighed harshly and wrinkled her nose at the faint smell of tiredness and failed antiperspirant wafting from her person. _A princess of Nova Roma should never stink... Princess...hey...why not? _ She picked up the phone again and stared at the keypad for a moment before punching in a series of numbers that she hoped was correct.
As she as about to hang up again, a harried voice crackled across the line. "Who's this?"
"What a charming phone manner you have, dearest," she purred.
"Amara? Where the FUCK are you?" Lance snapped. He waved off Todd, who was trying to get his attention from the bedroom doorway. "We're just about to leave to look for you!"
Amara winced. "Don't. I'm at the hospital with Tabby. She went into early labor and they couldn't stop it so they're going to do a C-section in an hour or so. It's not quite an emergency but it's not exactly good..." She did not want to go into detail over the phone so she ended with, "We're on the twelfth floor. Tell Beast." She hung up as the distracted-looking desk nurse came trotting back down the hall, followed by a painfully earnest-looking male nurse. "This is going to be fun..."

Kurt and Remy stared at the wall before them, neither wanting to be the first to touch it. "Eh...un ide..." he produced a card from his pocket and threw it at the wall where Magneto had emerged. It vanished, seemingly into thin air. "Merde3..."
Kurt nodded. "I was thinking something similar..." He reached out to touch the spot but Remy slapped his hand down.
"Non! Won't do ya any good ta draw back a nub, eh?"
Kurt nodded. "Good point. What do you think it is?"
"Not one clue, homme...Forge, he say dat he used ta work here mais he not be tellin' me just what it is. Mebbe he knows dis room, eh?"
"Maybe," Kurt said trying to see if there was some difference in the air before them, some indication of the nature of what they had found. "Maybe he doesn't know either."
Remy shook his head. "Don't say such, Kurt." He sighed and flicked another card at the wall. "Wonder where it goes?"
Kurt shook his head. "I know where we should go..."
"Back to de house, oui...we might be in over our heads here."
Kurt sighed. He did not want to go back and face Kitty, but he knew he had little choice in the matter. "Ja. I think you're right..." He looked back at where they had come from and winced. "Looks like you're in for a ride on the fuzzy elf express?"
"Pardon?" Remy asked, arching a brow.
"Hold on," Kurt said, taking hold of Remy's wrist.
Remy blinked as they reappeared outside the hole leading to the mysterious room. "Damn...I don' like dat one bit..."
Kurt barely heard him. He felt powerfully strange, like he was being pulled back to the room beneath their feet. It was an almost physical urge, like fingers were wrapping around his limbs, tugging on him, nearly too strong to resist. "Remy, we need to go. Now." The urge was overpowering, driving Kurt to his knees. He groaned in frustration, fighting the pull with every fiber of his being. "Now!" he repeated harshly. He felt Remy scoop him up and begin moving as fast as he could back to the bike. It felt like there were a thousand voices in his head, all clamoring for his attention and none of them clear enough to make sense. A wave of nausea washed over Kurt and he closed his eyes against it as Remy crossed the rubble and through the woods towards where the vehicle was hidden. He opened his eyely oly once and he saw the shadow-thing keeping pace beside them. "Who are you?" he asked numbly and he felt Remy make some noise of confusion. The pull was lessening but still painful as they broke through the trees and found the bike.
"Hold on, ami," Remy murmured, figuring out how to secure Kurt to the seat without hurting him or losing him in transit. "We goin' home now..."
"You are," he said quietly, unable to muster volume, "I'm not..." He could feel the presence of the other, the shadow-thing, nearby. He knew that if he reached out, he could probably touch it. The presence was not alarming, just...there. Watching. Waiting. "They won't follow," he mumbled as Remy finally secured him and slung onto the bike in front of him.
"Who won't?"
Kurt gritted his teeth as Remy kick-started the motorcycle, the vibrations shaking his bones. "Just go..."

Kitty blinked innocently up at Logan. "I don't know where everyone went off to," she lied. _Damn it! It was my plan! How'd I get stuck here? _ Jean and Scott had managed to evade detection, and as far as she knew so had Lance and Todd. She, however, had been collared before she even left her room.
"That's one, Half-Pint. Another lie and it's two extra Danger Room session per day for the next month!"
Kitty remained outwardly calm but inside she was howling. "I don't know where they are," she said, a little closer to the truth.
Logan narrowed his eyes at her. "Do you know where they're going?"
Kitty gritted her teeth and debated another lie, but Logan's intense gaze broke her. "Yes."
"Care to tell me?"
"No..." She shifted uncomfortably. "Aren't you supposed to be looking for Tabby and Amara?"
"Storm is handling it right now," he said tersely. "Kitty, you lied to me, you defied me..."
"No, I didn't! I didn't argue with you, I talked to Jean, I went to my room..."
Logan growled. "You know that's not what I meant!"
"The spirit of the law rather than the letter of it?" she challenged, crossing her arms over her ch
"I
"I'm sure this parent thing is easier when you start off with a baby, but no, I got a teenager," he muttered to himself. "Half-Pint, I am very, very angry with you right now. The best thing for you to do it go to your room and avoid me for a long time. Got it?"
"But Kurt..."
"But nothing. Room. Now!"
She jumped when he shouted the last word and unwillingly, tears filled her eyes. She nodded quickly and hurried up the stairs, trying to ignore the sound of Logan storming out the front door below her. She was so distracted that she nearly ran headlong into Rogue. "Sorry!" she yelped to her sullen friend.
"I know where they are," Rogue said, her accent thicker than usual. "And it's not where you think."
"What?" Kitty asked thickly.
"Give me ten minutes and I'll take you there..."
"How?"
"Trust me," Rogue said and smiled for the first time in what felt like days. "I've got ways..."
1 Don't even get me started on the birthing process as forced by American hospitals. Let's just say I so disagree with almost everything this nurse is saying and that's why I became a labor and nursing doula. Sorry. Had to be said. Going back to writing now.
2 from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She was a particularly cruel nurse.
3 "Shit"