In Between

Elaine found herself unable to concentrate on her homework, instead staring at the eraser of her pencil as if it could answer the questions swirling in her mind. She twirled the writing utensil in her fingers, contemplating the indentations her teeth had made in the wood from her nervous chewing. She could almost see a pattern in the bite marks when a knock at her door startled her. She took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart before she answered by opening her door. Jubilee stood there, decked out in a yellow teddy and boy-short ensemble so loud she could almost hear it scream. "Hi..."

Jubilation scratched an itch on her calf with the other foot, which were wrapped in knee high socks the same eye searing neon yellow as her teddy. "Sup. Just wanted to know if you were still gonna be in Logan's class."

Elaine thought this was an odd question to be asking this late at night. "Why would I quit," Elaine asked, scratching her head. Jubilee just shrugged, picking under her neon green fingernails.

"Just wanted to know. Was hoping you wouldn't puss out. It's getting kinda boring kicking the same people's asses every day." She turned and started back down the hall to her room. "See ya, rook." And with that her door closed, leaving Elaine staring at it, wondering what planet Jubilee came from. She retreated back into her room, closing her door behind herself. The clock on her night stand read 8:22pm. It would be about two more hours before curfew. Two more hours to finish her last assignment. But her heart was not in it.

The calender on her desk reminded her that her physical had been scheduled for tomorrow morning. She could finish the assignment at lunch and turn it in later in the day, but that felt like a trivial matter. The thought of Dr. McCoy's examination got her nerves all wound up again and she found herself chewing on her pencil. There weren't many people she felt comfortable about approaching with her 'problem'. The other students were out of the question. She knew from experience that most kids her own age weren't the most trustworthy people. Elaine sighed, putting the pencil down before she could chew it in half. The priest at the catholic school she went to before coming here had taught her how to bring her anxiety under control by instructing her to say the Archangel's names, then repeating them in reverse order until she had control of her nerves.

She remembered her introduction to Kurt the day before. Hadn't Paige said he was a Priest? He had the most startling mutation she had seen so far. She felt he might be able to help her at least make any determination as to whether her own fears were legitimate. Elaine hobbled to the door, however as she turned the knob, she thought better of it. Who knew what kind of gossip she would have following her if anyone got the wrong idea. She closed the door again and instead changed into dark grey sweats with one tennis shoe. She climbed up to the window and unlocked it. The wind was not blowing as hard as last night and it seemed not as cold. She left her window ajar slightly as she made her way up to the roof, finding it just a little harder with her foot in the boot. Though when she finely got up on the roof, she found nothing. Anything worth while was ever easy, was it?

As she examined the buildings around the Institute, she noticed one with the lights still on. She recognized it as the Gym. The roof ran some 85 yards before it took a 90 degree turn with the Gymnasium some 60 feet further. There was no chance that she could walk across the roof without making a lot of noise with her boot. So she decided that the best way was on the ground. She hoped that she could get there and talk with Kurt and get back before curfew. Instead of climbing back into her room, she slid down the steel gutter, landing hard enough on her foot to make her wince. If Dr. McCoy knew what she had just done he might have given her an earache with the same lectures her father used to give her on the rare occasions she was caught sneaking out. Landing hard had made her foot sting with every step. Elaine gritted her teeth as she trotted across the grounds.

Quietly, she opened the doors and stepped inside. Her eyes scanned the large, open area, looking for any sign that Kurt was inside. She checked in the smaller sauna room, the inside pool, the locker rooms and even the showers. If the entire Gym was unoccupied, then why were the lights left on?

"Thought you might come here." Elaine tensed as she heard the voice and smelled the cigar smoke. Great. Logan put out the cigar in the powder basin, leaving the cigar there as the acrid smell of burning corn starch filled the air. She turned around, watching as he leaned against the pommel horse, watching her with narrowed eyes.

"I was looking for Kurt." Elaine wrapped her arms around herself, the throbbing in her foot making her statement a bit more snappish than she had intended. "He is a priest." She let that last part be part explanation and part apology.

Logan sniffed the air one more time before her pushed himself off of the pommel. "Hyena estrogen, eh?" He acted as though he hadn't heard a thing Elaine said, instead wanting to focus on their conversation earlier that day. He slowly approached Elaine who had gone stock still as he sniffed the air around her like a wolf. He got in close to her neck, making the hairs on her arms stand on end, sniffing. He continued sniffing as he stood in front of her again, fixing her with a piercing stare. "Weird thing about Hyenas. The females are often mistaken for males. The equipment's the same."

"Your point?"

"I think you understand my point better than most."

Elaine turned her head away from Logan's stare, focusing on the parallel bars. "Makes everyone here appear normal in comparison, huh?"

"What's normal?" Logan raised his bushy eyebrows as he took his cigar from the powder basin and blew the corn starch off of it. "Normal 'round here might as well mean nothin'." He lit the cigar, taking a few puffs as he continued to ponder the woman in front of him. "What I want to know, is why you haven't been honest with anyone 'round here?"

Elaine turned her glare toward Logan, holding her arms until she was sure she was bruising herself. She considered telling him to go fuck himself but she sighed. He wanted to know what she was hiding and he would get his answer. She pulled her sweat shirt over her head, throwing the garment down in anger and disgust. Logan had begun to ask what the hell she was doing when she let her sweat pants fall to the ground and Logan got exactly the answer he had been looking for.

"Happy?" Elaine asked as she kept her arms by her side, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles were white. She almost could not take the humiliation of someone staring at her body. She fully expected disgust from Logan, expected him to call her an abomination or a host of other names that she felt fit her perfectly.

Logan puffed on his cigar a few more times, chewing it thoughtfully. "You functional?"

"What?"

"Are you functional? Does your equipment work? Do you get an er-"

"I get it!" Elaine closed her eyes as she pulled her clothing back on, folding her arms around herself again. "Yea."

"Hm." Logan puffed thoughtfully again. "And you have a va-"

"Yes! I have both!" Elaine snapped, holding herself tighter. "And they both work." She blushed, wanting nothing more than to crawl under the nearest rock and die.

Logan tapped his ashes into the powder basin, sticking the cigar back between his teeth. "Gotta admit, kid. That is somethin'." He chuckled at her, making Elaine glare back at him with a look he was sure was intended to kill him. "You know, Jubilee would be jealous." Her look of utter bewilderment made him laugh all the harder. "If she had what you got, she'd refuse to wear clothes ever again." Elaine scoffed. If this Chia Pet was trying to make her feel better, he was failing miserably. "And Stick Bug? Try to give us a little more credit than that." With that, Logan made his exit, leaving Elaine standing in the middle of the Gym as he turned the lights out.

She stood in the darkness, staring into the shadows that she could have sworn had eyes. It took her a few moments before she understood the shadow itself wasn't staring at her. "Hi Kurt." But the eyes continued to stare at her and it dawned on her that he had seen her conversation with Logan. She tried to keep her shame out of her face but she failed and cast her eyes to the floor mats. "You saw that, huh?" Again she got no answer, just the two eyes staring at her. Finely after a few minutes of standing in the shadows she turned toward the doors.

"Wait." Elaine stopped as Kurt finely stepped out of the shadow, looking like he was having trouble with what he wanted to say next. "I am sorry. I am having a hard time understanding how what I saw can exist."

Elaine took a deep breath, willing herself not to say anything she would regret. "Me too," and with that she walked out of the Gym, leaving Kurt in silence.

**

The next morning, Elaine woke, showered and dressed and made her way down to Dr. McCoy's office. She changed into the paper gown, endured the examination and answered each question using as few words as possible. She fought the urge to run, not wanting to streak through the Institute in a paper gown and a still sore foot. She had hoped that the Dr. had forgotten about the pelvic exam. But when he led her to the table and instructed her to put her feet into the stirrups, she figured she might as well get it over with.

Dr. McCoy placed a blanked over her legs and stood off to the side with his clipboard. He asked the standard questions which Elaine answered with as short an answer as possible. He patted her knee as he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and took his seat between her legs. "I will tell you exactly what I am doing." He lifted the blanket up to her knees and stopped short. He was keenly aware that Elaine was watching his face for any negative reaction, so he kept his expression neutral. However it was difficult when he realized the full extent of what he was looking at. He examined the skin as he would any other woman, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

Elaine watched his face as it fought between intense surprise and neutral observation. She closed her eyes as she felt his gloved hands on her. She tried to think of anything else other than what was going on right now. She tried to think about the football game last week, the homework due in Dr. McCoy's class. Anything but the fact that she had someone's hands other than her own on her right now. Elaine covered her face as she felt the reaction she was dreading. She heard a surprised sound from Dr. McCoy as she hardened in front of him.

In all his years as a doctor, Henry had only heard about this condition once. The child who had it had died shortly after birth. However, he was now observing the first fully functional Hermaphrodite he or he suspected any medical doctor had ever seen. He conducted the examination of her female parts, noticing a few things. She had no clitoris to speak of, nor did she have testicles. He went as far as he could with the examination before he rolled his chair away and removed his gloves. He waited until Elaine was out of the stirrups before he addressed her. He leaned against the counter, looking over the notes he had made.

"I would like to do a CAT scan on your abdomen. Perhaps in a few days." He watched as Elaine nodded, her hands covering her lap protectively. "Whether or not you tell the other students about this is your decision. However, understand that while you are here, you are among friends." She nodded as she slipped off of the exam table and re-dressed behind the screen and made her way out of the clinic.

Elaine sighed as she made her way back to her room to pick up her supplies for her first classes. She watched the other students, listening to their conversations. The rest of the day she kept thinking about what both Dr. McCoy and Logan had said. She understood what they meant by trusting her fellow students with the full extent of her mutation. It felt better that someone knew about her little secret. But she wanted to go on a little longer before she had to explain to the people she hoped were her friends just why she never wore pants or a swimsuit. She sighed as she settled on the couch to watch a movie one of the students had rented. With running commentary from Jubilee and Paige's repeated attempts to tell her to shut up, Elaine could easily say that this was one of the best days she had had in a long time.