Appointments

[meltdown]

Tabitha Smith was a soldier in service to Magneto in SHIELD. She was mainly a doctor on the battle field but was trained in the use of her powers. As a pacifist she prefered to stay away from the battle. Often she was called to go in and rescue the wounded and tend to them if any of the teleporters couldn't respond.

At the SHIELD headquarters, Tabitha was permitted to have office hours. She treated anyone who came to her office but most of the patients she saw were the soldiers who had been hurt during battle coming for a check up. Tabitha prefered to keep a tabs on the healing process as well. A good doctor didn't just slap a Band-Aid on the wound and send the patient on their merry way.

Tabitha puttered around her office for a while. It was still early before any of her patients came for their appointments. She had brewed a pot of coffee and drank a cup as she reviewed some of the files for her appointments. There were several check ups but nothing serious planned for the day.

Tabitha straightened her white coat and waited for her first patient.

[angel]

Warren walked into Dr. Smith's office. He didn't really want to be there at the moment and was reluctant to show. At her insistence of a routine check up Warren decided it would be more beneficial to go to stop the bombardment of concern.

I know everything will come back fine.

A small part of Warren couldn't really blame her; after all, she did save his life. A bigger part of him just wanted to get out and go back to work; beat the hell out of somebody. The biggest part, 'the void within,' was just longing for something he knew he needed, but didn't know what he wanted.

He sat in a chair and waited for the doctor to call him back. He started thinking about that dreaded battle that almost killed him, yet managed to kill him. He grabbed a magazine a leafed through the pages to attempt to occupy his mind. He looked over some adds and skimmed a small Dazzler interview, but it was little use.

[meltdown]

Tabitha looked up at the clock and saw that it was about time to get started. She rose from her chair and headed for the door. She peeked outside to find Warren sitting, ready for his appointment.

"Mr. Worthington, are you ready?" She asked.

Part of her job as a doctor was to be positive to try and make her patients feel positive as well. Not enough energy and you appear to be uncaring and too much and you turn into a bubbly know-nothing. Annoying. She thought about turning up the dial on her energy. Warren Worthington seemed rather grim today.

"Just take a seat on the bed," she instructed.

Tabitha set to looking over the chart once again. "How are you feeling today?"

[angel]

"Mr. Worthington, are you ready?"

Dr. Smith seem awfully peppy today. Great he sighed mentally. He knew she had a peppy personality and was generally friendly, but that sentence would have put a varsity cheerleader to shame.

"I'm good." Warren replied emotionless

"Just take a seat on the bed."

The paper ruffled noisily as he sat. The room was plain and sterile and decently sized to house an assortment of monitors and other devices while still being able to move.

Warren watched Tabitha standing at a desk with her back to him. Seeing her brought back memories. Memories he'd rather forget.

It had started off a wonderful day. His businesses were normal, his life was normal, and everything was... good. Just a leisure day until the alarm started blaring and his unit was called. He quickly put on his uniform and headed to the briefing room.

They were in the inner part of the city. This is where the crime rate was highest and had the most social disorganization. Warren look around and there were several abandoned buildings hanging together by a thread and barrels of fire. His unit walked across a street and into a small clearing. Warren took to the air and served as "the eye in the sky".

"Everything's seems clear." He reported into his ear piece, "be on guard."

Something started picking at the back of Warren's mind. He definitely could tell something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what. They had gotten a call of an attack at this spot, yet nothing seemed out of the ordinary. People ran when SHIELD units showed up, but that was normal. They always ran when SHIELD arrived.

Warren looked around and studied his surroundings further. 'This is not good.' No sooner had he finished the thought when as was blasted from behind.

Dr. Smith turned around and pulled him from his thoughts.

[meltdown]

Yup. Warren was in a bad mood today. Actually, he seemed to be in a grim mood all the time now. Ever since that battle he had become so dark.

"I'm just going to take some routine vitals. Blood pressure, pulse, temp. You know, the normal ," she explained.

Who has a better bedside manner? Tell me, who? she thought a bit arrogantly.

As she wrapped the sphygmomanometer, fancy name for the blood pressure cuff, around his arm. She listened through the stethescope to his heart. One thing that fascinated her was the lupp-dupp sound of the beating heart.

"One-twenty-five over ninety-one," Dr. Smith replied.

That was high for Warren. He was in fine physical condition and had a blood pressure in the low normal range that was common for his physique. "Your bee-pee is a bit high. You feeling a bit stressed lately? Eating a lot of salty foods?" she asked.

So much blood. There was so much blood. Tabitha would never forget how much blood there was that day. She almost never stopped the bleeding.

((I had to go back and edit that number on the bloodpressure. Turns out that was quite low.))

[angel]

Warren held up his arm so she could better fit the sphygmomanometer. He watched her with his eyes barely moving his head. He felt a little awkward in her presence, but decided to deal with it. He'd faced worse situations.

"One-twenty-five over ninety-one." The number was meaningless to him. "Your bee-pee is a bit high. You feeling a bit stressed lately? Eating a lot of salty foods?" She continued her perky voice and attitude.

Stressed!?! That was a dumb question. She of all people...

Warren yelled and cursed as he plummeted down to earth. Chaos erupted before he hit the ground. There was screaming and yelling and gunfire everywhere. He hit his head on a large piece of debris and was knocked unconscious.

He awoke awhile later to find that the battle was still going on. There was less gunfire, but a battle none-the-less. His head was throbbing and vision unfocused. He wiped his head and saw blood on his hand. Given enough time and his advance healing would take care of it.

Looking around, his vision clearer, he saw walking death in the form of a human sized metal robot.

"No," Warren answered flatly.

[meltdown]

"Hm." Dr Smtih wondered. "It's probably just a natural fluxtuation.

She removed the cuff from his arm and set it away. She made the appropriate notes on her smart pad. She could feel Warren staring at her.

Tabitha stood in the group of soldiers. She hated going into the field. It almost invariable meant that someone would die. She had watched as Angel began his reconnaisance. She watched as he was shot from the sky.

Dr. Smith shouted for cover. A telekinetic projected a force field around her as she ran to Angel. Warren was safe behind a shield as well. She approached and saw one of the machines march toward the fallen Angel. No one would die today, she thought. She launched a timebomb the size of a grapefruit. It lodged in the machine's torso and exploded. Chunks of shrapnel showered harmlessly against the telepathic shield.

The telepath allowed her to enter the shield protecting Angel.

"So, have there been any complications with your healing factor?" she asked.

[angel]

"So, have there been any complications with your healing factor?"

He covered his face as the robot exploded. His head was swimming and his ears were ringing. Were they ringing before the explosion... he couldn't remember.

Dr. Smith was at his side in a matter of seconds. He moved and tried to hold his head up, but everything spun. He shut his eyes to fight back the nausea. Surely he wasn't hurt this bad. It was a minor shot or two in the back.

He tried to roll over onto his side, but let out a blood curdling scream and stopped. The pain was endless and coursed through his entire body. He had never felt anything like that before.

His healing factor? "I don't think so," Warren answered.

[meltdown]

Dr. Smith made notes that there didn't seem to be any complications with Warren's healing factor. That was good. Everything should be fine as long as his healing factor compensates.

Warren's face was blank and expressionless. She could tell however that he was probably reliving that horrible day over in his mind, just as she was. She was afraid that was a turning point that he wasn't coming back from. He's become just another casualty.

Dr. Smith sat against a counter top and placed her pad down. "So how are you coping with...the ordeal?" she asked.

She hated to marginalize what had happened to him by refering to it as "the ordeal" but that seemed to be the easiest way to talk about it. There's no way Tabitha could know the pain that he went through.

[angel]

Pain continued to course through his body. Dr. Smith gave as much morphine as she dared, but it was of little help. There were many aides running back and forth. Medical terms were tossed back and forth and medical supplies passed frantically. He was immediately hooked up to as many IVs that could save his life and various monitors.

His head was foggy and his vision hazy and seeming to get worse. He could vaguely hear someone yell "he's slipping!" Sleep would have felt so good to him if it were for that long drawn out beep he kept hearing.

"So how are you coping with...the ordeal?" She asked cautiously.

Warren inwardly cringed at the question. He hated talking about "the ordeal" and never wanted to. He hated the thought of people butting into his personal business.

The change was no less than obvious, and he couldn't forget like it never happened. It didn't work like that, life didn't work like that.

"Do you know how death feels?" Warren asked, "So close that it caresses you with it's icy embrace?"

He felt sharp pain as every muscle in his torso contracted. He looked to the side just long enough to get a glimpse of a blood covered Dr. Smith. She looked him in the eye and was said something unintelligible as Warren slipped into unconsciousness.

[meltdown]

"Warren. I deal with death most every day. I use my skills to the best of my ability to stave off death for anyone who may cross my path. But I can say that I have not been on the side of death that you have experienced," she explained. "I can only imagine that it is..." What word should I use? "life changing."

That's an understatement.

[angel]

"Warren. I deal with death most every day. I use my skills to the best of my ability to stave off death for anyone who may cross my path. But I can say that I have not been on the side of death that you have experienced," she explained. "I can only imagine that it is... life changing."

Life changing. That's certainly one way to put it.

"As a soldier, we face death on every mission, but to get so close and come back from it... it kind of makes you see things in a different way. Well it was either death or shock of waking up blue with a new set of wings. It hard to discern," Warren said cynical and with some resentment.

[meltdown]

"As a soldier, we face death on every mission, but to get so close and come back from it... it kind of makes you see things in a different way. Well it was either death or shock of waking up blue with a new set of wings. It hard to discern," Warren said cynical and with some resentment.

Dr. Smith couldn't help but pick up on the venom in his voice. He certainly saw things in a different light now. Dr. Smith wondered if Warren wished that the combination of her efforts and his healing factor hadn't been enough to revive him. She wondered if he thought he was better off dead. His wings had once been fine, elegant feathers. They were pristine and well, angelic. Now they were made of cold metal.

"Your wings? Are you adjusting well to them?" she asked. "I know I'm asking a lot of personal questions and I may not be totally qualified to help you cope with your mental distresses. I"just want a better understanding of your whole condition.

[angel]

'Damn right you're asking a lot of personal questions. You're a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist.'

Warren glared at her obviously bothered. He held that glare for a few seconds before answering. "I'm coping fine. Different at first, but not difficult to adapt."

Warren slowly regained consciousness. He could vaguely recall the event of the previous day; however many days before that was.

He noticed that he was in a different room than before, and he was alone. Soon he recognized it to be a room in the infirmary. He warily sat up his body feeling irregularly heavy. It was a little odd because he expected to be sorer than he was. He pushed the covers off and stopped every body movement; his eyes grew wide. It seemed like his heart had stopped once again like it had many times that night. His legs were blue. He quickly got out of bed knocking over the IV stands as well as pulling them out of his arms. On somewhat shaky legs he darted to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. What he saw absolutely shocked and horrified him.

His face was completely blue. As if expecting it to be a mask he gently reached up and touched his cheek; his arms were blue also. His entire body was blue. He turned to the side and saw two large black metal protrusions out of his back.

‘WHAT THE HELL!!!’

His face contorted in a mix of confusion and fury. He angrily punched the mirror; it shattered to pieces and scattered among the bathroom sink and floor. He stormed angrily out of the bathroom. He saw Dr. McCoy standing in the large room along with several aides altered by the ruckus he caused.

Dr. McCoy was talking to him trying to get him to calm down. That was the last thing somebody should have tried to do to him at the moment. “What the **** did you do!!!” Warren yelled stormed over and grabbed him by the lab coat.

Warren remembered him saying something about a dormant mutation. Everything had been turned around so fast and his hotheadedness hadn’t helped.

“You used me like a guinea pig!? You poked around inside me when you had no idea what would happen!” Warren screamed getting in his face.

The nurses and aides were now pulling at his arms trying to get him off Dr. McCoy. Warren just swatted them away. One of the nurses ran out and pressed the security alarm. The alarm blared all over the wing. Warren, frustrated, threw his hand off of Dr. McCoy and charged for the door. Several aides tried to block him, but he simply shoved them out of the way.

“I can’t help but notice, Dr. Smith, you have yet to finish your examination,” Warren stated. “This is a doctor’s appointment after all.

[meltdown]

After Warren was wounded it took him a little while to recover. It was then that it was obvious that he had a secondary mutation. Tabitha remembered the commotion he had caused when he woke up. He blamed all of them for his condition. It was from that point that his life became a downward spiral. Tabitha wasn't sure if she could blame him.

“I can’t help but notice, Dr. Smith, you have yet to finish your examination,” Warren stated. “This is a doctor’s appointment after all.

Tabitha took a breath. "Alright," she said simply.

She continued the examination. She examined him chest and palpated his stomach and limbs.

When the exam was over. "Well, there's nothing wrong with you. You're exquisite physical condition," she replied making notes.