December

By Chibi Hime

Despite the events of the previous day, Gwen was able to sleep soundly.

That is, until suddenly, without any hint of warning...

A bloodcurdling, inhuman shriek of pain cut through the air.

Gwen's eyes shot open at the dreadful sound. She slowly turned over in her bed and looked across the room. Staring back at her were Ben's eyes, wide with fear. Gwen sighed and sat up. She knew very well what it was that had made the sound, though that didn't make it any less terrifying. She brushed her hair behind her ears and slid her feet into her slippers.

"Are you coming? We'd better go see how they're doing down there. I'm sure Myaxx and Grandpa handled everything," she said calmly.

Ben groaned.

"Why did she have to agree to this? Why did she have to choose now to be a good samaritan? I miss the old, selfish Myaxx," he yawned.

"Don't cover up how you feel by blaming her. She's still her old self, we just promised to give her credit if this gadget of hers works out. Are you coming or aren't you?" Gwen asked sharply.

Ben looked like he really wanted to refuse, but he got up and followed her dutifully down the halls of the ship. Gwen groaned to herself. While she would have felt bad leaving Kevin where they had found him, beaten and bloodied by god knows what on their last stop at the last asteroid they passed, she somehow felt he'd much rather they did...especially from the sound of things down the hall.

Max and Myaxx were standing outside the sick bay door. Another series of anguished cries came from within the room. Gwen looked at Ben and saw he had taken on a green hue. Max swallowed. Myaxx smiled eerily.

"Good news. Your little friend we picked up is responding a lot better to my DNA Inhibitors than I thought,"she said.

Gwen would have been a lot more convinced if her sentence hadn't been accompanied by another scream of agony.

"What can we do for him?" she asked, feeling the hairs on her arm stand up.

Myaxx put her hand on her hip.

"Wait it out. He'll be back to his old self again in no time,"she said nonchalantly.

Ben shuddered. Somehow, whenever Myaxx said something like that, it carried no comfort.

"What do we do about...about all the noise he's making?" Ben mumbled, as if unable to say exactly what he meant.

His inquiry was accented by a snarl from the small adjacent room.

"Oh, that?" Myaxx asked.

She waved her clawed hand over the keypad on the sick bay door. The door slammed shut.

"All taken care of," she said.

"That's it?" Gwen asked shrilly.

"Pretty much. You can't give him any pain meds, I don't even know what all is in that boy, much less how any of their systems respond to anything. I'm not a doctor. The only thing I suggest is keeping him cool. He'll probably start running a fever in a few hours,"

"Probably?" Gwen inquired.

"If he doesn't, he's as good as dead. Hope he does," Myaxx said flatly.

That certainly didn't make any of them feel any better.

Gwen swallowed.

There was a stifled cry of pain from behind the door.

"What's happening to him that's making him cry out like that?" Gwen inquired quietly.

Myaxx's face wore a look of pleasant accomplishment that contrasted with the somber mood of the other assembled beings.

"My DNA Inhibitors work like a genetic support system. They are manually reformatting his cells into those distinct to your species...with a few exceptions unique to this specimen. While I can't actually filter the foreign DNA per se, I can suppress its irregularity. You see, I can't remove the alien DNA, but I can override it. There's more to it, but now is hardly the time or the place to go into this. I'm tired and going to bed," she yawned loudly to stress her point.

Ben rolled his eyes. She hadn't changed at all over the past few years. She was still as selfish as ever, albeit helpful.

Myaxx narrowed her eyes at him before returning to her quarters.

"I hate to admit it, but she's right. There's nothing any of us can do until morning. You two had better get some rest," Max said.

Gwen sighed and followed Ben back to their room. She woke with a start an hour or so later and found herself unable to fall back asleep. With little else to do, she slid her feet back into her slippers and walked down the hall of the ship. She passed by the sick bay door. Pausing, she stood on her tiptoes and peered in through the glass window.

The inhuman mutation that was Kevin was strapped to the only hospital bed in the room. All three of his eyes were closed, a slight glisten of sweat shone about his face. He twisted against his bonds in halfhearted spasms while he slept fitfully. Gwen couldn't see where Myaxx had implanted the DNA Inhibitors. She caught a glimpse of the monitoring system. Its read out of his various statistics, the one thing that caught her attention was his body temperature readout.

101 Degrees.

A fever?

That had to be a good sign.

It meant his body was responding appropriately, whatever that meant.

Gwen punched a code into panel beside the the door and it slid open. She got a bottle of water from the cooling unit and dampened a cloth with it. Gwen carefully placed the scrap on Kevin's forehead carefully, so as not to disturb him any more than necessary. He might be restrained, but she didn't want him to try to get physical.

Quietly, she pulled a chair next to his bed. Someone had to watch him and it certainly wasn't going to be anyone else on this ship, especially not at this hour. She dozed off in her chair.

Though once again, she found her rest unpleasantly interrupted.

A snarl of rage and pain jolted her awake.

She shot glance over at the body temperature display.

104 Degrees.

Gwen heard a collage of obscenities and apologies come pouring out of Kevin's fever heated mouth over the next several hours. He twitched and jerked in manic spells. His flesh was constantly wet with its own perspiration. She had to be careful when she put the cold compresses on his forehead, as he tended to writhe away from her. Under these conditions, she could see how tightly his limbs were bound to the sides of the bed. She could see the flesh of his lower arms was rubbed red and raw from his constant straining. While it looked horribly painful, it was probably for the best. Violent seizures would wrack his body every few hours. Each time they did, the fever grew hotter and the words that came out of his mouth only increased in number and colorful usage.

He proclaimed his hatred and bawled like a child in inexplicable bursts while lost in his fever and pain induced hysteria. His eyes were wide and glassy, but Gwen could see that they didn't even know she was there. They were staring at displaced horrors and memories she couldn't imagine anyone seeing in a lifetime, much less someone only a few years older than herself experiencing at this point in their life. His rambling seemed to coincide with the speech patterns she'd known him to have when he was conscious. He would momentarily incite empathy, but quickly decimate any chances at someone acting on it by physically or verbally attacking them. His feverish ramblings seemed to work the same way.

Kevin screamed out how much he hated Ben, then he would sob and beg someone to wait for him and profess how much he loved them, then he'd wrench his body in another series of obviously painful spasms and proclaim his hatred for someone or something else. He'd howl and twist, then collapse. Then he'd cry out again and again when another seizure would wrack him.

This was the cycle that repeated itself over and over.

Occasionally, he'd respond violently to some phantasms from within the depths of his mind. In one instance, he'd shot a sudden burst of Petro Sapien spikes into the wall above Gwen's head. When she shot him a wary look (after getting up form the floor where she dove to take cover), Gwen saw that it wasn't aggression on his face, but rather a terrible fear. What was he so afraid of that its mere phantasmic appearance had gotten such a reaction out of him?

By the end of the first day, he was had lost one of his Vulpimancer arms and hiswings. He seemed shorter, but Gwen wasn't sure if that was due to the DNA Inhibitors or Kevin's attempts to go into a fetal position despite his bondage. The hideous thing whimpered like a struck dog and drifted into a hot, fitful slumber.

Around this time, Ben came in and gave her a pair of earplugs in a good natured, but somewhat insensitive jest. He sat and they talked about a lot of little nothings. All Gwen could really hear were the memories of the ghostly shrieks of her charge. After Ben left, Max came in and offered to take her place. Gwen quietly refused his offer. No matter how much she wanted to leave on some level, on another, she just didn't want to leave the fever wracked boy alone or out of her sight. Max brought her a pillow and blanket, which she accepted graciously. Her grandfather stayed with her for a long time.

In the middle of the night, a brief, fretful whimper gave way to another tirade against humanity. Gwen sighed and put in her earplugs. She hoped he wouldn't do this for too much longer.

But it did.

He continued for hours on end before seemingly passing out in exhaustion. His fiery hot body unable to stand any more. He just lay there limp and breathing raggedly. The whole thing was a terrible necessity. She couldn't do anything. No one could. Kevin had to do it himself. He didn't make a sound for the better part of an hour.

Gwen sighed and got up to retrieve a bottle of water from the small cooling unit in the corner of the room. She poured most of it into a silver bowl and dipped a fresh washcloth with the icy liquid before folding it on top of his forehead. Gwen took a sponge out of a sealed bag and submerged it in the bowl. Pausing, she looked at his sweat covered form. His left arm had lost all its Pyronite qualities and looked oddly out of place on his still largely misshapen body. He'd lost his other Vulpimancer arm somewhere along the line. He only had two eyes now, though one still closed sideways. Kevin's body was still in flux, a perfectly wretched mixture of his human self and the remaining alien characteristics. Carefully, she removed it and carefully pried open his mouth. Gently, she squeezed the water out bit by bit. His tongue reflexively withdrew itself into the depths of his mouth and his eyes flew open.

With a sudden lurch, Kevin pulled his twisted, ruined body in her direction. Clumsily, he seized her hand and wrist in his massive right hand. His eyes, unfocused and still tainted with alien coloring, stared blankly ahead, fearfully.

Almost as if...wait...the more Gwen looked at him, the quicker she came to a

realization.

He couldn't see her. He literally couldn't see her.

He was blind.

He'd been blinded by his fever.

His stony hand felt hard and cruel against her soft flesh. She remembered how unforgiving it was, having been held in it before. However, she didn't pull away. She waited. His grip loosened slightly when he was convinced she wasn't going to run.

"Please...I don't want to die," he said quietly, his voice tinged with his familiar

metallic distortion.

The sudden coherent thought caught Gwen off guard. She inhaled sharply. There was a hitch in Kevin's breathe, as if her gasp had startled him just as much as his blindness had her.

"That's what's happening...isn't it? That thing, the squid face...she did something to me and now I'm dying. I can feel it, everything is pulling apart," he managed to whisper, his terrible voice laced with fear.

Gwen suddenly couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand him being strapped down, apparently unaware of what was happening to him. He didn't know they were trying to fix him. He thought he was being torn apart. Kevin couldn't see what was happening. Myaxx must not have told him what she was doing. Gwen wasn't even aware he'd been conscious while she'd been tinkering with him. All he knew was pain and now he was blind. He couldn't see his human self slowly reemerging from the collage of aliens he had been transmogrified into. She took a step back away from him and he sensed it. His hand tightened around her arm and he squeezed harder than he meant too. A stabbing pain shot through Gwen's wrist and she shrieked at the sudden discomfort.

"Don't go! I don't want to die alone!" he stammered, blind eyes vainly trying to see who he had grabbed.

Gwen huffed and put a hand on the one that gripped her so fiercely. She didn't know if he could feel it or not.

"You're not dying," she tried to say calmly, her voice strained from the hours of listening to his hate laden ramblings. She had figured out his mannerisms. He was going to play the "poor little sick boy" role until he saw fit to exchange it for the "angry, vengeful, sociopath" tone she knew so well.

He yanked her closer roughly and stared forward with those horrible, haunted empty eyes. Gwen's inner self smiled at being right.

"Then what the hell is happening to me? You can't answer that can you? Whatever the hell you are...a fucking squid monster or something,"

His left hand awkwardly ran along her arm and up to her face. His hot palm pressed against her cheek and she felt his fingers trace lightly over her features. Gwen swallowed as she felt his thumb press against her flesh. Part of her wanted to yank away from him, to scream, anything...but she just couldn't. His face became twisted and confused.

"Wait...what the hell?" he asked raggedly.

Gwen's face tensed. Then, she took his left hand in her free one and pressed it against his face.

"So do you," she said bluntly.

He flexed his left fingers tentatively, running them over each other.

"What...what did you do to me?" he asked in a raspy whisper before promptly passing out.

Gwen blinked, thinking it must be an exaggerated act.

But it wasn't.

He really had passed out.

She looked over at his temperature read out.

101 Degrees.

Well, at least it was going down.

And so ended the second day.

The third day was the least dramatic of all of them.

His lowered, but still miserable fever kept him trapped in a fitful sleep all day. One by one, the remaining traces of his mutations faded away. Kevin would grit his teeth and writhe, whimpering softly, but he didn't scream like he had, for whatever reason.

The night of the third day was the least exciting of them all, much to Gwen's

relief. She looked at her watch and saw that it had just passed midnight.

She crossed the room to where a calendar hung on the far wall. Garish Sumo Slammer characters dressed in various holiday attire glared back at her. With a sigh, she uncapped the red marker she used to cross off the days. She drew a red "X" through the previous day and looked at the date.

December 25.

Wow.

What a way to spend Christmas. She was millions of miles from home playing nursemaid to someone who probably wouldn't give her the time of day. Groaning slightly, she stalked back to her seat and sat down with a huff. She cast a glance over at the bedridden mutant and saw him sleeping peacefully.

About time, she thought harshly.

His body temperature display read 99 degrees.

He really was looking a lot better, even from earlier in the evening. He seemed to even have a slightly healthy glow that he'd lacked the last time she'd seen him...well..human. Speaking of which, he should be coming back to his senses...if he had any left after the past three days.

Gwen sat down again and hummed "O Holy Night" to herself to pass the time. Then "Jingle Bells", then "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and finally "The Chipmunk Song".

By then, she became aware of a pair of brown eyes focused on her. They didn't look angry...they didn't look much of anything. They were focused and that's what was somewhat of a relief to her. She smiled.

"Merry Christmas," she said cheerily.

He looked as though he had no idea what to say. But, true to form, he did say something.

"You...you're that girl. The one from the Null Void...you were with Tennyson," he sounded too tired to be angry or spiteful. Maybe he just didn't have anymore hate left in him after the past three days.

"Yep. That's me. I've been keeping an eye on you for the past few days. You've been quite a handful," she added.

As if touched by her choice of words, Kevin looked down at his hands.

Gwen wondered if she'd said the right thing.

She saw they now slid easily out of the restraints that had been meant to restrain limbs much larger. Gwen suddenly regretted not tightening them. She hadn't thought about it because he hadn't had a seizure all night. But now she realized one of their greatest foes was now unrestrained and free to move about if he so desired. She hoped he didn't desire it.

He looked back at her.

"What did you do to me?" he asked quietly.

He didn't sound at all like the Kevin she knew.

"Me personally? Put cold washcloths on your head. But the whole DNA Inhibitor deal was all Myaxx. You know, the girl squid face?" she asked, hoping to keep him distracted from his lack of proper bondage.

"How reassuring," he said flatly.

He looked at her, a familiar smirk crossing his features.

"I see what you're doing. You are hoping I wouldn't notice this," he flexed his wrists, indicating their freedom.

Gwen swallowed loudly.

"What is it with you anyway? Getting Brownie Points for taking care of the freak?" he asked sharply.

Gwen scowled. She did not just spend three days in this room with Kevin only to have him give her any lip.

"Get over yourself. I did it because I'm a decent human being," she huffed.

Kevin laughed.

"Sure you did. Just keep telling yourself that,"

He managed to sound so mocking and cruel without any effort at all.

Gwen felt her cheeks burn. She got up, marched over to his bed and slapped him across the face. He looked stunned. One of his hands went up to his face to feel the stinging red mark her palm had left there.

"What the hell is your problem? I'm sick!" he snapped.

"Shut up! I just spent three days that I didn't have to taking care of your sorry butt! If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead of dehydration! You should be grateful!" she shouted.

He started, as if something she said triggered a memory.

"But that's not enough for you, is it? Nothing anyone ever does will ever be good enough. You think everyone is laughing at you on the inside, that they all can't wait to turn around and make fun of you or stab you in the back. Well, I never would do any of that! Not even after everything you did!"

His eyes widened.

"How do you know that?" he demanded.

"You've been shouting about it for days! I'd have to be deaf not to know it!"Gwen shot back.

He looked puzzled.

"And you're still here?" he asked.

"Of course I'm still here! What kind of shallow bimbo do you take me for? I said I'd stay here until you pulled out of it. Well! Now you have and I'll just be on my way!"

She turned on her heels and started to march out of the room.

"Wait,"

She froze.

"What?" she asked.

"I...I wanted to thank you," he said softly.

Gwen spun back around on him, as if daring him to belittle her more.

"For what?" she asked nonchalantly.

"For being honest," he said sincerely.

Gwen felt her stomach fall to her feet.

Did he really just say that? He couldn't possibly mean that.

"Could you say that again, please?" she stammered.

Kevin chuckled.

"Thank you for being honest," he said, stressing every word individually.

Gwen felt her anger melt away.

He smiled.

"Don't want to start Christmas off on a bad foot," he raised an eyebrow at her.

Gwen smiled and pulled her chair closer to his bed. She sat down, smiling.

"No. No we don't. Though I know someone who tried," she smirked right back at him.

Kevin looked up at her with feigned innocence.

Gwen splashed some water from the bowl on his bedside table in his direction.

"Hey! Knock it off! Sick man here! Time out!" he huffed.

"I think that fever effected your brain for the better. Maybe it shouldn't go away," Gwen teased.

"You want to keep me bedridden...just like in that Stephen King movie!" he mockingly accused her.

"Do not!" She giggled.

Gwen inwardly laughed aloud. She couldn't have imagined this is how things would have turned out. Though inside, she was quite glad it hadn't gone the way she had imagined it...with violence and explosions. No...this way was much more enjoyable...for all involved.