Seven MagpiesDisclaimer: All characters are copyright of Marvel Comics Inc. I am making no profit off of this story and it is intended for entertainment purposes only. This story picks up several months after Excalibur #125, the last of the series; apologies for any continuity errors. If they’re severe, just think alternate universe, although last time I checked the Legacy Virus continued unabated. It attempts to answer several questions: doesn’t Moira get sick, being Legacy-positive? Whatever happened to Rahne Sinclair, her writerly leanings, and her character in general? Whatever happened to Hank McCoy, the Beast? Surely these characters read books sometimes? Why, since they both interact with Moira, do we never see the two interacting? For more information see the Notes at the end. Seven Magpies The sea and sky were grey around Muir Island, the ocean refuge on the brink of morning rain. Rahne looked at the gleaming research and dormitory facility through the mist from the old crofter’s house. The little stone house was the only building left on the island from the old days, sturdy enough to endure superhero bomb-blasts without collapsing, even though it had been built without a nail two hundred years ago. Moira had stowed all of her old family things that survived there, reasoning that people would blow up the research center, not a cottage. Rahne had just finished sorting an extremely educational box of books from some racy ancestor of Moira's around the turn of the century. Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite. A first edition of Havelock Ellis’s Human Sexuality, which she had taken with a grain of salt—no way people could be so very unco’ about their houghmagandy. While she would never have dreamed of reading any such thing at Xavier’s—what if someone had seen her with the books?—here, she just tucked them under her jacket and snuck them into her room. She heard a thrumming and looked up from the window; a flyer was heading to the helipad. She dashed off to greet it, tucking the four volumes of Colette’s Claudine series under her arm. The little she had browsed had reminded her of her happy, if nervous, early days at Xavier’s, and the fun times of being with Excalibur. As she ran over, a small group of magpies flashed along, and she counted them out of habit to see what the plane had brung, reciting the old poem under her breath. "One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, an’ seven for a secret that’s never been told." There were seven. The little silver pod-flyer disgorged its bizarre passenger; a massive man covered in dark, bluish fur, with a tufted half-mane and a broad, leonine face. This apparition was civilized by a white lab coat, two portable file cases, a duffel bag, and a laptop case. He swung out on one arm with jungle smoothness. "Hey, you’re Rahne, right? I remember you from I can’t remember where, one of those vast X-assemblages." Very American, she thought, as he shook her hand; her own slim one was lost in his, bigger than a baseball glove. But what a smile! A proud, white flash, canines sharp like hers but so good-natured. It occurred to her that a lot of people probably never looked at him long enough to see that smile, bolting in fear instead. "Moira’s waiting for you," she said, "and there’s elevenses." "Ah, the blessed late-morning repast, benefice of bonnie Caledonia. One hopes not to soil one’s journals with Devonshire cream as we review the state of research on the Legacy Virus." He sighed a heartfelt sigh. "Sometimes I feel like McCoy on Star Trek, you know? "I’m a geneticist, Captain, not a virologist!"" Her face stayed somber as she directed them to a pathway through the renewing grass, asking him "So you’ve had to change your specialty?" "Indeed, to my discomfiture and regret, and Moira too. People, even the X-Men, assume biologists are interchangeable, "here, it’s alive, you fix it," but it’s not so simple nor serendiptious. The projects I’ve dropped for this---Good Lord, who re-designed your house? And are they getting the psychiatric help they need?" Rahne frowned at the latest glass and concrete version of Moira’s research establishment-cum-residence. "Some architecture student. I dinna like it mooch. He won some award, so they built it for us f’r free. It’s supposed to look akin to the Glasgow Art Centre, a famous building. Except f’r science, na’ art. " It was nice to chat: Moira hadn’t said as much as Hank had in five minutes for all of yesterday. "That doesn’t look like the Glasgow Art Centre to me. Rennie Mackintosh must be rolling in his grave." He gave Rahne a sharp look as she giggled at last. "You know who Mackintosh was? My God, someone who actually gets my jokes." He looked at the pretty, grave girl again. Moira tended to talk about Rahne like she was a fractious fourteen-year old. But she was older than that, a youngish eighteen he’d guess, with that misty British heritage-rose complexion. When did you ever see a redhead without freckles? After a British winter. He remembered her as vaguely spotty, but she’d grown out of that. Her features had resolved into a delicacy that evoked an auburn Audrey Hepburn, with wide hazel eyes. And she also had—as she walked ahead—a cute butt. When he saw Moira, he was shocked. The Legacy virus was slowly hitting home; the once-handsome woman was visibly unwell, her chestnut hair thinner, eyes hollow, complexion slightly yellowish. There were new lines around her mouth. Something was throwing her liver off, Hank thought. Was that loose cream bodysuit hiding the semi-keloid eruptions that were typical of the virus? This explained Rahne’s set, grave face. But Moira leapt into scientific conversation with him with the same fierce intensity that she always did, and he found himself drawn in as Rahne quietly put down plates and cups. It was rare that they could talk unadulterated shop to anyone in person. Rahne peeked in periodically, watching the two agitated scientists ruffling papers, ranting, and drawing notes on a markerboard. Watching Hank cruise the web on his laptop, as small as a calculator in scale to his large hands, was particularly amusing. In spite of her best efforts, she found virology hard to follow, and tried to help in other ways. She noticed in relief that Moira ate two of the sandwiches she brought in, and that the company was putting color in her old-ivory cheeks. At first, Moira had been restive about her self-imposed isolation on Muir Island, especially after Excalibur disbanded and decamped, but Rahne had gradually realised that her settling into it was troubling, in a way she couldn’t describe. Her snap was gone. Talking to someone new seemed to bring her energy, and luckily Hank seemed set to stay for a few days. Moira had missed Douglock, perhaps, as much as she did. As evening fell, Hank traipsed off to Moira’s study to help himself to some single-malt Scotch. When he came back, to his astonishment, Moira was asleep, crashed out on a sofa. He was about to wake her when Rahne tiptoed in. "Och, dinna wake her, please, Dr. McCoy. She tends to do this nowadays—work ‘till she drops off to sleep, an’ wakes up the next morning." Hank sat quietly as Rahne shifted into her half-wolf form, gently picked up her foster-mother, and carried her upstairs with practiced ease. Modified narcolepsy? Psychological in origin? Or just a system shut-down to save biological resources? How long had this been going on? When Rahne came back down, he asked her quietly, "She does look unwell, I’m sorry to say. Have you noticed any other…behavioral changes that could be related to an illness?" "Well, Doctor—" "Hey, hey! Call me Hank. I flash on Star Trek when people call me Dr. McCoy." "Well, she’s shorter-tempered, but that’s a standard reaction tae havin’ a terminal disease. She’s getting thinner an’ has less appetite. I try to make her things she truly likes. She quit calling Sean back, although he calls all the time—I think she’s depressed. She, well, she smells depressed. And ill. I only say this a’cause you're a doctor; I don’t think all’s right wi’ her bowels. And," Rahne opened her green eyes wide, "she’s STILL got the heat on even though ‘tis APRIL." Hank tried not to laugh at her Scots outrage at a warm house out of season. "Sounds like you’ve been keeping a list." "Aye, I have. It was I’ this auld book I found in the library boxes on carin’ for someone wi’ chronic illness as one o’ the things to do. She got some of those books in the seventies when she was carin’ for her sick son. I can do more than in those books—in my wolf-form, I can tell by her scent how sick she is or if something’s troubling her. She—she’s been getting sicker, more often…and nothing I do seems to help…" I will not cry, she thought, I will not. "I’m glad you're asking.’ The problem is, she says that a’cause she’s a doctor, she disnae need to see another doctor. Is it true doctors make the worst of patients?" Hank watched her turn away, heard the changes in tone. He engulfed her slim shoulder in a vast paw. Perhaps Dr. Reyes—more of a general health practitioner than either him or Moira-- could be coaxed over for an exam of Moira. " Very true. It sounds like you’ve been doing a lot for her, Rahne. What have you been doing for yourself?" She was probably burned out. "Reading, mostly. Out o’ pure boredom I’ve been sortin’ and readin’ every book in the library boxes. I’ve ordered some new ones. I’d like to take my A levels an’ go to university some day, so I need to stay sharp." She paused. Hank seemed too secular to be told that she prayed. "I go for walks, make supply runs." She paused again. "I know it doesn’t sound like much, but…I figure I’ll have plenty of time for other things later, when…after Moira’s better. Or after she dies." He delicately avoided the last statement, not knowing what to say. His first impulse was to reassure, but what if she was right? If they didn’t get this virus figured out, that might be a healthy if macabre state of mind. "What would you like to study? I could probably help you get into college—give you a reference or something. Somebody at Columbia University owes me a favor." "Aweel, it’s difficult, isn’t it, there’s so many things. Part of me wants to be a psychologist an’ help people—I’d be a doctor except I simply am na’ bright enow do the math an’ chemistry. I’d also like to study writin’, but that seems selfish." Hank burst into a grin. "Selfish? Think of all the books you could write! A veritable mutant bard! To say nothing of intimate exposes of Magneto. You’d be a millionaire! I’ve always regretting not studying writing more. Especially poetry, Yeats and Frost and Ginsberg—" His wristwatch beeped. "Time for me to call home. Where’s the videocam lurking in this overdesigned palace?" At the X-Manison, he was answered by Jubilee, at the kitchen monitor, striving for a new bubblegum bubble record. "Hey, furball, whassup?" "Nothing much here in the misty borderline Hebriedes, O Jubilation. What’s the status at the mansion?" She popped her bubble. "The heeby-jeebs? I thought you were in England, dude?" "Scotland—the Hebriedes are the islands there. Is everything all right?" "Copacetic, dude. Hey, have ya been shedding for spring? There’s blue fur all over the sofa!" "Very funny. Ask Nightcrawler about it. Well, tell them all I said hello, and I’m at Muir Isle if I’m needed." "You must be sick, Hank. A whole sentence I could understand! Bye, fuzzbutt! Don’t let ‘em peek under yer kilt!" He turned off the videocam with a chuckle. Rahne was horrified. "How can she be so very rude to you? She talked to you like---like you were a mascot or something, not a person, a man." "Oh, that’s just Jubilee, Rahne, being her usual puckish yet puerile self. You’re European, and Europeans have more manners in general." She shrugged. "When I was in my fur-form all the time, people talked to me like I was a livin’ soft toy. An’ I got sick of all the dog jokes. Verra annoying." Feeling self-conscious, she headed for the kitchen. Hank looked at her back thoughtfully. Perhaps she had a point. And when was the last time anyone had told him he was… a man? Settling into the role of mascot, perhaps that was a way of avoiding the fact that he’d been single for months on months now, with no probable prospects in sight. Staying in the lab constantly didn’t help. "I’ve donated my body to science," he muttered, "and I’m not even dead yet." He contemplated the epidemiology journals that awaited and followed her instead. Her rear view was definitely more appealing than the back or front cover of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly. "What’s Moira eating nowadays?" She noticed that he dropped most of the five-dollar words when talking about serious things. "We’re eating fish and lamb, local an’ homemade stuff mostly to avoid pesticides an’ such. She likes ice cream. D’you like salmon? We’ve got a side of it, an wi’out Moira eating…" Over dinner, they wound up talking about American universities and poetry, Hank declaiming reams of Yeats from memory, delighted to find that Rahne actually knew a little about the poems from her reading. But, talking about Yeats’s tombstone,--"Cast a cold eye/On life, on death/Horseman, pass by!"-- they drifted back into talking about Moira and her sickness. "Why haven’t you guys been in touch?" Rahne sighed. "Moira doesn’t want to talk to anyone until she’s got some kind a’results—sae many people are lookin’ to her, an’ you. I haven’t heard fra’ X-Force in two months, and I know they’re home. I just canna bring myself to call someone up an’ say, "Hullo, how are you? Oh, me? My mum has a degenerative terminal illness an’ willna’ admit it."" They reviewed the various steps down Moira had taken over the winter. "Of course the puzzle is why you haven’t gotten sick, Rahne, not even a cold, as you say….now, if you had a healing factor…" "I think I recall Xavier sayin’ long ago that I do heal faster than usual." Hank paused, staring into space, and placed his knife and fork together on his empty plate. "Rahne? I’ll be back in a minute…I have to check something in the lab." On one of the lab computers, he logged into the Xavier database, called up her dossier and went through the reams of it, which included a section of injuries and illnesses. There were no illnesses, period final, and all the injuries had resolved without permanent effect, even cracked ribs and concussions. Ah, in the very first version; Xavier had noted that she had a minor healing factor, more notable than that of the average mutant but nowhere near as dramatic as Logan’s. Maybe less minor than they’d thought, if it had been warding off the Legacy virus. And the key to conquering any virus was either creating antibodies via vaccines, using a weaker version of the virus, or mimicking antibodies in drugs. If Rahne’s healing factor had been generating antibodies in herself…if those antibodies could be replicated in a drug…if a weakened viri in her plasma could be cultured for a vaccine…damn, they should test Logan, too, the man was healing factor central, and the former members of Excalibur, but he knew Rahne had definitely had long and daily exposure to the virus. With the Shi’aar protein scanner, he could find out right away. Rahne had done the dishes, read for a while, and turned in, aware that "I have to check something in the lab" meant you might as well go about your own business. When Moira collapsed like this early in the evening, she woke up around five the next morning, and Rahne wanted to make sure she ate. So she had gone to bed and gotten up to the section in "Claudine s’en va" where the protagonist described her attitude towards sex as a somber mystery. That’s about right, she thought, rearranging her neckline. It was so hot with the heating up for Moira that she only wore a brief summer shift. Sometimes it was easier to sort things out without anyone around. The recent months of quarantine, combined with massive unsupervised reading, had her thinking a lot. She’d been attracted to Dani—or had she wanted to be Dani, so brave and assertive?—at any rate, she’d had a crush. She and Dani had been drawn together as friends by mutual culture shock and their mindspeech. Sam and Beto had both dazzled her; tall blonde Sam, with his accent, was every dreamy American cowboy and TV star, and Beto was simply, as Dani had put it, sex on greased skids spiced with money. Doug had been sweetly present, as had Douglock, but, as good friends as they were, something was missing. Rahne looked at herself in the mirror—her latest low self-esteem thing was that she looked like a boy—and wondered if, perhaps, as in the psychology books, he had been gay? Then there had been the ghastly Genosha experience, and the horrible feelings she’d had for Alex—not desire and not love, but compulsion, stomach-gnawing obsession. She’d felt like an idiot and couldn’t help herself. But when she tried to remember how she felt, the fire was gone, as if it had never existed—but she could remember the excruciating twinges she’d felt for Sam Guthrie as if it was yesterday. Because it hadn't been programmed into her by the Genoshans? Maybe. Maybe she couldn’t evoke her feeling for Alex because it had been false and purged. She stiffened with rage as she thought of how they’d programmed her like Pavlov’s dog. But she felt she was a different person now, after the days in Excalibur, after rueful thinking about Douglock, long winter nights fretting over Moira, expecting, as Dani once had, to see Death himself walk in the door. And now Hank. Goodness, he was attractive, not like other fellows but in the same strange, yet comforting way the Asgardian Hrimhari had been. And so charming. He probably just felt sorry for her and was being a good guest. After her misery over Sam and Alex, the last thing she wanted was any more foolish crushes. There was a knock on her door. "Aye?" It was Hank, his fur standing on end. "Rahne! I need you to come down to the lab with me RIGHT NOW." She leapt out of bed, alarmed. "Is summat awry?" "No, no! It could be great! I want to titrate your plasma using the Shi’aar protein positive coder to establish whether or not you have a viable vaccine-possible level of anti-Legacy-1 antibody codons and a possible weakened strain sans heavy load viral infection due to your low-level healing factor or exposure to an alternate viral strain! Come on, with rapidity, speed, alacricity!" He grabbed her by the arms and bounded down the stairs. "This could be a major breakthrough—if we can formulate a vaccine at least no one else’ll get the virus, it’ll be stopped in its tracks! We’d have to test on a controlled population, perhaps the Vault inmates…" His babble descended into protein vectors and viral variants as he plunked her on an icy lab counter and, with big hands trembling, readied a blood draw. She raised one arm to cover her cold-hardened nipples—oh, how embarrasing, at least the lab was dark so he probably didn’t see. "A’richt, I’m ready." He did not use a tourniquet, but instead clenched her arm to raise the vein. As he put the sample into the device’s hopper, she tiptoed over to see. Moira tested herself regularly on this machine, so she understood the readouts. Well, some of them. An electron microscope inside the device produced an image of a lumpy cell, with a line of mathematical data beside it. "Is—is that a yes? And is a yes good?" A little smile on his face spread into a huge grin. He tapped the buttons to save the result by freezing the plasma and preserving the data. Naturally, he couldn’t be sure until they’d done some tests. But his scientist’s intuition said--- "By jove. Eureka. Oh, my stars and garters, my most celestial cross-dressing underwear, I do believe –dare I say--it is an affirmative! WAHOOOOO!" He leaped up, high-fived the ceiling, drummed his feet in a victory rain dance, then picked her up and gave her a deep tounge kiss. She stiffened in shock as his vast hands cupped her back, one almost spanning her behind. "Promise me," he said, "you won’t get into any combat and spill a drop of plasma. Oh, Christ, what am I doing? I forgot myself—I apologize—" Her lips still glowed, and for once in her life she spoke without thinking. "Och, if you’ve forgot yourself, at least I’ve got something to remember! An’ here I was going to ask if you had a younger brother I could ask out." He smiled and placed his hands on her shoulders again, reeling with the adrenaline rush of scientific success. He’d been piqued by her ever since his arrival….why the hell not? "Rahne…now, I don’t want to pressure you…Come here. You’re a lovely young woman, have you ever?…." She shielded herself with her arms, like a folding flower. "No, never." "Well, then….would you want to? A first time? I mean, if I’m unsuitably hirsute compared to other potential initiators—" She felt the pads of his palms perspiring and blurted out the first thing to come to mind. "But I just look like a lad!" Hank laughed. "Waifish, yes. Boyish, never—not with those eyes and that waist. And if you look like a boy, I look like a ‘70s living-room shag rug." "But you’re quite attractive, I think," she blushed. "Well, then," he caressed her back, "the decision is yours." He couldn’t read the wide eyes she turned on him, but her head was spinning. He liked her! He actually thought she was pretty enough! He was offering! And—a great sense of impatience welled up in her. It would be right to be married for the first time, but maybe nobody would ever want to marry her, and if, as she had so often thought lately, she died...in some accident, an attack, from the Virus…She was tired of having her life on hold, of waiting, of falling short. Silently, she stood on tiptoes, placed her slim arms around his neck, and kissed him, then nibbled his neck, as Hrimhari had hers years ago. He tasted of clean, musky fur. Although she could only reach his lower neck instead of up by the ear, it had the same results. He arched and moaned, a deep growl-purr, and reached down and removed the airy nightgown entirely, lifting it over her head. All she wore beneath was a pair of flowered bikini briefs and a small, glinting necklace. "You must be freezing," Thoughtfully, he scooped her up and placed her on a couch-like examination chair instead of the sterile metal counter, flicking on the chair’s light. He was astounded when she reached up her hands again and stroked his chest fur until she found his own nipples. "Ah! If it’s your first time, you’re a natural." She squirmed with pleasure at the compliment. "I’ve been reading a lot." "Oh, really? Don’t psychoanalyse me, you’re the one on the couch, here. Just call me Dr. Feelgood." He ran his hands over her lithe, pale body, noting that he could clasp her waist in both hands with finger-room to spare. After all the scantily clad young women who dashed around the X-Mansion, and all the college students he’d silently admired in his day, he kept it unsaid that his taste in women hadn’t changed after all these years, that he still had a soft spot for… the young and the idea of initiating. It was an unsatisfying irony that his bizarre appearance attracted jaded sexual sophisticates. A chilling thought struck him; what did his dark counterpart feel? Had he abused his power in that way under Apocalypse’s regime? To drown the thoughts, he applied himself to Rahne’s breasts, stroking the tilted oval nipples on the teacup tits. Rahne was so absorbed in the novel sensation of a warm mouth nipping at her breasts that she barely registered him saying, "Well, I declare, I do believe you have an extra.!" "Extra what?" "Nipple! It’s adorable, don’t worry about it, do you feel anything right…here?" "Ooooh! Yes! Wait, let me see." She leaned up while he pointed to a nubbled brown oval on her ribs, the size of a tenpence. "There it is, and it’s wired, so to speak." "Och, they’d have burned me for that…" "Three hundred years ago in Salem, maybe. But right now, there’s only one way you should burn." Rahne sighed as he slid his fur-backed hand over the warm cotton. What he didn’t know about her past, he didn’t need to know. Especially not now. "Hum." He examined his talon-tipped hands. "Fair maid, these hands are not worthy of you yet. Hold on, think me not untrue, while I refresh them for you." He busied himself with a sharp pair of lab scissors and the disinfectant soap. While his back was turned, Rahne peeked at him. "I was thinkin’ earlier wi’ a name like McCoy you must be Scots, but I take it back—you must be Irish wi’ that silver toungue." "I do be slangin’ the Hibernian blarney, ‘tis the McCoy way." "Och, yuir accent hurts!" He smiled; the warm banter was to his taste, instead of having her frozen and shy. Once his hands were dry, he took the opportunity to slip out of what he called "the X-shorts," an abbreviated uniform designed to protect and be discreet about his family jewels. Which, after all the stimulation, were killing him in the constrictive jock. Her hands flew to her pink mouth, and she gasped. "Och!" Well, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen a naked man, but—"God has blessed you, Hank McCoy! But I truly dinna ken if I can manage." He laughed so much he wound up kneeling on the floor, and she sat up, shielding herself with her arms yet again. "Oh, my stars and garters. I’m going to have that embroidered on my jockstraps. Now that my hands are fit for you, lie back and we’ll see what we can do about getting you wet and ready." He slid one finger under the too-adorable briefs, and stopped her when she went to take them off. "Leave them on, " he rasped, "I’ll take them off you myself." The fur on her pussy was as soft and fine and thick as the fur-hair on her head, matted into hot slickness with her own effluvia. He used a short pushing caress to rub her labia ridge over and over again, cupping her shoulders beneath one arm as she buried her head in his furry shoulder. Somewhere, she’d picked up the idea that a good lover needed to take as well as give, and she kept trying to caress him, but he pressed her distracting hands down. "If you want to touch me, touch me here. But be gentle. Ah, that’s right. The tip is the most sensitive. Can you do something for me? Put one hand there, just little feathery touches—" he gently moulded her compliant left hand around his melanin-black scrotum—"and stroke here with your other hand, the whole hand—" he bent her other hand around the bluish-black shaft of his cock, where her fingers barely met. He had been circumcised, and the tip of his cock had a purplish tinge. Incongruously, Rahne remembered an orchid picture-book she had once seen, a sleek purple-dark flower with the same round, sticky shine. After the sensory blazes of her wolf-form, Rahne was adept at dealing with lots of stimulation but focusing. So she was able to keep stroking Hank as he worked one wide finger into the mouth of her vagina, finally stripping the soaked cotton panties away. As he expected, there was no membrane of virginity—Professor X’s gymnastic training probably deprived all his students of their maidenheads-- but the channel was desperately tight and silky. Rahne gazed up at him, drinking in the broadly handsome face, his small but glittering eyes, the comforting shoulders covered and ruffed in delicious fur. At first, his stroking hands had made her feel ticklish, almost oversensitive, sending warm shudders over her whole skin, but now everything was concentrating in a throb between her legs. She almost felt like crying. So this was houghmagandy! No bloody wonder Reverend Craig had hated it, then! He’d die if he could see her now—ugh, what an idea. She thrust the intrusive thoughts away. Flushing at the audacity of it, she moved her hips so that his wide finger slid more inside her. At this cue, he added a second finger, noting in a scientific aside that his slight acromegaly and disproportionate hand size meant that she could now probably accommodate his genitalia. But there was one thing to do first. Very gently, he began to rub against the roof of her vagina. She spasmed and arched with a sharp cry. "Och! Dinna stop! Oh, oh, oh!" She writhed as all the tension flowered into a bolt of pleasure, then spasmed yet again as he continued for several moments, setting off neurological firecrackers. He almost crowed as tiny spurts of hot fluid shot upon his hand not once but twice, the distinctive viscosity of a G-spot orgasm. "Now!" With an agile bound, he poised himself above her with his hands on the arms of the chair, supporting his muscled, heavy-boned body, and rubbed his hard cock between her legs. She moaned, beyond speech, and spread her legs instinctively. For a moment, she opened her eyes and gave him a fevered glance. He maneuvered slightly, now resting his legs upon the chair, for she had wrapped her legs around his waist. With one thrust, he was inside, not all the way, but enough. He clamped down on the shout in his throat as that hot, brief—virgin!—pussy yielded to him, then spasmed tight again. Oh, christ, after all this stimulation, now he had to worry about coming too fast—and inside her, which wouldn’t do. The discoverers of DNA, Watson and Crick, were actually preceded by that New Zealander whose name he always forgot, who was it? Or was he British? He opened his eyes as Rahne yelped. "Hey, are you okay? You’re crying! Does it hurt?" Tears were coursing down her face. "It only hurts a bit! It’s na’ why I keen…." The tight pain of his penetration had released the tears, but the tears were for everything—the years of fear, the long lonely winter, the foster-mother who was probably going to die and leave her alone, the bliss of this respite. But he reached up and stroked them away, and she smiled and kissed the hand’s gorilla palm., which seemed to reassure him. He had rested still upon her since he spoke. The lack of motion allowed her to relax and get used to being so incredibly penetrated. She arched back up into him, breathing in. What a weight of muscle and fur, she thought, rubbing up against him, her body not entirely comfortable. She'd had only the vaguest idea how it would feel, and after caressing it with her hands, she was really surprised at the lack of detail inside her body. It felt wide; it was hard, but gentler than the fingers; she was so full there; and she couldn't think about it any more because it was starting to make her feel like she had five minutes ago. By now, she was both incredibly lubricated--he felt the cooling moisture on his legs, and still temptingly tight--and he wasn’t on the brink anymore, but able to thrust into her for several minutes, savoring the idea and burning when she said, "Och, I like it, you’re so good!" Simple words, but for her first time! It was too much for him when he felt her inner muscles clamp even tighter around him and saw the betraying peony-flush of orgasm spreading down her chest again. She came silently, whipping her head from side to side. "Rahne! I’m gonna come. Outside of you, okay? Ah—" He pulled out with a quick motion and gasped before she could back off, and come spattered up to her fine-cut collarbones. She froze as he trembled, in a rictus of delight. Still glazed-eyed, he swept a green box of Kimwipes off the counter and mopped her up. "Sorry about that. Should’ve used a condom, next best thing." "Had my period last week, so I dinna think it were risky." "Oh, man. Let’s switch, you on top." He sprawled in the chair, switching off the spotlight above it, feeling boneless after that deep, draining orgasm. Rahne perched on top of him a little awkwardly; she had never sat on anyone’s lap before, except in a car. ""Tis after midnight." They sat silently. Hank’s libido was still roiling, thinking of the things they hadn’t done, his mind battling with a rising sense of guilt. Rahne’s dark-dilated green eyes were abstracted. "Hank? Do you think we should tell… We shouldna’ tell Moira, am I right?" He sighed. "Rahne…it’s not that I’m not proud to have been with you. But…do you think she’d take it well? I don’t." "No. I mean, yuir ten years older than me—" "Uh, actually, I’m sixteen years older." "Oh. And anyway, um, maybe…probably this was just tonight." "Oh, I hope not. You’re a natural." She was too new to sex to realise that her easy orgasms were a gift, that not all women were so lucky. Rahne sat up. A natural what? She leaped to the floor and put on her two light garments again. "Well, it’s not often I …" His own pride choked him; no, he wouldn’t say how long it had been for him. "Rahne, look at me. I respect you. And I want to have sex with you again. I don’t know how I feel about you, or how you feel about me, but I’ll always be your friend." He pulled her down into an embrace. Rahne leaned into him, legs unsteady. "Thank you," she whispered. Then, she straightened away, and spoke normally. "Och, I should be getting’ some sleep." "Me, I can’t sleep. I need to examine your antibodies some more, having examined the rest of you in exquisite detail. I’m afraid you," he placed one finger on her nose, " require further, in-depth study." "Well, goodnight, then," She left, looking back once over her shoulder. Hank conscientiously placed the glutinous Kimwipes in the Biohazard trash container. As the heat of the moment faded, his conscience began to gnaw. He should have walked her upstairs, said thank you back. He caught his reflection in the glass of the laboratory door, looming and saturnine, muscles deeply shadowed. It was easy to forget how intimidating he looked—maybe she’d felt like she didn’t have a choice, played along? What if he had to explain this to his friends—Scott and Jean, Henry Pym ? "How did it start? Well, I picked her up and dragged her down to a lab this one night…it seemed like she wanted it…" He recoiled. The plain words didn’t evoke the unspoken trust of her arms around his neck. Fragments of Theodore Roethke’s poetry came to mind: I knew a woman, lovely in her bones…Ah! When she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain!. Particularly apt for a lovely shape-changer. The pangs of conscience brought something else to mind; his darker half. Was this the sort of thing he would do? He had to remember to warn Rahne, force the issue even if she wasn’t speaking to him tomorrow. Now? No, she wanted to sleep. If he’d been inspired by Rahne, god only knew what he would do, if ever he met her. But wouldn’t his evil twin rage if he cracked the Legacy virus! He grinned at this upcoming discomfiture and turned to the magic machines, to summon the printouts and work the night away. After a shower, Rahne couldn’t sleep. How strange. She’d thought there would be a lot of pain and blood, but there had only been a trace of blood, and she didn’t ache at all between her legs, even though the tender inside of her elbow was bruised from the blood draw. She shifted shape into her half-wolf form and, curious, sniffed her discarded shift. The smell of sex and arousal that clung to it made her knees shake. Tossing it aside, she glanced in her mirror—had he ever seen her in this form?--and leapt out her window. In her keen wolf-senses, the night turned into glimmering twilight, filled with the music of the sea and the far hoot of a ship. She loped up to her favorite spot, silent enough not to disturb the sea-birds as they slept. She reviewed again the list of her former loves. Odd--she couldn’t picture having sex like that with any of them, now. She felt changed, but not like when she gained her mutant powers—not like the house of her soul had been destroyed, her whole life had burned down, and she had to rebuild. It was more like the atoms inside her had aligned herself, shedding doubts and impurities, and she was a purer crystal of her true self. Oh, I wish I could say that to somebody, she thought. Whenever I try, my toungue freezes. It’s easier to just write it down. She thought about dying, about the idea of sin that used to destroy her. At least if she died, in a misadventure or from the Virus, she’d known at least one man found her attractive in human form. Maybe it made her a coward to fear her death so much. Was sex why her mother had been called damned by Reverend Craig? It was the final proof, then, that he was a fool. She pictured the man---she quivered just thinking the word-- who had had sex with her tonight. The more she thought about it, the less she could believe her luck. This sort of thing didn’t happen to her. And he had said he wanted to be with her again…. did he really mean it? Oh, please let him mean it, please let Moira be able to cope if she found out, please let it be by her saying something, not before she was ready to tell. In memory, the cold morning’s magpies flashed across her mind again, and she relaxed a bit. Superstition was on her side for once. And seven for a secret that’s never been told. Notes: Poetry quotes are from, respectively; anonymous British folklore, William Butler Yeats’ poem Under Ben Bulben, and Theodore Roethke’s I Knew A Woman. All the books Rahne is perusing really exist and were published in the late 19th—very early 20th century. Houghmagandy is a guid Scots word for sex. The vaccine medicine information is more accurate than scientific plot devices usually are. Hank is exuberant over his breakthrough, but whether anything will come of it remains to be seen. Yes, they do not have safe sex. They don’t really exist; use condoms, folks. Readers wondering why the New Mutants’ shy wee Rahne is now reasonably sex-positive are referred to the character development in Excalibur # 93, wherein she confronts Reverend Craig and, interestingly, describes a worldview similar to that of the Unitarian Universalists. The UU’s are a liberal and accepting Christian sect created directly in response to the strictures of Calvinism, the probable sect of the unworthy Rev.