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Author's Chapter Notes:
HUGE thanks to everyone who's waited so long for an update of this fic. Your emails and comments mean more to me than I could ever say.

This chapter skips ahead a couple of weeks - mostly to get my muses and the plot moving - and there's a lot of medical exposition. I promise it'll be the last time you have to sit through it: the action kicks in next chapter, and from then on, the medical junk is kept to a minimum.

Thanks again to everybody for all the support. :)
Week Four, Thursday, 0815 hours.

"Status report." Stryker came into the room bearing the usual cup of hot Colombian coffee and held his hand out for Baker's clipboard.

Baker handed over the report, trying not to look at the ugly purple scar marring his superior officer's face; Dr. Risman had removed the stitches the week before, and while the gash had healed satisfactorily, it wasn't a pretty sight, and Baker was still struggling to keep himself from flinching every time he saw it. "The doe's just about to be returned to the buck's cell, Sir," he said, checking his watch. "The buck's been awake since dawn, and as far as I can tell from his behavior, the serum's still in effect."

Stryker's eyebrows shot up so rapidly they almost met his receding hairline. "Are you sure?"

Baker nodded. "As sure as I can be without physically examining him myself, Sir - I tried to get him to talk when he woke up, but all he does is growl and glare at the speaker."

The older man flipped through the notes on the clipboard. "That's thirty-two hours now. The last time we dosed him, it didn't wear off for twenty-six hours, and the time before that, it was--"

"Twenty-two hours, thirty-three minutes," Dr. Risman finished for him, coming in with her own cup of coffee and a stack of medical reports. "The serum takes progressively longer with each dose to work its way out of his system, and the tissue sample we managed to get last time he was sedated yielded some interesting test results."

Stryker's left eyebrow inched impossibly higher. "Which would be?"

Risman set her coffee cup down and extracted a blue folder from the stack she carried. "Based on my findings, I believe the Alpha serum is no longer being fought by the buck's healing factor - it's being absorbed."

"Absorbed? How is that different?"

Risman opened another folder and opened it to several x-rays of the buck's adamantium skeleton. "Whereas his body seems to simply tolerate his metal implants, the Alpha serum is being pulled into his cells, apparently in an effort to compensate for the large amounts we've been injecting. His system can't burn it all off at once, and it takes so long for it to break down entire back-to-back doses that it's begun incorporating the chemicals into new cells."

She opened yet another folder and produced some high-magnification photographs of what looked like honeycombs. "These are muscle-fiber bundles from a human man of roughly the same build as the buck; the groupings are large and dense and show good vascularity, or blood flow." She took out another page from the report and handed it over. "These are fiber bundles from the buck's left bicep - notice that the number of fibers in each bundle is more than triple that of the normal man, and the unusual shape of the fibers themselves."

Stryker's eyes said he was fascinated, but he did his best not to look too excited. "And what exactly does this mean? The serum's damaging him?"

Risman frowned. "Well, no, not in the physical sense - it's simply... changing him. Have you noticed how much larger and more muscled he's gotten since we began the project? The high doses of testosterone we've been giving him, plus the physical exercise, plus the sexual activity... his body is growing new muscle cells at an astounding rate, and his healing factor is simply pushing the Alpha it can't eliminate into these new cells."

At Stryker's querying look, she sighed and added, "If his system is using the serum as a building block... we may be forcing him into a secondary mutation."

****************************

No matter how many times Rogue went through the stupid medical tests, she still couldn't get used to them, and recently she'd not only become to resent them, but had also begun to fight them on occasion. The last one had involved yet another blood draw, and she'd cussed and spat and snarked at the lab-coated young phlebotomist, to the point where the woman had threatened to slap her if she didn't stop. News of Rogue's uncooperativeness had circulated like wildfire, and surprisingly, the soldiers and medical staff had actually gotten nicer. The heavily-armed man who took her to Logan's cell didn't even shove her through the door as he usually did: he instead let her through the outer door, shut it behind her, and then opened the inner door by a remote switch. It was like coming through an airlock.

Wolverine hurried to her immediately, and for some reason, she just... didn't want him to touch her. She couldn't explain it - not even to herself - but she felt woozy and crabby and somewhat like utter, utter crap, and she... just didn't want him near her.

"Ah'm fine, Logan," she said, trying to head him off, but he grabbed for her wrist as usual and tried to pull her over to the little nesting area. "Ah said Ah'm fine!" she shouted, and yanked free of his grip. "Why do you always hafta go grabbin' and pullin' and yankin' on me all the damn time? Ah've got a perfectly good brain in mah head, Logan - how 'bout you ask me nice if Ah wanna go somewhere with you?" She folded her arms and glared at him. "At least gimme a grunt or a purr or whatever it is you do these days, and gesture or somethin'."

Wolverine blinked at her, rather taken aback. She'd never rebuffed him so sharply, and if he hadn't been able to tell by her scent, he might have started wondering who she was and what she'd done with his mate. Her body language was defensive, her gaze was downright hostile, and her scent, while still her own, had an underlying... something.

Her eyes flew open wide very suddenly, and she ran across the room; Wolverine followed her, worried, and stopped a few paces behind her as she fell to her knees beside the stainless-steel toilet and vomited violently. "Oh, God," she panted, eyes watering. "Ah feel soohhhhgg--!" Again.

Wolverine paced, perplexed, unsure of what to do; she didn't appear ill in the "disease" sense, but...

Rogue lifted her head from the bowl, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!" Her head dropped and she emptied the last of her stomach's contents into the toilet, gasping for air, heaving and gagging and crying all at the same time. "Oh, fuck," she moaned again, pushing her hair back out of her face. "Ah knew it hadda happen sooner or later, but... oh, shit..." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, and the automatic sensor on the toilet flushed her breakfast away.

Wolverine offered her the bottle of water he'd received with his own breakfast, and she rinsed her mouth, still sobbing. He paced and fretted, and finally made a little prrp? noise to get her attention; when she looked up, he pointed to the makeshift bed.

She gave him a watery smile. "Wow, you actually understood what Ah was sayin' earlier? You're gettin' better at this, sugah."

He hadn't, but he did understand why she'd done it - and why her scent and behavior had changed so dramatically. He offered her a hand to help her up, and led her slowly and gently to the nest he'd made; he kept a respectful distance as she settled herself down on the pillows, and when she was comfortable, she gestured for him to join her. He did so, curling his body around her protectively, and purred softly into her hair as he stroked her abdomen in slow, soothing circles.

***************************

"What do you mean, a 'secondary mutation'?" Stryker wasn't sure if he was pleased, fascinated, or apprehensive; very likely, it was a combination of all three.

"He's becoming more animalistic and uncommunicative; his cells are starting to resemble that of an extremely active wild beast; and while we know his body can regenerate its own cells at a rapid pace, we've never known it to genetically engineer its own cells. This could be a problem."

Stryker huffed impatiently. "So what does this mean for the project? Is he a liability?"

"At the moment, no, I don't think so - but then, it doesn't matter much right now, anyway."

Both Baker and Stryker looked up, and Risman smiled. "Congratulations, gentlemen - Phase Two is a success." She dropped the last of the folders on the desk and opened the top file to a page of test results.

"The doe is pregnant."
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