Doug wasn't quite sure how he felt about the little conversation he'd had with Marie-Ange in her journal. Happy, yes. Optimistic, even. But also a little confused. This wasn't terribly unusual for Doug, though; he was often confused, especially if it involved girls.

At the moment, though, he wasn't thinking about much of anything except the documentary he was watching on TV. In keeping with his giant dorkitude, he'd found a documentary on the history of computers. Wasn't learning anything he didn't already know, of course, but it was still fascinating.

And, Doug being Doug, he was so caught up in the documentary that he didn't hear when someone else finally walked into the room. Though really, he should've been expecting it. There wasn't an empty rec room for very long.

What good was a healing factor if it didn't keep you from having headaches?

Then again, he'd never had one until he'd fallen off the Statue of Liberty, landing first on the boat and then clear through that into the bay. It hadn't killed him and he thought there'd been no damage until he had the first blinding migraine that put him down for a solid three days. There'd been no rhyme or reason to when or why they hit, and he couldn't prepare for them, just hope he could find a dark, quiet place to crash.

It wasn't until he'd worked himself into a homicidal rage over some idiot when they'd been storming Genosha that he realized what was triggering the headaches, and since he'd long ago given himself over to the animal, it wasn't something he could avoid.

The fall had apparently shaken something loose, though; in addition to the migraines came horrible nightmares, a replay of everyone he'd ever killed flashing past in blood-soaked clarity. Things that had never bothered him in the past, deaths he'd reveled in, now woke him out of a dead sleep wishing like hell he could just shut it off.

The thought that he was turning into Logan, of all people, only led him to be more violent, more vicious. Fuck the nightmares, he was a killer.

The latest migraine had finally abated and he found he was restless, angry, needed to get out and do something, anything to take his mind off of it. He passed several people in the halls of Magneto's citadel, some he recognized and some he didn't, but they all moved past like Death was bearing down on them.