The next day

Sue Storm's eyes opened blearily, too bright light shining at her from every direction, "Reed! She's waking up!" Johnny Storm hadn't left his sisters side since the police called him the night before. They'd brought her to the hospital but Reed had insisted on bringing her to a more secure clinic the moment he arrived. Mr. Fantastic had spent the night analyzing his wife's blood work and determining the origin of the strange compounds found within. Now he hurried to Sue's side, stripping off his gloves to grasp her hand. "Good morning." Sue smiled, "good morning."

"How are you feeling?" she frowned, trying to push herself into a sitting position, "groggy... and weak. What happened?" Johnny leaned in, "We were hoping you could tell us. Cops found you passed out in an alley with your clothes all torn up." Reed gave him a reproachful look but he stood his ground, "she should know what happened!"

"We don't know what happened!"

"Stop! Both of you, what do you know?" Reed grabbed a clipboard off the foot of the bed, handing it to her, "We know there's not a scratch on you aside from some abrasions from the asphalt and some unusual bruising on your scalp and hips. Your soft tissues seem to be swollen, particularly your throat and abdomen, and you've been **** for the last eight hours due to a strange compound we found in your blood." He nodded assuringly at her look, "Your liver is doing an excellent job of clearing it from your bloodstream, as far as we can tell it only rendered you ****."

Her eyes narrowed as she examined her test results, Reed was right: whatever this stuff was it wasn't a conventional knockout ****. "So what do you remember?" Johnny was obviously trying to give her time to process but his impatient nature prevented him from backing off. Sue closed her eyes, thinking back... it all happened so fast, "I think I was attacked by... something." Her brother snorted but she continued, "I didn't get a good look but I think there were two of them. They..." She stopped as she remembered the rest, a warm feeling spreading through her abdomen. Her hand went to her throat, lightly stroking as she recalled the brutal invasion. And how much she'd enjoyed it.

"Sue?" She started. "Oh. Um, they injected me with some kind of liquid, burned like ****. I blacked out pretty soon after." Reed nodded, "that would be in accordance with the substance we found in your bloodstream, it was very reactive. I've been trying to synthesize it all morning but contaminants keep getting in th-" "where did they inject you?" Johnny interrupted.

"...my mouth." She knew she should tell them the rest of it but lying there, her brother and husband looking down at her, she just couldn't do it. The experience was too horrible to relive anyway... though the heat between her legs intensified each time she tried. "Like I said, it burned like ****." Reed seemed satisfied but Johnny could tell she was holding something back. He wanted to press her but she didn't look like she could take it. The last smudges of her makeup Reed hadn't been able to remove still stained her face like black tear trails and her eyes looked haunted, staring into the distance.

With a final round of tests complete, Sue insisted she get up and about, repeating to Johnny, Reed, and Ben when he came to see her, "I'm fine, let's get back to work."

Despite the rigor with which Dr. Richards conducted his tests he had managed to miss the Hylax eggs nestled in his wife's womb, thanks to their spongey quality they were almost impossible to spot without the most intense scrutiny of the instruments. They had already begun to release serotonin into their hosts bloodstream, raising her metabolism and pleasantly heating their development chamber for optimal growth. As Sue Storm returned to her duties as a member of The Fantastic Four, she couldn't help but think of the thorough violation she had suffered at the hands of unknown assailants... over and over again...