With every moment that she had spent staring at her myriad changes, terror had flooded Jennifer's mind. Sheer horror at what she had become, at the insectoid monster staring back at her in the mirror. It took a considerable amount of time before she was able to creep towards a realization: horrified thoughts at her new state meant that she was still thinking like a human being. The fear, indeed, was directed at her beelike additions, something that shouldn't have bothered her so much if her mind had been completely affected.
Quickly she began to mentally run through facts of her past, memories, various equations and scientific concepts. They were all still there, pulsing inside of her brain. Her awkwardness with her new limbs, too, or with the massive weight sticking out the back of her abdomen, indicated some retention of human instincts. Her antennane still twitched towards the door, and the sweet smell of sugar outside, but it wasn't overwhelming her, even with the hunger pangs in her stomach growing having grown stronger.
So her mind was still human - but would it stay that way? She raced back through the night's events, particularly their ill-fated attempt at a stopgap cure. It had only served to accelerate what was happening to her - the retrovirus introduced through the injection, she surmised, must not have been fully bonded with the human DNA from her blood sample. They must have absorbed some of the genetic material from 3185, and with so much of the stuff now in her system, things had picked up a dramatic new pace. She silently cursed herself for not having thought of that potential outcome - in her rush to find any possible solution, she'd failed to consider how it could make things worse.
But... it had stopped. She no longer felt the pain or pressure of the changes, and at the rate they'd been occurring, anything else that was going to mutate surely would have by now. She moved over to the lab bench, leaning against it with her four unfamiliar arms as she considered her own assumptions. If the bee and human genetic material had been mixed... then that was probably the only reason she still had any trace of her old self. The infection from the sting, it had been slowly changing her, and probably progressing towards total conversion into that species; the sudden infusion of the second retrovirus, it had instead resulted in this hybrid form, a strange blend of insect and primate features.
She let out a small, breathless laugh. Madeline had, in fact, saved her, albeit not in the form either of them had intended.
Madeline - she'd told her to run, and the young blonde certainly didn't seem to be around right now. She'd listened to that instruction, at least... but she could hear movement nonetheless. Panicked beating of feet against the hard surface of the hallway floor. The click of those heels wasn't exactly difficult to recognize; her student was running this direction, and from the rapidity of the footsteps, it seemed as if she was moving with a great deal of haste.
Her assumption, at least on that front, was proved correct as the door burst open, revealing a haggard-looking Madeline standing there with something gripped in her hands. It seemed she had secured a broom from a janitor's closet somewhere, and she now held it extended out like a spear - a crude defensive tool, but it had probably seemed better than confronting a potentiall feral bee-monster completely unarmed. Eyes were nevertheless wide with terror behind Madeline's glasses as she slowly inched inside, improvised polearm at the ready.
"Doctor Xiao?" She asked, her tone on the verge of sobbing. The lack of some immediate primal reaction from Jennifer seemed to give the young woman some spark of hope, but her fear was hardly abated. "A-are you...?"
Holding up all four hands, the mutated geneticist slowly nodded. "S-still me... mentally, at least."
Those few words were all it took for Jennifer to drop the broom, her trembling hands coming up to rub her face and run through her hair. She stopped closer, and Jennifer could plainly see the dried tears on her cheeks - she'd already been doing quite a bit of crying. "I-I-I'm... I'm s-sorry" she stammered out, "I-I... w-wanted to h-h-h-help... a-and I d-did this t-to you..."
A new set of tears was forming in her eyes as the doctor placed a clawlike hand on her shoulder. It was a reflexive act, awkward with the hand's altered shape, and Madeline twitched at the contact, but still looked up into Jennifer's two largest eyes. "It's okay," she said quietly, admittedly struggling to comfort her student at a time like this. "I think... I think if you hadn't done what you did... I'd be worse off in the long run." Yes, she was growing certain of that. If anything, Madeline had pushed Jennifer over the hump, allowing her to get to the other end of this nightmare faster - and with more of herself intact than she would've had otherwise.
"A-are... y-you still..."
Jennifer shook her head. "I... I don't think so. If I was going to change further... I probably would have by now." At least, she hoped that was the case. It seemed logical to believe, but they were in entirely uncharted waters here.
The girl was still shaking all over, and uncertain of what else she could do, Jennifer suddenly threw her for bony arms around her, drawing her into a hug. There was a little help of surprise, but after a moment Madeline slowly slid her hands around the doctor's back, her fingers somewhat curious about the fuzzy covering on her torso.
She pulled her head back after a few moments, so that she could look straight into Madeline's eyes - though her three smaller eyes ended up having to stare at the middle of her face. The awkwardness was only enhanced by the cushion of her four honey-filled mammaries squishing against the blonde's torso. "I think... I think I'd be gone, without you here." Or at least, on the way to being gone. "So please... I'm not mad... we just... j-just need to get to work, figure this out... try to fix it, properly, without rushing this time." She forced a smile, hoping to reassure her.