Mutant X 1. Part 1

Notes: My first non-episode-inspired fic, and it turned into a bit of a monster! Very many thanks to Chya for her encouragement, for her fab suggestions for resolving plot-problems, and... well, just for being there *g* You're the best, mate!  
  
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who've given such generous feedback to my past stories. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your kind words. This one is for all of you...  
  
  
Spoilers: Mention only of various episodes, up to The Understudy (which is about when I finished this).  
  
  
Disclaimers: Sadly, none of the Mutant X team belong to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners, and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost, particularly in Jesse's case!) as I found them. No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...  
  
  
****  
  
A FUTURE FLAWED   
By JillyW  
  
  
"Get them!"   
  
The order rang clear over the sounds of the river rushing wildly through the rocky gorge, echoing back off the surrounding tree-lined slopes. The fine mist from the waterfall above shrouded everything in a veil of moisture, but it wasn't enough to hide the black-clad force advancing purposefully towards the rickety-looking footbridge that spanned the tumbling waters. And in the middle of the bridge cowered the girl, not much more than a child, really, frozen to the spot by terror, unable to reach the safety offered by those waiting for her on the other side despite their shouts of encouragement.  
  
He could see the approaching enemy clearly now, see the dull bluish gleam of the weapons in their hands that told him they were playing for keeps. So, without thought, he ran to her, feeling the timbers shudder beneath each footstep, the flimsy structure creaking and groaning. Pulling the girl to her feet, he sent her stumbling back towards the others before turning to face the oncoming attack, yelling a warning to her, to his friends, to keep down before taking a deep breath and massing to protect her, them, himself from the imminent storm. Bullets impacted, stinging even though they couldn't penetrate, but he held on, the automatic mental countdown that needed no thought now but was imperative to ensure he didn't stay too long in altered form ticking off the seconds.   
  
He heard a shout from behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see the child pulled into the protection of a boulder by one of his team, as the others worked their way to positions where they could help cover his retreat. Time to get out of here, he thought, just as the protesting framework of the bridge decided the burden of his massed weight was too much and collapsed beneath him, dropping him like a stone in to the icy depths of the churning waters below.  
  
Caught by surprise, he had no time to shift density, no time to take a breath before the river closed over him, the impact as he thudded down onto the bottom as shocking as the ferocious cold that gripped him, freezing his thought processes as it froze him physically.  
  
For seemingly endless moments, panic held him trapped there while the powerful current dragged him inexorably along the rock-strewn river bed and the air in his lungs screamed for release. Deeply embedded human instincts repudiated the demands, though, crying out that to breathe was to drown, and the horror of dying that way that had been with him since childhood just sent his panic levels soaring higher.  
  
The pressure building inside him, combining with the alarm bells as his internal countdown hit danger levels, reached a climax that he was powerless to prevent, especially in his current fear-torn state. Searching for some degree of composure, though, he attempted to control the flow of air bubbles escaping through nose and mouth to ensure he retained enough to halt his density shift at a point where he became sufficiently buoyant to reach the surface.   
  
But he didn't count on the current hurling him at some unseen underwater obstruction, the contact hard enough to force what little air he had left to him out in a flood. And with it went every last vestige of his control, his panic taking him over the edge as his body phased almost of its own accord.  
  
Desperately he sought to pull himself back, find it within himself somehow to reform without the life-saving intake of breath he knew it would take. But it was already too late. With a silent agonised scream of pain and denial he felt his molecules spread to the very limit of their connecting bonds and beyond, the final definitive snap as they broke apart just an echo as his consciousness dissipated into oblivion...  
  
...and, with a gut-wrenching yell of terror, Jesse Kilmartin shot bolt upright in bed, gasping for the breath that had been denied him in his... nightmare? He lifted his hands in front of him, almost shuddering with relief when he found them solid and whole, as the rest of him seemed to be when he sent tentative fingers to seek confirmation that it had indeed been a dream.   
  
Wiping the cold sweat that felt way too much like the watery grave he'd been consigned to in such vivid fashion from his forehead, he slumped back against the pillows, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest and working to get his breathing back under control. Another nightmare - or should that be the same nightmare repeated? Because it seemed that this particular scenario had played out in his head over the past few nights with increasing clarity, and he was beginning to wonder what significance it might have.  
  
There was a light tap at his door, and somehow he knew who it would be. With a sigh he called out to her to come in, seeing Emma deLauro slip into the room as expected, asking "Are you OK?" as she padded over to sit on the end of his bed. He slid back to lean against the wall behind him, pulling his pyjama'd knees up and hugging them to his chest, unconsciously putting space between them.   
  
"Yeah," he said with a small smile. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."  
  
"It's alright," she smiled back. "I've always thought sleep was over-rated." She became suddenly serious, though. "Was it the same?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" he said reflexively, even though he knew exactly what she meant. With her telempathic abilities she was only too likely to have picked up on his distress and the only surprise was that she hadn't come to ask him about it before now. The disbelieving look she turned on him now told him she was thinking exactly the same thing, so he sighed again. "What do you think?"  
  
Emma looked away, gaze distant with thought. "It felt the same. Stronger, though, more intense."  
  
"Oh, yes, definitely more intense." Jesse shuddered at the terrifying images still residing all too clearly at the front of his mind.   
  
"But still no indication what it means?" she asked with concern. "No idea what might be causing it?"  
  
He shook his head firmly. "No... No idea. Anyway, it's just a bad dream, Emma, that's all. They happen."  
  
She looked doubtfully at him. "It doesn't feel like that to me. Not from what I'm hearing from you."  
  
"Then stop listening!" The words slipped out before he could stop them, and he saw the hurt flood her features. Yet another sigh. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying to help, but I really don't think it's anything to worry about. Like I said, these things happen. It'll pass."  
  
"I still think we should tell Adam," she said, surreptitiously taking in his drawn features and the shadows under his eyes that spoke of way too little proper rest. "There's something not quite right about the way you're broadcasting. I shouldn't really be able to pick it up without wanting to." But as she'd expected, he just shook his head again.  
  
"What for? There's nothing to tell," he said adamantly, pulling his knees even tighter to him. "I can't go running to him every time I have a nightmare, for Pete's sake! And you're probably only getting it because you're right next door. If it's bothering you that much, maybe you should move down the hall!"   
  
She just folded her arms and gazed at him reproachfully, until he unwound from his tensed huddle enough to reach an apologetic hand towards her. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I didn't mean that. I guess I'm just tired." She took his offered olive branch, and smiled her understanding. "Listen, if it happens again I'll go talk to Adam, OK? But you might try working on some better telepathic ear-plugs - just in case?"  
  
She snorted with laughter, squeezing his hand as she slid to her feet. "I'll get right on it," she commented dryly, though her eyes were still watching him appraisingly. "Try and get some sleep, yes?"  
  
"You too," he responded, giving her a reassuring grin that sent her on her way. But once she'd gone he curled himself back up against the wall again, determined that whatever happened he wasn't going to be sleeping again that night.  
  
  
**  
  
"Joshua? What are you doing out there?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Joshua?"   
  
A sigh. "Nothing. Just... thinking."  
  
"But it's the middle of the night! You'll catch your death of cold - let me help you back to bed."  
  
"No!" A pause. "No, I can manage. I'll be in soon. Go back to sleep, OK?"  
  
"Well... if you're sure you don't need help."  
  
"Yes. I'm sure." More silence then a whisper that went unheard by anyone else. "This is something I need to do for myself."  
  
  
**** 


	2. Part 2

Part 2  
  
Adam Kane tapped another command into the computer terminal he was working at and swore under his breath at the resultant change in the data displayed on the screen in front of him.   
  
"A problem?"   
  
He looked up to see Shalimar Fox gazing quizzically down at him and lifted a hand to rub absently at the back of his neck as he smiled ruefully back at her.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe. Just some reports that don't seem much on their own, but when you add them together could prove to be something big."   
  
"Big enough that we need to go do something about it?" Shalimar asked, the prospect of action lighting her brown eyes as clearly as the yellow of her feral state.  
  
Adam laughed at her enthusiasm. "Maybe," he repeated. "Perhaps we should try and find out." He stood and activated Sanctuary's internal comms system, asking the other members of his Mutant X team to join them. Two came back quickly, but the third... He called again, frowning at the silence that greeted him.   
  
"Don't worry, I'll find him." Shalimar flashed him a knowing smile, patting him on the shoulder as she brushed past and left the room.   
  
  
**  
  
Dark-suited warriors leapt into sight, one after the other, surging towards him with violent intent clear in every move despite their expressionless faces. As each one launched his attack Jesse responded, grunting at the impact of each block and counterpunch, fists and feet flying in a whirling frenzy of aggression. One by one, his opponents fell away, only to be replaced by another, and every time he felt the adrenaline surging even more strongly through him, numbing the bruising force of contact, pushing him to up the tempo even more. But not once did he even consider using his powers to enhance his chances of success, preferring the use of defence only as a natural part of his offensive capabilities rather than as the be all and end all of his armoury.  
  
"Hey, save some of those bad guys for the rest of us."  
  
Distracted by the unexpected intrusion on his concentration, he looked round sharply at exactly the same time his current opponent sent a looping punch towards his head. Too late he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and tried to duck, but the blow still collided solidly with his temple.   
  
Momentarily dazed, he went down on one knee, blinking desperately to clear his fuzzy vision enough to dodge what would have to be the coup de grace. Somewhere ahead he saw a polished black shoe heading for his face at speed and his instincts screamed at him to move. But before it could reach him it suddenly winked out of existence, and with a groan he sagged forward, panting, to cradle his sore head in his hands.  
  
Warm fingers pulled his away to prod gently at the point of contact and he flinched away from them.  
  
"Ouch!" Shalimar's voice continued, sympathetically. "That's gotta hurt."  
  
"Yeah, well," he said, pushing himself to unsteady feet and glaring at her, "you shouldn't go sneaking up on people like that!"  
  
"Yeah, well," she repeated back at him playfully, punching his arm lightly, "Adam's been calling you for like ten minutes. What's got you so wound up? You don't normally get that immersed in training simulations. And what were you doing with the safety level down so low?" Her dark eyes surveyed him with quiet concern.  
  
"What? Don't you think I'm up to it?" he demanded rebelliously. "That only you and Brennan can handle the real thing? I can take care of myself, you know - in case you hadn't noticed."  
  
"Hey!" she protested. "It's me, remember? I'm not one of the simulations - no need to get all macho with me!"  
  
He froze, staring at her almost transfixed for a several seconds, then he took a deep breath and raised fingers to touch at the reddening mark along the side of his face again with a sheepish smile. "Sorry," he offered. "Just kind of got caught up in the moment."  
  
Shalimar tilted her head to one side, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "I could see that." She took his arm and tugged him towards the dojo stairs. "Looks like you had a bit of steam to let off, there." Pulling him down beside her, she settled herself lithely onto a step and shook her blonde mane back over her shoulders before fixing him with a beady gaze. "So... want to tell me about it?"  
  
He glanced at her cautiously, not wanting to give anything away until he knew where she was coming from. "About what?"  
  
"Whatever's been bothering you the past week. I'm betting Emma's sensed something, though she's not saying anything. But I know you, Jess, better than anyone. I can tell when something's wrong."  
  
Jesse looked away, a horde of unwanted emotions stampeding through him with such violence he could hardly breathe. 'Why now?' he wanted to yell. 'Why not weeks ago when I was struggling so hard with my new powers, when I started to realise how little you all understand me, how much I was changing without any of you giving me credit for it? Why couldn't you tell then how wrong things were, been there for me instead of leaving me to cope on my own while you went and had fun. Fun with Brennan... with Emma, even... but not with me. Why...?'  
  
But instead he bottled the words and feelings away, not wanting the confrontation they would inevitably cause, not when he was already feeling so emotionally battered by the visions haunting his dreams. With a crooked sideways grin, he said teasingly, "Oh, you do, do you?"  
  
"Well, yah!" she retorted in similar style. "After all, I did see you through all those teenage tantrums you threw."  
  
"Hey, I did not throw tantrums!" Jesse pulled back to glare at her in mock indignation, enjoying this increasingly rare opportunity of having Shalimar to himself, to have her company and her attention without one of the others around to distract them. Well as he got on with Emma and Brennan, much as he appreciated how the addition of their talents enhanced Mutant X's ability to succeed, there was a part of him that yearned for the days before they arrived, days when there'd only been the two of them in Adam's family, when things had been simpler and he'd been totally confident in both his abilities and his place in the world.   
  
But those days were gone, and though he knew he should see this as something positive, a change for the better, a challenge to be savoured, there were times when he just wished things the way they'd been.  
  
Shalimar leant back against the step behind, eyes sparkling mischievously and a sly smile curving her lips. "Oh no? So, what do you call massing your way through the garage wall because Adam wouldn't let you have the Audi to take - what was her name? Cindy? Mindy? - to Florida for the weekend? Or that time you packed your bags, swore you were going to run away and join the circus because I had to come bail you out of your first fight? Or..."  
  
"OK, OK, you've made your point," he said hastily, fighting the flush he could feel rising in his cheeks at the reminders of his youth.  
  
"Aw, did I make you blush?" she giggled, sliding one arm through his and hugging him to her, tactile as ever. "It's no biggie - didn't make either of us love you any less."   
  
And he couldn't help the way his heart leapt at her words, the warmth they engendered in him. He returned her affectionate smile, all embarrassment lost in the welcome feelings of family and belonging.  
  
"Which is why," she continued, "we're worried about you." Her expression turned serious. "So, what's got you so down?"  
  
His smile slipped only a notch but he knew she'd notice, knew she'd see through any excuse he offered. But he tried anyway, not wanting to allow the terrors of the night to hold any sway over him here, determined to banish them as far as possible from his waking world in the hope that would get rid of them permanently.  
  
"I'm fine," he assured her, seeing the scepticism light her eyes. "No, really. I'm... I just didn't sleep too well last night. You know how it is..." He shrugged, hoping perhaps that the partial truth would convince her it was nothing to worry about, and indeed, after a few moments of careful scrutiny, she sighed and squeezed his arm again.   
  
"Bad dreams, huh? Yeah, had my share of those."  
  
He started at that, wondering how much she actually knew, but she seemed to miss his reaction as she leant over to plant a kiss on his cheek.  
  
"Just remember I'm here if you need to talk, OK?" She came smoothly to her feet and stood looking down at him. "Now... I think Adam needs us to go do some checking on something?"  
  
"No rest for the wicked," he muttered as he took her offered hand and let her pull him up and down the steps after her.  
  
Adam and Emma awaited them in the hi-tech computerised centre from which Mutant X kept watch on the world, along with the fifth member of the team. Brennan Mulwray, his relaxed air belying the electricity he could conjure up at will, waved a languid hand in greeting from where he sat, long legs stretched out in front of him and feet resting on the desk.  
  
Emma smiled a welcome to them both, but Shalimar couldn't help noticing the way her eyes sought out Jesse's and the look that passed between them, a question and answer that she couldn't read but that made her more certain than ever that something was up. And she was surprised at how much that hurt. Not just the fact that the nearest thing she had to a little brother wouldn't confide in her now like he used to, but that it seemed he felt he could talk to Emma, a relative newcomer to their lives. She tried to tell herself it was probably just that the telempath's powers made it easier for her to understand how he was feeling without him having to put it into words, something he - in common with most men, she thought - didn't do so well. But it still felt strangely like a betrayal from one who'd always shared everything with her.  
  
Adam waited a moment, aware of some undercurrents but unsure what they meant, then cleared his throat. Four pairs of eyes swivelled his way, but it was Jesse he addressed himself to. "Good of you to join us," he began with more than a touch of sarcasm, but the obvious evidence of combat marking the molecular's face, along with something else, some tension which seemed out of place in his usually laid-back protégé, made him hold back the rest of the mild reprimand he'd been vaguely formulating. In any case, he thought, now wasn't the time, not with all the others here. And, seeing that he had their attention, he made a mental note to talk to him about it later and launched into his briefing.  
  
"I think we have a situation in the making," he stated, his gaze sweeping across the watching faces of his people before returning to the workstation he was standing beside as he hit a key. "I've been picking up seemingly disconnected stories of people going missing across this South-Eastern area in the past few weeks." He waved a hand at the main viewscreen and the graphic display indicating where he meant. "It wasn't until a couple of the names came up on our New Mutant database that I began to wonder if there might be a connection after all. And when I add in some vague rumours about a new paramilitary group who've apparently been seen hunting down unspecified individuals, even dragging them from their homes, it starts to feel to me like something big."  
  
"So..." Shalimar's mind was now completely focussed on the implications of what she was hearing, "what're you thinking? That these guys are hitting mutants?"  
  
Adam shook his head. "I don't know, not yet. But that's what we're going to find out."  
  
"Cool," Brennan said, swinging his feet to the floor and standing up. "Let's go."   
  
"You're not going anywhere - at least not right now." Adam had to smile at the elemental's conviction that action was the best route to knowledge, knowing how he - and probably the others - was going to react to his next words. "What we do first is some checking." He wasn't disappointed; the groans, particularly from Brennan, were clearly audible, but he went on regardless. "I want background checks on the other missing people, see if there's anything unusual about them, anything that might have made them targets. Oh, and some deeper digging on that group - if they're something more than a figment of the imagination, they have to have a home base somewhere." He looked round at them, expectantly.   
  
"Well? What are you waiting for? The sooner we find out whether there's anything in this, the sooner you can get out there and do something about it!"  
  
  
**** 


	3. Part 3

Part 3  
  
"Man, you look terrible!" The cheerful observation greeted Jesse as he slouched into the kitchen in search of coffee, rubbing at gritty eyes. He cast a baleful glance towards its source, finding Brennan grinning back at him from his perch on the work surface by the fridge. "Here," the big elemental continued, proffering a large glass of some thick greenish liquid, "have some of this. It'll do wonders for you."  
  
Jesse shuddered visibly, not bothering to grace the suggestion with a response, and turned away to resume his mission. Behind him, Brennan made ostentatious lip-smacking noises which he endeavoured to ignore until he'd at least got the first mouthful of hot coffee down, after which he felt almost able to open communications again. Pulling out a chair, he made himself comfortable at the table, cupping the mug in his hands and savouring the caffeine kick.  
  
After a couple of days checking out leads and rumours, they were still no nearer to knowing whether the unexplained disappearances were actually connected. Even the police reports Jesse had managed to hack into had told them little more than that no-one had seen what had happened to them, and that no bodies had been discovered. There didn't seem to be anything in the little they could glean on their backgrounds - apart from the two who were in the New Mutant database - which might have made them targets, or given cause for them to have just upped sticks and moved without telling anyone.  
  
The phantom paramilitary group were equally mystifying. There were whispers that they were set up and funded by someone with a lot of money and a grudge of some kind, but no-one seemed to know what their agenda was or how they were recruited. Why couldn't they just have a website like any other self-respecting white supremacist or 'right to bear arms' groups, Jesse thought morosely, instead of making it this hard to track them down. Because Adam hadn't been prepared to let him stop searching until he'd covered every base. And that had meant two more nights for him to struggle through, desperate for sleep but too frightened of what it would bring to give in to his need without a fight.  
  
"Rough night?" Brennan asked, still grinning as he slid into the chair opposite and leant back, tilting it onto two legs. "Well, gotta say I'm not surprised - told you cold pizza right before bedtime was a bad idea. All that cheese..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, and you always know best, right?" Jesse snapped before he could halt the words. He ducked his head and took another swig from his mug, using the time to take a deep mental breath and kick himself towards a more positive frame of mind, knowing that his day was likely to get a whole lot worse if he didn't. Then he looked up again with an apologetic half-smile. "Sorry," he said, thinking that he was doing that rather too much these days. "Guess I could have done with an hour or two longer in bed."  
  
He could see Brennan had been looking at him speculatively, but after a few seconds he smiled back. "With you there, brother," he commented, stretching his arms over his head as he let the chair drop back onto all four legs. "But look on the bright side - there's been no more strange disappearances, and now you've scraped the barrel on the mystery gang, I can't see Adam having anything lined up for us today apart from that routine safe house re-stock gig we didn't get done yesterday. With a bit of luck we'll have time afterwards to kick back, play a little one on one, maybe?"  
  
As if on cue, Adam's voice sounded over the internal comms system. "Brennan? Jesse? I need you in the control room." Mutant X's leader didn't sound in any mood to be kept waiting, and Brennan wasted no time in confirming both their attendance.  
  
"Oh, you just had to go and say it, didn't you?" Jesse dropped his head into his hands and combed fingers back through tousled hair as he lifted a jaundiced glare towards his friend. "You had to go tempt fate like that. Couldn't you at least have waited until I'd had another cup of coffee?"  
  
Brennan laughed and stood up, offering a helping hand to pull him to his feet. "Hey, where's your sense of adventure? Maybe he's found us a New Mutant to pick up in the Caribbean - or how about Hawaii?" He led the way from the kitchen as he spoke, leaving the younger man trailing in his wake.  
  
"As if..." Jesse murmured, shooting a yearning glance towards the coffee percolator before hurrying after him, bare feet slapping softly on the wood floor.   
  
Adam looked up distractedly as they hurried in, beckoning them to join Shalimar and Emma who were already gathered round him. The blonde feral raised an eyebrow at Jesse's unexpectedly dishevelled appearance, but his expression told her he wouldn't thank her for commenting. And in any case, the vibes she was picking up from the older man told her now wasn't the time for levity, which his next words confirmed.  
  
"We just got a call through the emergency channel," Adam told them. "Female, young-sounding, giving her name as Connie. She said she thought she was being watched, that she was scared and needed help. When I got back to her, asked her where she got the number from, she said, and I quote, 'from Gayle - right before they took her away...'" He paused, dark eyes shifting a little anxiously across the faces around him as if expecting a reaction. And he wasn't disappointed.  
  
"Gayle?" Jesse looked up sharply from his desultory inspection of the monitor in front of him, hearing Shalimar's sudden intake of breath. "Not Gayle Michaels?"  
  
Adam sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid so - I just checked. She was reported missing less than an hour ago by the owner of the store she was working in. Seems she went to get something from the basement stockroom and never came back." He turned to Brennan and Emma who were looking at their shocked friends in confusion. "Gayle was one of the first New Mutants we helped, back when I'd just started Mutant X. She stayed with us for a while before we sent her into the Underground."   
  
Voice heavy with suppressed anger, Jesse murmured, "Damn...", his gaze turning broodingly away again. Shalimar, though, true to her nature, showed her emotions through action, pushing herself away from the table she was leaning against and prowling across the room before turning to look questioningly at Adam.   
  
"Where did she end up? Last I heard she was in Atlanta."  
  
"Wherever it was, let's get down there!" Brennan said, impatiently. "Check it out, see if we can get some leads on what happened."  
  
"Yes, but what about the girl, though?" Jesse put in. "Where's she?"  
  
"Somewhere in the same town, from what I can gather," Adam responded. "I told her to stay put until we could get to her. But she sounded scared enough to run - which is why I want you to make picking her up your priority. Once we have her safe you can do some digging around down there, see what we can do about finding out what happened to Gayle."  
  
"You don't think it could be some kind of trap, do you?" Emma, cautious as ever, voiced a thought that had already occurred to Adam. "A set-up to get us out there so they can take us too?"  
  
He shrugged. "Could be. She sounded genuinely frightened, but we've been fooled before. I've already started running her voice pattern through the synthesizers but I won't know for sure for a while. In the meantime, I want you to proceed with caution. Don't take anything for granted, OK?" He waited for their confirming nods before continuing. "OK. I'll upload the co-ordinates to the Helix, along with the call - you can listen to it on the way."   
  
He paused again, looking from one to the other with a half smile before his gaze alighted on the last of his team. "Just don't forget to get dressed first..."   
  
Jesse's plaintive protests at the good-natured jibes of his friends carried back to him from down the corridor as he turned his focus to his screen again.  
  
  
****  
  
Their target - a small clapboard house barely clinging to the outskirts of the one-horse town Adam had directed them to - perched to one side of the pot-holed road leading from it to the next settlement several miles distant. Tall trees bordered the handkerchief-sized but neatly tended property on the remaining three sides, the forest rising away behind it to rocky outcrops marking the divide between this valley and the next, through which they'd seen a river raging as Brennan had brought the Double Helix in. The sight had left Jesse feeling strangely uneasy though he had no clear idea why, putting it down to pre-mission nerves.  
  
"So, where do you think these mysterious watchers are?" Shalimar asked, as the plane settled invisibly into the nearest piece of open ground they could find and the engines shut down.  
  
"Well, I'm not picking up anything on scanners," Jesse said, frowning at his monitor, "but that doesn't mean they aren't there somewhere." He swung round to survey his team mates. "OK, how do we play this? Going in mob-handed will probably scare the kid to death and will certainly tip off anyone out there that there's someone else interested in her."  
  
"Not such a bad idea," Brennan commented. "Let them know they're not getting things all their own way any more."   
  
But Emma shook her head. "Remember, we still don't know if this is a trap. No point in risking all of us."  
  
And Shalimar and Brennan had to reluctantly agree to her suggestion that it made more sense for them to hang back and cover her and Jesse while they checked the place out. "If we just walk down the road openly, they'll hopefully think we had a breakdown or ran out of gas or something, and are just looking to use the phone."  
  
There was no indication that anyone was there to believe or disbelieve their deception, though, as they headed purposefully towards the house. The front door was slightly ajar when they reached it and with no response from within to Jesse's call he pushed it open and led the way inside.  
  
It was immediately clear that all was not well, and Emma was summoning the other two in before she'd taken more than a couple of steps into the cluttered living room. The signs of a struggle were unmistakable, and though it seemed someone had made a half-hearted attempt at clearing up, they'd been unable to do more than gloss over the damage.  
  
"The back door's open, too," Jesse said, as he returned from checking out the rest of the house. "She must have made a run for it." His attention was caught by a photograph lying on the table in the remains of its frame, the cracked and splintered glass disguising the detail. But his expression told Emma it was significant and she moved so she could see it too.  
  
"Gayle?" she guessed, taking in the serenity of the dark-haired woman smiling up at her.  
  
Jesse just nodded, rearranging his features quickly into a bland mask that hid his feelings as he turned to greet Brennan and Shalimar's hurried entrance. "She's gone - probably out the back, assuming they were watching from the road." He stepped hastily aside as Shalimar pushed past him, eyes glowing gold in indication that her feral senses had taken over. "Shal?" he questioned, seeing her nostrils flare at whatever she was picking up from the place. But she didn't respond and he shared a glance with the others before they all followed her through the house to the kitchen and the open door there.  
  
Once in the back yard she stopped, head lifting, eyes swinging to quarter the surrounding area until she suddenly froze, gaze fixed on a point just inside the edge of the forest where what could have been a path was dimly visible.  
  
"That way," she said, pointing. "And they're after her." Without another word she took off, running in the direction she'd been indicating, leaving her companions flat-footed behind her.  
  
"Shalimar, wait!" Brennan went follow her, but Jesse grabbed his arm.  
  
"No - we'll have more chance tracking them in the Helix. We can get in front, get to her before they do."  
  
For a moment he thought Brennan was going to throw his hand off, his eyes flicking almost desperately between him and the disappearing feral, clearly torn between staying with her and doing what might be best for the mission. But Emma took the decision out of his hands, calling back over her shoulder as she set off after Shalimar, "Jesse's right. Go - I'll watch her back. Just get to them before she does!"  
  
Brennan's jaw dropped just a little at the psionic's turn of speed, but she'd vanished into the trees before he could say anything, and Jesse was already turning away, urging him to follow, to hurry. And he knew they were indeed right. The best way they could help Shalimar was to find the girl before her pursuers - with her out of the equation they'd be able to face them unencumbered and en masse. And their best shot at that was if he flew while Jesse worked his magic with the scanners. So, with a final yearning glance at the now silent forest, he set off after to him towards the plane.  
  
  
**  
  
The muted roar of the Double Helix passing overhead reached Emma as she paused for a breather. She was beginning to regret her rash decision to follow her feral friend a little; the path they were following was heavily overgrown - though beaten down to some extent by the obvious recent passage of several people - and wound upwards so steeply in places that she was reduced to using the trees lining it to haul herself along. The ground was muddy and slick underfoot, and she could only be grateful that she hadn't decided to wear her Gucci boots this trip.  
  
She'd just started moving again when Jesse's voice crackled into life from her com-link, advising them all - including Adam, listening back in Sanctuary - that they were airborne and had spotted a lone figure heading into the next valley along with a small group, apparently in pursuit, maybe a half mile back. His comment that, once they'd found a place to land and got the girl safely on board, they'd come back so they could deal with the pursuers together was greeted in typical style by Shalimar.  
  
"Yeah? Well, make it quick, boys, or there might not be any left for you to play with," she teased, sounding - much to Emma's chagrin - barely out of breath. But the clear mental image of the blonde scything her way through the tangled foliage up ahead proved more than sufficient a spur for her to pick up the pace again.  
  
  
**  
  
'Oh God, no, please... This can't be happening!' The words bouncing round Jesse's shell-shocked brain seemed to have become caught into a never ending loop that just kept repeating itself over and over again as he stared in horror at the scene before him.  
  
The sense of unease that had been with him ever since they'd first flown in over this valley had started to gnaw in earnest at his mind once they'd found somewhere to land and had set out to intercept the fleeing girl they knew was heading their way.  
  
He'd wanted to take a little more time to check out the maps of the area they carried in the Helix's database, make sure there were no unforeseen obstacles to steer clear of, but Brennan's keenness to be moving combined with Adam's seemingly constant demands for updates on their progress had driven him to ignore his instincts. If he'd checked, he would have known what they were walking into. But even that probably wouldn't have prepared him for what was waiting for him.  
  
The surging roar of fast flowing water had grown as they'd picked their way down between the trees and rock-infested mounds of earth towards its source, the spray from the waterfall they could just make out away to their left filling the air with a fine mist that worked its dampness into their clothes and hair. A twisted knot of foreboding started to form in his stomach as the feeling of familiarity - recognition even - grew, as did the urge to simply turn and run in the opposite direction as fast as he could. But, perversely, his traitorous sense of right kept him following in Brennan's footsteps, doing what was expected of him, what his conscience would later try and tell him was the only thing he could have done with an innocent's life at stake. If there was a later...  
  
It kept him going until they rounded a clutter of boulders and emerged onto the river bank. And walked straight into the impossibility of his nightmare made real.  
  
Laid out before him, exactly as he remembered it, was the river gorge, the wooden footbridge connecting the sparsely grassed areas on either side that struggled for survival against the encroaching forest. The spray from the thundering waterfall gave the scene a ghostly quality, but couldn't hide the small figure who'd been halted in her flight across the bridge by their unexpected appearance, or the distant gaggle of dark shapes moving resolutely along the opposite bank towards them.  
  
"Get them!" came the shout, somehow finding a way through the wall of sound that hammered at them, floating on the mist. And Jesse froze, stunned motionless by the memory of how his dream had always played out, his mind screaming for him to wake up, now, before it was too late. But this was no fantasy, not this time, and he knew there could be no salvation that way. So he allowed the fog of dread to wrap him in its beguiling blanket and tug him gently towards the inevitable.  
  
  
**** 


	4. Part 4

Part 4  
  
Back down the wooded slope on the far side of the river, Emma halted in her breathless climb, the sudden shocking image of Jesse in a white room, screaming soundlessly at some unseen spectre that forced him to his knees, flashing vividly into her head and forcing her to put out a hand to steady herself against a convenient tree.   
  
"Jesse?" she whispered, frowning as she tried to get a clearer sense of what was happening, before raising her com-link and calling his name out loud. But there was no reply, nor to her second attempt – none but the sound of Shalimar's querying voice. Emma was moving almost before she heard her words, though, sparing just enough breath to say, "Shal? Jesse's in trouble," before throwing herself totally into the task of getting to him as soon as possible.  
  
*  
  
"Jesse! Snap out of it, dammit! They're gonna kill her!!" Brennan's bellow finally penetrated the trance-like state that Jesse had become ensnared in and with a shudder he managed to pull himself back into the real world again. And found it not a place he really wanted to be...   
  
Glancing automatically in Brennan's direction he saw the elemental curving the fingers of his right hand as if gripping a ball, saw the telltale flickers of blue light sparking from his fingertips as he tentatively attempted to power up one of his lightning strikes. But the all-permeating moisture in the air had already soaked him through and all he succeeded in doing was enmeshing himself in the electrical discharge. And with a jolt almost as violent Jesse realised that there were no other options, no way he could avoid this thing playing out. As if to confirm that, Brennan snarled, "What are you waiting for – an invitation? I can't stop them, not in these conditions."  
  
He looked out across the gorge again, towards the approaching men, seeing as expected the guns they carried, guns they were already starting to raise in their direction. He heard Brennan calling to the girl to run but saw her indecision, the fear on her face at being caught between two probable dangers, fear that held her immobile in the centre of the bridge, crouched there like a cornered animal. He felt certain that if he stepped out onto that bridge he'd die – in one of the worst possible ways he could imagine – but he just couldn't see any other way of helping her. Perhaps, once she was safe, he could do something, something different enough to change that future... perhaps...  
  
"Jess!!" Brennan called again forcefully, but Jesse was already moving, eyes on the men who were now only perhaps fifty yards away. Their weapons moved his way as he hit the end of the bridge at a run, flinging himself in front of the wide-eyed girl and spinning her into the shelter of his body as he took a deep breath and massed.   
  
And just in time too; the volley of shots impacted against him like an angry swarm of bees, stinging as they hit but dropping harmlessly to the timbers under his feet. Worn timbers, battered by the elements over time, held together by rusting nails and equally worn supports into an unsteady structure that he could already feel creaking under his unimaginable weight... 'Please, please, no...'  
  
He heard Brennan shouting to the kid, telling her to move his way, knowing that Jesse himself couldn't say the words while he was like this. But he could sense her shuddering with fear behind him, and wasn't sure she really understood. And he really needed her to start moving, needed to get them both to safety before he had to take a breath, before things came apart, before... "Oh God, no...' So he started shuffling backwards, trying to disrupt the fragile balance of the surface beneath his feet as little as possible, gently nudging her until she got the message and went with him.  
  
But it was all happening too slowly. The clock in his head was telling him he was running out of time, that in seconds he'd be reaching the limits of his known capacity to hold his breath, but still the onslaught continued as the obviously well trained group re-loaded in sequence and kept up their barrage of fire. And he knew they were still too far from safety for him to believe they had a chance of avoiding taking a hit without the protection of his solidity.  
  
Desperation started to take hold right about the time he felt the panicking girl finally succumb to Brennan's urging and make a break for where he was sheltering. The thud of her scampering footsteps reverberated through the wooden slats, setting up a reciprocal tremor that proved too much for the brittle construction, and Jesse could feel that, for all his efforts to the contrary, what he feared most was about to happen.  
  
His mind cried out to him to take a breath, revert to normal, to run for cover, to do anything other than stand there and let the unthinkable happen. But he knew he couldn't outrun a bullet, knew he wouldn't get five feet before one of the goons over there got him, and the stubborn streak that had kept him going through all the years of heartbreak and loneliness growing up in a family that didn't care told him that if he was going to go, he should go down fighting, doing some good, not shot in the back trying to run away. At least with the bridge down the gang wouldn't be able to reach those he'd been protecting...  
  
So, ignoring the building pain of lungs gone too long without breath, he cast a final glance over his shoulder to confirm the kid was safely away. There was a split-second locking of eyes with Brennan that conveyed everything and nothing, before he turned back and took a deliberate step forward – and felt the screeching timbers of the bridge finally give way underneath him.  
  
The plunge down into the icy flood was far quicker than he could have imagined, his dense weight dropping him too fast for him to be able to take the breath of life-saving air he'd intended on the way. He was under water before he knew it, the river in spate sucking him under its foaming surface and dragging him straight to the bottom. And it was every bit as terrifying as his dream – and more.  
  
*  
  
Shalimar didn't need Emma's sudden shocked gasp and pained, "Shal!" to know that things had suddenly gotten a whole lot worse. Even without the amplifying power of their com-links or her feral hearing, she could clearly identify the alarm and horror in Brennan's shout of, "Jesse! No!!" that rolled down the hillside towards her.  
  
Emma's voice came again, still breathless from her attempts to catch up, and – it seemed to Shalimar – making no sense. "Oh God, it's... it's the nightmare. But how...?" She shook her head impatiently, already moving again as she snapped out, "What?" before immediately calling, "Brennan, what's going on?"  
  
Everyone suddenly started talking at once, Brennan's almost inaudible and strangely static-filled response buried under Adam's questioning and Emma's oddly distressed pleas for her to wait for her. In exasperation, Shalimar ignored them all, focusing solely on the fact that Jesse – her Jesse, her brother, her cub – was in trouble and that she needed to get to him, to be there for him.  
  
*  
  
The strength of the current washing around Jesse tugged at him, trying to move him out of its path, and the grating sound as he was dragged across the rocks and gravel littering the riverbed resonated through him. He knew what he needed to do, what it would take to survive, to condemn the nightmare to the dreamworld it belonged in, but the very sensation of the water trying to flood his ears and nose was enough to induce a panic in him that made the level of control he needed as hard to reach as the sun.   
   
Fear such as he hadn't felt since he was a child gripped him, held him in its vice, clawed at his mind in its attempt to drive away all rational thoughts and send him voluntarily to his doom. And he wasn't sure any more that he had the energy or the will to fight it.  
   
"You do," whispered a voice somewhere deep inside. "You're strong enough." And though he didn't believe it, the sound was so reassuring that it made him want to try.  
   
"Slowly," said the voice, just a little louder. "Let it go slowly," and he somehow knew what it meant. Fighting his lungs' immediate demands to release the stale air they were still holding in one sustained rush, to give them something to work with, to relieve the agonising burning pain that wracked them, he let a slow trickle of bubbles escape his lips. The internal pressure lessened immediately, dropping even faster as the trickle became a stream.  
   
"Slowly!" cautioned the voice again, but the relief was so great that he couldn't stop, and the river caught him as his body lost its massive density, whipping at his arms and legs and cartwheeling him forward at increasing speed.  
   
His lungs were now out of his control, the automatic reflex forcing out their remaining contents in preparation for the needed, the expected influx of fresh and oxygenated air and, hard as he tried to prevent it, he could feel the unwanted onset of uncontrolled phasing as they reached empty. Water molecules rushed full pelt through his, jostling them, pulling them apart as if the river was trying to integrate them into its ever-flowing self, and his soul screamed out in denial of what was to be.  
   
"Look outside you," came the voice, harsh, demanding. "Use it."  
   
But it all seemed too hard, too much, the pain too all-encompassing and the idea of becoming part of the endless stream, letting it wash everything away until there was only the peace of nothingness, was suddenly very appealing.  
   
"No, no surrender!" the voice insisted. And again. "Use it!"  
   
"I can't!" his dwindling consciousness wailed. But a flash of something, some instinct, some fleeting primal desire for survival emerged from the dark depths of his psyche, and he latched onto it, reaching out blindly into the howling raging torrent in a final desperate search for salvation.  
   
And just as he felt the bonds that kept him intact start to tear asunder, he found it.  
   
What it was, he had no idea. But somehow he felt himself pulling aback from the oblivion he'd come so close to, boosted by a surge of life-giving energy that snapped him back together once more.  
   
His aching limbs started to flail again as they grew solid enough to disrupt the water's progress, and for one marvellous moment his hand caught... no, slipped... but caught again at some outcropping as he was hurled against the side of the gorge. The river gave him sufficient time to drag his head above the surface, to gulp in a brief mouthful of what turned out to be equal parts liquid and air, before it yanked him bodily away again. But he knew nothing would ever taste as sweet again, even as his lungs feasted greedily on the oxygen and strove at the same time to repel the water in heaving coughs.  
   
Giddy, light-headed, drunk on the sensation of survival, of having defied the fates, outsmarted his dreams, he ignored the ominous whispering of his inner self. But the unforgiving current tugged at his legs again, giving notice that it wasn't prepared to release him that easily, and he was forced to listen, to accept the awful truth that would, in the end, condemn him to the very fate – albeit in a different guise – that he'd just fought so hard to evade.  
   
As the waters closed over his head again he had to swallow a bubble of ironic laughter at the realisation that he was still at the mercy of the fears of his childhood, fears that had stayed with him, fears that would now be the last thing he'd ever experience. Because his aqua-phobic refusal to learn to swim back then left him totally unable to counter the dominance of the tumbling, roiling, bruising rollercoaster that carried him remorselessly along now, intent on taking him to a watery grave. And his dread of drowning was what would ultimately deliver him there.   
  
*  
  
Trailing in Shalimar's wake as she loped along the sloping, broken ground above the river, Emma tried to come to terms with what she knew had happened, but didn't want to believe. Jesse was gone – there was no other explanation for the dark quiet space in her mind where mere minutes ago there'd been terror, anger, distress...  
  
She'd burst out of the trees onto the riverbank some hundred yards below the waterfall with howls and yells ringing in her head, unsure which were real and which imagined. But she'd been just in time to take out several of the gun-wielding thugs Shalimar was about to tangle with, using a few choice mental bomb-blasts to floor them before they'd overcome their shock at the sight of the snarling blonde wildcat racing towards them sufficiently to actually fire at her.  
  
The feral had vented some of her apprehension on the remaining men, not an experience they would have enjoyed, but once there was no one left to fight she'd come to rest staring desolately at the shattered remains of the bridge, not even registering Emma's approach.  
  
Into the comparative silence had come another vivid – and familiar – image of Jesse locked in mortal combat with an unseen foe, being driven to the ground again and again until he didn't have the strength to move any more, and Emma had known that he was indeed living his nightmare. And losing. But Brennan's appearance on the far side of the gorge, a hand resting with deceptive casualness on the shoulder of the girl who'd brought them all here, had seemed to jolt Shalimar into action, his answers to her shouted questions – how long? alive when he went in? – appearing to confirm whatever she was thinking. Because, with a single wild glance at Emma, she'd taken off again, following the river downstream like a cheetah on the trail of fresh prey.  
  
"Stay with her," Brennan had called. "We'll go back to the Helix, look for a landing site down that way, catch up with you."  
  
And stay with her was what she'd tried to do, though she was becoming heartily sick of the dampness and the mud and the slipping and sliding. But that had become as nothing when the jumbled emotional clamour she'd still been distantly aware of suddenly shut down. She thought she might have cried out at its abrupt cessation, but there was no one there to hear it. She might have used her com-link to share her suspicions, but there was no way that she wanted to be the one to bring an end to hope. So she struggled on.  
  
Shalimar was running with senses maxed, the yellow of her feral vision adding an eerie cast to the shadowy gloom of her surroundings. If she'd allowed herself to think rationally she would have had to have said their chances of finding him alive were slim to zero, but she was anything but rational right now. There was no way she could give him up without at least trying to find him, because if the positions were reversed she knew he wouldn't give up on her.   
  
The overrun path she'd been following disappeared beyond a curving bluff, but when she fought her way round it to a point where she could see the river again she pulled up short, eyes narrowing as she strove to make out the detail of what had caught her attention.  
  
Up ahead, where the river bank briefly lowered itself to the level of the foaming waters, a tree had fallen to its death, the rotting trunk reaching the straggling fingers of its branches out into the flood as if in supplication. And caught up in those branches, half in and half out of the icy torrent that was doing its utmost to tug it free, was an ominously unmoving dark mass, barely recognisable at this distance as human. But Shalimar knew without question it was him, even before she got close enough to see the features partly obscured by the ribbons of wet hair plastered across them.  
  
She dimly heard Emma shout something from way back behind her but she ignored her totally, eyes desperately seeking signs of life as she bounded over the clutter of vegetation-encrusted rocks that littered the path, unnerved by his stillness and lack of response to her calls. A stillness that became even more frightening when she felt the chill permeating the hand she grabbed to try and pull him up onto the bank beside her, splashing into the water without any of her normal innate distaste for it in order to free him from the tree's grasp. His visible skin was a waxy blue-white, a colour and texture she'd only ever seen before on a corpse, and if it hadn't been for the conviction she held in her soul that she would know if he had died, she would have been more scared than she'd ever been in her life.  
  
Ignoring the discomfort of the liquid sloshing in her boots and soaking through the bottoms of her jeans, she dropped to her knees beside him and turned him onto his back, cupping his chin in one hand to hold him steady while she brushed the wet strands of hair back off his face. Blood from a jagged gash at his hairline tinted the dark blonde a muddy red, and the bruise he'd picked up in the dojo when she'd disturbed him stood out starkly against the translucence of his temple, but there was nothing there to indicate life. No other colour, no flicker beneath the closed eyelids, no discernible rise and fall of chest or rasp of breath.  
  
But still she couldn't believe the evidence of her eyes, dropping a hand to rest over his heart and trusting her animal instincts to tell her what her normal senses couldn't.   
  
Scrambling around the bluff, Emma saw Shalimar bent over the motionless body that could only be Jesse, watched her gather him into her arms and cradle his head against her shoulder, her hair cascading in a curtain that hid his face, and her heart tried to snap in two. Trying to calm her panting breathing she approached cautiously, almost tiptoeing as if not wanting to disturb what felt too strongly like a deathbed vigil, and opened her shields just a little, expecting to feel a wall of grief that she knew she wouldn't be able to defend herself against. But despite what she was seeing, the emotion she picked up was one of relief mixed in with the overtones of anxiety, and she allowed herself to hope things weren't as bad as she'd feared. "Shal?" she questioned, coming to crouch beside them, seeing the tears spilling from the dark brown gaze raised to hers.  
  
"He's alive, Emma," Shalimar whispered, pulling Jesse closer and hugging his cold wet body to the comparative warmth of hers. "But only just. We have to help him..."  
  
To Emma it seemed that the normally determined, impetuous feral had lost all ability for decisiveness, all sense of purpose, as if her life's work had been to find him and now that she had she was at a loss to know what to do next. So it was left to her to call Brennan in with the Helix and explain to Adam what to expect when they got back.  
  
  
**  
  
"Joshua? That's a lovely smile - what's got you so happy?" A pause. "Joshua?"  
  
"Sorry... what?"  
  
"You were miles away there! Looks like it was somewhere good."  
  
"Oh... yes, you could say that. Well, not somewhere, exactly, but..."  
  
"That's nice, dear. So, can I get you anything? Something to drink? Some soda? Or some nice iced water? "  
  
"No!" Almost a shout - then quieter... "No, I'm really not thirsty right now."  
  
"Well... if you're sure. I think it's going to be a hot one today." Another pause. "I'd better get on, then. You'll be alright here? Do you have enough to keep you occupied?"  
  
"Plenty, thanks. Don't worry about me – I... I have some thinking to do..."  
  
  
**** 


	5. Part 5

PART 5  
  
When did she suddenly get so tired, Shalimar wondered, leaning her head wearily against the cool surface of the kitchen cabinet door while she waited for the kettle to boil. Having been banished from the room while Adam worked on stabilising Jesse, because her prowling was becoming too distracting, she'd decided to follow Emma's advice – though substituting a giant mug of hot chocolate for the suggested cup of green tea – if only for something to do while she waited. But now she was here, she found she was quite glad of the solitude and the chance to regain some control over those facets of her feral self she'd allowed to take her over so completely while she'd been searching for him.  
  
The burning need to find and protect him had been frightening in its intensity, driving her in a way that, despite the close bond she'd built up with him over their time in Sanctuary together, she hadn't really expected. Before Adam had found her and brought her here she'd had no family, no-one to care whether she lived or died, and she'd taught herself that that was the best way, that she didn't need anyone. That the only person who really mattered to her was herself. It hadn't stopped her ending up starving in a seedy motel, but at least she wasn't beholden to anyone, hadn't sold her soul to the highest bidder like so many of her contemporaries.  
  
After a bumpy start Adam had taught her to trust again, in herself and in others, to allow them close enough to have an effect on her actions. But, with a couple of key exceptions whose departures had hurt enough to send her back to her old ways, no one had seemed to stay with them long enough back then to really make an impact.   
  
And then Jesse had arrived, and she'd found herself challenged to break down the self-imposed walls he'd been hiding behind, built to keep out all those who'd continually hurt him while pretending to the world to have his best interests at heart. Challenged to find a way to draw him back from the fantasy world he was in danger of becoming lost in, in his attempts to escape from a reality he found too painful an existence. And although their backgrounds were so vastly different, they'd found a commonality that neither of them had experienced before.   
  
It was Jesse who'd helped her rediscover her capacity for caring, for worrying about someone other than herself, who'd brought out the 'pride' mentality inherent in her feral nature that she'd been suppressing for so long. And she'd given him the gift of laughter, shown him that not everyone expected perfection all the time, that it was OK to let go and just have fun.  
  
They'd helped each other in ways neither of them could truly explain, and become even closer – a sibling relationship that transcended the lack of a blood tie, and was probably stronger for it. Though somehow more recently she felt that things had changed. He'd grown up – they both had, of course, but in him it seemed to have brought about a shift in past weeks away from the easy-going, fun-loving young man he'd become, making him more insular again, less open, less approachable than he'd been for years. And she'd felt that closeness suffering, privately mourned its loss.  
  
Until today. Her reflexive response to his perilous situation showed that nothing had really changed, at least from her perspective. And she was glad.  
  
The click of the kettle shutting off disturbed her reverie sufficiently for her to make her drink and carry it through to the communal living area, sinking onto one of the sofas and drawing her legs under her as she savoured the warmth of the mug cupped in her hands. A far cry from the dank chill of the river bank, she thought as, sipping absently at the hot sweetness, she felt her mind slip back there of its own accord. A shiver rippled through her, though, despite the perfectly maintained ambient temperature of her surroundings and the dry clothes Adam had insisted she change into, at the memory of the lethargy that had seemed to grip her once she'd pulled Jesse from the water. A lethargy that, conspiring with the icy fear that wrapped around her soul, robbed her of the volition to do anything other than hold him close and focus everything on the faintest of heartbeats she'd sensed in him, as if that would keep it going long enough to get him back to Sanctuary.  
  
It had seemed to take forever until Brennan arrived, dragging the unwilling Connie with him and thrusting the girl into Emma's care while he'd pragmatically extricated Jesse from her grasp and chivvied her into motion. With no time for finesse, he'd heaved him over his shoulder to carry him back to the Helix, an action that had provoked a fit of feeble coughing from the unconscious man. This had been sufficient to at least start to expel the water from his lungs, though it still wasn't enough to wake him. Nothing seemed to be enough for that.  
  
All she really remembered about the journey home was how cold he'd felt as she'd sat on the floor with him cradled in her lap to stop him being thrown around by the plane's motion. How ragged and faltering his breathing had been, interspersed with more weak coughing as his body sought to evict the alien intruder causing those problems. How deathly pale he still was, even though he no longer had that corpse-like quality of before. And how close they'd come to losing him.  
  
Still might lose him. And that thought was sufficient to send a burst of impotent rage through her that had her slamming the mug carelessly onto the table as she surged to her feet and headed back towards med-bay. Dammit, but he was *not* going to die, not after the effort she'd put in to find him, to bring him home. Not if she had anything to do with it...  
  
  
**  
  
"What makes you think I'm going to tell you anything?" The question came loaded with all the swaggering insolence and borderline aggression that a 14-but-I-want-people-to-think-I'm-grown-up teenage girl can muster, especially when she's trying to hide the fact she's really very uncertain about her situation. "And anyway, you can't keep me here. It's kidnapping!"   
  
Connie lounged back in the chair she'd appropriated on her arrival in the lab with her hands shoved into the pockets of her artfully faded jeans, watching Adam calculatingly from under the shaggy curtain of blonde-streaked hair that swept diagonally across her forehead and partially hid the grey-green eyes rimmed with smudged black eyeliner. Her lips were twisted into just the hint of a sneer, but there was an underlying fragility about her that was at odds with the image she was trying to project.  
  
Adam sighed, thinking – not for the first time since this conversation had begun – that he really didn't feel any better equipped to be dealing with this kind of thing than he had when he'd first met the 15-year-old Shalimar. "You asked for our help, you know, not the other way round. And you also know Gayle trusted us, or she wouldn't have given you the emergency number. Though I don't really understand why she did. She knows that line is exclusively for..." He broke off, but she continued for him.  
  
"For freaks? Freaks like them?" She nodded towards the windows separating the lab from the more dimly lit room next door where Shalimar could be seen standing staring intently at the unmoving figure on the bio-bed.  
  
"Hey!" Brennan snapped from the far side of the room where he'd been observing the exchange from a safe distance; he'd sampled more than enough of the brat's 'badass' attitude already that day and had been happy to hand her over to Emma and Adam to deal with. But he didn't feel inclined to let her get away with that. "One of those 'freaks' saved your life and damn near lost his in the process!"  
  
Connie shrank back from his obvious anger but didn't deign to reply, folding her arms defensively across her chest as she looked up sullenly at Adam again. "And anyway, don't you mean she *knew*?"  
  
He shook his head firmly. "We can't say that for sure, can we? Unless you saw them kill her?"  
  
The girl glared at him defiantly for a few seconds before lowering her gaze, deflating visibly under his piercing stare.  
  
"Well?" he asked, more gently. "Did you?"  
  
"No," she whispered, eyes clouding slightly as she remembered. "They dragged her out of the house, but she was alive when they left. She was pleading with them, begging them not to. But they didn't listen."  
  
"Did they say anything? Anything that would help us find them? Find her?"  
  
"They just kept saying they were arresting her for crimes against humanity. But Gayle never hurt anyone - *couldn't* hurt anyone! She was the gentlest person I've ever met. She saved me, and I couldn't do anything to help her!!" Connie's voice rose to a wail of distress that had Emma moving forward to rest a calming hand on her shoulder.  
  
"It's OK," she said, soothingly, but the girl shook her away.  
  
"No, it's my fault she was there! She saw them watching her at the store and she wanted to warn me, so she slipped out the back way, but they must have seen her, followed her home and she only had time to push me into the hiding place under the stairs before they broke in..." She stopped as she ran out of breath and, with it, out of steam, sinking back into her chair and huddling in on herself. "If she'd stayed where she was, she'd still be safe," she whispered, eyes filling with tears.  
  
"No, they'd just have carried on waiting for her – she would have had to come out eventually and they would have got her then. It's not your fault." Emma squeezed her arm reassuringly, but Adam saw the psionic's eyes widen slightly as she snatched her hand back with the air of someone who'd just been given a static shock, before she stepped away to gaze down at her in query. "You're one of us, aren't you?"  
  
"No! I'm not!! Don't say that, it's not true." The strength of the girl's reaction was so extreme that Adam was certain it had been almost programmed into her, and he wondered again about what kind of background she'd come from. Obviously not one where mutancy was something to be accepted – or even admitted - which would probably be why she'd escaped from it and ended up with Gayle.   
  
"You don't have to be frightened of who you are here," Emma continued, trying to catch and hold the gaze that darted around the room in panic. "We can help you. But we need you to help us too."  
  
"No! Stop it – leave me alone!" Connie almost wailed, sounding every bit the scared child she really was, and buried her face in her hands as if trying to hide from her inquisitors. The muffled sobs that followed told them that they were unlikely to get anything more from her until she'd calmed down, so Adam suggested quietly that she might need some rest. Emma nodded her understanding and coaxed the tearful girl to her feet before leading her away to find somewhere she could lie down.  
  
Distracted by the noise, Shalimar came to see what all the fuss was about, standing aside in the doorway to let them pass. She came to join the two men, nodding towards the departing figures as she asked, "Well? Did she give you anything that might help?"   
  
"Not really," Adam answered. "I'm thinking it might be worth having Emma try a psionic memory scan on her, see if she heard or saw anything she's not remembering now. But she's almost definitely a New Mutant, though. I'll need to check her DNA to be sure, but I'd suspect some sort of latent Elemental from how Emma reacted. She probably doesn't really know herself – I'm guessing her family made it such a taboo that she'd been repressing it totally. But Gayle would definitely have seen it – which would be why she took her in."  
  
"She was a psionic?" Brennan questioned.  
  
"She still is – until we know for sure."  
  
Brennan rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on! I'm not 'little Miss Attitude' there. You don't need to sugar-coat stuff with me. We all know the chances of her – of any of them – still being alive now are too slim to measure. Those guys were loaded for bear, Adam, and they didn't care who got in the way!"  
  
Adam stared bleakly at him, wanting to tell him he was wrong, that without proof positive there was always hope, but knowing in his heart that he was probably right. In the end, though, he just said, "Then we need to find them and stop them. Before they can do this to anyone else."  
  
"Oh, with you there," Brennan agreed readily. "Especially now it seems pretty clear they're targeting New Mutants. One small problem – we still don't know who they are or where to start looking for them."  
  
"We have Connie, though – and I'm betting there's more she can tell us once she's had time to get her thoughts together. You did a good job getting her away from them alive."  
  
"Yeah? Well, I'm sure Jess will be real glad to hear it was all worthwhile." The elemental's sarcasm wasn't lost on any of them but Adam decided silence was the best response.  
  
While they'd been talking, Shalimar had been gazing almost wistfully through the windows and she used the sudden lull in the conversation to ask the question that was still foremost on her mind. "How is he? Really?"  
  
"Not so good." Adam sighed. "He was without oxygen for a long time. In fact, I don't quite know how he managed to get himself back to normal density without being able to take a breath. Though for some reason he has an abnormally high hydrogen molecule count..." He paused, gazing absently at one of the monitors for a few seconds as if deep in thought, before he blinked and brought his attention back to them again. "The cold helped," he continued, "slowed his metabolism down, kind of like putting him in stasis. But although we've warmed him up again, he's breathing on his own and there's brain activity, to all intents and purposes he's in a coma."  
  
He saw the consternation his words were causing, but had no way of softening them – only of making things harder. "My biggest concern right now is pneumonia – his body temperature was very low and he swallowed a lot of water. But then, from what you've told me, he's lucky to be here at all."  
  
Shalimar paced away from them to stare at Jesse's pale still form beyond the glass. "He should never have gone out on that bridge... Why did he? You know he hates water, has since he was a kid and he fell in the pool at his parents' place. He almost drowned then and it's always frightened him, the idea of dying that way – like being buried alive, not being able to breathe, it's all the same thing. It's why he never learned to swim." She turned back to look at them in horror. "God, he must have been so scared!"   
  
"He had no choice," Emma said softly from the doorway.  
  
"Yeah, if the kid had kept moving it would have been different," Brennan put in. "But once she froze out there in the middle, and with all that moisture in the air, we were out of options."  
  
But Emma shook her head as she came and perched on one of the lab stools. "No, I don't mean it like that." She wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off a sudden chill. "He's been having a nightmare. A recurring nightmare. And it almost came true for him today."  
  
She flinched away from the barrage of questions that flew at her after the momentary stunned silence following her words, closing her eyes and dragging her shields more firmly into place to block out the surging emotions that accompanied them. But there came a pause, into which she heard Adam insert a querying, "Emma?" and she opened her eyes again to see them, as expected, staring at her in varying degrees of confusion. "How do you know about this?" Adam asked for all of them. "Did he tell you?"  
  
She took a steadying breath. "He's been broadcasting so loudly he didn't need to," she said, with a touch of irony. "I shouldn't have been able to 'see' it too, though, should only have been able to sense how he was feeling about it, but for some reason I was picking up stray images. What happened today seemed almost exactly as it was in his dream. Except that there he phased out of existence. And in reality he didn't."  
  
"But..." Shalimar swept hands through her hair in frustration. "Why didn't he *say* something? If we'd known, we could have helped, kept him safe..."  
  
"From what?" Emma turned frank blue eyes on her. "From a dream? There was no way of knowing it was precognitive – Jesse's not psionic, he doesn't have that power."  
  
"No," said Adam slowly, "but there are those that do. Or this could just have been an unhappy coincidence – a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you like. Maybe Jesse saw the bridge and fitted his actions to the events of his nightmare."  
  
"Hey, that would make it, like, attempted suicide!" protested Brennan. "Jess may get a little down on himself occasionally, but he's the least suicidal guy I've ever met. He's more likely to go take it out on the simulations, kick a few butts, break a few heads."  
  
"He's tried that," whispered Shalimar, remembering how she'd found him those few days previously. She looked to Adam for reassurance. "You don't really think...?"   
  
But Emma answered for him. "No, it didn't feel like that. There was... panic, anger, desperation. OK, and an element of fatalism. But no active desire to die. Quite the opposite – he was fighting to survive right up until I lost him."  
  
"Then there has to be some other explanation for it," Brennan said determinedly. "Some external force?"  
  
Adam shrugged. "Could be. But we're probably going to have to wait until he wakes up to find that out."  
  
But they were all painfully aware that they could be in for a long wait.  
  
  
**** 


	6. Part 6

PART 6  
  
"Adam, we've got something!" Shalimar's excitement seemed to precede her into Adam's office, sweeping him up in its fervour and carrying him back to the lab with her almost without the need for conscious thought on his part.  
  
Emma was talking quietly to Connie when they got there, probably trying to settle her again after the unavoidably upsetting experience of having to relive for the psionic scan an event she'd rather wipe from her memory. But he was glad they'd managed to persuade her to try, particularly as it seemed to have produced results.  
  
They'd managed to get her to open up a little over breakfast, and with the benefit of a last name – O'Dwyer – Adam had been able to track down more. What he'd found confirmed his earlier impression about her. Her devoutly Catholic family would not have acknowledged the possibility of her mutancy to themselves, let alone anyone else. But, as she told them, she'd known there was something different about her, something that made her contact with others a risky business for them. And it was fear of what her tendency to give off unexpected static charges might mean, combined with her family's stifling refusal to admit to it, that had driven her to run away.  
  
Drying tears notwithstanding, the girl looked better for a good night's sleep, he thought, wishing the rest of his team had taken similar advantage of the opportunity. It had been a long and emotional day for all of them, but their seeming need to find some tangible focus for their anger at recent events had kept them up way too late, talking the thing round in circles and making fruitless checks of the barely tenable leads their tired minds produced.  
  
This had been especially true of Shalimar who, unable to do anything directly to help Jesse now, was looking for alternative directions to vent her protective urges – preferably against those who were the cause of what had happened to him.  Even when fatigue had finally forced her to stop, she'd been unable to give in completely. He'd found her curled up, cat-napping, in a chair in the corner of med-bay when he'd gone to look in on the still comatose molecular before going to bed himself, and he knew that Emma had replaced her there at some point in the night as they ensured that their friend wasn't left alone – despite his assurances to them that Jesse was well monitored and that he himself was planning regular checks.  
  
Emma looked up as they entered, leaving Connie with a quiet word and resting a reassuring hand momentarily on her shoulder as she came to join them. The girl's eyes followed her anxiously, though, with no sign of the bravado she'd been so full of the previous evening, and, dressed in what appeared to be Shalimar's teenage cast-offs and without the outlandish make-up, he realised how very young she really was.  
  
"What have you got?" Adam asked quietly, sending a smile Connie's way that he was pleased to see her respond to tentatively.  
  
"A name!" Shalimar couldn't contain herself any longer, but Emma qualified that to, "Well, half a name," with a small grin before continuing. "She didn't see anything – the place she was hiding in was dark, no way she could get a look at what was happening outside, so there was nothing for the rig to read and convert to images. But the boost I gave her helped her remember some more of what she heard – and it seems they might have gotten a little careless."  
  
"And?" Adam prompted, looking from one to the other expectantly.  
  
The blonde got in first, though. "DeSalles. One of them mentioned a Mr. DeSalles."  
  
"DeSalles?"  
  
"Ring any bells?" Emma asked.  
  
"No, not particularly. Although..." He frowned, trying to pin down the elusive flash of familiarity that had stolen through his mind at the mention of the name. "No, it's gone. But that certainly gives us somewhere to start. Good work." He paused, seeing from their expressions that there was something more, something he perhaps wasn't going to be so pleased about. "So... what else did you find?"   
  
Expression sober, Emma sighed, lowering her voice with a sideways glance towards the girl as she responded. "What this guy actually said was something like, 'You know Mr. DeSalles wants his freaks delivered alive, even if it is a temporary condition once he has them'."   
  
And though he'd known that the odds had been stacking up heavily on the side of this thing being mutant-related and terminal for those taken, the confirmation left him momentarily speechless.  
  
"You don't have to whisper," Connie said into the silence. "It was me who heard them, remember? I already know what they said, what it means." They all turned to see her glaring at them with a rekindling of her former self-assurance.  
  
"What who said? What did I miss?" Brennan chose that moment to walk into the lab, and immediately regretted it as everyone seemed to answer him at once.  
  
"They think I'm stupid – and they think Gayle's dead!" overlaid by "You're supposed to be sitting with Jess!" mingled with "We have a name, probably who those goons were working for..." and augmented by "Ah, Brennan, good. I have a job for you."  
  
"Whoa!" He took a step back again and raised his hands in self-defence. "One at a time, eh? We got a name?"   
  
He looked towards Emma, but Connie seemed not to hear him, appealing to the room at large for some hope she could cling to. "Temporary could mean days, though, couldn't it?"  
  
She wasn't the only one not listening to him. "I can't believe you left him alone," Shalimar almost growled as she pushed past him to get to the door. "What if he wakes up and there's no-one there?!"  
  
"Yes, DeSalles," Emma supplied distractedly, trying to block out the rising emotions now filling the room.  
  
"I bet you aren't going to try and help her now, are you?" Connie persisted. "This really stinks! I knew I should have done something more - tried harder to persuade her to leave after the dreams."  
  
"Dreams?" The girl suddenly found herself the centre of attention of everyone in the room. "What dreams?"  
  
She blinked nervously under their scrutiny, shifting awkwardly in the chair as they all moved closer to stare down at her. "She'd been having dreams – nightmares, really. She knew it was going to happen, she'd seen it. That's why she made the hiding place. I wanted her to move out, to come with me somewhere they'd never find her, but she wouldn't. She said she was tired of running, and what would be would be." She paused, seeing the looks being exchanged around her. "What?" she asked. "Does that help?"  
  
"I don't know," answered Adam honestly, rubbing pensively at his chin. "Jesse had been having nightmares, too. It could just be a coincidence – but it's a coincidence we should maybe be investigating. Along with the mysterious Mr. DeSalles, of course."  
  
He turned back to the others. "OK, let's get to work. DeSalles isn't a common name – let's do some surfing, see what we can come up with on the net. We can move on to less obvious sources if we need to narrow the field, or just to find out more once we have a suspect."   
  
Shalimar started to speak, but he silenced her with a knowing smile. "I'll keep an eye on Jesse – I can work from there, think about this nightmare thing. But without his expertise to call on, you're our next best shot at getting into some of the more secure databases, so I need you concentrating on that." He saw her hesitation and went on, "Well, you did say you taught him everything he knows, didn't you?"   
  
She gazed up at him for a few seconds, not attempting to disguise the indecision she was feeling, but she acknowledged that he was probably right with a nod and turned towards the door again with Emma behind her.  
  
"Hey, what about me?" piped up Connie, obviously piqued at being left out of the conversation after her revelation.  
  
"Ah, yes." Adam turned to her with a grin and a sparkle in his eyes as he called out. "Brennan? I have a job for you."  
  
The elemental stopped and came back into the room, forehead creased in confusion. "But... I thought we were going to go dig up this DeSalles guy."  
  
"The girls can handle that. I need you to spend some time with Connie here."   
  
Brennan's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock and consternation as he swung them from Adam to the girl and back again. "Excuse me?" he said faintly, but he could tell from the way the older man was looking at him that he was hearing right. "You *have* to be kidding! Why... what...?"  
  
Adam didn't seem in the least bit bothered by his discomfiture – in fact, he seemed to be almost enjoying it. "Connie's an electrical elemental, though it seems she's a late developer. I can't really tell how her powers are going to manifest themselves, but who better to help her get started, understand what she's probably going to go through than someone who's been through it all already."   
  
"No... oh no, no, you can't be serious!" Brennan lowered his voice just a little, out of deference to the kid's feelings. "Me? Babysitting? No way! Get one of the others..."  
  
But Adam just patted him on the shoulder as he moved past him. "They aren't elementals, now are they? No, this one is yours. Enjoy!"   
  
And he was left with the girl. The girl who was now standing smiling at him, a look in her eyes as they swept over him from toes to head that unaccountably sent a shiver of apprehension through him.  
  
He was horrified to feel the colour rise into his cheeks in a way it hadn't done since he was... well, probably since he was her age, and that just made it all worse. But he hadn't survived all that he had without being able to rise above such setbacks, so he conjured up a smile of his own and turned it on her, strangely gratified to see her smirk fade just a little.  
  
"So, where do you wanna start?" he asked, blocking out the giggles echoing back down the corridor.  
  
  
**  
  
"What are you drawing?"   
  
"Nothing, really – just doodling."  
  
"Oh, go on, Joshua, let me look. You know how much I love seeing your work."  
  
"No! I said it was nothing. Give it back!"  
  
"Now, don't get so worked up – you know it's not good for you."  
  
"Give it back, then!"  
  
A sigh. "I do wish you weren't so secretive all the time. It would be nice to be able to talk to you more about what you're doing. What you're interested in..."  
  
A moment's silence then, "I'm sorry... I don't mean to shut you out."  
  
"I really have no idea what goes on in your head most of the time. I mean, what's this? A campfire? Would you like us to take you camping?"  
  
A different sigh. "No. Really, no. And it's not a campfire. It's a... a..."  
  
"A crown, then? Or a cake? With candles?"  
  
Softly. "Yes... yes, it's a cake..."  
  
"Oh! You fancy some cake? That's a wonderful idea! How about Lemon Drizzle? Or Chocolate Fudge? Let me go and see what we have in the larder..."  
  
  
**** 


	7. Part 7

PART 7  
  
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but the fading light was a dead giveaway, he thought vaguely. Except that suddenly it was getting brighter again, and it took a great effort for him to raise his chin from where it rested against his chest, dragged there by gravity when he'd given up the unequal struggle to keep his head upright in the face of exhaustion and pain.   
  
The movement was enough to reawaken the cruel ache in his shoulders, the burning complaint of muscles and tendons stretched too far by the weight of his body pulling down against them countered by the sharp sting of the cuffs slicing into his wrists as they held his arms tautly above him. If he tilted his head back a bit further he thought he'd probably be able to see the hook he was virtually hanging from, but that would require far too much energy. And in any case, now he'd got himself this far, managed to get his eyes open as well, he could see why it seemed to be getting lighter again, and that pushed all other considerations from his mind.  
  
Through the now open door of the box he seemed to be imprisoned in he could see what looked like a procession wending its way through the gathering gloom towards him, many flaming torches giving an eerie cast to the intent faces of the men carrying them. His wavering gaze travelled ahead of them, trying to give him some clue as to what their purpose could be, but even before he saw what awaited them on the scrubby grass to one side of his field of vision he knew it wasn't going to be good. And the way his heart started to hammer against the inside of his chest at the sight just confirmed it.  
  
A stake had been driven into the ground about 30 yards away from him, with bundles of roughly hacked tree branches piled around it. And chained to that stake was a horrifyingly familiar figure.  
  
He realized now that he could hear – that what had seemed to be just buzzing in his ears was actually someone calling to him, shouting his name, screaming for him to help them, and it didn't take him long to realize that he knew the voice. Knew it better than he did his own. And his pounding heart leapt into his throat and threatened to choke him, preventing him from responding even though he wanted to tell her he was coming for her, that he wouldn't let anything bad happen.   
  
He struggled with his bonds, as he could see she was doing, jerking his body futilely against the supports behind him, yanking at the chains holding his arms captive, not caring what further damage he did to himself. Somewhere in his head something murmured that there should be an easier way but, though he tried, he couldn't unlock the secret. And in any case there was no time because the procession had reached its destination.  
  
A single voice roared out an order and the torchbearers peeled away from the mass to position themselves, ready and waiting. Another voice, intoning words of guilt and retribution, words he knew to be untrue but couldn't find a way of refuting, preceded one final instruction.  
  
As the torches plunged into piles of wood, igniting them with a heat-filled roar that sent the men reeling back from the instantaneous blaze, his eyes sought hers, trying to tell her he was sorry for failing her, that if he could switch places with her he would, that he loved her in a way he would never love anyone else... but all he could see in their strangely shiny brown depths was sadness and - to his eternal despair – accusation.  
  
He saw her shrink back from the rising flames even though she had nowhere to go, watched her struggles to free herself lessen as her instinctive fears took over and held her mesmerised, whimpering in shock. Smelt the terrible odour of burning flesh waft across towards him on the evening breeze, heard her howls of terror and agony and hopelessness build to a crescendo that echoed around his head, mingling with his own screams of rage and denial as he visualised the fire licking at her clothes, caressing her skin, blackening the bright blonde of her hair...  
  
And then, with a final soul-chilling screech that ripped his heart right out of his body, she was gone...  
  
...and he was catapulted into nothingness, a void with no beginning and no end that blotted out any sense of time, of emotion, of *being*, where he seemed destined to languish forever until...  
  
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but...  
  
  
*  
  
"Should he be doing that?"  
  
"What?" Adam looked up from his monitor, taking a moment to re-orientate himself into his current surroundings. He'd been immersed in the responses he'd received to a general broadcast to those New Mutants who'd travelled the Mutant X underground and were still in contact, enjoying the sense of satisfaction he always got from knowing he helped them to a better life. But mixed in with that was a certain disquiet at the few who'd also replied positively to his question about unusual dreams.  
  
He turned to see Connie hovering in the doorway, glancing a little anxiously over her shoulder in the direction of med-bay.  
  
"Should he be *twitching* like that," she asked again, rolling her eyes at his lack of attention. But she couldn't be disappointed with his reaction this time – he almost knocked her over as he rushed past her and into the room next door.  
  
At first sight there didn't seem to be anything different about Jesse, nothing changed from the way he'd been since they'd carried him in here. He was still much too pale, still apparently unmoving, eyes still closed. But a quick glance at the monitors he was linked to told Adam that both his heart rate and respiration were elevated from the barely there levels of the past 40 hours, and his brain activity was spiking oddly.  
  
When he leant closer, though, he could see what had alarmed Connie. Just perceptible tremors shook the younger man's body at irregular intervals, there was rapid movement under the almost translucent eyelids, and he could hear a slight rasping under the faint sounds of his breathing. All signs of returning consciousness, though he couldn't help fearing it wouldn't be the peaceful return he would have hoped for.  
  
He let out a sigh, straightening to smile as reassuringly as he could in the circumstances. "I think he's dreaming again."  
  
Connie frowned uncertainly at him. "But... I thought the dreams weren't good. That there was something funny about them?"  
  
He shook his head. "I still don't know – I don't have enough evidence yet to say one way or the other."  
  
"But this worries you, doesn't it," she said, with a nod in Jesse's direction. Not a question, a statement, and he had to remind himself again that the girl was sharper than her youth and appearance might indicate.  
  
But watching the clearly increasing physical indications of renewed mental activity, he had to admit to himself she was right.  
  
Though he hadn't had time to fully assimilate the information from the replies he'd received to his query it was looking as if Jesse and Gayle were not alone in their recent precognitive dreaming. At least three others had reported nightmares in which they or their families had been at risk somehow, and in two of those cases the events of the nightmare had come to pass. Additionally, another of the e-mails had brought the sad news of the death of another mutant in an accident, though there was nothing to say whether there had been any kind of forewarning. And although, as he'd said, this wasn't evidence in itself that there was some outside influence at work, it was becoming more likely. And that certainly did worry him, particularly as it looked as if Jesse, having somehow survived one such episode, was now experiencing another.  
  
He wished Emma was there, wished he'd asked her to stay instead of going with the others to start some on-the-ground research into their new prime suspect. But they'd all been so determined to get out of Sanctuary the moment they'd found a place to begin, to be doing something more positive than staring at computer screens. Even Shalimar, who'd been almost climbing the walls in her need for some release for her anxieties over Jesse, had given herself permission to leave him - though she'd taken Adam aside and made him promise that someone would be with him in case he woke.   
  
And though he'd hinted to Emma that he could do with some help, she'd been uncharacteristically firm in her belief that she would be more use going with the others. Or maybe not so uncharacteristically – when he thought about it, he realised that her confidence in herself and her decisions had been growing in line with her increasing powers, though he hadn't really noticed it at the time.  
  
Connie had wanted to go too, but Brennan had reacted almost apoplectically to the suggestion, which would have been comical in other circumstances. He'd emerged from his session with her the previous day just a little frazzled, swearing that if he'd had to spend any longer with her he'd probably have throttled her, and he didn't appear to be dealing too well with the way she'd seemed to be following him around making eyes at him since. Adam wasn't sure if she'd really developed some sort of teenage crush on the big elemental, or whether she'd discovered what buttons to press to get him jumping and was just enjoying winding him up. But whatever it was, it was working.  
  
Much to Brennan's relief, though, Adam had insisted it was too much of a risk for her to go along, and that in any case he'd need her assistance continuing the work they'd already done getting this far with the shadowy Mr. DeSalles.  
  
As it had turned out, DeSalles wasn't such an uncommon name – at least, not in certain parts of the country. But very few of those DeSalles' were wealthy enough to be behind the kind of well-funded operation this appeared to be. Two, in fact, neither of whom on the surface seemed to be anything more sinister than big fish in small ponds intent on having it all to themselves.  
  
But when Shalimar had succeeded in hacking into a few of the more secure and private medical and federal databases, it soon became blindingly obvious why one of them would have reason to hate mutants.  
  
Warren DeSalles, a 48-year-old property dealer and financier, had lost his young wife and 7-year-old son in what seemed to be a freak accident. The news reports of the event told a tragic tale, describing how the pair had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a gas explosion that had destroyed a liquor store just as they'd been driving by, the blast turning their car into an inferno on wheels.  
  
But, according to the police files that, it seemed, had been sealed at DeSalles' request, there'd been no gas leak. CCTV footage salvaged from the back room of the store, away from the site of the blast, had shown a couple of what had to be out-of-control New Mutants, out to use their powers for their own benefit and amusement, there with the intention of robbing the store. One of them, however, a thermal elemental, was obviously sick – so sick that he'd literally exploded into a ball of flames. He'd been moving towards the door as it happened, and it was that which had sent the main force of the blast outwards towards the passing car.  
  
Adam had realised then what had made the man's name familiar to him – he'd read something about the incident at the time, coinciding as it did with the outbreak the previous year of Cladosporium, the virus stemming from an airborne spore that had caused so many New Mutants to lose control of their powers, and then their lives – a number that had almost included Jesse and Emma. He'd wondered vaguely then if there was more to the story, given the similarities with what had happened to Alice Robins when they'd been trying to help her, but with everything else that was going on he'd had no time to follow up. As the virus hadn't become common knowledge, though, it wasn't something that would have played any part in DeSalles' reasoning once he'd seen the tape. He would only know that his family had been killed by a self-destructing freak.  
  
Medical records showed that he'd been admitted to an exclusive clinic for treatment for depression and substance abuse, staying there for several months. When he'd emerged again, he'd resumed his business affairs with an added aggression and coldness that had moved him to a new level in the local pecking order, both financially and, if reports were to be believed, in terms of peer respect for his new methods among less law-abiding elements. Socially, however, he'd become a recluse, splitting his time between his penthouse office and his bewalled mansion, surrounding himself with bodyguards to keep everyone else away from him.   
  
However, there'd been no indication of any link with a private army forcibly abducting mutants, and Adam had been in agreement with his team when they'd jointly decided that they were going to have to get closer to the man if they were going to find out the truth. But now he wondered if he shouldn't have insisted on them taking more time – at least long enough for Jesse to come round.  
  
He looked at Connie again, seeing her still watching him cautiously. "Stay with him a minute, just in case, OK?" he asked, waiting until she nodded her assent before moving away and activating the comms system to contact the others. After the briefest of preliminary niceties, which merely ascertained that they hadn't really had time yet to discover anything of note, Shalimar asked after Jesse, obviously worried that Adam's call might be bringing bad news.  
  
"He's coming out of it, I think. That's why I was calling. Emma, I think he's dreaming again. Do you sense anything?"  
  
There was a moment's silence before she responded, and he could imagine her staring unseeing into the middle distance as she did a mental check of that place where she kept whatever it was that allowed her to get some kind of emotional awareness of her friends if she needed to. But her tone was thoughtful when she finally said, "I think I'm too far away to get any detail. But there's... fear... anger... and..." She broke off with a gasp, and he could hear Shalimar's voice in the background raised in surprise and query. But it was mere seconds before Emma was back, her, "Adam, you have to wake him! Now!!" mingling with Connie speaking again from behind him, saying firmly, "Adam, he's kind of freaking - I *really* don't think he should be doing that!" and Adam whirled round to see Jesse convulsing against the bed, face contorting and soundless screams emanating from lips drawn back in a snarl of desperation and terror.  
  
*  
  
He was back in the never-ending nightmare again, struggling helplessly as the flames devoured her, screaming her name as she screamed out her final agony, sweat streaming down his face from the heat, from his efforts to free himself, soaking into the tattered fabric of his shirt. He screwed his eyes shut against the horrific scene, not wanting to see the grisly spectre she'd become, holding his breath to blot out the stench, wishing it could transport him away and cursing the noose-like band clamped around his throat that prevented it doing just that.  
  
Something somewhere beyond the immediacy of his torment tried to reach him, tried to find a voice amidst the screams filling his head. A voice that called his name, that seemed to promise sanctuary from the guilt and pain and endless condemnation, and though he wanted to stay there, to share whatever eternity had in store for her, he found himself being swept away without the strength to fight any more. With a final whispered farewell that echoed through him as loud as anything that had gone before, he was forced to leave her and follow the sound through the darkness.  
  
"Jesse? Come on, Jess, don't do this. Time to wake up now, OK? Please try, Jesse, please..."  
  
And he emerged, panting with effort, into the light.  
  
Adam saw the pale blue eyes flare open, wide with shock, to flicker almost unseeingly about him, heard the panicked gasps for air that wracked his body, felt the clammy sheen of sweat beading the skin beneath his fingers as he shook him in a desperate attempt to wake him from the dreamworld that had held him captive too long.  
  
With relief he smiled, pleased to see some purpose start to return to the blue gaze. "Hey," he said gently. "Welcome back."  
  
But it was as if Jesse hadn't heard him. Instead, eyes still moving jerkily round the room as if searching for something, he tried to push himself up on his elbows, fighting feebly against the restraining hand Adam placed on his shoulder. "Shalimar?" he called, his dry throat forcing the word out in a husky croak that still did nothing to hide the wealth of emotion behind it. "Shalimar!!"  
  
"She's not here, Jesse. She's with the others, following a lead." Adam felt a surge of alarm at the intensity of his reaction.  
  
"Noooo," Jesse wailed, head rolling fretfully against the cushioned pad. "No, couldn't save her, couldn't... Shalimar!!"   
  
"It's OK, Jess, she's alright!" Trying to soothe and calm the obviously distraught molecular, Adam became aware of someone speaking to him, felt a hand tug at his arm, and shifted his attention enough to hear the disembodied words coming through the comms system. Shalimar's voice, almost incoherent, mixed with Emma's reassuring tones, and finally Brennan's deeper, "Adam? We're coming home."   
  
  
**** 


	8. Part 8

PART 8  
  
3:30. The numbers hovered within the eerie green glow thrown by the digital display of the clock by her bed and, with an inward groan, Emma closed her eyes again as she tried to identify what it was that had disturbed her much needed rest.  
  
Her head was still throbbing from trying to deal with the highly charged feelings that had been flying around her the past couple of days – the tension headache from hell, as she'd only half jokingly called it. But she'd hoped the worst was over and that she'd at least be able to get a few hours of uninterrupted peace while everyone else was asleep.   
  
She wasn't too sure how she'd gotten through the hours after Jesse's distress call – she had no other words for it – had turned their plans upside down. The depth of pure despair in his cry had touched some primordial nerve in Shalimar that had kicked her feral responses into overdrive, taking her as close to sheer unthinking panic as Emma had ever seen her. The battering ram of her emotions had come close to demolishing the walls the psionic had hastily thrown back up after her partially successful attempt at reading Jesse, hitting them full-on as if trying to reach in and absorb the powerful but baffling sensations she'd picked up from him. Sensations that had her fearing for his safety – and perhaps his sanity.  
  
And coming at her from the other side was the bundle of contradictions that was Brennan, a confused mixture of care and concern – and perhaps a little more? – for Shalimar, along with a degree of frustration at having to return home without having had a chance to see the face of the enemy. And perhaps, underlying his disquiet at Jesse's obvious anguish, just the hint of resentment that everyone else's – or maybe that was one person in particular? – reaction to it was so intense...  
  
She hadn't been reading either of them – hadn't wanted to, but hadn't needed to either. In the cauldron the Double Helix had become on their return flight, there had been no escaping them.  
  
Even back in the less claustrophobic environs of Sanctuary things hadn't improved. There she'd had to add Adam's guilt and relief at their arrival, as well as Connie's insecurity and fear, to the mix, not to mention the cause of the whole thing – Jesse himself. Not that he'd been contributing much by then. In his weakened and befuddled state Adam had been unable to rationalise with him enough to break his certainty in Shalimar's demise and had reluctantly been forced to sedate him, which had at least dulled the sharp edge of the waves of grief he'd been throwing off.  
  
He'd seemed to know Shalimar was there, though, waking just long enough to assure himself of her continued existence in this reality before falling asleep again, her hand held tightly in his. And there she'd stayed through most of the following night, her own emotional roller coaster coming slowly but surely to a standstill as her uncertainty over his condition gave way to the knowledge that he was out of danger – at least from his physical injuries.  
  
Despite Brennan's efforts to get them all re-focused on DeSalles, in his seeming need to find a role for himself within a situation that he patently felt somewhat excluded by, there'd been little enthusiasm for it from anyone else. Even Adam had seemed happy to let things ride for a while, at least until they'd straightened Jesse out – though that reasoning hadn't improved Brennan's disposition too much. His demeanour was further tested by Connie's renewed tendency to follow him around, though it had seemed to be more because the others were too pre-occupied with what was going on to have time for her or her personal worries for her friend, and she didn't want to be alone.   
  
It wasn't that he didn't care, Emma knew that. It was more that, with his typically macho show of being averse to displays of sentimentality, he was finding it hard to deal with everyone else behaving in what to him seemed to be an irrational manner, instead of wanting to get out there and kick the butts of those responsible.  
  
But she'd seen his expression when Shalimar had spurned his attempts to comfort her, choosing instead to berate him for not focusing on getting them home quicker, for his lack of comprehension for the younger man's situation, for not wanting to help him. It was just her feral passions yelling, albeit more intensely than usual, Emma was certain of that – she was naturally quick to anger but equally quick to cool off. But without Jesse there for her to bounce them off – Jesse who had always accepted, understood and forgiven without question – she'd lashed out indiscriminately. And unfortunately, Brennan had taken it more personally than he should have.  
  
Later, Emma had tried to tell him that once Jesse was well, once they'd gotten through this whole nightmare thing, worked out what was happening and stopped it, things would get back to normal. He'd cut her off brusquely, though, pointing out that he wasn't Shalimar's keeper, and that whatever she felt she needed to do was fine by him. But he hadn't been able to hide the yearning look he'd sent in the direction of where the person in question was sitting with Jesse, before he'd turned back to the computer again and immersed himself in his chosen task of tracking down something more definitive to link DeSalles with the hit squads. As he'd been heard to say, they still had a job to do, a duty to other mutants who might still be at risk, and he wanted to be ready. He hadn't said 'when you all stop waiting for Jesse to give us the answers from his dreams', but his scepticism was obvious.  
  
So far, though, Jesse had been unable - or unwilling - to tell them anything about his miraculous escape from the river's clutches, or to shed any light on any similarities between his original nightmare and what had actually happened. And when questioned on his more recent dreams, he became even more reticent, changing the subject or feigning sleep – not that he wasn't actually in need of plenty of it. The antibiotics were helping, but his lungs were still congested and the coughing that it caused was made even less pleasant by the heavy bruising he'd sustained while in the water. Regular sessions with the sonic regenerator had lessened the effects, but it was obvious to everyone that it was going to be some time before he was fully fit again.  
  
There was no question in anyone's mind, though, that whatever he'd seen in his delirium, it involved Shalimar. But even with her he'd been less than forthcoming, seemingly happy just to have her there with him, chatting idly about inconsequentialities but never touching on the things that both of them probably really needed to say and hear.  
  
Adam had let him out of med-bay that afternoon, deciding that the comfort of his own bed would speed his recovery, and he'd fallen asleep again almost immediately they'd helped him there. In fact, the prospect of an early night had seemed appealing to everyone after all that had been going on, and Emma had enjoyed an hour's tranquillity to meditate before turning in herself. But her hopes for further boosting her mental defences overnight while she slept seemed destined to failure.  
  
She heard the faintest of sounds from outside and, deciding that was probably what had awoken her, she opened her shields just a little to check for anything amiss with her friends. But all she got back was the fuzziness of a mind only partially aware of its actions. And she knew who that had to be.  
  
Pulling on a robe, she padded out into the corridor and turned towards the door at the end, a door she could now see was open. And standing just inside, staring intently up at the sleeping figure on the high, ledge-like bed, was Jesse.  
  
Emma moved silently up beside him, wondering at the fact Shalimar's heightened senses hadn't woken her to his presence. But she knew she shouldn't underestimate the bond these two obviously shared, and which had probably simply ensured that the feral felt no threat from his being there.  
  
Jesse didn't seem to be surprised at her arrival, acknowledging her with only a vague glance when she reached to touch his bare shoulder. He was cold, she found, hardly surprising given that Sanctuary's environmental systems tended to veer towards cooler temperatures at night and he was wearing only the sweatpants he normally slept in. She was alarmed at how lean he'd become, evidence of his recent distraction from his usual fitness routines, and even in the gloom she could see the stark reminders of his ordeal in the river in the dark marks standing out clearly against the pale skin of his arms and torso.  
  
"Jesse?" she whispered, not wanting to disturb Shalimar – no point in everyone's sleep being disrupted, she thought ruefully. "You should be in bed." And, as if to illustrate her point, she felt him sway just a little, his frailty catching up with him.  
  
"I... it came back," he said hoarsely, his eyes catching a stray wisp of light through the open door that turned them electric blue, face gaunt under the tousled hair and three day stubble. "I needed... needed to be sure... To see her... tell her..."  
  
"Tell me what, Jess?" Shalimar's voice floated gently down to them, and they both looked up to see her leaning over the edge of her bed, gazing back.  
  
He blinked at her, a hand lifting towards her then dropping back to his side again. "Just... just sleep well." He forced a small awkward smile and ducked his head as he turned away, clearly becoming more embarrassed by the moment at being found there, as his consciousness caught up with what his subconscious had driven him to do.  
  
They all knew, though, that wasn't what he really wanted to say, and Shalimar seemed to realise that if she let him get away with it the words might never be spoken. She slid from her bed to stand in front of him, frowning as she saw the goose bumps rippling across his flesh.  
  
"What are you trying to do?" she scolded softly. "Spoil all Adam's good work?" She reached to lift an afghan from the back of a chair and draped it round his shoulders before turning him towards the door. "We're going to get you back into bed, and then I think we need to talk..."   
  
With a sigh Jesse allowed the two of them to take an arm each, secretly glad to have their assistance. He couldn't really say how he'd made it from his room to Shalimar's, only that he'd been compelled to try by something that transcended the physical constraints his body was putting on him. He was still frighteningly weak, as if having been spread so thin for so long in the water had stretched his strength to dispersion point as well, and it wasn't helped by the tightness in his chest that made breathing a real effort.  
  
He was all but leaning on them for support by the time they'd reached his room, and it was with another sigh – of gratitude, this time – that he let them settle him into bed, closing his eyes as they fussed quietly around with the bedclothes. He hoped vaguely that they'd take the hint and leave him to sleep again, but he should have known better – Shalimar was nothing if not tenacious when she wanted something.  
  
"So, Jess - what happened?" The open question hung in the air, begging interpretation, consideration, response, none of which he felt able to give it. He levered his eyelids apart, though, to see both women watching him – Shalimar from where she was curled at the end of his bed, and Emma more unobtrusively, perched cross-legged on the chest near the door. A knot started to form in his gut as he realised he wasn't going to be able to evade them this time, that regardless of his self-pledged belief that if he didn't talk about it he could pretend it had never happened, could stop it haunting his waking moments as well as his dreams, the others weren't prepared to allow him that luxury.   
  
But he tried evasion anyway, as tenacious in his own way as his friend. "I guess I was kind of sleepwalking, there," he offered with a shrug and a half-grin. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake anyone."  
  
Shalimar reached forward to swat at his leg, knowing full well what he was doing, but not prepared to let him. "No, not just now," she said, eyes seeking and holding his. "You know what I mean – what did you see in your nightmares? What happened in the river?" She paused, then softly added the question he really didn't want to hear. "What happened to me?"  
  
He stared back at her, feeling the knot turn into a tangled mass as he tried to find a way to tell her what she needed without giving too much of himself, without giving credence to the nagging possibility that he couldn't permit himself to believe - that somehow he'd been foreseeing a flawed future, but one that was destined to be.  
  
"It was just a dream," he managed, finally. "It didn't mean anything."  
  
"Like the first nightmare didn't mean anything?" Emma put in, seeing the way that brought the shutters down on his expression.  
  
"It didn't happen!" he responded, edgily. "It wasn't the same!" But when she didn't say anything more, just stared back at him levelly, he forced himself to relax a little, closing his eyes again as he leant back into the pillows.   
  
"What do you want to hear?" he asked, with just a merest trace of bitterness even though he was fighting to keep his tone reasonable. "That I thought I was going to die? I did. That I was scared? I was – shit-scared. Never ever been that scared before. Never want to be that scared again. You never realise how much you take something for granted until it isn't there any more. And being able to breathe doesn't just keep me alive - it makes me who I am, let's me do what I do, control what makes me different. Without it, I'm just a bunch of molecules with nothing to keep them all together. And that's what I nearly became. Nothing." He stopped, desperately fighting the hot well of self-pitying tears that were trying to sneak past the barriers of his eyelids, and the catch in his throat that was threatening to turn into a full blown coughing fit any moment.   
  
But after a slow calming breath, though, as deep as he could make it without starting off the niggling pain from his bruised ribs, he felt able to go on. He rubbed his hands down his face to disguise the need to wipe away the solitary tear that had escaped, finding a smile from somewhere as he raised his gaze to meet theirs again. "But hey," he said lightly, trying to find a way to lift their sombre moods, "that'll teach me not to learn to swim, right?"  
  
Fatigue assailed him, flooding over and through him, and he prayed they wouldn't push for more, that they'd be satisfied with the glimpse he'd given them into his soul – at least, that part that was fit for public consumption. It was Emma, though, who seemed to realise his need, rising to her feet and coming over to rest a hand on Shalimar's shoulder. The blonde threw her a glance, eyes shining in a suspiciously liquid manner, and for a moment he thought she was going to persist. But she took the hint, shifting close enough to lay a hand against his cheek, forcing him to keep his drooping eyelids open long enough for her to say softly, "Well, you know, I'm not so keen on water myself, but I think we need to do something about that." She leant in to plant a kiss on his forehead, then with a final watery smile she was gone, Emma whispering, "Goodnight," as she followed.  
  
Jesse stared sightlessly after them, trying to ignore the little voice that kept saying he should have told them everything, that the only way to keep her safe was to make her understand the dangers, stop her leaving the security of Sanctuary without proper protection. Without him  
  
But it was all still too fresh, too raw, and besides, he was still clinging to his conviction that if he didn't talk about it, it couldn't possibly be true.   
  
And as sleep washed over him, his final prayer was that the visions would see it the same way and simply cease to be.  
  
  
**** 


	9. Part 9

Part 9  
  
With a whispered, "Yes!" Adam leant back in his chair and smiled to himself in satisfaction. Another piece in the puzzle he was working at had just fallen into place, and he was hopeful it would take him closer to unlocking the mystery of what was happening to Jesse, even if it didn't prove to be the key itself.  
  
He'd been up early, his mind unable to completely let go of the feeling there was something he was missing, and after checking in on a thankfully peacefully sleeping Jesse, he'd got back to work. And it seemed to have finally paid off.  
  
Deciding he'd earned a break, he got up and headed for the kitchen, pleased to hear the sounds of girlish chat that told him both Shalimar and Emma were already there, and in better spirits than they'd been for some days.   
  
He found the two of them sitting at the table with the remains of breakfast in front of them. "Morning," he smiled, seeing them start in slightly guilty fashion at his obviously unexpected arrival before returning his greeting brightly, and he wondered what they'd been discussing. Though on second thoughts, knowing these two, perhaps he didn't really want to hear – the inner workings of the female mind were still as much a mystery to him now as they'd ever been.   
  
Fetching himself a cup of coffee, he turned and leant back against the cabinet, watching idly as Emma cleared the plates away and stacked them in the dishwasher. "So, how did you sleep?"   
  
"Pretty good..." Shalimar answered, but he saw them exchange a glance and knew there was more. "Well, apart from the visitors." And she went on to tell him about their encounter with Jesse. "I wish I could have got him to talk more, tell us something about this second nightmare, but Em... well, we thought he'd had enough."  
  
"No, you did the right thing," Adam assured them. "Pushing him wouldn't have helped. But at least you got him to open up a bit and that has to be good for him in the long run. He always has tried to bottle things up, especially things he thinks it would hurt others to hear."  
  
Shalimar shook her head with a wistful smile, though. "Maybe... but not nearly as much as he used to. He's changing, Adam, growing up – away, even. You must have noticed that."   
  
That stopped him in his tracks, but when he thought about it he knew she was right. It was the small things that he realised he'd been ignoring; the little snarky come-backs, the questioning of his decisions, the growing cynicism that was so out of character for the happy-go-lucky boy he was used to.   
  
There'd been more blatant signs, too – like when he'd gone against Adam's explicit instructions that he stay in Sanctuary during the affair with Gaumont, something that the younger Jesse would never have considered. Oh, he'd done his share of running off on personal jaunts without thinking to tell anyone where he was going, but this had been different – this time he'd known he was risking his life, known that he was walking into a situation he might not walk out of. And he'd made his own choice, believing the risk was worth taking in order to save the tens of thousands of lives threatened by a nuclear meltdown that only he could prevent.  
  
Adam had to respect that, regardless of how he'd reacted to the younger man's defiance at the time, though he couldn't be sure he'd be feeling the same if the outcome had been different.   
  
They'd come through unscathed in the end, for the most part. But he could see now that the very fact that Gaumont had been playing them all along, using them all – but most especially Jesse - for his own ends, had hit the molecular hard, adding another layer to the web of self-doubt that seemed to ensnare him so often these days.  
  
He realised Shalimar was still focused on him, waiting for some kind of response, but he was saved from any admissions by the whirlwind that was Brennan, bouncing into the room on a wave of excitement. "There you are! Been looking all over for you guys. Listen, I got a lead..."  
  
"Well, that makes two of us," Adam countered, with a smile. "What've you got?" He made an 'after you' gesture which Brennan was only too happy to accede to.  
  
"I've been doing some more digging into DeSalles, some of the companies he has links to. One of them, Northside Properties, bought a major tract of land for an anonymous client. It's real remote, only one road in, no settlements nearby, so it's pretty useless for housing or any other commercial enterprise. It doesn't even have any agricultural value. But they paid top dollar for it – and it's only fifty miles or so from where DeSalles lives." He grinned broadly, arms spread as if awaiting their ovation. "Gotta be worth taking a gander at, yeah?"   
  
And they all had to concur. "Good work," Adam added, unable to hide a smirk at the ostentatious bow the elemental offered him, to the giggles of his team-mates. But he sobered quickly as he went on. "OK, I've been doing some more checking too, cross-referencing everyone who came back and told me they'd been having nightmares as well. And I came up with a match." He turned to Shalimar and asked, "Remember Joshua?"  
  
"Joshua?" put in Brennan, pulling out a chair and lowering his bulk into it. "That kid whose mother had him kidnapped because his father wanted to hand him over to the GSA?"  
  
"No, a different one," Adam told him, "though he was probably about the same age." He looked at the feral again. "Four, maybe five years back?"  
  
Her small frown of concentration cleared rapidly at that, eyes widening at whatever she was recalling. "Of course, how could I forget? That was some day!"   
  
Adam nodded agreement and continued for the others' benefit. "It was back in the very early days of Mutant X, the same time Gayle was here. We'd only just started setting up safe houses, and our security was nowhere near what it is now. I don't really know how it happened - maybe someone talked – but the GSA turned up at one of them just as we arrived to send the group we'd had hiding down there for a week or so into the underground. Shalimar and Jess took care of most of the agents, but their leader – Eckhart's pet mutant-of-the-week – got a bit carried away and created a gravity wave that brought down a large part of the building we were using."   
  
He sighed, expression turning sombre. "We lost a lot of innocent people there – but somehow a few of them survived the initial disaster. One of the central supports didn't collapse completely, a couple of the walls came down at an angle – I can't recall exactly what it was, but there was a small area still standing where some of them managed to take shelter. There were eight of them of varying mutancies, including a boy - Joshua. He was a psionic - a telepath – and even though he was still young and his powers were very underdeveloped, we could all hear him..." He tapped a finger against his forehead to clarify what he meant, "...quite clearly telling us they were trapped in there."   
  
Halting briefly, he cast a sideways glance at Shalimar who was lost in whatever she was remembering, plainly not something she was enjoying. "Well, to cut a long story short, Jesse phased in and found them, stayed with them until we could get enough people together to help dig them out, then used his com-link to guide us in."  
  
"But, how is this connected with what's been happening?" Brennan asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.  
  
"It's the same people," Emma supplied, looking up at Adam for confirmation. "The one's who've been having the dreams?"  
  
He smiled at her perceptiveness, though she could see it didn't really reach his eyes. "Yes. Everyone I've heard back from was a member of that group – including Gayle and, to a certain extent, Jesse, though of course he wasn't with them for most of the time they spent together. There were a couple more I've lost contact with – and, of course, Joshua."  
  
"What happened to him?" Emma could feel the sadness emanating from Adam as he spoke the boy's name, wondering at its cause.  
  
"He was very badly hurt, caught up under a piece of fallen rubble, and it took us quite a while to get him out. He was barely alive when we did, and the damage to his legs and spine was so extensive it was doubtful he'd make a full recovery even if he did survive the initial shock. In any case, he'd lapsed into a coma and we had no way of knowing if he'd ever come out of it. So I found a nursing home that could take care of him, people who'd take responsibility for his on-going welfare. But I lost touch over time, forgot..." He paused, lost in a regret-filled reverie.  
  
"There've been so many," Shalimar said softly. "You can't blame yourself for not remembering them all." But she knew he did. Not just for not remembering, but for not being able to save every single one of those he'd been instrumental in creating.  
  
He shot her a small grateful smile, seeming to take strength from her support.  
  
"So..." Brennan said slowly, pragmatic as ever. "What are you thinking? That this kid can help? By the sounds of things, he's more likely to be dead – or at the very least a vegetable."  
  
Adam shook his head. "No, he's not. He's very much alive. It took me a while to track him down – the nursing home was forced to close, the remaining patients were moved on – in his case, for some reason, several times. But it seems he finally came out of his coma about six months ago and, after a period of rehabilitation, he was placed with a foster family. And yes, I think he might well be able to help. He was part of a small group that went through a very intense experience together, most of whom are now sharing something else in common. At the very least I'd like to know if he's been having nightmares, too."  
  
"You mean, you haven't asked him yet?"  
  
"Can't... The good people who took him in seem to have an aversion to the trappings of modern life. They don't have a phone. It happens," he added wryly, seeing the looks of incredulity being exchanged around him. "So, what we're going to do is this. We'll take the Helix, drop you two..." He waved a hand in a motion that encompassed Brennan and Shalimar, "...near this property Brennan found so you can start doing a little preliminary snooping, check out the lie of the land, while Emma and I go on to Arkansas and talk to Joshua. Then we'll come back, pick you up again, see what we've got and plan our next steps."  
  
"What about Jesse? And the girl?" Brennan got the question in before anyone else could.  
  
"We should only be gone a few hours – five, six at the most. Jesse will be fine – he's over the worst of it, just needs rest now, and I'm sure Connie can amuse herself while he does that. I'll talk to her, make sure she knows how to reach us if there's a problem – which I can see no reason why there should be. OK?" He wasn't sure exactly who he was trying to reassure most – them or himself. It went against the grain to leave a relative stranger to all intents and purposes unsupervised in Sanctuary. But ever since he'd found out that Joshua was alive, he'd felt the growing need to see him face to face, to be the one to make the first contact and talk to him rather than sending one of the team.  
  
He looked around, seeing no signs of obvious dissent, though Shalimar didn't look completely convinced and Emma seemed to be mulling something over. But when neither of them spoke, he nodded and said, "OK. Let's meet in the plane in, what? Fifteen minutes?"  
  
Adam wasn't surprised to see Brennan bound to his feet, his eagerness to be doing anything other than sitting round there written all over his face. And after a second or two, he saw the lure of action overcome whatever doubts the other two might be having, sending them off after him to get ready.  
  
*  
  
Jesse woke slowly from a confused but mercifully nightmare-free sleep, taking a few moments to get his mind ticking over again, and a few moments longer to realise there were sounds of life and activity floating into his still darkened room from outside. Shalimar talking animatedly with Emma, Brennan calling to them to get a move on, not to keep Adam waiting – all signs of a mass exodus that sent him lurching to his feet in a surge of alarm-fuelled adrenaline and hurrying a little unsteadily to the door.   
  
He yanked it open and emerged into the corridor just in time to see the two girls disappearing round the corner in the direction of the hanger.  
  
"Shal!" he called, desperation colouring the single word, and he was relieved to see her re-appear to look at him quizzically. She threw a glance at the still hidden Emma and he heard her say, "I'll catch you up," as she came back towards him, a warm smile lighting up her face and making her eyes dance with pleasure.  
  
"Heya!" She greeted him with a quick hug that he was happy to return. "Didn't expect to see you up so soon. How're you doing?"  
  
But he just shook his head impatiently, sidestepping her question. "What's going on?" he asked. "Where are you going?"  
  
"We have some leads we're going to follow up. Don't worry, we won't be gone long and Connie's here to keep you company."  
  
"But where? Where are you going?" he persisted, grip tightening unintentionally on her upper arms, feeling her pull away to fix him with a slightly bemused look.  
  
"Brennan found out that one of DeSalles' companies bought a big piece of land about fifty miles from where he lives. We're going to check it out, while Adam and Emma go to see someone else – a blast from the past. Joshua? The kid from the safe house cave-in – remember?" She watched him a little anxiously, but he seemed not to hear the last part of her news.  
  
"Don't go down there, Shal – please." His voice was little more than a whisper, but his eyes pleaded with her to listen.  
  
She took a deep breath. "Why, Jesse?" she demanded, frustration at his reticence making her more forceful than she'd intended. "Just tell me why!"  
  
But he could only stare at her in silence, still unable to put into words the horror he'd seen and felt. So in the end she just smiled sadly. "I'm a big girl, Jess. I can take care of myself. You just get better, OK?" And with another swift hug and a kiss on the cheek she was gone, leaving him standing desolate and alone with his demons.  
  
  
**  
  
"Oh! You're up early, dear. I was just coming to help you."  
  
"No need, thank you – I managed."  
  
"I can see that." A pause. "I wish you'd waited, though. We don't want you falling, hurting yourself. And you know how easily you tire."  
  
"I'm OK. You don't have to worry."  
  
"That's easier said than done – it's what we're here for."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Joshua? What are you looking at out there, dear? Is there someone there?"  
  
"No." Then, whispering, "Not yet. But there will be."  
  
"What was that?"   
  
"Nothing. No one."  
  
"Oh. Well, I'd better go and get on with breakfast. I'll call you when it's ready."  
  
  
**** 


	10. Part 10

Part 10  
  
"Hey, penny for them?" Feeling compelled to break the silence that seemed to have fallen between Shalimar and himself since they'd been dropped off out here in the boonies, Brennan stopped and waited for her to notice he wasn't still following her across the expanse of sparsely wooded scrubland lying between them and their goal.   
  
They hadn't wanted to bring the plane down too close, in case this did prove to be what they were looking for and the noise and dust cloud of a landing that even stealth mode couldn't disguise attracted the wrong kind of interest. There'd also been the small matter of an intermittent problem with the communications systems that appeared to worsen with closer proximity to the target – something Brennan had immediately ascribed to some kind of jamming signal, despite Adam's insistence that it could simply be an anomaly caused by the terrain or some natural substance beneath it. Whatever the reason for it, though, it had forced them to choose a drop-off point a mile or so from the boundary of the property, one that would also serve as their pick-up at the appointed time should contact via their com-links prove impossible.  
  
The flight down had been relatively short – under an hour and a half - but had seemed longer somehow, perhaps because everyone was too caught up in his or her own thoughts to make small talk. The few times he'd looked, both the girls had been staring distractedly at nothing in particular, while Adam had provided only monosyllabic responses to his attempts to start a conversation. And the irregular clicking sound he'd heard over the hum of the engines, worrying him initially that they had a fault, had proved to be nothing more than Shalimar playing desultorily with a switch on her console, patently unaware of what she was doing.  
  
He'd been sure that getting out of the pressure cooker of Sanctuary would help them all re-focus on events in the real world, on the task they'd started and from which – for reasons he'd had to accept, even though he wasn't sure he fully understood – they'd become sidetracked. But he was beginning to think he was the only one seeing it that way.  
  
He felt for Jesse – what the guy had gone through in the river must have been hell, and he'd had enough nightmares of his own to know how real they could seem, how they easily they could colour the way you saw things. But he had to admit to himself he wasn't enjoying the way what was happening with his younger team mate had everyone else jumping, taking their eye off the ball.  
  
Even so, he was careful not to examine too closely whose reactions were bothering him most.  
  
Shalimar took several more strides before his words percolated, finally turning back to stand staring at him, hands on her denim-clad hips and head tilted quizzically to one side. "What? What do you mean?"  
  
He sighed, folding his arms and squinting at her in the bright sunshine. "It's not like you to be this quiet this long, not when we're out on a job. Thought you might like to talk about whatever's bothering you."  
  
With a slightly incredulous laugh, she walked towards him, fetching up a few feet away. "Whatever's bothering me? You're kidding, right? You *know* what's bothering me!"  
  
But he stood his ground, determined to have his say. "Listen, I can tell all this stuff with Jess has been hard for you, but what's worrying me right now is that we have a job to do. I don't know what we're gonna find up there, what kind of trouble we might run into. But I gotta know that your mind is on that and not back in Sanctuary." For a moment, as he saw a glint of yellow flicker in her eyes, he thought he might have gone too far, but after a few long seconds she seemed to realise he was only being honest. And that it perhaps deserved some honesty in return.   
  
"Maybe you're right... but let's talk as we walk, OK? Time's a tickin'." Without waiting for his reply she turned away and set off again towards the still distant tree line marking the edge of the estate, forcing him to hurry after her.  
  
"So, what's got you so wound up? Jess is going to be alright, you know – and he's quite safe back there."  
  
"I know. It's not that. It's... well, it's more to do with what happened in the safe house, with Joshua and the others. I haven't thought about that day for years. But now I can't seem to think about anything else."  
  
"Why? I mean, OK, losing people is bad, but it's not like it's the only time it's happened. What makes this one special?"  
  
There was another silence, punctuated only by the sound of their footsteps crunching into the dry earth, but just as he was about to prompt her again she said, simply, "You had to be there."  
  
"Try me," he persisted. "Tell me what happened."  
  
So, taking deep breath, she did...  
  
  
...Tapping a course correction into the navigational display, Emma sat back and glanced across at Adam, weighing up how best to broach the topic foremost in her mind. She could tell without needing to read him that he was unusually apprehensive about the up-coming meeting, though she wasn't entirely sure why. But it wasn't that which was occupying her specifically; she'd been trying to make sense of the feelings she'd been getting back from both Adam and Shalimar since the incident with Joshua had been mentioned. Sadness, definitely, regret too. But more than that, there was a level of concern that seemed incongruous for someone they hadn't seen – or, by their own admission, even thought about - in so long. Which made her wonder who it was really for.  
  
"Do they know we're coming?" she asked, finally, needing to find some place to start.   
  
He shook his head in response. "No, I had no way of telling them. And it's probably better this way."  
  
"Why? What are you expecting to happen?"  
  
"I don't know. I just have a feeling - a strong feeling - that there's something going on that involves Joshua."  
  
Emma thought about that for a moment, before saying, "You think he's somehow connecting with all the others, don't you? Maybe even connecting *them*?" She saw him shoot her a sharp look, but she went on before he could answer. "I can understand that kind of bond being forged with those he'd spent time with, especially if they were all living in fear, hiding from the GSA. But why Jesse? You said he wasn't with them much in the safe house, that he only joined them after the building collapsed? It doesn't seem enough for the kind of reaction he's been having."  
  
Adam looked at her a moment longer before turning his attention back to the controls. But after a few seconds, his eyes slid her way again. "You're right. But there was a bit more to it than that..." he murmured...  
  
  
... "It was like something straight out of every disaster movie you ever saw." Shalimar kept her gaze straight ahead as she spoke. "We'd been fighting round the back entrance, so the rear of the building took the brunt of the wave. The front and a lot of the roof was still standing, but inside it seemed everything had collapsed. There was rubble everywhere, sparking electrics, the odd fire from ruptured pipes, air full of dust. It was a mess, and there didn't seem to be anyway anyone could have survived it. But then we picked up Joshua."   
  
She flicked a brief glance at her companion. "It was totally spooky – we all just looked at each other, like, did you hear that? And we all had..."  
  
A few more moments silence, then, "We got as close as we could, following his signal, but there was so much debris in the way it was obvious we were going to have to find another way in – and that was going to take time. And then we lost him. He just kind of faded away..." She tailed off again, eyes distant, haunted by whatever she was seeing...  
  
  
... "And that's when Jesse went in after them?" asked Emma.   
  
"Yes," Adam nodded. "I didn't want him to – we didn't know what lay between us and them, but it seemed the only way to be really sure if there was anyone left there to try and save. And he was determined to do it regardless. Somehow – I have no idea how - he managed to find enough breathing spaces to unphase in on the way, because they were much further than we'd expected. But he got to them."   
  
He paused and Emma waited, not wanting to interrupt the flow now she'd got him started.  
  
"They were all pretty panic-struck in there to begin with; they were squeezed together into a small space, the place was obviously very unstable, the air was bad, and there were injuries that needed attention – serious ones in Joshua's case, as it turned out. So, instead of coming out again to work with us as we'd planned, he stayed with them, did what he could to help them and calm them down, kept us in touch via his com-link."  
  
"But..." Emma couldn't help herself. "He hates small..." She broke off, eyes wide.  
  
"Yes, he does," Adam agreed...  
  
  
... "Shal, slow down!" It seemed to Brennan that the feral was moving faster and faster as she spoke, almost as if she was trying to get away from the memories, and he was relieved when, with a wild look, she dropped the pace back to a mere walk.   
  
"So, you used his signal to guide you in?" he queried.  
  
"Yes, we did. God, that makes it sound so easy! It wasn't though. And it took so much time!" Her frustration was obvious. "We had to find people who'd help us without alerting the authorities, and we had to be so careful how we moved things in case we brought the whole thing down – much as I wanted to just rip my way in. And the smell... the blood..." She slowed to a halt, eyes filling with tears as she whispered, "We kept finding the bodies of those who hadn't been so lucky," and he had to fight the urge to pull her into a comforting hug, oddly unsure how the gesture would be received right now.  
  
But after a few moments she wiped a hand impatiently across her eyes and went on. "We finally reached them, managed to make a hole big enough for them to crawl out of, all of them except Jesse. And Joshua, of course. But it took us much longer to stabilise the structure enough to free him."   
  
And, not for the first time since she'd started, he got the impression that there was so much more to it than she was actually saying...  
  
  
... "No, we didn't 'hear' Joshua again, though he apparently wasn't totally unconscious the whole time," Adam responded to Emma's question. "The others said that once Jesse had done what he could for them, he stayed with Joshua the whole time, trying to keep him awake when he came round, talking to him even when he was unresponsive. And we couldn't get him to leave until we could get them both out, even though he knew there was a real danger we'd actually bring the whole thing down on top of them."   
  
"He could just have phased out, though, couldn't he? If the place had collapsed?"   
  
Adam sighed again. "I'm not sure that would have been his initial reaction. And in any case, in the end he was all there was to stop the whole thing from caving in. He kept massing himself again and again so he could use his density to allow him to support the section of wall above Joshua while we worked around them, despite the fact it was so doubtful the boy would survive." He laughed softly, and a little wryly. "He was so stiff he could barely move afterwards – said heavy breathing had taken on a whole new meaning for him." And Emma smiled with him...  
  
  
... "But the kid didn't die, right? And Jesse obviously got out OK. So, all's well that ends well."  
  
Shalimar pulled a face at Brennan's rather simplistic view of matters. "Oh, yeah, that was ending well. So good we all went home and partied for a week..."  
  
"But..." Brennan began, a little startled at her sarcasm, but she didn't let him go on.   
  
"That kind of thing is never really over! The physical injuries may mend, the memories fade, but the effects can still be felt." Pausing in her angry tirade, she went on more calmly, taking pity on his confusion. "Gayle left immediately – couldn't stand being near people, needed to be alone. Tom – he's a feral, a canine – he spent the next year hiding out in his apartment, too frightened to go outside. And it was right after that Jess's claustrophobia really kicked in. He could barely stand to be indoors, let alone in anywhere small and enclosed, and I found him sneaking off to sleep outside on the mountain for the first few nights. Even once he'd gotten over the worst of it, he opted for the dojo floor over his bedroom for weeks."   
  
She looked across at him with a sad smile. "And it turned his fear of being buried alive from just something he preferred not to think about into a major issue for him. He was OK down there while he had the others to worry about, to boost him – particularly Gayle, with her telempathic powers – but once it was just him and an unconscious kid, it was all too easy for him to imagine the worst."  
  
"I still don't understand how he of all people can be frightened of something like that," he mused, adding a surprised, "What?" when he was greeted by a fierce glare. "All he has to do is phase himself out of trouble!"  
  
"But that only works if he can walk or drop down through something that has space on the other side," she said forcefully. "Being buried tends to involve having a load of stuff on top of you and, as far as I know, Jesse hasn't learned the art of self-levitation, any more than he's learned how to swim!"  
  
"Well... OK, I'll give you that," Brennan agreed, expression thoughtful.  
  
"He's had to work really hard to overcome his fear of being shut in small spaces, though," Shalimar continued. "If he'd let it take over, he'd have been no use to us or himself. And I don't think he could have lived with that."  
  
"Well, I guess it kind of explains why he seems to get so spooked by the idea of phasing through anything thicker than a few of feet, then."  
  
"Does he? Still?" She looked at him as if this was news to her, which he found pleasing for some reason he didn't want to examine too closely.   
  
"Only when he thinks he might take one of us with him if he chokes halfway through," he shrugged, watching her turn away again to absorb his words...  
  
  
... "He only visited Joshua a couple of times before we moved him to the nursing home," Adam concluded. "I think he was torn between wanting to carry on what he'd started in there and needing to just forget the whole experience – and ended up doing neither, really."  
  
"Understandable in the circumstances," Emma acknowledged. "And I can see why you feel there's likely to be a connection between them. Though... you have no idea how the coma will have affected Joshua or his powers. He might have no memory of what happened, let alone the people involved."  
  
"Well, we'll find out soon enough, won't we? I think we're there." He pointed through the forward window, and she followed his gesture to see what had to be their destination nestling in the hills ahead...  
  
  
... "And I can't believe I just told you all that..." Shalimar smiled somewhat self-consciously up at Brennan.  
  
"Ah, but do you feel better for it?" he asked, returning the smile.  
  
She considered the question for a moment, before nodding back. "Yes, actually, I think I do." She reached a hand to squeeze his arm. "Thanks, you." And then, with a sly grin, she said, "So, whatcha waiting for? Last one to the trees cleans the kitchen for a month!" And she was off and running, leaving him cursing in her wake.  
  
  
**  
  
Silence.  
  
Then, whispered, "They're here."  
  
More silence.  
  
"Oh my! Joshua, it looks like we have visitors. Now, how on earth did they get here? Do you see a car?" A pause. "Oh! You're looking very flushed, dear – are you all right? Do you want to lie down?"  
  
"No! No... I'm fine. Just fine."  
  
"Well, if you're sure. I'd better go and see what they want."  
  
Softly, to the empty room, "Me..."  
  
  
**** 


	11. Part 11

Part 11  
  
With a great effort, Jesse tore his gaze away from the monitor in front of him, fighting the frustration he could feel threatening to take over and make him do something he knew he would regret.  
  
He'd been sitting here in the control room for longer than he probably should, trying to resist the compulsion that washed over him every few minutes to call up Shalimar and check she was OK. But, knowing how she'd react to that intrusion, especially as he still couldn't explain to her why, he'd settled instead for pulling up the locator display for their com-links. Just watching the reassuring blink of the little lights marking hers and Brennan's position made him feel better, that he was in some way watching out for her even if he couldn't be with her.   
  
At least, until the lights had gone out.  
  
Only for a few seconds, but long enough to have him starting out of his chair with a wordless cry, nerves jumping instantaneously to screaming pitch. And then they'd winked merrily back on again, as if laughing at the way they'd fooled him, and he'd sunk back down, trying to calm his racing pulse.  
  
But a couple of minutes later they'd gone out again, this time for a lot longer, and he'd been on the verge of calling Adam when they suddenly reappeared. And went out. And came on. And went out. And so on, for greater or lesser periods...  
  
They were out now, though - had been for nearly ten minutes, and with every second that ticked by he could feel the uncertainty building in him, sapping his already weakened reserves and twisting his nerves even tighter. While his rational side wanted him to believe there could be any number of simple explanations for it, his heart was telling him it meant trouble, that he needed to take some action now – and he was finding it harder and harder to prevent himself following its advice.  
  
Not that there was much he could do about it from here, and that galled him more than anything.   
  
Five more minutes, he decided. If it wasn't back in five more minutes he'd... do what? Take a car and go after them? Call Adam? But neither of those options seemed to assuage his need for immediate reassurance that Shalimar wasn't in mortal danger.   
  
Slamming his hand down against the table, he pushed himself to his feet, stretching warily and wincing at the pull of still tender flesh and overworked muscles. Somewhere deep in the lower right side of his chest a knifing pain stabbed ephemerally at him, leaving him momentarily breathless, but it was gone before he could take stock of it. One more indication that his body wasn't enjoying what he'd put it through the past few days, he thought sombrely.  
  
He paced restlessly across the room, only realising when he turned back and found his eyes caught by a forthright black-rimmed grey-green stare that he was being watched.  
  
"Shouldn't you be resting?" Connie asked, raising the peanut-butter covered slice of bread she was holding to her plum-painted lips and swirling her tongue across its surface in a way that she obviously intended to be provocative. And indeed, it had Jesse oddly mesmerised for a few seconds before he realised what he was doing – though probably not for the reasons she thought.  
  
He shook himself quickly out of it, though, retaliating with, "Did Emma say you could play with her make-up?" He saw from the slight flush rising into her pale cheeks that he'd hit the mark. "I won't tell if you won't," he offered with a conspiratorial wink, then continued more seriously. "Besides, I can't rest, not with everyone else away. I've got a feeling there's going to be trouble."  
  
"More dreams?" she queried, seemingly dropping her attempt at vampishness along with the mid-afternoon snack, consigned to a bin as she came properly into the room and slid onto a stool. "Oh, it's OK, I know all about them," she assured him brightly, at his quizzical glance. "I was keeping an eye on you when you started freaking out with the last one – looked like it was mega bad! And I was the one told Adam about Gayle having them too. I think that kind of cracked the case – you know, gave him the clue he needed to find this Joshua guy, the one who got squished in that safe house thing way back when? The one they've gone off to see? Well, Adam and Emma have – the other two have gone looking for those guys, the ones that were after me. Did I say thank you for that, by the way?"   
  
She paused, shoving her sweeping bangs aside to get a better look at his shell-shocked expression. "No, I guess I didn't..."  
  
"Uh..." he blinked, trying to assimilate the information she'd just thrown at him, his mind kicking up cross-matches with the parts of his last conversation with Shalimar that he'd conveniently ignored at the time.   
  
Joshua?  
  
That was a name he realised he'd managed to avoid thinking about for a long time. Even when Gayle's name had come up again, he'd managed somehow to confine his memories of her to the time she'd spent with them in Sanctuary, rather than the events that had driven her away and, if the squirming sensation in his stomach was anything to go by, he didn't really want to think about them now. Maybe that showed in his face because Connie was talking at him again, pulling him back from the brink with, "Hey, are you OK? Do you think you should, maybe, sit down or something?"  
  
Feeling strangely light-headed, he let her steer him gingerly towards a chair, after which she retreated to her stool again to observe him uneasily.  
  
A few cautiously deep breaths and the dizziness cleared, helped by his subconscious decision to put the matter of Joshua aside until he was alone and could deal with it in his own way. And in any case, a quick look at the monitor told him he had more pressing things to occupy himself with – like the fact that the screen was still devoid of the flashing lights he so desperately needed to see.   
  
How long had he said? Five minutes? And how long had it been? Too long, said his heart and he rose to his feet again to do its bidding.  
  
"Adam?" he called, activating the comms system. But even though he could tell the link was operational, there was no reply. "Adam!" he repeated, louder, and this time he got an answer – a curt, "Not now, Jesse."  
  
"But Adam," he protested, "I've lost Shal and Brennan's signals..."  
  
"I said, not now! It's not a problem, just a local glitch. I'll talk to you later. Off." And then there as nothing but static.   
  
Jesse felt the heated rush of humiliation surging through him at the way he'd been dismissed so indifferently, anger coming fast on its heels, and without further thought he allowed the emotions to take him, his feet moving of their own volition.  
  
"Where are you going?" Connie demanded anxiously from behind him as he headed for the door. "What's going on? What's with the map thing?"  
  
He stopped and half turned, trying to get a grip on his rising temper enough to answer her without biting her head off. "That's supposed to show me where Shalimar and Brennan are." He held up his right hand and wiggled his ring finger. "They have a homing signal, let's us track each other."  
  
"Oh yeah! That's how Brennan found you guys down the river. That's so cool!"  
  
"Right," he agreed, wishing she'd just let him finish so he could get on with what he needed to do. "But it's not. Not showing them. They've been there intermittently, but not now. And..."  
  
"And you're worried whatever you dreamed about is happening?"  
  
"You got it." He turned back to the door, mind racing ahead, formulating plans without any consideration for what his body might be capable of delivering.   
  
But she hadn't finished. "And you're going to do... what, exactly, about it?"  
  
He looked over his shoulder at her in disbelief that she couldn't see the obvious. "Go and find them, of course. Help them!"  
  
"Adam doesn't seem to think there's a problem, though," she pointed out, twisting a strand of hair through her fingers a little nervously as she looked at him doubtfully.  
  
"Yeah, well, Adam isn't always right, you know. He doesn't know *everything*!" He was mortified to feel himself shaking, though he couldn't say whether it was the rage that was consuming him or his physical condition letting him down.  
  
"Well, excuse me, but he just seems like he's the guy in charge here!" she retorted, jaw tightening and eyes narrowing at his tone. "And just how do you think you're going to do that? How are you going to get there? Look at you – it's got to be, like, a five-six hour drive, even in that Lexus sports job you got stashed away in the garage. You'd barely get half way before you ran out of steam, needed to take a nap. And how stupid are you going to look when you finally get there and find that they were doing just fine without you, that they're already on their way back, safe and sound?"  
  
Jesse struggled for the right words to put this adolescent, this *child* with no idea of what the world was about, firmly in her place. But none came, and without the words to feed his anger it just seeped away, leaving him weak and breathless again.  
  
"I need to do *something*," he whispered, eyes flicking to the screen and away.  
  
She let out a breath, as if relieved that her temerity wasn't going to be punished, and her expression softened a little. "Yeah, I know how you feel. They've got the only person who's ever made me feel like I have a place in the world, a proper reason for being here. And there's nothing I can do to help her. But I can't see how you killing yourself is going to do anyone any good." She cast a wistful glance at the monitor, then added, "Especially as it looks like there's nothing to worry about."  
  
His head snapped round again, the sight of the twin winking red lights driving a smile of delight to his face. "Yes!" He punched the air, relishing the relief coursing through him and trying to ignore the smug 'I told you so' look he was being favoured with.  
  
Not that she was going to let him off that easily. "OK, so... maybe just a glitch after all, huh?"  
  
Unwilling to admit anything, he just sent her a sideways look. But he knew she knew she'd won by the way she smiled sweetly back at him as she got to her feet.  
  
"You want something to eat? You're way too skinny, you know that? I thought all superheroes had to have loads of muscles, you know, like Brennan? I know you've been sick, but you really need to eat if you want to get fit enough to do that save the world stuff again."  
  
He scowled at her, not liking the comparison even though he knew she was right about the eating bit. "What are you, my mother? No, I don't want anything to eat. And if I did, I know where the kitchen is."  
  
"Well... if you're sure." She paused in the doorway, though, turning to ask a little too casually, "So, does Brennan have a girlfriend right now?"  
  
Jesse almost choked on an inadvertently abrupt intake of air, eyes widening in astonishment at the question, but he managed to croak a feeble, "Brennan? Uh, no..." as he strove to prevent the onset of a full blown coughing fit.  
  
"Cool!" Connie grinned, disappearing only to pop her head back into a view a few seconds later with a frown. "No, don't tell me he's gay," she pleaded forlornly.  
  
This time there was nothing he could do to stop the wracking coughs almost doubling him over, the sharp slivers digging deep into his lungs bringing tears to the eyes he rolled her way as he shook his head helplessly.  
  
"Knew he wasn't," she beamed, her smile faltering when he showed no signs of stopping. "Er, I think I'd better get you some water." She vanished, leaving him wrestling to get his breathing back under control.   
  
And, unnoticed behind him, the lights blinked out once more.  
  
  
**  
  
The man in the black combats stared impassively down at the two inert forms lying at his feet.   
  
There were other similarly clad men in varying states of awareness scattered about the surrounding area, those still on their feet assisting those of their colleagues who'd been disabled by these intruders – and with ease, if reports were to be believed. Many wouldn't, he knew, but no-one here was surprised by anything they saw any more - least of all him, especially given his own background.  
  
Not that it had done the two much good – even their freakish abilities couldn't withstand the weight of numbers he'd been able to apply to the problem, and which had inevitably overwhelmed their resistance.  
  
He ran a dispassionate eye over them, his trained mind automatically logging estimates of their height and weight, other physical characteristics - including their obviously high levels of fitness - ready for his report. But at the same time he was pondering matters affecting the security of his operation; issues such as how they'd gotten here when there was no sign of a car on the road, what they thought they were looking for, whether their disappearance would bring others in search of them... They were carrying no identification, which tended to rule out the likelihood of them being casual passers-by. Nothing but the matching silver rings worn on their right hands, rings that had become curiously featureless when he'd removed them.  
  
Well, time would tell – as would they, once the drug they'd finally immobilised them with had worn off and he had the chance to interrogate them.  
  
"Take them to the coops," he instructed the subordinate hovering behind him. "And make sure you get them properly yoked – I don't want them causing any more damage like this." He waved his hand around the scene, acknowledging the salute and curt, "Yes, sir," with a brief nod.   
  
And as he watched his men carry them away, he murmured to himself, "I think Mr. DeSalles is going to enjoy seeing these two put down."  
  
  
**** 


	12. Part 12

Part 12  
  
Emma sat perched on the edge of the over-stuffed chintz-covered sofa, an empty tea-cup clutched forgotten in her hand as she tried to work out just exactly what was going on around her.   
  
What was throwing her off most, she thought, was the imbalance of what she was picking up, the apparent inconsistency in the normal 360-degree Sensaround emotional buzz that she was so used to defending herself from.  Because, while on the one hand she had Adam, as hesitant and unsure of himself as she'd ever seen him, on the other was the enigma that was Joshua.  
  
The boy sitting in the wheelchair was probably the same age as Connie - maybe 14 or 15 - but that was where the similarity ended.  He was reed thin, the plaid shirt and cotton pants he wore doing nothing to disguise the lack of flesh covering the bones of his legs and arms, or the narrow hunched shoulders that made his chest seem even more sunken than it actually was.  His hands, their long bony fingers twitching restlessly, were just visible under the too long sleeves, but although the overall impression should have been one of frailty, Emma couldn't help but feel there was an oddly incongruous wiry underlying strength about him.  
  
The sharp-featured face was pale, the pasty pallid-ness of one who rarely sees the sun, his mouse-brown hair as fine as a baby's and almost as sparse, wisping unevenly over his forehead and ears and clinging to the lines of his skull.  
  
It was his eyes that had held Emma almost spellbound, though - huge, darkly luminous pools that seemed to absorb everything around them without giving anything back.  Eyes that watched Adam as he spoke, as he apologised for losing touch for so long, for not being there for him when he awoke from the coma, and gave no sign at all as to how their owner was feeling.  But she could get nothing from him either, not even the vaguest sense of what was going through his mind, and that was what had her so disconcerted.  It was like a black hole on her telempathic radar, and that was unusual enough to keep her going back to probe it like an unscratchable itch.  
  
Not that he was paying her any attention.  After a courteous, though somewhat distant acknowledgement of Adam's introduction, and a single piercing look that had felt uncannily as if it had told him all there was to know about her, Joshua had turned his gaze on the older man.  And, apart from a few brief moments, it had barely wavered since.  
  
That this detached scrutiny had made Adam uncomfortable was obvious.  Emma wasn't used to seeing him at a loss for words but, with nothing to tell him how his overtures were being received, he was finding it harder and harder to keep the one-sided conversation going.  
  
Initially, though, it hadn't been a problem.  The voluble middle-aged woman, who'd introduced herself as Mrs. Hartson when she'd opened the door to them, had brought them into this pleasant if rather homely front room where Joshua was waiting, offering and serving up a tray of tea and homemade cake in no time flat with cheerful disregard for their polite protestations that it wasn't necessary.  
  
Presumably there was a Mr. Hartson somewhere, although there'd been no evidence of him so far.  But the woman had been totally open and well meaning, as far as Emma could tell, even though her almost compulsive chatter had grated a little.  Her excitement at having visitors was a clear indication that this was a rare occurrence, and once she'd found out Adam was someone from Joshua's past she hadn't been able to decide between asking questions about what had gone before and giving them a blow by blow account of his life since he'd arrived to stay with them.  So she'd ended up trying to do both and in the process had left little space for anyone else to speak, not even to answer her queries.  
  
Finally, though, Joshua had suggested quietly that she had other things to do, and she acceded with such alacrity that Emma would have suspected some psionic reinforcement even if she hadn't felt the shiver of something trickling across the outside of her own mental shields.  
  
The awkward silence that had followed Mrs. Hartson's departure had been broken by Adam's first guarded attempts at broaching the subject of the real reason for their visit - though Emma was strangely sure that Joshua already knew.  But the timing of Jesse's call, coming as it did just as it looked like he might be getting somewhere, had proved both an unwelcome distraction and a useful opening.  She was a little perturbed at the way Adam had cut him off, especially given the depth of concern in the molecular's voice, but that just served as another indication of how this reunion was affecting their normally cool and collected leader.  
  
"Was that Jesse?" Joshua asked softly, almost his first words since the woman had left them.  "How is he?"  
  
Adam shrugged, lips curving into an encouraging smile at this sign that the ice seemed to have been broken.  "He's been better.  He had an accident a few days ago which has him kind of rattled."  
  
"He fell in a river, right?" the boy said, smiling distantly at the speculative look Adam threw him.  "I saw it - but you already knew that, didn't you?  That's why you're here."  
  
Adam leant forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees as he gazed earnestly at him.  
  
"You saw... what, exactly?"  
  
The dark eyes observed him for long seconds, as if weighing up his question - or something more, the reasons behind it maybe.  
  
"I saw him... die," came the eventual answer but, though they waited for more, it seemed Joshua wasn't about to give them anything easily.  
  
"But he didn't," Adam pointed out eventually.  
  
"No."  Another long pause, then, "Did he... did he know it was going to happen?"  The question was posed carefully, but there was a hint of hopefulness in his tone.  
  
"Well, he'd had dreams - nightmares, about something that was very close to what then transpired.  Apart from the outcome, of course."  It was Adam's turn to pause before asking equally carefully, "Was that you?"  
  
Joshua sighed with what Emma might have expected to feel as relief or satisfaction had there been anything there to support it.  "Maybe.  I tried, but I didn't know."  
  
"What did you try?"  
  
"To help him, of course. To warn him."  
  
"And the others?  Were you trying to help them too?" Adam prompted  
  
The eyes blinked at him cautiously.  "The others?  They heard me?"  But he barely waited for the older man's nod before continuing with the beginnings of an agitation that was totally unexpected given what had gone before.  "But... how can I do that?  Why is this happening to me?  What *am* I?"  
  
For a terrifying moment the black hole turned inside out and released a tidal surge of jumbled and desperately intense emotions that all but overwhelmed Emma's defences.  She gasped involuntarily at the onslaught, but it was gone again before she could get a clear grasp of what had driven it, disappearing back into the void once more.  "Sorry," she murmured at the twin startled looks she received, hoping they'd just carry on and leave her to sift through what she'd felt, give her time allow the flash of insight she'd had into what was going on to crystallise.  And indeed, after a searching glance, Adam turned back to Joshua again with a reassuring smile.  
  
"Don't worry - we're going to help you work that out.  Tell me, do you remember anything about why you were with us, before the... the accident?  And what made you think you might be able to warn Jesse, those people?"  
  
Joshua looked away, fingers plucking distractedly at the blanket hanging over the arm of his chair.  
"I know there's something different about me, something no one here knows about or understands.  And somehow it shows me things I don't want to see, things about people I knew once but haven't seen in a long time - not in person, anyway.  But if I think hard about them I can kind of feel them."  His soft voice had been rising in pitch and intensity as he spoke, and Emma felt the first stirrings of what promised to be a total collapse of whatever the boy was using to contain himself so completely.  "They tried to help me, I had to do the same for them.  I thought if I did, if I could, they might stop but they won't, they're getting worse, hurting more and I just want it all to go away!"  
  
She leant forward, reaching a soothing hand towards him.  "Joshua?  Calm down, it's all right.  We'll help you."  
  
"No, you... I can't." He lifted pleading eyes to Adam again, as he whispered, "Please... don't leave me here."  
  
Adam stared at him in alarmed confusion.  "What...?"  
  
But, with a sudden wordless cry, Joshua stiffened convulsively then flopped sideways, eyes rolling up into his head.  
  
"Adam!"  Emma yelped in shock as she got the backlash of another telepathic tsunami, indicating that his crude shields had collapsed just before his mind shut down.  She leapt up to stop him sliding from his wheelchair, searching for signs of life in the new void she could now sense and relieved to find him still in there, albeit striving for invisibility.  
  
"I don't know - it looks like some kind of seizure."  Adam helped her lift his feather-weight onto the sofa and turn him onto his side, feeling the spasms still shaking his body.  "You'd better call Mrs. Hartson."  
  
But the woman was already there, twittering bird-like in her distress and fussing around the shuddering boy.  "You're a doctor, aren't you?  Do something!"  
  
"Has he ever had this kind of episode before?" he asked, trying to focus her enough to be helpful.  
  
"Yes.  They said he used to have them quite often when he was still in the nursing home, but he's only had a couple since he's been here.  They gave me oxygen to give him until we could get him to Emergency.  But Arthur's away with the truck..." She trailed off, gaze fluttering around the room until his request that she fetch the oxygen gave her some direction.  
  
She bustled away, coming back with a small cylinder that Emma took from her while Adam offered their assistance in getting Joshua to medical care, assistance she accepted gratefully as he'd known she would.  She even volunteered to go and pack a few unnecessary necessities, which gave him time to explain to Emma, "I want to get him back to Sanctuary, check on how far his genetic make-up has been altered by what's happened.  If I can pinpoint the exact state of his mutation, I should be able to stabilise his condition, then help him get control of his powers instead of being governed by them like this."  
  
"Will he last the journey without something more than this?" she asked anxiously, gently holding the mask over the boy's slack mouth.  
  
"Well, I don't think the local hospital is really going to be able to deal with this, and certainly not long term.  Sanctuary is his best chance - we just have to get him there quickly."  
  
"But what about Shalimar and Brennan?  We can't just leave them down there."  
  
"We'll try calling them from the Helix, tell them what's going on.  But even if we can't reach them, there's enough time to drop us off at home and for you to still get down there before the pick-up.  Now, let's move."  
  
She nodded, not totally convinced, but knowing their options were limited.  She also knew that having found him Adam wasn't about to abandon Joshua again, especially not after his heartfelt plea.  So, gathering up the blanket and a pillow, she helped Adam bundle the unconscious boy carefully into his arms and followed them out to the plane.  
  
  
**** 


	13. Part 13

Part 13  
  
Swearing to stick to free range eggs for the rest of his life, Brennan tried for the tenth time in half that many minutes to find a way to release himself – and with no more success than had met the previous nine attempts. The cuffed chains that looped his wrists and ankles together and attached him to the stout post forming the backbone of his cramped accommodation just rattled mockingly at him as he exerted his not inconsiderable strength against them, but refused to give.  
  
He awkwardly wiped at the sweat dripping into his eyes as he took a breather, hunching down against the wall. The crate-like, up-ended oblong he was being held in was like a sauna, its flat roof absorbing the afternoon sun's heat and the slatted wooden sides allowing reflected light from the dusty rock-strewn ground to bounce in and add to the effect. Those slats also allowed him just enough space to see several similar boxes standing at isolated intervals in either direction, though there was no indication of how many of them might be occupied.  
  
If he'd been able to use his powers he knew he'd have been out of there in no time, but that wasn't currently an option available to him. Much to his frustration these people had somehow gotten hold of some technology that had him – and presumably all the other New Mutants that had passed through their hands - neutralised  
  
It wasn't a sub-dermal governor, not really. Quite apart from the difference in delivery method – this one being some sort of strap around his throat as opposed to the familiar stud drilling into the back of his neck – it didn't hurt when he tried to generate a blast to free himself from the electronically locking cuffs. It was just as if, when he attempted to access that place inside himself where his powers came from, it was hidden behind a soft spongy shield that just kept bouncing him out again.  
  
A hard-faced man, introducing himself as Moncrief – clearly a professional soldier from his bearing and the comfortable way he carried off the all-black combat look – had visited him not long after he'd come round from the knockout dart that had floored him. He'd ignored Brennan's questions in favour of having him hauled upright, the chains pulled tight over a hook in the ceiling to force him up onto his toes while he asked a few of his own. Who are you, where are you from, what are you doing here, interspersed with blows to the stomach that the elemental had been largely able to disregard as unavoidable irritations.   
  
What hadn't been so easy to get past was the cattle prod Moncrief had produced. It didn't have enough juice to completely disable, but it was sufficient to leave him twitching helplessly. He could only be grateful that his inquisitor had tired of his silence before his insecurities at this assault by something too closely resembling his own powers could reach the surface.   
  
Brennan had decided quickly there wasn't much point in trying to plead innocence. He knew he could come up with some story about just being out for a stroll and not realising the place was off-limits, but he felt sure these people would already have found there was no car parked out there, and it was too far from the nearest town for them to have walked in. And since they'd already shown off their mutant abilities so obviously, he couldn't deny what he was. So, after his initial attempts at counter-demand and then levity had been punished, he'd just kept his mouth shut.  
  
However, when they'd finally left, after thankfully dropping him back down to ground level again, it was with threats and promises of more - and worse - to come, along with the musing suggestion that his companion might prove more forthcoming. His own threats as to what he'd do to them if they tried were treated with the contempt only those in a seemingly unassailable position of authority can deliver, so he'd been reduced to taking his anxiety out on his surroundings.  
  
Not that it had really taken his mind off things. And the renewed thought that these apes had inflicted the same treatment on Shalimar sent another wave of rage through him. Yanking in impotent fury at his shackles again, he yelled her name, praying that she was nearby and still alive.  
  
Some distance away, Shalimar heard his call, and tried again to summon up her feral strength so she could bust her way out of this sweat-box and join him, get some payback on the bastards who'd had to resort to drugs to take them down instead of giving them a fighting chance. But although she could feel the familiar sensations start to rise through her, they seemed to hit an unexpected barrier and dissipate before they could be transformed into the force she needed. And she knew it was all to do with the flexible band wrapped snugly round her neck, the metal disk she could feel locking the ends together also serving as some sort of power pack if the slight jolt she got off it when she tried to break it free was anything to go by. Maybe Jesse or Adam would be able to explain how it worked, but all she knew was that it was somehow holding her prisoner as surely as the chains.  
  
She'd endured an unpleasant session with what appeared to be the head honcho in this private army, though they didn't seem big on rank insignia. But the watchful gray eyes observing her from the deeply tanned face under close-cropped salt and pepper hair told of a man in total control of himself and his environment, and the way the two men with him jumped to his softly spoken orders just reinforced that impression.  
  
Happily he'd been interrupted before he could really get going, a minion slipping through the door to whisper in his ear too quietly for her to pick up without the benefit of her ferally enhanced hearing. She'd seen something in his expression, though, a fleeting distaste manifested in the tightening mouth and the shadow that darkened his gaze before his impassivity reasserted itself that gave her reason to believe he wasn't completely enamoured with the prospect of whatever he was being summoned to.  
  
And it was a pretty fair bet that, in that case, it was probably going to be something she wasn't going to like either. So, shouting back to Brennan that she was all right, she set herself to the unfamiliar task of finding some way other than simple animal strength to get herself out of trouble.  
  
  
**  
  
"Jesse? Jesse, what the hell do you think you're doing?!"  
  
Sooner than he'd expected, Adam's voice blasted out of the speakers to reverberate round the Helix's cabin, his displeasure more than obvious. Jesse felt his stomach contract at the prospect of trying to explain himself to his mentor and with a touch of rebelliousness he considered just ignoring him completely. He knew from experience exactly what the older man was going to say and, if he was honest, he wasn't truly confident enough in his own motives and reasoning to believe he could make a totally watertight case for what he'd done. But he also knew in his heart that he'd had no choice but to do it.   
  
"Dammit, Jesse, I know you can hear me - answer me!" Adam demanded heatedly, and he felt that little spark of rebellion grow, fed by the resurgence of the disbelief-become-anger that had swept through him at the news that the Helix was coming straight back to Sanctuary, despite being unable to raise either Shalimar or Brennan on their com-links to tell them so.   
  
Even his vehement insistence that the lack of a signal had to mean trouble that needed immediate investigation had fallen on seemingly deaf ears. Adam had cut him off abruptly with harassed assurances that Emma would still be at the RV on time, that there was nothing to worry about, not yet, before the psionic's muffled voice had called him away to some unseen and, at that point, unexplained emergency.   
  
It was all too easy, though, to let himself hear an underlying guilt that made Adam's words as much reassurance for the man himself, as they were to convince Jesse of their veracity. And that had kept the anger bubbling away fiercely enough to have him waiting at the hanger door when the plane arrived, ready to continue the debate.  
  
But he'd got short shrift, even then. At least, that's what his already stretched nerves and over-worked imagination had told him, not helped by the way both Adam and Emma had pushed past him as they'd rushed their limp burden – could that really have been Joshua? – towards the lab. He thought now that Adam might have called back to him to come and help, which would have perhaps have allowed Emma to get started, but he'd been beyond listening by that point. All he'd been able to see was that half of his team, his family – including the person he cared most about in the world – was in danger, and the other half were doing nothing about it.   
  
Which had seemed to leave him as the only one who could.  
  
"Jesse? Are you there?" Adam tried again, perhaps marginally calmer, and Jesse could almost see Emma sitting down there trying to spread oil on the troubled waters of his temper. But that didn't mean he was going to make life any easier for him once he got hold of him and his resistance started to dissipate under the weight of that knowledge.   
  
The faintest whiff of burnt fuel drifted past him, though, carried on the air that circulated the cabin and bringing with it horrifyingly vibrant reminders of what it was that had ultimately driven him here. And armed with that renewed stimulus, he answered, "Yes, I'm here."  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Well what?" he hit back. "Are you going to tell me to get my butt back there again? Can't do it, Adam."  
  
"Damn right I am. You're in no condition to be flying, let alone doing whatever else you have in mind!"  
  
"You *know* what I have in mind – what you should have been doing!" He chose to ignore the slur on his fitness, despite the fact that by all accounts it was probably true. Though he'd never admit it, he was beginning to regret his decision to take off on his own just a little. The surging emotion that had carried him on board was fading, dulled by his body's sudden penchant for random swings of temperature that had him sweating profusely at one moment only to be huddled shivering into his too thin jacket the next, and his already depleted energy levels were dropping in harmony.   
  
"I told you," Adam said, irritably, "we had a medical emergency. Emma was all set to go and pick Brennan and Shalimar up, though – only to find you'd taken her ride."  
  
"And if they weren't there for her to pick up? What then?" He didn't like the plaintive note that crept unsummoned into his voice, and took a quick steadying breath as he repeated more firmly. "What was she going to do if they weren't there?"  
  
"There's nothing yet to say they won't be." But Jesse heard the guilt again, certain this time that Adam was, as much as anything, trying to persuade himself of that fact.  
  
Emma broke in. "I'm not really sensing that they're in trouble, Jess. Please, come back and let's talk about this. Or at least let me come with you. You don't have to do this alone."  
  
For a moment, there was nothing he would have liked better. But a glance at the chronometer on the console in front of him told him he couldn't afford that luxury. "No, there's no time," he whispered, adding louder, "Sunset – I have to find her before sunset."  
  
There was a brief confused silence before the expected, "What? Why?"  
  
"Because that's when it happens – I saw it..." The images were back, dancing across his vision as the sweat broke out on his forehead again. "I have to be there before then, find her..."  
  
Another pause, then Adam's voice came again, his tone carefully measured. "When what happens? Tell me what you saw, Jesse. Tell me what you saw, then explain to me how you think rushing off down there in your current state will make a difference."  
  
His resolve faltered again in the face of such a reasonably posed query, his chest tightening and insides knotting as he attempted yet again to put his fears into words. But all he could manage was, "I don't know... I just need to be there, to try and change things."  
  
"Change what, Jesse?" The exasperation was back. "You're not thinking straight. All you're going to do is put everyone in danger, including yourself."  
  
That stung, twisting the tail of his latent resentment and scratching at the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that festered far too close to the surface. "But you've just said there's no indication they're in danger," he responded, with more than a dash of belligerence. "So what's the difference between me picking them up and Emma doing it?" There was no instant reply to that, but he didn't wait more than a few seconds before going on. "I'm not going to do anything stupid, Adam, give me credit for that at least. If they aren't waiting at the RV, I'll see if I can track them with the sensors. If they are in trouble, you know I have more chance of finding them and getting in undetected alone."  
  
"If they *are* in trouble, what do you think you can do about it by yourself? Jesse, this is insane!"  
  
Jesse could feel the tremors running through his body, a combination of the aggrieved tension building in him and another bout of the shivers, as he said fiercely, "I'm doing this, Adam. If you can't just wish me luck, I guess there's nothing more to say. I'll be in touch when I have some news. Off." He sat back and unconsciously rubbed a hand down across his face, almost unable to believe his own audacity.   
  
"Well, that sure told him – feel better now?"  
  
"What the...?" Snapping his head round so fast he almost broke something, he searched the darkened space behind him for the source of the words and found it in the shape of Connie, only able to watch in stunned amazement as she levered herself up off the floor behind one of the consoles and moved forward to plonk herself down in the seat next to him.   
  
"You might want to close your mouth before you catch something," she went on cheerfully, straightening the low cut top he vaguely recognised as belonging to one of the girls and shaking her hair into place.  
  
"What are you doing here? How did you get on board?" He fixed her with his best steely glare even though he doubted it would have any effect on her at all.  
  
He was right; she just shrugged with a small knowing smile. "I heard Adam give you the brush-off and just knew what your next move would be. Technically I'm still supposed to be keeping an eye on you, since no-one actually relieved me – so I followed you, snuck in just before the doors closed. I guess you were too busy trying to get this baby away before anyone could stop you to notice."  
  
Grimly, he persisted with his attempts to cow her. "You shouldn't be here."  
  
"Neither should you," she retorted, "but that's not stopping you." When he didn't answer, she went on. "Hey, I was going stir-crazy in there – how do you guys survive with no daylight, no fresh air? It's not natural." She paused again, peering at him more carefully. "Are you OK? You don't look it. I bet you didn't take those tablets Adam left out for you, did you? I bet..."  
  
"Don't you *ever* stop talking?" he snapped, turning away ostensibly to check on the controls but really wanting to conceal the unavoidable effects of that pain stabbing into his chest again, a burst of coughing hot on its heels. When he glanced up again, though, she was watching him in blank-faced silence, eyes hidden under the shadow of her hair.  
  
"Sorry," he mumbled, his normal conciliatory nature kicking in, but she just stared at him without expression for a few long moments before looking deliberately away.  
  
"Suit yourself." With an uneven sigh, he leant back and closed his eyes, trying not to think too hard about what he was getting himself in to.  
  
  
**  
  
"Ah, Moncrief, good. Armstrong tells me you picked up two intruders – after they'd taken out a squad of your people. I thought you had them trained to deal with these freaks. Isn't that what I'm paying you for?"  
  
Closing the door behind him, Moncrief turned to watch the slim man with the obviously dyed-black hair pace impatiently around the small office off the high-tech control centre from which this highly clandestine and unusual operation was run. As always, his employer was dressed in expensive smart-casual clothes, the gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual and diamond-studded pinky ring just serving to confirm the wealth their owner could call on, but they couldn't really disguise what lay underneath - the bitter soul-twisting rage that no amount of money could cure.   
  
It wasn't his place to point out the futility of such emotion, though, no matter that he'd already learnt that lesson the hard way.  
  
"They know how to handle them," he assured him. "But this pair is... different, stronger than the others we've encountered. I have a feeling I know who they are, where they came from – I was just going to check the database to confirm it."  
  
"I don't care who they are! If they've found this place there may be others coming. I want them destroyed – today, while I'm here. And any others you have locked in the coops." An unhealthy light gleamed in the momentarily fetid depths of the dark eyes. "Make it a good show, though – if they're that strong they deserve a fitting send-off. Something imaginative, something the men will enjoy."  
  
There it was again, Moncrief thought with an inward frown, another step down the road to turning what had initially been positioned to him as a public service into a private spectacle.  
  
It had been pretty straightforward at the beginning, but he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the way things had been changing in recent days. Instead of the simple traditional executions befitting the crime they'd originally agreed on - a bullet in the head for those who played the mind games, the electric chair for the ones who plundered the elements for their own use, cyanide gas for the shape and density shifters and lethal injection to put the animals down – DeSalles had started to demand more creative ways of exterminating the 'vermin' as he called them. And Moncrief was starting to wonder just how close to insanity the man's lust for retribution was taking him.  
  
But, he reminded himself, he didn't have to like what he was doing. He was just a mercenary, paid - and paid extortionately well - to do a job, like at least half of the men he was currently in charge of. And they'd all seen and done a lot worse in their time, without letting their personal feelings get in the way. The other half was a different matter, though – redneck hard cases playing at soldiers to feed their lust for violence, only in it for the pleasure they got from the chase and the kill, and he found it hard sometimes to hide his distaste for their methods, however effective they might be.  
  
"This one." DeSalles interrupted his musing from where he'd come to rest in front of a chart pinned to one wall, a finger tapping one of the boxes marked on it. "We'll start with this one. And I have the perfect method in mind."  
  
  
**** 


	14. Part 14

Part 14  
  
"Adam, he's waking up!"  
  
Emma's call brought Adam hurrying through from the lab where he'd been channelling his irritation at having Jesse 'hang up' on him into more productive areas of endeavour, though she knew that he'd also been trying to raise their errant teammate at increasingly regular intervals. But she was pleased to see a smile of relief replacing the frown that had been in almost permanent residence since they'd last heard from the Double Helix.   
  
Since they'd got back to Sanctuary the time had flown by in a haze of conflicting emotions as she'd leapt from crisis to crisis – first the need to get Joshua into a stable environment, followed by the discovery of the missing plane and the conversation with its occupant. And she'd just realised that Connie had been keeping a low profile – though that could just have been her way of avoiding a bawling out for not telling them what Jesse was doing. But at least there was something positive to boost her spirits with now.  
  
"Excellent! Looks like we got his brain chemistry balanced again." Adam came to a halt beside her, watching as Joshua's eyes blinked open. "I thought he'd come out of it pretty quick once I'd worked out where the problem was."  
  
He adjusted the bio bed to a raised position, letting Emma settle the boy more comfortably as he checked over the monitors. He was pleased to see his treatment had been as effective as he'd hoped, addressing not just the seizure but also a number of other side-effects of the mutating genes that were relatively easy to correct, and he was hopeful that this would make Joshua more comfortable with his developing powers.   
  
The DNA screen Adam had done showed all the signs of powerful telepathic potential, although there were some unusual anomalies as well that he hadn't seen before and which he'd occupied himself trying to unravel. But there was also Emma's description of the 'all or nothing' contact she'd sensed, and he'd had already begun to map out a plan of action which he was sure would help the boy learn to control his mental interactions with others in a less drastic fashion.  
  
"Is this Sanctuary?" Joshua's soft query brought his attention back to his patient, and with an encouraging smile he confirmed it was before asking how he was feeling. "Better," came the response after a moment's consideration, with underlying tones of surprise that were reflected in the dark eyes gazing up at him.  
  
"Pleased to hear it." Adam hesitated, wondering how much Joshua really understood about what was happening to him and a little unsure of the best way to explain what he'd done without alarming him too much. "I've managed to pinpoint and remedy what caused you to have that black-out, and made a few small adjustments to your genetic configuration that should stop it happening again. There'll probably be other things I can do to help once I've had the chance to run a few more tests, talk things through with you. But that can wait until you feel a bit stronger."  
  
"My... genetic configuration?"   
  
"Yes." He considered elaborating further, even though Joshua was clearly still suffering from the after-effects of his seizure. But he didn't get the chance.  
  
"Jesse's gone, hasn't he? To find her?" The non sequitur had Adam and Emma blinking at him in surprise.   
  
"How did you know that?" the psionic asked, checking and finding his shields as impenetrable as ever which ruled out his reading it from them.  
  
"I – I saw him again." The pale face showed more real expression than they'd ever seen, but the sadness and foreboding it conveyed didn't serve to reassure any. "It felt... soon."   
  
Flashing a look at Emma, Adam asked for them both, "What did you see?"  
  
The whispered answer was typically oblique, though. "What still might be."  
  
Adam tried to clamp down on a revival of the frustration his earlier conversation with Jesse had created, knowing that haranguing him wouldn't help now. Instead, he said carefully, "I know I asked you this before, Joshua, but what made you feel you could share these visions you've been having with Jesse and the others?"  
  
The boy looked up at him with those huge unreadable eyes, but when he spoke it was with thoughtful simplicity "It's... complicated. Right at the beginning, when I woke up, things were very confused for a while. I didn't really remember what had happened, but I did remember people – Gayle, Peter, Martha... some others... and Jesse. But no one around me knew who or what I was talking about. In fact, no one seemed to know anything about me, apart from the fact I was somehow unusual, although they couldn't - or wouldn't - tell me how."   
  
He frowned to himself at that, but went on. "Thinking about what seemed familiar to me made me feel less alone, so I focused on those people. And the more I thought about them, the closer they seemed to be. But then I started to remember more about what happened, and that seemed to open something in my mind, something that would have been better kept locked away. I thought I was going mad. There was so much going on in my head – images, sounds, thoughts, voices... And the dreams..." He broke off, eyes clouding.  
  
"Sounds like your 'unusualness' decided to kick in hard," Adam said, gently. "But it seems like you found a way to deal with it – do you hear people's thoughts now?"  
  
Joshua took a deep breath. "No. Not... not really. One day - I don't know how - I just turned it off, stopped it. Stopped the noise, the flashes. But not the dreams. They kept coming - and they felt so real. I couldn't just ignore them, not if there was a chance they might come true. Not when the people in them were suffering so much. Like Jesse has been. So I found a quiet place where I could think about whoever it was, try and connect with them, show them what I'd seen. Just in case it *was* real. But I didn't know until you came whether it had worked."  
  
"Oh, it worked," Adam assured him, remembering again how badly Jesse had been affected by the most recent encounter, and feeling his apprehension for his absent team members cranking up a couple of notches. "It worked very well."   
  
In parallel, Emma's own level of concern rose past the point where she could sit back and listen, forcing her to ask, "So, you know what Jesse's last dream was about? What he thinks is going to happen?"  
  
There was no verbal answer, nothing but a slight nod.  
  
"So... what is it?" she asked, but this time he shook his head.   
  
"If he hasn't told you, I'm not sure I can – or should. It's his to tell, not mine."  
  
"But we know it has to do with Shalimar. If she's going to be in danger, we need to know."  
  
"Things aren't always as they appear. By telling you what isn't meant for you to see, it could affect what's meant to be."  
  
"I don't think we have time for the luxury of philosophical debates into temporal manipulation and multiple universes," Adam said, firmly. "And as Jesse isn't here, we're not going to hear it from him. So..." He waved a hand in a gesture of invitation and, after a few very long moments during which Joshua was clearly weighing up the consequences of what he was about to say, he got his answer.  
  
"She dies. Badly. In a fire. And he can't do anything to save her."  
  
The shocked silence that followed these bald statements, as Emma and Adam tried to get to grips with the implications of what they'd heard, was shattered by a hiss of static from the comms system, followed by, "Is anyone there? Adam? Damn... which button is it..."   
  
Startled, Adam leapt to answer the tentative voice. "Connie? Connie, where are you? We could have used your help."  
  
"Er, I'm, er... in your plane. Down here – wherever here is."  
  
Adam exchanged a worried glance with Emma, but he decided there were more pressing matters than ascertaining how she'd gotten there. "Connie, where's Jesse?"  
  
"You know, you guys really need to, like, get down here quick," the girl replied rather evasively, adding when pushed, "He kind of got himself caught."  
  
Adam swore colourfully enough to impress a trooper, evoking an immediate defensive response from the other end.  
  
"Listen, it wasn't my fault – I told him not to go. But it was like he was on automatic pilot or something. Told me to stay here and hide, but I thought I'd better keep an eye on him – from way back, though, which turned out to be a really good idea 'cuz those guys didn't look like they were real happy about finding him there." She paused briefly, as if considering something, then went on. "What I don't understand, though, is why he didn't fight back more instead of just letting them whup him like that..."  
  
"The dream," murmured Joshua behind them. "He was held captive when it happened..."   
  
But Adam was already moving towards the central workstation, talking as he punched up the Helix's main command programme. "Connie, I need you to do something for me..."  
  
  
****  
'That'll teach you to try and go it alone. You should have known you'd screw it up.' The little voice echoed jeeringly through the foggy recesses of Jesse's aching mind and, though his pride screamed out for him to deny it, he had to acknowledge it was right, no matter that it stripped his soul bare and left him prey to his demons.  
  
He'd made it far enough to know he was in the right place, far enough to witness the ultimate purpose of the nameless faceless apparitions of his dreams. But he'd allowed what he'd seen, and the total certainty that the same or worse was going to befall his friends, to hold him in thrall far too long. Long enough, at least, for the faceless ones to find him.  
  
He'd tried to fight them. Really. Tried to use his powers to attack, defend, evade, so he could find her, free her before it was too late. But, after the effort he'd expended getting there, his lungs had been unwilling or unable to hold air long enough to mass, and exhaling just brought on uncontrollable coughing fits that precluded the control he needed to phase. And underneath it all, hampering his every move, was the truth of the future his nightmare had shown him, a future he was finding it harder and harder to disavow. So, far sooner than his self-esteem should have permitted, he'd just let them take him.  
  
Chained up in this box, 'yoked' to normality by the band round his throat, he'd accepted the punishment they'd meted out to him under the guise of encouraging his response to their questions in silence, knowing it was no more than he'd deserved for his deficiencies, his inability to do what was needed. He'd even craved the physical pain of fists meeting flesh and the bright flashes of electrically generated agony, in the vain hope it would drown out the increasingly unbearable ache of a heart burdened down by regret and remorse.  
  
But nothing could. Ever.  
  
What would be would now unavoidably be. And it would be his fault, his failure to live and die with. He didn't even have the hope of future absolution somewhere in whatever afterlife might await them all to cling to. Because there could be no forgiveness as long as he was unable to forgive himself. And that day could never come.  
  
  
**** 


	15. Part 15

Part 15  
  
They came for her just before sunset, dragging her kicking and yelling obscenities across the killing field still stained with the blood of those who had gone before.  
  
She'd known that chances were she'd be next, and she could only be strangely thankful that she hadn't been forced to watch her friends die. Of course, that meant – if she couldn't find a way to free herself from this increasingly desperate situation – they'd have to watch her demise, and that as much as anything drove her to keep fighting.  
  
In some ways she was still numb from the horror of the 'show' that had been put on for the benefit of the man she'd recognised as Warren DeSalles, a show in which he'd presided as judge and jury. In a grating monotone, he'd read the so-called 'crimes against humanity' that the defendant – a young man barely out of his teens - had purportedly committed by dint of his mutancy, and then calmly sentenced him to death.  
  
Her attempts to drag her hands free of the cuffs had rubbed her wrists raw, but even the red slickness of the blood couldn't ease the passage of bone through the constricting bands of steel, and thankfully her animal instincts stopped short of driving her to consider more drastic measures. So no matter how much she wanted to get to him, help him, save him, regardless of the many armed men standing around who would certainly have stopped her, she'd been unable to do anything other than spectate.  
  
The execution had been violent and shocking, played out to the background accompaniment of Brennan's bull-like raging and battering that told her he'd been given a front row view as well. Apart from the sheer brutality of the whole thing, it had been the faces of those taking part that had appalled her, some showing quiet detachment while others had clearly relished the act of using the rocks littering the ground to stone the poor victim to an unrecognisably bloody pulp.   
  
Then they'd all gone away again for a while, leaving her to dwell on what she'd seen in the sure knowledge that a similar fate awaited Brennan and herself unless some miracle happened.  
  
It almost had.  
  
She'd caught a flash of movement on top of the tree-lined bluff curving round the far side of the field just after the last of the enemy had disappeared and, without quite knowing how she'd known it was Jesse. Her heart had swelled with pride and love that he'd come to help them, although at the same time her stomach had been fluttering with anxiety for him, given his undeniable lack of fitness. And while she'd waited breathlessly for his next move, she'd prayed that he could stay undetected long enough to reach them.   
  
Her prayers had gone unanswered, though; she'd seen the dark figures materialise as if by magic around him, watched him fend off the first few, waiting in vain for him to use his powers to fell the others or slip out of their reach. But unaccountably it hadn't happened and he'd succumbed quickly, going down under their combined weight.  
  
She'd wanted so badly to call out to him as they'd dragged his battered form down to one of the empty 'coops' somewhere off to her left, to let him know she was there, give him what moral support she could. But she'd held back, not wanting to hand them anything more to use against him than they already had.  
  
There'd been plenty of time to try not to think about what he might be suffering at their hands, but it had been too quickly interrupted by another demonstration of the sadistic inhumanity these people were capable of. This time it was a girl, another innocent tried and condemned for the accident of her birth, her life snuffed out at the whim of a madman despite her tearful pleas for mercy. Shalimar had added her voice, her furious verbal assault on the whole bunch of them going totally ignored as they'd slipped the knotted rope round the girl's neck and slowly garrotted her, terrified eyes bulging and limbs jerking uncontrollably until finally and irrevocably stilled by death.  
  
The door to her little world had been slammed shut for a while after that. But after a too brief respite, it was her turn.  
  
She didn't make it easy for them, though, throwing her full weight into her struggles to break free of the apes practically carrying her, screaming her defiance all the way to the point where they dropped her to her feet and slammed her head back against the unforgiving solidity of what proved to be a wooden post, dazing her enough to allow them to chain her up again.   
  
By the time she recovered her senses, shaking her hair back off her face, she was alone in the gathering gloom. But that gave her no comfort at all as she finally realised just exactly what they had in store for her.  
  
*  
  
Still reeling from what he'd witnessed, Brennan swallowed in an attempt to ease a throat made dry and sore by his relentless need to verbally vent his outrage and revulsion. The rest of him was pretty sore too, a combination of his earlier treatment and what he'd put himself through trying to batter a way out of his prison, and even though he was currently hidden from external view by the door that had again closed in front of him, he knew he needed at least a short breather before he tried anything more. There was a panel at the back of the box that might be worth...  
  
But all that was forgotten in a heartbeat when a new sound split the falling dusk – a sound he had no problem in identifying as Shalimar. He scrambled to his feet as the door jerked open on its remote-controlled latch and his eyes were drawn automatically to the bucking heaving figure being manhandled towards... oh God, no, not that! His pulse pounded in his ears and his guts churned in despair as he roared out his rage and anguish, bunching his muscles in his increasingly violent efforts to free himself.   
  
But even the knowledge of what was at stake – literally! - couldn't give him the edge he needed, though he could feel the structure trembling around him under his assault. Only his powers could do that and they were frustratingly still unavailable to him.   
  
Into a brief moment of silence, though, came a breathy whisper that only barely percolated through the blood rushing in his ears, and it took him a moment longer to understand that someone was calling his name.  
  
"Brennan? Is that you? Oh, please God, let it be you..."  
  
The sound was coming from behind him, he realised, and when he looked round he could see movement through the shattered remnants of the wooden slat a few feet off the ground that he'd apparently managed to take out with one of his random frenzied kicks. As he watched he saw fingers hook round the pieces and tug them outwards, making a space big enough for whoever it was to look through, and with a jolt he recognised the wide-eyed, tear-stained face peering up at him.  
  
"Oh, thank God, Brennan..."  
  
"Connie? What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded incredulously, casting a wary eye outside and biting back a curse at the sight of the torch lit procession moving into view round the bluff. Shalimar's yells of defiance were taking on a note of desperation that tore at his heart and, if he could have ripped his arms from their sockets to get to her, at that moment he probably would have done it. But Connie was speaking again, and he shook his attention back to what could now be their last hope.  
  
"I don't know... I shouldn't be here... I should have stayed on the plane like Adam told me, then I'd be back at Sanctuary by now, safe! But oh, no, I had to know better. Why do I do these things to myself? I only wanted to see if I could help Jesse or keep tabs on him so they'll know where to find him when they get here but they're *killing* people and they'll kill me if they find me and oh God..." Her hysteria-laden voice had been rising in both pitch and volume as she babbled and Brennan had to say her name several times before she heard him and stopped.  
  
"Connie, calm down! When who get here?" The procession was getting closer to their goal, and the only good thing he could take from that was the hope the torches would have to spoil their night sight enough that what was happening way over here would be less noticeable. "Wait a minute... Jesse's here?" The smallest beginnings of an idea were starting to form in his mind, born out of the urgency of their situation.  
  
She blinked at him from the shadows. "Yes, he came to find you, but they caught him too. I didn't know you'd be all chained up like this – I should have brought something... maybe I should go and fetch..."  
  
"No, listen to me, Connie. We don't have much time and I need you to concentrate." He crouched down so he could look her in the eyes, wasting precious seconds to be sure she was focused on him. "Remember what I showed you when we had that talk back in Sanctuary? That first step to making a spark? I need you to do that now."  
  
"Oh God, no, I can't, I don't know how!" The panic was clear in her voice and the way her hands flapped distractedly around her face and hair.  
  
Despite the overwhelming feeling that time was running out for them all, he tried to project as much calmness and confidence as he could, wishing distantly that Emma were here to do her thing. "Yes, you can. You have to." He twisted round so she could see the device on the back of the band round his throat. "Just point at the disc at the back of this collar, then do like I told you. Look inside for your power – you'll find it. You just have to believe."  
  
"OhGodohGodohGodohGod..." but he felt her cold trembling hand reach through the gap to touch the back of his neck briefly before it pulled away.   
  
He could see the procession had almost reached the place of execution, but it was all he could do to prevent himself shouting at her to hurry, knowing that wasn't going to help. He was searching for some encouragement he could offer instead when a familiar sound raised the hairs on his neck and arms and an energy bolt hit him hard enough to rattle his brain and send all his muscles into spasm. Through the static filling his head he heard the girl whimpering in alarm, "Oh my God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... Don't be dead, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry..." and he unclenched his teeth enough to reassure her he was alright, that she'd done well.   
  
And indeed, when he went in search of his own powers he found them released and ready to go. With grim satisfaction, he produced more minor sparks of his own, wincing at the slight discharge from the electronic locks on his cuffs as they shorted and sprang open, at the same time saying firmly, "Connie, I need you to go find Jesse, free him like you did me, OK? And hurry – he may be the only one who can help her now." Because out across the field, at a command from their leader, the torchbearers were already moving to encircle what would soon be Shalimar's funeral pyre, and Brennan had no illusions that he'd be able to take on this private army alone and win.  
  
He only knew he'd go down trying.  
  
*  
  
Sunset... and it was happening just as he'd known it would. He could hear her crying out, no matter how hard he tried to block the sound, could feel it piercing his soul. Could see the growing light from the flames being carried towards her even through the eyelids he kept screwed resolutely closed so he wouldn't have to watch her die, and he moaned his despair at what was to be.  
  
He knew he should be struggling, fighting, working to get free so he could save her – or if not, at least be with her at the end. That was what he'd seen happening, after all, lived with through the past few days of hell. But the burden of his failure was so heavy, so all-embracing, that he could barely find it within himself to raise his head. Even the sharp true pain of abused muscles, torn skin and raw flesh couldn't compete, couldn't cut through the inertia that seemed to ensnare him as he heard the charges read, sentence passed.  
  
Something did, though. A riffle of movement disturbing the air around him, a whispered warning, a hand that ghosted over the sweat-sheened skin of his neck, and with extreme effort he cranked his eyes open just in time to catch the look of concentration on Connie's face as she unleashed a burst of energy that rocketed through him like wildfire. Taken totally by surprise, he jerked back against his bonds at the tremors that tied his thought processes into knots, along with what felt like every other part of him, hitting his head with a force that threatened a total shutdown.  
  
"Jesse? Jesse! No, don't do this. Come on, Jesse. Please try!" Familiar words, words that had drawn him out of the nightmare the last time, though spoken with a different tongue. And he latched on, letting them pull him up again, realising as he did so that something had changed. Almost without thinking he let his breath out and held it, the clank as the cuffs dropped away from suddenly intangible wrists and ankles coming as music to his ears. Inhaling quickly before his lungs could start in again with their complaints, he turned bewildered eyes to the pale blur looking up at him, questioning, "What...? How did...?"  
  
"Quickly! Brennan said you had to help her!" Small hands pushed him towards the door, and he finally saw for real the scene he'd been carrying in his head. But there were subtle differences, and he understood that this time he'd been given a chance at redemption.  
  
The world outside his box was one of chaos, the hot orange glow of the newly released flames throwing the surrounding area into a comparative darkness that was split at irregular intervals by the electric blue discharge of Brennan's sniping attacks on the dark figures milling in organised confusion around the fire. Muzzle-flashes added their own counterpoint, the accompanying whine of bullets contributing to the cacophony of sound that could still do nothing to hide from him the increasingly frightened cries that instantly became his sole focus.   
  
Putting his head down, he sprinted across the open space in complete disregard of those who would stop him, intent on getting to her before the fledgling blaze could take hold. He was peripherally aware of men looming out of the dark to intercept him, but they seemed to spin away before they could reach him, taken out by the blue lightning and... pink blasts?... Emma?... But there was no time to question because he was there and... 'Hold on, Shal, I'm coming!'  
  
A curtain of fire leapt up in front of him, hiding her from his view. But he knew she was there, could still hear the evidence of her fear, see her in his mind's eye. So he exhaled and phased his way in, feeling the heat searing at his molecules as if in ill-tempered reprisal for its inability to physically touch him. The knifing pain came back, stabbing up under his ribs and adding to the normal toll this particular manifestation of his powers exacted from him, conspiring with lungs that seemed to have only half their normal capacity to force him to breathe in immediately, but he couldn't pander to his body's shortcomings right now and pushed it all ruthlessly away.  
  
Reaching the still calm eye of the growing inferno, he solidified and conjured up a smile of reassurance for the woman who was already succumbing to the primal responses of her feral DNA as he massed a fist to hammer the chains binding her into so much scrap metal. Her eyes were glazing over with panic and he had to grasp her arms with more force than he wanted, shaking her until he was sure she was listening to his necessarily terse commands. He'd already identified the only way out, having fleetingly considered then discarded the too frightening idea of making his first attempt at directly phasing another person along with himself; even the urgency of this situation couldn't make him dare running the risk of losing control of himself and, in the process, losing her. Not that the alternatives were any easier, and he knew what it was going to take for them both to survive this, just hoping he had it within himself to do it. But he needed her at least composed enough to do as he asked.   
  
He pulled off his ripped T-shirt to give her some added protection from the hungry tongues of fire that immediately reached out to stroke the naked skin of his back, and the smoke that caught in his lungs in a way that he knew meant another coughing fit was just around the corner. Not yet, he prayed, please, gesturing to her to cover her face as he turned towards the one partial gap in the encroaching circle of flames, the place where he'd seen one of the torch-carrying men felled before he could complete his task.   
  
Taking a deep breath he massed out, searching for the perfect balance of density that would allow him to withstand direct contact with the fire yet still retain enough mobility to clear a path wide enough for her to follow without danger. He felt without really feeling the feral pressing her face into his back, trembling with fear as he kicked and pushed the burning bundles away, using his added weight to send them flying off into the night. It was costly, though – the constant struggle to maintain his mass at just the right level sapped his already weakened mental reserves, and the physical strain of moving at sufficient density to avoid damage was immense, tearing at muscles and tendons. Too soon, he reached the point where he knew he was going to have to take a breath. But from somewhere within him he felt something egging him on, supporting, encouraging, and he drew enough strength from it to continue.  
  
The final barrier surrendered to his foot, and the heated roar of the flames gave way to voices – familiar voices, Brennan, Adam?... shouting his name, calling him forward. But almost before he'd managed to drag in sufficient hot, smoke-filled but nonetheless delicious air to replace the oxygen-depleted supply gushing out of him, he was turning back towards Shalimar, his heart sinking to see her still standing, mesmerised and trembling, at the wrong end of the swathe he'd cut through the fire.  
  
Oblivious to the sparks stinging at his arms and torso, and the skin blistering beneath smouldering fabric where the fire had taken advantage of his momentary lapses in density control, he started to go to her, to bring her to safety. But the pressure that had been building in his chest with nowhere to go suddenly exploded into paroxysms of agonising coughing that drove him to one knee, his inner self railing against fates that would allow him so close to saving her only to snatch her from his grasp in the end.  
  
Even as he watched through streaming eyes, though, he saw the huge bulk of Brennan race by him through the gap to sweep the woman into his arms and bundle her towards him and out of danger, his, "Let's go, Jess," floating back to him as he sped past.   
  
He tried to follow, but he had nothing left to give, exhaustion and pain wrapping themselves around him, dragging him back to his knees and sending him toppling forward to sprawl in the dirt. Up ahead he saw the elemental pause, eyes flicking from him to the blonde head resting against his shoulder and back, obviously torn between them. Jesse heard the bullets screaming through the air above him, though, the yells, the thud of running feet and raised his head long enough to call, "Go! Get her out of here!"  
  
Above him, the sky was suddenly rent by fingers of light stabbing through the night on a crescendo of sound that drowned out everything else, and a breeze kicked up as if from nowhere to send the dust whirling into eddies.   
  
He managed to keep the encroaching blackness at bay until he saw Brennan nod once and turn away to be swallowed up by the shadows, then with a sigh he let himself spiral off into its welcoming arms.  
  
  
**** 


	16. Part 16

Part 16  
  
Adam stifled a yawn, rubbing both hands down his face as he glanced at the digital clock ticking away the seconds on the monitor next to him. Nearly dawn, he thought, wishing he could get out for a while, watch the sun come up and let it wash away the uncertainties of the night. But he knew that wouldn't bring him more than temporary respite from the matters that had kept him for the most part sleepless through the long hours since their hurried departure from the field of battle, just ahead of the incoming State police SWAT team who'd been alerted by a carefully worded anonymous phonecall to the presence of a heavily armed force engaged in homicidal activities.  
  
He and Emma had arrived there barely in time to assist in Brennan's efforts to run interference for Jesse, though Adam had pushed the Helix to her theoretical limits, both on the remotely controlled flight back to Sanctuary once he'd talked Connie through giving him direct access, and on the return journey. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised to find the plane empty when it arrived back with them – the girl had, after all, shown little inclination for following anyone's orders but her own. But he thought, from her demeanour when Emma had located her hiding behind one of the box-like structures he now knew had been used as cells, that she might have learnt a salutary lesson. Time would tell, but she'd seemed almost pathetically willing to do as asked so far.  
  
Her absence had, however, thrown up the problem of what to do with Joshua, since they patently couldn't leave him behind alone. The decision had been made for them, though, with the boy insisting he should come with them on the grounds his precognitive visions could give them advance warning of what was going on, and it had been far easier to just accept than waste precious time coming up with an alternative solution. Not that, when it came down to it, there had been any outwardly obvious benefit to having him along, but that could just have been because Adam had been far too taken up with keeping his people alive long enough to get them all onto the plane and out of there to notice.  
  
Once on board, Brennan had been unwilling to abandon the clearly shocky and smoke-congested Shalimar to anyone else's care, though her own concern had been solely for news of Jesse. But he had – when ordered – left her long enough to get the plane on course for home before switching to autopilot. That had at least given Adam time to assure himself that she wasn't badly hurt, though the experience had certainly taken its toll on her. Fire was the one adversary that Shalimar couldn't call on her powers to defeat – on the contrary, it was those powers that allowed it victory over her – and he could foresee some lengthy sessions while she talked the damaging impact this would have had on her out of her system. Fear wasn't something she'd admit to easily, another facet of her feral side, and to be so badly affected – to the point of immobility – would take some getting past.  
  
For now, though, with Emma's help he'd treated the physical trauma of the burns and the other injuries she'd picked up in ways he could only imagine, and persuaded her to let sleep start the healing process for the rest, even though left to her own devices she'd probably still be fretting here with him. But in truth there'd been nothing much any of them could do except wait and hope the morning brought some news they could act on.  
  
Brennan was also asleep, finally, having spent a solid half hour beating the punch bag to within an inch of its life. Though he'd given a sketchy account of what had happened since he and Shalimar had been dropped off to investigate DeSalles' estate, Adam was quite sure there was more to be told, and that it wouldn't make pleasant listening. There was an anger in the elemental that couldn't quite be explained by Shalimar's close call, and the fact he needed to resort to physical violence – albeit on an inanimate object – to allow himself to unwind enough to rest spoke more eloquently than words of how disturbing the whole thing had been, even for a self-professed street-wise veteran like him.  
  
Adam knew he should be thankful that they'd at least got the two of them out relatively unscathed, though he couldn't say what the on-going impact of their team mate's current situation would be when they woke up.   
  
Needing something to distract him from that thought, he absently picked up one of the collars they'd been wearing, turning it over in his hands as he looked for indications of its origins. They'd proved hard to unlock, but had finally yielded to one of his tools, and once Brennan had explained what they were he'd put them aside to examine when he had more time. But they were of unfamiliar construction, which alarmed him a little; Genomex had, for the most part, been a known quantity, and the thought of some other unknown body out there willing and able to manufacture mutant-specific restraints didn't bode well for the future.  
  
He realised that he'd been staring blankly at the thing for some minutes and gave himself a mental kick. He wasn't doing much good sitting around here, not when a member of his family was in need of help. And that thought sent him to his feet with a renewed sense of purpose.  
  
  
**  
  
"Death!"   
  
The single word vaulted into the hot humid air, reverberating around the semi-circle of low hills bordering the open space to be picked up and passed on by those perched on the slopes, the sound swelling with every second until it became a deafening roar.   
  
Kneeling in the centre of the dusty arena the lone figure heard the initial decree, heard it lose itself in the wall of noise that threatened to pound him into the rocky ground, and struggled to understand. But his senses, already dulled by pain and fatigue, seemed unable to tell him more than the fact that this probably wasn't good. But then again, as things had already hit rock bottom, how much worse could they actually get?  
  
Not all bad, though, right? And he stole a furtive look into the corner of his heart where he'd been carefully hiding the one thing that was keeping him going, frightened that they would find a way to take even that from him as they had everything else. But he found it still shining brightly, and he took strength from it. Because she was safe, and whatever happened to him here, now, he would know that in the end he hadn't failed her.  
  
Or had he? Barely audible whispers brushed across the edges of his mind, conveying regret, disillusion, wrongness, and though he pushed them away the memory of them lingered.  
  
His head drooped forward, exposing the back of his neck to the sun that scorched down across his bare shoulders. Sweat dripped off his forehead into the dirt, slid from his hairline into his eyes, trickled slowly down his spine and across his ribs, seeping into the open cuts and burns it found there. But with his hands cuffed painfully tightly behind his back he had no way of preventing its stinging ingress, and the pressure of the band clinging seductively round his throat taunted him with its ability to control and confine him to so-called normality again.   
  
He became slowly aware that the clamour was changing, building in volume but becoming clearer as the individual voices synchronised into one and the crowd howled out their demand. He lifted his head slowly, blinking bleary eyes to focus on the black-clad man approaching him, feeling the dark gaze boring into him, the solemn, almost regretful expression at odds with the words he was intoning in time with the mob. Beyond this one stood another, though, face alight with avid anticipation, tongue sliding out to moisten thin lips with a hint of depravity that sent a shudder of revulsion through him.  
  
He knew he should move, try to free himself from his bonds, from the other restraint which prevented him from using that which made him different – that which had gotten him into this situation in the first place – but it was already too late. The machete in the man's hand raised, the light catching its sharpened edge as it reached the top of its arc and paused before, riding on a final scream of "Death to freaks!", it plunged down to slash at flesh and bone and took him hurtling through a lifetime-long flash of crimson agony into nothingness...  
  
  
**  
  
With a grimace, Adam leant forward to check another readout, disturbed to see levels of activity that he would never have expected, even given the circumstances. By rights things should have started to stabilise by then, but what he was seeing was so inconsistent he had to check every reading twice to be sure he wasn't imagining it.  
  
There was no mistake, though, and if he hadn't known better his first thought would have been that this was another dream. But with Joshua so close at hand, there was no reason for that to be the case – he would simply tell them what he'd seen, without the need to resort to telepathic disclosure – wouldn't he?   
  
Whatever the cause, however, there was one thing certain – Jesse was still a long way from being out of danger.  
  
Adam had thought they'd lost him when he'd seen him go down in full view of the remaining soldiers, especially when he'd caught sight of the wild-eyed madness lighting the face of Warren DeSalles as he'd stalked round the fire's perimeter brandishing a sword, obviously intent on destroying the only one of those who'd ruined his sport still within his reach. But the arrival of the police helicopters had created more confusion amongst the milling enemy, men running in every direction as they tried to escape.  
  
All except one – as Adam had started forward with some vague and desperate aim of somehow snatching Jesse out of harm's way, a single figure had walked purposefully up to DeSalles and, producing a pistol from the holster on his belt, had calmly shot him in the head execution-style before turning and disappearing into the night. So Adam had taken his chance, darting forward with Emma at his heels as watchdog to hoist the unexpectedly light younger man over his shoulder and carry him to the shelter of the cloaked Helix waiting at the far side of the field.  
  
There'd been nothing much he could do for him until they'd reached Sanctuary, beyond making him as comfortable as possible in the back of a plane that was looking more and more like an air ambulance with each flight, but he knew he had a sick boy on his hands. The external evidence of his ordeal – the cuts and bruises, and the burns liberally scattered across his body, especially his lower legs – was relatively easy to deal with. But the incessant shivering and high fever he was running, allied to the difficulty he was having breathing, had gone a long way towards crushing Adam's hopes of having prevented the onset of pneumonia.  
  
Nonetheless, the treatment he'd given him should have been enough to alleviate the symptoms and at least make some inroads into dealing with the root cause, and the fact that it hadn't meant he needed to be looking elsewhere for an answer to what he was seeing.  
  
He'd promised himself he would go and check the police reports once there'd been time for them to have been filed in the central databases, see what the outcome of the police raid had been, but he was frankly unwilling to leave Jesse right now. Wishing he hadn't insisted that Emma go and get some rest, he started re-checking the monitors in the hope an alternative solution would present itself.  
  
  
**  
  
...and then...  
  
"Death!"  
  
The same place, the same ruling handed down by the same falsely pious judge, taken up by the same raucous audience, the same noise and heat and dust and sweat and pain and all consuming weariness.  
  
But as he waited on his knees, head bowed in hopeless anticipation of the end, his mind was awash with conflicting images of Shalimar burning, Shalimar carried to safety, unable to say for sure any more which was the truth. And the whispers grew in intensity, asserting their own veracity on his wavering belief, so that by the time the gray-eyed executioner appeared in front of him he'd come to understand that the punishment being meted out was as much for what he'd been unable to do as for what and who he was.  
  
He shifted his gaze enough to see the hot sunlight flashing on the cold steel of the 7 inch K-Bar knife the man carried in his hand, watched him disappear from view behind him. And as the tumultuous cries reached their climax again, he felt the hand twist into his hair to yank his head firmly back, exposing his throat to the pitiless blade and a different kind of everlasting agony that sent his life gushing out in a scarlet flood to stain the ground in front of his fading eyes before the merciful blackness finally descended...  
  
  
**** 


	17. Part 17

Part 17  
  
"How's he doing?" Emma's soft voice broke into Adam's thoughts and he looked up with a welcoming smile.  
  
"I thought you were sleeping."  
  
She sighed, a frown creasing her forehead. "I was. Well, trying, anyway. But there was something... I don't know what, but something kept disturbing me, so..."  
  
"Really?" He turned to face her properly, his analytical mind automatically latching onto the lure of a problem to be solved. "What kind of something? Another dream?"   
  
"No, I don't think so. At least, nothing I could distinguish as such. It's more..." She paused, trying to find the words to convey something that defied description. "...more like hearing someone in the distance trying to tune a radio - the kind of scratchy static you get between channels, interspersed with sweet music when they get it right..." She blinked, and smiled at him shyly. "Or something like that, anyway. Why?"  
  
Adam returned the smile, understanding how hard it was for her to express the things she felt sometimes. "I just thought it could have been something to do with Jesse. I don't really know why he isn't settling - with what I've given him and what this whole thing has to have taken out of him he should be sleeping as deeply as Shalimar and Brennan. But his vital signs are still too erratic, kind of building up and then dropping off to almost nothing. I'd been wondering if he was dreaming again, but if you can't sense anything I guess it must be something else." He paused, not really wanting to explore the avenue his instincts were trying to drag him down, but unable to ignore the scientist in him. "Was there any sign of life from the others?" he asked, almost casually.  
  
"No. I looked in on them, just in case, but they were all sleeping still."  
  
"Joshua too?"  
  
"Yes," Emma confirmed with a warm smile. "You were probably too tied up with Jess and Shal to notice, but he was exhausted by the time we got back. I don't know exactly what he was doing, but I was aware of his presence the whole time we were out there. I think he was trying to help us..." She looked at him, eyes narrowing slightly. "Why? You don't think he's doing this, do you?"  
  
Adam shrugged. "By his own admission, he's been responsible for stimulating the past two precognitive nightmares Jesse's experienced. This feels too much like the last time for us to ignore the possibility. Though, if he's asleep..."   
  
"He was smiling, too, looked really relaxed," she said, with a hint of wonder in her tone. "I don't think I've ever seen him like that..."  
  
The idea he was fighting moved up the scale from implausible to at least conceivable, and he felt justified in taking things a bit further. "Emma, can you read anything from Jesse? Anything at all? Anything that would help us find out what's keeping him in this state?"  
  
She stepped closer to gaze down at Jesse's sweat-sheened face, mouth and nose hidden under the oxygen mask assisting his laboured breathing, and memories of another time sprang to mind, a time when sleep had held horrors for them all.  
  
She frowned, eyes growing distant for a few seconds as she concentrated. "No, not really - which is strange. I should at least be able to tell something about how he's feeling, but... well, if he is dreaming, he's not broadcasting the same way he did before." She rubbed at her forehead, wishing she could shift the almost permanent throb that had taken up residence there. "It's almost as if he's blocking me, except he can't do that."  
  
Adam looked at her, assessing the potential impact of what he was about to say, before asking carefully, "Do you think you could break through, get in there with him? I'm worried about what this is doing to him - his system isn't strong enough right now to keep this up."  
  
Though she knew she should have expected this once it became obvious Jesse was caught in what was now showing all the signs of being an unnatural sleep, it still sent a shiver through her. The last time she'd ventured inside the dreams of one of her friends she'd been trapped there with them, fallen prey to the deep and unspoken fear that left her blind and helpless, forcing Adam's intervention to get them all out safely. And even with her shields at maximum, she was feeling too exposed to the rawness of everyone's emotions in the aftermath of what had been happening recent days.  
  
But she could see the concern in Adam's face, knew that she had the best shot at finding out what was going on, of helping Jesse as she knew without question he would help her if the positions were reversed, so with a sigh she agreed to try.  
  
*  
  
...and then...  
  
"Death!"...  
  
*  
  
It took direct contact with him, and an intense mental effort, but she finally made the transition from reality to dreamscape, shocked to find herself in what felt like the scene of their recent firefight - well, a sun-drenched heated version of it, anyway. From where she stood just behind the kneeling Jesse, she could see and hear the crowd ranked up the surrounding hillside, though she wasn't totally clear on what they were saying. What she did understand were the words being intoned by the man standing over the molecular, the damning indictment for sins she knew her friend had never, could never have committed, and she cried out silently at the sudden knowledge that he believed it to be true.   
  
Moving forward to crouch down beside him so she could talk to him, reassure him this wasn't real, she got her first look at his face and felt a lump form in her throat at the expression there - she didn't think she'd ever seen anyone so devoid of hope, so utterly convinced of the inevitability of their fate. His eyes were half closed, the blue glazing over to gray as if he knew what was coming and didn't want to see its arrival, and she could see the sweat of fear beading on his skin, the clenched teeth, the rigidity of the muscles in shoulders and arms.  
  
"Jesse, listen to me," she said, leaning closer, trying to reach him as she had Shalimar in that other lifetime when Henry Voight had taken her into his telepathic house of horrors. "It's not real, it's just a dream. They can't hurt you if you remember that." She thought the tension in his jaw might have slackened off just a little, but before she could say anything more she found herself being pulled away from him by some unseen force, lengthening her perspective telescopically until she became a distant spectator, one who could only watch in despair as two men stepped forward to haul the unresisting prisoner to his feet and drag him towards the open pit that had appeared a few yards away. Two more men with shovels stood by a pile of earth, and as she realised what it was they intended she let out a heartfelt cry of "No!" that cut through the cheering and jeering.   
  
She strove to get back to Jesse, to try and help him fight whatever it was that held him captive here, but the force pushing her away grew in direct proportion to her endeavours. But as it grew it also became more familiar, and when she dragged her eyes away from what lay ahead she knew she shouldn't be surprised to see Joshua sitting up on the top of the hill, one hand extended in her direction as he gazed with avid raptness at the scene below.  
  
"Joshua, what are you doing?" she called, hoping to distract him enough that she could reach Jesse, and indeed, his eyes flicked her way allowing her to move forward again. But with a yell he brought her up short again.  
  
"No! You can't have him. I'm not finished with him yet!"  
  
Down in the arena she saw full awareness of what was in store for him suddenly hit Jesse, his instantaneous and ferocious attempts to slow his progress to what he now knew would become his living grave making no impact on the nameless men in whose grasp he struggled. She heard his fear-filled cries, adding her own as he was hauled to the edge of the pit and pushed effortlessly in, his kicking legs the final part of him to disappear from view.  
  
Then with a violent snap she found herself back in med-bay, staggering sideways into the support of Adam's arms. She raised huge eyes to his, panting out, "It's Joshua - he's in there with him!" at the same moment that Jesse started convulsing on the bio-bed, breath coming in huge harsh gulps despite the oxygen, hands moving feebly towards his face.  
  
"Stay with him," Adam ordered, pushing her towards the bed again as he sped away, racing down the corridor to slam in through the door of Joshua's room. He was certainly smiling, but it wasn't a pleasant sight. It was a grin of malevolent satisfaction, and it shocked Adam to think what the boy could be seeing that could have that effect. But it was more important to stop him, and fast, so he reached forward to grip him by the shoulders and shake him firmly, shouting his name.  
  
"Hurry, Adam!" Emma's voice, panic uppermost, came through the comms system and he re-doubled his efforts, finally rewarded by the dark eyes blinking open to glare up at him in reproach.  
  
"But I wasn't finished..." Joshua whispered, balefully.   
  
"Finished...?" Adam shook his head, staring at him in confusion and consternation. "What were you doing to him? And why?"  
  
The boy turned his face away and pulled free of the older man's faltering grasp as he responded with a bitterness that chilled his soul. "Because it's his fault!"  
  
"What is?"  
  
The glare stabbed back his way again, accompanied by a psionic jolt that was like a physical slap in the face, and he recoiled before he could stop himself.  
  
"All of it! The dreams, the voices, the pain - mine and everyone else's, which I have to live with every day, which I can't stop, which goes on and on until I think it's going to drive me mad... And everything I lost, everything I'll never to be able to do..." He thumped his balled fists against his useless legs in futile frustration. "*Everything*!!"  
  
"But..." Adam floundered, "it was the GSA who caused the accident. They're responsible for this, not Jesse - he saved you. And you tried to help him, too - you shared the visions you'd had of his future so he could try and avoid what was going to happen."  
  
Joshua laughed raggedly. "I had to - couldn't keep it all inside, needed to get it out of my head, pass it on. But it wouldn't go away! Even when I'd given it back to them, it was still there, I was still living it with them. That's why I wanted him to live too! I couldn't let him escape the pain so easily, not when he hadn't let me. I needed him to know what it was like, what he'd condemned me to by not letting me die. So I helped him cheat his own fate, helped him survive his future so that I'd have my chance."  
  
Adam fought the urge to raise his hands to his ears as the perceived volume of the words reached deafening proportions, though he knew rationally it was just a telepathic side-effect of the boy's distress. "And now you have? Has it helped? Do you feel any better for it?" He leant his head on one side to look questioningly down at him. "This isn't the way, you know that. Jesse doesn't deserve this, any more than you do."  
  
"But it's his fault!" The petulance in his voice should have made this sound like nothing more than a teenage tantrum, but there was so much more to it that that. "I didn't ask him to save me! He should have let me die - why didn't he let me die?!"  
  
"Because he believed that the boy he knew would want to survive. Like he did - like he does now. Destroying him won't make your pain go away, Joshua. But I can help you control it so it doesn't consume you like it does now. You just need to trust me."  
  
For long moments they stared at each other, and Adam watched the struggle going behind the deep brown gaze - anger and suspicion warring against hope and the need to have something to believe in, until one side emerged victorious and the building agitated pressure he'd been feeling laying siege to his mind shut down with a crack.  
  
"It's so lonely in here," Joshua whispered plaintively, eyes flooding with tears that spilled down over the pale cheeks, and the older man put out a tentative arm to pull him into a hug.   
  
"I know - but it doesn't have to be. Let us help you. Let him go."   
  
There was another pause, but eventually the head resting a little awkwardly against his shoulder nodded, and Adam let out a soft sigh as he raised his voice slightly to question, "Emma?", waiting anxiously for her response.  
  
When she did reply, her voice held nothing but overwhelming relief, a sentiment he shared when he heard her say, "He's breathing OK again. And I... I think it's over. He's free."  
  
Adam felt the heaving sobs shaking the thin frame and tightened his grip, murmuring soothing words that did nothing to lessen his own remorse for having allowed this to happen in the first place. Because no matter that he wished things differently now, in failing to keep track of those he'd promised to protect he'd caused more heartache than any of them deserved.  
  
  
**  
  
Gray eyes hidden behind the reflective lenses of his Ray-Ban's, the man formerly known as Moncrief slid down a little further into the cushioned sunlounger and absently watched the bikini-clad lovelies parade up and down the golden sands of the Copacabana. But his mind was several thousand miles away.  
  
He'd known the job was likely to be of limited duration, but the financial rewards had been sufficiently high to make it worth taking. And like the professional he was, he'd been prepared for a rapid tactical withdrawal even before the cracks had started to show. The remote control that detonated the strategically placed C4 charges had never been far from his person, making it a simple matter to eliminate any clues to his existence once it became obvious the operation was being forcibly closed down, and his meticulously planned escape route had worked as smoothly as expected.   
  
The public removal of the increasingly unstable DeSalles had ensured that anyone the authorities questioned could point to their deceased employer as the instigator - though as he was quite confident there was insufficient evidence left for a clear picture of what had been going on there to emerge, he doubted they'd need to say anything. And from what he'd read about those who had brought about the end of what had proved a highly lucrative but personally less than satisfying undertaking, he didn't think they'd be sharing their suspicions with the police.  
  
His pride had him wondering briefly just how the two male prisoners had managed to free themselves, take out so many of his men and rescue the woman, but he wasn't given to retrospective second-guessing. And though some small part of him hoped that they crossed paths again at some point in the future so that he could settle the score, it wasn't something that he'd be losing sleep over. What was done was done, and it would be some time before he felt the need to look for further gainful occupation.   
  
With a contented sigh, he ordered another Caipirinha and resumed his idle observation of the female talent.  
  
  
**** 


	18. Part 18

Part 18  
  
Jab, jab, jab, left cross, right uppercut, left, jab, jab, jab, left hook, jab, left, right, left, jab, jab... without conscious thought, Jesse allowed the newly familiar combinations to stream from his brain to his hands, savouring each jarring thud of impact as it sent a reciprocal jolt back up his arm and gave a wake-up call to muscles still weak from disuse.   
  
He knew he wouldn't be able to keep this pace up for long, could already feel the tightening in his chest and the trembling in limbs still more accustomed to the horizontal than this kind of treatment that would force him to stop far sooner than he'd like. But he kept pushing himself, seeking the catharsis of physical exertion to cleanse him of his insecurities and give him release from the anger and frustration that had been so omnipresent in his life the past few weeks.  
  
If he'd been asked, he wasn't sure he could have said why he'd forsaken his usual training regime for this particular form of punishment. He'd always preferred the dojo simulations, which at least gave the pretence of a tangible foe to fight, to the solitary grunt and grind of a gym workout. Besides, this had always been Brennan's preserve, the font of his muscle-pumping machismo, and that was an area Jesse had no desire to compete in.  
  
But after all the falsehoods he'd been forced to live through so recently, the thought of facing more phantom enemies – albeit 'waking world' ones that looked and felt real – was too much for him to deal with. Instead he'd turned to the honest, solid, unthinking presence of punch bag and weights to help him fight his way back to a level of fitness that would hopefully allow him to do more than just sit around all day brooding.  
  
He'd missed most of the aftermath of their escape from DeSalles' clutches, sleeping his way through the following days, his rare forays from his bed leaving him so tired, breathless and aching it was all he could do to get back there again. But he'd gradually put the pieces together and the bigger picture had provided more food for thought than he really felt able to digest, even now.  
  
Because even now the images and sensations of his final nightmares remained, every time he closed his eyes, the heat and dust and despair and pain lurking in the shadows waiting to ambush him, and he couldn't believe that it would ever really go away.  
  
Adam had assured him it would fade in time as he got stronger again, in the same way he'd assured him that it was really only a temporary and involuntary aberration on Joshua's part that had led to his mental assault, the reflexive pursuit of self-preservation in the face of the overwhelming nature of his newly emergent powers. Powers too strong for him to cope with alone, too far-reaching to keep contained without risking his sanity.   
  
But Adam hadn't been there with him in the dreamworld that he'd been compelled to endure, hadn't had to suffer his own execution over and over again in ways that still haunted him, hadn't seen and felt his blood gushing from his body, his nose and mouth filling with dirt or water, his lungs starved of oxygen until they imploded... Worse even than that, the systematic deconstruction of his self-esteem, depriving him of the few remaining shreds of dignity and hope he'd been clinging to, so that when Emma had finally come in after him he already believed implicitly that he was a worthless failure who deserved nothing more than he was getting.  
  
And that was proving far harder to get past than anything else.   
  
He'd learned that the State police reports on the outcome of their raid showed that they'd arrived too late to prevent someone detonating charges to level what appeared to be some sort of control centre and living accommodations a mile or so from the site of the fire, destroying everything including all the computer systems and records. With no clear idea of what had been going on there, they'd had nothing with which to charge the fleeing men they'd managed to pick up. Those who deigned to say anything had just directed them towards Warren DeSalles – and as he was the only apparent fatality, with no evidence to say who killed him, their investigations had come to a halt.  
  
A footnote to the CSI report made mention of discovering a large quantity of some sort of highly corrosive acid stored in an outhouse that had been virtually demolished in the same explosions that took out the command centre. They weren't able to say for sure what it might have been used for, but as they'd found no evidence of the bodies that had to be there somewhere given what the Mutant X team had witnessed, Adam was convinced that was how they had to have been disposed of.   
  
So regretfully, despite the lack of incontrovertible proof, he'd had to assume all those who had been taken – which would include Gayle – were dead. Connie had refused to believe it at first, though she had to have known it was on the cards from the start, adamant that her friend had to be out there hiding somewhere. But over the days, as her confidence in herself and her newly found abilities grew, and she realised that she wasn't going to be thrown out to fend for herself, she'd come to accept it as the truth. Accepted it and grieved, but ultimately put it behind her and moved on, just like everyone else.   
  
Everyone but him.   
  
They all expected him to just forgive and forget, good old Jesse who never held a grudge, always gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. And they couldn't really understand how he could still be harbouring such antipathy towards someone as openly penitent, and as emotionally and physically fragile, as Joshua seemed.  
  
Even Emma, probably the only one of them he might have expected to understand where he was coming from, had, after some initial wariness, been drawn into Adam's guilt-driven crusade to help Joshua learn to explore and regulate his new world, and had become a quietly enthusiastic advocate of the boy's willingness to learn and make amends.  
  
What made it harder still was the fact that Adam had made it clear that Jesse owed Joshua his life, that the telepath had not only intervened to help him survive the ordeal in the river, but had been the supporting impetus that allowed him to push through the last few feet of the fire, clearing the path for Brennan to bring Shalimar safely out – which meant he owed her life as well. And though he also knew that the acts hadn't been totally altruistic, his sense of honour had niggled at him to recognise the contribution.  
  
Even so, it had been over a week before he'd worked through his hostility and sense of violation enough to agree to a face-to-face meeting. It had been brief and awkward, Jesse accepting the stammered apology before hiding behind the excuse of fatigue to enable himself to escape to lick his imagined wounds alone. And chance encounters since, as the boy skimmed his wheelchair deftly through the corridors of Sanctuary, had been mercifully few – at least from Jesse's perspective, though he thought he'd glimpsed the light of hope die in the disturbingly bright eyes as he'd ducked away to avoid direct contact.  
  
There'd been plenty of time, once his need for sleep lessened but while he still felt too wretchedly weak and shaky to do anything more than lie in bed, to allow his mind to roam back over the years to his first encounters with Joshua, and to examine the reasons why Connie's mention of his name had filled him with such dread.   
  
He'd never really talked to anyone about how the whole experience in the safe house had affected him, not in detail. Never revealed how close he'd come to losing himself through his inability to find a big enough space to breathe and reform on the way in, and how hard it had been to get the resultant panic under control once he'd reached the place the others were sheltering in. How he'd thrown himself completely into the task of keeping them all – but most especially the injured child – safe just to stop himself falling apart, stop himself thinking about how little air there was, how little room, how little hope... The disconcerting feeling of hearing the small familiar voice calling out to him for help, even though its owner was unconscious, desperately scared he was hallucinating but nonetheless using its plaintive cry as the focus to bring himself through the whole terrifying experience.   
  
Afterwards he hadn't wanted to explore any of it too deeply, unable to bear the sight of the child lying broken and silent in the big bed despite his efforts, preferring to lock the whole thing away rather than fall prey to the new insecurities it had released in him.   
  
But now it seemed the kind of help Joshua had been asking for wasn't what he'd held himself together long enough to give him. At least, that's what he understood from Adam's oblique explanation for the reasons behind the boy's apparent determination to make him suffer. And if that was the case, didn't he only have himself to blame for what had happened?  
  
Which just made him up the tempo, punish himself some more.  
  
His body finally called a halt on him, a wall of breathlessness forcing him to stop before the spots dancing before his eyes became a fully-fledged blackout and his lungs gave in to the urge to cough themselves inside out. Panting heavily, he wobbled over on unsteady legs to sink gratefully onto the bench running along the wall, stripping off the gloves as he did so.  
  
Sweat dripped down over his face, into his eyes, bringing accompanying memories to nudge at the edge of his thoughts again until he wiped them both firmly away with his towel. With a sigh he let his head droop forward, listening with grim satisfaction to the quivering complaint of his over-worked muscles, letting it take over his mind and blank out everything else.  
  
He became suddenly aware that someone was watching him and kicked himself for not noticing sooner. Not that he should be surprised, he thought – there always seemed to be one or other of them lurking around, checking up on him, making sure he wasn't going to do anything stupid. But he didn't allow himself to look their way immediately, finding some bizarre amusement in trying to guess who it would be this time.   
  
Not Adam – he'd expect him to be running the unnecessary checks on the Helix's flight systems, one of what felt like an endless stream of pointless tasks the older man had found for him once he'd expressed his need to get back to work, all designed to keep him occupied without undue exertion. That was, if he'd even thought about him at all given his immersion in his current project.  
  
Maybe Brennan, come to claim his playground back? No, probably not – not after the way he'd snarled at the elemental the last time he'd turned up with his unasked for advice and patronizing comments on the format of his self-imposed therapy.  
  
Emma, then – the one person he'd been able to relax with a little, knowing that she at least appreciated why he was finding it so hard to get past what had happened, even if she didn't agree with how he was going about it. Perhaps... but after a few abortive attempts to get him to actually talk it through, she'd given up and left him to his own devices.  
  
Or Connie? The kid had certainly kept popping up a lot to begin with, but even she had tired of his short temper and the even shorter periods of attentiveness his body and mind allowed him, something that had so annoyed him in the early days of his recovery.   
  
And Joshua certainly wouldn't dare venture in here...  
  
Which left Shalimar. Shal, who he'd come so close to losing. Who'd been there at his bedside when he'd first woken, there with a care and concern that had come close to smothering him, which he'd rejected almost out of hand because he didn't believe he deserved it. Not then. And by the time he'd allowed himself to accept that he had perhaps been worthy in some small part of her faith and gratitude, she'd retreated to a wary distance from which she watched him with hurt disquiet.  
  
There'd been so many times when he'd longed to go to her, tell her he was sorry, how important she was to him, why he'd done what he had - all the things he'd been unable to say while the unresolved dreams were so fresh in his mind. Longed to have her hug him as she'd done so often when he was younger, reassure him everything was going to be alright. But each time he'd plucked up the courage and gone looking for her, she'd been with Brennan or Adam, or his nerve had failed him at the last moment. And each time the barriers he'd been erecting around his soul had grown a little thicker.  
  
Guessing game over, he raised his eyes towards the gym door and met the expected cautious brown gaze.  
  
"Hey," she said softly, hesitantly, hovering in the shadows until she was sure he wouldn't send her away. At his tentative smile, though, she moved forward, coming to perch on the edge of the bench a few feet away from him. "Thought this might be where you were hiding – you seem to be spending a lot of time in here these days." She grinned fondly as she continued, "Brennan's starting to get grouchy, you know, thinks you're teaching his toys new tricks."  
  
"Yeah, well," he said, without being able to stop himself, "last time I looked, none of this stuff had his name on." He buried his face in the towel again as a way of avoiding the expected look of wounded censure, not surprised by the silence that followed before she tried again.  
  
"I hope you're not overdoing it, though. Adam said it could be weeks..."  
  
"I know what Adam said," he interrupted, flashing her a warning glance. "I think I know how I'm feeling better than he does, though." Damn, there he went again, trapped in the vicious circle created by the feelings of estrangement that made him challenge everyone's motives for talking to him, driving them further away and thus isolating him more. He knew he needed to stop it, to break the cycle, but he was so afraid it had already gone too far that he couldn't see where to even begin. And if Shalimar left him here alone now, he didn't think he'd ever be able to find his way back.  
  
  
Arms folded defensively across her chest, Shalimar sat back and watched him hunch in on himself, the haunted expression in his shadowed storm-gray eyes speaking volumes about the turmoil she knew was going on inside him, for all that he was bottling it away even more than usual.   
  
Stripped of the baggy shirts he'd been hiding in the past few weeks she could see how thin he'd got, his normally leanly muscled frame suffering despite the time he'd been putting in here in the gym, and his face was gaunter than she could ever remember seeing. She felt the sudden urge to reach out and smooth away the tension knotting his stubbled cheek, and the curls of sweat-damp hair clinging to his forehead and the back of his neck cried out to her to be brushed free, but she didn't think this was the moment for her usual affectionate tactility. Instead she waited, hoping the silence would provoke some opening she could use to reach him.  
  
During the three or so weeks since the 'incident', as she'd come to think of it, there'd been a lot happening around here – so much that she realised she'd let this go on longer than it should. Everyone had seemed to have issues to work through, though, all of them treading eggshells around each other in case they inadvertently made things worse.  
  
Emma had been unusually abrasive and remote at first, disappearing for long periods in search of peace enough to meditate and regain her balance. She'd been reluctant to talk too much about what she'd shared with Jesse, but even the bald facts she'd given to Adam, and which Shalimar had then extracted from him, were enough to give her the shudders even now.  
  
In her own case, the need to exorcise the spectre of her almost total breakdown in the face of her arch-nemesis had made her question herself and the flaws inherent in her genetic makeup, seeking reassurance that they didn't devalue who she was. It had taken time and a lot of patience from those she'd used as sounding boards to talk through her doubts and fears, but she was far more comfortable with herself now than she had been for a long while.  
  
She wished she could say the same for Brennan. He'd seemed to have made himself personally responsible for her well-being, and to begin with she'd leant on him, used his almost constant presence as a buffer for her battered confidence. But as she'd grown stronger, more self-assured, she'd found his continuous attentiveness constricting, irritating even, an intrusion on her re-defining territorial boundaries, and he'd taken ill-disguised offence when she'd told him to back off. He would come round, she knew, but in the meantime it was making things a little awkward.  
  
Not that there weren't distractions enough for all of them, if they wanted, mostly centring on the two teenagers still in their midst.  
  
With Emma's help latterly, Adam had spent most of his time working with Joshua, starting the process of teaching him how to deal with the manifestations of his mutancy in a less traumatic way. There was still a long way to go, but even she'd been able to see that he'd started to open up in response to their encouragement.   
  
This had been helped in no small part by Connie. The girl had, after some early suspicion and attempts at one-upmanship based on her few extra days' tenure there, become fascinated by the outwardly emotion- and humourless Joshua, making it her mission to crack his façade and make him smile. Shalimar couldn't help but see parallels between herself and Jesse, particularly as what had happened seemed to have pushed him back into his shell once again. And it pained her to see him so alone, so afraid of being hurt again.  
  
It was really because of Jesse that Adam had taken the decision, earlier than he might have preferred, to arrange for both Connie and Joshua to go and live with a New Mutant couple, people he knew and trusted, who would continue their training while helping them live as normal lives as possible. He'd had very little problem persuading the Arkansas authorities and the Hartsons that it was in the boy's best interests, an indication of their relief to have the problem moved off their plate. Shalimar just wished that Jesse's problems could be so easily resolved.  
  
The silence stretched on, but finally she heard him sigh. "What do you want, Shal?"  
  
Though the words could have been construed as confrontational, there was enough resignation in his tone that she could choose to accept them as an invitation. So she said carefully, "Connie and Joshua are leaving soon – thought you might want to come and say goodbye."  
  
There, it was done, and she stared anxiously at him, seeing the mixed emotions flooding his features. When there was no immediate response, though, she felt compelled to go on. "Listen, I know what he did to you was inexcusable. I know what it's like to have someone in your head, to have dreams so real they invade your entire being, take over your life. Believe me, I know how violated it makes you feel. But they were only dreams, Jesse, not reality. None of them actually came true, not in the end, no matter how close we came. And I for one am eternally grateful that we're both here now to see that. Grateful to you..." She paused, then finished, "... and to Joshua."  
  
She saw him stiffen at that, eyes shooting her way wildly before returning to their fierce contemplation of the floor. One last shot, she thought, unwilling to surrender him without trying everything she could. "Please come back to us, Jess," she whispered, stretching out a hand to gently touch the tense chilled flesh of his arm. "I miss you..."  
  
Caught in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions Jesse heard her words, felt the bitterness, the outrage, the surge of betrayal at her admission of traitorous gratitude battle with the warmth striving to flood his soul at the knowledge she wasn't going to abandon him, that she could forgive his rejection, that it wasn't too late. And when he went in search of his demons, for the first time he saw the happy, fun-loving, energetic child the boy had been looking back at him from the fading face of the monster he'd been living with.   
  
Shalimar heard him take a short breath, then he murmured huskily, "Well, I guess it's not really goodbye – not when we're going to be seeing them again."   
  
It wasn't much. But she had to believe it was a place to start his journey home.  
  
  
END 


End file.
