MX Sn4: One Step Forward...

Eve's cherry-red PT Cruiser slammed to a brief halt a few dozen yards short of the Mutant Underground safehouse, silently thanks to Chris' power. Chris and Owen threw open the passenger-side doors and leaped out; Eve peeled out again with the doors still open, still noiselessly.

"Hey, DIRTWADS!" Chris shouted, using his power to magnify his voice so loud it shook the windows of all the buildings in the area. The red-headed man with a rangy build and his hair in a tight crew-cut winced at the volume of Chris' shout, turning in surprise at the suddenly returned sound of Eve's oncoming car. His eyes widened in shock and flashed orange when he realized the car was already almost atop him and about to run him over; he leaped a dozen feet into the air and over the PT Cruiser as it rushed beneath him, landing in mid-stride and running toward Chris.

Chris gave Owen a Significant Look as he drew another deep breath; Owen nodded and stepped back, plugging his ears with his fingertips. Chris paused as the Canine Feral charged, waiting for just the right moment. Just as the rangy man bent his legs to spring, only a few dozen feet away, Chris shrieked.

His cry started at the top of his high-tenor range and instantly soared above human hearing, nearly as loud as Chris could manage. The Feral gasped in surprised pain as his ears rang, clamping his hands over them and involuntarily squeezing his eyes shut, tripping over his own legs and tumbling to the ground because of his forward momentum.

Eve sped down the short side street that the safehouse was on, driving right past its entrance, where a dark-haired shorter man was focused on the door and a curly-haired woman was frowning down the street at Chris' racket. Even as Eve was speeding past the safehouse and turning onto the cross street at the end of the block, Jamie's hands were grabbing both the front and rear door's handles at the same time, slamming them shut as his elastic arms snapped back to normal. Eve pulled over in a sudden stop and threw the car into park, instantly turning to open her laptop.

"I'm re-routing the 9-1-1 calls, keep the police off our backs until you're clear," Eve told Jamie without looking up as she quickly ran a program. "Go, watch your leg; let Kevin take your weight and you'll be fine to fight," she finished, her eyes focused on her screen as Kevin opened Jamie's door, Josh keeping watch from where he had parked on the other side of the street, one building away from the Mutant Underground safehouse.

Jamie's leg had nearly been severed by a steel door a few days earlier; it would have been if not for Jamie's elastic ability, and he had injured it further by walking and fighting on it after that. Kevin gave Jamie a hand getting out of Eve's car and up on his one good foot; Kevin then gestured slightly when he let go of Jamie's hand, causing Jamie to rise an inch or so into the air.

Kevin turned and dashed across the street to rejoin Josh and slip around the corner onto the safehouse's street behind him; Jamie floated along telekinetically just in front of Kevin. He could have simply telekinetically stiffened Jamie's leg so it could bear his weight, but that would have required a more active focus. By simply hoisting Jamie into the air bodily, Kevin had concentration left to focus his telekinesis on something else if it should become necessary.

Owen dropped into a crouch on the balls of his feet and sprang into the air, covering twenty feet to land on top of the Canine Feral before he could regain his feet.

"I remember you!" Owen told the man as he planted a hand on his chest to hold him still. The man tried to kick Owen in the back of the head, but Owen had landed in a crouch straddling the man's legs. His lower thigh could only raise an inch or two before running into Owen's rear, which wasn't enough momentum to even budge Owen's burly form.

"Charlie, right?" Owen snarled gleefully as he leaned into the Canine Feral's face, ignoring Charlie's attempt to dislodge him. "How's your gravity buddy?"

"Still in the hospital, thanks to you!" Charlie snarled back, grabbing the forearm Owen had planted on his chest and struggling in vain to remove it. His struggles grew frantic as Owen shifted his grip to Charlie's jaw, holding his head still so he couldn't dodge even the slightest bit.

"Aww, too bad!" Owen growled as he belted Charlie in the face. Charlie blinked, dazed, and tried to shake his head to clear it, but he was still held firmly in Owen's grasp. Owen drew his fist back to throw another punch, just barely looking up in time when Chris shouted a warning.

Josh and Kevin had their backs pressed to the front of the building next door to the safehouse, sliding sideways in front of it to approach the safehouse. The neighboring building was set back farther from the street, meaning the people trying to break in at the front door couldn't see them as they hugged the wall. Jamie was floating along between them, only an inch or so off the ground, so all three looked to be nearly the same height.

Since Jamie didn't have to keep an eye on where he was going, he elasticized his neck and grabbed his head with his hands, reaching out to stretch his neck and peer around the safehouse's corner. He could see the man and woman at the door, an Asian man concentrating on the door as he held his hands out to it and a woman with dark, curly hair Jamie thought might be familiar. He couldn't see her face because she was turned toward Chris and Owen's fight down the street, but Jamie had developed quite an eye for physique types and body language over his years of mimicking other people's appearances. He gasped quietly in surprise and let go of his head, letting his neck snap back to normal when she turned to tell the man something.

"Crap, that's the frost chick we fought the night the original team got here; she makes, like, razor ice sculptures," Jamie told Josh and Kevin, frowning worriedly.

"Well, he's the Thermal Elemental who blew up the car Shalimar and I were behind when we caught up with you then," Josh answered as he leaned back from peering cautiously around the safehouse's corner.

"Wait, a Frost Molecular and a Heat Elemental?" Kevin asked with alarm.

"Oh, crap!" Josh blurted in surprise as he realized Kevin's point. "The safehouse door is thick steel; I didn't figure he could really hurt it, but if he heats it up..."

"..And she suddenly chills it, that steel will crack like ice cubes dropped in warm soda!" Kevin finished, nodding in worried agreement.

Owen looked up at Chris' cry of warning, just barely in time to see a thin woman sprinting at him from the other end of the block. . .and closing the distance in only the fraction of a second it took him to spot her. Owen threw himself off of Charlie as the woman arrived and threw a lightning-fast kick at his midsection; Owen didn't manage to evade the blow, but he was moving with its momentum to ride out its impact and take minimal damage from it. Owen tumbled away from Charlie as a result of her kick, rolling away as Chris ran up to him, keeping an eye on the two enemy New Mutants.

The woman swooped to grab Charlie under the arms; she was too slight to lift Charlie directly, but the momentum she gained through her superspeed was enough to move him. She yanked Charlie up to his feet, then dashed over to a tree growing between the sidewalk and the street. The tree had nuggets of bark spread around the base of its trunk as mulch; the woman dropped to one knee and seized a small chunk of wood in each hand. She turned and flung them both at Chris and Owen, each at over a hundred miles an hour, turning back and grabbing two more, repeating the process several times in a split second.

"Hey—OW!" Chris yelped as one chunk of bark grazed his neck, then another smacked painfully into his shin. The woman wasn't even bothering with any accuracy, simply throwing dozens of missiles at Chris and Owen in the span of only a few seconds. Owen rolled to his feet and stood between Chris and the speedster, putting his back to her and one hand over the back of his head to keep her attacks from lacerating his scalp. Chris could see Owen flinching at the impacts of the hard wooden nuggets with his back and the backs of his legs.

"Damn, looks like Charlie the Dog Boy wants some more," Owen said, watching over Chris' shoulder as Charlie shook his head, looking like a dog trying to shed water, then hunkered lower and growled at Owen and Chris.

"Geeze, I wonder how long she can keep that up," Chris murmured under his breath, leaning slightly to peek past Owen's ribs. "Skinny as a rail, she must have an insane metabolism. Okay, you may heal faster than I do, but my leather jacket can take a lot more hits," Chris told Owen as he zipped up his biker jacket and held a leather-gloved hand in front of his face and groin, protectively. "I'll take care of her; you handle Fido."

"Darnit, I bet if I could rubberfy the door it could take the thermal shearing, but I have to touch something to put my power in it!" Jamie muttered unhappily. "Even if you telekinetically stretched my finger over there, sneaky-like, I still can't touch the door if it's super-hot!"

"Wait, didn't Stacy say she was calling from the safehouse, so she's inside? Delivering one of Ketch's extra meals to that pair of sisters, right?" Josh asked, frowning as he thought furiously, trying to come up with a plan.

"The Nastor sisters, Alecia and Alexis, yeah," Kevin confirmed, nodding. "That's what Eve said, that Stacy called from the safehouse, said she thought she was being followed. Good thing we were almost at Eloy's, since the original team took the Helix back to New York."

"Hey, then she can cool down the safehouse door, enough for me to touch it, excellent!" Jamie exclaimed happily. "Kevin, quick, project in there and tell her, write it down in front of her or rip up some paper to spell out the letters or something!"

"Don't be silly," Josh said with a frown, then gave Kevin a warning look to make sure he didn't do any such thing. "Kevin's vulnerable in astral coma and you can't carry him with your leg; we'd all three be sitting ducks. Heck, he's supposed to be carrying you. And besides, Hi, cellphones!" Josh finished with cheery sarcasm.

"That'll work, but Jamie's right, if they hit it with cold before Stacy can cool it back down, they'll be in. We need to stall them long enough for her to do that." Kevin said as Josh unclipped his cellphone from his waistband and flipped it open. Kevin turned to face Jamie and concentrated again, gently setting him back down on the ground while Josh found Stacy's cell number and pressed SEND.

"Keep your weight off your bad leg; I'll be right back," Kevin said as he sat down against the wall, then lowered his head and went into astral coma as he projected himself out of his body.

"Hey Stacy!" Josh started to protest, then cut himself off when Stacy answered. "Quick, they're superheating the safehouse door, we need you to cool it down, just one corner." Josh paused, listening to Stacy's semi-panicked response, then cut her off. "No, just cool the corner down enough it can be touched, the lower left corner as you face it. Even just an inch is fine, just be careful you don't crack it off," Josh warned. Stacy was a mid-level Thermal Elemental with both a hot and a cold touch; normally she just used them to keep plates hot and drinks cold at Eloy's Diner, but Josh was sure she knew enough about her powers to understand how thermal shearing stresses worked.

Owen turned to face Charlie as Chris advanced on the Propulsive Molecular, drawing her fire. Owen crouched and leaped at the copper-haired Feral once more, but Charlie jumped back. He knew well that he didn't want to be within reach of Owen's enormous armspan, nor of his steel-toe workbooted feet.

Charlie circled away from Owen, trying to figure out how to attack in a way to give himself the advantage, instead of Owen. Unfortunately for Charlie, the only advantage a dog has when attacking a bear is its pack, and Charlie was alone. He was a half-foot shorter and a few dozen pounds lighter than Owen, so he may have had a slight maneuverability advantage simply due to Owen's sheer size, but that was all.

Owen ducked low and sprang forward, arms wide and ready to tackle Charlie once more, removing even that slight advantage.

That attempted tackle proved to be Owen's undoing.

Charlie sprang aside once more when Owen moved, one hand subtly jerking something off the keyring clipped to the beltloop of one hip as he went. Owen turned to snarl his frustration at Charlie's continuing evasion at him, anger blazing in his greenish-brown Ursine Feral eyes. . .and Charlie sprayed him in the face with an aerosol pepper spray.

Kevin's astral form passed unnoticed through the curly-haired woman's body as he approached the Asian man concentrating on the door. Kevin reached forward and tapped the man firmly on the shoulder, like he was insistently trying to get his attention.

"What?" the man asked over his shoulder irritably, not even turning to look at his partner. Kevin frowned; that wouldn't do. He needed the man to stop using his power.

"What do you mean, 'what?'" the Frost Molecular replied, her face scrunched up in confusion.

Smirking with amusement and reveling in the fact that he could telekinetically touch things with his astral form thanks to his New Mutant evolution, Kevin reached forward and pinched the Thermal Elemental's ass, hard. It was a nicely firm ass, too.

"WHAT ARE YOU, CRAZY?!" the Asian man hollered, turning around to glare at the curly-haired woman and flailing his arms angrily. Her face twisted into a frowning expression of disbelief as she boggled at her companion.

Grinning, Kevin released his power and snapped back to his body, afraid that if he remained his astral vocal cords might vibrate the air with his laughter and reveal his presence. He wasn't sure if he could vocalize in astral form now that he could touch things, but he didn't want to risk it. He'd have to experiment later to find out, see if Josh's Feral hearing could detect his astral voice, at least.

Chris trotted toward the woman flinging bark nuggets at him, grinning behind his hand when his biker jacket did indeed absorb their impacts harmlessly. She began aiming her shots lower, the chunks of bark smacking into Chris' thighs and lower legs, protected only by the denim of his jeans. Chris flinched when one projectile struck his kneecap, then yelped when another smacked his shin in the same spot it had already been hit.

The woman increased the intensity of her attack, throwing her ammunition with even more power because Chris was easier to hit since he had moved closer. She began directing her shots at Chris' mid-to lower legs, trying to smash them into his kneecaps and shins, where he didn't have even the padding of muscle to absorb the impacts.

Wincing at the abuse his lower legs were taking, Chris was forced to drop into a crouch, turning to one side so that the bark nuggets would hit the muscles on the sides of his legs instead of his bones. He pointed his elbow in front of his head, hiding his face behind his leather-clad arm and shielding his cheekbone where it was exposed between his upper biceps and lower forearm with his other hand.

After only a moment the hail of bark chunks stopped; Chris slid his hand farther back, just enough to peek past his inner elbow with one eye. He saw that the base of the tree the woman had been crouched at was nearly devoid of bark nuggets; she had thrown most of them in less than a minute. She had run to the next tree and was dropping into a crouch at its base even as Chris spotted her.

Knowing that she would renew her attack in an instant and that her accuracy and the force of the nuggets' impacts would only increase if he got closer to her again, Chris changed tactics. Twisting on the ball of one foot as he rose, turning ninety degrees to face the Propulsive Molecular again, Chris drew a deep breath and shouted.

Chris' shout blasted forth even as the woman began throwing bark chunks once more. As fast as the wooden pieces were flying, sound was still orders of magnitude faster. The concussive impact of Chris' blast slammed into the flying bark projectiles, knocking most of the forward momentum out of them; the bark nuggets fell to the ground far short of Chris even as he finished straightening up.

The woman frowned in worry as she realized her unique attack ability had been countered; she began throwing the bark nuggets as hard as she possibly could, hoping to overcome the force of Chris' shout and drive him back. Chris continued shouting as he trotted forward again, his eyes smirking even as he fought to keep his mouth from grinning. He'd be annoyed if her attacks got through because he stopped shouting as he smiled because her attacks couldn't get through.

Chris kept his focus though, shouting the momentum out of the thin woman's projectiles as he got closer, the bark chunks so slowed that they bounced harmlessly off him as he drew near. He swatted one aside that almost reached his face, and side-stepped one that was on a collision course with his groin—even a light impact there would be painful enough to disrupt his cry, not to mention entirely unpleasant in its own right.

"Okay, Stacy's a smart girl, said she's draining the heat out of the door. Alecia's bringing her a bucket of water to drain the heat into; she'll keep adding more," Josh reported as he closed his phone and re-clipped it to his waistband.

"Oops, steam sauna," Jamie chuckled. Kevin raised his head, causing Josh to visibly relax with relief.

"But that'll cool the door enough you can touch it," Kevin said, nodding to indicate he had heard Josh's report and giving his lover an apologetic smirk because he was about to force Josh into watching over his comatose body once more. "Come on, they're totally distracted. Elasticize your whole right arm and hand, and I'll get you touching the door," he told Jamie, then lowered his head and projected his astral form out of his body once more.

Kevin's astral form turned around and floated backward out past the other side of the sidewalk, where he could see both Josh and Jamie and the safehouse door, as well as the two GSAgent New Mutants arguing in front of it. Concentrating on Jamie's right arm, Kevin telekinetically stretched it past Josh to the corner of the safehouse's front wall, down at ground level. Another mental flex, and Jamie's hand had turned the corner, stretching along the ground immediately in front of the safe house.

Concentrating to maintain the position of Jamie's arm and hand, Kevin drifted forward, passing through the arguing Thermal Elemental and Frost Molecular as his lower "body" sank into the ground. Kevin reached forward and touched the lower corner of the safehouse's door, finding it to be uncomfortably warm, but not so hot it couldn't be touched. Turning to concentrate on Jamie's hand once more, Kevin telekinetically stretched Jamie's forefinger up to the door, then made its tip press against the door's corner.

Throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, the Asian man stepped back, pointing at the safehouse door demandingly.

"Just crack the damn door already!" he growled at his partner, giving up on trying to figure out her behavior. She shook her head angrily as she stepped forward, equally baffled by his yelling at her. Even as she summoned her Molecular ability, a blue glow gathering around her hands, Jamie was pushing his own Elastic ability into the door's molecular structure.

The woman threw both handfuls of her power at the door, sneering in anticipation of the superheated metal rending itself spectacularly when it was contracted by the sudden cold. . .her jaw dropped when nothing at all happened; the door didn't even frost over, much less shatter or grow the edged ice crystals her power normally generated.

Chris had closed most of the distance between himself and the Propulsive Molecular, but she continued to maintain her attack, not breaking and running despite the fact she could outdistance him almost instantly. Chris had a feeling she was still throwing bark nuggets because she knew he couldn't yell indefinitely. . .in fact, he was about to have to take a breath.

Just as Chris' shout began to wind down and he began to turn his unbruised side toward the thin woman, both of them were distracted by Owen's sudden cry of agony. Charlie's sneak attack had caught him completely by surprise, and the sensitivity of Owen's keen Feral senses made him all the more vulnerable to the pepper spray.

Even as Chris turned his head and saw Charlie renewing his attack on the suddenly-vulnerable Owen, the woman burst into action. She knew her own distraction by Owen's cry had given Chris the split-second he needed to draw a hasty new breath, so she turned to run because she had missed her opportunity to attack.

Chris had indeed replenished his lungs, and as the woman sprinted away, he shouted again, aiming his attack at her lower legs, just as she had been doing to him. As fast as she was, the Propulsive Molecular still couldn't run anywhere near the speed of sound; Chris' concussive cry slapped her legs out from under her, sending the thin woman tumbling to the ground at dozens of miles an hour.

Turning his back on the speedster and her resulting roadrash, Chris sprinted to help Owen.

Turning to snarl at Charlie, frustrated by his continuing evasions, Owen's world was suddenly on fire. Something wet had hit his face, but even as he noticed that fact, his vision had gone white, his eyes burning so badly he had immediately shut them as tight as he could, despite being in the middle of a fight. His nose was also ablaze, inside and out, his sinuses, his face, neck, throat, lungs...

Owen screamed, his senses overwhelmed by white-hot pain.

No stranger to pain thanks to his torture at the GSA's hands when they had first captured him, Owen was still too shocked by the suddeness of the experience to ride it out, and it was too intense to brace himself against it. He staggered backward, both hands rubbing at his eyes and face, unable to see or properly defend himself.

Charlie stepped forward and belted Owen in the stomach, grinning maliciously. Owen gasped from the punch, out loud in pain from the spray, and flailed one fist blindly in Charlie's direction. The Canine Feral easily ducked under it, snapping a kick out while he was low and knocking one of Owen's feet out from under him. Charlie twisted like a dog chasing its own tail as he rose, hooking the bridge of his foot behind Owen's ankle to pull him off-balance and punching him in the ribs at the same time. He would have slugged Owen in the face if he could have, but it was still covered by Owen's hands. Even so, the blow to the ribs was enough to knock Owen down when he was already off-balance on one foot.

Moving in to kick Owen in the side once he was down, Charlie froze when his world suddenly went silent. His head snapped up in alarm, his orange eyes blinking with panicked worry. His ears were still ringing from the short guy's screech, but that was the only thing he was hearing; had he gone deaf?!

Nostrils flaring as he caught a scent growing stronger, Charlie spun around to see Chris leaping into the air at him, out of a full-on sprint. He was still six feet away, and Charlie began to shift his stance, preparing to brace himself, to grab Chris out of mid-air and slam him bodily into the ground...

..When Chris returned sound to the area and shrieked at Charlie, as loud and shrill as he could.

Charlie cringed in the middle of shifting his weight, squinching his eyes shut as he yelped in pain and clamped his hands over his ears. Chris' motorcycle-booted feet shot out in a dropkick to Charlie's chest and solar plexus, smashing the wind out of him and knocking him flat on his back. Chris curled slightly to take the impact of his own landing with the padded leather of his biker jacket, slapping out of the fall with both hands to minimize its force. He kicked off the ground with both feet, rolling into a backwards somersault and back up onto his feet, then dashed to Owen's side.

"What happened?!" the Frost Molecular asked in shock, her eyebrows climbing her forehead in surprise.

"That's not right; I had it superheated to something like 2000 degrees!" the Thermal Elemental protested, stepping forward and laying a hand on the door. "It's chilled! Not enough to freeze, but it's cold!"

"But that's impossible!" she protested, blinking in surprise at the Asian man before turning to frown at the door again. "It should have shattered; we've done this before!" The woman's frown grew suspicious when she spotted the strange sight of Jamie's finger stretched in front of the safehouse to touch its door. It looked like a long, narrow band of flesh-colored chewing gum stretching along the ground, growing thicker behind the curled lump of Jamie's other fingers where it became the rest of his hand and then his forearm. "Wait, what's that—OOF!" she cried as she slammed into the safehouse's wall.

Crap, Kevin thought to himself when she noticed Jamie's finger, releasing his telekinetic grip on Jamie's hand and arm and shoving the Molecular into the safehouse wall with an idle mental impulse. He turned to deal with the Elemental, intending to punch the man with his astral fist and simultaneously fling him with his telekinesis. The woman's power couldn't hurt anyone she couldn't see, if she couldn't blast something next to them to grow her edged frost from. The man, on the other hand, could superheat the safehouse door again, which might be cold enough to cause damage to it, or he could fire past the corner Jamie's arm had come from, superheating the air around Jamie and Josh and Kevin's own body.

Unfortunately for Kevin, the Asian man and the dark-haired woman were indeed experienced partners. The moment she was flung off her feet, he knew they were under attack, from an opponent they couldn't see. He heaved himself into a backflip, evading Kevin's punch; Kevin had been counting on the contact of his astral fist to establish the mental contact for his telekinesis, much like boosting his strength with a telekinetic punch when he wasn't projecting. The Thermal Elemental's evasion effectively foiled both Kevin's attacks, even though the Asian man couldn't see either of them.

Heat was already visibly shimmering around the Elemental's fists as he landed; he swung both arms and threw both fistfuls of energy in broad arcs, because he didn't know his attacker's location. His dissipating blasts did not go far, but their broad dispersion superheated the air in front of him to hundreds of degrees.

Fortunately for Kevin, his astral form could not be harmed by the physical world, but he still experienced it. His astral form could see and hear normally, and even smell and taste, if he licked something. He could also feel anything his astral form touched, even though edges could not cut him, nor fire burn him. Although the heat didn't hurt him, the sudden sensation caught Kevin by surprise. His survival instincts were naturally to remove himself from a blazing area, and the disruption of his concentration due to surprise snapped Kevin's astral form back into his body.

"Owen! Owen!" Chris called out as he dashed to Owen's side, dropping to his knees and reaching out to lay one hand on Owen's shoulder, trying to reassure him. Owen was curled up on one side, gasping for breath and wheezing pained noises on his exhalations, rubbing at his face with his hands.

"Shit, Owen, that's pepper spray, you're rubbing the oils into your skin!" Chris told Owen desperately. Owen's face was incredibly red, particularly around his eyes, and his breathing was obviously labored because of the inflamed swelling of his mucus membranes. "You gotta stop, man, don't touch it; you're just making it last longer!"

Owen made a keening groan of pain, but he managed to pull his hands away from his face, curling them into fists, instead. He blinked, trying to look up at Chris, but he snapped his eyes shut again immediately, tears streaming from them even though they were squeezed tight.

"Nnnnngh. . .burns..." Owen ground out through his clenched teeth, his whole body trembling with the intensity of the painful sensations coursing through his overly-acute senses.

"I know, I know, man..." Chris replied with a worried frown, looking up to see if he could spot Kevin or Eve, but all he saw was the two New Mutants in front of the safehouse doing. . .something weird, but no help there, regardless. He glanced back down at Owen, trying to remember how to get pepper oil off. "Crap, he really got it all over you, too; I can see it on your collar. Get your shirt off, man; it's just holding the oils to your skin, same as your hands were."

Owen's hands were already tingling and burning from rubbing against his face, so he simply grabbed his tee shirt by its neck in both his fists. Extending his arms tore the shirt free, and Owen dropped both halves of the former garment at his sides.

"Okay man, don't touch, just keep blinking, try to wash the oils out of your eyes naturally, your vision'll come back faster. I'm gonna get Kevin, maybe he can TK it off or has something in his kit," Chris said hurriedly, glancing up to see one of the two GSAgents still fighting. "Hang on, Owen, be right back, I swear," Chris finished, giving Owen's shoulder a reassuring squeeze before sprinting away.

Jamie blinked as his hand and arm were suddenly released and snapped back to their ordinary shape; Josh grinned as the curly-haired Molecular's sudden cry came from the safehouse door.

"Showtime!" he declared happily, and leaped out past the corner of the safehouse, ready to take advantage of the distraction Kevin had provided. He wasn't thrilled that Kevin had startled the Molecular instead of the Elemental, but Josh was confident Kevin would have his back as he faced the man's heat powers.

Kevin's head jerked up as his body abruptly woke from his astral coma, his eyes snapping open just in time to see his lover leap out of sight around the corner. . .right in front of the Thermal Elemental, thinking he had Kevin's astral backup when he didn't.

"JOSH!" Kevin cried out in sudden panic, hoping his warning was in time.

Josh's head snapped around to glance back over his shoulder at Kevin's alarmed cry while he was still in mid-air. He immediately faced front again, realizing what was wrong. . .if Kevin was yelling, he was no longer astral projecting. That meant no backup, which meant Josh had just leaped into the line of fire, maybe literally.

Oops.

Fortunately for Josh, the Asian Elemental had just thrown both of his heat blasts, and it would take him a moment to generate more. He was already doing so, intending to superheat more of the air around himself in an effort to catch his partner's invisible attacker, who he realized must have been the one who pinched his ass before. That anger fueled his power, and he recognized Josh's longhaired leaping form as one of the Ferals he had shot at during the GSA's confrontation with Mutant X a few weeks earlier.

Even as the Thermal Elemental was focusing his concentration to gather heat around his hands, Josh was landing on the sidewalk between him and the street. Josh dropped into a crouch as he landed, immediately turning and springing away again, before the Elemental could get a shot off. Josh leaped over a dozen feet, to the trunk of a tree on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. Landing in another crouch, he leaped straight up, into the branches of the tree and disappearing from sight behind its foliage, hoping the leaves would absorb the heat if the enemy Elemental took a blind shot at him.

Josh's wild luck was swinging the other way, however, because the Asian man didn't need to know where Josh was within the tree. . .he simply shot the top of the tree's trunk, where it split into the three main boughs. The blazing thermal energy burned right through the tree, the radiant heat drying its wood so quickly that it burst into flame from the superheated air around it. The Elemental blast obliterated the height of the trunk, just beneath where it first split into branches.

Gripping the branch above him and bracing his feet against the one he was standing on as the treetop shuddered, Josh tensed himself to ride out the tree's fall. He swore non-stop in his head as the entire upper portion of the tree twisted and fell to the ground.

Frowning as he watched the fight unfold, Francis Chaplain briefly considered taking action, then refrained. The information he was gathering was more important. Besides, Nakamoto and Fulfer were experienced partners, and she was tougher than she looked. Chaplain doubted a simple bodyslam would take her out of the fight, even if she hadn't been expecting it. Chaplain could detect mental presences and was aware that there had been a mind hovering near her and Nakamoto, a mind that was not present in the young man with the medium-length hair seated in front of the next building over. He would have warned them, but he also recognized the longhaired Feral and the leaner young man with the wild dark hair. . .they had fought at the operation just a few blocks away less than a month ago; they were Mutant X.

Chaplain could possibly have used a mental illusion to influence the battle in his fellow GSAgents' favor, but there was too great a risk someone would realize that a Psionic was present. The intelligence he was gaining regarding the Mutant Underground and Mutant X's responses to a threat was what they were really there for; whether or not Fulfer and Nakamoto made it inside the safehouse was irrelevant. The knowledge Chaplain learned would enable their next action, the true assault, to be all the more effective.

Josh rode out the treetop's crash to the ground, finding the ride surprisingly gentle. The tree's outermost branches absorbed most of the fall's momentum and impact; clinging to the trunk halfway up the tree's height made it easy for Josh to hang on. He simply dangled by his arms and dropped to the ground once the tree stopped rolling, and the branches were still swaying up and down, meaning the motion of his drop wouldn't be noticed.

Carefully easing his way through the leaves and branches to avoid making an overt amount of noise or making anything move significantly enough to reveal his presence, Josh began picking his way to the right, away from the tree's trunk and hopefully away from the Thermal Elemental. He was fairly sure the tree had fallen towards the sidewalk and the safehouse, but he could hardly be certain. He knew Kevin and Jamie would be distracting the man in just a moment, but he was still inside a bunch of easily-ignited wood, and Josh knew if he tried to leap clear of the tree, the Elemental would just shoot him in mid-air, where he couldn't change direction to dodge.

Even as he was considering his predicament, Josh's luck suddenly nosedived.

Nakamoto unleashed his thermal charges into the tree's former top, setting almost a quarter of the tree's foliage on fire. Grinning malevolently, he immediately began building up twin fistfuls of heat once more, waiting for the Feral to charge out of the burning tree in his panic. A headlong rush in a straight line would make him a perfect target.

Heat, light, and smoke suddenly erupted in front of Josh, his throat seizing with an equal mix of panic and asphyxiation. He spun in place amidst the leaves and thrashed through the branches back the way he had come, intending to leap aside the instant he cleared the tree. He was hoping to use it as cover, that it might take the GSAgent's next blast, but his panicked mind was mostly just screaming at him to get out.

Josh slowed in confusion as refreshingly cool air washed over him, then threw himself flat on his back as razor-edged crystals of ice burst from the leaves and branches in front of him. The ice crystals stretched out as they grew, almost seeming to reach for Josh, and he scrabbled wildly to crab-walk backwards, trying to peer behind himself to watch out for the growing blaze but keep an eye on the approaching spears of ice at the same time.

Hyperventilating in panic, Josh dropped flat to his back once more as a blue glow surged somewhere in the background, causing the ice crystals to spear forward alarmingly. He grabbed the few that thrust up between his legs and at his chest, trying to grip them with his fingernails and shove them upward. The branches the ice grew from were thin and flexible enough to be bent; Josh kept the ice from skewering his torso, at the cost of painful lacerations to his fingertips.

"How do you want to go out, fire or ice, Baby?" Josh heard Fulfer's voice call out mockingly, silently cursing to himself that the GSAgents must have managed to spot where he was in the tree's branches.

Then Josh heard three things, almost simultaneously. The first was Jamie's voice, yelling for Josh to get out of there, to jump clear of the fire. Josh would have loved to, the fire was only feet from his head, but he was pinned under innumerable edges of ice, which only grew sharper as they melted thinner in the heat. Even as Jamie was yelling, Josh heard Kevin bellowing in outrage. There might have also been a cry or two of surprise, but Josh couldn't hear them over Jamie and Kevin, not to mention the massive amount of burning wood crackling behind his head.

The third thing Josh heard was Chris' Elemental scream, coming from far enough down the street that its initial concussion-wave had spread wide enough to impact the whole tree. Josh clamped his bleeding hands to his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the melting ice spears that clattered wetly against his chest in favor of trying to block out Chris' tremendous noise. He squinched his eyes open a crack when he realized he was hearing something else, frowning in confusion at the ringing sound. It was coming from all around him; he could hear it over Chris' power...

Josh's eyes widened in surprised alarm when he realized what was happening; he had only just squeezed them tightly shut again when all the ice crystals shattered, covering him in cold slush. Chris stopped shouting as Josh blinked the flecks of water and ice out of his eyes, then threw himself forward in a sit-up, jerking away from the fire that was nearly licking at his hair.

"JOSH, GET OUT OF THERE, YOU'RE CLEAR!!" Jamie shouted at the tree, desperately hoping Josh hadn't been shish-kebabed by the Molecular GSAgent's ice spears and couldn't move or something, he'd be burned alive, a Feral's worst nightmare...

The tree's branches that were formerly sideways and now standing straight up in the air thrashed violently as 175 pounds of panic-adrenalized Feline Feral leaped straight up through them. Even as his limbs began pinwheeling, realizing he was only falling back almost where he had started, Josh's attention was snapping to the street, looking for Kevin.

Kevin was still yelling furiously, his arms extended to direct the telekinetic movements of Nakamoto and Fulfer as he mentally restrained them. Kevin had Psionically seized both the GSAgents when he moved to the sidewalk and saw that they were using the tree as a target for their powers to reach Josh. He had telekinetically stretched their arms and legs into spread-eagle positions as he lifted them into the air, leaving them unable to direct their powers and helpless. Fearing Josh was already dead inside the blazing and ice-bristling tree, Kevin had bellowed his fury at the two enemy New Mutants, telekinetically spinning them faster and faster in aerial cartwheels until Nakamoto was sick and Fulfer was crying out for him to stop. Sneering angrily, Kevin telekinetically slammed the two of them into each other, then threw them into the brick wall of the safehouse.

Josh watched Kevin throw the GSAgents aside, hoping Kevin heard his leap through the remaining leaves of the treebranches and would turn to see him, telekinetically catch him before he crashed back into the tree. He was still coughing, didn't have his breath back yet, couldn't yell to Kevin. There were still leaves on the highest portion of the tree; Josh couldn't see past them to see where the branches were, so he might slam into them blindly or impale himself on a burned point below...

"Josh, just drop, it's okay!" Jamie yelled up at him, seeing the dawning distress on Josh's face as he fell back down into the tree. Jamie was at the base of the tree's top, one elastic arm stretched out where he had thrown his hand at the tree. Jamie was gripping the spot where the tree's three main boughs came together, just above where Nakamoto had burned the main trunk away. He was clenching his free fist in concentration, focusing on the sensation of pushing his elastic ability into the tree's molecular structure. The tree's top was quite large, but it wasn't too massive, consisting mostly of thin branches, and most of the leaves had been burned away or cracked off with the ice. Wood was also organic, carbon-based, so its long-chain molecules became elastic ever so much more easily than stone or metal did.

Twisting to get his feet beneath him as he hit the tree, Josh grabbed the first branches he fell past, trying to hold on to make the tree absorb some of his downward momentum. He blinked in surprise as the first heavy branch he hit sagged beneath him, and the smaller branch he grabbed stretched up behind him as he continued to fall. The rubbery heavy branches reduced his speed but bent out of Josh's way instead of being fixed objects to smash into, and the smaller branch he held acted like a bungee cord, also slowing his fall. Josh let go of the little branch when he had almost stopped, only a few feet above the ground. He dropped the rest of the way, then carefully made a more controlled jump at an angle out of the tree, landing on the sidewalk near Kevin.

"Josh..!" Kevin choked out, the relief clear on his face as he stepped forward. He reached out with both his hands and his mind as he approached Josh, telekinetically pulling his lover into his arms. "Josh," Kevin murmured into Josh's hair as he held Josh close, wrapping his arms tightly over Josh's back. Kevin could feel the tremors in Josh's frame; he was still shaking from how close he had come to being trapped in the blaze.

"I got you, I got you Igotyou..." Kevin soothed, running his hands up and down Josh's back as Josh quietly gasped wordless sounds of terror and anguish and relief into Kevin's chest. They stood that way for a few moments, both their voices gradually growing even softer as they relaxed, Josh straightening up from Kevin's chest to embrace him properly.

Not quite an hour later, the team was finally getting itself back to rights. Once Chris had explained Owen's predicament, Kevin had been able to use his astral perceptions to telekinetically remove most of the pepper spray from Owen's skin, but it was too mixed with his tears for Kevin to get it out of his eyes. Josh had helped Jamie back to Eve's Cruiser, then grudgingly got in the passenger side of his Sunfire when Kevin insisted he was still too shaken to drive, to make no mention of his bleeding fingers. Josh folded his arms tightly across his chest as he sulked, to hide the trembling in his bloodied hands. They'd had to leave before the police arrived; what they did not know was that Chaplain concealed his teammates' presences so that the police found nothing but a destroyed tree.

Once the team had returned to Haven, Kevin cleaned the cuts on Josh's fingertips and sealed them with medical glue, which would be much less obvious and dexterity-impairing than bandages. He then took Josh back up to the penthouse to "relax" and help put the trauma of the fire behind him. Eve gave Owen a light dosage of anti-inflammatory drugs to ease his breathing and flushed his eyes with a steady stream of saline for several minutes. Jamie patiently waited for Eve to examine his leg and make sure he hadn't re-injured it, rambling at Owen to keep him distracted while Eve worked. Chris answered the phone a few minutes later, pleasantly surprised to find Eloy waiting in the elevator to deliver a meal since the team had been diverted from their lunch to rescue Stacy.

Owen had declared himself starving when Chris announced food had arrived, and Eve had frowned in suspicion of his new healing-coma ability, wondering if it was gearing up to restore his capsicum-traumatized systems. She busily attached electrodes and took blood samples while Jamie finished flushing Owen's eyes and Chris served the food. Jamie had laughingly declared that Josh and Kevin were "obviously otherwise occupied" and would have to feed themselves later; Owen had immediately claimed dibs on their portions of Eloy's meal.

After eating, Owen had indeed dropped into the deep sleep of his healing dormancy state, and Jamie got Chris to help him to the lounge area after Eve made sure he hadn't ruptured anything. Jamie propped his injured leg up on the arm of the sofa as he began channel surfing, and Chris returned to the medical lab to see what Eve was up to while she waited on the test results of Owen's new regenerative ability.

"He's gonna be good, right?" Chris asked as he rejoined Eve, giving Owen's still-reddened face a worried glance. "Like last time, wake up healed?"

"Almost certainly," she replied with a nod, glancing from her screen's readouts to give Chris a quick smile of reassurance. "The only possible concern is the acuity of his Feral senses making him more sensitive to the pepper spray's effects, but even without his healing coma he would recover fully in time. Pepper spray is used to deter attacking bears in the wild, after all, but the effects are still temporary. His regenerative dormancy just means he'll be completely recovered in practically no time, not just gradually getting his eyesight back and the burning to pass."

"Okay, good," Chris replied with a sigh of relief, glancing back from Owen's still form when Eve's phone rang with the tone that meant one of the original team's commrings had dialed it.

"Talk to me, Shal," Eve answered her phone after checking its display to see which member of the team was calling.

'Hi, Eve,' Shalimar replied in a dejected voice. 'No luck, unfortunately. We checked all the safehouses, checked with Ruby, the Benedicts, Vince and Alison, Dr. Marcus. . .no sign of Adam, no one's heard a thing,' she reported with a sigh. 'We're splitting up; Jesse's going to try hacking through the safehouse network to see if Adam's left any sign. Brennan's going to contact Senator Morrison and see if Adam thought to go there, and Lexa is trying Adam's other government contacts, using her old ones as cover,' she continued. ' I'm going to check out the areas we know he used when he was in hiding; if the Dominion couldn't find him there then, they might be good places for him to go now.'

"Well, it's only been a few days. It may take Adam some time to get back to New York," Eve said, trying to console Shalimar's obviously depressed spirit. "The middle of nowhere in North Dakota may be closer to LA than it is to New York, but it would still be pretty hard for him to get here untraceably. And he would obviously have to move cautiously and carefully to evade the Dominion, which would take time even if he did head for New York. Even with the Creator dead, I'm sure they're still looking for Adam."

'Which is why we need to find him right away!' Shalimar huffed with frustration. 'If only he still had his commring, or a cellphone that we knew about, something we could track with the Helix...' Shalimar sighed again as she trailed off, trying not to give up hope. 'Well, we're going to keep looking, regardless. Just wanted to keep you guys updated,' she finished glumly.

"Okay, Shal. Don't give up hope; Adam's free, and he evaded the Dominion for a year; I'm sure he can keep ahead of them long enough to communicate with us at the least, and once he does that, we should be able to go pick him up, no problem."

Eve didn't bother to mention the fact that if Adam could have simply called them from a payphone somewhere and had the team come pick him up in the Helix, he probably would have already. She was fairly sure he must have a good reason for not having done so, probably evading active pursuit by the Dominion, but she didn't see any need to depress Shalimar or the others more by mentioning it. Shalimar was probably already thinking it anyway, which was why she was so frustrated and worried that they had missed their chance to rescue him.

Her brilliant mind suddenly recalling something she knew Shalimar had expressed interest in and knowing that the rest of the team would enjoy it as well, Eve made a quick executive decision.

"Alright, you guys go ahead and follow up on whatever leads you can out there, but get back here by six o'clock our time, nine in New York," Eve told Shalimar, making sure the grin of anticipation was audible in her voice.

'Get back. . .um, okay, I guess we don't need to spend the night out here, and I don't think anyone wants to unless we know it's going to pay off—but what do you need us for at six?' Shalimar asked, clearly confused.

"Well, we had a little excitement over lunch, some of the GSAgents we fought the night you guys got here followed Stacy to the safehouse. We took care of them without too much fuss, but after everything the team's been through lately, I think we need to relax, count our blessings. Adam's free; the Creator's dead; Kevin, Owen, and Jamie's growth spurts are stable; Josh survived the Creator's virus. . .I'm taking you all out, at seven. You guys just get back here in time to clean up and change, and we're going to go out and enjoy ourselves," Eve declared, with a determined tone to her voice that would not be denied.

'Uhhm, are we going out to the Singing Fish again?' Shalimar asked hesitantly. 'Or a movieplex? Because I don't think we've got the wardrobe for dinner or a club, unless Lexa bought herself some when she was shopping last week.'

"Don't worry about it," Eve replied with a smile, her genius intellect already finished considering the necessary factors and plotting how to deal with them. She found it pleasantly cathartic to be plotting for proactive good instead of trying to deal with the latest crisis. "The four of you get back here before seven, and I'll take care of the rest."

'Okay, Eve,' Shalimar answered, with maybe a hint of a smile or at least of relief in her voice. 'That sounds. . .nice, actually. Other than the Singing Fish and Chris' enormous catered breakfast, I don't think we've really relaxed since before we left New York.'

"Then you could definitely use it," Eve replied with a satisfied smile. "We'll see you guys when you get back."

'Okay, see you then,' Shalimar replied, then disconnected.

"What are you up to?" Chris asked curiously as Eve opened a web browser on the medical lab's computer.

"Retail therapy for the girls, and appealing to the guys' hearts in the best way," Eve replied with a smirk as she began shopping online with one hand and dialed a contact on her phone with the other.

"What–" Chris frowned in confusion for a second, then his expression shifted into a grin. "Oh, through our stomachs, gotcha." Chris frowned again an instant later, scowling at Eve and making her grin even before he asked: "Wait, does this mean we're dressing up to go out to dinner? You're going to make us wear ties, aren't you?"

Eve gave a Chris an affirmative wink that only made his scowl deepen as her phonecall was answered.

'Hi, Eve,' Anne Smith answered. 'What's up?'

"Hi, Anne; I've got a crazy question for you," Eve said into her phone as she turned away from Chris, clicking on a number of articles of clothing in the online store. "I know you've only met the original team twice, but you're a visual thinker what with your illusions and all, and you run a boutique at the mall. . .do you think you can tell me their clothing sizes? Or if you can get me in touch with the New York branch of the Underground, I know they replaced some of the team's clothing after Sanctuary was destroyed, but I'm in kind of a hurry. I'm planning a surprise."

'Ohh, I totally know this!' Anne replied with an audible grin in her voice, delighted at the coincidence that enabled her to help. 'Just a sec, lemme think..."

Chris smiled softly to himself as Eve began clicking on the appropriate sizes of her selections with Anne's advice, shaking his head as he crossed his arms over his stocky chest and waited for Eve to finish. It was a gamble whether or not he could get her to tell him the rest of her plan before she announced it to the others, but she'd already told him some of it, and he wanted to give her a good-natured needling, besides.

"What?" Eve asked as she put her phone away, shooting Chris a look before turning back to her screen to finish her purchase. "Anne said she could feel you lurking in the background, waiting to pick on me."

Chris snickered.

"Nah, not pick on you. . .I'm just amused by the Shriek Queen solving her problems by throwing money at them," he explained with a teasing grin as Eve finished arranging for her purchases from various LA businesses to be delivered to the Majestic by the end of the business day. All for a substantial additional fee, of course.

"That's. . .funny?" Eve questioned, frowning slightly at Chris in confusion.

"Well, no, more like confusing," Chris answered with a shrug. "But you're the boss and your nickname dubs you 'Queen', so wielding your sovereign power through finance instead of being a brainiac about it is at least a little funny. If weird," he finished.

Eve pondered Chris' response for a moment, continuing to frown, then shook her head because she still didn't get it.

"How is my buying the New York team clothes to go out in confusing and weird?" she asked Chris, having no idea why he would feel that way about it. "They have almost nothing, including clothes, and I have cash to spare and then some. What's strange about my using it for them?"

"Oh, nothing really, I guess," Chris replied, shrugging again. "I mean, you spend money on us all the time, why not the rest of the team? It's just weird to me that it's your first response, that you think of your finances as just another tool to use." Chris smirked at Eve, his dark eyebrows lowering into a smug expression. "Spending cash you don't even think about isn't half as weird as calling a Psionic to make sure you're spending it correctly. . .why didn't you just check their closets for their sizes?"

"Chris!" Eve admonished, frowning at him. "I'm not going to go violating their privacy when there's other options! Heck, Jamie might know, if it ever came up while he was at Sanctuary, what with his memory and all." Eve's frown shifted to an evaluating look as she considered Chris' poker face. "And you're bluffing, trying to throw me off the track. Why does me spending my money on the original team bother you?"

She almost wondered if Chris were somehow jealous that she would use her resources for the original team as well as theirs, but that was ridiculous. Chris himself had used her money to order the whole team their giant breakfast the week before. The whole team used Eve's income every time they used any of the hotel's amenities, reducing the rent the Majestic owed her on the parking garage. What was the problem?

"No, it's not the spending it on the others..." Chris said as he shifted uncomfortably, his mildly embarrassed flush apparent on his pale face despite its faintness. "..It's just. . .being able to spend the money at all, just having cash on hand to drop on a problem without thinking about it like that– —it's weird, for me." Chris forced himself to meet Eve's eyes as he finished his explanation, but it was clear that he wished he was somewhere else.

Understanding clicked in Eve's mind, and her expression softened from confusion into sympathy, but she carefully avoided pity.

"Because of your past?" she asked quietly, more to let Chris realize she understood, knowing she was correct. "Your family never had excess cash to handle unexpected problems with, did they?"

Chris snorted in disdain, using the motion as a convenient excuse to break eye contact.

"We never had any excess cash," he muttered, eyes hard and distant as he remembered some of the more difficult portions of his childhood. He turned back to meet Eve's eyes once more, the depth of pain in his darker ones marking the sincerity of his next statement: "We rarely had the bare minimum of 'enough'."

Chris had a tendency to speak flippantly about his past, to dismiss it through humorous exaggeration, but he wasn't embellishing it at all at the moment. Eve knew of his past, knew his family had often been starving and occasionally homeless, that Chris had frequently given too much of his own food to his younger sisters because he knew he was stronger. His being a New Mutant let him mature without severe complications, but he had still never grown taller than 5'7" and was nearsighted, an unheard of condition for a New Mutant. He had been a night-shift warehouse worker when the GSA had almost captured him; it had been his sonic blast that enabled Jamie and Owen to fight off the well-equipped squad of GSAgents. Fearing more for his loss of income for his family than of being captured by the GSA, he'd been happy to join Eve's Mutant X team, using the stipend she provided to aid his family, instead.

"Does my money. . .make you uncomfortable?" Eve asked with a worried frown, having never realized their opposite backgrounds might disturb Chris. Evelyn Aybel had been born to wealthy parents, attended private schools befitting her prodigy intellect, and supplemented the trust funds from her childhood with a number of patents as well as owning the property the Majestic's parking garage was built on. She had known financial privilege all her life and had never experienced fiscal hardship, much less ongoing poverty like the Fitzpatrick family had.

"No, no of course not," Chris exclaimed, the pain in his expression shifting to alarm that he had worried Eve needlessly. "Eve, seriously, your money has quite literally made me comfortable, more than I've ever been in my life. You know I send most of the monthly stipend you give me back to my mother and sisters, and that's the way I want it. My littlest sis is still in high school, and it's only thanks to your generosity and cash that the older ones are going to community college." Chris shook his head, trying to find the words for what he was trying to say. "I'm thankful for your money, Eve, and your generosity with it," he said, meeting her eyes again as he leaned forward to put one hand over the back of hers, expressing the intensity of his gratitude. "I just. . .can't even begin to conceive of it. Of just having money at hand like that." Chris tipped his head to one side and closed his eyes as he stepped back again, shrugging as he released Eve's hand. "Maybe my mom's getting used to the idea; the girls all have jobs now, too, so times are better than when I was a kid. But it's still all weird to me."

"I understand, Chris," Eve told him, nodding slightly as she met his gaze once more. "I mean, I have no real idea of what your past was like, or even of what poverty is really like. . .but I'll bet you adapt to changing circumstances better than I do. Money hasn't kept my life from having turmoil in it, but it's made it have less, certainly. You're better at rolling with the punches than I am."

"Oh, please," Chris laughed, breaking the somber mood and glad to do so. "Staying on top of and keeping up with the bunch of us crazies says you're pretty darn good at adapting to wildly changing circumstances, Professor Posh," Chris told her, still snickering. "Not to mention discovering Genomex's dark side and getting out without raising alarm, to say nothing of single-handedly defeating the assassin the GSA later sent after you and then disappearing and relocating to LA. You may have had Adam's example to follow, but I think that still puts you up the ranks of 'rolling with the punches'."

Chris grinned as Eve took her turn at blushing in embarrassment, nodding sheepishly to admit he had a point.

"Okay, I'm gonna go see if I can figure out a fancy outfit to go out to dinner in that doesn't involve a necktie or three-piece suit," Chris declared as he turned to leave the medical lab, waving over his shoulder. "Or even a two-piece one, if I can help it..."

At seven o'clock that evening, Mutant X entered Benedetti's Italian Restaurant and were swiftly escorted to the table for ten reserved for "Aybel". They were dressed up for a formal dinner, the men wearing silk or fine linen shirts with ties that matched their dark slacks –except for Chris, who wore a vest with no tie or jacket accompanying it– and the women wearing the latest fashionable dresses in different colors, all in similar but slightly different cuts.

Eve's dress was a warm golden-brown that complimented both her eyes and her hair, which was tucked back with a golden comb at the nape of her neck, to keep it out of her face for once. Shalimar wore a spaghetti-strapped dress that was a deep shade of scarlet, her hair swept up in a chignon at the back of her head and bearing little resemblance to her prior appearance at Benedetti's, where she had made a spectacle of herself as a distraction while Jesse rescued Lexa. Lexa's low-cut dress was made of a sleek black material that shimmered with silver highlights as she moved; Eve had bought her a fancy dress to match everyone else's even though Lexa had already replaced some of her wardrobe. Jamie was in her female form and wearing a teal dress with a full, pleated skirt, to hide the knee brace she was wearing beneath it. It would have shown under male dress slacks, and as Owen's "date" she could support some of her weight on his offered arm instead of her injured leg.

Owen was wearing black slacks with a matching tie over a silk shirt an even darker red than Shalimar's dress; the shirt was tailored to fit his enormously wide shoulders and tapered to his narrow waist, the v-lines of his muscular physique simultaneously accentuated and concealed by the silk. Jesse wore a crisp, light blue shirt that was remarkably close to the color of his eyes, along with navy slacks and a narrow matching tie. Brennan had on a form-fitting black silk shirt with a dark grey tie and fitted slacks, the ensemble's lines drawing attention to his height. Chris' slacks and shirt were black, but the vest he was wearing over the linen shirt was a deep royal purple with black pinstripes on its front, its back panel cut from shiny satin that was so much darker than the front it was almost black as well.

Kevin's tie and slacks were black, the silk shirt he wore with them a deep indigo that shone with brighter cobalt highlights, particularly across his broad shoulders as he walked. He was holding hands with Josh, who was wearing a pale grey silk shirt that shifted with darker grey shadows under the lines of his arms, chest, and shoulderblades, with his slacks and tie a medium shade of grey. The two of them were smiling, pleased as always to be reminded of their first meeting, but that wasn't why Kevin was holding Josh's hand. He would be picking at the clearcoat of cyanoacrylate medical glue over his fingertips if Kevin wasn't keeping one of his hands occupied.

"Joshua!" a resonant, accented voice called out as the group was reaching their table, a stout man clearly of Italian descent striding towards them with his arms thrown wide in welcome. He wore the same white shirt and black slacks as the rest of his staff, but the owner wore a black tie and vest over them. "So good to see you again! Welcome back, and welcome to all your friends, as well!" Mr. Benedetti enthused as he took Josh's right hand in both of his own, turning to shine his beaming smile at the rest of the group.

"Buongiorno, Mr. B. It's a pleasure to see you again," Josh replied with a smile that was honest as well as polite, but Jesse had seen his jaw flex with tension when Mr. Benedetti used his full first name, and the happiness in his eyes had dimmed slightly, although it was still clearly present, just reduced.

"Please, all of you, sit, sit!" Mr. Benedetti insisted as he released Josh's hand and stepped back, raising his own in a gesture at the table. "Ten of you, five lovely couples, counting Joshua and his Kevin," the restaurant owner proclaimed, still smiling widely and obviously pleased to see his former employee and the partner he had met while working there a year and a half before. "Please, three appetizers of your choice, on the house!" he declared as they sat, pairing off male and female despite the lack of dating between any of those couples. Josh had his back to Mr. Benedetti as he pulled out both his and Kevin's chairs, the irritated purse of his lips hidden from his former employer's view. "What would you like, or do you need a menu?" the happy man asked, gesturing a wait person to hand out menus as the group finished seating themselves.

"We'll have whatever you would recommend this evening, unless your former employee has a preference you're aware of that I am not. I haven't known him that long," Jesse said to Mr. Benedetti in fluent Italian, meeting the man's eyes and smiling politely, but his own eyes were showing a slightly different emotion. It was a hint of smugness at his being able to show off, but it shifted into a reproachful gaze that only Mr. Benedetti would interpret, because he could understand Jesse's next words: "I am sure, however, that he would rather have your respect."

"Why do you say this?" Mr. Benedetti asked, his eyes confused and questioning, but the expression could be interpreted as surprise at Jesse's command of the language rather than the particulars of what he was saying. Jesse was chastising him without embarrassing him before his patrons and employees, which Benedetti appreciated, but he did not understand why Jesse was doing so in the first place. "How do I disrespect him? I am not mocking his relationship with his partner, saying he is 'his'; I am quite proud they found each other in my establishment," he finished, frowning only with his eyes.

"Then has he never asked that you not use his full name?" Jesse asked, raising a doubtful eyebrow. "Has he never complained of someone using it in your hearing?" he continued, his expression shifting to a satisfied smirk when his second question cut off whatever response Benedetti began to open his mouth to make. "Perhaps he did not request such a thing of you, since you were his employer," Jesse went on pleasantly, but Benedetti could tell by the inflection of his words that it was a sarcastic pleasantry, setting up his point. "If so, he was showing respect to you by not opposing his superior's actions. But you are no longer his employer, and you diminish his happiness at returning here by using the name he does not want. His reasons for doing so are neither your nor my business, but that does not mean we should not respect his wishes," Jesse finished, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands on the table, his firm blue gaze never leaving Benedetti's slightly surprised eyes.

Mr. Benedetti lowered both his eyes and his head in a small show of respect and acknowledgment to Jesse, then met his gaze again as he politely and formally asked:

"Young man, what is your name?"

Jesse blinked in surprise, wondering if the man was about to have him thrown out of his restaurant. Lexa's description of the wait staff's unusual hairstyles and Benedetti's acceptance of both California's peculiarities and of Josh and Kevin had made Jesse think the man would welcome his carefully polite criticism, had he been wrong?

"Jesse," he answered, schooling his face to maintain its expression of slight surprise, rather than shifting to a frown of worry. Benedetti nodded again, to himself in thought, and stepped around from behind Josh's chair to the foot of the table, where he could face his former employee.

"Josh, your new friend Jesse is a very wise young man, and I wish to thank you for the work you did for me previously, and the respect you showed me while you did it." He reached forward to put a tentative hand on Josh's shoulder, a physically affectionate Italian who was now making sure he did not accidentally cross any lines because he was blinded by his own assumptions, as he had done in the past. "Thank You, my son."

Josh blinked up at Mr. Benedetti in surprise, momentarily so confused he was at a loss for words, shot Jesse a look with a frown of wonder, then blinked again as he looked up at his former boss once more. "Grazie, Sir." With a slower blink as the back of his mind considered his past at the restaurant, even before meeting Kevin, Josh's expression shifted to a smile. "Thank you for everything here."

Mr. Benedetti grinned, a beaming Italian smile, and shifted his gaze to include Kevin as well as Josh. "You are most welcome, Josh. It was Fate that introduced you to your soulmate that day, but I am proud to have been its agent. I believe you served Kevin bruschetta and paella Italiana with sausage the day you met, yes? One of your appetizers shall be the bruschetta, and an entree of the paella for the two of you is free as well," he said firmly, then straightened to face the table at large. "Now, two other appetizers, what would you all enjoy?"

Mutant X spent the next few hours enjoying appetizers of bruschetta, filone bread cubes with olive oil and Parmesan cheese for dipping, and antipasto platters of prosciutto, olives, artichoke hearts, and mozzarella, as well the paella, eggplant parmigiana and "regular" entrees of spaghetti with meat sauce, lasagna, and Sicilian pizza, served in authentic Italian styles instead of the familiar American versions. Traditional Italian dining consisted of large portions fit for more than one person, to be passed amongst the diners, and the members of Mutant X aside from Josh and Lexa were astounded by both how different and how fantastic everything was.

Finally, when the restaurant was closing in less than an hour, the team enjoyed a dessert course with a gelati platter of various gelato flavors and an assorted dessert platter of granita, panna cotta, semifreddo, and zuccotto, as well as a plate of tiramisu. Owen and Shalimar exchanged a glance as Jamie passed the second platter to him; Shalimar smirked, and Owen shrugged, admitting that he didn't know what anything he was looking at was, but it all smelled good. "It does," Shalimar agreed with an emphatic nod, remembering how the restaurant had smelled just as wonderful during her brief first visit, which was why she had wanted so much to return. Lexa smiled on Shalimar's other side and explained the dessert platter.

"Granita is like an Italian ice, but usually not as smooth," she said, pointing to the bowls of colorful semi-frozen liquid. "Panna cotta is a cross between ice cream and gelatin that you have to try to believe," she went on, indicating the white confections topped with vanilla bean seeds and drizzled with chocolate or red berry sauces. "Semifreddo is a gelato-cake, like a frozen mousse," Lexa said as she pointed at an obviously chocolaty treat topped with a puff of whipped cream and a curl of dark chocolate. "And zuccotto is a chilled mix of cake layered with ice cream and soaked in brandy."

"Well, Hell," Shalimar muttered, staring down at the platter and handing the plate of tiramisu on to Lexa, since they could get that anytime, even if it probably wouldn't be as authentic or good. "How the heck am I supposed to CHOOSE?" she asked with a frown.

After their dinner had been finished and Mr. Benedetti himself had presented Eve with the bill (at the other side of the head of the table, Chris had simply held one upraised palm at Eve when Mr. Benedetti approached with the billfold containing their check,) the group rose and gave grateful goodbyes to the restaurant owner as he handed the bill off to the closing manager and gave Eve back her dining card. Smiling while Lexa complimented Mr. Benedetti on the authenticity of his cuisine, Josh unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and pushed them up past his elbows. Tucking the end of his tie between two buttons of his shirt as two of his former co-workers grinned at him and finished bussing and clearing Mutant X's tables, Josh began flipping their chairs up onto their tables while Jesse paid his respects to Mr. Benedetti in Italian. When Jamie chuckled at Josh's happily nostalgic smile and Mr. Benedetti caught sight of Kevin's grin, he turned to see Josh performing his old duties and began protesting. Josh merely smiled wider, shaking his head as he continued stacking chairs, then plucked his tie free and straightened his sleeves when he finished, and approached Mr. Benedetti.

"Thanks again, Mr. B," Josh said with great sincerity, grinning as he hugged the older man, then picked him up and moved him aside as one of the employees returned with a pushbroom to sweep beneath their chair-bedecked tables, amusing everyone.

"And still so strong!" Mr. Benedetti laughed as Josh set him down, still grinning happily at his former boss. "You keep up with your martial arts, I assume? Perhaps your stuntwork?" the Italian man asked with a smile.

"Oh yeah, fights and falls; I'm still an action junkie," Josh replied with a shrug, not at all minding being thought of as such. Kevin and Owen snickered at Josh's complete honesty that still didn't reveal how he was using his fighting and acrobatic skills.

"Well, it has been very good to see you again, Josh, and a pleasure serving you and your friends," Mr. Benedetti answered, giving a nod of his head to Kevin, then Jesse and the rest of the team.

"It was wonderful, Sir," Josh answered. "Life's been the difficult sort of interesting lately, and we needed to step back and count our blessings. I don't think we could have found a better way." He offered his hand, and Mr. Benedetti shook it firmly, with both of his own. "Thank you again, and we'll have to come back soon."

"We shall look forward to it!" Mr. Benedetti insisted happily. "Arrivederci, i miei amici."

"Goodbye, Mr. B," Josh replied with a wave and a smile as Kevin took his other hand, turning to leave with the rest of their friends.

Taking to heart Eve's admonishment that they needed to relax, the next morning found Jesse and Brennan using the Majestic's indoor pool. Although nowhere near Olympic-sized, it was a large pool to one side of the building's ground floor, opposite the restaurant. The outdoor pool and sundeck were at the rear of the building, but because the temperature was still around 70 degrees in early October, the indoor pool was usually less crowded. Jesse had been swimming laps by himself, grateful again to Eve for having thought to purchase the New York team swimsuits, when he was surprised by Brennan's joining him in the pool.

"Well, howdy, Stranger," Jesse said with an amused smile as he swam up to the edge of the pool's shallow end and stood, smoothing his wet hair back out of his eyes. Brennan smirked back at him and dove cleanly into the pool, at an angle to avoid striking the shallow bottom. His dark form skimmed along the floor of the pool as he turned around and came back up next to Jesse, standing and sleeking his own hair back. "I didn't think you really did pools, what with the whole water/electricity thing," Jesse told Brennan as the taller man returned his arms to the water, smirking at him as Brennan rolled his eyes.

"Please, it's not like I avoid water at all costs," Brennan snorted, raising one hand from the pool's surface to fling a bit of water at Jesse's chest. "I do shower, you know," he said with a smile.

"Well, sure," Jesse conceded, nodding. "But then you dry off, good to go. I mean, nobody's gonna be at their best and using their powers well if they get attacked in the bathroom, right?" he asked with a rhetorical shrug. "It's just a little surprising to see you soaking yourself in public."

"Eh, this is me relaxing," Brennan replied with a shrug of his own. "Eve went and bought us swim trunks and everything, and Shal said that you had come up here; I figured, why not?" Brennan cocked his head and looked at Jesse curiously, water dripping from his slightly shaggy hair and falling to his chest, disappearing into the wetness on his muscles instead of rolling down them visibly. "Shal said you came up here almost an hour ago; have you just been doing laps this whole time?" Brennan asked.

Jesse just shrugged in response, glancing away from Brennan as if it were irrelevant. Brennan knew Jesse better than that, however, and recognized the tell for what it was, a sign that the question had made Jesse slightly uncomfortable.

"What is it, Jess?" Brennan asked quietly, gently. "What are you trying to work through, here?"

Jesse turned away from Brennan and kicked off the side of the pool's wall, returning to his swimming laps back and forth across the pool. Brennan knew how Jesse thought, knew him well enough to recognize that the tactic was not avoidance of the question but a way to keep himself busy as Jesse tried to figure out his answer. Brennan was aware that Jesse could be an interesting mix of contradictions; he could brood like a master, even while wearing a face that found the fun in whatever everyone was doing. It was possible Jesse wasn't even sure what was specifically bothering him, but Brennan doubted it. He'd been up here swimming by himself and thinking about it too long for that to be the case.

Figuring that Jesse was just trying to decide how much he felt like revealing, Brennan decided to convince him that he could share whatever he wanted; Brennan wouldn't judge him, had no place to be pointing any fingers. He knew Jesse knew that, so he just needed to be reminded. Brennan waited for Jesse to complete his first lap, returning to the edge of the pool's shallow end, then joined him on the next lap, swimming side by side. Brennan used a sidestroke, facing Jesse and keeping his head above water to see when Jesse decided to open up; his longer and stronger limbs let Brennan keep up with Jesse's leisurely front crawl.

After a couple more laps, Jesse shifted to a sidestroke himself, facing Brennan. Brennan met Jesse's frowning eyes, keeping his own expression neutral but encouraging, slowing his pace to match Jesse's new one. They finished the lap still in tandem, and Brennan shifted to stand in the shallow end again when Jesse did so.

"It's..." Jesse began to explain, his expression shifting to pained turmoil, then dropped his gaze from Brennan's and shook his head, starting again. "It's just the frustration. Not finding Adam, not hearing a thing from him; he could have sent an untraceable email the minute he got an online connection..." Jesse trailed off with a sigh, looking up to meet Brennan's understanding eyes once more. Seeing the knowing sympathy in Brennan's expression broke Jesse's resolve, and he turned away with a violent splash of water.

"You don't get it, Brennan," Jesse snarled through his teeth as he clenched his hands over the lip of the pool in a grip so fraught with tension his knuckles were white. Brennan knew Jesse's anger and frustration were with whatever situation was bothering him, not Brennan's apparent lack of understanding, but he knew that his misguided sympathy had opened the gate of Jesse's reservations about sharing. He didn't say anything, merely stepped forward and put one hand on the back of Jesse's shoulder, letting the younger man know that he was there for him, ready to listen to his explanation, his worries.

"Without– –without Adam—" Jesse said so quietly Brennan could barely hear him over the lapping of the pool's water at its edge, "–We're all going to die. All except me." Jesse's voice shook at the start of his last sentence; he forced the quaver out of his throat as he finished it, but that only sent the tremor into his frame instead of his voice, which Brennan could feel with his hand on Jesse's back. Jesse turned slightly to meet Brennan's eyes over his shoulder, pretending that the redness and water in them was just from the pool.

"I. . .I don't think I can go through that, Bren. I couldn't handle it. We have to find Adam; we know a New Mutant's expiry date is proportionate to their power level, look at Ashlocke..." Jesse trailed off with a choked noise, tears visibly welling over his lower eyelids as his trembling grew so bad drops of water were shaken off the tips of his longish hair where it stuck out from his neck.

"Jess, Jesse, hey, shhhh..." Brennan urged, alarmed concern on his face as he used his grip on Jesse's shoulder to turn the shorter man around, putting his free hand on Jesse's other shoulder. "C'mon, Man, what is it?" Brennan asked softly when Jesse's eyes dropped to Brennan's wet chest instead of meeting his worried eyes.

"Why me, Bren?" Jesse asked hopelessly, his eyes far away as he stared through Brennan's pectorals. Brennan wasn't sure what to say; he just held Jesse's shoulders more firmly. Jesse looked up, his blue eyes glassy with long-term panic as he desperately searched Brennan's for reassurance he already knew Brennan didn't actually have to offer. "We die young, Brennan, except for me, now. The more powerful we are, the younger we die? Why me? Why me first; your powers are way stronger than mine. Why Lexa next; she's never even had a power growth spurt!" Jesse went on, the volume of his voice rising as he got more upset. "Is Lexa that much more powerful than Shal? Than you? Are you guys gonna start falling apart any day now, too? Josh is my age, Chris is around yours; are they next? Jamie and Owen and Kevin are younger, but they're all going through their growth spurts, getting more powerful; what about them??"

"Jesse," Brennan said forcefully, shaking Jesse's shoulders the slightest bit, just enough to keep him from working himself up any farther. "Jess, calm down. I don't know, okay? I don't know how to say who's more powerful than whoever else. How do you compare a Feral's power level to an Elemental's? Apples and oranges, Man, totally different even if we're all fruit."

The laugh startled out of Jesse at Brennan's phrasing was just what Brennan had been hoping for; he glanced up over Jesse's head when the door to the pool room opened and saw Josh and Kevin entering, which only made him grin as he stepped back from Jesse.

"And don't sell yourself short, Jess. I can throw a ton of energy around, but not all day long, y'know. And who was it that phased an entire aircraft trying to out-fly a missile, with five people in it at the time and pulled it off? I think that guy probably qualifies as pretty powerful," he finished with a smirk.

"Whoa, you out-flew a missile?" Josh asked after he and Kevin set down their towels and came up to the pool's edge.

"Nope. I couldn't get away from it, so Jesse phased the whole Helix, it went right through us," Brennan answered, still grinning but now with pride.

"Wow," Josh said, blinking in surprise as his eyebrows rose. Jesse ducked his head and began to blush.

"This a private party, or can anybody join?" Kevin asked, trying to smirk at Brennan, but he couldn't keep his eyes off the water for more than a moment. He was very deliberately refusing to let his muscles tense up nervously, but that only made his compulsion to keep his eyes on the source of his fear all the stronger.

"Hey, the more the merrier," Brennan proclaimed, glad for their teammates' arrival to distract Jesse from the thoughts he had been letting chase themselves around his head while he'd been alone. "We're just trying out the pool 'cause Eve bought us swim trunks along with the fancy clothes yesterday."

Josh noticed Kevin's deliberate lack of tension, which was just as much of a red flag as hunched shoulders would have been. He slung an arm across Kevin's shoulders and pulled him close, hip to hip. The sudden motion snapped Kevin's self-control and he jumped slightly with a quickly drawn breath, his arm clamping across the small of Josh's back and gripping his far hip tightly, his free hand jerking in a spasm before clenching in a fist at his hip.

"Somebody hasn't climbed back up on his fear-facing horse since the Dominion's rat-maze, and that was more than a week ago, like ten days," Josh explained to Brennan and Jesse, but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on Kevin's face as he spoke. Kevin glanced at Josh and shrugged sheepishly; knowing what he needed to do didn't make it any easier.

"But yeah, there were a few medical issues in the way since then, up until just a couple days ago," Josh said reasonably, still staying focused on Kevin even if his words were still theoretically in explanation to Jesse and Brennan. "Just the shallow end, you can stand up anytime you want; I'm not leaving your side," Josh said to Kevin softly, pulling him closer. Kevin closed his eyes and nodded, drawing a deep breath and deliberately exhaling it slowly without letting it shake. . .even though it wanted to.

"Just, no jumping in," Kevin said as he re-opened his eyes, staring at the water defiantly instead of obsessively. "Nothing sudden, just at my own pace," he stated, glancing sideways to meet Josh's eyes hopefully.

"Sure thing," Josh replied, leaning in to buss a quick kiss against Kevin's rough cheek. "As long as your pace isn't standing still, delaying." Josh relaxed his hold on Kevin, stepping away just a small amount, his arm remaining across Kevin's shoulders but leaving them no longer pressed together all along their sides. Kevin was forced to ease his deathgrip on Josh's hip, relaxing his arm enough to leave his hand on the small of Josh's back.

"C'mon," Josh said, tugging Kevin towards the short steps that led into the pool in one corner of the shallow end. Kevin followed slowly but determinedly, forcing himself to continue moving forward and not allowing his legs to hesitate.

Jesse and Brennan were familiar with Kevin's aquaphobia since Josh had carried Kevin's soaked and trembling form into the Helix after they escaped the Dominion's deathtrap-filled evaluation complex. They could see it might take some time for Kevin to force himself into the water, and they didn't want to make him feel even more self-conscious about it, so they simply moved out into the pool proper. Brennan let Jesse move slightly ahead of him, then quietly splashed water onto Jesse's back. Jesse turned halfway around with a glare; Brennan pretended to be watching Josh and Kevin slowly heading for the steps.

Jesse frowned wryly at Brennan, then turned to move farther out into the pool, the water rising almost up to his chest. Brennan turned to face Jesse the moment his back was turned, splashing it again with a grin of glee.

"Brennan!" Jesse yelled as he whirled around again, only to find Brennan laughing instead of feigning innocence. Frowning, Jesse decided to take advantage of the fact that the only people in the pool room were all New Mutants, and he could use his powers in the water, while Brennan couldn't. Lifting one arm out of the water, Jesse massed it and slammed his ultra-dense limb into the surface of the pool, sweeping an enormous wave over Brennan's head and shoulders.

"Okay, now you've asked for it!" Brennan declared as he shook the water out of his eyes, then threw himself forward, launching into a swimming stroke to chase Jesse as the younger man tried to run away through water that was well above his waist.

Splashing and happy shouting and cries of mock outrage ensued as Josh backed down the steps, holding both of Kevin's wrists in his hands as Kevin held his, pulling Kevin down into the water after him, a step at a time. Kevin found that keeping his eyes on Brennan and Jesse's antics kept him distracted from the water rising up his legs. He gasped as he lowered himself onto the last step above the pool's floor, the water level reaching his groin. Josh grinned and pulled Kevin forward, causing him to stumble into the pool proper and gasp again in surprise and an instinctive surge of fear, but Josh merely pulled Kevin into his arms and kissed him as he embraced Kevin. The sudden distraction on top of the previous distractions silenced Kevin, to make no mention of the fact his mouth was suddenly occupied. Josh embraced Kevin firmly as he lifted him up off the pool's floor, carrying him a few paces to get them away from the steps and press Kevin's back against the pool's wall, reassuring him that he was safe.

"There," Josh said, setting Kevin down again and relaxing the grip of his arms across Kevin's back, but not letting go of him. "Not so bad, right?"

"Not so bad," Kevin nodded, keeping his eyes on Josh's instead of looking at the vast amount of water spread out before them. "Just mostly terrifying, not completely."

"Oh, poo," Josh muttered, leaving one arm behind Kevin's back as he turned to stand next to Kevin, putting his own back against the pool's side as well. "So, we just gonna stand here? Pools are usually more fun when you actually do something in them."

Kevin sighed.

"I know you're right, and you know I know you're right, but you also know I'm not ready yet." Kevin remained motionless, watching Brennan and Jesse play in the water and mock one another, focusing on them and pushing his fear out of the forefront of his mind. "Soon. We should've brought a beach ball or something."

"Something doable in the shallow end, yeah," Josh agreed amicably, running his hand up and back down Kevin's back as they watched the other two New Mutants splash. "All we can do if you don't wanna move yet is watch them."

Kevin frowned slightly and turned to look at Josh. Josh kept his eyes on Brennan and Jesse, but he could peripherally see that Kevin was looking at him and allowed his smirk to show slightly.

Knowing what his boyfriend was smirking at, Kevin settled back against the pool's wall once more.

"They are very watchable, aren't they?" Kevin said casually after a moment, both of them watching as Jesse scooped Brennan up out of the water before dunking him, the curves of Brennan's ass in their black board shorts highly visible with the wet material clinging to them while he was airborne.

"Your TK works on anything you can see," Josh replied, equally casually.

"You are so evil," Kevin snickered, but he couldn't deny he was considering it. And hey, if he pantsed Jesse and Brennan, they would totally come after him for revenge, so fleeing the pool would be entirely justifiable. Win/win as far as Kevin was concerned, except for the part where it was avoiding proactively facing his fears. Mentally sighing, he considered doing it anyway, just because Josh would find it hilarious. Maybe just Brennan; if Jesse thought it was funny too, he might keep Brennan occupied. That could work.

A short while later, Brennan and Jesse had realized that Kevin was only slowly acclimating himself to being in the water, so they began hamming it up, to keep Kevin preoccupied and Josh entertained. At one point Brennan actually grabbed Jesse by the back of his shorts, but Jesse merely laughingly phased free. As they began chasing each other toward the deep end, Josh had an idea.

"HEY, WHO CAN MAKE THE BIGGER CANNONBALL?" he called out across the pool, grinning when Jesse and Brennan paused to contemplate his request. They turned to exchange a glance as they tread water a few feet apart, then spun away from each other, both swimming for the sides of the pool as fast as they could.

"Oh, this'll rock, be ready when Jesse surprises Brennan, you just know he's gonna mass..." Josh muttered lowly under his breath to Kevin, grinning fiendishly. Kevin smiled in response, watching as Brennan and Jesse both reached the pool's edges at the same time, scrambling out. Brennan was the faster swimmer, but they had been closer to Jesse's side of the pool when the race began. Brennan's long legs also made him the faster runner, even if both of them were being careful not to slip on the tile with their wet feet.

Unfortunately for Brennan, Jesse only took a few steps away from the pool before turning back around again. Brennan used his longer stride to put distance between himself and the pool, then turned around and dashed back to it, leaping up into the air like he was throwing a jump kick and curling into a somersaulting ball in mid-air, plummeting into the pool with his broad back and causing a remarkably large splash.

The problem was that Jesse had less distance to cover, and he did indeed mass as he tucked his knees to his chest, smashing into the water like a cannonball a few feet in diameter. He struck the water just a moment after Brennan did, the gigantic wave caused by Jesse's impact bowling into Brennan just as he surfaced. The wave of Jesse's massed splash was so steep it actually knocked Brennan up into the air, spinning ass over teakettle back toward the side he had jumped in from.

Josh was howling laughter, and Kevin was laughing as well, but he maintained his focus. Concentrating, he gestured with one hand as Brennan was propelled into the air, smoothly adding just a bit of spin to his momentum. The result was that Brennan's feet were pointed up into the air at an angle, and it was simplicity itself for Kevin to telekinetically whisk his swimming trunks off while the tail of the wave was still surging past Brennan and he fell into the water. Josh laughed even harder, hanging onto Kevin to keep from dropping into the water when his knees buckled. Grinning, Kevin sent Brennan's trunks flying to edge of the pool, tucking them haphazardly into one of the rectangular vents that led to the filtering system, as if they had just happened to end up there.

Brennan and Jesse's heads both popped up out of the water, Jesse grinning and Brennan blinking in shock.

"Holy crap!" Brennan declared, and Jesse just laughed.

"I'm not positive, guys, but I think Jesse made the bigger wave," Kevin called out to them, Josh still laughing. "Since, you know, it threw Brennan sideways!"

"I think massing is cheating, Jess," Brennan grumbled, but he wasn't actually mad, since Jesse's mood had clearly turned around.

"Not to mention blew your shorts off!" Josh called out, then cracked up again.

Jesse and Brennan both glanced down to where Brennan's legs were kicking as he tread water a few feet away from Jesse. Brennan squawked mightily, starting Josh and Kevin's laughter all over again, and Jesse laughed so hard he couldn't keep treading water, dipping beneath the water's surface and coming up sputtering.

"Jess!" Brennan yelled indignantly, turning red in embarrassment. "Where're my trunks!?" he demanded, turning all about in the water but unable to spot his missing garment.

Jesse giggled more.

"Ohhhh, I dunno, Bren," Jesse snickered, glancing around mildly, but mostly just amused. "My powers make me good at holding my breath, though, if you want me to dive and look..." he finished with a gleeful grin.

Brennan made another outraged squawking noise, and Josh laughed so hard he slipped off of Kevin and fell into the water. He popped right back up again, flailing the unexpected water off of himself. Kevin couldn't help grinning at Josh, still amused by Brennan and also amused by how strongly Josh was resembling a house cat at that moment. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail at the base of his neck, the tail folded in half and caught in the elastic tie a second time to keep it from being able to wrap around his neck or get in his eyes. The result was that his skull was clearly outlined after he'd been underwater, the leonine lines of his face looking decidedly more domestic as he spazzed to shake the water off. Kevin shook his head with amusement when Josh's body language shifted to a feigned nonchalance of "I meant to do that", just like the cat Kevin had owned in junior high.

Josh pouted at Kevin, knowing he'd seen through Josh's nonverbal dismissal of his own momentary clumsiness. Dipping a hand into the water, Josh lifted a cupped palmful of water out of the pool and seized the stubby ponytail Kevin was wearing his own hair in. Restraining his hair was slightly pointless in Kevin's case; the back wasn't long enough to reach around his neck or get in his face, and while his bangs were long enough to just get in his eyes when wet, they were too short to be bound in a ponytail. However, having his hair floating in a nimbus around his head was too much of a reminder of Kevin's high school drowning scare, so he did what he could to restrain it, regardless. If his fashion sense would let him wear a shower cap in a public pool, he probably would have.

"There, now your hair's wet too," Josh told him, still pouting as he put his wet hand on Kevin's broad back, rubbing to keep the sensation of the water dripping from Kevin's tiny ponytail onto his back from being disturbing. Kevin smirked, amused yet touched by Josh's automatic concern. It wasn't like dripping water or wet hair bothered Kevin; that was just like a shower, no problem. It was open bodies of water he could be submerged in that made Kevin panic, such as swimming pools like the one he'd almost drowned in when he was sixteen. Like the one he was currently standing in, but Kevin forced himself not to panic. He'd been here before, swam in it multiple times, and Josh was here, Brennan and Jesse, too. Nothing to worry about.

"And damn, that stings..." Josh muttered, holding his other hand up to look at his fingernails, frowning at the sensation. "Chlorine?" he asked in puzzlement, glancing sideways at Kevin in question.

"Did you split your cuts back open?" Kevin asked with a frown as he turned and took Josh's hand in both of his own, raising it to examine his fingertips closely. "You didn't scrape it on the pool's bottom, did you? I didn't think you fell all the way down."

"No, I didn't," Josh replied, shaking his head. "And it's both hands, my fingertips, but, like, inside them or something. Under the nails."

"You're not bleeding..." Kevin said with a frown, taking Josh's other hand to examine it too, holding them up to compare his fingertips. "Medical glue isn't water soluble, and pool chemicals wouldn't do it either. . .it's probably the chlorine under your nails. I made sure not to glue your fingertips to the nails; I know how fast your nails grow."

"But why would that sting? It never has before," Josh muttered, then glanced up and grinned at Jesse's laughter when Brennan dove to look for his trunks, Josh just catching the sight of Brennan's feet disappearing beneath the water's surface. "Damn, missed the full moon," he snickered, making Kevin chuckle when he looked over his shoulder and saw only Jesse, realizing what had happened.

"Well, you said you cut them trying to grip the ice blades with your nails, right?" Kevin asked rhetorically, looking back to Josh as he released his hands. "You may have cut your fingertips slightly beneath the nails. Or it might be from the virus."

"The virus?" Josh asked with mild alarm. "But, that was, like, almost a week ago. And you killed it right away, aren't I past that?" he questioned, his bright eyes searching Kevin's worriedly.

"Well, yeah, or at least mostly," Kevin replied. "It was a mutated rabies virus, operating through your nervous system. The fingers and toes are the most distant points of the nerves, so they basically experience the most 'interference'. It could be a remnant of that."

"Like, your fingers and toes are the first things to get pins and needles if you sit or rest your arm in the wrong position?" Josh asked to clarify, nodding as it made more sense to him.

"Right," Kevin nodded. "The first places people get shakes if they're nerve-based, not muscular trembling, like that. Yours might still be extra-sensitive after the virus lit your whole nervous system up; that might be why they're more sensitive to chlorine than normal."

"Well, it better wear off before next time," Josh muttered. "It's damn annoying."

"Whoa, it's a party in here," Jamie said with a smile as he and Owen entered the pool room, Owen cupping one large hand under Jamie's left elbow and bearing his weight on that side. "Or a group therapy session," he muttered with a laugh as he shifted his weight to stand on his right leg alone while Owen dropped their towels on a bench against the wall. "I'm here for physical therapy for my leg, Kev's here for psychological therapy..." Jamie frowned at Brennan and Jesse out in the middle of the pool, wondering what Brennan was looking for and why Jesse thought it was so funny. "..Well, I dunno what therapy Brennan or Jesse are here for, but I'm sure anyone who knows them would agree they need it," he finished with a grin, smiling up at Owen as he rejoined Jamie.

"Mental therapy for public indecency?" Owen asked with a smirk, then called out across the pool: "Brennan, why on earth are you skinny dipping?"

Brennan made an indignant noise, Jesse just laughed harder, Jamie giggled, and Josh and Kevin just snickered again.

"JESSE KNOCKED MY TRUNKS OFF!" Brennan hollered back. "I CAN'T FIND THEM!"

"I did not!" Jesse insisted, still laughing; Jamie and Josh just snickered harder at Brennan's phrasing, and Kevin chuckled at Josh's dirty mind, shaking his head. "It's not my fault you can't take a cannonball!"

"Hah, that's fun," Jamie said, grinning. "Throw me in, O. I'm good as long as I land on my good leg, and it won't matter how I land on it, if I'm elastic."

Owen shrugged, grabbed Jamie under the arms, and heaved, throwing him up into the air. Jamie's laughter pealed against the ceiling as he flew far higher than he had originally been envisioning. He curled up as he fell back down, calling out: "CANNONBALL!!" just before he struck the water almost halfway between where Brennan and Jesse were and the shallow end where he had started.

"There, now he won't hit the bottom whether he's rubber or not," Owen grinned. "And have to swim back, use that leg in the support of water like he's supposed to, not just rubberfy it and try to only stand on the other one," he went on in a mutter. "Kid's never been actually hurt before, doesn't know how to handle it right."

"Mmm," Kevin mumbled in agreement, watching as Jamie surfaced and happily swam over to join Jesse and Brennan, apparently not too impaired by his bruised lower leg at all.

"Eve said the pool's ideal for him, exercise his leg muscles without rendering them elastic, and the water's constant support means he's not straining it. As long as he doesn't push off the wall with that leg or anything, and Jamie's smarter than that," Owen explained, noting Kevin's medical interest. He also noticed that most of Kevin's upper body was still completely dry. He would never dream of dunking Kevin; it wouldn't be the slightest bit funny, and Kevin would hold him down telekinetically while Josh killed him or worse, but on the other hand, Jamie was totally right. . .cannonballs were fun...

"Hey, Brennan, I think your trunks are about to escape into the filter!" Owen called out across the pool, pointing. There was a bit of black cloth in the corner of the small rectangular opening in the pool's side, fluttering in the waves passing through it.

"There they are, geeze!" Brennan muttered, quickly swimming back to where he had jumped into the pool. Josh whistled loudly when glimpses of Brennan's naked rear and hips revealed themselves thanks to his power crawl, and Kevin laughed. Shaking his head but pleased with the distraction, Owen sprang over Josh and Kevin and into the pool, curling into a ball and smashing into the water only a few feet in front of them, drenching them both.

"That was mean," Josh admonished as Owen stood up in the pool's shallow end, turning around to grin at Josh and Kevin. Josh wasn't too upset, however, because Kevin wasn't; Kevin merely sputtered and wiped his dripping bangs back out of his eyes. Once they were clear, he looked at Owen, then grinned. Owen's grin widened in response, then Kevin struck.

Being 6'5" and standing in only just over three feet of water, Owen's hips were still almost half a foot above the waterline. Kevin dropped his eyes to the waistline of Owen's swim trunks; he could peripherally see Owen's shins and feet at the pool's bottom. He concentrated to mentally "grasp" Owen's trunks, then telekinetically yanked them down to his ankles. Being a professional-level bodybuilder, Owen had his groin shaved down to stubble, and standing 6'5" with his ankles together, a few inches of his genitals were above the waterline.

"WOOOOO!" Josh hollered in delight, even as he blushed on Owen's behalf. Owen made a sound he would later completely deny was a squeak, plunging face first into the water as he crouched and reached for his ankles, pulling his swim trunks back up before standing.

"I'd never hold you under the water, you know that, but don't even think that that means I'm not gonna get you for that!" Owen panted at Kevin after wiping the water out of his eyes. He had taken a step back while standing up again, along the slight gradient toward the deep end so that his waistband was safely below the waterline.

"Yeah, but you'll still have to go through me first," Josh declared, smirking as he stepped between Owen and Kevin, within arms reach of them both. "He could even do it again if you try," Josh said as he folded his arms across his chest but only loosely, ready to intercept Owen or hurled water as needed. "I never mind Kevin taking my shorts off, and I have no problem wrestling you naked," Josh told Owen with a gleeful grin, laughing as Owen blushed.

"Damn, pools can be fun," Kevin snickered, venturing away from the wall to circle wide around Owen and Josh, deciding to start swimming while he watched his friends' antics, instead of just standing around.

In Haven, Shalimar was in the gym, pummeling a kickboxing bag quite repeatedly. Eve had designed it to stand up to the abuse Owen could dish out, at least for a few months, so Shalimar figured she wouldn't break it anytime too soon. She had figured out how to get a playlist running over the intercom, turned up the volume to match her frustration, and been hitting the bag since.

A flurry of punches, back and forth, back and forth, eventually started the heavy bag slowly swaying from side to side. Shalimar grinned and began kicking the bag, high roundhouse kicks and alternating legs, increasing the bag's sway. Snarling gleefully, Shalimar spun in place and shot a leg out behind her as she bent over, a straight thrust-kick right into the bag's middle, just as it reached the center of its swing. The bag veered away from Shalimar as well as to the left, and Shalimar hopped into the air off her standing foot, rolling her hips to pivot into facing the bag again in mid-air. She swept the same leg into a high crescent kick as the bag swung back, slamming her foot into it with a primal shout as she landed on her first foot.

Suddenly, the intercom's volume was greatly reduced. Shalimar spun to face the corner, wondering if the computer had reduced the volume so that Eve or someone could say something over the intercom, had some new emergency cropped up..?

Shalimar straightened up, frowning in confusion when the music remained quieter and nothing else happened. Unless Lexa had snuck in and turned the volume down, but no, Shalimar could still see the volume indicator, it hadn't changed, and she was in Feral mode as she beat on the bag, so she would be able to see Lexa's heat outline if she were there...

"Well, you're all up in your own headspace there, aren'tcha?" Chris asked with a smirk from where he was leaning in the gym's doorway. "Working out in Feral mode, and you still didn't hear me open the door?" He shook his head slightly, still smirking. "I don't think the music was that loud."

Shalimar grinned fiercely, the expression no less intense as her eyes returned to their normal brown. "No, you're right," she admitted as she crossed to the intercom and dialed the volume down a few notches. "I was just thinking, not paying attention."

Chris kept concentrating, reducing the intensity of his power as Shalimar lowered the volume, so that the noise level in the room remained the same. She frowned in puzzlement for a moment before glancing at Chris and grinning again, realizing what he was doing, then dialed the volume down to almost nothing, grinning when Chris' power switched to amplifying instead of reducing the speaker's output, still maintaining the volume.

"Okay, what number did I have it at?!" Shalimar laughed as Chris entered the gym and let the door close behind him. "I lost track!"

"Three clicks louder," Chris told her with a smile of his own, dialing it back up again as he joined Shalimar. "So, what were you all wrapped up in thinking about?" Chris asked as he leaned against the wall, raising a smirking eyebrow at Shalimar. "Must've been intense, otherwise I'm gonna have to start making Feral thinking jokes, and then you'll have to beat me up."

Shalimar laughingly frowned at him and raised her fists, then let her feigned expression drop and grinned when Chris did, dropping her fists as well.

"And yet, you carefully avoided doing so, so that I don't have to," Shalimar told him, crossing her arms and leaning one shoulder on the wall, on the other side of the intercom. "I see what you did there." She raised an eyebrow at him, smirking herself. "So, not the big, dumb Feral. I'm the little smart one."

"Pffft," Chris laughed. "Well, I'm sure not telling Owen or Josh they're the dumb ones. They're bigger than you," Chris said, grinning. "Seriously, what are you all lost thinking about?"

"Just. . .everything," Shalimar said with a shrug as she straightened up and turned away from Chris and the intercom, wandering back toward the punching bag. "Eve gave me a pep talk yesterday when I called in to report there was no sign of Adam in New York, and I needed it, but..." Shalimar trailed off with a shrug, but Chris was already nodding.

"Yeah, I was there. Then she started planning dinner. 'But..' what?" he finished, cocking his head to give Shalimar a look. Chris decided he liked talking to Shalimar; she was one of very few New Mutants he'd ever met who was actually at his eye-level.

"But it wore off," Shalimar admitted sullenly, punching the bag again but not really meaning it; she'd lost the rhythm of her routine and no longer found it invigorating.

"Aw, but then we went out to dinner when you guys got back," Chris pointed out. "Eve remembered you saying how you wanted to eat at Benedetti's; you mentioned it in Medical while we were all waiting to see how Josh and Lexa turned out after their emergencies last week." Chris paused to evaluate Shalimar, trying to decide what would be the best way to proceed. He'd only known Shalimar for a couple weeks, and they hadn't really talked all that much. She was a Feline Feral, like Josh, but Chris didn't think that meant they had the same personalities. She wasn't nearly as much of a smartass, for starters.

"She was right; I really did want to go back there," Shalimar said, her face growing slightly animated once more with the memory.

"See, I thought maybe you were just burning off all the extra calories from that gigantic meal," Chris said with another smile. "That's what all the guys are doing in the pool. Eve said that's what Jesse and Brennan were doing, and that she sent Jamie up there for his leg, and Owen was helping him. And Josh and Kevin were eating a late breakfast in their swim shorts when I left the penthouse; if they're not in the pool, I don't wanna know about it."

Shalimar snickered.

"Aw, they're sweet. It's not just cute young love; you can tell they're the real thing," she said.

"Mmm," Chris grunted noncommitally. "Doesn't mean I want detailed proof," he laughed. "But yeah, unless they're sunbathing and playing tonsil-hockey, all the guys are actually in the pool, except me. Eve's on the monitors, and I have no idea where Lexa is."

"Shopping again, actually. I think," Shalimar answered, tossing a few idle punches into the bag. "I think dinner last night reminded her she never finished her shopping trip last week." She threw a last, disinterested kick into the side of the bag, then turned back to Chris. "So how come you're not in the pool with the other guys?" she asked. "Make it a regular Boys' Club."

"Ehh, No Thanks," Chris said, flapping a dismissive hand. "I prefer Lovely Ladies in Bitty Bikinis, myself. But besides that, that speedster chick yesterday gave me, like, a gajillion bruises on my legs. I'd be a scary sight in a swimsuit at the moment," he explained, pulling up one leg of his jeans to display the mottled rainbow of purple, green, brown, and yellow on his shin and calf.

"Ah, so you came down to Haven to hide your deformed self from public, is that it?" Shalimar teased.

"Hah, sure," Chris said agreeably as he shook his pants back to rights. "But also to come down and tell you guys that we're taking over Haven tonight, for Movie Night, but then Eve said the guys were in the pool and Lexa was gone, so you're the only one here."

"Movie Night?" Shalimar asked, cocking an interested eyebrow.

"Sure," Chris nodded. "We usually do a Movie Night for the whole group once a week, unless things get busy. And, well," Chris shrugged, "They've been busy lately. But yeah, Movie Night, whoever's turn it is picks the flick, and we all watch, have popcorn, chat, tease each other, mock the movie and the tastes of whoever chose it; you know, the usual," he explained, grinning. "Like, Family Bonding Time, or something. Eve said we should move it to the lounge here in Haven, fit everybody more comfortably. And its screen is actually bigger!" he said with a laugh. "I think it's Owen's turn to pick, but it somehow got determined that the rotation goes in ascending order of height, so this is the last week. We'll work you guys in starting next week, so I think you'd be next," Chris finished, grinning wider as he stood straight and squared his shoulders.

Shalimar frowned good-naturedly and stepped up to Chris, planting her fists on her hips and straightening up to her full height as well. A moment later she let her head tip back as she laughed.

"DAMN, I'm looking at your nose!"

"I was looking at your eyebrows; you're shortest, not me!" Chris crowed, laughing. "Eve's got me by less than an inch. She was wearing heels when we were determining the rotation order, and I made her take 'em off, and she was shorter! Hah!" Chris' expression of glee shifted to disappointment as he frowned. "Except then she made me take my boots off, and she still had me, by less than an inch! Dangit."

"Awww," Shalimar cooed at him, her eyes still smiling. "Well, congratulations, you're no longer shortest. I still am, dammit. What darn kind of tiny cat did I get crossed with, a wildcat?" Shalimar pouted, then pointed a silencing finger at Chris in warning when he opened his mouth to comment. He knew her well enough to make that joke. That was a great Feline Feral joke; he'd have to remember it for the next time Josh did something at an eleven. "Why couldn't I be a six foot lioness amazon, or something?" Shalimar finished with a disappointed frown.

"Hail Shalimar, Queen of the Tabby Suburban Veldt," Chris proclaimed with a grin as he crossed the gym to the wrestling mats, kicking his boots off to tumble up against the wall. "C'mon, spar with me; I'll tease the hell out of you and bitch about my bruises, way more distracting than letting your thoughts chase themselves in circles around a silly punching bag," he said as he strolled onto the thick pads and began stretching.

Shalimar's frown shifted to one of confusion.

"Chris, I'll put even more bruises on you," she cautioned.

"Meh, then I'll go to Medical," Chris declared dismissively, sitting down on the mats and reaching forward to grab his toes, stretching out the backs of his legs. "And I was wearing my leather jacket yesterday, there's hardly a mark on my torso. I'll probably bruise myself worse blocking your hits than if I let them get through."

Chris looked up from his stretch at Shalimar's skeptical face and grinned at her.

"And don't underestimate me, Shorty," Chris told her with a laugh. "You gotta catch me to hit me properly. I've been dodging people bigger and stronger than me all my life. There's a good chance you're the one who ends up in Medical, needing drugs for your migraine. I've fought Ferals before."

"Now wait, we can't go all out on each other," Shalimar huffed, putting her hands on her hips. "You can blast me before I could ever get near you, and if I hit you as hard as I could, I'd do a lot more than bruise you!"

"Sure," Chris agreed as he rose to his feet and bounced a few times, kicking his heartrate up and rolling his head and shoulders to loosen them. "But you'll still be using your Feral speed and senses, your reflexes and agility. . .I can still play with volume and frequencies to throw you off your mark, level the playing field," he explained.

"Well, shoot," Shalimar muttered, then toed off her shoes and stepped forward onto one corner of the mat as Chris backed into the other, both raising their fists. "Migraines suck. Maybe I should get earplugs."

Late that evening, the Mutant X team gathered in the lounge area of Haven to enjoy their Movie Night.

Haven's lounge area was located in its front, next to the entryway. It had a 60-inch flatscreen high-definition television mounted to the exterior wall, across from a sectional sofa capable of seating six or seven people that had its longer side facing the TV. There were recliners next to both ends of the sectional, and a couch facing its shorter side and the lounge's entryway, forming a large U-shaped seating area for watching the mega-screen TV.

The first recliner was closer to the TV than the end of the couch on the opposite side of the room; it was angled to slightly face the TV instead of being sideways to it, but no one was sitting there regardless. Kevin was sprawled across the shorter end of the sectional sofa, waiting for Josh to finish popping several bowls of popcorn for the group to share. Once he joined Kevin, they would be reclining on each other as much as they were on the sofa. Jesse was seated in the corner of the sectional but still on its longer side, facing the TV. Brennan sat next to him, and the rest of the sofa's longer side was occupied by Shalimar and Chris.

They had both gone to the medical lab after their sparring session; Shalimar had taken a fair amount of pain killer and was now wearing earplugs to keep ambient noise from aggravating her headache, and Chris had taken some painkiller himself, his arms and ribs now similar in mottled color to his legs. The two of them were still teasing each other, Chris threatening to raise his voice and Shalimar threatening to tickle him, which they both knew would actually consist of poking him in the torso with stiffened fingers.

Eve was seated in the other recliner, facing the screen at slightly less than a forty-five degree angle, and Owen was sitting in the middle of the couch, Jamie and Lexa fitting snugly but comfortably in the space on each side of him. Jamie was slumped low on the couch, his left leg propped up on the end table that was normally at the arm of the couch. There wasn't room for the two throw pillows on the couch with all three of them on it, so one was under Jamie's left heel and the other behind Owen's head. He had his arms stretched across the back of the couch, Jamie and Lexa using his inner elbows as surprisingly comfortable cushions for their own heads.

"Seriously, what is he doing?" Shalimar asked, turning her head to stare out between the lounge area's partitions with her eyes in their golden Feral mode. "How does he get popcorn to smell that good?"

"What, don't you normally like popcorn?" Chris asked, frowning at Shalimar in confusion.

"Huh? Oh, no, sure I do, but this smells even better than normal," she explained, curiosity still in her voice. "Smelled like butter even while he was popping it, and I know it's not microwave; I could hear him cooking it."

"It's one of those turn-crank poppers," Kevin explained with a grin. "He just dumps a stick of butter in it instead of cooking oil. Toss it with some salt after you pour it in the bowl, and it's already ready to serve."

"Well, it sure smells like it works, wow," Shalimar decided, impatiently sitting back in her seat again. "All of Haven's gonna smell like that for the rest of the night, isn't it? I'm gonna wake up three hours before dawn with the munchies," she muttered.

Shalimar heard another bowl of popcorn being tossed, then the sound of the sink running for just a moment. The kitchen was on the other side of Haven's entryway, only a few yards away, so Shalimar could easily hear the gurgle of liquid being poured down the drain, another brief rinse of water, then the sounds of Josh's approach.

"Movie time!" Josh declared as he entered the lounge, a large bowl of popcorn in his left hand and two only slightly smaller ones awkwardly pinched together at their edges in the fingers of his right hand. "Popcorn for everybody, 's long as I don't drop it..." he finished, keeping his attention on his right hand, where the bowls were trying to work their way out of his grip.

"Hold still..." Kevin cautioned him, then concentrated on the bowls in his boyfriend's hands. The two smaller bowls slid out of Josh's grasp at an upward angle, then settled in place, hovering over the floor. A shift of Kevin's eyes, and the bigger bowl floated across the lounge and settled on Shalimar's lap. Josh reached up and grabbed the stainless steel bowl, turning toward the shorter end of the sectional sofa as the plastic bowl went gliding across the width of the room to place itself between Owen's thighs.

"You're not trying to kill the New York team with your usual sodium intake, are you?" Eve asked Josh with a teasing smile, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

"No," he frowned at her. "Just because you don't like popcorn, Crazy Person. There's only a little salt on the other two bowls; Kevin knows which one is ours," Josh declared as he sat down and leaned back into his boyfriend. Kevin was seated askew on their section of the sofa, his left leg up on the cushions and stretched out along the base of the sofa's back. Josh was seated in the space between Kevin's thighs, his left leg aligned with the inside of Kevin's and his head resting on Kevin's right shoulder. The metal bowl of popcorn was resting on Josh's lower belly, in easy reach of his right hand and Kevin's left, Kevin's right hand settling itself on Josh's hip.

"Well, it tastes good, and Shal's right, the way you make it smells great, but I can't stand kernels in my teeth, drives me crazy," Eve said with a pout, looking at the bowl in Shalimar's lap but knowing she would regret having any.

"C'mon, you're the Shriek Queen, Genius Geneticist," Chris told Eve with a mocking smile. "Shouldn't you be able to custom-design hull-less popcorn?" he asked. "You'd totally make a mint. Another one," he finished.

"If it didn't have a hull, it wouldn't pop, Chris," Eve told him.

"Well, duh, that's the genius part you'd have to figure out, of course."

Eve rolled her eyes as she turned away from Chris.

"Anyway, what are we watching? Jamie?" she asked, turning to face the couch.

Lexa rolled her head on Owen's arm to face him, glancing from his eyes to beneath his chin where she could see Jamie's smirking face.

"Jamie? I thought Chris said it was your turn?" she asked Owen. "That's what Shal said."

"Ohhhhh, no," Jamie said with a gleeful note of warning in his voice. "Don't think I forgot. I won that bet, not you, Bear Ears."

"Do I even wanna know?" Brennan asked, familiar with the level of ridiculousness that Owen and Jamie's shenanigans could reach just from the brief time they had stayed at Sanctuary before Haven had been created and the California team deployed.

"No," Kevin snickered. "You totally don't," he said, tipping his head back and turning to grin at Brennan, who nodded that he had expected such an answer. Jamie and Owen had been fast friends from the moment they met, much like Shalimar and Jesse had been in the early days of Mutant X at Sanctuary, and they had been about as well behaved.

"Are you even gonna be able to see the movie?" Owen asked, glancing down at Jamie. "You're almost sideways to the screen, slouched down like that and squished into me, and you can't straighten up, with your leg."

"Ahh, it doesn't matter," Jamie replied, flapping a dismissive hand somewhat awkwardly because his elbow was tucked between his side and the arm of the couch. " 'm not gonna stay awake through the whole thing anyway."

Owen frowned down at Jamie.

"Didn't you just take a nap?" he asked, sure that Jamie had.

"Yeah, and I'm still tired!" Jamie pouted. "Is healing injuries supposed to make you so tired? Is it because I swam on it? That was supposed to help!"

"Well, it was physical therapy, that's supposed to be tiring, isn't it?" Owen asked. "I don't think being injured does, or it'd have to be way worse injuries, anyway. I think being sick sometimes makes you tired, but not usually being hurt."

"Pffft. Like you're ever sick to even know," Jamie snorted, then snickered. "But hey, being injured bad DOES make you tired, now!" Jamie proclaimed, glancing up to meet Owen's eyes as he grinned, his teeth showing brightly. "Anyway, I won, you lost; it's my pick whether I watch the whole thing or not."

Owen frowned down at Jamie, then tensed his right arm, just enough to jostle Jamie's head with his flexing muscles.

"You're only being snooty about it 'cause you're injured and you know I won't make you go put it on yourself," Owen told him. Jamie just smiled again, smugly, without bothering to look at Owen.

"Okay, Hop-Along, I'll get it," Chris said, chuckling as he got up. He and Eve were the only native residents who therefore knew the movie selections that didn't have popcorn or people sitting on them, or both, and he wasn't going to make Eve do it unless she wanted to. His lifetime of supporting his mother and sisters wouldn't let him take any woman's presence or efforts for granted. "What's your flick-pick?" he asked as he crossed the lounge area to the entertainment center under the giant TV.

"Okay, what's silly and fun, but still has a plot, not just stupid?" Jamie pondered aloud, trying to decide what sort of movie he felt like watching, even if he didn't think he'd actually see all of it. "Maybe dark humor? What do I feel like?" he asked, glancing up at Owen once more, seeking input.

"Rubber, generally," Owen said with a smirk. "Or if you're asking how you feel?" Owen grinned as he flexed his arm again, curving his long forearm around and pointing with his large hand to poke the edge of Jamie's chest. "I'll just go with 'weird'."

Jamie stuck his tongue out at Owen, then turned back to his pondering, knowing he didn't want to take too long and make everyone impatient. Owen smiled softly to himself, proud that he had managed to evade Jamie's query subtly, making Jamie choose for himself instead of letting his personality rely on his friends' input. On the other hand, he was proud of Jamie for asserting his right to choose and deciding for himself what he wanted, even if he wasn't being definitive about it. Looking to a friend for emotional guidance had been his second instinct, for confirmation, where it had used to be his first and only input, so it was still a great sign of progress.

"Wait, I got it!" Jamie declared, grinning proudly. "Clue! Kind of a plot, funny, but murder and blackmail. That's sort of dark."

"Yay, Clue!" Josh proclaimed, thrusting a thumbs-up of approval into the air. "I love Clue. I dunno if I'd classify it as dark humor, but I love it anyway."

Kevin snorted a laugh and pursed his plush lips to blow Josh's bangs across his face, just to pester him.

"As long as you don't quote the entire movie along with it," he told Josh with a laugh. Josh pouted.

"Aww, c'mon, everybody loves Clue."

"Well, it's better than Eve or Owen picking The Princess Bride, again," Chris muttered, glancing aside to give them both a wry smirk.

"Aw, I LOVE Princess Bride!" Shalimar and Lexa both exclaimed, in sync and with nearly identical inflection, then turned to stare at one another in surprise.

" 'Inconceivable!' " Brennan declared slightly softly, in a fair "Vizzini" imitation.

Jesse cracked up. Lexa and Shalimar were pretty much night and day to each other in almost every way; the two of them coincidentally matching on one random thing was indeed surprising.

Owen and Eve exchanged a glance and grinned at one another, then began quoting:

"That Vizzini, he can fuss," Eve said, imitating Inigo Montoya from the movie.

"Fuss, fuss. . .I think he like to scream at us," Owen replied, quoting Fezzik as he fought to suppress his grin.

"Probably he means no harm," Eve continued.

"He's really very short on charm," Owen followed.

"You have a great gift for rhyme," Eve told Owen, nodding in character even as her eyes shone with laughter.

"Yes, yes, some of the time," Owen answered, lowering his eyes and nodding modestly even as he grinned.

Brennan had grinned at their ongoing exchange, jumping in with the appropriate Vizzini line:

"Enough of that."

Jesse was shaking his head in unbelieving amusement, Shalimar had a hand pressed firmly over her mouth to contain her laughter, Lexa and Jamie were grinning, Josh and Kevin were chuckling, and even Chris couldn't help but smile at his teammates' antics.

"Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?" Eve asked.

"If there are, we all be dead," Owen answered.

"No more rhyming now, I mean it," Brennan told them, hiding his smile as a scowl.

"Anybody want a peanut?" Owen asked, smiling.

Owen's smile spread to a grin as Chris joined Brennan in voicing Vizzini's "GAAAAHHH!" of frustration, Shalimar and Lexa and then everyone else joining in, drawing it out far longer than the actual line from the movie.

"OKAY, moving on, Clue!" Chris declared in mock irritation, smiling as he pressed PLAY on the DVD player, having put the disc in while Eve and Owen were clowning. He went ahead and fetched drinks for everyone from the refrigerator in the corner since he was already on his feet, then turned off the lights and started the movie playing from the DVD's main menu before returning to his seat.

Almost an hour and a half later, the popcorn had all been consumed, Jamie was snoozing with his head tipped into the side of Owen's chest, and Wadsworth the Butler was explaining how the crimes had been committed.

Brennan glanced to his left at Jesse when the younger man flinched, just as the Clue suspects all proclaimed Wadsworth was "Too Late" to make the long story of their individual arrivals short. Jesse was frowning at the screen but making no other reaction, so Brennan returned his attention to the movie. He'd always thought it was funny that Tim Curry's character went into such inordinate detail in his recreation of the movie's events, but then said "..One by one, you all arrived," when Prof. Plum and Miss Scarlet arrived together. He doubted that was what had made Jesse frown, but it wasn't worth talking over the movie for; he'd just ask Jess later.

Just a moment later, Jesse flinched again, when the suspects shouted at Wadsworth to "Get on with it!!" when he was redundantly pointing out that they had all received letters. Brennan turned to Jesse, frowning, but Jesse was still simply staring at the screen. Brennan studied Jesse's profile for just a moment, realizing that Jesse was not so much watching the giant screen across the lounge as he was staring into the distance, thinking about something else entirely. Brennan realized Jesse was still paying attention to the movie; it was the movie's dialogue that was disturbing him, making him think of something else.

Frowning harder but not wanting to embarrass Jesse or cause a scene, bringing up negativity when the team's Movie Night had been going so well as an unwinding activity up until that point, Brennan decided to wait. He was definitely going to drag Jesse aside after the movie was over and ask him what was up before they went to bed, though.

Even as Brennan returned his attention to the movie, Wadsworth was again being redundant as he pointed out where all the suspects had been standing in the study. When the suspects again shouted at him to "Get on with it!!, much more vehemently, Jesse flinched again, also much harder than previously. Brennan turned to frown at Jesse in worried concern, intending to lean in and ask him what was wrong, in a whisper. Brennan froze in shock at the look on Jesse's face; his expression was a grimace of struggle for control, his eyes watering almost to the point of overflowing into tears running down his cheeks and his lower lip caught between his teeth in an effort to keep it from trembling.

Brennan stared in shock, wondering what was going on, how a random comedy could be distressing Jesse so much, wondering what was going on in his head, when the movie reached the point at which Wadsworth turned off the lights. The screen was entirely black for dramatic effect before the suspects all screamed, and would remain so until the lights were switched on again, just as had happened at the beginning of the movie. The lounge area was not entirely dark because of the dim ambient lighting in the rest of Haven; being only partitioned off from Haven's main expanse and having an open entryway between its partition sections and no ceiling of its own, there was still some light to see by.

Even as the suspects were all crying out on screen just before their lights were switched back on, Jesse lurched up from the sofa with a cry of his own, using the exhalation of his distress to phase. He turned and ran through the sofa, to the corner of the lounge area and directly through the partition, into Haven's main expanse.

"Jess–!" Brennan called after him, raising one forlorn hand in a too-little, too-late gesture, angry with himself for having hesitated in his surprise. The rest of the room reacted with surprise and confusion, Shalimar startling at her pseudo-brother's cry of distress and questioning: "Jesse? —what?" and struggling to kick the large, mostly-empty popcorn bowl at her feet out of the way without tipping it over, pluck out her earplugs so she could hear where her packmate had gone, and jump to her feet all at the same time.

"Hey–" Lexa called in concern after Jesse, easily jumping to her feet to chase after him with Owen's left arm behind her back helping her rise with a strong but gentle push. Lexa sprinted after Jesse as the lights came back on in the movie, not even bothering to acknowledge Owen's aid, knowing his Feral mindset understood aiding "pack" as a priority. She would thank him later, after Jesse was calmed down, and Owen would blow it off as unnecessary. The Californian members of Mutant X were also reacting with confusion as Brennan and Shalimar both tried to leap to their feet and follow, only getting in each others way.

Jesse ran out into Haven's main expanse at an angle, crossing toward the primary workstation. He paused, trying to gasp silently, trying to figure out where he should go. Not to his room, their rooms on the far side, first place everyone would look. Not the normal storeroom; right next to the lounge, still only partitioned, need a proper room. Eve's office? They probably wouldn't think to look for him there, but he didn't really want to violate the sanctity of Eve's workspace or violate her privacy, he just needed some of his own. Next was the computer hardware room, that would work! No one ever bothered to open it, environmentally sealed to keep the hardware properly cooled and dust free, no one would hear or smell him; he just had to hope Kevin didn't check astrally.

He turned to his left, running straight for the wall and exhaling into a phase once more, passing through it and into the computer hardware room. He would have liked to have actually left Haven, maybe phase into the elevator and climb its service ladder, hide in an unoccupied hotel room in the Majestic, but he would have had to run right past the lounge area's entryway to leave Haven; the others would have seen him and been able to catch up.

Unfortunately for Jesse's desire to have his breakdown in solitude, his pause while deciding where to hide had allowed Lexa to reach Haven's main expanse; she saw him phase into the hardware room. Shaking her head at his irrational reaction, Lexa smirked at herself because she knew if it had been her who was upset, she too would do her best not to reveal it. She was also amused by the fact that she could understand that it wasn't the best response, something Jesse himself had tried to convince her of in the past. It seemed their positions had been reversed, but hopefully that meant they could understand one another all the better this time.

Striding to the computer hardware room while Brennan and Shalimar were still struggling to get their feet under themselves, Lexa wondered if the West Coast team even bothered to lock it. They were the only ones who were ever in Haven until her team moved in, after all, so securing the room would only make for more effort being required to check and maintain the equipment. Smirking as she tried the handle and found the door unlocked, Lexa decided it also made sense: a lock, even a good one, wouldn't keep a determined intruder out of the room. Eve probably had security features designed to secure or destroy her data if anyone attempted to inappropriately access it.

Jesse was leaning one elbow and the heel of his fist against the exterior wall, hiding his eyes behind his forearm as he struggled to sob silently. He knew Shalimar would hear him if he made much noise, but he hoped the hum of the computer equipment would cover him if he remained quiet enough. He spun around in surprise when the door's airtight seal hissed open, his haggard eyes red-rimmed and alarmed as he saw Lexa entering.

"Jess, come on," Lexa said with a slightly patronizing tone of voice as she stepped into the doorway, knowing Jesse knew her well enough to recognize when she hid her concern behind sarcasm because she wasn't confident in her own ability to express emotion. "Wasn't it you who convinced me I had to let the rest of the team help me?" Her expression softened as she met Jesse's eyes and saw how truly upset he was, realizing he needed more than her teasing support. "Please, Jesse. You've done so much for me; let me return the favor. Let me help you, now; Shalimar and Brennan love you, want to help you, too..."

"NO!" Jesse shouted at her, frustration and pain and despair all wound together in a yell of fury that startled Lexa into taking a step back, not actually entering the room. "Lexa!" Jesse barked at her, trying to yell but his voice breaking at the same time. His glare changed into heartbreak even as he met her eyes; Jesse grimaced in turmoil again as he turned away from Lexa, shoving a restraining palm at her. "Lexa, god, not you. . .I can't..."

The tears were streaming down Jesse's face as he stared at the rear of the room, completely unable to face Lexa, let alone meet her eyes. His entire frame was heaving as he started hyperventilating, choked noises of distress coming from his throat as he struggled to regain some fraction of control, at least of his voice.

Jesse only struggled for an instant, then his control snapped.

"Not You!!!" Jesse screamed at Lexa as he whirled to face her, drawing out the word "you" in anguish, his face and even his throat turning red as he cried out. His hands flailed inarticulately as he did, his fingers curled into pained claws even as they trembled. "Lexa!" he snarled angrily, trying to hide his pain behind another emotion, a trick he was not practiced at that Lexa was far too familiar with to even come close to falling for. "Not from you, okay!?" Jesse shouted, his eyes wild and voice breaking on the last word, abandoning the transparent attempt as he grew closer to outright hysteria.

"I CAN'T. . .I CAN'T EVEN..." Jesse choked out, his eyes screwing up almost closed as it washed over him again. The anguish, the despair, the certainty that whatever Eve managed to do with him wouldn't be enough, wouldn't be soon enough, the fact that he had five other people he knew and cared for, no, eight with the new members, ten if he counted Anne and Eloy, who had both helped so much, were also both powerful. . .all these people he couldn't get away from, didn't want to be away from, but they would all leave him; he would be forced to be alone, couldn't do anything to stop it, to save the only family who had ever truly cared for him, all he could do was watch, watch as they left one by one, watching him be helpless to do anything to help them while he only went on, never having any choice in any of it.....

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" he screamed at her, livid with anguish, taking a menacing step at Lexa that was so out of character she stepped back again, almost into Brennan and Shalimar, who had come up behind her. They were staring over Lexa's shoulders in shock and alarm as Jesse railed violently.

"YOU'RE THE LAST. . .THE FIRST..." he shouted, his voice confused and breaking into more of a moan after the pause. Meeting her eyes one last time, Jesse covered his face with his hands as his shoulders heaved, moaning out: "Just get out of here."

Jesse's shoulders heaved with breathless sobs twice more before Brennan frowned in determination, raising a hand to move Lexa aside, intending to push his way forward to Jesse's side, when Jesse yanked his hands away from his face, curled into fists as he lifted his head, eyes still clenched shut in pain as he screamed out:

"LEAVE!! I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU—"

Pressing the knuckles of one hand to her mouth, Lexa whirled and fled, shoving between Brennan and Shalimar, just as unwilling to let them see her cry as she had been thinking about before she opened the door. She ran across Haven's main expanse, heading for her room on its other side. She didn't hear Jesse brokenly whisper:

"–I can't watch you die..."

"Get him; I'll get Lex," Shalimar blurted to Brennan, understanding Jesse's breakdown once she heard his last statement. Brennan was already nodding and moving forward as Shalimar went after Lexa, realizing he had broken off Jesse's despair that morning in the pool, distracted him with humor, but then he had been further distracted by Josh and Kevin's arrival. They had never actually finished their conversation; just leaving it hanging had left Jesse's doubts and fears lurking in the background. They had obviously been building since, the movie's dialogue bringing them back to the forefront of Jesse's mind.

"Jesse. Jesse," Brennan repeated as Jesse turned away from him, unwilling to face his best friend, another person he loved that would die long before him. Brennan caught Jesse before he could step away, wrapping his long arms around Jesse's torso, laying his hands over the opposite sides of Jesse's chest as he pulled him close, forcing him into an embrace from behind and simply holding him.

"Let it out, man," Brennan said softly and gently, tipping his head forward so that his lips were just above Jesse's ear. "You can't hold it all in. It's not your fault, not any of it, and we won't let you cut us off so that we can't cut you off later when we die." Jesse made a choked whimper of a sob at Brennan's words; Brennan simply held him closer, tighter, unconsciously twisting his shoulders back and forth to rock Jesse in reassurance.

"Any of us could die at any time, Jess," Brennan told him, knowing that thought wasn't anything new to their lives, just the threat of its truth coming from their own bodies being a previously unconsidered danger of their lives as Mutant X, as New Mutants. "I know you know that. GSA, Dominion, violent criminals, runaway buses, who knows," he continued. "But we're not giving up. None of us are going to just give up and let go on you, so don't you dare try to do it to us first. Eve will do everything she can to figure it out, and who knows, she might even do it without Adam's help. But she'll need yours to make that happen." Alone in the computer room, Brennan closed his eyes and pressed a gentle kiss to Jesse's temple, wishing he had the words. He read poetry because it spoke to his soul, but an appreciation for others emotional use of words didn't necessarily make him eloquent himself.

Brennan slid his hands to the backs of Jesse's shoulders as he stepped back, turning Jesse around and replacing them on the front of Jesse's shoulders as the shorter man looked up at him. Tears were still flowing from Jesse's eyes, and he sniffled mightily, but those red-rimmed eyes were relieved, the tremors wracking his frame subsiding.

"Even if she can't do it all on her own, Eve is familiar with Adam's work and can keep us going longer, just like she is for Lexa now," Brennan promised Jesse, staring into his eyes to make sure he accepted Brennan's words this time. "It looks like it's taking Adam some time to get away from the Dominion, but we can't let that break our hopes. It took him a year to figure out what he needed to know about them, and then he got the surprise of his life from the Creator. He'll contact us when he can, save us as soon as he can; you know that. We just have to wait."

Jesse threw himself forward, embracing Brennan tightly without a word.

Brennan held him in return.

TO BE CONTINUED...