by Drucilla
Disclaimer: I don't own Mason, Adam, or anyone else in Mutant X. I do own Angelique and all of Black Rose Stables, at least in fiction if not in fact (oh how I wish I had those stables in fact). Reviews are welcome, flames will be ignored. Something I started a while ago that I might actually finish now.
Angelique Delacroix got the call at 6:30 am, which would have been an unusual time for anyone else. For her, it was half an hour into her morning workout, and she was already out at her indoor training ring with one of her yearlings, training the horse to saddle, bridle, and lunge-line. It did annoy her that she had to leave the horse in the middle of a session that was really going quite spectacularly well; she had been responsive all morning and was only getting better. Still, this might be a client she would need to take care of. Angelique led the horse to the edge of the ring and then hit the button for the first line, picking up the phone and propping it on her shoulder. "Black Rose Stables, Delacroix speaking."
"Angel?"
She knew that voice. She resisted the urge to hang up, knowing that she'd regret it later. "Adam, what the hell do you want? I'm busy."
"We need to talk, Angel. It's about Mason."
The woman frowned as her uneasiness communicated itself to her horse, and the young mare became restive, restless. "I told you, I'm through. I'm out. I quit ten years ago. Whatever you two are up to these days I don't want to know about it."
"Angel, have you been watching the news lately?"
She thought back, knowing what he was talking about. The company they had all worked for had grown surprisingly successful in the last ten years. She could have made serious money if she'd stayed, but she'd wanted to devote more time to her horses. Then, after hearing what had happened with Mason and Adam's sudden disappearance from the company, as well as all the other rumors and news stories of genetically enhanced and engineered humans, she had started to think she was well quit of that company. Sometimes she wondered, though, what would have happened if she hadn't left.
"Angel?"
"Yeah, I'm here. What do you want?"
"I need your help. I need to get in touch with Mason."
"Forget it. I shouldn't even be talking to you, Adam." He sounded sincere. She wasn't any happier for it.
"Why? Did he threaten you?" Now he sounded genuinely outraged that Mason would do something like that. He didn't sound surprised, though. Angelique wondered what the two of them had been up to.
"No, he didn't threaten me. He hasn't contacted me. He," she said pointedly, "has respected my wishes and stayed out of my life, let me live apart from whatever I did at Genomex."
"Angel, Mason is hunting down innocent men and women and using them for his experiments. He's become extremely bitter about what happened to him and he's taking that out on the people Genomex illegally experimented on."
Angelique just stared at the phone. It sounded like something out of the X-Files, and she told him so. "Adam, whatever Mason has or hasn't done, that doesn't mean you need to drag me into it. You are not the police, you are not the FBI, you can't subpoena me and make me do anything. When some legal body calls to arrest me or subpoena me or whatever, then you can talk. Not before." Angelique was starting to get annoyed, both at the man on the other end of the line and at herself for not hanging up when she should have.
* * *
Dressage. Out in the ring she was queen of her tiny kingdom, working her baby on the lunge line and trying out his paces. He was two years old and trained to a fair-thee-well, the first of his generation of the new adaptations she'd made to the genetics of the breed. Tiny Dancer was his name.
The Friesian Horse Administration had given her the all-clear on her project to modify the breed, remove some of the dangerous genetic traits and breed in new, better ones. Probably a good thing all around, since her modifications had begun a decade before she'd told them. But then, they didn't have to know that. It hadn't become noticeable in a surface check until recently.
Dancer arched his neck proudly, showing off… Angelique didn't know for whom. Possibly for her, possibly for any of the half-dozen Friesian mares she had in the small stable. Possibly for any of the rest. In addition to breeding the Friesians, she also orchestrated and sometimes ran a program that taught children of abusive or neglectful homes how to ride, giving them something to latch on to that was just too plain dumb to be anything other than nice to them. Well, not too plain dumb. Most of her horses were actually highly intelligent, and she had known horses that were both dumb and amazingly mean.
Angelique ran the stallion through his paces, trot, walk, canter. Flying lead changes every other lap. Dancer was amazing, and he picked up on things faster than she'd ever thought possible. The intelligence in his clear brown eyes made her warm to the tips of her fingers. On an impulse, she signaled him to stop and walked over, unclipping the lunge-line and looping it over her shoulder.
"We're going to try something new today, baby," she told him, patting him on the neck and scratching him lightly under his chin. "Stand."
She walked back out to the center of the ring and held out her hand forward, palm down. "Walk," she told him, and began to turn. After a few seconds he did, following the path her hand indicated, looking at her curiously. She began to grin. "Trot."
He followed, increasing his pace and changing as she directed. Her arm raised as the speed increased, and as the horse began to catch on he arches his head and flagged his tail, putting on a performance that would have made Richard Donner proud. Beat that, Othello.
Finally she slowed him down. She'd given him enough of a workout today that he didn't blow out his sides as much as she usually did when she saddled him, and she rode him along the edges of the pastures quickly, performing only a cursory check. The phone call from Adam earlier had made her tired enough that she just wanted to go to bed. She suspected Tiny Dancer felt the same way, from the way he was constantly looking barn-wards. After they'd made their rounds she directed him up to the stables, dismounted and collected the tack, hosed him off and dried him down. He didn't even object as he walked placidly back into the large stall that was marked with child's drawings in praise of the horse.
Angelique dropped the saddle and bridle off in the tack room, hanging them up on their allocated peg. The pump dropped a couple of gallons of cold water on her head and woke her up long enough for her to get up to the house. Messages on her machine made her frown. She hadn't been gone that long.
"Angel, honey, it's Adam. Please, pick up the phone. I really need to talk to you." A pause. "All right, I guess you're out with your horses. I'll try back later."
She deleted the message and glared at the machine.
"Angel… okay, you're still out. Look, it's important that I get in touch with you. There are things you need to know."
She deleted the message. She pondered throwing it against the wall.
"Angel…" Delete. "Angel…" Delete. "Look, I…" Delete.
Angelique sighed. Five messages. The man was persistent… at least some things hadn't changed. A lot hadn't changed, really. Mason was still a recluse and Adam was still a busybody in what (in mitigation, at least) he thought was everyone's best interest. But she had left the company years ago, and it was far too late in the game now to drag her into it. The only thing hearing from Adam had done apart from annoy her was to make her curious what Mason was doing these days. She flipped through her mail, thinking.
The horse show was coming up in a couple of weeks. Dancer was just about ready to show, as was Satin and the irrepressible (as usual) Kid Stealth. Which reminded her to check and make sure he hadn't gotten out of his stall again. Screw it. She could figure that out later.
She scribbled a note to herself and trooped up to bed. The day had been too long already. But she would have to remember to invite Mason to the horse show, anyway, as one old co-worker to another. It was something he could attend without anyone getting particularly curious. Especially Adam, damn the man.
She kicked her shoes off and curled up under the covers without even bothering to undress. A good day for the horses, but it had been a bad day for her. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
Maybe.