Disclaimer : Mutant X doesn't belong to me, blah, blah, blah, no surprises here. However, Derek, Jenny, Julia, Anjelica, Darien and Stephanie are mine, and Agent Davis belongs to AliasJaneDoe. The Nolexin doesn't exist for real, I created it.

Summary : a single event, an unknown mistake. Twenty-two years later, it's coming back to haunt them.

Author's Notes : I'm a B/E shipper, I guess you know what it means. Don't read if you don't like the idea of them together. As for the other pairings, I had absolutely no controls over them, so don't hold me responsible for possible cardiac arrests.

Season three and approximately second half of season two never happened. Only a past character will appear at some point, but any other ressemblances with other episodes are pure coincidences. And I'm so not joking. ;)

If you're familiar with the PureMX timelines, just keep in mind that season one takes place in 2007 and season two in 2008. And forget everything else. The other facts wouldn't work with this story anyway.

Huge thanks to Frickangel, LoveConquers and Aurore. You girls know why. You rock :)

This fic is a birthday present for AliasJaneDoe.

Vibes of Time

By Milmiss

Chapter 1

Sanctuary, May 25th, 2030

"She's the twelfth in three weeks. I may be wrong, but it doesn't look good."

"I know," Adam sighed. He was seated at his desk, vidtalking to one of his old contacts, Agent Davis.

"She was a woman in her late forties," resumed Agent Davis. "I'm sending you the information we have on her. But it now means that this" He paused, not sure how to describe what had happened over the past three weeks, "This phenomenon affects women as well. Up until today, the victims were males only. This is getting worse. I've been able to cover it until now, but if this goes on..."

"What can you tell me about the cause of death?" Adam interrupted, refusing to think about that part of the problem for the moment.

"The symptoms are the same, progressive obstruction of the respiratory tract causing suffocation. The coroner didn't pursue the analysis because the cause of death was so evident. But those deceases, Adam, this can't be a coincidence."

"You're right, I don't think it is."

"You have something in mind?" asked Agent Davis, seeing the tense expression on Adam's face.

"Nothing specific yet, but I could use some samples to look over."

"I'll manage something, don't worry, you'll have them." Davis nodded.

"Good, I'm going to send you two members of my team."

"Alright, I'll wait for them," he said, ending the communication.

The room grew silent as Adam leaned against the back of his chair, deep in thoughts. The events of the last weeks were puzzling to him. In only twenty days, twelve mutants had died from strange and similar circumstances, and the symptoms described to him by Davis worried him greatly.

He sighed before getting up, unable to understand how all of this had happened. If his suppositions proved to be true, the future wasn't looking good for new mutants because it appeared to be some kind of epidemic. The deaths, whatever had provoked them, didn't seem to be slowing down; they were not isolated deaths or mere coincidence anymore.

A yell coming from outside of the room broke his reflection.

"DARIEN!"

Despite his current inner turmoil, Adam smiled. Anjelica. He would never understand how a fifteen year old girl with parents like hers could have such a strident voice. He walked quietly to the glass of his office, curious to know what the problem was this time.

"You better not turn visible ever again if you want to live a long life! You're dead if I can get my hands on you!" Anjelica threatened. She was slowly crossing the hall of Sanctuary, turning her head repeatedly from left to right.

A laugh could be heard.

She let out a frustrated sigh. "You and your power." She was ready to give up when an idea popped into her head. He would never turn down this kind of challenge. She grinned. "You know what I think? You're just too chicken to face me."

"I'm not stupid, my dear. But alright, if you insist..."

It was silent for a few seconds, then Darien turned visible just behind Anjelica, gripping her arm without warning, twisting it behind her back.

"HEY!" protested Anjelica. "This is so not fair."

Darien was obviously enjoying himself. "What can I say? You know the old saying, 'All's fair in love and war'."

"You spend way too much time with Derek. Anyway, that's what I thought. We're officially at war now."

"Come on, you do love your brother, don't you?" he said with a small voice, faking to be hurt by her comment.

But Anjelica wasn't buying it, she knew him too well. "Don't flatter yourself so much, Darien."

"Anyway, from where I'm standing, lil' sis, it is obvious I have the upper hand." He was doing it on purpose. He knew how much she hated when he was calling her "lil' sis."

"First of all, I am not your lil' sis" she started calmly.

"Yes, you are. Even if it's only for 20 minutes, technically you are."

"And secondly," she resumed, not really listening to him. "You do not have the upper hand."

As Darien frowned, Anjelica delivered a couple of blows, and he ended up lying face down on the floor. She then seated herself on his back before he could make a single move.

"Where the hell did that come from?" asked Darien, dumbfounded.

Proud of herself, Anjelica crossed her arms over her chest, smiling. "I'll tell you if you tell me where's my diary."

He grumbled something under his breath, then reluctantly added, "My room, second drawer."

Her smile grew even wider as she bent down and whispered in his ear. "Don't try that again with me, bro. Uncle Brennan just taught me a lot of other interesting moves. Wouldn't want you to get hurt." She got up laughing and made her way to her brother's room.

Adam shook his head, smiling. Those kids were impossible. He turned around, hearing the beep signaling incoming documents, knowing it must be the information Davis had talked about. Information that he hoped would help him find out the reason for this slaughter, and maybe confirm his suspisions. He dreaded the thought, although he knew the samples would certainly prove useful. He collected the papers and activated his communicator. "Emma, Shalimar..."

As the doors of the theater opened, a large group of people exited the building. They were all talking eagerly about the movies they had just seen. The façade of the theater was covered with a huge poster, featuring two male actors and a car. Big letters displayed the text, "Back to The Future Trilogy Marathon – 40th Anniversary." In the middle of the mass, a couple of young students, walking hand in hand, appeared to be in the middle of a heated discussion.

"Come on, Derek," said the young woman, "You can't be so hard on him!"

"Steph, all I'm saying is that he could have been more careful." As she eyed him angrily, he went on. "All the things he was doing were so obviously screaming, 'Hello, I'm your son'. I can't believe his parents never grasped that."

Stephanie stopped and faced him, arms crossed over her chest. "I'm sure you would have done the same mistakes."

"You know, Elbert Hubbard said, 'The greatest mistake you can make is to continually fear you will make one'. So, no, I don't think I would have,"he said with a mischievious grin.

"You're impossible, you know that? But if I remember correctly," she added, smiling softly, "Didn't Roosevelt say, 'The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything'?"

Derek chuckled, and lifted his hands in the air. "Okay, okay, I surrender. Maybe I would have made a slip of the tongue or two... would never have called my father 'Dad', though," He added under his breath.

Stephanie slapped his arm playfully. "I heard that."

"Come on," he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as they resumed walking. "I'm just joking. You know I had a great time watching those movies. And it was fun to see your favorite actor in his first role. Cute little baby, this Uncle Joey," Derek laughed.

"You're such a tease," stated Steph, half-complaining, half-smiling.

"However, I did notice an interesting fact," He commented. "No matter the changes made by Marty, he always ends up with the same girlfriend."

"True," agreed Stephanie, "The same goes for his parents, it seems. It's pretty romantic, like saying that true love is meant to be."

"Refreshing perspective," Derek whispered while kissing her cheek.

"You think so?" She asked, turning to look at him.

"Uh-huh," He smiled, touching her lips with his own. Stephanie kissed him back, but a female voice soon broke the moment.

"Derek..."

They parted, and Stephanie sighed, looking at her boyfriend. "Derek, your mom's a psionic. How can she not feel when the moment is inappropriate?"

"Wow, thank god, I'm not connected with my mom 24/7 ! I mean, we have a connection, but it's not like we're inside each other's head." He looked around him. "Come on," He said, taking Steph's hand and leading her to a quiet place. He then activated his comlink. "Yes, mom."

"I'm in town with Shal, we're going back to Sanctuary with samples for Adam, and he's requesting our help to analyze them. Can you meet with us?" came the reply.

Derek looked at Stephanie.

"Sounds important," she stated.

"Well, it's not really normal for him to request both my mom and my help for the same thing," agreed Derek. "I'm gonna have to go," He said reluctantly.

"Remind me again why you're studying bio-genetics?" asked Stephanie, raising her eyebrows in a teasing way.

"I fell into it when I was a baby?" he tried, joking. He then mouthed the word 'sorry' while lifting his hand to reply to his mother. "Where are you?"

Emma, Shalimar, and Derek were the last ones to enter the rec room of Sanctuary. Adam, Jesse, Brennan and Jenny, awoman in her mid forties, were already there, waiting silently for the last people to arrive while the younger ones, Anjelica, Darien, and Julia, a seventeen year old blond teenage girl, were chatting together. As soon as Adam spotted them, he began the briefing and the room grew quiet.

"I want you all hale and hearty first thing in the morning for this assignment. You all know now that there was another victim amongst the mutants. This may be worse than I had originally thought. Twelve mutants have died over the past three weeks, and we may be at the forefront of a serious problem."

"Is this an epidemic?" asked Brennan, automatically wrapping his arms around Emma's waist when she moved closer to him.

"That's what we need to find out," answered the older man. "Shalimar, Brennan, you'll go in the field. Ask friends and family members for information. I want to know what the victims did during their last few days, what they ate, where they went, who they met, if they were acting strange, everything. Six each, it should be over by the end of the day." When he saw them nod, he went on. "Jesse, Jenny, you'll work from Sanctuary. I want you two to draw up an exhaustive background on the victims. If what's happening has a past cause, we need to be able to find the similarities."

"You got it," answered Jesse, after a slight cough.

"And Emma, Derek, we have a lot of work to do on those samples. I want results by end of the day tomorrow," Adam stated gravely.

"What about us?" asked Julia, refering to herself, Anjelica, and Darien. "We want to help."

Adam smiled. "I know. You can go with either Shalimar or Brennan, if you want." He then looked at the twins. "As for you two, you'll stay here and help your parents, if they need a hand." He then ended the briefing and left the room, Derek following him.

Emma turned towards Brennan. "I'm going to start working with them tonight. The sooner we figure this out, the better."

"Don't get too tired out. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day," he said, giving her a little kiss.

"Yeah, I know. I won't come to bed too late."

"Okay," he said, watching her leave the room to go work with Adam and Derek.

Jenny and Jesse had followed their lead and were already seated in front of their respective computers.

At the other side of the room, Julia approached Shalimar. "Mom? I have a bad feeling about this." She wasn't sure what it was, she still wasn't controlling her feral senses very well. "He didn't tell us everything, right?"

Shalimar ran her hand through her daughter's hair and smiled softly. "This is how your father's is, he'll tell us what we need to know in time, don't worry sweetie." Julia nodded, still not at ease.

Brennan lifted his head from the book he was reading when he heard Emma step into the room. The only light was coming from the small lamp on the bedside table next to Brennan, leaving much of the room in the semi-darkness. Yet he saw her approach and closed his book, putting it on the night table. She sat on the bed close to him, her face appearing in full light.

She was beautiful. Brennan couldn't think of anything else. She always was. Even... even when she wasn't smiling, when she seemed preoccupied.

Emma looked at the closed book then turned her face towards him again. "You're not sleeping." It was more a statement than a question.

"Actually," he began, taking her hands in his, "There were way too many things in your mind to let me sleep."

"Oh." Even after all this time, it always surprised her how their bond was constantly being strengthened through the years.

Brennan glanced at the clock beside him. "3am? Guess we don't have the same definition of late," he joked playfully, attempting to lighten the mood. But she remained impassive. "No good news, then?" He concluded, turning serious. "What is it, honey?" He leaned forward, cupping her face with his hand.

Emma shifted nervously. "This is bad. I can feel it, deep inside of me." She put her hand on her chest to emphasize her point. "I mean, all we did tonight was preparation work for tomorow, but... I've never felt so insecure, so apprehensive, so uneasy about something."

"Hey," He whispered, "Whatever it is, there's nothing we can't face together, you know that, right?"

"Of course," she replied, the feelings she was sensing from Brennan bringing a smile to her face.

"You should come to bed and get some sleep before the night is over," Brennan suggested.

She nodded, making her way to the bathroom. Uneasy, Brennan watched her, feeling more of her apprehension wash over him. Her instincts had never been wrong before.

TBC