Chapter 1

Author's Note: Well, here we go again. Again, a sincere apology to those who preferred the way it was going before, but again, it just wasn't doing it for me. I have high hopes for "Unheimliche" though, as I hope to blend the romance and the action. Probably more romance though, because I feel obligated to make up for all the mean shit the writers do to Kurt sometimes. Like killing him. I still haven't quite come to terms with that. I also have no idea how Julia would deal with such a thing. Probably have a psychotic break. Anyway, that was a moot point, because in my world, Kurt doesn't die. :) Unheimliche, for those of you who aren't interested in Freud is German for 'Uncanny'. I thought it was widely appropriate. :) Even if you're not happy with this version, please don't flame me. :)

It started the same as always. Julia knew it was a dream, but somehow that didn't make it seem any less real, or any less terrifying. The dark seemed to twist around her, getting closer, brushing her skin, until it suddenly exploded, tried to consume her, tried to choke her.

Julia came up swinging, her body crackling in its dark energy form, the breath she didn't truly need coming in sharp gasps, and she was nearly blinded by the sunlight outside. Wincing, Julia covered her eyes with her arm, glancing at the tangled sheets around her legs, the pillows thrown to the floor.

The same dream, and it never gets less freaky. I guess at least this time I didn't punch Kurt in the chin. Which she had apparently done the third or fourth time she had this same nightmare. It was an unpredictable thing, coming at random times during the night and only sometimes on consecutive days. The flailing, and hitting Kurt on one occasion were the reason she had been sleeping at the bar lately, trying to minimalize the damage she did to her fiance.

She had followed Kurt's advice and tried to think of happy things before she went to sleep -and she had also made sure they cuddled for at least an hour too- she had followed Hank's advice and changed her diet here and there, cutting out random sugars and preservatives, had stopped eating before bed and had even replaced snacks with some of Marcy's super-health smoothies. Nothing changed. Finally, she had talked to the Professor, who, unable to dig into her brain, had simply advised her keep a dream journal so that they could find the cause behind it. She had stopped keeping the journal when she had realized it was the same every time. It was the dark that really worried her; her powers were dark in nature. Did the nightmare have something to do with them? With the weird little quirks that had been popping up lately?

Or maybe the Professor was right and she had some weird traumatic repressed memory that even she herself didn't know about and that was the cause.

Whatever it is, I just wish I could figure it out so I could get a decent night's sleep. Julia thought bitterly, pulling her powers back down and returning to her flesh-and-blood state, sliding her legs out of the bed and rubbing her eyes. If the dream had some sort of plot, she might be able to figure out what it was about, but so far it had just been more of that swirly black background.

With a sigh, Julia headed downstairs to the coffee pot which Violet had blessedly left running for her. She had no idea how her friend slept as little as she did and got up as early as she did; late nights at the bar nearly killed Julia, and she rarely got up before noon on nights when she had pulled a late shift. She poured out a cup of Colombian roast, and didn't even manage to jump at the 'bamf' sound that erupted in the quiet kitchen.

Knowing better than to bother looking behind her, Julia looked up, and met Kurt's grinning face.

"Guten morgen, geliebtes."

"Morning," Julia returned smiling, only slightly less enthusiastic. Still, her demeanor must have been far enough off for Kurt to notice, because his face quickly became serious.

"Bad dream again?" He asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah. Not until this morning though, so I got some decent sleep at least." She shrugged, pouring some creamer in her coffee, Kurt following her progress around the kitchen on the ceiling. "Anyway, how'd you know when I got up?" She questioned, finding his timing oddly accurate.

"I didn't." He smiled again, though it seemed a little forced. He clearly wanted to discuss the aforementioned bad dream, but didn't feel like pushing her; probably a good idea until after she had a drink or two of her coffee. "But you veren't in your room, so I figured you vould be getting coffee. You have a pattern. Anyvay, I had a very important question for you."

"Oh? What kind?"

"Red or vhite?" His tail suddenly appeared between their faces, bearing a white and red rose. "Vhich do you prefer?"

She glanced at him and smirked a little. "I was thinking blue."

"Blue?" He scrunched his face up at her.

"Uh-huh. Black and blue." Kurt's scrunching got worse.

"You vant our roses to be the same colors as a bruise? That's so...unromantic liebling."

"I think it would be pretty." Julia shrugged. "And no, not like a bruise. Call it strange, but I seem to have grown really fond of the color blue these days." She gave him a sly little smile, which Kurt returned, finally leaving the ceiling to join her on the floor.

"But vhy black? It's a vedding, not a funeral."

"Black is for me, blue is for you. I think it will be very romantic. Not that they even have to be roses, we could do something more...unique." She smiled again, Kurt crossing the kitchen to pull a vase down from a cabinet, filling it with water.

"I can hardly say no to you when smile at me like that." He shook his head, placing the roses in the water. "Nevertheless, these vere for you." He placed the vase in the center of the small table and took the seat across from her.

"Thanks," Julia smiled, and pulled them towards her, inhaling gently. "Maybe lilies?"

"Lilies vould be nice." Kurt agreed, his hand reaching across the table and settling lightly on hers around the vase. "Vill you tell me about the dream?"

Julia sighed, having known that she wouldn't actually be able to distract him by talking about the flowers for their wedding. Although she did really like the idea of blue and black flowers, of course, that would also take a lot of dye to make too. Maybe just for her personal flowers then. "It was the same one again. With the dark and the drowning and stuff. And I've been thinking really hard on some of the stuff the Professor thought could be the cause, but I can't think of any trauma or bad memories relating to the dark or anything. I mean, my childhood was happy. And it would be awfully silly of me to be afraid of the dark, wouldn't it?"

"Ja...vhat else do you think it could be? I don't think it's really normal to have the same dream this many times."

"Probably not. Ugh. I wish telepathy worked on me sometimes. Xavier could just pop in there and fix it then."

"Have you thought...that maybe it has something to do vith your powers?"

"Yeah, I've thought about that. But I don't really know how they'd be connected other than the dark bit. They've never effected my brain...have they? Have I ever acted weird?"

"You mean more so than usual?" Kurt grinned, but when Julia frowned/pouted at him, he just shrugged. "You've always seemed like the same Jyulia to me. Except for vhen you're really, really angry. Then you make me think more of Logan."

Julia ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair, then took another sip of coffee. "I know. Speaking of which, Wolverine's been teaching me to meditate, believe it or not. I didn't even know he did that. But that's not really making any difference either. Anyway, what's your schedule for the day? It's a school day, right?"

"Sort of. The Professor, Scott, and Jean took the students to New York. Apparently not very many of them have seen Broadway before."

"Really? I can't believe you're missing a Broadway show right now, that seems right up your alley." Julia grinned.

Kurt merely shrugged, but he had a sly little smile on his face. "It vasn't Pirates of Penzance, I vill live. Besides, it seemed like a good excuse to get some private time vith my beautiful fiance. Vithout the Professor barging into my brain at random intervals."

"Mm. I like the sound of that. But I only have a couple hours till my appointment with Hank. We're going to try and trace my energy signature again."

"A couple hours is long enough." A puff of smoke carried Kurt to her side of the table, his arms wrapping around her middle, and a second teleport had them upstairs, Julia's coffee and all.

"Well, ready for round two my dear?" Hank asked, holding an adhesive node out to Julia. She took it and stuck it to her forehead, making a sarcastic face at Hank.

"You just had to design it to stick to my forehead, didn't you? I feel ridiculous wearing this thing."

"Yes, well, sorry for irking your fashion sense." Hank smiled, equally as sassy. "I could have put a probe into your spinal cord?"

"You've made your point." Julia sighed, plopping down in the exam chair. The probe had to be as close to her energy source as possible, and as far as they could tell, that was her central nervous system and brain. Considering how...hectic things had become for Julia shortly after her arrival, Hank's scientific examinations had never made it very far past a preliminary. His latest project was trying to decipher the origins of her energy; he monitored the wavelength she emitted, which had to be known somewhere, since the MRD had been able to generate a represent, and running it through his various sources of information until a match was found. Yesterday had been earthly sources of energy, today was inter-dimensional. Tomorrow would probably energies from different planets.

It wasn't a bad test by any means, not painful or uncomfortable, just boring.

This time she had known to bring a book.

"Any luck with that nightmare?"

Inwardly, Julia sighed. No one could just leave it lie, then again, she supposed that was the nature of an oversized family, it was only natural they would worry when something odd started to happen to one of their own.. Except maybe Scott, he still wasn't her biggest fan.

Knowing this however, Julia embellished a little, she didn't want to worry Hank more than she had to.

"It's been alright. I mean, I haven't punched Kurt in the face again recently."

"You've also been sleeping in town, while he's been staying here."

"Okay, well...we're busy. Kurt's got his X-Men stuff, and I've got work and...yeah. It's just easier." Julia shrugged. To which Hank raised an eyebrow. "I know, I know. It totally sucks. But what else was I supposed to do? The nightmare isn't so bad, but the the thrashing around like I'm an epileptic? I don't enjoy the idea of leaving bruises on him. Not that you can tell, what with the fur and the blue and all." She sighed and gave Hank her best cheerful face. "It's not every night still. I think that at least is a good thing."

"But it's still fairly unpredictable?"

"Yeah. I dunno Hank, maybe it's just a nightmare and we're all making too big a deal out of it. I'll probably stop having it in a few days." She sounded reasonably confident, but she was pretty sure both she and Hank sincerely doubted the dream would just go away at this point. Not that any real solutions had turned up either. In an obvious attempt to cheer her up, Hank changed the subject.

"You're hair looks nice by the way, did you decide to cut it for the wedding?"

Julia smiled, loving a compliment to her hair as much as any girl. Truthfully though, it wasn't a whole lot different, she was just trying a new style. It was still nearly the same length in the front, dipping an inch or two below her shoulder blades, and tapered into a slightly shorter back, just at her shoulders. Kurt had still protested it of course, even when she had assured him he would still have plenty to run his fingers through and had mourned the loss of every inch that had been cut. He had gotten over it eventually, which she suspected had something to do with the fact that any time he tried to convince her to let it grow back out, she kissed him to shut him up.

"Partially for the wedding, yes. My hair was always too messy as long as it was to do much with, I thought it would be way easier to style this way. And partially because I keep getting asked if I'm Psylocke and I got sick of it. Wasn't she Japanese? With like, purple hair or something?"

"Yes. In a manner of speaking." Julia shot Hank a confused look. "Well, she was British when she first joined the team, Captain Britain's twin as a matter of fact. But shortly after that there was a Japanese warrior named Kwannon-"

"Never mind. I get the feeling that story is about to get extremely confusing. Either way, I got a little annoyed being called by the wrong name. It's bad enough having to switch between Eclipse and Julia without having someone else's name thrown in there too."

"Well, your hair still looks lovely." Hank smiled.

"Thanks. I appreciate that." Julia smiled. Hank opened his mouth as though to say something else, but was interrupted by a loud pinging noise from the computer to which her forehead node attached.

"Ah, we finally have a match!" He spun in his chair so quickly he nearly missed his target and did a full circle, but managed to catch himself on the edge of the desk. Julia likewise practically jumped off the exam chair, yanking the sticky little thing off her forehead.

"To who? Or what?" Hank turned the monitor towards Julia, and she found herself faced with what appeared to be a large, billowy black cape, that had no evidence of a person inside it other than the face in the hood. "That's...Cloak, right?" Julia had been studying up on her dossiers in the X-Mansion's database, but still had a hard time putting names to faces on a lot of the active superheroes out there.

"Yes, he's a human mutate, usually stationed in New York with his partner Dagger. His powers stem mostly from the connection of his cloak to the Darkforce dimension. Yours however is a natural connection from your mutation."

"The Darkforce Dimension? So, all this time I've been changing into energy from a whole other dimension?"

"That's what your energy signature says, yes. I suppose it should have been obvious, Cloak absorbs light in much the same way you absorb all projected energy."

"Can't he teleport though? How come I can't teleport?"

"Well, I suspect that's because while his powers grant him access to the Darkforce, yours allow you to bring it into our dimension instead. He is able to open portals, but if my theory isn't wrong, you yourself become a portal instead."

"So other people could use me to teleport?" Julia questioned, wondering if all this time she had possessed some extra ability she didn't even know about.

"No, most likely not. When I say portal, I mean more like a power source. Your X-Rays have always shown a concentration of energy in your brain, so you most likely have a direct conduit of Darkforce energy in there somewhere." Hank reached over and tapped her head lightly.

"So...but what's Darkforce energy like? That doesn't mean it's dangerous, right?"

"No. I don't think so. Not a whole lot is known about the Dimension itself unfortunately, but you're not the first to have a connection to it. It doesn't seem anymore directly harmful than Scott's eyebeams or the dimension Kurt teleports through."

"What about...nightmares?"

"I'm afraid I don't know Julia." Quietly, Julia sighed to herself. It was nice to know there was a known origin to her powers, even if it did have frightening sounding name like 'The Darkforce Dimension' but that didn't give her any definitive answers to her current problems. The nightmare or her weird power spikes. She read the file on Cloak a little closer, trying to glean anything that might help her sort through the weird occurrences the last few weeks. Unfortunately, the information was fairly slim, Cloak was evidently an illusive fellow.

But she would bet she could find Dagger, and Cloak wouldn't be too far away.

"Kurt?"

In response to Julia's voice out of nowhere, Kurt very nearly fell off his chair, where he had been somewhat-awkwardly situated in to grade papers. His eyes shot towards the door, which Julia stood in front of, her hands raised apologetically.

"Sorry hon."

"It's alright. Vhat do you need liebling?"

"Uhm...a favor."

"Of vhat sort?" Kurt titled his head at her, confused by this behavior. It wasn't like her to be hesitant to ask him something, even a favor.

"Can you take me to New York City?"

Kurt's eyes widened. "Right now?"

"I mean, we don't have to go right now, but I...I want to talk to Cloak."

"Cloak?"

"Yeah. Hank says my powers come from the Darkforce, and he's been attached to the Darkforce longer than anyone else that I know of. I think maybe he can answer some questions I have." Julia crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed, and Kurt noticed now that she wasn't wearing her usual jeans, but what appeared to be something skin-tight and black under her jacket.

"You're vearing the SHIELD suit?"

"Yeah. It's...kinda weird, but I don't think Cloak will talk to me if I go in looking like some civilian with questions. Or one of the X-Men. So I decided to wear this, after I took the SHIELD patch off. And even then, I figured it would be better to be able to use my powers if I need them." She shrugged her shoulders absently. "I just need to know if this nightmare is something to do with my powers, or something to do with me. That's all I need to ask him."

"Did you tell the Professor?"

"Uhm...no. That's why I was hoping we could go tonight." She looked at him apologetically now. "It's not that I don't want help, I am asking you after all, but right now I don't know what kind of answers I'm going to get. And I need to decide how I feel about them before I start getting second opinions and interpretations from everyone else."

Kurt was quiet for a moment, Julia watching him silently, awaiting his answer.

"Sehr gut," He said after a moment, nodding. "If you think you vill learn something, I'll take you to New York."

"Thank you." Julia smiled.

"But no secrets from the others. If ve get answers, you should tell them. Especially the Professor, he's vorried about you, since this Nightmare started."

"Alright. I promise I will. If only so you don't have to feel guilty about helping me sneak around." She cast him a little grin as she rose up from the mattress.

It seemed like New York got grungier every time Julia came back. Then again, she always seemed to be coming back to the slums somewhere.

As she had suspected, traversing the cities rooftops in her energy form, she had been picking up on various energy signatures when she focused. So far, it had been a matter of checking on the brighter energy hubs, and seeing if they happened to be Dagger. It had been a bit tedious, but since she couldn't recognize an unfamiliar signature based on sight, it was the only option at the moment. She had expected Dagger to stand out a little more, seeing as pure light energy tended to naturally be brighter, but there was all sorts of weird stuff happening in New York these days; she and Kurt had actually gotten a front row seat to one of Electro's schemes being thwarted by Spiderman. Which Kurt had insisted they would be better off not getting involved in.

The latest bright spot was lingering around in church, and Julia felt fairly comfortable saying it was probably definitely Dagger this time, not because she could tell from the light energy, but because not very far away was what looked and felt like a void. She had never seen something like this before, though, she had also never run into another person with powers like her own.

"I'm pretty sure this is them." She informed Kurt, as they took up a position on a roof opposite the Church,

"How can you tell?"

"Bright light and a dark spot. I figure that's pretty specific to their gimmick, right?"

"Ja, suppose so." Kurt nodded, hunkering down on the roof slightly. He was starting to get a little worn out from all the teleporting, so she knew he'd have to rest before they got home. "Vhat do ve do now?"

"My plan was to go talk to them." Julia shrugged, shedding her jacket. She had also taken the sleeves off the SHIELD suit, mostly because with all the changing her arms did these days, gloves or sleeves had become very inconvenient. Even if they were able to change with her, the extra few seconds it always took to mold them to her hand's new shape could be costly in a real fight. Though she sincerely hoped today wouldn't involve a fight if she could help it.

"Just valk in and start asking questions?" Kurt questioned, his eyebrows raised.

"Kinda, yeah. I certainly don't plan to sneak in there and give them reason to suspect me of being less than genuine." She shrugged. "So...I was kinda hoping you would wait here."

"Vhy?" She wasn't sure whether his tone was indignant or upset.

"Because I'm doing this the Eclipse way, not the X-Men way. At least for the first few minutes, until they know this isn't like...an X-Men infiltration."

"Vhy vould ve infiltrate-"

"Look, I know you like to believe the X-Men are saints, but Scott's kind of a jerk sometimes. Authority figures are kinda jerks sometimes. And Cloak and Dagger are vigilantes, totally independent, no teams or anything like that. They don't like authority, and sometimes for good reason. I'll try and convince them you're here unofficially, but if it's the only way they'll talk to me..."

Kurt sighed, and made a show of sitting down on an air conditioning unit with his arms crossed. "Alright, I vill stay. But please be careful. Und come get me if you need me."

"Thank you." Julia crossed the roof to him and tilted Kurt's face up, kissing him lightly. "Thank you for being patient with me Kurt. And being my ride."

"Vell, I think you and I both know that I have a very hard time saying no to you vhen you bribe me vith kisses."

Julia grinned at her fiance and walked to the edge of the roof, taking a page from his book and disappearing in a spark of dark energy, just because it was faster than taking the fire escape stairs.

She jogged across the street quickly, so that no one saw a walking shadow and decided to report it, and pushed open the door to the church. She realized suddenly that it hadn't occurred to her that there may be a priest present in the building, but this thought was quickly forgotten when what appeared to be six daggers of light came flying at her face, arcing down at the last second to lodge in the ground at Julia's feet instead. Well, it seemed she had indeed found the right place.

Julia halted just inside the door, raising her hands and hoping to imply that she didn't intend any harm.

"Not going to lie, that seemed a little uncalled for. Or do you attack everyone who walks through this door?"

"You're not the average person who come walking in though our door." A female voice replied, with almost as much attitude as Julia. Dagger, judging by the white outfit and the slivers of light lodged in her fingers. "Who are you? X-Men? Avengers? SHIELD?"

"None of the above at the moment. I'm just here as me. I'm a mutant, Eclipse, or Julia, whichever you prefer. I only wanted to ask Cloak some questions."

"What sort of questions?" Julia jolted, this voice coming from directly behind her, whipping around to face a figure as dark as her own energy form, albeit much more billowy.

"I want to know about the Darkforce." Cloak made a noise that sounded a bit like a scoff, vanishing from sight and reappearing at Dagger's side now. His hand on her shoulder caused the blonde to lower her weapons. Julia remained as she was, but chose to stay in her dark form, not sure she felt quite comfortable enough to let her guard down yet.

"You share my curse," He said, though Cloak appeared not to be looking at her.

"My powers come from the same place, yes. Whether it's a curse or not...that I don't know. Not yet."

"You will." He turned, as though to fade into the walls again, but didn't. Dagger gave Julia another suspicious look, but didn't seem interested in trying to perforate her anymore, choosing instead to plop down on one of the front pews. Now that Dagger didn't seem to view her as a threat, Cloak appeared more wiling to talk."Ask your questions if you must."

Julia lowered her hands, stepping a little further into the church. "You call it a curse. Why?"

"I would assume then, that you don't feel the hunger."

"Hunger?"

"For light. And life. The Darkforce consumes, for me at least, that is its nature."

Just a tiny bit intimidated by this answer, Julia was quiet for a moment. Hunger had never been the word she attached to her absorption of outside energy, because she had never viewed it as consumption; it had always been a defense mechanism first. It wasn't as though she needed it exactly anyway, she could operate without it, just not for long.

"I absorb energy, but never anything solid."

"Perhaps your connection is different then."

"That's what I've been told so far. Is it...hard to control?"

"For me, yes. You seem slightly more adept at it." Cloak turned to face her again, giving a sort of up and down look.

"Not lately."

"You may be a natural mutant, but that does not mean you're able to bend an entire dimension to your will. If you had control of your powers before, I suspect it was because you were accessing a smaller amount of the Darkforce. Now, it appears you're tapping into a great deal."

More Darkforce? But my powers haven't actually changed other than being harder to control. Is it natural? Is my mutation still changing, even now? Or maybe the Darkforce is just trying to eat me, since for Cloak it evidently decides it wants to swallow people. Think about it that way, I guess the dream makes sense. Dark trying to kill me and all...

Still, that might not be the answer. So Julia had one more question to ask.

"What about...nightmares? Has it ever caused nightmares?"

"That all depends on your idea of a nightmare."

"That's awfully cryptic," Julia said, crossing her arms. Honestly, she supposed she should be grateful he had answers as many questions as he had. Cloak didn't have a history of being cooperative unless it was in his and Dagger's best interests, not that she could blame him for that she supposed.

"I will say that if the Darkforce Dimension didn't torment you from the beginning, you're stronger than the average person. After that, whether it's a curse or not is up to you." This time, when Cloak turned away, he really did simply fade through a wall, before Julia could say much of anything in protest. She looked at Dagger, who merely shrugged.

"You should be glad you got that much out of him." The blonde said, rising from her seat. "For what it's worth, it's a symbiotic relationship. The Darkforce Dimension, and whatever lives in it, shouldn't bother you so long as you keep feeding it energy. At least, that's the way it's always worked for us."

"He couldn't have just told me that?" Julia said, disbelief lurking in her voice.

A little smile curled Dagger's lip. "Cloak reads a lot of Shakespeare. He has a flair for the dramatic."

"Ah. I know someone with the same problem. Though his thing is pirates."

Returning to the rooftop, Julia found Kurt in what appeared to be bit of a doze, his head leaning sleepily on his hand and his eyes closed.

"You alright sweetheart?"

"Fine." His eyes opened and he smiled slightly, though it was a bit hard to see in the dark environment. "Did you find any answers?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure yet. Neither of them could tell me much about the nightmare, though I don't know how truthful I would have been with a stranger in that situation." Julia shrugged and sat next to Kurt, turning off her energy form for the first time in the last half and hour, and glad of it. She was also glad when Kurt's tail hooked around her waist, tugging her the two inches it took to be pressed against his side, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Dagger did have an interesting piece of information though."

"Vhat's that?"

"I guess I should be treating my powers like their symbiotic. You know, I get to use them if I feed them sort of thing."

"Like vhen you absorb?"

"Yeah. But if you think about it, I haven't been doing the absorbing thing much lately. I've been using my powers strictly offensively in the Danger Room and stuff, and stopping when I get worn out instead of refueling. Maybe that's why I've been getting...spikier than usual, my powers have been trying to find an outside source."

"Could be. Do you think it vill help the dream?"

"That I don't know. Guess we can find out. Are you going to be okay for the trip back, or should we get a hotel and make up a story to tell the Professor tomorrow?"

"I'll be alright. I'd rather sleep in my own bed then any hotel around here."

"Valid point. Whenever you're ready."

Kurt remained still for a few more moments, and then reached an arm over to wrap around her waist, and then they were gone. Julia had gotten fairly used to teleporting, but the sheer number of jumps from New York to Salem Center still made her feel a tad on the disoriented side.

They appeared at the bar, where Kurt usually made a pit-stop so she could grab clothes if they was staying in the Mansion, but rather than continue on his way, Kurt let go of Julia and sat heavily on her bed.

"It's been avhile since I made that trip," He apologized smiling.

"Tired?"

"Ja. A little."

"Only a little? It seems to me that you're much too tired to go back to the Mansion, so I guess I'll just have to keep you here with me for awhile," Julia observed, her tone coy. She took a step toward Kurt and gave him a little nudge so he almost fell backwards, catching himself on his elbows. "Thought so. You wait here, I'll go get you some coffee okay?"

She turned to head toward the door, but before she had even taken a step, Kurt's tail had caught her around the thigh, and his hand had a hold of her wrist, both appendages tugging, and Julia found herself sprawled atop him. She protested this slightly with a mild struggle, more because she didn't want him to think he would win so easily than because she actually wanted to get away.

"I'd rather have you than coffee," Kurt informed, sharp teeth nipping lightly on her earlobe.

"Are you trying to take advantage of me Kurt Wagner?"

"Mm. Perhaps. Is it vorking?" He gave her what she guessed was his best devilish smile.

Julia reached up with the hand he hadn't captured to tap him lightly on the nose. "You're cute." She smiled. "But if you sleep here, I can't promise you won't get punched in the face again."

"I consider it vorth the risk."

"Alright, but you've been warned, blue boy." Julia grinned, but was still hesitant to simply play along as though everything was normal. On her end, that was still not the case. But she had just as hard a time saying no to Kurt as he did to her. Especially when kisses were used to persuade her.

Second Author's Note: Yes, Julia got a haircut. Because there are a lot of superheroines and villianesses with long, flowing hair. I wanted Julia to be different. :) But it's still long enough for her hair to do it's crazy shadow power thing, which is one of my favorite of her features. And yes, I tried to cut the explanation of the Darkforce bit down for those of you who have already read about it. And everything will be explained eventually, I promise. :) Also, for a better idea of Julia's new hair, look up Leigh Lezark. :) Or Melaka Fray for an actual comic-like idea.