She wants to leave.
Has to and she does pack her meager things in small ragged backpack that has definitely seen better days.
But before she can leave there is a ripple of news that goes through the hideout, by the time it reaches Clarice the actual news is as unfathomable as a message in a child's game of telephone and yet it manages to turn her blood into ice" John…. Bomb…volunteer work… MIA"
And just like that her anger and resentment take a back seat. She wants to throttle John for sure but she's the one who gets to do it; not some racist bastards and definitely not Sentinel Services. She's not sure exactly how she manages to make her way to Sage and the intelligence room but when does, she's greeted with images of car explosions, clips of a man yelling at John and John, their cool, happy go lucky yelling back. Jumbles of voices seep through as the anchors on TV give play by play of that morning's event.
" Rogue wolf incident…..tragedy…with several veterans hurt"
"Is he answering?" Lorna's voice is steady but she's biting her nail and Marcos looks pissed as he shakes his head and ends his call when it goes to voicemail before punching in John's number again all the while muttering curses in Spanish.
"Reed, Andy and you have to hit the road. Look we'll take care of John but this distraction may be what we need for you guys to hit that building with the least amount of problem. Plus John was in Virginia that's six hours away in the opposite direction" Lorna is rambling, clearly nervous but set in the plan she's putting forth. Marcos however is shaking his head in frustration as he ends and redails the phone again.
"Its not like you can travel anywhere right now, remember? You're the newly escaped fugitive, who by the way is carrying our child. Plus people will be freaking out and someone has to stay behind and keep them calm." Marcos mutters, ending and redailing again all while Lorna mutters profanity under her breath.
"I Suck at making people feel better, that's-" Johns name dies on her lips as the news cuts to a picture of two jeeps rushing through back streets as the anchors explain that the veterans did not stick around for the police who need to question them in order to have a "Clear picture of what took place" as the screen splits into four people to debate the event, with only one a mutant sympathizer, peoples panic begins to rise.
In the background Caitlyn is trying to calm a crying Sonia and Clarice is now feeling a sense of Deja vu as images of John, of him sitting behind the desk smiling at her, of him talking with her after her incident, helping her practice with her stupid donut and yes even their last fight come streaming into her vision. She shakes her head and looks at Sonia but the women is far too distress to form coherent sentences let alone invade her mind but the images rise in Clarice's mind again and again and this time she feels herself grow resolved.
Johns in danger and she needs to help.
Memory or not, look or no look, John's bailed her ass out more times than he should have and while she will make him suffer for his callous attitude about what they put her through and more importantly make him, them understand that she will not be down for any more of this memory messing crusade or be even sticking around for them to use; she needs to get his ass back here alive before anything else.
"Sage, what was your last contact with him?" her voice reaches the computer girl who seems happy to have clear question as the murmur of panic rises in the background.
"Around 10 this morning he was going to pick some supplies on the way back and wanted to know where would be the best place to purchase them without detection."
"And where was he when he was calling you?" Sage tries to answer but the murmur of panic is beginning to rise to a crescendo and its distracting enough that it causes Marcos to plug one ear with his finger and press the phone more firmly to the other as he paces out of the room with Lorna hot on his heels.
"What will we do?" one person asks
"How much you want to bet sentinel services has him?"
"Have him? You mean have they killed him?" Its Wes who voices the assumption they're all worried about and its that statement that causes Sonia to cry harder and for Caitlyn to usher her out of the room.
"They have him for sure, they'll break him and then they'll find us all" another voice despairs and suddenly the panic goes full blast.
"They'll find us all on their own if you guys don't pipe down" Clarice's voice whips through the air and suddenly everyone's looking at her like they expect her to do something and fuck if she has a clue what to do to help them and where the hell is Lorna when she needs to be here dealing with this. But then her eyes land on the little girl from the night before and this time it's her who gives Clarice a small smile and Clarice can feel herself smile back. She owes John and he built this place from nothing so she'll be damned if she's going to sit back and to watch crumble when he's not here for a single minute. Plus she cant really breath right now, not properly and her finger twitch as though they need to reach out for something or maybe someone whose just out of their range.
"What do we do?" the question comes from Shatter and Clarice takes a deep breath as she look at the screen and sees the shaky footage of John protecting a women as a blast goes off.
"We cant just wait around" this time its Andy Strucker's voice who pipes up before the crowd can get too rowdy and his statement is followed by a murmur of assent. And Clarice decides that they're right.
"You're right we cant do nothing and you all are right that if John is compromised we all may be in danger but he matters to all of us so we cant just leave him out there to dry" She feels like she could hear a pin drop and yes she's not a team leader, hell not even a team player but if they don't do something sh- they might loose john.
"Look we have two big problems right now. One, we need to find John and two, we need to secure this location. I don't know much about the underground networks but I know we need to be prepared so… let's pack up and be prepared in case of an emergency evacuation. If we all just leave now we'll just put everyone at more risk." She's grasping at straws here, making it up as she goes because god knows she's never had to worry about anyone but herself. But that's what she would do if ever one of her holes was in threat of being found, she'd get everything together to bounce in case her worry was actually realized and by the looks of the crowd people seem to agree as heads are nodding.
"She's right. If we suddenly flood the streets all together the chances of us being found triples" Sage rattles next to her "it's better if we prepare to evacuate in small numbers rather than large group.
"Plus John might show up and if he does we're risking everyone because we're worried something might happen" Reed Strucker adds and Clarice can almost feel the panic that had griped the room loosen a bit.
"But say we're right. Where do we go? Evacuate where?" Shatter and Sage share a glance and Clarice instantly realizes that John probably had an evacuation plan in place but his main people are questioning weather this is a worthy enough emergency to pull out the big guns and while her heart wants her to scream at them that this is in fact an emergency her mind tells her that this might not be big enough to pull out the big guns just yet.
"What about the city hall and the old hotel?" its Joy one of the younger mutants who has practically grown up on the compound, with vivid orange hair and silver eyes its not hard to see why she's not ventured too far from the safe house.
"We've been prepping them incase new refugees arrive. We can split up, that way even if they do hit here, the number of people who'll have to make a real emergency evacuation will be lower. Plus we wont be so concentrated in one location"
"So who goes?" Wes asks
"How are we going to get there?" Lauren adds on because while that's a good idea and both locations are about ten minute drive its not like they can parade
"We'll take the truck and ask invisible dude to make a couple of trips" Clarice offers and while its shitty that she can't even remember his name she has bigger issues right now and considering invisible dude just nods and moves over to their resident truck driver he must not have minded much, but they don't have much time.
"We should make small groups that would have the best chance of survival on the streets should they have to fully relocate but are cohesive enough that they would not draw too much attention. A combination of defensive, offensive abilities with similar features to pass as family, as those are 60% less likely to get stopped" Sage list requirement sound lengthy but everyone knows better than to question them, plus they have no time.
"Reed, Shatter split people in-in groups of four or five; six at most. Try to keep the groups balanced. Once you do Sage will go over each group to ensure that the groups have the best statistical chance of surviving if they have to hit the street. The rest of you start getting your things together and once you're assigned, remember this: your group is your family and no matter what you don't leave anyone behind and you don't separate. Now lets move people" Its not the most rousing pep talk but, she's been given worse and its all she got right now, plus with everyone springing into action they must have gotten the gist of the situation.
"I can help them assign the groups now" Sage suggests to her as everyone begins to filter out and Clarice surprises he by nodding to her suggestion.
"And you will just as soon as you tell me what's the most likely place John is right -now and what's the probability of me getting him out of there alive"
AN: Hi lovelies. Thank you so, so, SO MUCH for the reviews I loved them! Really please drop a line let me know what you think. I realy do love reviews would love to get more!
To the lovely reviewer who asked about my OQ stories I am embarrassed to say I'm still working on them and thank you so much for sticking with me for so long I don't know what I've done to deserve wonderful reader like you but yeah working on it *pinky Promise* also defs start watching this show I am so hooked its ridiculous. I saw this fic mentioned on tumblr in a post and I couldn't handle it for a good two hours but yep. I think they'll be two more chapters and just remember this 1x06 remix, sort of and the aim is to get it all up before 1x07 sneak-peeks come out. Love you lovelies and don't forget to review-GQ2000