Queen's Notes: Chapter has been re-edited!

"Normal spoken dialog,"
"Vemon's spoken dialog,"
::radio dialog,::
~Eddie's bonded dialog,~
~Vemon's bonded dialog,~
-Human telepathy dialog-


Stay Moving

The coffee shop was busy to say the very least. The crowd was moving in the door to the counter and back out again as soon as they had their shot(s) of caffeine. Other people who weren't in a mad rush, sat back to watch the flow with clear amusement.

The baristas behind the counter seemed to be in a full blown sugar rush, or just high from sneaked espresso, running back and forth from the registers to the machines and back again. Ducking drinks other's had mad, others weaving out of the back room to serve hot, fresh muffins to those that ordered them.

"Double co-bend!"

"Nicky! We need some more blueberry muffins up here!"

"Coming up!"

"Alex, swap with me, quick!"

"ACK!"

"NICKY!"

"What?"

"The Soy foam is ALIVE!"

Needless to say, this was going to be a damn interesting day.

Eddie had only had a briefest of glimpses of his girlfriend as she literally ran past him, Cayce holding one of his fingers, with a blurted "Hey Eddie, can't talk the place is a mad house and I got a massive headache- and could you watch Cayce for the rest of the day- and NICK! Where did you leave those damn banana Muffins?!" The woman demanded as she checked the racks of muffins set up, feeling the stress of the public. She wasn't kidding with the headache, and had a feeling she was going to have a full on migraine that night.

The tall man stooped to pick up the younger of the two McConnell sisters, the girl grabbing onto Brock's shirt to stay balanced. The man blinked and watched as Cassidy ran passed again this time holding two smaller trays of assorted muffins, the second thing this café was known for.

Wait, was that foam in her hair?

Shaking his head Eddie smiled down at Cayce, "Looks like we can go to the park after all kiddo."

"Yippy!" the girl beamed and hugged the man's neck as much in thanks as to stay securely in place, "Tank ya Eddie."

The man chuckled, "Thank you." He said, correcting her words out of his new habit, and glanced back at the mayhem and shook his head before going out the back door. Perhaps, if he had been paying better attention Eddie would have noticed how two people were eyeing him.

He did pause as the door closed, sniffing at the air. Cayce's childish babble blocked out for a moment as Brock tried to place a familiar scent. Not those of the muffins that Nick cooked, he was used to those. The smaller, odd, man was a great baker Eddie was finding out, getting to be a fellow taste tester with the girls was well worth putting up with the flirts from Nick.

Yet this other sent was something that had his other stir awake and back to the surface. It was growling lowly in the back of Eddie's mind as it tried to place the bitter-sweet scent. Metal tangy, and blood sweat to the symbiote, as well as it being linked to memory of pain.

In other words it drudged up memories of New York... so much so that Eddie reflexively held Cayce closer, protectively holding one hand and arm over her as he turned to eye the coffee shop.

"What's wrong?" Cayce asked, watching Eddie's face intently.

"I'm not sure," The man said honestly to the perceptive child. He, along with Cassidy were starting to suspect that the young girl was an empath as well. "Something just smells off. Or, feels off." He added, shifting the girl as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He didn't get far, not even out of the parking lot, when it happened, Brock's other picking up the warble in the subtle emptic field. There was almost no warning when it happened, when that field just... snapped.

Inside, one minute Cassidy was turning a smile on the rather gruff looking man and a red head that was almost two heads taller than her stocky complain. The next thing the mutant knew she was clutching her head as lances of red hot pain seem to be stabbing at her mind.

"Cassy?!"

Dimly, Cassidy was aware of Alex dropping a cup onto the counter and rushing over. Somewhere someone was asking something about bagels a half a second before other voices blended together. Her own nails were digging into her scalp as she both clenched and bared her teeth. Despite the mounting mental agony, Cassidy knew it didn't look like anything as bad on the outside. At least to those that didn't know.

"Cassidy!" Alex insisted as she wrapped a supporting arm around her best friend.

"Is she alright?" The stocky man asked in concern, pausing his frown at something.

"Sir please move back…" Jack said as he came over from the far right of the count

"Hey Bub I-"

"Logan don't-" The red headed woman put a hand on her date's shoulder. They exchanged a look that seemed to be an unspoken discussion going on as the staff paused work to help their co-worker and friend.

"Nicky! Help!" Jack and Alex called as they guided Cassidy into the back, curios people trying to get a peek between the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen. Cassidy didn't know who had turned her around, away from the counter, thus making sure no one saw the orange shine that was forming over the empath's normally bright green eyes.

"Cassy? Come on, Cassidy, look at me." Alex put herself in front of the mutant once there was two closed doors behind them and the costumers. Reaching up the dark skinned woman put her hands on either side of her friend's head, over her own hands, trying to keep the other woman from hurting herself. She looked up to the two men, "Jack, go calm down the front, tell them she had a heat stroke or something. Cassidy, don't do this, come on sister you can keep the lid on…"

"It hurts…" Cassidy got out, managing to look at her best friend for a moment before her eyes started to turn a solid, glowing orange. Her voice taking on an odd quality, almost but not quite echoing as she whispered, "There too many...Too much...Oh god it hurts... it hurts…"

One of the doors to the main flour brushed open and two people came in. One a tall red haired woman and a shorter man, but there was no drought this guy could kick anyone's rear end anywhere and back again.

"Hey you can't be...!" Nicky started to stand up but couldn't without letting his friend drop to the ground, but it was Jack that moved to block the way.

"Nicky!" Alex called in rising panic that was both hers and not hers. "Nicky it's starting! She can't control it!"

The woman rushed forward, elbowing her way closer to the younger woman that was half collapsed. Reaching out she put her hands on either side of Cassidy's face, fingers on her temples. She didn't seem to have notice the others surging forward and latching onto their friend.

The older man, Logan, blinked as 'Nicky' dropped to his knees, wrapping his slim arms around the mutant's chest and pressing his head against the back of her neck. At the same time the other Barista did the same but from the front. Both tensing up, knowing perfectly well that they were about to get the full force of an empathic attack and in a show of pure loyalty, both were more than ready to do so in order to keep the secret of their friend's mutation.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts oh god why does it HURT?!

-Cassidy!-

The empath 'looked' up as she felt another mind that most defiantly wasn't her sister come dangerously close. The figure was in the metal plain, not just a distinctive patterns of colors and emotions that each person had. But an actual figure, a person... on the mental field. Cassidy jerked back from that other person instinctively.

-Cassidy, my name is Jean, let me help you.-

Hearing a voice was so different than seeing an emotion….Cassidy just stared as everything blended together and warped to her.

All at once, everything, images, memory, pain, and both familiar and alien emotions plunged into a complete and utter darkness…A void that she had seen only twice before, and just as before the woman was found herself looking down into it.

She was balancing at the very edge of oblivion. If she fell it would trigger a self-destruction that would not only claim her life but any of those who were around her at the time.

Cassidy screamed into the mental scape, but not aloud, the sound being swallowed up in memories. As in the real world she slumped into a needed faint, escaping the outside world as her mind coped with putting up mental shields after letting them slip.

Time of course had no meaning in this state, where she unaware of being check by a paramedic. Dubbed that it was a heatstroke that had downed her. Nor was she truly conscious when 'roused' and with the help of Jack and Eddie, taken home to the more isolated warehouse district to truly recover.

It was the next day that she really came back to awareness, and the warmth of a small body lying next to her was the first thing Cassidy was aware of. The woman drifted on that fine line that separated sleep from wakefulness for a time. She didn't want to wake up, but didn't quite want to go back into the blackness of sleep either. In this state she could still feel the blend of emotions that signaled that her baby sister was with her.

Her baby sister...

Slowly, she drifted back into the depths of her own mind, yet not nearly as deep. Only far enough to fall into a half dream, half memory of years ago, when both Cassidy and Cayce's parents were alive. When her father was there to help explain empathic powers that in some ways she was still learning.

Cassidy was six, maybe even seven years younger, leaning on her father's broad chest, existed from a day in downtown LA, listening to him sing some old Eagles song as her mother gently rocked Cayce into sleep. Cassidy's own green eyes were slowly closing as she turned her empathy to blend with her family as they enjoyed the evening together.

"Cassidy?" A slightly deep, male voice asked. Not from the dream but the real world.

The empath blinked her eyes open to stare into a set of blue ones. For a long time she just stared, still half in her pleasant dream. She was about to go back to said dream when she suddenly realized who she was looking at. Not aware of how week she felt, Cassidy shifted slightly to reach out.

She smiled when the man took her hand in his. "Eddie…"

"Shhh, we're here our love. We won't let anything hurt you." Broke said softly, and brushed a lock of light brown hair out of the woman's face, "Rest."

Cassidy was more than willing to obey, but just as she was about to drop fully into actual sleep again, she was able to pick up on two separate readings, emotional imprints, that meant two minds... from the man.