(Author's Note: Thank you all for the reviews, you're the best!)

February 1, 2035

06:01 Central European Time

Avenger, French Countryside

Groggily, Van slowly levered herself up in bed from where she was laying on her stomach and blearily gazed around her. For a moment she had a hard time remembering where she was. She rolled over so she could sit up on the side of the bed. The flutter of the tattered red XCOM flag caught her attention and reminded her of her situation.

After scrubbing the crud out of her eyes, she cautiously slid out of bed to her feet. When she didn't feel like she was going to pass out, she figured that she was making progress. A gently blinking blue light on the terminal at her desk caught her attention. Figuring that it wasn't an emergency, Van decided that she would get ready for the day first. If this XCOM was anything like the one she knew, there would've been a very loud siren to wake her up in the middle of the night.

It was glorious to take a hot shower without worrying about passing out. Even if it was a short one. She wasn't sure what kind of water supplies they had and she didn't want to be selfish.

Clean, dressed in yet another jumpsuit. She suspected Bradford was behind the fact the ones she had were all black with a few grey accents so that she couldn't try to blend with the staff the way she usually did. He'd never outright disapproved of her refusal to wear the special uniforms they'd made up for her in her position as Commander, but some of his comments made her wonder.

Van scowled when she saw the date after turning on the terminal. She'd slept for two days? It was hard to believe that they'd let her sleep that long. She did vaguely recall someone getting her to eat every so often and a few times staggering to the bathroom to relieve herself. Everything had been hazed over with the feeling of utter exhaustion. All right, so maybe she had pushed herself too hard, but she needed to outrun her personal horrors.

Having slept on it for a few days had made the situation become something that she could somewhat wrap her mind around. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe.

The blinking light proved to mean she had messages to deal with. There was one from Tygan dated from the evening before that was flagged as a priority. Bracing herself for the worst, she opened it.

Commander,

Firstly, let me say that as your physician I ordered Bradford and everyone else on the staff to make sure you were left alone to sleep yourself out. Given your near collapse on Monday, you were desperately in need of the rest. Which leads me to my second point.

Once you are awake, and not in the state you were in a couple of days ago, I would like to see you. Both to make sure you haven't done any harm to yourself and to give you my preliminary results on the chip.

R. Tygan

She couldn't help the slightly grim smile as she read between the lines. Yeah, she pissed off the doctor. Which meant she probably scared the shit out of Bradford and that in turn would probably have pissed him off if she pegged the way he reacted to things like that now. She sighed. "Good job, Van. You're already pissing people off and you've only been awake how long? And now I'm talking to myself. Isn't that just peachy keen?"

Deciding it was too early to see if the doctor was up and moving, and not ready to face Bradford, Van went in search of breakfast. Or at least coffee. Fortunately, she found both. Breakfast proved to be a hearty oatmeal flavored with dried fruits, nuts and some cinnamon. Between that and the coffee, she was ready to face the day. Or at least Tygan.

Bradford was an entirely different story.

Finished eating, she used her tablet to send a message to Tygan to see if he was available. The only response she got was "Yes".

On her way out of the mess she got a refill of coffee. Bless the soul who found the good sized travel mug, Van had a feeling she was going to need the sugar and caffeine boost to deal with the lecture coming up. Possibly lectures. Bradford never yelled at her, he just gave her these patient comments. Yelling was vastly preferred, it stung less. Not that he gave her too many of those comments after the first week. Probably just resigned to doing what damage control he could with the idiot civilian.

Or at least, that's what she remembered. Which was twenty years ago now. Fuck. That was still so hard to wrap her mind around.

Not wanting to think about how much weirder life had become, Van focused on taking in the details of the Avenger. It was a fine ship with plenty of room to expand. That's when she caught her shadow out of the corner her eye. This was a new face. She looked to be vaguely Hispanic descent with a round friendly face and warm brown eyes. Like Jane, she wore a ballcap, but hers was worn backward. The soldier gave her a nod with a cheerful. "Morning Commander!"

Oh god, they saddled her with a morning person today. She smiled a little as she quietly replied, "Morning."

At least this one didn't have a face that haunted her memories. Like Kelly this soldier didn't seem inclined to talk much.

This time it didn't take very long for her to get to Tygan's office which was a relief. She hadn't liked how weak she'd been a few days ago. Of course she'd find him looking over the fucking chip. This time it was held in some sort of case with a beam of energy running through it.

"Hello, Commander," he said pleasantly enough at her approach.

"Morning, Doctor. And I don't remember if I told you the other day or not, but please, call me Vanessa."

He turned to look at her with his eyebrows arched up. She gave him a sunny smile. "Between being my senior staff and the poor soul who gets to look after my health it's only right. Besides, I'm not really the formal type."

A brief smile flickered across his face. "I'll keep that in mind. Vanessa. Before we discuss my findings on the chip, let's see how you're doing." He frowned at the mug in her hand. "I hope you've had something other than coffee."

"Yes, I had actual food besides coffee."

"Good. You're too thin. If you'll step back here?"

Too thin? That was a new one, she'd always had to struggle with a tendency towards plumpness. Then again, she had lost a lot of weight during those months with the original version of XCOM. As she followed his directions, she soon found herself stripped down to her underthings and perched on a high stool as the doctor did a full exam. By the time he was done with his scans, the initial bloodwork he'd taken was done.

Tygan was quiet as he looked over everything, then shook his head. "You're an extraordinarily lucky woman, Vanessa. With your near collapse a couple days ago I fully expected to have to put you into the infirmary for monitoring, but I don't. In fact, it's as if you never pushed yourself in the first place." He gave her a stern look that actually made her squirm uncomfortably. "I trust you won't do that again."

"I certainly don't intend to, but I do have a job that needs doing. If the current situation is anything like the invasion I may have to keep going until I do collapse."

He looked at the readouts on his screen for a moment. "I don't think you quite understand the delicate situation you're in, Commander."

That he switched from her name to her title made her wary. "In what way?"

"The morale of the crew in general and Central Officer Bradford specifically. Central is the one I'm worried about the most. I am not a psychiatrist, but it seemed that you were almost an obsession for him. Finding you alive and as you are seemed to bring him back from a very dark place. If something happened to you. Something easily preventable. I worry what it might do to him."

It felt like her guts were trying to twist themselves into knots. Of course she'd gotten hints, from the personnel files she skimmed through, from comments she heard, hell John himself. It just hadn't occurred to her that she was that important to him the way he'd become important to her. "I understand, at least with Central. The crew though, I'm rather new to them aren't I?"

Tygan sighed, sat down and gave her a very steady look. "Vanessa, I think you lack the appreciation of just how much people talked about you. Not just Bradford, though he'd been the main driving force behind recovering you. There was also Dr. Shen and your surviving veterans. Then that little mission to retrieve Lily's converter while you ready to pass out on your feet with no casualties? That just sealed the deal on your legend."

Legend? Was the man out of his mind?

A beep from the final scan distracted the doctor before she insert her foot into her mouth with the thoughts churning way.

The doctor shook his head again. "Amazing. Just amazing. Well, I'm done with the exam, so you can get dressed."

As she started to pull the suit back on, a couple of thoughts struck her. "There's a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you since you seem to be my physician for the moment."

"Unfortunately for the entire crew I am the only physician here. What did you want to talk about?"

"I intend to start doing some armor and weapon training with the troops, but I had to get your clearance first."

"Of course you do," he said resignedly. "Take at least another couple of days to make sure you fully recover, let me check on you to make my final determination." He eyed her warily. "And the other thing?"

She decided she'd be blunt since that usually worked well doctors. "Female issues. I'm hoping for something to suppress my cycles since I'm guessing my previous implant got removed at some point. I'd rather not worry about getting incapacitated for three to seven days a month due to Cramps of Doom."

He blinked at her for a moment. "Now that is a reasonable request. As it happens we do have something of that nature for our female staff. Provided you don't mind medication as a result of the use of the alien tech."

"At this point, I don't see what the problem is. As long as it doesn't involve another chip in my head."

That actually got a smile. "Nothing quite so dramatic. Just a simple injection. I'll need you to bare an arm."

That was easy enough to do and the injection wasn't as bad as she feared. While the doctor put away his instruments, she finished putting herself to rights and drinking her coffee. When he turned back to her, she commented, "And now for the less fun part of this conversation?"

"Indeed. Just keep in mind these are preliminary results."

"Of course. I'm surprised you had anything this soon."

When he didn't answer, Van began to feel more concern than she already had.

She walked along with him to the little corner that was devoted to that damn chip along with various images of her brain that had before and after images of said thing being removed. Tygan stared at the chip for a moment before going over to the display. "I've managed to break down several key components of the chip. My analysis reveals that its primary function was that of a conduit, passing a vast amount of data directly to your cerebral cortex."

Van wondered if he told Bradford about this yet, depending on what they were putting through her brain, she was a security risk after all, but she decided to wait to hear out the doctor. He tapped at the screen showing a flow of data in one window, with another coming up showing fragments. "With the primary connection severed, much of that data was lost. Several fragments do remain, however. "Ghosts" if you will."

"So what were they running through my head?"

"Tactical combat simulations. Wargames. The sheer volume of encounters you were processing was astounding. It… It is truly remarkable that you survived as long as you did."

What the fuck? War games? For twenty years? What else were they funneling into her brain? Or out of it? Van was speechless with her dismay. It was bad enough that she'd done that as long as she had as her job. Or was that job training?

Tygan spoke slowly and almost hesitantly. "I hate to be the bearer of further bad news, and all the details are in the report I'm sending you, but to sum my findings up. The device is psionically-driven by the latent energy in your brain. It… It appears that it functions as a transmitter and a receiver, relaying information via some sort of psionic link."

The blood drained from Van's head, leaving her feeling somewhat faint and nauseous. She braced herself against a nearby countertop and tried not to hyperventilate. Closing her eyes Vanessa tried to desperately keep control over herself.

"Vanessa?" Tygan asked worriedly.

Without opening her eyes, she replied. "Just… give me a moment, Tygan. I need a moment to process this."

She could hear him moving away to give her space and finally allowed her body to give into the shakes. And maybe a few tears. Oh god, this was so much worse than she expected. They had her in some sort of psionic link? The question kickstarted her analytical mind. Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Van slowly straightened up and wiped at her face.

She turned to where the doctor was waiting patiently and seemingly perusing some files. "Thank you for your patience."

He studied her over his glasses. "If you need more time, I know this must be quite an unpleasant surprise for you."

"I'll need some more time, but I'll be all right for now. There's one problem with your analysis though."

He asked in a cool, even tone. "In what way?"

"I don't have any psionic potential, latent or otherwise."

"I'm not sure how you know that, but I am afraid you do have a very strong psionic potential."

How? She had her issues with Vahlen, but the woman did know what she was doing. "We were just looking into activing psionic potential in humans just before HQ was overrun. I was one of the first tested and the tests came up with me as null. Is this something they could have done to me?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Vanessa. A person has to be born with the potential or they don't have it. Even though the aliens are capable of truly wondrous things by our standards, even they can't just give someone psionic potential."

So Vahlen had either lied to her or the test had been wrong. Van wasn't sure which was worse. That Vahlen had lied about something so important or had been completely off about something so important. If a lie, why? What benefit could have it given the scientist? If she had been so horribly wrong on the testing, what else had she made such grotesque mistakes on? Was that how the aliens actually got the base? Not betrayal but XCOM being vulnerable from relying on bad information?

Another deep breath to control the buzzing questions. "All right, so I have psionic potential they used to tap me as a war game simulator. I'm not even sure where to go with that for now. My concern, well one of them at any rate, is that do they still have a tap on my head?"

"In that regard I can reassure you. Without the implant they won't have access to your mind and I have the device heavily shielded so it won't compromise us."

That was a minor relief at least. "All right. So what do you suggest from here?"

"This chip is very similar in design to one I worked on briefly in the Gene Therapy Clinic of New Providence. It was for ADVENT officers, captain or above. If we can obtain one for comparison I might be able to give you more information."

She knew he was leaving something out. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Right now, all I have are suppositions, but without more data I have no way of giving you something concrete to act on."

"All right. I'm going to assume that we can't use the officer corpse brought in a few days ago? I believe it's in pretty bad shape, so the implant in it isn't very useful." That was an understatement, a large chunk of the head was missing.

"That would be correct."

"I'm hoping you aren't going to require a live capture." She rubbed the back of her head and stopped. Not because it hurt, but because she realized the incision was already healed and she didn't want to think about that. Yet another thing to add to the list of things unable to be contemplated at this time. "Even if we can still make the arc thrower, I have no desire to put my people into that kind of hazardous situation again."

Since the Council wasn't around anymore to make her do unconscionable things, she was going to put her foot down about that kind of risk.

"A live capture isn't necessary. I just need an intact head."

That was going to have be worded carefully, otherwise he was likely to end up with just a decapitated head from an officer. She suspected he needed the entire corpse. "I'll see what we can do."

Just as she started to note details in her tablet, the Avenger's AI pinged her comms. "Commander to Mission Control."

"Well, I guess that's my cue. Was there anything else before I go?"

"That's about it. Just remember to take things easy."

"As much as I can, Doctor." Then she was on her way with a head that felt like it was sloshing about with everything that she'd learned. Almost as bad as her stomach. She was really regretting eating breakfast after talking with Tygan.

It did emphasis the need to talk with Bradford. God, psionic potential. A fucking psionic link. She hoped that Tygan was right about the aliens not being able to reestablish the link without the chip.