Not Again

"Tell me again what happened," Adam said in a strained voice. Shal had called him as soon as she got back to Sanctuary. Sam was not responding well to the venom and dieing in front of her. She had called Adam in desperation, begging for any help. Thankfully Adam had been able give the nearly panicked feral step by step instructions on how to save Sam.

When Sam was stabilized, and Shalimar calmed, Adam had begun his intense interrogation of the past few days' events, every now and then Emma asking a question or two. She had told them about Jesse's research, the recent murders, and the events of the past evening. Shalimar was now on her third explanation and getting increasingly irritated.

"Jesse found evidence that 'Slither' is back. We've been doing some investigating and we ended up at Sam's night club where we found Slither. Slither attacked us and over powered Sam kidnapping Jesse. Brennan went after them and I haven't heard anything from him since."

"And you thought it reasonable to allow him to do this and not to talk to me?" Adam hissed.

"If I had told Jesse to wait for you he would have gone off alone and you know it! I did what I could!"

"You could have told me!" Adam declared as he slammed his fist down.

There was a pause before Emma spoke, "Yes, exactly, go right a head and yell at each other, fight, because this is exactly what's going to save the boys!"

Adam sighed, and it was obvious to both girls that he wasn't really angry. In fact, Emma could sense that the calm and cool headed geneticist was abnormally frantic, and with good reason….

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" yelled animalistic Jesse as he lunged from the bio bed to the far wall. It had been so unexpected that Adam had gone momentarily dumb struck as he watched a blond mass rush by him. It wasn't until his mind had come back into focus that he noticed the scalpel.

"Jesse, it's alright, you're safe now……" he tried to assure as calmly as he could while his mind screamed for help and his heart raced with desperation fueled adrenaline. When Shalimar had brought Jesse in, he had been clinging to life; the venom had spread through his body so quickly, Adam was afraid that Jesse had no natural defense against it. His breathing was unstable, his lungs and heart unable to solidify and his body baring all the horrific signs of being violated.

The first step had been to stabilize the boy by forcing small amounts of steroids and anti-venom into his blood stream. Once that succeeded in pulling Jesse from the edge of death Adam had examine him. What he found would haunt him for the rest of his life… the boy he promised to protect, his 'son', had been raped. The horrors of that one fact had seeped into Adam's begin as he watched the youth sleep, dreading the moment that he would wake and the conversation that would follow.

Now, several hours later, Jesse had woken, but he wasn't as sickly or weak as Adam had first feared. Normally this was a good thing, but this wasn't normal. Jesse's mind had closed off from the real world, whipping away everything but its basic programming. It was a common defense of his and it had helped him survive many horrible things reasonable intact, but it meant that he recognized no one and acted as a trapped animal. Like now…

"Jesse, I'm not going to hurt you…" Adam repeated calmly, taking a step closer to him.

Jesse swung the scalpel unskillfully and shouted, "Stay away! Don't touch me!"

Adam froze and held his hands in the air, high enough so that Jesse could see there was nothing. "It's Adam, Jesse, and you're home in Sanctuary."

The blond mutant shook his head, eyes blazing as they darted from shadow to shadow, "Where is she?!"

"Where is who?" Adam asked calmly, though he was sure he knew who she was. The idea was to make Jesse put names with the faces that he saw in his mind.

"The girl!" was the growled response as the scalpel was jabbed in Adam's direction, making the older man winch.

"I don't know, which girl are you speaking of? Does she have a name?" But Adam could barely hide the feelings from his eyes, for he knew very well that the girl was currently being buried by Shalimar. It had been the only thing that he could have the feral do while he tended to Jesse.

There was a moment of intense concentration on Jesse's face before he managed to choke out, "Kathy…where is Kathy?"

Adam licked his lips and said several curses to himself. This was part of the conversation he was dreading, "I'm sorry Jess…we were too late to save her..."

Jesse shook his head again, horror stricken by what he heard he sank to a crouched position. "No, no, no, no, no, No, No, No, NO!! YOU KILLED HER!" he screamed as he lunged at Adam, but the older man was prepared for this and was able to dodge him.

"Jesse, that's enough!" Adam yelled as the youth came at him again. This time though, Adam was able to take hold of the hand that held the scalpel and disarm Jesse, while at the same time restraining him. All the while Jesse struggled and screamed as if Adam's touch was burning him, and in the back of his mind Adam realized that might actually be true. The mutant's nerves and senses were so hyper active that Adam had no idea what the sensation of being touched was doing to him. But still, he held firm.

"Calm down Jesse, just calm down, I'm not going to hurt you!" Adam said, but he doubted the young man could hear him, though he could hear Jesse quite clearly.

"Please….please don't! Don't touch me…please! No! Please…" he cried over and over again until the words were completely dissolved into sobs and Jesse's body shook with grief.

"You're safe now Jess, you're safe, I got you…you're safe…" He had repeated those words until Jesse passed out from exhaustion.

"What are we going to do Adam?" Shalimar asked, tears in her voice.

"Start looking for them Shalimar, we'll be there as soon as we can. But if you find them before we get there just go, Jesse won't survive another attack…"