….and then he heard the shower kick on in the bathroom and his body loosened a notch. Wasn't sure what brought the tenseness on, but it was going now. He flopped back onto his bed and listened to the water slapping against the shower walls and Squeak humming, of all things, the U.S. Air Force theme. Every now and again he'd catch a snatch of words and then it would be back to the sluice of the water and the humming. Oddly enough, it sounded like she was using the frequency of the shower to create an amplifier for the tune.

"….blue yonder…..into the sky!"

He dropped a hand below his belt and laid the pressure on hard, still thinking about that wild-ass dream and wondering where the hell it had come from. Not that she wasn't pretty. Not that she didn't have great legs. Not that she was odder than any woman he'd ever encountered. Not that he'd ever catch a whiff of cinnamon oil without thinking of her again. She just…for whatever reason, he hadn't equated The Squeak and sex before. Also unusual.

With a thud, the shower nozzle shut off, and he listened as she dropped a bottle of shampoo on her foot and began to swear floridly. Then the bathroom door slapped open and she padded out, attempting quiet. He rolled over on his side and closed one eye, noting the time. It was 4AM. She was in a tank-top and flannel bottoms. A flop onto her bed, and she was out like a light. Silence. The only time she could be quiet was when she was unconscious or focused.

They took 16 all the way through, and the next day made Churchbridge. She made it through the 5th journal and had started on the 6th. The farther along they went, the thicker the journals became, and so to the reading.

She regurgitated the information at 2AM, over a full breakfast. Again. He listened, again.

0oooooooo000000000ooooo0000

Her grandmother was terrified of what could happen to her son. She kept waiting. She knew. Of course she knew. Did Pavlov? Did her mother? What was to come of it all? What bearing did this have on her brother? Huh? What was going to HAPPEN when she called his dumb ass and told him that they needed genetic profiling? How was she going to explain that to Moira? Were they going to think that she'd gone crazy?

And Russia. Fuck. RUSSIA. In a mutant arms race? Was it OVER? Were there any other 'mutants' like her? But wait. Wait wait wait. Creed, what do you know? Creed, have you ever run into anybody like me? Creed are you even LISTENING to me?

0oooooooo0000000ooooo0000

He laughed. "Naw, Squeak, I don't think so."

"You don't think you're listening to me?"

"No, I don't think I've ever met anybody like you before."

"But…..come on. If the Russians were doing it, so was North America. And you're…how old? Have you run across anything like this project? Seen it? Heard of it?" She held her breath like a kid in hope.

"No."

She paused over her eggs. "You're lying."

"Yeah. I'm not talkin' about it."

"Fine, fucker." She went back to her eggs. "Did I mention that I hate impasses more than I hate rhetoric?"

He flinched at the word 'rhetoric' and choked on his ham, washed it down with a shot of too-hot coffee.

And then that scent came rolling in through the door. Then the swagger and the leather jacket and that foreign arcane stench of adamantium and then-

"Could I get a cup'a coffee, bub?"