A/n: Thank you for the reviews! I was overwhelmed and crazily happy reading all of them, please keep it up. This chapter may or may not be confusing, but all of it has a purpose (I hope…) in the end, so bear with me if possible. I also give you my desperate apologies for the months it took for me to upload this chapter… very sorry!

Content Warning: Some swearing and violence, read at own discretion, naturally…

This time, consciousness did not come as a gentle progression towards sensory awareness. It was a sharp, uninvited crash into the real world.

Jesse shook his throbbing head. Oh no…

"You can open your eyes."

Brennan winced. He had been attempting to mask his recent recovery, but again he had immediately seen through the bluff.

"Go get scre-" Brennan moaned in frustration, but lost his words to the returning flood of pain.

"Not before you, Mr. Mulwray."

Jesse had been nursing his throbbing head for no more than five minutes when the door on the far side of the room opened.

The room was sparse but it was not a cell. The floor was roughly carpeted and a graying army cot, which Jesse had just awoken on, was shoved against the far wall.

A man and a woman strode through the door, the man shutting it smartly behind him. The woman did not stop but walked purposefully next to Jesse and placed a gun next to his temple. Jesse froze and stayed silent. Wherever he was, whatever was going to happen… none of it was under his control anymore. He fought the urge to flinch.

The man paced for a minute in front of where the molecular and the woman stayed unmoving. Probably trying to increase his feeling of control over me. Jesse thought numbly. That bastard.

Time, immeasurable, passed and finally the man turned to face Jesse. He was clean shaven and well dressed. A suit. He's wearing a suit. Jesse resisted another shudder at the memories of the GSA. Not again.

The man smiled. It was a nice smile, no hidden maliciousness, no covered emotions. "I'm sure you don't want to be here right now, but you have no choice so let us move beyond that, shall we?" His voice was pleasant and his words well formed. Jesse felt his dread growing with each word.

"Both you and you're friend have been entered into our normal program. This is Caroline, the agent who will be assisting you through the process. We know that your friend, Brennan, has some… unique abilities. He has already professed that you have none, and as he was under duress we are inclined to believe him. Do you have anything to say on the topic?" The man smiled again.

It was hard for his tired, aching head to process this. Captured by an unknown enemy. Separated from the rest of the team. Jesse tried desperately to make sense of anything, to make a plan of action. Under duress…unique abilities. Oh.

"No. It was just him." He dared not shake his head with the gun still paralyzing him. Apparently these people did not know Adam or Mutant X. Brennan must have had a good reason for lying.

"Good." The man turned and left. Jesse heard an electronic lock engage after he shut the door. He closed his eyes. The gun was stilled pressed to his temple.

After close to five minutes of sitting there, he felt Caroline remove the gun. Slowly opening his eyes, he saw her in front of him, standing right where the man had been. She was also wearing a suit, and was as well groomed as the man. She was also incredibly non-descript. Average height, brown hair, brown eyes, middle aged, not ugly, not beautiful… she still had the gun pointed at him, aimed right in between his eyes.

"You will be treated here by me for a week and then trained at another facility for another week. Then you will be placed on active duty. Your friend will kept and should you act up, he will be punished. Swallow these now, please." She lowered her gun and re-holstered it, holding out three small pills to him.

"I'm sorry, my parents always said 'never take drug from strangers'," Jesse muttered, and finally decided on action. Surging up from where he sat, he swatted her hand away and backhanded her. She stumbled sideways, her brown hair flying into her eyes, and Jesse lunged for her gun.

Jesse's hand closed over the gun when suddenly her foot slammed into his gut and drove him back into the wall. She kept it there and ruthlessly pressed his stomach into the wall as he frantically tried to drag air back into his lungs.

When Jesse looked up at her, her eyes were flashing a feral gold. The smile was gone.

She removed her foot and he fell to the floor. Before he could regain enough strength to fight again, the electronic lock had deactivated and two men in army guard uniforms ran into the room. Jesse didn't have time to resist as they grabbed his arms and secured him against the wall.

Caroline had straightened herself again and bent to retrieve the three pills from the ground. She walked over to Jesse, dusting the pills off lightly and with care.

"I'm sorry." Caroline said, looking honestly apologetic. Jesse fought and struggled against the guards as she closed his nose with two of her fingers, placed the pills in his mouth and then covered it before he could spit them out.

What can I do? Jesse thought desperately, and within thirty seconds he was unconscious.

-72 hours earlier-

Brennan regained consciousness long before they moved him from the car to the room where he was now. He kept his eyes half shut for the benefit of those who still thought he was out cold, but his mind was racing, trying to remember the passing hallways and plan an escape. For both him and Jesse.

As they pulled the still unconscious Jesse into room, Brennan had to clench his teeth and fight the urge to struggle towards him. Escape plan now, he told himself. Escape later.

Minutes and endless non-descript hallways later, Brennan was slung onto a couch. Something gripped his neck and again he ground his teeth to keep from crying out as the subdermal governor was ripped from his skin.

As soon as he heard the door slam after the last of the lackeys of whoever owned the nice couch in this spectacularly clean and corporate office, Brennan opened his eyes. His gaze immediately caught that of a smiling, well-groomed man behind a large oak desk. His hair was all in place, his suit was all in order, his smile was painfully genuine.

"I'm not sure what this is or what it was doing, but no one can start in the program who had already been modified. Unfortunately, we didn't know quite how to remove it. I hope it wasn't too painful." The man indicate the small amount of blood on the end of the governor.

Brennan's hand immediately went to the back of his neck. A small smear of red came of into his palm. Oh great. This is just great. Brennan thought, carefully keeping his face as blank as he could.

The man said nothing more. He just sat there as though he were inspecting Brennan or was waiting to see what he might do.

He doesn't know how the governor works, or why, he can't know that I could be out of here now that he's removed it for me… Brennan tried to concentrate, something about this situation didn't fit right in his mind. Maybe he knows that it's for mutants, but he can't know me or what I can do…And there's no time like the present to get out of here.

Brennan shot out his hands- one towards the door to take care of any lock that might slow him down, and one to deliver a controlled shock to his now-smirking host. Hopefully striking the man at least unconscious by the blow, Brennan was on his feet and had pounded through the door within seconds. He wished he could be more sure that he had taken care of the man, but without the governor his powers might overload still if he dealt too hard a blow…

The immediate vicinity was clear of people. Brennan wasted no time. He had to find Jesse, and if Jesse wasn't conscious, he would lose a lot of the momentum of speed and surprise.

He got to the end of the hallway before he was stopped. Damn, security guards. Brennan's fist took care of the first one, but there was a second and a third, and he couldn't, he wouldn't trust himself to take them all out with a tesla coil.

Desperately, he shoved one of the guards into the others. They all momentarily stumbled, and Brennan ran backwards to the end of the hallway and looked out the window there. He was on the first story. Pure luck.

I will pay for this big time. Brennan grimaced as he used his elbow to break the window. But not right now. The guards had caught up with him, but all he could do was deliver a kick to the first one and then dive out the window.

Rolling as soon as he hit the ground, Brennan was swiftly on his feet. He tasted blood in his mouth. He glanced at his hands. They were cut and bloody. Later, he repeated to himself. The guards slowed down as they tried to negotiate themselves through the window without cutting themselves on the glass as Brennan had.

Oh, god, I have to get back in for Jesse. As the first guard freed himself, Brennan tensed for the attack, but froze.

The cold reality of a gun pressed to the back of his head stopped him in his tracks. A familiar, smiling voice came from behind him.

"That went so much smoother and quicker than I thought it would."

Brennan refused to reply. His breath was still coming ragged and hard.

"Of course, by now you must know that I do indeed know what you can do. But now that you've escaped from this facility, I can take you into my personal custody. Your talents will be utilized much more there, I believe." The smile never left the voice. "This went very well, yes, quite well…"

And as the butt of the gun came crashing into the side of his face and he greeted darkness for the second time that day, Brennan silently recognized how this was all going to play out.