by Drucilla
Disclaimer/Author's Note: I don't own Jesse or Adam. I don't own Mutant X. Please don't sue me, I'll return them in good condition when I'm done, I promise. I own Angelique, body blood and soul. You can use her if you ask me first. :)
Angelique made her way through the next morning on auto-pilot, not paying too much attention to what she was doing except that it was the same routine she usually got into when she was on the road. Shower. Breakfast on the run, getting dressed while checking the weather. Checking her e-mail and phone for messages. Neither of the two men had called since Adam's message, and she wasn't sure if she was glad or worried. For that matter, she wasn't entirely sure what she planned to do about the whole situation in the first place. Much less how she was going to do it.
They both needed their heads bashed in. Preferably by smashing them together.
Angelique sighed, grabbing her stuff as she ran out the door, making sure she had her hotel key, as usual, just after the door slammed shut. Fortunately she did have it. One of these days, she thought ruefully, she was going to lock herself out of her room.
As she was walking down the hall to the door closest to where her car was parked she caught a flash of white hair. Blond, she realized after a few seconds worth of blinking. Blonde. Not white. It occurred to her that the invitation lasted for the entire run of the show. She wondered if he'd put in another appearance. She wondered if she'd be eager to see him or avoid him.
This wasn't getting her anywhere. Angrily, she pushed the door open and went out to her car. Adam's files were truly terrible, but she didn't have the faintest idea what she could do about it. Establish safe-houses? Fight the goons? She wasn't combat-trained. She didn't have any skills that Adam must want, except possibly those as a biologist and a geneticist. But he couldn't know…
The semi in front of her swerved. Except there hadn't been a semi two seconds before. She had barely enough time to slam the accelerator and yank the steering wheel, sending the car fishtailing across two lanes and into the shoulder, where she was abruptly pointing the other way. She shifted to fifth gear and high-tailed it down, then stopped so abruptly that she slammed her head into the steering wheel.
"Ma'am?"
Someone was tapping on her window. How long had she been unconscious? She touched her forehead, checking the bleeding. Not much. Her fingertips sought the gash, her mind saw the cells of the torn skin and began repairing it automatically. A few seconds and it was a half-inch closed.
"Ma'am? Are you all right?" There was another tapping at the window, and Angelique brought her hand down in a hurry. Cuts didn't close up by themselves, and the cop would definitely want to know what was going on if she abruptly healed a huge gash on her head right in front of him.
"Yes…" she rolled down her window, moving slowly so as not to upset her head. Now that she was moving more quickly she was starting to feel slightly nauseous. She slowed down. "Yes, I'm all right. Just a bump on the head."
He looked her over "That looks pretty serious, ma'am. You sure you don't want to see a doctor?"
She craned her neck around, looking over her shoulder. Her eyes widened as she saw what she had missed: a semi jumping the median and swerving into several cars. "Sacre merde…" she murmured.
"Yeah, it got pretty bad. No one got killed, though… thank God for that."
She nodded absently. "Yeah."
"Would you please step out of the car, ma'am? I really think the paramedics ought to have a look at you." The cop was kind, but insistent. She supposed he was right. And anyway, if she hadn't been … well, what she was, she wouldn't have been able to heal the after-effects of the hit to the head. She suspected she still had a slight concussion. That would take some working on.
"All right…" she opened the door, the cop moving out of her way as she did so, and stepped out slowly. Very deliberately and with careful movements, she closed the door and followed the cop over to the ambulance where it looked like triage had been set up.
"We got another one," the cop called over. "Not involved in the accident but it looked like she hit her head trying to get away from it." Angelique smiled slightly.
"All right, bring her over," she heard from the other side of the ambulance. The cop took her arm, supported her over to where they were making people sit and be checked over on boxes of what looked like resuscitation equipment. She sat down and let the medic take a look at her.
"Pupil response normal…" she winced but let him shine the light in her eyes. "That's a nasty cut on your head."
Angelique gave him a rueful grin. "My steering wheel hates me. Particularly when I slam into it with my head."
"Hmm. Well, I'll bet your head hates you too. Pain?" She nodded, not daring to say otherwise. "Here…" The medic produced some packets of what looked like single-dose painkillers, the kind they gave you in hospitals. "Don't take these until you get home. And do go home, if you weren't already on your way there. You're in no shape to go to work today."
Angelique winced, as she would have if it had been true. She shouldn't ride with a concussion. Fortunately she wouldn't have it for long. "Yeah, Doc. I hear you."
He handed her a sample packet of Tylenol. "Take this for now. It'll help, and keep you focused enough to be able to drive. Feeling nauseous?" She shook her head. "Good. You should be safe to drive home. Take it easy when you get there, but don't go to sleep, no matter how much you may want to. When you feel a little better, have someone drive you to the hospital and get your head checked out. You might have some internal damage."
She didn't. But he couldn't know that. "Okay."
He smiled. "Good girl." She grinned up at him wryly. She knew she had to be older than him, and looked at least his age.
"Can I go now, Doc?" she asked, smiling with eyes wide and disingenuous.
"You can go," he chuckled. "Be careful on the roads. Extra careful."
"Yes, sir," she grinned, and made her way back to the car. Luck was with her; she managed to avoid leaving her name with the cop and the paramedic, who both had worse injuries to deal with. She managed to make it to her car without falling over, then she closed her eyes and concentrated. Cells knit themselves back together, blood clotted and then was absorbed back into the stream, endorphines rushed through her system, all powered by her mind's control. A few minutes later she took a deep breath, started the car, shifted into gear and started creeping back down the highway.
That had been too damn close.
"Uh… Adam?" Jesse called out. His eyes were glued to the screen. "You're going to want to see
this."
Adam didn't quite go down the stairs two at a time, but it wasn't for lack of enthusiasm or curiosity. The day had started out strange and just gotten stranger. And he hadn't slept more than two hours last night. He was on his fifth cup of coffee, just after his second cup of espresso, which was probably why the day was so strange. "What is it?"
"Well, it's… a car accident. But.. look."
He pointed. Adam watched what was apparently news footage, with Angelique walking unsteadily towards an ambulance. A few minutes later she emerged, walking back to her car.
"A bad car accident, from the look of it," Adam commented, "But…"
"No, just watch…" Jesse insisted, and he zoomed in to where Angelique was getting back into her car. "Watch this."
The computer zoomed in on the image of her in the car. It focused, clarified it, and closed in on her face. Adam stared, marveling at how she hadn't seemed to age very much since she'd worked for GenomeX. She'd hit her head on something during the accident, blood was streaming down her forehead. Except… then she passed her hand over her forehead, wiping her face, and there was no cut. Not even a scar to show where a cut had been.
"See?" Jesse said as he watched the expression on the older man's face.
"Go back a bit… slow it down," Adam reached over Jesse's shoulder and did it himself even as he was telling the young man to do it. He watched as Angelique touched her forehead, and the flesh seemed to knit itself together. Her eyes, too, seemed to clear, as though she was shaking off the last effects of one too many drinks… or a concussion.
"I thought she wasn't a mutant," Jesse said, staring.
"I didn't think she was," Adam frowned. "She's not in any database. She doesn't even register as one on any scan or test I looked up from GenomeX"
"Then what the hell is going on?"
Adam stared at the computer screen, watching the cut heal itself again, and again, and again. "I wish I knew, Jesse…" he murmured. "I wish I knew."